Closest Kept

24

When I got home—having extracted a solemn promise from Inga that she would contact her health visitor/midwife/doctor as soon as was humanly possible, I found Amy just on her way out of the front door. When I saw she had a holdall with her, my heart sank.

“Are you off somewhere again?”

“Yes, back to Mum and Dad’s, just for a bit.”

“What’s Violet done?”

“Nothing, honestly.” But she wouldn’t quite meet my eyes, and I wasn’t sure I believed it. “My parents just invited me, and your sister said she was going to crash in your bed, so I let her have mine. It’s no big deal.”

It was, though; it really was. So, I gave her a big hug and said, “You’re a really good friend, Amy. Sorry my life’s such a stuff up at the moment.”

She did smile at that. “It’s not you, is it? It’s all those others.” Then she trooped down the garden path to her car, and I had a sick premonition that the next time I saw her here, it would be when she came to collect her stuff prior to moving out. A premonition that got stronger when I went into the house and the pervading smell of oil paint hit my nostrils. Shit. I’d forgotten to use acrylics over the weekend.

There was no sign of Violet downstairs, only evidence that she’d been there—a plate with traces of dried-on lasagne abandoned on the coffee table, a wet towel dropped on the bathroom floor. I cleared them both up, wondering what had brought my sister here. How long she would stay this time. Then I crept upstairs. Amy’s bedroom door wasn’t quite closed, so I pushed it open further to peer inside. Violet’s holdall was lying open on the bedroom floor, its contents spilling out onto the carpet. Violet herself was fast asleep in Amy’s bed. Her hair appeared to be a different colour, but I couldn’t be sure in the half light, so I just stood there, drinking her in, a lump about the size of a house brick lodged in my throat. It was such a profound relief to have Violet here; to know that, for the moment, at least, she was safe.

She didn’t look as if she was going to wake up anytime soon. It was only seven thirty in the evening, but I decided I’d fix myself something to eat and go to bed too. God only knew I was tired enough, and what with everything, I could sleep for at least a week.

But Violet woke up before I could go to bed, staggering downstairs to give me a glimpse of her newly dyed purple hair just as I was turning the TV off. She looked tired—there were dark circles beneath her eyes—but she also looked amazing.

“Hi,” I said. “Your hair looks great. It really suits you. Did you sleep well?”

My sister was wearing only a thin pair of shorts and a vest top and looked painfully thin, her collarbone exposed and fragile looking. She shrugged, not acknowledging my compliment about her hair. “Okay. And before you say anything, I didn’t chuck your mate out of her bed.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I said. “I saw Amy when I got back. How are you? Where did you get to in Nottingham?”

She flopped down on the sofa, hunching her skinny legs up to her chin.

“I was really worried about you, Vi.”

“I didn’t ask you to worry about me. I have travelled round the world without you.”

“I know. But you were really upset in Nottingham.”

Violet picked at the skin around her fingers. I made myself stay quiet, waiting for her to speak first. “I went round to Kevin’s house,” she said at last, and I registered that she’d called him Kevin, not Dad.

“He said ... well, he said it wasn’t anything to do with you. Why he left Starbucks that day, I mean.”

I sighed. “I’m so sorry, Vi.”

She shrugged. “Nothing to be sorry for. If he can just walk off like that without even talking to me, the man’s a shit. Better off without him, aren’t I?”

The look on her face. So much bravado. It broke my heart.

“I think so, yes, hard as it is.”

She glanced up very briefly. “I really thought he’d want to get to know me, you know?”

“It’s his loss, Vi, it really is.”

Another shrug. “He’s got three other daughters. That’s what he said, isn’t it?”

“Did you get to meet them?”

“No; everyone else was out. Lucky for him.”

“I bet his other daughters are nothing like you.”

“I’ll never know, will I? Because I’ll never bloody well meet them.”

I was going to remind her that she’d got me, but she put a brave smile on before I could form the words. “So, anyway, I thought I’d stick around here for a bit. That okay?”

Having her here, safe with me, not having to worry about her, hopefully building bridges and a better relationship with each other—all that would be fantastic. Oh, but Amy, and Amy’s rent, which helped me to meet my mortgage payments.

“Of course. Just so long as you remember Amy lives here too.”

“I can kip on the sofa. I told her that, but she was all, ‘No, no, you take my room,’ so I didn’t like to be rude and tell her to shove it.”

