lake.’ My voice was a barely a whisper but they all heard me and turned around to stare at him. Blake looked around the room and his eyes fell upon our table and then on me. We shared a look: his was angry, mine was pleading for understanding.

‘So that’s who the seat is for!’ Melanie squealed. ‘Are you guys back together?’

There were murmurs of surprise and intrigue and excitement but then the door opened again and Jenna arrived in the restaurant, and everybody turned to me in confusion. I looked angrily at Adam, assuming that it was he who had invited Blake without telling me, but his face was as shocked as mine. His friend had surprised him too. Everybody stood up to greet Blake; their hero had arrived.

‘You didn’t tell me you were coming,’ Adam said, giving his friend a handshake, seeming put out.

‘I’m just up for the night. Adam, this is Jenna,’ Blake said, stepping aside and pushing Jenna into the limelight. She seemed overwhelmed by it all and incredibly embarrassed to be at my thirtieth birthday celebrations and so she should have been. She looked at me half-apologetically and half-jubilantly as she wished me happy birthday and apologised for not having brought a gift.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice a whisper. ‘I thought he was just coming in to say hello to someone.’

‘Yes.’ I pasted on a smile, though I did genuinely feel sorry for her. ‘He does that.’ As soon as she moved on to meet the others, I felt a hand on my arm tugging me.

‘Don’t do this,’ Blake said, in a low voice.

‘Blake, you don’t even know what I’m trying to do.’

‘I know you’re looking for a few fans and you need a bad guy. I know exactly what you’re doing. Just listen to me, don’t do it. We can figure out another way to sort things out with them.’

‘Blake, it’s not about them,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘This is about me.’

‘And what you’re about to do is about me too so I think it’s fair that I have a say, don’t you?’

I sighed.

‘Looks like we need two more chairs,’ Riley said, all game-show host trying to keep the atmosphere up.

I looked at the empty chair beside me, looked at my watch. It was a half an hour late, Don wasn’t coming. ‘No,’ I said sadly, ‘just one more chair, he can have this one.’ Everyone moved up a place and mum was beside me.

Blake sat at the head of the table directly opposite me with Jenna next to him. She was at the corner beside Andrew, and they were like two spare tools together who empathised with each other.

‘Well, look at this,’ Chantelle boomed, ‘just like old times. Apart from him,’ she referred to Andrew. ‘I was dating Derek back then.’ She pretended to retch. Andrew went puce again.

‘So what did I miss?’ Blake asked the table but looked at me.

‘Nothing yet,’ David said, bored.

‘Lucy was just about to share something important with everyone,’ Life said, looking pointedly at Blake. ‘Something that means a lot to her.’

‘No, it’s okay,’ I said quietly, drained. ‘Forget about it.’

‘Okay,’ Blake jumped in, ‘because I’ve a bit of important news myself.’ All heads swiftly turned to him as if it was a tennis match. ‘I just heard that my deal came through for my new cookbook and TV show.’

There was a collective cheer, mostly from our friends; my family and my life weren’t overly enthused but they were polite – apart from Life who booed but only so that I could hear. It wasn’t an entirely overenthusiastic cheer from the rest of the gang either, but I’m not sure if Blake noticed, and if he did he was ignoring the signs to shut up and had begun talking about a fish course he’d designed from sardines he’d eaten in Spain which were cooked on a hot stone under a scorching summer sun. Adam was looking a little concerned by Blake’s interruption, as it appeared to everyone to have been an obvious one. Jenna was the only person who seemed rapt; everybody else listened politely apart from Lisa who looked fit to burst. I don’t know if that was due to her personal discomfort or because Blake was talking incessantly about himself. Jamie had given up listening and instead was ogling Lisa’s watermelon breasts.

‘My word,’ Mum turned to me and said quietly. ‘He hasn’t changed a bit, has he?’ From the way that she said it I knew she didn’t mean it in a good way and I was surprised, because I’d always thought she’d been fascinated by him and his stories. Perhaps she had just been appropriately polite and attentive. Pockets of conversation had begun to form around the table as people tuned out of Blake’s stories – each seemed to lead seamlessly into another – until eventually it was just Blake telling Lisa, and Lisa was not to be messed with.

