by Jill Mansell
Loulou was delighted and relieved to see that she was overcoming her desolation following Matt’s death. The grief had lessened and Camilla was obviously more cheerful. She was regaining her old sparkle, at last.
They also discussed Mac and Cecilia, and it rapidly became clear to Camilla that Loulou had regarded Simon as a form of retaliation, a weapon with which she had hoped to make Mac think again.
“He doesn’t love her,” she said, twisting a long strand of blond hair around her fingers. “It’s been almost eighteen months now and he still hasn’t even married her, which must mean something. They have the most appalling fights—far worse than he ever had with me—yet for some reason they stay together. The photographer and the model,” she enunciated with disgust. “They’re only doing it because it boosts both their careers.”
All Camilla could do was agree with her because that was what Loulou wanted to hear.
Then their conversation turned to Roz, who was also having a less-than-happy time at present. Apparently, she was at loggerheads with the new producer of her TV show, and as a result, the ratings were suffering. As the well-publicized mother of a crib-death baby, Roz had wanted Loulou to be a guest on the show. Loulou’s enormous contribution to the charity devoted to its research had also generated a vast amount of publicity at the time, and Roz felt that this show could renew public interest in the charity and its continuing need for funds. The producer had flatly informed her that such a program would be morbid, dull, and of no interest to anyone apart from the parents who had been affected. Instead, he suggested, she should be doing a fashion special, concentrating on the talents of the new designer, Marco Ciati.
“Who, by some incredible coincidence,” concluded Loulou with heavy irony, “is young, dull, and just happens to be his nephew. Roz evidently had a ring-ding stand-up showdown with him in the middle of the studio canteen, so now he’s doing his best to get her kicked out again. I have to admit that I feel just the tiniest bit guilty. Doing a program about crib deaths was my idea after all, and now Roz has gotten herself into trouble because of it. And I know she won’t give in.”
Camilla considered her friend’s words. Roz was a total enigma as far as she was concerned; one minute she was going out of her way to be unpleasant, the next she was risking her job in order not to let Loulou, or the charity, down.
“She’s very loyal,” said Loulou, reading her mind. “I know she’s been the most frightful bitch as far as you’re concerned, but she’s always been a good friend to me.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Roz was indeed less than happy at present. She loathed Murray Irving, her ghastly producer. He seemed determined now to make her life as miserable as possible, and he wasn’t doing too badly either. Work was no fun at all these days, thanks to that spiteful weasel.
Her social life, too, was less than gripping. No men interested her. Since her carefully planned reunion with Nico had failed so dismally—he had fled home to his boring wife and taken great pains to avoid Roz ever since—she had failed to unearth a single interesting man. Or a married one for that matter, she thought with a vague attempt at humor. Sex was sporadic and unsatisfying, and she invariably wondered afterward why she’d even bothered. At this rate, it was a toss-up whether she’d die of boredom or loneliness.
Altogether a very tedious situation to be in, she decided. But what on earth was she supposed to do about it? Advertise in the Times for a white knight?
Both these situations, however, paled into insignificance compared with the new bombshell now facing her.
The letter lay in her lap, and she ran her index finger along the top edge of it rather than pick it up again. There was no longer any need to do so, since she knew the contents by heart. Since its arrival this morning, she must have read it fifty times, and on every occasion, she had experienced the same twist in the pit of her stomach.
At first, she had assumed it to be a belated birthday card. The large, fuchsia-pink envelope had fluttered through the letter box, and Roz, just leaving the cottage, had stuffed it into her bag without even glancing at the front of it. Which meant that it wasn’t until she was comfortably settled on the Inter-City train heading toward London that she pulled the envelope out and saw that it had been addressed initially to the TV studios. The fact that URGENT, EXTREMELY PRIVATE AND PERSONAL, and NOT TO BE OPENED BY ANYONE OTHER THAN ROZ VALLENDER was plastered across the top in black ink had evidently prompted her secretary to redirect it to her home in Gloucestershire, since she hadn’t been due to visit the studios until next week.
Roz had smiled when she saw it. Probably some starstruck teenage boy confessing his undying love for her. Sometimes they wrote poems or included photo-booth pictures of themselves. She doubted, in view of the pink envelope, whether it was an obscene letter.
The smile had faded from her face when she opened it and began to read.
Dear Miss Vallender,
First of all, I think you should sit down because what I have to tell you may come as a shock. I hope you will think it’s a nice shock.
I could have written to you months ago but I waited until today—my eighteenth birthday—because I thought you might be more fully prepared. It must have occurred to you that this could happen, now.
Have you guessed yet?
Yes, I am your daughter, Natalie.
I’m sorry I haven’t done this through the proper channels, but I was too impatient—and too afraid that if the official woman contacted you, you might refuse to have anything to do with me. A letter from me to you seems better, more personal somehow. And more persuasive too, hopefully.
Anyway, my adopted mother knew your name. Six months ago, I overheard her talking to a friend and discovered that you were my biological mother. It was weird, because not long before that, we’d been watching you on TV and I’d said how much like you I looked. We are very alike, you know.
