o tell me about your dad,’ Life asked the following morning. We were sitting on a park bench drinking coffee from take-out cups and watching Mr Pan chasing a butterfly and leaping around with such joy I tried not to think about the fact the last time he’d felt grass under his feet was when I’d walked it into the flat.

‘First of all, it’s not Dad,’ I corrected him. ‘It’s Father. He made that very clear as soon as our lips could form actual words. And secondly, there’s not much to tell.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

Life turned to the old woman beside him. ‘Excuse me, this lady’s boyfriend left her but they concocted a lie to make people think it was the other way around.’

‘Oh,’ the lady said, confused, thinking she should have known what he was talking about but couldn’t quite figure it out.

‘I can’t believe you did that,’ I grumbled.

‘You lie, I tell a truth,’ he repeated his mantra.

‘I didn’t lie, there’s really not much to tell about my father.’

‘Lucy, has it ever occurred to you that I might be here for a specific reason? And as soon as I investigate all areas and find the thing that’s wrong with you, I’m gone, out of your life. You won’t have to see me again and imagine how happy your days will be then? So it’s in your best interest to co operate, even if you think the thing I’m asking you about is a non-issue.’

‘What are you here to fix?’

‘I don’t know, it’s exploratory surgery. I examine all areas, see what the problem is.’

‘So you are the endoscope to my anus.’

He winced. ‘Again we’re having metaphor issues.’

We smiled.

‘I recall you saying that your father was a pretentious little man who needed to get off his high horse. That implies there’s something to talk about.’

‘I didn’t say that, I called him a pretentious little shit.’

‘I was paraphrasing.’

‘We’ve just never gotten along. We used to, to a certain extent, when we were polite enough to tolerate one another but there’s no room for politeness any more.’ I looked at him. ‘Are you here to sort out daddy issues? Because if so, we might as well call the whole thing off now because if I really had daddy issues I would spend my days trying to endlessly please him which would result in my becoming a high achiever, and right now I’m not even close to that. He can’t even piss me off enough to make me successful. Our issues are just a waste of time.’

‘You’re right. You’re a failure, you don’t have daddy issues.’

We laughed.

‘He doesn’t like me,’ I said simply. ‘There’s nothing deeper to it than that, nothing to fix, nothing to explore. He’s just never liked me.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘He told me.’

‘He didn’t tell you that.’

‘You know that he did. When I got fired from my last job it was the final straw for him, which was ridiculous because up to that point I had actually been doing well so it should technically have been the first straw. Actually, it shouldn’t have been a straw at all because I didn’t tell him I was fired, I told them I left the job because I didn’t agree with the company’s take on their environmental responsibility. We had an argument and I told him I knew he hated me and he said quote, “Lucy, I don’t hate you, I just don’t like you very much.” Unquote.’ I looked at him. ‘So there, it’s not just my paranoia. Take out your little computer and see for yourself.’

‘I’m sure he just meant in that moment.’

‘Yes, he absolutely meant in that moment, thing is, the moment hasn’t ended, we’re still stuck right in it.’

‘Why did you get fired?’

We had finally arrived at it.

I sighed. ‘Do you know what CSR is?’

He frowned and shook his head.

‘CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility to you, is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business modal. CSR policy honours the triple bottom line: people, planet, profit. It’s like a corporate conscience, integrating the public interest in corporate decision-making by encouraging community growth and development and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public, regardless of legality. The idea is that the company makes more profit by operating with perspective though some argue that it distracts from the economic role of business.’ I took a sip of coffee. ‘I agree with the former, by the way. I worked in a large multinational who should have taken their policy more seriously, and I didn’t agree with the decisions they were making.’

‘So what happened? You found paper in the plastic bin?’

‘No.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘I won’t get into the exact ins and outs but I basically shared my opinions with the CEO and I was swiftly fired.’

