Best of Friends (39 page)

“That sounds nice,” said Lizzie, thinking of her hopes of some wild nightlife to make up for her dull evenings back home. Maybe they could go to an exotic nightclub the following night.

Nina’s mother was a rounded version of her daughter, with the same narrow, earnest face and the same mop of curls, although Edie’s hair was silver instead of blonde. She was also at least twelve years older than Lizzie and although she didn’t fit into any little-old-lady mould personalitywise, she was very stiff, thanks to arthritis, and seemed to appreciate being helped into taxis and having tea delivered to her in china cups with saucers.

She had a wry sense of humour too and was fun to talk to, which was just as well, Lizzie thought, since Nina and Joe appeared to think that the two older women would be content to sit together in the restaurant and gossip. Edie had seven grandchildren and loved talking about them, Nina said affectionately, clearly assuming that Lizzie, being of Edie’s vintage, would be just as keen to discuss the sleeping patterns of two-year-olds. As Edie talked of her darling grandkids, Lizzie finished her first glass of wine and got well stuck into the second. Edie was sweet, but Lizzie had hoped for a bit more than this on her holiday. She could talk at home but she was here to enjoy herself.

With the added courage of the wine and no bread to mop it up inside her, she chanced a daring smile at the waiter as he placed her prawns in front of her.

“Thank you,” she said in what she hoped was a husky, sexy voice. Weren’t men supposed to be mad for older women to initiate them in the pleasures of the flesh? She must get her legs waxed, though. And buy some of that oil the supermodels used to give their skin sheen. G-strings were in too, although Lizzie had never dared try one. But she might buy some here where no one in the shop would recognise her. Sacrifices had to be made for a new life.

Eyes shining with happiness at the thought of this life-altering plan and the new her that would emerge, butterfly-like, Lizzie had another slug of wine.

“Do you wear G-strings, Nina? I don’t like them but they are sexy, aren’t they?”

You could have heard a pin drop. Joe choked on his spring roll and Nina’s face was a picture. Only Edie seemed unperturbed at this strange shift in the conversation.

“I couldn’t be bothered myself, Lizzie,” she said seriously. “I bought one once at an underwear party. They’re not made for the ordinary backside.”

The waiter, back with more bread and some salad dressing, stopped in shock but recovered quickly. “Anything else?” he enquired, looking slightly afraid of what these two mad women would ask for next.

Edie looked at the bottle of wine, which was now empty, mostly in her and Lizzie’s glasses. “Another bottle, love,” she said, and winked at him.

Lizzie giggled into her wine glass.

“You have to flirt, don’t you?” Edie remarked. “Reminds you you’re still alive.”

The horrified gulp from Nina sent Lizzie off into another fit of giggles.

After that, Edie and Lizzie got on like a house on fire. Edie knew what it felt like to have close friends die, although these friends were older than Sally Richardson had been. But still, she
understood.

“Young people think they’re going to last for ever,” Edie said slowly as they drank coffees while their offspring chatted happily to each other. “It’s a shock when you realise that even you are mortal.”

Lizzie nodded. “What’s hardest to think about are the two small children she left behind,” she said. “But, even though it was short, she had a good life. She had a wonderful husband and family.” The wine made Lizzie tearful. “Sally lived life to the full.”

“If I shuffled off this mortal coil tomorrow, I doubt if anyone would say that about me,” said Edie, patting Lizzie’s hand in comfort.

“Nor me,” Lizzie replied. But that was going to change.

As she got ready for bed at midnight, Lizzie decided that a big glass of water beside the bed would be a good idea, after all that wine followed by two liqueurs. Not bothering to slip on her dressing gown over her ancient teddy-bear-patterned nightie, she padded barefoot down the hall and into the kitchen. Nina and Joe were still up—she could hear their voices from the small living room. The walls of the apartment were so thin, Joe said, that he could sometimes hear the woman next door’s phone ring and think it was his.

Lizzie filled a glass with filtered water from the fridge, flicked off the kitchen light and went back into the small hall. Dinner had been great; she’d just pop her head round the door and say thanks again.

But standing at the door with her glass in her hand, Lizzie could hear clearly what Joe and Nina were saying.

“I’d love Mum to have someone in her life but I don’t see it happening,” Joe said. “She’s locked in the past. I mean, she does her best to be brave about it all but it scares me that she’s never got over the divorce—that she just
says
she has.”

