tired. They’ll believe you’re not effective at your job, that you’re unprofessional.’
Many women are disinclined to tell others about what is happening to them.
I bite my lip. ‘I’m not sleeping very well lately, Rowena. It’s this man.’
She misunderstands. ‘I want to hear all about him. But can it wait?’
Is this the Rowena who rushed from Edinburgh to London so I could sob in her arms when my boyfriend broke up with me in my second year at university?
‘Of course,’ I say.
She only ever talks about herself. She’s not interested in you, Henry said.
But I’ve withheld the most important things, I said, to try to hold on to her. How can she be interested in me when I’ve kept the essential parts of my life hidden?
Both of Rowena’s husbands said they didn’t want children, then left her to have them with other women. She’d never have forgiven my taking Henry from his wife. Sometimes I even wondered if it was my guilt about what I’d done that somehow stopped me from getting pregnant. The attempted baby-making would certainly have infuriated Rowena further. Henry knew this, and helped me with the cover-up, though he mumbled about how one-sided a friendship it was.
She checks herself severely in the compact mirror again, and I realise that her failed marriages are probably what made her so susceptible to this cult of plastic. ‘Did I do the right thing with my face?’ She brushes powder above her eyebrows, which seem higher than I remember.
‘You did absolutely the right thing. You look like an American soap opera star.’ This brings a near smile to her lips, which I have just noticed are plumper. ‘If it makes you happy, more confident, then that’s what matters. That’s what shows.’
She nods in enthusiastic agreement. ‘It’s a firmer, more youthful and sculpted look.’ Henry would pull a face at this, but I do not.
The waiter leads us to a table in the corner. Hanging on the restaurant’s walls are pseudo Art Deco paintings of nude women, easily overlooked in the dimly lit room. I get sidetracked by one of them, of a dancer. It makes me think again of the men in the dock and how they forced Miss Lockyer to strip and perform for them. ‘What made you choose this place?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Then who did?’
She ignores my question. ‘Do you think it looks natural?’ There’s a tremor in her voice that makes my heart hurt for her.
The flickering candlelight gives Rowena’s frozen face an illusion of expressiveness, though I’m alarmed by how pronounced her cheeks have become, and scared that whatever the beauty technicians shot into them might harm her. ‘I do. Like you’ve been to a really great spa.’
Is this the Rowena who used to play with my hair and tickle my arms when we had sleepovers, then swap places so I could do the same to her?
‘I believe that each of us has a responsibility to look our best at every age.’
Who are you, and what have you done with Rowena? I silently ask her.
I take her jewelled hand to get her attention. ‘I need to talk to you. It’s something very bad.’
She looks towards the restaurant’s entrance and it’s as if somebody’s flipped a switch: her dazzling white, cameras-are-on-me smile appears in a flash. She makes no attempt to restrain it.
I follow her gaze and nearly choke on the sip of water I’ve just taken. The warbling French jazz seems to grow louder and the room plunges from dim to almost dark. Have they done something to make the lighting even worse? Because I cannot process what I’m seeing.
What I’m seeing is you. Striding towards me like it is the most normal thing in the world.
There was no sign of you when I left my flat. No sign of you when the taxi dropped me off. No sign of you at all until now. How did you work out I was here? Only Rowena knew.
You are beaming. You look radiantly happy, so happy that I’m astonished by a small stab of sadness that I am the one who must wreck this crazy joy of yours. Something you make me do over and over. Don’t you know how exhausting it is? Doesn’t it make you tired, too?
You are moving your mouth, saying words I don’t understand. You are standing beside Rowena. You are bending to kiss her on each cheek.
‘D-d-don’t touch her.’ I’ve never had a stutter, but for a few seconds I do. ‘G-go away.’
Rowena pulls out the chair beside her in welcome. ‘Rafe’s joining us.’
How can she know your name? None of this is making sense. ‘He can’t.’
‘I invited him.’ Rowena puts her hand on yours. You are first to break the contact but she seems not to notice. ‘Sit down, Rafe.’
My flight response nearly hauls me out of my chair, but I don’t want to leave Rowena alone with you and she doesn’t look like she’s going to follow me out anytime soon.
‘If you’re sure.’ You drape your coat over the back of the chair, declining the waitress’s offer to hang it up for you. I’m certain there’s something in the pockets that you don’t want to risk having discovered. I’m certain also that you want to keep your things near so you can grab them quickly to chase after me when I run away.
I look only at Rowena, as if she is a lifeline I must grab. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘We wanted to surprise you.’ Rowena adjusts her carefully highlighted brown hair.
I force myself to use my brain and use it quickly. I puzzle out how you linked Rowena to me. It must have been that awards ceremony for business women eight years ago. Rowena was between husbands, then, so I went with her. When they called her name I clapped so hard my palms smarted; I smiled so much my jaw hurt. There’d been a photo of me and Rowena, with both of us named in the caption. It’s the only thing that comes up on me in an Internet search.
‘We thought you’d be excited that we know each other.’ Rowena sounds hurt, but my horror of you is even stronger than my usual inclination to comfort and reassure her.
‘How?’ My vision is blurring in this stupidly dark room. ‘How do you?’
‘We met face to face for the first time at lunch today. But we’ve been emailing the last two months. It’s amazing how close you can get to a person when you write to each other.’ She waves away the approaching waitress. ‘Rafe follows my business blog. He gets his students to read it to enhance their employability. But he noticed a reference to my creative ambitions in my profile so he got in touch. He’s advising me on that memoir I’ve always wanted to write.’
The blood is pulsing behind my eyes. ‘He cyber-stalked you.’
‘That’s melodramatic. And paranoid.’ She apologises to you. ‘Clarissa didn’t mean it.’
‘Yes I did.’ Everything is in shadows. I shake my head several times to try to clear it and then I make myself focus on you, the very thing I hate to do. ‘You don’t know anything about writing a memoir. You’re just a literary critic.’ I say the last two words like they’re the worst insult I can think of.
‘I have a number of talents and interests you haven’t yet discovered, Clarissa.’
There you go again. Punctuating every sentence with my name in your freakish way. Why doesn’t Rowena see how weird it is? A sob comes out of my throat before I can stop it. ‘You don’t need him, Rowena. You can join a writing group. He’s using you to get at me.’
‘Not everything is about you. That’s so unbelievably arrogant. Not to mention ridiculous. Rafe and I only just discovered a few weeks ago that