The One You Really Want (5 page)

‘That sounds great then.' Clearing his throat, Jonathan said, ‘The thing is, we've been invited to a party this afternoon. Seems a bit rude to let your friends down because you've had a better offer. Maybe I should give the lunch a miss.'

He sounded torn. Carmen guessed that, much as he wanted to be down at the party with all his friends, he was reluctant to pass up the opportunity to boast to them that he had been taken out to lunch by Rennie Todd. One thing was for sure, though. Jonathan really didn't want to miss out on this Boxing Day bash down at the Talbot Arms. Which was interesting, Carmen thought, and rather made you wonder why not.

‘Right, better idea,' said Rennie. ‘We'll have Rose's casserole for lunch and book a table at Kincaid's for dinner this evening. Then you lot can go to your party this afternoon.' He paused as if the thought had just occurred to him. ‘Actually, would they mind if you brought along a couple of extra guests?'

‘Great. No problem. Of course you can come along.' Jonathan nodded vigorously and Rose let out a little exclamation of pleasure.

‘OK with you, Miss Garbo?' Rennie turned to her to double-check. ‘You don't mind if we gatecrash?'

‘I'd be delighted.' Beaming up at him, Rose said, ‘And now I'll know somebody else there. Right, I've a turkey casserole that needs putting together.' In businesslike fashion she rolled up the sleeves of her blue-and-white Paisley printed shirt.

‘Go on, you two.' Shooing Carmen and Nancy towards the kitchen door, Rennie said, ‘I know you're dying for a proper gossip. I'll stay in here and let Queen Christina show me how to make a casserole.'

Rose, who hadn't grasped quite how famous her new pupil actually was, flicked at his rear end with a tea towel and said, ‘Ah now, you're not to make fun of an old woman. Call me Rose and away with your nonsense.' Flicking him a second time as he sneaked a wedge of raw carrot, she added, ‘And wash your hands before you start. That's how people end up in hospital.'

‘Whatever you say, your majesty. Falling in love again . . .' sang Rennie, turning the kitchen tap on too fast and showering himself with water.

‘That's Marlene Dietrich, you daft lad.' This time Rose had to use the towel to dab him dry.

‘I know it's Marlene Dietrich. She's my second favourite actress. You know,' Rennie said cheerfully, ‘if I didn't know myself better, I'd wonder if I was gay.'

 

Outside, bundled up in fleeces against the bitter cold, Nancy said, ‘Who'd have thought it? My mum and Rennie Todd, getting on like a house on fire.'

‘Ah well, that's Rennie for you. He has the knack. It's a good job Rose isn't twenty years younger.' Carmen's mouth twitched. ‘You wouldn't risk leaving her alone with him in the kitchen - oh my God, here it is!'

They had rounded the side of the house. There, ahead of them on the frosted lawn, stood the shiny red lawnmower.

‘Exhibit A, m'lud,' said Nancy. ‘The vehicle the defendant was driving when she ran over her husband.'

‘And mowed him to death, chopping him into a million pieces.' Carmen, arms outstretched and fingers wiggling, mimed little bits of Jonathan flying across the garden. ‘Well, you wouldn't have to scatter his ashes. Cut out the middle man, that's what I say.'

This was how they had always dealt with emotional crises. Ever since their schooldays, they had learned that poking fun at their various predicaments - and at the members of the opposite sex who had invariably been the cause of them - was their coping mechanism of choice.

‘It would make the garden grow,' said Nancy, her nose prickling with the cold.

‘You could put it on his gravestone,' Carmen suggested. ‘Lousy husband, great plant food.'

‘Lousy husband, lousy lay, great plant food.'

‘Really?'

‘Not really. But imagine how cross he'd be, having to lie there with that carved on his headstone.' Nancy paused, then said, ‘Thanks for coming up.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘Get today over with, hope nothing awful happens at the party this afternoon. Once Mum's gone back to her flat, I can ask Jonathan what he's playing at. See what he has to say for himself.'

‘And if he's seeing someone?' Carmen raised her slanting eyebrows. ‘What then?'

‘I leave him.'

‘OK. And if he denies it?'

‘I don't know.' Nancy felt a bit sick.

‘Which would you prefer?'

