Remember Me?

Chapter 17

We’ve agreed to meet in a café called Fabian’s in Holland Park, a small, cozy place with terra-cotta painted walls and prints of Tuscany and shelves full of Italian books. As I walk in and look around at the granite bar, the coffee machine, the battered sofa…I have the weirdest feeling-like I’ve been there before.

Maybe I’m just having déjà vu. Maybe it’s wishful thinking.

Jon is already sitting at a table in the corner, and as he looks up I feel my guard rising. Against all my better instincts, after all my protests, here I am, meeting him illicitly. Just like he wanted all along. I feel like I’m falling into some kind of trap…but I don’t know what the trap is.

Anyway, I’m meeting him for business reasons. As long as I remember that, I’ll be fine.

“Hi.” I join him at the table, where he’s drinking coffee, and drop my briefcase on an adjoining chair. “So. We’re both busy people. Let’s talk about this deal.”

Jon is just staring at me, as though trying to work something out.

“Is there anything more you can tell me?” I add, trying to ignore his expression. “I think I’ll have a cappuccino.”

“Lexi, what is this? And what the fuck happened at the party?”

“I…I don’t know what you mean.” I pick up the menu and pretend to be studying it. “Maybe I’ll have a latte.”

“Come on.” Jon pulls the menu down so he can see my face. “You can’t hide. What happened?”

He thinks this is funny. I can tell it from his voice. With a jag of wounded pride, I slap the menu down on the table.

“If you must know,” I say tightly, “I spoke to Rosalie at the party, and she told me about your…predilections. I know it was all bullshit. And I don’t appreciate being bull-shitted, thanks.”

“Lexi-”

“Don’t try and pretend, okay? I know you tried it on with her and Margo.” An edge of bitterness has crept into my voice. “You’re just some smooth operator who tells married women what they want to hear. What you think they want to hear.”

Jon’s expression doesn’t flicker.

“I did try it on with Rosalie and Margo. And I might have gone”-he hesitates-“a tad too far. But you and I agreed I should. That was our cover.”

Well, of course he’d bloody well say that.

I glare at him in impotent fury. He can say anything he likes, and there’s no way for me to know whether he’s speaking the truth or not.

“You have to understand.” He leans across the table. “It was all fake. We cooked up a story that would fool everyone, so if we were ever spotted together, that could be the explanation. Rosalie fell for it, just like we wanted her to.”

“You wanted to be portrayed as a womanizer?” I retort, rolling my eyes.

“Of course not!” There’s a sudden heat to his voice. “But we had a couple of…near misses. Rosalie, in particular-she’s sharp. She would have cottoned on.”

“So you chat her up.” I can’t help the sarcasm. “Nice. Really classy.”

Jon meets my look steadfastly. “You’re right. This hasn’t all been pretty. It’s not a perfect situation and we’ve made mistakes.” He reaches a hand toward mine. “But you have to trust me, Lexi. Please. You have to let me explain everything.”

“Stop it!” I whip my hands away. “Just…stop! We’re not here to talk about that, anyway, it’s irrelevant. Let’s stick to the subject.” A waitress approaches the table and I look up. “A cappuccino, please.” As soon as the waitress moves away, I say briskly, “So, this deal. It doesn’t exist. I’ve looked everywhere. I went into the office and searched every tiny corner, every computer file. I’ve looked at home, nothing. The only thing I’ve found is this.” I reach into the briefcase and produce the piece of paper with the coded scribbles on it. “There was an empty drawer in my desk. This was in there.”

I’m half-hoping Jon’s eyes will light up and he’ll say, “Aha! The key!” like we’re in The Da Vinci Code. Instead he glances at it and shrugs. “That’s your handwriting.”

“I know it’s my handwriting.” I try to keep my patience. “But I don’t know what it means!” In frustration I throw the paper down. “Why on earth didn’t I keep my notes on the computer?”

“There’s a guy at work, Byron?”

“Yes,” I say guardedly. “What about him?”

“You didn’t trust him. You thought he actually wanted the department to be disbanded. You thought he’d try and screw things up for you. So you were going to present the whole thing to the board when it was already done.”

