A Time for Friends (40 page)

Hilary got into her car and turned on the ignition as she mulled over their conversation. At one level she could understand her sister-in-law’s exasperation. Not having children was her
choice, even if Margaret and others didn’t approve. And it must be grating for Sue, she conceded, having Hilary and the girls shoved down her neck, but still, there was no need for the other
woman to have dragged Hilary into her problems with her mother. Families could have such lethal undercurrents. You could choose your spouse, but the in-laws that came with them could be a blessing
or a bane.

Her trip to London with her daughters had given Hilary food for thought. She had come to a decision that would impact on all their lives. She was going to cut back on her work and employ
someone, part-time, to work on the lighting design aspect of the business. She would finish up the projects she had ongoing with Jonathan but after they were done and dusted she would be more
picky.

Hilary felt a burden lift from her shoulders as she drove away from Sue’s elegant townhouse. For the last few years she’d felt pulled in all directions. Now it was time to step back.
Business was booming, she could offer employment to someone else and still be involved, have time for her family, Margaret, and most importantly,
herself
. She had thoroughly enjoyed the
few days in London with the girls. It was time to get off the hamster wheel for a while and start living again. Feminists would probably accuse her of wimping out. Sue certainly would, Hilary
thought ruefully, driving along Wellington Road and admiring the large, stylish houses that lined the street. Other women might be adept at constantly juggling all the facets of their busy lives.
She had reached her limit and if that made her a failure in other women’s eyes so be it, she could live with it. The Celtic Tiger could roar away; she was getting off its back for a while and
having made her decision all she felt was relief.

The traffic lights turned red at Haddington Road and she scrolled for Jonathan’s number on her hands-free. She wanted to tell him of her showdown with Sue and of the decision she’d
made. It rang out and went into his message minder and she left him a brief message. Jonathan would support her whatever she did, she knew with certainty, and she knew Niall would be more than
pleased.

Was cutting back on work a sacrifice on her part? Hilary pondered, watching two women jog effortlessly along the tree-lined street. At least she was lucky enough to have the choice. Plenty of
women had no choice. With the massive size of mortgage repayments many women would be working for a long time, whether they wanted to work outside the home or not. Thank God she’d insisted on
paying off their mortgage when the money had started rolling in. The investment adviser in the bank had not been in favour of that step, wanting instead for Hilary to keep paying off the mortgage
and use her new income to invest in stocks and shares. She had declined. She was ‘too cautious’, he’d said pompously. Cautious and a failure as a career woman, that was her!
Hilary grinned, whizzing down Bath Avenue. She could live with that.

‘Get dressed, we’re going out. You know we have an important consult today.’ Hilary stood at Jonathan’s bedroom door scowling.

‘I don’t want to go,’ he groaned. ‘Make an excuse for me.’ He was lounging against his pillows watching morning TV.

‘I will
not!
’ she retorted, pulling open the long drapes that covered the sliding doors to the wraparound deck outside Jonathan’s bedroom. ‘What are you watching
that horrible little Gollum for? He’s obnoxious, stirring up shit between people.’ She stood with her hands on her hips at the end of his bed, glaring at the TV screen where a presenter
was shouting at a woman for sleeping with her neighbour, while the downtrodden husband looked mortified.

‘I don’t usually watch him. I don’t even like him,’ Jonathan said, shamefaced, switching off the TV with the remote. ‘It just shows how low I am at the
moment.’

‘Sinking to a new low, you mean.’ Hilary showed no mercy. ‘And you pong. Go have a shower while I air this bedroom and tidy up the sitting room. You’re a disgrace,
Harpur, and I’m not standing for it any more. You’ve had three weeks to have your nervous breakdown. Now go and see Hannah and deal with it because I’m sick of it.’

‘No one asked you to come,’ he said sulkily.

‘Eh . . . we have a business, remember? We have an appointment with Gina Grant in an hour and a half, buster, so get UP!’

‘Oh crap! Is that today?’ Jonathan exclaimed in dismay.

‘Yes!’

‘Sorry, Hil, it went out of my head. I won’t be long.’ He leapt out of the bed and hurried into the wet room adjoining his bedroom. Hilary was relieved when she heard the sound
of the power shower gushing water. She threw empty cereal and yogurt cartons into a waste bin, pulled the sheets and pillowcases off the bed and rolled them into a ball for washing. A salty breeze
blew in through the sliding doors. An easterly was blowing in from the Irish Sea along the Liffey below. The never-ending traffic on the quays rolled along steadily, brakes squealing at the lights.
Pedestrians hurried along the pavements, occasionally jaywalking across the quays, non-stop frenetic movement adding to the fast pace of city life, and still the seagulls swooped and dived along
the river in graceful symmetry, a peaceful contrast. No wonder Jonathan liked sitting out on his deck in his penthouse eyrie over the city.