‘What?'

‘Jonathan admitting he's guilty or denying everything?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You could stay,' said Carmen. ‘Either way, you can put it behind you and forget anything ever happened. Plenty of wives do.'

Nancy looked at her. ‘Why are you saying this? You don't even like him.'

‘I know.' Carmen smiled and gave her arm a squeeze. ‘But Rennie and I have rushed up here like the cavalry. Whatever you decide to do is up to you. This is your marriage. I don't want you to feel pressurised into doing something drastic, just because we're here. Because if you do, and you end up wishing you hadn't, you might blame me for ruining your life. You might end up hating me.'

Nancy was touched. It was a big thing she could be on the verge of doing, and thinking about it was deeply scary.

‘Whatever happens, I won't hate you. I promise.' She patted Carmen's icy hand. ‘It's just so ironic, isn't it? When you think back to a few years ago. Nobody gave your marriage a chance. Everyone was horrified when you and Spike got together. They were convinced you were making the biggest mistake of your life, they said it wouldn't last six months. And look how happy the two of you were.'

‘Until he went and died and spoiled it all,' said Carmen.

‘But if he hadn't, you know you'd still be together. Spike told me once that you and he were like a couple of swans,' Nancy remembered. ‘He said you were mated for life.'

‘We got such a kick out of proving everyone wrong.' Carmen smiled. ‘Unlike you and Jonathan.'

‘I know,' Nancy said wryly. ‘Fairy-tale stuff. A dream come true. I was so lucky, Jonathan was such a catch, what had I ever done to deserve someone so handsome, so wealthy, with such a good job?'

‘Oh yes, you were the one with the perfect man, the perfect marriage—'

‘NANCY!' Above them, the bedroom window was flung open and Jonathan stuck his head out. ‘Where's my blue Ralph Lauren shirt?'

Nancy tilted her face up. ‘No idea. Hanging up in your wardrobe?'

‘It isn't there. That's why I'm asking you what you've done with it.'

‘Used it to mop the kitchen floor,' Nancy murmured under her breath. Raising her voice, she said, ‘In your gym bag?'

‘Shit.' Jonathan reappeared seconds later holding the offending shirt, every bit as damp and crumpled as if it had been used to mop the kitchen floor. ‘I wanted to wear this this afternoon.' He looked hopeful. ‘If you quickly washed it, couldn't you iron it dry?'

Honestly, it was like having a teenager in the house.

‘Wear the white one,' said Nancy. ‘That's washed and ironed.'

Heaving a sigh, Jonathan gave up and closed the bedroom window.

‘You're a cruel and heartless woman.' Carmen tut-tutted. ‘Fancy not rushing up there to wash and iron his shirt.'

‘I know.' It had been the most minuscule gesture of defiance, but Nancy felt oddly liberated. ‘Just plain selfish, that's me.'

The Talbot Arms, on the outskirts of Kilnachranan, was lit up as they approached it, festooned with multicoloured Christmas lights and a flashing Santa on the roof. From the sound of things, a riotous party was already in progress.

‘We needn't stay for long,' Nancy reassured her mother, because Rose wasn't used to parties. ‘Just an hour or two.'

‘Don't be such a spoilsport,' said Jonathan. ‘It's Boxing Day. This lot will still be going at midnight.'

Nancy looked at him; a little hindsight was a dangerous thing. Now that she was fairly sure he was having an affair, everything he said or did seemed significant. The amount of effort he had put into his appearance could mean something. Was he secretly tweezing those stray hairs between his eyebrows? Why, after six years of wearing Eau Sauvage aftershave, had he recently switched to the new Calvin Klein? And was it to match his underpants?

‘Will it be mainly young people?' wondered Rose.

‘There's Nora who does the food. She's around your age,' said Jonathan. ‘If you wanted, you could give her a hand in the kitchen.'

‘Sorry,' said Rennie, putting his arm round Rose's shoulders as they made their way up to the front door of the pub, ‘she won't have time for skivvying in the kitchen, she's going to be far too busy dancing with me.'

‘Och, get away with you.' Rose dug him playfully in the ribs. ‘I'm nothing but an old relic.'

‘Don't knock yourself. I bet you've had a bit of a jive in your time.'

