Name & Address Withheld (29 page)

Lizzie was woken by a bell. Instinctively, she reached out with her arm to silence an invisible alarm clock while her brain took a couple more seconds to register the noise and ascertain its source. She’d been totally unconscious. Out cold. As she attempted to make it into the upright position without passing out she saw a note from Clare on the floor. She concentrated on focusing on the words which were currently skating across the page as her blood did its best to redistribute itself throughout her body following its concentration at her stomach, where it had been shopping for post-lunch nutrients.

Popped to chemist to stock up on tissues and ibuprofen. Back in a few minutes. C x

Maybe she’d forgotten her keys. Lizzie went through the motions of looking at her watch. She could see both hands, but she was still too groggy to be able to interpret them.

She stumbled to the entryphone and peered at the screen. Adrenaline surged through her veins as, frozen, she just stared at her arch enemy. Rachel was looking straight at her. A few seconds later the bell rang again. It was a long, impatient answer-me-now blast. Rachel only gave it a few seconds before she started shouting.

‘I know you’re up there, Lizzie…’

Totally illogically Lizzie squatted down below screen level. Out of sight? Well, if Rachel could see through doors and up stairs it was. If not, the walls were probably doing quite a good job all by themselves. It wasn’t a two-way camera. Honestly. Sometimes she wondered about herself. She was the sort of person who ducked inside a car when you drove through a low tunnel.

Lizzie willed Clare to arrive back now. Why on earth had she left her at home alone? She didn’t need a chemist, she
needed a bloody alchemist. But Lizzie knew she couldn’t hide from Rachel. It wasn’t worth it.

‘I suggest you let me in now…unless, of course, you’d rather I came back a little bit later with a reporter and a photographer?’

Lizzie took solace from the fact that, on analysis of that last threat, Rachel hadn’t already been to the papers. Her relief was fleeting. Concerned that the rest of Putney would convene on her doorstep for the next instalment if she didn’t open the door, and worried that Colin might be at home and only too eager to witness the next instalment of her new soap opera existence first hand, Lizzie went downstairs to let Rachel in.

As she reached the front door she realised to her horror that she was wearing an old gym sweatshirt of Matt’s, and hurriedly ripped it off and flung it into her study. A narrow escape. She was now having a bit of a thin T-shirt nipple moment, and wanton hussy was the last look she wanted to portray today. She folded her arms defensively across her chest at breast height and hoped for the best.

Rachel swept up the stairs, casting her judgmental gaze over the flat and, Lizzie felt sure, her attire. Her home might have benefited from a good dust and a vacuum, but it was far from a den of iniquity or somewhere that a ‘sex session’ would ever have occurred. For a start there was no pile carpet. Rachel was power-dressed to the hilt and had entered the flat wielding her mobile phone, obviously ready for battle. Lizzie felt as shabby as she looked.

Rachel refused to sit down, nor did she seem interested in a coffee, a tea, an orange juice, a glass of water or anything else that Lizzie tried to offer her. The flat was now silent aside from the tense clicking of Rachel’s heels on the varnished floorboards as she paced up and down the sitting room. Lizzie watched her turn on her heel a couple more times and clutched a cushion to her chest for warmth, for comfort, for protection and for decency. Rachel was now staring straight ahead of her, apparently focused. Finally she spoke.

‘Listen…’

Lizzie couldn’t have been listening any harder.

‘I haven’t got all day, but I just wanted to give you one more chance to explain to me what exactly has been going on before I tell you what I propose that we do about all of this.’

‘…that we do about all of this…’ Lizzie didn’t like the way that sounded. There was something quite sinister about Rachel today. She was cold and way too calm. Lizzie couldn’t have been any more scared had Vinnie Jones been standing in front of her cracking his knuckles.

‘And don’t even think about lying to me. Matthew has told me everything and I suggest you do the same.’

Lizzie sighed. Despite her trepidation, she was almost getting bored with going over it. Each time she came across as a less nice person. Still, telling Rachel a little bit more of the truth wasn’t going to make things any worse, and suggesting that she was fed up with recounting the events wasn’t going to go down well.

