by Jill Mansell
‘Video card,’ Hester shuffled on through the pack, ‘railcard, receipt from Computerworld… Good grief, Hugh, you’re a total geek! Get yourself a life, man! You’re how old?’ She checked the driver's license again. ‘Twenty-eight, for heaven's sake. You should be carrying condoms, not railcards. What kind of twenty-eight-year-old doesn’t keep a condom tucked away in a corner of his wallet?’
‘Um, the married kind?’ Millie had found the photo tucked between two petrol receipts. She held it up for Hester to see.
‘Good grief.’
‘Hmm. So what's the final verdict on wallet-man? Not quite so nerdy now?’
Together they peered more closely at the couple in the photograph. The girl, in her twenties, was startlingly beautiful. Her dark hair swung around her face as she laughed into the camera, her eyes sparkled with fun, and she had the figure of a model. She was wearing three things: a bikini, a scarlet hibiscus flower tucked behind one ear, and a ring on the third finger of her left hand. Her right hand, meanwhile, was busy making bunny ears behind the head of her companion. Hugh—it had to be Hugh—sported an emerald green beach towel slung around his hips, a pair of dark glasses concealing his eyes, and windswept, streaky blond hair. Unaware of the bunny ears poking up behind his head, he was grinning broadly and holding a tropical-looking drink up to the camera. His other hand was around the girl's slender waist.
‘Yuk,’ Hester groaned. ‘The picture of happiness. Doesn’t it make you want to be sick?’
‘But you can’t call him a geek. You have to admit, he's gorgeous.’
Phew. Realizing she was in danger of drooling, Millie sat back on the sofa. Hugh might be wearing dark glasses, but there was no disguising those looks.
‘Fancies himself,’ Hester snorted. ‘Those kind always do—think they’re God's gift. I bet he sleeps around.’
‘You are such a cynic,’ Millie complained. ‘You don’t know, they could be the happiest couple in the world. They look as if they’re the happiest couple in the world.’
‘Men like that are never faithful. They don’t know the meaning of the word.’ Hester gave her a pitying shake of the head. ‘They cheat on their wives for the sheer hell of it, just because they can.’
‘In that case, why hasn’t he got any condoms tucked away in his wallet?’
‘Ha, probably just used the last one.’
Millie looked at the address on the driver's license.
‘He's from London. He must have lost his wallet while he was down here on holiday.’
‘Good,’ said Hester. ‘Serves him right for being unfaithful.’
Millie took another look at the photo; reluctantly, she decided that Hester was probably right. She had leapt instinctively to Hugh's defense because she so wanted to believe he was devoted to his wife and utterly faithful.
But it was like wanting to believe in the Loch Ness monster. You could believe all you liked, but the chances were, such a thing didn’t exist.
As she knocked back the last of her wine, it occurred to Millie that she actually knew quite a bit about Hugh Emerson… the charming, cheating, silver-tongued bastard.
But still kind-hearted, she reminded herself. Otherwise he wouldn’t be prepared to pass on any useful secondhand organs in the event of his death.
‘Never trust a man with better legs than yours, that's what I say,’ Hester declared. To listen to her, no one would ever think she had a perfectly good boyfriend of her own. Nat was lovely in all respects, his only drawback being the punishing restaurant hours he worked as a chef.
Plus, of course, the fact that the restaurant in which he worked happened to be five hundred or so miles away, in Glasgow.
Idly, Millie turned over one of Hugh Emerson's business cards. There was his mobile phone number. And right here, by amazing coincidence, was their phone.
‘What are you doing?’ said Hester.
‘Seems polite to let him know we’ve found his wallet.’
‘So why are you trying so hard not to snigger?’
Millie gave her an innocent look.
‘No reason, is there, why we can’t have a bit of fun first?’
It was half past midnight but the phone was picked up on the second ring. Anyway, Millie reasoned, good-looking twenty-eight-year-old Lotharios were hardly likely to be tucked up in bed and fast asleep by twelve o’clock on a Friday night.
In bed maybe, but definitely not asleep.
‘Hello? Hello?’ she breathed when she heard a male voice at the other end of the line. ‘Hugh, is that you?’
