Venetia yawned delicately like a cat and said, ‘We shared a flat ages ago, but not for long. It was a madhouse - a complete tip, wasn’t it, Nella?’ Largely because Venetia didn’t understand one of the basic principles of housework - that sadly for all of us there is no house elf who comes out and does it while we’re all asleep. ‘And Lucy or Katie were always stumping around complaining that somebody had hogged the bathroom for hours’ (Venetia), ‘used all the hot water’ (Venetia), ‘forgotten it was her turn to buy loo paper and milk’ (Venetia), ‘or had borrowed their best top and not returned it.’ (Never Venetia. None of us had stylish enough wardrobes for her tastes.) ‘And Lucy was so grumpy about anyone using the telephone, wasn’t she?’ she asked me. The first phone bill after Venetia moved in went up from the normal £100 to £550. She couldn’t understand it, she said, as she was absolutely scrupulous about making her calls to the States in cheap time.
She smiled at the assembled company. ‘I only stayed for a couple of months, then I got the offer of a really nice flat in Hampstead.’ With a really nice company director with a really nice bank account. Venetia had always followed the old adage about loving where money was. We’d all been distinctly miffed that the gilt-edged wedding invitation had failed to arrive but maybe we’d done her an injustice. Her perfectly manicured hand, with immaculately painted nails, was bare of engagement or wedding rings.
‘How long did you stick at that place?’ she asked me.
‘About a year after you left, then we got compulsorily purchased and I moved to where I am now.’ Her eyebrows went up to indicate her astonishment that anyone could have lasted that long. It hadn’t exactly been Venetia’s style. There wasn’t a single item of designer furniture in the flat, not even a Dualit toaster.
‘I’m so glad you’re here. It’s going to be so nice having someone around I can talk to,’ she said expansively, displaying a keenness for my company that I couldn’t remember her having before and which I couldn’t help feeling was a deliberate dig at her stepmother.
Certainly Janey gave her stepdaughter a distinctly old-fashioned look as she helped herself to a glass of wine, while Venetia told us all to sit down in a hostessy manner. Two men stepped out of French windows from the house and the dogs leaped up from where they’d been lying under the table, crashing into the legs and making the wine in our glasses splash around violently.
‘It’s about time Lily was given some proper training,’ Venetia muttered, dabbing at a small splash of white wine on her T-shirt. ‘Look what she’s done. This is probably ruined.’
‘It’ll wash out,’ Janey said peaceably. ‘Unless it’s one of your designer dry clean only numbers, in which case it’ll dry clean.’
Both men were looking very pleased with themselves. The tourists had had very well-filled pockets, apparently. Tom had persuaded Monsieur to take the red and the rosé, while Jed had charmed Madame into tasting and then buying the second-string white. ‘There’s nothing like getting our guests to work for their supper,’ Tom said in a satisfied voice, adding that he hoped the tourists had good suspension on their car because they were going to need it. He walked around the table, saying his hellos and shaking hands. Maggie got a double kiss too, which seemed to please her no end. And no wonder, for even though he must have been in his early fifties, Tom Morrison was a very attractive man indeed. He wasn’t particularly tall, and though he still had a lot of hair it was iron grey, but he looked fit and tough and his tanned face was deeply scored with laughter lines around a wide mouth and green eyes that were exactly the same as Venetia’s but held infinitely more humour and life. I suspected when he told me how nice it was to meet an old friend of Venetia’s, with a sideways look that made me believe he really meant it, that he was also a very accomplished flirt indeed. I’ve never been into older men but as I sat back in my chair, undoubtedly with the same sort of silly expression as Maggie had on her face, I thought that for the first time I could see the point of them. Lucky Janey.
