The Chocolate Run (37 page)

‘And what did you mean, exactly?’ Jen asked indignantly.

Rather than answer Jen, Greg focused his Minstrel eyes on Matt’s harassed, aggravated face until they met with Matt’s emerald eyes. Greg was wrestling with whether to let it out of the bag or to leave it, to accept being tarred as an ‘absolute wanker’.

A look of understanding passed between them. Even in my state I saw it. It was something big.

Matt’s rage faltered, then evaporated. Completely disappeared into the ether. One minute he was murderous, then he said evenly: ‘Let’s talk about this later, when we’ve all calmed down.’

‘You’re right,’ Jen concurred, ‘let’s all calm down.’

What the HELL is this? What’s going on? Why the sudden conspiracy? How come nobody’s angry any more?

‘No, let’s get everything out in the open.’ Me. I said it. My voice had returned.

‘Let’s wait ’til we’ve calmed down,’ Jen insisted.

‘So you know what’s going on between Matt and Greg then?’ I asked.

‘What’s going on between them?’ she replied.

‘You didn’t see that look they gave each other? They’re hiding something else. Something bigger.’

Jen laughed a hollow laugh. ‘No, they just don’t want to lose their friendship over a couple of girls. I think we should take some time out, calm down, then talk about this.’

‘You can calm down,’ I said. ‘I
am
calm. I am the personification of calmness. It’s oozing out of every pore. See this face? Calm. And if I don’t find out what’s going on right now, you’re all going to see exactly how calm I am up close and personal.’

‘Nothing,’ Matt said.

I turned to Greg. ‘Greg?’

He said nothing. He didn’t know who to side with. His best friend of twenty-two years, or his girlfriend of seven months. Had it been any other time, I would’ve taken a sick pleasure in him now knowing how hard it was to choose between two people you love. ‘Remember that time you had a go about me putting Jen first? Well, this is how it feels,’ I would’ve said.

As the situation stood, I wasn’t taking any pleasure in Greg’s dilemma. In fact, I was about to up the ante: ‘Greg, if we’re going to salvage anything from this then tell me what’s going on.’

‘DON’T YOU DARE!’ Matt exploded. ‘YOU OWE ME. YOU SCREWED MY GIRLFRIEND AND YOU OWE ME.’

Greg’s line of sight went from me to Matt to me. He realised there was only one way out of this. ‘Tell them,’ Greg said.
Make Matt confess
.

‘YOU CAN FUCK OFF!’

‘Tell them.’

‘NO.’

‘If you don’t, I will.’

‘WHAT IS IT?’ Me again. I’d found my voice and was shouting.

Matt took a deep breath, stared down at his shiny black shoes. Then, in a small, small voice, he said: ‘I’ve got a wife in France.’

chapter thirty-one

truth

I fancied myself as being so tortured and so in need of a good think that I’d spend the night, hands in pockets, head down, wandering the dark streets of this sprawling metropolis, like the hero does in a movie when, for no clear reason, it’s suddenly dark, rainy and even the most deserted village suddenly becomes a city and is rammed with people. All of this is done to a whiny sax soundtrack. Within ten minutes of leaving the room, I was sitting in the hotel’s gardens. But I did sit there with my hands in my pockets, staring at the ground and if I strained hard enough I could hear that sax.

Everything that had gone on in the past few hours kept jumping into my head. All of it. Not one part which I could make sense of. Everything. Every time I tried to remember something, to hold it up to scrutiny, to dissect and understand and digest it, the rest of it would leap in too. All tumbled and knotted, like a demented ball of vermicelli. I needed time to untangle it.

OK, Amber, focus. Focus, focus, focus.

Matt.

I hadn’t read anyone so wrong in, like, ever. I’d thought he was a lump of toffee: rich and smooth and, ultimately, unchanging. However, he was a two-faced, double-dealing, double-lifed, married man. His way of behaving, his boring exterior, hid a seething core of duplicity. His tightness, the way he paled every time he was called upon to put his hand in his pocket, came from having two lives to support.

