Best of Friends (2 page)

However, intellectually brilliant but unworldly, he’d never actually realised that Abby, despite being quite happy to find treasures in second-hand boutiques during their hard-up days, had always secretly liked to spend money on her hair and on ludicrously expensive cosmetics. And that one of the advantages of her new-found financial success was that Abby no longer had to hide the cost of hairdos and new clothes by buying cheaper cuts of meat and special offer vegetables. Certainly if Tom were given the slightest clue to how much today’s jaunt to Gianni’s had cost, he’d be scathing about the waste of money.

Money was a bit of a sore subject in the Barton household these days. After years of earning so little, Abby had imagined that her new, comparative wealth would make their lives much easier. Instead, in some ways it had made them more difficult, mainly because of Tom’s vision of himself as head of the household and breadwinner.

At school, he might be viewed as a modern educator with plenty of innovative ideas, but at home Tom liked the traditional roles to be maintained. Despite her increased workload, Abby still did all the shopping and laundry, an arrangement that was beginning to grate. And she knew that he, like many men, did not feel comfortable about his wife earning more than he did.

“I think it suits you a bit more feathery round the jaw,” Cherise said now, fiddling with the fine ends and fluffing them up. “It’s kinder to the jawline.” Then she smiled and stood back to admire her famous client from a distance. “Do you know, it takes years off you!”

Abby had a sudden vision of herself saying the same thing to her Aunt Sadie when Sadie had finally given up her five-decade red-lipstick habit in favour of a subtle warm pink. White-haired Sadie, squinting in the mirror in disapproval at the sight of her mouth without its narrow slash of crimson, had actually looked much the same. Still seventy-six, just with a more suitable lip colour. The youthful Cherise probably thought of Abby in the same way that Abby thought of Aunt Sadie: a tough old broad vainly trying to keep age at bay. But all the money and fame in the world couldn’t do that.

Outside Gianni’s with a bag of hair care products, Abby slammed the rear door of her glossy black four-wheel drive—the purchase of which had almost started a war in the Barton household—opened the driver’s door and swung herself into the seat. Her hair had turned out well, she thought, glancing critically in the rear-view mirror. Those much-discussed strands of rich chestnut really brought out the sea-green tints in her eyes.

A passer-by stared into the car and Abby saw the familiar quickening of recognition in the man’s eyes. She shot him a brief professional smile and gunned the engine, hoping she’d have manoeuvred out of the parking space before he realised that he hadn’t smiled at an acquaintance—which was what most people initially thought—but at Abby Barton, television celebrity and self-help guru.

Being recognised still shocked Abby. After eighteen months of it, she still wasn’t used to complete strangers nodding to her in the supermarket, then their expressions changing as the truth hit them. That wasn’t someone from down the road or the woman they saw daily at the school gates. It was that celebrity, whatshername, the one with that TV show telling everyone how to sort out their lives.

When Abby’s daughter, Jess, was with her, the teenager would give a running commentary on the person’s thoughts.

“What’s
she
doing in the supermarket? Don’t famous people have someone to do their shopping?” Jess would mutter, leaving her mother in fits of laughter as they hurtled their trolley away down an aisle. “And look at the state of those track suit bottoms. I thought them big telly stars were loaded and she’s out in trackies with a hole in them. Scandalous.” With a witty tongue and a great eye for a comic moment, Jess somehow managed to make being stared at by strangers fun. At other times, without the fifteen-year-old riding shotgun, it wasn’t always quite so funny—especially, as Abby had discovered to her astonishment, since people felt that it was OK to say anything to famous people, even remotely famous people like herself.

Hovering by the tampons one day, wearily deciding which type she’d buy from the dizzying range, she’d jumped when a woman said: “Wow! I thought you were much younger from the TV. They must use amazing make-up.”

For once, it had taken a lot of effort to summon up the legendary Barton kindness. “They do. Truckloads of it,” Abby had said between gritted teeth, and picked up the first box of tampons that came to hand—the wrong ones, it turned out. Fame wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, that was for sure.

