by Karen Aldous
‘So, then why didn’t you – Monday or yesterday?’
I covered my face with my hand, willing my mind to find the right answer, some sort of perspective. I’d let her down but not in the way she imagined. I didn’t know how best to explain. I wasn’t getting through to her. I should have planned and rehearsed how I was going to tell her. I may have had some eloquence to my argument. I sensed her impatience growing.
‘The time hasn’t been right this week, nor then. It was just after I’d discovered you’d lost your job. I was devastated for you, and hearing that so soon after, I was gobsmacked. Stunned. I was at a loss. I couldn’t even tell the girls. You were still grieving and shocked at losing your job. I just couldn’t bring myself to call you. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Will. I … I just didn’t know what to do. I tried to bury it, I suppose to protect you,’ I said watching as Ginny pulled a tissue from a box on the shelf. I grabbed one as well.
She stared at me coldly, sniffing then blowing her nose and throwing the tissue in the bin. ‘Well, you certainly protected your sister; handing her the power, even more power to humiliate me.’
‘No, you were in such a good place after the memorial, and yesterday, the euphoria of the day’s skiing and Neil asking you on a date. Like I said, it was a bubble I didn’t want to burst.’ I sighed heavily, feeling I was just repeating myself. ‘And it’s completely selfish of me, I know, but I was scared. I wanted the time to be right as I knew it could ruin our friendship.’
‘Well, you got something right,’ she said unreasonably, smudging her face with the heel of her hand and promptly collected her bag and coat from the floor, then her phone from the bed. As she stood back up, she turned her back to me. ‘It has ruined our friendship. I can’t stay in here.’ She strutted out the door.
I chased after her. ‘Ginny, don’t be ridic …’
She turned to me briefly, poison spitting from her eyes. ‘Kim. Go console your sister. The witch is clearly heartbroken. You want to protect someone; her need is greater than mine. I’m done with caring about you, about Mike.’ Brushing angrily past me, to her bedside table, she gathered up a few items including her pyjamas and headed back out the door.
I stared after her, clawing my face, my fears realised. A huge sob rose in me.
She shrugged. ‘She was your friend and you betrayed her; what do you expect?’ She snorted and threw bits into a bag. She too padded across to the Cathy and Lou’s door. The crash hit me like a bullet shooting me in the head, leaving me bereft and alone. The pit of my heart emptied as I curled on the bed and sobbed. Was what I’d done so terrible? All I did was show compassion for my friend who was already hurting. They’d got me so wrong.
I grabbed another tissue. I’d really screwed up. Perhaps that was an understatement. I lay on top of the bed, stroking the faux-fur throw, the distorted chatter from the other bedroom piercing my ears. I pressed the ache in my breastbone, squeezing it as though I could stop my heart bleeding. There was no plaster to mend this. Ginny was deeply hurt, feeling betrayed. Just like my dad, Paula was so menacing. It was tempting to call her and give her a piece of my mind, but I quickly figured that would be playing directly into her hands. For some reason, she wanted to create havoc between me and my friends so why should I give her the satisfaction of knowing she had succeeded? And, not content that she had managed to lure Mike after all these years, she was also intent on breaking up our long and beautiful friendship. Why? Did she resent us? Hadn’t she wounded Ginny enough by seducing her husband?
With a large sigh, I rolled over, hugging my pillow and urging Paula out of my raging head. I needed to concentrate on what was important – to find a resolution and repair my relationship with Ginny and the girls. How was I so stupid? Why didn’t I just tell Ginny? How would I ever rebuild that trust? The other girls were right to support her. They wouldn’t trust me either. I’d been wrong, and this was my sentence, my worst fear; I’d lost my best friends.
So, what were my options? I could call a taxi, or possibly Tandy and Jean-Pierre in Ouchy; drag them out to fetch me. Or I could wait until first light and get the bus to Isérables and take the cable car down to Mayens-de-Riddes to the station. I sighed. I could even be brazen and burst into their bedroom and insist they listen. The decisions too heavy to weigh up, I uncurled my legs and lay on my back. More than anything, my preference was to stay and calmly talk to Ginny. Press on her my utter remorse. I held my head in my hands, clawing at my hairline.
