Two's Company

by Jill Mansell

  Downstairs, there was no sign of anyone, and the phone was off the hook. He found Cass upstairs in bed.

  “So that’s it,” Cass said quietly when she saw the expression on his face. It was an absolute giveaway. “You complete bastard.”

  She was shivering despite the fact that the temperature in the room was near tropical. The duvet was pulled around her, and she was wearing a thick sweater. Jack, dripping wet from the rain that had soaked through his shirt, ran a hand over his face and wondered how on earth to begin. How the hell could he explain to Cass something he didn’t even understand himself? And why, he thought wearily, were some men able to carry on discreet affairs for years on end while he was found out in a matter of weeks?

  “At least come downstairs.” He didn’t mean to sound irritable, but it came out that way.

  Cass, who had been hoping against hope that maybe it was all some ghastly mistake, felt something inside her die.

  “This is the most hideous day of my life,” she snapped. “If I want to stay in bed, I bloody will.”

  There had been no time for rehearsals. Gazing through the long window at the storm still raging outside, Jack realized he didn’t have a clue what to say.

  “Look, I’m sorry.”

  Cass couldn’t believe this. Sorry was what you said when you forgot to put sugar in someone’s coffee, when you accidentally stepped on their toe, when you phoned them in the middle of Coronation Street. Needing to lash out, she picked up the nearest flingable object and hurled it at Jack’s face. Frustratingly, it was only a box of rose-patterned tissues.

  “This isn’t going to help.” Catching them, Jack placed the box on the walnut bureau behind him. “Look, can we at least try and sort this out sensibly?”

  “Sensibly? Sensibly! Now I know how it feels to want to shoot someone!” At the top of her voice, Cass yelled, “Believe me, if I had a gun right now, I’d do it! You’ve been having an affair with Imogen Trent, Jack. Do you seriously expect me to be sensible about this?”

  Wearily, Jack shook his head. “OK, but please don’t get hysterical. These things happen, Cass. All the time. You’ve said yourself, everyone seems to be doing it these days—”

  “But not us.” Cass stared at him, hollow eyed. He didn’t even sound like the Jack she knew—or thought she knew. And now he was actually justifying his behavior like any caught-out eight-year-old by saying everyone else did it.

  “Not us, Jack. Not me anyway.” The shivering became more violent; Cass wondered if she would ever feel warm again. Then she wondered if she would ever feel normal again. “So how long has it been going on? The interview with Hi!—was it all your idea? Did the two of you set the whole thing up?”

  At least now he could be honest. The endless lying had been a drain on Jack, unused as he was to ever speaking anything but the truth. He sat down on the edge of the bed and saw Cass flinch away.

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that.” He sounded faintly aggrieved that she should think so. “If you hadn’t invited her here to do the interview in the first place, none of this would have happened. I didn’t even want it to happen—”

  “But not hard enough, obviously.” Cass’s voice began to rise. “If you don’t want something, Jack, you say no. It’s as simple as that.”

  Now that he was sitting down, Jack was able to see their joint reflections in the dressing-table mirror: Cass, white faced and surrounded by duvet, and himself with his hands clasped, his elbows resting on his knees. The mirror effect only served to intensify the feeling that he was watching two actors in a play, and not even a particularly original one at that. The clichés he found himself coming out with were shocking, but he felt he had no other choice.

  “I tried saying no. Believe me, Cass, I did try.”

  “Balls,” Cass said bitterly. For a second, she covered her face with trembling hands. “Go on then, tell me the truth. Who chased who?”

  Jack was unable to tell her that Imogen had been the one who’d instigated the relationship. Loving Imogen as he did, he felt the need to protect her.

  “Chasing didn’t come into it.” He spoke quietly, with a mixture of apology and pride. “Sometimes these things just happen. The first time we set eyes on each other…well, I think we both just knew—”

  “I think I need a bigger sick bag.”

  But Cass’s eyes, for the first time, had filled with tears. If there was one thing she knew she couldn’t compete with, it was this kind of obsessive infatuation. Whether it was love or not, only time would truly tell. How, though, after twenty-four years together, could she possibly provide as much novelty and adrenaline-pumping excitement as someone brand-new?

