How is he going to get that through without asking Maria to sign it?

He stares into space. Nope, he doesn’t have the capacity to worry about that either. He has sold off a controlling share of the business for a pound.

It’s a small price to pay. But it’s better than parting with what they really owe: Frannie.

55.

Cathy

‘I’m a stop-out,’ Cathy says, smiling, leaning into Tom as he stands in the doorway.

He ran her a bath this morning. He flitted in and out, bringing her tea, sorting his washing. They had a shouted conversation from bathroom to bedroom while he put his clothes away. ‘What’s with the aubergines, then?’ he’d said, from his room to where she lay.

‘Oh – you know. Just never really had a long-term aubergine.’ Tom only laughed.

‘I had a very bad aubergine,’ he called, then arrived in the bathroom, a stack of folded towels held on the flat of his hand like a waiter.

‘Did you?’ she said, turning to him. His bathroom was immaculate too. A low windowsill containing only his shampoo, a five-in-one he described as ‘good for hair washing, shower gel, road tarmacking, whatever you want’.

‘Yep, got divorced and all.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

He waved the hand not holding the towels. ‘It’s fine. You don’t need to say that.’ It was the second serious thing he’d said. Tom was suddenly vaulted from fun fling to … to something more. To potential secret keeper. To boyfriend.

She stands now, on his threshold, not quite able to leave. ‘See you later?’ he says. ‘Tonight?’

‘Maybe,’ she says, and he smiles, then, into the kiss. ‘I’m a poor lonely aubergine,’ he says.

‘Me too,’ she says, turning to leave, waving to him from her car, wondering what she is doing. Wondering what he might do with those secrets, if she told them to him.

Part VI

FRAUD

56.

Joe

Joe dials his mother’s number. She picks up immediately. ‘Everything okay?’ she asks.

‘Yeah. I’m just … Evan is going to sit in on some partnership meetings,’ Joe says, his words joining up and overlapping as they rush out together, such obvious lies.

‘Right?’ Maria says. She, like Cathy, doesn’t miss a trick. At some point, Joe is thinking, as he stares at the new percentages, even if he hides this document forever, Maria will find out. Evan will refer to himself as a partner, or give a casting vote in a meeting, or sign a cheque. He stares at the wall, but there’s no solution. If their mother finds out, he will have to make something up. Yet another thing. When you’ve told so many lies, one more hardly seems to matter at all, not even one told to his mother.

‘Yeah, he raised some concerns about feeling, er, pushed out,’ Joe says. ‘So I thought I’d let you know.’

‘I mean – that’s quite a change,’ Maria says. Her tone is conversational, but her words aren’t.