Chapter 23

Some editors are failed writers. But so are most writers.

T. S. Eliot

I have a hangover. I never have hangovers, but I'm starting this year with gritty eyes and a mouth that feels like the bottom of a birdcage. I'm also raging with thirst, but at least I don't have a migraine. I roll out of bed and walk unsteadily to the kitchen, where I drink the half-litre bottle of water that's on the countertop. I'm remembering last night, although remembering isn't exactly the right word, because every moment of it is seared into my consciousness and it's like a continuing reel in my head. Charles and his new fiancée. The woman he plans to marry. The slip of a girl in the green dress and high heels.

He's lost his mind, of course. He does this from time to time, gets wild enthusiasms and drops them again. Like the time he got into golf, joined a club and bought all the gear. He spent an absolute fortune on drivers and putters and electric caddy cars and stormproof jackets and trousers. As far as I recall, he played twice. Not that getting engaged is the same as playing golf, but with Charles, well . . .

My feet hurt. It takes a minute to remember that I ended up walking home from the New Year's Eve party. The fiancée and her friend had clearly bagged the last available taxi in Dublin, because no matter which app I tried, all I got were chirpy messages saying that their drivers were ‘super busy' at the moment.

‘You don't have to walk,' Charles said to me as I fumed. ‘It's late and it's cold. Stay over.'

‘You've got to be joking.' I stared at him. ‘Stay over? When you've announced your engagement to somebody else?'

‘Oh, it's fine. She'll understand. It's you, Ariel, not some random woman. You can use a guest bedroom.'

He said it as though sleeping in the master bedroom was an option. As though I was actually considering it. Naturally, I'd no intention of staying at Riverside Lodge. Did he really think Iseult would be happy with her fiancé's not-quite-ex-wife staying in his house overnight? Was he that na?ve?

‘Charles, it's highly inappropriate for me to stay here and I wouldn't dream of it.'

‘Look, I know you're upset—'

‘Upset?' The word came out as a squeak. I cleared my throat. ‘I'm not upset. I'm angry that you didn't have the common courtesy to tell me what you were planning. Not because it matters to me, but because . . . because . . .' I couldn't finish the sentence. Mainly because I was lying. I was angry, yes. But despite what I'd told him, I was upset too. Who wouldn't be? And even though there was a part of me that was tempted to stay and seduce him from under his brand-new fiancée's pert little nose, I'm not that sort of woman. I might want to ensure there's no change to our working relationship, but that's it. At least, I think that's it.

I turned away from him and went to the utility room, where I knew there was an old pair of my boots that I'd never bothered taking home with me.

‘Honestly,' he said, when I clumped back up the stairs wearing them. ‘This is madness. How can you walk in them?'

‘They're flat,' I pointed out.

‘But your dress. It'll drag along the ground.'

‘I'll get it cleaned.'

‘Ariel—'

‘It's fine,' I told him. ‘I'd be home by now if we weren't spending so long talking about it.'

And so I put on my coat (not warm enough for the bitterly cold temperatures) and stepped into the night air. My breath immediately misted in front of my face. Charles stood at the door and didn't shut it behind me until I walked out of the gate. I heard the thud of it closing.

It was a bloody cold walk, and although there were plenty of taxis on the streets, none of them was free. By the time I let myself into my apartment a little over half an hour later, I was frozen to the bone and had blisters on my toes. The boots might have been flat, but I was wearing fine stockings and not the woolly socks that would have been far more suitable. I eased the boots off and noticed that my expensive stockings were laddered and useless. I swore softly, then made myself a hot whiskey with lots of cloves and honey, which I drank standing barefoot at my patio window, allowing the underfloor heating to warm my sore feet. My heart was pounding and I couldn't tell if it was from the exercise of walking home, the throbbing of the blisters or the sheer rage I felt at Charles, both for getting engaged and for blindsiding me in his announcement of it.

I turned away from the window and opened my laptop. The wallpaper on the screen was of me and Charles shortly after he won his Booker Prize. He was holding his award in one hand; the other was around my waist. I allowed myself to remember that night, how great it was and how I felt that everything in my life was as perfect as it was possible to be. I didn't for a second allow myself to think that ultimately it had all been downhill from there.

I banged at the keys and changed the wallpaper to a picture of me getting my Agent of the Year award. Then I burst into tears.

