Free Foursome by Jane Fallon

take me now, but I know he’d just be confused, wonder what had got into me and if I was OK and the moment would be lost. So I just cuddle into his broad back and try to sleep.

8
    Isabel is sitting at a table by the window, nose in a paperback. She looks so exactly like, well, like Isabel, that I almost burst into tears as I rush across the café to greet her. We haven’t set eyes on each other for nearly a month and, as I get her in a bear hug, I realize just how much I’ve missed my friend. We’ve talked on the phone, of course, but with Alex staying at ours for all that time we got out of the habit of inviting her round. The intensity with which she returns my embrace and the fact that she won’t let go even when I’ve clearly relaxed my arms tells me that she’s missed me too. We eventually break apart, ignoring the stares of a weasely-looking young man in a nylon suit, who I think is hoping he’s about to see a live stage show of Emmanuelle .
    ‘So,’ she says as I sit down. ‘How have you been?’
    ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Well, work’s a bit…’ I realize that I can’t even begin to explain the whole story so I witter on aimlessly. Eventually Isabel asks the question she always asks.
    ‘So, how’s Alex? Is he OK?’ she asks.
    I’ve agonized about this. On the one hand Isabel will be horrified and hurt to discover that Alex is already seeing someone else. On the other, the fact that it’s Lorna might even amuse her. I know that someone will tell her once the grapevine moves into action and I decide that it’s better if that someone is me. I leave out the part about Alex making a pass at me obviously. I want her to take him back if he ever sees sense and she’s hardly going to do that if she thinks he’s that disloyal.
    ‘He’s obviously doing it just to prove some kind of a point,’ I say, although it’s hard to justify what point without telling her what I really think. ‘To himself, I mean. That he was right to leave or something. God knows.’
    Luckily my instincts were right and the pain is outweighed by the comedy value. Isabel manages a smile.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘maybe he likes her.’
    ‘But this is Lorna ,’ I say, my voice rising an octave. ‘He can’t really like her.’
    ‘Oh God, do you think he’s calling it the bean yet?’
    ‘And that’s another thing. He nearly told her that story. I mean I have to work with her. What if he tells her and then she tells Joshua or Melanie…’
    Isabel laughs. ‘I doubt she’d want to admit to it to anyone.’
    The conversation slows to a halt for a moment. Isabel looks at me.
    ‘Rebecca,’ she says hesitantly. ‘Why do you think he left? Really?’
    ‘I have no idea,’ I say. I’m not about to tell her that he now claims he never really loved her after all. ‘I always thought you seemed so happy.’
    She sighs. ‘I don’t think it was ever as good as you thought it was. Not for years, anyway. We argued all the time when we were on our own. But don’t all couples? About money, mostly. Him getting a job…’
    ‘But… I always thought… I mean, you do OK, don’t you?’ I ask. ‘You’re doing something you love and I guess he just wanted to try and do something he loves too. And when you had the girls, I mean, I was always so envious of you that you could just go back to work knowing he was happy to stay with them.’
    ‘I didn’t want to go back to work, though,’ she says, and a look of irritation passes over her face. ‘I wanted to stay at home and do the new-mother thing. But even then he refused to think about looking for a job.’
    I’m shocked. I had no idea. It had all seemed like such a perfect twenty-first-century solution to me.
    ‘I cried all day every day in the office,’ she’s saying. ‘But Alex insisted that if he got another job it would be a slippery slope and then he’d never have any time to do any writing.’
    ‘Gosh,’ I say. ‘I didn’t realize.’
    Isabel is on a