by Karen Swan
Laura looked around them. Things had gone surprisingly quiet – at least for the moment. David and Alex were drinking beer and watching the Inter Milan versus Juventus match on the fifty-inch plasma screen; Cat must be in her room with Rob; and Orlando and Isabella had gone off to have the side-by-side facials they’d booked at breakfast.
‘Hmm, I wonder where Sam is? Now would be as good a time as any to try to interview her,’ she said quietly, just in case Cat should be approaching.
‘Good idea. She’ll either be in her room or in the spa, I should think. Drinks aren’t till seven-thirty. I’m going to ring home. I’m dying to speak to the kids.’
‘See you later, then,’ Laura smiled, padding towards the smaller staircase.
It was quiet on the lower levels and Laura hesitated at the Cow-room door. It was firmly shut, and for a moment Laura worried Sam might be sleeping. She’d had scarcely any sleep last night, a morning’s arduous exercise and a skinful of vin chaud at lunch. If she was resting, she would not be happy to be disturbed by Laura for a chat about Cat.
On the other hand, Laura was here to work, and in between skiing, massages, drinks and meals, exactly when was she supposed to get hold of everybody?
She knocked, weakly at first. Then, when there was no reply, harder.
‘Sam?’ she asked into the thick wooden door. ‘Sam? It’s Laura.’ Gently she pushed the door open. ‘I wondered if we could have our . . . talk.’
The bedroom was empty. Was she in the spa? Laura was just turning to go when Sam appeared at the bathroom door, dabbing her face with a towel and swaying ever so slightly, a glass of water in her hand.
‘Oh. I thought I heard the door.’ She was deathly pale and looked more like she’d spent the day sleeping in a coffin than skiing in the Alps. She took a sip of water and walked further into the room.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.’
‘I suppose you want to talk about Cat?’ she sighed, grabbing a hairbrush from the shelf next to her and bashing down her hair.
‘Yes. But I can come back if this isn’t a good time.’
Sam dropped her hands down and leaned heavily against the wall. ‘No, no, let’s get it out of the way,’ she said, finishing her drink and throwing the brush on to the floor ready for David to step on later on his way to the bathroom.
‘Come in and shut the door, then. Drink?’ Sam asked, walking over to a table by the window and screwing the cap off a bottle of vodka and pouring it into her glass. Not water, then. Laura shook her head. It was too early for her.
‘No, thanks. I’ve, uh, got a massage in an hour so . . .’ she fibbed.
‘God, yeah! There’s nothing worse than drinking before one of those.’ She added tonic water to the glass and took a sip. ‘Remind me not to book one!’
Laura couldn’t help but smile – Sam was nothing if not consistent – and she scanned the room discreetly, looking for somewhere to sit. It was very definitely a room of two halves. On David’s side, his suits were hanging on padded hangers, his trousers were pressing, and the latest Robert Harris was sitting bookmarked on the table. On Sam’s side of the room, savage heels poked out of perilous mountains of clothes, the make-up on the dressing table looked as if it had been thrown there, and copies of Grazia and German Vogue were tossed on top of a tower of plastic-coated files.
‘Is it okay if I sit here?’ Laura asked, pointing to a chair that was covered in a shaggy Mongolian fur jacket – the designer version of the type she’d been considering for Fee – and six pairs of jeans.
‘Just shove all that stuff on the floor,’ Sam said, flinging herself on to the bed and lighting a cigarette.
Laura lifted it all up in an armful and carefully placed it in an artful heap on the floor.
‘So how does this work, then?’ Sam asked, blowing out a puff of smoke and staring at Laura through the grey haze. ‘Are you going to take notes?’
‘I will later.’
Sam’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that accurate enough?’
Laura ignored her. They were hardly legal documents. ‘Tell me how you and Cat met.’
‘We were at Manchester together. Shared a room in digs. Hated her on sight.’
‘Why?’ Laura asked, hoping she wasn’t going to answer every question in bullet points.
Sam hiked up her eyebrows. ‘You’ve seen her. I was totally determined to hate her,’ Sam smiled, flicking ash into a cup beside the bed. ‘Make her life a living hell. Why should I give her an easy ride? I thought.’ She gave a sudden devilish laugh.
