Fast Friends

by Jill Mansell

  “Cami, this is Josh,” said Loulou proudly, sliding her arm back around his waist. “And this, darling, is my friend Camilla, whom you’ve heard me talking about.”

  “I remember,” he said cheerfully, and Camilla realized that he spoke with a slight Scottish accent. “You were at school with Lou and Roz Vallender. Well, I love Lou, but I can’t stand the sight of that bitch Roz, so what do you think I’ll make of you?”

  It was the kind of blunt, verging-on-rude comment that Nico would have made, and Camilla relaxed instantly.

  “I bet I can’t stand Roz more than you can’t stand her,” she said, and Josh threw back his perfect head and laughed.

  “Hey, I like you already. Lou, get us a beer, will you? We have to drink to this.”

  “I found out today that Roz is pregnant by the way,” Camilla told Loulou as she was handed an ice-cold can of beer. She felt no shame nor guilt at passing on such private news.

  “Poor baby,” remarked Joshua.

  But Loulou was fascinated. “How did that happen?”

  “In the usual manner, I suppose.”

  “But who?” persisted Loulou, her eyes alight with intrigue. “And how on earth did you get to hear about it first?”

  Then it clicked, and she threw up her hands in an agonized, helpless gesture. “Oh, Christ! Nico. Poor you, finding out like that. He told you last night and that’s why you left.”

  “Wrong,” said Camilla, amused by the way Loulou’s mind had raced wildly ahead and feeling relieved because that really would have been an awful way to have found out. Roz may have been the catalyst, but at least her pregnancy hadn’t. “I decided to leave last night. It wasn’t until this morning that I saw Roz and learned about the baby.”

  She could tell that Loulou was biting her tongue, simply longing to ask how that meeting had gone but feeling that just for the moment she should keep quiet.

  Joshua filled the moment of silence. Having drained his can of beer and handed it back to Loulou, he said, “Got another one for me, angel?” then turned his eyes to the ceiling. “That Roz, she isn’t exactly a one-man woman, is she?” he remarked thoughtfully. “I wonder if Nico Coletto really is the father of her child?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Marbled sunlight filtered through the pale-green leaves of the beech trees, bringing much-needed warmth to Roz’s cheeks. The recent rain had left the long grass bright and springy, which she noticed as she strode back toward the house.

  Walking into the village to pick up a newspaper had seemed such a rural, healthy thing to do, but choosing to do it the morning after her announcement to the press had been a big mistake. The inhabitants of Littleton Gray, having overcome their initial self-consciousness at having a media celebrity in their midst, were showing signs of becoming distressingly overfamiliar with her. And gossip concerning Roz Vallender was so much more fascinating than that about widowed Mrs. Everton and John Davies, the sub-postmaster.

  “Says in the paper that that pop star chappie’s the father,” said Maudie Thompson doubtfully, as she counted out the change with maddening slowness amid the cluttered, haphazard interior of the village shop. “But he don’t drive a blue car, does he? Isn’t his the black one?”

  Bitch, thought Roz, smiling so that Mrs. Thompson wouldn’t guess what she was thinking. She lived here; she couldn’t make life difficult for herself in Littleton Gray.

  “My brother drives a blue car, as a matter of fact. Maybe you were thinking of him?” she suggested sweetly. From the corner of her eye, she could see a group of four teenagers dawdling in the street outside. “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson.”

  “Oh, well, don’t forget that we sell all that baby stuff here,” said the woman, gesturing aimlessly toward the back of the shop. “Everything you need, Miss Vallender.”

  Roz didn’t doubt it. She left the shop hurriedly, wishing now that she could jump into her car. Being recognized was something she was accustomed to, but glimpsing the sly looks on the faces of the teenage girls as she passed them made her uneasy. Here in this small village, pregnancy outside wedlock was still something of which to be ashamed. In their eyes, she had been caught out, “in the club” and without a husband to show for it.

