by JL Merrow
“Fordy,” I put in, mindful that I was neglecting my manners. “This is Rose Wyman, a colleague and friend of mine. Rose, this is Malcolm Fordham, my old school friend.”
Rose went faintly pink as he kissed her on the cheek.
“Delighted,” Fordy said. “Now, why don’t you come and meet the sprog?”
One arm thrown casually over my shoulders, Fordy ushered us through the mostly aging throng to be introduced to my godson elect, who was presently sucking lustily on his mother’s finger. The university friends nodded a greeting and dispersed, presumably in search of food. Most of them being built on similar lines to Fordy, they tended to descend on buffet tables like a plague of locusts.
“Linny, darling, look who’s here. It’s Emsy and Rose, his er… Sorry, what did you say you were again?”
Halfway through mouthing Emsy? at me with a wide-eyed look that promised a great deal of teasing later on, Rose turned back to Fordy and smiled. “Colleague, friend and saver from starvation.”
Linette gave her a wan smile. “I don’t know what they teach them at Loriners’, but it certainly isn’t cooking. I can’t even get Mal to make beans on toast.”
She looked tired. Of course, I’d barely seen her since she and Fordy married, when she’d been radiant in yards of silk and lace.
Rose shrugged. “Yeah, well, at least you don’t need to worry about this one wasting away.” She angled her head at Fordy, who blinked and then laughed with the rest of us. “How old’s your little one, then?”
“Five months.” Linette jiggled Georgie proudly. “So are you two…?”
“Gawd, no.” Rose’s reply was a shade more emphatic than was flattering. “Can you imagine Robert with a girlfriend? It’d be like watching David Attenborough try to snog a squirrel. And I’m off men, anyway. Think I’ll become a lesbian. Or a nun. Maybe a lesbian nun,” she finished thoughtfully.
Linette looked like she didn’t quite know what to make of Rose but was far too well-bred to say so. She glanced at Fordy, who still had his arm around me in avuncular fashion. “I think Georgie needs changing. Do excuse me.”
She left. Fordy drooped, rather, and dropped his arm from my shoulders. “I’ll, ah, go and see if she needs a hand.”
I stared after him, feeling a little like I’d just been watching a foreign film without subtitles.
“She thinks you’re shagging her husband,” Rose murmured.
I spluttered on my orange juice. “Rose! I can assure you I’m doing nothing of the kind.”
“Bet you used to, though. I mean, come on, the way you two are with each other.”
“I… What way? And anyway, even if we did use to, well, you know, we were younger then. A lot younger.”
“Are we talking jailbait here?”
“No!” I looked around guiltily. “Well, maybe. But only by a few months. Fordy was sixteen, and we were in the same school year. It was just that my birthday wasn’t until the summer. But what do you mean, the way we are with each other?”
She raised a knowing eyebrow. “All touchy-feely.”
“Fordy’s always been a tactile person,” I protested.
“Yeah? Didn’t see him giving anyone else a quick grope on the doorstep.”
“There was no groping!” One of Fordy’s uncles turned to give me a very disapproving stare. I cringed, mortified.
Rose was giggling. “Keep your voice down, you numpty.”
“But there wasn’t,” I hissed. “It was just a hug.”
“Yeah, and how many other people got one? I was watching him when he came over to say hello. Me: kiss on the cheek. Your mum: kiss on the cheek. Various interchangeable men: firm, manly handshake. Laetitia: firm, manly handshake. Robert Emeny, old school pal, dorm mate and one-time bum chum: a nice little cuddle with optional wandering hands.”
“There were no—” I lowered my voice. “There were no wandering hands. Fordy loves Linette.”
“Maybe, but I bet he wouldn’t say no to a bit of the old extramaritals from you.”
“No,” I said uncertainly. “You’re wrong. Fordy wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, you know him best,” she muttered in a tone that implied I most certainly didn’t.