Lizzie could hear what sounded like Nina kissing him and making soothing noises.

“It’s not as if they had this great marriage anyway,” Joe went on. “I knew it wasn’t right, Dad did and even Debra did, but Mum said she had no clue. How could she not see it?”

“People hide from the truth,” Nina suggested. “If they’re scared of something, they pretend it’s not happening. Your mum’s lovely but she is a bit dizzy like that. I can just see her carrying on as if everything was OK—like she knew the marriage was dead but didn’t want to admit it. Lots of women do that, apparently.”

“I don’t know,” sighed Joe. “That’s why I find it hard to deal with it all. She should move on but she can’t. She’s stuck in this time warp where it’s as if Dad’s just gone out for the day and he’ll be back. It’s not healthy. She says she’s fine but I can see she’s not. She never dates anyone, she doesn’t seem to have any sort of social life and now Dad’s got Sabine, well, that must be hard on Mum. Stupid Debra was rattling on about Sabine all the time when she phoned last night and I warned her not to do it in front of Mum. I mean, Dad’s so happy now. It would kill Mum to see him like that, as if he could be happy with someone else but not with her.”

Every word was like an acid-tipped dart shot into Lizzie’s chest.

“Do you always remember the marriage being bad?” asked Nina conversationally. “Even when you were a child?”

“It was never bad,” Joe said thoughtfully, “but it wasn’t wedded bliss, either. They never had anything in common, for a start. Dad was so into boats and sailing, and Mum’s eyes would glaze over when he talked about it. Mum loved going out for meals and things, and Dad was perfectly happy to eat at home every night. They never had the money to pursue any interests either. They grew apart and if they hadn’t had to get married, I doubt if the relationship would have lasted longer than a couple of years.”

“Let’s hear it for contraception,” Nina said wryly.

“Yeah,” agreed Joe. “Don’t getme wrong, they loved us, and I suppose they loved each other in a way. They got on and there weren’t many arguments in our house. But, you know, I get on with lots of people, though I wouldn’t want to marry them. Apathy is just as bad for relationships as raging arguments. They were kids when they got married, that’s the tragedy. Maybe if Mum hadn’t been pregnant with me—”

“Don’t say that,” teased Nina. “Then I wouldn’t have been able to meet you and fall in love. Anyhow, you can’t blame yourself. They were responsible for their relationship, not you. I remember my mum and dad arguing all the time but they were mad about each other.”

“Mum and Dad didn’t even argue much.” Joe was solemn. “Arguing implies some sort of passion but they didn’t have that. They were just married, married alive. Tell me we’ll never be like that, Nina,” he said fervently, “sticking together for the wrong reasons, not in love but fooling ourselves into thinking we are because it’s easier than splitting up, staying together for the children or something.”

Lizzie felt a cool wet sensation on her skin and realised she was shaking so much that water from her glass was spilling onto her hand.

“Is this a proposal?” Nina said jokily.

Joe chuckled. “I’m a bit anti-marriage, as you know,” he said.

“Makes two of us,” Nina replied. “But I’m not anti-living together. We spend so much time together, we might as well just move in together and save on your rent. Not to mention the fact that my flat’s much bigger.”

“Sounds good to me,” murmured Joe.

Behind the door, his mother turned and fled to the spare bedroom, terrified of being heard.

She shut the door and sat down on the bed, feeling prawns, pasta and all the booze churning uneasily in her stomach. Her hand was still shaking as she set the glass down.

That night, she lay in the narrow bed with the sounds of the city around her, and she felt lonelier than ever. She’d rushed off to be with Joe, hoping that he might cheer her up after the shock of Sally’s death. But he couldn’t. Worse, he pitied her for how she wasn’t coping with life in general after splitting up with his father. He’d seen that she and Myles had a very mediocre marriage and now he was worried because she wasn’t coping. She’d turned into the very thing she hated: a victim. Holding her glass of water to her chest like a talisman, Lizzie wondered where she’d gone wrong. She’d tried to change her life and be more adventurous but nobody seemed to want to let her. Nina and Joe carried on as if she was some little old lady who couldn’t be trusted in London on her own, so how could they say she didn’t make more of an effort?

twenty-one

D
espite her brave words at the funeral, Sally’s death affected Erin more than she’d thought. She’d felt so pleased with her plan to work in The Beauty Spot that she’d eagerly told Greg all about it, expecting the misery to be assuaged by the sense of doing something in Sally’s memory. But still the loss hit her hard.