  “Hey, miss,” one of them yelled after her, while the others burst into giggles. “If you ever want a babysitter, I’ll do it. An’ I got all Nico’s records. He’s the business. I’ll do the babysittin’ for free if he drops me home after.”

  “That ain’t all you’ll do for free an’ all, Shirley Birkett,” spluttered one of the other girls, and they all collapsed with laughter against the front of the shop.

  Village idiots, thought Roz viciously, burrowing into her fur coat and ignoring them totally. Damn, she wished she’d brought her car.

  And now, as she rounded the corner and the front of the cottage came into view, Roz swore again. A pearl-gray Bentley was parked outside on the drive. Her first thought—reporters—faded with the realization that not many of them drove Bentleys. Someone from the TV company? A big boss who had driven down to deepest Gloucestershire to castigate her for daring to become pregnant without asking first if it were allowed? She briefly considered slinking back into the cover of the bushes and waiting until whoever it was disappeared, but at that moment the driver’s door was thrown open and the mystery solved.

  Roz swore for the third time. For Christ’s sake, what was her mother doing here?

  “You naughty girl, I’ve been waiting here for hours!” declared Marguerite Martineau, her black kid-gloved hands upon her narrow, leather-clad hips. Then she opened her arms wide, in the manner that reminded Roz so strongly of school open days that she could almost smell chalk.

  “I’ve only been out for half an hour, Mother,” Roz told her as she kissed Marguerite’s amber-shaded cheek, “and if you’d used your cell phone you wouldn’t have needed to wait at all.”

  “Then it’s a shame you didn’t use yours, darling,” reprimanded her mother triumphantly.

  “I’m sorry. Come inside and have a drink. It’s lovely to see you again.”

  Marguerite slipped her arm through her daughter’s as they walked together across the graveled driveway to the front door.

  “Of course it is, darling. In times like these, a girl needs her mother. As you well know, Roz,” she added, catching the expression in her daughter’s dark eyes. For a brief moment, Roz’s face reflected the painful memories her mother had evoked. Recovering quickly, she turned to her and said, “Oh, come inside and let’s have a drink.”

  * * *

  Marguerite Martineau, born with the somewhat less enticing name of Margaret Trott, was looking good.

  She’s fifty-five, Roz thought, mentally counting on her fingers. She must have had a face-lift. When she had last seen her two years ago, she’d had bags under her eyes, hadn’t she? Now there were none—just fine, tanned skin and those arresting topaz eyes. As immaculately coordinated as ever, Roz was mildly surprised that she hadn’t come down in a car that matched her outfit.

  “So, darling,” remarked her mother brightly, leaning back in her chair and lighting a cigarette with a black-and-gold Dunhill lighter that did match, “you’re pregnant. Any idea who the father might be? And any plans to marry him?”

  Roz was too accustomed to her mother’s ways to be shocked. And to be fair, although she did know who the father of her baby was, it was more by luck than judgment that she had been able to narrow it down with such accuracy.

  “Since you obviously read about my news in the paper,” she said evenly, “you must also know who it is.”

  “And are you going to make an honest man of him?”

  “Now there’s a question.”

  Roz’s poor opinion of marriage had been founded early on in her life, having watched her parents plow five into the ground between them. The very idea had horrified her. What was the point, after
all, of tying oneself to a single person and pretending that you were going to be faithful to them? At least, that was what she had always thought, until now.

  “Tell me everything, darling,” said Marguerite, trying hard to sound cozy. “After all, I am your mother. And you know that nothing you say will shock me.”

  “All right,” Roz said cautiously, realizing that although it was quite out of character for her, she did need to talk about it. My hormones must be up the creek, she thought, feeling suddenly alone and out of control. “Nico’s the father. I didn’t exactly say so to the press, but when one of them hazarded a guess, I didn’t deny it. I hope he doesn’t think I’ve done it deliberately.”

  Her mother smiled and stubbed out her cigarette. “If that young man doesn’t know by now what the press is like, no one does. He isn’t exactly unused to their attentions now, is he? But how does he feel about the news, sweetheart? Why isn’t he here with you? He is rather gorgeous, I must say. You’ll have a splendid-looking baby, at least.”

