The Rose Petal Beach (30 page)

I used to work among most of these people, I was their boss at one time, but the ones I still know are distant colleagues, they work for Scott, they would turn a blind eye to whatever was going on because that’s what you do, isn’t it, when you want to keep your job, or you want to do well, or you don’t want to be next on the hit list.

I look at Scott, and he’s in the corner of the room by the bay window, talking to Terry Cranson, who is now chairman of the board of directors and did away with the role of President when he vacated the position. I secretly think he did that to stop Scott getting the role, but we haven’t spoken in years so he wouldn’t tell me now if he had.

He’s made polite conversation, but I knew he was uncomfortable around me. I wasn’t sure if it was because I resisted his attempts to get me to go back to work when Anansy was a year old, or if he still had a festering dislike and distrust of Scott and he knew I’d be loyal to my husband no matter what.

I’d never told Scott Terry had been at me to go back for ages after I left. Not even when Scott was crowing about his latest success while subtly making digs about whether I could have pulled it off had I ‘stuck around’, as he put it. Another part of our history he had rewritten that I didn’t bother to correct. It didn’t matter, I often thought. It wasn’t important, I knew the truth and he did too.

As he stands talking to the man whose job he has his eye on, Scott’s gaze is constantly drawn across the room. To the fireplace. Where Beatrix is standing, talking to one of Scott’s subordinates. Trust Beatrix to go for the best-looking man in the room. She never misses an opportunity to—

‘Maybe he’s not lying about what he’s been up to, just who with? Maybe that’s why you’re so willing to believe what he’s told you because deep down you know he’s got someone else.’
Mirabelle said that to me. I can remember it as clear as anything. I’ve a lot of fuzziness over the past few weeks from getting drunk so many times and passing out, but I remember that. We were arguing, she was wearing a dressing gown. No, that’s not right, in all the times I’ve spoken to her since this blew up, she’s been fully dressed, not in a dressing gown. I must be remembering it wrong.

But she said that. I look at Scott. He is focused on Beatrix.

Slowly, carefully, so no one else can see, not even the man she’s talking to, she shifts her eyes towards Scott and a tiny smile curls the very corner of her mouth before it returns to normal and she focuses again on the man she’s flirting with.

‘Maybe he’s not lying about what he’s been up to, just who with?’
Mirabelle knew, or at least suspected.

Scott is sleeping with Beatrix.

I’ve been aware of Scotty’s eyes on me all day, checking where I am, what I’m doing, who I’m talking to – like this man, who was at the footie with us a few weeks back. Scotty noticed me talking to him and said to me in the car on the way home he didn’t like it. He’s the one who’s married but he didn’t like me legitimately talking to a man who had started a conversation with me. Sometimes his reasoning is very suspect.

Since all this blew up with Mirabelle, Scotty has said we need to cool things off. He wanted to spend more time at home, be there for the kids, calm her down so she wouldn’t do anything rash like take the kids and leave. He can’t stand the thought of that, that’s what keeps him there. I said it was the perfect time to tell her, to go public when there was already so much upheaval. But he’d been convinced the police were trying to stitch him up, that they believed Mirabelle’s ludicrous story and were going to get a conviction by any means, so this would be the very worst time to start the split. Even when Mirabelle retracted her statement, it wasn’t the right time. I’m wondering what excuse there’ll be now she’s dead? A less trusting woman than I would think he was stringing her along. I know he wouldn’t do that to me. I know because he is watching me talk to this man. He’s jealous. He wouldn’t be jealous if he didn’t want me, need me, love me.

I talk to good-looking men and I go on dates because I need Scotty to know that I have options. That other men find me attractive
and if Scotty isn’t careful, doesn’t treat me properly, I might find one of those men attractive too.

Also, he needs reminding that I’m not going to wait forever.

This living room is one of my least favourite rooms in the house – it has so many pictures of them, stark reminders of the family they once had. The family they would still have if they’d paid more attention to each other. It’s horrible to think it’s all fake – that Scotty has been going through the motions all this time to make sure that he sees the girls.

