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‘I don’t remember him.’ I shake my head, but Luke won’t let it drop.
‘The time you got sea-sick,’ Luke prompts and I take a slug of wine, though I feel like tossing it at Luke, or picking up his melted ice cream and slamming it into his gob, because I know what he’s doing, I know what’s coming next.
‘That was Gloria who got sea-sick.’ Someone chimes in and I go to refill my wine glass but I change my mind and turn to Jess.
‘Do you have any soda water?’
‘Sure.’ She’s blushing for me, and goes to get up, but I’m already standing.
‘I’ll get it.’
I feel as if I’m going to cry but wouldn’t they just love that?
I head to the kitchen and I walk past the freezer. I feel like cutting a slice, a decent bloody slice and eating it in here, but instead I pour some water from the tap and gulp it down, but I’m still thinking about what’s in the freezer, so I pour another glass.
Then I feel hate come in.
I know it’s hate because I feel it enter the room with Luke.
Jess must have sent him.
‘Sorry about that.’
‘Fuck off.’ I turn my head a fraction and snarl.
‘Lucy, I am sorry. I honestly thought it was you. I got you mixed up with Gloria.’
‘Please,’ I snort. ‘You wouldn’t have much trouble telling us apart.’ I swing round from the sink. ‘She’s twice my size with a moustache.’
‘That’s right,’ his smile is black. ‘You know, sometimes I think I’m being too hard on you, and then you remind me again, what a cold hearted bitch you really you are – I feel so much better about it now.’ He looks at me and I know that he sees me, the real me, or rather the old me before I reinvented myself - what was it he once said? “You can take the girl out of the council estate…”
He’s said a lot more than that in his time.
That night on the Thames, the one he honestly just got so mixed up about? I can assure you that everyone who was present remembers every detail of that night.
Even if we don’t say.
I remember it now - him calling me a slag, he got right in my face and he even dropped the C Bomb at me, and then he took a couple of slugs at the man who has been my husband, for twelve years now, and yet, still he treats our marriage as if it’s a sham.
I go to walk out, but midway I change my mind, because it is so not a sham. It’s time they all realise who the real Mrs Jameson is, and that she deserves some respect. ‘Every time we have one of these get togethers, someone brings Gloria up and I’m sick of it.’
‘Because people remember her,’ Luke shrugs. ‘Because people liked her.’
I shake my head. ‘It’s to get at me,’ I say. ‘They’re all jealous.’
‘Jealous?’ Luke laughs.
‘Yes,’ I insist, because absolutely they are. ‘They’re jealous because I’m young, they’re jealous because….’
‘They’re not jealous, Lucy. I’ll tell you the reason they don’t like you.’ Luke spells it out, he walks over to me and I find myself shrinking back onto the freezer, because finally we’re having it out. What has been left unsaid for so many years, what was put on hold when Charlotte was born and he deigned to come back into our lives, is about to come out, and I don’t want to hear it.
I go to move, but he grips my arm. ‘It’s because they’ve all seen you in action – they all know that you’d shag their husbands like that…’ he snaps his fingers in front of my face but I don’t blink, I refuse to, well maybe I do a little bit, but I try really hard not to. ‘You’d be straight onto the next, if he could give you more. You’d be on your knees without a backward glance.’
He looks at me with disgust and it isn’t fading.
It never has.
He looks down at me and I actually think he’s going to spit, but he lets go of my arm and I push past him.
I walk out of the kitchen, and the last thing I want to do is go back to the table, but thankfully Jess is coming out. ‘Fancy that tour now?’
I nod, but I’m all shaken.
‘Sorry for what Luke said.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I reply as we head up the stairs – she doesn’t know the half of it – still, it’s not her fault that her husband’s a dickhead. I stand on the landing and I look around and try to put his words out of my mind. ‘It’s stunning, Jess.’
‘It’s too big,’ she sighs. ‘But it’s a good investment apparently, with house prices down… yawn, yawn.’ Jess is so funny; she just doesn’t care about all the usual stuff like the rest of them downstairs.
