The Friend: An emotional psychological thriller with a twist Page 5

  ‘I thought you liked the Hartleys.’

  ‘I do – but I’ll eat my own child before he earns a penny farthing from that pissing about. It winds me up.’

  Mark stirred his Lemsip and then threw the teaspoon into the washing-up bowl. I felt him move behind me and then his arms were around my waist, while I stood rigid, angry and ridiculous in my bright yellow rubber gloves.

  ‘And you can forget trying to get round me. I don’t want your germs.’

  ‘Look – I’m truly sorry, darling. You’re right. I’m not myself. It was just bad timing. Dinner party after a bad week. But I didn’t want to ask you to cancel. I’ll make it up next time.’

  ‘If there is a next time. I rather think everyone will give you a wide berth from here on.’

  ‘Oh, come on. I wasn’t that bad.’

  ‘Yes, you were. Jesus, Mark. The idea was to help Emma settle in. Meet some new people – not cross-examine her about her CV. What does it matter what she did or where she worked before she moved here? Why did you have to go on and bloody on . . .’

  Mark let go.

  ‘You didn’t like her, did you?’ I turned to monitor his reaction. He shrugged. His eyes said I was right.

  ‘No – come on. Spit it out, Mark. What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘Oh. I don’t know. I just thought she was a bit—’

  ‘A bit what?’

  ‘Oh, never mind. Just a vibe.’

  ‘Vibe? What does a vibe mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Never mind. It’s just this cold.’

  ‘It’s Tedbury, isn’t it? Anything new and interesting in Tedbury and there has to be some vibe. Something to carp about. Something to belittle. Something to compare unfavourably with London while I’m at least still trying to make a go of it here.’

  ‘And now you’re just being ridiculous.’

  ‘So what then, Mark? Were you just pissed off that I didn’t postpone because Nathan couldn’t make it – your precious golf buddy? Is that what this is really about? Never mind that Nathan with his track record is the last thing Emma needs . . .’

  ‘And that’s your call, is it? Other people’s lives? To pick my friends and decide who Nathan is allowed to like?’

  I stared at the floor.

  ‘Look. I’m sorry that Nathan isn’t your cup of tea but Antony Hartley isn’t really mine. To be frank, maybe I’m just fed up with all these creatives wafting about the countryside, waiting for inspiration to paint pots and piss about with poetry while some of us are out there actually grafting for a living. You know – up and down the sodding motorway.’

  I winced. The weekending was a nightmare, granted, but it was only ever meant to be temporary. Long ago we had agreed to delay sorting the geography until after the second child. And it was Mark who had changed his mind about moving the company.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about the driving. And I didn’t mean you not working, Sophie. I meant Antony, and now this Emma. Oh, look, can we just drop this – please. I’m feeling completely crap, that’s all. Overtired. I’ll apologise to your friends again, I promise.’

  ‘You don’t sound as if you have a cold.’ Your friends again. I thought of Gill and Antony in their pink two-up, two-down cottage near the church. Money was always tight with them, yet they had hosted us often and generously ever since we moved to Tedbury. Nice wine. Nice food. Nice people who talked books and art and all the things I loved, who had made a good effort with Emma tonight, Antony deep in conversation with her about Sartre and existentialism, rules and rebels.

  And then I pressed pause to study my husband’s face which, in fairness, looked unusually hot, perspiration glistening from both his forehead and neck.

  I started to feel guilty, realising I should have postponed until Nathan was free. But the truth? I wasn’t overly keen to gift Nathan a platform with Emma. Nathan was charming, yes, but had never grown up, learnt to keep it in his pants. Mr Infidelity throughout both his marriages.

  ‘Well, I like her. Emma. She’s a breath of fresh air.’ I let out a sigh.

  ‘Whatever you say.’ He looked unconvinced.

  ‘So how about you just take your germs to bed, Mark?’

  ‘Our room or the spare room?’

  ‘I’ll let you choose.’

  CHAPTER 6

  BEFORE

  Libra

  Not every hour is equal. Ask an insomniac how long the night is.