“I don’t know why I’m so upset. It’s Steve who’s really suffering,” Erin said sadly, the day after the funeral, when she couldn’t seem to stop crying.

“You’re upset because an amazing woman has died and you’d want to be as hard as nails not to be affected by it,” Greg said.

“Sally was so brave,” Erin said miserably. “I want to give her something back by helping out but all I can do is cry.”

“I’m sure she’d love to think of you helping,” Greg said. “But you’re shocked, love. And don’t forget, you’ve got pregnancy hormones added to the mix.”

“I know,” sobbed Erin. “I was going to phone Steve and ask him what he thought about my working in the salon with Ruby, but I can’t. I don’t want to cry in front of him.”

“I’ll do it,” Greg offered. “It’ll be one less thing for him to worry about,” he added accurately.

By the time she was five months’ pregnant, Erin’s back was aching. Greg had found her a special chair for the days she worked in Sally’s beauty salon, dealing with problems and answering phones, but Erin found, to her amusement, that she often stood with her back arched and one hand rubbing the aching place, in the classic pregnancy stance.

“How can one teeny tiny baby make my back ache so much?” she asked Lizzie when she dropped in at lunchtime one day in mid-July to ask Erin if she fancied going for a sandwich. Back from London, Lizzie was trying to forget the negative things Joe and Nina had said. Being cheerful was important, she decided firmly.

“It’s got to be a boy,” pronounced Ruby, who had a few minutes’ break before her ten past one appointment. “Only a fella could cause a woman that much pain.”

“Ruby!” laughed Erin. “You’re terrible.”

“She might have a point,” Lizzie said. “I went through awful back pain when I was expecting Joe, and with Debra I sailed through the pregnancy with no problems.”

“See?” Ruby said. “I’m right. Men equal problems. That’s what my poor mother always said, God rest her. There isn’t a man born who won’t hurt the woman who loves him.”

“That’s rubbish,” laughed Erin, who loved Ruby to bits and found the days in the salon whizzed past, listening to her treating the staff and clients to her unique world view. The youngest of six, with five older brothers and a relationship history that made Ally McBeal’s boyfriend problems look normal, Ruby’s views on men were hilarious. Erin knew that Ruby was grieving for Sally like everyone else, but the girl had a gift for cheerfulness that was helping immensely. Even the glummest client left with a smile on her face after a bit of Ruby’s personal magic.

“I’m just telling you what I know,” Ruby replied, unfazed. “I swear, I’d become a lesbian at the drop of a hat if I could face … you know …”

“You know what?” asked Lizzie, enthralled.

“You don’t want to know what, Lizzie.” Erin had to hold on to her belly when she laughed in case she hurt herself. The thought of Ruby—who adored men and dressed her statuesque body in figure-hugging clothes to impress them—becoming gay was too hilarious. “We’ve a new girl in the first treatment room doing a bikini wax and I don’t want her to rip off too much with the shock of listening to you, Rubes. We’re not insured against being sued for total deforestation.”

This time, it was Ruby who had to clutch her sides as she laughed. “You’re worse than me, Erin,” she screeched, flicking back a skein of jet-black hair. “You’re wicked!”

Erin grinned. “I’m coming for a sandwich with you, Lizzie, if Ruby can promise not to empty the place in my absence with stories of her wayward sex life.”

“Don’t knock lesbianism till you’ve tried it.” Ruby was sanguine. “And you’d be able to borrow each other’s clothes.”

Erin and Lizzie were still grinning as they crossed the road in the direction of the coffee shop. And there, walking towards them with her mobile phone glued to her head and her gaze unseeing, was Abby.

She hadn’t been into the salon since the funeral. Erin knew because she checked the appointments book carefully to see if the client list was remaining healthy. But Abby didn’t look as if she’d been spending millions in another salon. Her skin, used to the gentle nourishment of Sally’s special facial, now looked tired. With her hair pulled back into an untidy knot, and wearing a black tracksuit that drained her face of colour, she looked nothing like the glamorous woman from the TV.