There was a sparkle in her eyes—just a little one, but a sparkle, nevertheless. It made me want to smile and scream at one and the same time.

“When Amy gets back from her parents’, you can share my room with me.”

She frowned. “What if you snore?”

“Excuse me, I do not snore. And if I do, you can wear ear plugs. Seriously, Vi, I need Amy’s rent, okay? She shares the house, and sharing the house doesn’t include not being able to watch TV because the sitting room is cluttered with sleeping sisters.”

Violet yawned hugely. “Got it. No annoying the lodger.”

“Exactly right. Now, since we both seem to be shattered, let’s go to bed.”

“Jeez, it’s going to be one long party living with you, isn’t it? Going to bed before nine p.m. every night.”

But she was grinning as she went upstairs, and, as usual, when my sister smiled, my heart did a happy dance. Maybe, just maybe this could be a new start for the two of us?

Two days later, she came home with a dog.

“There was this homeless guy in the city. He said he couldn’t afford to keep him anymore. His name’s Fitz. Cute, or what?”

It shouldn’t be possible for your heart to both sink and soar at the same time, it really shouldn’t. A dog on top of everything else? It was the very last thing I needed. But Fitz was cute—a scruffy terrier with huge brown eyes who looked as if he was constantly smiling. He made Violet happy, by the looks of things, and a dog surely indicated she meant to stick around? There had been zero chance of us having pets when we were growing up. They’d have starved to death within a week.

“We can keep him, can’t we, Lily?” Violet asked me as if she was seven years old.

I liked that word we. Like family.

“If we do, you’ll have to walk him regularly.” But I was smiling, and so was she.

“Of course. What else would I do with such a cute boy? Look at his little face, Lil. Show her, Fitz; show her what a cutie you are.”

She picked the dog up and brought him close to my face, and Fitz obliged by giving my face a thorough wash.

It was getting harder and harder to play the big sensible sister. But I tried. “You do realise owning a dog is going to make it difficult for you to just go places, don’t you? You’ll always have to think about Fitz. And it’s hard to find a rented flat when you’ve got a pet.”

She gave me a cheeky smile. “I don’t need a rented flat, though, do I? Not when I’m sharing with you. Please, sis. Say yes. You know you want to.”

“All right,” I said. “Yes. As long as you promise to—”

“Yay!” Violet swept me into a hug before I could finish my sentence, and when Fitz joined in with the excitement, leaping up at us and barking excitedly, I had to laugh.

I should have known better than to believe Vi’s promises, though. By the end of Fitz’s first week with us, Violet was rarely home when I got back from work, and the poor little dog was inevitably bursting for a wee, to be fed, to be taken out for a walk. It wasn’t that I minded any of it; in fact, I liked it. Walking Fitz helped me to unwind, and he was good company. It was just that the date of my exhibition was rapidly approaching, and I’d barely done any work towards it.

I was disappointed for other reasons too. Violet wanting Fitz had seemed like a sign that she wanted us to be more of a family, so it was a letdown that she was hardly ever home to spend time with us. But what had I expected, really? I was eight years older than Violet, with barely any time in my life for socialising or for fun.

At least Amy was still paying the rent, even though she was staying with her parents, so for now, anyway, I didn’t have to worry about how I was going to pay the mortgage. Inga seemed a lot better when I popped round to see her and Noah, too, assuring me that she’d spoken to her health visitor and her GP, who’d put her in touch with various groups and activities, so I could relax about her as well. I just needed to get into my studio and get painting, and I’d be fine.

But by the time half term came around and I had a week off from my teaching, Violet’s habits seemed to have changed once again. She was suddenly home more often, which might have been nice, only there was usually a ragbag of people with her, lounging on my sofa, laughing upstairs in the bedroom, staying up late.

Shut away in my studio, trying to paint, the laughter echoing around the house made me feel lonelier than ever. And I couldn’t help thinking every now and then about what Kevin had said about Vi taking drugs. Had he been right? I didn’t see any evidence of it, though. Not when I was home, anyway. And on the rare occasions Vi and I were alone in the house, we were still getting on reasonably well together, so I was reluctant to bring up any topics that might spoil that.

Then, one evening in early November, I went to work at the hospital with an article I’d found about a rare orchid living at the summit of an extinct volcano in Indonesia to show Beryl, only to discover that she’d died in her sleep. Somehow, it came as a total shock, even though I’d always known she didn’t have long to live. I couldn’t believe it.

Beryl, gone. I would never be able to speak to her again.

