Cocktails for Three

by Madeleine Wickham

  They, of course, had assumed she was abroad. “Or perhaps you’re with Mr. Married,” Maggie had said on one of her messages, and Roxanne had actually found herself half laughing, half crying. Dear Maggie. If she only knew. “But we’ll see you on the first,” Maggie had continued anxiously. “You will be there, won’t you?”

  Roxanne looked at her watch. It was the first of the month. It was six o’clock. In half an hour’s time they would be there. The two faces— at this moment— dearest to her in the world. She stubbed out her cigarette, stood up and faced Ralph Allsopp’s house square-on.

  “Fuck you,” she said out loud. “Fuck you!” Then she turned and strode away, her heels clicking loudly on the wet pavement.

  Ralph Allsopp lifted his head from the chair he was sitting in and looked towards the window. Outside, the sky was beginning to darken, and the street lights of the square were beginning to come on. He reached for a lamp and switched it on, and immediately the dim room brightened.

  “Is there a problem?” said Neil Cooper, glancing up from his papers.

  “No,” said Ralph. “I just thought I heard something. Probably nothing.” He smiled. “Carry on.”

  “Yes,” said Neil Cooper. He was a young man, with a severe haircut and a rather nervous manner. “Well, as I was explaining, I think your easiest option, in this instance, is to add a short codicil to the will.”

  “I see,” said Ralph. He stared at the panes of the window, wet with London rain. Wills, he thought, were like family life itself. They started off small and simple— then expanded over the years with marriage and children; grew even more complex with infidelity; with accumulated wealth; with divided loyalties. His own will was now the size of a small book. A conventional family saga.

  But his life had not been a mere conventional family saga.

  “A romance,” he said aloud.

  “I’m sorry?” said Neil Cooper.

  “Nothing,” said Ralph, shaking his head as though to clear it. “A codicil. Yes. And can I draw that up now?”

  “Absolutely,” said the lawyer, and clicked his pen expectantly. “If you give me, first of all, the name of the beneficiary?”

  There was silence. Ralph closed his eyes, then opened them and exhaled sharply.

  “The beneficiary’s name is Roxanne,” he said, and his hand tightened slightly around the arm of his chair. “Miss Roxanne Miller.”

  Maggie sat at a plastic table in a Waterloo café and took another sip of tea. Her train had arrived in London an hour ago, and originally she had thought she might take the opportunity to go shopping. But, having made her way off the train, the very thought of shops and crowds had exhausted her. Instead, she had come in here and ordered a pot of tea and had sat, immobile, ever since. She felt shell-shocked by the effort it had taken to get herself here; could scarcely believe she had once made that long journey every single day.

  She picked up the glossy magazine she’d bought at a kiosk, then put it down, unable to focus. She felt lightheaded; almost high with fatigue. Lucia had been awake for most of the night before, with what she could only suppose was colic. She had paced up and down the bedroom furthest from Giles, trying to soothe the baby’s cries, eyes half shut, almost sleeping on her feet. Then Giles had left for work, and instead of crawling back into bed, she had spent the entire remainder of the day preparing for her evening out. An occasion which, once upon a time, would have required no thought whatsoever.

  She had decided to wash her hair, hoping the blast of the shower would wake her up. Lucia had woken up as she had started to dry it and she had been forced to carry on whilst simultaneously rocking Lucia’s bouncy chair with her foot. For once, the situation had struck her as comical, and she had made up her mind to tell the other two about it that evening. Then she had opened her wardrobe, wondering what to wear— and her spirits had immediately sunk. She still fitted into none of her pre-pregnancy clothes. A whole wardrobe of designer clothes was hanging in front of her— and they might as well not have existed.

  It had been her own decision not to buy any new clothes in her larger size, as Giles had suggested. For one thing, it would be admitting defeat— and for another, she had seriously believed that within a month or so she would be slim again. Her handbook had assured her that she would lose weight from breastfeeding, and she had taken this to mean that within a few weeks she would be back to normal.

