A Time for Friends (54 page)

‘My dad’s having an affair. He was with the other woman when he had his heart attack down in Battery Park City. She works in finance too.’

Jackson gave a long low whistle. ‘Badass!’

She longed to tell him the even worse news about her father’s financial losses but that was a step too far. She didn’t want to scare Jackson off completely. He was the nicest
boyfriend she had ever had. He didn’t do drugs; he was generous and thoughtful, unlike some of her exes who were tight with money, letting her pay when they were on dates. If Jackson left her
she would be devastated.

‘Would you ever cheat on me?’ She raised tearstained eyes to him.

‘Nevah,
evah
,’ he said in the soft Bostonian twang she loved.

‘Are you
sure
?’ she probed, wishing she could believe him.

‘I aam!
Absolutely
,’ Jackson assured her with all the fervour of youthful principle as he held her in his arms.

‘So I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ Hilary said comfortingly. She had just emailed Colette her flight details and had got an instant phone call back.

‘There’ll be a car and a driver waiting at JFK. I can’t wait to see you. It’s been so horrendously awful.’ Colette burst into tears.

‘I can’t imagine,’ Hilary said sympathetically. ‘Try your best to rest and sleep tonight.’

‘OK,’ sobbed her friend, hanging up.

‘I’m glad I said I’d go. I’ve never heard Colette in such a state.’ Hilary plonked down on the sofa beside Niall.

‘Just one thing, Hil!’ her husband said warningly.

‘What’s that?’ She looked at him warily.

‘Don’t get involved and don’t give advice. It’s not your drama. They have to sort it out between them. Knowing Colette of old, I’d imagine Des will pay dearly for
his transgressions,’ he added cynically.

‘Well he deserves to, the skunk,’ Hilary protested.

‘Whether he deserve to or not, that’s not your call to make. Support Colette by all means but stay out of their business is my advice to you, for what it’s worth.’ Niall
looked down at her and smiled his familiar smile that always lifted her no matter what.

‘Sound advice, hubby dearest,’ she sighed. ‘Do you want a ride before I go?’

‘No I’m saving myself for that young blonde Swedish au pair down in No. 184, when you’re gone,’ he teased, sliding his hand up under her jumper.

‘If you think Colette would be a tough cookie, she’d be nothing compared to me if I caught you with another woman.’ Hilary began to open the buttons of his shirt.

‘Why, what would you do?’ Niall grinned.

‘I’d slash your bodhráns and break your banjo into smithereens. Over your head probably,’ she teased.

‘My
bodhráns
! You sure know how to scare a musician. I’ll
never
stray,’ he murmured, kissing her with soft, lingering kisses until she moaned
underneath him, tugging his belt open as he raised her jumper over her head and unhooked her bra.

‘I love you, Niall,’ she whispered against his mouth. ‘Just shove a cushion under my back or I’ll be creased on the plane in the morning. The sofa’s too soft for us
to be carrying on like this at our age,’ she said ruefully.

‘Speak for yourself, I’m in my prime, and now I’m going to prove it, if I can straighten my knee out, that is.’ He smiled down at her, placing a cushion under the small
of her back and tightening his arms around her as the firelight flickered in the stove and the rain lashed down on the Velux window above them.

‘I feel like getting hammered!’ Colette confessed, topping up Hilary’s wine glass.

‘That’s understandable. Go for it, I say.’ Hilary ate some of Encarna’s feather-light pastry and chicken.

‘I hope you don’t mind us not going out for dinner. I’m completely wiped.’ Colette took a slug of chilled Chardonnay.

‘I’m tired myself. I was up early and the flight was very bumpy. This is perfect. And besides we can talk and get tiddly and not have to worry about getting home. We can just tumble
into bed,’ Hilary said reassuringly. ‘And you can rant and rave in peace. Get it off your chest, Colette, because it must be hard not being able to have a go at Des. That’s what
would drive me mad, if I were in your shoes,’ Hilary said sympathetically.

‘
Exactly
, Hilary. It’s doing my head in,’ Colette fumed. ‘I want to scream at him, curse at him, pummel him, and I can’t. It would be good enough for him
if he had another heart attack and died. At least I’d get the insurance.’

‘Aren’t you going to eat anything?’ Hilary pointed her fork at Colette’s plate. She had hardly touched the chicken pot pie.

‘I can’t! I feel sick. My stomach is tied up in knots.’ Colette pushed the plate away.