“She didn’t know much at the end, bless her,” a colleague told me as I stood there staring at the empty, stripped-back bed.

“Sad her son didn’t manage to get here in time, though. But I’m sure Beryl had no idea. She just slipped away.”

She put a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “Some of them just get to you, don’t they?”

I nodded, wiping my eyes, thinking about Beryl’s spark for life. All the intricate, specialised knowledge her brain had held. All of it gone; released to dissipate into the ether. She’d become such a friend to me; a cheery face during the slog of work I didn’t want to do. In different circumstances, if she’d had longer to live, I’d have gone round to visit her, wherever she lived, to listen to more tales of her life. She’d have become the grandmother I’d never had, and I’d invite her to the opening of my exhibition as the guest of honour.

But alas, none of that was to be now.

I went about my duties for the rest of the day like an automaton, traipsing wearily home afterwards with some junk TV and a microwave dinner in mind only to find music blaring down the street from Violet’s open bedroom window.

There were two pairs of men’s boots on the sitting-room carpet, the remains of a Chinese takeaway on the coffee table, and loud laughter coming through the ceiling along with the music. It was like living in a student house, not a home.

I went upstairs without taking off my coat and put my head round Violet’s door. Fitz had come up with me, and now he ran straight over to where Violet was sitting on the floor in the gloom. Two guys were sitting nearby, surrounded by half-full pints of beer, flickering tea lights, and an array of what was clearly dope-smoking paraphernalia. The room was filled with smoke and the strong smell of cannabis.

“ You know she’s a user, don’t you? ”

Kevin had been right. I had no idea whether Violet’s drug use started and stopped with cannabis because Kevin’s statement was another thing I had yet to tackle Violet about. Yet another thing I’d put off. If I was honest with myself, I was afraid of my sister; or at least, afraid of angering her, and it occurred to me suddenly that they were one and the same thing.

And suddenly I’d had enough of being a weak, let sleeping dogs lie kind of a person, putting up with crap and thoughtlessness, being taken advantage of. Putting off talking to Amy about the rent, treating her—lovely, dependable Amy—like shit because I didn’t want to face the consequences.

“Vi, can you turn the music down?” I said, speaking loudly to make myself heard. “It’s been a long shift. I need to get some sleep.”

“All right, keep your hair on.”

As Vi reached for her phone to turn the volume down, I cast another glance over the two guys on the floor. Pale faced and greasy haired, they looked completely out of it—as if they were about to crash to the floor to sleep where they dropped. I didn’t fancy going to bed with them in the house at all. Even if I could get to sleep without being disturbed, which I absolutely bloody doubted.

“Actually, can you guys call it a night now?” I said. “It’s getting late.”

Vi’s eyes flashed in my direction. “Oh, here we go. Didn’t take long, did it, to start bossing me about? It’s ten fucking o’clock, Lily. Ten’s not late.”

“Maybe not to you, but I’ve had a shit day at work today, okay? I need to get some rest.”

One of the men began to stagger to his feet, shoving cigarette papers into his pocket, almost falling over when they fell out and he stooped to pick them up.

Violet put a hand out towards him. “You don’t have to go, Jaeden.”

“No, it’s all right. Don’t want to outstay my welcome.”

“Well,” said Violet, getting to her feet, “in that case, I’ll come with you. Come on, Col, let’s leave my sister to her boring life.”

“Vi ...,” I began, my bad temper suddenly falling away, but she turned to scowl at me, nothing but dislike and resentment on her face.

“You know what, Lily?” she yelled. “You can stick your fucking room. Get that pathetic goody-goody Amy back and forget I was ever here. You’re good at that, aren’t you? Out of sight, out of fucking mind; that’s the way it works with you, isn’t it?”

All the while she was shouting, Fitz was jumping up and down, barking, and running between me and Violet, clearly distressed. But Violet turned her back on him, and all three of them clattered downstairs.

“Vi,” I called after her as Fitz followed on behind, whimpering.

It did him no good. The trio left, slamming the front door after them, leaving him behind.

Wearily I sank down on the edge of Violet’s bed. Oh, God. Who knew when I’d see her again now? It had just been too much after the day I’d had, my grief about Beryl. And I’d have had to speak out sometime; I couldn’t have gone on treading on eggshells, buttoning my lip every time Vi pushed my limits just a little bit too far.

So much for me and Vi building something together, making a new start, being family. I’d probably just condemned myself to yet more weeks stressing about whether Vi was all right or not too.

