The Best of Friends

by Alex Day

  ‘You’ve just been having the wrong whisky,’ Dan assures me, in the way he has that makes him impossible to argue with. ‘In other words, cheap stuff. You’re enjoying this because it’s nearly £150 a bottle.’

  I almost choke when he says the price. It’s more than my budget allows for my monthly food shop. But then I remember how Justin didn’t think twice about spending £40 or £50 on wine, which doesn’t last nearly as long, and I get off my high horse tout suite. As Dan has said before, if you’ve got it, why not spend it and I have to agree. After all, there are no pockets in a shroud.

  We chat and drink and I start to feel a little tipsy, but in the most pleasant, agreeable way. At one point I suggest to Dan that I really should be off but he begs me to stay.

  ‘Please don’t go yet,’ he pleads plaintively. ‘Let’s watch a movie or, well, just talk. It’s so nice – Charlotte and I hardly ever do this anymore, just sit here and chat. And anyway, I don’t want to spend another evening alone.’

  I smile. ‘I know how you feel. It’s weird when every room is deserted, every door you open leads to another empty space. I’m not used to it at all.’

  ‘It’s awful. I hate it.’ Dan takes another slug of whisky. ‘But it’s not just that. It’s not just because they’re all away. Even if they’re here, I’m left out. They’re a unit, the boys and Charlotte, and I haven’t been part of it for years and the worst thing is that I’m not sure if I’ve created that situation or they have. I really don’t know.’

  My heart breaks for him anew. The elite businessman, the go-getter, the walking success story, is as messed up and unsure and insecure as all the rest of us underneath. We’re all blustering most of the time, putting on an act, hoping we don’t get found out – even Dan, the archetypal alpha male. It seems so wrong that he’s been ousted from the family bosom, left to provide the money and not much else. Though Charlotte might feel it’s only what he deserves, that he’s reaping what he’s sown – he simply doesn’t understand it. I feel sorry for him, and sorry for her. For a moment, I feel sorry for myself, too.

  ‘It sounds very difficult,’ I reply quietly. ‘But if it’s that bad, perhaps it’s time to call it a day? Not all marriages last forever – I can vouch for that. Perhaps you’d both be better off out of it. Happier. Saner.’

  We’re sitting at either end of a capacious sofa. Dan listens to what I’m saying and then slides himself nearer to me. He stretches his arm across the back of the sofa, behind my shoulders.

  ‘You’re so wise, Susannah,’ he says softly. ‘And so understanding. I can talk to you in a way I’ve never been able to with Charlotte. Thank you.’

  It all happens so quickly, his arms encircling me, his mouth on mine, that I hardly have time to process it, let alone to resist. Before I can react he’s kissing me passionately, long and hard, a kiss that lasts and lasts, and I find myself kissing him back just as urgently, and at first I’m thinking of my friend Charlotte and what the hell is going on, and I can’t believe that I’m betraying her like this but then I stop thinking of her and concentrate on the kiss and there is nothing else in the world but me and Dan. The fleeting thought that, as Charlotte so clearly can’t really be bothered with him then it’s all right for me to have him, crosses my mind before that, too, is forgotten and I sink further into his embrace.

  After a while, I’ve no idea how long, he stands, pulling me up after him, and still kissing me he leads me up the stairs and into the bedroom where he lays me on the bed, rips off my clothes and makes love to me in a way I’ve never experienced before, not with Justin nor even with Charlie.

  By the time it’s over, I’ve lost all sense of who, what, or where I am. He puts an arm around me and nestles into my back and soon I hear his breathing settle into the regular pattern of sleep.

  I lie in bed – in Charlotte’s bed – wondering what on earth I’ve done. Until it suddenly occurs to me that it’s the innate attraction that Dan and I have for each other that’s been fuelling all our encounters, almost since that very first day when he arrived late to the party with a bunch of helium balloons.

  That this had always been bound to happen. That however much I tried to be the friend Charlotte wanted me to be, the desire Dan and I have for one another was always going to win out. I have a sudden feeling of panic about whether Charlotte is definitely in Corsica and all of her boys, too. But I know she is and once I’ve reminded myself that it’s all fine and she’s not about to walk in the door and find us here, I fall asleep too.

