Eddy’s stomach squirms, not for Abi or Seb but for himself, because Eddy’s always found his role in any situation the most interesting. Why didn’t Seb trust him with the full story? Eddy has trusted Seb with everything, always, but Seb has been duplicitous, keeping his secrets to himself. He hadn’t said anything about the problems with Rosie – that they haven’t had sex for a year – and how many games of tennis had they played in that time? Besides – and here Eddy really starts to feel like he’s falling – who even is Sebastian Kent if he’s the kind of man to find a woman online for sex? Twice! Sober! And still, he hasn’t confessed to Rosie? He’s most definitely not the person Eddy thought he was. The perfect person he’d made them all believe he was. Why should he, Eddy, have to lie to his wife simply because Seb doesn’t have the balls to come clean?
Slowly he turns to Anna, blinking, and only still half believing it himself he says, ‘I think Abi and Seb had an affair.’
Anna laughs, loud and involuntary, but then one look at Eddy and her face falls.
‘Oh God,’ Anna groans, lifting her hand to her mouth. ‘You’re serious.’
He tells her everything Seb told him on Court Five, starting with Seb’s uncontrollable sobbing and then his half-confession. How it felt to Eddy that there was more to the story, more that Seb wouldn’t share.
‘I mean, why, after months of keeping this all to himself, does he choose right now to tell me? The timing’s too convenient, and now all this strangeness with Abi …’
Anna’s eyes are round with wonder; she reminds Eddy of eight-year-old Albie last year when he discovered the truth about Santa. ‘Sebbo wouldn’t, I mean, he couldn’t …’ she’s mumbling, pouring herself more wine, sloshing some on the table but not bothering to wipe it up.
‘Anna, he literally just told me tonight. They haven’t had sex for a year. He said he got desperate; he met her online.’ Since his own indiscretion, Eddy usually cowers away from any conversation about infidelity, especially if Anna’s within earshot, but he can tell from Anna’s rapt expression that for once she’s not thinking about what he did.
She shakes her head and stares at Eddy as she says, ‘Online? He planned it?’
Eddy nods his head. ‘And he was sober.’
‘Is he going to tell Rosie?’
Eddy looks away from Anna, catches his own eye in the photo Anna had slung over the hook where they hang aprons. ‘He said he wasn’t going to.’
‘What?’
‘I know. I know,’ Eddy agrees, looking back at her shocked face, and, while it doesn’t feel entirely unpleasant for his perfect, handsome best friend to fall a few thousand feet in his wife’s estimation, Eddy can’t completely eviscerate him, so he shifts the perspective. ‘It makes you think about what the hell is Abi playing at? Turning up in Waverly – is she blackmailing him or something? That’s what I keep thinking.’
Anna shakes her head and says, ‘She could be a psychopath.’ The force of her words takes Eddy by surprise and then suddenly, out of nowhere, Anna starts crying again, and again Eddy feels useless.
He takes her in his arms, his muscles remembering Seb’s weight as he clung on to him. Anna’s voice is soggy as she says, ‘Oh, Rosie. Poor, poor Rosie.’
Eddy steers them through to the sitting room. Anna sits on the sofa first and by the time he’s brought her wine and the vape she keeps hidden at the top of the dresser ‘for parties’, she’s calmer. Her eyes are glinting and alive as Eddy sits next to her, and he knows she already has a plan.
‘What are we going to do, then?’ she asks.
‘What do you mean, sweetheart?’
‘Well, I have to tell Ro. Obviously.’
‘Really?’ Eddy sits up; he needs to see Anna’s face.
‘Eddy. There’s no way I’m keeping this from her. I mean, we really don’t know what Abi’s up to. You’ve seen
Shit. This is getting out of control.
‘My God, he could have been talking to her that time you and Blake went into his office and slammed his laptop closed, remember? You know, when you first called him a spy?’
‘Wait. Anna, slow down. Look, the first thing I need to do is talk to Seb, see if our suspicions are correct. Then …’
‘Then we have to tell Rosie …’
‘Let’s give Seb the chance to tell her himself first? I’m sure he’ll tell her when he finds the right time. We owe him that much, at least.’
‘He’s had months, Ed! How much time does he need?’ Her pitch has crept higher and higher. She can’t maintain it; she pauses, resets herself and comes back steadier, lower as she says, ‘When all that shit happened in Singapore, one of the only things that made it easier was knowing you’d told me straight away, that it only happened once and that it was you being drunk and out of control. Seb