Matt did a degree in French, which meant he spent a year living in Paris. During that year, he met Françoise; their fling helped with his French no end. (Matt didn’t say this, I added it because it was probably true.) When he returned to England after his year, he and Françoise kept in touch. And when he graduated, he returned to Paris and got a job. After too much wine one night, he proposed. Two months later they got married. Only Greg knew. He was the best man, of course, and Matt being commitmentphobic – as Greg had tried to tell me once upon a time – had panicked. He swore Greg to secrecy: nobody in England must ever find out, especially not Matt’s parents. He’d gotten round the parents issue by saying his parents, especially his dad, were very racist and had a particular hatred of the French. His poor parents, whose only crime as far as I could see was to spawn this creature called their son, were therefore a banned subject with Françoise. Matt had constructed two lives and rather effectively ran them concurrently. He had two mobile phones, one that Jen thought was for work, so when he got calls and started talking in French, she didn’t get suspicious. He’d told Françoise that he was house-sitting for a friend so he wasn’t contactable at Rocky’s place any more. When he was in France, he’d call Jen from work.

‘After a year of being happy together, I was offered a transfer to Leeds for six months. They were starting a company over here and needed English people. Me living in Leeds for all those years made me the ideal choice. By that point the honeymoon was over for me and Françoise, we’d not been getting on for months, so six months apart seemed the ideal solution. I came back to Leeds, got my old room back with Greg and Rocky, and whenever I saw Françoise again things were perfect. Time apart was what we needed.

‘When the six months were extended to a year, we decided to go for it. I had to go back quite a lot to Paris – this was before the days of video conferencing and emails, so my relationship with Françoise was safe.’ Matt ran a hand through the spikes of his blond hair, his green eyes fixed on the carpet.

‘Then they offered me a permanent position in Leeds. It was a dream come true, but Françoise didn’t want to leave France. Her whole life was there. We spent so much time arguing about it. I’d lived there with her, why couldn’t she come be with me? I might even have introduced her to my parents. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity, so we got used to living apart. Then I met Jen.’

Oh yes
, I thought,
here it comes. The nonsense that will excuse his behaviour
. ‘She was different from other girls.’
Yup, that’s right, Matt, you neglected to mention that you’d shagged around when you were in Leeds, didn’t you? It was implied, now you’ve confirmed it
.

‘I started to fall for Jen and at the same time, Françoise was talking about me coming back to Paris full-time, us having a baby . . . I panicked again. Stopped going to Paris as much, just spoke to her at work. I told her I wanted to concentrate on my career. If she wanted to be with me then she’d have to come here. I often said I didn’t want to talk to her unless she’d at least try living here. She said no, so I spent more time here. But I couldn’t finish with Françoise or Jen . . . I kept things as they were, ignoring the fact that Françoise wanted a baby, saying she had to come over here if she wanted us to try for a child, which I knew she’d never do. When Jen asked me to move in, I said yes without really thinking. That’s why that thing,’ he nodded towards Greg, ‘freaked out when me and Jen announced it. He always liked Françoise. But that’s probably because he shagged her too, ain’t it, mate?’

I turned to Greg.
Course he has. There are few women he’s met who he hasn’t shagged
.

‘No, I haven’t shagged her too,’ Greg spat. ‘But then, I could’ve done, the amount of time I spent with Françoise, covering for you. You know, like the time I had to drop everything and go to Paris because she was distraught that you’d disappeared and she couldn’t find you. I could’ve shagged her then while I was busy not telling her that you’d gone to Los Angeles with Jen. And, that time Françoise turned up out of the blue and you and Jen had gone to Prague for a week, I could’ve shagged her then, couldn’t I? Or, I could’ve kept your secret and looked after her and when I saw Jen’s best mate in town not mentioned that the woman beside me was
your wife
.’

I’d met her?
Matt and Jen went to Prague at the end of last year. I feverishly racked my brain. I’d bumped into Greg a few times in town around then. And the day I saw him when Matt and Jen had gone away . . . It came flooding back to me. Greg had looked so jumpy that day I saw him in Albion Place, outside WHSmith. I hadn’t understood why he was so shifty. He’d introduced the woman beside him really stiffly, but I was rubbish at names. I was better with faces . . .

Cold tingling flooded my body. She was slight, her face angular from being so thin. Her blonde hair was cut into a stylish bob that sat just above her cheeks. She wore chic, designer clothes, Prada shoes, dusky pink lipstick. That’s who New Jen reminded me of – Françoise, Matt’s wife.

‘You turned Jen into your wife,’ I said to Matt incredulously. ‘That’s why she lost weight and hacked off her lovely hair and wears that ridiculous lipstick. You wanted to spend day after day living with a version of Françoise in Leeds.’

‘What are you on about?’ Jen was half laughing.

