“He fought it. They suspended him while they were looking into it. I believe there was some explicit stuff in the letter, so it was thought necessary. Basically, it spiraled. And then, a little bit later, the pupil, who had denied knowing anything about it at first, came forward to say that he’d had a previous letter from that same teacher but had thrown it away. That was enough. The teacher lost his job.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know,” Jayne says.
“Why did the pupil come forward?”
Jayne shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Did Edie ask them to?”
“Maybe.”
“Or one of the others?”
“You’d have to ask Paul.”
“Paul can’t have known. He was a member of staff.”
Before she can think better of it, Jayne laughs at Emily’s naivety. “He knew. He was just as protective of Edie as the others were. I believe the staff member Edie targeted was unpopular with their group, Paul included.”
Her words sink through Emily.
“But Paul doesn’t lie,” she says.
“Everybody lies.”
Jayne’s right, Ruth thinks. Everybody. No matter how vociferously they claim that they don’t. She refills her glass and tops up Jayne’s. Emily still hasn’t touched hers.
“No. They don’t.” Emily needs to believe this. That there are people in the world who are strong enough to do the right thing for the person they love. “When Paul asked me to marry him, I said, ‘I’ll marry you if you agree to one thing: Never lie.’”
Jayne thinks of Paul’s lifestyle, now, of his success in business. Who gets that far by playing one hundred percent by the book? Does Emily really believe this? “And what did Paul say?” she asks.
“He agreed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What? You don’t believe me?”
“I believe he said it, I don’t believe he’s never lied to you.”
Jayne sees a hard, bright challenge in Emily’s eyes. It’s new to her.
Emily leans toward Jayne. “Are you saying this because you don’t approve of our marriage? You think I’m a gold-digger and he’s a cradle-snatcher? It’s not like that. I’m not after his money. Do you know why I told him he has to be honest with me? It’s because I love him. Because we’re meant to be together. He is my forever guy, believe it or not. And I know that here.”
Emily presses a palm to her heart, covers it with her other hand. A grand, ancient gesture, it seems to Ruth. Something like the marble statues she and Toby have seen on holiday in Italy. She’s impressed by it.
“Of course, we don’t think that!” she interjects but the other women don’t pay attention to her. She knows she shouldn’t be oversensitive, but she feels chastised and withdraws into herself a little and realizes that she’s already more drunk than she probably should be.
She can’t deny that her jealousy of Emily is growing, because she and Toby are not close like Emily is describing her relationshipwith Paul. There has never been a grand passion between Ruth and Toby. Friendship, yes. A passable sex life, yes, nothing too exciting but quite nice in its way. Intellectual compatibility, sure. They admire each other’s achievements, or they used to. Ruth is convinced that this, too, has been a casualty of Alfie, as if she was relegated in status to just a body, a vessel, as soon as the baby began to grow in her, and that didn’t change after the birth. If anything, it became worse.
Unexpectedly, Jayne also finds herself moved by Emily’s speech because she shares Emily’s belief in the possibility of finding the exact right partner. In Mark, Jayne is convinced she’s found the one man she’s supposed to be with.
But Jayne’s also irritated by Emily’s naivety and the urge to correct her is strong. This is what bonding means to Jayne: protection. Hard truths. Better to know everything than to be surprised.
“Everybody lies,” she repeats.
Maggie Elliott folds sheets. She enjoys the feel of the clean fabric, the smell of washing detergent as it wafts into the room. John isn’t home yet. Her anxiety is peaking.
