by Frances Pye
Halfheartedly, she picked up the next paper. And the phone rang. She jumped. Just as she did every time this happened nowadays. She knew it wouldn’t be Sean, knew that there was more chance of her becoming minister for Transport than of his calling out of the blue, but still the little bit of hope lingered. Maybe, just maybe.
She grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”
“Terry. It’s Lily.”
“Oh, Lily.”
“Don’t sound so pleased.”
“Sorry. I thought you might be…”
“Sean?”
“Someone else.”
“Still seeing him, then?” Lily couldn’t resist a little jibe at Terry. She’d called to try and make things right. She’d hated their not talking and had decided that one betrayal shouldn’t erase twenty years of loyalty, but there was a part of her that was still very angry with her friend.
“No.”
“Good. Now, all this has gone on long enough. It’s been three weeks. And I miss you.”
“Oh, Lils. I miss…What do you mean, good?”
“Just good. I want us to be friends again.”
“Good why? Good because I deserve to be unhappy? Good because I got my just desserts? Good because you want him back yourself? Why?” Terry heard the words pouring out of her mouth and couldn’t believe that it was herself talking. She’d missed Lily. Missed her humor and her support and her ability to laugh at misfortune. But she’d kept her feelings bottled up for weeks. And because of that, all her anger, all her misery, all her resentment had backed up and was ready to flood out of her.
“Good because it means we can get over this.”
“We? You, you mean.”
“Terry. I called to say that I forgive you. It’s almost Christmas and—”
“Forgive me? You forgive me? For what?”
“For sleeping with Sean. For stealing him.” What was the matter with Terry? She must know their quarrel was not Lily’s fault, that she was the villain of this piece.
“I don’t need your fucking forgiveness. He was up for grabs. You put him there.”
“That was before. At the beginning. Then we agreed to stop it.”
“You agreed. You.”
“So did you.”
“I didn’t know then, did I?”
“Know what? Don’t tell me you fell for him? Impossible.”
Terry struggled to contain her fury. In the past, she’d always found Lily’s take ’em or leave ’em attitude toward men amusing. It was so Lily. But right now, her nonchalance in the face of Terry’s misery was infuriating.
“Terry. Come on. I’m making the move here. And you were the one who broke the rules. Meet me halfway, at least.”
And Terry snapped. Her anger poured out of her, uncontrolled. And uncontrollable. “Halfway? Halfway? Are you fucking mad? We’re not negotiating a treaty here. There is no fucking halfway. You screwed up my life. You and your celebrity.”
“Hey. I was hurt by this too.” Lily felt the unfairness of Terry’s attacks but managed to hold back her temper if this was what was needed to get them back on the right footing.
“When did you find out about it?” Terry asked the question that had been bothering her ever since she’d first seen that headline.
“The story? The night before. Mara came to tell me. Clever, calculating Clive had wormed it out of her.”
“The night before?”
“Yes.”
“So how come you didn’t warn me? Give me a chance to talk to Sean before he learned about it in the newspapers?”
“I…there wasn’t time.”
“Liar. There was time. Lots of time. You didn’t want me to know, did you? You wanted to hurt me. You set out to get revenge for me going with him.”
Lily’s own control wavered and broke. What Terry had said hit a very sensitive nerve. “Revenge, crap. You fucked some guy, so what? One night with you, fifty with me. What the hell do I care? Plenty more where he came from. For me anyway.”
“Piss off, Lily.” Terry jabbed the button to cut off her oldest friend, threw the receiver across the kitchen, and then burst into tears.
Paul, on the hunt for a snack before dinner, opened the door to see his mother huddled over the kitchen table, an array of used tissues spread in front of her. She was crying again. He knelt down next to her.
“Mam? You okay?”
Terry gathered up the tissues. “Take no notice of this. I’m fine.” She rustled through one of the newspapers piled on the table. “Anything on the telly tonight?”
Paul wasn’t fooled. In a way, he found her crying easier than the fake jollity, but either way, her unhappiness was obvious. It had been weeks now, and if anything, she was worse. He knew she didn’t want him to interfere, but he couldn’t take standing by and watching her misery any longer. He had to try to do something.
seventy-seven
“This is it? The only offer?” Mara held the telephone in one hand and a letter in the other.
“So far. It’s early days. Give it some time.”
Mara’s house had been on the market for nearly a month. In the end, she had given it to James Black, the first agent she’d seen. He had been right. All of the others who’d been around had given her the same estimate. One had even been tens of thousands worse. So she’d gone with Black. Not least because his agency had the flat on the railway line.
When she’d seen it, she’d been shocked by what her money would buy her. The top half of a 1930s duplex, it was warm and dry and the double glazing cut out a lot of the train noise, but the rooms were small, the bathroom chipped, the kitchen old-fashioned dingy, and the whole place in need of redecorating. On the surface, it didn’t look all that much better than her own dilapidated house. But it was waterproof. The windows were brand-new, the brickwork was whole, and the roof had been redone three years previously. And ultimately that was all that mattered. The kitchen would do and she could paint the place whenever she had time. Yes, she couldn’t change the dimensions, but there were worse things than small rooms.