The door to the café swings open and I jump in guilt, imagining it’s Eric. I’m all ready with an excuse at the tip of my tongue, I was just out shopping and guess what, I bumped into Jon! By total coincidence! But of course it’s not Eric, it’s a cluster of teenagers who start talking in French.

“So you don’t know anything else.” My guilt makes me sound aggressive, almost accusing. “You can’t help me.”

“I didn’t say that,” Jon replies calmly. “I’ve been thinking back, and I did remember something. Your contact was Jeremy Northam. Northwick. Something like that.”

“Jeremy Northpool?” The name pops into my head. I can remember Clare thrusting a Post-it at me with his name on it. Along with the other thirty-five Post-its.

“Yes.” Jon nods. “That could be it. Northpool.”

“I think he called while I was in hospital. Several times.”

“Well.” Jon raises his eyebrows. “Maybe you should call him back.”

“But I can’t.” I drop my hands on the table in despair. “I can’t say ‘Hi, this is Lexi Smart, do we have a deal, oh and by the way, what’s your business?’ I don’t know enough! Where’s all the information?”

“It’s there.” Jon is stirring his coffee. “It’s there somewhere. You must have moved the file. Hidden it somewhere, or put it somewhere for safekeeping…”

“But where?”

The waitress arrives and puts a cappuccino down in front of me. I pick up the little freebie biscuit and distractedly start unwrapping it. Where would I have put a file? Where would I hide it? What was I thinking?

“I remember something else.” Jon drains his cup and gestures to the waitress for another. “You went down to Kent. You went to your mother’s house.”

“Really?” I look up. “When?”

“Just before the accident. Maybe you took the file down.”

“To my mum’s house?” I say skeptically.

“It’s worth a chance.” He shrugs. “Call her up and ask her.”

I stir my cappuccino moodily as the waitress brings over another coffee for Jon. I don’t want to ring up Mum. Ringing Mum is bad for my health.

“Come on, Lexi, you can do it.” Jon’s mouth twitches with amusement at my expression. “What are you, woman or walrus?”

I raise my head, stunned. For a moment I wonder whether I heard that right.

“That’s what Fi says,” I say at last.

“I know. You told me about Fi.”

“What did I tell you about Fi?” I say suspiciously.

Jon takes a sip of coffee. “You told me you met in Mrs. Brady’s class. You had your first and last cigarette with her. You went to Ibiza together three times. Losing her friendship has been really traumatic.” He nods at my phone, sticking out of my bag. “Which is why you should make the call.”

This is so spooky. What the hell else does he know? Sliding him wary glances, I take the phone out of my bag and key in Mum’s number.

“Lexi, I’m not magic.” Jon looks even more as if he wants to laugh. “We had a relationship. We talked.”

“Hello?” Mum’s voice on the line tears me away from Jon.

“Oh, Mum! It’s me, Lexi. Listen, did I bring some papers down any time recently? Or like…a folder?”

“That big blue folder?”

I feel an almighty thrust of disbelief. It’s true. It exists. I can feel the excitement rising inside me. And the hope.

“That’s right.” I try to stay calm. “Do you have it? Is it still there?”

“It’s in your room, exactly where you left it.” Mum sounds defensive. “One corner may be slightly damp…”

I don’t believe it. A dog’s peed on it.

“But it’s still okay?” I say anxiously. “It’s still legible?”

“Of course!”

“Great!” I clutch the phone tighter. “Well, just hold on to it, Mum. Keep it safe and I’ll come and get it today.” I flip my phone shut and turn to Jon. “You were right! It’s there. Okay, I have to go down there straightaway. I have to get to Victoria-there’s bound to be a train in the next hour…”

“Lexi, calm down.” Jon drains his coffee. “I’ll drive you, if you like.”

“What?”

“I’m not busy today. It’ll have to be in your car, though. I don’t have one.”

“You don’t have a car?” I say disbelievingly.

“I’m between cars at the moment.” He shrugs. “I use my bike or taxis. But I do know how to drive a swanky Mercedes open-top.” Again he looks like he’s sharing a private joke with someone.

With me, it suddenly hits me. With the girl I used to be.

I open my mouth to speak-but I’m too confused. My head is teeming with thoughts.

