by Karen Swan
Anouk didn’t reply. She seemed frozen.
‘Non,’ Jacques said, fighting her battle for her. ‘She said you went for quiet hysteria. I suppose you imagine it was dignified, flouncing out like that and breaking up the party.’
‘Breaking up the party? That’s your concern? I find out my husband has another family and you’re both more worried about keeping up appearances?’ She gave a laugh of disbelief, of bitterest despair to think that her friend could have thought all this about her whilst living with her. She thought back to their dinners in the apartment, sharing bottles of Beaujolais while the sun went down, relaxing together in the hammam and laughing at themselves in their endermologie stockings, when all this time Anouk had not only kept the worst of secrets, but had been mirroring it herself.
Cassie slowly picked up her own coat and moved past them, towards the door. She stopped just beyond Anouk and turned to look back at her.
‘I never thought I’d say this – to you of all people, Nooks – but I pity you. I do. You’ve lost your way. I used to think you knew everything. I wanted to be just like you – sophisticated, enigmatic, alluring. But now that I see your life close-up, I realize you’re none of those things. You’re just hollow and cold and cheap. And you’re no friend of mine.’
And she turned on her heel and stalked down the tunnel, tears streaming down her cheeks as she climbed up the steps and emerged for the last time into the night-time shimmer of the City of Light.
LONDON
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The knocks at the door grew louder, but Cassie just dived further beneath the duvet.
‘Come on, Cass! You have to speak to her sometime!’ Suzy called loudly, knowing full well that Cassie was burying herself under ten-and-a-half togs.
Nothing.
‘Tch. She can’t keep this up for ever. I’ll get her to call you back, I promise!’ Suzy said just as loudly down the phone, so that Cassie could hear.
She opened the door without knocking and sat down on the bed so heavily that Cassie felt a draught blow between her and the mattress. ‘Cupcake’ was nearly fully baked now – only seven weeks to go – and Suzy looked like she was having twins. Or at least a large fruitcake.
‘You’re going to have to talk to her sooner or later.’
‘No I’m not! Not after what she’s done.’
‘She hasn’t done it to you, Cass.’
Cassie poked her head above the duvet, outraged, and cried, ‘Oh yes she has!’, immediately regretting it.
‘What does that mean?’
Cassie didn’t say anything. She hadn’t told Suzy the full story about that last night in Paris. It was so damning, so devastatingly revealing of Anouk’s twisted priorities, that she felt the damage to the four of them, to their group, would be irreparable if she told the girls everything that had been said, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be responsible for that. History counted for a lot. Weren’t your friends the family you got to choose?
‘Cass!’ Suzy said in a warning tone. ‘What else happened out there? What haven’t you told me? I know there’s something. I’ve never seen you like this before.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You are not. You listen to your friend kill himself over the phone, have a fight with your best friend, leave all your new shiny dreams behind and turn up, unannounced, in the middle of the night, crying and shivering on my doorstep, and then don’t leave your bed for three days. That is not fine.’
Cassie sighed and sat up higher in the bed. There was little use in trying to keep Suzy in the dark. It wasn’t as if there was any way back for her and Anouk now. Too much had been said and done.
She took a deep breath. ‘Anouk knew about Wiz and Gil. She knew and she never told. She kept their secret for them.’
Suzy’s eyes widened in horror. ‘No! She couldn’t have!’
‘She did.’
Suzy stared at her in shocked silence. ‘How could she have known?’
Cassie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We didn’t get into specifics. She came to stay for a long weekend last year. She must have seen something then. She probably saw the signs because she was in exactly the same position, having an affair with her friend’s husband.’
Suzy shook her head, aghast. ‘I just can’t believe it,’ she murmured. ‘That she would do that to you and put Gil first.’ Her face darkened suddenly. ‘Besides which, I sincerely doubt your situation was exactly the same. Yours was a lot worse. There was a child involved.’
The mention of Rory made Cassie crumple suddenly, and she hid her face in her hands as the tears rushed out again. They just wouldn’t stop now. It was as if all the bravery she’d been showing as her public face, had been nothing more than a wall that simply dammed the tears, until eventually just one little crack had made the whole edifice crumble, and all the grief and anger and betrayal was now spilling out from her all at once and was completely unstoppable.