I couldn’t return to Oz without a fight. If the Flowers ignored me for the next three days, at least I would have tried. I resolved to wait until morning; give Ginny the chance to quieten her mind and think straight. Maybe she would figure out my heart really was in the best place. I could pray for a miracle. Surely we couldn’t part without coming to some resolve. We were in too deep. Although, quite how I could rebuild trust, I had no idea.
I must have exhausted my brain as the next thing I heard was Angie whispering about me.
‘She’s asleep.’
‘Well, we have to get dressed,’ Ginny said, less considerately and scraping around loudly at a drawer. ‘So will she if she’s skiing.’
I opened my eyes with a glimmer of hope. At least she wasn’t expecting me to run off home. A positive. I’d take that. Maybe she had calmed down. Was I clinging to some hope it would be possible to chat and try to mend some bridges?
Ginny sat on her side of the bed, then continued in the same tone. ‘Though I’m sure she’d rather go and soothe her sister.’
I felt the twist in my heart.
Ginny
I had barely slept with the anguish going on in my head. The flash of Mike with Paula. Blood had rushed to my head as I had got to the end of the text but then it rushed out as I read it again trying to make sense of it. Bile rose to my throat. I had been rooted to the spot, physically numb, unable to grasp the reality. I read it a third time, which must have been the point at which the repugnant reality hit. I had rushed back to the cubicle and thrown up. It was like I’d stepped into another dimension, or a film set. I was hearing but it wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening to me.
Wiping streaming eyes, I remembered I kept wittering. ‘Mike wouldn’t, surely not, surely not her …’ His guilty mumblings rang in my ears. My worst fear had worsened. The bitter taste of disgust had stuck to my tongue. How could he?
I know I had read it right, but I’d had to ask myself if it was a jinx. A cruel hoax. How could he with her? Paula? Of all people! The slut! The bastard. He had cheated. He had actually cheated on me. My Mike with Paula. Vomit had stuck in my throat again as I visualised them. I’d had to lean forward again to release it. My head whirled with poison. She had to be pretty sick in the head if she was so desperate for me to know. But why should I even believe her? Like I had ever done anything to her – or Kim come to that. Kim knew! That fact had stabbed at my heart. Kim had been party to all this! Why the fuck didn’t she tell me? My anger had raged to an inferno. I had to get to Kim.
Poor Neil, he had gaped helpless when I had eventually rushed out demanding to leave. Who knew what had been going through his head? I doubt he had known what to do, seeing me in that bedraggled state. Thankfully, gent that he was, he immediately held out my jacket and got me back to the chalet without too many questions. I remembered garbling on to him about it, but how much I had blurted was a blur. And Kim’s excuse – shamelessly lame. And why would I believe she had planned to tell me?
As supportive as they were, and I was overwhelmingly grateful that they had all rushed to my aid, I was surprised when Lou and Cathy took Kim’s reasons for holding back as quite a reasonable explanation, particularly, they said, since I had already been stricken with grief and had just received shocking news about my job. Though equally, they said they had understood my view – that she might have been covering for Paula. After all, we had agreed, blood is thicker than water. Kim has always been protective of her siblings.
But, it really hurt to think she
would betray me to protect her sister rather than inform me. I still can’t believe that Mike had not only been unfaithful, but that it had been with Paula! What was he thinking! It still didn’t ring true. Paula was a joke. A pitiful joke. And now the whole world and its dog would be laughing at me.
* * *
Kim was sleeping when I entered the room, which meant either she wasn’t too upset, or she would have lain awake most of the night like me and become exhausted. Either way, I didn’t care. I was still fuming with her. I watched her eyes flicker and I picked up my small hairbrush, side-stepping to the mirror. Her eyes closed again but I heard her sigh and then move her pillow. Peering down at that person I had loved and trusted so much, it crushed me. It was crazy to think she couldn’t tell me; that she would let me discover what my dead husband had done in two inches of text from that evil sister of hers. I shuddered. The image of Mike with Paula stuck in my brain still. It had been playing over and over in my mind all night. I shuddered again. The thought of all three of them colluding together. Beyond comprehension!
