It was only when she was stopped at the traffic lights that she realized she hadn’t phoned Nessa to tell her she’d be over. She’d phoned Cate so many times that she’d actually forgotten to call Nessa. But, she decided, it didn’t matter. Nessa was bound to be at home. And Nessa would surely be delighted to see her.
Cate and Finn were having dinner in the apartment. Cate had shoved a Marks & Spencer meal for two in the oven and the fragrant aromas of the Indian selection wafted through the air.
“First show next month.” Finn beamed at Cate.
“I truly think you’ll be brilliant,” she told him.
“Do you?”
“Of course,” she said. “People like your voice. People like your face. People like you, Finn.”
“They don’t know me.” He shrugged. “They think they do but of course they don’t. You know me, Catey. You know what I’m really like. But everyone else, they know the image that the TV station is making for me.”
She was amazed that she could laugh. She hadn’t thought anything could possibly make her laugh but the expression on Finn’s face did. “You’re beginning to sound like someone out of a boy band.”
“Ugh! Sorry.” He took some naan bread from the bowl in front of them. “Am I taking myself a touch on the serious side, d’you think?”
“Not really,” she said. “I know what you mean. I see ads in the paper that say you’re the voice of the nation but I know that’s horse-shit really.”
“That’s why I love you,” he told her. “You tell it like it is.”
“I bet all the megastars say that.” She sighed. “They tell someone that they love them because they don’t treat them like a mega-star but, in the end, they leave them because of it.”
“Cate!” His voice was horrified. “I’m not going to leave you.”
“Aren’t you?”
“We’ve only just got engaged! Why on earth are you thinking like this?” He stared at her. “Is something the matter?”
She knew that this was the time to tell him. While they were on their own together and while he was ready to talk to her. But she simply couldn’t. She didn’t know why except that telling him would make it more real even than telling Nessa. And the urge to tell her older sister (a foolish urge, Nessa couldn’t possibly understand how she felt) had evaporated since a few hours earlier when she’d picked up the phone to call her and got the engaged tone. Nessa was probably talking to one of her married-with-kids friends. Yakking away about the price of children’s clothes or the hassle of getting them back to school. She’d told Cate once that when you had kids your entire social circle changed and that all of your without-kids friends faded into the background while you bonded with people who knew what it was like to walk out of the house with baby sick on your jumper and a kitbag full of baby essentials that weighed a ton.
“Cate?” He was still looking curiously at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had a busy day today myself. I guess I’m not entirely with it.”
“I love you, Cate,” he told her. “You know that. I’m not going to leave you just because I have a job on the telly!”
She smiled wryly. “I never thought you’d leave me just because you got a job on the telly.”
“We suit each other,” he said. “We like the same things. Holidays in the sun. Spicy food. Adult company. We dislike anywhere it rains. Roast beef and veg. Snotty nosed kids.”
She swallowed. “At some stage do you think we’ll have kids? I mean—would you like to?”
“Not unless your hormones kick in and you can’t do without them,” he told her cheerfully. “I know it happens with some women, it’s like some desperate urge you have to give in to, isn’t it? But you’re not the sort of girl for desperate urges. If, in the future, you decide that it’s what you want then we’ll talk it over. But not until after my first season. I can’t imagine what my first season would be like if I was up half the night listening to a crying baby.”
“You wouldn’t be.” She didn’t look at him as she poked casually at the Rogan Josh. “Your first season would be spent waiting for my waters to break.”
“Oh, God, Cate—don’t talk about things like that while we’re eating.” He made a face. “It’s utterly disgusting.”
“I know.” She looked up and smiled brilliantly at him. “You’d wonder why any woman puts herself through it at all.”
Nessa and Jill were watching Thunderbirds. Nessa felt it was rather criminal of her to allow Jill to watch TV when it was warm and sunny outside but Thunderbirds was the must-see children’s program of the summer and Jill was going through a wanting to be an astronaut phase. Posters of Thunderbird 3 were stuck all over her bedroom wall, along with those of the Starship Enterprise and Jeri Ryan as Voyager’s Seven of Nine.
