Fast Friends (77 page)

But now, although partly through
force of habit he still
entered her
thoughts, the visits were brief. The rest of the time, Piers was there.
Effortlessly. Cheerfully. Without causing pain. He had taken over her mind and
she felt so much better that she couldn’t even resent him for it.

‘
I think I’m in love,’
she ventured to Loulou, who was
mindlessly watching ‘Blue Peter’ with
Lili on her lap.

Loulou, despite her own depression and despair, tried to
encourage her.

‘
I’m so glad, Cami. You
deserve it,’ she said with only a
touch
of wistfulness. ‘God knows, I envy you. Here you are
with Piers hammering on your door. Look at me, an
unwanted
old spinster. You and Roz are both so lucky . .

And I am lucky, thought Camilla, drifting back into the
daydream which had so happily become a reality. Yesterday evening Piers had
driven up from Bath and taken her out to the theatre. Tonight he had booked a
table at Le Gavroche . . .

She glanced
up as Charlotte meandered into the sitting-room, eating a banana sandwich and
looking unusually subdued.

‘All right,
sweetheart? Finished your homework?’

Charlotte
nodded, slumping into a chair.

‘You’re
sure you’re going to be OK this evening? Loulou’s staying with you and I won’t
be late home.’

She was
unprepared for Charlotte’s attack.

‘
I don’t like Piers,’ she announced with brutal suddenness,
her long
brown hair swinging as she shook her head. ‘And why
don’t you put the picture back on the wall? It’s horrible, hiding
it
away.’

The family portrait, Matt’s great pride and joy. Camilla
stared at Charlotte, shocked by the determination in her young eyes.

‘You don’t mean that about Piers,’ she countered, as
reasonably as she could. ‘He bought you that new game only yesterday – you were
thrilled with it.’

‘
That was yesterday,’
said Charlotte, squirming in her chair
and
biting her lower lip. Loulou caught Camilla’s eye and
shrugged. ‘And you
could put the picture back,’ she persisted
defiantly.
‘We
liked
Matt. Just because he isn’t . . . here any
more doesn’t mean we can’t have the picture on the
wall, does
it?’

Camilla began to understand. Having weathered her parents’
divorce without apparent concern, and having
become so fond
of Matt, she was
resentful now of Piers and of what she saw as
his intrusion into their
lives. There was the possibility, too, that she felt the need to protect Matt,
to preserve his memory.

Glancing at her watch and realizing that she had less than
an
hour in which to get ready before Piers
was due to arrive, Camilla
went over to her daughter and gave her a
reassuring hug.

‘
Sweetheart, I’m not
going to forget Matt. None of us ever
will.
And I promise I’ll think about putting the picture back
on the wall.’ But the idea now seemed
inappropriate, almost bizarre, since she had so abruptly been swept off her
feet by
Piers.

Then she had a flash of inspiration. ‘Or would you like it
in your room? We could hang it over your bookcase next to the window so you can
see it when you’re in bed. How about that, darling? Isn’t that a much better
idea?’

Charlotte gazed at her for several seconds. Camilla held
her breath.

‘No,’ declared her daughter with great finality. ‘It
should be
here in this room.’ And with a
hard, calculating look which tore
at Camilla’s heart she added, ‘Where
everyone
can see it.’

’1’11 have
a chat to her,’ said Loulou, reassuring Camilla as she left the house with
Piers. ‘And don’t worry, she’ll be fine.’

‘
Problems with Charlotte?’ asked Piers, concerned. ‘Where
is she?’

‘
Upstairs,’
said Camilla, still feeling guilty. ‘She’s a bit upset about something.’

Loulou leapt into the breach. ‘You
know what us girls are
like.’ She
shrugged and winked in an effort to defuse the tension. ‘Probably boyfriend
trouble.
Plus ca change.’

‘
Well, give
her a kiss from me,’ said Piers, taking Camilla’s
hand. ‘Come on now darling, we mustn’t miss our table at
Burger King
. .

Loulou, allowing Charlotte an hour in
which to work through
her misery
uninterrupted, curled up in an arm-chair and tried to concentrate on
Bridget
Jones: The Edge of Reason.
It took only
a
short while before she realized that she was working through
her own
misery instead.

When Charlotte poked her head around the door, dressed in
pink pyjamas and still looking woeful, Loulou welcomed the diversion.

‘Come and sit by me, Charley, and we’ll cheer each other
up. Tell me about the people you hate most at school, make a list of your least
favourite food, tell me your worst joke ever, and then we can work our way up
to the good stuff.’

Her vague plan to relax Charlotte and
edge gradually around
to the problem of Piers was forestalled by the unhappy child
who squeezed into the armchair beside
her and held out her
clenched
fist.
In
a resigned, extraordinarily unchildlike manner, Charlotte said,
‘I didn’t want to show this to Mummy. The other day when Marty was playing in
Piers’ car he picked up some rubbish. You know how he keeps things and hides
them?’ She glanced anxiously at Loulou for reassurance.

‘
I know.’

‘
Well, this afternoon I found the stuff under my bed. An
empty matchbox, a pencil, and some screwed-up sweet papers.
It’s what
he found in the car.’

‘And?’ said Loulou gently, a knot of apprehension drawing
together in her stomach.

