Free Foursome by Jane Fallon Page A

roll. ‘And, to be honest, I have no idea when the last time he actually wrote something was.’
    ‘I thought you loved your work,’ I say, rather lamely.
    ‘I do. But I would have liked to opt out for a while. Or I’d like to have been able to be part time so at least I could spend some time with my daughters while they were little. Tell me,’ she says, ‘do you think Alex is a good writer? I mean, you read something of his once. Do you think he’s ever going to become the next Alan Bennett?’
    I blush. I don’t want to be too disloyal to Alex but she’s got a point.
    ‘I guess not,’ I say. ‘No.’
    ‘He’s been trying for twelve years. And at no point during that time did he even think, Well, maybe I could work part time, do my bit for the family, and write on my days off. Because he never cared that much. It was all about him having a nice life, pottering around all day and chatting up the mums on the school run.’
    I’m about to say that doesn’t sound like Alex when I realize that, of course, it does, so I keep my mouth shut.
    ‘The whole writing thing is like a diversionary tactic. If he says that that’s what he’s doing, then no one questions why he hasn’t got a job. No one’s got the faintest idea whether he ever actually writes anything or not. He can play the tortured artist. But even with all that I never thought about leaving. We were in it together. We’d promised. And I loved him.’
    ‘Why did you never tell me any of this?’ I say, irrationally hurt that she hasn’t confided in me.
    ‘Because,’ she says, ‘you know, you always thought it was all so perfect, the four of us. You were always saying how amazing it was how it had all worked out. I don’t know. I didn’t want to be the one to disillusion you, I guess.’
    She’s right. I did always marvel at our luck, that the four of us had found each other. We were a perfect unit, like those two sets of Siamese twins who happened to fall in love in Russia or somewhere.
    I try and take this all in for a moment. Isabel sips her coffee and looks at me, willing me to understand.
    ‘I’m so sorry, Izz,’ I say. ‘If I’d have known… Well, actually, I don’t know what I would have done if I’d have known. Tried to convince you that it was all in your head, maybe, that nothing was really wrong. That would have been helpful.’
    She laughs. ‘You probably would have succeeded. You can be very persuasive when you get a sulk on. And he’d still have left.’
    I feel like we’ve exhausted the topic for now. There’s so much more I want to ask her, but I think it’d be pushing my luck so I change the subject.
    ‘How are the girls doing?’
    ‘Oh, you know,’ she says. ‘They’re miserable. They can’t understand why he’s done it.’
    We make plans to get the kids together so that the twins can engage in a bit of William baiting, which will cheer them up. There’s a big old elephant in the room, which only I can see, which is Alex’s declaration of love to me. I wonder briefly whether knowing that about Alex might actually help her in some way. Make her see that he’s not worth pining over. But it’s not worth the risk. And, besides, if I tell her, then I’ll have to tell Dan and I don’t see how that would be beneficial to anybody. Uncomfortable as I am with keeping a secret from him – beyond hiding his Christmas and birthday presents I’m not sure I ever have done – in this instance I know that it’s the right thing to do. In Dan’s case ignorance is bliss.
    Back in the office Lorna looks at her watch as I walk in.
    ‘I thought you were coming back at one thirty,’ she says for the benefit of Melanie, who is also in the room. It is now one thirty-four, by the way. I am four minutes late. Arrest me.
    ‘I’m meant to be meeting Alex,’ she says. ‘I don’t know if it’s worth it now.’
    ‘Tell you what,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you come back at twenty to three. It’s really no problem. Is it