‘I met Françoise when she was with Greg. And Matt’s turned you into her. You were right when you said he preferred you so thin your hipbones poke through your clothes and your hair so short you look fifty, because that’s what she looks like.’

Jen looked to Greg; he glanced away. She swung round to Matt. ‘Matt?’

Matt said nothing.

‘You said I’d look better with short hair, with less weight. And all along you wanted me to look like your
wife
? YOU BASTARD!’

She ran at him, started scratching at his eyes and face, while her feet tried to kick him. He put his hands up to protect himself. Greg and I watched them struggle until Matt managed to grab her wrists, stand up and fling her onto the bed. She bounced unceremoniously beside me a couple of times, then glared up at him.

‘At least I didn’t shag Amber, eh,
lover
?’ Matt shouted at her.

‘Like you’d ever get the chance,’ I said.

‘You’re comparing you living a double life, lying and screwing with my mind to a drunken mistake? You’re unbelievable,’ Jen shouted back.

‘
HE’S
UNBELIEVABLE?’ I suddenly screamed, turning on her. I hadn’t known I was going to shout until it was coming out of my mouth. ‘What about you? Matt has always been a twat. I knew that from the second I clapped eyes on him. I thought it was because he was boring, but no, it’s because he’s clearly the village idiot’s Neanderthal brother. But you, Jen, you were meant to be my friend. And you’ve done nothing but put me down and treat me with contempt. Tonight was the icing on the cake.’

‘You’re blaming me?’ she asked, aghast.

‘Yes, I’m blaming you. You just couldn’t leave it, could you?’ I snarled. ‘You saw that Greg and I were happy, and you couldn’t bear it. You like to keep me in your little box. Little Single Amber who you can take out and set up on hideous blind dates, or impose upon when your relationship’s rocky or your lover’s gone away – to see his wife, as it turns out.’

‘Greg slept with me too. I didn’t force myself on him,’ Jen said.

‘Yeah, and why bring it up tonight when it’s likely that I’ll overhear? I’ll tell you why, because you saw that he might possibly care about me so you couldn’t wait to go rushing in there to remind him that you were the prettier one, the sexier one, the one he had first. The one he really wanted.’

‘But he’s no good for you,’ Jen said, tears in her voice. ‘He really is no good for you.’

‘What you mean is, I’m not good enough for him. You couldn’t stand it, you couldn’t bear it that messy, plain, fat Amber could sleep with good-looking Greg and keep him. While you, sexy, feminine, thin Jen could only get a shag.’

Jen wiped at her mascaraed eyes with her fingers. ‘That’s not fair, Amber.’

‘FAIR!?’ I screamed. ‘FAIR? And this is all fair, is it?’ I stopped as my chest heaved, tears blossomed in my eyes. I was damned if I was going to sob in front of them. I got up, went to the wardrobe, took out my jacket.

‘You disgust me. You all disgust me,’ I said. ‘And you make me disgust myself.’ I shoved my hands into my pockets and felt it – the extra special pressie I’d bought for Greg. I’d rooted it out last night, ready to present it to him after I asked him to move in with me. I removed it from my pocket, sneered at it for a second. ‘I think this belongs to you,’ I said, then tossed the soft, leather-bound black book at Greg’s feet.

He looked at it, then his horrified eyes flew up to my face.

Without another word, I left.

I opened the door, not particularly quietly because I knew Greg would be long gone. My heart lurched when I saw his outline sitting in a chair, half turned to the window, his feet resting on the wall. Along the window sill were a line of minibar bottles.
Oh yeah, sure, now he decides to stop walking out on me. Now he decides to stay and sort things out. Or maybe he’s just waited for me to come back – no point walking out on someone if they’re not there to witness it
.

I stood in the doorway. Should I pack and go home? Or pack and go get another room?

Another tidal wave of exhaustion crashed through me. Sleep. I needed to sleep. I hadn’t done that properly in two weeks. Longer, if you counted the run-up to the Festival. I just wanted to sleep.

‘I hoped you’d come back tonight,’ Greg croaked. He moved and the moonlight on his face showed his puffy eyes, each one ringed with moisture.

My heart jumped. I wanted to put my arms around him, hold him. Then I remembered, he’d brought this on himself. You reap as you sow.

And I’d brought this on myself. I knew what he was like. I knew he hadn’t met a woman he wouldn’t have at some point tried to bed. What else did I expect? Of course he’d done the unthinkable and slept with the one person in the whole world I wouldn’t, no,
couldn’t
accept him sleeping with.