Rosie nods, feebly, and Anna, apparently energized from the tea, asks with renewed vigour, ‘Listen, there’s something specific I need to talk to you about, something I feel I have to do, but before I ask, I just want to check you got the link I sent through for the clinic?’
‘Clinic?’
‘The STI clinic.’ Anna mouths the ‘STI’ bit even though there’s no one around to hear them.
Rosie must look blank because Anna says, ‘I know it’s probably the last thing you want to think about, and I know you guys haven’t had sex for a year, but still, I heard that London is smothered in gonorrhoea these days, so I really …’
‘What did you say?’ Rosie leans forward, feeling blood rush, hot and sudden, back into her face.
‘Yeah, there’s this really nasty strain of gonorrhoea …’
‘No, the bit before – about me and Seb, about us not having sex. Who told you that?’
Anna’s eyes dart around Rosie’s face again, searching for the right answer. ‘Eddy told me, so Seb must have mentioned it to him.’
Rosie feels like her eyes have fallen out of her head and are rolling like marbles across the tiled floor. The cafe spins as her heart gallops.
‘Rosie, what’s wrong?’
Rosie stands and Anna clamps her hand back around Rosie’s arm, but this time it doesn’t feel good. This time it feels like Anna’s trying to restrain her. Rosie wiggles free. ‘He’s been talking, has he? About our sex life, or lack of sex life, blaming me for paying a prostitute …’
The teenager behind the counter looks up from her phone. Anna’s eyes are wide, appalled by this sudden, unexpected turn. ‘No, Ro, I mean, I don’t know what that man’s doing but …’
‘He’s trying to justify what he did by blaming me, saying he had to go and pay for sex because I wasn’t giving it to him for free – that’s what he’s doing.’
Anna looks disappointed that her meeting is being so badly derailed but Rosie feels light with anger, and it feels good, like she’s high.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she says, turning towards the door.
‘Wait, let me come too. I need to tell you about …’
‘Anna, please, just let me go.’
‘Oh, Ro, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry …’
Rosie doesn’t hear the rest because she’s already walked out of the cafe, the door banging behind her as she runs back to her car.
She parks badly outside their house and rushes inside. Seb’s sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over his computer that still carries all those women inside. How fucking dare he be sitting there so normally, so untouched by everything he’s done, while her world has blown up like a fucking bomb?
‘You pervert,’ she says from the open doorway.
‘Rosie!’
Seb’s cheeks pink in surprise. He looks at her, taking in her soggy, bedraggled appearance, and stands up from the table.
‘Rosie, how was your …?’ He moves towards her, like he wants to tame her, just like Anna.
She pulls away and growls, ‘Don’t you fucking come near me.’
‘Just … Ro, please, tell me what’s happened because I …’
Behind her, the front door bangs back on its hinges. In her hurry to get to him she didn’t shut it properly and the wind has blown it open. Seb hurries to close it. She wants to hit him then, hit him because she knows he’ll be worrying about someone overhearing them, someone hearing the truth she can feel bubbling up, about to burst out of her.
When he’s standing back in front of her, head slightly tilted, he asks again, ‘What’s happened, Ro?’
She laughs. ‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
‘Lying.’
Seb doesn’t react. Instead, he waits, knowing she’ll keep talking, which of course she does.
‘You weren’t shown Abi’s website at that awards thing, were you? You went searching for her. Literally,
Seb’s eyes swivel away from her and she knows what he’s thinking.
‘You didn’t delete your laptop history, you idiot. I saw everything.’
Seb closes his eyes briefly; his cheeks and the scar above his lips redden. It feels fucking wonderful. But it’s not enough. She swivels his laptop towards her on the table; it’s still unlocked, and she navigates quickly to the history and opens up one of the sites. There’s a close-up of a tongue licking an erect penis: ‘The best oral without condom in London for only £80!’ She scrolls down, stops at a woman’s face – she’s smiling, licking her top lip while her hands cover her bare breasts. Rosie points to her. ‘Tell me something, Seb – do you think she actually wants you? Are you that delusional? Honestly, I think you’re sick. Either you’re mentally unwell, believing that a woman like that wants to have sex with you, or you’re sick because you don’t give a shit that that poor woman is obviously lying because she’s desperate for money and you don’t care about her pain. You’ll just fuck her anyway!’
She starts scrolling again, down to a GIF of an arse in a G-string wiggling back and forth.