Finally she yawned. ‘Blake,’ she held her hand up. ‘I’m sorry, can you please stop?’ All other conversations died down to listen to her. ‘I don’t mean to be rude but I don’t care any more. I’m uncomfortable and I’m disgusting and I have no patience and I’m just going to say what I think. Before you arrived, Lucy was about to tell us something, something important and we all care because Lucy never tells us anything important. Not any more. No offence, Lucy, but you don’t. You didn’t even tell us about the weirdo in your office who held a gun to your head, I had to hear it from Belinda Bitchface who lives around the corner from me, do you remember her? She’s a single mother with three kids with three different fathers and has the face of a scrunched-up nipple and it serves her right. Don’t look at me like that, Mrs Silchester, she deserves it, honestly – if you heard the things she used to do to us when we were at school. Anyway, she told me he had a gun to your head and I was mortified because I didn’t even know, and it wasn’t just that.’ Lisa looked at Blake again. ‘She doesn’t tell us anything. Nothing.’

‘It was a water pistol,’ I said, trying to calm them all down as they gave out to me for not telling them anything, rattling off everything in my life that they’d heard from other people which I’d never told them about. Blake listened to them all, fascinated.

‘Silence!’ Lisa finally shouted and again the restaurant became hushed and stared at her. ‘Not you, just them,’ she gestured at us. ‘Let Lucy speak.’

The waiter returned to fill my glass with water and gave me a smug smile. He took his time and moved on to another glass. I stared him down and finally he left the jug on the table and walked away.

‘Okay fine. Blake, can I, please?’

‘You don’t need to ask his permission,’ Chantelle snapped. ‘We’ve heard enough about sardines for one night.’

Jamie smirked.

Blake crossed his arms, looked nervous beneath the tough exterior.

‘I just want to say that this is for me, it is not to make anybody into the bad guy. Blake had a part in it but I take full responsibility for the rest of it. It’s my doing – not his.’

Blake seemed satisfied by that.

‘So do not attack Blake,’ I urged. Then I paused. ‘I did not,’ I began slowly, ‘break up with Blake. He left me.’

Mouths fell open. They stared at me silently, in shock, then shocked faces turned to scowls, and then those faces turned away from me and towards Blake.

‘Hey, hey, hey, not his fault, remember?’

With gritted teeth they all looked back at me. Except for Adam; he looked at Blake questioningly and when Blake wouldn’t meet his eye he saw it as an admission and his look turned to anger.

‘I was very happy in our relationship. I was completely in love. I didn’t feel that we had any problems but obviously I wasn’t paying enough attention because Blake wasn’t happy. He ended the relationship, for his own reasons, which he is perfectly entitled to,’ I said forcefully, trying to quash the uprising.

‘Why did you say she left you?’ Melanie asked Blake.

‘We decided to say that because I was embarrassed,’ I answered. ‘Because I was confused and I was worried what people would think and because I didn’t have any answers and I thought that if I said I just wasn’t happy and I decided to leave him then it would all be much easier. Blake was helping me. He was trying to make it easier for me.’

Blake had the decency to look embarrassed.

‘And whose idea was this?’ Jamie asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said dismissively, ‘It’s not important. The point is that it set off a chain of events in my life that—’

‘But who suggested the idea first?’ Mary interrupted.

‘It doesn’t matter. This is about me now,’ I said selfishly. ‘I felt it would be easier to deal with, only it wasn’t because you all held it against me, and thought that I cheated.’ I looked at Adam. ‘I assure you, I absolutely did not.’

‘Did you?’ Melanie asked Blake angrily.

‘Hey, I told you not to attack him, it’s about me.’ But no one was listening to me.

‘Can you remember who thought of it first?’ Jamie asked Blake.

