Chapter 23

On hearing Julie trying to get into the flat, Aidan and Samantha rolled out of bed.

“You get dressed,” Sam said going into the bathroom and getting a bathrobe. “I’ll go and let her in,” she said with a devilish grin.

Aidan didn’t feel very humorous, but saw her determination and agreed, and Sam left the bedroom for the flat door. He dressed quickly and went to the living room.

Meanwhile, Sam took her time undoing the snib, so that Aidan could get dressed. She then opened the door. Standing in the doorway, her stance was not lost on Julie: this was the reversal of the last time they met. Then it was Julie blocking the doorway in the selfsame short bathrobe.

“What the fuck?” escaped Julie’s gaping, flabbergasted mouth. “Samantha? What... ?”

As she took in the short bathrobe, Sam’s lack of makeup and her dishevelled hair, it was obvious to Julie what the ‘what’ was and she stuttered to a stop.

“Hello Julie,” Sam said, without a smile. “I think Aidan is expecting you. Go through.”

As soon as Sam stood aside to allow Julie entrance, the latter strode into the flat and went straight to the living room. Aidan was sitting in an armchair. He did not get up.

“OK, Aidan,” Julie barked. “What’s going on? This some game you’re playing? What’s she doing here?”

“Sit down Julie,” Aidan said, his face registering no emotion, remaining neutral.

It halted her tirade or any other questions she might have had, but she did not sit down, choosing to stand instead with her hand on her hip and a glowering face. Her emotions tumbled over one another: her worst nightmare had arrived: Samantha.

Julie felt mortally afraid she had lost Aidan, then hope surged that this Canadian interloper would be going home again soon and her departure would drop him in it again, and this brought outrage that the visitor should so easily get him to betray her at the very moment Julie should have been moving in with him.

Her thoughts ran on: the bitch was so calm, so confident in her abhorrently perfect looks, so much of which was on display in that bathrobe that she had found it easy to slide into Aidan’s bed again. Poor Aidan didn’t have a chance, but Julie would be there long after the bitch had gone back home.

It reignited her rage at Sam for interfering in their happy lives – and she knew their life was happy – and at Aidan for being so spineless as to fall for her all too obvious charms yet again. Julie smouldered.

“Well?” she asked, her aggression clear.

Aidan looked at her. He saw her anger, fear and distress, but was certain that there was nothing he could do about alleviating it.

“Well, Julie,” he said evenly. “What’s going on, and what’s Sam doing here? That’s what you want to know isn’t it?”

He sucked in a noisy breath. He spoke slowly as if explaining something to a small child.

“So-o-o. What’s going on, Julie, is that Sam has come to visit me. And the reason she has come to visit me, is that I went to London yesterday to visit her and missed her. And I went to visit her because I found out yesterday that a while ago, last October to be precise, she came to visit me. And that time she missed me, and I think you know why I never knew of her visit.

“Now when I went down to London yesterday, a woman neighbour and friend of Sam’s said she was not at home, but after I told her who I was, she told Sam as soon as she could that I had been there! So Sam immediately came here today.

“The question you can answer, Julie, is why did I not know that Sam had been here asking for me months ago, until Vicky told me yesterday? Why was I not told then? Why. Did. You. Not. Tell. Me?” he said quietly, but slowly emphasising each word.

“I’ll sit down now,” Julie said, and did so. “I thought it was for the best,” she said. She looked uncomfortable.

“You thought it–”

“You asked; I’m telling you.” Her voice and demeanour took on an urgency. “Look Aidan, think back to the first time you met Samantha. Everyone could see you fell for her hard. But she used you, Aidan, she used you for a whole month before going home to her long term boyfriend without a backward glance, as soon as her passport came through.

“You remember how heartbroken you were, how angry? You were devastated and you refused to have anything to do with her. You wouldn’t answer her emails, hell, you wouldn’t even read them!

“Gradually you healed, you let me into your life again and you were happy, Aidan. You were, don’t deny it.”

He nodded: he had to, it was the truth.