Too Close For Comfort (27 page)

‘Poor Sarah,’ I said, which sounded more anodyne than I meant it to. I couldn’t help spooling through that footage in my head, the way she’d looked up at Peter, laughed
with an abandon you could see was real even in that grainy image.

‘Absolutely,’ intoned Kimberley. ‘Poor Sarah. I still can’t believe she’s not here. She’d have loved tonight.’

‘Yeah – she would,’ agreed Lysette.

‘Don’t,’ said Helena, making her hand into a stop sign. ‘My dress and my arse are no longer on speaking terms. I’m going to need two pairs of Spanx. And possibly a
shovel for Chris to dig me back out of it when we get home.’

Kimberley gave a tinkly laugh, squeezed her wrist.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve got a perfect derrière.’

Helena shrugged, looked away. She was chubby – a classic English pear – but she also had a lovely face, kept youthful by its slight roundness. There was something so insincere about
the way Kimberley – starvation-rations thin and thrilled by it – dismissed the truth of what she was saying. Jake was hovering with my coffee.

‘Are you waitering tonight, Jake?’ asked Kimberley. What was this event that no one seemed in any hurry to tell me about? ‘Oh sorry, Mia, Nigel’s hosting a ball in
Cambridge for Save the Children. And Jake sometimes moonlights when we have a function.’

Kimberley’s spider web seemed to wrap itself around quite a specific kind of fly.

‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ confirmed Jake, putting my coffee in front of me without looking away from her.

‘Good to know we’ll be in capable hands.’ Kimberley turned to me, clapping her own elegant hands. She shot a darting, complicated look at Lysette. ‘You should come! She
should come, shouldn’t she, Lysette?’

Alex’s face was like granite. ‘I thought the tickets . . .’

Kimberley ignored her.

‘We all need cheering up – a girls’ night out. It would be so fun if you were part of it.’

It was the last thing I wanted to do. ‘Um . . .’

‘It’s for a good cause!’ she said. ‘And we all know how much you care about children.’

She ignored Alex and looked around at Helena and Lysette, appealing for support.

‘Yeah, you should come,’ said Lysette, voice still monotone. Was it the thought of me, or the thought of the do? I looked at her wan complexion, her straggly hair. She didn’t
look like someone who’d relish a night on the tiles. She smiled. ‘Please,’ she added, suddenly, unexpectedly, vulnerable.

‘You can get a pair of pliers and help me with my zip,’ said Helena.

‘OK then,’ I said, forcibly pushing away my doubts. I only had a few days left: this might be my only chance to mend things with Lysette. To gauge what she really thought and felt.
‘Are men folk coming? I mean . . . only if there’s room.’

I’d been thinking about Patrick ever since I’d woken up, trawling back through our argument looking for the hidden fault lines, the deeper dives we could take if we didn’t take
better care of our relationship.

‘Oh, do you want to bring your mysterious fiancé?’ said Kimberley.

‘Mysterious isn’t a word I’d use for him,’ I said, thinking at the same moment of the likelihood of Jim swaggering in, his bow tie left undone over an open-necked shirt,
a look he’d perfected at school balls more than twenty years previously. ‘Seriously, don’t worry about it. I doubt he’d be able to come anyway.’

‘No, no,’ said Kimberley, ‘I’m sure I can muster up another ticket, we’d love to meet him. The more the merrier.’ She made her blue eyes go suitably mournful.
‘And it all helps the refugees.’

‘Is there an auction?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but the tickets are also £50. Is that OK?’

It sounded like loads – a haircut, a decent item of clothing – but I could hardly say that.

‘That’s fine,’ I said, my brain whirring. ‘Actually though – unless Patrick can come, I’d be turning up in my pyjamas – I haven’t got anything
smart enough.’

‘Not a problem!’ said Kimberley, her eyes raking over my body. ‘My wardrobe’s like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag. We can easily find you something hidden in the
depths.’

‘Please don’t worry. Lys, could I . . .’

A look of shame crossed her face, and I cursed my insensitivity. That was why those Louboutins were such a shock – years of scrimping and saving with three kids to feed and clothe had left
her with a wardrobe that was shabby chic at best.

‘
I’m
a refugee,’ she said. ‘Clothing bank of Kimberley Farthing for me.’

Kimberley looked between us, delighted.

‘We can all get ready together! Get the champers flowing, music up loud. I was going to get my make-up artist to come round.’

I just about stopped myself telling her that her pre-party budget could probably sustain a small country’s worth of refugees for a month.