She had spent the past nine months trying to avoid precisely this moment. She’d worked and played and dressed up with the girls, found love (of a sort) with Luke and found her ‘path’ with Claude. But now they were gone, all of them, and all she had to show for her adventures was chopped, dyed hair, toned, moisturized skin and a macaroon addiction she could only satisfy with daily trips to the Ladurée salon at Harrods, which wasn’t the same thing at all.
Suzy gave a sad little sigh. ‘God, the shit just keeps on coming,’ she said, rubbing Cassie’s arm protectively as her sobs settled down a bit. ‘No wonder you won’t talk to her. I don’t blame you.’
Cassie looked up quickly. She knew that tone. ‘Look, Suze, I don’t want you to feel like you have to . . . you know, take sides on this. It’s between me and her.’
‘I don’t think so!’ Suzy retorted angrily. ‘After what she’s done, exactly what kind of friend is she supposed to be? Not one I want, that’s for sure, and I think I can speak for Kelly on this, too.’
‘Wait, Suzy. Just let it settle, at least. I don’t think we should mention this to Kelly. You know those two have always been close . . . Tch, I shouldn’t have said anything to you.’
‘Oh? So you want Anouk on the phone and getting her side over to Kelly first? As soon as she realizes you and I aren’t budging, she’ll go straight for Kelly, and you know it.’
Cassie dropped her head down. It had been exactly as she’d feared. More splits and recriminations. When would it ever end?
‘God, I bet Gil would be delighted to know that he’s split us up at last. He was always jealous of our friendship, you know,’ said Suzy.
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Cassie, looking up in surprise.
‘Oh yes. Kelly and Nooks and I used to joke that he looked at us as if we were the Witches of Eastwick or something, there to corrupt you and steal you away from him. He was always so nervous when we were around. It always gave me the impression that he felt he had won you falsely, you know?’
‘Not really.’
‘Must have been the guilt, of course. He probably knew that we’d strip and flail him alive if we ever found out. Wasn’t he lucky that Anouk was the one to uncover his little secret?’
‘Mmm.’ It was shocking to hear how much her friends had hated her husband. Ten years, and she’d never known.
‘God, he really was a shit,’ Suzy continued. ‘I should never have let you kiss him that night at the ball. You’d have been far better off with Henry.’
‘Henry?’ Cass echoed in alarm, the tears coming to an abrupt standstill. Surely she wasn’t referring to their drunken embrace behind the curtains ten years ago? She was certain that had gone unnoticed. ‘You know about that?’
‘Oh, give it up, Cass! Of course I do! What do you think Henry yawned on about while you were on your honeymoon? Drove me round the bend.’
Cassie shook her head. ‘I had no idea it was common knowledge. I mean, it was just a drunken teenage thing. You know what it’s like – drunk on a hip flask and desperate to snog someon
e and not be deemed totally unfanciable.’
‘Henry’s never looked unfanciable,’ Suzy muttered. ‘He’s got great hair.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Cassie concurred, before comprehending the veiled insult. ‘Hey! What’re you saying?’
‘No, no – you’re right. You give good hair too.’
Cassie chuckled lightly.
‘I have to say, though, I never thought I’d see the day my brother became the condemned man. He just didn’t seem the type. He was always so restless.’
‘Condemned?’
Suzy rolled her eyes. ‘Now that he’s a few months off getting married.’
Cassie gawped at her. ‘But . . . I thought the wedding was off?’
Suzy gave her a quizzical look. ‘No. What on earth made you think that?’
‘He told me. Henry did. Horse’s mouth.’
‘Oh, classic Henry wind-up. Can’t believe you fell for it. Honestly, Cass, how long have you known him?’ she laughed, shaking her head.
‘Ugh, he’s incorrigible!’ Cassie exclaimed, diving back under the duvet again. ‘I’m always falling for his tricks.’
‘Come on,’ Suzy said, getting up and patting her prone form beneath the duvet. ‘Cuppa downstairs when you’re ready.’
