When Good Friends Go Bad (34 page)

He said what she was thinking.

'We wasted so many years.' He came and sat beside her, put his arm around her, pulling her in towards him.

But then she'd been pregnant with Chloe.

'I was still so angry with you . . . for vanishing like that . . .' Shit. She was struggling to keep some composure but her voice was choking up and they'd only done ten minutes of the first round. '. . . I was so crushed . . .'

'I know, baby.' He kissed her on her hair, squeezing her harder. 'I know. I'm so
so
sorry.'

She pushed him away and sat up. 'Yes, but you see it affects everything. Not just Meg but Astrid too. You must think I'm a pathetic moron but, well, if I feel this bad about things that happened all those years ago, can't you see how terrible it would be for Georgina? She's
married
to you, for Christ's sake. And to have one of her supposedly best friends cheat on her and the other one steal her husband – it doesn't get any worse.'

Irritably, he stood up again, flinging his arms about as if they were loose fire hoses gushing impatience. His hair looked wild, his piercing eyes glowing embers above those perfect cheekbones.

'Georgina! It's always about Georgina. I'm sick of it. Sick of kowtowing to her delicate nerves. Sick of being treated like a second-class being. Sick of being her nanny and her caretaker and her dogsbody. I would have left her years ago if I hadn't worried she might do something terrible to herself. If it might tip her over the edge. But it's like the Astrid thing,' he said bitterly, 'you try to avoid hurting one person and your whole life goes to pot because of it. I'm realising my wife is a lot stronger than she likes to let on. You saw her on Saturday. She bounces back. Crushed one minute. Cloud nine the next. But I'm done sacrificing.'

'Your decision.' Jen wiped her cheeks, tilting her head up to stare fixedly at the curtain rail. 'But I won't be part of the reason you leave. I can't bear thinking about Georgina suffering if she discovers we've been sneaking about behind her back. Who knows – if Meg hadn't told me . . . Sod it, I don't know who I'm angriest at. Meg or you or myself. It's as if I've stepped into a lovely scented bubble bath to find the water's freezing cold.'

'This is about you and me,' Aiden said softly. 'Two people in love. Not Georgina. Not Astrid. And certainly not Meg.' Feo was nudging him insistently with his toy. He bent and threw the penguin across the room again and the little dog skittered after it, barking joyfully.

'Maybe not, but I wish to hell Meg had warned me Georgina was married to you before I went to the Marlow Arms. I wish I'd never seen you again.'

'You can't possibly mean that.' Aiden looked aghast.

Jen clasped her tissue tighter in her fist. 'I'm sorry,' she said quietly, 'but I do.'

For a second he stared at her, every line of his body tense and rigid, until perceptibly the fight went out of him, his body and attitude softening. He returned to sit back down beside her.

'Let's not fight,' he said, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. 'I only want you to be happy. That's all I've ever wanted. OK, maybe it can't work for us, maybe it never will, but you'll always be my one great love. You've given me back something that's been missing for years, a part of myself. After I leave Georgina . . . when I'm in my own place . . . we can still be friends, can't we?'

'Distant friends. Very distant. Like Timbuktu distant.' She managed a watery smile. 'Oh Starkey, it's all so difficult. Being in love is far too painful. Painful when it starts, painful when it ends. And it always ends. Always. However much you believe in it. I never thought it would end with you the first time, or with Ollie either for that matter. We're all so sure at the beginning, aren't we? And then it all goes wrong.'

'What will you do?' he said, stroking her neck, so lightly it made her shiver.

She nestled into his shoulder, exhausted by the outpouring of emotion. 'I don't know. If I didn't have Chloe to worry about, I'd probably move somewhere remote, like Cornwall, bury my head in books and slushy films.'

Feo stood on his hind legs, trying to push his nose between them, and whined, all interest in his penguin hunt diverted by macho jealousy.

'You're a kind, sweet, lovely, beautiful person.' He kissed her cheek, placed another softly on her nose and then gently turned her chin up to face him, his lips finding hers. They began to kiss, slowly at first but with increasing passion, sinking into each other's arms. Feo jumped into the space beside her on the sofa and curled into a ball, sulking.

She should pull away, she really should. But her head was swimming in cotton wool, her legs rubber. She couldn't fight it, all willpower and sense had evaporated under his touch.