‘Well, you won’t have to borrow any shoes!’ I said to Lysette, trying to make amends for my thoughtlessness. ‘Did you see her gorgeous Louboutins the other week?’ I
asked the others. ‘They made your legs look amazing.’

Lysette looked even more uncomfortable.

‘Yeah, no, I don’t have them now.’ I looked at her questioningly. ‘I stuck them up on eBay.’

‘Oh,’ I said. She had the look in her eyes again, shut down and pleading all at once. How bad was her situation? She certainly hadn’t mentioned that £200, despite all her
promises to get it straight back to me. I rushed to fill the silence, keen that Kimberley didn’t muscle her way into the strangeness of it. ‘Shall we get some more drinks?’ I
said, taking my turn to wave at Jake.

*

‘I can’t believe you’re stuck with Rita!’ said Helena, wiping her eyes. ‘Every time we go in there, she jiggles her tits at Chris and acts like
I’ve got a pair of horns.’

It was Kimberley who’d slyly brought up the pub – I’d never have called attention to the fact that Lysette had thrown me out – but I’d gone with the comedy route of
Rita’s obvious distaste for me to try and take the sting away.

‘It’s only a few days more, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘Besides, her husband makes a mean burger.’

‘You’ve been scoffing burgers?’ said Lysette, looking askance.

‘I didn’t actually order it . . .’ I said, any further explanation drying in my throat.

‘Oh yes, Lisa said you were having dinner with someone last night,’ said Kimberley.

‘Have you got a bit on the side, already?’ said Helena, teasing. ‘You’re a fast worker. Got any tips?’

‘No, that was just someone else staying in the pub,’ I said.

‘Who?’ asked Kimberley casually.

Their focus on me was pin tight. No conversational avenue was harmless.

‘Just this girl April,’ I muttered. ‘What time do you need us to arrive at yours?’

‘April?’ said Kimberley. ‘I think I’ve seen her name on some of the coverage – it’s unusual, isn’t it? Is she a journalist?’

‘I think so, yes. I barely know her. I sat with her for like, twenty minutes, chewing a very chewy steak.’ My words felt high and tight. ‘Hopefully that’s the last
I’ll see of her.’

The bell above the door clanged loudly, and I took the opportunity to look away. It was Saffron, Ged a couple of steps behind. Her face lit up with glee: she belted across the floor, paying no
attention to any obstacles in her path.

‘Auntie Mia!’ she said, throwing herself into my outstretched arms. ‘I’ve been asking and asking for you to read my bedtime story. And then Max said he’d read you a
story, and I said he was a liar and you were in Lon . . . Lon-don, and he said . . .’

I wrapped her up more tightly, as much for me as for her.

‘I’m here now,’ I told her.

She climbed up on my knee, an idea she’d dismissed as babyish only last week.

‘Can I have a hot chocolate?’ she asked.

‘Ask Mum,’ I said. Lysette was looking at the two of us, the way we were welded together, with a complicated expression on her face.

‘There you are!’ said Ged, arriving at the table. ‘I thought you were meeting us at the playground?’

‘Hot chocolate? Yummy hot chocolate?’ asked Saffron again.

I could sense the tension between her parents: I signalled for Jake, taking an executive decision to grant her request. Lysette and Ged continued to snipe at each other in an undertone.

‘If I’d said that, I’d remember,’ said Lysette.

‘Well, you didn’t,’ hissed Ged, his mellow demeanour nowhere to be found. ‘And I’ve got to get to work.’ He was standing at the head of the table,
displaced.

‘Hi, Ged, do you want my chair?’ I asked. ‘I can’t find another one.’

‘No. Thanks. I need to go,’ he said, forcing a smile. He paused a second. ‘It’s nice to see you,’ he added.

‘Oh, shame!’ said Kimberley. ‘But we’ll be seeing you tonight?’ Ged looked blank. ‘The ball?’

He was wearing a battered pair of jeans, nails cracked and grubby, his bulging tool bag abandoned at his feet. It was hard to imagine.

‘Yeah. Thanks for the invite,’ he said, voice entirely devoid of enthusiasm. How could they even afford a pair of £50 tickets if Lysette was flogging treasured possessions on
eBay? Nothing about this felt right.

‘Great!’ said Kimberley, obviously taking that as an acceptance. ‘It’s shaping up to be quite an evening.’

At least on that score, she would prove to be remarkably accurate.