‘It is. Who's this?’ The voice was deep-pitched and undeniably attractive, betraying a hint of amusement. That was the thing about silver-tongued bastards; they always had seductive voices with which to charm the knickers off you.
So long as they weren’t sensible, white cotton knickers from Marks and Spencer, Millie silently amended. Even the most dedicated charmer might draw the line at that.
‘Oh Hugh, thank goodness I’ve tracked you down at last! It's Millie here, remember? We met at that party in Fulham.’
‘Millie.’ As he repeated her name, she could practically hear him frowning. ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me. Whose party are you talking about?’
Ha, of course he couldn’t remember, he went to so very many parties. Probably three or four a night.
‘It was five months ago, just before Christmas. You must remember,’ Millie insisted. ‘I was the one in the red dress with sequins down the side. We chatted for a while, then you took me upstairs and we—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Hugh Emerson interrupted with a smile in his voice. ‘You’ve got the wrong man here.’
‘Hugh, please, don’t say that!’
‘I’m serious. I don’t know where you got this number, but it certainly wasn’t me.’
‘Your name's Hugh Emerson and you live in Richmond Crescent. You’re twenty-eight years old,’ Millie recited, slightly hysterically, ‘and you have blond hair and great legs.’
‘But—’
‘And a birthmark on your stomach, just to the left of your belly button,’ Millie announced triumphantly as Hester pointed it out in the photograph.
Clearly startled, Hugh Emerson said, ‘Look, there's definitely been some kind of mix-up here.’
‘Don’t try and deny this,’ Millie protested. ‘You can’t pretend it didn’t happen, Hugh, because it did. I was at the party with my friend Hester and you were there with your wife or girlfriend or whatever she is… pretty girl, long dark hair, I can’t remember her name…’
‘Now hang on a minute—’
‘No, Hugh, you listen to me.’ Millie hurried to get to the punchline before she burst out laughing. ‘You took me upstairs and seduced me, and I won’t let you try and wriggle out of it. I’m pregnant, Hugh, I’m expecting your baby.’
This information was greeted by a suitably stunned silence.
Finally, Hugh said, ‘Look, I really am sorry, but you’re not.’
‘Oh, I might have known you’d do this. You complete bastard,’ Millie wailed. ‘First you cheated on your wife, and now you’re doing the dirty on me! Tell me, does she know what you get up to when her back's turned?’
Another pause.
Then, ‘Is this Louisa you’re talking about?’
‘That's the one.’ Millie beamed at Hester in triumph. ‘Yep, that was her name, Louisa.’
Hugh Emerson's voice changed in an instant. All the initial warmth had gone out of it. Now it was as if a freezer door had been blasted open.
‘Okay, I don’t know who the hell you are, or why you’re doing this. But for your information…’
‘I can’t hear,’ Hester whispered frantically as his voice dropped further still. Tugging at Millie's elbow she hissed, ‘I can’t hear a thing. What's going on?’
CLUNNKKK. Millie slammed down the receiver. White-faced and appalled, she stared at Hester.
‘What? What?’
Millie couldn’t speak, she was too busy cringing all over.
Her skin was actually crawling with embarrassment.
‘Stop looking at me like that,’ Hester complained. ‘What did he say?’
Millie felt sick. She hung her head in shame.
‘He and Louisa haven’t been together for the last eight months.’
‘Ha, what did I tell you? They split up because he was unfaithful to her.’
‘Not quite,’ said Millie. ‘They split up because she died.’
Hester gave Millie a hug before she went on up to bed.
‘Oh come on, cheer up, you didn’t know she was dead.’
Millie shook her head.
‘I’m such an idiot.’
‘It was only meant to be a joke,’ Hester consoled her.
Oh yes, and what a great joke it had turned out to be.
‘I’m so ashamed. So ashamed.’
‘I’m just glad you had the sense to use Number Withheld,’ Hester said lightly. ‘At least he's not going to be able to track us down and come after us with a shotgun.’
She went on up to bed but Millie stayed downstairs, hideously aware that she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about the phone call. Every word was playing and replaying in her brain on an endless loop. The way Hugh Emerson's manner had changed so abruptly—and who could blame him?—sent shudders of mortification down her spine.
