The Best of Friends Read online

  The crunch point came, though, when we were living in Kuala Lumpur and it was time to start thinking about preparatory schooling for the boys. Before I met Dan, I had no experience of the kind of life where you leave home to go to school whilst still in single figures and effectively never return. It’s a miracle he ever met someone like me, whose background couldn’t have been more different. Our meeting was a chance encounter at a party held by a friend of a friend of mine who just happened to be Dan’s cousin. I still can’t imagine why I was there, how I got invited. The truth is that I probably wasn’t. My friends and I were fairly adept at gatecrashing.

  But I digress. Dan only understands one type of education. The exact same one he had: boarding prep school followed by boarding public school followed by Oxford. I didn’t understand it then and I’m not sure I’m any the wiser now. I put up so many arguments against following this route for my own children. The idea of the twins going off to England alone at such a young age appalled me. But Dan insisted and this insistence was unrelenting. He kept on and on and on at me until I gave in. And so it was that Jonny and Angus found themselves on a Heathrow-bound plane at the age of nine. Nine! The only concession Dan made to my sensibilities was allowing me to fly with them rather than handing them over to the school escort service at KL international airport.

  But perhaps that only made the parting harder. It broke my heart to leave them. Hampshire was cold and rainy; though born in New York, we’d left before they were two so all they’d ever known was the steamy heat of the Far East – Hong Kong, Singapore, KL – and the riotous, relentless sunshine of Rio, Delhi, and Lima. When I said goodbye to them, I don’t think they had any concept of how long it was going to be before they saw me again. I did, and I hated it. I cried all the way back to Malaysia.

  How long they cried for I’ve never asked because I couldn’t bear to know.

  Thank God I managed to keep hold of Toby and Sam, but that was only because when Toby hit seven, we were on our way back to England anyway. I put my foot down and both the younger ones attend prep school as day boys. That was one of the many reasons I was so determined to buy this house; it is close enough to drive them to school (the one that Dan and all his family have attended since time immemorial) and back every day. But Toby will be starting at Rugby in September, and three years later, Sam will follow. I’m dreading it.

  The result of losing my older boys so young is that I overdo it with them all. I mean, they’re absolutely not spoilt, not at all. But I shower them with love and attention and days out and specially cooked favourite foods, most of which they probably don’t appreciate, wearing myself out in the process. That’s not the point, though. The point is both assuaging my guilt and getting my fill of them in the time that I have, as if I can store up the contact with them so that it lasts when they’re gone.

  This small rebellion over schooling is the only time I’ve insisted on getting my own way. In all other matters, I do what Dan wants. I argue with him about the little things – punctuality, for instance, apropos the party – but never, since the school debacle, about the things that really matter. And when push comes to shove, I value our partnership more than I dislike the compromises. A marriage is a buffer to the world, providing safety and security. People can understand it, can’t they? A divorced woman is always liable to be looked on with pity, don’t you think?

  I shiver when I contemplate … but no, I’m not going there. He would never be able to understand why I did what I did nor to accept it. Which is why it has to stay secret forever. The worst didn’t happen, and hasn’t yet, though that doesn’t stop me from always looking over my shoulder. I’m constantly waiting for the past to catch up with me, half knowing that one day, it will, and half hopeful that I’ll make sure it never can.

  People envy me, I know. I’m sure you do. Dan and I appear to be the perfect couple: beautiful, gilded, rich, and powerful, a pair of shining stars in a rich, exclusive, and opulent galaxy.

  But you should always remember that appearances can be deceptive.

  Chapter 7

  Susannah

  The pavement is slick underfoot, but the rain has stopped now, and the wind has dropped. Magnolias are poised to burst into bloom, waxy pink flower buds standing erect on bare branches as if waiting for the command to open. In London, before we left, some were already out but it’s colder here, everything several weeks behind.

