When Good Friends Go Bad (35 page)

Thursday morning, eight thirty-five. Having dropped Chloe off at her school breakfast club, Jen now sat on the morning train to Victoria, dressed in a smart and stylish Giordani skirt suit, with a scalding hot cup of cappuccino in one hand and Feo's lead in the other. By nine fifteen she was back at Klingman's Fine Art only to discover it didn't open till nine thirty and she had to pace the pavement, waiting.

'Can I help you?'

A tall elegant woman in black gloves and a coat with a fur collar had stepped out of a taxi and towards the door, keys in hand. The fur looked real, fox probably. Maybe even two foxes. Her legs were sheathed in black tights, her make-up immaculate down to the smoky eyelids and burgundy lipstick.

'I need to get in touch with one of the exhibitors.' Jen's throat was dry. 'It's a matter of immense urgency.'

She was about to add 'life and death', but it reminded her too much of Meg and her lies. From now on, she, Jen Bedlow, was wedded to the truth. Or some of it, at least. She would try not to fib her way out of trouble unless it was absolutely essential.

The fox trembled as its owner's head produced an emphatic no. 'Against company policy to give out personal information. We do have meet-the-artist receptions quite frequently, usually at the opening of a show. Otherwise the artists don't tend to be in here often and most of them like their privacy. And may I add, you can't let that dog in here.' She unlocked the door.

'I wasn't going in. I've been already.' Quickly Jen tied Feo's lead to the railings, following the woman through the door.

'You could however leave a note. May I ask which particular artist interested you?' She'd stripped off her coat and gloves, revealing long manicured nails, a classic navy knee-length tunic dress topped off by a gold brooch and a tiny nearly transparent cardigan.

'Dyllis Bedlow. Top floor. Next to the three wooden blocks and basketball-net structure.'

'A netball net actually. That's why it's named
Netball Net,'
she said, a bit too pompously for Jen's liking, as she hung her things in a closet. 'Miss Bedlow?' She stepped behind her computer, which was perched on a desk close to the table with brochures. 'Fine choice. So dynamic, full of passion. We've sold quite a few of her pieces over the years and the price keeps rising. An excellent investment if you're contemplating one. Are you considering purchasing?' She gave a wide professional smile, fingers clearly itching to write up invoices.

'Well, no, actually, I'm her . . .' Sister? But then they'd never looked alike and the gallery owner might have met Rowan and know she had no siblings '. . . mother. I'm so terribly sorry, but I'm in a frightful tizzy.'

There went her commitment to the truth; it had never been more than a short ill-fated engagement. Jen patted at her hair, smoothing it down in what she imagined was a fussy-mother kind of way. 'I was supposed to be meeting her for a shopping trip but my train was delayed and I mislaid her mobile number and my battery's died, damn charger, so now we've lost each other. She could be anywhere in London by now, pounding the streets, searching for me.' She contorted her face into a worried frown. It must have worked because the woman arched her left eyebrow, disdainful expression giving way to a more human kind of puzzlement. 'And then we were going to visit her father . . . my husband, in hospital. Oh please, you have to help me.'

'How strange. Then I'm sure you know Ms Bedlow rarely travels to London. I was led to believe she's rather reclusive, refuses all publicity. I've only met her fleetingly myself, when she drops off her paintings, but I must say you don't look old enough to be her mother. No resemblance at all in fact.'

Scratch puzzlement. Make that blatant suspicion.

'Why thank you.' Jen found her voice becoming falsetto, more posh, her back straighter. In a minute she'd be standing on tippy-toes as she tried to out-Sloane the Sloane. 'So kind. That's because it's um . . . er . . . true. I'm not her
real
mother, no, I'm her stepmother. But we're so close and I treat her like my own. My husband's in his seventies, severely ill with emphysema, but a very fine-looking man nevertheless.'

'Would you by any chance have some sort of identification? A driving licence perhaps?'

Jen rifled through her handbag, gratified to see a tiny flicker of reaction when the woman studied an old Holmes Place membership card and extended her talons to give it back. Luckily it was almost ten years old, and therefore in her maiden name. Beside her, Feo was straining at the lead, anxious to investigate his new surroundings.

'We're not supposed to reveal clients' details, security, you see.' She was already tapping at the computer keyboard. Then she frowned. 'But it hasn't got a phone number. There's only her address. I'm sorry.'

'But . . .'
Think, Jen, think.
'Now hopefully you have her new one.'

'New one? I can assure you we keep clients' records up to date.'

'But she moved recently. Can I . . . er . . . see?'

