The Best Of Times

by Penny Vincenzi

  It was that he’d allowed himself to think she’d enjoyed being with him as much as he enjoyed being with her; and she hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t.

  She’d just been spending time with him until someone more suitable came along. Abi clearly wanted excitement; she wanted some flashy bloke with plenty of money who could show her a good time, take her to expensive hotels and restaurants and on expensive holidays, not some dull farmer who smelled of cow shit.

  And he didn’t want someone like her, either, did he? He wanted someone he could trust, who would treat him and his life carefully, someone straightforward whom he understood, not a baffling enigma straight out of a bad TV series, who slept around, and took her sexual pleasures like a cat.

  He felt sick, listless, and, perhaps worst of all, foolish. How Abi must have seen him coming; probably imagined he was rich, that he would make a good meal ticket for a while. He couldn’t see that he would ever feel any better…

  ***

  Jack Bryant was exactly the sort of person Sergeant Freeman most disliked. Loud, over-the-top posh accent, old-school tie-not that he recognized that one, and he knew most of them, it was a little hobby of his-signet ring, slicked-back hair, highly polished brogues: he was a caricature.

  It had not actually been very hard to find him. The motoring division confirmed the wheel nut came from an E-Type; there were several reports of a red E-Type on the road that afternoon-immediately in front of the lorry, according to Georgia; and she had been quite sure it had been a personalized number plate. They had checked with various E-Type associations and clubs, and after that it was a simple matter of trawling through the personalized registrations-the DVLA were always very helpful-and making phone calls. The whole thing had been one day’s work.

  However, Freeman was disappointed to discover he couldn’t fault him. Bryant was very articulate, had excellent recall, and was eager to help: yes, he had indeed lost a wheel nut, hadn’t actually discovered it until a week later, when he was checking his car prior to leaving his friends in Scotland. He’d had no idea when it had come off. “But I did check the whole car over very, very carefully, Sergeant, two days before; my mechanic will confirm that. And I gave it a personal check that morning-tyres, oil, all that sort of thing-and I did actually check the wheel nuts myself. Gave them a final go with the old spanner, just to be on the safe side.”

  “The irony of it is,” said Paul Johns from Forensics, “you can overtighten those things. The thread goes. What a bloody tragedy. But if it’s true what he says, absolutely not his fault.”

  ***

  Barney and Emma had had a lovely evening at the Stafford Hotel. They always did. There were guilt and anxiety folded into it, into all of it, but time together was still astonishingly sweet.

  “We have to tell them. Don’t we?”

  He hadn’t said that before-confronted their situation, what it actually meant. She’d been waiting-not too impatiently, for it was he who must act, his life that must so totally change, he who must be surer than sure about the two of them.

  “I love you, Emma. I…” His voice shook slightly. “I don’t love Amanda. I thought I did, of course, but it was an illusion. I am fond of her beyond anything; I hate to make her unhappy, but I can’t marry her. And when she knows, she won’t want it either. So… I will tell her very soon. I hate these lies, hate living them day after day. It’s awful.”

  “Do you think she knows? Suspects… anything?”

  “I don’t know. Would you?”

  “I would, I think. Yes.”

  “Ah. Well, then. Within the next few days.”

  “Oh, Barney.”

  “Oh, Emma. What about you?”

  “He really, really won’t mind that much. He’ll think he does, but he won’t. He’s quite… quite thick-skinned.” And then added, anxious not to blacken Luke, who had seemed so recently everything she wanted, “But so lovely in so many ways.”

  He nodded, looking at her rather solemnly.

  “Like you.”

  “What, thick?”

  “No. Lovely in so many ways. I love you, Emma. So much.”

  “I love you, Barney. So much.”

  ***

  They left the Stafford soon after ten: Emma to go back to Swindon, Barney to go home to Amanda.

  They walked out of the restaurant hand in hand; they had kissed hello, and during the course of the evening had kissed again from time to time, albeit in a very seemly manner, usually because one of them had said something that particularly delighted the other.

  No one could have possibly complained about their behaviour; it had been modest, well mannered, and really rather charming.

  No one, that is, who was unaware of a relationship either of them might have been conducting with another party altogether.

  But as they walked out through the foyer, smiling at each other, Barney failed to recognise that among a rather noisy party of eight, arriving for a posttheatre supper, were Gerard and Jess Richmond. Tamara’s parents. And following them, out of a second taxi, together with a couple of other friends, Tamara herself.

  CHAPTER 37

  “Barney hi. This is Tamara. I thought we might have a little drink this evening. My treat. No, just the two of us. What? Oh, no, Barney, I think you could spare half an hour. It really is quite important. Great. How about One Aldwych? Well, I know it’s a bit of a trek, but maybe better than right on our own doorstep. You know what they say…? Only joking…”

  ***

  Patrick woke early on Thursday morning. Early for him, that was, which meant before six. He had slept badly, which he usually did now they were weaning him off the sleeping pills. They were the worst hours, those early ones, when the depression that he could hold off-just-during the day hung around him like a shroud, when the fears that he would never progress beyond the stage he was at now, bedridden and helpless, never going home, never being together with Maeve and the boys again, never making love to Maeve again-that was one of the worst-those fears were at their strongest, their most dangerous. He had moved himself away-with his own willpower, and the help of the hospital priest-from thoughts of suicide; but the alternative, this death-in-life, seemed little better.