  Spring comes early in London, I think. I feel a pang of deep regret, of sorrow for what I’ve left behind – its familiarity that gave it an illusion of safety – and what lies ahead. But I banish the self-pity before it can begin to take root, quickening my pace, my feet hitting the tarmac evenly and lightly, the hedges, lampposts and trees flying by, as if I am trying to run the past out of me. I’m a good runner, and a fast one; Jamie inherited my sporty genes, I always think. Let’s just hope they do more for him than they’ve ever done for me.

  Passing the green, I cast a glance over the stone wall that fronts Charlotte’s house – the prize of the village, a stunning Queen Anne manor house restored to perfection. The sweeping circular drive is empty of cars and the house stands silent, a beguiling combination of homely and majestic, creamy stone mellow and inviting despite the unappealing weather. Since the party, I now know that it’s as beautiful and stylish inside as it is out.

  I marvel that, despite the gaping chasm in their circumstances, the huge disparities in their lifestyles, the four boys – mine and her two youngest – get on so well together. Jamie and Luke have had several playdates with them, though never at our house; they always go to Charlotte’s, which has everything a child could want in terms of entertainment: table tennis, games consoles, and a hand-built adventure playground, not to mention an indoor swimming pool. In all truth, I do find Toby and Sam a little spoilt – but perhaps that’s inevitable when you have so much and never want for anything. If money is no object, it makes no sense to deny your children what their hearts desire. Though even when I was a great deal better off than I am now, I still took care not give my boys too much and to make sure that they understand the value of money.

  Anyway, my two are going round to Charlotte’s this afternoon after school. Having buddies just down the road is definitely making the transition here so much easier for them. And where they have forged ahead, I am determined to follow.

  If they can make it, so can I.

  I run on, a new determination in my steps, turning into the road that leads to the recreation ground where there is a short cut back to my house. On the right-hand side lies the Biglow Tennis Club. Its notice board stands proudly out front, advertising events, competitions, and opening times. I pause, glancing through the crunchy brown leaves of the beech hedge to the grass courts where a groundsman is checking the condition of the bright-green sward, systematically pacing forward a few metres and then bending low before standing straight once more.

  There’s a poster about the Biglow tennis championship which I stop to read, rocking back and forth on my toes and holding my hands up to my mouth and blowing on them to keep them warm. I wish I could take part in the competition, but I’ve already looked the club up online and found that the membership fees, though not extravagant, are far too high for me to justify with things the way they are. I’ll try to scrape together enough to allow the boys to do a holiday scheme in the summer because I think they’d really enjoy it, and I want them to be able to play the sport that I once excelled in. But a few lessons or a short course here and there are likely to be the sum total of their involvement with Biglow’s tennis fraternity.

  Just as I am turning away, a man emerges from the club’s automatic doors, his bag hastily packed with the racket handle emerging from the zip. He’s walking briskly, tall and upright, and he has an indefinable presence about him of ownership and assuredness. I watch him without much interest; I hardly know anyone here yet, least of all anyone male. But as he draws nearer, he flashes me a brisk smile of recognition and I realise who it is.


  Dan.

  I falter for a moment, instantly self-conscious. I’m not dressed or made-up for meeting people, my face bare, my hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. The last person I want to come across while looking like this is the cool, debonair (my judgement) and stinking rich (Miriam’s words) Dan. But it’s too late. I can’t get away now.

  ‘Susannah!’ He’s holding out his hand to shake mine and I have no option but to reciprocate. The shake is as pleasant as the first one, his palm cool and dry, his grip firm.

  ‘That’s right. Clever of you to remember!’ I’m conscious that my voice is unnecessarily high.

  ‘I never forget a name.’ Dan’s clear-eyed gaze is disconcerting.

  I’m not sure how to respond so I don’t.

  ‘What are you up to?’ he enquires nonchalantly, then looks around him and back at me, as if wandering why I’m loitering there. ‘Were you … waiting for someone?’

  ‘Oh no!’ I exclaim, laughing over-enthusiastically. ‘No, no. Absolutely not. No, I don’t know anyone to wait for.’ I pull a doleful face. ‘Still settling in, you know, trying to meet people. I was just finding out what’s going on locally.’