'I'm afraid not.' Her voice had turned frosty again. 'It has a note: Extremely Confidential. Since it can't help you phone your daughter, I really don't see the point.' She clicked out of the document.

'Well, thank you anyway.' Jen's eyes swept helplessly across the desk. They were obviously in the middle of mailing their Christmas cards. A pile were in envelopes with sticky address labels waiting for stamps, more envelopes and blank cards were in another stack. If only she could get her hands on that list. Or even . . .

'I know it's a terrific nerve, but you wouldn't by any chance have a glass of water and an aspirin please?' She gave a weak smile. 'All this running around . . .'

'Maybe in the main office. Just one minute.'

As soon as she left the entry area, Jen rifled through the sealed envelopes. Just as she hoped, Bedlow was one of the first. She grabbed it up, pushed it in her pocket. She'd just save them the cost of posting it.

The receptionist, manager, owner – whatever she was – came back with a tumbler and two paracetamol. Jen thanked her profusely, gulped the tablets down and left with Feo, walking away as fast as she could. She kept expecting to hear a shout and see the woman running after her, outraged. As soon as she was sure she'd got away with it, she yanked the envelope from her pocket.

Bryn Du Farm, she read, scanning the address and the postcode.

Wales. Rowan was in Wales.

Jen caught the Tube and train home, dug a soft tubular sports bag out from the murkier depths of the understairs cupboard and started to pull clothes from drawers.

Hastening into the bathroom, she picked up her toothbrush and toothpaste, throwing lipstick, foundation, eyeshadow after her moisturiser, taking them out again because why would you need them on a Welsh farm and dropping them back in because you never knew and why not?

Still there might not be central heating so she took out the nice sweater she'd packed and replaced it with an overstretched bobbly thing that Ollie had left behind in the laundry basket, and for good measure went to the hall cupboard again and pulled out an old raincoat, found a lead and a bag of dog food for Feo.

While the directions were printing from multi-map she glanced at the clock, twenty-five to twelve. In a few hours she was supposed to be collecting Chloe from school. One last thing to do.

She took a deep breath and began dialling.

'Hi.' Ollie's voice sounded so familiar and yet odd, as if he were receding from her down a very long tunnel. 'Strange. I was just dialling your number.'

'Oh yes?'

'I was thinking of taking Chloe away this weekend.'

'This weekend?'

'Yes. It's . . . er . . .' He laughed, almost nervously. 'Someone I know's got us tickets to . . .'

'Don't tell me,' she said, disgusted. 'Euro Disney. You're going to Euro Disney this weekend?'

'You knew about it?' She'd taken him completely by surprise.

'Helen told me. And Saul told her. Seems like I'm the last person in Huntsleigh to hear the news.'

'Helen?' He sounded flabbergasted. 'Might have guessed. Those two could be a dangerous combination.'

'Well, I think you should have asked me first!' She was outraged. 'I am still Chloe's mother. Don't you think I should know when my daughter goes abroad? What if something happened and I needed to contact you?'
Especially after what happened the last weekend you had her –
she bit her tongue to stop herself saying it.

'Yes, well, I'm asking you now.' He sounded maddeningly unruffled. 'But I wasn't sure if I was definitely going until today. I didn't want to get Chloe's hopes up.'

'But it's Thursday. When were you going to decide?' she fumed. 'When you set foot on the Eurostar? Doesn't Frances Hutton need to make reservations? Or does she own shares in Eurostar and the Disney hotels too?'

'Look, if you're so dead set against it,' Ollie began, 'we won't . . .'

A little too late she remembered the reason she was calling him. Anger and sarcasm weren't perhaps the best tactics to use.

'No, that's all right. Go off with your girlfriend. Only next time I'd appreciate some advance warning. It so happens that I'm away too this weekend. And I wondered if you could pick Chloe up tonight instead of tomorrow?'

'Oh,
you're
going away, are you? Again? And don't you think you should have asked
me?'
he echoed her practically word for word. 'You are her mother. What if I needed to contact you?' He was trying to piss her off, she could tell. Only she wouldn't let him.

'You'd call my mobile, I assume. I'm only off to Wales. What difference does it make when you're in France?'

'And who are you going with this time? That English teacher of yours? What was his name? Dugan?'

'What bloody business of yours is it who I go with or what his name is?' Her temper flared again. 'And who told you about Tom Dugan anyway?'

'Chloe said you went on a date. And Helen told Saul who with.'

Oh Christ, what else did old blabbermouth spill? About the one-night stand? Was it too much to hope for that her friend had been even marginally discreet?

'Yes, well,' Jen felt flustered suddenly, anxious to end the call, 'if you could fetch Chloe, that would be a huge favour. I'm rushing out the door and since it's so last-minute . . . Her passport's in the top drawer of the bedroom.'