Jill chewed the ends of her hair as the Tracey brothers winched someone to safety just in the nick of time. The roar of an engine in the driveway made her look up from the TV program.
“Hey, Mum, it’s Bree!” She stood up and rushed to the window. “She’s here. On her bike.”
“Bree!” Nessa got up more slowly. “What on earth does she want? Is something wrong?”
Her horoscope hadn’t said there would be anything wrong. But what the hell did it know about anything!
“You let her in, Jill. I’m just going up to comb my hair,” she said.
She hurried up the stairs and into the bathroom before Jill opened the hall door. She heard Jill chattering excitedly to her sister and informing her that Nessa was doing herself up but would be down in a minute. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were red from her tears of earlier and although Jill hadn’t noticed anything Nessa thought that Bree might be a different proposition altogether. She looked for Optrex on the shelf but couldn’t find any so she simply splashed her face with cold water and patted it dry. Then she dabbed some foundation over her blotchy cheeks. This had the effect of making her lips disappear so she hurried into the bedroom and applied some pale pink lipstick. It wasn’t exactly great, she decided, but it’d have to do. She pulled the brush through her hair and sprayed Estee Lauder’s Sunflowers around her throat.
“Why are you honoring us with your presence?” she asked as she opened the door and walked into the living room.
“Look, Mum. Bree gave me her helmet.” Jill’s voice was muffled.
“Very cool,” said Nessa.
“Suits you,” said Bree. She looked at Nessa. “Are you OK? Jill said you were getting yourself done up. Not on my account, I presume?”
Nessa shook her head. “Of course not. I was busy today and I needed to comb my hair. But I hadn’t time earlier.”
“You’ve put on lippy.” Jill lifted the visor. “And stuff on your face.”
“Thanks, Jill. Why don’t you go out for a while?”
“No!” cried Jill. “I want to stay here and play with Bree.”
“Bree wants to talk to me, I think,” said Nessa.
“I won’t get in the way,” Jill assured her and sat down on the floor.
Nessa shrugged and looked at Bree. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
Now that she was here, Bree felt silly. Other sisters might spend time exchanging fashion tips but it hadn’t really been a Driscoll kind of thing. And Nessa looked far too hassled to want to talk about dresses. She wondered what the matter was. Knowing Nessa it wasn’t really a crisis. Nessa didn’t have crises. She got frazzled over silly things but never anything important.
“I was coming to you for advice,” said Bree sheepishly. “I know that sounds silly.”
“No.” Nessa was kind of relieved to have something new to think about. “What sort of advice? Why me?”
“Actually, it is rather silly,” Bree said. “I—well, I’m going on a date and I wanted to ask you about clothes.”
“A date!” Jill put her arms around Bree’s neck. “With a boy?”
“Yes,” said Bree. “A date with a boy.”
“I thought you
’d gone on hundreds of dates,” said Nessa slowly. “Why do you want to know about clothes for this one?”
“He wants to see my legs.”
Jill laughed and Nessa, despite the heavy feeling that hadn’t gone away, couldn’t help smiling too.
“I know, I know!” cried Bree. “It’s silly.”
“Seeing your legs isn’t silly,” said Nessa.
“Does he not believe you have any?” asked Jill.
Bree sighed. “Every time he’s seen me I’ve been wearing jeans or a boiler suit,” she said. “This time we’re going to a nice restaurant and he wants me to wear a slinky dress.”
Nessa smiled again.
“Obviously I don’t have a slinky dress,” said Bree. “Thing is, I don’t even know where to look for a slinky dress. I know that sounds stupid.”
“Bree, you can get a dress anywhere,” said Nessa. “The shops are crammed with slinky summer creations. Reduced in the sales too, now,” she added.