Life nodded his head to himself and pondered what I’d said. Then he threw his head back and laughed, laughed so loudly the old lady beside him jumped with fright, laughed on behalf of the entire country. He was breathless by the time he’d finished.

‘Man, that was a good one,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ I took a slug of my coffee, gearing myself up for the payback.

‘I think you’ll find it was worth it though.’ He turned to the old lady, ‘Sometimes she doesn’t wash her bras for weeks at a time.’

I gasped. The lady finally stood up and left.

‘So where did you get that lie from?’ he asked.

‘Wikipedia. Couldn’t sleep one night and so I surfed around for a good story.’

‘Nice. Is that what you told everybody?’

‘Yep. No one ever asked what exactly the company practices were that I didn’t agree with. I was going to go with something like illegal dumping but it seemed too obvious and too eighties.’

He laughed again. Then stopped. ‘You didn’t tell your dad that, did you?’

‘Yes, I did.’ I cringed, recalling the moment. ‘It turned out he already knew the truth but he still let me say my little spiel first before revealing it. He’s the only one who knows the truth behind that particular lie. Hence the argument.’

‘How did he know?’

‘He’s a judge, and I have learned the judging world is a small one.’

‘Ah. Care to kindly share the truth with me?’

I drained my cup and fired it into the nearest basket. It missed and hit the ground. I sighed wearily, the world heavy on my shoulders just because of that one incident, then got up and put it back in the bin and returned to the bench.

‘I was drunk while collecting a client from the airport. I got lost, so we drove around for an hour, he missed a meeting and then I dropped him at the wrong hotel and left him there.’ I looked at him. ‘They fired me and I lost my driver’s licence for a year, so I sold the car and rented a flat in the city where I could cycle everywhere.’

‘Which tied in with the environmentally responsible thing.’

I nodded.

‘Clever.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So technically you lied to your father and he caught you out and you’re angry with him for being angry with you?’

I thought about that; wanted to protest, justify myself, and explain the years I’d endured his patronising comments and his pushiness, which had played a large part in our relationship breakdown because of course it was so much more complicated than just one argument, but it was too much to explain and I didn’t know where to start, hadn’t the time, energy or inclination to delve into its infinitesimal detail so eventually I took the lazy way out and nodded.

‘Problem is, your lies are built on top of other lies, aren’t they? You tell one, you have to tell another, you reveal a tiny truth and the whole thing falls apart, so you keep building on them, like the lying at work about speaking Spanish being linked to Melanie and her ex-girlfriend.’

I nodded.

He continued. ‘You tell people you got fired at work, they’ll ask why – because you were drunk – because why – because that was the day Blake left you and you were upset and you had a day off and you weren’t thinking straight so you opened a bottle of wine and drank it, and then the company called you even though you were on a day off and told you there was a problem, you needed to collect Robert Smyth from the airport for an important meeting; and there was a lot at stake, you’d already lost your boyfriend, you didn’t want to lose your job too, so you hopped in your car, drunk but not as drunk as you eventually became because it hadn’t hit you yet, and you got worse as the hour wore on, you had a disastrous day and as a result lost your job, your licence and your car.’

It sounded so sad, my whole life tangled up in a string of ridiculous lies that went from bad to worse.

‘If you already know all of this stuff, then why do you ask?’

‘I want to hear something the computer files aren’t telling me.’

‘And do you?’

‘Yes.’

I looked at him for more.

‘That you’re not reckless. You’re just sad.’

Silchesters didn’t cry but it didn’t mean Silchesters didn’t ever want to cry. I wanted to then but I didn’t do it. We sat together in a long but not uncomfortable silence; at least five minutes passed when we didn’t utter a word. It was a beautiful day, the park was full, there wasn’t a breeze in the air, everything was still, everyone was lazy, lying on the freshly cut grass, reading or eating or gossiping or doing what we were doing, which was taking it all in. Finally he broke the silence.

‘But I do think you spend your days trying to endlessly displease him. Which is something,’ he said.