  Roz felt sick. As she leaned across to pour coffee from the jug into two wide cups, she noticed that her hands were shaking. Admitting defeat was something she very seldom did.

  “That side of things isn’t working out too well,” she whispered with reluctance. “It seems I’ve finally met a man who isn’t interested in me.”

  “But, for heaven’s sake, why not?” exclaimed her mother indignantly. Roz was her only child, after all. “He was interested enough a few months ago. And he’s Italian too! I thought his kind were supposed to adore children.”

  “Only their own, apparently. And this one is Nico’s,” said Roz, feeling hot tears behind her eyelids because her mother was taking her side. “I wrote him a note and he didn’t reply to it, so I phoned him up and all he said was ‘It’s not very likely to be mine, is it?’ And then he hung up. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “The ungrateful little shit!” exploded Marguerite, topaz eyes blazing as she snatched up the telephone from the coffee table. “Give me his number this minute, Roz, and let me speak to him.”

  “Mother, really!” Despite everything, Roz started to laugh. “What a very working-class line to take.”

  Marguerite stared at the phone as if it were a kitten that had just peed all over her hands and dropped it back onto the table. Then she had the grace to smile at her actions.

  “It would sound a bit silly, I suppose. But I still don’t understand why he doesn’t want you, darling, regardless of the child. You’ve always had any man you cared to choose.”

  “It’s complicated,” said Roz, fidgeting with the silk fringe of the cushion beneath her arm. “You see, I was seeing a man at around the same time as I was…seeing…Nico, and by a bit of bad luck he turned out to be the husband of someone I was at school with. Do you remember Camilla Avery-Jones?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, you know how I am with names. All schoolgirls sound alike to me. Which school are you talking about for a start?”

  “Elm House.”

  Marguerite’s eyes narrowed in concentration, then fixed their gaze upon Roz. “I think I do remember. Wasn’t she the plump, fair-haired one? Rather too eager to please?”

  “Yes, that’s the one,” said Roz drily.

  “And she wrote to you afterward. I had to open the letter to find out the address so that I could return it.”

  “Mmm,” replied Roz, her expression thoughtful. “So it was pretty ironic, discovering that she was this man’s wife. She also discovered that I was his mistress, of course, and she left him. They’re filing for a divorce now.”

  “If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else,” declared her mother with the fatalistic air of someone who had been in all these situations in her time.

  “Yes. Anyway, Camilla then met Nico through Loulou and it appears that he took her under his wing, so to speak. She became his housekeeper,” Roz explained, relating the news that she had only herself learned last week after telephoning Loulou. “And I think she must have developed some sort of crush on Nico because as soon as she found out that I was expecting his child, she walked out of the job. I get the impression that Nico’s blaming me for lousing up Camilla’s life and that this is his way of paying me back. He has…scruples, Mother. And I’m just not used to men with those.”

  * * *

  Camilla stared at her fourth, slightly grimy-looking living room, turned away from the sight of an even grimier kitchen glimpsed through the open doorway, and felt her toes curling with distaste inside her shoes. For such astronomical rent, she had at least expected something clean.

  “You innarrested?” asked the skinny man who was letting out the flat, and Camilla forced a regretful smile, while in her jacket pocket she fingered the slip of paper bearing the fifth and final address she had to see.

  “It’s lovely, but I’m afraid I was really looking for somewhere with a larger kitchen.”

  “You no innarrested then?” he said in a monotone. “Never mind. Plenny more to see it. No bother me, lady.”

  Outside in the fresh air again, Camilla turned over the slip of paper and prayed silently that the address in Ealing would have windows you could see through. She had saved it until last because it was a house-share, something she had wanted to avoid. Living with Loulou had worked out, but she was aware that she had been very lucky. Sharing with a stranger would be a lot more difficult; all sorts of problems could arise. She recalled a scene in her mind from The Goodbye Girl, when Marsha Mason was woken up at four in the morning by Richard Dreyfuss humming his mantra while practicing yoga in the nude. Who knew what horrors might lie in store for her at 43 Edgerton Avenue, Ealing?