'Not here,' Aiden whispered. He took her hand and led her towards the stairs. She was a mute servant, following him obediently, slavishly willing.

Her feet were on the first step when her landline rang. And stopped. Rang again. Stopped. And rang. Breaking her out of her trance.

A shiver went down Jen's spine, freezing her in her tracks. It was their code. Their SOS. She had to answer it.

'Won't be a minute.' She jerked her hand from Aiden's, Feo jumping and barking, excited by her burst of speed.

'Wait!' Her master's voice had no effect now, the spell was broken. She'd already picked up.

'What are you doing, Jennifer? Now? Right this minute?' It was Georgina. Brisker than ever.

Jen thought quickly. 'I'm about to have some lunch.'
After shagging your husband.

'This is critical. Will you come to London?'

'When?'

'ASAP. Trafalgar Square. By Nelson's Column. I've no time to talk.'

When Jen put down the receiver, Aiden was staring at her. Waiting for an explanation.

'It was Georgina.'

'Georgina?'

'Your wife,' Jen said sternly.

'What did she want?' He took her hand again but she pulled it away.

'She didn't say. But I have to go. I've arranged to meet her.'

'You can't.' He stepped in front of her, blocking her path, every inch the tortured hero. 'Ring her back and tell her no. Tell her you're busy. Don't go. Please, Jen. Not now. If you care anything for us at all, please not now.'

'You'd better leave.' She shook her head, backing away from
him. 'And Aiden, don't call for a while. I'll be in touch, I promise. But
I need time to think.'

Georgina was waiting underneath Nelson's Column, checking her watch impatiently and stamping her feet against the cold. She glanced up as Jen approached, waved, and started walking towards her. Suddenly it clicked. Meg was right behind her, looking sheepish.

'OK, right.' Jen stood frozen, feeling like a shroud had fallen over her head. 'I know what this is about and I . . .'

'You don't.' Meg threw her a diamond-cutting glare. 'You
really
don't.'

Georgina's eyes darted from Jen's to Meg's and then back again. 'Come on, both of you. I haven't long. Look sharp now.'

She headed off at a hefty pace and they ended up trotting behind her like a couple of carriage dogs.

'Don't say anything,' hissed Meg when a distance opened up. 'I'd hate her to . . .'

'Screw you!' Jen bared her teeth. It was a smile, but the kind that Dracula gave before he drew blood.

They stopped outside a grey concrete building, with a sign that read Klingman's Fine Art above the door. Walking in, Georgina picked up brochures from a pile stacked on a table in the entrance. They climbed up two flights of steel and glass spiral stairs and followed Georgina as she marched through a large gallery with polished oak floors, up a ramp, left down a passageway, right into a smaller room with black-framed photographs mounted on white board, and through into an even tinier space. After passing a weird construction which looked like wooden blocks leading up to a basketball net, she suddenly jerked to a halt in front of a blue painting. It showed a raging sea painted with big swirly circles for waves. On one of several billowing thunderclouds sat a small black cat. It was entitled
Secrets.

'Look at the bottom left corner,' whispered Georgina.

Dyllis Bedlow.

There was no mistaking it. The painting was definitely Rowan's.

'She used my maiden name,' Jen said in a hushed voice.

'I only came in because I was visiting a client nearby and thought I'd browse around, just in case.' Georgina's eyes shone. 'It is her, isn't it? I'm not mistaken, am I?'

They all looked up at the painting in awe, like religious devotees standing before a statue of the Messiah.

'Has to be. What's the odds against it – the surname, someone coming up with exactly her old style, sticking in her signature cat?'

'And she had an aunt called Dyllis,' Meg said solemnly.

'Her mum told us she'd given up.' Jen peered at the painting from another angle.

Meg scrutinised the tiny scribble below the artist's name. 'Her mom's a fruitcake. Anyway it's got this year's date.'

'Wait here.' Georgina left them standing in front of the painting as she headed down the stairs.

Meg and Jen glowered at each other, but they didn't speak, couldn't speak. Too much had been said between them already.

Five minutes later Georgina returned. 'Apparently the artist brought it in a couple of months ago, but they've also sold other works of hers. They won't give out her details but I've left a note and card with the owner asking her to contact me. He says the exhibitors only usually visit when they've something new to display. But he promised to pass the message along. Let's hope that this time we've finally struck gold!'

