Between Friends

by Jenny Harper

  ‘Oh it is, believe me. Fact is – and please, ma’am, this is confidential—’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘—I would like to open an office in Scotland, maybe Edinburgh, maybe Dundee. What I need is a vacation where I can come and do my own little bit of private research if you get my drift, then join up with some colleagues to do Scotland. See the scenery, bit of shooting and fishing, a little fine dining.’

  ‘That sounds fantastic. We can certainly help you with that.’

  ‘Yeah, a little fun, huh? But with a purpose,’ he chuckled.

  Marta was getting a clear picture of the man. He was big, bear-like, but a softie. Nice, but when it came to business, uncompromising. A soft paw, but with strength enough to kill if he chose to. She was warming to Drew McGraw.

  ‘My guests may have partners too, so something to entertain the ladies while the guys are blasting dear little birdies out of the skies.’

  Again he laughed comfortably, the sound making Marta smile too, despite the gruesome vision he had conjured up.

  ‘I need to persuade these guys to invest. Get my drift?’

  ‘I’m beginning to.’

  ‘So it will need to be real smart, money is not a concern, but service and comfort are. Are you up for that?’

  ‘Mr McGraw, the only thing I cannot guarantee for you in Scotland is the weather.’

  ‘I will make my own intercessions for that, ma’am. I was thinking early October? It’s not much notice. Party of eight. I will come a day or two in advance.’

  ‘No problem. It may be cold for fishing, though.’

  She could almost see him shrug, visualised huge shoulders.

  ‘Sure. I guess they’ll know that. Think Tartan Ribbon Tours can come up with the goods?’

  ‘Sure I can. I mean, yes, certainly.’

  They talked through details. Marta put down the phone and sat smiling.

  Andy’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Not another complaint then?’

  ‘Not exactly, no. A new client, with a bit of luck.’

  Marta had always been eager to help others. Carrie and Jane used to tease her about it.

  ‘Honest to God, Marta, do you have to fill your pockets full of rubbish?’ Carrie would protest if they went for a walk. Marta hated to see rubbish discarded carelessly in beautiful places. She picked up carrier bags and cans, sweet wrappers, bottles, paper, cardboard boxes and, once, even a broken picnic hamper that someone hadn’t bothered to take home to throw away.

  ‘I can’t bear to see it lying around – it spoils things for others.’

  ‘Let someone else do it,’ Carrie would say, impatiently.

  Marta was always undeterred. ‘If everyone said that, it would still be here.’

  Just after they left school, they all went on holiday together, Carrie thrilled to be driving her mother’s convertible. Somewhere along the road to Kyle of Lochalsh they came across a lamb, clearly distressed and looking for its mother. ‘Stop!’ Marta demanded. Carrie stopped.

  ‘We’ve got to help it.’

  ‘Wrong,’ Jane said, ‘We’ve got a ferry to catch.’

  ‘And it’s the last one to Skye tonight,’ Carrie pointed out.

  ‘But it’s lost. It’s got out of some field somewhere and it could be knocked down.’

  ‘Yum,’ Carrie said, heartlessly.

  ‘Mint sauce,’ Jane grinned. It was the wrong response. Marta, fired with righteous indignation, dug her heels in, spent the next half hour wandering along the road in both directions until she found a loudly baa-ing sheep, reunited mother and lamb, before finally climbing back into the car.

  They missed the ferry and had to spend a night in a cramped and none too clean bed and breakfast on the wrong side of the water, much to the disgust of Carrie and Jane. It was an incident they liked to remind her about whenever she tried to do a good turn.

  ‘Baa,’ Carrie would say. Jane rendered it as ‘Me-eh.’ Either way, it was a coded message designed to deter her.

  Now, however, ignoring the animal noises in her head, Marta felt justified in launching into good-deed mode, because something was telling her loud and clear that getting Tom Vallely out of the house was not only necessary but urgent.

  ‘Ann Playfair, hello.’