Rachel started listening calmly, but by the time Clare arrived back about ten minutes later she was ranting and raving again. Clare was alarmed at the confrontation taking place in their sitting room, but despite her kind, breezy and conciliatory offer of tea and biscuits she was completely ignored by Rachel. As Clare listened to her lay into Lizzie it was almost as if she was enjoying herself, as if she’d only come over to hammer the first nail into the career coffin of Lizzie Ford. Her concern for her husband and her marriage was nowhere to be seen. Clare soon tired of pretending to be invisible in the corner and eventually just joined in. Rachel looked surprised at her interjection, but she let her finish her introduction at least.

‘Rachel, I’m Clare—Lizzie’s flatmate.’

Lizzie noted that she hadn’t said ‘ex’ or ‘former’. She silently prayed that this meant she was coming home.

Clare proffered a hand for Rachel to shake, but either she didn’t see it—unlikely, as it was attached to her arm and pointing directly at her—or she chose to dismiss it as part of her ‘I am beyond reproach’ attitude to this meeting. Clare was becoming increasingly irritated. Just because your husband had slept with someone else, it didn’t mean that you were entitled to eschew years of training on the manners front.

‘I know this really is none of my business…’

Rachel looked as if she were about to step in to confirm this but Clare didn’t give her a chance.

‘…but I really think we can sit down and work out a compromise of some sort. I appreciate you must be furious, hurt, and looking for revenge, but, tempting as it is, I’d just ask you not to do anything rash until you’ve had a chance to calm down a bit first.’

Clare Williamson, restaurateur, mediator and general good-egg was in action. Lizzie watched in awe. Full to the brim with admiration and grateful that at least one of them was feeling erudite today and queuing up to put Clare’s six-week absence from the flat behind them.

‘Would you now? Well, I don’t know what the fuck Lizzie’s told you about all of this, or whether she’s fed you the same patchwork of fact and lies that she’s peddled to both me and to my husband, but it’s bullshit…’

OK, so Clare wasn’t the most effective mediator in South West London, but at least she was trying.

Lizzie was fuming. Rachel was bent on making her sound a hell of a lot more devious and calculating than she had ever intended to be. This was her reward for jumping through hoop after hoop, for trying to do the right thing. If only Matt hadn’t bought Rachel a bloody copy of
Out Loud
magazine, then Rachel wouldn’t have written in, Lizzie could have waited for Matt to leave his nameless, faceless wife and maybe, just maybe, they could have lived happily ever after. So it was his fault.

Her relief at shifting the blame only lasted a couple of milliseconds. That scenario was no good either. Waiting in the wings wasn’t her style, and she should have known that Matt was married. How on earth would such an ostensibly nice guy have got to his mid-thirties and still be available? When she should have smelt trouble from fifty paces, her optimism and naïveté had combined to lead her a merry dance. Lizzie knew that men got the getting married urge when they hit thirty. She read letters from them and their commitment-phobic girlfriends every day.

Rachel was now laying into Clare, who’d succeeded in temporarily diverting the attention away from Lizzie. Big mistake. If anyone had an ability to bear grudges it was Clare. Rachel might be about to meet her match. Lizzie hoped so. She felt like a Plasticine spectator at
Celebrity Deathmatch
. She had a ringside seat. This was the wives-who’d-been-let-down-by-their-husbands bout.

‘But I suggest that you…. you….’

‘Clare.’ This woman was exasperating. Unwittingly she had driven Clare to put her hand on her hip, and Clare was now shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Lone Ranger eat your heart out. As her aggression boiled in the pit of her stomach she swaggered from side to side and waited for the next wave of Rachel’s attitude problem. Main Street had come to Putney.

‘I suggest that you…Clare—’ she practically spat the name out ‘—that you keep your opinions to yourself and keep out of it—unless, of course, you’ve been screwing Matthew too…’

Oh, to have had a pistol. There was no need for Rachel to be so deeply unpleasant. She’d been arguing Rachel’s case to Lizzie all morning and this was all the thanks she got. Clare excused herself before she started shouting back. She was determined to keep the moral upper hand. However, she was careful not to retreat any further than the kitchen, where she would still be in total earshot range.

Lizzie grimly observed the exchange from her corner of the sofa. Round One to Rachel. The focus reverted to her.

‘I’d like you to think hard about what you’ve done. And then have a think about this. Either you give up agony aunting by the end of the month, or I’m going to your bosses and the papers. Needless to say, Matthew is off-limits. If I find out you’ve been in touch with him, I’m not waiting another minute.’

