Just Between Us (28 page)

Tara’s grin was weak. ‘Yeah, well Finn’s mates aren’t exactly prize specimens. I promise I won’t set you up with any of them.’

‘They must be keeping him very late, poor dear,’ Stella said, clearing up the glasses. ‘Why don’t you phone him and if he can’t pick you two up, I’ll phone for a taxi.’

‘Sure.’

Tara got her mobile from her bag and phoned Finn’s. It went straight to his answering service. She clicked ‘off’ furiously, then realised that Holly, still comfortable on the couch, was waiting to see what he’d say. Shame washed over Tara. Finn had promised he’d be at Stella’s for dinner. Then, when the work function came up, he’d promised that he’d be there by half nine to pick her up. Now it was nearly a quarter past ten and he was still out, his wife forgotten.

Tara turned away, the way she often did when she was out and wanted a modicum of privacy while she was on her phone.

‘Hi, Love,’ she said into the dead phone. ‘Yeah, yeah. Well it can’t be helped. I’ll tell Stella you’re sorry. Bye.’

She turned back to face her sister. Holly’s lovely face was alight with understanding, and the guilt at deceiving her grabbed Tara like a vice grip.

‘Don’t worry, babes,’ Holly said. ‘We’ll get taxis. Poor Finn, he must be fed up with all these late nights.’

‘Yeah.’ Tara’s voice was hollow. ‘Totally fed up.’

Holly waved the taxi containing Tara off into the night and went upstairs to her flat where she found a big message stuck onto her door with Sellotape.

Having drinks—come in!!! Select gathering and impromptu party, party!
Kenny had written in his sloping hand.

Holly smiled. She didn’t need a message taped to her door
to tell her that there was a mini-party going on in Kenny and Joan’s: the music was enough of an indicator. Ricky Martin or Madonna at high volume meant Kenny was entertaining because he adored Madonna and felt that Ricky’s early Spanish albums were the height of cocktail party sophistication, and delectably smoochy into the bargain. Tonight, Ricky’s husky Latin vocal filled the second floor.

Holly threw her coat and handbag onto the couch and glanced briefly at her reflection in the hall mirror. Her make-up was almost gone and her hair was windswept. On a thousand other nights, she’d wandered in next door without so much as combing her hair but for once, and without really knowing why, she decided to bother. She stripped off her white work shirt and plain bra and exchanged them for a lacy bra and a slinky black chiffon shirt. Instant revamp. In the bathroom, she brushed her hair until it shone and rapidly repaired her make-up the way Gabriella did: a sweep of eyeliner and lashings of mascara to pep up tired eyes, then glossy pink on her lips. Three minutes and she was done.

The others would probably laugh at her. When Tom had begun joining her, Joan and Kenny on their trips to the local pub in the evenings, Kenny had mortified Holly by announcing that she was trying to reform her normal, athome slobby image in order to impress him.

‘
Kenny!
’ Holly had wailed.

‘It’s all right, love, Tom’s one of us,’ Kenny had said comfortingly. ‘The terrible trio has become the queer quartet.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ joked Joan.

Holly had done her best to explain that she wasn’t trying to impress
anyone
but that she thought it was about time she made more of an effort even when she was at home.

‘I dress up for work, so I should dress up here too,’ she explained. ‘I’m fed up with looking like a tramp when I’m not working.’

‘Quite right,’ said Kenny approvingly. ‘If only we can
get Joan to tart herself up at the weekends, we’ll be very respectable.’

The door to Kenny and Joan’s was unlocked and Holly pushed it open, announcing loudly that there’d been no need to tell her they were having a party.

‘Sweetums, welcome. We were going to phone and tell you to come home early!’ said Kenny gleefully, wrapping one arm round Holly and holding onto a full bottle of wine with the other. He was happily drunk.

Raul, Kenny’s new boyfriend, was sitting on the floor with Joan, who was making an almighty mess with several bottles of liqueurs, a fork, a bowl of mashed-up bananas and a lemon that looked ten years old.

‘Joan and Raul are making cocktails,’ said Kenny, shooting Raul an adoring look.

‘Banana surprise!’ said Joan.

‘I hate bananas,’ said Raul mournfully as he attempted to cut the lemon up with a blunt knife.

Holly laughed. Raul was quite unlike Kenny’s normal male-model-type boyfriends in that he didn’t possess a six-pack, had dirty blond hair instead of the jet-black that Kenny liked, and had no visible cheekbones. Kenny adored cheekbones. Raul’s flatmate, Anto, was crouched in front of the TV fanatically playing PlayStation 2 and making grunting noises.

