‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ he groaned, agonised. ‘When I first moved in, I planned to stay distant. And I thought you wanted me here to cover the rent, but also because you knew it would piss off the boyfriend you hoped would come back. I convinced myself thatneitherof us was being fully honest.’
He had her there. While Rosie had never seriously believed James would come running at the news that she’d moved another man in – and although she’d quickly arrived at the conclusion that she didn’t actuallywanthim to – her motives for choosing Aled as a flatmate had been murkier than she cared to admit.
Shoving this thought aside, she said: ‘We’ve been living together formonths. You could have told me at any time. After everything I went through with James, did it not occur to you that I might value honesty?’
‘I kept trying to bring it up, but something always got in the way. And the more time we spent together, the more I liked you. The harder it became to risk ruining everything.’
‘What evenisthere to ruin?’ Rosie demanded, feeling tears begin to trace their way down her cheeks. ‘You let me think you genuinely cared about me, when all the time you were planning to sell this place out from under me the moment your sums added up.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Aled insisted, agitated now.
‘Was sleeping with me just an added bonus?’ Rosie asked, her fury breaking. ‘A last bit of fun before fucking off to some far-flung place for good? I mean, presumably you could live off the profit from selling this place for years. What’s it worth? A million quid? Two? Good for you, I suppose. That’ll buy you a lot of beers on Thai beaches.’
‘You can’t seriously mean that,’ he ground out, his face flushed, pained with outrage. ‘I held myself back from you for weeks –months– from the very firstday. I’ve been terrified this whole time that you’d hate me for everconsideringselling this flat, and simultaneously frightened that I’d become some stopgap between proper boyfriends – between James and the one you settle down with. It was weak of me not to put it all out there before starting something with you, I admit. I fucked up. But I did it because I was scared, not because I’m cynical.’
‘But you seem to thinkI’mcynical,’ Rosie retorted. ‘What do you think I’d want astopgapfor? Revenge? Kudos? A confidence boost?’
‘You wouldn’t be the first person to find my “hidden depths” disappointingly dull,’ he said, raking a hand through his hair in dismay.
‘Oh, great,’ Rosie said indignantly. ‘So I’m shallow as well as selfish and manipulative.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You don’t say much, to be fair – and I knew that from the beginning,’ she snapped, unable to resist resorting to sarcasm. ‘But there’s a point at which being evasive segues into being dishonest. Into lying by omission.’
‘You’re right, and I’m sorry. Please can we just—’
‘No. I’m really not sure we can,’ Rosie interrupted. ‘I trusted you absolutely. I never doubted a thing you said to me. Now I feel like an idiot – like I should have been thinking about all the things youdidn’tsay, what the silences might have meant. All those letters from estate agents … The ones that came stamped with your solicitor’s logo. You waved them away as if they meant nothing. What afoolI must be not to have put two and two together.’
‘I’ve never lied to you, and I never will,’ Aled said hotly. ‘You haven’t let me explain properly. There’s still stuff you don’t know.’
‘And whose fault is that?’
As Rosie’s near-shouted words hung between them, the trill of a mobile phone ringtone cut through the air. For a few seconds, she felt sure it couldn’t be hers; this was some unfamiliar tune in a depressingly minor key, not the jaunty melody she was used to. Then, bewildered, she realised it was definitely coming from her handbag.
The penny dropped. This was the dirge-like tone she’d tipsily attached to Michael’s contact details in her phone on a night out with Niamh. She’d been bemoaning his latest put-down and – having imbibed copious amounts of fizzy wine – Niamh had also encouraged her to replace his photo with a picture of a street sign that read ‘Bell End’.
What the hell wasMichaelringing her for? They never spoke unless forced to by close physical proximity.
All at once, her mother’s rambling concerns about Colin’s supposedly failing health came back to Rosie; she thought of all the text messages she’d recently ignored, imploring her to come home and encourage him to consciously uncouple from the sofa.
She scrambled to find the phone before it stopped ringing, and breathlessly swiped to answer it.
‘Michael?’ she said into the handset. ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’
This wasn’t melodrama – it was cutting to the chase. There was no way he’d call her unless something terrible had happened.
‘It’s Mum,’ Michael said, his voice thick with emotion.
‘Mum?’ Rosie burst out, unable to keep the shock out of her voice.
‘Yes,’ her brother answered, sounding sadder and sorrier than Rosie had ever heard him. ‘She’s in hospital. She’s asking for you. Can you come?’
‘I’m on my way.’
Rosie drove to Chelmsford Hospital on autopilot. Later, she had only a dreamlike recollection of getting into her car, then navigating her way to this unfamiliar destination as swiftly as possible. She was pretty sure she’d left Aled open-mouthed, mid-conversation – but right now, she didn’t have the capacity to deal with their argument as well as panic about her mother’s collapse.
According to Michael, she’d complained of chest pain several times in the past week. Then, during this morning’s mammoth house clean, she’d slumped over the Dyson cordless vacuum cleaner, clutched at her torso and toppled over to land, unconscious, on the sitting room carpet. It wasn’t lost on Rosie that Michael and her father had been sitting on the sofa at the time, reportedly glued to some televised darts tournament.