‘Why did you want to do that?’ Laura asked mildly, resisting the impulse to fling open the door and sprint away from this insanely competitive woman.
‘Ugh, I can’t bear these pretty-pretty girls who waft around simpering and being decorative.’ She shot Laura a contemptuous look. ‘I thought Cat was one of them.’
‘But she wasn’t?’
Sam’s eyes met hers, fierce and shining. ‘She was a soul-mate. Up for anything. “No” wasn’t a word that was in her vocabulary.’
Laura watched her take another sip of vodka. ‘It sounds like you had a wild time.’
‘Oh yes,’ Sam said, retreating further into the memories. ‘I reckon if you went back to Manchester now and mentioned our names to the students, they’d know who we were. We ruled that campus.’
Big claim. Big ego, Laura mused. ‘What was your crowning moment together, would you say?’
‘Flying our knickers from the flagstaff on graduation day, definitely,’ Sam replied without hesitation. ‘Knickers were our signature back then – well, knickers and lack thereof. We had set up a little business on the side making them out of old scraps of Liberty fabric. They had tied ribbons at the sides that pulled apart. Every girl on campus wanted a pair. It made us some pocket money,’ she shrugged, swinging a toned leg restlessly. ‘Of course, every other blonde you meet is making them now, but we were the first. Agent Provocateur even took them for a while.’
‘Really? So has the business continued?’
‘Hell, no. There’s no money in it. No serious money, anyhow. We jacked it in as soon as we graduated.’
Laura wondered what qualified as ‘serious money’– her yearly income as a day rate? ‘You said you shared a room in the first year. Did you live together after that?’
‘Yes. We got a house near campus, shared it with some rowers. The rugger buggers wanted us too, but we weren’t stupid.’
‘Because they’d have wanted to sleep with you?’
Sam shrugged, cradling the glass. ‘We’d pretty much slept with them all anyway. Except for the tight-head prop. Bad skin.’ She shook her head. ‘No, the problem was, we couldn’t cook. Literally. One of them had to show us how to make pasta with Dolmio. “See the bubbles, girls? That means the water’s boiling. Now, pour in the pasta . . .”‘ She giggled. ‘It was a tactical decision to keep us fed. They were so into their diet and shit.’
‘Did they know you were using them?’
‘We would throw occasional benefits their way,’ Sam said, her eyes flashing provocatively as she continued emptying her glass in increments.
Laura tried not to react – it was exactly what Sam wanted – but it was hard to reconcile this portrait of Cat with the one she’d heard from Kitty and Orlando, or indeed with the woman she’d met upstairs. From what Laura had seen so far, Cat was charming, generous and understated. She had gone out of her way to make Laura feel comfortable here, complimenting her and opening up her house, her wardrobe . . .
Sam took a drag of the cigarette and held it in front of her as though assessing it. ‘Man, we were useless. If they were away, we scarcely ate . . . We served toast at a dinner party once.’
‘No. You didn’t,’ Laura protested, dragging her attention back to Sam’s recollections again. It was likely that Sam was guilty of the same mistake as Kitty – ramping up the past into a higher-voltage version of itself. In Kitty’s case, it was a sisterly nostalgia. In Sam’s, wistfulness f
or bygone wildness.
A hint of a smile threatened to splinter Sam’s face. ‘We’d made everyone dress in black tie too. It was hilarious.’
‘What did you both study?’
‘Cat did economics. I did French and German.’
‘So you didn’t have any lectures together?’
‘No, thank God,’ Sam drawled. ‘That was the only time I got any sleep.’
Laura chuckled. She might not like Sam, but she had to admit she had a certain dangerous allure.
‘You have to go abroad if you do languages, don’t you?’
‘Yes, in the third year. Six months for each country.’
‘It must have been hard for the two of you being apart when you’d been so close.’
‘We made sure we kept in touch. I was staying in Méribel for the French component, autumn through to Easter. Cat came over in the holidays and we worked as chalet girls together.’
‘But surely you have to be experienced cooks to work as chalet girls?’ Laura asked, watching as Sam swapped hands and drank from her vodka glass.