I put my face in my hands, utterly spent. Jesus, I couldn’t do this any longer; I just couldn’t. Taking one measly hopeful step forwards just to get swept back again by a landslide of despair. Like me and Vi were engaged in some kind of hopeless game of snakes and ladders, where the snakes outnumbered the ladders by 99.9 percent, and there was no chance whatsoever of ever winning.

I was so alone with all this. But there was no one to blame for that but myself, was there? Inga didn’t even know much about Vi and our tricky relationship. Because I’d never really told her about it. I wanted to suddenly. To call her and spew the whole ugly thing out.

I took my phone from my coat pocket. But I didn’t dial. Because Inga might be in the middle of doing something for Noah. Putting him down for the night. Or going to sleep herself. It would be selfish to risk waking them up. And what could Inga—or anybody else, for that matter—do to make me feel better, really? Even Matt, with his uncanny ability to listen and say the right thing, couldn’t help this time.

The push and pull of my relationship with Violet was rooted in a sense of abandonment that had always been there—even before the fire and Mum pissing off to who knew where. When Mum had been on one of her drinking binges, I’d been left to my own devices, scratching about for food in empty cupboards, wearing dirty clothes from the bedroom floor. Getting myself to school, pretending everything was all right. Finding temporary solace in drawing pictures and reading stories. Returning home with the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, this time it would be different. I’d smell something cooking. Mum would call to me as I let myself into the house. And sometimes, sometimes, it was like that. But not very often. Not often enough.

After the fire, in that frightening, lonely young-person’s hostel, the times I saw my sister were the only bright thing in my life. So when the foster carer told me Violet didn’t want to see me anymore, it pretty much blasted me away. No wonder I was so pathetically grateful whenever she sought me out now.

Violet muddied my sight, brought hope springing back. Made me forget what I’d learnt early on in life: that it was a bad idea to let anyone get completely close to you in case they, too, decided to leave.

Fitz pattered back up the stairs, panting and whimpering with stress, jumping up onto the bed to press his shaking body next to mine. I couldn’t tell whether he wanted to comfort me, or me to comfort him, but I stroked him, anyway, glad of his presence, wondering about his former owner; how difficult it must have been to give him up. As difficult as it was for me to give up Violet every time she left, no doubt.

“Oh, Fitz,” I said, burying my face into his fur. “She’s never going to forgive me. Never.”

Fitz licked my face as if he understood every word, knew I was talking about what had happened all those years ago, not the recent row. I stroked him for comfort, sensing him calming down along with me, but suddenly there was a knock at the door, and he flew off my lap to run downstairs barking. Quickly wiping away my tears, I rushed downstairs myself, convinced it would be Violet, back again, having forgotten her key. Either that or Matt, responding to some telepathic summons I’d unwittingly sent.

But it wasn’t Violet. Or Matt.

“Alex!”

Alex was the very last person I’d expected to see—we hadn’t seen each other since that awkward meeting at the café—but I dragged a smile from somewhere anyway. At least he would be company. I might be able to talk to him about my appalling day—the row with Violet, Beryl dying, how useless I felt. But then I really looked at him and saw he looked dreadful. Worse even than the two guys I’d just ejected from my house. Something must have happened.

“Hi, Lily. Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Automatically, I stepped back to let him pass. Fitz surged forwards to jump up at him, barking a welcome or warning me I had an intruder—I wasn’t sure which.

Alex recoiled.

“Down, Fitz, there’s a good boy.”

“You got yourself a dog?” Alex asked, sounding incredulous, trying to shove Fitz off.

“He’s my sister’s dog. She brought him home last week.”

“Your sister’s here?”

I nodded. “Well, not right now; she just ...” Once again I wanted to pour the whole sorry tale out to him. Once again, the expression on his face stopped me. “Is everything all right, Alex?”

Alex shook his head, slumping down onto the sofa; the same sofa on which the two of us had spent evening after evening cuddled up together watching TV. Where we’d occasionally made love. “No, actually, it’s not.”

Fitz was attempting to climb onto Alex’s lap, so I pulled him up onto mine instead, stroking his ears.

“What’s happened? Is Lola okay?”

“Yes, she’s okay. As far as I know, anyway. I mean, how much can babies absorb about what’s going on at that age?”

“What is going on?”

He covered his face with his hands. “Fliss dumped me.”