  I gesture towards the noticeboard to explain the latter comment. ‘And then you came along,’ I conclude.

  Dan bursts out laughing. ‘You make me sound like a nasty rash!’ He pauses and regards me as I feel the blush of embarrassment after saying something stupid creep over my cheeks.

  ‘But anyway … do you play?’ he asks, his face suddenly serious again.

  ‘Er, yes.’ I shrug as if my playing were nothing, dismissing instantly the idea of telling him that I was once my county’s under-18 champion. Nobody likes a boaster.

  ‘Great,’ replies Dan, his attention now elsewhere, searching for a phone that he can obviously feel vibrating in a pocket somewhere. ‘We must have a game sometime.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure that will be possible. I’m not a member.’ I try to make it sound like a mere administrative error. It’s stupid, I know – having no money is nothing to be ashamed of – but nevertheless, I don’t want him to know that I can’t afford to join the tennis club. The last thing I want to evoke is his pity.

  Dan’s missed the call but one glance at the screen sends him marching off towards his car.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he calls back over his shoulder. His long stride means he’s halfway down the path to the car park already. ‘I can sign you in. I’ll look forward to it.’

  And then he’s making a call and lodging the phone between his chin and his shoulder whilst he pulls his car key out of another pocket. He disappears out of sight behind the hedge and in the distance I hear the sound of a car door opening and clunking expensively shut and then the noise of a six-cylinder engine starting up. The swish of tyres on tarmac and the roar of acceleration come next, followed by silence.

  It has begun to drizzle, ice-cold globules dotting my face and hands, soaking into my hair and my running jacket. Turning determinedly for home, I set off down the footpath, my pace faster now because of the wet but also because of my need to shake off my despondency. Damn the financial crisis, damn my ex-husband Justin, and most of all, damn the fact that I was so dependent on him and put such misplaced faith in the fact that he would always be able to provide for me.

  And then again, damn myself and all the mistakes I’ve made.

  I reach my house and give an involuntary shudder as I am confronted once more by how tawdry it is, with its pebble-dashed facade and weed-strewn pocket-handkerchief front garden. As I struggle with the uncooperative lock, trying to avoid looking at everything I dislike about my home, I hear a car approaching and sliding to a halt right behind me. I freeze. Unexpected callers have freaked me out since the bailiffs came.

  My hands are shaking as I abandon the lock and, slowly and with my heart in my mouth, turn around.

  Chapter 8

  Susannah

  For the second time in a matter of a few minutes, the person I am confronted with is Dan.

  I exhale loudly in relief, unaware that I’ve been holding my breath. Only Dan. Nobody threatening.

  He is waiting at the end of the path, standing by his car, looking like a promotional picture from an upmarket lifestyle magazine.

  ‘Hey!’ he calls, his voice sonorous and commanding. ‘I forgot to take your number.’

  My stomach flips over. I really shouldn’t go out without eating anything. Ignoring the grumblings coming from my innards, I walk towards him, just avoiding an embarrassing stumble at the broken paving stone halfway down my front path.

  ‘So we can book up that game,’ he says, proffering a notebook and pen towards me. ‘Give me your mobile and I’ll set something up – maybe doubles with my mates Tom and Lucy?’

  ‘Of course, absolutely,’ I stutter, still getting over my surprise. I scribble down my number on the notepad and hand it back to him. ‘Whatever you prefer.’ Doubles would at least mean it’s not just me and him, which might be tricky in a way I can’t quite define. Too intense? Too exposing?

  ‘But isn’t Charlotte your doubles partner?’ I ask him. I had them down as the archetypal tennis-playing couple, burnished by their existence under a perpetual metaphorical sun. ‘Who would I play with?’

  The sardonic snort that greets these questions takes me by surprise.

  ‘She hasn’t played for years,’ he replies. ‘Bad back, she says, but really she’s just not interested – in tennis or in m—’ He pauses as if aware that he has said – or is about to say – too much. ‘She prefers other things – yoga, swimming, that kind of thing. A while back it was dressage – lessons, courses, practice etc,’ he continues in a more measured tone.