Mum knows I am writing to you. She and Dad are great and I love them both very much, but I have always longed to meet my real parents. I don’t resent you for giving me away—I can count on my fingers and I realize that you were very young when you had me. And I have had a nice life so far, so no complaints.
But I would like to see you. The reason I haven’t enclosed a photograph is in the hope that this will make you curious enough to want to meet me.
I am interesting, intelligent (aced all my exams), and have a good sense of humor. I like Indian and Chinese food. My favorite television program—creep, creep!—is yours.
Please, please write back to me. It’ll be even worse than waiting for exam results, so do it as quickly as possible. Every morning I shall be lying in wait for our poor old postman.
Yours very sincerely,
Natalie Purnell
PS I was so sorry about Nicolette. I didn’t even know then that she was my half sister, but when I heard that she had died, I cried for ages.
It was one of the very few occasions in her life when Roz had felt utterly helpless. The child she had conceived when she was fifteen and to whom she had given birth on her sixteenth birthday had never completely faded from her thoughts, but to have this proof of her existence thrust at her so abruptly had knocked her for six. Her daughter was impatient to re-enter her life, and she was hopelessly unprepared. She was, naturally, aware of the adoption laws enabling eighteen-year-olds to seek contact with their natural mothers, but somehow Roz had never imagined that it could happen to her.
Natalie, however, had obviously decided otherwise.
But Roz, who had functioned on autopilot for the last twelve hours, still did not know what to do. She was confused, torn…afraid…and although it made no sense to her whatsoever, for some unfathomable reason there was only one person in the world whose advice she wanted to hear.
* * *
It wasn’t until Lili winced and flailed her chubby bare brown arms that Loulou realized she was hold
ing her too tightly. Her daughter gazed at her reprovingly, then beamed forgiveness and nestled her head against Loulou’s neck, the whimpering that had prompted her late-night arrival downstairs now a thing of the past.
Loulou, absently kissing her hair, made a final circuit of the kitchen and gazed out at the wet blackness of the night. Rain was sliding down the windows, and the wind howled around the house like a swarm of indignant ghosts.
Sighing with impatience, she turned and headed for the stairs. Lili was ready for bed once more, and at least if she was putting her back into her crib she couldn’t be listening at the closed door of the sitting room, frantically attempting to eavesdrop on the conversation taking place inside.
What on earth, she wondered with burning, tortured curiosity, could possibly be going on in there? Roz and Camilla, together?
* * *
“I came to say I’m sorry,” said Roz, “for everything. My behavior has been unforgivable and I’ll understand if you want me to leave, but I had to say it anyway. I’ve been a prize bitch. I was jealous of you. Now I know how wrong I’ve been, and I’m so ashamed of myself…” She shook her dark head and searched for the words that she had been practicing for hours. “I’m just very, very sorry,” she ended simply, and lifted her head so that Camilla could see the truth and sadness in her eyes.
Camilla, listening to the slow, steady thud of her pulse and the rattle of rain against the windows, could think of no words to say. That Roz could be here, apologizing and asking for her forgiveness, was so improbable that she still wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t dreaming. She glanced out of the window at the rain, then at the clock. Ten past midnight.
It was no dream.
And how, in all honesty, could she refuse? “I’m glad you came.”
“I’m glad too, I think,” said Roz, a glimmer of a smile touching her lips, although her slanting dark eyes still registered anxiety.
“Lou kept telling me how good a friend you were to her, so I knew you couldn’t be all bad.”
“Loulou spends her entire life reeling from one disaster to another. She isn’t happy unless she’s got something to be really unhappy about. I wasn’t jealous of her.”
“Were you really jealous of me?” said Camilla incredulously. “I can’t believe it. Why?”
Roz’s black eyebrows straightened with concentration. “Not at first. I didn’t know that Jack was your husband, but I suppose I didn’t care that much when I found out. Oh, I cared that he’d tried to trick me, but I wasn’t too bothered about how badly it would affect you. And then there was the thing with Nico. You’d really pulled yourself together by then—”
“Thanks to Loulou,” interjected Camilla.
“—you’d gained confidence, you looked great, and you virtually told me to get stuffed. That’s when I first started to feel jealous. And after that, it seemed you could do no wrong. You were rocketing ahead, and at the same time, I was sliding farther and farther downhill.”
Roz paused, lost in thought, then gestured impatiently with her hand. “When Nicolette died, I had nothing left and you had everything: a brilliant career, a wonderful man, two perfect children…everybody seemed to love you. And no one at all loved me. The letter you wrote to me was the final straw. I’m afraid I went a bit crazy when I read it.”
With sudden clarity, Camilla realized that Roz’s words were echoing Christo’s almost exactly. Dear, perceptive Christo had realized just what was going on that night at Vampires when she and Roz had last met. How incredibly astute he was, she thought with a rush of affection for the red-haired Irishman. The idea that Roz might envy her would never have entered her head in a thousand years.
“And you must still have been terribly upset about Nicolette,” she murmured, but Roz stopped her.