I don’t think she’s that vicious, but you never know how someone will take being replaced. I have to stop myself looking at her. She’s dressed in black and is so obviously devastated. That woman – Mirabelle – tried to ruin her marriage and she’s heartbroken that she’s dead. How’s that for mixed-up priorities?

Scotty told her he was having an affair with Mirabelle because otherwise she might have looked too deeply into the absences, the ‘conferences’, the times she’s called him at work and he’d been off-site at a meeting, and found out about us. Like I say, a less trusting woman would be worried he had gone to such lengths to stop her finding out about us, but not me.

I turn my head ever so slightly in Scotty’s direction, I can feel the weight of his gaze on me, the jealousy in his eyes must be intense, so I move the corner of my mouth up a fraction in a self-satisfied smile. I am not worried. At all.

I’ll try. But she’s not in a good way. Think I may be sitting up all night with her. Make sure you’ve got that blue and black thing on. Getting hard thinking about you in it.

Me and Scotty? It wasn’t meant to be like this.

Before I explain about that, I want to say I’m sorry I didn’t come right out and tell you everything, if this is a bit of a shock to you. I thought you’d have guessed when I said about us coming back late from the football and him saying stuff that wasn’t very nice
about her and was sort of praising me. I’m not proud of the fact he does that critical/praising thing quite often and I don’t pull him up on it. I’m not proud that we sneaked off to the loos to ravish each other during the game. I’m even less proud of him suggesting we check into a hotel for a few hours, which is why we missed our train home. I felt absolutely wretched the next day when she told me Cora had a stomach bug and had been throwing up all afternoon and she’d had to deal with it on her own for longer than expected because we were back late.

Thinking about it, I also assumed you’d have worked it out when Mirabelle said that stuff about me and Scotty and I didn’t properly refute it because it was more true than she knew. And the other not very nice things – like trying to push her into checking to see if he still used porn so she’d, you know, make him leave – I thought they were dead giveaways, too. I’m not proud of myself for doing them, just so you know, but it was necessary.

Well, whether you worked it out or not isn’t the problem. The problem is, it wasn’t meant to be like this. This wasn’t meant to happen. Scotty and I ‘clicked’ and that was our downfall really.

We supported the same footie team, we drank the same vintage whisky, we liked talking about sports cars and we loved to smoke the odd cigar together.

I got some new lingerie. Stuff that makes the blue & black thing look like a chastity belt. Would you like to see? Bea x

God, don’t, you’re really turning me on when I can’t do anything about it.

That’s the general idea. Bea x

If I dare look back on all the things I could have done to stop it happening, all the other paths during this that I could have taken, I always conclude that I had no choice. Once you get to the stage
where he’s all you think about, when you wear the things you’ve noticed make his eyes linger on your body, when his name is on your lips when you first wake up because he’s been filling your dreams every night, you know that you have no choice. Every other path has disappeared and there’s only one left for you to take.

And it’s the one that leads you directly to the boy who you’re willing to betray your friend for.

Twenty-one months ago

There were seconds to go until the final whistle, everyone was holding their breath, every muscle of everyone in the stadium was tensed, poised, waiting to see if he could do it. The referee blew his whistle, then there was the sound of boots on grass, the thwack of leather on leather, the united gasp of thousands of people waiting, and then the glorious release of the ball hitting the net. Then uproar, everyone on their feet, everyone screaming, the jostling, the jubilation. Bodies against bodies, joy hitting joy and then Scotty’s arms around me, clutching me close, his screams in my ear, his body moving mine as we jumped and screamed together. And then the moment of realisation, as he looked at me and I looked at him and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to go up onto tiptoes and press my lips against his; it seemed expected for him to lower his head and push his mouth onto mine. We didn’t. He let me go and stepped back, embarrassment, shock, guilt showing like watermarks on both our faces.

‘Erm, sorry,’ I think he mumbled while not making eye contact. I couldn’t hear properly with the euphoria around us, but I guessed that was what he was saying because it was what I would be saying if I was him. ‘Got a bit carried away.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ I said.

‘Come on, let’s get you home,’ he shouted. ‘I know Tami will be waiting with a bottle of champagne.’

