‘No.’
‘But he wants to see other people as well as you?’
Gabi nodded, looking even more broken.
At that point the milk boiled, foaming over the edge of the saucepan and hitting the stainless-steel hob with a hiss. Anna jumped up, grabbed the pan, and took it off the heat. Then she looked at the mess. ‘Stuff it,’ she said, leaving the saucepan on the counter and heading in the direction of the living room. ‘Forget hot chocolate. There’s only one drink for situations like this.’
She returned with two glasses of Lagavulin and set one down in front of Gabi.
‘Whisky?’ Gabi said, frowning.
‘You’ll thank me later,’ Anna replied and dropped back into her chair. She and Gabi looked each other in the eye, raised their glasses, swallowed, then grimaced in unison.
Gabi coughed, then said something in Portuguese that her mother probably wouldn’t have approved of. She closed her eyes and placed a hand at the base of her throat, seemingly concentrating on something. When she opened her eyes again, she handed Anna her glass. ‘Another.’
Anna went to fetch the bottle and placed it on the table between them. ‘So… What did you say to him?’
Gabi knocked back a second whisky and replaced her glass on the table with a satisfying thud. ‘I told him he could see as many girls as he wanted, but that I was not going to be one of them.’
‘Good for you! And then what did you do? Did anyone need stitches?’
Gabi shook her head, and then a tiny smile curled her lips, almost in spite of herself. ‘When I walked out the restaurant, he waswearingthe tiramisu.’
Anna laughed. She raised her glass and toasted Gabi’s moxie.
Gabi’s smile faded. She stared at her empty glass for a few seconds and then she slumped on the table again, her long hair spilling over her arms, and started to cry. Anna got up, went around the table and crouched down beside her, hugging her and rubbing her back. ‘Do you want to stay here tonight?’
The rustling of the curls on the tabletop told Anna that Gabi was nodding. She started to cry even harder.
Anna kept crouching beside her, kept holding her. It was all she could do. And that made her heart break. If there were something she could do to stop it – invent a pill, perform a challenge set by the gods, step into Gabi’s body and take it herself – she would. But she knew she couldn’t. Just as Gabi hadn’t been able to do it for her.
Anna led Gabi upstairs and showed her to the guest bedroom. She found toiletries and a fresh toothbrush and handed over a spare set of pyjamas. Once Gabi was changed and ready, she climbed into bed and lay there on the freshly plumped pillows.She looked utterly exhausted, beyond thought, beyond speech.
Anna knew what this felt like: when you were so wrung out from all the emotion that all you wanted to do was be by yourself and curl into a little ball. Hide under the duvet and pretend the outside world didn’t exist.
Once again, she forgave Gabi for all the ‘meddling’ over the last few years. Watching her best friend go through this for one night was bad enough; it must have been awful for Gabi to have to do it week on week, month on month, year on year. No wonder that sometimes she’d got a little pushy.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
BRODY SAT IN his armchair and coughed. That dodgy spring was definitely on its last legs. He could feel it sticking into his left buttock. Terrific. He shifted position and placed a mug on the small table that stood between the chair and the fireplace. It was his usual dram of whisky, but this time he’d added hot water, lemon and a pinch of cinnamon. He’d woken up this morning feeling clammy and feverish, and now his nose had started to run. Even more terrific.
He picked up his phone, pressed a sequence of buttons and called Anna’s number.
‘Hi,’ she said, but he could hardly hear her.
‘I think there’s something wrong with the connection,’ he told her. ‘I’ll hang up and try again.’
‘No! Don’t do that!’ There was some muffled noise, as if she was walking to another place in the house. He heard a door close, and then she continued. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the line. I was just whispering.’
‘Oh, okay,’ he said, dropping his volume level and tone to match hers. ‘And why are we whispering?’
‘I’ve got someone staying with me.’
Brody’s stomach dropped. He deliberately hadn’t asked about this Jeremy guy,even though he was aware she’d been seeing him for a few weeks, but this was a new development.
‘Sorry…’ she added.
Not as sorry as he was.
