When We Were Friends

by Tina Seskis

  88

  Val Gardena, Italy

  The view from the apartment was straight down the valley, and all that could be seen was roof-tops and pine trees against flat blue sky, and pink mountains like blancmange, and green, green grass – and over to the left was a tiny little church with a cute pointy spire, whose raucous bells belied its toy-town appearance, and that Siobhan thought would be a wonderfully romantic place to one day get married.

  Around mid-morning on the third glorious day of her holiday, Siobhan half-staggered out onto the balcony, oblivious to the view for once. All she was wearing was a towel, with a second one wrapped turban-like around her long honey hair. She looked incredulous, like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  ‘What do you mean, he’s dead? He can’t be, he survived.’

  The person on the other end of the phone continued gabbling, and although they weren’t making much sense Siobhan finally understood. She rewrapped the towel around her body – accidentally giving the German hikers across the way a tantalising glimpse of her long, lean body – and tucked it in tightly, whilst just about holding onto the phone between her left shoulder and ear.

  ‘Where did you say she is, Cam? … Is she still in the hospital? … What, in Sardinia? … Are her parents there yet? … What? Well, who is with her? … What about his parents? Who’s looking after the kids? … My God, that is ridiculous.’

  When Siobhan finally hung up, she walked carefully back into the apartment, before her legs gave way as she collapsed onto the sofa.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Phil.

  ‘It’s Sissy,’ said Siobhan. ‘Her husband’s died.’

  ‘What, the one with cancer?’

  ‘No,’ said Siobhan. ‘Well, yes, but he’s not died of that … He’s been electrocuted.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have to go to her,’ sobbed Siobhan. ‘She’s there on her own. Camilla says her parents are on some religious retreat in India.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Phil. ‘We’re on holiday.’

  ‘Holiday?’ said Siobhan. ‘How can I be on holiday at a time like this? What am I meant to do? Go on a nice hike for the day? Do a spot of sunbathing?’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing else to be done,’ said Phil. ‘There’s no point ruining our holiday.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Siobhan. ‘You mean it, don’t you? You really do mean it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Phil.

  ‘I’m sorry, Phil, I’m nearer to Sardinia than anyone, I could get there quickest. She needs me. I have to go and help her.’

  ‘Siobhan!’ said Phil. ‘It’s not your responsibility. Why d’you always have to think it’s up to you to sort things out? Plus it would take you just as long from here as it would from London. Why can’t you just let her family deal with it?’

  ‘Because she’s got two little kids who’ve just lost their father and who need looking after, that’s why.’ She stared at her boyfriend as the realisation hit her. Had she really spent the last three years waiting for this selfish wanker to propose? ‘I’m sorry, Phil,’ she repeated. ‘I’m going downstairs to see if they can help me get a flight. I take it you won’t be offering to come with me.’ She got up from the sofa, went into the bedroom, pulled on a clean pair of knickers and threw on an old sundress. She shoved her feet into her new plimsolls, breaking their backs. She turned as she left the room, her hair stringy and wet over her shoulders, looking younger than her forty-two years, perhaps because of the train tracks on her teeth which she’d finally had fitted. ‘And I’m sorry, Phil, but I think we need to talk about “us” when I get back.’

  ‘There is no “us” if you leave,’ said Phil.

  Siobhan stopped still and looked back at her boyfriend, her grief sharpened into agony now. All her hopes and dreams for their relationship, for this holiday, flitted past her like starlings on the breeze. She took an age to respond.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I guess there’s no us then,’ she said. And then she packed her stuff in five minutes flat before making a dramatic exit that would have been perfect, if she hadn’t had to go back ten minutes later, as she’d forgotten her passport, and if her heart hadn’t been broken yet again.

