‘You’ve got to give it a try,’ replied Ginny bluntly.
‘I’m not saying you’re being too harsh, Abby . . .’ began Suze, topping up her glass until the Pimm’s hovered less than a millimetre beneath the rim.
‘But you’re saying I’m being too harsh,’ said Abby, feeling cornered.
‘You can’t avoid him for ever,’ said Anna more kindly. ‘Deleting his messages doesn’t mean you can wipe out everything that’s happened.’
‘How could I ever forget that?’ said Abby, reminded once more of the moment her life had been blown apart.
A text. That was how she’d found out that her husband had been unfaithful. They had been driving to a friend’s house for Sunday lunch, and had stopped at a petrol station for some fuel. Nick had run out to pay and had left his phone on the seat, the same phone Abby had used ten minutes earlier to tell the friend that they were running late, because her own phone was out of juice.
She had expected to see a few platitudes from their host. Don’t worry! The chicken is still roasting! Take your time
Instead she had read a message from some woman whose name she still didn’t know. A handful of words that had been like a nuclear explosion in her marriage.
Please. Let’s just see each other again. I know it’s scary but I think we are good together. X
The smell of the petrol fumes and the treachery of the words had almost made her vomit. She had looked up and seen Nick running across the forecourt, two bars of her favourite chocolate clutched in his fist, smiling despite the lashing of spring rain, and for a second she had wondered whether she should pretend not to have seen the message. Wondered whether she should just let her life carry on, unaffected by what she had read.
With a matter of seconds to make that choice, she had handed him his mobile as soon as he got into the car.
‘You’ve had a text,’ she had said simply, and immediately caught the flicker of panic across his face, knowing before he had even read the message that things would never be the same again.
When he did read it, he didn’t try to deny anything.
By the time he had croaked ‘I’m sorry, Abs,’ she had stumbled out of the car, her sight clouded with tears, the sound of car horns ringing in her ears. Nick had followed her, his long strides quickly catching up with hers. He’d grabbed her shoulders, and perhaps to an onlooker, thought Abby some time later, they might have looked like a couple in a Nicholas Sparks movie poster about to have a passionate embrace in the rain.
Instead he had explained that she was a client and that he had got drunk on one of his many business overnighters and ended up in bed with her. It was a one-off, he had pleaded. She had meant nothing, he’d had too much to drink and was depressed. But Abby couldn’t bear to be near him after that. Couldn’t bear for him to touch her. She’d hailed the nearest taxi, and by the time he returned home, she had cleared out his things, stuffed it all – even a beautiful pink cashmere scarf he had bought for her birthday, and some tickets for an outdoor cinema event – into bin bags and left them in the hall, screaming at him to leave, hurling every obscenity she could think of at him.
Abby played with the stem of her cocktail glass.
‘Thanks for coming out tonight.’
The girls nodded in encouragement.
‘Can’t pass up the chance to spot Federer,’ smiled Anna, trying to lighten the mood.
‘So, what’s everyone’s news?’ said Abby more brightly. The last thing she wanted was to dwell on her own problems.
‘Work, work, work,’ groaned Ginny. ‘I’ve got a deal on that is taking for ever.’
‘And I think I have become the anti-Bridezilla,’ said Anna.
‘Anna, you are getting married in six weeks. You’re supposed to be getting teary with the florist by now. Having hissy fits with the cupcake supplier, that sort of thing,’ quipped Ginny.
‘There are going to be no cupcakes at my wedding,’ laughed Anna.
Ginny grinned. ‘Killjoy.’
‘Well I went to see a clairvoyant this week, and she said I’m about to get swept off my feet,’ announced Suze, who had been single ever since she finally left her cheating sports-agent boyfriend Terry.
‘I’d love to be swept off my feet,’ said Ginny with feeling. ‘Not just because I’m so bloody busy I haven’t got time for go-slow romance. I adore the idea of the grand gesture, like getting whisked off to Paris or Rome.’
‘Like Mikhail Baryshnikov did with Carrie in the last season of Sex in the City,’ noted Abby.
‘But look how that turned out,’ replied Anna cynically.
‘What happened?’ Popular culture always seemed to have passed Ginny by.