‘In theory. But our housemates taught us six recipes the week before we left – ham omelette, carbonara, chicken cordon bleu . . . a different meal for every night – and we just put cereal, yoghurts and croissants from the bakery out on the breakfast table every morning. No one ever sussed we didn’t even know how to mash a potato.’
‘Did you remain close after university?’
Sam took a deep drag, closing her eyes as she let slip a ribbon of smoke. It was her final puff and she dropped the stub into a water glass beside the bed – there were already four butts in there – and let her arm drop heavily down the side of the bed. ‘We moved to London together and shared a flat for three years – until Cat met Rob.’
‘Where were you living?’
‘Putney. We lived in the same street where Mr Ben was set, actually. D’you remember that TV series? It was about a bloke going into a fancy-dress shop and whichever outfit he put on, he’d be magically transported to that particular world. Well, we called ourselves the Bennies. Every party we had there was fancy dress.’
Laura straightened up excitedly. This could be good for inspiration.
‘What themes? Do you remember?’
Sam closed her eyes, thinking, and for a moment Laura wondered whether she was going to sleep. ‘One was called “Come as something beginning with P”; another was “I can’t believe you’re wearing that!” They were the best. All-nighters. The police got called out every time.’
‘What did Cat go as?’
‘Oh, man . . .’ she sighed. ‘She was a pilchard at the P party – wrapped herself in tin foil for that one. And she was . . . um, a . . . oh God, yes! It was classic! She was a diver at the other: wetsuit, snorkel, mask, flippers, the lot. It was a nightmare every time she had to go back to the kitchen to get refills. She worked out that walking backwards was best,’ Sam chuckled, taking another slug of her drink.
‘Random.’
‘Funny!’ Sam insisted.
‘Did you go on holidays together too?’
‘A couple of times. We went inter-railing around Europe together the first summer at Manchester. We had to wash in train terminals and eat—’ She pulled a face.
‘Oh no,’ Laura squirmed. ‘Please don’t say out of bins.’
‘No. But we’d go round the cafés in the evenings, sweet-talking the waiters into giving us the sandwiches they were going to throw out. Even now I can’t look a prawn sandwich in the eye.’
‘It sounds hard.’
‘It was excellent! The first time in our lives we were both completely and utterly free,’ she exclaimed vehemently, punching the word out so that her shoulders lifted off the pillows. ‘Pity it didn’t last,’ she murmured, staring sightlessly at the far wall.
‘Are you still as close?’
Sam gazed down sadly at her hands. ‘I live and work in Frankfurt. What do you think?’
‘Oh. You must miss her.’
‘More than you’ll ever know,’ Sam said, her eyes fluttering up to Laura’s and back to the far wall again. Laura flinched at the sudden aggression in her voice and she noticed Sam’s eyes were glassy and unfocused. Laura glanced over at the vodka bottle – it was half empty. How many had she had since she’d been down here?
‘Well, I am trying to know,’ Laura said in a conciliatory tone. ‘That’s the point. Rob wants it to—’
‘Tch, Rob wants, Rob wants,’ Sam mimicked. ‘And Rob always gets what he wants, doesn’t he?’ She held up her glass, staring into the clear liquid as if it showed her the future. ‘Well, not this time, if you ask me,’ she murmured.
‘What won’t he get?’ Laura asked, confused. It was clear Sam was drunk.
Sam stared over at her. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out,’ she taunted.
Laura sighed. ‘I think I’d better leave you to rest,’ she said, getting up from the chair. She got to the door, stopped and turned back. ‘Can I just ask you one more thing?’
‘Ssshoot,’ Sam slurred, waving her drink dangerously about.
‘What three words would you use to describe Cat?’
Sam’s eyes narrowed like a cat’s. ‘Ooooh, good one!’
Laura waited as Sam stared intently at the opposite wall. ‘When you’re ready.’
‘Wild, definitely.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Another long pause.
‘. . . Fearless.’
‘Yes.’ There was another minute’s procrastination. ‘Wild, fearless. What else?’
‘. . . Angry,’ Sam mumbled.
‘Angry?’ Laura echoed. ‘What is she angry about?’
