Anna is back to shaking her head and says, ‘It’s so disturbing. It’s all deception and suffering, when you think about it.’
Rosie has the unsettling feeling that her friend is looking at the same problem but from a different angle to Rosie. She takes another sip of tea and Anna does the same.
‘Have you had a chance to think about what you want to do?’ Anna asks. ‘If you want to kick him out for good or …’
Rosie shakes her head and remembers asking a sobbing Anna something similar two years ago, before Anna adds, ‘Take your time, love. I’ll support you, help in any way I can. You do know that, don’t you?’
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, shopping for a woman.’
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.
Seb closes his eyes again and Rosie has to resist the urge to peel them open with her thumbs, force him to look at what he’s done, but instead gets closer to him and says, ‘But that’s not all, is it? You’ve been telling people about us, our sex life, that I hadn’t had sex with you and that’s why you hired Abi …’
‘What? No, no, of course I haven’t,’ Seb interrupts, shaking his head, which makes Rosie erupt.
‘Then how the hell does Anna know we haven’t had sex in a year?’
Seb freezes, caught out, and Rosie feels a rush, the thrill of being right, her anger justified, so she keeps shouting, ‘This isn’t The Handmaid’s Tale, Seb – a woman has the right not to want to have sex!’
She’s expecting his head to drop, for him to become all meek and hangdog like he’s been for the last few days, so it’s a surprise when, jaw flexing, he takes a step towards her. ‘And what about what I wanted? I tried, I tried everything I could think of, but you turned me away again and again. I didn’t want to never have sex again. It was driving me mad, Rosie, completely insane.’
He taps his finger to the side of his head, his voice getting louder and louder, the scar on his lip getting redder. ‘Perhaps I am delusional but at least I know what I want. I only ever wanted to have sex with you, my wife, the person I love, but that wasn’t allowed, so what should I have done instead? I’d love to hear it.’
‘No one should ever be forced into having sex!’
‘And no one should ever be forced into celibacy!’
Rosie remembers the nights Seb tried to talk, the marriage counsellor she always found a reason to avoid, the gifts of lingerie Seb bought her, but she kicks the memories away. She won’t let Seb derail her now, not now her anger is still fizzing through her. ‘You’ve weaponized our intimate life to justify your own disgusting perversion. I never thought you’d sink so low, Seb, truly.’
Seb is shaking his head at her in disbelief. ‘What intimate life? We didn’t have an intimate life, Rosie, because you didn’t want one! That’s the whole fucking point! I told …’
‘Every time I close my eyes, Seb’ – Rosie moves closer to him, close enough that he can see her revulsion; she doesn’t care as spit from her mouth flies at him – ‘I see you fucking her! Do you have any idea how messed up that is?’ She closes them now briefly, as though to demonstrate, and there they are – naked, Abi sinking her lovely mouth on to his, Seb desire-drunk and clumsy, Abi gasping at the cold press of his wedding ring in her vagina.