A Time for Friends (38 page)

‘And remember the time we went into the sex shop in Soho, my first time
ever
in such an establishment, and we fell around the place laughing at some of the stuff and the male
customers were
not
impressed, and then you treated me to lunch in that posh restaurant in Mayfair – I can’t remember the name – and we saw Kenneth Branagh and Emma
Thompson? The first time I ever saw someone famous.’

‘I still have the dent in my ribs where you nudged me,’ Colette laughed. ‘I’d forgotten what good times we had. It all seems so long ago now, doesn’t it?’

‘I know, and look at us with our daughters practically grown up. I’m beginning to feel a bit ancient and decrepit.’ Hilary stretched luxuriously on the bed. ‘Anyway
I’d better go, we’re heading to Sticky Fingers. I just wanted to give you a call and tell you I was thinking of you.’

‘Sticky Fingers! Jazzy’s favourite place to eat in London. Tell the girls to enjoy it. Listen, thanks for ringing, sweetie. How about I call you next week when you’re home and
we’ll have a natter and a catch-up,’ Colette suggested.

‘Perfect! Take care.’

‘You too,’ Colette said, feeling surprisingly lonely when the phone went dead. It would have been such fun to be in London with the girls. Hilary was right, she
should
keep
in touch more. If it wasn’t for her friend ringing every so often their friendship would be practically non-existent, she conceded. It wasn’t that she meant to not keep in touch, it was
just that out of sight was out of mind, and her life was so busy time just seemed to pass. And then when she did speak to Hilary, she’d get lonely and want to be at home or in London and
she’d feel down after the call, like she did now.

She’d pull her socks up regarding their friendship, she promised herself, as the phone rang again and the chair of one of her charity boards came on the line to tell Colette that the CEO
had been caught fiddling the funds and it was going to be on the news that very day, and the backlash was going to be awesome, and she was thinking of resigning. ‘ . . . and if I were you
I’d do the same. No one wants to be tainted with that sort of failure.’

Thoughts of Hilary and London flew out of Colette’s head while she wrestled with this new dilemma and wondered should she, instead of resigning, go after the plum position of chair –
if Dana Sinclair was sincere about jumping ship – and bring the charity back from the brink?

Hilary smiled, glad she had acted on her spur of the moment impulse to ring Colette. She touched up her make-up and spritzed some 212 on her wrists. It seemed like another
lifetime ago when she and Colette had gadded around London with not a care in the world. She had omitted to tell Colette the real reason she was in London. Jonathan’s break-up was his
business. There was little love lost between them: there was no need for her to know. She wouldn’t mention to Jonathan either that she had made the call. He’d only say something bitchy
about the other woman, as he usually did, so there was no point.

It had been nice to hear her friend’s voice after so long. There was never any awkwardness when they spoke, no matter how long they hadn’t heard from each other, but Colette was the
world’s worst for keeping in touch and sometimes Hilary wondered if she didn’t make the effort would their friendship evaporate into the ether as friendships often did.

‘Mum, are you ready?’ Millie knocked on the door and Hilary went to let her daughters in, determined to enjoy this unexpected break with them, evaporating friendships or no.

‘This place is deadly.’ Sophie gazed around at the rock and roll memorabilia that hung on the walls of the glitzy American-themed café.

‘I have to say, Mick Jagger never did it for me,’ Jonathan admitted as the music of The Rolling Stones blasted through the restaurant.

‘Me neither, those loose lips and the skinny, knitting-needle legs . . . no thanks! Same with Paul McCartney. Give me a hard muscular thigh any time,’ Hilary announced, sipping her
pre-dinner Brandy Alexander.

‘Leon might have liked
him
years ago. He likes his men young, and slender, he informed me!’ Jonathan necked a bottle of beer.

‘You’re young and slenderish!’ Sophie said loyally.

‘Not young enough, too lanky, not small and perfectly formed, unfortunately. But thank you, dear heart, for your kindness,’ he said affectionately.

‘And did he drop you like a hot potato, just like that, as soon as you got here?’ Millie asked, stirring the ice in her Coke.

‘Well he had a good feed in – as your mother would call it – a posh restaurant, with expensive cocktails beforehand, the best of wine during the meal, and a brandy to finish
off, and
then
he ditched me, right in the middle of a nightclub.’ Jonathan couldn’t hide his bitterness.