Cassie grunted, but her thoughts had already flown far away. She was remembering something she’d been determined to forget – lying in bed in Venice, in that golden window of time after his drunken revelation and a few hours before Claude’s death had broken upon her. He’d been fast asleep, his lips ruby red and parted, his heavy, honeyed arm slung over her like a strap. She’d watched him sleep for almost an hour, too scared to move lest he should wake, and then . . . well, what then? She hadn’t known what to think, dare to hope . . .
It was all irrelevant. Whatever fanciful daydreams she might have allowed to peek through in the Venetian dawn were dead in the water now. She’d been too scared to stay and had made her escape downstairs as soon as he’d turned over. And now that he and Lacey were getting married after all, it looked like he’d made his.
In contrast to Anouk’s, which was sleek and minimal, and Kelly’s, which was so minimal it wasn’t even there, Suzy’s kitchen was as chaotic as a teenager’s wardrobe. Everything was towered in perilous stacks – white cups that sagged forward like old women, mismatched plates from great aunts and charity shops – and the warped wooden worktop looked like it had been mined from the Tudor Rose.
Cassie sat up on it, still in her pyjamas. She hadn’t changed out of them since arriving from Paris. They comforted her, even if Suzy was beginning to wrinkle her nose and look around suspiciously for dead mice whenever she walked in the room.
Suzy was sitting at the enormous farmhouse kitchen table, Mothercare and JoJo Maman Bébé catalogues at one end with Post-its fluttering from the pages. All around there were ring-bound folders full of other people’s weddings, other people’s happiness.
‘So . . . this week’s bride. Do we like her?’ Cassie asked, wrapping her cold hands around the mug. She wasn’t eating enough to keep warm.
‘Hate her!’ Suzy said vehemently, sloshing tea all over her paperwork. ‘As soon as she’s paid me, I forbid you to even so much as smile at her.’
‘Okay.’ She waited for the dramatics to be revealed.
‘Her theme is “Outback”, right? Groom’s an Aussie. I said, “Let’s take a cricketing angle” – famous link between the two countries, no? And I can see the best men in cricket jumpers, can’t you?’
‘Totally!’ Cassie agreed.
‘Just think, you could have the bride’s party as fielders; groom’s as batsmen; red and ivory colour scheme. And they’re getting married in St John’s Wood, for heaven’s sake – Lord’s country. Lovely.’
‘Lovely.’
‘Does she think lovely? She does not! She wants Crocodile Dundee, gold and green.’
Cassie waggled her head from side to side, considering the colours. ‘Not a disaster for a spring wedding. Bridesmaids and flowers should work, no?’
‘Aside from the fact that I hate anything gold at a wedding, in theory, yes, it should. But it’s got to be Australian gold, see? Any old yellow tulip won’t do. I’m having to colour-match marquee ribbons and buttonholes to some manky old rugby shirt I’m carrying around in my bag.’
‘Dead glamorous, your job,’ Cassie giggled as Suzy opened another file. She looked around the kitchen-office. Cuttings from magazines showing dress necklines and hairstyles were pinned to a noticeboard; swatches of fabrics for tablecloths and napkins were overspilling from the drawers of a dresser, and at least twelve different styles of wine glass were stacked on a slightly off-plumb shelf. It was mad to think that there’d be a high chair by the table and a bottle sterilizer by the sink in a couple of months’ time – and of course a cherub of a baby gurgling in a bouncy chair amidst it all.
Cassie had fallen in love with the little mews on sight, albeit through tears. It was her idea of a proper home – messy, noisy and full to bursting with the full-to-bursting lives of the people who inhabited it. Unlike her life – transient, rootless, undefined, lost again. She hadn’t even been able to consider what she was going to do now that she’d left Paris and turned her back on the opportunities at both Dior and C.A.C. All she’d known was that she couldn’t stay. She’d thought it was where her future lay, but too much had gone wrong, soured. Claude was dead and one of her oldest friends in the world had been revealed as a stranger to her. There’d been nothing to stay for.
‘I don’t suppose . . . Henry left anything here for me, did he?’ she ventured. She hated herself for asking. She’d been adamant that she’d wean herself off his influence.
