Page 35 of Cover Story

Thanks to Bel bloody Macauley, he was about to hand Jen a very large stick to beat him with. He’d not been willing to say:Things are already drain-circling with my girlfriend. These antics are going to go down like the fuckingHindenberg.

Bel bounced along in her irrepressible Bel Macauley way, and he could imagine she’d think Jennifer’s objecting was clingy and basic. Except, he thought, ninety-five per cent of all partners would think ‘what the hell?’ if you told them they had to assume another identity while you Mr & Mrs Smithed it up with a colleague of the opposite sex.

He imagined Jen on her wine terrace in the small hours, tapping one of her ‘emergency cigarettes’ into that turquoise Gluggle jug that did part-time service as an ashtray, telling Libby she’d been banned from saying she was his other half.

As for the rest of their forty-eight hours together, he was going to play it by ear. They could do art galleries, shopping and mid-afternoon Martinis and he could try to win her to Manchester– it depended heavily on her mood. When he examined his discomfort, he realised in a foreign environment he and Jen would have to spend proper quality time together. In the familiar grooves of home life you could benign-ignore. The prospect right now felt very make or break. They’d either rekindle some of their early days enthusiasm, or end up having The Conversation.

Connor slid his phone out of his pocket to see if she’d sent any travel updates, or if Avanti West Coast were testing their runaway popularity.

He had a WhatsApp from Jen. He opened it to read:

If you miss me this weekend, here’s something to keep you company. Feel free to return the favour x

Connor almost reeled back as a photograph of his girlfriend pinged into view. Jen was leaning on a sink, background unfamiliar: possibly a hotel. She was in full make-up, face angled to the side for maximum cheekbone, back arched, clasping her phone with the pearlised pink cover. The most striking thing about the image, however, was that Jen had no top on. Familiar breasts that he’d never viewed in pixel form before.

He and Jen had never swapped nudes. They’d met on a blind date set up by friends and ended up in bed together the same night. There was no lengthy digital wooing or fencing around each other, having not met on an app.

Plus Jen knew that Connor was opposed to them inprinciple. The whole idea of trying to compose images with your scrotum on show in a way that was supposed to inflame the recipient, made him want to die. It also seemed reckless: if such photos of him existed, he’d certainly not be one hundred per cent sure Libby hadn’t seen them.

So, even without the caption, he’d have known this wasn’t intended for him.

JEN incoming flashed on his phone. His impulse was to throw it in a bin and run out of Piccadilly like some sort of TikTok skit, except this viral comedy was 1. His actual life and 2. Desperately unfunny right now.

‘Hi?’ Connor said, having never wanted to answer a call less in his life.

‘Oh God, Connor. I’m so sorry,’ Jennifer said, the mechanical noise of a train screeching behind her.

‘I assume that’s not for me?’

There was a pause.

‘No.’

Another silence, this time soundtracked by the tinny voice of a train announcement.

‘See you in a minute, then,’ Connor said.

‘Connor, I was …’

He pressed the red button and cut her off. In the five minutes left before she was due to disembark, he processed what this meant. Jen was having an affair.

They had definitively reached the end, and in light of the tragicomic nature of the discovery, Connor was going to be able to set the terms and the tone. He tried to rapidly adjust to the idea of three people in their relationship. Funny thing about an affair: it involved all of them, only with a third of thegang unwitting and non-participatory. This man was bound to know who he was.

When Jen appeared, she was dragging an aluminium Rimowa spinner case down the concourse, eyes screened by tortoiseshell-frame aviator sunglasses, her centre-parted, highlighted brown hair now just longer than her shoulders. She was in a narrow-fitting denim jacket with sleeves rolled up, coffee silk lace-trimmed vest top, white jeans and cream-coloured ballet pumps. She was coordinated like a cappuccino.

Connor had a pang of missing Bel Macauley’s demented peacock razzmatazz, proving that the trauma of receiving another man’s wank pic had attacked his cognitive facilities.

‘Oh, Connor,’ she said, as she reached him, pushing her sunglasses into her hair, her taut expression making it plain she might sob in public.

‘Let’s save it for the bar,’ he said, as his greeting. ‘Shall I take that?’

She surrendered her luggage, accepting that, however nerve-wracking she found it, dangerous civility was going to be his mode until they were somewhere more private.

He led her briskly, neither of them speaking, through the Friday evening hubbub to a pub called The Marble Arch. He’d researched it and judged it had enough northern character and original features that he wasn’t being an Up From London, but with enough suave that it wasn’t the Rovers Return either. He seized a table and parked Jen with her case.

‘What’re you having, vodka and slim?’ Connor said. He could see Jen think maybe she should buy them, and then realise a pint of guest ale wasn’t going to rebalance anything.

‘That’s got the weekend off to a flying start, then?’ Connor said, returning from the bar and setting the drinks down.

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