‘I agree, but that meant you absorbed all the distress.’
He stared down at his mug, his shoulders slumped, and I wished I hadn’t decided to be clever with the slogan one. It felt completely inappropriate after what I’d just discovered.
‘I blame myself,’ he said. ‘If I’d taken him more seriously at the wedding or pushed him to talk the next day when he’d sobered up… If I’d called him when he got back to Hong Kong… If I’d answered the phone that night…’
‘I get it,’ I said. ‘I’d have thought those exact same things.’
He looked up, tears pooling in his eyes again. ‘I failed him. He was my best mate and I let him down.’
I placed my hand over Laurie’s once more. ‘Nobody failed him. Would he have left a message thanking you for your friendship if he thought you’d let him down?’
‘But I was the one he confided in at the wedding. He told me he was struggling.’
‘And he retracted it the following day.’
‘What if it was a cry for help and I missed it?’
‘If Adrian had been in such a dark place that he could only see one way out, he’d have taken that path regardless of what you said at the wedding or in any conversation you or any of us might have had since.’
‘But he phoned me. Was that a cry for help?’
‘What time did the call come through?’
‘In the early hours.’
‘When he knew you’d have had your phone switched off. It wasn’t a cry for help, Laurie. It was exactly what he said it was at the start – him saying goodbye.’
I clasped my hands round my daisy mug and took a comforting gulp of warm tea.
‘I understand you not telling Ade’s parents,’ I said after a while, ‘but why didn’t you talk to me about any of this?’
‘How could I? I thought I’d let him down, that I’d made light of things at the wedding when he needed someone to properly talk to. Ade ending his life was the trigger for everything else going wrong. I thought he’d died because I wasn’t a good enough friend and I hated myself for it and I thought Ned, Jude and Erica would hate me too but, most of all, I thought you would. So I kept quiet and I threw myself even further into the job because more time abroad and later nights meant less time around you and therefore a lesser risk of you finding out what a failure I was. The problem is, the more hours I put in, the more work I gotthrough and I earned this reputation for being incredibly quick and efficient so, of course, more work got piled on and my stress levels went through the roof. I know it’s twisted and completely unfair but I started resenting you because I was only working those hours to avoid you and…’ He sighed heavily. ‘Vicious circle.’
‘Which you could have broken if you’d just talked to me.’
‘When have I ever been one for talking? About anything meaningful, I mean.’
‘That’s an excuse, Laurie. That’s likeI’m a man so I don’t cryorfeelings are for women. Do you know how misogynistic that makes you sound? We’re all human beings and we all have emotions. They’re what connect us to each other.’
‘I know. It’s just…’ He shook his head. ‘It’s how I’ve always been. And, before you say it, I know that’s another excuse.’
We sat in silence for several minutes before I sighed heavily.
‘I’m trying to join the dots here, Laurie, and I think I’ve done it but I need to hear it from you. I need you to categorically state the reason why you walked out on our marriage without any discussion.’
He looked up at me, his expression mournful. ‘I blamed you – albeit unfairly – for the mess I’d got myself in and those negative feelings overpowered the positive ones. Like I said all along, it was me and not you. You did nothing wrong at all. I’m very much aware that I made a complete cock-up of our lives and that I have to learn to live with that.’
I studied his earnest expression and believed him.
‘Thank you for finally telling the truth. I know that can’t have been easy.’
‘I should have told you sooner.’
‘You should have told me when it happened. You should have trusted in me and our marriage to let me in. It could have saved you years of anguish but we are where we are.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too and I’ve got some advice for you. I know you hate talking about feelings but what you’ve been through since Adrian died and the effect it’s had on our family is surely proof that bottling things up benefits nobody. Speak to a professional, unpack all your complicated baggage with them, find some peace with yourself over all of this and move on. Embrace your new life in Finland and find your way back to happiness. Do you think you can do that?’