Actually his companion was a bit of all right too. Sod’s law would normally have it that any man who is foisted on your sofa bed is going to look like he rightly belongs under a stone, but this one was going to be a definite decorative addition. Maggie was giving him the full eyelash-fluttering routine - to the barely concealed displeasure of Phil who was not, apparently, a believer in sauce for both geese and ganders - and even Oscar was treating him to the connoisseur’s once-over. Jed had those Californian-style good looks which come from good nutrition, excellent dentistry and hours spent surfing - except that he spoke with one of those mid-Atlantic accents that meant he could have come from almost anywhere, even Salford. It was going to be no hardship having to meet him before breakfast, I decided. He’d even been decent enough to declare he’d positively enjoy sleeping on the sofa bed.
‘Don’t mention it. I’m just grateful for the way you’ve helped Janey out by offering to put me up at all,’ Jed said in response to Maggie’s repeated apologies.
Offer? Maggie had the grace to colour under several accusing glances and wisely said nothing, taking a sip from her glass instead and turning to Tom to make a fulsome compliment on how good it was and ask what grape varieties he used to make his wine. An hour later there was a general feeling that we’d better make our farewells before we outstayed our welcome and we’d all got to our feet, when the dogs who had been peacefully asleep under the table, leaped up again and dashed off down the terrace giving joyous voice. ‘Oh, that must be Rob back at last,’ said Janey. ‘Don’t go before you’ve had a chance to say hello to him. I’m sure you’ll like him.’
My heart hit my sandalled feet long before anybody came into sight. I could hear him as he fended off enthusiastic, canine attentions and even after all these years, it only took a couple of words for me to recognise that voice. And I’d been afraid Jed might be George... I laughed hollowly. Oscar and Sally looked at me as if I’d gone quite mad. Not surprising really; most people don’t find a half-empty dish of olives particularly amusing. To think I’d wasted a single moment worrying about what Venetia might let out. All around me I could feel cupboard doors being flung open and skeletons catapulting out by the dozen. If only I could sneak off and find another gate out of the garden while everyone was busy with introductions - but the high box hedge looked depressingly impenetrable.
It’s all very well deciding to face the music, but that doesn’t stop you trying to put off the evil moment. I shrank into the rear of the group, wondering if there was any chance he might not recognise me. The designer sunglasses I’d treated myself to in London were absolutely enormous and covered at least half of my face. Surely they should be as effective as a slouch hat, shouldn’t they? And then if I got away scot free I could spend the rest of the holiday in my bedroom.
I peeped cautiously around the protective screen of Oscar’s head as Tom was introducing Robert to Maggie and Phil. He’d hardly changed at all. There were a few lines around his slash of a mouth that hadn’t been there before, but they could hardly be blamed on what I’d done to him, as he was in his thirties now. He still had loads of dark tousled hair that never seemed to lie flat, a problem exacerbated by his habit of running his fingers through it whenever he was thinking about something, and he was as lankily slim as ever. In fact he looked pretty good, better than he had before, now that he had a touch of maturity, I thought, feeling more depressed by the second. Not even Oscar could pretend that I looked better than I did nine years ago. And if you’ve got to have an excruciatingly embarrassing encounter, it does absolutely nothing to boost your courage when you realise his first reaction on seeing you will be profound relief that he got out of that one when he did.
‘And Ellie even shared a flat with Venetia at one time,’ Tom said expansively. ‘How’s that for a coincidence?’
‘Considering the number of flats Venetia’s lived in, she must have shared with enough people to populate a small town,’ said Robert with a smile, turning his head in my direction as Oscar
began to obligingly move sideways to give him an uninterrupted view. ‘I got into a couchette in Paris once with five strangers and discovered that I had friends in common with everyone, so I know how small a world it is.’
Tom put his hand on my arm. ‘This is Ellie.’
‘Nella,’ Janey corrected him.
The new sunglasses were obviously bog-all use as a disguise for it took only one glance for Robert’s eyes, clear grey like winter water, to harden into chips of granite. ‘I don’t need introducing to Nella,’ he interrupted flatly. ‘We already know each other.’
