Great, she thought. Everyone here was thinking she was a marriage wrecker. In fact, if people were gossiping about her, they'd probably already told Emily that her husband had been having conversations with some other woman. They had probably increased the jealous tendencies that Emily had proved to have over Ross. It wasn't fair. She'd just happened to be here, and she'd just happened to be at the airport. There was absolutely no-one to whom she could vent her frustration so instead, she vented frustration by stomping up the stairs, as though each step had personally offended her.

As she arrived through the front door, the phone was ringing. Her heart soared. Somebody wanted to speak to her! She ran forward to answer it, desperate to talk to someone friendly.

'Hi!' she trilled into the phone.

'Hi, Rachel.' She nearly collapsed. It was a friendly voice – the friendliest voice in the world… Of all the people to ring, it had to be him.

'Ross!' It was no hallucination, it was really him. She tried to control her breathing and herself. What she wanted was to be able to blurt out everything – everything she'd told Stuart and all the stuff to do with Emily and the neighbours, but she couldn't. She'd chosen this life and he hadn't wanted her to. She wouldn't beg for sympathy.

'Yeah, it's me. I hope I'm not disturbing you or anything…'

'No! No, no, you're not disturbing me,' she said quickly. She had had no idea until she spoke to him that his was the voice that she wanted to hear. If she couldn't tell him all – or any – of her problems, she could at least prolong the conversation somehow. Her mind refused to play along and give her suggestions of what to say.

'You must be busy,' Ross said.

'No, I'm not busy. I've just got home from work.'

'Oh. I suppose it's that time over there.'

'Yeah.'

'I didn't think about what time it was, sorry.' She wasn't sure why. It was better than ringing in the middle of the night, or while she was away at work.

'It's fine, really Ross.'

'Are you okay?' Ross asked. 'I just hadn't heard what was going on, and I wondered whether everything was all right.'

'Yes, yes I'm fine.'

'Is that true, Rach?'

'Of course it's true,' Rachel said, stung, 'Why do you assume that I can't – ' manage without you. 'It's fine.'

'I – I just thought you sounded…'

'It's fine. Super. Really wonderful. The people at work are great, the metro is fabulous, my next door neighbours are just – just lovely.' Well one of them was, the only partly true statement she'd made so far.

'So you're getting everything ready for Emma.' Of course, that was why he was ringing, she realised, feeling deflated. It wasn't for her. You could only turn a person down so many times before they got the message. She should be glad that he'd moved on.

'Yeah,' she said.

'I – just, just wanted to be sure – I mean I wanted to know if you were sure. Really sure.'

'Of course I'm sure,' Rachel said. 'I've crossed an ocean to be here.'

'I know.'

'I'm not suddenly going to change my mind. I know nothing's perfect, ever, but we agreed that this was best.'

'I didn't agree.'

'What?' Rachel said, derailed.

'I didn't agree. You're over there because I couldn't stop you going, that's all,' Ross said. He didn't shout and this was paradoxically more shocking than if he had.

'No, you couldn't,' Rachel said. She was feeling very shaky and blurted out, 'Don't go trying to lay a guilt trip on me.'

'I can't help it if you feel guilty,' Ross said.

'I don't!' Rachel shouted. 'I don't feel guilty at all, now leave me alone and stop bothering me!' She hung up and the silence echoed. What had she done? She felt more alone than ever. Her best friend… not Monica… she loved Monica, but she wasn't her best friend. You can have only one best friend and only a fool can't work out who that is. Filled with remorse, she dialled Ross back but got no answer. Where could he be? What had she done? She'd shouted at him and now he was out – or maybe sitting there, by the phone, watching it ring.

'Ross,' she said, as the answermachine picked up, 'I'm sorry, please pick up. I didn't meant to yell at you. Please call me back.'

But there was no call back. Rachel had changed and fitfully done a few things around the flat, but the first sound from the outside world came from the doorbell, half an hour later.

It was Stuart.

'She's had the baby already?' Rachel asked. That was unbelievably quick. She'd have liked the labour with Emma to be shorter, but she supposed there was such a thing as it being too fast, considering what was actually happening.

'No, Emily wasn't at the hospital,' Stuart said. 'I don't know where she's gone.' He sat down, uninvited on Rachel's couch. He put his head in her hands. 'I don't know where she is.'

'Another hospital? Perhaps she got confused, or there was – ' she didn't want to alarm him by saying the word emergency. 'Maybe labour came on really quickly so she headed for the nearest hospital.'

'She's booked at the nearest hospital – that's where I went. When she wasn't there, I rang around, in case there'd been some kind of accident. She's not at any hospital.' Stuart was shaking his head.

'Maybe she's gone to a friend's house.' Presumably she had some, somewhere, so that she could complain about everything.

'Well that's a point,' Stuart said. 'But she's taken the address book with her, so I can't ring around.'

'Of course she might have gone to London,' Rachel said.

'Oh no,' Stuart said. He was staring in horror at the idea.

'It's possible.'

'You're right. That's exactly what she'd do in the mood she's in, she'd go to London. Thanks for the tip.' He ran out of the apartment. Rachel sighed, forgetting all about Stuart and Emily as soon as the door was closed. She stared at the telephone, willing it to ring.