It came out of nowhere, a random comment and I pretended not to know what he was talking about. But I did.

That night was Chantelle’s birthday, which meant we were all summoned to the Wine Bistro. We never bought each other presents, instead agreeing on covering the birthday girl or boy’s share of the meal. We used to meet weekly in Blake’s and my apartment but when we split up we all moved to this restaurant where the food was cheap but good. Life met me down the block and to my absolute surprise and delight was wearing jeans, and beneath the crusty crumpled suit jacket was a fresh white linen shirt. Good teeth and better clothes, surely it meant I was on the up. I couldn’t stop yawning – he still hadn’t bothered to get any nose plugs, but the yawning wasn’t just down to being tired, I was incredibly anxious, which he picked up on.

‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.’

‘Of course I’m worried, I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re going to say to them.’

‘I’m not going to say anything, I’ll just observe. But if you lie, I’ll tell a truth.’

Which made me anxious; my friendships were built on lies. I yawned again. ‘Just watch out for Adam. He’s Blake’s best friend and he hates me.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.’

‘Just watch out.’

‘Okay.’

I started power-walking up the street which was difficult in double platforms; I felt like I was trying to run in a dream but wasn’t getting anywhere. Breathlessly, I started giving him the rundown. ‘Lisa is pregnant, she’s got about a month to go and she’s got all this fluid stuff in her face and hands so don’t stare too much, and please bear with her. David is her husband, he’s the guy bearing with her. Lisa used to go out with Jamie years ago and David and Jamie are friends and sometimes it gets a bit weird but generally it’s fine. They didn’t cheat or anything, they got together years later so don’t worry about that.’

‘Okay, I’ll try not to worry about Jamie and David. If at any stage you think I’m getting too interested in their exciting lives you just jump right in there and stop me.’

‘You know, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.’

‘And yet it is still extremely funny.’

‘Chantelle will probably try to come on to you – she gets very flirty after drink – so if you feel a hand under the table, it’s her. Adam’s girlfriend Mary is a photographer and wears black all the time and I don’t trust her.’

‘Because she wears black?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, because she’s a photographer.’

‘Well, I’m so glad it was just me being ridiculous.’

‘She’s always trying to see things in different angles. Everything. Even simple things like me saying, “I went to the shop today.” She’ll be like,’ I took on a deep and slow voice, ‘“Why? Which shop? Are you afraid of shops? Is it because of your childhood? How was the light there?”’ Life laughed at me and I returned to normal, panting and striding, striding and panting. ‘She complicates things. Which leaves …’ I went through them all in my head. ‘Me. And I’m in so much trouble right now.’ I stopped walking outside the restaurant and faced him, ‘Please don’t make my friends hate me.’

‘Lucy, give me your hand.’ I wouldn’t, so his hand chased mine in the air.

‘No, they’re clammy.’ I looked into the restaurant, saw them all sitting there. I was last, as usual. ‘Great, we’re late.’

‘If it’s any consolation you’ll be the first out of there.’

‘Are you psychic too?’

‘No, but you never stay till the end. And my hands are not clammy,’ he said, more to himself than to me, feeling them. He grabbed my hands. ‘See?’

They were actually dry; I was most definitely on the up, only I didn’t feel like that right then.

‘Lucy, look at me. Calm down. I won’t make your friends hate you any more than they already do. That’s a joke, don’t look so scared. Seriously, I won’t make your friends hate you. I promise. Now breathe.’ We resumed walking and he was still holding my hand. I momentarily calmed and then I saw Adam watching us from inside the restaurant and I quickly let go of Life and then I panicked again. As soon as we entered, the waiter with the fake French accent saw me, and he didn’t even attempt to hide the dread in his eyes.

‘Bonjour,’ I said to him as I took off my jacket. ‘D’accord, tu peux rester près de moi tant que tu ne parles pas de la chaleur qu’il fait ici.’ Okay, you can stand beside me as long as you don’t talk about how hot it is here.