‘There might be karaoke.' Nancy felt it only fair to warn Rennie. They were notoriously fond of a singalong down here at the Talbot Arms.

‘No problem.' Rennie winked at her. ‘Me and Rose would be delighted to show them how it's done. We'll sing a duet.'

 

Nancy was on edge, Carmen could tell. She was smiling and greeting people she knew, but there was a hint of brittleness to her smile and her knuckles, as she clutched her drink, were white. Luckily, nobody else was paying her much attention. Everyone was far more interested in nudging each other and whispering that that was Rennie Todd.

It was always amusing, watching other people's reactions to celebrities. Rennie, on his best behaviour for Nancy's sake, was handling the situation well. He was great at remembering people's names - just as well, seeing that Jonathan was currently proudly introducing him to Hamish, Pete and a whole host of drinking friends - and excellent at pretending to be interested when they all regaled him with stories of how they had once been in a band that could have made it, if only the record companies had had the sense to offer them a record deal.

Spike had hated the attention, but Rennie took it all in his stride. Listening, Carmen smiled to herself as she heard the plump one called Hamish saying, ‘Ah, we were great, everyone said so, but you'd send out a load of demo tapes and never hear back. If you ask me, no one ever even bothered to listen to them. I'm telling you, we could have been
mega
.'

‘It's a tough business,' Rennie agreed sympathetically. ‘We spent a couple of years doing the pub circuit down south. One night we played to an audience of six, and two of them were passed out drunk on the floor.'

‘Still, you got your lucky break in the end.' Hamish evidently still felt it was unfair.

‘We did, we were lucky,' Rennie agreed good-naturedly. ‘Hey, you've almost finished that one. Let me get you another drink. Rose, how about you? By the way, have you two met before? Hamish, this is Rose, my new girlfriend. Rose, say hello to Hamish.'

 

‘And to think you were worried about your mother,' Carmen murmured an hour later.

‘I know.' Nancy smiled, though her eyes continued to dart restlessly around the pub. ‘D'you think that could be the one, over there?'

Jonathan was chatting easily to a girl in a red top and a short PVC miniskirt.

‘Wouldn't have thought she was his type.' Then again, Carmen supposed, it was hard to know what kind of girl Jonathan might go for. Any one of them here could be a potential Other Woman. Plus, they could have got it all wrong and she wasn't here at all.

‘I'm going to give Nora a hand with the food,' said Nancy. ‘Have a chat with her, see if I think she knows anything.'

Carmen gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

When Nancy had disappeared into the kitchen at the back of the pub, Carmen made her way over to the bar where Rose and Rennie were surrounded by a crowd of Jonathan's friends. Hamish was now quizzing Rennie about how it felt to play in front of an audience of forty thousand fans at Wembley. Rose, chatting away to a dark-haired woman in her late thirties, was admiring her dress.

‘Monsoon,' Carmen heard the woman tell Rose. ‘A few sequins always brightens things up, don't you think?'

‘I've never had anything sparkly like this.' Rose was stroking the sleeve. ‘Always too worried about the dry-cleaning bills, I suppose. I feel safer in things you can put in the washing machine. But this is beautiful. Oh my word, so is
that
.' Reverently she pointed to the brunette's right hand. ‘Look at this ring!'

From where she was standing, Carmen saw three things. Firstly, despite being in mid-conversation at the time, Rennie stopped speaking for a moment.

Secondly, six feet away, Jonathan turned his head and glanced across at the brunette.

Third, and most damningly of all, the brunette dimpled with pleasure and proudly waggled her fingers so that the diamond glittered in the lights from the nearby Christmas tree. And for just a fraction of a second she met Jonathan's gaze and smiled at him.

‘Haven't seen that before!' Grabbing her hand, Hamish bellowed, ‘Bloody hell, Paula. Bit of a rock, isn't it? Where did that come from?'

‘My Auntie May bought it for me for Christmas. It's not real,' said Paula. ‘Cubic zirconium.'

‘It never is.' Shaking her head in admiration, Rose said, ‘Aren't people clever these days? You'd never know the difference.'

‘Thought you'd got yourself a secret admirer,' said Hamish jovially. ‘Right, who's for another drink?'