‘Look,’ Blake sighed and leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped. ‘It might have been my idea but it wasn’t to back away from any blame, it was genuinely to make it easier for Lucy—’

‘And you,’ Mum said.

‘Mum, please,’ I said quietly, embarrassed it was all turning out as Blake had feared.

‘So it was your idea?’ Riley confirmed.

Blake sighed. ‘I guess.’

‘Lucy, continue,’ Riley said, and that was that.

‘Well, that day that he, that we broke up we told you all that I’d left him and I was very confused. I was very sad and very confused. I had a day off work, I’d taken it off because, Blake, remember we were supposed to go strawberry picking with your niece in …’ I looked at Blake and he looked genuinely sad. ‘Anyway,’ I changed the subject, ‘I had a bit to drink at home. Quite a bit.’

‘As you should,’ Lisa said, looking at Blake angrily.

‘And work phoned me and told me to collect a client from the airport. And I did.’

Mum looked shocked.

‘Dad knows this, by the way. That’s why we had the argument. And Riley, whatever you heard about that day from Gavin is correct. And for the record, he isn’t cheating on his wife with a man. I lost my job and I lost my driving licence but I couldn’t tell anyone that.’

‘Why not?’ Melanie asked.

‘Because … well, I tried to. Chantelle, do you remember?’

Chantelle looked like a deer caught in headlights. ‘No?’

‘I called you and told you I’d gotten really drunk the day before and you asked me why and I said because I was upset and you said why the hell should I be upset, I was the one who left Blake.’

Chantelle’s hands went flying to her mouth. ‘Lucy, you know better than to ever listen to me. So this is my fault?’

‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘It’s really not, but it made me realise that I was locked into this lie and I was going to have to stick to it. I sold the car and started cycling and I desperately needed a job because I needed the money and the only one I could find was at Mantic but I had to have Spanish to take it so I pretended that I did. What was one little lie in a line of so many bigger ones? But then I needed Mariza to help me or I’d lose my job and I couldn’t tell anyone, and so I rented a studio flat the size of this table and none of you were ever there because I was ashamed that everything had fallen apart and that my life was so crap and all of you were doing so well. I was embarrassed, that’s all, but then I grew to like my life and it was just me in this bubble where only I knew the truth, but then my life contacted me – this man to the right of me, who helped me see that I’d tied myself into a big knot and that the only way to get out of it and move on was to tell you the truth because it’s all connected – every little truth is connected to a big lie – and in order to tell you one I’d have to tell you them all and I couldn’t, so I didn’t, so I either didn’t tell you anything or I told you a lie and I’m sorry for that. I’m really sorry. And Blake, I’m sorry to drag you into this but I had to. It wasn’t about you, or turning you into the bad guy, it was about me and turning everything into what it should be.’

He nodded, full of understanding, looking sorry and sad all at once. ‘I had no idea, Lucy, I’m so sorry. I honestly thought at the time that it was the best thing.’

‘For you,’ Mum repeated.

‘Mum,’ I said, annoyed.

‘Anything else?’ Life asked and I thought about it.

‘I don’t like goat’s cheese.’

Lisa gasped.

‘I know, I’m sorry, Lisa.’

‘But I asked you five times!’ she referred to a dinner party she’d held two months ago where she’d singled me out at the table for pushing the cheese around my plate. ‘Why didn’t you just say?’

I think everybody at the table understood why I hadn’t said, even a goat would have eaten that cheese and Lisa would have eaten me if I hadn’t eaten it. Still, it didn’t explain why I’d ordered it most times we’d eaten out in an effort to prove her theory wrong, and as a result I hated it even more.

‘Anything else?’ Life asked again.

I thought hard. ‘I have been babysitting my neighbour’s invisible baby? Is that it? No? Oh. Oh, yes, and I have a cat. I’ve had him for two and a half years. His name is Mr Pan but he prefers Julia or Mary.’

Life finally appeared satisfied – but the others stared at me with shocked expressions trying to take it all in. There was a long silence.

