‘But you’re wearing Mum’s jacket.’
‘You’ve never borrowed clothes from your friends?’
Maddie looked from Jude to me, seemingly trying to decide whether to believe us.
‘Oh, come on, Maddie!’ Jude said. ‘Your mum and I haven’t just conspired together for me to take the blame. It’s me. I’m wearing high-heeled boots and you know your mum hates wearing heels. I’m carrying my favourite handbag too and I can show you several photos of me with that bag. And, if that doesn’t convince you, we can get Ned on the phone and you can ask him who he was kissing in Reading two years ago. It would be mortifying for me but it would clear your mum’s name.’
Mam glanced at the video, her eyes wide. ‘Is this why you’ve been so off with your mam? You thought she was seeing someone behind your dad’s back?’
‘What did you expect me to think? It’s Mum’s jacket. It looks like Mum.’
‘And it’s a standing joke that, from behind, we could be twins,’ I said. ‘You know this.’
Maddie did know that. Adrian had often referred to us astwinniesin Maddie’s presence and she’d heard the story so many times about how he’d been convinced we had twintelepathy when we were at university and how he couldn’t tell us apart until we turned round.
‘But I thought…’ Maddie stared at her phone in disbelief.
I wanted to sayyou could have asked me!But could she have? If I’d seen – or thought I’d seen – my mam kissing another man when I was only sixteen, would I have confronted her about it? My first stop would likely have been Hope. We’d have discussed it and we’d probably have gone to our grandma for some advice. Maddie didn’t have a sibling, she could hardly have gone to Laurie’s mam with ‘evidence’ that I was cheating on her son, and my mam had been far away. So my guess was she’d turned to the one person who’d consistently given her terrible advice.
‘Was Carmen with you when you saw Jude?’ I asked.
Maddie looked up. ‘She was the one who told me to take the photo and video. She said…’ She paused, looking embarrassed. ‘She said I should bribe you with it.’
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. ‘Bribe me to do what?’
She shrugged. ‘I dunno. Buy me new clothes and stuff? Maybe a car when I turned seventeen?’
Even though I hated what Carmen had suggested, I wished Maddie had gone down that route because I could have nipped it in the bud immediately.
‘I’m so sorry, Grace,’ Jude said. ‘If I’d thought about us being spotted…’
‘No! You can’t think like that.’
‘But the damage I’ve caused…’
Maddie sank down onto one of the chairs, pale-faced and looking completely deflated as she stared at the table, her phone abandoned by her side. At a guess, she’d just realised that Jude hadn’t caused the damage; she had. Nobody spoke. I wonderedwhether, like me, Mam and Jude had no idea what more they could say. Nearly two lost years for no reason at all.
‘I don’t understand,’ Maddie said eventually, raising her gaze to Jude. ‘Wasn’t he married to one of your other best friends?’
‘Yes. Erica, but they’d separated and, truth is, I’d been in love with Ned since I was twenty.’
A thought struck me and, with it, a sliver of hope. If Laurie thought I’d been unfaithful to him – especially with one of our best friends – it would explain why he’d left me, although it wouldn’t explain the timing. Unless Maddie hadn’t shared it immediately. If she’d waited a year…
‘Did you tell your dad or show him the video?’
But my hopes crashed and burned with her one-word response.
‘No.’
I sat down too. I’d laughed earlier but it felt like anything but funny now. This was more of a tragedy and, looking round the table, everyone else clearly felt it too.
The sound of a chair scraping over the tiles broke the silence and my breath caught in my throat as Maddie hurried out of the kitchen, a sob escaping from her.
‘I’ll talk to her,’ Mam said, placing her hand on my arm to stop me when I moved to rise.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Jude repeated when Mam left the room.
‘None of this is your fault. You could never in a million years have predicted this.’