‘Hello, Robert,’ I said weakly. I hadn’t really expected him to sound as if he was pleased to see me again, but it would have been nice. I’d have settled for indifference even. Actually he sounded as if he would have preferred to find a tarantula on his pillow than have me within his sightline. But since, if it hadn’t been for me landing him in jail, he’d now be streaking his way up through the layers of the law, on the fast track to success, vast fees and no doubt an eventual judgeship, I suppose you couldn’t really blame him.
CHAPTER 3
Strangely enough the only person who appeared to notice the icicles dropping off Robert’s tongue was Janey, who gave me a surprised look, obviously putting two and two together and coming up with a fairly accurate four. Even the normally quick-witted Oscar was too busy marvelling at this coincidence to have noticed that, instead of catching up with years of gossip like the normal run of old university friends, Robert and I were keeping as great a distance between us as was possible without one of us actually falling off the edge of the terrace into the swimming pool.
Tom insisted on opening another bottle so we could celebrate the reunion of old friends. Luckily for my peace of mind there were several amongst the gathering who got restless if they weren’t centre-stage so I was able to sit back pretending I wasn’t there. I knew the awkward questions would come eventually, but I needed time to prepare myself. I knew, too, that I was going to have to talk to Robert sometime, and I didn’t relish the prospect. My heart sank as Tom suggested that we stay for supper; it was only going to be something on the barbecue so he knew Janey wouldn’t mind. Maggie was looking dangerously ready to accept for all of us, even though we’d already been informed, with a slightly martyrish air, that she’d made a special journey to the Sunday market in the local town to buy something absolutely fresh for our dinner. Fortunately, before I expired through nervous tension, Jed took a quick look at Janey’s set face and said, ‘Say, Tom, don’t you think Janey needs a little more notice about having six extra to cater for?’
She gratefully murmured that she had been planning on cooking trout - and they were difficult to stretch. ‘Let’s make it tomorrow,’ Tom said firmly. There was a chorus of we’d all love it and were looking forward to it, including a somewhat insincere echo from myself. Perhaps I could develop acute appendicitis in the next twenty-four hours, I thought hopefully. I’d heard that French hospitals weren’t too bad and even served you wine with your meals. But Robert might feel obliged to pay me a hospital visit and I didn’t like to think what he might do if I were lying helpless in front of him. Though he might have calmed down a bit in nine years. It didn’t look like it though, I thought, shooting him a cautious glance, unless someone else around the table had produced those rigid lines at the corner of his mouth.
‘So how do you know Robert?’ asked Charlie as we were walking back to the cottage. ‘You weren’t in the same year at uni, surely?’
‘No, he was in his final year when I arrived,’ I answered with admirable casualness. There’s nothing like having your story prepared and I hadn’t been a Girl Guide for nothing. ‘I got to know him when we were both involved in a student panto - it was great fun.’
isn’t a person around who doesn’t secretly wish that they’d had a chance to stand on the edge of the stage going, ‘Oh yes it is!’ while the audience roars back, ‘Oh no it isn’t!’ or even to chant, ‘Oompa, oompa, stuff it up your jumper.’ As I’d hoped, every one of my listeners promptly lost all interest in Robert and me and started demanding to know which pantomime it had been and if I remembered any of the jokes. Panto stories carried me all the way back to the cottage and through the preparations for supper. Before it could belatedly occur to anyone to wonder why Robert and I hadn’t been exchanging panto stories too I claimed I was tired and shot off to the safety of my single room. The excuse was even true, for once - nervous tension is exhausting.
Thank God I’d stuck to my guns and refused to share with Oscar, I thought as I sat down wearily on the bed. Quite apart from being forced to keep it tidy, since he’s fussy about that sort of thing, I was fairly sure that his antennae had already begun to twitch. He has an ability approaching genius for knowing when his friends are holding out on him, and he’d been eyeing me closely. I reckon I could have held out for about three minutes in an after lights-out probing session before I spilt all the beans. It wasn’t so much that I minded him knowing about it - well, about some of it - but I was pretty sure Oscar wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to try to do something to clear the air, mend a few fences, mop up some spilt milk et cetera, and the result would not have been Robert and me falling on each other’s necks swearing undying friendship. I’ve experienced Oscar’s attempts to organise my life for me before. All I can say is that he means well.