Angie looked concerned. ‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’
I looked round. ‘Yes, fine,’ I said nodding, but I was at a loss. When I turned back, Kim was sitting herself up slightly. I glanced at her briefly, in disgust. Who was she? I hadn’t long lost Mike, and I had lost my job, but surely you would want one of your closest friends to know the truth, particularly with a sister as volatile as hers was; I was surprised Paula hadn’t told me before! Why would she wait a year after his death if she was intent on me knowing? Would she have made it up? Who knew? If Mike hadn’t uttered those words then I would have questioned her sanity, but it was in her nature to wreak havoc.
Mike was in the wrong. And Kim, why was her loyalty to Paula rather than thinking of me? She had never liked her. That was the why I found it so difficult to accept. I’ve done nothing but treat her like a sister; well, better than a sister, probably. We’ve rarely fought. Why would she conceal something so significant to me? That was the betrayal.
And the timing of Paula’s revelation. A year on and I was on a date. My first date since Mike. Someone I considered special, too. It had been going so well. Like sitting in the bar any other night, we had got on so well. Neil and I were on the brink of going back to his. I had virtually committed myself and hadn’t felt at all uncomfortable about my decision – I wanted to make love to him. How was I to trust any man now?
My head spun. A madness in me throbbed. This wasn’t happening. How had Paula known about Neil? How? Had Kim spoken to her, messaged her? Why? Or was it Mike divinely intervening? I shivered. Was his spirit unsettled? Riddled with so much guilt maybe? Or was I overthinking? The bowling. It was possible one of the girls mentioned it to the boys? Lou? Cathy? Umm. I scrunched my face. Angie? The boys had met Paula bowling. My gut spiralled. So, she told the boys, too? Bitterness salivated on my tongue again.
Like Angie, I rummaged for my things and dressed as if Kim wasn’t in the room. She didn’t attempt to get up, so I wondered if she would stay put. When I woke this morning, the last thing on my mind was skiing, but Angie and Lou persuaded me that sitting around the chalet stewing would be destructive. I saw their point, but I knew my heart wouldn’t really be in it. Figuring they were probably right, I had splashed my eyes with freezing water to sting out the haze.
We dressed for our ski lesson as Kim lay there, her eyes opening, then closing. I did feel bad that we had all abandoned her last night, but, as we discussed, they would want to know if their husbands had betrayed them – even if he were dead. They had their own interests to think about too.
Kim turned her head. ‘Ginny, can we talk?’ she croaked as I sat down on the bed to put on my sun cream. ‘Please?’
Feeling uncomfortable, I peered over at Angie who was pulling up her big knickers, which nearly made me laugh. I saw her puff out her cheeks with the squeeze of her pants, then she shrugged one shoulder at me. I didn’t want to talk to Kim. I looked back at the contents of my make-up bag sprawled out in the drawer. What could she say that would change anything?
She raised her pillow slightly and cleared her throat, half lying, half sitting.
‘Well, I’ll tell you anyway as I’m sure you’re still angry. Again, I want to emphasise how sorry I am. I’m so sorry that I’ve hurt you and sorry I made the wrong decision. I promise, my thinking was based on believing I was doing the right thing. I was genuinely protecting you. It wasn’t for Paula’s benefit at all.’ Her voice rose as she looked squarely at me. ‘I want to make sure that you know that. I’m bitterly ashamed of my sister. But, there’s nothing I can do to reverse the way I handled the situation. I’m sure I’ve lost your trust as well, but be assured but be assured, you can still trust me, I swear. You still have my loyalty.’
She swallowed hard, blinking away the tears on her wet lashes. ‘I only hope one day you can forgive me, Ginny. And you girls.’ She glanced at Angie. ‘I realise you also feel that I should have told Ginny, or any one of you for that matter. But …’ Her hand reached her mouth and she cleared her throat. ‘Now I can’t undo my mistake, and I couldn’t bear not having you as my friends.’ She leaned on one side, towards me. ‘Ginny, you’ve been the loveliest person in the world to me. I could never hurt you. Not deliberately, so please trust me. There’s not a chance in hell I would have jeopardised everything we have by hurting you. That’s exactly the reason I was waiting to tell you when you returned from your date. I can only assume Lou or one of them have told the boys about Neil.’
