Page 44 of Behind Frenemy Lines

“Oh, Norwich is lovely. My ex was from there.” But talking about Tom felt like pressing a bruise. I said, “Is London living up to expectations?”

It was amazing, said Redhead. “We’ve been saying, maybe we should move here. My partner was living in London when we met, so he knows it well.”

“You guys met online?”

Redhead nodded. “We did the long-distance thing for a while at first, before he moved over. How did you meet Charles?”

“We work at the same firm,” I said. “We actually share an office.”

“Oh wow,” said Redhead. “My partner works at the same company as me too. But he joined after we got together. It can be a lot, right?”

“Oh, Charles and I are just friends.” It was the first time I’d said it out loud: that we were friends. It was comforting to feel it was true.

Redhead turned pink. “Oh, sorry. I just assumed.”

“It’s fine. You’re not the only one,” I said lightly. “What’s it like, working with your partner? It must be challenging to navigate. Have you guys been together for long?”

“A year and half,” said Redhead. “But we’ve only been in the same country for, like, a year. I worried about it when he first got hired, but we’re in different departments, so that definitely helps. And getting the job enabled him to move over. We’re making it work so far.”

“That’s great.” I looked at her wistfully. She had such a glow of optimism, of new love. Would I ever feel that way again about someone?

Redhead glanced around and brightened. “Oh, hey, there he is. Babe!” She dived into the crowd and extracted a tall, lean white man in a slightly dishevelled suit.

“Come and say hello to—” She cut herself off, turning to me. “Oh, I don’t think I got your name! I’m Alexis. And you are…?”

I didn’t answer. For a moment I couldn’t speak.

Redhead’s boyfriend had a mop of curly brown hair—it grewwith unnatural rapidity, and I knew its exact texture, what it felt like as it slipped through the fingers. The last time I’d seen him was on a video call, six months ago. He’d seemed off, distracted, but I’d assumed it was tiredness, or stress, or that I’d caught him at a bad time. Though all the times I spoke to him seemed to be bad times, since he moved.

When people show you what they are, believe them,my friends had told me, when we got stuck into overanalysing Tom’s behaviour. But I didn’t want to believe what he was showing me. He’d had to tell me, in so many words. That probably hadn’t been any nicer for him than it had been for me.

On the other hand, I hadn’t been cheating on him. All that time, while we were living together, while he was applying for the big job in the States, while I was encouraging him and making sure I only cried in the shower, because I didn’t want my fears to hold him back from his dreams. All that time.

“Kriya,” said Tom. He was white to the lips.

I turned, pushing blindly through the crowd, ignoring Redhead’s wide eyes and the exclamations of concern springing up in my wake. I didn’t know where I was going. All I knew was that I needed to be alone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Charles

Emerging from thetea ceremony,£500 poorer, when I saw Kriya. She burst out of the room where people were having canapés, darted across the lobby, and vanished through the revolving door, out of the hotel.

Loretta came out after me. “What’s up?” She hadn’t seen Kriya.

CG: “I have to nip out for a second. You carry on.”

Paused in the portico when I got out, looking around. Couldn’t spot Kriya, though she’d only had a few seconds’ head start. Couldn’t have got far. But which way would she have gone—towards the main road, or away?

Attendant in a grey suit said: “Can I help you, sir?”

CG: “I’m looking for my—” Got stuck on how to refer to Kriya. Date? Most accurate, but misleading. Friend? Felt presumptuous. Colleague? Baffling. “I’m looking for someone. A woman in a green dress? She would’ve just come out.”

The attendant pulled a sympathetic face and jerked his head towards the main road. So Kriya had scarpered, I thought. But as I went in that direction, I saw what had been hidden from me when I was in the portico. There was an alcove in the sideof the building, with discreet wooden doors leading to a lift. Kriya was leaning against the wall in the alcove, crying.

Not in itself a shock. Thought that was what was going on. The violence of her distress was what was shocking. She didn’t even clock me.

What would I want, if I were her? To be ignored, left to it, given the chance to pull myself together.

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