So she’d put in an offer of £150,000. And had it accepted immediately. Now all she had to do was sell her house.
But that was proving more difficult than she had hoped. Lots and lots of people had paraded through but no one had made an offer. Not even a low one. Not until now.
“I don’t have time.” The stories in the papers had spurred the Moores into action. Just that week they had filed suit against Mara, claiming full custody of Moo and Tilly. The court date had been set for two months from now. “No one else is even interested?”
“Not yet.”
“But this isn’t enough for my flat.”
“No.”
“Who is this Kevin Morris?”
“A local developer. He’s done up a lot of houses in Chiswick.”
“And he thinks mine’s only worth one hundred and fifty.”
“It’s a low offer, of course, but you did say you were in a hurry—”
“I am, I am.”
“Then you might want to think seriously about this. It’s for cash, and he won’t be concerned about the state of the house.”
The offer was insultingly low, as if the developer had known just how desperate she was to get shut of the place. Mara tried to think the best of people, but the revelations about Jake had made her less trusting than she used to be and she couldn’t help wondering if perhaps James Black had been blabbing. Not that she could do anything about it if he had.
“Of course, you could drop the price. See if that attracts someone else? Or just hold tight, wait for the right buyer. It is a bad time of year, just before Christmas. Plus, houses don’t sell overnight, Mrs. Moore. We’ve got some on our books have been there six months or more.”
“Six months!”
“You need a bit of patience in this game.”
Which was just what she hadn’t got. Her options were decreasing by the minute. The developer’s offer wasn’t enough for the flat on the railway l
ine. And for the money she wouldn’t find anything else in Chiswick she could afford. If she accepted his price, she would have to move out of the area, and so take the girls away from their school, their friends, the life they were used to. She hated the idea of disrupting their world like that, but the alternative was to hang around and wait for another, more generous buyer, possibly for months. With the chance that one would never appear and the court date getting ever closer. If, on the other hand, she took his offer, they could definitely be in a waterproof flat before the Moores’ case against her came up. It would have to be a cheaper place, in another part of London, but in the end that had to be better than running the risk of losing the girls. Of seeing them for only a few hours a month. They’d have each other, they’d settle down soon enough…and who knew, they might even prefer the new school she’d have to find for them.
“If I accept, how soon can the deal go through?”
“A few weeks. Just a matter of the solicitors doing their thing.”
Mara could see no way out. In a perfect world, she would wait for the right person to come along. But this wasn’t a perfect world. Far from it. And she needed to be out of Elliott Road in under two months.
“Tell Mr. Morris I accept.”
seventy-eight
“Happy Christmas, love.”
“Mam. Mam. It’s…it’s massive. Where’d you get it?”
“Friend of a friend of a friend. This guy’s got a job somewhere in Europe—Portugal, I think—for the next six months and wanted someone to take over the second half of the season. Are you pleased?”
“Pleased? I’m over the moon. It’s wicked.” Paul looked at the little booklet in his hand, “Fifty-five J. Wonder where that is.”
“You’ll find out tomorrow, won’t you?”
“Tomorrow! Mam, you’re amazing. A season ticket.”
Terry smiled at her son. Sometimes, like when he was trying to cheer her up, he seemed a real adult, and other times, like now, he was back to being a little boy. She knew she couldn’t have bought him anything he’d like better. At least one of them could get what they’d asked Santa Claus for.
“Lunchtime. Come on.”
Terry had been determined to make Christmas a happy occasion in spite of how she herself was feeling. Or even because of it. There was no reason Paul should suffer because she was miserable. Other years, they’d spent the day with Lily and her kids—Jules always escaped to Barbados, to soak up some sun and evade her parents, and Mara had a quiet family day with Amy—but this year they were on their own. After her telephone quarrel with Lily, Terry had longed to apologize, but she was too ashamed of the way she’d behaved. Lils had taken the first step toward a reconciliation, and instead of ignoring her best friend’s lingering bitterness and welcoming her offer to make up, Terry had shouted at her, insulting her, telling her to piss off, then slamming the phone down on her. She couldn’t see any easy way back from that. Maybe time would do its job.
To make up for the two of them being alone, Terry had put more into the holiday than usual. She’d got a bigger tree, had decorated the flat with so much holly and fir and mistletoe that the place looked more like a winter wood than an apartment, and had bought way, way too much food. Massive boxes of chocolates, enormous dishes of nuts, and giant, huge, heaping bowls of fruit were ranged about the living room, just waiting to be eaten.
The turkey was colossal. Paul carving off their two portions hardly seemed to make any impact. They were going to be eating it for weeks. Along with the sausages, bacon, bread and cranberry sauces, roast and mashed potatoes and three vegetables that came with it. It looked as if there were twenty for lunch rather than two.