  Seven weeks after the birth, however, she was still nowhere near. Her stomach was flabby, her hips were huge, and her breasts, full of milk, were even vaster than they had been during pregnancy. As she’d stared at herself in the mirror— large, dumpy and pale-faced with fatigue— she’d suddenly felt like cancelling the whole thing. How could she walk into the Manhattan Bar looking like that? People would laugh at her. She sank down onto the bed and buried her head in her hands, feeling easy tears rising.

  But after a while, she looked up, and wiped her face and told herself not to be silly. She wasn’t going up to London to pose. She was going to be with her two best friends. They wouldn’t care what she looked like. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and approached her wardrobe again. Averting her eyes from all her old clothes, she assembled a well-worn outfit in unadventurous black, and placed it on the bed, ready to put on at the last moment. She didn’t want to risk any spillages from Lucia.

  At two o’clock, Paddy rang the doorbell and Maggie let her in with a polite greeting. Ever since that day when Paddy had interrupted her, there had been a certain distance between them. They were courteous to one another but nothing more. Paddy had offered to babysit for Maggie’s evening out, and Maggie had politely accepted— but no warmth of feeling had flowered between them.

  As Paddy came into the house she scanned Maggie’s face with a frown, then said, “My dear, you look very tired. Are you sure you want to go all the way up to London, just for a few cocktails?”

  Count to ten, Maggie told herself. Count to ten. Don’t snap.

  “Yes,” she said eventually, and forced herself to smile. “It’s . . . it’s quite important to me. Old friends.”

  “Well, you look to me as if you’d do better with an early night,” said Paddy, and yet again gave that short little laugh. Immediately, Maggie had felt herself tense up all over.

  “It’s very kind of you to babysit,” she’d said, staring fixedly at the banisters. “I do appreciate it.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble!” Paddy had said at once. “Anything I can do to help.”

  “Right.” Maggie had taken a deep breath, trying to stay calm; to be pleasant. “Well, let me just explain. The expressed milk is in bottles in the fridge. It needs to be warmed up in a saucepan. I’ve left it all in the kitchen for you. If she cries, she might need her colic drops. They’re on the—”

  “Maggie.” Paddy had lifted her hand with a little smile. “Maggie, I’ve raised three children of my own. I’m sure I can manage little Lucia.”

  Maggie had stared back, feeling snubbed; wanting to make some retort, but unable to.

  “Fine,” she’d said at last, in a trembling voice. “I’ll just get ready.” And she’d run upstairs, suddenly not wanting to go to London at all. Wanting to tell Paddy to go away and to spend the evening alone, rocking her baby.

  Of course she had done nothing of the sort. She had brushed her hair, put on her coat, imagining that she could already hear Lucia crying; telling herself not to be so foolish. But as she had come downstairs, the crying had got louder. She had run into the kitchen and felt her heart stop as she saw a wailing Lucia being comforted in Paddy’s no-nonsense arms.

  “What’s wrong?” she’d heard herself say breathlessly as the doorbell rang.

  “Nothing’s wrong!” Paddy had said, laughing a little. “That’ll be your taxi. Now you go off and have a nice time. Lucia will calm down in a minute.”

  Maggie had stood, stricken, staring at her daughter’s red, crumpled face.

  “Maybe I’ll just take her for a moment—” she’d begun.<
br />
  “Honestly, dear, she’ll be fine! No point hanging about and confusing her. We’ll go for a nice walk around the house in a moment, won’t we, Lucia? Look, she’s cheering up already!”

  And sure enough, Lucia’s cries had tailed off into silence. She gave a huge yawn and stared at Maggie with blue, teary eyes.

  “Just go,” Paddy had said gently. “While she’s quiet.”

  “OK,” Maggie had said numbly. “OK, I’ll go.”

  Somehow she’d made herself walk out of the kitchen, through the hall to the front door. As she’d closed it behind her she’d thought she could hear Lucia sobbing again. But she hadn’t gone back. She’d forced herself to keep going, to get in the taxi and ask for the station; she’d even managed to smile brightly at the ticket officer as she’d bought her ticket. It was only as the train to Waterloo pulled out of the station that tears had begun to fall down her cheeks, ruining her carefully applied make-up and falling on the pages of her glossy magazine.