  ‘Gosh.’ There doesn’t seem to be anything to say to this; I have no intelligent conversation I can offer up on the subject. I don’t know anyone for whom dressage is a hobby, not even when I lived in Barnes, which is the kind of place where many expensive and unusual pastimes are undertaken.

  ‘And her personal trainer comes to the house most days to do Pilates with her, of course,’ Dan adds as an afterthought. ‘Plus, she quite often disappears off to have mysterious beauty treatments – I’m not too sure of the details of those.’

  ‘That explains her amazing figure,’ I say, unable to keep from my voice the wistful envy that I feel, ‘and her perfect complexion. Whatever she’s doing, it’s definitely worth it.’

  Neither of us speaks for a moment.

  Dan seems to remember something important. ‘And of course there’s her foraging club.’ He emits a short burst of mirth, quickly turning it into an appreciative smile. ‘That’s her latest fad – finding food for free in the fields and hedgerows, living like she’s in the eighteenth century.’ He pauses and then, as if afraid of sounding disloyal, hastily adds, ‘I mean, it’s quite amazing what she dishes up. She’s even writing a book about it.’

  ‘Wow,’ I say, inadequately. There seems to be nothing that Charlotte isn’t involved in, nothing that falls outside her sphere of interest or expertise. It occurs to me that this must have been what Miriam meant when she told me about the Food for Free club – not a foodbank at all but a way of living off nature’s bounty.

  ‘I think Miriam alluded to it at the party,’ I muse, ‘but I wasn’t quite sure what she was on about. I’m glad to have got to the root of it.’

  There’s a tense and awkward moment when I’m not sure if my joke has landed wide of the mark. But then Dan’s face lights up and he laughs, real laughter this time rather than the ironic type from earlier.

  ‘The root of it!’ he laughs. ‘Very good, very clever.’

  ‘Pardon the pun,’ I say, grinning broadly, chuffed at how funny he seems to have found it. Humour brings down barriers – as long as it’s actually funny, or at least cheesy. Not like Justin’s speciality of mother-in-law and fat-wife jokes. I read in a women’s magazine once that it’s essential to have a store of one-liners and quips up your sleeve for those awkward mome
nts on a date when no one can think of what to say. I didn’t take it too seriously at the time, being married to Justin and having no intention of ever being single again. Even now that I am, here in the cold chill of a barren Biglow morning, the idea of ever going on a date seems more unlikely than the Pope not being Catholic. But I’ve made Dan laugh and that gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

  ‘You must ask her about it, get involved,’ Dan is saying about the foraging club. ‘She and the girls have a whale of a time out in the countryside.’

  ‘Oh, I will.’ And I mean it. I’d love to be in Charlotte’s club; of course I would. ‘Is it just in Biglow, or are there other branches?’ I add, innocently.

  ‘No, just Big—’ Dan pauses and starts to chuckle again. ‘Very clever, I see what you did there. You’re too good at this!’ He thinks for a moment before speaking again. ‘Perhaps I should plant the seed of an idea in her head for an expansion …’

  ‘From little acorns and all that,’ I contribute. ‘I recommend a root and branch approach.’

  We’re both chortling away now, enjoying our silly little word game.

  ‘As long as she’s not barking up the wrong tree,’ he concludes, giving me a cheeky wink.

  In the spirit of always quitting whilst you’re ahead, I put forth my final sally. ‘You should take your leaf now,’ I rejoin. ‘I don’t want you being late on my account.’

  Dan shakes his head, still laughing. ‘I’ll remember this conversation.’ He pauses, and then thinks of something that brings a frown to his handsome face. ‘You have to be a bit careful, though. In the foraging club, I mean. Some of the plants out there are poisonous.’

  My grip tightens on the roof of the car where rain drops have balled and separated. ‘Yes,’ I agree slowly. ‘I always remember my mother telling me about deadly nightshade, and never to eat berries of any kind. It’s the sort of warning you remember all your life.’