work for very little money conferred sainthood upon her, and her saintliness came at a price she didn’t pay. She drew state benefits to which she wasn’t – in Edie’s view – strictly entitled, while her dad picked up the rest of the slack, financially. Edie had tried to nudge Meg to look for a full-time or better-paid job in the voluntary sector, but it was like trying to lion tame wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress.
Thus I can’t afford it was imbued with her usual sanctimony and implied Edie had no idea, living high on the hog. It wasn’t an act of God that meant Edie had more money. It wasn’t a secret of the elite, the whole ‘working five days a week’ trick, was it?
‘Did they have a nice time?’ her dad asked Meg, pouring some more beer out of his bottle.
‘It was a bit of a ’mare. Roy came, you know the one with the bone tumours? He got brain freeze from drinking his root-beer float too fast and ate too many onion rings and started puking everywhere. The next table were totally out of order about it.’
From Meg, ‘totally out of order’ translated as anything from calling for Roy’s execution to ‘preferred to move out of the range of the spray’.
‘Maybe they didn’t realise he was poorly,’ their dad said.
‘Oh my God, of course someone’s poorly when they’re yakking chunks everywhere.’
‘I meant his cancer. Vomiting in public is quite a tearing up of the social contract.’ Edie’s dad gave her a wry look and she thought, Oh no you don’t, I’m not getting involved.
‘It was INVOLUNTARY, it’s not like he wanted to huey,’ Meg said, eyes blazing, and her dad clucked and soothed and said he was only kidding. Meg turned her gaze on Edie and Edie knew she was thinking, He’s only like this when you’re here.
Edie edgily checked her phone and saw she had a text message from Louis. Almost certainly something she should leave for later, but she didn’t have the restraint. She’d only fidget and fret about its contents otherwise.
Hola E. How’s home? OK BIG news … Jack & Charlotte are BACK TOGETHER. Can you believe it? X
Edie stared, put her phone back down with a bump, and gulped her beer. Yes, she could believe it. She realised now she’d half expected it. What did Louis say about Jack, he was a kind of smooth-talking Houdini? You could tie his hands and drop him in a tank and he’d be out by the end of the show.
Her reaction was stronger than she expected. Not because she still wanted Jack herself. Or, she didn’t think she did. This development made her inwardly howl with frustrated anger. They’d made it up. Jack had been forgiven. Once again, his misdemeanours had cost him nothing. (Well, unless you counted the wedding, but it sounded as if the bride’s family picked up that tab.) And kissing her had no more meaning than a moment’s confusion.
Jack’s timing in making peace with her wasn’t accidental. He must’ve known she’d hear about this, and hate him for it.
Wow. So all is forgiven? Ex
Not sure ALL. But he’s back in St Albans. Apparently he went up to Harrogate to see her parents and sisters to apologise. He’s mounted the full-scale I’m Sorry I Don’t Know What Came Over Me tour, we’ve not seen the like since Hugh Grant after the prostitute. (Not saying you’re a prostitute lol)
LOL OF COURSE NOT. Thanks, Louis. Always one to give the knife a quick twist. Edie could’ve cried, screamed, thrown her phone across the room. Her life had been trashed by Jack’s actions, but there would be no forgiveness or reconciliation for her.
‘What’re you having?’ said the friendly, buxom young waitress with the nose ring and magenta hair tied up in one of those Dig For Victory poster headscarves, pen poised above pad.
Edie could barely focus.
‘Uh. A cheeseburger, please,’ she said.
A pause while the waitress looked perplexed and said: ‘A plain burger, with cheese?’
‘Yes?’
‘Meat?’
‘Where?’
‘Do you want a meat burger rather than veggie or vegan?’
‘Oh. Yes.’
‘And for your sides?’
‘Just … chips?’
‘We do curly fries, Cajun wedges or just wedges?’
‘That’s fine,’ Edie said. ‘I mean, the fries are fine.’
‘Any sauces?’
Dear God, stop demanding things of me.
‘Just ketchup, thanks.’
‘Ketchup’s on the table.’
The waitress gestured with her pen.
‘Oh yes. Thanks.’
Her dad looked baffled and Meg frowned suspiciously at Edie, as if she might be doing the space cadet thing as London aloofness. They went on to give more detailed orders – ‘The Lemmy, vegan, plain wedges, American mustard side’ – that made Edie realise she hadn’t got into the spirit of the thing at all. She had ground to make up already.
‘And a portion of onion rings,’ she volunteered. ‘For the table.’
‘For the tapeworm,’ her dad said.
Don’t think about Jack, Edie instructed herself. He doesn’t deserve to be thought about.
Edie was thinking about him. Jack and Charlotte were back together. It wasn’t only that Edie resented them sorting it out and sparing Jack’s arse. It was that she knew what this meant for her.
If Jack had been restored by Charlotte, it’d make Edie the only real bad guy. Friends might mutter about Jack in private, but in public, it was disloyal to Charlotte. They’d have to redistribute the weight of their disapprobation and put it all on her. So now the official story would go: reunited against all odds, once the scourge of that hussy was eradicated. Charlotte could forgive Jack, but not Edie?
Ping, another Louis text.
PS Listen, I don’t know when the best time tell you this is but in wake of J & C sorting it out, Lucie put an email round everyone at work asking them to print out and sign a petition for you to be sacked. No one’s signed it though. Xx
… Yet. Edie sagged with the weight and shame of it. She couldn’t go back, no matter what Richard said. Even if Jack and/or Charlotte left of their own accord, she’d be hissed at. Why should she lose her job and not Jack, though? So he walked away with the job and the wife?
‘Do your work really need to get hold of you this often?’ Edie’s dad said, as she turned the phone face down on the table again.
‘It’s not work, Dad, at half seven at night,’ Meg said, faux-sweetly.
‘Oh.’ Her dad’s eyes widened. ‘Are you courting?’
‘No,’ Edie said, forcefully.
Then, with not inconsiderable effort:
‘Sorry. Being hassled about something work-related, by a friend. How was everyone’s day?’
‘Not bad, thank you,’ her dad said. ‘Radio Four and pottering. Have you clapped eyes on the elusive star yet?’
‘He’s saying he’ll see me at his parents’ house in West Bridgford on Sunday. Well, his PA says he’s seeing me. Believe it when I see it. Or him.’
‘Sunday?