'No problem. I've still got a key.'

'Oh. Yes. Of course you have.'

'Which I can always give you back, you know, if you need it for anybody?'

'Who would I need it for?' Was he suggesting . . . 'Don't bother, I can always get another cut. And anyway hopefully we'll be shot of it soon. The house, I mean.'

'So why
are
you heading off to Wales?'

'It's to do with Rowan. Look, I've got to run, Ollie. Talk to you later, OK?' She hung up hurriedly before he could ask her anything else.

She picked up the sports bag by the handles, slung the strap over her shoulder and at the last minute found a fleece hat and opened the zip of a front pocket to shove it in. Something gleamed in the darkness. She poked her index finger into the fluff in the corner and something slipped over her nail. Disbelievingly, she put down the bag – the very one, she now remembered, they'd taken on their honeymoon – and held up her hand. Halfway between her nail and her knuckle rested the simple gold band: Ollie's missing wedding ring.

On the way to the motorway, Jen pulled on to the A322. There was one more thing she had to do, and she had her fingers crossed he wouldn't be home. Call her a coward but her plan was to check the coast was clear, sneak up to the front door, drop her hastily scrawled note in the letter box and be on the road before it had a chance to hit the mat. No embarrassing conversations. No tortuous excuses.

With this in mind she parked a good hundred yards from his house, gestured to Feo to stay in the car, then edged along the pavement as close to the hedge as possible. She was inconspicuous, she hoped, without being so noticeably doubled up as to set off alarms with the Neighbourhood Watch.

The last hedge ended at the door of Tom's flat. She ducked down, poking her head round the leafy bush, and just as quickly jerked it back.

Damn. Tom was in the driveway, standing beside his rusty Toyota which had the bonnet up. A man in overalls was leaning over, bottom in the air, fiddling about in the entrails of the engine. Tom was slapping his arms against the cold, talking to him.

She didn't think Tom had seen her but then suddenly there he was, standing on the pavement looking down as she rested on her heels, planning her next move. He put out a hand to help her up and shamefaced, feeling like a bumbling fool, she took it.

'Just tying my bootlace. Slippery out here.'

'What a nice surprise!' He seemed really pleased to see her, unfazed by her spying. 'What are you doing here?'

'I came to give you this note.' There was no easy way to say it. She held out an envelope.

'What can it be?' He started opening it with a happy smile. 'Don't tell me, a Christmas card. Could be my only one this year. I'm not great at staying in touch.'

'No!' She put out a hand to stop him. 'Not yet. Wait till I'm gone.' Hugging her arms to her ribs, her body twisted into one big awkward squirm. 'It's a Dear John letter. Well, in your case, Dear Tom.'

'Oh.' He paused, with only a small corner ripped, his green eyes arresting hers. 'I see.' Thoughtfully he tapped the envelope against his jeans. 'Why don't you come in? Let's talk.'

'No, it's definitely over,' she said gently, shaking her head. 'I thought you should know. It was selfish and wrong sleeping with you, not that it's your fault or anything, and I'm sorry about the morning, slinking off like a stoat, and I, well, I wanted to say sorry all round. For everything.'

'No need to be sorry,' he said softly, touching the back of his hand lightly against her cheek.

'No, you see, I don't want you to think you've been used. I like you . . . very much, but, well, don't feel bad about this, it's not you, it's me. And . . . well . . . it's not the right time for me now. There's no future in it for us.'

'You're a darling, Jen. Did you know that?' He squeezed her hand, then leant forward to kiss the top of her head.

'Oh, I'm not as nice as you think I am,' she said wryly, relieved he was taking it so well. 'Look, you'll find someone special again. I just know you will.'

There was a forced silence as the mechanic bore down on them, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. A middle-aged man with a large belly, he gave Jen an up and down once-over with yellow jaundiced eyes before shoving back his cap and scratching his head.

'I don't have the right part with me,' he told Tom. 'We should have one in the yard but if we don't I'll have to make some calls. It might take me an hour or two to track it down but we should have her up and running before the end of the day.'

'Great, thanks.' As the mechanic lumbered away Tom turned back to Jen. 'It was thoughtful of you to come all this way, just to tell me this,' he smiled sweetly.

'It's not that far out of the way.' She fidgeted, her tension decreasing a notch now the worst was over, but still itching to get out of there. Only it seemed rude to bolt when he was being so nice. 'I need to take this road for the motorway.'

'Off somewhere good?'

'Wales.'

'Wales! What is it – a weekend break?' He moved over to the car and dropped the still propped-open bonnet.

