Page 61 of The Work Husband

How had it all gone so wrong? Was it Ava’s fault or Sam’s or entirely my own?

I didn’t know – I couldn’t answer that. I knew I needed to talk to someone, though.

And I knew there was only one person left who I could trust.

THIRTY

My fingers were fumbling so badly I could barely scroll to Molly’s number. I almost dialled Mum’s instead and caught myself half-laughing at what a disaster that would have been. Then I remembered what a disaster it already was, and my laughter turned back to tears.

I heard the first buzz of the ringtone, and hope stirred faintly in my heart. Molly had known Sam as long as I had. She’d known Ava better than I did. She’d be able to give me good advice. Perhaps one or the other of them had even already confided in her and she’d be able to tell me it was all a terrible misunderstanding and I had nothing to worry about.

Except I did. The things Sam had said to me were about more than him and Ava. They were about me. About the way I had behaved and reacted in the first real crisis we’d had in our relationship.

And I’d behaved badly and overreacted.

At least, that was what Sam thought. But I’d read Ava’s letter. I’d seen them together. The memory of Ava’s hair cascading down over Sam’s arm hurt like it was copper wire abrading my heart, not just a mental image of auburn ringlets.

Ava cut her hair, I remembered Molly saying. Well, it had grown back, that was for sure. I wondered whether Sam had been there when she cut it; if he’d filled his hands with the shorn locks, picking them up off the floor of wherever they had lived together. If he’d begged her to stop – No, Ava! Your beautiful hair!

If she had told him why.

Molly’s phone rang out to voicemail, the same way it had the last couple of times I’d tried calling her. She probably had it on silent, I rationalised. Arthur was probably crying again, the colic she’d mentioned making him miserable. Or maybe she’d got him to sleep and didn’t want the ringtone to wake him.

I imagined her sitting in their house, her sleeping baby on her knee, everything orderly and tranquil.

I couldn’t go barging in there and interrupt without speaking to her first.

But I needed my friend.

I knew Molly would understand. When I was working as a yacht stewardess, she’d called me late one night – actually, it had been three in the morning in the Maldives, where I was at the time – disturbing my precious five hours of sleep to pour her heart out about the break-up of her relationship with the guy she was seeing before she met Ben. I hadn’t minded – I’d taken my phone and sat on deck under the stars and talked to her for over an hour.

My mind made up, I grabbed my phone and keys and left the flat. The bus was approaching the stop, and I had to sprint to catch it, but I made it just in time.

Panting, I flopped onto a seat on the upper deck, watching the London suburbs unfolding through the window. I remembered making this journey with Sam, the Tupperware box of carefully iced cupcakes resting on my lap. I remembered Sam holding Arthur, the baby’s body tiny and helpless in his strong embrace.

I remembered thinking that he might hold our baby like that one day. I remembered the twinge inside me of something that had been almost – but not quite – longing.

Now, in the place where that feeling had been, there was only a hollow ache.

The bus journey seemed to take forever. It was coming up to six in the evening, after all – rush hour, not a sedate Saturday afternoon like it had been when Sam and I visited. But at last, the bus reached the stop and I jumped off, having spent the past five minutes standing by the door willing the red double-decker to hurry the hell up and get me where I needed to be.

I power-walked past the fried chicken shop and the Italian deli, round the corner where the pub Sam and I had sometimes been to for Sunday lunch with Molly and Ben was, and into their street. Even though I was almost jogging, my steps felt tortuously slow as I passed door after door, their numbers counting down from eighty-four all the way to sixteen.

I paused for a second on their doorstep, catching my breath. But just as I raised my hand to ring the bell, the door flew open.

Ben was standing there – actually, not so much standing. He almost knocked me over as he hurtled out, heading for the steps down to the pavement.

‘Sorry, sorry, excuse me, I’m in a rush!’ Then he clocked it was me. ‘Oh. Georgia.’

I’d taken a step back to get out of his way, and I almost lost my footing and fell back down to street level. So it took me a second to notice that Ben was carrying an overnight bag – almost the twin of the one I’d heard Sam zip up earlier. His usual bag for any short trip, which I’d confirmed was missing after he’d left.

For a moment, I thought that – by some perverse twist of fate – Ben was leaving Molly and Arthur on the same day and in the same way as Sam had left me. Maybe the broken nights had become too much for him. He certainly looked like a man who hadn’t slept in forever, even worse than he’d looked when Arthur was a newborn.

If that had happened, Molly would need me even more than I needed her.

I stepped forward, meaning to head into the flat to be with my friend.

But Ben said, ‘Come on. The Uber’s here. I didn’t know Moll had called you.’