Eight
W e decide that I should tell Mabel that her boss is not, in fact, missing his wife like the dickens. And I do it alone, too, seeing as when we tried to do it in the same room even the thought of her terrible reaction makes Beck need to put his head between his knees. ‘I have betrayed her trust,’ he groaned as he did.
He needn’t have worried, however. Because this is Mabel’s reaction:
‘Oh my gosh, I knew it. Babe, you owe me twenty quid.’
Then I hear Alfie, grumbling in the background.
Which means she’s not even exaggerating for effect.
‘You had whole-ass bets with your dude about it,’ I say, deadpan.
And she laughs. She laughs . ‘Of course I did. He was the only one I could safely share it with,’ she says, merrily as anything. While I’m busy thinking about all the ways that messed things up.
‘Mabel, you could have shared it with me. I thought he was a murderer,’ I say, one hand covering my face in despair. But all she does is laugh again in response. That bright, sweet laugh that I can’t even be mad about.
‘Why on earth would him inventing a wife make you think a thing like that?’
‘Because he was acting weird. Then I found all his weird fake-wife stuff.’
She laughs again, but this one is softer. There’s real affection in it. And affection in her voice when she says: ‘I bet he has colour-coded files, doesn’t he.’ Which I get, and not just because it is genuinely adorable.
‘I am reading it right now,’ I inform her, as I flick through the folder in my lap. The one with a neat label on the front that says Vital Wife Information . Though truth be told, it’s not quite as extensive as she just suggested.
It’s very organized. But surprisingly spare.
Just the bare bones – most likely so he could keep track.
And I’m about to tell her that when she cuts in with something else.
‘He’s letting you read it?’ she asks, all incredulous and astonished.
So now I have to get into the part she’s actually going to lose it over.
‘Well, here’s the thing: I kind of have to,’ I try, and then there’s a silence.
A long, long silence.
Too long, for someone like Mabel. She’s bubbly, she’s chatty, she’s like Beck. Which makes this feel like it did when he went suddenly silent. And now I’m thinking about that weirdness, just as she finally speaks.
‘Please tell me you’re not going on that retreat with him as his fake wife,’ she says, in this very grave and low voice for her. It makes me need to distract her a bit, with true but very sloppily doled-out compliments.
‘Jesus Christ, dude, your guesses are so good. You’re like some kind of guessing-things wizard,’ I say. But of course, she’s too good to fall for that tactic. And too anxious to let me just get away with it.
‘Connie, I really don’t know about this.’
‘But you did something like it.’
‘Not with someone like Beck. He’s kind of a gentle soul, you know.’
So that’s what she’s worried about , I think. Though I’m not mad about it.
Because she’s right. She’s right. I mean, I already almost fucked him up.
‘And you’re thinking I’m going to smash his gentle soul into smithereens,’ I say, and am yet again shocked by how much the thought makes my guts twist. Doubly so, when she just goes ahead and makes it worse. She sighs, and when she speaks again her voice is very gentle.
‘I didn’t say that. I just wonder if he knows that this is never going to go anywhere,’ she says, as if that makes any sense at all. As if he would ever want it to. As if I might disappoint him when he discovers it can’t, instead of the opposite.
I would disappoint him if it ever happened.
‘Mabel, if you’re thinking that he’s thinking that fake might become real the same way Alfie did, I promise you, he absolutely does not. In fact, it was him who said it never possibly could. That he’s not interested in a husband hater like me.’
‘He called you a husband hater?’
‘No. You did. To him, ’ I say. Only it comes out a little more annoyed than I really feel. Like I’m mad that she did, despite the fact that it’s a good thing. It made all of this practical, instead of messy and full of emotion.
‘I did not. I just said you weren’t looking for long-term relationships.’
‘Right. And he is. He is so much that he told me this long, softhearted thing about what he’d like his future life to be with his wonderful, perfect-for-him wife. Which is something we both know I am never going to be. In fact, you know it so much that you told him I was the perfect platonic candidate to live across the hall from him.’
‘Yeah, but that was before all of this.’
I can practically see her gesturing wildly when she says that last word.
Like I exploded something, and she’s surveying the damage caused. So now I’ve got to reassure her there is none. While kind of feeling like I’m sitting in a bomb site. ‘All of what? We made a deal. Nothing more,’ I say.
And then there’s a tense silence.
Followed by this .
‘And you’re sure that’s what it is to you, too.’
Which makes me so inexplicably and abruptly mad I almost shout.
I only catch myself by the skin of my teeth. Then have to force myself to sound blasé. ‘Mabel, you know full well what I think of guys like him.’
‘That they’re all con artists. But unfortunately, bestie, he isn’t one.’
‘You say that, and yet he fooled you about being married all this time.’
‘We just established thirty seconds ago that he didn’t fool me at all. Because he’s bad at it. He’s bad at lying. It makes him sick – did he tell you that? Honestly it’s a miracle he’s managed to maintain this fiction for so long without dying of vomit-induced dehydration.’
Fuck, fuck, fuck, I think.
Because of course she’s absolutely right.
And now I feel so sweaty that I have to put the phone down briefly and wipe my hands on my pyjamas. I have to take a breath, because if I talk right away I think my voice is going to wobble over the idea of his incredible honesty and earnestness and what I might do to that. How I feel about that.
‘Well, even so. I’m not going to hurt him,’ I protest, eventually, desperately.
And then there’s a pause. Like she’s considering saying something but doesn’t know if she should. I don’t know why, however. Because all she says is this: ‘Hon, it’s not just him I’m worried about getting hurt.’
At which point, I can breathe again.
I can even laugh. She’s ridiculous.
‘What are you talking about? I’m fucking Teflon. Nothing sticks to me.’
‘I know you think that. Maybe it’s even true. But be careful anyway, okay?’
Think that , my mind repeats. Maybe , my mind repeats.
Though I don’t pull her on it. I can’t. It will make me sound guilty of the crimes she’s trying to charge me with. I have to keep sounding casual, instead. ‘Of course I will be. You don’t have to worry about me,’ I say, and I think I pull it off.
She sounds less stressed when she responds.
‘But I always do. So if anything goes south, call me.’
‘You’re number one on my list, seeing as how you’ve been through this.’
‘I can’t believe I have. And that somehow you’re going to do it, too.’
‘I’m your sequel. Only One Bed 2: Electric Boogaloo .’
Oops , I think as soon as I say it. She’s not gonna like that.
And sure enough, almost the second after I’ve said it I hear a gasp, and then some weird clunking and rustling. Like she was so horrified, she dropped the phone, and then had to scramble to get it back. ‘Oh my god, are you actually going to sleep in the same bed? Con, take a sleeping bag. Do you hear me? A big one, that’s somehow lined with lead. Heck, don’t even do it, you make yourself a nest on the floor,’ she says, finally. And oh my god, her voice is high. Her voice is frantic.
It’s a struggle to maintain my chill.
‘So people can walk in on us doing something that bonkers?’
‘You are not staying with other people – holy no way, Con, listen to me—’
‘I don’t have to, it’s going to be fine, you worry too much.’
‘Anyone would worry about this, look, just hear me out—’
‘I can’t, the line is breaking up, I’m going through a tunnel, I dropped my phone in the sink, bye-bye-bye-bye,’ I say, and sure. I tell myself that I do it because this is tiresome, and Beck is going to be here any second to go over his binder and the questionnaire he gave me.
But both me and my brain know:
I’m far too sweaty for that to be the whole truth.