  But not before wondering how on earth I’m going to tell her.

  Chapter 24

  Susannah

  It’s surreal to wake up in Dan’s arms, in Dan’s house, in Dan’s bed.

  Charlotte’s house. Charlotte’s bed.

  Racked with guilt, I put my arms over my face, shielding my eyes from the daylight that’s streaming in from behind the curtains. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why it happened. But I do know it was wonderful.

  Dan must have sensed me stirring because I feel him turn over and roll towards me, and then his hands are on my body, caressing me, arousing me. I feel eighteen again, reborn into a time before Justin, before Charlie, before I knew how terribly, badly wrong love can go. How terribly, badly wrong a life can go.

  It’s as if I’ve wiped the slate clean and been given the gift of starting over.

  Dan’s love-making is slower this morning, not the desperate, fervent act of the night before but studied and considered. It’s just as good, if not better. I can’t believe that I’m over forty and I’ve never made love like this before, had no idea how incredible it can be. Charlotte admitted that she and Dan don’t have sex anymore – and when I only had Justin, and memories of Charlie to pin my own experience on, I could understand that. But now, now I’ve been with Dan, I don’t get it at all, don’t know how someone could voluntarily turn their back on this, could find it not to their liking.

  It reveals to me the emptiness of Charlotte and Dan’s relationship, the extent to which all fires have been well and truly extinguished. Charlotte may be using her solitude in Corsica to rethink what’s gone wrong but she’s going to find it’s too little, too late. Dan and Charlotte’s marriage, it seems to me, is based on keeping up appearances and clinging onto life’s comforts, not on any real affection. And this convinces me, as Dan brings me to orgasm, that what he and I are doing is not so very bad. That we could be, that in fact we are, very, very good.

  Dan suggests breakfast but in the kitchen he gazes helplessly at the six-burner hob, so I step in and make scrambled eggs on toast. Surrounded by all Charlotte’s things, her choices of crockery and cutlery, her children’s pictures on her walls, her collection of magnets on the fridge door, I can’t stop thinking about her. Only continually reminding myself that there’s no love in their union anymore, that their partnership is a hollow shell, enables me to sit at Charlotte’s table as if I am mistress of the house. I doubt she’ll enjoy getting divorced any more than the next person, but for her it won’t be like it was for me. Dan is rich and generous; she’ll get a fabulous settlement and she’ll be free of the man who irritates her so much. She’ll be able to find someone she does want to have sex with.

  Dan asks if I’d like that swim.

  ‘The pool is well up to temperature,’ he says, flicking his eyes towards an electronic gadget on the wall that displays a reading of 28 degrees.

  ‘Charlotte likes the water really warm,’ he explains, adding, ‘costs a bloody fortune, as I alluded to last night.’

  Then he breaks off as a dark shroud of doubt descends upon his face. Being confronted by all the wasted years, by the fact that now he has the chance to be with someone who truly loves him, must be challenging. I can understand that.

  At this precise moment, his phone rings. ‘Charlotte’ flashes onto the screen as the noise gets louder and louder, more and more persistent. We both sit and stare at it until, eventually, it rings out.

  Slowly, ve
ry slowly, Dan reaches out, picks up his phone and puts it in his pocket. He looks stricken, panicked.

  ‘I can’t talk to her right now.’

  ‘No.’ I try to exude sympathy through my tone and body language.

  There’s silence for a moment. I imagine what he might say. ‘I can’t tell her over the phone, but I’ll do it as soon as she’s back,’ or, ‘I’ll need to prepare the boys for what’s coming; I can’t let them suffer.’

  ‘When you’ve finished your drink, I’ll drop you home,’ Dan continues, not looking at me, making sure not to meet my gaze.

  He drains his glass and thrums his fingers on the table before continuing. ‘And then we must never mention this again, Susannah. Do you understand?’

  Now, he looks at me. Stares straight into my eyes. ‘Charlotte must never, ever find out about this.’

  I’m too stunned to reply.