Since there was no way in the world she could bring herself to hand the wallet in at the local police station, Millie scribbled a quick note on a blank (i.e. totally unincriminating) sheet of paper.
Dear Hugh,
A million apologies for the phone call. We found your wallet and attempted a joke that went horribly wrong.
Yours,
Bitterly Ashamed.
P.S. Sorry, sorry, sorry…
Before she could start agonizing over whether the note was sufficiently apologetic, Millie parcelled it up with the wallet and all its contents, wrote Hugh's address on the front and plastered her entire emergency stamp supply across the top of the parcel.
At two o’clock in the morning, desperate to rid the house of evidence, she ran barefoot to the end of the road and shoveled the parcel into the postbox.
Chapter 4
A WEEK LATER, HESTER reeled home from work in a state of shock.
‘You’re not going to believe this.’
‘Richard Branson came into the market, saw your stall, and hired you on the spot,’ Millie hazarded. Hester, who sold earrings of the cheap, cheerful, and sometimes downright eccentric kind, was never going to be voted Businesswoman of the Year. ‘He wants you to head up his new jewelry empire, Virgin Baubles.’
‘Oh ha ha. Guess again.’ This time, helpfully, Hester clutched both hands to her chest, miming palpitations.
‘You’re going to clean the windows and shampoo the carpet and do my share of the washing-up.’
This was yet more merry banter; Millie didn’t seriously expect it to happen.
‘Pay attention, will you?’ Hester cried. ‘This is a swoon. A swoooon. See? Look at me.’ She rolled her eyes dramatically, like Rudolph Valentino. ‘I’m swooning here, like I’ve never swooned before.’
‘Okay. You just bumped into Jim Davidson in the street and he said, ‘“Ello there, ‘Ester my darlin,’ do us a favor wouldja, I’m covered from ’ead to toe in warm chocolate and I’d be ever so grateful if you’d just lick it all off.”’
Hester had an inexplicable crush on Jim Davidson. The Generation Game was the highlight of her TV viewing week.
‘Wrong,’ said Hester. But with the merest tinge of regret.
‘Okay then, I give up.’
‘He's back.’
Who? Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator?
The next moment, Millie guessed. The slight but unmistakable emphasis on the word He gave it away. She looked at Hester, who was all but jigging up and down on the spot.
‘Oh God.’ Millie's heart sank; she couldn’t help it. ‘It's Lucas, isn’t it? Lucas Kemp.’
When it came to serious crushes, Lucas left Jim Davidson in the shade. In the shade with a droopy mesh tank top on. During Hester's hectically hormonal growing-up years, Lucas Kemp had been the big love of her life. Most of the time he had treated Hester with amused disinterest. But occasionally, when the mood took him and he was between girlfriends, he would pay her a bit of attention, dance with her at parties, walk her home afterwards, and snog her senseless, that kind of thing.
This, of course, had only made Hester love him more. The very fact that Lucas could treat her so casually proved beyond all doubt that he was better than she was and that she didn’t deserve to be with someone so fabulous.
Lucas Kemp was wild and charismatic, with laughing green eyes and a provocative tilt to his mouth. In those days he had worn his wavy dark hair long and his jeans tight. The aura of danger about him had been—as far as Hester was concerned—impossible to resist.
Then again, Millie thought, that had been a good while ago now. It was six years since Lucas had left Cornwall for the more glittery lights of London. He could be paunchy and thinning on top these days, he might work in a bank and play shuffleboard in his spare time, and possess all the charisma of a tub of Vaseline.
Well he might, thought Millie.
Although it was unlikely.
‘You are allowed to speak.’ Hester was sounding miffed. ‘Some kind of reaction would be nice.’
Fine.
Millie gave her a long look.
‘What about Nat?’
‘Oh!’ Hester exclaimed in disgust. ‘I might have known you’d say something like that. You just have to drag him into it, don’t you?’
Being sensible didn’t come naturally to Millie, but she knew she had to be the voice of reason here. Hester had plainly lost control of the reins.