He gave me a big smile that showed he had just about had enough of me, and picked up the menus. ‘Zis way,’ he mumbled.

‘What was that about?’ Life asked.

I didn’t answer, I was too busy following the fake French waiter and pasting on a big fake smile to my friends who weren’t looking at me but who had all eyes on Life. Everyone was sitting in their favourite places apart from Melanie; her seat was empty because she had flown to Ibiza that morning to work at a P Diddy party. I sat at the head of the table and stared down to where Blake should be. It was always a reminder. Life sat beside me in Melanie’s place. They were all staring at us.

‘Everybody, this is—’ I stalled slightly but not long enough for anybody to notice, I hoped.

‘Cosmo Brown,’ he finished for me. ‘I’m a friend of Lucy’s, I’m in town for a few weeks.’

I looked at him in surprise, then at everybody else to see if they’d swallowed it. Why wouldn’t they? They were nodding, making friendly happy sounds, and one by one they introduced themselves, the men shaking hands across the table. Adam eyed him warily, Mary no doubt checked the lighting on his face for signs of childhood trauma.

‘Cosmo,’ Lisa said, looking at her husband David. ‘I like that name.’ She rubbed her swollen belly.

‘Yeah,’ David said, trying to be polite to both Lisa and my life but clearly hating the name.

‘So it’s a boy,’ Chantelle said, catching them out.

‘No,’ Lisa said.

The others jeered while Lisa tried to speak over them.

‘I told you that we don’t know, but if it was a boy, Cosmo would be nice. My God, I’ve to be so specific with you.’ She buried her head in the menu.

‘So how long do you two know each other?’ Adam asked.

Interesting first question. I translated it as, So how long have you been sleeping with Lucy behind Blake’s back?

I looked at Life feeling nervous that he would blurt it all out, but he kept his promise.

‘Oh …’ Life looked at me and laughed. ‘Forever.’

‘Forever?’ Adam asked, eyebrows raised. ‘How long are you in Dublin for?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ Life said, taking off his awful suit jacket and turning up his new linen shirt sleeves. ‘I’m going to see how things go.’

‘Are you here working?’

‘Generally? Or now?’

‘Here, in Dublin,’ Adam said.

‘It’s business and pleasure,’ Life said with a big smile so that the lack of information didn’t seem at all rude. I needed to learn from him. Little pieces of information were better than lies. Though it didn’t seem to be working with Adam as he wanted to know everything about my life.

‘What line of work are you in?’ he asked.

‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing to be threatened by.’ Life held his hands up defensively, making a point of Adam’s interrogation. Everyone laughed, apart from Adam who seemed annoyed. Mary put her hand in his lap and gave his hand a little squeeze. It said, Calm down. She hated me too. When Blake and I broke up I hadn’t heard from her again – a clear sign that we were only friends because our boyfriends were – and while it was insulting I was quite happy about never having to go to bizarre photograph exhibitions again such as ‘Moments in Thyme: a unique and distinct look at nature’.

‘I’m joking with you,’ Life said directly to Adam. ‘I’m an auditor.’

I pursed my lips and tried not to smile; I knew it was a direct reference to the first time we’d met and I’d told him I felt my life was being audited. I think it was a subconscious move but Life put his arm around the back of my chair in a protective way – but it could have been read differently, which is how I think Adam took it, because he was looking at me as if I was the most disgusting piece of shit he’d ever seen.

‘That’s what we needed to do,’ Lisa said suddenly, hand on belly again. ‘Paperwork. Did you sign those forms?’ She looked at David.

‘No, I forgot.’

‘I left them on the kitchen counter beside the phone so that you wouldn’t miss them.’

‘And I didn’t miss them, I saw them, I just forgot to sign them.’

Lisa’s face reddened.

‘We’ll do it when we get home,’ David said calmly. ‘It’s Saturday anyway, not much we can do.’