  Now she rested her head in her palms, listening to the railway Tannoy in the distance, and thought, with disbelief, how much things had changed in her life. There was no point even attempting to convey to Candice and Roxanne quite how much physical and emotional effort it had taken for her to be here this evening. No-one who was not herself a mother would comprehend; would believe what she had gone through. And so, in some way, that meant they would never quite understand how highly she prized their friendship. How important their little threesome was to her.

  Maggie sighed, and reached into her bag for a compact to check her reflection, wincing at the dark shadows under her eyes. Tonight, she decided, she would have as much fun as she possibly could. Tonight would make up for it all. Tonight she would talk and laugh with her dearest friends, and return— perhaps—to something like her former self.

  Candice stood in front of the mirror in the Ladies’, applying her make-up for the evening. Her hand shook slightly as she applied her mascara, and her face looked gaunt in the bright overhead light. She should have been looking forward to the evening out— a chance to see Maggie and Roxanne again; a chance to relax. But she felt unable to relax while she was still so confused about Heather. Another week had gone by, and still she had said nothing. She had not mentioned any of the matters troubling her, and neither had Heather. And so the unresolved situation remained and the niggling feeling remained in her stomach.

  On the surface, of course, she and Heather were still the best of friends. She was sure that Heather suspected nothing was amiss— and certainly nobody else at the office had picked anything up. But Maggie and Roxanne were sharper than that. They would see the tension in her face; they would realize that something was wrong. They would quiz her until she admitted the truth— and then berate her for having ignored their advice. Half of her wanted to duck out of the meeting altogether.

  The door opened, and she looked up to see Heather coming in, dressed smartly in a violet-coloured suit.

  “Hi, Heather,” she said, and flashed an automatic little smile.

  “Candice.” Heather’s voice was full of distress. “Candice, you must hate me. I feel so awful!”

  “What about?” said Candice, half laughing. “What are you talking about?”

  “About your idea, of course!” said Heather, and looked at her with earnest grey eyes. “Your late-night shopping feature!”

  Candice stared at her and felt a thud of shock. She pushed back her hair and swallowed.

  “Wh-what do you mean?” she said, playing for time.

  “I’ve just seen the features list for July. Justin’s put down that feature as though it was my idea.” Heather took hold of Candice’s hands and grasped them tightly. “Candice, I told him it was your idea in the first place. I don’t know where he got the thought that it was mine.”

  “Really?” Candice gazed at Heather, her heart thumping.

  “I shouldn’t even have said anything about it,” said Heather apologetically. “But I just happened to mention it over a cup of coffee, and Justin got really enthusiastic. I told him it was your idea— but he can’t have been listening.”

  “I see,” said Candice. She felt hot with shame; with a drenching guilt. How could she have doubted Heather so readily? How could she have leapt to the wrong conclusion without even checking the facts. It was Maggie and Roxanne, she thought with a sudden flicker of resentment. They’d turned her against Heather.

  “You know, I could tell something was wrong,” said Heather, blinking a little. “I could tell there was bad feeling between us. But I had no idea what it was. I thought maybe I’d done something in the flat to annoy you, or you were just getting tired of me . . . And then I saw the list and I realized.” Heather met Candice’s eyes steadily. “You thought I’d stolen your idea, didn’t you?”

  “No!” said Candice at once, then flushed. “Well, maybe . . .” She bit her lip. “I didn’t know what to think.”

  “You have to believe me, Candice. I would never do that to you. Never!” Heather leaned forward and hugged Candice. “You’ve done everything for me. I owe you so much . . .” When she pulled away, her eyes were glistening slightly, and Candice felt her own eyes well up in sympathy.

  “I feel so ashamed,” she whispered. “I should never have suspected you. I might have known it was bloody Justin’s fault!” She gave a shaky laugh and Heather grinned back.

  “Let’s go out tonight,” she said. “Friends again.”