My face growing hot, I thought about how Fordy had been when he was chatting to his university friends. There had seemed to be rather more in the way of personal space involved than was customary between the two of us.
Could Rose possibly be right? This would put Fordy’s visit to me last month in a wholly new and not altogether comfortable light.
“Would you?” she asked.
“What?”
“You know. If he offered.”
“You obviously don’t know me very well,” I retorted stiffly, “if you think I’d consent to being someone’s dirty little secret.”
Rose opened her mouth—then her expression altered subtly, as if she’d been about to say something and then changed her mind. “How well does Linette know you? Not very, I’d have thought.”
I blinked. “Not really, no. They met at Oxford. Fordy didn’t introduce us until they were already engaged.”
“Yeah, well, look at her.” Rose nodded to where Linette had returned to the room far too quickly, I would have thought, to have reasonably performed any sleight-of-nappy. She was over by the window now, handing Georgie to his grandmother.
Linette did, in fact, look a little strained, and I said so.
“That’s ’cos she doesn’t know what’s what. So she’s just imagining it, which is always way worse. Like in horror films, when they don’t show you the worst bits. If you and him is all over and done with, he ought to tell her about it. Or you ought. Oh, I know you won’t, cause of the old school tie, honour among gentlemen, blah-di-blah-di-blah, but he ought to.”
I took a sip of orange juice and wished fervently for vodka. “I don’t know. I mean, I see what you mean—but I’m not sure he’ll go for it.” I wasn’t even sure how one might attempt to persuade him. I had an uneasy feeling I wouldn’t be terribly convincing in the role.
God, what a mess. I felt my shoulders slump.
“Yeah, me neither, now I’ve met him. But I’ll tell you what, if he doesn’t, he’s going to regret it.” She hugged me, which was so unexpected I nearly dropped my glass. “Look, just ’cause Fordy likes to have his cake and eat a bit of buttered stud muffin on the side doesn’t mean Sean’s like that.”
“That wasn’t—Rose,” I said carefully. “Do you think I ought to tell Sean the whole story about, well, about Oliver?”
She stepped away from me, looking shifty. “I never said that. Don’t even know if I know the whole story, do I? But I do know that woman’s not happy.” She nodded in Linette’s direction. “And if Sean’s like her, he’s not happy either. Probably imagining all kinds of stuff.”
I winced. “You really think so?”
Rose cocked her head to one side. “Well, maybe not. He is a bloke, after all. But yeah. I mean, I’m not all honesty-is-always-the-best-policy, ’cause sometimes, what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you, does it? Let’s face it, I was a whole lot happier before I found out about Shitface and Skinny Cow. But if someone knows there is something, and they don’t know what it is, then they’re probably better off knowing the truth.” She frowned. “Or, you know, a really convincing lie. And face it, sweetie, you’ve got the world’s worst poker face, so you’d probably better stick to the truth.”
Was she right? After all, Mother and Peter had never suspected I’d been unhappy in my teens… Had they?
The mini muffins from earlier sat like a leaden lump in my stomach, the ghosts of unborn quails fluttering feebly in my intestines.
“You all right? You look like your stomach’s just realised one of those canapés was off. It’ll be one of those fishy ones, I bet you. God knows what they put in those. Tasted like
rubber bands. Probably was rubber bands.”
“I’m fine,” I managed. “I just had a rather uncomfortable epiphany.”
Rose frowned. “Isn’t that not till January?”
“Not that kind of epiphany. This sort involves rather less in the way of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and rather more in the way of unpleasant truths.”
“Oh. So are you going to tell Sean about your sordid past?”
“I’ll…think about it. Damn it. I’d better go and speak to Fordy, hadn’t I?”
Fordy hadn’t been any keener on the idea of spilling all to Linette than I’d thought he would be, but he hadn’t rejected it out of hand, so perhaps some good would come of the exceedingly awkward three-way conversation he, Rose and I had ended up having.
At least, I hoped if he told Linette about us, it would be a good thing.
