“What picture?” Joanne is so demure and composed, I know she has to be taking the mick. She raises her eyebrows at both of them and shakes her head. “I beg your pardon, but what picture?”
Harriet and Mary’s facial expressions speak of sheer, yet rehearsed, panic. I can practically see the cogs in their heads spinning behind their eyeballs.
Harriet comes up with the solution first, bursting out in giggles. “I mean, I can’t say I’d say no to Dominic Graves myself.”
“Do you know I had a poster of him on my wall when I was a girl,” Mary says, resting her chin on the backs of her fingers. “Oh he was fit wasn’t he.”
“Still is,” Harriet mutters out of the side of her mouth, and they both erupt into laughter. “But you do have to wonder about it, don’t you? I mean, what do we think about a woman dating the son and the father?”
“Sounds like the plot of a movie I’d go see at the pictures.” Harriet nudges Joanne with her elbow, who returns the gesture with a tight smile and a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t see the problem, personally.” Joanne’s voice is clear and concise, and both Harriet and Mary again seem to scramble for a daytime-tv acceptable response.
“You alright?” Char whispers, and I realise I’m clutching her hand tightly in one hand, and the coffee cup to the point of almost smashing in the other.
“I’m fine,” I mutter back, still transfixed on the television.
“You know what?” Joanne goes on, Harriet and Mary still gazing at her in a sprung panic. “I think it’s actually quite shameful how everyone is talking about Mia Brookes. All this tittering about that photo, about her making her way through the family, one article called her the Yoko Ono of Arlington?” She shakes her shoulders, smoothing her fingers through the side of her hair. “I can’t think of anything worse than having such a private chapter of my life plastered all over the papers and social media like this.”
Mary gives her an indulgent smile. “Now, Joanne, I mean, I can understand people asking questions. Going from the son to the father, well, isn’t that rather-”
“What?” Joanne snaps, her eyebrows raised. “Are we going to villainise a woman for falling in love with a man who is, for all intents and purposes, treating her well after her husband, yes?” Joanne taps a pointed finger into the table. “Her husband? Cheated on her. Because something that is being forgotten in all these smug conversations everyone keeps having about Mia and Dominic is that Archie Graves abandoned his wife, and his club, in the middle of the season. But Mia is the one being blamed for trouble at Arlington?” Joanne shakes her head emphatically. “No, absolutely not. This is just everyone feeding back into some toxic patriarchal system where men are babies and women are evil.”
Char looks over at me, slack-jawed. “Joanne Murray’s going out to bat for you?”
I shake my head, looking back at the television set. “But why? I had no idea she even liked me.”
“Now Joanne, they weren’t even divorced yet,” Harriet says, clasping her hands on the table as though she’s trying her best to look reasonable. “Don’t you think it’s a bit too fast to be moving on, whether it’s with her ex-husband’s father or anyone else?”
Joanne glares down her nose across the table. “It is very evident to me you’ve never been in a dead marriage, Harriet, and you are very lucky for it. I was married for years to a man who could not stand me, and let me know, and still I stayed. To mourn what I would never have for years before it was finally over. And for everything we know about Archie Graves and his treatment of that poor woman, I dare say Mia went through the same thing I did.”
The entire studio falls silent, and Harriet’s anxious glance flits from the audience, to the camera, then back to Joanne.
“Joanne, I’m sure our personal experiences will all make us feel very differently about this situation, but-”
“No, no, we have no right to feel anything about this situation.” Joanne straightens up in her chair, placing a steepled hand on the table. “This is a relationship between two consenting adults who appear to genuinely care about each other, and it is none of our business. Any trouble at Arlington came about because of Archie Graves, not the owner’s private life, and certainly not the offended party who was cheated on very publicly. Do you have any idea how humiliating that would have been for Mia?”
Both Mary and Harriet drop their gazes. They mumble some agreement, and I’m sure they’re going to cut to a commercial, but the camera stays on the three of them. Joanne sniffs, and smoothes her silk blouse with a jerk of her delicate fingers.
“I have most certainly not seen that picture because I cannot imagine gawping over something so intensely intimate for my own entertainment,” Joanne says. “I wish Mia Brookes nothing but the best, and Dominic as well. Goodness knows that family has dealt with enough tragedy.”
Mary looks up at the camera with a weak smile. “Indeed, Joanne. Now, after the break, we all love a getaway in the Spanish sun, but have you ever considered Albania? More after this.”
The show cuts to a commercial break, and Char clicks off the tv. She slumps into the couch next to me with a heavy sigh.
“Bloody hell,” she murmurs, covering her mouth with her hand. “Joanne Murray, ey? Who’d have thought it?”
“Yeah.” I stare at the black screen of the tv, still dumbstruck.
“Are you alright?” Char reaches out to place a warm hand on my arm. “This is all probably a bit much right now.”
I shake my head, swallowing hard and scrambling to find the words as my brain runs a million miles a minute. “Dom told me people were talking shit in the press.”
“Because people are bloody stupid,” Char snaps. “And they’re going to say stupid things, like Harriet fucking Osborne just did. ‘I have to wonder if those things are linked’.” Char growls out an angry breath. “Stupid twat. I’m going to make her life hell.”
I give Char a smile. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She’s still scowling, and runs a hand through her hair. “This is all just so wrong.” She lifts her eyes to mine in a questioning side glance. “But you are alright? You know this is all just this week’s scandal, and next week it’ll be over.”
