Page 38 of Between Us

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Roisin stared at the bed’s canopy in the thin dawn light, as the minutes ticked by.

Eventually she grasped for her phone on the nightstand and looked at the time. 4.58 a.m. Half an hour before Joe’s alarm. She was incontrovertibly conscious. The kind of brain-abuzz state that makes it clear to you that if you try to fight it, you’ll only lie sweating, mind racing.

She had woken up with perfect clarity about what had to happen. Roisin had been fretting and second-guessing and what if-ing and it had come to a head. She had confused loyalty and forbearance with a determination to stay stuck in the past, rather than confront the present.

She slid noiselessly from the sheets, grasped for the robe. Joe was snoring: he was a sound sleeper anyway and he’d put away a hell of a lot to drink the night before.

Roisin couldn’t recall a single thing that was said between the end ofHunterand her going to bed, beyond general back-slapping. She’d gone up to the room before Joe, keen to be asleep or feigning sleep so they weren’t ever alone.

She tiptoed downstairs in the deserted house, flicked thekettle on in the kitchen and made herself a steadying cup of tea. She carried it out on to the lawn outside, sitting on a low stone wall and watching the sun rise over the lake. She waited.

Roisin checked her watch for the umpteenth time. Joe must be up and moving about by now, if his alarm had worked. As she thought this, she looked up to see him walking across the grass towards her, also holding a mug.

Roisin’s stomach roiled and her heart pounded, in a grisly parody of an encounter from a Regency romance. She was prickly hot under her clothes in the early morning warmth, trying to steady herself for what was to come. Working out the words for this showdown that she wouldn’t regret later. She suspected any plan of what to say would go out the window fairly fast.

She reminded herself, again: she had no choice. There wasn’t any point in avoiding it, pretending to be asleep longer and spinning out the meagre amount of time until his Addison Lee came crawling up the path.

If Roisin pretended last night hadn’t been a problem, she’d lose both her courage and a good chunk of her right to reply. You can’t convincingly express being shocked and appalled on an expedient seven-day delay, when someone gets in the door with West Coast-sized jet lag.

There being no correct and appropriate moment to raise any problem was one of the ways the game felt rigged. Pick an otherwise pressured time? She was thoughtlessly adding to it. During a nice evening out? Ruining it. Try to raise it on a quiet day? Ambush.

Roisin inhaled and exhaled and accepted that, the mental cruelty ofHunteraside, she’d been pushing this reckoning away for too long. Hoping that in exile, banished from serious possibility, the idea would change or die. That it would sort itself out. In a twisted way, Joe had done her a favour. He’d demonstrated a level of disregard she couldn’t ignore.

‘Why do I get the feeling you didn’t get up early to see me off with a big hug?’ Joe said as he reached her, sipping his black coffee. His face was still slept in and puffy from last night’s drinking, his hair glistening wet from the shower.

‘What do you mean?’ she said, testing her voice.

‘You’ve been in a threatening mood all weekend, Roisin. Barely said a word after the show, yesterday. You’re stood here alone at dawn with a face on like you’re the Benbarrow ghost, risen from her drowning. I’m not stupid. What do you want to say to me?’

Claiming to know she was upset, and taking the piss out of her, didn’t exactly match up. A simpleare you OKwould’ve done. Joe was battle ready.

Deep breath.

‘Why did you put my mum and dad in your story?’

Joe paused, mouth to mug. ‘InHunter? That wasn’t your parents? It was fictional.’

‘The kid creeping down and catching the mother on the table? You’re telling me that’s not from a particular thing I’ve told you?’

‘Yes, sure. Lots of things I write are from lots of things people have told me.’

‘“People”!’ Roisin exclaimed, her temper breaking fasterthan she expected. The plans were already out the window. ‘I’m yourgirlfriend. Don’t give me a “how stories work” spiel like I’m the public at a Q&A, asking where you get your ideas.’

‘What do you want me to say, I just admitted it? Yes, some of that was inspired by things you told me. As it goes on, you’ll see tha—’

‘You betrayed my trust?’ Roisin said.

Joe grimaced, in an exaggerated performance of disbelief. ‘That’s wildly misrepresenting what happens when you draw on things around you and the people who are close to you. Am I supposed to run everything I write through a sources and similarities check?’

‘It’s a bit fucking specific for that paper-thin defence, isn’t it, Joe? How many people do you know who saw their mum with other men?’

‘As I said, yes, you’d be the trigger for it.’

‘Trigger.By depicting it? In the same way the sinking of the shipTitanicwas the trigger for the filmTitanic.’

‘It was a few seconds on screen, not the whole subject. It’s not possible to do what I do and not be influenced by elements of real life.’

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