  ‘Your husband doesn’t like me, does he?’

  It was a couple of weeks after ‘dinnergate’; I was watching the waves crash on to the rocks, and tilted my head to follow the foam into the rock pools where the boys liked to fish with their nets for hermit crabs, slipper limpets and, on lucky days, starfish.

  I was not sure how to answer Emma’s question, thinking instead of this morning’s horoscope. My new guilty pleasure. Today’s was spot on: hours are not equal at all. Some people you can know for years and yet not at all.

  While others?

  I blinked finally and turned to Emma, my eyes smarting from the wind.

  ‘Mark just hates the weekending. All the driving. Don’t take it personally, Emma. His problem is with Tedbury, not you or the Hartleys or anyone else. He never really wanted to move here. I rather twisted his arm. The plan was to move the business too but that hasn’t worked out . . .’

  Emma held my gaze, then found a half-smile before turning away.

  I thought of the Hartleys. A couple of days after the dinner, Gill had invited me and Emma for coffee. Gill had a week off work and had made a spectacular apple cake which she warmed and served with home-made ice cream and espressos in beautiful little orange cups.

  ‘So, how’s Mark’s cold?’ Gill was being polite but I could tell from the glances she exchanged with Emma that they had talked about it. The disastrous dinner party.

  I have always liked Gill and was sorry not to have given her a better night. She worked for the council in Plymouth while Antony studied. It was no secret that she wanted children though Antony apparently didn’t; tough for her. Just occasionally I would catch her looking at Ben with real sadness in her eyes.

  I glanced at the two boys now myself, working on an enormous sandcastle several feet away, a punch of guilt as Ben suddenly stood rigid while Theo ran with two buckets to the water’s edge to top up the moat.

  It was my fault – Ben’s appalling water phobia. A fall into the pool on our very first villa holiday; I had turned my back for just a moment . . . He was standing on the sand right now with his fists tightly clenched and I could feel his tension, his fear, as he watched Theo wade into the water to his knees. Sometimes Ben even refused a bath. I don’t like it. I don’t like the water all around me. Please don’t make me . . . I want a shower.

  I closed my eyes to see the picture more vividly: Ben choking and gasping as Mark hauled him from the pool. Barely two. Petrified. His little body shaking head to toe as we wrapped a towel around him . . .

  My fault. My greatest shame.

  I opened my eyes to watch Theo return from the shoreline to touch Ben’s arm for reassurance before handing him one of the buckets of water. He was such a sweet kid, Theo – as good for Ben as Emma was for me.

  I turned back to her. Yes – I wished Mark had taken to her so she and Theo could come over at weekends too. Emma had met Mark a few times since the dinner but there had been no improvement, and I sighed, realising that I had to let it go.

  My friend. My choice. Not the end of the world.

  Emma returned to the task of sorting shells from a small plastic bucket, and I reached up to smooth stray hairs back into my ponytail. Further along the beach a dog was digging for Australia – a nearby toddler in a buggy was wailing as the flying sand landed on his face. His ice cream. His pride. I watched the mother scoop the child up on to her hip as she tried to rescue the cone; the child pink-faced and furious as the owner of the dog appeared, arms outstretched and all apologies.

  It had been just a couple o
f months with Emma like this – sitting, talking or walking, drinking and playing tourist – and my horoscope was right because our relationship had already trumped the level of ease I had reached with almost any other friend. Even Caroline.

  I saw Emma most days midweek now, at least for a coffee. She would ring each morning to tease me. Of course, if you’re too busy hoovering to come out and play, Sophie . . . And, yes, I was disappointed that some of the older clique in the village had not warmed to her. I was especially disappointed that Mark had not taken to her. But they were all stuck in that groove where everyone plays the game of superficial politeness, following the rules of small talk and minding your own – which Emma most definitely did not.

  It was probably what I liked about her most: this knack of leaving you nowhere to hide. She had a way of looking at you ever so directly and asking the questions that mattered, peeling back your layers and exposing the core that you normally managed to keep from people.

