Nearest Thing to Crazy (19 page)

‘I’ll drive you,’ she said.

‘No need.’ I’d left the driver’s door open and parked sideways on the drive so that in order for her to get out we’d have had to have moved mine. I was not going to be entrapped in her space. It was too intimate. It was bad enough having her in my van, but at least I could feel I was in control. I had the air conditioning fan on full blast so that I didn’t feel I had to share her breath. Her proximity made me shiver with revulsion.

To say that I was gutted by the fact that Amelia had invited her onto the village hall quiz committee was a bit like saying you’d be mildly irritated if you’d accidentally shredded your £10 million prize-winning lottery ticket. She’d slotted herself into the community as perfectly as the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle. She was the exact fit: all that was needed to complete a perfect picture. What rearguard action could I have possibly taken to prevent it? Taken Amelia on one side and said . . . what? Oh, by the way, Amelia, I read on her computer that she’s having an affair with my husband? And after Sally’s little chat with me yesterday I suspected that if I said anything negative about Ellie, bearing in mind they thought she was so perfect, they wouldn’t believe me. And it might also fuel their anxiety about me to know that I’d been snooping in Ellie’s house.

I let Ellie lead the way into the house. She was obviously now familiar with the layout of Amelia’s ground floor. She didn’t need me to guide her through from the hallway, down the long, creaky-floored main passage where stern-faced gentlemen stared down disapprovingly from their gilded frames, then on past the open door of the morning room, turn right at the end by the drawing room and then take the side passage into the kitchen. I remembered it took me a long time to stop getting lost in the ancestral warren.

From the sound of female voices we obviously weren’t the first to arrive. There were now – including Ellie – eight of us on the committee. Amelia, obviously; me;
her
; Jules who was great at drafting in Nick’s agricultural vehicles when required for shifting stuff; Sally who was a whizz at blagging raffle prizes; Janice Davies from Rose Cottage who looked after the key to the village hall and who was the font of all local knowledge; Kate Holland, the young army wife here because her husband was on a two-year posting, and who had an ‘in’ with the younger mums at the local prep school; and Helen Clifford who had, in a previous life, been a professional caterer and was brilliant at all things to do with organizing ‘do’s’.

We were all sitting around Amelia’s kitchen table. A tray of cups and saucers had been placed on one end with two cafetières full of coffee and a pot of lemon verbena tea, together with a plate of home-baked chocolate chip shortbreads. I helped myself to a cup of coffee and took a biscuit without hesitation, knowing just how good Amelia’s cook was, but I was inwardly amused at Ellie’s fastidiousness as she shook her head when Amelia offered.

‘They look lovely, but I won’t.’

‘Firstly,’Amelia said, beaming benevolently at all of us, ‘I’d like to welcome Ellie onto the committee and thank her for agreeing to help us out.’

A murmur of ‘hear-hear’ went round the table, and I just stretched my lips into the approximation of a smile and stared down into my coffee cup. I had taken my dog-eared shorthand notebook out of my handbag and had started to make a few notes. Ellie’s notebook was leather, Moroccan-style, with gold tooling and tiny turquoise beads around the edges. Before I even saw the pen I could have guessed it would be of the smart fountain variety. I used a bog-standard clear plastic biro which I bought in a pack of 10 for £2.99 from the supermarket. Amelia was chairing the meeting, as usual, which was fine by everyone, as she made a very good organizer. We ran through everyone’s progress so far and I wondered if I was imagining it at first, but I kept sensing Ellie’s eyes upon me. Every time I glanced up I caught her lowering them, as if she’d been caught out. I felt like doing something outrageous, like sticking a finger up my nose, or dunking my biscuit into my coffee, to see whether it might come out in her book. I fancied we could play one of those children’s games, where you have to copy each other. Would I read about my funny little idiosyncrasies, my bad posture as I slumped over the table, my weird frizzy brown hair, my pale face, my too-thin nose, my flat chest and pear-shaped behind, would it all come out in the novel? Or was I too far ahead of myself, bearing in mind I had only read about Dan so far? But I was in danger of missing out vital instructions from our leader so I commanded my mind to stop wandering and to focus on what Amelia was saying.