‘Come on, sit down.’ She patted the battered sofa next to her. Hester, still jigging from one foot to the other like a toddler in need of the loo, wasn’t a restful sight. ‘Nat's lovely, you know he is. You waited years for someone like him to come along. Don’t mess it up now.’
Hester stared at her.
‘Who says I’m going to?’
‘Hess, just look at the state of you.’
They had been friends for too long, that was the trouble. Millie knew her inside out. Hester, sitting down with a bump, sighed and said, ‘Okay, okay, I know it's stupid, but I can’t help the way I feel.’
‘Nat's so nice,’ Millie reminded her. ‘He's good for you.’
‘Ha. You mean like salad and steamed chicken and a glass of fizzy mineral water? But you can’t live on that stuff, can you? Sometimes you just have to have something wicked and gorgeous like a bucket of crème brûlée.’
What with Nat working as a chef this was apt, even if it was also unfair. Then again, the fact that he was so ambitious didn’t help matters. Leaping at the chance to work as a commis chef at L’Amazon in Glasgow hadn’t exactly smoothed the path of true love.
In theory, Hester had understood why he’d needed to go, agreeing that it was necessary for Nat's CV and a fabulous chance to gain experience working at one of Scotland's finest restaurants with its two Michelin stars and dazzlingly arrogant head chef.
Oh yes, she’d been absolutely fine about it, really. In principle.
But Hester's principles had begun to take a bit of a battering in the last couple of months. She missed Nat dreadfully. He was working ludicrous hours, six days a week. And, rather like God, on the seventh day, Nat crashed out and spent the day in bed fast asleep. Her last trip up there to see him had been an expensive and deeply frustrating waste of time.
Basically, Hester had discovered, you could love someone to bits but still want to hit them over the head with a heavy alarm clock when they were lying next to you at two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon snoring their head off.
Whereas Lucas was both here in Cornwall and awake.
‘You’re right, I know you’re right,’ Hester admitted. ‘I don’t want to lose Nat.’
> She didn’t, she truly didn’t. Nat was funny, easygoing, loyal, and great in bed. When he wasn’t asleep.
Damn, why had Lucas had to come along now?
‘Okay,’ said Millie, ‘how much money can you really not afford to lose?’
‘Two pounds fifty.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘Twenty pounds.’
‘Not enough. Two hundred.’ Millie was firm.
‘Are you mad?’ Horrified, Hester cried, ‘I definitely can’t afford to lose two hundred pounds!’
‘Great, that's the whole point. Better not lose our bet then.’
‘A bet? What kind of a bet?’
‘Between you and me.’ Millie was delighted with her spur-of-the-moment idea; since she was currently off men in a major way, this wasn’t a problem. ‘No sex in Cornwall. Whoever gives in first, loses the bet.’
‘That's not fair!’ Hester let out a squeal of alarm. ‘What if Nat gets a weekend off?’
‘He's not going to. You know that,’ Millie patiently reminded her. ‘But if you go up to Glasgow again, you’re allowed to sleep with him there,’ she added generously. ‘That's why I said no sex in Cornwall. For either of us. And no zipping over the border into Devon either. If you do that, you still have to pay up.’
Hester giggled.
‘What are we going to call it, the Celibet?’
‘Call it whatever you like. But,’ Millie wagged a finger at her, I’m telling you now, I’ll hold you to it.’
‘Okay, deal.’ Maybe, Hester decided, this was the threat she needed, the impetus to keep her on the straight and narrow. Besides, if she and Lucas did do it, how would Millie ever find out?
Reaching for Millie's hand, Hester gave it a firm, you-can-trust-me shake.
‘No sex in Cornwall.’
‘And don’t even think of trying to lie to me,’ Millie warned, ‘because I’m telling you now, I’ll always know.’
All this palaver and Hester hadn’t even clapped eyes on Lucas Kemp yet. The news that he was back in Cornwall had been relayed—as far as Millie was able to make out—via one of the girls who ran the market stall next to Hester's, who had heard it from her hairdresser, who knew for certain that it was true because her brother's friend's girlfriend worked at one of the local property agencies as a letting consultant. And Lucas Kemp was currently leasing a pretty spectacular house somewhere in town, though nobody seemed to know quite where.