I drink another bottle of water as I walk back to the living room, locating my discarded tights beside the sofa and chucking them in the bin. I allow myself an additional moment of rage, then blow my nose and wipe away the stupid, stupid tears that fill my eyes before checking social media to see if there are any more posts about Charles's party, and more importantly, the announcement of his engagement.

There are plenty of pix from the party – mostly tight-shot selfies, and quite a few of Charles and his young fiancée hashtagged #NewYear and #NewWoman. Or #NewYear and #EngagementSurprise. There are also a couple of Google Alerts linking to short online pieces about the engagement. Truth is, most of the journalists had left before midnight, and although the story is cute if you like that sort of thing, it's not real news. And Charles is too old for it to pop up on any celebrity sites. There's one brief story about him and me, saying that we separated a number of years ago but remain friends. It doesn't suggest that we didn't get divorced.

I craft a post for Charles's accounts saying that he's delighted to have finally delivered his next book to his publishers and hopes that readers will love his foray into intelligent crime writing. I add that as well as writing books, he's also found time to fall in love and that he's delighted to announce his engagement to . . . and here I have to stop, because my mind is a total blank. I can't remember the name of the girl in the green dress. All I can think is that she was his beta reader. But I can't call her Beta Girl, can I? I feel the glow of a hot flush start at the tip of my head and work its way through my body. I forgot to take my HRT last night. For feck's sake, though. Is it menopausal brain fog, or did I actually decide to blank the name of my husband's twenty-nine-year-old fiancée?

In the end, I post it without her name and use the hashtags: #NewYear #NewBeginnings #CrimeFiction #LiteraryFiction #Bestseller and finally #SoInLove. I nearly gag at the last but shove it in anyway. Then I slam the lid of the laptop closed and get into the shower. I lean against the tiled wall and allow the warm water to massage the top of my head. I want it to relax me, but of course it doesn't. I'm still on edge when I get out again.

I'm not going out today, so I dress in my sloppiest tracksuit bottoms and fleecy top before sitting at the table with Charles's manuscript and my red pen. I'm going to edit the shit out of his crime novel. Hopefully Sydney will too. And he'll be so damn busy rewriting it that he won't have time for his young lover. Even hearing the words ‘young lover' in my head makes my heart pound again.

Seriously, what's he thinking? Oh look, I don't need to ask myself that question. She's vibrant and pretty and those dark doe eyes looked at him with such love and admiration I'm not surprised he fell for her. All men want to be admired and it's obvious she admires him. But she hasn't seen him first thing in the morning with his gold and silver stubble and his eyes bloodshot from being up too late writing without stopping. She hasn't seen him in a temper because the book isn't working out the way he expected. And she hasn't had him shouting at her to find his white shirt – ‘no, not that one, the one with the better buttons' – before he goes off to a book event or a TV appearance. She's only seen the professional Charles, not the domestic Charles. She thinks she loves him, but she only loves the idea of him.

I, on the other hand, love all of him.

Even if I left him.

Lovedall of him, I mean.

Although right now, I'm furious with him.

Sydney calls me the following day saying that she has some editorial notes for Charles and will forward them to me too in the next few minutes.

I download the document as soon as it arrives. Her notes are very comprehensive. Charles will go ballistic at the amount of work they entail, as she's made some very clever suggestions around some of his too-easy clues that will mean extensive rewriting. He hates rewriting.

She's done well, though, with lots of ideas about how he can make it a little more Charles Miller while keeping the best of his Janice Jermyn experience. If he does as good a job as I know he can, I'm absolutely sure we'll have a winner on our hands. Although, I concede, as I get to yet another note about the orange-blossom scent the murderer wears, Janice would never have let such an obvious tell slip through.

I'm so intent on what I'm doing that the sound of my mobile buzzing is an unwelcome distraction. I glance at the caller ID and feel my eyebrows rise in surprise.

‘Hello, Ellis,' I say as I answer it. ‘It's good to hear from you. Happy New Year.'

‘Same to you,' she says. ‘Ariel, what the hell is going on with Charles?'

I like that she gets to the point straight away. I used to think Ellis was a little bit airy-fairy, what with chucking in her library job and opening an art studio in her shed, but she's quite hard-nosed when it comes to business. And possibly when it comes to her brother, too. We used to have some great chats about him, among other things. I can't believe we've allowed our friendship to drift.

‘He told me when we were together at Christmas about this girl he met in the Caribbean,' she says. ‘Said she was bright and intelligent and that she and her friend were good fun. He didn't say anything about getting engaged to her. He still hasn't. I saw it on social media. What the actual fuck, Ariel?'

