Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [174]
It wasn’t that Ashling and Jack were alone in his office, it wasn’t that Jack was cradling Ashling like the most precious of china dolls. It was the look on Jack’s face. Lisa had never seen such an expression of tenderness.
She backed out, her disbelief turning the office into a dreamscape.
Trix approached with a scrap of paper. ‘There’s been a phone call for you –’
‘Not now.’
Some minutes later, Ashling emerged, putty-grey and avoiding eye-contact. She left the office.
Then out came Jack, looking weary. ‘Lisa!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ashling’s had a bad shock, I’ve sent her home.’
Speaking to him required effort. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She’s, ah, discovered that her boyfriend is having an affair with her best friend.’
‘What? Marcus Valentine and that Clodagh?’
‘Yes.’
Lisa had a hysterical urge to laugh.
‘Could you come into my office?’ Jack asked. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’
Was he going to apologize? Explain that he’d only been comforting Ashling and that it was Lisa he really cared for? But all he wanted to talk about was work.
‘First, I’d like to congratulate you on last night, and on the first issue. What you have achieved is above and beyond what we’d hoped for and the entire board offer their congratulations.’
Lisa nodded, aware of an undertow of loss. All their easiness was slipping away, being tugged from under her feet. Jack was clearly uncomfortable with her.
‘I’m sorry to do this when you should be enjoying your success,’ he went on. ‘But I have bad news.’
You’re in love with Ashling?
‘Mercedes resigned this morning.’
‘Oh. Oh. Why?’
‘She’s leaving Ireland.’
Bitch, Lisa thought viciously. She hadn’t even had the decency to say it was because Lisa was a power-crazed tyrant whom she could no longer work for.
‘She’s got a job in New York,’ Jack elaborated. ‘Apparently her husband’s been seconded there.’
‘New York?’ Lisa was reminded of the trip Mercedes had taken in June. The most horrible thought in the world hit her. ‘Her new job, it’s not… not… at Manhattan?’
‘I don’t know which magazine, she didn’t say.’
‘Where is she?’ Lisa snarled, suddenly feral.
‘Gone. She was due a week’s holiday, which she took in lieu of notice.’
Lisa put her face in her hands. ‘Do you mind if I go home?’
She called a cab, and fifteen minutes later, still feeling like she was dreaming, she found herself at home. Scratching the key in her front door, she let herself in. The post had come – one big manila envelope was lying in the hall. Absently she picked it up and, as she kicked off her shoes, tore it open. She unfolded the stiff paper within while tossing her handbag on to the kitchen counter. Then, finally, she turned her attention to the pages she held in her hand.
A one-second glance was all it took. She sank to the floor, jack-knifed with disbelief.
It was a divorce petition.
Clodagh opened her front door and recoiled as ‘You bitch!’ was flung at her.
‘Ashling!’
‘Weren’t you expecting me?’
She hadn’t been. All she’d been able to think about was Dylan, that he’d found out and that he’d left her. Somewhere at the back of her head she knew she’d have to talk to Ashling, but she hadn’t been able to think about it yet.
‘So, my best friend,’ Ashling pushed into the kitchen. ‘Did you think of me at all when you were fucking my boyfriend?’
Clodagh was in agony. How could she explain the guilt, the torture? ‘I did think of you, Ashling,’ she said humbly. ‘I did, it’s been so difficult. But you think only people in soap operas have affairs. Ordinary people do, it just happens.’
‘But to me? How could you do it to me?’
‘I don’t know. But you hadn’t been going out with him long, it’s not like you were married or anything, and I’ve been so unhappy, I’ve felt so trapped and like I was going mad –’
‘Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you. You have fucking everything,’ Ashling said wildly. ‘Why did you have to go and take him? You have everything.’
All Clodagh could say was, ‘Sometimes everything isn’t enough.’
‘When did this start with Marcus?