Sprawled on the couch, clad in his usual denims and a marl grey T-shirt that showed off his rugby-player’s body and looking reassuringly normal in the midst of the chaos, was Tom. Unlike the others, he was stone cold sober and gratifyingly pleased to see her.

‘There’s beer if you’d like,’ said Tom, making room for her on the two-seater couch. ‘Or Coke.’

‘Coke,’ said Holly, stepping over Joan and Raul’s messy cocktail bar to sit beside him. The couch was too small for Tom and anyone else, but Holly didn’t mind being squashed up beside him.

Tom snapped the ring pull on a can of Coke and handed it to Holly, who couldn’t help but blush. ‘Thanks.’

‘Shit!’ yelled Anto as his game went wrong.

‘Banana cocktail!’ said Joan triumphantly, holding up a glass jug of murky yellow sludge.

‘I am not drinking that,’ said Kenny, pouring himself another glass of wine. He was dancing happily by himself, doing little Ricky moves around the room as he swayed with his eyes closed. Only a drunken sixth sense stopped him falling over the furniture.

‘I don’t care if you don’t wanna drink it,’ hiccuped Joan, dividing the sludge with great difficulty between two glasses. It was more solid than liquid. ‘Ready, Raul?’ she said, handing him one glass. ‘One, two,
three!
’

They downed their cocktails in one gulp and Raul made retching noises immediately afterwards. ‘I told you I hate bananas!’ he moaned.

Holly and Tom watched them with amusement. ‘Kenny got a styling job today,’ Tom revealed. ‘That’s why we’re celebrating.’

‘Ah,’ said Holly. ‘I did think it was a bit weird to be having this drink-fest on a weeknight. I can see I’ll have to come in tomorrow morning to drag them all out of bed for work.’

‘You do look after them, don’t you?’ said Tom.

‘We look after each other,’ Holly said. ‘They’re sort of like a second family to me, like a brother and sister to be honest.’

‘You’ve got two sisters, though, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. I was with them tonight. They’re marvellous. I mean, Kenny and Joan don’t replace them, they’re just…extra,’ she finished. ‘And my sisters are older than me, so I look up to them and want them to approve of me but with this pair,’ she gestured to Kenny and Joan, ‘they see me utterly as I am. There’s no compulsion to be approved of. Does that make sense?’

‘Absolutely.’ Tom looked thoughtful. ‘They say where you come in the family can have a huge effect on your personality,’ he said. ‘Caroline’s a great believer in that. She’s a
middle child; she says that’s why she’s tough and ambitious.’

‘Wow, is she tough and ambitious?’

He grinned ruefully. ‘Very. I don’t think it would have mattered where in the family Caroline was born, she’d have succeeded.’

‘How about you? Are you the baby of the family or the middle?’ Holly asked.

‘Eldest of four. Very sensible, organised and boring, I’m afraid.’

‘No, you’re not,’ protested Holly, patting him affectionately on one huge shoulder. ‘You’re reliable, what’s wrong with that?’

‘It’s not very exciting,’ Tom smiled.

‘Excitement is over-rated,’ Holly insisted. ‘My eldest sister, Stella, is reliable and sensible and she’s wonderful. She’s the sort of person I’d go to in a crisis. Actually,’ she grinned, ‘Caroline’s theory
does
fit because Tara, who’s the middle sister, is ambitious and tough in her own way.’

‘And you, as the baby, are supposed to be wildly indulged and spoilt rotten by your parents?’ Tom queried.

It was Holly’s turn to grin ruefully. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘My parents are very busy people, my mother does a lot for charity and has firm ideas about spoiling children. Besides, I think my parents were hoping for a boy and they got me instead.’

‘You don’t mean that, do you?’ Tom’s kind face was anxious.

‘No, not in a bad way,’ Holly said quickly. ‘But I know my mum would have liked a boy. She even had the name picked out. Emlyn Hector. My mother likes unusual names.’ Holly paused, instantly sorry she’d mentioned it. Even Kenny and Joan didn’t know about that. Holly had buried it so far inside her that nobody knew. But Tom had that way of making her tell him things. He was easy to talk to, easy to confide in. ‘I’m sorry…’ she began.

‘Don’t be.’ Tom’s hand held hers tightly, telling her he understood and that she didn’t need to say anything else.

‘My parents are great, honestly…’ Holly tried again but Tom silenced her with a gentle finger to her lips.

‘Don’t apologise. Families make mistakes too, you know,’ he said. ‘Your mum and dad can be saints on earth, and still screw things up occasionally, and you’re not a bad person for noticing. Unconditional love doesn’t mean you can’t tell when your family do the wrong thing.’