As she drove out of the city, her mood lifted. It was impossible to remain miserable on such a lovely March day, when the promise of summer was in the air. Banks of daffodils brightened the edges of the motorway, all craning their long necks together as if to catch sight of a passing car. Between great grey clouds above the gently rolling hills that protectively surrounded Cork city, snatches of cerulean sky could be seen.

Leaving the sedate sprawl of the suburbs behind, Abby exited the motorway and took the road to Dunmore. Exclusive Dunmore was once a tiny harbour town nestling on the outskirts of Cork, but now the city was reaching out towards it. Abby could imagine giant tracts of housing estate would one day smother the lovely green meadows that encircled the town, remorselessly merging it with the city.

But for now it was still a perfectly self-contained place with its own banks, shops, industries, a recently restored pier and a strong sense of community among the five thousand residents.

It was six months since the Barton family had moved here, and Abby loved it. She adored the horseshoe harbour and the historic town square with its old courthouse (now a bank); the railway hotel, and the exquisite small, spired church set amid the big houses of the wealthy townspeople. A hundred years ago, Dunmore had been something of a holiday town for wealthy Victorians, who came to take the sulphuric waters. They built the big villas on Knock Hill from where they could look out over their rhododendron-filled gardens down to the jagged coastline. Now, these buildings were transformed into small hotels, conference centres and offices, with only a few still functioning as private residences. The spa water was sold round the world and the bottling factory provided massive employment in the area. The wealthy of Dunmore were no longer the idle rich but people who had to work hard to continue to live in this much sought-after area. Abby never drove through the pretty, well-maintained town centre without feeling a surge of gratitude that she had come so far.

Little Annie Costello of The Cottages, a misleading name for a pinched line of council houses in a country town many miles from Cork, had never hoped to have made it so far in life. The families who lived in The Cottages were lucky if they knew where their next meal was coming from. Now Abby Barton, née Annie Costello, could order in caterers should she feel like it. A healthy bank account, fame, and respectability were hers, and the house in Dunmore was the icing on the cake.

Her parents hadn’t lived to see her success. Mum would have been so pleased, Abby often thought sadly, imagining her mother’s face filled with pride at how far her Annie had come. Her father, on the other hand, wouldn’t have cared how successful his daughter had become, as long as he still had enough money in his pocket for his daily ration of booze.

Abby’s next port of call was the supermarket. When they were first married, she and Tom used to do the weekend shop together, but these days, when she was busier than ever, he never offered to help.

She literally ran round the aisles, hoping to be ready in time to pick Jess up from the train station. It was only a ten-minute walk from the station to their home in Briar Lane, but Jess had looked tired from hauling her bag of books every day. Abby had had to bite her lip not to say anything. The last time Abby had offered to collect her, Jess had told her indignantly she was fed up with being treated like a child.

“I like having a bit of peace,” she’d snapped, raking her fingers through her sandy ponytail. “I have to get the train to school on my own, so I can manage to walk home from the station.”

That had hurt. Jess was the one member of the family who hadn’t wanted to move from the Bartons’ modest four-bedroom city semi where they’d lived all her life. It had been close to Jess’s friends and to her school, while the house in Dunmore was miles away, and Jess felt very cut off.

Today was Friday and Jess was sure to be very tired. She couldn’t resent a lift today, surely, Abby thought. They could talk on the way home, perhaps, and it might be like old times. Before work had taken up so much of her time, and before they’d moved to Dunmore, Abby had often picked up Jess and her best friend, Steph, from school. The girls used to whoop with delight to see Abby’s mud-caked old Fiat parked by the school gates, and after dumping sports bags, filthy runners and dog-eared library books into the boot, they would chatter merrily all the way home, telling Abby about how horrible Saffron Walsh in their year thought she was the bee’s knees now she had a pink Guess watch, how the O’Brien twins were going to be expelled for smoking and how Miss Aston must have a crush on the new history teacher, Mr. Lanoix, because her eyes turned dreamy every time she bumped into him in the corridor.

However, Abby’s shopping done, the length of the queue at the checkout conspired against her, and then a woman with a huge trolley-load and no purse held up everyone for ten minutes. Once she had finally thrown her shopping into the car, Abby drove rapidly to the tiny station, looking out for a lanky, sandy-haired figure in a grey skirt and cardigan hauling a giant school bag. But, apart from a couple pulling a huge suitcase up the station steps, there was no one there.

