Truly Madly Guilty Read Online Free Page A

wouldn’t get too caught up with labels, Erika,’ her psychologist had said with the constipated smile she tended to give when Erika ‘self-diagnosed’. (Erika had taken out a subscription to Psychology Today when she started therapy, just to educate herself a little about the process, and it was all so fascinating she’d recently begun working her way through the first-year reading list for a psychological and behavioural sciences undergraduate degree at Cambridge. Just for interest, she’d told her psychologist, who didn’t look threatened by this, but didn’t look exactly thrilled by it either.)
    ‘Bloody revhead kid hoons up the street and throws it from his car like he’s throwing a grenade in bloody Syria, you know.’ Vid made a grenade-throwing gesture with the rolled-up paper. ‘So what are you up to? Been grocery shopping?’
    He looked at the little collection of plastic bags on Erika’s passenger seat, and drew deeply on his cigarette, blowing a stream of smoke out the side of his mouth.
    ‘Not exactly grocery shopping, just some, um, bits and bobs I needed.’
    ‘Bits and bobs,’ repeated Vid, trying out the phrase as if he’d never heard it before. Maybe he hadn’t. He looked at Erika in that searching, almost disappointed way he had, as if he’d been hoping for something more from her.
    ‘Yes. For afternoon tea. We’ve got Clementine and Sam coming over later for afternoon tea, with their little girls. My friends, Clementine and Sam? You met them at my place?’ She knew perfectly well that Vid remembered them. She was giving him Clementine to make herself more interesting. That’s all she had to offer Vid: Clementine.
    Vid’s face lit up instantly.
    ‘Your friend, the cellist!’ said Vid delightedly. He virtually smacked his lips on the word ‘cellist’. ‘And her husband. Tone-deaf! What a waste, eh?’
    ‘Well, he likes to say he’s tone-deaf,’ said Erika. ‘I think technically he’s –’
    ‘Top bloke! He was a, what do you call it, a marketing manager for an F-M-C-G company and that stands for a fast-moving … don’t tell me, don’t tell me … a fast-moving consumer good . Whatever the hell that means. But how’s that? Good memory, eh? I’ve got a mind like a steel trap, that’s what I tell my wife.’
    ‘Well, he’s actually changed jobs, now he’s at an energy drink company.’
    ‘What? Energy drinks? Drinks that give you energy? Anyway, Sam and Clementine, they’re good people, great people, you know! You should all come over to our place, for a barbeque, you know! Yes, we’ll do a barbeque! Enjoy this amazing weather, you know! I insist. You must!’
    ‘Oh,’ said Erika. ‘It’s nice of you to offer.’ She should say no. She was perfectly capable of saying no. She had no problem saying no to people; in fact, she took pride in her ability to refuse, and Oliver wouldn’t want her to change the plans for today. It was too important. Today was crucial. Today was potentially life-changing.
    ‘I’ll roast a pig on the spit! The Slovenian way. Well, it’s not really the Slovenian way, it’s my way, but it’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted before. Your friend. Clementine. I remember. She’s a foodie, you know. Like me.’ He patted his stomach.
    ‘Well,’ said Erika. She looked again at the plastic bags on her passenger seat. All the way home from the shops she’d kept glancing over at her purchases, worried that she’d somehow not got it quite right. She should have bought more. What was wrong with her? Why hadn’t she bought a feast ?
    Also the crackers she’d chosen had sesame seeds on them, and there was some significance to sesame seeds. Did Clementine love sesame seeds or hate them?
    ‘What do you say?’ said Vid. ‘Tiffany would love to see you.’
    ‘Would she?’ said Erika. Most wives wouldn’t appreciate an unplanned barbeque, but Vid’s wife did appear to be almost as sociable as Vid. Erika thought of the first time she’d