9
‘I’m sorry, I know she’s your friend, but I can’t stand her,’ Ralph said, when he and Edie were finally alone.
They were lying naked on the bed in the moonlight, her head on his bare chest and his arm round her shoulders. His breathing had slowed and he was clearly drowsy, but she was too wound up to sleep.
‘I wish to God I’d never asked her,’ she said savagely. ‘She’s making things ten times worse.’
Ralph breathed in and out deeply.
‘I might ask Mac to come on a walk with me tomorrow,’ he said at last. ‘Do you mind? We can’t pretend this isn’t happening. I need to ask him what’s up.’
Edie raised her head and kissed her husband lightly on the neck. ‘I think that’s a really good idea. I’ll try and get Hannah on her own for a bit, too.’
They lay for a while in silence. Edie was pretending to listen to the cicadas chirruping in the garden beyond their open window. Really, though, her ears were pricked for any sounds coming from Mac and Hannah’s bedroom.
She found herself replaying scenes from the past when they’d all been together, trying to remember moments when Mac’s anger had flared.
He had a temper, for sure, but she’d never imagined in a million years he could be violent. Had she missed something? If so, she could kick herself.
Her mind drifted back to the Sunday lunch when she’d first introduced Jessica to him and Hannah. Edie had thought the occasion a tremendous success, but now, in retrospect, she began to wonder.
Hannah had made quite an entrance in a new, chocolate-brown, fake fur coat.
‘Wow! You look fabulous!’ she’d told Edie, who’d been standing at the open front door.
‘Do I?’ she’d said, eyeing up Hannah’s fur, which struck her as far more noteworthy. ‘I’m only in jeans, and I’ve had this jumper for years!’
‘You’ve got to learn to take a compliment, Edie,’ Hannah had retorted. ‘Youdolook great. Your skin’s glowing and I don’t know what you’ve done to your hair. It’s all shiny and lustrous.’
She’d turned to Mac, right behind her, who’d agreed.
‘You could be in a haircare ad.’
Edie had smiled at the unexpected gallantry and patted her head. ‘Thanks. I used a new conditioner this morning. It seems to have tamed the frizz – at least for now.’
Once the visitors had come inside, Edie had taken their coats and she remembered hanging Mac’s on the vintage oak rack on the wall. Hannah’s was heavy so it had gone over the wooden newel post as a precaution; it might have pulled the rack down.
Ralph had been waiting for them in the sitting room, which looked out over the small front garden. He’d lit the log burner and the room had felt warm and cosy with its creamy walls and white woodwork, rusty velvet L-shaped sofa and jute carpet.
One side of the room was taken up with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase displaying books and interesting objects collected by Edie down the years. She loved vintage stores and markets and had whiled away many a happy hour at weekends and on holidays, searching for the perfect vase or picture frame. It was a bit of an obsession.
Elsewhere there was an antique mahogany desk, which had belonged to Ralph’s grandmother, a richly patterned ottoman coffee table, which she’d had re-covered, and a variety of decorative lamps, including one with an unusual, elephant-shaped base.
A slow-burning candle on the windowsill was giving off a delicious scent of orange and ginger.
Edie had pale, sensitive skin and the log fire had made her face and neck flush rosy red. But the temperature hadn’t seemed to affect Hannah, who was all glammed up in tight black leather trousers, big silver earrings and a long, loose, silky turquoise top that cleverly disguised the bits she didn’t like and highlighted the ones she did – namely her legs, which were long and slim, and her big boobs. Meanwhile, her fair, shoulder-length hair was straight, loose and shiny.
Hannah had always liked dressing up for parties and was into designer clothes – unlike Edie, who found many of her favourite outfits in charity shops.
She enjoyed mixing and matching an old-fashioned tartan woollen coat, say, with a funny cashmere twinset from the fifties, plus jeans and new-season boots.
Or combining one of her newish dresses with an oversized granddad waistcoat. The pinkish jumper she’d had on that day was a genuine lambswool Fair Isle, which she’d picked up at a jumble sale several years ago. It had moth holes, which she’d repaired, and it looked almost like new.
Beside sparkling Hannah, Mac had looked small and a bit weaselly. His body, though thin, was quite muscular because of the physical nature of his job, but you couldn’t tell underneath his pale blue shirt and nondescript navy jumper.
Because of the time of year, he’d been pale, almost grey-faced, but he still had a surprising amount of thick, wavy, brownish-grey hair, long on top and shorter at the sides.
His face lit up when he laughed – really laughed – revealing traces of the funny, talented, quirky young man he used to be. But as little seemed to amuse him much these days, this side of his personality rarely shined through.