“Okay,” I say at last. “Okay. Thanks.”

We have our story totally worked out. At least I do. If anyone asks, Jon is giving me a driving lesson. He just happened to drop by when I was getting into the car, and just happened to offer.

But no one does ask.

It’s a sunny day, and as Jon reverses the car out of its parking space, he retracts the roof. Then he reaches in his pocket and hands me a black hair elastic. “You’ll need this. It’s windy.”

I take the hair elastic in surprise. “How come you have this in your pocket?”

“I have them everywhere. They’re all yours.” He rolls his eyes, signaling left. “I don’t know what you do, shed them?”

Silently, I put my hair up into a ponytail before it can get windswept. Jon turns onto the road and heads to the first junction. “It’s in Kent,” I say as we pull up at the lights. “You have to head out of London on the-”

“I know where it is.”

“You know where my mother’s house is?” I say a touch incredulously.

“I’ve been there.”

The lights turn green and we move on. I stare out at the grand white houses passing by, barely noticing them. He’s been to Mum’s house. He knows about Fi. He has my hair elastic in his pocket. He was right about the blue folder. Either he’s really, really done his research, or…

“So…hypothetically,” I say at last. “If we were once lovers…”

“Hypothetically.” Jon nods without turning his head.

“What exactly happened? How did we…”

“Like I told you, we met at a launch party. We kept bumping into each other through the company. I came over to your place more and more. I’d arrive early, while Eric was still tied up. We’d chat, hang out on the terrace… It was innocuous.” He pauses, negotiating a tricky lane-change. “Then Eric went away one weekend. And I came over. And after that…it wasn’t so innocuous.”

I’m starting to believe. It’s like the world is sliding-a screen is going back. Colors are becoming sharper and clearer.

“So what else happened?” I say.

“We saw each other as often as we could.”

“I know that.” I cast around. “I mean…what was it like? What did we say, what did we do? Just…tell me stuff.”

“You crack me up.” Jon shakes his head, his eyes crinkled in amusement. “That’s what you always said to me in bed. ‘Tell me stuff.’”

“I like hearing stuff.” I shrug defensively. “Any old stuff.”

“I know you do. Okay. Any old stuff.” He drives silently for a while and I can see a smile pushing at his mouth as he thinks. “Everywhere we’ve been together, we’ve ended up buying you socks. Same thing every time, you rip off your shoes to be barefoot on the sand or the grass or whatever, and then you get cold and we need to find you socks.” He pulls up at a crosswalk. “What else? You’ve got me into putting mustard on fries.”

“French mustard?”

“Exactly. When I first saw you, I thought it was an evil perversion. Now I’m addicted.” He pulls away from the crossing and turns onto a big dual carriageway. The car is speeding up; he’s harder to hear over traffic noise. “One weekend it rained. Eric was away playing golf and we watched every single episode of Doctor Who, back to back.” He glances at me. “Should I keep going?”

Everything he’s saying is resonating. My brain is tuning up. I don’t remember what he’s talking about, but I’m feeling stirrings of recognition. It feels like me. This feels like my life.

“Keep going.” I nod.

“Okay. So…we play table tennis. It’s pretty brutal. You’re two games ahead, but I think you’re about to crack.”

“I am so not about to crack,” I retort automatically.

“Oh, you are.”

“Never!” I can’t help grinning.

“You met my mum. She instantly guessed. She knows me too well to kid her. But that’s okay. She’s cool, she’d never say anything.” Jon pulls into another lane. “You always sleep on the left. We’ve had five whole nights together in eight months.” He’s silent for a moment. “Eric’s had two hundred and thirty-five.”

I don’t know how to reply to that. Jon’s gaze is focused ahead; his face is intent. “Should I keep going?” he says at last.

“Yeah.” I clear my throat huskily. “Keep going.”

As we drive through the Kent countryside, Jon has exhausted all the details he can give me about our relationship. Obviously I can’t supply any of my own, so we’re sitting in silence as the hop fields and oast houses pass by. Not that I’m looking at them. I grew up in Kent, so I don’t even notice the picturesque, garden-of-England scenery. Instead I’m watching the GPS screen in a trance; following the arrow with my gaze.