‘It's a question I've been asking myself,' I say.

‘Have you met her? What's she like?'

‘I've no idea. The party was the first time I set eyes on her. The first time I knew anything about her.'

‘Ariel!'

‘It knocked me for six,' I admit.

‘What on earth is wrong with him that he simply sprang it on you without a word?'

It's quite pleasing to hear how furious she is with him. It makes me feel less like a raging old hag.

‘It doesn't matter,' I say. ‘We're practically divorced.'

‘Though in reality married,' says Ellis. ‘I've got to say it, Ariel, I always thought you guys would get back together. I think he did too, and that's why he didn't chase you up over the divorce. Plus, you continued to represent him despite everything.'

‘It's hard to believe we work so well together when we couldn't live together,' I admit. ‘Quite honestly, it was easier being his agent when I wasn't being his wife. And I do care for him, of course I do. But whatever either of us might have thought about one day getting back together, it's not going to happen now.'

‘It was a mistake to give him the best of both worlds,' Ellis tells me.

‘What d'you mean?'

‘You working in his back garden meant he could see you any time he wanted. You socialise together. You have each other's backs. You're one of those married couples who live in separate houses and have wild sex every time they get together.'

‘We're really not.' I keep my voice as steady as possible. ‘I have to keep things civil because he's my client, not because he's my husband.'

‘And the wild sex?'

‘OK, OK, so we've slept together a few times. It didn't mean anything.'

‘Didn't it?'

I sigh. I don't know if it did or didn't. It was usually on a Freedom Friday and after a bottle of wine. So it was drunk sex. Or friends-with-benefits sex. Or just ordinary casual sex. But it wasn't enough to make us decide to give being married another go. So in the end, it was still break-up sex.

I tell Ellis that I really don't want to talk about my sex life with her brother, and remind her that the only thing that matters is that he's now engaged to someone else.

‘What's the fiancée's name, by the way?' I ask. ‘He introduced us, but only after he'd made his announcement, and I've completely forgotten.'

‘Iseult O'Connor.'

I nod, even though we're on a voice call and she can't see me.

‘I do think he's completely bonkers in getting engaged,' I concede. ‘I can understand him having a fling with her, but marrying her? What on earth's going on in his head? What's she thinking?'

‘I bet she sees him as a ticket to a great life. The house, the glamour . . .'

I laugh. Even Ellis is seduced by the so-called glamour of Charles's life. But she only sees one side of it. I'm sure Iseult sees the same. I point out that it isn't all parties and having a good time, and she admits I'm right. But she feels sure Iseult is only in it for the money.

‘Do you really think so?'

‘Why else?'

‘I know he's your brother and therefore you're blind to his charms, but he is quite a desirable man,' I point out.

‘Not for a twenty-nine-year-old girl.'

‘Twenty-nine isn't a girl,' I say, even though that's exactly how I've been thinking of her. ‘She's a grown woman. Although . . .' I grit my teeth before continuing, ‘she's certainly younger and perkier and livelier than me.'

‘I'm quite certain he's making a massive mistake,' says Ellis. ‘It's infatuation, not love. Can you . . . well, can you string out the divorce thing? Give him time to come to his senses?'

‘It's been strung out enough already. We need to move on.'

‘I've every confidence that you can move on in whatever way you want,' says Ellis. ‘You're a strong woman with your own business. But he's . . . well, he's always been a bit vulnerable. He pours it all into his books. He can't afford to make a terrible mistake with this girl.'

‘You haven't met her yet,' I say. ‘You might actually think she's perfect for him.'

‘Is she?'

I snort. I might be good at arguing a point, but I'm not going to say that Iseult is perfect for Charles.

‘Is she drop-dead gorgeous?' asks Ellis.

‘She's pretty enough, with her smooth skin and dark brown eyes that look at him devotedly.'

‘It's the devotion, isn't it? All men want women to look at them as though they're gods, when the reality is that most of them are children.'

I laugh. Then I tell her that Charles reminded me of a Greek god when I first met him.

‘Don't make it easy for him, that's all I'm asking,' she says. ‘If it's the right thing for him, make him work for it.'

I've always made things easy for Charles. It's my job, after all. But I don't say this to Ellis.

When we end the call, I sit with the manuscript in front of me and the red pen in my hand. Then I draw a line through two long, unnecessary paragraphs. I tell myself that whatever about his personal life, when it comes to his novel, I'm certainly not going to make things easy for him one little bit.