by Sandie Jones
‘Listen,’ she says, wringing her hands together. ‘I’m finding this all really difficult to deal with. It’s come at me like a rocket and I can’t deny that I’m having trouble processing it all and what it means.’
Beth nods, her lips pressed tightly together, as if they’re the only thing stopping her from shouting out.
‘I’m devastated by Tom’s deceit,’ says Alice, holding herself back from revealing what’s on Facebook. She needs to deal with that on her own, before involving anyone else, as it will only serve to complicate matters. ‘But I will come to terms with it in my own time,’ she goes on, ‘and in my own way, as I’m sure you will.’
Beth nods.
‘And as much as this newfound knowledge pains me, it is the realization that I’ve lost our friendship that pains me even more.’
‘You don’t have to—’ starts Beth.
‘No, please,’ says Alice, holding a hand up. ‘Let me finish. All I’ve thought about is how it affects me and Sophia, not thinking for a second about you and Millie. I’m sorry for that – it was selfish and wrong. I can’t even begin to imagine how this news has affected you, and for any part I’ve played in making that even harder, I’m truly sorry.’
Beth’s eyes widen at Alice’s admission.
‘I hadn’t realized quite how much your friendship meant to me until you weren’t there,’ Alice goes on. ‘We’ve only known each other for what, two years?’
Beth nods. ‘Almost three.’
‘But yet it feels like a lifetime,’ says Alice. ‘I’ve not always found it easy to make friends and, as you know, I’m not the most social mum in the playground.’
‘I’ve never seen you move so fast as when you drop Livvy off,’ Beth says with a little smile.
‘Exactly!’ says Alice. ‘So friends don’t come easy to me, but you . . .’ She feels tears spring to her eyes. ‘You and I feel like kindred spirits, and if we allow our friendship to suffer because of someone else’s duplicitous character, then there are no winners in this sorry state of affairs. I lost Tom once, and now I feel like I’ve lost him all over again. I don’t think I can cope with losing you too.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ says Beth, her face crumpling. ‘If I’d known I was about to throw a bomb into your world . . .’
The two women approach each other awkwardly until Alice opens her arms and pulls Beth into her. ‘What do they say?’ Alice laughs snottily. ‘You should never allow a man to come between friends.’
‘Something like that,’ sniffs Beth. ‘So, we’re all good?’
‘We’re all good,’ says Alice, acknowledging how different it feels to have Beth back on side. ‘We can work out a plan, going forward, together.’
‘Is everything okay with Nathan now?’ Beth asks as they walk back to the kitchen.
‘It will be,’ says Alice, suddenly confident.
40
‘I thought that donkey would be able to withstand more of a beating,’ jokes Nathan as he comes back into the kitchen, his arms so full of piñata debris he can’t see where he’s going. He staggers blindly towards the bin. ‘I was hoping for at least half an hour of entertainment from that. What’s next, Mum?’ He lets out an exaggerated sigh as he picks up a glass from the worktop and takes a mouthful of red wine. ‘God, this kids’ entertainer malarkey is hard work – no sooner are they on one thing than they want to know what’s coming next—’
‘Nate,’ Alice interjects, feeling infinitely stronger. ‘This is Beth.’
‘Ah, the infamous Beth,’ he says, looking down to wipe his hands on a tea towel. ‘I was beginning to think you were a figment of Alice’s imagination, or a hunky rugby player she’s been seeing on the side.’
He looks up, ready with one of his wide grins that would beguile even the most unwelcome of guests. ‘Pleased to finally meet—’ The rest of his sentence is cut off as his glass flies from his hand and smashes onto the island, splintering into a thousand tiny pieces.
‘Argh!’ shouts Alice, jumping back from the missile.
‘Oh goodness,’ calls out Linda. There’s a splash of red liquid on her white skirt, but her eyes are on Olivia’s birthday cake, sat on the worktop with nine candles, soaked in red wine and pockmarked with shards of glass.
It’s only Beth and Nathan who don’t make a sound, seemingly frozen in time, like someone has pressed the pause button on them.