Suddenly it reminds me of my conversation with Loser Dave, and I heave a sigh.

“What’s up?” Jon glances over.

“Oh, nothing. I just still keep wondering, how did I get to where I am? What made me go after my career, get my teeth done, turn into this…other person?” I gesture at myself.

“Well,” says Jon, squinting up at a sign. “I suppose it started with what happened at the funeral.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The thing with your dad.”

“What about my dad?” I say, puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

With a screech of brakes, Jon stops the Mercedes right next to a field full of cows, and turns to face me. “Didn’t your mother tell you about the funeral?”

“Of course she did!” I say. “It happened. Dad was…cremated or whatever.”

“That’s it?”

I rack my brain. I’m sure Mum didn’t say anything else about the funeral. She changed the subject when I brought it up, I suddenly recall. But, I mean, that’s normal for Mum. She changes every subject.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Jon puts the car back into gear. “This is unreal. Do you know anything about your life?”

“Apparently not,” I say, a bit rattled. “Well, tell me! If it’s so important.”

“Uh-uh.” Jon shakes his head as the car moves off again. “Not my call. Your mum has to tell you this one.” He turns off the road and pulls into a gravel drive. “We’re here.”

So we are. I hadn’t even noticed. The house is looking pretty much as I remember it: a redbrick house dating from the 1900s, with a conservatory on one side and Mum’s ancient Volvo parked in front. The truth is, the place hasn’t changed since we moved in twenty years ago; it’s just got more crumbly. A length of gutter is hanging off the roof and ivy has crept even farther up the walls. Under a moldy tarpaulin at the side of the drive is a pile of paving stones that Dad once dumped there. He was going to sell them and start a business, I think. That was…eight years ago? Ten?

Through the gate I can just glimpse the garden, which used to be quite pretty, with raised flower beds and a herb patch. Before we got the dogs.

“So…you’re saying Mum lied to me?”

Jon shakes his head. “Not lied. Edited.” He opens the car door. “Come on.”

The thing about whippets is they look quite slight, but when they stand on their hind legs they’re huge. And when about ten of them are trying to jump up on you at once, it’s like being mugged.

“Ophelia! Raphael!” I can just about hear Mum’s voice over the scrabbling and yelping. “Get down! Lexi, darling! You really did rush down here. What is all this?” She’s wearing a corduroy skirt and blue-striped shirt with fraying hems at the sleeves, and she’s holding an ancient “Charles and Diana” tea towel.

“Hi, Mum,” I say breathlessly, manhandling a dog off me. “This is Jon. My…friend.” I gesture at Jon, who is gazing a whippet straight in the eyes and saying, “Put your paws on the floor. Step away from the humans.”

“Well!” Mum seems flustered. “If I’d realized, I would have rustled up some lunch. How you expect me to cater at this late notice-”

“Mum, we don’t expect you to cater. All I want is that folder. Is it still there?”

“Of course.” She sounds defensive. “It’s perfectly all right.”

I hurry up the creaky green-carpeted stairs and into my bedroom, which still has the floral Laura Ashley wallpaper it always did.

Amy’s right-this place stinks. I can’t tell if it’s the dogs or the damp or the rot…but it should get sorted. I spot the folder on top of a chest of drawers and grab it-then recoil. Now I know why Mum was defensive. This is so gross. It totally smells of dog pee.

Wrinkling my nose, I gingerly extend two fingers and open it.

There’s my writing. Lines and lines of it, clear as day. Like a message from me to…me. I scan the first page, trying to glean as quickly as possible what I was doing, what I was planning, what this is all about… I can see I had written some sort of proposal, but what exactly? I turn the page, my brow wrinkled in bewilderment, then turn another page. And that’s when I see the name.

Oh. My God.

In an instant, I understand. I’ve got the whole picture. I raise my head, my heart thudding with excitement. That is such a good idea. I mean, that is such a good idea. I can already see the potential. It could be huge, it could change everything…

Filled with adrenaline, I grab the folder, not caring how it smells, and rush out of the room, taking the stairs two steps at a time.

“Got it?” Jon is waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes!” A smile licks across my face. “It’s brilliant! It’s a brilliant idea!”

