Fast Friends

by Jill Mansell

  * * *

  By the time Roz, Loulou, and Lili were ready to leave for the television studios, the party downstairs was already well on its way.

  “It’s rather like getting married,” said Loulou, trying to joke. “Just as the fun really starts, the bride and groom have to wave goodbye and shoot off on their honeymoon, poor sods.”

  “Happy birthday,” shouted Marty cheerfully, sensing that this was an occasion for presents.

  “Don’t panic,” Nico told her, kissing Loulou’s pale cheek. “You look terrific. And don’t even think about all those millions and millions of viewers sitting at home watching you—”

  * * *

  “Flawless,” pronounced Zoë, stepping back to admire her work. “I have to say this, Cami. When I first saw you in that hospital bed, I nearly died. The doctor who sewed up your face deserves a medal. If you ever feel like trying a spot of modeling…”

  “Don’t change the subject,” said Camilla sternly. “I asked what was going on between you and Laszlo.”

  Color rose afresh in Zoë’s cheeks, and she gazed helplessly at the powder puff in her hands.

  “Loulou and I went over to Vampires the other week. He’s taken me out a few times since then. It’s early days yet.”

  “But so far…?”

  “So far, so very good indeed,” confessed Zoë with a shy smile. “In fact, perfect. But what about you?” she added, turning the tables and surveying Camilla with calculated shrewdness. “You do realize, don’t you, that we’re all churning with curiosity wondering what’s going on between you and Nico.”

  Stepping into the shimmering dress of petrol-blue sequins, Camilla turned away and lifted her hair from her neck so that Zoë could zip her up.

  “Nothing much.”

  “Oh, of course not,” said Zoë with heavy sarcasm. With characteristic bluntness, she paused halfway up the zipper. “Are you sleeping together?”

  “No!”

  She shrugged. “OK, no need to sound so appalled by the idea. He isn’t exactly Quasimodo, after all. So what is going on?”

  “Nothing,” repeated Camilla with stubbornness and the very faintest trace of pique. Since that last day at the hospital, Nico had made no further mention of the future. His habitual teasing continued as it always had, but she was under the distinct impression that it was just that: a habit. He was discreetly drawing away, backing off in such a manner that her own confused feelings would be spared. He was letting her down gently, she had decided, in the hope that she wouldn’t realize why.

  It was a cold, sad, unhappy sensation, and Camilla hated it.

  “I thought Roz said he wanted to marry you as soon as his divorce came through,” persisted Zoë, adjusting the combs that held up her own hair and glancing at Camilla’s reflection in the mirror.

  “Maybe he went off the idea.” Camilla was trying desperately hard to sound unconcerned. “We never did seem to get our timing right, after all.”

  Her hands, she realized as she reached for her dark-blue high-heeled shoes, were shaking.

  “Well, perhaps the time has come to synchronize your watches,” declared Zoë. Trained to be observant, she wasn’t missing a trick. “I know these things, darling. You and Nico are so bloody English sometimes I could shake the pair of you.”

  “He’s Italian,” protested Camilla weakly, and received a dark, meaningful stare in return.

  “Exactly.”

  * * *

  Downstairs, Natalie was teaching Marty to hand jive, Nico was setting up the video recorder, and Sebastian was deep in conversation with Christo and Laura. Charlotte and Toby, together with Zoë’s two daughters, were dancing through the kitchen. Rocky, tied to the leg of a settee in the sitting room, was whining piteously in the hope that someone would set him free.

  Just as Camilla finished pouring a fresh round of drinks, the doorbell rang.

  “Grandmother!” Natalie exclaimed joyfully and bolted out into the hall.

  “So shy, so retiring,” sighed Zoë, exchanging glances with Camilla.

  “Granny, Granny, Granny!” shouted Marty, racing out in hot pursuit of Natalie.