As I said, Luke and Jess are Charlotte’s godparents – separately though. I think they actually met for the first time at the christening. I’m sure they slept together that night, though she never actually told me. We held it at a gorgeous hotel and something went on, because it was all a bit awkward for a while after that. It was just a one-night thing though, too much booze and all that, I think, because nothing came of it. So, I was really surprised when they got married. We didn’t even know that they were going out; we came back from a holiday in the Maldives to the news!
Charlotte was thrilled, but upset that they didn’t have a bridesmaid – she’s never been one and she’s desperate to be.
Anyway, they both dote on Charlotte and spoil her. They take her out and go and see her compete on her pony sometimes and are friends on Facebook with her and things. Jess and Luke don’t want to have children, both say Charlotte is as close to having a child as they want to get. They like going out and their holidays and weekends away too much, Jess has told me.
As we wander around she shows me the spare rooms, that are already furnished, and Jess makes a joke about it staying a cot free zone.
‘Hold on a sec…’ she makes me wait at the main bedroom door and goes in for a moment. ‘All clear.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You know,’ she grins. ‘In case I left anything out. I told the rest of them that we hadn’t finished decorating in here yet. Imagine Shirley’s face if she came in and there was my vibrator on the bed.’ She starts to laugh. ‘Are you blushing, Lucy?’
‘Stop it!’ I say, but I am blushing though. ‘Doesn’t Luke...’ my throat is really dry. ‘Doesn’t he mind you..?’
‘Mind?’ She gives me a queer look. ‘Why would he mind? He bought it for me.’
I try to make the right noises about the en suite, and the carpet, and the lovely bay window but Jess couldn’t care less about all that, so we lie on the bed for five minutes and have a gossip before we head back down.
‘I got offered a promotion.’
‘Oh my God…’ I turn my head. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘It’s a bit of a sore point at the moment.’ She shakes her head. ‘It’s in Wales.’ She sees my flare of panic, because I don’t want Jess to move there, but she just gives me a smile. ‘It’ll sort.’
Because it’s Jess, I tell her a bit about one of my sore points and, because it’s Jess, I tell her a bit more than I told Alexis today.
‘He’s not keen on Charlotte getting another pony.’
‘Yeah, well he’s probably sick of you having to get up at the crack of dawn every morning and all the events you go to,’ Jess says. ‘Maybe tell Charlotte that, if you get another one, then the stables are going to muck him out, or whatever it is you call it. He’s probably fed up about how much time you spend with Charlotte…’ She looks up as Luke opens the door and finds us hiding and then she turns back to me. ‘They’re just going to have to learn how to share you.’ She smiles up to Luke. ‘We’ve been rumbled.’
‘Come on guys.’ Luke says as Jess swings off the bed. ‘Back to it, Lucy.’
He’s far nicer when Jess is around and of course I’m much nicer to him.
Feeling better for the short reprieve we head back down and, to my surprise, the night actually gets better. We don’t leave when the first couple do, or the next.
Or the next.
Shirley and Greg linger a while, but in the end the grown ups are gone and it’s just the four of us and we drift out into the garden. It’s cool but Jess turns on the outside heaters as Luke heads back inside to get the brandy.
Actually, it’s not cool, it’s cold, especially if you’re wearing a sarong, even a very expensive one. Though I was sure I was going to be in trouble for my little erectile dysfunction comment earlier, I’m forgiven it would seem, because, while we wait for the heaters to warm up, he pulls me onto his knee. Jess is nattering on about Portugal and how they’re thinking of going for a week in summer.
‘We should all go,’ Jess says. She’s pretty pissed now and all full of grand plans, but I’m only half listening, I’m not really interested in summer right now.
I’m thinking about later tonight!
His hand is stroking my arm, just lightly. I know when I sat down my dress tugged a bit and I really should pull it up because I’m showing a bit of my bra.
But I don’t.