‘It was fucking Friday yesterday when I told you to sign them,’ she snapped.

David looked at Jamie wearily.

‘So Blake is home,’ Jamie said, lifting the mood.

My ears perked up but as usual I was self-conscious about my reactions to anything that concerned him so I put my head into my menu and pretended to read. I read Soup of the day thirteen times again.

‘Cosmo, do you know Blake?’ he asked.

‘Blake.’ Life looked at me and my heart was thudding.

‘Yes, Blake, the poor innocent man she cruelly dumped like the femme fatale she is,’ Chantelle joked. ‘And we’ll never let her forget about it.’

I shrugged, nonchalantly.

‘Honestly, I think all women should deal with break-ups like you, Lucy,’ Lisa said. ‘My God, remember what I was like?’

Everybody groaned as they collectively remembered the drama of Lisa’s late-night tearful phone calls, the never wanting to be alone, the endless battles to convince her that she was not having a heart attack – that while painful, it was just her heart hurting. Jamie smiled fondly, presumably at the memory of them being together and not the bitter break up which ensued. He and Lisa shared a look. David shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Well, you have to be positive about it, don’t you,’ I said, trying to give them a confident smile but feeling like my lips were trembling inside. ‘At least we split before the property market collapsed and made a good profit.’ Which I’d spent. ‘We’d never sell that apartment now.’

They looked at me.

‘I loved that apartment,’ Chantelle said sadly.

I did too. ‘It was always too hot,’ I said dismissively. I thought of Blake walking around the rooms with no clothes on after I’d pumped up all the heat deliberately. He was always too hot, and like a furnace in bed. I looked at the menu. Hot soup of the day. Hot, hot, hot.

‘I’ve never met him,’ Life said to Adam, who was still waiting for a response.

‘He’s a cool guy,’ Adam said.

‘Of course he is. You’re his best friend.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘May I take your orders, please?’ The waiter arrived in the nick of time. It sounded like ‘ordairs plez’, as though all his training had been taken from an episode of Allo, Allo.

I learned a lot about Blake during that dinner, such as that his last show was going to be airing this week and he was home for the remainder of the summer; he had opened an outdoor sports activity and adventure centre in, wait for it, Bastardstown, Co. Wexford, something we’d talked about doing together. He was doing everything we’d talked about doing together, only without me. I looked into the menu again and blinked a dozen times. Soup of the day, soup of the day, soup of the day.

‘You guys talked about opening that together, didn’t you,’ Adam said.

‘Eh, yeah,’ I said, blasé, eyes scanning the menu. ‘Maybe I should sue him for stealing my idea.’ The others smiled, apart from Adam of course, and then Lisa started ordering, in her new bossy tone, changing all the dishes to suit her dietary needs. The waiter, slightly nervously, had to excuse himself from the table to see if the chef would do as she wished. Moments later the chef himself came out to join us at the table. He really was French and very politely informed her that he couldn’t do the goat’s cheese pastry without the goat’s cheese because then it would just be pastry and he already had the goat’s cheese wrapped in it.

‘Fine,’ Lisa snapped, her face heating up again. ‘I’ll have bread.’ She clapped the menu shut. ‘Just a plate of bread, please, because that’s all I can eat here, only I can’t because there are nuts in it and I can’t eat nuts.’

‘I’m sorry,’ David said, red-faced, ‘She’s very tired.’

‘Don’t apologise on my behalf, thank you very much.’ She moved awkwardly in her seat. ‘It has less to do with being tired and more to do with these fucking chairs which are so uncomfortable.’ Then she started crying. ‘Shit,’ she squeaked. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve something in my eye.’ Her voice finished at an octave higher than a chipmunk.

‘Lees,’ Jamie said softly, pointing at the menu, ‘look, they’ve got roasted peppers on the side. You love them. Why don’t you order them?’

