Page 14 of Between Us

‘Ah, Joe’s area,’ Roisin said, tapping her nose.

‘No comment.’

‘Also, the Pringles are great,’ Roisin said indistinctly, through her second. ‘Excellent improvisation.’

‘Glad you like. Wait until you try my White Russians made with Whiskas Cat Milk.’

Roisin put her hand in front of her full mouth as she laughed.

‘Enjoy,’ Matt said, heading back to the kitchen.

They dropped the mini bhajis into their mouths, cupping them with the tissue provided.

‘Look at us, ladylike, as if we’ve not just tractored through a load of crisps like wild coyotes,’ Roisin said.

‘This is the life, eh,’ Meredith said, crumpling the paper napkin and gazing at the room. ‘Did we ever think, doing our stockroom audits, we’d be here in ten years’ time?’

‘I didn’t think I’d be here ten months ago,’ Roisin said.

‘I didn’t think I’d ever be here,’ Gina said.

‘Technically we’re nothere-here, I suppose. It’s Dev’s achievement, Dev’s festival. It’s Devtonbury,’ Meredith said.

‘Devload?’ Roisin said.

‘But we’re here, in that we’re still together,’ Gina said, and Roisin replied with an emphatic ‘Yes!’ as her stomach constricted.

So, you don’t want to finish with your partner, because you think you’d finish the group?

9

She was being ridiculous. It wasn’t that fragile, was it – the Brian Club, the old gang? They’d simply reorganise, and the keynote gatherings would be divided up between Roisin and Joe like divorced parents negotiating access. This stuff happened all the time.

What are you afraid of?

The counsellor had to go and drop atomic bomb questions like that, didn’t she. Surely that wasn’t second session material. Roisin was ashamed of her reply. That ending it with Joe would make no sense to anyone else. And when it’s that impossible for anyone else to understand, isn’t it a clue that maybe you’re doing the wrong thing?

Why do other people’s opinions matter?

‘I don’t know,’ Roisin had said, privately thinking:is a creeping yet unfocused conviction your relationship is a hollow sham sufficient cause to ditch an entire future timeline?It might turn out that you were in fact self-indulgently pissed off at the realities of being a decade into cohabitation with a workaholic. She could hear her mother’s voice. ‘There are worse addictions, darling.’

No, that wasn’t it, either. She knew the correct answer to that was: ‘Yes, it is sufficient, because what you’re describing is loveless pragmatism.’

Here it was: the thing that kept her trapped. But somehow being away from home had shaken this revelation loose. Roisin simply didn’t know if Joe Now was also Joe Then – if one became the other, overwrote him like old video cassette, or if the former version was still there, available to return to her, if she was patient. Until she’d figured it out, she couldn’t make a move.

Roisin caught Meredith looking at her and quickly recovered her features from a worried scowl into pleasure.

Dev had decided to serve their meal in the kitchen, in part to distinguish it from Gina’s birthday celebration in the dining room the following day. It was by no means the lesser choice. The sturdy wooden table with black bistro chairs was in a dog’s leg around the freestanding Aga. They’d filled the table with a star-studded clutter of tea lights, wherever there was space around plate settings. The white china pendant lamps above had a lambent, firefly glow. The whole look could’ve been torn straight from an upmarket interiors magazine.

Roisin had forgotten how great a cook Dev was. He had that signature of the truly confident, in that he never tried to do too much.

Tonight, there was a cauldron of butter chicken on the stove, with stacks of paratha and a mound of plain rice the size of a Forest Hog, and a supporting act vat of saag aloo, which their resident vegetarian, Gina, could have as her main.The table held raitas and something shrimp-pink with beetroot, bowls of chutneys and pickles.

Dev, always a host by temperament, had found a setting worthy of his talents.

Everyone held their phones aloft to record the scene – the modern ritual.

She glanced at Joe for a moment’s connection, but he had stationed himself by the butter chicken with a serving ladle.

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