Between Friends (24 page)

‘Who? Oh, Jenny. I stopped dating her. Lovely lady, but we agreed it wasn’t working out.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She wasn’t sorry though. Not one bit.

‘The main reason was that a big part of my heart was still here,’ he squeezed her hands, ‘with you.’

Now it was not a question of not daring to breathe, she actually
couldn’t
breathe. He let go of her hands and sat back.

‘I don’t know what the hell to think, Marta. Could we start again? Would it be a good idea? Or have we just grown out of each other? I’ve changed. Or at least, maybe I haven’t changed, I’ve just discovered what I want to be – and maybe I’m not the man you want any more.’

There was so much Marta wanted to say...

Eventually, Jake had to prompt her.

‘Marta? Have we messed everything up completely? What do you think?’

Chapter Thirty-seven

Exercise releases endorphins. It is a proven and effective way of combating depression – more effective, many would argue, than swallowing pills. Carrie Edwards had hated all forms of exercise at school. Marta had been the sporty one. Athletic and tall, she had easily commanded the netball court. With her long legs, she had covered the ground on the track. In the gym, she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into vaulting and performing handstands and cartwheels. And all the while, Carrie and Jane had contented themselves with eternal excuses.

Carrie discovered running after the debacle with Tom, back in London. The headlines had been predictably corny.

‘SWIFT WEDDING!’

‘AFTER EDEN STAR WEDS SOAP’S SWIFT’

‘SWIFT BITE AT EDEN’S APPLE’

Carrie had spotted the first one in the Tube one hellish Monday morning, when the teeming London rain had begrimed everything with a sooty dankness. As she swung belligerently from a strap, cursing commuter hell, she absently scanned the back of a newspaper held by another passenger a few uncomfortable inches from her nose.

She knew of Serena Swift – who didn’t? The daughter of a wealthy gadget inventor, she was clawing her way up the celebrity ladder in a cloud of (alleged) marijuana smoke and white powder, starting with a role as a bitchy and slightly scandalous gold digger in one of the popular weekly television soaps. Close to life, the gossip sheets said – except that Serena had a fortune of her own.

Now Serena Swift had married ... Tom Vallely?

A stray elbow jabbed Carrie in the face as she peered at the paper. She pulled back sharply.

‘Sorry.’ A man in a pin-striped suit breathed a garlic-laden apology. She nodded an acknowledgement as her brain raced. Tom?
Her
Tom? The Tom she was having a hugely passionate affair with, on the serious understanding that he was leaving Jane because he loved her?

Leaving the Underground station she bought a couple of redtops and ducked into a café to scan their contents. There had been nothing wrong with her eyesight, despite the jiggling of the train – the facts appeared incontrovertible. Tom Vallely had dashed into the Chelsea Registry Office on Saturday and married soap star Serena Swift.

Something in Carrie hardened at that moment. Instead of moping, she settled into a deep and dark anger that translated as resolve and became characterised by energy. The energy was unleashed as a storm at work – in one case after another she applied herself unstintingly to complexities and detail. At leisure (when she had any) she became relentless and determinedly pleasure-seeking, gracing one party after another, bedding one man after another.

All of this activity was distinguished by one thing – control. Carrie did not turn to drink or to drugs, that would have been to relinquish power and Carrie had no intention of ever letting anyone have dominance over her emotions again. Instead, she had found solace, unexpectedly, through exercise, mostly running.

In the years that followed, the running remained a constant. Wherever she was in the world, it was usually in good hotels and there was usually a gym. Where she could escape safely into the countryside and weather permitted, she ran out of doors, savouring the freedom and the fresh air. Since Drew had jetted back to the States, she had increased her mileage dramatically, pounding the streets of Edinburgh obsessively.

It was the only answer. The company of men didn’t interest her. Drew haunted her. She heard his voice call her name as she walked along the street. In her flat, she saw his big, graceful frame at the window, on the balcony, making coffee – the way he liked it – in her kitchen. Even at work, though she had withdrawn from handling his business, there were so many meetings where the McGraw estate was mentioned that she felt like crawling under the desk.

On Sunday morning her run began as a routine five miler and turned into a mega fifteen miles plus. From her penthouse on the edge of the Meadows it was a short jog into the Queen’s Park and thence down to Portobello and the sea. The route took her not a stone’s throw from Marta’s cottage.

Jake would still be there.

Carrie, breathing evenly but fast, directed heartfelt wishes in Marta’s direction, still ashamed that somehow, in the midst of the drama and tragedy, she had forgotten to brief Jake when Marta miscarried.

Please God, she prayed as she took the hill and her breathing quickened, bring those two souls back together again.

And then it was back into the park and up Arthur’s Seat, taking the punishment to her slight frame willingly. The second time around, she diverted off the road and scrambled breathlessly up the final steep slope to the summit. The cold of the past week had eased as a warm front arrived from the west and Carrie found herself in the company of half a dozen walkers as she bounded up the rocky path.