But her only reply was the sound of the glass tumbling on to the leather floor as Sam finally, thankfully, passed out.
Chapter Nineteen
Laura pressed her forehead to the glass window, enjoying the feel of the cold seeping into her skin. It was already dark outside – the only colour in the sky a streak of magenta backlighting the mountains – and she was watching the lights switching on in the valley one by one.
Cat. Angry. She kept running the two words together in her head, but they just didn’t fit, repelling each other like two magnetic norths. From everything she’d seen of Cat – relaxing with friends in her own home – she seemed anything but: she was languid, chilled-out, gracious.
There was a quick knock on her door.
‘Come in,’ she called, turning.
Cat came in, smiling. Talk of the devil! Or rather, angel. She was wearing a bathrobe – her waist looked tiny in the tightly cinched belt – and her hair was twisted back in a casual chignon. ‘It occurred to me that you might not have any swimwear with you,’ she said, holding up a small white bag. ‘I’ve never worn this. It’s still got the tags on, so you can have it if you like – if you don’t think it’s a bit “eww” to wear another woman’s swimwear, that is.’
Laura chuckled. ‘God, you really are the consummate hostess. You think of everything! Thank you so much. I didn’t have anything with me, no.’
‘Well, bless Orlando. He’s great on advising which moisturizer will help with chapped skin out here, but an actual packing list? Hmmm.’ She walked towards the bed, looking at the clothes Laura had laid out ready for dinner. ‘Is that what you’re wearing tonight?’ she asked.
Laura looked over at her outfit: jet-black skinny Gap cords, a scoop-necked silky T-shirt from Next with black bead details, and a new pair of fabulous red-heeled shoe-boots that she’d been hiding from Jack for about two months at the back of the wardrobe. They were open over the foot, with large, looping semicircles meeting and lacing in the centre – far too dressy for the rest of the outfit, but she didn’t care. She didn’t have anything else that would go with them and she’d been so desperate for an opportunity to wear them. She knew it wasn’t an ideal outfit for tonight, if Sam’s cornucopia of satins and chiffons was anything to go by, but it was the best she could cobble together, given that Claudia had omitted to
mention the dress code for Orlando’s party plans.
‘Yes.’
Cat looked back at her, a diplomatic smile on her beautiful face. ‘It’s black tie.’
‘I know, but . . . well, I haven’t got anything else that’s suitable,’ she shrugged. ‘It’s the best I can manage.’
Cat nodded kindly, but Laura could tell this best wasn’t good enough. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to get ready for the pool,’ Cat said. ‘We’re all going down to the spa for a bit before we get ready for drinks. Come down if you fancy it.’ She put a knowing hand on Laura’s arm. ‘Please don’t hide away in this room. I know it’s hard coming into a noisy group like ours, but we’re all really glad you’re here – especially now you’ve shown yourself to be an Olympic-standard skier. Poor Sam’s spitting nails!’ She laughed. ‘And Rob’s so excited. He’s just been raving about your technique on the moguls, actually. He gets so frustrated skiing with me – I’m happiest on blue runs, you see. He calls me Scaredy Cat.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Anyway, see you downstairs, maybe.’
‘Okay. I’ll be down in a minute, then,’ Laura promised.
She waited for the door to close and peered inside the bag, pulling out the red bikini with mounting horror. It had a tiny triangular top and skimpy side-tie bottoms and wasn’t much bigger than her hand. And she had little hands.
Laura’s bare foot touched the slate floor and she hugged herself protectively in the bathrobe. The first person she saw was Isabella, wearing a leopard-print bikini and reclining on one of the loungers, a folded towel over her eyes. Beside her was Cat, doing the same in a white bandeau bikini that showed off a tummy that was not only enviably toned but also tanned, paying no respect whatsoever to the fact that it was the middle of December and most people’s tummies – in both colour and muscle tone – resembled bread sauce.
Laura sat down next to them, wordlessly sucking her tummy in and deploring Jack’s generous helpings, which meant her ribs didn’t show. She was just arranging a towel to place over her eyes when Kitty raced past in a low-leg, muscle-back navy Speedo.
