The Full Legacy (6 page)

As soon as I saw Mary, I knew I’d been totally inconsiderate. I’d phoned to tell them to start the film without me, but I hadn’t updated them about quite how delayed I was going to be. She threw her arms around me on the doorstep, strain showing all too clearly in the taut lines at the edges of her eyes and mouth.

‘Gill, I’ve been so worried. I wish you’d learn to communicate more with people... Especially after C.... Sorry – Anyway, it’s lovely to see you, though I can’t say you’re looking very well.’ She hugged me tightly and kissed me on both cheeks – not an easy task, as, at five foot nothing, she had to stand on tiptoe to reach me. From the warmth of her greeting, I guessed I was forgiven for my Saturday night collaboration with Turner. Maybe I’d even been recast as the ‘good guy’ now, heading the threat to their relationship off at the pass.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I said, a bit shamefaced. ‘I got working and I just didn’t notice the time.’ This was half true. It was like a form of time travelling for me once I got behind a camera. Six o’clock one minute, eight the next.

At first sight, the scene in the living room appeared to be one of sleepy domestic bliss. It was a total illusion of course.

‘Hiya, you miserable old workaholic,’ Kay yelled at me from across the shag pile. She had the slightly too loud voice of someone who’s had a lot to drink. ‘Don’t forget to let me know when you’ve made your first million so I can get in line with my begging bowl.’

‘Huh!’ I scoffed. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’

Suzanne was looking pale and tired, sitting in the armchair closest to the TV, her arms hooked around her knees. She barely managed a smile for me. ‘You’ve missed the film,’ she said flatly. ‘And Georgie... and Joy and Chris.’

Not Ros though, lying there full length on the sofa, her long legs stretched out in straight white jeans, her specs perched rakishly on the end of her nose.

No-one would have imagined that our last conversation had been about how she’d inadvertently poisoned me with magic mushrooms.

‘
She
should care!’ she grinned. ‘Never trust a woman with an enthusiasm for working overtime, that’s what I always say.’

This was breathtakingly insensitive, even by Ros’s standards, bearing in mind how often Mary had complained about Su’s late nights at the office recently.

There was a long embarrassed silence.

Belatedly, she realised what she’d said and tried to make amends. ‘Of course, that was a pretty stupid thing to say... I
mean,
the country would go to the dogs if people weren’t prepared to be a bit flexible with their working hours, wouldn’t it?’

More silence.

Kay looked at me and raised an eyebrow and Mary looked long and hard at Suzanne.

‘Which is it in your case?’ she asked. ‘Flexibility or enthusiasm?’

Suzanne sighed audibly.

‘Well?’

No response.

It was all very embarrassing. Ros tried to cover her gaff by pouring me a glass of white wine. I sipped uneasily at it. It tasted as if it had come from some EEC wine lake – shockingly dry with undertones of paint stripper.

The distraction was only temporary.

‘Well?’
demanded Mary again.

Suzanne was furious, as well she might be, being questioned in public like that. ‘For goodness sake,’ she hissed. ‘I’m not working late tonight. I’m
here
, aren’t I?’

‘How long for?’

‘Not much longer, I’ll tell you, if you carry on like this.’

I couldn’t believe it. Their relationship was breaking down in front of us. I closed my eyes and wished I could be a million miles away.

Ros glugged her drink down in one. ‘Well,’ she said, yawning and stretching noisily. ‘Don’t know about the rest of you, but this little yuppie’s got to get up for work in the morning.’

‘Me too,’ said Kay, unfurling herself from her chair and leaving her still full glass on the side without a second glance. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening you two.’

‘Gill’s just arrived,’ said Mary ominously.

I was also just about to leave.

I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry love,’ I said quietly. ‘You two need to sort this out and you don’t need an audience. We’ll catch up tomorrow, okay?’

I followed the other two out onto the street.

Outside, Kay was laying into Ros with a rolled up copy of The Pink Paper. I wondered whether the newsprint would ever wash out of her shirt.

‘You are
SO
tactless!’ she was saying.