‘So that’s it, guys, my life in a nutshell. What do you think?’ I asked nervously, waiting for them to stand up and storm out or throw drink in my face.

Adam turned to Blake and said angrily, ‘So you left Lucy?’

I sighed and pushed away my salad, appetite gone.

‘What’s wrong?’ Melanie asked, eyes wide. ‘Did you lie about liking salad too?’ She smiled then and we both had a private chuckle while everyone turned on Blake and gave him the abuse they’d been giving me for almost three years.

‘I’m sorry, could you all please be quiet,’ Jamie finally spoke up, and everyone hushed. ‘I think that even though it should go without saying, I should say it anyway. I think I can speak on everyone’s behalf – well, almost everyone,’ he threw a look at Andrew, ‘because I think it’s clear to see you’ve never liked Lucy –’ we laughed as Andrew reddened again – ‘when I say, Lucy, I can’t believe you felt you couldn’t tell us any of this before. It would never have changed our opinion of you – we’ve always known you’re a disaster no matter what.’

Everyone laughed.

‘No, seriously, Lucy, we would have been your friends no matter what dumb job you had or no matter where you were living. You know us better than to think we care about any of that crap.’ He genuinely seemed insulted.

‘I suppose I did know that, but the lie got too big and then I was afraid I’d lose you all when you found out I was a psychotic lying freak.’

‘And that’s a very valid point,’ Jamie said sombrely. ‘But it’s not going to happen.’

‘I second that,’ Melanie added and everybody else joined in, apart from Andrew, Jenna and Blake, of course, who was too busy feeling the most uncomfortable he’d ever felt. Life was silent as he observed it all, making mental notes for the next file for his new office. I caught his eye and he winked, so for the first time in two years eleven months and twenty-three days, I finally relaxed.

‘Now down to the important stuff,’ Riley said. ‘Did nobody else hear what I heard? Lucy, you said you have a neighbour who has an invisible baby? Is that by any chance—’

‘Never mind that,’ Lisa butted in. ‘She hates bloody goat’s cheese!’

And willing to face whatever punishments were coming their way, they all started to laugh. After what felt like a very long time, Lisa joined in.

Riley dropped Mum home to Glendalough; she’d drunk too much at dinner and had come over all emotional and drunk-dialled Father. He wanted her home immediately, partly because he missed her but mostly because he was embarrassed she was out in public in that state and especially with me. The others had insisted on bringing me to Melanie’s club to celebrate my birthday and the truth; but I was exhausted, drained from the revelations, and I just wanted to go home and spend time with my life and my cat. When I’d announced this Melanie had blurted out, ‘Ah, you can’t even stay until the end of your own birthday party!’ which told me she still definitely had issues with my Cinderella timekeeping. Blake had sloped off before dessert, taking a relieved Jenna with him, so it was in Life’s hands to walk the birthday girl home.

I thought we would stay up half the night analysing everything about the big reveal. It had been years in the lead-up and now that it was over, dealt with, I almost didn’t know what to do with the big hole in my mind where the stress of it had once been. When I snapped out of my thinking, I realised I was walking alone and Life had stopped suddenly under the streetlight outside my apartment block. I turned to him, feeling that hole in my head quickly being replaced by a new worry. He shoved his hands in his pockets. His demeanour had all the ingredients of a goodbye and suddenly my heart both drummed and ached. I hadn’t thought about not being with him after I had fixed everything, partly because I never thought I was going to fix anything but mostly because I couldn’t bear to think about a day going by without spending time with him.

‘Aren’t you going to come in?’ I asked, trying to keep the shrill tone out of my voice.

‘Nah,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll give you a break.’

‘I don’t need a break, honestly, come in. I’ve about twenty cakes I need help eating.’

He smiled. ‘You don’t need me, Lucy.’

‘Of course I need you, you don’t expect me to eat them on my own,’ I said, deliberately misinterpreting him.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said gently and gave me that look. That look. That goodbye my best friend, I’m sad but let’s pretend to be happy about it look.