I couldn’t believe it. They hadn’t been together for very long, and they had a baby. Jesus. “You’ve broken up?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “That’s usually what it means when someone dumps you, isn’t it?”

“But why?”

When he shrugged, his shoulders moved like the shoulders of someone much older. Someone stiff and arthritic. “Because she doesn’t love me enough, she doesn’t think I love her enough, she thinks I’m still in love with you ... I don’t know, take your pick. Oh, and she thinks I’m a crap father.”

That couldn’t be true, surely? He’d been so besotted with Lola that time we’d met in the café. Knowing Alex, he’d read a ton of books about taking care of babies before Lola was even born. Watched countless videos on the subject.

“I can’t believe that.”

“Well, you should. Nothing I do for Lola is right as far as Fliss is concerned. She wants to decide how everything’s done.” He counted off on his fingers. “On-the-clock feeding and nap times, even if that means leaving Lola to cry until my head feels as if it’s going to explode. Waking her up at seven a.m. even if she’s still fast asleep. Bath time at precisely six fifteen in the evening. If I try to suggest we don’t need to be so rigid, she just accuses me of not supporting her. So I just keep quiet, but I guess I didn’t make a good job of hiding my feelings because she snapped at me and said she’d be glad when I went back to work. Then I went back to work, and she said I wasn’t supporting her. I mean, what does she want?”

He put his face in his hands. “Then, this evening, when I got home, she said she’d been thinking about it, and she thought it would be better if I left. That she’d be better off on her own.” He looked up at me, his eyes pleading. “What can I do, Lily? Tell me, what can I do?”

The question ricocheted around my head. “ What can I do, Lily? What can I do? ”

God. I was so tired; I might dissolve into a pool on the sofa. Lovely, beautiful Beryl had died this afternoon. I wouldn’t even be able to go to her funeral because I wouldn’t know where it was going to be. I’d rowed with Violet. Again. My exhibition was a few weeks away—a few weeks!—and I still had so many paintings to get done. And now here was Alex, needing me, wanting my advice about how to deal with a situation he’d made all by himself.

“I’m so sorry, Alex,” I said. It was inadequate, but it was all I had.

Alex gave a half laugh and shook his head, clearly disappointed with my reaction.

“I’m not sure what else you want me to say,” I said.

I might just as well have said what I was really thinking. I don’t know why you came here asking me for help .

Alex shrugged. “I suppose I just thought you’d listen. That you’d understand. I don’t know, that maybe I could crash here for the night or something. I just wanted ...” He looked me in the eye. “I wanted you, Lily. Because I think that’s the one thing Fliss is right about; I’m still in love with you.”

Shit.

When he took hold of my hands, I knew with sudden clarity that Alex had come here with complete confidence that I’d kept my life on hold for him, living in limbo, on the off chance that he’d want me back. How fucking insulting. How completely fucking untrue. I wasn’t in love with Alex anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time.

I snatched my hands from his to cuddle Fitz against me. “If Fliss called you right now to say she was sorry, you’d be back home like a shot. You know you would.”

He shook his head, trying to reach for my hands again. “Only because of Lola. I swear, Lily. That little girl ... I’d literally do anything for her. Even live with her cold bitch of a mother. But it’s you I want. You I’ve always wanted. I was an idiot to let you go.”

He was right; he was an idiot. But not for letting me go. For assuming I was some kind of doormat he could walk all over. A bubble of outrage suddenly exploded inside my chest, not all of it directed at Alex. Why the hell hadn’t I been clearer about my feelings last time we’d met at the park instead of being all polite excuses and saying I had to get Noah back to Inga?

“You didn’t let me go, Alex,” I said coldly. “You left. And if you hadn’t, you would never have met the love of your life.”

He frowned. “Fliss isn’t the love of my life, I told you, I—”

I shook my head impatiently. “Not Fliss; Lola. If you and I had stayed together, you wouldn’t have Lola in your life.”

“She barely will be in my life anyway if Fliss gets her way,” he whined bitterly, his eyes big and sorrowful. “Every other weekend and Wednesday evenings, that’s what she’s got in mind for me. Babies change so quickly. I’ll miss so much.”

He covered his face with his hands again and began to weep. Suddenly I was very much out of my depth. I couldn’t do this anymore. Not on my own. Not anymore.

Now it really was time to phone Matt.

I took my phone to the kitchen to call him. He answered on the second ring. “Lily!” The pleasure in his voice made my heart leap. “Hi. I nearly called you earlier to see if you fancied meeting up, but I thought you were working.”