‘Okay, so can we please have volunteers for setting up on the day? We’ve got ten trestle tables here, but I reckon we could do with another half dozen or so from Newbridge Village Hall. And they’ve already told us we can borrow them so we might just as well round it up to ten. Jules, is Nick still okay to pick them up?’

‘Does he have a choice?’ Jules laughed.

‘Great. And Cass, are you okay with the flowers.’

I nodded. ‘Absolutely. As long as I can raid your garden if mine’s a bit thin, Amelia?’

‘Absolutely. I can give you a hand too . . .’

‘Oh I can give you a hand, Cass. I adore flower arranging. I’d love to help out with that.’

‘Great, Ellie. So I’ll put you and Cass down as being I.C. flowers.’

I didn’t comment, but stared down at my pad and concentrated on doodling a chain of linked sixes.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Ellie said with a big fat, smug grin on her face.
‘Why don’t we, Amelia, when we go up to London, pop into Covent Garden market and see what we can come up with? We could get some flowers quite cheaply and,’ she said, still grinning in my direction, ‘it would save you a lot of trouble, Cass, if you’re struggling to find stuff.’

‘I . . . um . . .’

Amelia seemed embarrassed. ‘Well, yes. That’s a good idea, but
I wouldn’t want to tread on Cass’s toes. You’ve always done the flowers in the past . . . and they’ve always looked
lovely . . .
’

‘Oh God. I didn’t mean . . . I hope I haven’t come barging in like a bull in the proverbial . . . Sorry, Cass. I wouldn’t want you to think I was trying to take over, elbow you out of your job. I just thought
–’

‘No. No. Not at all,’ I managed to stutter. ‘That’s fine. Of course
I wouldn’t mind a bit. I think it’s an excellent idea. Go for it.’

‘Great.’ Ellie beamed.

There was an awkward silence as Amelia tapped her pen nervously against the paper of her notebook. ‘Um, right, where were we? Questions. Dan did such a good job last year. Do you think he would . . .?’

‘Yes, he said he would.’

‘Does Dan write them?’ Ellie sounded impressed.

‘No, he doesn’t.’ She carried on looking at me, obviously thinking I was going to elaborate on my husband’s intellectual skills, or lack of them. But I didn’t. I think the silence embarrassed Amelia so much that she felt she had to answer on my behalf.

‘Actually I think he just gets them from the internet. We just try and slot in a few locally relevant ones: rivers, pubs, famous people from here . . . the usual.’

I continued to colour in the centre of the sixes in my manic doodling. I had pressed so hard on one that I had made a hole in the paper. I blotted my finger on the cheap, shiny black biro ink and then examined the mini mark of Cain on the tip of my finger. I wanted to stamp it in the middle of her forehead to show the world what she was – a bloody witch. I started to inscribe zigzag marks on my pad, forming an unending line of ‘w’s, and then I drew a horizontal line right through the middle of them.

Amelia said, ‘Maybe you could put in a few literary ones for us, Ellie?’

‘Well, as I said, I wouldn’t want to tread on any toes, but I’d love to give Dan a hand, if he wanted.’

I sighed loudly, almost beyond the point of caring whether anyone noticed just how pissed off I was. I looked across at Amelia and saw a frown cross her face as our eyes met. She was probably thinking that I was being childish, sulking and behaving badly in front of our new friend Ellie who was, after all, only trying to help. I envied Amelia. She, to my knowledge, had never had a bad word to say about anybody. Her privileged background insulated her from the sort of insecurities which were responsible for most character flaws. She knew she was adored by William, and although it admittedly came at a price, she did live in a gorgeous house surrounded by beautiful things,
and
she had produced to order not only the heir and the spare, but a beautiful daughter to finish. Rather than spoiling her, this privileged life had engendered in Amelia an innate kindness and a truly benevolent nature. She was simply incapable of seeing the bad in people, which was one of the reasons we all loved her so much and the main reason why I was now finding her so irritating.

It was like being in the presence of a human moral compass, and in the past I wouldn’t have minded her gently bringing me up short when I had been overly judgemental, or pointing out that I might have been insensitive to other points of view. I wouldn’t have minded in the past because she was my friend and I trusted her. But she was going to London with Ellie. She had made friends with Ellie. And she was obviously annoyed with me.

