Si and I stop at the corner shop en route to Lucy’s to pick up some wine, even though it’s hardly necessary, with their well-stocked wine cupboard, and a couple of giant bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, because there’s no better sustenance for a Saturday night in than chocolate, and then we roll up at Lucy’s.
I haven’t said anything about James. Ridiculous as this may sound, this is my secret right now, and I want to keep it precious and safe, at least until I know it’s not just a quick fling.
‘Who is it?’ Max’s voice wafts through the door, loud and clear. I look at Si, but he just grins and keeps quiet, so I give it a whirl.
‘Hello, Max. It’s Auntie Cath and Uncle Si. Are you going to be a good boy and open the door?’
There’s silence from the other side, and I can tell that Si is loving every second of this. I make a face at him and eventually he leans down and says, ‘Max?’
A pause, then, ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Uncle Si. Do you want to see what I’ve got for you?’
Another pause. ‘Yes.’
‘You can’t see it if you won’t open the door, can you?’
Brilliant. Si and I stand on the doorstep listening to Max’s thought process, and then, when Max decides that in fact Si’s plan is not flawed after all, the door slowly opens, and we look down into Max’s expectant face.
‘Okay, Max.’ Si crouches down and looks him in the eye. ‘Which would you prefer? A fire engine or… a piece of chocolate?’
Max stops to think. ‘A fire engine,’ he says eventually, as I start to laugh.
‘Oh well. Chocolate will just have to do.’ Si shrugs and hands him a small Dairy Milk, which doesn’t seem to go down at all badly, and makes a change from Si’s most recent presents for Max, which include a sailor, a policeman and an Indian warrior. Although Si would not dream of saying anything to Josh for fear of compromising his son’s impending masculinity, Si is aiming to keep going until Max has the entire set of the Village People.
‘Cath! Si! I’m in the kitchen!’
‘There’s a surprise,’ Si laughs, and we walk down the corridor, taking off our coats as Lucy appears in the doorway.
‘Quick, quick, big gossip! Huge!’ She hurries us into the kitchen, where bowls of guacamole are already sitting on the table, with nachos waiting to be dipped in and a bottle of wine.
‘You’ve got to sit down because you’re never going to believe this!’ Lucy is bursting, bursting to tell us something, and I’m assuming it’s good news, because if she’d found out about Josh there’s no way she’d have this mischievous look on her face.
‘Pour some wine, quick. Okay. Listen. I can’t believe this myself. This weekend is the weekend that, as you know, Ingrid’s away with the mystery lover.’
‘Yes?’ Si and I both say simultaneously.
‘Do you want the short version or the long version?’
‘Short,’ I say, as Si says, ‘Long.’
‘Oh God. Well, the middle version is that Ingrid had said the mystery lover was picking her up this evening and I was supposed to be at work and we’d got Laura to babysit, but I got home earlier than I’d planned, and you’re never going to believe what I walked in on…’
Si and I shoot each other worried glances, but no, it couldn’t possibly be Josh.
Lucy sits back and grins like the cat that got the cream. ‘I walked in on Ingrid and the mystery lover locked in a passionate embrace in the kitchen.’
‘And?’ Si’s now starting to look bored. ‘Some swarthy Italian? Playboy type? Medallion and hairy chest?’
Lucy shakes her head, her smile growing wider. ‘Nope,’ and she pauses dramatically until even Si starts to look interested. ‘It’s Portia!’
‘WHAT?’ Si knocks his wine glass over, my mouth falls open and my chin hits the floor.
‘You are joking?’ I leave it to Si to speak, as I am, for possibly the first time in my life, completely speechless.
‘Nope.’ Lucy shakes her head. ‘I know! Portia! Isn’t it extraordinary!’
‘Extraordinary. Are you sure?’ Si’s now looking doubtful.
‘Sure? Si, they pulled apart looking terribly embarrassed, and then Portia shrugged and said we had to find out sometime, and they both grinned and left the house holding hands.’
‘Nooooooooo,’ I manage to breathe out eventually, my eyes as wide as saucers, because this is the very last thing I ever expected. I mean, Portia? Ingrid? How? When? Oh Christ. This is just too much for me. I sit down, mouth still agape.
‘I know. Portia and Ingrid! In lurrve!’ Lucy’s loving every second of this.
‘Actually,’ Si says, ‘I always thought Portia had a leaning towards her Sapphic sisters.’
‘Did you bollocks!’ I respond, because it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
‘What?’ He looks at me, innocence personified. ‘Just because I may not have mentioned it to you doesn’t mean I didn’t think it.’
‘Yeah, right,’ I say, grinning, because I know, and he knows I know, that this is absolutely rubbish. ‘But Christ, how did this happen?’
Lucy shrugs. ‘Ingrid’s hardly likely to tell me the whole story, is she?’
‘Didn’t Portia drop any hint at all when you were over there the other night?’ I turn to Si.
‘No. We didn’t even mention Ingrid. And anyway, what’s she going to say, oh by the way, Si, I know we’ve known one another for thirteen years, but I’m now a lesbian and I’m in love with Ingrid?’
‘Si, wouldn’t she be bisexual rather than a lesbian?’ Lucy, ever politically correct, interrupts.
Si shrugs.
‘But Portia!’ It hits me again. ‘It’s just unbelievable.’
‘You should have seen Josh’s face!’ Lucy starts to laugh.
‘Josh?’ Si and I together, and I suddenly think, God, were we wrong again? And a deep shame engulfs me as I realize that yet again Si and I have jumped to conclusions and punished Josh for something he evidently hasn’t done, and I shoot Si a worried glance, only to see him shooting exactly the same back to me.