‘What are you going to do? Have you made any plans?’ Hilary asked gently.

‘I’m going back to London.’

‘For a while?’

‘No, for good!’ Colette said grimly.

‘Surely you couldn’t leave Manhattan and the gallery and your friends? And what about Jazzy?’ Hilary rested her elbows on the table, dropped her chin into her hands and studied
her friend intently. Colette was drawn and tired and unusually pale. And utterly subdued.

‘Jazzy can make up her own mind about what she wants to do. Thank God I have a home to go to in London. If I’d signed those papers without reading them, God knows what he would have
done.’

‘It was probably panic. I’m sure he wasn’t thinking straight. It must have been awful for Des to discover he’d been ripped off.’ Hilary tried to ease
Colette’s distress.

‘As awful as it was for me to discover he was trying to pull a fast one on me,’ she retorted. ‘I’ll never be able to trust him again.
Ever!
’ she said
vehemently.

‘Do you know how much money is gone?’

‘Nope! I’m afraid to find out. I’ll hardly even get a decent divorce settlement,’ she said bitterly. ‘What’s the point of taking him to the cleaner’s if
there’s nothing to clean out?’

‘But haven’t you got properties?’

‘We sold them after the Lehman Brothers fiasco. I’d say that’s the money that he invested with Madoff. I’m sure we’re not penniless but we can’t sustain
this
lifestyle any more.’ She waved around at the large L-shaped kitchen diner, and the more formal dining room behind the panelled double doors.

‘Get a less expensive apartment.’ Hilary nibbled on a carrot baton coated in creamy chicken sauce.

‘I couldn’t
bear
that, Hilary,’ Colette exclaimed. ‘That fucking idiot has ruined everything we’ve worked for. Our social standing, our lifestyle, our
pensions, Jazzy’s marriage prospects. You think there’s snobbery at home? Trust me, it’s trifling compared to what goes on here. Once you’re on the slope down they
don’t want to know you. You become invisible. I won’t stand for that. I won’t let them edge me out. I won’t become a nobody because my fool of a husband lost our money. I
will never, ever let anyone except myself direct my life again. I have the apartment in London. I can work to support myself. And no one over there need ever know the details of what’s
happened here. I’ll just reinvent myself and do it solo.’

‘Why don’t you go to London for a while and see how it goes without being too final about it?’ Hilary suggested diplomatically.

‘I don’t
want
to live in some crappy egg box, midtown, fighting Des for maintenance money he won’t have. I don’t want to be dumped off my charity boards because
I can’t afford the whopping donation fees that are the price for being on them. I don’t want to pass restaurants I didn’t think twice about dining in because I can’t afford
to eat in them. I don’t want to give up my Platinum card for an ordinary one. I don’t want to slum it on public transport. I don’t want to fly coach,’ Colette retorted.
‘Call me a snob if you like, but I worked hard for the lifestyle that I’ve had until now. It would just make me utterly, utterly depressed to give it up. We were supposed to be going to
St Barts for a week in February. Where’s he going to bring me now? New Jersey? Let him bring his mistress there and see how long she stays with him.’ Colette took another slug of her
wine, her eyes glittering with anger and unshed tears.

Hilary stayed silent. She certainly understood Colette’s reasons for leaving New York but she didn’t know what to say to soothe her, but at least Colette was expressing her anger and
not keeping it bottled up.

‘Should I go to visit Des?’ she ventured.

‘I don’t care. It’s up to you,’ Colette said sullenly, going to the fridge to get another bottle. ‘Come on, let’s go into the den, I’ll switch on the
fire. You’re doing a lot of wriggling on the chair. What’s wrong with your back?’

‘It’s a bit dodgy at the minute,’ Hilary explained, following Colette into the elegant cream-and-claret-toned room. She stretched out on a recliner chair. ‘Oh!
That’s better,’ she sighed as the niggle in her back eased. ‘I suppose it didn’t help having a ride on the settee last night and then having a six-hour flight today.’
She sipped her wine.

‘Why didn’t you do it in bed?’ Colette looked at Hilary over the rim of her glass as she lay curled up on the sofa.

‘We got carried away,’ Hilary laughed. ‘We’re having a revival now that the girls don’t live at home any more.’

‘After all these years! Are you for real? I can’t remember the last time I got carried away,’ Colette said morosely. ‘You’re a lucky wagon.’