  Siobhan managed to get a flight from Venice to Olbia that afternoon, and she stayed with Sissy for three whole days, which is how long it took Sissy’s parents to turn up. She took on two traumatised children, a widow in hospital with heatstroke and hysteria, and a newly single status. But Siobhan coped better than anyone would have expected. She played endless games of Uno with the kids in the hospital canteen, regaled them with terrible jokes, and then stroked their hair and cuddled them wordlessly when their inevitable tears came; and she sat for hours holding Sissy’s hand; and she tried her hardest to help Nigel’s distraught, bewildered parents, dealing with all the hospital bureaucracy as best she could in her pidgin Italian – and it seemed that in this crisis she came into her own, her usual scattiness replaced with determined utility. And then once Sissy was home, Siobhan visited her every weekend, helping her decorate the scruffy old house she and Nigel had just bought, taking the children on trips to the park to give Sissy a break, doing her best to make things easier for her friend. Even when Sissy finally confessed to Siobhan the truth of how Nigel had died – but begged her not to say a word, saying she couldn’t deal with the fallout – Siobhan had understood. But although she’d complied with Sissy’s wishes she’d secretly prayed that Stephen would eventually get his comeuppance, some day, somehow. And she’d secretly dreamed that she, Siobhan, would one day find a man who loved her as much as Nigel had loved Sissy.

  Part Three

  * * *

  89

  Speke, Liverpool

  In a smart end of terrace house not far from the Hale Road – the only one of the row with tidily blooming petunias in plastic hanging baskets – a small neat woman was preparing to cut up newspapers. Her husband was at the races and she was taking advantage of some time to herself, about to make a scrapbook about her youngest son, Stephen.

  Eileen Forsyth liked making scrapbooks. She had a cupboard full of them, stuffed with Stephen’s achievements. She’d always been so proud of him: of how well he’d done at school, how he’d made it to university, moved to London, got a job at a local newspaper, over time risen through the ranks to become one of the heavyweights of the media world, even sometimes on telly no less. It had been his destiny, she’d felt, she’d always known he was special. She’d spoiled Stephen rotten of course, and she thought that must have helped, turned him into the man he was. And although she never acknowledged it, inside she knew that this deluge of love for him was because she’d left her other, somewhat less appealing son with his father, like a consolation prize, while she’d buggered off to start a new family. Showering Stephen with enough love for two had seemed the obvious thing to do in the circumstances. It had helped her cope with the guilt.

  Today, though, Eileen found herself uncharacteristically hesitant in her crafty pursuits. She’d been armed and ready, scissors poised, glue stick unsheathed, surveying the headlines of the papers spread out in front of her, deciding which one to attack first. But despite it being an incredible story it seemed no-one was coming out in a very good light. Of course Eileen had been shocked when it turned out the body in the lake story had involved not one but both her sons. She’d been appalled when the early headlines surfaced: that Terry was under suspicion for murdering the poor woman, that he’d been trailing Juliette, like some kind of pervert, and she’d been glad then that she’d washed her hands of him, convinced she’d been right all along, he was obviously a loser. But as she sat alone at her glass-topped dining table with the lace tablecloth underneath, dressed in smart polyester trousers and a matching cream blouse, a new picture of the saga started to emerge. It opened her eyes to her sons, made her see each of them in a different light, and she hesitated.

  Eileen sat quietly pondering the two men, as dispassionate
ly now as if they were fictional. Stephen was ruthless, she’d always known that – even as a small boy he would go to abnormal lengths to get what he wanted (like her, came the thought, and she buried it). She didn’t know Terry any more, of course, not even what he looked like until she’d seen the pictures in the papers (and she’d recognised him like a shot, he looked so much like Stephen), but from the little she’d heard over the years he hadn’t made much of a success of himself, his most notable achievement seeming to be having relocated from the lea of one Ford factory to another.

  But it was when Eileen read the coverage of the inquest and realised it was Terry who had tried to save the woman, the only person who had from what she could tell, that she felt proud of her eldest son somehow. In fact she was perversely more proud of that than anything Stephen had ever done, it being a selfless act rather than a selfish one, and she’d begrudgingly admired it, known that neither she nor Stephen had that kind of thing in them. She’d even thought for a moment of ringing Terry – but she hadn’t spoken to him in nearly forty years, what in heavens’ name would she say?

  So after long minutes of vacillation, self-contained, practical-minded Mrs Forsyth (formerly Kingston) finally did the only thing she could think of under the circumstances. She did use her scissors and glue stick to make a scrapbook that day – not one about Stephen after all, but about Terry this time. She kept it, the only evidence of love for her eldest son, hidden away in a cupboard, for it one day to be found by house clearers, and thrown away.