He’d wanted to see me. Maybe I had sent that telepathic message, after all.

“I got back half an hour ago.”

“And how was work today?”

I closed my eyes, thinking once again about Beryl. “Awful, actually. But listen, that’s not why I rang. Can you come round? Alex is here. He’s broken up with Fliss.”

Matt sighed heavily on the other end of the line. “I knew it. I never did like Fliss, not even at school. She probably just used Alex to get a baby. Poor sod.”

“Can you come?”

“Of course. I can be there in thirty minutes.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you okay? It can’t have been easy for you, having Alex turn up out of the blue.”

I sighed, being entirely honest for once. “It wasn’t. Life’s been pretty crap altogether lately, what with one thing and another. Violet’s been staying with me.”

“Has she? Well, I hope she was eating humble pie. Though I’m sensing not, from your tone.”

I sighed, remembering my initial relief at seeing her. “It was all right at first. We were getting on reasonably well. Until this evening, anyway. Like I said, it’s been an awful day at work, and when I get home she’s playing music really loudly, and there’s these two stoned-looking guys flopped in her bedroom, and I ...”

“Are they still there?” he interrupted. “D’you want me to turf them out for you?”

“No, it’s okay, they’ve gone. I asked them to leave, actually. But then, of course, Violet shouted at me and stormed out, and who knows when I’ll see her again.”

“What happened at work today?”

Tears filled my throat. I wanted to tell him, but it was so difficult to get the words out.

“Tell me,” he said, his voice intimate in my ear.

“Somebody ... a patient I’d grown really fond of ... Beryl. She ... died this morning. She was ill, she was old. And ... and I know that’s what happens in hospitals, but Beryl was an amazing person, Matt. Really amazing. I didn’t know her for very long, but I really cared for her, you know?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Lily.”

His voice was rich with sympathy. It was almost too much to bear. I swallowed. “Thanks.”

If Alex hadn’t called to me from the next room, I might have gone on to confide in Matt. To tell him that every time I grew close to somebody it seemed as if I lost them, exactly as it felt I was about to lose him.

But Alex did call to me.

“Lily? Where are you?”

And I did what I always did. Wiped away my tears. Pulled myself together. “Listen, Alex wants me. I’d better go. You’ll be here soon?”

“Half an hour, tops. Take care, Lily.”

True to his word, thirty minutes later, Matt was at my door. Thirty desperate minutes alone with Alex which I attempted to fill with cups of tea, offers of snacks and any other distractions I could think of.

Outwardly, Matt was the same man he always was when I opened the door to him—smart casual clothes, neat haircut, direct, steady gaze, filling the doorway with his height and broad shoulders the way he’d done countless times before. Nothing different from usual. Nothing new. And yet, maybe because we’d spent that time in Nottingham together, or perhaps because he was imminently moving away, I couldn’t help seeing him more clearly. As if we’d been transported back to that Christmas Eve pub and I was meeting him for the first time all over again.

“Thanks so much for coming,” I said.

He put his hands on my shoulders, moving in close to kiss me on the cheek, and when he said softly, “I really am sorry about your friend,” his voice seemed to vibrate through me.

I shivered. “I’m not entirely sure why it’s hit me so badly. As I said, it’s not as if I’d known Beryl for very long.”

“It doesn’t always matter, though, does it? Sometimes you meet someone, and you just click.”

I nodded, once again back in that decked-out-for-Christmas city pub, Inga and I wearing our reindeer antlers. What would have happened if I’d been more assertive with Inga that night? If, when she’d said, “ Alex is not going to get down on one knee and ask you to marry him at the end of the evening, ” making sure I knew she fancied Matt, I’d said, “ No, you have Alex. I really fancy Matt, ” instead of being the good, acquiescent friend I usually was?

Inga would have made mincemeat of Alex. They’d have broken up far faster than he and Fliss had. But me and Matt? Would we still be together now?

It didn’t matter, though, did it? It was academic. Because I hadn’t said anything to Inga that night. I’d given in to what she wanted, putting her first.

“Matt?” Alex called out from the sitting room, beyond the porch. “Is that you?”

At Alex’s voice, I pulled myself out of my trance, stepping back to let Matt past.

“Alex, mate,” Matt said, going over to his friend.

Alex began to sob all over again. “Oh, Matt,” he said, “my life has gone to total shit.”

I knew the feeling; I really did.