It must have been obvious to Georgina there'd been some tension between Meg and Jen, but she didn't bring it up that afternoon, nor when she telephoned Jen the day after their gallery visit and asked to meet her and Meg later that morning in a small café near her office. She wouldn't say what it was about, but she sounded cheerful. Not like someone who'd discovered her husband loved elsewhere.

No reason then to worry. No reason at all. So Jen kept telling herself. Nevertheless she crossed her fingers as she ambled up the cobbled hill. She'd never felt so confused about her feelings, so dreadful about her actions. If Georgie hadn't interrupted them yesterday she would have ended up upstairs, making love with Aiden in her and Ollie's bed. That it hadn't happened was by pure chance, not any merit on her part. Impossible to pretend to herself any more that their relationship could stay innocent.

So now she was traipsing off to see her lover's wife, the very picture of duplicity, the very worst sort of person who would cheat on a friend. She was feverish, veering between elation and despair. Aiden loved her. She loved him. She ached for him. But what would happen – could they really run off together, build the life she'd dreamed about for so long? If she saw him again she was sure she couldn't resist. Perhaps it was wiser not to see him again. Yes, that would be the smart choice. Forget him. Find a nice man like Tom and move on. But she'd tried that strategy already and had had no luck. And in the meantime she had to face Georgina, pretend that all that was on her mind was looking for Rowan, and pray that Meg didn't choose today to drop her in it.

'I've called this meeting here because . . .' Georgina paused and a knowing smile lit up her face. Not that it needed lighting up. Georgina seemed to be blooming these days. Perhaps Aiden was right, perhaps she was unusually resilient, the kind of woman who could bounce back from marital stress, even divorce. At the dinner party it had seemed as if something had released inside her, springing her free from the coiled, barely contained tension that Jen had noticed ever since Guy Fawkes Night, when Georgina had opened the door to this whole adventure. Today she was dressed in a tailored midnight-blue trouser suit, with just the right amount of accessories and makeup, looking glamorous and smart while Meg and Jen were both in jeans and warm-but-nothing-to-write-home-about woolly sweaters.

The waitress was walking over with their caffè lattes and cappuccino. They waited, unspeaking, while she placed the cups in front of them.

It was remarkably quiet for the time of morning, but then again it was a weekday and a bit too early for office workers to get their lunch. Plus this place was a bit of a heap, not Georgina's style at all, you would have thought. Tatty old paper chains everywhere – fake green plastic Christmas tree in corner. Weary-looking waitress with reindeer horns on, attempting to look jolly.

Through the window they could see an Eastern European-looking singer, doing a jiggy type of song on a fiddle with other musicians behind, and people around him putting money in his hat and dancing together.

'Gerron with it,' Jen urged. She made herself add some levity. 'Keeping us all in suspenders.'

'Because, because . . . I received a message from Rowan.'

'What!' gasped Meg.

Georgina passed her mobile over to Meg. 'I could have told you over the phone, but I wanted you to hear it for yourselves. Our first decent success.'

Jen waited while Meg listened attentively and her eyes slowly enlarged to saucers.

'Unfortunately the number's withheld. Seems like a Rowan trait. Your turn, Jennifer.' Georgina took her mobile from Meg and pressed some buttons before passing it over to Jen.

'Hi, it's Rowan . . . listen I'm sorry, but . . . I got your messages and I just . . . I just don't have time to get together with anyone right now. I've a full life, plenty of mates and . . . I
–
I don't see the point of rehashing history. If I change my mind though, I've got your numbers. All right, bye.'

'Christ!' said Jen. Almost by accident, she caught Meg's eye and the American girl gave a faint shrugging movement, her downturned lips expressing equal disappointment. Instinctively Jen knew they'd both called a truce – for the moment, anyway.

'Iceberg or what!' Meg remarked, when Jen had finished listening. 'And to think I was going to leave Zeb with her.'

Jen gave the phone back to Georgina. 'You call that a decent success?'

'Well all right, I know it's not an actual decent success as such, but you know what I meant, it's an answer and that's really what we wanted, isn't it?'