  He looked out of the window at the blackness. Where had God been when he’d needed Him so badly? Looking the other way, it seemed. Well, that would have been Maeve’s explanation…

  He sighed; he was thirsty and hot. Maybe he could get the dear little night nurse, the one who had found him that night and of whom he had grown rather fond, to make him a cup of tea. He rang the bell.

  ***

  Sue Brown made him a cup of tea, and promised to be back soon, but she had to sort out a couple more patients; it was after seven when she got back to Patrick.

  “Right, Patrick, let’s get this job done, shall we? Then you can have your breakfast. I’ll start with your catheter and then give you a nice wash. Let’s see… right…”

  Sue Brown was intent on her task; she didn’t hear the slight intake of breath from the patient as she pulled on the catheter, but as she started to insert a fresh one, there was another. Followed by, “What are you doing there, Sue, putting a bit of barbed wire in?”

  She looked at him; then, afraid even to ask the question, she said, “Patrick, am I hurting you?”

  “Not hurting, no. But it’s not exactly comfortable…”

  Sue Brown closed her eyes, briefly. This was-well, it might be-acutely important.

  She withdrew the catheter again, laid it gently on the tray, and said, “Patrick, I seem to have forgotten something. I’ll be back in one minute, all right?”

  ***

  Jo Wales was drinking a very bitter cup of coffee, thinking that really a hospital that had cost over a billion to build might have spent an extra five hundred on a decent coffee machine, when Sue Brown walked in. Or, to be more accurate, seemed to explode into the space in front of her.

  “Jo… Jo, I don’t know what to do. Could you come with me, please?”<
br />
  “What to do about what, Sue?”

  “It’s Patrick Connell. He… well, I was just changing his catheter and he said it was uncomfortable. The catheter. When I tried to insert it. Was it a piece of barbed wire, he said.”

  Jo stared at her; her heart thumped uncomfortably.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “God, Sue, that is exactly, exactly what we’ve all been waiting for. Let me come in to him straightaway. But… nothing must be said to him yet. All right?”

  “Of course not,” said Sue Brown, half indignantly. “That’s exactly why I’m here, not saying anything to him; I wanted your opinion.”

  And thus it was that five minutes later, Jo Wales smiled radiantly at Sue Brown across Patrick’s bed, having received the same rather plaintive response as she too tried to insert the catheter, and then at Patrick himself, and said, very gently, “Patrick, I think we might have some rather good news here. I’m going to call Dr. Osborne straightaway.”

  Never, as Patrick said to her, after Dr. Osborne had come up to see him personally and first peered at and then prodded it, had his modestly sized willy caused so much excitement.

  ***

  “So… Barney, what would you like? Cocktail? Beer? Or should we push the boat out, have a glass of champagne? Drink to both our forthcoming nuptials?”

  “I’ll have a beer, please,” said Barney.

  “OK. And I think I’ll have something nonalcoholic, actually. I want to keep a clear head.”

  “Fine.”

  “Right… so…” She paused while she gave the order, settled back in her chair. She smiled at him, crossed her long legs rather deliberately. She was wearing a red dress and black, very high-heeled shoes; she looked… what? Slightly dangerous.

  “So… what do you want to talk about?” he said.

  “Well… I don’t know if Toby’s told you, but we’ve got a new date. Next May.”

  “He hasn’t, no. I haven’t seen him for a bit. Now that he’s home…”

  “Ah, yes. So you’re not hotfooting it down to the hospital every few days. What a good friend you were, Barney. How very… unselfish of you that was.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t mind. He’s my best friend. He… needed me.”

  “Of course. Well, I hope you’re not implying I didn’t do my bit?”

  “No, of course not, Tamara. Anyway, May sounds fine. Bit of a way ahead, but…”

  “I know. But apart from anything else, it’s a summer wedding dress. Well, you have to think of these things. What about you, Barney; when are you and Amanda going to do it?”

  “Oh, next year maybe. We haven’t really finalised it yet…”

  “Just as well, perhaps.” She smiled at him oversweetly The drinks arrived. “Oh, thanks,” she said to the waiter. “Got any olives? Great.”

  “Tamara,” said Barney, “what did you mean by ‘just as well’?”

  “Ah. Yes. Well, you know…”

  “No, I don’t know. You’ll have to explain. I’m a simple sort of chap.”

  “Oh, Barney, I’ve decided you’re rather complex. Actually.”

  “Because…?”

  “Well, because you seem to be able to conduct two relationships at once. Not the act of a simple chap, surely.”

  The noise around them seemed to intensify; and yet they seemed oddly isolated, set apart from the rest, just the two of them, staring at each other over this dangerous, deadly conversation.

  “I saw you, Barney; that’s the thing. Leaving the Stafford the other night. With the pretty little doctor person. It does rather explain your devoted presence at the hospital, day after day…”

  “This is a disgusting conversation,” said Barney.