She hadn’t seen him since he had returned from his ill-fated trip to London. He had shut himself up in his apartment and taken to his bed. When she’d phoned him he’d given
monosyllabic answers, when he’d actually bothered to answer his phone, that was.

She had been as sympathetic as she could and tried to persuade him to go to his counsellor when she sensed depression was taking hold but he wouldn’t listen to her and told her he’d
deal with it in his own way. She knew he was utterly devastated by the episode with Leon and she grieved for him, but hiding in his bedroom eating cereals and watching trashy daytime TV programmes
was not going to mend his broken heart or his shattered equilibrium.

Now Hilary’s patience was at an end. Jonathan was the one who had sourced the Grants as clients. He could either tell them he was pulling out or get up off his ass and get back to work.
She had phoned him three times the previous day and he hadn’t taken her calls and that was when she had made up her mind to confront him. She’d taken the spare set of his keys that he
always left in her house and driven over to tackle him.

She saw his mobile phone on the coffee table in the sitting room and realized it was flat. He probably hadn’t even got her messages. The charger was on his desk in his office so she
plugged it in and went into the kitchen and brewed up a pot of fresh coffee. God only knew how many of his own clients he’d let down in the past three weeks. He’d need to pull his socks
up and make a grovelling apology to them if he wanted to keep them, she thought crossly, flinging dirty dishes into the dishwasher and wiping down his counter-tops.

‘Leave that. I’ll give Svetlana a call and get her to come and blitz the place.’ Jonathan came into the kitchen in a towelling robe, drying his hair.

‘It needs it,’ Hilary said shortly. ‘Jonathan, we’ve been friends and business partners for a long time and I don’t appreciate you not taking my calls . . . on both
a friendship and a business level.’ She glared at him.

‘Don’t be crotchety. I just didn’t want to talk to
anyone
,’ he moaned. ‘I was so shattered I just wanted to curl up in a ball and escape the world.
I’ve had Mam on my back for a week.’

‘That’s not good enough, Harpur. You’ve built up a first-class business. You should be ashamed for allowing it to start sliding down the tubes all because a little creep did
the dirty on you and turned you down. It happens to us all and we have to get over it.’

‘It’s OK for you!’ he burst out heatedly. ‘You don’t have a
clue
what it’s like! You have Niall and the girls. You don’t come home to an empty
house every night. You have someone to put their arms around you. I don’t! I’m lonely, Hilary.
LONELY!
Every time I think I’ve found someone I get dumped and I feel
totally rejected and that there’s something wrong with me.’

‘That’s because you’re too needy, Jonathan. And that’s not easy to say because I love you and you’re my friend,’ Hilary said quietly.

‘Needy
? Me?’ He was shocked.

‘There are worse things than coming home to an empty house,’ she said firmly. ‘Coming home to someone who isn’t right for you. Coming home to someone who doesn’t
want to be with you, and who stays with you because they feel they have to! Coming home to someone who’s with you because you keep them, and provide very well for them, and if you
didn’t, they wouldn’t stay. Do you
really
want a relationship like that? The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence,’ she pointed out.

‘I know all these things. I tell myself them, but, Hilary, what’s so wrong with wanting to share my life with someone?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing, nothing at all.’ She slipped an arm around his shoulder. ‘Just be patient and the right one will come eventually, but don’t throw away everything you’ve
built up because of someone who’s completely unworthy of you.’

Tears filled his eyes. ‘I won’t, Hilary. Thank you so much for saying that.’

‘I said a lot, what in particular?’ She smiled at him and gave him a comforting pat on the back.

‘That Leon was unworthy of me,’ Jonathan gulped.

‘Well he was, totally, and he was a fool to throw away a relationship with you. So don’t ruin it all because of him.’

‘OK, I won’t,’ he declared shakily.

‘Good, and do yourself a favour.’

‘What’s that?’ He smoothed some gel into his hair.

‘Make an appointment to see Hannah. She always gives you a great perspective on things and you know you always feel better having talked to her.’

‘I suppose,’ he said dubiously. ‘She’ll only repeat what you’ve just said.’