‘And there was this.’ Charlotte opened her fist and
dropped a ring into Loulou’s lap. ‘At first I was just worried because he’d
stolen it, and I thought Piers would be cross with Marty. But I keep thinking,
it’s a wedding-ring, isn’t it? And does that mean that Piers is going to marry
Mummy? Or is it his?’ She frowned,
struggling
to make sense of what she had discovered. ‘Because
if it is, I don’t understand. I thought only
married people wore
that sort of ring.’

* * *

 
Directory enquiries had only one P. O’Donoghue listed in
the Bristol and Bath directory and Loulou, after checking that the
bedroom door was firmly shut, punched out the
number with
rapid precision. After three rings it was picked up.

‘
Hello?’ said a woman’s voice, and Loulou
plunged in. ‘Hello, could I speak to Mr O’Donoghue?’

‘
I’m afraid
he isn’t in at the moment.’ The woman sounded pleasant, well educated.

‘
Ah. Maybe I could
phone again tomorrow then. It’s about
my carpets, you see.’

‘
Carpets?’ The voice was puzzled.

‘
They need
cleaning,’ persisted Loulou, then hesitated. ‘I do have the right number don’t
I, for Mr Patrick O’Donoghue?’

The woman laughed. ‘I’m afraid not. My husband’s name is
Piers and I don’t think he’s ever cleaned a carpet in his life.’

‘Oh well,’ said Loulou with resignation, ‘I’m sorry to
have troubled you. Goodbye.’

When she had replaced the receiver
she stared at the wall
and thought how wrong she had been to envy Camilla her
current good fortune.

And that telling her that Piers was
married wasn’t going to
be easy,
either.

Shit. Why
were all men such cheating, selfish bastards?

Caroline, in a frenzy of anticipation, could scarcely
endure the torture of waiting until seven o’clock before seeing Paddy again.
Avoiding Susie, whom she knew would be stretched out in her
usual spot, she smoked a small joint in an effort
to calm down
and spent half the afternoon preparing herself like an
Egyptian goddess for the evening ahead. After a long, cool shower she sat
naked on the edge of the bed and rubbed
apricot-scented oil
over every inch of
her body. She painstakingly repainted her
nails with shocking-pink
polish. Then she twisted her heavy tortoiseshell hair into a knot on top of her
head – so that Paddy
could take it down later
– and did her make-up. Light pink
lipstick, smoky dark blue eyeshadow,
nothing too heavy which might melt in the heat .. .

Sliding into the figure-hugging pink silk dress which
finished
well above her knees, she twisted
and turned before the mirror
to see
whether it was possible for the casual onlooker to tell
that she was wearing no underwear at all. Not that
she was
planning to be seen by anyone
other than Paddy, she thought
with an
unrepentant smile, but if by some terrible trick of fate
Nico should return early, then full make-up and no
knickers
would be an absolute dead giveaway.

Glancing once more at her full-length
reflection, she saw
that her erect nipples
were clearly visible beneath the pink silk.
There
was an almost manic glitter in her eyes. To be with a
desirable man whom
she knew desired her in return was a thrill she had almost forgotten existed.
Nico was enigmatic, unreach
able. Paddy was
genuine, caring, and she knew only too well
what he was thinking when he gazed at her with those dark-
lashed,
slanting eyes of his.

In her present mood she could almost forgive Nico, she
decided.
Why on earth had it taken her this long to discover that adultery was fun?

’You look . . . sensational,’ said
Paddy, when he answered the
door and found Caroline on his doorstep. Christ, he thought,
this was going to be so easy. Where
was the challenge? The
woman was
practically dripping with lust already.

He had to
admit, though, that she did look good.

‘
I’m so glad you’re here,’ babbled Caroline, suddenly
nervous. ‘I
just passed Shaun going over to the hotel and had to pretend I was on my way
back to the bungalow. I’ve been zigzagging round the grounds like a sniper.’

Closing the front door behind her and
inhaling a lungful of
her scent,
Paddy realized that the only way he could really have fun would be by working a
bit of the old role-reversal.

‘
I’m glad you’re here,
too,’ he said easily. ‘But you don’t
have to pretend, angel.’

Caroline licked her lips. ‘Pretend
what?’ she asked breath
lessly, relieved that he wasn’t going to waste any time with
boring preliminaries.

Paddy poured her a drink and glanced
at his watch. ‘Pretend
to Shaun,
of course. What’s wrong, after all, with two friends
having dinner together? In fact when I mentioned it to him
earlier he said he might join us, so if you want
to give Nico a
ring and see if he’d
like to come along later, I’m sure the
restaurant will be able to give
us a table for four.’

‘A . . . restaurant?’ echoed Caroline, staring at him as
if he’d just ripped the wings off a particularly beautiful butterfly. ‘With
Shaun? But –’

‘The Rum-Baba,’ continued Paddy cheerfully, enjoying the
look of horror on her face. Talk about wrong-footing someone;
Caroline looked as if she’d just had both legs
sliced off at the
knees. ‘They do great lobster, apparently. Tell Nico
that; I know he’s crazy about lobster.’

‘But . . .’ She tried again, taking a hesitant step
towards him,
her mouth trembling. In those
few moments, with her self-
confidence in shreds and her disappointment
so damn obvious, Paddy almost felt sorry for her. But if he was truly going
toenjoy the evening ahead he could only do so by transferring the challenge to
her. There was none for him, after all.