  The voice was deep, for a woman, and had a husky, nicotine edge. Years ago, at school, Marta had been in awe of Miss Playfair, the English teacher with a background in theatre and a voice that could carry the length of Princes Street. By the sixth year, however, she, Carrie and Jane had been accepted into the teacher’s inner circle – not favourites (‘I don’t do favourites’) – but an exclusive group who gave their spare time to help her run the drama group. When she’d left the school for a career in scriptwriting, they’d kept in touch.

  ‘Hello Miss Playfair, it’s Marta Davidson.’ She still found it hard to use Miss Playfair’s first name.

  ‘Marta! How lovely to hear from you. Are you in Glasgow?’

  ‘No, sorry. Not today.’

  ‘I thought maybe you were up for a drink.’

  God, a glass of wine would slip down well right now. ‘I would be, but sorry, I’m still chained to my desk here in the east.’

  ‘Pity. What can I do for you then, Marta?’

  ‘Are you still one of the scriptwriters on Emergency Admissions by any chance?’

  ‘I do write the odd episode for them. Why?’

  Marta explained about Tom. ‘He’s pretty well known. Fantastic looking. Wanting something a bit more regular and better paid than the theatre work he’s been doing recently and when I mentioned—’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know. Say the word “scriptwriter” and suddenly a key new role could appear.’

  Marta laughed, embarrassed. ‘Something like that. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s human nature. Well, the nature of all actors, at any rate. Tom Vallely – remind me. What’s he been in?’

  Marta ran through some of Tom’s credits.

  ‘Got him now. Well, as it happens, I do know they’re about to audition for a new role and your Tom sounds like he could be in the zone. Get his agent to call the producer, the timing might be lucky.’

  ‘Brilliant. Tom will be ecstatic.’

  ‘It’s just an audition, Marta.’

  ‘Of course. Even so. Thanks so much.’

  ‘Let’s have that drink sometime, eh?’

  ‘Soon. I’d love to.’

  ‘Life treating you well?’

  Marta thought about Jake, his redundancy, her continual failure to conceive, the tensions that were beginning to run noticeably between them.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ she said. ‘Everything’s fine.’

  As she walked up the hill to the cottage, Marta found herself humming. The conversation with Drew McGraw had lifted her spirits after a difficult day, she had managed to establish a pleasant relationship with Emily Harvie and she had taken a positive first step in helping Tom achieve his ambition. Plus, the sun was still shining. What was not to be happy about?

  She found that out as soon as she opened the front door. A thump. A curse. An ill-tempered Jake.

  He was on the floor, peering under the sofa.

  ‘Hi.’ She addressed his backside. ‘Lost something?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jake abandoned his search, wriggled round and jumped to his feet. ‘My Coldplay CD. Seen it?’

  ‘Haven’t played it in ages. Isn’t it on the rack?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Sure?’ She started to cross the room.

  ‘Course I’m sure,’ he said irritably, ‘I’ve looked through everything.’

  ‘Well, could you have put it somewhere else? The bedroom?’

  ‘I’ve looked everywhere. It’s gone.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll turn up Jake.’

  ‘How long’s Sir Kenneth staying, Marta?’ The question seemed at a tangent. ‘Because I’ve really had enough.’

  ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Maybe. I dunno. I want hi
m out, anyway. He’s outstayed his welcome.’

  Marta sighed. ‘I’m working on it, Jake. Okay? Aren’t you on duty tonight?’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  Jake’s tense shoulders revealed his mood. Marta opened her arms because she couldn’t bear to let him go in a cloud of irritability. ‘Hugs?’

  He held her close, but carefully, as though she were made of glass. The hug felt uncomfortable and left her feeling edgy and unsatisfied.

  ‘Kiss me when you get in? Even if I’m asleep?’

  ‘Sure.’ He strode into the hall and opened the front door. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, swivelling back towards her, ‘Jane called. She sounded furious.’

  ‘Furious? Did she say why?’ The hair. It must be the hair.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jake said shortly. ‘Why don’t you call back? Find out yourself.’

  Marta had phoned Jane as soon as she’d put Emily on the bus home, but there’d been no-one in. She’d left a message – nothing specific, she wanted to tell Jane about what had happened directly. But Jane hadn’t telephoned back.

  She picked up the phone and dialled. ‘Hi, Jane?’