“You’re quiet,” Rose commented as I drove her back to Peter’s house. “Brooding about Sean?”
“About Fordy, actually.” I sighed. “But now you’ve mentioned Sean, I expect I’ll start brooding about him too.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, come on, Fordy’s the past, in’t he? You’ve got to start thinking about your future.”
“Do you really think Sean and I have a future together?”
“Course you do. If,” she said, and looked at me significantly. “If you get the past sorted out so Sean doesn’t think it’s the present.” She blinked. “Huh. That was actually pretty good, wasn’t it? ’Specially considering how much shampoo I’ve drunk.”
“Prosecco,” I corrected. “Mrs. Fordham thinks champagne is common.”
“How can it be common when it costs a bloody fortune?”
I shrugged, my hands still on the wheel. “Apparently it’s been cheapened by conspicuous consumption.”
“Posh people are weird. Are we there yet? I’m getting desperate for a pee.” She giggled. “Don’t want to turn your car into a Portia-loo.”
Alarmed, I put my foot down.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dusk had descended by the time Rose and I got back to Peter’s house, so we spent the remainder of the day indulging in the traditional post-Brunch activities of drinking coffee and staring blearily at old films on television. Rose had vetoed It’s a Wonderful Life, calling it the single most depressing film ever made—“I mean, seriously, he has this completely shit life never getting to do anything he wants to, and it’s supposed to be uplifting?”—so we were currently watching Goldfinger.
Rose sipped thoughtfully at her coffee. “Sean Connery, Roger Moore and George Lazenby. Shag, marry or shove ’em off a cliff?”
I rolled my eyes “Easy. Shag Sean, marry George, shove Roger.”
“You sure about that? George hasn’t got a good record with getting married. Look what happened to Diana Rigg. And anyway, what’s wrong with Roger? If, you know, he was about a hundred years younger.”
I stared at her, nonplussed. “What’s right with him?”
She stared back, then shook her head. “All right, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.”
“Again, pitifully easy. Shag Tim, marry Dan, and shove Pierce.”
“Weirdo.”
“Why? What would you go for?”
“Shag Dan, marry Pierce, and shove Tim so far off that bloody cliff he’d end up in France. Ugh. Just something about that face.” She shuddered, while I looked on, bemused. “Right. Time for a tougher one. Pussy Galore, Solitaire or Whatserface Onatopp?”
“Is run screaming from all of them an option?”
“Nope. Rules of the game. You’ve got to choose.”
“Well…wasn’t Solitaire the one with the tarot cards, who had to stay a virgin so she could keep her powers of prophecy? And Ms. Onatopp was the madwoman who killed men with her thighs?”
“Think so.”
“Then I’d enjoy a chaste marriage with Solitaire and hire a professional to shove Ms. Onatopp, ahem, off the top.” I sniggered. “So I suppose I’ll have to shag Pussy.”
There was a startled noise behind the sofa. “I’m sure that sounded entirely different in context,” Mother said, regaining her composure. “Now, I just came in to ask if you’d like any Christmas cake?”
“Um, no, thank you,” I said, my face no doubt doing a sterling impersonation of one of the bright red baubles on the Christmas tree.
Rose, having descended into helpless giggles, simply shook her head.
“How would you feel about not staying until New Year?” I asked Rose some time later. “I’m not sure I can wait any longer to try and sort things out with Sean.”
We were sitting in our pyjamas by the fireplace and attempting to toast marshmallows, because apparently that had been a lifelong ambition of hers, goodness knows why.
“Gutted. I’m hoping if I hang around here long enough your stepdad will adopt me too.” Rose shrugged. “Nah, it’s okay. Whenever you want to get going. I was running out of Titty-based digs anyway.”
“Oh, I’m sure you could think of a few more if you put your mind to it. But wouldn’t your parents have something to say about the adoption thing? Oh, and watch it, your marshmallow’s caught fire.”
