Chapter 33
Josh
On the early bank holiday, I’m invited to a barbecue at Darren’s. It is a perfect spring day, the air clear as water. Acres of blue sky and a still, beating heat.
I try to enjoy the moment, since I’ve been cooped up indoors for the best part of a couple of months, editing my novel.
A self-imposed kind of quarantine, I guess, since every time I go out I seem to feel the urge to deal with my emotions by getting off my face, saying absurd things to Rachel, or doing things like sleeping with other people’s wives.
The minute I turned up, before I could even get a drink in my hand, I was roped into playing tag with the kids. But Lo has artfully distracted them now with a paddling pool, freeing me up to take a breather with Darren on a couple of deckchairs.
Which is when Darren tells me – casual as you like – that Rachel has started seeing someone. That she’s bringing him here today.
My stomach plunges to a depth I didn’t know it had. I glance around the garden, as if the pair of them might already be standing right behind me, feeling each other up next to the rhododendrons.
With perfect timing, a shadow falls over us. I look up, breath catching.
It’s only Wilf. But he looks odd. Shaky and pale-faced, as if he’s just been first on the scene at a road traffic accident. ‘I need to talk to you.’
Frowning, I get up and follow him past Ingrid and Lo, who are dancing to a song by that guy out of *NSYNC, margaritas in hand.
As we come to a pause at the far end of Darren’s luridly green lawn, Wilf says, ‘I think someone at work knows what I’ve been doing.’
Momentarily, I’m confused. ‘What have you been doing?’
To my surprise, he reaches out with both hands and pushes me in the chest. ‘The pill, you idiot.’
I stare at him in shock, mind spinning. ‘All right. Calm down. What are—’
‘Who have you been talking to? I told you to keep my name out of it.’
‘No one. No one. Only Rachel knows it was you, I swear.’
I did mention Wilf’s involvement to my mother, but the odds of her having dobbed him in to his Big Pharma bosses are obviously non-existent.
Maybe Rachel’s told her dad, because she tells her dad everything.
But, even if she has, he is in his seventies and a nice guy, and therefore, I’d guess, an unlikely candidate for shafting his ex-son-in-law’s friends.
‘Fuck.’ Wilf is pacing now. ‘Fuck.’
‘What makes you think they know?’
He tells me he’s been getting anonymous emails, demanding he share his intellectual property or face legal action. He’s been followed while driving home, can hear strange noises outside his flat at night. Has received a few silent phone calls.
‘It might be that IP lawyer,’ I say. ‘How do you know he hasn’t—’
‘Client confidentiality.’ Wilf shakes his head. ‘He’s way too well thought of to risk that.’
‘Okay, okay.’ I try to think. ‘Well, whoever it is, maybe you should call their bluff. Announce it, officially. Would that be such a terrible thing? I thought you were talking about pitching it, taking it wider?’
He’s been quiet on this since Valentine’s, other than to say he needs more time to think about it.
I’d just assumed until now that he was still feeling sensitive about that night, which he’d ended up spending in A&E because his date turned out to have a previously unidentified crustacean allergy.
It’s unclear if they’ve seen each other since.
‘I decided against it,’ Wilf says. ‘I don’t want to play God. I’m not comfortable with being responsible for the downfall of humanity.’
At this, I half-laugh.
‘Do you think I’m joking?’ He glares at me. ‘Oh, never mind. I don’t have time to explain the socio-economic ramifications of everyone living forever—’
‘What are you talking about?’ My heart rises to my throat. ‘Why the hell did you invent it, then? You told me this pill was a good thing.’
Wilf lowers his voice to a hiss, as if he thinks Darren’s bird-feeders might be bugged. ‘Good for you – not for everyone else in the world. I can’t have that on my conscience, Josh. I was stupid to even entertain the idea. It was just greed.’
If I were a betting man, I might suspect Wilf has casually floated the idea to his God-fearing parents, of whom he thinks the world.
‘Okay, look, let’s not panic. I’m sure whoever’s doing this is just trying their luck.’
Wilf rejects this notion with his eyes. ‘Do you have any idea how much this intellectual property could be worth? They won’t just let it drop. I’ll lose my job. I could get prosecuted. This is bigger than what we did, Josh.’
I want to reassure him, because I don’t believe anyone could be smart enough to outplay Wilf. We just need to collect our breath, take a little time to think.
But, before I can say any of that, he is gone.
Not long after Wilf leaves, Rachel arrives. She is hand in hand with a tall, dark-haired guy in cargo shorts, polo shirt, Ray-Bans. Darren said before that they work together, and I can see the banker in him a mile off. His feet are hidden by the barbecue, but my money’s absolutely on deck shoes.
And, by his side, my wife. In a pale blue dress, blonde hair loose around her shoulders, an early scattering of summer freckles across her skin.
She is gripping Lawrence’s hand, laughing at something he has said.
It must be funny, because her shoulders shake, and she covers her mouth as if he’s so bloody hilarious she’s about to spit out her lemonade.
I think back to Valentine’s night, how close I came to giving the cabbie Rachel’s address, after leaving Wilf’s flat.
But at the last moment I changed my mind.
And thank God I did, as I really wouldn’t have had the stomach to encounter Lawrence with a rose between his teeth, halfway through doing some kind of creepy naked butler routine.
My heart pounds. Stay cool, stay cool, stay cool.
I watch them from behind my shades for a couple of minutes, pretending to be deeply absorbed in what Polly’s ten-year-old, Fred, is saying to me about a video game.
I’ve always loved spending time with my godchildren. But, after it became clear that Rachel and I were no longer going to have kids of our own, the feeling occasionally came closer to bittersweet.
Fred is sketching out what I need to know against a paving slab with his index finger. ‘Like, you have a budget, so you have to choose between, like, a police station and a hospital . . .’
Christina Aguilera comes on to the sound system, at which Lawrence extends his hand to Rachel, as though he actually thinks he can pull off grinding to ‘Dirrty’ right here in the middle of a suburban barbecue.
Aside from anything else, he must not know her very well. Because it’s common knowledge among all of us that Rachel would rather die than use someone else’s patio as a dance floor.
I realise I can no longer watch. I get to my feet, ruffle Fred’s hair. ‘Sorry. Got to go, mate. Book me in for SimCity another time, yeah?’
‘It’s SimCity 4,’ he corrects me, with a scowl.
Rachel has moved on, I realise. And, though the thought of it is like a meteor to my chest, I know I need to let her.