Chapter 27
JEMMA
‘I knew what Marianne had been doing, yeah,’ says Paddy.
‘Never saw her, but who else could it have been?’ He’s taken the day off work and might or might not be going in tomorrow, or ever again, for reasons I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to when he reeled them off. There goes another bar job.
We’re at Lazy Cave in Little Holling, the only café-bar that’s walkable from our house.
It’s tiny: two small square rooms with low, beamed ceilings, sea-green-painted walls and lots of small, uncomfortable wooden chairs like the ones Van Gogh liked to paint.
The mug of tea in front of me is cold, and was tepid when it arrived at the table.
This place is incapable of delivering a hot drink that’s actually hot.
‘I didn’t know Lottie had seen it, though,’ Paddy says. ‘If I’d known …’
You’d have done nothing.
‘Where would Marianne have got weed from?’ I say. ‘It makes no sense. A woman of her age who never took an illegal drug in her life? How many teetotallers do you know who have drug dealers in their contacts lists?’
‘Anyone can get hold of weed. It’s not hard. Jemm, I never smoked any of it. I chucked it away every time. Unless you got there first, which you sometimes did. And I told you, I don’t know how many times, that I hadn’t bought it and wasn’t smoking it again. You never believed me.’
‘Because you were lying, Paddy.’ He shouldn’t need me to explain.
It’s so glaringly obvious. ‘I think I’d remember if you’d ever said, “These bags of weed keep appearing in my clothing and I’m not putting them there, so I think Marianne must be.
” That’s not what you said, though, is it?
Instead it was always, “Oh, that’s funny, I don’t know how it got there, it must be from ages ago.
” And that I knew wasn’t true, because I do all your laundry and ironing. ’
‘I was telling the truth when I said I wasn’t smoking it,’ he says. ‘Look, maybe I should have told you the whole—’
‘Maybe?’ I can hardly stand to look at him.
‘All right, then, I should have,’ he snaps. ‘But you wouldn’t have believed me. You never do.’
‘I don’t believe you when you lie to me.’
I hear him take a series of deep breaths.
‘How could I prove it was Marianne when I hadn’t seen her do it?
I knew what you’d say – you’ve just said it: there’s no way Marianne’d buy drugs when she doesn’t even drink alcohol.
And God knows what she’d have done to me if I’d tried to turn you against her. ’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this,’ I say, staring down at the oily surface of my cold tea. ‘I was already against her. You knew that. I understand that you were scared of her, but – I mean, what about your lies to me?’
He grabs me suddenly, twists me round so that I have to look at him. ‘Is Lottie really mine?’ he asks.
‘Yes. But I had a one-night stand with Ollie.’ I ought to be nervous – scared, even – to tell him this, but I’m not. I don’t want to be needlessly cruel, but I also don’t mind if finding out upsets him. I can’t afford to care any more if I hurt him. I just can’t.
‘It happened when I was already pregnant but didn’t know I was,’ I say. And then a strange feeling takes hold of me. For a few seconds I can’t work out what it is. Then I recognise it: peace. It feels so good to be telling the complete truth. I should have done it years ago.
‘I figured something like that had happened,’ Paddy says, and he doesn’t sound angry. ‘I’ve spent most of our marriage wondering when you were going to leave me for him. I’m glad about Lottie, though.’
‘I wouldn’t allow you to believe you had a child if you didn’t.’
‘We can make it work, can’t we?’ says Paddy. ‘The whole separation, co-parenting thing. I mean … sorry if this sounds crass, but we’ve both kind of lied to each other, haven’t we, so there are no good guys or bad guys invol—’ He frowns. ‘What?’
I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or pour the rest of my tea over him. ‘Wait, did I miss something?’ I say. ‘Have you just broken us up, without consulting me?’
‘I assumed you were breaking us up,’ he says. ‘Aren’t you? Or aren’t you about to?’
‘Paddy, I can’t think further than the next breath at the moment.’
‘Right, but you must know if there’s any hope.’ He’s using his most reasonable voice, the one he only wheels out for very special occasions. It would be unacceptable for me to scream at him: Why does all the hope always have to come from me? Why is everything down to me?
‘Is there anything else you’ve been lying about or withholding?’ I say. ‘Because there’s zero chance for our marriage if you don’t tell me everything now. This is your chance.’
One. Only. Last.
Paddy’s eyes move uneasily away from me. ‘No,’ he says, starting to run his finger around the rim of his glass of water. ‘There’s nothing else.’
He’s lying.