David looked at Jamie, a little bit annoyed.

‘Oh my God,’ Lisa smiled at Jamie, ‘remember them?’

‘Yeah,’ Jamie laughed, ‘that’s why I mentioned them.’

I’m sure David was picturing them having sex on a bed of roasted red peppers when the reality was probably that they had both gone to a restaurant and eaten a lot of peppers one day like the naughty divils they were.

‘Okay,’ Lisa sighed and opened the menu again.

We all turned away from the conversation while the chef lowered himself to his knees and patiently went through the menu with Lisa to see what he could and couldn’t do for her.

‘So where are you staying?’ Chantelle asked Life. She hadn’t started coming on to him yet, partly because she was only on her second glass of red wine and partly because she wasn’t yet sure if we were together.

‘I’m staying with Lucy,’ he replied and I tried really hard not to look at Adam’s face.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘We’re never allowed in Lucy’s place, it’s like a big secret or something. You’ve seen the inside, tell us, what are we missing?’

I laughed. ‘Ah, come on, I’m not hiding anything.’

‘Porn?’ Jamie asked once the chef had left, ‘It’s porn, isn’t it? Because I’m thinking she has a penchant for magazines and she leaves them lying around.’

‘No, it has to be more exciting than that.’ Chantelle moved in closer. ‘Tell me there’s someone chained up inside because that’s what I’ve been imagining for the past three years.’

I laughed at them. Jamie winked.

‘She was hiding someone anyway,’ Adam said, reaching for a piece of bread. Again nobody noticed his comment. I know that they all heard it, I just didn’t understand why they didn’t hear it the same way as I did. But maybe Life did.

‘What was that?’ he asked, and then I wished he hadn’t noticed because I didn’t like his tone. It was the same tone Blake would use before we ended up getting into a ridiculous fight with some guy at a bar who was looking at me the wrong way. And Adam was rising to it because Adam had been looking for me to take that tone ever since Blake and I split up.

‘Ah, come on, how long have you guys known each other? Forever? I’m guessing that’s a couple of years at least, isn’t it? And as far as I can remember Lucy was with Blake a couple of years back.’ He was keeping his tone light, a small smile on his face, but you could see the anger beneath, steaming from his flared nostrils.

‘Adam,’ Lisa said, shocked.

‘Come on, I’m sick of this, always skirting around the subject like she’s high almighty.’

‘Because it’s none of our business,’ Chantelle said, eyes wide and warning at Adam.

‘Blake’s our friend,’ Adam said.

‘And so is Lucy.’ Lisa gave him a look.

‘Yes, but he’s not here because of her and that makes it our business.’

‘He’s not here because he got a job he always wanted that required him to leave the country. Get over it,’ Jamie backed me up, veins throbbing in his neck. I could tell he was angry. I wanted to give him a big kiss but I was more concerned with finding an excuse to leave the table immediately, as everything had been lowered to a level that made me deeply, deeply uncomfortable.

‘I think we should all just change the subject,’ David said.

The waiter moved around the table and stood beside me. He could sense it was an awkward moment for me and he was loving it. They were all looking at me to speak, to say something that would clear this tension.

‘Soup of the day,’ I said. ‘Please.’

Adam rolled his eyes. ‘There she goes again, not answering anything about anything, all fucking mysterious.’

‘I just don’t know what soup it is,’ I joked, weakly.

‘Butternut squash and corn,’ the waiter said.

Adam mumbled something under his breath that I didn’t catch, and I was quite pleased as my knees were already trembling from the long line of personal insults from a supposed friend. I was used to that from Adam, but he wasn’t hiding them now; everybody could hear his tone and not just my paranoid ear.

‘Hey, man, don’t speak about her like that,’ Jamie said, suddenly serious. Suddenly it was all very serious.

‘I don’t even know why we’re all talking about this, it was what, three years ago?’ David asked.

‘Two,’ I said quietly. ‘Two years and eleven months.’