‘I think he’s a bit sad, if you ask me,’ Sophie declared.

‘Why so?’ He looked at her, surprised.

‘Well he’s in his thirties, and he does the kind of thing teenagers do. You know, dropping people after using them, often in nightclubs. He doesn’t sound very mature to
me.’

‘Oh! I suppose you have a point.’

‘And he hasn’t even come out properly. He’s a coward as well, running away to London for a gay weekend and going home and pretending he’s straight,’ Millie said
derisively. ‘You know who you are and you aren’t ashamed of it. Sophie’s right, he’s sad.’

‘So am I sad, even though everything you said is right.’ Jonathan sighed a gusty sigh.

‘Is this the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?’ Sophie asked sympathetically, reaching across the table to give his hand a squeeze.

‘No, I don’t suppose it is,’ he said slowly.

‘That’s good, and at least you have us to mind you.’

‘Indeed I do, how lucky am I?’ He smiled at her and squeezed her hand back just as the waitress arrived with platters of ribs, buffalo wings, pulled pork, corn-bread muffins,
jalapeño peppers stuffed with cream cheese, and fries.

‘Yum! Yum!’ Sophie approved, diving on the wings.

‘I needed this badly. I just wish it wasn’t such a sad occasion for you, Jonathan.’ Millie selected a sticky rib.

‘I’ll get over it,’ he assured her and right there and right then he felt he would and that was enough for now.

Margaret sat at her table as the sun spilled its rays into her small kitchen and stared at the array of tablets in their blue containers. How many days had she sat here every
morning going through the same routine before breakfast? Her phone rang and she saw Hilary’s number displayed. ‘Hello, dear? How is London going? Are you and the girls having a good
time?’

‘We’re having a wonderful time, Gran.’ Her daughter-in-law’s clear tones came down the line as though she was next door and not in another country. ‘We’re
meeting Jonathan for breakfast in the dining room and then we’re heading off to take a trip on the Eye. I’m taking lots of photos. You’ll love the ones of Kensington Palace from
my room. I’ve a terrific view of it and the park. How are you feeling today?’

‘Great, pet, great,’ Margaret lied. ‘Delighted to hear from you.’

‘Are you taking your tablets?’

‘I am.’

‘Well we’ll see you tomorrow evening and don’t forget to keep Sunday free to have dinner with us,’ Hilary reminded her.

‘I look forward to it, dear. Enjoy the rest of your day and love to everyone.’ Hilary was such a good person, ringing to see if she was OK. Sue wouldn’t bother her skinny
backside. Her daughter was so resentful at having to bring her to the medical appointments.
And
she’d tried to blacken Hilary by saying that Hilary had being moaning about being too
busy to be taking time off. There had been no need for Sue to tell Margaret that, even if it was true. Now she felt a real and proper nuisance and she knew the way her body was failing it was only
going to get worse. Sue would have her in a nursing home if it were left to her.

Margaret gave a deep sigh and poured herself another cup of tea from the china pot she favoured. It was heavy and her hand trembled with the effort. Imagine, she thought in disgust, not even
being able to hold a teapot without shaking. What was to become of her?

She could get some home help, she supposed. And in that she could be lucky or unlucky, listening to her friends and the experiences they had. One friend had a home help who even baked bread for
her and was extremely kind; another had been robbed blind and lost several hundred euros and some sentimental jewellery.

Margaret buttered her toast and spread it with marmalade and bit into it. Was it that her taste buds had faded, too? Food never seemed as flavorsome any more, and truth be told, she had gone off
quite a few foods that she’d liked, and her appetite was getting smaller and smaller.

Old age, all down to old age, she fretted, hardly able to see the writing on the Old Time Irish marmalade jar without her glasses. Her sister-in-law had ended up in a nursing home, nearly blind
and shaking with Parkinson’s. Margaret had visited her a few times, her heart sinking at the sight of the once glamorous and proud woman slumped in a wheelchair, hands shaking as she stared
unseeingly out at the rose garden beyond.

That might very well be her in a couple of years. Margaret felt the familiar flutter of apprehension envelop her when she contemplated the future.