Ros sat down on somebody’s garden wall and looked glum. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s when I shouldn’t be saying something. I’m like Basil Fawlty in that ‘Don’t mention the War’ sketch. I only have to catch a whiff of scandal and I’m singing ‘Suspicious Minds’ and putting my foot in it all over the place.

‘You’re weird,’ said Kay. But I sensed a note of affection in her tone.

‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I had a traumatic childhood.’

I very much doubted that. And I was still pissed off with her from Monday.

‘Oh, for God’s sake Ros!’ I snapped. ‘
Really
traumatic, I’m sure. What happened? Wouldn’t mummy buy you a pony when you wanted one?’

Ros drooped visibly and I immediately felt bad for snapping at her – again.

‘No actually,’ she said. ‘She
did
buy me the pony. She paid for the riding lessons too. That way she figured I wouldn’t be around when she was shagging anything and everything that knocked on the tradesman’s entrance.’

‘Oh... right!’ I felt even worse now. Especially as I thought she was about to cry. In the dim light, I could see the muscles of her face battling it out for supremacy.

Kay put her Pink Paper away and sat down on the wall beside her, glaring at me. Then suddenly Ros grinned and slapped Kay on the leg.

‘Hah! Gotcha! Only joking!’ she said. And she leapt to her feet and hurtled down the road with Kay in hot pursuit; catching her by the corner and wrestling her backwards to land on a pile of black dustbin bags waiting for tomorrow’s early morning rubbish collection.

That was when I wondered if Kay was starting to fall for Ros. She’d been with plenty of women since Corinne, but never anybody from our friendship group and never anything much more than a one night stand. Something had always seemed to get in the way of her making a new commitment to anyone. But now, here she was wrestling with Ros like she wanted to kill the woman. The chemistry was undeniable.

So was the racket they were making.

It was only a matter of time before a member of The Neighbourhood Watch came out to do his civic duty.

‘
Some
people are trying to sleep,’ he said. ‘There’s pensioners down this street you know.’

He looked at least eighty himself, standing there in his slippers and paisley dressing gown, peering at us through the gloom and holding a cricket bat in case we were dangerous.

Instantly I felt like a naughty schoolgirl.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I called over to him. ‘They’ve just had a bit too much to drink. I’ll sort it.’

I headed towards the ungainly heap of arms and legs. It was hard to tell where Ros ended and Kay began.

‘Can’t take you two anywhere,’ I muttered.

Our accuser huffed himself back into his house.

‘Sorry!’ I shouted again, after his retreating back.

They both snorted with laughter as I helped them struggle back onto their feet.

I figured I’d better help tidy up the mess, particularly as they were convulsed with giggles and unable to help themselves.

 ‘
She
started it,’ they said in unison, before collapsing in helpless gasps of laughter again. I picked a teabag off Kay’s back before attempting to shove a sticky baked bean tin back through the hole in one of the bags.

‘If I get tetanus, I’m suing the pair of you,’ I grunted.

‘Oh Gill, take a chill pill!’ Kay guffawed.

And Ros collapsed into giggles again just because it rhymed.

Suzanne

The next morning I phoned Suzanne at work.

‘Sure you don’t want to talk to the boss?’ she asked, in a tone that was as brittle as cinder toffee.

‘No, I want to talk to
you
. Any chance of lunch?’

‘Okay.’ She was being very cagey.

‘How about Cranks?’

‘Okay.’

‘One-ish?’

‘Make it half past.
Mrs
Shaw’s given me enough work to sink a battleship.’

I wondered if ‘Mrs Shaw’ was within earshot. Something in Suzanne’s voice told me that she might be.

‘I should think so too,’ I said, trying to keep it light. ‘There’s nothing worse than secretaries lolling around offices, filing their nails and making extra dust for the cleaners.’

Suzanne, clearly, was not amused.
‘Huh!’
she said... That was it – Just
‘Huh!’.

And then she put the phone down.

But she met me at the café bang on time.

And we managed to find seats, despite the lunchtime crush.

Suzanne bought salad and a roll. I had black coffee and a dish of trifle.

‘Your diet’s terrible,’ she said.