“I know. But I want something that I feel comfortable in. And that looks OK.” She made a face at Nessa. “I thought maybe you could give me hints about the style it should be. If I go into a shop and try something on I’m sure the sales assistant will say it looks fine even if I resemble a walrus in drag. I haven’t got an eye for dressy up clothes, Ness, you know I haven’t. I can tell when a pair of trousers looks like an elephant’s arse on me but, to me, every dress looks like that.”
Nessa grinned. “You should be talking to Cate, not me.”
“I know,” said Bree. She looked apologetically at her sister. “I rang Cate. But she wasn’t picking up her phone.”
“So I’m second choice?” But Nessa sounded faintly amused.
“Better than nothing,” said Bree. “And I really do need the advice.”
“Is this a serious kind of date?” asked Nessa. “When we went out celebrating with Cate you didn’t have anyone in your life. Except the gay bloke living in your flat.”
“Steve isn’t living in the flat anymore,” said Bree. “He’s found a place of his own.”
“So who’s the slinky dress man?” asked Nessa.
Bree felt her face go red. “His name’s Michael.”
“And you really fancy him?” Nessa had noticed the color in her sister’s cheeks.
“He’s lovely,” Bree told her. “Incredibly sexy—”
“Oh, Bree! That’s a rude word.” Jill looked disapproving.
“Sexy is rude?”
Nessa grimaced. “Depends on the context as far as eight-year-olds are concerned.” She turned to Jill. “Look, why don’t you bring Nicolette over and you can play in the garden until it gets dark.” She glanced at her watch. It was nearly eight o’clock which would give them an hour.
“But I want to talk to Bree about sexy,” said Jill.
“And Bree and I want to talk to each other,” said Nessa firmly. “I don’t sit in on your chats with Nicolette, do I?”
“Nicolette’s a friend,” said Jill mutinously. “Bree’s my family.”
“I’ll stay until after dark,” Bree promised. “I won’t go without playing with you for a while.”
“Oh, OK.” But Jill wasn’t altogether pleased about the turn of events. “Can I show Nicolette your helmet?”
“Of course,” said Bree. She grinned at Nessa as Jill ran out of the house. “She’s cute.”
“She’s a bloody terror,” said Nessa. “So tell me about this sexy man.”
She listened as Bree talked about Michael’s sultry good looks courtesy of his Spanish mother and attractive father but she couldn’t concentrate. She wondered how long it took for the looks to fade and for the relationship to mean nothing at all. If it was based on his sex appeal and Bree’s sudden willingness to wear dresses then it surely didn’t amount to much. But her marriage had been based on so much more and suddenly it wasn’t amounting to much either. To her horror she felt the tears sting her eyes again.
“Nessa!” Bree stared at her sister. “What on earth’s the matter?”
Nessa shook her head and said nothing.
“I didn’t know there was something wrong. I wouldn’t have come if…” She looked at Nessa helplessly. “Tell me,” she said eventually. “Maybe I can help.”
“Of course you can’t help,” snapped Nessa.
Bree bit back the retort. Nessa was upset and she couldn’t blame her for being snappy. She watched as her sister scrubbed at her eyes with a tissue. It was hard to know whether or not this was important, thought Bree. Although she didn’t have crises, Nessa had always been the crying one, the one who could turn on the water-works equally effectively whether she was happy or sad. Any time a weepie had been shown on the TV Bree and Cate had giggled as Nessa worked her way through a box of Kleenex. Bree remembered Nessa watching Elaine Paige and Barbara Dixon singing “I know him so well” on Top of the Pops with tears streaming down her face (Nessa had, apparently, broken up with a boyfriend the week before the song hit the charts). And, of course, when their pet rabbit Doe had died Nessa had been almost inconsolable.
“Maybe I can help you,” said Bree eventually. “Sometimes talking about things puts them in perspective. You told me that yourself.” Actually, she thought waspishly, Nessa had told her that when she was trying to find out about Bree’s own love life just after she’d come back from the U.K. Nosy bitch, Bree had thought then, and hadn’t told her anything.
How could Bree understand, Nessa asked herself. She was footloose and fancy free despite the slinky dress man. What did she know about real love, about partnerships and commitment and the things that mattered?