‘Like what?’ Suzy replied without looking up. She was scribbling some notes down in a book.
‘I dunno. A list? Or . . . a packet of seeds maybe?’
Suzy looked up at her. ‘You mean more camomile?’
‘Yes, like that – except not. He changes it each time.’
‘Different herb, different city?’ she said, amused.
Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t think the last one was a herb, actually. It had tiny pink flowers – you know, kind of spriggy.’
Suzy shook her head. ‘My God, my brother’s rock ’n‘ roll! Live fast and die young, that one.’
‘So no ideas what it could be?’
‘Afraid not,’ Suzy said.
‘You are so not your mother’s daughter.’
Suzy put down her pencil to rub her tummy. ‘Nope. But I sure am Cupcake’s punching bag,’ she smiled. ‘Ooooh, feisty today.’ She rifled through a stack of books on the floor which was so high it was acting as a fifth table leg. She grabbed one, a thick hardback volume, and pushed it towards Cassie. ‘Here. Have a look in there.’
Cassie hopped off the worktop and picked it up. It was an encyclopaedia of flowers. She thumbed through it slowly, getting more and more confused. There seemed to be hundreds of pictures of pink spriggy plants.
‘Does the world really need this many identical plants?’ she muttered, before stabbing the page suddenly. ‘Oh! That could be it.’
Suzy looked up and read the words upside down. ‘Sweet Alyssum. Huh.’
‘Heard of it?’ Cassie asked hopefully.
‘Nope.’ She went back to her writing.
‘Hmmm. Well, I’m pretty sure that’s the one.’
‘Yeah? And what’s the point of that plant, then?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Cassie sighed. ‘I just don’t know why he sent them to me. Can’t you ask him for me? He won’t tell. I mean, the lists are just guides to new cities, but – what’s the link between New York and camomile, or Paris and Sweet Alyssum?’
Suzy scrunched her face up in concentration. ‘Maybe he . . . knew you wouldn’t be able to get a decent cuppa at Kelly’s . . . and that . . .’ She slumped her shoulders down. ‘No, I don’t know. I can’t make any connection. Sorry.’
‘Bizarre. And there’s no list or
seeds here?’
‘Well, I suppose you had said you weren’t coming . . .’
Cassie narrowed her eyes. ‘I knew I was imposing on you. I’m in the way, a burden—’
‘Oh, be quiet! You’re not a burden, you silly moo. I’m delighted you’re here. Completely thrilled. It was what I wanted all along.’ She gave a wicked grin. ‘Because now it means it’s my turn to play with the Cassie doll.’
Cassie looked back at her nervously. ‘Come again?’
‘Go get dressed.’
‘No. I’m not—’
‘Get dressed! We’re going out.’ She got up slowly from the chair, moving like a stately galleon in full sail.
‘But where are we going? What are we going to do?’
Suzy patted her arm. ‘Oh, I think you know!’ she winked.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Cassie eyed herself suspiciously in the chair as the hairdresser performed acrobatics behind her with the mirror to show that – yes – look! – she really was blonde all over again. It wasn’t a trick of the light.
‘What do you think, Suze?’ she asked anxiously, whirling round in the chair as she pulled off the gown. She’d lost all perspective about what she was even supposed to look like any more.
Suzy looked up, and, for just a second, Cassie noticed how tired her friend looked. She made light of her workload and her clients’ neuroses, but Cassie knew Suzy fell over herself to deliver exactly the wedding they wanted. No request was too obscure for her to deliver on, no matter what she might have to do to make it happen, heavily pregnant or not.
‘Oh, Cass! You’re you again!’ Suzy exclaimed happily.
Cassie looked back at the mirror, her hands patting her head hesitantly. ‘Yes. I think I might be.’
They admired her familiar reflection. There had been no chopping this time. The stylized bob from Paris was growing out into a flattering mid-length cut that she really liked, and, more importantly, didn’t have to think about. Surprisingly, Suzy had been with her on that one. ‘There are enough things to think about without adding hair to the list,’ she’d said dismissively whilst texting a soothing assurance to her current bride that the colours of the dessert mangoes had been cross-matched with the napkins and approved.