‘I know, I don’t get many treats in life.’

‘Not even Saturday night?’ Her blue-grey eyes were sharp as she glanced at me. Her hands – busy with her knife and fork, were shoving bulgar wheat and bean sprout salad around her plate with rapid aimlessness. ‘Actually,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.’

This was a relief. I took a deep breath.

‘How did things go with Mary after we’d left last night?’ I asked.

‘How do
you
think?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not surprised she’s feeling insecure though. There’s a hell of a lot of speculation going on about you and Turner.’

Suzanne looked sulky and said nothing. I could feel her anger simmering just beneath the surface.

‘Thing is,’ I said, measuring my words very carefully. ‘I don’t know whether to believe it myself.’

‘Believe what you like.’ Suzanne finally got round to putting some salad in her mouth, effectively shutting herself up for a while.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Turner says there’s nothing going on.’

Suzanne swallowed. ‘Well then,’ she said. ‘If
Turner
says there’s nothing going on, there’s nothing going on.’

The anger was leaking into her voice now. And I could hear the brittleness again, unfamiliar and unsettling.

I watched her carefully, trying to understand.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘If Mary can’t handle me working with someone like Turner that’s
her
problem. She’s turning into such a neurotic old cow, I’m getting to the stage where I don’t care
what
she thinks anymore.’

I don’t know why I was shocked, but I was.

‘You two were really happy once,’ I said, staring down at my trifle.

‘Well, God knows we’re miserable now.’ Suzanne raised an eyebrow as she half-quoted Morrissey. ‘Y’know Gill, I reckon you must have read too much Barbara Cartland when you were a teenager.... So this is going to surprise you... but love isn’t always about living happily ever after. Sometimes it’s about waking up morning after morning and wondering how you’re going to keep up the pretence that everything’s okay for another day. God knows, I’m still really fond of Mary, but just lately she’s been a right royal pain in the arse and I certainly haven’t fancied her for years. Funny thing is... it took me ages to even accept that myself.... Recently, we’ve only really made love because she still wants to and she feels hurt and rejected if I don’t. After a while, it’s hard to keep on doling out that kind of charity. I’m getting to the stage where I only have to see that pathetic, yearning look on her face and I feel sick.’

She balanced her knife and fork on the side of her plate and looked up to make eye contact again. I thought she was going to add something. Then she looked as if she could hardly even be bothered trying to explain it to me. She made a semi-disgusted ‘Phah’ noise and focused her attention firmly back on her lunch.

‘I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,’ she muttered. ‘How can you even
begin
to know what that feels like?’

She meant, of course, that in her eyes, I was never likely to be the one to get tired of anybody. I picked up my spoon and began to eat, trying hard not to be offended.

The trifle tasted good now I’d got round to trying it. It was probably even quite healthy. It had real fruit in it – apples and oranges and stuff. It was getting increasingly hard for me to swallow though. I knew Suzanne was being honest, and I thought, really, I ought to respect her for that. The way she was doing it bothered me though. I kept thinking about Mary and how hurt she’d be if she could hear this. And deeper than that, even, I kept thinking how hurt
I’d
be if I thought anybody would ever say anything like that about me.

Around us, life went on. The day was hot. The smell of wholesome cooking vied for airspace with the bitter tang of freshly ground coffee. People talked with varied degrees of volume control.

‘I think I’ll settle for Jeremy,’ said one particularly plummy woman to her companion. ‘He
is
more my intellectual equal.’

‘A male baboon brain,’ muttered Suzanne. ‘How terribly bloody marvellous!’

I knew that I was only just beginning to see the full force of her anger and frustration. She was strung out like a sleek and disgruntled animal in a cage. I watched as she crunched viciously on her salad.

I should have made my excuses and fled back to work right then. But something drove me on. ‘If you feel so trapped,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you just leave?’

Suzanne threw me a look of utter contempt.

‘Because,’ she said. ‘I’m terrified that she’d throw herself under a bus or something.’

I recoiled inwardly, shocked. All those years together, and that was what kept her there?

The dark, heavy paranoid feeling was almost familiar now as it writhed and twisted through my guts.