  She also had this incredible energy, Emma, which had been the boot up the backside I needed. She came at you all guns firing but with a quirkiness and energy I found infectious, and somehow rejuvenating. She was the only person I had ever met who could say ‘lighten up’ with a look in her eyes which confirmed an absolute motivation for enjoyment and not offence. Also – and this was a key factor for me – she was completely missing the gene for embarrassment.

  Take our first trip here – to Burgh Island. We both desperately wanted to see the hotel but I thought we would just pick up brochures from reception. I was thinking that maybe we could spoil ourselves and return for lunch, properly scrubbed up, when the boys were in school and playgroup in September.

  It’s amazing, the hotel. Stunning period interior – a tribute to a thirties heyday when the place was the darling of the beautiful set. All white and whimsical art deco on this transient island setting. When the tide is out far enough you can walk across the beach to the hotel on its hilly outcrop, but at other times there is an extraordinary tractor contraption offering rides through the water – a platform on stilts keeping passengers just dry above the waterline.

  I’d visited once before when we first moved here, again to pick up a brochure. I’d hoped to return for dinner with Mark, but somehow, like so many things, we never got around to it.

  But on that first visit with Emma? Oh, my word. We let the boys play on the beach first; I was bundled in this huge, ugly old sweatshirt only to find Emma marching up to the hotel, suggesting lunch. Especially crazy as there was a sign specifying Residents Only.

  We can’t do that, Emma – will you, for Christ’s sake, come back. It’s residents only now . . .

  At the desk, Emma was pure charm; the staff delightful but firm. They were sorry but luncheon was not possible. And then Emma was doing this whole fantasy spiel about how she was in PR and marketing, working with a London media firm, looking for hospitality venues.

  I was mortified – standing there with the sand-sodden children alongside couples in floaty silk dresses and smart linen suits – but Emma was incredible. In the end, she managed to swing coffee on a terrace while the staff brought her a media pack.

  ‘Don’t frown, Sophie. You’ll get lines.’ Emma did not look up from the plastic bucket as she said this and I was smiling again, thinking how differently I felt, not just about Tedbury, but the whole of Devon since she’d arrived.

  ‘You know, I’ve lived here four whole years and not really made the most of it.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Emma was still transferring shells between buckets, sorting the colours.

  ‘Until you moved here . . . I wasted it.’

  ‘Didn’t you get out and about with Caroline?’

  ‘No. Not really. I was just thinking about that. How much time we frittered away. Caroline didn’t have children so she didn’t really understand about Ben. What he liked. What children need. At the time I told myself it didn’t make much difference. But it did, actually.’

  Emma was looking at me very directly. This was another thing I liked about her – the proper eye contact. She did this every time we got together to plan the next outing. Wide-eyed and enthusiastic. One month and we’d pretty much worked our way through the cuttings from her drawer already.

  A boat trip to Agatha Christie’s Greenway on the River Dart. A steam train ride from Totnes to Buckfastleigh. Picnics on Dartmoor, allowing Theo to paddle in the streams with poor Ben watching and waving but too nervous to join him. I’m fine. I’ll stay on the bank. Damn that villa holiday.

  ‘You know what? I feel so much more like my old self since you arrived, Emma.’

  ‘Well, that’s very good to hear, Sophie – especially today because I have something important I want to bounce off you.’

  ‘Bounce away.’

  ‘You know I’m seeing Nathan?’

  ‘Er, knock, knock, Emma. This is Tedbury.’

  ‘So people are gossiping?’

  ‘Posters go up tomorrow.’

  Emma laughed. ‘Well, sod the talk. I don’t care about all that. The important thing is that you don’t disapprove too much. I know you warned me off but I promise you – I’ve completely got his ticket. It’s just I find him rather fun and it’s nothing serious.’ She tilted her head. ‘But I don’t want you to be upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset.’

  ‘Good. Because Nathan was telling me what happened with Caroline. The deli. And it got me thinking.’

  I found myself sitting up straighter and felt the frown return. The debacle of the deli was not something I cared to discuss these days.

