The Fallout (11 page)

“I still don't understand how you're managing to stay friends with both of them,” Gemma continued. “I'm surprised Sasha hasn't issued an ultimatum yet—him or me. I know I would have.”

Gemma's own divorce had been finalized four years earlier, and she'd made no secret of the fact she didn't want her family or friends to keep in touch with her ex, or “that wanker I married,” as she insisted on calling Sam at the time.

“It's different, though, because Josh and Dan are such good mates. And Sasha says she feels better knowing we're in touch with Dan. At least she knows what's going on in his life”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

“Hans,” Gemma said eventually, her voice suddenly serious. “You need to be careful. Divorces are toxic things. You don't want to be pulled into someone else's mess. Be nice, but keep your distance. Understand?”

Chapter 11

“She's here.”

“What? I can't hear you.”

“She's here!”

“What? Now?”

“Yes. Look, Dan, I really don't feel comfortable about this.”

“I know. It's a fucking shit situation to put you in, but I've been going so crazy. I owe you. I really owe you.”

“I've got to go. Remember, not a word of this to Hannah.” After clicking off the phone, Josh flushed the toilet, just for authenticity. Something was twanging sharply in his chest, making him doubt whether he'd done the right thing. Not that he didn't believe Dan had the right to see his daughter, whatever he'd done. And more importantly, September had the right to see her father. Fathers were important. Still, he knew Hannah would be furious if she knew he'd called Dan. They had to make it look like a coincidence that he'd just happened to turn up at their house unexpectedly while September was there playing with Lily.

Emerging from the bathroom, Josh heard the increasingly unfamiliar sound of Hannah shrieking with laughter. Good, he thought. She'd been so stressed recently, restlessly shifting position in bed throughout the night, moving her pillow forward, backward, to the side, over her head, until they were both wide-awake.

Josh hadn't been thrilled at first when Hannah told him Gemma was coming to stay. Not that there was any animosity between them anymore. They'd long since come to a tacit understanding—or rather a mutual acceptance of their lack of understanding. But he had been hoping for a bit of downtime at home, his first chance to think properly about the awful thing that had happened at school—the thing he still half believed he must have invented.

Gemma tended to be a bit over-the-top and she brought out a loud, reckless side of Hannah that Josh found uncomfortable. Though they never talked about it, Josh privately suspected that Hannah was still overcompensating for what happened when they were teenagers—going along with whatever Gemma wanted, even if it meant acting out of character. Plus there was the matter of having someone staying in their tiny flat. Josh suspected he would never master the art of hosting. He was one of those men who spent half an hour in the toilet straight after breakfast with a coffee and a magazine, but with only one bathroom that simple pleasure seemed selfish and unbearably intimate. He'd rush through it and emerge, flame-faced, hoping not to bump into anyone. On her last visit he'd been mortified to find Gemma waiting outside the bathroom door in her robe. “Thank God, I'm bursting,” she'd said, darting in after him and locking the door. All day his cheeks had burned when he'd imagined her sitting down on the still-warm seat, breathing in the fetid air.

“And then he said ‘And it fits exactly into the contours of the rug.'” It was Gemma's voice, followed by another burst of appreciative laughter from her sister.

“Josh, you've got to listen to Gemma's latest dating disaster story,” Hannah called out as he entered the room. “It's too funny.”

“Funny for
you
!” Gemma put on a mock pout.

“She went out with a guy who was so boring, all he talked about was this coffee table he'd made himself to fit the pattern on the living room rug.”

It was one of those awkward occasions where everyone present knew a story that might have been funny the first time around wouldn't stand up to repetition.

“It also fit exactly into the trunk of the car,” Gemma added pointlessly.

“We were thinking we might go for a quick browse around the shops,” said Hannah. “You don't mind, do you? Lily and September are playing really quietly.”

“Not at all. Go for it.”

Josh tried to disguise his relief. With any luck Dan could pop in to see September without Hannah even knowing he'd been there. Not that he was doing anything wrong by reuniting a father with his child, but he didn't want Hannah to feel—what was the right word—compromised. Sasha was her friend, after all.