But in spite of all her preparations, the gifts, the decorations, the food, in spite of all her determination to be happy for Paul, the day was a real struggle. She hadn’t thought she’d miss Sean more than she did the rest of the time—after all, they’d never spent Christmas together and so there were no happy memories to be blocked out—but she did. Maybe being off from work for four days gave her all the more time to think about what she had tossed away. Maybe everyone else in the country being with their nearest and dearest made her feel extra lonely. The day after Boxing Day couldn’t come quickly enough….
“Here, Mam. Pull.” Paul held out a black-and-white cracker, banded in silver. More extravagance. Terry had bought them in a posh Islington boutique. Apparently they had useful gifts inside them and special fortunes written by Magical Mo.
Terry pulled. The cracker broke and out tumbled a green-and-red hat, a tiny diary for the new year, and a curl of paper.
“It’s yours, Mam. Go on.”
Terry reached out, unrolled the hat, and put it on. “Now you.” And they pulled again. When Paul was similarly kitted out in a blue-and-yellow paper cap, he picked up his fortune. “‘Fate leads you south.’ Well, that’s true enough. I’m off to Charlton tomorrow. Though how can they tell when they don’t know who’s going to open the crackers?”
“It’s just a bit of fun, isn’t it? Not serious.” Terry uncurled her own. And burst into tears. And ran out of the room.
Paul leaned over and picked up her fortune. “‘Fate introduces a builder,’” he read out loud. “Oh, Mam.”
LILY SLOWLY maneuverd her supple body into the next impossible position. She’d been doing yoga for years and was aware that the unhurried movement from one pose to the next showed off her long, lean body to its best advantage. Which was exactly what she wanted to have happen. Particularly for the tall, sun-streaked blond man at the back of the class who she’d had her eye on since she’d arrived at the Haven the day before. And who she was sure was interested. In fact, she suspected he’d only joined the class because she was taking it.
Lily moved easily into the next position, a difficult headstand. She had never been by herself at Christmas before. The last few years she and the twins had been with Terry and Paul. Before that there’d been Clive, and Lily’s mother until she died. But now she was alone. Jack and Bella were still in Australia, and it was a long, long way to go for a few days. Plus, they had planned to spend the time with friends they’d made since they’d gone out there and, as much as they loved their mother, would likely find her more intrusion than welcome guest.
Thus, when her attempted rapprochement with Terry had imploded, she had decided to do a Jules, to give herself a treat. She had booked into the most expensive, exclusive health spa in the country for a long weekend of constant pampering. Days full of facials, body wraps, and mud baths. Of delicious but healthy food, of aromatherapy massages, of peace and quiet away from “Jingle Bells” and fake snow and tinsel-covered trees.
Best of all, there were the men. Lots and lots of unattached men. Apparently, the place was always heaving with singles over the holidays. And while Lily wasn’t ready to throw herself back into the hunt for a part-time, twice-a-week lover yet—memories of the failure with Sean were way too fresh—it had been weeks since she’d last been to bed with him and she could certainly do with a fuck.
The moment the teacher called a halt, she went over to her blond guy, put her hand on his arm, and smiled into his eyes.
“Hi, I’m Lily,” she said.
“WHO PUT you up to this?”
“No one.”
“Ray.”
“No one, I said.”
“Don’t lie to me. I’ve known you since I was five and you nicked my lunch at school.”
“Did not nick it. You’d finished. You hate tomatoes.”
“Did.”
“Did not.”
“And so on. Come on, who was it?”
“Well, Paul did mention that she was very unhappy.”
“Good.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Maybe I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive her.”
“Just talk to her.”
“No.”
“Sean, you were in love with that girl.”
“Was, Ray. Was. Not
any longer. You want another?”
“Why not?”
Sean picked up their two glasses and walked to the bar. It was Christmas Day. They had nipped down to the pub for a couple while Babs looked after the kids and made the dinner. He should have known something like this was coming; playing football in the icy garden with the boys before a few beers at home was more Ray’s kind of thing. He supposed Ray—and Paul—meant well, but he wished they’d mind their own business.
“Here you go. A pint of lager top. Though how a man like you needs lemonade in his beer I’ll never know.”
“So why not call her?”
Sean sighed. He’d hoped to change the subject. “Okay, I will not call her because she humiliated me. I fell for a woman who cared about me so much she was happy to share me with her friends. You should hear what the guys at work had to say.”
“Bet they were envious.”
Sean said nothing. Because Ray was right. His men had whooped and hollered at him the day after the story, full of questions about Lily’s sexual prowess, requests for introductions, and jokes about four in a bed. And Sean had loathed it. It had made the situation more real, had rubbed in the truth about him and Terry, made him face her lack of real interest in him all over again. They had not been about love at all.
“Listen. Maybe at the start she wanted to share you. But that wasn’t how it was at the end. Easy enough to agree to something when you don’t know the person involved. She fell for you, my boy. The sharing stuff was all before. And the newspaper said it was Lily James’s idea, not hers.”
“She went along with it, didn’t she?”
“What was she supposed to do? Stop seeing you?”
“She could’ve told me.”
“Maybe she didn’t know how she felt till the end. What does it matter? She knows now. Paul says she’s incon…incon…”