Lizzie nodded. This was her first ultimatum. She wasn’t sure what the proper procedure was when you were being threatened. But, well brought up as she had been, she was sure that this was one occasion when you didn’t say thank you. She decided that silence was probably the most sophisticated ap
proach. It was also the easiest option when you were trying your hardest not to burst into tears or throw up.

‘I’ll see myself out.’

Lizzie—impressively, she thought—had managed to keep her composure in front of Rachel, but as soon as she had gone there was absolutely no point in being brave any more. Clare watched aghast as Lizzie knocked back a couple of ibuprofen with a Tia Maria chaser. Their drinks cabinet definitely needed restocking. It was high time she moved back in. Clare removed the bottle from Lizzie and gave her a glass of mineral water instead. Lizzie barely seemed to register the change.

‘What am I going to do?’ Her voice cracked. ‘I suppose I’d better give Susan a call.’

‘Don’t do anything yet. Rachel said the end of the month, and luckily for you this storm broke at the start of one.’ Clare was desperately trying to keep positive. No mean feat, given what she had to work with. ‘Listen, June doesn’t start for about three weeks, and I don’t think you’re in a fit state to do anything right now. Let alone make any decisions about anything important.’

‘But I can’t just bury my head in the sand.’

‘I didn’t say anything about burying heads anywhere. I just think you need to give yourself some time to think through all your options rather than making a knee-jerk decision that you might regret later.’ Clare was buying time. She wasn’t sure what for yet, but whatever it was she was going to need more than ten minutes. Lizzie didn’t even protest and Clare decided to capitalise on her uncharacteristic submission. ‘I suggest you phone Ben now. I’m sure they don’t want you sobbing live on air for three hours tonight. It won’t be good for the listeners’ morale.’

Lizzie flinched visibly. Clare knew how much she loved her work, and the thought of them having to get a stand-in always triggered her insecurity circuit and made her worry in case they didn’t want her back.

‘Listen, Liz, I’m only suggesting this week. I just think you need some downtime. You are allowed to be ill, you know.’

Lizzie nodded. But Clare hadn’t finished yet. ‘Then do your
self a favour, clear the decks and call Susan too. I’m sure they’ve got enough from you to be getting on with. If not, they’ll have to get cover.’ And, she felt like adding, they might need to get a new person in at the end of the month. Clare didn’t like to appear defeatist but she wasn’t exactly bursting with alternatives at the moment. ‘Right now you need some time to get a bit of perspective. I know it seems that your world’s ending, but I can tell you that you’ll be OK whatever happens. You are Lizzie Ford. Just remember that. And just in case you forget I’m going to dispatch you to the one place where you will get more TLC, home-cooked dinners and general pampering than anywhere else I know…’ Plus, Clare thought, there was the added bonus that Lizzie wouldn’t have enough time on her own to even contemplate doing anything stupid. Lizzie hadn’t even looked up. ‘Yes, I’m booking you into the Mrs Ford clinic. Not Betty, but Annie. I’ll give her a call…or do you want to?’

‘But she doesn’t know about any of this. She’ll be furious with me for not telling her earlier and then she’ll worry. Non-stop. You know what she’s like.’ There was a slight edge of panic to Lizzie’s voice.

‘It’s her job to worry. She’d hate to think you were going through a crisis without her. Mothers love to be needed…and I’ll come and visit. You’re only going to be in Hampstead, for God’s sake. It’s not like I’m suggesting you leave the civilised world behind.’ Not yet, Clare added to herself.

Lizzie shrugged her shoulders. She had no energy to protest. Plus there was the added bonus that Rachel didn’t know where her mother lived, so she wouldn’t have to live in fear of the doorbell and telephone threats. She only hoped that her mother wouldn’t be too judgmental. Of course she could just not tell her the whole truth, but lying seemed to have got her into enough trouble already.

Clare could sense she was on the brink of victory. One of her plans was going through uncontested. It had to be a first. She resisted the sudden childish urge she had to the punch the air victoriously.

‘Listen, I’d have loved to take the week off and look after
you myself, but I’ve already written today off and they do need me there this weekend. I can’t help but feel that the change will do you good, and away from all your work at least you’ll have time to think. Meanwhile I’ll move my stuff back in. It’ll be just like it was before, and I promise I’ll come and fetch you a week on Saturday.’