Page 33 of The One Plus One
‘Yeah. I know. I just – I just wanted to say –’
‘Say what? What do you want to say, Ed?’
The anger in his voice was a silencer.
‘You know what? I don’t actually care so much about the insider-trading thing. Although obviously it’s a bloody disaster for the company. But you were my mate. My oldest friend. I wouldneverhave done that to you.’
A click, and the phone went dead.
Ed sat there and allowed his head to drop onto the wheel for a few minutes. He waited until the humming in his mind leached away to nothing, and then he indicated, pulled out slowly and drove towards Beachfront.
The phone rang just as he was coming off the dual carriageway. He looked at the glowing screen, sighed, and pressed a button on the hands-free set.
‘What do you want, Lara.’ He didn’t say it like a question.
‘Hey, baby. How are you?’
‘Uh…not so good.’
‘Oh, no! What is the matter?’
He never knew if it was an Italian thing, but she had a way, his ex-wife, of making you feel better. She would cradle your head, run her fingers through your hair, fuss around you, cluck maternally. By the end it had irritated him, but now, on the empty road at dead of night, he felt nostalgic for it.
‘It’s…a work thing.’
‘Oh. Awerkthing.’ That instinctive bristle in her voice. Ed wondered if she had thought he was going to say he missed her.
He had known marrying Lara wasn’t a good idea. You know that thing where people say, ‘Even as we stood at the altar I knew in my gut that it wasn’t right,’and you think, You idiot! Why the hell did you go ahead with it, then? Well, that was him. He had been that man. They had got married because he knew Lara really, really wanted it and he’d thought it would make her happy. It had taken him about two weeks to realize marriage wasn’t going to make her happy at all. Or, at least, marriage to him.
‘It’s fine, Lara. How are you?’
‘Mamma is driving me crazy. And there is a problem with the roof at home.’
‘Any jobs?’
She made a sound with her teeth against her lips. ‘I got a call-back for a West End show and then they say I look too old. Too old!’
‘You don’t look too old.’
‘I know! I can look sixteen! Baby, I need to talk to you about the roof.’
‘Lara, it’s your place. You got a settlement.’
‘But they say it’s going to cost lots of money. Lots of money. I havenothing.’
He kept his voice steady. ‘What happened to the settlement?’
‘There is nothing. My brother needed some money for his business, and you know Papi’s health is not good. And then I had some credit cards…’
‘All of it?’
‘I don’t have enough for the roof. It’s going to leak this winter, they said.Eduardo…’
‘Well, you could always sell the print you took from my apartment in December.’ His solicitor had implied it was his own fault for not changing the locks on the doors. Everyone else did, apparently.
‘I was sad, Eduardo. I miss you.I just wanted a reminder of you.’
‘Right. Of the man you said you couldn’t stand to even look at any more.’