‘Okay, stay away kids,’ says Alice, throwing an arm out across the conservatory door, where several pairs of eyes are craning to see what’s happened.
‘But look at my cake,’ shrieks Olivia. ‘Olaf’s all red.’
The colour has drained from Nathan’s face – his expression suspended in disbelief whilst all around him chaos reigns.
‘B-but how?’ he manages in barely more than a whisper.
A crippling heat descends upon Alice as she looks to Nathan, to Beth and back again. ‘How what? What the hell’s wrong, Nathan?’
‘I . . . erm, I just . . .’ he stutters.
‘Are you okay?’ Alice asks her husband, as Linda reels off kitchen roll and starts soaking up the pooling liquid.
Nathan looks to Beth, his eyes blinking rapidly. ‘What? Erm, yeah . . . yeah I’m fine.’
‘What’s going on?’ Alice can’t help but notice the change in the atmosphere. As if somebody had come in and wired five hundred amps into a socket. That somebody appeared to be Beth.
Alice looks to her, but she just shrugs her shoulders and smiles.
‘Nathan?’
‘God, I don’t know what happened there,’ he says, running a hand through his hair and attempting to laugh. ‘You look just like somebody I used to know and for a moment I thought you’d come back from the dead. I got the fright of my life.’
Beth smiles sweetly. ‘Oh, I can assure you I’ve not died. Unless, of course, I’m in some parallel universe, living another life, and I’ve come back to haunt you.’
Nathan laughs awkwardly. ‘Yes . . . yes, maybe.’
Whilst Alice and Linda clear up the mess, Nathan and Beth stand rooted to the spot.
Alice’s sense of unease refuses to budge. The look on Nathan’s face was unlike anything she’d ever seen before, as if he really had seen a ghost. Yet Beth is the epitome of calm, as if she has everything under control.
Alice knows the thought she’s trying so desperately hard to stop infiltrating her mind. It can’t be. It isn’t possible. She’ll settle for any other explanation than that, because if she gives that room to breathe, it will suck all the breath from her.
‘I’ll just go and change,’ says Nathan. ‘I’d better go and see if I can get Livvy a new cake as well.’ He leaps over the pool on the floor, where Linda is on her hands and knees, cleaning it up.
‘What’s got him all of a fluster?’ she asks.
Alice looks to Beth, hoping for an answer, but she just smiles and says, ‘Here, Linda, let me help.’
‘Excuse me for just one second,’ says Alice as she follows Nathan up the stairs.
‘Jesus!’ he says as he looks down at his splattered chinos in their bedroom mirror. ‘I don’t suppose that’s going to come out.’
‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about?’ asks Alice, trying to stay calm, whilst under water her legs are kicking furiously to keep her afloat.
He turns on a kilowatt smile. ‘Honestly, nothing. That woman, your friend . . .’
‘Her name’s Beth,’ hisses Alice. ‘Why do you find that so hard to say?’
‘Beth,’ he says, slowly and deliberately, ‘looks just like a girl I used to know.’
‘An ex-girlfriend?’ presses Alice.
Nathan’s head drops. ‘Yes, actually she was. Back when I was in my early twenties.’
‘So what happened?’
‘We were together for a few months, had a great time, but then . . .’ His voice trails off.
Alice waits. She’s not going to help him out.
‘Then we split up, and about a year or so later, I heard s
he’d died in a car crash.’ He looks up at Alice imploringly, but she feels nothing.
‘Funny, you’ve not mentioned that before.’
‘It’s not something that’s ever come up,’ he says. ‘The woman downstairs just looks so much like her – that’s all.’
‘Beth,’ Alice says, her voice strained.
‘Yes, Beth,’ he repeats. ‘It gave me quite a fright.’
‘So much so that it made you drop the glass you were holding?’
‘Well, yes.’
Alice watches as he takes his trousers off and finds another pair in his immaculately organized wardrobe.