  90

  Charing Cross Road, Central London

  Lucinda Horne couldn’t believe how many people had turned up to her latest book launch, the third in the Bottersley Dog School series. It seemed extraordinary that everyone had come to see her, not Alistair Smart, that they didn’t totally hate her after all. It had been excruciating when Alistair’s wife had gone to the press about her and Alistair’s ‘little arrangement’, as he’d liked to call it, and it had all come out as front-page news – yet another weird offshoot to the long-running saga about the woman who drowned in The Serpentine.

  The bizarre thing about the whole business was that Lucinda had felt most betrayed when it turned out that Alistair had been sleeping with Stephen Forsyth’s wife at the same time as he’d been seeing her. That was when she’d realised how naive she’d been about it all, but when you’re a writer getting nowhere in your bid to be published, who knows what lengths you’d go to – and besides Alistair Smart had been such a hero to her for more than half her life she probably would have done anything for him. What an idiot she’d been! Maybe she should have taken her parents’ advice and got her head out of her books, out of either reading them or writing them, every now and again to see what real life was like. She damned well knew now though, and so far, after a somewhat bumpy start, she found she rather enjoyed it. She was so lucky the public had forgiven her, had seen her as the victim in the scandal, and she’d taken her publicist’s advice to tone down her appearance and now kept her wondrous breasts firmly under wraps. (‘You don’t want the children’s fathers lusting after you, dear,’ her publicist had said. ‘Not after that Alistair Smart business.’)

  Poor Alistair though, she felt so sorry for him – career washed up, thrown out of the family home, his own children embarrassed by him at school, having to endure the other kids constantly woofing at them. His wife had been an utter bitch from what Lucinda had gathered, the last time she’d rung him, he’d sounded desolate, even though he’d just found out his publisher had decided not to sue him for breach of contract after all. And when Lucinda had read last week on the Internet that he’d checked into the Priory for sex addiction she’d felt awful. She could understand now that he might be an addict – he really had been quite obsessed with sex, rather glassy-eyed about it all in fact – but she’d thought that was quite normal behaviour at the time; after all, she’d had nothing much to compare it to.

  Lucinda sighed. She did hope he’d get better. Despite his failings he was still Alistair Smart to her, her inspiration. She’d be nothing without him.

  The mother of the little girl in front of her coughed self-consciously.

  ‘Oh, sorry, it was Amelia, wasn’t it?’ The woman and her daughter nodded, excited smiles fixed on their faces under matching brown bobs.

  ‘To dear Amelia,’ she wrote, ‘enjoy Wowser and the gang’s latest adventure, love Lucinda.’

  Her publicist scowled. ‘You’ll have to go faster than that,’ she whispered. ‘Look at the queue.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Lucinda. She sat back, shook her silky blonde hair out of her face, and turned to the little boy waiting expectantly in front of her.

  ‘Hello!’ she said, smiling guilelessly. ‘And what’s your name, young man?’

  91

  Oxfordshire

  Renée’s Aunt Linda lay drowsily in the velvet-swagged four-poster bed, mulling over what an unbelievably fantastic day she and Sam had just had. The grounds of the old abbey sloped down to the Thames, and they’d had the service right there on the grass in the autumn sunshine, a last-minute weather-related change of heart. The venue had been super, completely devoid of that conference feel so many of those places had, where people sat through countless boring team-building events, drinking gallons of bottled water and sucking Fox’s mints all day. Linda had loved Sam’s dress, it was so flouncy and feminine, not at all Linda’s style of course, but even though Sam had thought she was way too old for it, they’d both thought what the hell, we can get married at last, why not? Linda had looked good too, in a pale-blue trouser suit, and she knew the pictures would be stunning – with the water glinting behind them, the swans wafting along, the newly-wed (OK, newly civil-partnershipped, but it was close enough) smiles ones of jubilation, of their moment having arrived at last.