  ‘I t-trusted you Marta.’ Jane’s voice was full of rage, barely suppressed. ‘When I saw Emily I was so furious I couldn’t bring myself to even speak to you. I trusted you to look after my daughter and you let me down. How could you?’

  ‘Listen, Jane,’ Marta said smoothly, ‘I’m really sorry the way it turned out. Emily promised she’d just get a few highlights. I never expected her to go for anything like that. But it’s not the end of the world. The stylist said it’d wash out soon.’

  ‘Wash out? Wash out? It’s bleached, Marta. It’s p-permanent. What were you thinking?’

  ‘She’d given me her promise. I just went and did a bit of shopping and when I came back—’

  ‘You left her alone? To get her hair dyed?’

  ‘I just... I didn’t expect—’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you she was being bolshie? Wasn’t that what it was all supposed to be about? You were meant to find reassure me, not... She came home with a dress that makes her look like a tart and her hair platinum and p-purple. Honestly, Marta! You have no right to make that kind of decision about my daughter!’

  ‘It was just a little treat. She loved the day.’ Marta, feeling her failure deeply, grew defensive in the face of Jane’s assault.

  ‘I bet she did. We can stop her wearing the dress, but her hair, Marta! It looks hideous! And the school’s already torn us off a strip.’

  ‘Really? She told me the school would be fine with dyed hair. I asked her expressly. She told me there was no problem either with the school or with you and Neal.’

  ‘Are you saying my daughter lied to you?’

  Marta felt caught. Whatever she said now was bound to be wrong. ‘I don’t believe I misunderstood her,’ she started, carefully.

  Jane exploded. ‘How dare you let this happen? As if you know what’s best for my daughter? You’ve never even had a baby. What do you know about b-bringing up a child? And while we’re talking—’ her stutter was becoming ever more pronounced, ‘—what were you thinking of, Marta? Bringing T-Tom Vallely back into my life? He’s an evil man. Evil. I hate him. And I can’t forgive you—’

  Marta’s eyes became blurred with tears.

  What do you know about bringing up a child?

  A constriction in her throat threatened her breathing. She dropped the telephone back onto its cradle, cutting Jane off in full flow.

  What do you know about bringing up a child?

  The words burrowed into her skin. She hugged her stomach and doubled over, feeling the cruelty of Jane’s jibe like the punch of a fist into the emptiness of her womb. How could her best friend deploy the weapon that she knew would hurt her most?

  ‘Hi! Hello, darling.’

  Marta shot upright as Tom dropped his sweater on the back of a chair, his smile warm and easy.

  ‘Everything all right? Seen my hat, by the way? I must have left it somewhere.’

  ‘Hat?’ She was still stupid with shock.

  ‘My brown fedora. You haven’t seen it anywhere?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘Damn. I’ve had it for ages. I really liked it. Fancy a drink?’

  ‘Maybe it’ll turn up.’

  He had turned, without asking permission, to the cupboard where Jake stored the spirits. She watched, blinking back tears.

  At least there was some good news. ‘By the way, Tom —’

  ‘Yeah?’ He had poured a generous two fingers of whisky into a tumbler. ‘Drink this stuff, do you?’

  ‘No. Listen, I spoke to my friend today, the one I told you about.’ She reached for a tissue and gave her nose a good blow.

  ‘Friend?’

  ‘The scriptwriter.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ The concentration on swirling, sniffing and sipping stopped and smokey eyes focused intensely on her. ‘And?’

  ‘And it’s good news. There could be a part coming up.’

  The golden spirits, still swirling gently in the glass, slowed and stilled. ‘A ... part?’

  ‘You’re to ask your agent to get in touch,’ Marta went on, disconcerted by the intensity of his gaze, ‘Miss Playfair thinks you might have the right look.’

  He dumped the glass down unceremoniously on the top of the drinks’ cupboard. The whisky slopped slightly over the rim and dribbled down onto the polished wood.

  ‘Marta darling, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are an angel,’ he said, a smile of extraordinary sweetness splitting his face.

  Evil? Surely Jane was wrong about him – Tom craved work, that was all, and the lack of it undermined him.