  I really liked that I didn’t have to talk work with Emma. It had become my worst nightmare, anyone asking me so what do you do then? I was still unsure about pitching for any kind of job while Mark and I were on such different pages over fertility treatment, and Emma seemed happy to be taking time out from work, too.

  I had no idea how she could afford to do this, to be frank. She was a tad light on detail about that – also her time in France. I assumed there was family money sloshing around and she was embarrassed about it. Meanwhile she referred to herself jokingly as the last thing the south-west needs . . . another bloody artist.

  My instinct from the off was that she was being unduly modest. Heather was certainly green after Emma unpacked properly and these extraordinary pieces of her own ceramic work emerged. Emma finally confessed she had taught at art colleges in both London and the North, staging several successful solo exhibitions at key galleries.

  Now, looking at her in the wind, her hair blowing back from her face, I wondered where this unexpected conversation was going.

  ‘OK. Go on then, Emma. You said the deli got you thinking?’

  ‘Yes. Well – you know me, brain always whirring. When I heard that it didn’t work out for you and Caroline, it stirred up a bit of an idea. Nathan mentioned that you still have all the kitchen kit? Stored in one of the outbuildings?’

  I couldn’t help myself; I closed my eyes and turned away.

  ‘So you’re still too cross to talk about this. You still blame Nathan?’

  Deep breath. ‘Look – I blamed Nathan because I didn’t want to blame Caroline. Or myself, I suppose.’

  ‘But it wasn’t really his fault?’

  ‘No. Look, Emma – no offence, but I’m not really sure I want to talk about this. OK?’ I fiddled with my ponytail. The truth was that I didn’t want Emma to see this side of me. The extent of my naivety exposed, my disappointment raked up. To admit to her that I still dreamt about it. Ridiculous. Embarrassing.

  ‘I put way too much into the deli, Emma. Imagined it would solve everything. Get me over the blip after Ben was born. Help us settle into Tedbury properly.’

  She waited, trying to read my face.

  She looked at me so intently that I almost imagined she might see it too, the image from my dream so vivid. The feel of the thick cotton apron – blue-and-white-striped, new and crisp – against the back of my neck. All my produce laid out in bright,
shiny dishes. Three large bowls of signature pâtés: mackerel with a twist, chicken liver and my own game recipe. Warm bread in baskets. Signs trumpeting tinned produce imported from France: rillettes, confit de canard and duck mousse.

  In the daylight hours I did not let myself think of this any more. I had shredded all the plans and financial papers. The business plan. The lists of products and suppliers. The growth projection for years two and three, by which time I had hoped we would be able to supply meat and organic vegetables from the local farms. Our own-recipe sausages. Our slogan: A taste of Tedbury – keep it local.

  ‘I’m just surprised you never mentioned all this to me, Sophie. What did Mark think?’

  ‘Mark warned me not to mix business and friendship. In the end he bit his lip.’

  An understatement. To his credit, he never said more fool you. He’d strongly advised against me putting a penny of my own savings on the line – suggesting the protection of a limited company and a nice, tidy bank loan. Everything official from day one. But I threw myself into the deli in the same way I threw myself into the move to Devon. Look – this is Caroline. We’re friends, Mark.

  I took a deep breath and told Emma everything just in case Nathan had put his own spin on things.

  Six months I spent putting that deli plan together – most of the initial enthusiasm from Caroline but most of the hard, practical graft from me.

  When Caroline owned Priory House, it had a converted single-storey barn at the end of the garden which she let for a modest rent. After several tenants bolted owing rent and bills, she’d fancied an experiment. A ‘foodie’ project together.

  My cooking, I am proud to say, had become a talking point locally. Already a fair cook before we moved here, I filled my boredom with professional courses and often cooked for village fundraisers. Caroline’s thinking was we could try a pop-up stall selling my pâtés, my pastries, my pickles – local produce too, from the farms and smaller growers.

  And then when the current tenant in Caroline’s little barn suddenly left without paying his electricity bill, it was game on for something bigger.