“It was your idea.”

“Really?” I feel a glow of pride, which I try to quell. “You know, this is what we needed all along. This is what we should have been doing. If this works out, they can’t give up carpeting. They’d be mad.”

A dog jumps up and tries to chew my hair, but even that can’t dent my mood. I can’t believe I put together this deal. Me, Lexi! I can’t wait to tell everyone-

“Now!” Mum is approaching bearing a tray of coffee cups. “I can at least offer you a cup of coffee and a biscuit.”

“Really, Mum, it’s okay,” I say. “I’m afraid we have to dash off-”

“I’d like a coffee,” says Jon pleasantly.

He what? Shooting him daggers, I follow him into the sitting room and we sit down on a faded sofa. Jon takes his seat like he feels totally at home there. Maybe he does.

“So, Lexi was just talking about piecing her life together,” he says, crunching a biscuit. “And I thought, maybe knowing the events that happened at her dad’s funeral would help.”

“Well, of course, losing a parent is always traumatic…” Mum is focused on breaking a biscuit in two. “Here you are, Ophelia.” She feeds half to a whippet.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Jon says. “I’m talking about the other events.”

“Other events?” Mum looks vague. “Now, Raphael, that’s naughty! Coffee, Lexi?”

The dogs are all over the biscuit plate, slobbering and grabbing. Are we supposed to eat those now?

“Lexi doesn’t seem to have the fullest of pictures,” Jon persists.

“Smoky, it’s not your turn…”

“Stop talking to the fucking dogs!” Jon’s voice makes me leap off my seat.

Mum looks almost too shocked to speak. Or even move.

“This is your child.” Jon gestures at me. “Not that.” He jerks a thumb at a dog and gets up from the sofa in an abrupt movement. Both Mum and I gaze up at him, transfixed, as he walks over to the fireplace, ruffling his hair, ignoring the dogs clustering around him. “Now, I care about your daughter. She may not realize it, but I do.” He focuses directly on Mum. “Maybe you want to get through life in a state of denial. Maybe it helps you. But it doesn’t help Lexi.”

“What are you talking about?” I say helplessly. “Mum, what happened at the funeral?”

Mum’s hands are fluttering around her face as though to protect herself. “It was rather…unpleasant.”

“Life can be unpleasant,” Jon says bluntly. “It’s even more unpleasant if you don’t know about it. And if you don’t tell Lexi, I will. Because she told me, you see.” He crunches the last of his biscuit.

“All right! What happened was…” Mum’s voice descends into a whisper.

“What?”

“The bailiffs came!” Her cheeks are growing pink with distress. “Right in the middle of the party.”

“Bailiffs? But…”

“They came with no warning. Five of them.” She’s staring straight ahead, stroking the dog on her lap with an obsessive repetitive motion. “They wanted to repossess the house. Take all the furniture, everything. It turned out your father hadn’t been…totally honest with me. Or anybody.”

“Show her the second DVD,” says Jon. “Don’t tell me you don’t know where it is.”

There’s a pause, then without looking at either of us, Mum gets up, roots in a drawer, and finds a blank, shiny disc. She puts it into the machine and the three of us sit back.

“Darlings.” Dad is on the screen again, in the same room as in the other DVD, in the same plushy dressing gown. The same charming twinkle as he faces the camera. “If you’re watching this, I’ve popped it. And there’s something you should know. But this one’s not for…public consumption, shall we say.” He takes a deep puff on his cigar, frowning regretfully. “There’s been a bit of a catastrophe on the old moolah front. Didn’t mean to land you in it. You girls are clever-you’ll find a way to sort it out.” He considers for a moment. “But if you’re stuck, ask old Dickie Hawford. He should be good for a bit. Cheers, m’dears.” He lifts his glass up-then the screen goes dark. I wheel around to Mum.

“What did he mean, ‘catastrophe’?”

“He meant he’d remortgaged the entire house.” Her voice is trembling. “That was his real message. That DVD arrived in the post a week after the funeral. But it was too late! The bailiffs had visited! What were we supposed to do?” She’s stroking the whippet harder and harder, until, with a sudden yelp, it escapes from her grasp.

“So…what did we do?”