“You see?” she demanded with a trace of exasperation. “You’re too nice—making excuses for me already! I said some hateful things. Do you really think you can forgive me?”
Camilla smiled. “I really think I already have.”
* * *
“How could you leave me outside!” wailed Loulou, perching on the arm of the settee and jiggling her tulip-shaped glass, demanding an immediate refill of the slightly warm champagne. “I was practically climbing the walls out there. You abandoned me for hours.”
“You would have been interrupting every five seconds,” pointed out Camilla reasonably.
“I would not!”
“Of course you would,” Roz joined in. “We know you, Loulou. And besides, with what I had to say, I didn’t want an audience.”
Loulou sniffed loudly. “That must be a first.”
“Oh, shut up and drink your drink. We’re together, we’re celebrating, and we’re happy, for Christ’s sake.”
“Happy?” yelled Loulou, struggling to stay deadpan. “Happy! How can you say that? How on earth can we be happy when we don’t have a single man between us?”
Chapter Forty-Four
It wasn’t until eleven o’clock the following morning that Roz could bring herself to broach the subject of Natalie with Camilla. Loulou was upstairs in bed nursing both Lili and a hangover. But it was Camilla whose advice she sought, whose opinions she needed. She knew without asking what Loulou’s would be.
Camilla, who had taken Toby and Charlotte to school over two hours earlier, was dressed in close-fitting denims and a lilac cashmere golfing sweater that had been Matt’s.
Roz still found it difficult to believe how totally Camilla had changed. She was scarcely recognizable now as the anxious, overweight housewife who had fussed and panicked her way through a dinner party, unaware that within hours her comfortable, sheltered little life would be lying in smithereens at her feet.
All Roz had to do now was retrain her mind to admire rather than envy her.
Draining her coffee cup, she said, “Thanks for letting me stay last night. I really didn’t feel like going back to the hotel.”
“We were up until three thirty,” Camilla reminded her with a smile. “There didn’t seem much point in your leaving. It’s lovely, anyway, to have more people in the house. Especially friends. More coffee?”
“No thanks, it’s coming out of my ears. Actually, I need to ask your advice about a very personal matter.”
“Me?” Camilla looked surprised.
“You. Because you know what I’m really like. More than anyone else,” she said wryly, “you’re aware I’m not always the nicest person in the world, or the easiest to get along with. And that needs to be taken into serious consideration in this case.”
Camilla poured herself a refill of fresh, strong coffee and sat down opposite her, watching as Roz dug in the pocket of her scarlet jacket and pulled out an envelope. After a moment’s hesitation, she handed it across the table.
“Read this. I’ll wait outside in the garden.”
* * *
The grass was still wet from last night’s rain, but the sun was out and the scent of roses hung in the air. At the edge of the patio, Roz stooped to retrieve a small white sandal and a sundress abandoned there by Lili. Just like her mother, she thought with affectionate amusement, then wondered whether Natalie was like her, and how Camilla was at this moment reacting to the news that Natalie existed. The knot of tension in her stomach was growing inside her like a living thing, the waiting becoming intolerable.
Less than five minutes later Camilla joined her, the expression on her face grave.
“Why do you need my advice?” she asked slowly, and Roz averted her gaze, staring intently at the dew-laden roses that covered the old stone wall bordering one side of the garden.
“Because I’m afraid.”
“You don’t want to meet her?”
“I do, I do. I’m afraid she’ll be disappointed.”
Camilla took her arm and they began to walk slowly together around the garden, the imprints of t
heir footsteps trailing in the wet grass behind them.
“She’s seen me on television. She thinks I’m like that,” said Roz in a low voice. “How can she accept the real me?”
“Oh, the real you isn’t too bad,” Camilla assured her with a squeeze and a smile.
“What if she meets me and realizes that she hates me?”
“Why should she?”
Roz turned to her, her dark eyes filled with pain. “And what if I get to know her, then discover that I’m jealous of her?”
“You won’t,” said Camilla positively. “There is no reason on this earth why you should envy anyone. Instead, there’s every reason why you should love her. She sounds terrific.”
Roz managed a smile at last. “She does, doesn’t she?”
“And in many ways she’s like you,” Camilla continued, willing Roz to understand. “She certainly used her initiative, writing directly to you like that. And she must be mature, to be able to consider your feelings enough to wait until now before sending the letter.”
“She’s certainly got character,” said Roz with growing pride and enthusiasm. Thank God she had been able to talk to Camilla about this. She was so right—you didn’t envy your own daughter for all her good qualities; you loved her instead!
“And a sense of humor.”
“She’s clever. Not sending a photo of herself…”
“And determined.”
Roz grinned. “In fact,” she said slowly, and with triumph in her voice, “she’s a lot like…no, exactly like…me!”
* * *
Natalie ran her fingers through her spiky, shoulder-length dark hair and glanced at her watch for the hundredth time in an hour. In just a few minutes now, the train would be pulling into Paddington station; already a few of her fellow passengers were organizing themselves, arranging their bags and cases around their feet. Hastily she kicked her empty Coke can and three apple cores under her seat and brushed an apple pip from her skirt.