‘Brilliant views today.’ A short man, his black microfibre hat pulled down snugly over his ears, was speaking to her.

‘Yes, fabulous,’ Carrie acknowledged, scanning the distant horizon. It was indeed a clear day. Along the sweeping blue waters of the estuary, the Forth bridges stood out like a child’s drawing, etched against the skyline while sixty miles to the north, the mountains of the Highlands could be seen in shadowy outline.

She paused to take it all in.

‘You look fit,’ said the man, gesturing at her slight running vest and Lycra leggings. ‘Not cold?’

She shook her head. Weirdo. Move on. But the man’s eyes were friendly, neutral; one lover of the outdoors saluting another, that was all.

She scrambled the last few feet to the trig point, held out her hand and touched the top. Drew was here. Drew touched this stone. The memory caught her throat and she felt her eyes prick with hot, salty tears. Stop. Ridiculous. And yet the recollections crowded in. They had climbed here together one afternoon.

‘I could be happy here,’ Drew had said. ‘My kinda place.’

And then he had looked at her, smiled with his eyes and added softly, ‘My kinda girl.’

Carrie’s heart had stopped pumping, her breathing was back to normal and the whole point was to run from memories, not to relive them.

The early promise of the day was turning into disappointment as she stepped out of the mini market in Simpson Loan with fruit juice and the Sunday papers.

Carrie shivered. Already she was cooling down and the disappearance of the sun behind thick cloud was not helping. Home for a shower, then coffee, juice and the week’s news.

The luxury of living alone is that you can choose. Had it really only been months since she’d thought that? It was still true, of course, but how hollow it seemed, how spectacularly meaningless. Even the full-on luxury of her beloved bathroom afforded her no comfort today. She emerged, a towel round her head, a soft robe round her body. At least the coffee smelled good. She padded barefoot across to the kitchen to pour herself a cup. As she passed the phone, it began to ring and without thinking, she picked it up.

‘Carrie here, hi.’

‘Hi honey.’

Drew
! Carrie’s heart, which had recovered from its running rate twenty minutes ago, resumed pumping at full speed. Her first instinct was to drop the phone, but she counted to five and summoned all her courage.

‘Hello Drew.’ What now? Leave me alone, this hurts too much? Grovel again about my past? She stood rooted to the spot, transfixed by indecision.

‘Don’t hang up on me, honey,’ he said urgently, as if he could see her hand already moving the phone back to its cradle. ‘We gotta talk.’

Carrie sighed. ‘Drew, please,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve done the confessional. I’ve scoured my insides till they’re bleeding and I can’t go over this ground again. I—’

‘Honey, listen, will ya?’

Carrie sank to the carpet and leaned weakly against the sofa. The towel, unwinding, fell down over her eyes and she pulled it off and tossed it to the floor, where it lay damply.

‘All right,’ she conceded, her voice little more than a mumble.

‘Great.’ Drew sounded purposeful, but without warning he broke off and exhaled sharply. ‘Gee, I had it all planned out, and now I can’t find the words.’

‘Let me say them for you,’ Carrie said dully. ‘You’re shocked at my behaviour. I’m not the person you thought I was. I misled you cruelly. You had believed that—’

‘Stop right there.’ The command was back in his voice. ‘And get this into that little head of yours. We do not drop bombshells then run away. We talk about things, even if they are difficult things. You got that?’

Carrie gulped but found she couldn’t speak. Who was this ‘we’?

‘Got that?’ Drew said again, demanding an answer.

‘Yes,’ Carrie muttered.

‘And one thing you gotta understand about me – I like to get to the bottom of things, get the whole story and not some jumbled up part-truth. I don’t allow my employees to get away with that kinda behaviour and I don’t expect it in my personal relationships either. Understood?’

‘But I know you, Drew,’ Carrie protested. ‘I know your values. You’re a great guy, an honourable guy, I could tell that from the way you treated me, like a real
gentleman
—’

Drew burst out laughing. ‘A gentleman? You mean like some old-fashioned Victorian guy with a top hat and cane?’

‘No, I mean—’

‘You mean because I didn’t jump into bed with you on our first date?’

‘Or our second or third or twentieth.’

‘Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to.’

Surprise made Carrie’s voice uncharacteristically shrill. ‘Did you?’

‘Honey, do grizzlies eat fish?’

‘But—’

‘Baby, I took you seriously. You weren’t just some nice piece of ass I wanted to lay. I wanted to get to know you, I respected you, and there’s something about delayed gratification ... you know? Makes it all the sweeter.’

Carrie thought,
how shallow my approach to building a relationship must be
, but in a sudden burst of defiance she burst out, ‘I’m not ashamed of my private life,’ before crumbling and admitting, ‘or I wasn’t until I met you, anyway. Then I knew that you would judge my behaviour and find me wanting and I couldn’t stand knowing that.’