She couldn't hold back any longer. 'I think I may have found Rowan, you see,' she said excitedly. 'Only she's not called Rowan now, she goes under the name of Dyllis – at least that's her artistic pseudonym. She's living in a place called Bryn Du Farm near Carderistwyth and oh God, Tom, I can't wait to find out if she has children, if she's married, divorced, widowed. My life's a mess right now, but today for the first time in months something's gone my way. And she's used my maiden name. Mine. Not Dyllis Carrington, nor Dyllis Lennox, but Dyllis Bedlow, and it makes me so proud. Like I was incredibly important in her life.'

'I'm sure you were.' Tom was laughing at her enthusiasm, his fingers turning purple with cold now. 'Dyllis Bedlow. You must have been her top favourite friend,' he said as if that settled the popularity question. 'Drive safe, don't speed.' He was already backing towards his front door, holding the blighted letter in his hands, reversing out of her life. Which reminded her – she patted her pockets, rummaged through the stuff on the passenger seat for the gallery Christmas card. Damn, she'd left it at the house. Oh well, Bryn Du Farm, Carderistwyth. How hard could it be to find?

When she drove past his driveway, he hadn't made it past the doorstep. He raised his hand and she smiled as she waved back, seeing him through the car mirror turn and walk in.

It had ended well, a good smooth finish. People should always end one-night stands with good smooth finishes. Give some closure, as Meg would say, to the whole affair. It would make the world a so much better, more wholesome place in which to live.

Three p.m. and Jen was knocking at the door of a ramshackle old farmhouse, Feo beside her held tightly by the leash. It had taken her nearly three hours. Three long hours of being on her own, with only an old Neil Young CD to listen to.

It took ages before she heard steps in her direction and the door opened just a crack, big enough for someone to peep out. An old woman, maybe, but she couldn't make her out.

'Hi.' Jen shuffled her feet, shivering with cold. 'I'm looking for a Dyllis Bedlow. I'm a friend of hers, Jennifer Bedlow.'

'I know who you are.' The crack widened to six inches. No old woman. Rowan's Aunt Dyllis, she was sure. Much younger than she'd expected. There was a definite family resemblance, though the face was round and chubby-cheeked, all hint of bone structure buried under fat.

Her niece, last seen, had waist-length raven locks; this woman possessed a bird's nest of paint-spattered iron-grey straggles held up unsuccessfully with what looked like a wooden peg amongst a mass of hair pins. Face weather-beaten, clothed in a man's lumberjack shirt, baggy stained combat trousers and mud-spattered wellies, she was of similar height to the beautiful fragile Rowan, with eyes the same riveting violet, but the genetic blueprint stopped there. No wonder Rowan had contemplated passing her kids to a flaky, lying, even schizophrenic American – if any of Meg's story were remotely true. What a choice otherwise – Ma Howard or Cold Comfort Farm!

'Aunt Dyllis? I'm looking for Rowan?'

'Are you now?' A hint of a familiar smile flickered across the woman's face, the voice uncannily identical to their old schoolfriend's.

It was only then that the truth infiltrated Jen's brain.

Bloody hell.

Bloody bloody hell.

'Rowan?'

'So can I come in?'

Jen still stood on the doorstep, bag in hand. Whatever reception she'd expected, it certainly wasn't this.

'Go home, Jen.' The door closed back to a three-inch gap.

'Rowan, please,' she jammed her foot there to stop herself being barred completely, 'we've been looking for you for months. Your mum told us you were moving to Shanghai and had been in Beijing, or Peking as she calls it. And why the name change? Yours, not Peking's.' Jen braced against the pressure on her foot. 'Not ashamed of your paintings, are you? They're fabulous, as always.'

'I told Georgina on the phone,' Rowan peeked through, 'I'm not into all that nostalgia. What's the point in raking over what's past?'

'Raking over?' Jen shook her head. 'But why . . . Are you cross with us? Did we do something wrong?'

'You wouldn't understand my problems.' She began to push the door in earnest. 'I just want some peace. Now if you don't mind.'

'No . . . no . . . Er, I have problems too. Terrible huge whopping problems, that's why I came to see you.'
Good thinking, Jen, swoop on her kind nature, play with it a little, make a friend of it.
'You're the only one that can help.'

'What sort of help?' The door opened a fraction. 'What's happened?'

'Well,' she thought briefly of going through her mess-up of a life, but then again she'd be at the door all night, 'truth is, Rowan, we've been looking for you for months and everything's gone wrong in my life lately, and all I want is for one thing to work out. Just one tiny thing.'

'What's it to do with me?'