  When she reached the house twenty minutes later, however, she began to feel fractionally better. The sun had come out, which always helped, and the slightly overgrown garden at the front and side of the Victorian terraced house looked peaceful and reassuringly normal. Two gray cats stalked through the dewy undergrowth, and from an open upstairs window, she heard the halting, childish strains of a Sousa march being practiced on an out-of-tune piano.

  Camilla knocked on the blue front door and held her breath. Inside, the piano stopped playing, a child yelled out “Door,” and Camilla heard the sound of high heels clattering down a wooden staircase at speed.

  “Hi! You’re either from the Electricity Board or Homefinders,” declared a redhead with huge chestnut-brown eyes and a wide grin. As she stuck out one hand in greeting, she pushed the other through her haphazard top knot of corkscrew curls and glanced over her shoulder at the small red-haired girl who had followed her to the door.

  “I’m not from the Electricity Board,” said Camilla, shaking the woman’s hand and smiling at the girl who looked to be about five.

  “Thank God, because I’ve fixed the meter. Do come in. You don’t look a bit like the agency made you sound. I was rather expecting a female bank manager.”

  “That’s nothing,” said Camilla, straight-faced. “I was expecting Richard Dreyfuss.”

  “How disappointing for you—you’ve found old Mother Hubbard instead! I usually try to hide the children somewhere inconspicuous when I’m showing people around. It puts them off, you see; they simply don’t want to share a house teeming with brats, but they really are quite well-behaved brats. And it’s too late to lock them in a dark cupboard now,” she added sadly as another small girl appeared on the staircase, “because you’ve already seen them.”

  “I heard one playing the piano,” said Camilla, to be friendly and show that it hadn’t put her off. Turning to the five-year-old, who was unsuccessfully attempting to hide behind her mother’s slender, jean-clad legs, she said, “Was that you?”

  “No,” replied the girl, brown eyes wide with innocence. “That was Mummy.”

  “I only bought the bloody thing last week,” said the woman, laughing delightedly at Camilla’s faux pas and waving aside her
attempts at apology. “Don’t panic; I know I’m awful at the moment, but I’ve always wanted to be able to play a piano. Every year I challenge myself to learn something new. Follow me,” she went on, leading the way through to a large, comfortably cluttered kitchen smelling deliciously of cinnamon and hung with copper pans, upside-down bunches of dried flowers, and several very amateurish paintings. Camilla forbore to ask whether the children had executed these—one foot at a time was enough for any mouth—and besides, in her eyes, the house was perfect. She already knew with absolute certainty that this was where she wanted to live.

  The redhead clapped her hand over her mouth in dismay. “How rude of me! I’m Zoë Sheridan, and this is Augusta, my eldest. We call her Gussie. The one on the stairs is Finola, Fee for short. No doubt we’ll trip over her in just a minute when I show you the bedroom, but they really are good children, very quiet, and their manners are far nicer than mine…”

  “I like children,” said Camilla firmly. “Truly, I’m not put off. I’m Camilla Stewart.”

  They shook hands again with mutual relief, and Zoë showed her the rest of the house, apologizing all the time for the mess and explaining that as soon as she got organized she would be hiring a cleaning woman. The sunny sitting room was dotted with children’s toys and discarded clothes, but Camilla saw only the appealing warmth of it; this was a real home, as she had once had, and she felt at home here already.

  Her bedroom, very small but decorated with bowls of scarlet and white silk flowers to match the wallpaper, was perfect. While Zoë was fussing over a loose flake of paint on the windowsill, Camilla said carefully, “I expect you have lots of other people to see before you decide. May I just say that I’m very interested in moving in here, and leave you my number so that you can contact me…?”

  “You’re really interested?” cried Zoë, amazed and delighted. “Well, in that case, I don’t need to see anyone else, do I? You can move in as soon as you like. Are you sure you don’t mind about Gussie and Fee?”