  “I don’t think so. If anything’s disgusting, it’s you. Playing around, cheating on just about the sweetest girl you could find anywhere.”

  “Have you discussed this with Toby?”

  “No, I haven’t discussed it with anyone. Yet. I wanted to get your version of it.”

  “You’re not going to get any version of anything out of me, Tamara. I have no intention of discussing my personal life with you.”

  “Well, I think you might have to. Unless we start with discussing something else.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Starting with the reason you and Toby left so late for the wedding that day. I still haven’t had a satisfactory explanation out of either of you. I really want to know that, Barney. And if you don’t tell me, I’m going straight to Amanda. Before you have a chance to work up any kind of an explanation.”

  “I’ve told you. Toby was ill. He kept being sick.”

  “And why was he being sick?”

  “I suppose he had some bug. I don’t know.”

  “His parents didn’t mention it.”

  “They didn’t know. We-specially Toby-didn’t want to worry them.”

  She crossed and uncrossed her legs, began to fiddle with her necklace. It was a complex affair, a mass of small charms on a long silver chain.

  “This just so doesn’t ring true, you know, Barney.”

  “Look, why don’t you ask Toby?”

  “I have. He says much the same. That he must have eaten something. But you and his parents were fine. Now, I know you were stopped by the police, and that must have held you up a good twenty or thirty minutes. But then you went to a service station. What the fuck for? Making you even later.”

  “Toby needed the toilet. Again.”

  “No, Barney, he could have thrown up out of the car window if you were that late. I’m sorry. None of this works. I’m going to have to talk to Amanda. This evening, I should think.”

  She was looking very complacent now, half smiling at him; she was clearly enjoying the conversation.

  “No!” he said, knowing she must recognise his panic, trying to disguise it. “No, Tamara, not this evening. Look, I don’t want anyone-anyone-talking to Amanda except me. Which is not to say there’s anything to talk about. But please… if you don’t believe me about the wedding day, ask Toby yourself. Ask him to confirm the story.”

  She looked at him, her eyes gimlet-hard, her mouth set. Then she said, “All right. I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”

  “And will you talk to Toby?”

  “Yes, I most certainly will. Right. Well, it’s been a fun evening, hasn’t it? Bye, Barney.”

  And she stalked out of the bar on her impossibly perfect legs, pulling her cloud of hair up into a tight ponytail as she went. It was an oddly pugilistic gesture.

  CHAPTER 38

  “Linda? Alex.”

  “Oh… Alex. Hello.” She did have a great voice: husky and sexy and expressive. “Saturday was great, Alex.”

  “I thought so too.”

  He was in the car, about to drive home; he smiled into the darkness, feeling a rush of pleasure, partly from hearing her voice, partly from remembering Saturday himself.

  They’d gone to the theatre to see Chicago; it had been at his suggestion. She’d said she couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it, which he’d found mildly irritating-not everyone could spend every other evening in the theatre-but then she said she’d be more than happy to sit through it for the third time. They then went out to dinner, and talked so much and for so long that he really had missed his last train home.

  “Damn,” he said, “I’ll have to get a cab. If I can. Or stay in a hotel. If I can find one.”

  “Or… stay with me,” she said, and then added, a gleam in her dark brown eyes, “if you dare.”

  And when he’d got flustered she’d laughed and said, “Alex, I’m not compromising you. I have a very nice spare room, and you’re very welcome to it. Don’t start talking about taxis and hotels; it’s ridiculous.”

  And so he’d gone back to her incredibly smart flat, the sort of place he hated, full of aggressively stylish, uncomfortable-looking modern furniture-although she did have two wonderfully large and lush white sofas-and a lot of ridiculous and incomprehensible paintings
and rather absurd ornaments.

  “What would you like to drink?”

  “Brandy?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  She returned with a tray, poured him a very large brandy.

  “Thanks.” He suddenly felt awkward; a silence formed. He looked round the room, the perfect room, looking for something to say. “It’s all extremely… tidy,” he said.

  “I am extremely tidy. Too tidy, people tell me. It means I’m anally retentive, a control freak, all that sort of stuff. What about you?”

  “I’m very untidy. So does that make me not a control freak?”

  “Possibly. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, Linda. I don’t feel I know what I am anymore.”

  “That’s a very sad remark,” she said, and her eyes were thoughtful as she looked at him.

  “I’m afraid I’ve become a bit of a sad person. In the modern sense as well. My daughter constantly upbraids me for being sad.”

  “What… as in the get-a-life sense?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I don’t think that matters. Much more important if you’re actually not… not happy.”

  “I’m not,” he said abruptly. “I would say I’m quite unhappy. Have been for years.”

  “Alex, that’s dreadful.”

  “Oh, I love my work. I love my kids. But… it isn’t very nice, living with someone who finds you totally wanting. Knowing they wish you weren’t there.”

  “This is your wife, I presume.”

  “It is. My about-to-be-ex-wife. We’re trying to sort out accommodation. It’s very difficult. I think I told you… we’ve sold the house, only a matter of time.”