Part 30 (1/2)

I shut my eyes and the picture of James swims in front of my closed lids, dying in my arms. Is this the picture that I'm going to see when I close my eyes for the rest of my life?

'Text ...' he gasps, 'text, Leo,' and there is blood in his lungs.

And then suddenly, amid the swimming haze of memories and tangled suspicion something catches.

I know what James was saying. What he was trying to say.

I put down the mug.

I know what happened. And I know why James had to die.

32.

OH MY G.o.d, I've been so stupid. I can't believe how stupid for ten years, I never even noticed. I sit there, stock still, running through all the what-ifs how different everything could have been if I'd only realised what was sitting in front of my face, all those years ago.

'Lee?' Clare says. She is looking at me, her face the picture of concern. 'Lee, are you OK? You look ... you don't look well.'

'Nora. My name is Nora,' I say hoa.r.s.ely.

For ten years. For ten years that f.u.c.king text has been engraved on my heart, and I never even noticed.

'Are you sure?'

'”Lee”,' I say to Clare. She takes a gulp of tea and stares at me over the mug, her beautiful, narrow brows drawn into a puzzled frown. '”Lee”,' I repeat, '”I'm sorry but this is your problem, not mine. Deal with it. And don't call me again. J.”'

'What?'

'”Lee.”'

'What the h.e.l.l are you on about?'

'Lee. He never called me Lee. James never called me Lee.'

For a minute she stares at me in utter incomprehension and I am reminded, all over again, what an amazing actress she was. Is. It shouldn't have been James on the stage. It should have been Clare. She is amazing.

And then she sets down her tea and gives a rueful grimace. 'Jesus. It was a long time ago, Lee.'

It's not an admission not quite. But I know her well enough to know that it might as well be. She's not protesting any more.

'Ten years. I'm slow,' I say bitterly. Bitter, not just because my mistake ruined my own life, but because if I'd been a little quicker on the uptake, James might still be alive. 'Why did you do it, Clare?'

She reaches out her hand to me, I flinch away, and she says, 'Look, I'm not saying what I did was right I was young and it was stupid. But, Lee, I did it for the best. You'd have been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up both your lives. Look, I went round to see him that afternoon the guy was s.h.i.+tting himself he wasn't ready to be a dad. You weren't ready to be a mum. But I knew between the two of you, neither of you would have the guts to take the decision.'

'No,' I say. My voice is shaking.

'You wanted it to happen, both of you.'

'No!' It comes out like a sob.

'You can deny it all you want,' she says softly, 'but you were the one that walked away, and he let you. All it would have taken was one text, one message, one call the truth would have come out. But between you, you couldn't even manage that. The fact is, he wanted out he was just too much of a coward to make a break for it himself. I did it for the best.'

'You're lying,' I say at last. My voice is hoa.r.s.e and choked. 'You don't care you never cared. You just wanted James and I was in the way.'

I remember I remember that day in the school hall, the hot sun streaming in through the tall gla.s.s windows, and Clare saying laconically, 'I'm going to have James Cooper.'

But instead, he became mine.

'He found out, didn't he?' I stare at her pale face, her draggled hair silver-white in the moonlight. 'About the text. How?'

She sighs.

And then at last she speaks what sounds like the truth.

'I told him.'

'What?'

'I told him. We were having a discussion about honesty, and marriage. He said that before we got married he wanted to get something off his chest. He asked, could he tell me something and would I forgive him? And I said, yes, anything, absolutely anything. I said I loved him, that he could tell me anything. And he told me that at that party where we met up again, his friend had been interested in me we'd spent all night flirting, I remember. I gave this friend my number at the end of the night and James said that he found the piece of paper in his friend's pocket, and kept it himself. He told his friend that I wasn't interested and instead, he texted me, said that he got my number off Julian, and did I want to go out for a drink.'

She sighs and stares out of the window.

'He said it had been eating at him all these years,' she carries on. 'That our relations.h.i.+p had started with a lie, that it was his friend who should have ended up with me. But he said that Julian was a womaniser, and he'd done it partly for selfish reasons, but partly for me. He couldn't bear for Julian to string me along, screw me, and then dump me. He was expecting me to be angry but as he talked, all I could think was that he'd lied and cheated to get me, bent his own scruples. You know what James is like ... was like.'

I nod. The movement makes my head swim, but I know what she means. James was a contradictory mix an anarchist with his own rigid moral code.

'It was strange,' Clare is speaking slowly now. I think she's almost forgotten about me. 'He thought his confession would make me love him less. But it didn't it only made me love him more. I realised what he'd done was for me, for love of me. And I realised that the same was true of me. That I had lied out of love for him. And I thought ... if I can forgive him ...'

I can see it. I can see her twisted logic. And her one-upmans.h.i.+p: you have done this for me, I have done worse for you. I love you even more.

But she fatally misunderstood James.

I sit, trying to imagine his face as she confessed what she'd done. Did she try to justify it to him, as she did to me? He wasn't ready to be a dad she was absolutely right. But that wouldn't have swayed James. He would have seen only the cruelty of the deception.

'What did you say to him?' I say at last. I am light-headed with tiredness and my body feels strange and disconnected, my muscles like wool. Clare looks just as bad her wrists seem thin enough to snap.

'What do you mean?'

'You must have told him something else. Otherwise he would have rung me. What did you say?'

'Oh.' She rubs her temple, hooks back a lock of hair that has fallen over her face. 'I can't remember. I said something about ... you'd told me to tell him you needed time alone that you thought he'd screwed up your life and you didn't want to see him. He shouldn't ring you you'd contact him when you were ready.'

But of course I never did. I went back to school only to take my exams, and ignored him steadfastly. Then I moved away completely.

Part of me wants to smack him for being so stupid, for being taken in so easily. Why didn't he overcome his scruples and just call me? But I know the answer. It's the same reason I never called him. Pride. Shame. Cowardice. And something else something more like sh.e.l.l-shock, that made it easier just to keep on going, not look back. Something momentous had happened in our lives, something we were totally unequipped to deal with. And we were both dazed from the fallout, trying not to think too much, feel too much. Easier just to shut down.