I was sitting in the garden of the pub, the heels of my open-toed mules sinking into the grass, peering critically at the crescent of white at the base of each of my scarlet
toes. My three-week-old pedicure had well and truly grown out: I’d have to invest in some polish and clippers in the chemist and DIY them back to their former glory. I shook myself. The ball
didn’t matter. God willing, I’d never have to see any of these people, bar Lysette, after next week.

‘It’s just not practical, darling.’

‘No. Of course,’ I said, aware of a tinge of passive aggression – blood in the water – that was creeping into my voice. I knew he wouldn’t be able to – why
was some childish part of me taking his inevitable pass as a rejection? ‘I get it.’

Patrick was walking and talking, shouldering his way down a busy London street in search of a late lunchtime sandwich. I could hear the crackle and buzz of it, so different from the humid
stillness of the pub garden.

‘I would if I could.’

‘I know,’ I said, although I didn’t really. I felt an all too familiar stab of loneliness – would work always be his mistress? ‘It was always going to be a long
shot. How’s it going today?’

‘Oh, you know,’ he said. ‘Had an aromatherapy massage this morning and I’ll be leaving at five. How about you?’

I tore my gaze away from my disappointing toes – I’d sat around having coffee and speculating about what truths lay beneath honeyed words. An image of Lysette loomed up at me –
hypnotised by her coffee cup, lost and distant. Her resignation about Sarah, her prickly awkwardness with Ged – even if it looked like frothy cappuccinos and chat, I’d been working
hard. I’d be working hard tonight too. She was my mission, more than anything.

I snapped back to the conversation. ‘I saw Joshua first thing.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘You know – Sarah’s husband. Max’s dad.’

‘Oh yeah, of course. How’d it go?’ He paused, and I wondered if he was going back over what I’d told him about my strange, sad session with Max. ‘What do you reckon
– Pret or Eat?’

No – he was thinking about cheese.

‘It was fine,’ I said, my voice flat. ‘You like that baguette in Pret, don’t you?’

‘The cheese and ham one? I do, it’s true. I swear, Mia, you know me better than I know myself.’

Did I? The distance between us seemed so obvious again, as if all the ‘knowing’ we’d built up in the two years prior to it was a shallow puddle, not the deep lake that
I’d arrogantly believed it to be.

‘I should go,’ I said, aware I needed to avoid blowing this up into a self-created existential crisis. ‘You get to your sandwich.’

‘Don’t hang up. We’ve got the whole walk back still.’

‘No, I should. I’ve got the session with Ian that he cancelled yesterday, and then I’ve got to go to Kimberley’s with Lysette to get ready.’ The very thought of it
made my skin prickle – why had I agreed to tonight? ‘He’s the headmaster.’

‘I know that,’ said Patrick. ‘Can I have a very, very strong black coffee, please?’ he said, having reached the counter. ‘The kind your spoon stands up
in?’

Hearing him – his acute Patrick-ness – made my heart clench tight in my chest. I would wish soon after that I’d shared my rush of affection – that I’d grabbed that
small, seemingly insignificant moment and made something of it.

‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I miss you.’

‘Are you mad with me?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said, determined to take the harder route and be honest, not defensive. ‘I’m just a bit disappointed.’

‘Sounds way worse.’

‘I wanted you to meet them all so you knew what I’d been droning on about. And Kimberley makes me feel like a spotty twelve-year-old at the best of times, let alone when her
celebrity husband’s trailing in her wake.’

‘I’m sorry, Mia,’ he said simply.

‘I get it, I really do,’ I said.

I didn’t. Unhappily for me, I’d only come to realise that fact when it was too late.

*

Lysette texted from outside, and I manoeuvred my way down the creaky staircase that connected my garret to civilisation. There on the landing was April, coming out of her room.
It seemed too convenient.

‘Mia!’ she said, her smile garishly red. ‘I’d offer to show you my room, but then I’d have to kill you.’ She giggled. ‘Oops, inappropriate!’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got to run anyway.’

‘Anywhere nice?’ she said, clocking my bulging weekend bag and thick make-up. I’d been trying to leave myself with the minimum amount of grooming left to do: I didn’t
need Kimberley unleashing her ‘team’ on me.

‘Um, just this . . . this do that Kimberley Farthing’s invited me to. Some charity thing her husband’s organised.’

‘Ooh! Where is it?’

I hesitated. ‘Just in Cambridge.’ I made an awkward gesture towards the stairs. ‘I should go. My friend Lysette’s downstairs.’

‘Sounds fun. It’s good that they’re able to put it all behind them, isn’t it? Let life move on?’