‘So, you and Beth don’t know each other?’ Alice can’t believe that she’s pursuing this line of questioning. That she could honestly think that her second husband is also having an affair with her best friend. Because that’s what she’s thinking, if she’ll just allow herself to admit it.
‘What? No, of course not.’
‘You’ve never seen her before in your life?’
‘Well, I don’t know, maybe. If she’s perhaps been at school when I’ve been there . . . I don’t know.’
‘You’d better go and get your daughter a new birthday cake,’ Alice says, her eyes narrowed.
‘Yes,’ he says, raising his eyebrows and attempting to laugh. ‘Honestly, you couldn’t make it up, could you?’
No, Nathan, you couldn’t, thinks Alice.
41
‘Okay, so are we all here?’ asks Alice, commanding the attention of the team as they gather in her office the following morning.
They nod their heads in unison.
‘As you know, we’re completing on Japan this afternoon, so it’s going to get pretty hectic around here over the next few weeks, and I just want to double-check you’re all on board and ready.’
Mumblings of agreement reverberate around the office and Lottie lets out a squeaky whoop of excitement and then covers her mouth, as if it was entirely involuntary. Alice smiles, thankful for the humour it injects into the otherwise tense proceedings.
‘You may well get excited, Lottie, because you and I are going out to Japan at the end of next week to see the site.’
Alice watches with glee as Lottie’s mouth drops open.
‘When . . . when was that decided?’ stutters Nathan.
About the same time that I decided to take back control of my life, Alice thinks. Which, if she hazarded a guess, happened somewhere between six and seven o’clock last night. Right around the time that Beth had given her a kiss on the cheek and whispered. ‘Let’s never allow a man to get between us again.’
After Nathan had gone to bed early with a migraine, apparently brought on by the party, Alice had poured herself a large glass of red wine and sat at the dining table, with the lights dimmed. She’d imagined herself sitting there for hours, as her brain frantically tried to work out what was going on. But as she waited for the normal irrational thoughts to start mocking her, her mind became perfectly calm. Suddenly, the muddied puddles were replaced with crystal clear pools that she could see her reflection in, looking like the person she wanted to be. Happy and content, without the artificial support props of alcohol and antidepressants.
She used to be that person once, back when life was simpler, before she allowed men to cloud her judgement and dictate her path. Well, no more. She was not going to allow the men she loved, who she thought loved her back, define who she was, and what she could be. This was her life and she was going to take it by the horns and own it.
She’d picked up her full glass and poured it into the sink, mesmerized by the swirls of dark burgundy as the water carried what had become her cornerstone away. Surprised by the power that surged through her as she did so, she systematically opened the remaining six bottles, some she’d only bought earlier that day, and drained them.
When she went up to bed, her tablets, which made her sleep just that little bit easier and smoothed out the rough edges of her paranoia, called out to her from where she hid them behind the bubble bath she never used in her medicine cabinet. She allowed them to goad her for a little while as she alternated between looking at them, thinking she needed them, to looking at herself in the mirror and knowing she didn’t.
She credits both those decisions with how in control she feels this morning, and the team seem buoyed by this new sense of confidence and authority. Everybody, it seems, apart from Nathan, who is still sitting there in a haze of confusion.
‘I’m also going to organize some meetings with fabric houses and furniture makers,’ Alice goes on. ‘See if we can make some new contacts, build new relationships. We’re going to need people onside once we get started.’
‘Oh my God, I am so up for this,’ says Lottie, beaming from ear to ear.
Alice returns her smile. ‘Okay, let’s get to work.’
The team gather their things and head back to their desks. Only Nathan remains, which Alice isn’t remotely surprised about.
‘Since when are you making executive decisions like that without consulting with me?’
Alice doesn’t look up from her computer screen. ‘Since I remembered that I own this company.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ he asks, standing in front of her with his hands burrowed deep into his trouser pockets. ‘Are we going to harp on about Tom again? The prodigal son who so thanklessly put his inheritance into setting up AT Designs?’