  On the cupboard, Tom’s whisky sat, forgotten. Some days later, Marta found a sad ring leached into the wood by the dampness and the alcohol. It took a great deal of effort to polish out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Carrie Edwards was a challenge. That was partly what attracted Tom, because few women resisted him for long, or matched him in sexual appetite. Since reaching maturity (which he reckoned was when he’d walked out of his relationship with Jane and taken charge of his life), Carrie had been the only woman he’d really wanted to spend time with. She was no beauty, not a patch on the kind of arm candy he liked to be seen around town with, but she had spirit and a dry wit, and besides, he liked a challenge.

  Hell, though, the woman could be impossible. She’d always been the one in control, turning him down and agreeing to meet him whenever pleased her. He hated that.

  He’d miscalculated, too. He hadn’t figured for a minute that she’d refuse to see him again after he married Serena. He could still remember how angry he’d been the day he’d spotted her on the platform at Covent Garden tube station, looking frustrated as a train pulled away. She must just have missed it. He could see her nose wrinkle and made out a crisp ‘Pah’ of annoyance as he approached, unnoticed.

  ‘Well, look who it is,’ he’d said, sidling up behind her and throwing an arm casually around her shoulders.

  ‘Hello, Tom.’ She had not been welcoming.

  ‘You could sound more pleased to see me.’

  ‘Really? You think?’

  ‘What’s biting you, Carrie? Late for a meeting?’

  ‘Yep. And I could do without bumping into the biggest liar in London.’

  ‘Me?’ His surprise had been genuine. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Come on, Tom.’

  ‘What? Come on, what?’

  ‘You told me it was over with Jane.’

  ‘It was. I just had to find the right moment to get out.’

  ‘It took a while, didn’t it?’

  ‘What’s eating you, Carrie? It’s done, isn’t it?’

  She stared at him. Another train was approaching, he could feel the blast of compressed air sweeping towards them as it emerged from the tunnel into the station. Carrie stepped forward, poised to board.
<
br />   ‘Is this about Serena? Serena’s just a career move. You know that, Carrie.’ He’d focused all his charm on her as she turned to glare at him again. ‘So when can we meet? Eh, sexy?’

  The train had stopped, passengers were disgorging and he’d had to struggle to stay close to her.

  ‘Bugger that, Tom.’ They were on the train now and her words rang into the carriage. Heads turned.

  He’d bent towards her and said in a low voice, ‘I don’t want things to change between us, Carrie.’

  Silence. Another withering glance, then, ‘Poor Serena,’ she’d said. Her eyes, normally so bright and amused, had been full of a pity that had incensed him.

  ‘I’ll treat her right.’

  ‘What, by sleeping with me?’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? She’ll never know.’

  People were looking away, but he’d sensed them straining to listen. They’d reached Holborn. The doors opened and Carrie jumped out. The last he’d seen of her had been an averted profile and a nose held high.

  Fuck her, he’d thought. Then – if only I could.

  That thought had stayed with him a long time.

  He was in Marta’s spare bedroom when his agent called.

  ‘Hey, Angela,’ Tom smiled at his reflection in the mirror.

  ‘It’s fixed. Friday at noon.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Is that it? Okay? Aren’t you pleased?’

  She sounded whiney, desperate for bloody praise. Tom smothered a sigh and turned on his most appreciative voice. Best keep her sweet, for now at least. ‘Thrilled, darling, absolutely thrilled.’

  ‘Tom—’ The hesitation was almost palpable.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You won’t mess this one up, will you? Get there late, forget your audition piece...’ Her voice tailed away nervously.

  ‘What do you think I am, Angela? Some kind of amateur?’

  ‘No, darling, but I was wondering if I should perhaps come up? Be with you?’

  Fuck that. Tom had plans for Friday night and Angela Cutler didn’t figure in them.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I don’t need that.’

  ‘I just thought ... maybe I could ... help relax you?’

  Christ. Maybe he should get a male agent, it would be a load less demanding. On the other hand ... Tom thought about the male agents he knew and took barely half a second to decide to stick with Angela. At least he could control her.