‘Yeah, I suppose I am,’ Hilary conceded, hoping Colette wouldn’t become a surly drunk.

‘Do you think St Niall would cheat on you?’ The question was fuelled with anger and drunken resentment.

‘That’s not nice, Colette,’ rebuked Hilary. ‘And the answer is I don’t know. Does anyone?’

‘But you have the
perfect
marriage, don’t you?’ Colette said sarcastically. Drink always gave her a hard edge.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course I don’t!’ Hilary scoffed. ‘There’s no such thing as the perfect marriage. Niall and I drive each other mad sometimes and
we’ve had our ups and downs, especially when business was booming and I was flat out at work and feeling a lot of resentment towards him because I felt he wasn’t backing me up, and he
felt I was putting work before him. No way is my marriage perfect but we work through our stuff and we still love each other, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose so,’ Colette muttered.

‘Do you still love, Des?’ Hilary demanded.

‘Oh! I . . . I don’t know. We complement each other. We have the same interests and goals. We’re a good team.
Were
a good team!’ she corrected herself.

‘And do you still fancy him?’ Hilary asked bluntly.

‘We’ve been married nearly twenty-five years, for God’s sake. That wears off!’ Colette exclaimed exasperatedly.

‘Well actually it doesn’t, Colette. I still fancy Niall big time. He turns me on and I turn him on and that’s as important as anything else in our marriage. Perhaps you should
go to counselling.’

‘That would be hard if I’m living in London and he’s living here,’ jeered Colette.

‘Not if you get on your broomstick,’ Hilary retorted, glaring at her.

‘Bitch!’ Colette snapped.

‘Good though, wasn’t it?’ Hilary grinned.

‘You always were a sarky cow!’

‘
Moi?
’ Hilary teased. ‘I was only trotting after you.’ She fanned herself with her hand as a hot flush engulfed her.

‘Are you having flashes?’ Colette eyed her in surprise.

‘If you mean flushes, yes.’ Hilary blew some air up onto her face. ‘Have you started yet?’

‘Are you crazy? I’m not putting up with that carry-on. I’m on HRT. You should be on it too. No wonder your skin has lost its tone and you’re creaking.’

‘Thanks,’ Hilary said caustically.

‘Well you know what I mean. What are you letting yourself go for, when you can do something about it? HRT’s fantastic.’

‘Listen, when you come off it you’ll have the flashes as you call them, so you’re just putting it off. I just want to get it over and done with.’

‘Well at least I’m keeping my looks and my flexibility, and I’m not a cranky dried-up old crab. The menopause is the last thing I need on top of this.’

‘True,’ conceded Hilary. ‘That could send you over the top completely. You wouldn’t even need a broomstick.’ Colette laughed and the tense atmosphere
evaporated.

‘Are you going to tell your parents?’ Hilary tried not to yawn. She was longing to go to bed but she had flown over the Atlantic to support her friend; it would be rude to plead jet
lag.

‘Are you
mad
? And have Dad lording it over Des?’ Colette derided.

‘So! You still feel loyalty towards him. That’s something to hold on to.’

‘No, Hil!’ Colette shook her head. ‘That was an automatic response, and I don’t want Dad thinking my judgement was seriously flawed, which it obviously was. Des will not
get one scintilla of loyalty from me ever again. He showed me none.
None!
’ Her voice rose. ‘He tried to get me to sign away my apartment. As long as I live I will never forgive
him for that. I could have coped with the other woman. But not that! And don’t tell me you could forgive if Niall did that to you, and lost the girls’ inheritance because he was a
stupid dumbass.’

‘I know. I couldn’t.’ Hilary got up from the chair and went over to Colette and put her arm around her. ‘Just tell me what you want me to do and how I can help. You know
I’m here for you. And I can come over to London and help you to settle back in if you want,’ she offered generously.

‘Thanks, Hil.’ Colette laid her head on her shoulder. ‘I know I can always depend on you.’

‘Jazzy, it’s so good to see you, you look amazing,’ Hilary said warmly the following morning when Jasmine arrived at the apartment to join them for
brunch.

‘Thanks, Hilary. I was only talking to Mom about you at lunch yesterday. Little did I think I’d actually be seeing you.’ Jazzy kissed her and then hugged Colette. ‘Hi,
Mom. You look a train wreck.’

‘Thanks,’ Colette drawled.

‘I’m sorry it’s under difficult circumstances,’ Hilary said kindly.