  Chapter 25

  Susannah

  Dan has gone to Corsica.

  I stare at the message on my phone, dumbfounded. It’s not from him; he’s made no contact with me at all. Instead, it’s from Charlotte, telling me how pleased and excited she is that he’s on his way, how she’s going to make new efforts to put the past behind them, to make everything right. Absence has made the heart grow fonder and she sees everywhere she’s gone wrong, how everything was confused and muddled but now is crystal clear.

  She loves Dan. He loves her. Naomi is nothing. She thanks me for looking after him. She appreciates it.

  I let the phone drop from my hand. Despite what he said on Saturday, I had still held out hope that, once he’d had time to think about it, and get over the idea of telling her, once he’d spoken to her and been reminded of all that’s wrong with their relationship, he’d rethink his decision. Would call me, contrite and apologetic, invite me round, pull me into bed, confess that he can’t live without me.

  But no.

  After all his leading comments, his generous, loving gestures, the outpourings of his heart and his come-ons that I fell for, hook, line, and sinker, the fact is that I’ve been spurned, used, and tossed aside in the worst possible way. And his reaction to the whole thing is to fly off for a lovely holiday reunion with her.

  I phone in sick to work. Naomi will just have to manage without me for a few days. Lying on my bed, I go over and over in my head the evening we spent together, and the wonderful night and morning that followed. Before Charlotte started calling and calling and spooking Dan so much that he felt compelled to get shot of me.

  Justin Facetimes but I reject the call. I can’t bear for anyone to see me. He makes a voice call instead which I answer in case there’s something wrong. But there isn’t. He proceeds to regale me with tales of everything he and the boys have been up to in the Lake District – some triathlon challenge or other seems to feature large in the activities list. He’s become a fitness fanatic since the bankruptcy and break-up, one of those Mamils we hear so much about in the media, sad middle-aged men in Lycra, using their bicycles as relationship substitutes, and he and the boys have been cycling and swimming and running like maniacs for the past two weeks.

  When he first got a bike, my initial thought was about where on earth he had got the money, but now I don’t even have the energy to care. Jamie and Luke are fine, which is all that really matters. Though right now, despite how much I love them, I can hardly bear to think of them coming home, of having to function again, cooking regular meals and helping with homework and sounding interested when they tell me about their day.

  It occurs to me once Justin has hung up that, with or without the boys, my whole position here in the village is in jeopardy. Just as I’ve begun to rebuild my life, it has all come crashing down around me. Working at the tennis club will be a constant reminder of Dan, but I can’t afford to let go of my job. I valued my friendship with Charlotte but I was so beguiled by Dan that I fell into the trap he laid for me, thinking that he was offering me something real, the solid relationship I craved, a two-parent family for my boys.

  I hate myself for being so naïve. But somehow, however hard it will be, I have to pretend nothing’s happened; I have to carry on as normal.

  Normal. This is about as far as I’ve ever been from that state since the horror of Charlie and Josephine and its aftermath …

  I wander around the house, unable to settle to anything. I make cups of tea that I don’t drink and plates of toast that I don’t eat. In the living room, my old course books, together with some newer ones I’ve borrowed from the library or bought cheaply on Amazon, litter the floor and the coffee table. When time has allowed, I’ve been beavering away at my book idea; I thought I’d done quite a lot, had made good progress. But now I understand that it’s never going to happen, I’m not going to see it through. I never was. All those hours of research and note-making, wasted.

  My life, wasted.

  I kick miserably at the corner of one of the biggest tomes that’s lying open to the frontispiece. My name, written by me over twenty years ago, my writing large and childish, looks quite different from how it is now. And it’s not even my actual name but ‘Sue’, the shortening of Susannah I adopted for Charlie, who found my real moniker offensive, reeking as he felt it did of elaborate middle-class self-satisfaction. He wanted me to join him in being a working-class hero, which of course I never could be, however much I tried. I went to private school for years, for God’s sake.

  I sit on the sofa and think of Dan. The extent of my foolishness, the error of my judgement, hits me with full force. Not for the first time, I’ve been shown up as a credulous idiot who fell for the oldest trick in the book: ‘my wife doesn’t understand me and I’m lonely’. And now I risk losing everything not for the first, nor the second, but the third time.