I felt the lump in my throat swell to astronomical sizes but I had to keep my tears in check. Even if my mum had broken the Silchester rules, I wasn’t about to start or we’d all fall like dominoes, and the world needed emotionally retentive people, it was imperative to our life cycle. ‘Of all people, I need you.’

Life sensed my desperation and did the honourable thing and looked away to give me a moment to compose myself. He looked up to the sky and breathed in slowly and then out. ‘It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?’

I hadn’t noticed; if he’d told me it was day I would have believed him. I studied him and it struck me then how beautiful he was, how handsome and strong, how confident and secure he always made me feel, always there for me no matter what. I had an overwhelming urge to kiss him. I lifted my chin up and leaned in to him.

‘Don’t,’ he said suddenly, turning to me and placing a finger on my lips.

‘I wasn’t going to do anything.’ I backed away, embarrassed.

We were silent.

‘I mean, okay, I was, but – it’s just that you look so handsome and you’ve been so good to me and …’ I took a deep breath. ‘I really love you.’

He smiled, dimples forming in both cheeks. ‘Remember the day we first met?’

I scrunched up my face and nodded.

‘You really hated me then, didn’t you?’

‘More than anyone I’d ever met. You were disgusting.’

‘So I’ve won you over, it’s mission accomplished. You couldn’t stand to be alone and in the same room as your own life and now you actually like me.’

‘I said I love you.’

‘And I love you,’ he said and my heart surged. ‘So we should celebrate.’

‘But I’m losing you.’

‘You just found me.’

I knew he was right, I knew that as much as I was feeling he was my everything right there and then, it wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t physical and it just wasn’t possible; that would make for an entirely different magazine interview. ‘Will I ever see you again?’

‘Yeah, sure, the next time you mess up. Which, knowing you, won’t be too long away.’

‘Hey!’

‘Just joking. I’ll check in on you now and then, if you don’t mind.’

I shook my head, not able to speak.

‘And you know where my office is, don’t you? So you can visit me whenever you like.’

I nodded again. Pursed my lips, felt the tears almost come, almost come.

‘I came here to help, and I helped. Now if I stay, I’ll only get in the way.’

‘You wouldn’t be in the way,’ I croaked.

‘I would,’ he said gently. ‘There’s only enough room for you and the couch in that flat.’

I tried to laugh but couldn’t.

‘Thanks, Lucy. You helped fix me too, you know.’

I nodded, couldn’t look at him. Looking at him would mean tears and tears were bad. I concentrated on his shoes instead. His new, polished shoes that didn’t match the man I’d first met.

‘OK, so it’s not goodbye. It’s never goodbye.’

He kissed me on the top of my head, the only part of me I’d let him see. It was a long kiss and then I rested my head on his chest, feeling his heartbeat racing as fast as mine.

‘I’m not leaving until you’re safely inside. Go on.’

I turned around and walked away, every footstep loud in the silent night. I couldn’t turn around at the door, I had to keep looking forward, the tears were going to come, they were going to come.

Mr Pan looked groggily up at me from his bed, acknowledged me and then went back to sleep; it occurred to me that this was the end of the life that I had lived with him here in our bubble. Either he had to go or we both did. That made me sad too but he was a cat and I wasn’t going to cry over a cat so I toughened up and felt good that I had beaten the tears, I was stronger than them, all they meant was that you felt sorry for yourself and I wasn’t sorry for myself. All I wanted to do was bury myself under my duvet and not think about anything that had happened that night but I couldn’t, because I couldn’t reach the zip on the back of my dress. I hadn’t been able to close it earlier; Life had done it for me. I just simply couldn’t get my arms around to reach it, any angle I tried. I contorted my body in different directions trying to reach the zip but it wouldn’t work, I couldn’t reach. I was sweating and panting, angry beyond belief that I couldn’t get the stupid dress off. I looked around the apartment for something to help. Nothing. No one. It was then I realised I was well and truly alone.

I climbed into bed with my dress still on. And I cried.