And eighteen days.

Jamie looked at me.

‘Yeah, so it was ages ago, they went out, they broke up, they moved on, they’ll meet someone else. Just because two people were together once doesn’t mean we all have to dwell on it forever,’ David ranted. This made everybody stare at him knowing he was referring to his own personal life, namely Jamie and Lisa. David took a gulp of water. Jamie studied his plate. Lisa reached for more bread and picked the nuts out.

‘I’m just saying what all of us were thinking,’ Adam said.

I swallowed. ‘You all think I cheated on Blake?’ Now that was news to me. I looked around the table.

Chantelle looked awkward. ‘It just all seemed a bit sudden and then you became so secretive …’

‘I’m staying out of this,’ said David. He wouldn’t meet my eye, which said it all.

‘I raised the issue once,’ Lisa said. ‘I’m not going to lie, but I’m not like Cagney and Lacey over there, trying to figure it out every second of my day.’

‘Cagney and Lacey were two people,’ David said without thinking and Lisa looked at him with demon eyes.

Jamie ignored them and looked me straight in the eye. ‘I absolutely do not think that you cheated on Blake. You are perfectly entitled to break up with whoever you want, whenever you want – no offence, man,’ he added to Life, ‘without us having to know anything about it. It’s none of our business. Adam has had too much to drink and he’s full of shit.’

‘Hey,’ Mary said, insulted, ‘he’s not drunk.’

‘Fine, he’s just full of shit,’ Jamie joked, but no one laughed, not even him, because it wasn’t really a joke.

‘Mary?’ I looked at her. ‘Do you feel the same?’

‘Your behaviour seemed to change drastically, Lucy. As far as Blake was concerned everything between you was fine and then, as Chantelle said, you just left him and became, well, very secretive.’ She looked at my life. ‘I mean, no offence, this is the first we’ve heard of you. I’m surprised she even invited you.’

‘We’re just friends,’ I said, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

‘So now we’re supposed to believe that this guy is just her friend?’ Adam said to Jamie.

‘Who gives a shit? Why do you care so much?’ Jamie asked.

‘He cares because Blake is his best friend, and Adam is loyal, and poor Blake doesn’t know what he did wrong—’ Mary began, but I interrupted her. I didn’t need to hear any more. I couldn’t or I would break all of the Silchester rules in less than a minute.

‘Yeah, poor Blake,’ I interrupted, and stood up. I heard the shake in my voice. Silchesters didn’t cry and they certainly didn’t get angry, but I was close to blowing it. ‘Poor little Blake, living such a sorry little life travelling the world, while here’s me livin’ it up with my fabulous job, in my fabulous mysterious apartment, with my secret lover.’ I grabbed my bag. Life followed my lead and stood. ‘And you’re right, Adam, he’s not just my friend. He’s a lot more than that because a friend is what you were supposed to be, and he’s been there for me a lot more than you ever have.’

And then I left. Early. When I got outside I kept walking until I was too far away for them to see or hear me. Then when I found the right place, in a doorway, away from everyone, I took out a tissue from my pocket and thought about breaking all the rules. I waited, and waited, knowing that there must be tears, years’ worth of them all built up and ready to fall. But nothing came so I crumpled the tissue and stuffed it back in my pocket. Not now, not over them; my tears had pride.

Life appeared beside me with a concerned look on his face. When he saw that I was all right he said, ‘Okay, maybe you’re right.’

‘He hates me.’

‘No.’ He looked confused. ‘Jamie and David are totally okay with each other after the whole Lisa thing.’ He said it in such a deliberate mock-gossip way that it made me smile. ‘Though technically I don’t know if that’s true,’ he added, ‘but they are the least of my worries. Are you cold?’

I shivered as the night breeze picked up.

‘Come on,’ Life said gently, then he took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders, keeping his arm draped protectively around me, and under the orange glow of the streetlights, we walked home together.