Was it? Jen's brain frizzled as the message sank in and she thought of those wasted hours of searching, asking around and chasing dreams. Was this it then, the end of the rainbow? So all those imagined rapturous reunions with Rowan – the four of them skipping down the street arm in arm, singing 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun' – were merely a fantasy, reality a million miles away. There was Jen sneaking around with Georgina's husband, she and Meg were barely on speaking terms and Rowan didn't want to know a single one of them anyway.

What a mess.

On Saturday night at dinner Georgina had said, leaning over and patting her hand, that Jen was a 'good egg'. But she wasn't a good egg. She was a stinking smelly rancid egg, that's what she was. It was like that article she'd read in the shop, all those weeks ago. When good friends go bad. Well, she had gone bad. Very bad. Disgustingly bad. On a level with Meg who, let's face it, had slept with Starkey when Georgina was pregnant and at her most vulnerable. What a pair they were.

Suddenly guilt overwhelmed Jen as an isolated memory pushed its lonely way to the front of her up-till-now blissfully ignorant mind. All the girls from 4L were in the changing room having showers and she remembered mentioning to Rowan, who was struggling to get her Aertex shirt off and her school blouse on without revealing her 32AA bra, that Murgatroyd, the young colt they'd been jointly taking care of, was being gelded that morning.

'What's gelded?' Rowan had asked, bemused.

'It means he's going to have his testicles cut off.'

'But if they're cut off, how will he be able to wee?'

Jen stared at her in amazement. 'But Rowan, his testicles are . . .' Then she stopped. Now, a true friend would have pulled her to one side and said, 'Look, Rowan, the testicles are the balls behind the willy, which have nothing to do with the wee coming out but hold the sperm,' but instead she went guffawing round the changing room, doubled over, crossing her arms over her tummy and shouting, 'Guess what Rowan said? You'll wet, you'll wet,' and everyone had laughed nastily at Rowan.

Why did she do that? And Rowan never held it against her.

Or maybe she did . . .

Jen was about to relate an edited version of this to the others when Georgina suddenly came out with, 'I bullied her once. Told her I'd send her to Coventry if she didn't come to the school discotheque with me. You were off sick, Jennifer, and Nutmeg into serious snogging with Gregory Henshaw, and when she said she'd prefer going to drama club, I didn't speak to her and she kept saying, "Please Georgina, please talk to me. Why won't you talk to me?" Poor lamb.'

'She probably couldn't figure out what Coventry meant, either,' Jen said. 'Never the brightest button in the box.'

Georgina stared into the middle distance. 'I can hear those pitiful pleadings now. Her mother was right when she implied I made her timid.'

'And I stole Gregory Henshaw from her.' Meg looked even more depressed than Georgina. 'Darn.'

'Don't worry, I think it's me she doesn't want to see,' Jen told them. 'First Gwyneth, then Rowan. My reputation has finally caught up with me. I knew I'd be punished for my sins one day.'

'But why?'

'Because I was a telltale bitch who humiliated her in public.' Though she was far too ashamed to go into precise details about the Murgatroyd thing.

'No wonder she doesn't want to see us then,' said Georgina. 'The bitch, the bully and the tart. Fine bosom buddies we turned out to be!'

There was something wrong. Very wrong, thought Jen. In fact, there were so many elements in her life verging on pure disaster that she was sure every planet in her astrological chart had to be whizzing backwards, Pluto colliding with Uranus, Venus giving Mars the cold shoulder, the entire heavens in an uproar.

The feeling, however, that kept her awake at three a.m. thinking, wondering, was pure dread. And not for herself, she was sure of that – though she was ready to kiss the Angel Gabriel himself if he ensured that Meg continued to be discreet – but dread for Rowan.

Why didn't she want to see them? And why, all those years ago, had she asked to meet and then failed to show?

The whole thing didn't make sense. Could Rowan still be holding grudges against them all? People did – Gwyneth Minksheath, for example – and Helen seemingly had only just pardoned Ollie for suggesting she was Jen's mother all those years ago.

Rowan wasn't like that, though. She'd never seemed to mind being teased. She had a sort of forgive and forget quality about her that was almost saintly. Even if she'd said explicitly that she didn't want to see them, they couldn't leave it at that, they just couldn't. If nothing else Jen
had to
find out why.

Enough of moping, analysing, wallowing in self-pity. It was time to act.