Best of Friends (27 page)

He got to his feet and opened the door to his office to the Richardsons.

“Come in,” he said pleasantly.

Lizzie jerked up in bed when the phone began to ring. Grappling for the receiver, she looked at the alarm clock and fear ran through her. Twenty-five past seven in the morning. Nobody rang that early unless it was bad news.

“Hello,” she said, instantly wide awake, trying to ready herself for the blow.

“Hello, Lizzie,” said Clare Morgan. “I’m so sorry to phone you at this unearthly hour but I wanted to be sure of getting you to see if you could arrange cover for me for this morning’s surgery.”

Lizzie felt the fear ooze away. “No problem at all, Clare. What’s up?”

Dr. Morgan bypassed the question neatly. “I need you to phone Dr. Jones and ask him can he fill in for me. I’d phone him myself but my phone battery’s dead and I don’t want to make too many calls from the hospital phone. Tell him I’ve been on call since four a.m. with a patient and I won’t be home for a few hours. It was a kid with suspected meningitis. The parents were away and he was staying with his aunt, who didn’t spot the symptoms. I wonder could we get more of those meningitis symptoms check lists from the health board and remind parents that anyone caring for their children should be up to date on this?”

“I’ll handle it,” Lizzie said, thinking that her employer sounded dead on her feet. “You should get some sleep, Clare.”

“Oh, I’m going to.”

“What about this afternoon’s surgery?” Lizzie asked, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking for a pencil and a piece of paper to write notes on.

“Oh, I’ll be there,” said Clare Morgan wearily. “I don’t know, I don’t think I have the energy for this job anymore, Lizzie. It’s too painful and exhausting. I got a phone call yesterday evening when you’d gone to say that a patient of mine has advanced breast cancer. She’s only thirty-four, Lizzie—thirty-four, and who knows if she’ll see thirty-five. With young children and a husband and everything to live for. It’s not fair.”

Lizzie knew better than to ask who it was. But she could tell that the doctor was shaken by it.

“Is there anything else I can do, Clare?” she asked. “If you didn’t take your car to the hospital, I could have a taxi pick you up so you can get some rest …”

It was as if the normally practical Dr. Morgan hadn’t even heard her. “I can’t believe we didn’t find out sooner, Lizzie, not now when it’s too late. And do you know, she says she can cope, all she’s worried about are Jack and Daniel …”

Lizzie gasped. “It’s not Sally Richardson, is it?” she asked, not caring about patient confidentiality.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Then: “Yes,” admitted Clare. “It is. But please keep it to yourself, Lizzie. I think the family are going to need to come to terms with it before they start telling other people.”

Lizzie desperately wanted to ask how the cancer had developed so quickly without detection but she didn’t. Clare was obviously tormenting herself with just the same questions—how could one of her patients become so ill without her knowledge? Lizzie thought back to all the time Sally spent in the surgery with the boys. She practically never made appointments for herself, and although she’d talked about seeing the doctor, she hadn’t—not while Lizzie was on, anyway. She must have been in on one of Lizzie’s days off, and Iris, the covering receptionist, would have typed any referral letters to the breast clinic or a specialist.

“I’ve run out of money,” Clare said. “I’ll talk to you later. Leave any urgent messages on my mobile and I’ll pick them up when I’ve recharged the battery.”

She hung up. Lizzie went downstairs to make herself a cup of strong tea. She felt so shocked. She remembered Sally and Steve’s party the previous weekend and how Sally had graciously fended off compliments about how elegant and slim she looked in her shimmering sleeveless shift dress.

“I know it’s annoying when people say they don’t diet,” she’d said ruefully, “but honestly, running round after the boys and working in the salon really does keep the weight off. Delia calls it the working mother diet!” she joked.

Sally had always been tiny but she’d looked as slender as a catwalk model that night, with ribs defined under the silky dress. Lizzie was ashamed to remember feeling envious. How wrong she’d been, she realised now. What kind of world was this when the thinness that actually came from a disease was prized by other women?

While the kettle boiled, she phoned Dr. Jones and asked him to stand in for Dr. Morgan. Then she drank her tea and stared blankly at a breakfast news show, anything to take her mind off the tragic news about Sally. But it was no good: she could think of nothing else.