  * * *

  Loulou’s nerves had miraculously vanished. To her amazement, she was enjoying herself. The rambunctious crowd from Vampires, complete with darling Tommy in his boxer shorts, were providing just the right touch of informality, and their good-natured heckling had put her so much at ease that she couldn’t imagine why she’d ever felt nervous in the first place. Even under the sizzling heat from the studio lights, she felt calm and unfazed, answering questions easily and contributing lines that had the entire audience in fits of laughter.

  “So, do you ever miss those days when you were running Vampires?” asked Roz, and Loulou shrugged.

  “Sometimes. We had a lot of fun. I miss seeing all the customers.” Inclining her head, she glanced momentarily in the direction of the audience. “Well, maybe not these customers, but some of the others were OK…”

  * * *

  Loulou was looking better than ever, thought Mac. In a plain yellow tank top, belted at the hips over white leggings tucked into low-heeled yellow boots, she looked so blond and…golden…that the pull in his chest was almost unbearable. And she was being so bright and funny, and at the same time compassionate, that his sense of loss was heightened to an intolerable degree. Loulou should have been his, should be his now, and he had blown it.

  So engrossed was he in the program that he didn’t hear the front door open and quietly close again. Cecilia, standing in the doorway of the sitting room, watched him in silence for several seconds. The video recorder beneath the television was taping the same program he was watching. But even if that didn’t give the game away completely, the expression on his face could leave no one in any doubt.

  When a floorboard creaked beneath her feet, he twisted around, looking so guilty that Cecilia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her modeling skills leaping to the fore, she composed her face into a blank catwalk smile and sat down in the gray leather chair opposite him.

  “We could watch something else…?” he said dutifully.

  Cecilia shook her head. “It looks interesting. Keep it on.”

  “I thought you were staying down in Cornwall tonight.”

  “The shoot was canceled. Half the crew went down with food poisoning.”

  “That’s nice,” said Mac absently, his attention riveted helplessly to the screen.

  “Mmm,” said Cecilia, taking two bottles of nail polish from her bag. Russian Red or Pretty Flamingo? Damn, she was going to need an emery board to tidy up that thumbnail too.

  Several minutes later, when she looked up and glanced at the TV screen, she saw the little girl, Loulou’s daughter, romping on the sofa with a distinguished, rather sinister-looking man with a black eye patch who was holding her by her scarlet garters.

  “That’s Lili, isn’t it?” she said quietly, and Mac nodded.

  That was Lili all right. The child he had spent so much time with right up until the moment of her birth.

  “She’s beautiful,” said Cecilia, and turned her attention back to the second coat of polish. The second coat was always the trickiest.

  * * *

  “You’ve been married three times,” said Roz, settling back in her chair and ignoring the autocue. The hard part, the brief discussion with the president of the foundation for research into crib deaths, was over, and he and Laszlo had departed the set to tumultuous applause, taking Lili with them. Now she could properly relax. Discussing men was something she and Loulou had done a thousand times. “What do you think was the worst mistake you ever made?”

  “Getting married, obviously,” replied Loulou promptly, winking at the audience. “I don’t seem to be very good at it.”

  From the audience, Tommy shouted, “That’s not what I’ve hea
rd,” and everyone collapsed with laughter.

  When they finally began to quiet down, Roz said, “Seriously.”

  “Seriously,” Loulou echoed. Her silvery eyes betrayed genuine sadness. “I haven’t always behaved very well. I’m not talking about infidelity—I have never been unfaithful to any of my husbands—but I suppose I tend to act first and think later. Some of my decisions turned out to be embarrassingly bad ones, although at the time they seemed right. I’m too impulsive, I suppose.” Glancing distractedly at her hands, bare of rings, she lowered her voice and added, “I know some of it’s my own fault, but I do have regrets. Real regrets…”

  “Such as the occasion when you threw your husband’s only change of clothes out of a hotel window and into a pond?” suggested Roz gently. Loulou, startled, hesitated for only a moment. A faint smile hovered on her lips, but there was infinite sadness in her voice as she replied quietly, “That was the worst mistake of my life. More than anything else, I wish I hadn’t done that. Who knows, if only I’d exercised a bit of self-control in those few moments instead of behaving like a spoiled bitch, the rest of my life might have been quite different.”