“I think Adam’s having an affair.” She could hardly believe she’d said it. The simple words didn’t do justice to the enormity of what he might have done.
Bree could hardly believe she’d said it either. Adam! The almost perfect man. The husband that Miriam had told them was the benchmark for what all husbands should be. Adam Riley having an affair! Bree couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d heard that the Pope was having an affair. No wonder Nessa was plowing through the tissues.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Of course I’m not sure,” said Nessa sharply. “If I was sure I wouldn’t only think he was having an affair.”
“Take it easy,” said Bree. “I’m trying to help.”
Nessa blew her nose noisily. “I know.”
“Well, why do you think…”
“I overheard someone say so,” she told Bree.
“Who? How?”
It was a relief to tell the story. Nessa couldn’t quite believe that she was telling it all to the sister who wouldn’t know a stable relationship if it camped on her shoulder but it was definitely a relief to share her fears with someone.
“You poor thing.” Bree put her arm around Nessa and hugged her tightly. “You poor, poor thing.”
Tears flooded down Nessa’s cheeks again. She hadn’t expected sympathy from Bree. She’d expected her to tell her not to get so worked up about it. And to say that she was probably imagining it, that Portia had clearly known she was there and was just winding her up.
“It mightn’t be true of course,” she said through her sobs. “But it’s hard to imagine a way that it couldn’t be.” She looked hopefully at Bree.
“I know,” said Bree.
This was definitely wrong, thought Nessa. She’d given Bree the cue to come in and tell her how she could be wrong but Bree hadn’t taken it.
“And the postcard could be from anyone,” she added.
“I suppose loads of things have innocent explanations,” agreed Bree. “Where is he tonight?”
“Out,” said Nessa flatly. “With clients.”
“Which clients?” asked Bree.
“I don’t know.” Nessa frowned. “Some company that they’ve got business from. He told me but I wasn’t listening.”
“It isn’t an excuse, is it?”
“Oh bloody hell, Bree, I don’t fucking know!” Nessa covered
her face with her hands. “It might be true, it might be a lie. I don’t know anymore. I can’t guess when he’s being honest and when he isn’t because I always thought he was! So if he’s lying to me now I can’t tell.”
“He’s a shit,” said Bree.
“We only think that.” Nessa blew her nose again. “It might be OK.”
“You honestly believe that?” asked Bree skeptically. “You’re crying your eyes out because you think things are OK? That girl said that the bloke crashed into her and that his wife gave her coffee and rang her father. Nessa, it’s pretty damning, don’t you think?”
Nessa said nothing.
“But maybe not certain,” Bree conceded. “Maybe it wasn’t such a passionate kiss. Maybe there is a reasonable explanation—she might be a business acquaintance that he’s trying to be especially nice to and he’s just turning on the old Adam Riley charm a bit too much. It doesn’t have to be a full-blown affair. As for the postcard—that could be from anyone. You need to be sure.”
“Yes.” Nessa sniffed loudly.
“So why don’t you ask him?”
“Ask him?” Nessa looked at Bree in horror. “I can’t ask him.”
“Why not? At least if you ask him you’ll know.”
“If I ask him and he says he’s having an affair I don’t know what I’ll do,” said Nessa miserably. “I’m not ready for him to tell me it’s true. And if he denies it—well, I’ll have stirred things up for nothing and I don’t know if I’ll believe him anyway.”
“You have to do something,” Bree said. “You can’t sit around thinking about it and getting yourself more and more worked up.” She looked at Nessa thoughtfully. “You could hire a private investigator. Someone to follow him around the place for a while.”
“I couldn’t do that!” Nessa looked aghast. “He’s my husband.”
“He’s your potentially cheating husband,” said Bree.
“People like me don’t hire private investigators,” Nessa said firmly.
“People like you do,” said Bree.
Nessa was silent. This was more the Bree that she was used to. The practical, do something about it Bree. The girl who didn’t take any nonsense from anyone.
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