“Bugger.” She blew on it until the flames expired, then grinned. “What, like offer him my brother on BOGOF?”
“Bogoff?” I queried, baffled. I took a cautious bite of my blackened marshmallow. “Are they supposed to taste of charcoal?”
“Don’t ask me. And, just when I think you’re starting to live in the real world… BOGOF’s short for buy-one-get-one-free.”
Oh. “I knew that really. I was just distracted by the idea of having you for a sister.” It was curiously attractive, in a masochistic sort of way. Laetitia had certainly been a lot less voluble in my direction since Rose’s arrival. I popped a thoughtful marshmallow in my mouth straight from the bag. They were a lot nicer this way.
“I make a brilliant sister. I never forget an embarrassing incident.”
I gulped, swallowed my marshmallow in one and stared at her in theatrical horror. “Pack your bags. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
Rose cackled and lit up another marshmallow.
Mother proved to be surprisingly relaxed about me leaving the next day, although I suspected that might have been because I would be taking Rose with me. Rose, regrettably, wasn’t really Mother’s sort of people, although Peter had quite taken to her. Fortunately, I felt reasonably certain she wouldn’t have a similar problem with Sean. If, that was, I managed to straighten things out between us. Mother always got on well with men; women, less so. It was just one of those things.
“Are you going to ring him before we go?” Rose asked as I hauled her perplexingly large suitcase down the stairs.
I put the case down on the hall carpet and flexed my fingers. “Um, no?”
“But you are going to ring him when you get back, yeah?”
“Probably?” I wanted to talk things out with Sean. It was just that the thought of actually doing it was rather daunting. “But what do you think I should say?”
“Just get him to come and see you. Or meet you somewhere. Probably best not to go round to his. You want a bit of privacy, not the twins jumping up and down on top of you.”
Not to mention Debs glaring at me like I was the anti-boyfriend.
“What if he doesn’t want to?”
“Trust me. He wants to.” She gave an exasperated sigh. “Look, he’s at least going to give you a chance to explain, isn’t he? He’s that sort of bloke. Now are we going to get a shift on, or are you waiting for that case to sprout legs and carry itself to the car?”
“Slave driver. I could leave you to get a taxi and take the train, you know, rather than driving you back home.”
“No, you couldn’t. It’d offend all your gentlemanly instincts. You’d come out in a rash or something.�
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Sadly, she was probably right. I sighed and picked up her case once more.
Chapter Thirty
It felt odd, coming home after even such a brief stay at Peter’s house. The Old Hatter’s Cottage seemed overly quiet, and with Hanne away visiting her family, that wasn’t likely to change unless I did something about it myself. It also seemed sadly un-festive—as I’d planned to be away until after New Year, I hadn’t bothered with a Christmas tree, although I did at least have my Christmas cards up on the mantelpiece and windowsills. The ones from the children at school, mostly from cheap multipacks purchased in the village post office and featuring such traditional Christmas animals as hedgehogs and meerkats, were already curling merrily at the corners.
Rose’s parting words to me, as I’d dropped her off up The Hill and heaved her luggage across the threshold, had been “Ring him.”
Should I? Or would a chance meeting be preferable? Less forced?
No, I told myself firmly. This time, I was going to be the one to close the gap between us. It was the least of what Sean deserved. I’d find him, speak to him and lay all my cards on the table.
I swallowed. Even if I was only holding a fistful of deuces.
My hand hovered by my phone but still somehow failed to come in to land. What if he didn’t want to speak to me? Didn’t want to sort things out?
Oh God. He’d had some kind of a works do on Christmas Eve, hadn’t he? And those things were notorious for starting ill-advised romances between colleagues. What if he’d met someone else? Or, well, not met them, because obviously if they worked together they’d already met, but what if he’d got together with them? After all, he had a much wider pool of potential lovers than I did. What, not to put too fine a point on it, if it was already too late?
What if I just rang, and found out? I told myself firmly, and dialled his number.