Knowing that Jess would take the shortcut home through the shopping centre and up the pedestrian-only backstreets, Abby drove off. Jess would be home before her and that meant Abby had lost the chance for a chat. In the car, Jess was a captive audience. At home, her after-school routine was to shut her bedroom door loudly and switch on her CD player. Abby wasn’t sure if teenage hormones were to blame or if it was her own fault for somehow failing to bond with this new Jess, the argumentative girl who seemed determined to push her parents to the limit. But in some way she felt she was losing her.

Fortunately, driving down Briar Lane never ceased to lift Abby’s spirits. As she bounced the Jeep over the speed ramps, she felt that faint thrill of pride that her hard work had brought them all here.

The previous house had been lovely, thanks to her skill at interior decoration. But Gartland Avenue had been a very ordinary road in a housing estate and with the unruly Milligans next door, screaming at each other at sixty decibels day and night, it hadn’t been exactly anyone’s dream location.

Briar Lane was a different matter. A winding road lined with stately sycamores and overgrown laurel bushes, it was a house-fancier’s heaven—full of all sorts of different properties, from new Regency-inspired homes to low, sprawling old farmhouses, with some quirky cottages in between.

Abby had fallen in love with Lyonnais the first time she’d seen it. It had started life as the gate house to a big, now long-gone mansion and, after years of careful alteration, was now a large white-gabled family home with mullioned windows and rambling roses clinging to the stonework.

Even Tom, who wasn’t at all given to sentimentality, had said there was a lovely atmosphere about the house as they’d wandered through it all those months ago with the estate agent at their heels.

Abby had squeezed Tom’s hand in excitement. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she kept saying, despite his earlier warning that they weren’t to appear too enthusiastic about the house, no matter how much they liked it.
This
was the sort of house a television celebrity should own—not a twenty-year-old semi that looked like every other house on the road, but this, this gorgeously unusual pile, with its large airy rooms and its nooks and crannies and the intriguing pantry with the hidden cup-board, and the rambling garden with the armless statue of some Greek goddess hiding shyly behind a gown of ivy tendrils. Abby could already picture what she’d do to the place, where she’d put things and what colours she’d paint the walls.

“It’s way over our budget,” Tom had said firmly as they’d toured the attic bedroom, which, if the cobweb content was a reliable barometer, was home to an entire colony of spiders. It was certainly over any budget that his deputy headmaster’s salary could manage and he found it difficult to look at the subject in any other way. It made no difference how often Abby said that his salary had kept them all for years, so what did it matter if hers was bigger now? It did matter to Tom. “We can’t afford this,” he’d reiterated later, his lips thinning into the disapproving line that made him look just like his crabby old father.

Abby hadn’t cared. For once, she’d ignored Tom’s disapproval and fought for what she wanted. They’d manage. She’d do more private commissions and there were sure to be other lucrative spin-offs from the TV show, like public appearances—even though Abby hated that type of thing. She was determined to do whatever it took to buy Lyonnais. They couldn’t lose this house. They’d be so happy there, she knew it. All Tom needed to do was get over his strop about who earned the most money.

She sighed now as she swung the Jeep into the drive, admiring, as she always did, the magnolia tree to one side of the gate, now gorgeously in bloom. She did love this place but things hadn’t been easy since they’d moved here. Her relationship with Tom had deteriorated, while she and Jess seemed to be living on different planets. Just when life should be perfect for the Bartons, it seemed curiously off balance.

two

E
arlier that afternoon, Jess Barton had glanced quickly at the classroom clock. Ten to three. Another forty minutes of science. Boring. Being a teenager was crammed with boredom, Jess felt, what with train-track braces, horrible exams and people constantly bossing you around, but double science was surely the most boring thing of all. Noticing Miss Nevin’s gaze roaming over the class, Jess stared down dutifully at her science textbook, trying to appear as if her mind was firmly fixed on the knotty issue of what sort of chemical formula you came up with if you mixed sulphur, oxygen and hydrogen. Nobody acted dutiful interest better than Jess Barton. She was award-winning material, Oscar-nomination stuff.