  Mac felt his insides disappear. The blood was pounding in his fingertips and in his ears. He couldn’t move.

  Roz was winding up now, allowing Loulou to express her faintly libelous opinion of unscrupulous journalists who tricked their way into people’s lives, before drawing the interview to a close. Another well-known host, laden down with a spectacular bouquet of flowers, appeared on the set to wish Roz luck for the future and to tell her how greatly she would be missed. Even Mac knew that Roz hated his guts, but she accepted the flowers with gracious surprise and kissed the host’s smooth cheek. The cheering audience applauded wildly, and Roz thanked everyone for their support. Mac barely heard what she was saying; his mind was buzzing frantically.

  How clever Roz had been. How subtly she had introduced the hotel incident.

  And how the hell was he going to find the words he knew he now had to say to Cecilia?

  There was a tiny clink of glass as Cecilia placed the restoppered bottle of nail polish on the mirror-topped coffee table. Crossing her long legs, she held her outstretched hands before her, surveying the ten perfectly painted pink nails with apparent absorption.

  “You’d better go,” she said, her low-pitched voice absolutely expressionless.

  Mac turned once more to stare at her, scarcely daring to believe that he had heard her correctly.

  “Oh, Mac.” Her slender hands dropped to her lap in a gesture of despair. “I’m not stupid. Anyone with half an eye can see how it is between you two. It really isn’t all that much fun, you know, living with a man who’s so very much in love with someone else.”

  He shook his head, struggling to assimilate her words. The sense of relief when he finally understood that she was serious was incredible.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it.

  “I know. You’re a nice man.” Nodding toward the TV screen, she added, “She seems very nice too. I hope it works out for you both this time.”

  “Thank you. So do I.” Rising to his feet, Mac crossed over to her chair. After a moment’s hesitation, he bent and kissed her forehead.

  “I’ve been expecting this to happen,” she said unsteadily, and tears glistened in her beautiful topaz eyes. “But it’s still horrible.” Standing up, she managed a tentative smile. “Give me a hug before you go, Mac? Please? A proper hug.”

  Wordlessly he opened his arms and drew her toward him, his lips brushing her smooth, dark hair, his hands tenderly stroking her back.

  At last, Cecilia pulled away, averting her face as she wiped her eyes.

  “Go on,” she whispered, “before I make a complete idiot of myself. I look so ugly when I cry…”

  “You don’t,” Mac assured her. “You’re a beautiful, beautiful woman. And before long you’ll find a man who can make you happy.”

  “Please go,” repeated Cecilia helplessly. “I’ll stay here tonight if that’s all right. Tomorrow I’ll pack my things. Jacky has a spare room in her flat—I can go stay there until I find a place of my own.”

  Racked with guilt, Mac said, “Stay here as long as you like. You don’t have to leave straightaway.”

  Cecilia shook her head. “Oh yes I do,” she said softly. “And so must you, Mac. Go to her now. Now.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  When Roz and Loulou arrived back at the house, the decibel level rocketed. Having watched the program, everyone knew already that it had been an amazing success, but even Roz admitted that the public response to the show had been staggering.

  “Our unloved little old spinster,” she announced proudly, placing her arm around Loulou’s shoulders, “has received thirty-seven proposals of marriage, twenty-four job offers ranging from the downright dubious to the highly prestigious, and the promise of a screen test for the next Bond film.”

  “Miss Moneypenny!” Natalie shouted as Nico gave Loulou a congratulatory kiss.

  Sebastian opened the first bottles of champagne and Zoë ran to answer the door as the first of the Vampires’ crowd arrived back at the house to join in the celebrations.

  Nico found Loulou alone in the kitchen thirty minutes later. Oblivious to the sounds of wild partying around her, she was standing at the sink, clutching an empty wineglass and staring out of the window into the blackness of the garden beyond.

  “You’re supposed to be celebrating,” Nico reminded her, surprised to see her there.