Holly felt as if she couldn’t speak. It was like opening a door she’d been terrified to open for years. The emotion she endlessly suppressed over little Emlyn Hector bubbled up inside her. She never criticised her family, never said a word against her mother. It was like a forbidden thought, punishable by expulsion from the Miller family. And now she was being told that it was all right to think those awful, disloyal thoughts.

‘I know,’ she whispered, so quietly that Tom had to lean close to even hear her. ‘I never told anyone before.’

‘Don’t be sorry just because you told me,’ he whispered, his face close to hers, his breath warm against her face.

‘Please, don’t mention this,’ Holly begged.

In reply, Tom laid his mouth against her temple and gave her the softest kiss. Holly wouldn’t have thought that such a big person could be so gentle.

‘You can always talk to me,’ he murmured.

Holly leaned against him, weak now from the emotion of her revelation. Tom put a strong arm around her and it was so comforting to lean there, her eyes closed, feeling a strange peace from having even spoken those forbidden words out loud.

‘Holly!’ roared Joan crossly. ‘Tell Kenny to change the CD. He won’t and I am bloody fed up with bloody Ricky bloody Martin!’

The flat was dark when Tara pushed open the front door.

‘Hi, honey, I’m home,’ she said bitterly. She went into the kitchen and opened the drinks cupboard with a great wrench. Brandy was the first thing she saw. She hated brandy. Next
was gin. No, she decided. Wine would do nicely. They never kept chilled white wine in the fridge the way people did in magazine features. Tara had read loads of those ‘what’s in your fridge’ celebrity articles where people always had lots of rocket salad, quail’s eggs and Moët, but strangely, no mouldy old Philadelphia cheese or lettuce that had practically swapped DNA with the fridge from being stuck to the crisper compartment for so long. She and Finn were not spare bottle of white in the fridge people. They were lucky if they were ‘up to date carton of milk’ people. Finn was crap at remembering basic groceries as Tara knew to her cost. She
loathed
black coffee. At the back of the drinks cabinet, she found a bottle of white wine and opened it, poured a glass and stuck an ice cube in on top. Tough titty to the wine aficionados, she thought grimly, drinking half the glass in one fell swoop. She refilled it, then took glass and bottle into the sitting room, switched on the TV and waited.

The bottle was nearly empty when Finn came home.

‘Hi, honey,’ he said, eyes only slightly glazed, when he peered round the corner of the sitting room door. ‘Sorry I’m late. What have you been up to?’

‘I was at Stella’s,’ said Tara evenly, turning back to the television. She didn’t want to look at him. She watched the television as if her life depended on it, her back ramrodstraight with tension. She wasn’t paying any attention to the TV because her head was crammed with furious words that she wanted to scream at him. It was a mistake to argue when they’d both been drinking, she knew that, but reason had long since left the building.

Tara turned on him. ‘Where the hell were you?’ she hissed. ‘You were supposed to pick me up from Stella’s.’

‘Oh shit.’ Finn stayed in the doorway, as if scared to come in.

‘I’m really sorry, honey, I just forgot. It was Bill’s fault because…’

‘Stop blaming other people!’ Even Tara was astonished by her roar of fury.

For a second, there was silence. Then she found her voice again. ‘You let me down in front of my sisters, you humiliated me! I had to lie and pretend you were working late so I wouldn’t look like some idiot whose husband couldn’t even be bothered to phone her!’

Finn stayed in the doorway, wincing at every word. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he repeated mantra-like. ‘Really sorry.’

‘Sorry isn’t good enough!’ howled Tara. ‘You’re late every second night with work and you’re pissed half the time.’ She glared at him, waiting for him to say something about it being work and how he couldn’t help it. But he said nothing, he just looked at her with a strange, almost scared look in his eyes.

‘I’m fed up with it, do you hear, fed up! You better get your act together, Finn, or I’m leaving.’ She lurched to her feet. ‘And you can sleep in the spare room tonight!’

She hadn’t thought she’d be able to sleep but the combination of tiredness and too much booze sent her into a heavy sleep only for her to wake, hot and sweating, at five a.m. She lay in the double bed, exhausted and headachy and waited for morning to come.

While she waited, she thought. And as she thought, something clicked into place in her mind. Like the feeling she got when writing a scene in work and one word eluded her, buzzing round her subconscious but not coming to the fore. It was always the simplest word. Something from a schoolroom spelling test. Today’s word was alcohol. Booze. Drink. Liquor.