'Well, maybe nothing,' she sighed. 'But, please, Rowan, I've been driving here for over three hours, I'm tired, I need a cup of water or something. Please let me in.'

She heard Rowan take a long deep breath, then the door began slowly opening.

'Thanks so much,' Jen said as she walked through. 'It's so good to finally find you. Wait till Meg and Georgie hear . . .'

'No!' Rowan's response was whiplash-sharp. 'Don't tell them. Only you.'

Not the bully or the tart? So Rowan
had
liked her best, after all. Funny how even after more than two decades that could give her a little glow.

Inside was old and dishevelled with low raftered ceilings, the front door leading straight into a sitting room – if you could call it a sitting room. There was a fireplace, responsible for the room's coating of soot and ash, a pile of broken sticks taking up much of the hearth, easels and paint tubes all over the place, mixing palettes on sideboards, half-finished paintings hanging from above, leaning against every available surface. At the same time, though, there was a cosiness about it, herbs on the windowsill, a couple of tatty but comfy-looking armchairs.

'Dach chi isio panad,'
Rowan said, apparently forgetting Jen didn't speak Welsh.

'Dach chi isio panad,'
Jen repeated, assuming it was a greeting.

Rowan gave her a funny look. 'I was asking if you'd like a cuppa rather than water.' She led the way into the kitchen. 'The kettle's boiling.'

True enough, it sat on the blackened surface of an old Aga, simmering gently, the whole room permeated with the warmth of the wood-burning stove. Rowan pulled down two cups from hooks on an ancient Welsh dresser and took out tea bags from a scratched yellowing canister. The light was bright in this room, thanks to huge glass panels that had replaced the original windows, clearly to benefit the giant easel taking up all available space in the centre of the room and adding its own rich odours of oil paint and turpentine to the olfactory stew.

Poking out from behind a screen in a corner, Jen noticed the rounded end of a cast-iron claw-foot bath, probably installed by the original occupants.

She wandered over to investigate, running her fingers along its pitted enamel.

'This is nice. What is it – an antique? You could get a fortune for it, I bet. I'm surprised you have it in the kitchen, though.'

Rowan snorted. 'And where else would I be having it? The taps on the sink are gravity-fed from the spring but I still have to fill the thing. And if the spring dries up I'm after hauling buckets from the well.'

'Oh.'

Jen had passed the well on the way in. She'd thought it was a quaint touch to an already rustic scene, the perfect addition to the falling-down barn, the three cows behind a rickety fence and the dilapidated structure that looked like an historic old privy or outhouse, frosted with ice. It had never occurred to her that these things were in actual use.

But that didn't mean . . . did it?

Surely nobody, outside the most primitive campsites, still used . . .
Ugh!

'What about electricity?' She looked up and saw a bulb dangling from a wire.

'I have that all right. And if I want to phone anyone, the Sheepshearer pub up the road's got a landline.'

Jen strolled back towards the easel, feeling out of sorts. She needed to use the loo – it had been a long drive with no stops – but apparently there wasn't one, except for that rundown outhouse privy. It was enough to make anyone a little grumpy.

As scalding water poured from the heavy kettle's spout, Jen examined her companion out of the corner of her eye while pretending to study the masterpiece in progress.

A few things were becoming crystal clear.

It was definitely Rowan.

She didn't want to see them.

It wasn't just her crazy mother who'd gone prematurely grey. She looked at least ten years older than the rest of them.

Georgina was by no means the most altered after all.

'So why all the mystery?' Jen asked, two cups of tea and three scones later. They were seated side by side on the distressed leather sofa, so distressed it had a rip down its back. 'What's going on, Rowan?'

'Another scone?' She fed one to a cloudy-eyed deformed-looking sausage dog that Feo was beside himself to meet. Jen had tied him to the sofa, not trusting her grip on the lead as he panted madly.

Jen put up her hand in refusal. 'I'm full, thanks.' She hesitated, not sure how to continue her questioning. Shrieking, 'Rowan, what in God's name happened to you?' hardly seemed diplomatic.

'It's so beautiful out here,' she started. 'Wild and, well, isolated, but don't you find it a touch remote? No plumbing, no shops, no neighbours. What if you slipped and cracked your head and no one found you?'

'Leave it out, will you? I'm not worried. The village is only a couple of miles away, if you walk it. Road's much further, it has to go round the mountain. And Jones the Post usually stops by on his rounds to say hello, share a brew. Besides, I like the quiet of the countryside.' She crossed her swollen ankles. 'I'm a right hermit. I like to paint, listen to the birds in the morning as I milk the cows, feed the badgers and foxes at night. It suits me. I've peace, tranquillity and five acres all to myself.'