  “I can hear hammering on the front door,” said Jack.

  “Reporters. I disconnected the doorbell.” How bizarre, thought Cass, that we can still discuss something as mundane as a doorbell. The tears having safely subsided, she took a deep breath. “So what happens next? Are you moving out? Are we getting divorced? I think I have a right to know.”

  * * *

  “Oh, my darling, I’m so glad to see you!”

  The press had wasted no time uncovering the identity of Jack Mandeville’s mystery lover. By nine o’clock that evening, Imogen’s flat was being staked out too. She, like Jack, had needed to drive like a maniac to give the chasing photographers the slip. The otherwise deserted ninth floor of a South Kensington multistory parking garage might lack the glossy allure of the Orient Express or the Taj Mahal, but at this moment in time, it seemed to her the most romantic meeting place in the world. Imogen’s fingers stroked the back of Jack’s neck as she pressed herself against him.

  Her past experience with married men was that they kept their mistresses firmly on the side and never left their wives. It was why she hadn’t even dared to hope that Jack would ever leave Cass. Some prospects were simply too unlikely for words.

  But this was different. Anything could happen. Their affair was out in the open now, and the possibilities were limitless. She had even caught herself earlier this evening doodling Imogen Mandeville—just trying the name on for size—across the phone pad. Jack was, after all, clearly the marrying kind.

  “God, what a day.” Jack was clutching her so tightly, her breasts almost popped over the top of her blue-and-green patterned dress. His warm breath against her bare shoulder made the little hairs at the top of her spine stand on end.

  “You poor thing.” Imogen breathed in the aphrodisiac scent of him. “Has it been bloody? And Cass, how’s she taking it?”

  “Pretty much as you’d expect. Asked me if I wanted a divorce.”

  The hairs at the top of Imogen’s spine rose doubly to attention.

  “Oh?” Imogen took care not to sound too thrilled. “And what did you say?”

  Jack sighed. “It’s too soon to say anything. She’s in shock. I’m in shock, come to that. Cass hasn’t even cried yet. She just…shakes.”

  “She must hate me.” Imogen tried to feel guilty. She had genuinely liked Cass. The trouble was she liked Jack more.

  “Well, you aren’t exactly top of her Christmas card list.” Jack gave her an apologetic smile. “But then you aren’t going to be top of quite a few Christmas card lists. This isn’t going to be easy for you, sweetheart. Everyone loves Cass. As far as they’re concerned, she’s Snow White—”

  “And I’m going to be cast as the Evil Queen.” Imogen had already guessed as much. She had seen it done enough times in the papers before now to know the routine. Tomorrow, she would have to pose for the photographers. Everyone would compare her with Cass, their beloved golden girl. The entire nation would wonder what she had to offer that Cass didn’t. She was going to have to dress with care, making sure she gave no one the opportunity to sneer and ask what the bloody hell Jack Mandeville thought he was up to. She mustn’t look like a frump, a bimbo, a hooker, or a bitch.

&nb
sp; Jack kissed her. “The next few weeks are going to be tough.”

  “I don’t care,” whispered Imogen. “It’ll be worth it.” For a moment, her eyes feverishly scanned his face. “It will be, won’t it? You aren’t going to dump me and pretend we never happened?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Bending his head, Jack kissed her again, hard. “How can you even ask? I love you too much for that.”

  * * *

  Sophie, who had been spending the week with a school friend in Hemel Hempstead, had finally gotten to hear what was happening via another friend from school who had spent the evening phoning everyone she knew to spread the delicious news. Horrified, Sophie had begged a lift from her friend’s elder brother, arriving home at ten o’clock to find her mother wandering around the kitchen like a zombie in three sweaters and her father out.

  By the time Jack returned, it was close to midnight. His heart sank when he saw Sophie, waiting for him, sitting cross-legged on the porch.

  “Oh, Dad, whatever’s the matter with you?” Her tiny, pixieish face beneath the uneven bangs was haunted, the amber porch light only emphasizing its pallor. “How could you do it?”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Jack knew the words were inadequate, but what else could he say? “I know this is rotten for you—”

  “Not me. I’m all right.” Sophie gestured impatiently toward the house. “I meant how could you do it to Mum?”