‘I thought Josh was away?’ Si manages to sound breezily nonchalant as Lucy’s busy concentrating on unwrapping the Dairy Milk.
‘He was supposed to be, but it got cancelled at the last minute.’
‘So where is he now?’
‘Still trying to pull off this big deal. He’s upstairs in his study, working, and I know I should have told you he’d be around but quite honestly he’ll probably be stuck up there all night and I haven’t seen the two of you like this for ages, and I didn’t want you not to come because you thought Josh would be around.’
I for one, am completely speechless, and I can see that Si is also lost for words, but thankfully Max chooses that moment to disrupt the shamed atmosphere in the kitchen by zooming around the kitchen table with Pokémon in hand, screeching into chairs and making a huge amount of noise, until Si scoops him up and asks whether he’d like a story.
Lucy looks at him gratefully, and as Si carries Max out of the room he turns to me and says, ‘Come on, Cath, it’ll be good practice. Come and help me.’
Lucy starts to laugh. ‘Good practice? Good practice? My darling Cath, you cannot mean to tell me you’re already talking sproglets, are you? Although heaven knows it’s about time.’
‘Don’t even go there,’ I whisper furiously, because,-okay, okay, I confess. Lucy does know about James – I had to tell someone – and I don’t want her saying anything, but luckily Si is standing at the foot of the stairs, just out of earshot, making big eyes at me and frantically waving me over.
‘Okay, I’m coming.’ I get up and as soon as we’re safely upstairs Si sends Max off to find last year’s Furby, telling him that the Pokémon wants to destroy it, and then whispers, ‘Christ, we’ve got to apologize to Josh. I feel awful.’
‘I know. But what are we supposed to say?’
‘Oh, God knows, but I think we just have to do it.’ He shoots a glance at Max, who’s on his hands and knees rifling through the toy chest and muttering to himself as he pulls the toys out.
‘Will he be all right?’
‘He’ll be hours,’ Si says, pulling his sweater up to reveal a small brown and white Furby nestling in his waistband. ‘I had to pull the bloody batteries out to stop it speaking Furbish.’ He rolls his eyes as I start to laugh. ‘Come on, let’s go and find Josh.’
As we walk up to the study door we can hear the sounds of typing, and Si makes the sign of the cross, pretends to pray, then knocks on the door. The typing stops.
‘Yup?’
‘Josh? It’s Si. And Cath. Can we come in?’ Si is already opening the door as he asks this, making it a purely rhetorical question, and Josh swivels round from his desk.
‘Hi, guys,’ he says nonchalantly, which, if you didn’t know any better, you might think was a sign that there was nothing wrong, but there is a warmth missing in his voice, and I suddenly realize how awful this must have been for Josh. We are, after all, two of his best friends, and for weeks now we’ve been giving him the cold shoulder without letting him know the reason why, and poor, poor Josh, with all his insecurities, must have felt terrible. Why did I not think of this before?
‘Josh, we need to talk to you,’ I start, then stop, because how on earth do you explain, or justify, or apologize for what we’ve done?
‘The thing is,’ Si says, moving across the room to the futon pushed against the wall and sitting down. ‘We feel ridiculous and we feel ashamed because we thought you were having an affair with Portia – ’
‘Well, actually that was my fault, because I saw you in Barnes one night with Portia and I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion, but then we discovered you weren’t,’ I interrupt.
Si continues, ‘But only because we then thought you were having an affair with Ingrid.’
Josh just sits there and looks at us, not saying a word, his face giving nothing away.
‘And now we know that you didn’t, you hadn’t, and we feel terrible because we’ve been so awful to you, but we were only trying to protect Lucy,’ I say lamely.
There’s a long silence.
‘What made you think I would be unfaithful to Lucy?’ Josh says after a while.
‘Well, you were hardly ever here, and you kept having these late meetings and then, when you were here, you weren’t interested in sex…’ Whoops. I think I’ve just gone too far, and I see Josh clench his teeth, which means he is seriously pissed off, but, repressed as he is, he won’t be letting it out, which is something of a relief.
I shrug apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, Josh. We both are. We were just so angry and upset at the thought of you hurting Lucy.’ Si and I hang our heads in shame.
And Josh shakes his head, looks at the floor, then up at the ceiling, then at the floor again. ‘I didn’t know what it was,’ he says eventually. ‘I couldn’t figure out why the pair of you had just switched off. At least now I know.’
‘Oh, Josh, please forgive us?’ I can feel my eyes welling up, and I feel terrible, and I know I won’t feel good again until I have his forgiveness.
‘What can I say?’ Josh looks first at me, then at Si. ‘You’re my oldest friends, and I suppose, at least, you’ve been honest with me. But why didn’t you say something before? I mean, if you thought I was having an affair, why didn’t you confront me with it instead of just cutting me dead? Christ, we’re not children any more.’
‘But we’ve never had to deal with this kind of situation before,’ Si says. ‘And I agree, with hindsight we were absolutely wrong in what we did, and we would never do that again, and if we ever have a problem in the future I swear to you we’ll sit down and talk about it.’
‘You mean, if you ever think I’m having an affair again?’ but Josh’s voice is soft and I can see he’s forgiven us.
But before Si has a chance to answer, the study door is pushed open and Max stands there, eyes bright and alert, the war between Pokémon and Furby completely forgotten.
‘Daddy?’ he says, climbing on to Josh’s lap. ‘Can I go to affair too? And can I have a toffee apple and a candy floss?’ The three of us start to laugh, and it is the first time I have ever wanted to kiss Max.