Cass flopped down on the sofa and put her feet up on the coffee table. ‘Long.’
‘You’re amazing, you know?’
‘Yes, but I enjoy hearing you tell me.’
I threw a cushion at Cass, who caught it and threw it back. ‘I mean it. The work you do, all those people you help. You really are a miracle worker.’
Cass let out her throaty laugh and pulled her knees up to her chin. She yawned loudly. ‘I think you have a romanticised view of what I do on the ward. Today, a lot of my work involved bottoms and everything they produce.’
I grimaced. ‘Let me fetch you a glass of wine.’
‘Thanks,’ said Cass, as I handed her a glass. ‘How was your day? How’s Dad?’
‘Dad seemed fine. Frustrated by his speech, but that’s nothing new.’
‘Get anywhere with the grim-laws?’
‘No. Can you believe I almost felt sorry for Marion?’
Cass leaned over and placed the back of her hand against my forehead. ‘Just checking you're not running a fever. For a second, I thought you said you felt sorry for Marion.’
‘I said Ialmostfelt sorry for her. But then she ruined it by being a mean old cow and my generous feelings evaporated.’
‘How much have they lost?’
‘Not as much as me. They haven’t had their house taken from under them, not yet, anyway. There was no car in the drive, so I wonder if they’ve had to sell it, but Marion wasn’t about to divulge that kind of information. I asked if she knew where Rob was, but she said she didn’t.’
‘You believe her?’
‘Yeah.’ I took a sip of my wine. ‘I think she’s as clueless as I am. No doubt she’ll rewrite history and this whole mess will be anyone’s fault but Rob’s by the time she tells the sorry saga to her friends at bridge club.’
‘I know this is risky, seeing as you’ve not technically separated, but I’ve been dying to say it for years.’
‘Go on…’
‘Rob’s a total arsehole, and in no way, shape or form good enough for you. What the hell did you ever see in him?’
I shrugged, swilling the wine around in my glass, thinking back over our marriage. Rob had seemed so exotic when we met in our final year of uni. He was from the kind of world I’d only ever read about in books. I’d fought hard to be an academic match for my Oxford peers, but I’d had no way of building the self-confidence which came from a life of privilege. Those kinds of lessons had been distinctly lacking at my state comprehensive.
Rob had found me looking lost and confused during a formal dinner and dance. He’d swept in like a romantic hero, guiding me through the social norms and conventions he’d absorbed since birth. All the hours spent rowing for the university teamhad honed his body to perfection, and when he removed his jacket, the straining of his shirt across his biceps had sent heat surging through my body.
We had drunk too much, danced all night, and when he invited me back to his room, of course, I’d agreed. During freshers’ week, I’d set myself the rule of no one-night stands. Virginity seemed too precious a commodity to squander on a fling.
But oh, Rob was good. He knew exactly how to play it, to play me. He’d insisted he wanted nothing more than a nightcap and conversation and for the first hour I was in his room, he’d kept to that promise. Then he’d told me he was tired, and laid his head on my shoulder. His floppy blonde hair tickled my skin and an unfamiliar warmth filled my stomach. The next thing I knew, he’d lifted an arm and was gently scratching the bare skin of my back with his fingernails. Rather than thinking this odd, it sent a flood of tingly feelings through me I’d never experienced before. I imagined them like colourful shapes, jostling around, scratching my insides in a spine-tingling way, or sherbet, fizzing inside me. From that moment, I’d been putty in his hands.
I had put up no resistance when he suggested we move to the bed. I said nothing when he began unzipping my dress. When he put a hand in my bra I let out a whimper, but nothing that could be construed as ano. He’d pulled off my knickers, but I’d been too shocked by the salute from his trousers to notice.
Afterwards, even the ache in the pit of my stomach buried itself beneath a kaleidoscope of pleasure. Rob had suggested I go back to my dorm, as his scout disapproved of overnight guests. At the time, it seemed like a genuine suggestion, a good man doing the right thing. When he still hadn’t called me after three days, I consoled myself that he was busy with finals.
By the time I found out I was pregnant, Robert Simmons had become nothing more than a smudge of humiliation on mysoul, a man who had taken the one thing I’d kept sacred, then abandoned me once he’d had his fill.
‘Earth to Liv?’
‘Oh, sorry,’ I said, shaking my head free of the eight-year-old humiliation. ‘What were you saying?’
‘I was asking what you saw in Rob?’
‘Nothing.’