  “You’re fourteen years old.” He tried to put his arm around her narrow shoulders, but she shrugged it off. “Sophie, you can’t possibly understand…”

  She walked past him into the house, her expression one of pure disgust.

  “Listen to you. You’re the one who’s immature. For God’s sake, Dad, how can you even think of getting involved with someone like that? Imogen Trent is a two-faced bitch.”

  “She is not,” Jack replied icily, “and if I hear you saying any such thing to anyone outside this house, you’ll be in big trouble. Do you hear me, Sophie?”

  As Cass had earlier, Sophie now heard the protectiveness in his voice and realized that nothing she could say would sway his opinion of Imogen. He was in too deep to even listen.

  “Oh, I hear you all right,” Sophie muttered, “but you’re the one who’s wrong.”

  Chapter 16

  The rest of the week, for Cass, was a complete nightmare. With the heatwave well and truly broken, sheets of rain continued to pelt from an oily gray sky. The only good news, as Sophie pointed out, was the fact that this meant the hordes of photographers still huddled at the gate suffered endless, well-deserved soakings.

  But they clearly had no intention of leaving until Cass gave them the pictures they wanted. She couldn’t hide forever, and Imogen had already done her bit. Hating herself for being so weak-willed, Cass had nevertheless stared for hours on end at the photographs featured in almost every national paper, wondering over and over again how this could have happened, how she could have been such a fool.

  For the photo call, Imogen had chosen a demure but wearer-friendly white shirt and a narrow, just-above-the-knee sunflower-yellow skirt. Her shoes were low heeled. Her red-gold hair was loosely fastened with combs, and the makeup was very girl-next-door. Only the glittering eyes and sexy, knowing smile hinted that she wasn’t quite as Doris Day as she might appear. That, and an altogether more voluptuous snap obtained by a press agency from “an old acquaintance” of Imogen falling out of a too-small bikini as she played an enthusiastic game of volleyball on a Spanish beach.

  “You’re going in to work?” said Jack on Friday morning when Cass had come off the phone to her producer. To boost her confidence and go some way toward assuaging his own guilt, he reached across the breakfast table and touched her hand. “It’s OK. We’ll face the press together. A couple of minutes and the worst will be over.”

  Sophie, glancing up from her Cocoa Krispies, said nothing.

  Cass stared at Jack and jerked her hand away as if he’d just bitten it.

  “And tell them what? That my husband’s a bastard but I love him so much, I’ll stand by him anyway? No thanks.” She pushed her plate to one side, leaving the toast untouched. “If they want me, they can have me as I am. I’m not pretending anything. And sod putting on a brave face.”

  Jack, clearly feeling he’d done as much as could be expected, shrugged and disappeared upstairs.

  “I’ll come out with you,” Sophie offered, “if you like.”

  Cass managed a brief smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  * * *

  Work was as hard to bear as Cass had expected, but at least it gave her something to do. Sophie, valiantly forgoing a morning at the Natural History Museum, traveled with her to the studios and said, “Let me go in first,” while Cass was still looking for somewhere to park.

  Cass let her, knowing she would be warning everyone not to mention what was obviously uppermost in all their minds. Brisk, everyday conversation, Cass could handle. Kind words and sympathy reduced her to jelly. Far easier all around to pretend it simply hadn’t happened.

  But the fear of losing her nerve on-air haunted her like a playful ghost. Twenty minutes into the show, Cass saw through the glass partition a vast cellophane-wrapped bouquet of white, glossy-leaved roses being delivered. They were from a darling old gentleman, a retired widower from Rotherhithe, who wrote to her at least twice a week. “Chin up, my dear. We’re all on your side” urged the accompanying note, and Cass had to grit her teeth to not cry. Worse was to come an hour later as she took a call from Betty from Essex. The topic of conversation was the latest film starring Meryl Streep, supposedly safe enough, but Betty in Essex took matters into her own hands.