  The day would have been absolutely perfect, in fact, apart from one ugly incident, and Linda tried not to let it upset her – it didn’t really matter, not in the grand scheme of things. It was unfortunate though that Renée had got so incredibly drunk at the reception, and had had such a horrific go at her mother, which pretty much everyone had heard. Linda’s big sister Simone had come all the way from Paris for the wedding, and although obviously she hadn’t deserved that kind of treatment, secretly Linda had found herself sympathising with her niece a little. She just wished it hadn’t had to happen at her and Sam’s wedding – but it was the first time Renée had seen her mother in years, and it obviously still hurt. Sam hadn’t been at all happy about it, fuming to Linda that Renée and Simone should sort out their issues in private instead of ruining their day, but she’d known not to interfere. Linda had smoothed everything over in her usual implacable way, she hadn’t worked in A&E for over thirty years for nothing, and Renée had calmed down eventually, thank goodness.

  Poor Renée, thought Linda, she’d never been quite the same since her friend had drowned last summer, although Linda had always known it went much further back than that – certainly to her mother, maybe to her father, definitely to when she’d come back from America all those years ago. She’d just drifted in and out of jobs and relationships, grown apart from her former best friend, never properly settled down to anything after university. She seemed to have so little self-respect now for some reason, but whatever it was that had messed her up, she was beginning to show it on her face, her looks had become quite ravaged these days. Linda wondered sadly what would become of Renée, maybe she should suggest she go for counselling or to AA or something. When she and Sam got back from Barcelona she’d take Renée for dinner, try to work out how to help her. Perhaps she could even suggest Renée got back in touch with Juliette, help facilitate some kind of reunion between them. Linda still remembered Renée and Juliette turning up on her doorstep in Camden all those years ago, so fresh-faced and eager, so obviously firmly best friends, despite the ensuing friction over their trip to Somerset House. It was such a shame they’d fallen out, and when Renée had finally sobbed to Linda about it the las
t time they’d got together, albeit after a bottle and a half of red wine, Linda had thought she’d been almost as upset about that as about her friend drowning.

  Yes, Linda decided, she would talk to Renée, after the honeymoon. It was the least she could do for her niece, she was terribly fond of her, and everyone needed a mother figure. After all, Simone had never been there for Renée.

  As Linda lay deep in thought in the voluptuous bed she heard Sam give a little snore, and she turned on to her side to put her arms around her new wife, and she shivered inside, both with worry about Renée and with happiness about Sam – and then she buried her face into Sam’s ample shoulder, and drifted off to sleep.

  92

  Tower Bridge, Central London

  The sun was weak and wintery as Stephen stood on the ledge of his tiny apartment overlooking the river. It wasn’t a balcony as such, but it was just big enough to stand on, get some fresh air. He quite liked living here, although he missed the kids, obviously: the view was amazing and his cleaner kept the apartment spotless, which was a relief after the sluttishness of Wandsworth.

  Stephen was feeling peculiarly optimistic this morning. It had been nearly five months since Siobhan had died, four since Juliette had thrown him out, despite her concerns about the effect it would have on the children, and although he’d lost his job, at least he’d had a whacking big pay-off. Things had finally calmed down on the PR front too now, thank fuck. Once the media had latched onto the story of how the women had abandoned their friend, left her for dead (a prime example of the amorality of our times, according to the Daily Mail) the focus had shifted to them. So although his wife’s antics had indirectly got him the sack they’d perversely also let him off the hook in the end. The interest in his own loser of a brother, his dysfunctional family, his penchant for spying on his wife, had disappeared after a while. Chip paper, he thought with a sly smile. And, almost unbelievably, the rape story had never surfaced, even though there were at least five people who knew now – apart from him – from what he could tell. Juliette had confronted him, the night he’d hit her, and although he’d denied it she’d seen it in his eyes – and anyway she’d said that Renée had confessed at last, at the picnic, admitted she’d lied about the other man in Cleveland raping her. Renée had probably made that whole episode up, he thought, the fucking drama queen. According to Juliette, the only other person Renée had ever told before the night of the picnic was Siobhan, years ago, and she was dead and buried, which was probably just as well. So he was almost certainly safe now: Renée wouldn’t want to go through the ordeal of a trial, especially not with her sexual history, no-one would believe her; and even Juliette wouldn’t do that to the father of her own kids, no matter how much she might hate him herself. The others wouldn’t do anything either, they’d follow Renée’s or Juliette’s lead. Yes, he was off the hook, he was sure of it – and, he reminded himself for the millionth time, it hadn’t been actual rape, not really, more of a drunken misunderstanding. He’d honestly thought she wanted it too, it wasn’t his fault she’d changed her mind too late.