Page 27 of All the Things We Never Knew

‘It’s wonderful.’ I sat down and she poured wine into our glasses. ‘Thank you. I feel – it’s a lot. You know.’

‘I know.’ She raised her glass and took a sip. ‘How are you, Anna?’

It was typical of Orla to ask that instead of what everyone else asked: How’s Gray?

I said, ‘I feel like I’m drowning.’

She didn’t say anything in response, just tilted her head and waited for me to carry on.

I gulped my wine and sucked furiously on my vape pen, coughing at the first puff before getting the hang of it. Then I started talking and found I couldn’t stop. I told her about Laurel – about Gray’s affair. She was the first person I’d told; to everyone else – my sisters, my friends, the mothers of my children’s friends – I’d spoken about Gray’s illness, his terminal diagnosis and all that went with that, but not about the other thing.

I couldn’t put into words why not, but as I spoke to Orla I realised.

‘It’s like it’s all my fault,’ I said. ‘He cheated on me and now he’s sick. He’s going to die. It’s like I failed him twice. Failed at everything. I couldn’t keep my husband faithful, and now I can’t keep him alive.’

‘You know that’s not how it works, Anna. Of course you do. Marriages are complicated. Men do things they shouldn’t. Women too, but…’

‘But mostly men. And now I feel – I feel like I wasn’t enough. Not only me but the kids too. How could he have risked it all for that? For her?’

‘Because he didn’t feel like there was a risk,’ Orla said gently. ‘Or he didn’t think at all.’

‘I guess.’ I could hear my daughter in my voice – an almost teenage petulance. ‘But that’s how it feels.’

‘I understand that,’ Orla said.

‘And there’s another thing. She’s coming here. Coming to our house to see Gray. He insisted. He said he’d move into a hospice otherwise. So there was nothing I could do.’

‘That sounds unimaginably hard.’ Carefully, Orla poured more wine for us.

‘And the worst thing… The worst thing is, she makes him so fucking happy. I can’t bear to see him like that with her.’

The tabby cat stood up from the floor, stretched luxuriantly, then hopped up on to Orla’s lap, butting his head against her hand. She stroked him, her fingers almost disappearing into the plush coat.

‘You know,’ she said slowly, ‘this isn’t the same at all. But I think perhaps in a way it is. Do you remember my Maud?’

I did, of course. For the first fifteen years Gray and I had lived at Damask Square, Orla’s black cat had been a permanent presence, stalking along the garden fences on the hunt for squirrels, terrorising Augustus and occasionally letting out blood-curdling howls in the street at night as she told an invading fox where to go.

‘Who could forget her?’ I said.

Orla smiled. ‘She was a character. One of the things she used to do was wake me up in the morning for her breakfast by pricking my face with her claws. I’d be asleep and I’d feel her paw on my skin, cool and gentle at first. Then she’d extend a claw and I’d feel red-hot pain. Often there’d be blood on the pillow when I eventually got up.’

‘Ouch.’ I grimaced in sympathy. ‘But you still loved her.’

‘With all my heart. And after she was gone, for quite a long time, at least until I got these two, I’d find myself waking up with the sense that something was missing. Even though at the time, if you’d asked me, I’d have said I hated her clawing my face.’

‘Love hurts, right?’

‘Sometimes it does. But the other thing is, if I could have her back for just one day, I’d be jumping out of bed first thing to feed her. I’d do anything she wanted.’

I sighed and gulped some wine. ‘Okay. I get what you’re saying.’

‘I’m saying it clumsily,’ she admitted. ‘But, Anna – what’s coming in the months ahead will be hard. If you give yourself cause to feel guilt as well as all the sadness and… everything else, it’ll only be harder for you. It’ll only make things worse.’

‘You’re right. I know you are. It’s just – I feel so angry.’

‘Of course you do. You can’t always control your feelings. But you can’t control Gray’s either. And, Anna…’

‘What?’ I asked when she stopped, leaving a silence for me to fill.