Page 96 of Between Us

‘I’m going to go,’ Matt said curtly to Roisin. ‘Will you be OK?’

‘Oh GOD, like I’m unsafe,’ Joe said.

‘Sure,’ Roisin said, gratefully, and Matt walked off.

‘You know I know you’re lying, right?’ Joe said. ‘It’s written all over both of your faces.’

‘You can believe what you want, Joe,’ Roisin said, with more confidence than she felt. ‘Nothing’s happened.’

Joe looked to the box in her hand. ‘Enjoy your apartment. I should’ve put a curse on it for when he crosses the threshold. I just want you to own this moment. You were so desperate for a version of our break-up where I was revealed as the bad guy, and here you are, boffing Matt before the ink is dry on the divorce papers. You are the bad guy, Roisin.You.As for him, he’s something even worse.’

Roisin didn’t bother to disabuse Joe further, accepting there was no denial he’d listen to. She let him go. Joe didn’t suggest saying hello to her mother and nor, to be fair, did she want him to.

Lorraine emerged from the pub door as Joe accelerated out of the car park in his expensive new toy.

‘Was that Joe?’

‘Yeah.’

Roisin felt the extreme rudeness of his not having acknowledged her, and was left with no option but to say, ‘I’ve ended things with him. Been working up to telling you.’

‘Oh dear! I did wonder that you hadn’t mentioned him much,’ Lorraine said. ‘But … you’re alright?’

‘I’m fine. We haven’t got along for a while; we’d been growing apart. Needed doing.’ She waved her beribboned box. ‘He’s given me his half of the apartment as a parting gift. Not at all sure I should’ve accepted, but he insisted.’

‘As long as you’re alright.’ Lorraine squeezed her arm. Then, looking over her shoulder, ‘Oh, there’s Terence!’

Lorraine had always been a proponent of Roisin sticking with Joe, and that went triple once he started coining it in. Roisin was extremely surprised at the lack of enquiry and voluble objection. Something was up.

Roisin found out what the ‘up’ was likely to be, within an hour, when she decided – out of a need to draw a line, and a lack of available distractions – to watch the lastHunter.

She turned iPlayer on and, with a jolt of what felt like travel sickness, saw it had been watched. Lorraine had seen the whole series. Roisin paused, absorbed this shock. Any hopes her mum had missed the significance of the table sex scene were dashed by remembering how unexpectedly peremptory she had been when discussing Joe.

Roisin stuck the programme on and felt like adopting a brace position.

More procedural detective stuff, a reveal that the killer was the father of one of the waitresses, lots more sex, a promotion … once again, Roisin found herself surprised to be bored.

The final cliff-hanger arrived. Becca’s best friend Gwen came on to Jasper, and with magnificent restraint, he refused. But thanks to a very ill-timed bum dial, hot Gwen had found out Jasper was shagging around and was blackmailing him to succumb to her charms, or she would tell Becca. Gwen, who was not Gina, but Amber?

The credits rolled to Jasper walking down a Manchesterstreet, bumping shoulders with passers-by in the style of a music video, to a valedictory burst of ‘Knights Of Cydonia’ by Muse.

As Joe had said, the voice-over promised moreHunter.

She switched the television off with relief and confusion.

Roisin cast her mind back to Joe freshly back from Los Angeles, and his speech to win her round, to persuade her to give them another go.

You have to see all three episodes to realise Hunter’s behaviour isn’t glamorised. It doesn’t pay off; he’s really humbled by the end.

Huh?Humbled?That was Joe’s idea of a comeuppance?

Roisin was completely flummoxed, and then she sat up straight. Her subconscious had picked up the telephone to her conscious again.

This is what he does. He’s a liar. A liar who lies in the moment, who says whatever will spring him from the trap. If you pick him up on inconsistencies later, the story will adapt and change shape. He scripts things to produce an effect in his audience. Personally, and professionally.

Joe Powell is not a fixed set of beliefs and behaviours. He is a chameleon with a vocabulary and a major hard-on for pulling the wool. He feels no guilt, and he’ll do it again. Do liars always know they’re lying? If Joe knows, he doesn’t care.

Joe was still right about her culpability regarding Matt, even if he’d got the extent of it wrong. Roisin couldn’t feel guilty, even if she should. He prized only survival, the upper hand.

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