Clare Morgan was not given to exaggeration. If she feared for Sally’s life, then Lizzie feared too.

Of all the people she knew, Sally and Steve were happiest with their lives and with each other. They didn’t bitch about anyone else, or moan that if only they had more money or a four-wheel drive or could win the lottery, their lives would be perfect. They were content with what they had. They were kind, loving, fun and they had their lives ahead of them. Now that was all being snatched away.

What would Steve do without Sally? What would it be like for those two children growing up without the mother who adored them? Lizzie’s own problems faded into insignificance in the face of these questions.

fourteen

T
he seven days since she’d slept with Jay had been the longest of Abby’s life. If she’d thought that presenting a television show with the weight of guilt hanging round her neck was hard, then having to fly home to her daughter and husband had been ten times worse.

With horrible irony, Tom seemed to have decided in her absence that he and Abby needed to make an effort at their marriage, and when she arrived home on Friday evening she’d been greeted by a big hello hug and a reservation at her favourite local restaurant.

“We’ve both been under a lot of stress,” Tom said. “Can we put all that behind us and start again?”

Even Jess was in on it. “I told Dad that you would have been working hard in Dublin and that you needed to get out.”

Inspiration struck Abby. “Why don’t we all go?” Abby knew she was preoccupied at dinner but Jess made up for her mother’s silences. She’d spent Wednesday evening helping out in the animal refuge and during dinner she chatted happily about the various dogs and cats there.

“Jean has just taken in two donkeys,” Jess said, when she’d given her parents the history of what sounded like every animal on the premises. “They’re lovely and they have to get homes together. Donkeys get very lonely …” she paused to nibble a bit of bread roll, “and they have very delicate feet and shouldn’t be left outside all the time. People are so cruel to animals.”

Because of Jess’s enthusiasm, the meal was a success. Tom drove home and occasionally put his hand on Abby’s, squeezing gently.

As they drove up Briar Lane, Abby had to feign an attack of sneezing to cover up the tears that came to her eyes.

“You OK, Mum?” asked Jess in the sort of sweet concerned tone she hadn’t used for a long time.

“Fine,” said Abby, hating herself. “I must be getting a cold.”

On Monday, she left a message for Jay. She knew he was due to be in Cork that week and asked if he could meet her for lunch the following day, Tuesday. Then she switched her phone off. She didn’t want to speak to him until she could tell him face to face that it was over. It was bad enough listening to his flirtatious message confirming the arrangement when she checked the mailbox later in the day.

Tuesday came and Abby felt sick with nerves. To complicate things, Tom’s school were breaking up for Easter and he wasn’t going in until lunchtime because he had some urgent paperwork to sort out.

“Where are you off to all glammed up?” he asked Abby as she got ready to leave at twelve. She was sitting at their dressing table, carefully fixing her make-up, while Tom was at the wardrobe, searching for a tie to go with his lilac shirt.

She could feel herself colour but somehow managed to answer. “Oh, a work thing. Some boring lunch with Brian and some advertisers.”

“Where?”

She almost knocked over her small bottle of base. He never usually asked her where she was going to lunch. Was he suspicious? Had he guessed? In the mirror, she could see his expression. He looked perfectly normal, happy almost. The Easter break was upon them and he was due a fortnight off. He was just being friendly.

Abby forced herself to relax. “Il Boccassio,” she said nonchalantly. “It’s such a media hangout, I think that’s why Brian likes it.” The lies she’d told Tom and Jess—Abby cringed at the thought. Cheating on Tom was about so much more than going to bed with Jay—it was about a tapestry of deceit between herself and those she loved best.

With ten minutes to go before she was due to meet Jay, Abby sat in the Jeep in the parking space and checked her lipstick in her compact mirror. Just one simple, totally innocent lunch. She’d tell Jay that the affair had been a mistake and that they had to stop seeing each other because they both had so much to lose. He’d be sure to understand after all, because he had Lottie and the boys and he adored them, even if there were problems in the marriage. She snapped the compact shut and went over her lines again. Abby had been mentally rehearsing the speech in her mind for so long now that she could recite it in her sleep.

“It was great, Jay,” (strictly untrue because any enjoyment had been ripped out of the whole thing by the gashing sense of guilt) “but we have to think of our families, of Tom and Lottie.”