  When the doorbell rings, I jump out of my skin. A deep sense of foreboding weighs me down like a lump of lead in my stomach. It would feel right, somehow, if it were that researcher, if he’d tracked me down at last after plaguing me by mail for so many months. His latest letters have changed tack somewhat, now containing veiled threats along the lines of ‘If you agree to take part, you get to tell your story in your words, your way. If you don’t, then we tell it anyway, but in our words, our way.’ However many times I ignore his missives, or put them back in the post box labelled ‘Return to Sender’, he keeps on trying. I don’t know what it will take to make him understand that I’m not going to bite, that I’m not interested. I push from my mind the offer of payment that was mentioned in the very first letter, repeated in every one since. It is quite a lot of money. But despite being perpetually skint, I’m not tempted. I’m not that desperate and my past is not for sale.

  I am not for sale.

  I’ve slumped onto the floor whilst I wait and hope that the post woman will give up and leave. But instead, the rings on the bell are followed first by knocks on the door and then loud, insistent raps at the window. I crane my neck to see out without being seen. But immediately, my eyes meet those of the person outside, the person who is peering in, hunting the room for signs of life.

  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead of the pestilential researcher or a representative of the Royal Mail, it’s Miriam, her moon face looming at me through the glass. Relief floods through me that my fears are unfounded, but even though she’s not who I dread, I still want to wave her away, to tell her to get lost. But I can’t do that. Being rude is not the answer, especially not to Miriam, who has always tried to be friendly and bears no blame for the mess I’ve got myself into. Cursing under my breath, I go to the door.

  ‘Hi Miriam,’ I say, trying to stop my voice from breaking, fighting back the tears that suddenly prick behind my eyelids. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Miriam looks at me, her head cocked to one side. She’s wearing the same black bobble hat she was sporting at the first paper chase back in April, despite the fact that it’s now twenty-five degrees outside. She resembles a particularly idiotic garden gnome. She looks ludicrous. ‘
We had an arrangement, for a get together. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Sorry, Miriam,’ I splutter, gesturing for her to come in. I pull a ragged piece of toilet paper off the roll – I’ve run out of tissues – and dab at my eyes. ‘Summer cold. It’s really laid me low.’

  ‘Poor thing. Turmeric could be the answer! Do you have any? The Indians have long sworn by its anti-inflammatory properties.’

  ‘Right,’ I concur, ‘I have heard something like that. But I’m fine,’ I lie. ‘Nothing a good dose of Nightnurse won’t sort.’

  Miriam frowns doubtfully. I’m sure she’s about to warn me of the dangers of such over-the-counter remedies. If it hasn’t come from a herb or a root or been found buried in a hedgerow, it’s at best useless and at worse potentially harmful in her eyes.

  ‘Anyway, we had put this afternoon aside to go through your first draft – for me to check your facts and so on and so forth.’ Miriam flaps to and fro the cover of the text book she’s pulled onto her lap. ‘But I don’t think now’s the right time, is it?’

  ‘No,’ I murmur. ‘No, it’s not. I’m sorry, Miriam, but I’m really not feeling too good. I’m going to go back to bed for a bit.’

  ‘Right you are, dear.’ Miriam stands up and puts her hands on her hips in that hearty, fearless way of hers. ‘I’ll find something that’ll do you good, don’t you worry. I’m thinking lemon balm and sage, with a spot of echinacea root and perhaps some …’

  She’s still rambling on as I shut the door behind her and collapse against it, the tears streaming down my face, this time with no attempt to stem them.

  Desolation is always worse when someone is kind.

  Chapter 26

  Susannah

  The days pass.

  I imagine Dan and Charlotte lying lovingly next to each other on matching sun loungers, sipping cocktails around the infinity pool, the scent of herbs wafting gorgeously around them, Charlotte oblivious to what Dan’s done. I wonder if his mind is also constantly replaying our night together like mine is, turning it over and over and examining and re-examining it. In my fevered and addled state, Dan sometimes morphs into Charlie and back again.