  “Oh, that would be great,” said Candice. She wiped her eyes, and grinned ruefully at her smeared reflection. “But I’m meeting the others at the Manhattan Bar.”

  “Oh well,” said Heather lightly. “Another time, perhaps . . .”

  “No, listen,” said Candice, seized by a sudden fierce affection for Heather. “Come with us. Come and join the gang.”

  “Really?” said Heather cautiously. “You don’t think the others would mind?”

  “Of course not! You’re my friend— so you’re their friend too.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” said Heather. “Roxanne—”

  “Roxanne loves you! Honestly, Heather.” Candice met her gaze. “Please come. It would mean a lot to me.” Heather pulled a doubtful face.

  “Candice, are you sure about this?”

  “Of course!” Candice gave Heather an impetuous hug. “They’ll love to see you.”

  “OK.” Heather beamed. “I’ll see you downstairs, shall I? In about . . . fifteen minutes?”

  “Fine,” smiled Candice. “See you then.”

  Heather stepped out of the Ladies’ and looked around. Then she headed straight for Justin’s office and knocked.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “I wondered if I could see you for a moment,” said Heather.

  “Oh yes?” Justin smiled. “Any more wonderful ideas for the magazine?”

  “No, not this time.” Heather pushed back her hair and bit her lip. “Actually . . . it’s a bit of an awkward matter.”

  “Oh,” said Justin in surprise, and gestured to a chair. “Well, come on in.”

  “I don’t want to make a fuss,” said Heather apologetically, sitting down. “In fact, I’m embarrassed even mentioning it. But I had to talk to somebody . . .” She rubbed her nose and gave a little sniff.

  “My dear girl!” said Justin. “What’s wrong?” He got up from his chair, walked round behind Heather and shut the door. Then he walked back to his desk. Behind him, in the window, the reflected lights of the office shone back: a curved series of bright lozenges against the darkness.

  “If you’ve got any kind of problem, I want to know,” said Justin, leaning back. “Whatever it is.” He picked up a pencil and held it between his two hands, as though measuring something. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  There was silence in the little office.

  “Can this remain completely confidential?” said Heather at last.

  “Of course!” said Justin. “Whatever you say will remain between these four wa
lls—” he gestured “—and our two selves.”

  “Well . . . OK,” said Heather doubtfully. “If you’re absolutely sure . . .” She took a deep shuddering breath, pushed back her hair again and looked up beseechingly at Justin. “It’s about Candice.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Manhattan Bar was holding a Hollywood Legends night, and the glass door was opened for Maggie by a beaming Marilyn Monroe lookalike. Maggie walked into the foyer a few paces, staring at the vibrant scene before her, then closed her eyes and let the atmosphere just pour over her for a second. The buzz of people chatting, the jazzy music in the background, the scent of sizzling swordfish steaks, of cigarette smoke and designer fragrances wafting past. Snatches of overheard heard conversation, a sudden shriek of laughter— and filtering through her closed eyelids, the brightness, the glitter, the colour. Metropolitan people enjoying themselves. As she opened her eyes, a happiness that was almost tearful began to well up inside her. She had not realized quite how much she’d missed it all. After the silence and mud of the fields, after the constant wearying wailing of Lucia, this warm noisy bar was like coming home.

  She surrendered her coat to the coat check, took her silver button and turned towards the throng. At first she thought she must be the first to arrive. But then, suddenly, she spotted Roxanne. She was sitting alone at a table in the corner, a drink already in front of her. As she turned her head, unaware she was being watched, Maggie’s stomach gave a small lurch. Roxanne looked terrible. Her face was shadowed, her eyes looked bloodshot, and there was a weary downward crease to her mouth. A hangover, Maggie would have thought, or jetlag— had it not been for the expression in Roxanne’s eyes. Those bright snappy eyes, usually so full of wit and verve, were tonight dull and unseeing, as though nothing around her interested her. As Maggie watched, Roxanne picked up her glass and took a deep gulp. Whatever was in it was obviously strong, thought Maggie, and she felt a slight pang of alarm.