‘Judge you? You haven’t been listening, Carrie. I make my judgements based on facts and there’s a whole bunch of facts missing here, is what I think. Like
why
you had to be in control like that? Why you were so unable to give of your real self in a relationship? Why you restricted your life to the entirely physical and could not give your heart to anyone?’

Spot on. Drew’s questions split Carrie’s hang-ups wide open and laid bare her vulnerability. She started to weep, desperately trying to keep her sobs silent. She grabbed at the wet towel and buried her face in it, willing him to keep talking.

‘And then you told me something, Carrie, and left me before I was able to give any answer to it.’

Unfair. Ungentlemanly to mention it.

‘You told me you loved me.’

Still she couldn’t speak.

‘Is that true, Carrie?’ His voice was softer now, choosing another way to probe the most tender parts of her soul.

‘I ... don’t ... know.’ She summoned all the strength she could find. Drew deserved someone better than her, so she had to release him. ‘No. I don’t think, after all, that I do.’

That shocked him into silence. Eventually he said slowly, ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You should.’

Go. Take your freedom. Find yourself a wholesome all-American princess.

‘Carrie—’

‘Goodbye, Drew. It was great knowing you. Really.’

And this time, before she changed her mind, she did put the phone down.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Jane’s depression was lifting. She had not undergone a miraculous cure, but the combined effect of having unburdened herself and the new sense of closeness with her family was slowly working.

She noticed the burgeoning of maturity in Emily. The Forster had undergone skilled and extensive renovation – the cost, thankfully, covered by the insurance. It was back and sounding as mellifluous as ever. Emily had started playing the instrument and Jane found that not only could she listen to it, but that she was also able to help Emily with her technique. Playing it again herself was a step too far.

‘I’m definitely going to rejoin the orchestra after Christmas, Mum.’

‘I’m so pleased.’ Jane said. ‘Is Robbie still in it?’

Emily shrugged. ‘Who cares? I’ve got other friends.’

It was a positive sign. Ross, too, seemed to have changed. He seemed to be fighting with his siblings less and concentrating better at school, to judge by his grades. And Ian, her baby, the sweetest, most loving of all her children – the small anxieties Ian had been showing seemed to have dissipated.

He was in the kitchen now, baking a special cake for her.

‘You’re not to look, Mummy.’

‘How can I not look? I’ll have to take it out of the oven.’

She wouldn’t let him do that, not yet.

‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘I s’pose. But once it’s out, you’re not to look. I’m going to decorate it as soon as it’s cool – can I use the butter in the fridge?’

‘All of it?’

‘Hmm, no, maybe not, maybe just half? And some jam?’ He was hopping from one foot to the other impatient, as always, to get on with the job in hand. ‘Mummy?’

‘Ian.’

‘Gran says if we set our minds to something, we can usually do it. Is that right?’

‘“Where there’s a will, there’s a way”,’ Jane quoted back at him, smiling. ‘I guess so. If you really want to do something you can work hard to achieve it.’

‘I want to be a pastry chef at Langham’s then, when I grow up.’ Ian had been avidly watching
Masterchef: the Professionals
.

Jane didn’t laugh. She hugged him.

‘It’s a fine ambition,’ she said into his hair.

She had been determined, just like him, when she’d been that age. She was going to be a concert cellist, the greatest since Jacqueline du Pré, there had never been any doubt in her mind. And she had worked hard at it, keeping the goal in her sights until...

No, it was not to be revisited. She had come to terms with the past. Whatever had happened, it had shaped her into what she was. And what she was, at last, was a loving mother and devoted wife who had found a sense of peace.

‘Don’t you let that ambition go. Now, is that cake ready to come out of the oven?’

Later, after the children were in bed, she took a mug of tea and a slice of Ian’s delicious jam sponge through to the living room, subsided onto the sofa and stared into the muddy brown liquid.

Her life was definitely mending. Neal’s calm support had helped.

She had found a kind of peace. But she had not yet had justice.

She ate the cake slowly and thought about Tom. By deciding not to turn him over to the police they had let him off too lightly. If landing him in jail was a step too far, surely they could still indulge in some form of revenge, by puncturing his insufferable pride, perhaps?

Jane had never been one for initiatives – she’d always left that to Marta and Carrie. But ... Ian’s words spun round her head: Gran says if we set our minds to something, we can usually do it. Out of the mouths of babes...

Wiping her hands, she rummaged in her bag for her address book, then picked up the phone and dialled.

‘Ann?’ she said, proud of the fact that, as she talked to the woman who had first coached her out of it, there was no trace of a stammer. ‘It’s Jane here. Jane Harvie. I need to talk to you about something. Have you got a moment?’