He said her name and put her firmly between us. We both loved her, we both wouldn’t want to hurt her. It was the atmosphere, it
was the fact we’d been spending time together what with him doing lots of small DIY jobs around my flat. It was Tami being so busy with a huge new project she hardly had time for either of us. It was Tami spending more and more time with Mirabelle and excluding both of us from her life in that way. It was lots of silly little things that were throwing us together. But we loved Tami, we’d never hurt her by doing anything more than be friends. We were just friends.

Think I’ll do you over the kitchen table, first.

Really? Well you might want to rethink that. I might have a special something in the bedroom to arouse your interest. Bea x

Eighteen months ago

It’d been a good two months since the football match and we had both kept our distance, shocked as we were by what had almost happened. If I had a DIY issue, I tried to cope without him, but when all four of the spotlights went in the hall and I couldn’t reach them, I had to call him to come and change them.

It took him minutes, and afterwards we stood in the kitchen, talking. Awkward, describes it best. Neither of us wanted anything like what had happened at the match to happen again. There was too much to lose. I stood in front of the sink, sipping my glass of water and listening to him speak. I wasn’t tracing the lines of his strong face with my eyes. I wasn’t imagining my tongue in his mouth, his hands on my bum, his—

‘Actually, I should probably head off,’ he said, coming towards me and placing the glass he’d used in the well of the sink. As he pulled his hand away, his fingers brushed accidentally against my hand. I expected him to jerk away, horrified that he’d touched me when we were both so non-verbally clear about the dangers we
faced. Slowly, deliberately, he ran his fingers up my bare arm, goose-bumps chasing in their wake, until his fingers moved over my shoulder and onto my face. I could tell his gaze never left my lowered eyes. My breathing shallowed the longer he kept his hand on my face and his gaze on my eyes. Summoning my bravery, I raised my eyes to meet his.

‘Bea,’ he breathed, and I was his. I could not look away, I could not move, I was in his thrall. It felt good to be wanted by a man again. It felt incredible to be wanted by
this
man at all. You know how in school there’s always a boy that you fancy that would never even breathe in your direction? He was Scotty.

It was wrong. So delicious and so wrong. When, gaze still connected to mine, he was slipping his hand down the waistband of my floral skirt and into my lacy black knickers, I knew it was wrong and I should stop it. When he was unzipping himself I knew it was wrong and I should stop it. Even when he was guiding me backwards and entering me, I knew, I knew, I
knew
it was wrong and I should stop it. Should and could are two different entities in moments like this: I should have stopped. I
couldn’t
stop. I couldn’t physically pull myself away from this man who wanted me.

Eighteen months ago

‘We can’t let that happen again,’ he said to me. It’d been three days and I’d been stuck back there, my body and mind playing on loop that delicious moment where he entered me, the excitement of feeling his body shuddering as he came, the intoxicating purity of my orgasm.

We stood on opposite sides of the kitchen, keeping our distance. That was the problem last time, we got too close, physically and emotionally. If we kept the table between us, we’d be OK. We could talk and we could end this thing before it started. Three days ago, seconds after we finished, he’d done up his trousers and dashed out of there without another word, horror on his face.

I nodded, rationally agreeing to what he was saying when every
other part of me was disagreeing. I wanted it to happen again. Who would willingly deny themselves that amount of pleasure? I’d been shocked at myself for crossing that huge boundary with a friend’s other half, but it felt
right
, too. It felt like this was always meant to happen, we were always meant to be together.

‘I’ve been with her since forever. I don’t want to hurt her,’ he said.

‘Do you love her?’ I asked. He didn’t use her name and neither did I. If I said her name she would be real. She’d be the woman who left an important meeting to come to the hospital after I was mugged. She’d be the person who said, ‘How would you like to be Anansy’s Godmother, so you can be the person she turns to when she’s older?’ She’d be the friend who told me she’d give me her blessing to have one-night stands if she thought I could handle the emotional fall-out, but because I couldn’t, I had to believe her when she said I was worth more than that. She wouldn’t be the complication, the bump along my road to love.