  “And I know the girl on the switchboard said I mustn’t mention it, but I just had to let you know, Cass, that we think you’re coping wonderfully. That silly, undeserving husband of yours must be stark raving mad if he thinks—”

  “Dear me, what a shame. We appear to have lost that call.” As Cass pressed the cutoff button, she watched her hand begin to shake. Through the glass partition, the producer visibly cringed. Cass forced a smile and leaned toward the mike. “Still, banging on about my private life is just about the last thing we need. We’ll cheer ourselves up instead with some music, shall we? How about ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’ by Shania Twain?”

  * * *

  Cass had managed to get through the first day back at work, but that didn’t mean it had been easy. The early edition of the Evening Standard carried one of the photographs taken that morning. Back at home, Cass studied the picture and saw she looked every bit as haunted as she felt, which was only going to make everyone feel sorrier for her than ever. The accompanying feature, titled “Would you really want to be told if your husband was fooling around?” just about said it all. An amazing number of women, it appeared, felt it was better not to know.

  So many extramarital affairs ran out of steam of their own accord, they argued, why risk rocking the boat? Too many wives, discovering what had been going on behind their innocent backs, overreacted. Divorce in haste, repent at leisure, warned some raddled old advice columnist who had evidently seen a thousand marriages ruined and appeared to feel it was all the cheated-on wives’ fault for kicking up a fuss in the first place.

  * * *

  “What would that dried-up old cow know about it anyway?” Cleo demanded a few days later.

  Stuck in Milan on an assignment when the story had first broken, Cleo had only just arrived home, weighed down with duty-free perfume and a vast bottle of Cointreau for Cass. Outraged by her father’s behavior, desperately protective of her mother, she was wading through the mountain of press coverage for the first time, alarming even Cass with the appalling fluidity of her language.

  “No point getting your blood pressure up.” Cass attempted to make light of the situation. “Everyone has their opinion.”

&nbs
p; “And my opinion of this so-called advice columnist is that she’s a desperate old hag with about as much sex appeal as a wasp.”

  Cleo was furious, and with Jack out of the house, she had no one else upon whom to vent her anger. Men were bastards, she knew that, but the brutal discovery that even her own father was one too had knocked her for a loop. It was unthinkable, the ultimate betrayal. And as for that double-crossing tart Imogen Trent…

  “Come on. Let’s open the Cointreau.”

  It was seven o’clock on Sunday evening, and Cass was more than ready for a drink. When she came back into the sitting room carrying two glasses loaded with ice cubes, Cleo was poring once more over yesterday’s Mail. So far, there had been no letup in press interest. Everyone wanted to know what would happen next. They aren’t the only ones, thought Cass. Jack had disappeared at lunchtime, and she had no idea when or if he would be back. Yet when she had asked him this morning if he would be moving out soon, he had seemed quite taken aback.

  Cleo, who was wearing only a midriff-skimming black T-shirt and pink shorts, shivered.

  “I still can’t believe this has happened. How can you be so calm?”

  “Do I look it?” Cass tried to smile. “I don’t feel calm.”

  “You’re doing a good job of hiding it then.”

  Cass looked momentarily helpless. “But what can I do? Public dustups are hardly my scene. This is as much your father’s home as mine. I can hardly boot him out into the street. I could always leave, but why the bloody hell should I, when I haven’t done anything wrong?”

  “Oh, Mum.” Cleo, who had been sprawled across the carpet, knelt up and gave Cass a hug. As newspapers crackled beneath her legs, she saw with satisfaction that one bare knee was grinding into a front-page photograph of Imogen Trent. “We’ll sort this out somehow.” Gesturing toward the grocery bag bulging with mail that Cass had yet to show her, she added, “And everyone’s on your side. That must help.”

  The cards and letters had been pouring in by the bucketload, to both the house and the radio station. It was, Cass felt, like being publicly bereaved. The outpouring of sympathy, support, and sheer goodwill from complete strangers had quite overwhelmed her. Of course it helped, she kept telling herself, to know these people cared so much. But their support was, at the same time, becoming something of a burden. It was all very Disneyland, Cass felt with a surge of irritation, unknowingly echoing Jack’s earlier warning to Imogen. She was Cinderella, and Jack and Imogen were the ugly stepsisters. She was Bambi’s mother, and Jack was the big bad hunter with his gun…