But Josh had forgotten how long it could take Hannah and her sister to put any plan into action when they were together. Though it was early afternoon, they were still in their robes. Hannah hadn't even bothered to get dressed when Sasha dropped off September an hour before. Now that had been a prickly half hour, with Sasha and Gemma eyeing each other warily, and Sasha talking way too brightly to try to cover up her brittle nerves while Gemma smiled politely but unconvincingly. Sasha had tried to be funny. “Remember me? I'm the Tragic Friend,” she'd introduced herself. It sounded like a line she'd been rehearsing in the car. “I'm the person to come to if you want to feel better about your own life.”

Sasha had been vague about where she was going. Josh got the feeling Hannah knew but had been sworn to secrecy. He hated this new development—he and Hannah keeping secrets from each other. He guessed she was going on a huge shopping spree or something like that. Sasha was one of those shopping-therapy kind of women. Thankfully Hannah didn't have that particular gene. It seemed like she'd be gone awhile. Long enough for Dan to drop by and spend a little bit of time with September. “Ten minutes, five even,” he'd pleaded. “I just need to see her.”

Having brought up the possibility of an outing, Hannah and Gemma seemed in no hurry to get going. They wandered in and out of the bathroom and loitered by the table, flicking through the Saturday morning papers. Hannah decided she couldn't leave without one more cup of tea, and then, to his dismay, Josh heard Gemma joining in a game of “vets” with Lily and September. “Bring in the patient, nurse Lily,” he heard her say. “No time to lose. We must operate immediately!”

Josh grew increasingly anxious, glancing out the window on the lookout for Dan's distinctive red car. When Dan did arrive, he was driving a powder-blue VW Beetle, which was why Josh didn't notice him until a volley of excited barks from Toby the dachshund heralded the ringing of the doorbell.

“Dan?” he heard Hannah exclaim. “What are you doing here?”

“Just passing and saw your car and thought I'd drop in for a cup of tea. Josh home?”

Josh wandered nonchalantly into the hall, wishing he didn't have one of those faces that broadcast every lie.

“Nice motor,” he said, attempting a jocular tone that fell immediately flat.

“I've borrowed it.”

Josh didn't need to ask whom he'd borrowed it from.

A shout went up from behind Lily's closed door.

“'Mergency, 'mergency.” September's strident shrill was unmistakable. “I have to chop off his leg immediately.”

Dan's face broke into a broad grin.

“I recognize that voice!”

Josh was impressed and a little bit discomfited by how genuine Dan's surprise seemed. His friend was exceedingly good at pretending, it occurred to him.

“We must amputate, we must amputate,” Gemma said in a
Doctor Who
Dalek impression from behind the door.

“September!” Dan was moving toward Lily's room. “Where are you?”

“Daddy!” The door flew open and September, with a plastic stethoscope around her neck, rushed out and flung herself at Dan. In spite of his anxiety about the situation and his part in engineering it, Josh couldn't help feeling a rush of warmth as he watched the two embrace, clutching each other as if they'd been apart for months rather than days.

“My God, you've grown a foot at least,” murmured Dan, showering his daughter with kisses. “You must be at least as big as me now. If not bigger!”

“I'm not as big as you. Silly Daddy.”

Behind September, Lily appeared in the doorway of her bedroom, twiddling her hair shyly as she watched Dan and September.

“Oi, girls, we've a patient with half a leg off on the operating table,” Gemma said from inside the room. Seconds later she, too, appeared at the door.

“Oh, hi,” she said, as Dan straightened up, September still clinging to his legs. “Remember me? I'm Gemma, aka Dr. Death.”

Dan smiled his charming smile.

“Of course I remember you, Gemma. What a stroke of luck that you're all here. I must drive past more often!”

Josh glanced over and noticed that Hannah was frowning.

“Funny that you saw our car, seeing as I had to park it on the next street after driving Gemma from the station last night.”

Dan's smile didn't falter. “Weird. Must be one just like it then.”

“Yeah, very weird.” Hannah glared at Josh until he looked away.

* * *

“I really think Sasha is losing it.”

“Can you blame her?”

“No. I'm serious. You should see the emails she writes. Pages and pages of bile. Some of the stuff is scary, I'm telling you.”