‘Excellent,’ said Hilary briskly. ‘Then it might just sink in.’

Jonathan flicked his towel at her ass. ‘Ha ha!’ he said, but he was smiling.

‘Oh look, it’s the Parthenon!’ Jonathan exclaimed as they drove up a ruler-straight drive lined with cypress trees and surrounded by immaculate manicured
lawns.

‘Stop it! Don’t make me laugh when we’re inside,’ Hilary warned him.

‘Good God, is that a turret?’ he exclaimed. ‘And look at the circular glass window! Windsor Castle with a touch of Notre-Dame. Hard to know exactly
what
era this is
from. Hollywood
circa
Cecil B. DeMille, if you ask me.’

‘Jonathan, please stop,’ chuckled Hilary.

‘You could have Ben-Hur doing chariot races up and down those lawns. Look at the Bentley and the Rolls.’ He gave a low whistle as they slowed to a halt at the front of the house. A
uniformed houseman opened the door and led them across a massive circular entrance hall with a double staircase and the biggest glass chandelier hanging from the dome ceiling that either of them
had ever seen. He opened the door to a very grand reception room. ‘Please make yourselves comfortable,’ he said politely.

Hilary straightened her jacket, glad that she had put on a simple string of pearls to add a touch of class. Her grey suit was pressed; she was wearing heels and carrying a smart briefcase, so
she felt she looked the part. Jonathan had on the light brown leather jacket that he’d bought in London, over a white Armani silk shirt and D&G jeans. An orange tie-dye scarf was looped
around his neck, and his gelled hair gave him a faintly exotic air. He wouldn’t go too far wrong in Hollywood, as well as this pad, Hilary thought, amused by his description of Bramblewood
Manor.

‘It’s like a film set, very Louis XIV. A touch of the Charles Le Bruns in the silverwork. This room alone has cost a small fortune,’ Jonathan whispered when the young man went
to tell the Grants that they’d arrived. ‘I hate sitting on this kind of chair and sofa. I always think they’re going to collapse!’ He perched gingerly on a narrow gilt-edged
sofa.

‘I hate walking on Aubusson carpets in heels.’ Hilary gazed down at the hand-woven pastel-green-and-ivory-pink rug under her feet. The clickity-clack of high heels and the firm thud
of a man’s footsteps echoed across the hall and Jonathan stood up as a tall, elegant couple walked into the room. Gina Grant strode towards Jonathan, arm outstretched to shake hands.

‘Jonathan, so nice to finally meet after speaking to you on the phone. And you must be Mrs Hammond.’ She turned to Hilary and gave her a limp handshake. Gina Grant could have been
any age from thirty-five to sixty. Her ash-blonde hair was perfectly coiffed, no lines troubled her face, her green eyes had that faintly pulled, tell-tale slant that hinted at cosmetic surgery. A
golden, even tan and the jangle of gold at her wrist gave Gina an air of affluent sophistication that only money could buy.

‘Hello, I’m Shaun Grant.’ The tanned, grey-haired man introduced himself in a polite but uninterested voice. Shaun Grant, one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, was
clearly not one for small talk. ‘I’m going to leave you in my wife’s hands. All I’m saying is, for myself I don’t want pink anything, in any way, shape or form. Keep
it masculine, and don’t damage the lawns when the builders come. Use the best of materials but don’t rip me off. Nice meeting you.’ He turned to Gina. ‘Vyacheslav Fyodorov
and Makar Polzin and their wives are coming from Moscow next week. Tell Chef to practise his Russian cooking. I’ll see you tonight.’ He gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek before
striding out to the entrance where a chauffeur-driven Merc was waiting for him.

‘So, Mrs Grant, are you considering having a His and Hers treatment room, then?’ Jonathan asked casually. ‘I thought from our conversation that you wanted a relaxing
space.’

‘I do,’ she exclaimed, sinking gracefully onto the sofa he’d been sitting on. ‘I’m exhausted running around, entertaining morning, noon and night. Going to this
gala event or gold classic or race meet. I have to run this house and cater for Shaun’s needs and entertain his business associates and clients. You’ve just heard him, the Russians are
coming and I’ll have to make sure Antoine can cook some Russian food for them. I meet myself coming back, Jonathan, I don’t have a minute
and
I’m in the middle of the
menopause! I
need
a relaxing space.’ Unexpectedly the sophisticated woman in front of them crumpled and burst into tears.