Free The Past and Other Lies by Maggie Joel Page A

divorced now, so what did it matter?

    The cafe was a classic greasy spoon tucked beneath the shadow of Waterloo Bridge. The lie was this:
    ‘ Honestly, Nick, do you really believe Jen would be out getting measurements for her wedding dress if she was having an affair with someone else? ’
    That was it. Hardly a lie at all, really, if you thought about it. Just a question, in fact. A question asked over a lukewarm coffee in a cafe just off the Embankment on a cold February lunchtime four years ago, and after she’d asked it, Charlotte picked up her chipped mug and held it to her lips and swallowed down a lukewarm mouthful because she liked her future brother-in-law and she had just lied to his face because she owed it to Jennifer.
    It was a Saturday lunchtime and the cafe was busy with tourists staring mutely at the stale croissants and limp salads on their plates and at the stained cutlery with which they were expected to eat it. Nick was wearing a sweater and a sports jacket and looked wealthier than he really was so that for a moment Charlotte had felt proud to be seen with him—it was a novelty, this going out to lunch with a good-looking man—but the feeling had frozen inside her when Nick had said the one thing that he wasn’t meant to say.
    I think Jen’s seeing someone behind my back .
    This wasn’t a question, not technically, so she could simply have not answered, but there was Darren McKenzie, always Darren McKenzie.
    So she had answered him at once, reassuringly, unequivocally.
    Anyone who had genuinely known nothing of the affair might have paused to ask Nick why he thought such a thing and who the affair was supposed to be with anyway. But she hadn’t asked these things. Instead, she had jumped in with her denial so rapidly there was no room left for discussion and no time to ponder the morality of it all.
    She’d already done the pondering. Had been pondering for the month prior to this conversation. In fact, ever since she’d overheard a message she wasn’t meant to overhear on Jennifer’s answering machine. A message from someone called Adam who had been very keen for Jennifer to come over that night.
    ‘Oh, Adam!’ Jennifer had said, rolling her eyes at Charlotte’s questions. ‘Adam works with me, that’s all. We go out. We have fun. It’s not serious.’
    But the wedding was serious, and by the time Charlotte and Nick were sitting in the cafe just off the Embankment, the wedding was in seven days and Jennifer was still having fun with Adam. Charlotte had almost not come to the cafe. A part of her had believed Nick couldn’t possibly suspect and that, if he did, there was no way he would ask her about it. A part of her, a large part, had believed it was none of her business and it was best not to get involved. A tiny, minuscule, insignificant part of her had remembered Darren McKenzie and felt guilty.
    It was the tiny, minuscule, insignificant part of her that had said, ‘Honestly, Nick, do you really believe Jen would be out getting measurements for her wedding dress if she was having an affair with someone else?’
    The rest of her had been appalled.
    ‘Why don’t you ask her?’ she added, swallowing the wretched coffee and trying desperately to rescue the situation.
    ‘What’s the point?’ Nick looked down at the red and white plastic tablecloth then looked up into her face. ‘She’d only deny it.’
    ‘Well, there you are!’ There had been a moment’s silence. ‘I mean, if you can’t trust each other, what good is that?’ which meant that now it was Nick’s fault as much as Jennifer’s if the marriage didn’t work because he hadn’t trusted her. It certainly wasn’t Charlotte’s fault.
    What would he do, she wondered, if I said, Yes, you’re right, Jen’s having an affair? Would he believe me and not her? How is it that their marriage depends on me?
    Instead, she had stood up, knocking the table and causing the coffee to spill over the edge of Nick’s cup and