“We would have had to sell up. Move to another area. Amy would have been taken out of school…” Her hands are fluttering around her face again. “So my brother very kindly stepped in. And so did my sister. And…and so did you. You said you’d pay off the mortgage. As much as you could afford.”

“Me?”

I sink back into the sofa, my mind reeling with shock, trying to fit this into the picture. I agreed to pay off Dad’s debts.

“Is it an offshore mortgage?” I say suddenly. “Is the bank called Uni…something?”

She nods. “Most of Daddy’s dealings were offshore. Trying to avoid the tax man. I don’t know why he couldn’t just be honest-”

“Said the woman who kept her daughter in the dark!” expostulates Jon. “How can you even say that?”

I can’t help catching some of his exasperation.

“Mum, you knew I couldn’t remember the funeral. You didn’t tell me any of this. Can’t you see how it might have…made things clearer for me? I had no idea where that money was going.”

“It’s been very difficult!” Mum’s eyes are swiveling from side to side. “I’ve been trying to keep it quiet for Amy’s sake.”

“But-” I break off as something else even darker occurs to me. “Mum…I have another question. Was Dad ever in prison?”

Mum winces as though I’ve trodden on her toe.

“Briefly, darling. A long time ago…It was a misunderstanding. Let’s not dwell on that. I’ll make some more coffee.”

“No!” In frustration I leap to my feet and stand right in front of her, trying to get her single-minded attention. “Mum, listen! You can’t just live in a bubble, pretending nothing’s happened. Amy’s right! You have to break out of this…this time warp.”

“Lexi!” Mum says sharply, but I ignore her.

“Amy heard about Dad going to prison. She got the idea it’s cool. No wonder she’s been getting in so much trouble… Jesus!” Suddenly the pieces of my life are slotting together like a Tetris puzzle. “That’s why I suddenly got ambitious. That’s why I was so single-minded. That funeral changed everything.”

“You told me what happened,” Jon says. “When the bailiffs arrived, she went to bits.” He glances scornfully at Mum. “You had to hold them off, Lexi; you had to make the decisions. You took it all on yourself.”

“Stop looking at me as though it’s all my fault!” Mum suddenly cries out, her voice shrill and quivering. “Stop heaping blame on me! You have no idea about my life, none! Your father, that man-”

She breaks off, the words hanging in the air, and I catch my breath as her blue eyes meet mine. For the first time that I can remember, my mother sounds…true.

The room is totally still. I hardly dare speak.

“What about Dad?” My sotto voce whisper still feels too loud. “Mum, tell me.”

But it’s too late. Already the moment’s over. Mum’s eyes are shifting sideways, avoiding me. With a sudden pang I see her as though for the first time: her hair girlish in its Alice band, her hands wrinkled, Dad’s ring still on her finger. Even as I watch, she’s feeling for a dog’s head and starting to pat it.

“It’s nearly lunchtime, Agnes!” Her voice is bright and brittle. “Let’s see what we can find you-”

“Mum, please.” I take a step forward. “You can’t stop there. What were you going to say?”

I don’t know what exactly I’m hoping for-but as she looks up I can tell I’m not going to get it. Her face is opaque again, as though nothing just happened.

“I was simply going to say”-already she’s regaining her old martyred spirit-“that before you start blaming me for everything in your life, Lexi, that chap had a lot to answer for. That boyfriend of yours at the funeral. Dave? David? He’s the one you should be accusing.”

“Loser Dave?” I stare at her, thrown. “But…Loser Dave wasn’t at the funeral. He told me he offered to come but I turned him down. He said…” I peter out as I see Jon just shaking his head, his eyes raised to heaven.

“What else did he tell you?”

“He said we broke up that morning, and that it was beautiful, and that he gave me a single rose…” Oh God. What was I thinking, even half-believing him? “Excuse me.”

I march outside into the drive, fueled with frustration at Mum, at Dad, at myself for being so gullible. Whipping my mobile phone from my pocket, I direct-dial Loser Dave’s office.

“Auto Repair Workshop,” comes his businesslike voice down the line. “Dave Lewis at your service.”

“Loser Dave, it’s me,” I say, my voice steely. “Lexi. I need to hear about our breakup again. And this time I need to hear the truth.”