I watched as she pulled herself up to sitting, knees bent, and scrunched her cover against her chest. The puffiness around her eyes aged her. She sounded genuine, but as I stared, my mind was made up. I couldn’t accept the apology or anything she had said. The only truth I’d heard in what she was saying, was that she had made a wrong decision. I chewed on my lip, the difficulty for me being to know whether she was protecting her sister or me.
‘That’s gracious of you to apologise again, but I don’t feel ready to accept it. Sorry, Kim. Your reasons may be sound to you, but I would rather have known.’ I struggled for breath and to find anything further to bring about some resolve. ‘Kim, I need time to get my head round this. Get up and come skiing. Don’t ruin your holiday. It’s happened, and we have to deal with it one way or another. Let’s be civil, give it time to digest.’
‘I appreciate that,’ Kim said. ‘Honestly, you won’t believe how bad I feel.’
She lifted her bedcover and trotted to the bathroom. Angie and I continued to dress in silence, then hearing Kim’s electric toothbrush hum, Angie asked.
‘Should I let the girls know?’
I stared at her confused, then the penny dropped. ‘Good idea. Yes, please,’ I said, feeling conspiratorial. ‘I’m so mad still. But we were all in shock last night.’ I pinched my forehead. ‘I still am in fact. I really do need some thinking time, so best we all remain civil. It’s only a couple of days.’
Cathy
Lou was bending over the dressing table brushing on foundation cream in the mirror whilst I was pulling up my thick ski socks. We had been scrutinising Kim’s argument. Neither of us could adopt a position on whether we would or wouldn’t have told Ginny at the time. I think I would have been more inclined to have told her after a few weeks, given her some time to digest the redundancy, but then told her face-to-face whereas Lou felt that she would have struggled to decide a timeframe, but we concurred that telling her face-to-face had to be the way. We began to understand Kim’s position even though we were deeply concerned about Ginny.
‘Just as she was doing so well too,’ I said.
‘I know. Bloody Paula. She’s always been trouble. Such a contrast to Kim. I feel torn, if I’m honest. I really feel for Ginny but in Kim’s position, what would I have done? Knowing Kim, she probably was worried that it would send Ginny over the edge, especially then. And at least she kept it to herself without burdening our consciences. I wouldn’t have liked that eith
er. She hadn’t told you, had she?’
‘No, I didn’t have a clue,’ Lou said, now flicking her eyes at the mascara brush.
‘And what doesn’t help by the sound of it,’ I rattled on, ‘is that Kim was going through her own anxieties with Will about returning home, so, no doubt, she’s been trying to deal with it all.’
Lou spun round. ‘I know. I can’t believe what’s been going on. We just don’t seem to have time to chat lately. You think life gets simpler as you get older, but with the children, grandchildren, planning for retirement, work, the stress is still there.’
I puffed. ‘Ha, bloody retirement’s overrated. Mine has been extremely stressful so it doesn’t disappear even then,’ I said. ‘This week has certainly shown the stains in our linen. Many in a good way though. Airing our dirty laundry has helped me and I think we’ve all discovered what a pain in the arse our other halves can be. Though, I’m sure we are to them at times.’
‘Oh, absolutely. And don’t forget, when Kim found out, Ginny hadn’t long returned from Oz. It’s not like Kim could justify spending on a flight over immediately, to tell her. Was it May? Maybe, then, once this trip was booked, in June, maybe she held off so that she could tell her personally?’
With my socks neatly in place, I rose, grabbing my hairbrush. ‘It sounds plausible. And, when would have been a good time to say anything this week? Ginny’s been cracking her shell and making her way out. I couldn’t have risked stamping on it. Oh, I do hope they come to an understanding. Kim wouldn’t set out to deliberately deceive her or hurt her. She cares too much and all the history they have … No, it’s beginning to make sense.’
‘I agree,’ Lou said stuffing her make-up back into her make-up bag. ‘I doubt her motives were misplaced. Paula’s a nasty piece of work. I wouldn’t be surprised if Paula threatened Mike. Blackmailed him in some way. It’s possible the contracts were quite substantial, and Mike needed them. Or, she just saw an opportunity. She’d always liked Mike.’ Lou picked up her hairbrush.’ Let’s just hope she doesn’t try it on with Terry.’