I woke up early, to what looked like a glorious day. The sky was a sheet of duck-egg blue, flecked with the tiniest wispiest clouds being moved about by a faint breeze that would prove very welcome as the temperature rose. Since I doubted the other occupants of the cottage would be so thrilled by the beauties of the early morning I tiptoed cautiously down the narrow wooden stairs to the sitting room and in the direction of the kettle. I jumped with surprise when I saw a fair head almost submerged under a sheet on the sofa bed and nearly undid all my good work by knocking against a chair which slid noisily over the flagstoned floor. Luckily Jed didn’t appear to be a light sleeper, but not caring to put it to the test a second time, I abandoned my original idea of opening the doors and taking my coffee out on to the terrace. Instead I opened the shutters at the kitchen window, slowly, slowly in case of noisy squeaking hinges, and sat on the kitchen table which was exactly the right height for a moody examination of the view. Resting my hand on my chin, I looked out at the still hazy vineyards stretching away in the distance, hoping that this nice peaceful scene would give me nice peaceful thoughts.
It didn’t work, of course. I couldn’t see the château from here, but it didn’t stop my thoughts from going in that direction, and to its occupants - one occupant in particular. It was what my thoughts had been doing all night, and what had made me too restless to stay in bed. I felt as if I’d strayed into the screenplay of an updated Casablanca. In all the châteaux, in all the vineyards, in all of France - why did he have to turn up at this one? Except that unlike Ingrid Bergman I hadn’t acted out of nobility and self-sacrifice and, judging by his expression last night, I wasn’t going to get forgiven by my Rick either. I sighed deeply, taking a swig of tepid coffee, too wrapped up in my troubled thoughts to be bothered to get up off the table to make some more.
During my first term at university, a friend inveigled me into keeping her company while she auditioned for a panto being put on by one of the theatre groups. She swore it wasn’t an outfit where we’d be expected to beg for the privilege of moving the scenery, there’d be absolutely nothing in the original Greek, and the director had been heard being encouragingly politically incorrect about the sort of plays where the actors walk around with blank masks in front of their faces and are deeply meaningful. The panto was written each year by the production team and any of their friends who could come up with properly corny jokes or suitably scurrilous doubles entendres about various lecturers. I made protesting noises about it not being my sort of thing until Jessica confessed that she didn’t have a burning ambition to tread the boards either, but she did have a very keen interest in
getting to know the producer a lot better. Mike was, in her words, a bit of all right and the sexiest thing in boxer shorts she’d seen that year. Well, she hadn’t yet managed to confirm the boxer shorts, but I got her general gist.
In that case, how could I say no? You owe it to your friends to help them along in their love lives, don’t you, so that meant I was obliged to go and give Jessica some moral support as she tried out for a part in Ali Baa Baa and the Rest of the Flock.
As it happens, I too had a secret reason for allowing my arm to be twisted. When I’d said I might be going to the auditions with Jess, several girls had raised their eyebrows meaningfully and implied that my true motivation lay not with supporting the sisterhood but with getting a better look at the panto’s director who, by all accounts, was one of the tastier bits of talent around. My interest was definitely aroused, but after my first sight of Robert in a chilly rehearsal hall, sitting with lanky legs pushed out in front of him, head bent over a tatty and much corrected script making corrections, I wondered what all the hoo-ha was about. With that long nose and wide mouth he could hardly be called good-looking and I’d never been keen on skinny men. While Jess sat beside me bursting with suppressed longing and shooting sly looks from under her eyelashes at her Mike, I fished my book out of my bag and settled down to indulge myself with a hero far more to my taste than any of those in the hall with me.
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