  Fighting the waves of desolation, feeling guilty because he had caught her like this, Loulou shrugged and grinned.

  “Just catching my breath. It’s been quite an evening.”

  “Bullshit. You’re hiding.” With a stern look, he refilled her glass and steered her into a chair. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”

  Loulou hung her head in shame. Nico had always been able to see right through her.

  “I’m lonely,” she said at last. “I’m thirty-five, Nico. And alone. I hate it.”

  Loulou, ever the drama queen, was speaking with uncharacteristic lack of drama now, he realized. These, entirely unembellished, were the bare facts of how she felt.

  “It’s an aftereffect,” he said as firmly and reassuringly as he knew how. “I feel like that after a concert. When the adrenaline high wears off, you feel depressed and wonder what you’re supposed to do next.” It wasn’t strictly true, but he had to make her feel she wasn’t alone.

  “All those men phoned the TV station tonight,” Loulou continued evenly, “and offered to marry me. Oh, I know they weren’t serious…but at least they took the trouble to phone and say it, and they don’t even know me. What a crazy bloody life. Only the men who don’t know me are interested. The ones who do run a mile.”

  “Mac, of course.”

  “When I married him, I thought it would be perfect,” said Loulou, desolation in her voice. “And he turned out to be more trouble than the other two put together. I wish I’d never met him.”

  “Don’t be silly. You got your wires crossed once or twice…it happens to us all. But you can’t wish that you’d never met him, Lou. Just think of all the good times you had together.”

  “That’s the trouble,” sighed Loulou, pain flickering in her eyes. “I can’t stop thinking of them. And it hurts like hell. D’you know, I really thought that, after Cecilia’s birthday, he might contact me. But nothing. Then tonight, on the show…” She gestured helplessly. “I thought, ‘If he’s watching now, he might realize what I’m saying and forgive me.’ I had this wild fantasy that he would phone or turn up there at the studios…and he didn’t. More nothing. I just feel so empty all the time…”

  * * *

  Camilla watched quietly as Charlotte, a tray of asparagus rolls balanced precariously on her lap, gazed up at the family portrait above the fireplace. The
children had greeted its return, just one week ago, with evident pleasure, and to Camilla’s relief, the sight of it no longer caused her pain.

  Perching on the arm of Charlotte’s chair, she helped herself to one of the rolls and stroked her daughter’s silky hair.

  “Are you going to get married again?” said Charlotte, her eyes still fixed on the painting.

  “Maybe one day. If I meet someone we all like,” she replied cautiously. “Why, sweetheart?”

  “I think Daddy’s going to get married. He’s got a girlfriend named Rebecca. The other day, I heard them talking about churches.”

  How strange, thought Camilla, that the news had absolutely no effect upon her. It was like hearing that a distant friend was remarrying.

  Proceeding with care, she said, “Do you and Toby like her?”

  “Oh yeah.” Charlotte shrugged as if the question was irrelevant. “She wears really tight pink trousers. And she doesn’t try to force me to eat onions. She’s nice.”

  “Well, that’s all right, then.” Camilla was relieved. For a few seconds, they both watched Natalie attempting to teach Sebastian to dance. Roz was cringing and Rocky howled in protest. Unnoticed by the dark-haired man in boxer shorts and a bow tie, Lili methodically filled his beer glass with broken potato chips and cashew nuts.

  “Is Nico your boyfriend?” asked Charlotte abruptly, and Camilla almost choked on the remains of her asparagus roll.

  “He’s a friend, darling,” she replied, glancing hastily around to check that he wasn’t behind her. “Nico’s a good friend, that’s all.”

  “Oh,” said Charlotte, evidently disappointed. “Then you aren’t going to marry him?”

  “Good heavens, no.” Camilla, her tone determinedly cheerful, stood up. Being given the third degree by her daughter was not something she felt able to cope with at present. “Sweetheart, I’d better go check on the rest of the food. Could you pass that tray around and ask Roz’s mother if she’d like another drink?”