his new friend, Caroline, a girl he’d met at college. Adam hadn’t been all that keen on going either, but his work colleagues had been a great support to him after Livvy had died, and he felt he had to show his face, so Emily thought the least she could do was keep him company.
‘Come on, Ems, it will be fine now,’ said her boss, a skinny bearded twenty-something called Daniel, who ran Digit AL, the small company she’d found herself temping at for the last few months. ‘Some of us are going for a drink – do you want to join us?’
‘Thanks Dan, but I’ve got plans.’ Emily liked the atmosphere of the place, which was run by geeky lads, most of whom looked barely out of their teens. They were a lot of fun though, and on another occasion she might have been tempted to join them; she found their company energizing. But she was already late for Adam’s party, so she closed down her computer and set off across a chilly, frosty London, squashed on busy trains full of people in cheery Christmas mode. Emily wasn’t quite feeling the Christmas vibe this year – there seemed to be a lot of tricky moments to get through before the day itself, and she still wasn’t sure she and Adam were getting it right with Joe.
Emily’s heart was in her mouth as she entered the room. She’d never been big on work parties – Graham had always made it spectacularly clear that she wasn’t terribly welcome at his. And Adam’s office was small and closely knit and everyone knew each other’s families. She felt that people were curious about this new woman in Adam’s life.
Adam had kept his problems at home very much to himself so nobody at work had known what really went on, and now Livvy was dead she had attained martyr status. Emily was the new woman, suspiciously new to some, and she knew that she was viewed with distrust in some quarters. People wanted him to be happy, but clearly felt he should have left a decent period of mourning. But how long was a decent period? None of them knew Adam was on the verge of leaving Livvy when she died. Emily hadn’t meant to fall in love with Adam; hadn’t meant to be a home wrecker, and yet that’s what had happened, although to be fair she had come along after the wrecking had been done: Adam and Livvy had done that all by themselves. Even so, she couldn’t help feeling the anxious tug of guilt.
Emily scanned the crowds, relieved to find Adam in the corner with his mates Phil and Dave. That was good. She’d met Phil and Dave several times before and they were fun, and had seemed to accept her readily.
‘Hi,’ she said, shyly. ‘I made it then.’
‘So you did,’ said Adam, giving her a massive hug, which made her feel warm all over. ‘We don’t have to hang around too long if you don’t want to.’
Adam knew she had been feeling nervous about tonight. Maybe she’d get her wish and they could sneak out for a quiet dinner later.
‘What do you want to drink?’ he said. ‘There’s a free bar for the next hour or so.’
‘Double vodka and Coke, thanks,’ Emily said and Adam raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like her to drink spirits, let alone doubles, but she was feeling stupidly nervous and she needed some Dutch courage.
‘Party’s going well, I see,’ she said, nodding at a group of the sales team who were singing lustily and out of tune in a corner by the fire, while some of the younger staff looked like they might be up for some extracurricular activities in dark nooks and crannies. The mood was light and fun, and Emily tried to relax into it.
She sipped her drink and let the boys’ idle chatter flow over her. The boys were taking the mickey out of the MD, who was currently ogling his secretary, who though young enough to be his daughter was clearly loving the attention.
‘You jealous, Dave?’ Adam laughed. ‘I thought you were in there.’
Dave, according to Adam, was the office lothario.
‘I wish,’ said Dave. ‘She’s the one that got away.’
‘Glad someone’s immune to your charms,’ Adam laughed, ordering another round.
One drink led to another, and Emily’s mood started to shift. To her surprise she found she was having fun and wondering what she had worried about. Another couple of vodkas later, she was even flirting outrageously with Phil and Dave, who were great company. Even Marigold, Adam’s dragonlike PA – a brassy forty-something who acted about sixty – who had always been sniffy with Emily, had grudgingly wished her a merry Christmas.
Adam introduced Emily to the sales team, and before long, with a ‘Come on, Emily, be a sport,’ she found herself roped into a very raucous singalong of ‘Last Christmas’. It suddenly pulled her up short. Last Christmas things had been very different. Adam had been about to leave Livvy and then she’d died. Was it too soon for Emily to be taking her place? The thought made her feel anxious and sad. Deciding that the vodka wasn’t helping, next time she was at the bar Emily switched to red wine.
As she was returning from the bar to rejoin Adam and the boys, Emily felt a weird sensation, as though someone had punched her in the gut. Her glass of wine flew out of her hand, and spilled all over her, Phil and Dave. Bugger bugger bugger. Why on earth had she chosen to wear a cream dress?
‘What the —?’ Emily said, feeling very flustered. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know how that happened.’
Fortunately Phil and Dave laughed it off, but Emily went to the toilet to clean herself up feeling very unsettled. It had really felt as if someone had pushed her. Deliberately. Which was ridiculous.
‘You’re imagining things,’ she said sternly to herself, as she reapplied lipstick. ‘You’ve had too much to drink.’
Pulling herself together, she went back to the party, running the gauntlet past Marigold and her group of cronies. They all turned to look at Emily as she walked by, and this time she knew she wasn’t being paranoid.
She just caught Marigold mutter something like, ‘Look at her, bold as brass,’ and another woman say something about stepping in a dead woman’s shoes. Emily would normally have chosen to ignore them – what did she care what they thought of her? But she was still rattled about the spilled drink and she was tired of Marigold’s insinuations, and fed up of being judged by someone she barely knew.
So she turned round and stopped squarely in front of them, and said, ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it.’
They all looked embarrassed apart from Marigold, who said defiantly, ‘You didn’t take long to get your feet under the table. That poor woman has only been dead a year, and just look at you cosying up to Adam, when he’s vulnerable.’
‘That is none of your business,’ Emily said, furious with Marigold for prying where she had no right to, ‘and as for cosying up to Adam, we were good friends before Livvy died.’
‘Just good friends?’ Marigold cast a sly aside to her friends.
‘Oh go on, why don’t you come out and say it?’ Emily burst out, knowing exactly what Marigold was getting at. They had always been careful, but Adam had worried that Marigold suspected something. ‘You know you want to.’
‘Say what?’ Marigold looked innocent, which made Emily even more sure that she had known all along.
‘That you think Adam and I had an affair.’
There was a slightly stunned silence. Even Marigold looked awkward.