“Babe, I told you the truth.” He sounds supremely confident. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one.”

I want to wallop him.

“Listen, you fuckhead,” I say in slow, furious tones. “I’m at the neurological specialist’s office right now, okay? They say someone has been giving me wrong information and it’s messing up my neural memory pathways. And if it isn’t corrected, I’ll get permanent brain damage.”

“Jesus.” He sounds shaken. “Straight up?”

He really is stupider than one of Mum’s whippets.

“Yeah. The specialist’s with me right now, trying to correct my memory circuits. So maybe you want to try again with the truth? Or maybe you’d like to speak to the doctor?”

“No! Okay!” He sounds totally unnerved. I can just picture him breathing harder, running a finger around his collar. “Maybe it wasn’t exactly like I told you. I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me from what? Did you come to the funeral?”

“Yeah, I came along,” he says after a pause. “I was handing out canapés. Being helpful. Giving you support.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then I…” He clears his throat.

“What?”

“Shagged one of the waitresses. It was the emotional stress!” he adds defensively. “It makes us all do crazy things. I thought I’d locked the door-”

“I walked in on you?” I say in disbelief.

“Yeah. We weren’t naked or anything. Well, obviously a bit-”

“Stop!” I thrust the phone away from me.

I need a few moments to take all this in. Breathing hard, I crunch over the gravel, sit down on the garden wall, and look at the field of sheep opposite, ignoring the “Lexi! Lexi!” coming from the phone.

I caught Loser Dave two-timing me. Well, of course I did. I’m not even that surprised.

At last I lift the phone back to my ear. “So, how did I react? And don’t say I gave you a rose and it was beautiful.”

“Well.” Loser Dave breathes out. “To be honest, you went ballistic. You started yelling about your life. Your whole life had to change, it was all crap, you hated me, you hated everything… I’m telling you, Lexi, it was extreme. I tried to calm you down, give you a prawn sandwich. But you weren’t interested. You stormed out.”

“Then what?”

“Then I didn’t see you again. Next time I clapped eyes on you, you were on the telly, looking totally different.”

“Right.” I watch two birds circling in the sky. “You know, you could have told me the truth, first time around.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, I am.” He sounds as genuine as I’ve ever heard him. “And I’m sorry I shagged that girl. And I’m sorry for what she called you, that was well out of order.”

I sit up, suddenly alert. “What did she call me?”

“Oh. You don’t remember,” he says hastily. “Er…nothing. I don’t remember either.”

“What was it?” I stand up, clutching the phone tighter. “Tell me what she called me! Loser Dave!”

“I gotta go. Good luck with the doctor.” He rings off. I immediately redial his number, but it’s busy. Little sod.

I march into the house to find Jon still sitting on the sofa, reading a copy of Whippet World.

“Hi!” His face lights up. “How did it go?”

“What did the waitress call me at the funeral?”

At once Jon looks evasive. “I don’t know what you mean. Hey, have you ever read Whippet World?” He holds it up. “Because it’s a surprisingly good-”

“You do know what I mean.” I sit down beside him and pull his chin around so he has to look at me. “I know I told you. Tell me.”

Jon sighs. “Lexi, it’s a tiny detail. Why does it matter?”

“Because…it just does. Look, Jon, you can’t lecture my mum about denial and then not tell me something which happened in my own life, which I deserve to know. Tell me what that waitress called me. Now.” I glare at him.

“All right!” Jon lifts his hands as though in defeat. “If you have to know, she called you…Dracula.”

Dracula? In spite of myself-in spite of the fact that I know my teeth aren’t snaggly anymore-I can feel my cheeks staining with mortification.

“Lexi-” Jon’s wincing, as he reaches for my hand.

“No.” I shake him off. “I’m fine.”

My face still hot, I stand up and head over to the window, trying to picture the scene, trying to put myself back in my own chewed-up, flat-heeled Lexi shoes. It’s 2004. I didn’t get a bonus. It’s my dad’s funeral. The bailiffs have just arrived to bankrupt us. I come across my boyfriend screwing a waitress…and she takes one look at me and calls me Dracula.

Okay. Things are starting to make sense.