Alice looks at him with a smile, immune to the barbed snipe. He can say what he likes about Tom now – she doesn’t care. But she will not let it be implied that without him she wouldn’t be where she is today. For the first time, she allows herself to wonder if she might’ve even gone further without the men in her life, both seemingly intent on holding her back.
‘Tom may have put the start-up money in,’ says Alice calmly, ‘but I have worked my arse off to get this company to where it is today. We wouldn’t have the house, the cars – even the expensive shoes you’re standing in – if it wasn’t for me. Nobody has put more into AT Designs than I have. And if that threatens you Nathan, then I suggest you start thinking about what else you might like to do.’
Alice thinks she sees a flash of vitriol darken his features, but his expression quickly changes to one of bemusement, which riles her even more.
‘I’m going to get a sandwich,’ he says.
‘You do that,’ says Alice.
As soon as his back is turned, she lets out the air that she’d held in to bolster herself up. Those swallowed breaths that give you extra confidence and stop your nerves from jangling, at least not loud enough for anyone else to hear.
She watches as he disappears from view, picks up her phone and scrolls through until she finds the number for Liz, her old solicitor. The one who dealt with Tom’s estate, and the one who advised her to get a pre-nup before marrying Nathan.
‘Alice, how are you?’ Liz asks warmly. Her voice immediately takes Alice to those dark days after Tom died. If it had been this time last month, she would’ve allowed herself to be transported back there, to wallow in the mire, but not today.
‘I’m well,’ she says. ‘How are you?’
‘Busy, but when are we not?’ She gives a little laugh. ‘What’s going on with you? It’s been a while. What is it? Six years?’
‘About that, yes.’
‘And how is Sophia and little Olivia?’ Alice feels touched that she remembers the names of her children. ‘Not so little any more, I bet?’
‘Livvy’s nine going on twenty-four, and Sophia is everything you’d expect a fifteen-year-old girl to be,’ says Alice. She can’t for the life of her remember Liz’s children’s names and is instantly disappointed in herself. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m after some advice, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course.’
‘You may remember I was getting married to Nathan around the time we last spoke. I was looking for some advice about a pre-nup.’
Alice is sure she can hear the disapproval in Liz�
��s ‘Mmm.’
‘We’re going through a bit of a rocky patch,’ Alice goes on. ‘It’s just a tentative enquiry at the moment, but I’d like to get an idea on where I’d stand financially, should we separate and divorce.’
Alice can hear Liz rustling some papers on her desk and imagines her sitting on a maroon leather chair in a mahogany-adorned chamber. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she says, sympathetically, and it takes all of Alice’s resolve not to cry. Maybe she’s not as tough as she’s pretending to be. ‘Well if I remember correctly, you decided not to go ahead with the pre-nup.’
‘No, that’s right,’ says Alice, and she can almost hear Liz silently saying, Silly girl. ‘It wasn’t something either of us wanted to do,’ she goes on, trying to justify every bad decision she made back then.
‘So, what assets do you have?’ asks Liz. ‘Just a rough idea.’
Alice tots everything up as quickly as she can. ‘Well, I don’t have specific figures, but the house is in my name and is worth about two million. AT Designs is profitable and has cash in the bank, but I’ve just recently taken a loan out for a million pounds to buy some land in Japan. We’re building twenty-eight apartments near to the Olympic site.’
‘Wow, that sounds interesting,’ says Liz, but Alice is sure she can hear disbelief in her voice. ‘And the business is solely in your name?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, can you remind me what Nathan brought to the marital table.’
Alice goes quiet, trying to find something worthwhile to say, but sensing the unfavourable answer, Liz puts her out of her misery.
‘Okay, so despite Nathan turning up with nothing but the shirt on his back, he can still make a claim on your wealth if you separate.’
Alice winces at the lawyer’s brutal choice of words. ‘So that’s not looking too good for me, then?’
‘It would have been wise to secure your future a little,’ says Liz, ‘whilst you still had the chance. But you were in love and sometimes love is blind.’
Alice can’t help but notice her use of the word ‘were’. Does that mean we aren’t any more? she wonders. I guess that’s why I’m calling her.