‘What happened exactly?’ I ask.
‘I’ve already told you.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t catch it.’ I can’t possibly have heard him right. ‘Something about cheese?’
‘I said, someone put a cheese slice between the pages of that book. I don’t think that happened in transit, do you?’
I gaze around the soulless bar, trying to take this in. ‘Processed cheese,’ he adds hotly.
‘You mean… like a Dairylea slice?’
‘I s’pose so, yes!’
‘Put in between the pages? Like a bookmark or something?—’
‘I’m not finding this funny, Josie.’
‘Neither am I! So are you…’ My heart is rattling and I’m finding it hard to form the right words. ‘You mean you’re actually accusing me of doing this?’
‘You packaged the order,’ Rupert announces. ‘No one else touched it?—’
‘Why on earth d’you think I’d do something like that?’
‘I have no idea!’
Without warning, tears flood my eyes. ‘You think – you mean, you really think—’ My voice wobbles and I break off, aware that my tears are about to spill over. Furiously, I will my body to suck them back in.
‘I can’t talk about this now,’ I mutter. ‘I’ll see you on Monday.’ With that, I finish the call and beckon Shane to come over and join me.
He takes a seat and gives me a concerned look. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Just a work thing.’ I place my phone face down on the table. ‘My boss can be an idiot sometimes.’
I’m aware of him scanning my face, as if trying to figure out whether I want to talk about it. ‘It’s nothing,’ I say firmly. ‘Anyway, I, erm… I realised I wasn’t remotely tired any more and wouldn’t be able to sleep, so?—’
‘Me too.’ He smiles, looking sheepish, as if acknowledging that we’ve caught each other out. ‘I need this, to be honest,’ he says, lifting his glass.
‘Same.’ I smile and sip my wine, which is bland and acidic – a step down, if that were possible, from the cheap stuff I usually drink at home, but somehow weirdly delicious.
‘I’m sorry,’ Shane starts, ‘but I haven’t even asked what you do.’
‘My job?’ I bite my lip, conscious of my heartbeat returning to something like normal. ‘I work in a bookshop just off Piccadilly. A little independent place specialising in art books.’
‘Oh, lovely!’
I make a spluttery noise and he looks at me quizzically. And then – because he suggests another drink, and I can’t think of a reason not to – I splurge it all out: about Rupert, the cheese, his accusation. ‘You’re kidding!’ Shane exclaims. ‘As if you’d do something like that.’ And somehow this breaks the ice and conversation starts to flow. He asks about other jobs I’ve had – temping, bar work, whatever I could fit around Cora’s school hours – and tells me about his shop.
‘Musical instruments?’ I marvel. ‘Wow. That’s brilliant.’
I look across the table at him, at the clearly sorted man he’s become. The kind of man who’s ‘totally amicable’ with his ex. It wasn’t like that with Dale – Cora’s dad – and me. I’d tumbled into a relationship with him off the back of the whole Shane/Ravi/band debacle. Here was something I could throw myself into, I’d thought. With no real prospects, I’d jumped at the chance to move to London together because, well, wouldn’t that be fun?
London had everything, we reckoned. Endless opportunities for adventure and larks. Dale knew of a room going in a house share in Camden, so we moved into that. This could have been written off as a youthful error but somehow, punctuated by many break-ups and reconciliations, at twenty-nine, I had our baby. The pregnancy hadn’t been planned but it surprised me how delighted I was. However, within six months of Cora being born, I could no longer handle Dale and his stoner mates getting off their heads around her – and we were over for good. Reluctantly, he moved in with a friend, and for weeks afterwards, he’d turn up drunk, trying to barge his way into the flat. Crazed letters were pushed through my letterbox and once, two enormous Hawaiian pizzas were sent round by him, which I took as his way of trying to ‘help’.
Shane sips his beer and looks thoughtful. ‘I feel really bad about losing touch,’ he says.
‘With Ravi?’ I ask. ‘Yes, me too. It’s awful, really. It shouldn’t have happened.’
He sighs, nodding. ‘Why d’you think she wanted us to do this?’