The warfarin, red, yellow and brown today, lay waiting to be swallowed along with Liposol, and a water tablet. She shook the tablets into her hand and gazed at them. She was being kept alive by
tablets, of that there was no doubt. But the more tablets she was prescribed the more they interacted, causing complications. The last antibiotic had given her a most excruciating pain in the
tendon in her ankle and calf and the GP had taken her off it immediately and told her to say she was allergic to it if she was ever offered it again. Another friend, Esther, had gone into
anaphylactic shock after taking penicillin that she had taken all her life. Esther had spent a night on a trolley in the Mater and had to be resuscitated. She had never got over the episode, which
had weakened her considerably, and she had confided to Margaret that she wished she had gone to the lovely peaceful energy that was inviting her to become one with it.

Margaret studied her tablets. Decisions had to be made. Either she could make them or they would be made for her. And having people make decisions for her was the vexing position she just did
not want to be in.

‘You’ve raised two great girls,’ Jonathan complimented Hilary as they strolled towards Tate Modern along the South Bank, having had an exhilarating half-hour
on the London Eye. The sun was warm on their faces, dazzling on the grey-green waters of the Thames, and a soft breeze rustled gently through the trees.

‘Thanks.’ She tucked her arm in his.

‘They’re so non-judgemental! They’re completely accepting of me.’

‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ She looked at him quizzically.

‘Well you know . . . being gay.’

‘But, Jonathan, they’ve known you since they were kids, they
love
you, and besides their generation don’t put any pass on whether you’re gay, straight, bi or
whatever. Thank God they have the wisdom to see that it’s no big deal,’ Hilary said matter-of-factly. ‘And I’m surprised that you even felt the need to say that.’

‘It’s probably after being with Leon,’ he sighed. ‘He really is tormented about his sexuality and I guess it’s washed off on me.’

‘Well that’s his problem, not yours. And to be honest with you, I don’t think it would have worked with you two if he was keeping his relationship with you a secret. It would
have caused
huge
problems for you.’

‘I was hoping he would have felt brave enough to come out eventually, if we were together.’

‘Umm . . .’ Hilary was skeptical.

‘Maybe you’re right but it doesn’t make it any easier. I feel ugly and unlovable and unattractive and that’s Leon’s legacy to me,’ Jonathan said dourly.

‘Jonathan Harpur, don’t you
ever
let me hear you saying anything like that again, and don’t you
dare
start feeling sorry for yourself. He’s the loser,
not you, now stop it!’ Hilary ordered as the girls caught up with them.

‘Mum, could we go and see where Princess Diana lived? It looks so pretty from our hotel window,’ Sophie asked. ‘We don’t
really
want to go to art galleries and
theatres.’

‘I hate abstract art, Mum, I hate all those angles and distorted faces and bodies, they do my head in.’ Millie made a face. ‘I just don’t like Picasso and Dali and Bacon.
I much prefer the Impressionists.’

‘There are some Monets and Turners too,’ Hilary pointed out.

‘Mum, I don’t like those squiggly weird sort of paintings either,’ Sophie grimaced.

‘Jonathan and I might like to see them. He’s an interior designer, don’t forget. He draws inspiration from paintings. A bit of culture is good for you,’ her mother
pointed out.

‘Oh!’ Sophie was crestfallen. ‘OK.’

‘Nah, let’s go visit the Palace. It was Princess Victoria’s home until she became Queen at the age of eighteen. We can have a cultural history lesson.’ Jonathan winked at
Sophie. ‘There’s a gorgeous garden, and a restaurant called the Orangery. It’s so fine today we could have lunch outside on the terrace if you like,’ he suggested
affably.

‘Oh cool,’ enthused Millie. ‘I love being a tourist and eating outside.’

‘A tourist you will be, then,’ Jonathan said. ‘Let’s get a black cab.’

‘This is a really wide river. I remember being in London when I was small once and we went to Madame Tussaud’s,’ Sophie remarked as the taxi crossed Blackfriars Bridge and
turned left along the Embankment.

‘That was a long time ago. You and Jazzy were only toddlers,’ Hilary smiled.

‘Sometime I’d like to do a river tour past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament – I love those buildings.’ Millie stared out at the ships and barges moored along the
riverbank.

‘We’ll come back for a longer stay another time,’ Hilary promised. ‘Don’t forget this was a spur of the moment trip.’

‘Well I’m having fun,’ Sophie said happily, exceedingly relieved to have got out of visiting Tate Modern.