Free Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? by Claudia Carroll Page B

Maybe?’
    ‘Bitch! You tell me the truth this minute or I’ll break your nose with my bare forehead…’
    ‘Lovely talk. Where’d you pick that up, living with your mother?’
    ‘ Annie! You know I’ll wheedle it out of you sooner or later, so you may as well tell me now, while you have my undivided attention. Now, quick, before Home and Away starts.’
    I sigh so deeply it feels like it’s coming from my bone marrow, knowing right well that the game’s up.
    ‘You’re just not going to let this go, are you?’
    ‘Not a snowball’s chance in hell.’
    Right then. I slump back down onto the sofa beside her. I hadn’t wanted to tell anyone ahead of Dan, but then I figure…knowing him, it could be a full twenty-four hours before I actually manage to nail him down. Plus I honestlyfeel like I’m carrying around the third Secret of Fatima – it’ll be a relief to get it off my chest. Not to mention a good dress rehearsal for what’s to come.
    So I tell Jules the truth. The whole truth and nothing but.
    There’s silence.
    I didn’t expect silence.
    Suddenly it’s like all the life and energy has been completely sucked out of the room. I look at her expectantly and she looks at me and I honestly think I’ll fling one of Audrey’s revolting china shepherdess figurines into the fireplace if she doesn’t say something.
    Eventually she speaks.
    ‘Right. That settles it then. I’m getting wine.’
    In a single hop, she’s up and over to the drinks cabinet and pouring us out two oversized glasses of Merlot. I don’t argue. I need the drink just as much as she does. If not more.
    ‘OK,’ she says, handing me the wine and simultaneously taking the mug of tea away from me, like it’s suddenly become poisonous. ‘So I may not like what you’ve just told me, but feck it, you’re like the only normal person in my daily orbit and if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll find some way to help you deal with this. So, let me just tap into my amazing powers of insight here.’
    ‘Ehh…sorry, did you say your amazing powers of insight?’
    ‘Yeah, that’s right. I’d use them on myself only it just so happens that I don’t have any problems.’
    I fling a cushion at her which she neatly catches, then uses to balance her tortilla chips on.
    ‘Right then,’ she says assertively, sounding more adult-likethan I think I’ve ever heard her. ‘Let’s start by doing pros and cons, will we? OK, I just thought of one. Pro: you’ll probably be dead in like, another fifty years, so chances are it won’t even matter.’
    ‘That’s your idea of a pro? Jaysus, I’m really looking forward to hearing the cons.’
    ‘Con: you have to tell Dan. And good luck with that, love.’
    ‘I tried telling him this morning, but then you know what it’s like trying to get him on his own. I might as well try to…’
    ‘Nail jelly to a wall, yeah I know. Funny but I thought he was only like that with me whenever I was trying to wheedle money out of him.’
    She’s slumped back in the armchair now, long legs dangling over the side, frowning deeply and playing with her pigtails. All her little-girl mannerisms totally at odds with the glass of wine in her hand.
    ‘Pro,’ she goes on, taking another slug of the wine, ‘you may not even get the job in the first place, so is there really any point in bothering to mention it to him at all? You might only end up worrying him over nothing.’
    ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head firmly. ‘It wouldn’t be fair not to tell him. Aside from the fact that I physically get heartburn when I try to keep secrets from anyone. It’ll be unpleasant in the short-term, but it’s got to be done. Besides, you know what he’s like. The whole way back from Dublin this afternoon, all I could think was…if this did happen and if things actually went my way for once…I wonder if he’d even notice that I wasn’t around any more?’
    ‘I take your point,’ says Jules, nodding sagely. ‘There’severy