“Don’t torture yourself,” Ollie said, putting some toast on my plate to try and distract me. It usually worked with carbs.
I began to read the tweets and felt my stomach drop.I used to be a fan of his, but this is sick, said one.Can’t believe my favourite writer is caught up in all this shit, said another.How could he have been with that fucker?asked a commenter. He can claim he didn’t have a clue, but I bet he knew all about it.
Ollie took my phone out of my hand. “Hey!” I snapped.
“That’s enough now, Arden.” He had upped the Scottishness in his voice. Not the Dumfries accent that was mocked by other Scots for the way they talked at a million miles a minute. No, this was his serious barristervoice with a pronounced sonorous burr. A voice that gave gravitas to everything he said. “Torturing yourself is not the best idea.”
Not to be dramatic or anything but I started crying. “Oh, no, babe. Come on, hey, hey, this will all blow over.” He held both my hands in his before coming around the table to crouch down in front of me.
“I’m never gonna be free of him, am I? It’s always gonna come back up. I only …” I tried to avoid Ollie’s eye. “I only started dating him to try and get over you.” I didn’t know why I’d told him that, because the look on Ollie’s face was one of undeniable hurt. I wasn’t even sure if it was true. Yes, I’d jumped in with both feet into a relationship with Tarquin much faster than I might have normally. Partly because he was charming and gorgeous and we clicked, but because I was in my thirties now and I thought that was how it worked when you were a bit older. You didn’t have all the jittery angst of your twenties. You were surer.
I didn’t have a lot of time left of being passably attractive if I wanted to meet someone, so best grab the first one that comes along. Everyone knew the lay of the land, and if you liked someone, you went for it.
Ollie had been silent for a while.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
He gave me a wan smile. “Yeah, but you did, and it’s not an unfair comment to make.”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes. “Okay, new strategy. How about I try not to throw everything back in your face and blame you for all my fuck ups, and you keep my phone away from me when I start to obsess?” I was trying for levity but probably failing. “I’m not sure what you get from the next week, but you’d be helping me immensely.”
He looked up at me, and slowly a grin crept over his face. “I get to hang out for a week with my best friend. Sounds like a win to me.”
He returned to his seat and tapped my plate with his fork. “Eat. I did not spend I-don’t-want-to-admit-how-long trying to figure out the buttons on Verity’s oven, which is like something out of fuckingStar Trek, to have you ignore my very fashionable brunch.”
I sniffled a bit more. “True. You could charge £20 for this in Shoreditch.”
“Right?” he said.
I sighed. Perhaps this was the worst of it.
It was not the worst of it. In fact, Tuesday was much worse as several other MPs and public figures had their nudes leaked in what the media called ‘copycat attacks’.
“I have never seen Laura Kuenssberg look so awkward,” Ollie said from beside me on the sofa on Tuesday night as we finished off the bottle of wine we’d opened with dinner.
“She did have to say the word ‘frottage’ on the ten o’clock news,” I countered.
Ollie grunted in agreement. “Honestly, I thought that Yorkshire MP’s pegging habits being exposed was much worse. His wife doesn’t look the sort.”
“How do we know it was the wife doing it?” I asked.
“They issued a statement this afternoon saying it was an invasion of their privacy. If he’d been getting pegged by busty Britney from down the Coach & Horses, I think she’d have been less inclined to use ‘we’ all the way through the statement.”
“Good point,” I said. “Maybe she watches him and Britney going at it?”
Ollie cringed. “I think I just lost the ability to ever sustain an erection at the thought.”
Monday had been dire. I’d spent most of it in a daze, wandering about in the garden with Kenny while Ollie cooked various dishes for us to have over the week. In the evening, Verity called. “I’ve spoken to your girl Nigella, she’s ace by the way. Anyway, we’ve drafted a statement. I’m gonna run it by a few more PR people tonight and release it tomorrow. But we’re still on lockdown.”
Nigella texted me later to ask how I was.Your cottage was inundated all day, sadly. Crowd of reporters outside. Village crawling with them. Horrible. Honningtons is inaccessible unless you know paths in from the back through the woods.
How’s Guy?I texted back.
About as well as you can expectshe’d answered. All this and Jed. Hopefully just some random and not a homicidal maniac running around the place. Again.
Sonia had called and expressed sympathy, and, weirdly, this morning I’d had a text from Simon.Heard you got out in time. Riz and I wanted to check you were okay?
I ignored the text. Instead, for the past several hours, I’d been trying to think of something to write to Guy. Currently, the cursor in the empty message box was flashing at me in a garish manner, reminding me of its lack of sympathetic words.