All of them were acting like bees around a honey pot, and I was standing on the outside wondering why it was that I was the only one who could see through her. Just wait until you get to know her, was my only consoling thought. All that pretty, pretty front and perfect smile. It was as though I was separated from the unravelling scene by a plate glass window, one of those unbreakable, extra-strength, keep-everything-out, bulletproof jobs. I could see what was going on, like an audience watching the actors on a stage, but I couldn’t participate. There was nothing I could do to alter or affect the action. It was like being back at school with the new girl who arrives and takes over, stealing your friends, and your boyfriend; suddenly she’s like the most popular girl in the whole damned school, and you’re the only one who knows that she’s actually a malicious, manipulative bully. And there’s nothing you can do about it because no one will believe you. They’d just think you were jealous or stupid. Only this wasn’t school, and it wasn’t my boyfriend she was stealing, it was my husband.

I don’t know what else was discussed during the meeting. My mind had long since set off on a lonely hike. I was aware of Amelia closing her notebook, thanking us all for coming. People were standing up, collecting cups and saucers and returning them to the tray. Ellie was kissing Amelia, thanking her, saying how excited she was about next week. She’d call Amelia later to talk about it. I saw Ellie talk to Kate Holland, the young army wife. She was scribbling down her telephone number.

‘Let’s meet up,’ she was saying. ‘Come for supper. If your husband’s away we should do something together. Maybe we could go to the movies?’

Kate was beaming at her. ‘I’d love to. Call me and I’ll do my best to get a sitter.’

Sally was suggesting coffee on Thursday. ‘Why don’t you both come?’ she said to Ellie and me.

‘Can I let you know?’ I said quickly, before waiting for Ellie’s answer.

‘I really ought to get on with some scribbling. But maybe one evening?’

‘Sure. I’ll call you.’

‘That was fun,’ Ellie said, as I engaged the gear and let off the handbrake, concentrating hard on not ploughing up the gravel. ‘Such a great bunch of girls. You’ve all made me feel so welcome. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is after London. I feel happier than I’ve felt in ages.’

‘So it’s good for your writer’s block, then. And your depression?’

‘Depression? No, not me.’ She laughed, as if the very idea was outrageous. ‘You must be getting me confused with someone else, Cass.’

‘But you told me . . . that day after we had lunch at Amelia’s, sitting in your garden. Remember? You said you’d been suffering . .
.’

‘I’ve never suffered anything like that. Far too well-balanced,’ she said, grinning at me and revealing her perfect, white teeth. But the smile didn’t reach her eyes, I noticed. ‘No, the thing about London, as I was saying . . . everyone’s so full on, trying to prove how busy they are, that their lives actually mean something. It’s all so bloody competitive. And the amount of grooming that goes on, like you wouldn’t believe.’ She prattled on but I was barely listening. I was revisiting our conversation and I remembered what she’d said. I knew I hadn’t dreamt or imagined it. I remembered the look in her eyes, the tears, the touching . . . Why would she now deny it? I dragged my attention back to the present. She was
still
talking inconsequentially about London:

‘Eyebrows have to be threaded, almost daily manicures, perfect hair all the time, and the obsession with being thin and having the right designer handbag that costs the price of a family car. Of course, for me it’s fantastic fodder from a research point of view, but it’s all a bit shallow. I love the fact that people are so much more chilled in the country.’

My white knuckles, clenched hard over the steering wheel, showed just how chilled I felt. I took a deep breath. I didn’t want her to know that she’d thrown me off balance yet again. ‘But what about your boyfriend, the fact that you had to run away, so that he couldn’t find you? Aren’t you nervous about going to London?’

‘What boyfriend?’

‘You told me about a boyfriend, a violent boyfriend. You said that’s why you came here, to get away from him. You showed me the marks on your neck where he’d tried to strangle you.’

‘Honestly, Cass, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You must be confusing me with someone else.’

I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak. But she carried on, ‘I’m really pleased that Amelia’s coming with me to London. She mentioned she’d been longing to see the Romantics exhibition and I’d been given tickets, so I thought it would be really fun to take her.’ She paused, and then flashed her eyelashes over those big, guileless eyes.

‘I would have asked you . . . only Dan said that you weren’t really into that sort of thing . . .’