Josh shot a glance toward the living room door to make sure there were no small figures lurking there, then he heard September laughing in Lily's room and relaxed a little. Hannah and Gemma had been gone about an hour, but it had been another forty-five minutes before September finally slid from Dan's lap and went off to play, leaving the two men free to talk.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Like she sent me a whole load of links to newspaper articles about gonorrhea and really sick photographs of syphilitic dicks. She says Sienna has all these disgusting sexual diseases and that basically my dick is going to fall off in a very painful way.”

Josh grimaced, but really it didn't sound so outrageous to him. Of course Sasha was going to be vitriolic. Hurt people hurt people, wasn't that what he and Hannah had been discussing?

“And she's spending a ton of money. You should see my fucking bank statements. Clothes, shoes—do you know she spent a fortune at the fucking White Company the other day? What some people earn in a week she's spending on fucking
sheets
!
And the garden. Remember how she insisted on building a deck a couple of years ago? Top-grade Indonesian teak, no less? Well, now she's hired a designer to come up with plans for relandscaping. What the fuck? I've tried to get her to meet up so we can talk about selling the house, but she hasn't replied to any of my calls. Jesus, Josh, I don't want to get heavy-handed with her but she's going to leave me little option.”

Josh's stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. He thought about what Sasha had said to Hannah, about the measuring of the bruises.

“Heavy-handed how?”

“You know, go the legal route.” Dan looked at Josh's face and his expression darkened. “Fuck me, you thought I meant physically heavy, didn't you? You thought I was going to beat her up?”

“No, of course I didn't. I know you wouldn't do that.”

“Fucking right I wouldn't. Jesus, Josh. You're supposed to be my mate.”

“I am. Of course I am.”

Dan was silent for a moment.

“In that case, as you're my mate, I've got something to ask you. Well, you and Hannah, really.”

Josh didn't like the sound of that. The muscles along the tops of his legs clenched as Dan spoke.

“I want you to meet Sienna.”

“Are you crazy? No way, Dan. Not happening.”

“Hear me out. I know I've been downplaying this thing with her, but the fact is I'm serious about her. She's important to me, and you two are important to me. I want you to get to know each other.”

Josh was shaking his head, but deep down in some shallow, ignoble part of himself, he was also feeling flattered. They were important to Dan, he and Hannah. They mattered. He imagined how Dan might have talked about them to Sienna. “You're going to love these guys,” he might have said. “They have such integrity.”

“I can't, Dan. We can't. It would be so unfair to Sasha. Try to see it from her perspective.”

“Okay, okay, I'm not asking you to go against your principles, but do me a favor and just think about it. Sienna isn't going to go away. Sooner or later you're going to have to meet her.”

Josh looked down at his hands, broad and fleshy as they'd always seemed to him, with those thick fingers spiked with stubby black hairs. He'd started biting his nails again, as he always did when agitated. There were ugly raw red patches in the flesh where he'd gnawed the top layer away. He glanced again at the doorway to make sure they were alone. For a second he balked at asking the question on his tongue. It felt too intrusive, too intimate, as if it might take his relationship with Dan to a level neither of them felt comfortable with. But the words were too big to swallow back down.

“Has it been worth it?” he blurted out, his face hot. “All the misery? What I mean is, do you ever regret it?”

For a moment, as Dan blinked at him in surprise, he worried he had gone too far. Then his friend's face split open like a pea pod in a smile he didn't seem able to control.

“Not for one minute,” he said. “If it wasn't for not being able to see September, I'd be the happiest man alive.”

* * *

Hannah and Gemma were in high spirits when they arrived home. Josh eyed their collection of shopping bags. Some of them were those thick paper ones with the cord handles that came from the more expensive boutiques. He tried to work out the distribution ratio of bags per woman, but it proved nearly impossible as they dropped them all in a collective heap as they came through the door.

“You've been busy,” he said, attempting jocularity, but without success.

Hannah's smile shriveled on her face.

“Don't start,” she snapped.

“I didn't say anything!”

He had a right to be concerned about what Hannah was spending. They were only hanging on by a thread, and he knew for a fact she hadn't been doing much work recently. No chance of that with Sasha around all the time. It was all right for Gemma, with her secure hospital-administrator job and no dependents. Hannah needed to realize she couldn't compete.

“How long did Dan stay?” asked Hannah's back, as she retreated to the kitchen. He heard the faucet going on and the kettle being filled.