Abby hoped this line would make her plan seem the only sensible option. But then, maybe not. Maybe Jay was so consumed with passion for her that he couldn’t stop, was hoping she’d divorce Tom, planned a future for them both … The thought made her blood run cold. What would she do if that happened, if Jay broke down and said he couldn’t live without her?

Perspiration beaded her upper lip at the thought and her legs felt shaky as she got out of the Jeep. Pull yourself together, she told herself firmly. In a few hours, it will all be over and nobody will be any the wiser.

Il Boccassio stood out in the street of sedate office buildings because of its awning of periwinkle blue. She’d deliberately chosen the restaurant because it was so public that nobody could imagine meeting anyone for a furtive lunch there. Only a complete idiot would meet a married lover for an ongoing fling in the city’s current hottest media haunt. Abby thought she’d been doubly clever by choosing it. Before Jay, she’d have never thought she was capable of such subterfuge.

The restaurant was nearly full when she got there, jammed with beautifully dressed media types whose eyes scanned every newcomer to see if they were worth saying hello to. The famous long walnut bar was heaving with people having a drink before lunch, and the air was humming with greetings, laughter, the rattle of the cocktail shaker and loud orders for another bottle.

Abby tried to look nonchalant as she sailed in, following the maÎtre d’ past serried ranks of business suits and people much too important to wear formal business attire. She wore a black crepe trouser suit with a crisp red shirt underneath and her hair was styled in the exquisitely tousled, five-minute look that had taken three-quarters of an hour to achieve. Her make-up was understated in nude colours. She looked like she belonged. Jay was already at the table and Abby’s confidence faltered when she saw that he’d somehow managed to snare the one table in the entire restaurant suitable for romantic dalliance: a two-place setting tucked cosily away behind a pillar with a potted plant further screening the table. If all the other tables in the restaurant were designed to scream “Notice us, please,” this was the one that murmured “Leave us alone!”

“Abby.” He was on his feet and embracing her before she’d had a chance to casually say, “Hi, Jay” in a colleagues-meeting-for-lunch manner. The maÎtre d’, who’d seen it all before and who knew where the bodies were buried, looked discreetly blank as the reasonably famous and married Abby Barton was hugged by a man definitely not her husband, a man who slid one hand round her waist in a very relaxed manner.

“Jay, we didn’t need this sweet little table,” Abby said loudly, desperate to redress matters in the presence of the maÎtre d’. “What if anyone else from work pops by to say hello? They won’t find us tucked away in here.”

“We don’t want anyone finding us,” chuckled Jay in an innuendoladen voice.

The maÎtre d’ slid off, no doubt to phone his favourite gossip columnist, Abby thought furiously.

“Jay,” she hissed when they were alone, “this isn’t a good idea. People know who I am. They’ll put two and two together and make four if they see us cosied up in this corner!”

“Let them make four,” said Jay, still holding her hand. “Let them make five, six and seven, for that matter. I don’t care.”

Abby’s discomfiture grew. She quickly slid into her seat, pulled her napkin across her lap and hid behind the huge menu. This was not working out as planned. It was as if Jay wanted people to see them being furtive together. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to blurt out that the affair was over and then run out into the safety of the street, lunchless but relieved that the deed had been done.

But the soft streak in Abby’s nature meant she couldn’t do that to him. Jay seemed so thrilled to see her and he too had risked his marriage because he’d held a candle for Abby for all these years. He deserved a proper goodbye. Whatever the etiquette for these situations, Abby was determined to try to do it the kind way.

“How are you?” she asked, peeping over the top of her menu.

“Much better since I’ve seen you,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about you. You’ve taken over my mind, Abby.”

“Well, let’s order and we can talk,” she babbled, completely thrown by this line of conversation. Oh hell, how was she going to do this? If only they had food in front of them to toy with, then she could tell him the horrible truth while she pushed a salad around with a fork. But the waiters, no doubt primed by the maÎtre d’ to expect a leisurely, champagne-fuelled lunch where little dining but much gazing into eyes was the order of the day, were avoiding the romantic corner. Nobody came near them either to proffer bread rolls or to take their order. Abby stared round the restaurant in vain but no waiter caught her eye.