Page 36 of Cover Story

Still awash with adrenaline, he didn’t know what note to strike. He didn’t want to be gratuitously nasty, not least because he was more surprised than truly hurt. But he feared if he behaved like, as Shaun would call it, ‘a simp,’ and said,there there, it’s fine, we were done anyway so we might as well go up in flames, it would make him despise himself later. He had a right to be angry– he should be angry.

But he wasn’t angry. He was shocked and bereft, bewildered and queasy, in that particular way you were when you complacently thought you were going to choose the moment, and it was chosen for you.

22

‘Who is he?’ Connor said, cutting through the pointless apologies.

‘Nobody. It’s not serious,’ Jen said, tears sliding down her face. Connor was slightly worried onlookers would think the lovely brunette was out with her brutal captor.

‘It’s not serious but he’s in possession of porny photos of you?’

‘Hardly porn! You see as much on any beach.’

‘You’re not on a beach, though. You’re in his iCloud for all time. Have you got photos of him?’

‘Y—yes.’

‘Can I see them?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to know what he looks like?’

‘They’re irrelevant and you’re only going to mock.’

Jen was hunched over her V&T in misery. This would be a Gluggle jug tale for Libby, but there would be no schadenfreude.

‘Maybe I won’t mock, maybe I will be awed by the size of his bulbous salutation.’

‘See what I mean?’

‘How did you meet?’

Jen sipped her drink. ‘In Spence.’

‘You met him in our localbakery?’

An odd crucible for a sexy liaison: tangerine-orange frontage, five types of sourdough and huge queues on Church Street of a weekend morning. Full of parents with toddlers called things like Myst and Dufraisne.

‘Was he staff?“Here you go, one custard horn and also my custard horn”.’

‘You know what, Connor, I appreciate I have fucked up badly but what is the point of ridiculing me?’

‘The point is it’s at least bleakly funny, and right now I will take bleakly funny over dwelling on how I found out my girlfriend of five years is shagging someone behind my back. I’m going to need a name and some details for him, I’m afraid. Do I know him?’

‘No. He’s called Francis and he’s a personal trainer. We got chatting and he started joining me on my runs, going for coffee after. It started about four months ago.’

‘Is he single?’

A small silence and Jen said: ‘He lives with his girlfriend.’

‘Woah. How did it happen? “That’s enough about leg day, now let’s try dick day?”’

Jen tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘Messaging, I guess, and it turning … more intense. He says he’s unhappy with Victoria …’ she trailed off.

‘And you’re unhappy with me?’

‘Well, we’ve not been great, have we?’

---