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‘A journalist?’
‘Yes, she did an evening course. She used to work in admin, typing up news stories, but now the local paper has taken her on in a new position. She’s a reporter now and starting her new role next week. I think they want her to find a local story that might interest their readers.’
‘Do they?’ Alice stared at Emily. ‘You know what? It’s really kind of you to invite me, but I think it would be better if you two girls didn’t have an oldie intruding on your party.’
‘Oh, no, don’t be silly. We’d love you to come. Clarissa especially. She wants to meet the other guests.’
I bet she does, Alice thought. It made her wonder if there was more to Clarissa staying in the guest house than merely a bit of pampering and a catch-up with her best friend. Maybe she was looking for a news story. Alice suddenly had a marvellous idea. ‘But if you do want to invite someone else, why don’t you invite Joss?’
‘Joss?’
She could tell that the idea hadn’t crossed Emily’s mind. ‘It might be a way to break the ice over what happened last night.’
Emily stood there, biting her lip. ‘That isn’t a bad idea.’
Alice wondered if Emily was thinking what she was thinking. She imagined there would be alcohol. She was sure she’d heard the faint chink of bottles when Clarissa had walked up the stairs to her room with her bag. Perhaps a few drinks would loosen his tongue, and Emily would find out about more about him. Maybe there would be something in his past worthy of a news story.
Alice watched Emily as she headed to her friend’s room. She was thinking of what had taken place in the guest house twenty-five years earlier. That event was worthy of a news story all right – and a police investigation. Alice shuddered. She would much rather Clarissa focused her attention on Joss – or on anybody else, for that matter.
Alice had seen the way Clarissa looked at Joss. She wasn’t surprised. He was good-looking even with his grim expression, which made him look as though he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. She hoped that Clarissa would focus on the more interesting, better-looking, younger guest rather than her; that she wouldn’t ask what Alice was doing there with a menagerie of pets and without her husband.
Of course, there was one way of avoiding any potential scrutiny from a budding journalist. And that was to leave. But she wasn’t ready to leave – not yet, anyway. Now she regretted asking Emily about the other guest they were still expecting. She didn’t want to appear to be showing an interest; it might get back to Clarissa.
Alice smiled as she shut the door. It occurred to her that she was worrying out of hand. She imagined that the two young women had other things on their minds – young men, for instance, like Joss. She decided she had nothing to worry about.
Chapter 33
‘So, you’re saying that as soon as you mentioned I was a journalist, she changed her mind about coming to the party?’
Emily nodded. ‘She was really enthusiastic, and said yes immediately when I invited her. She didn’t hesitate until I mentioned your job. You should have seen her face. I mean, she almost went ashen.’
‘Really?’
They were sitting cross-legged on Clarissa’s king-sized bed, facing each other, waiting for the other invite to arrive. Emily wondered if she was doing the right thing, telling her all this about Alice. And the wine was making her embellish the story. Alice hadn’t gone ashen, but Emily could have sworn she had seen something cross her face, as though she had something to hide. Emily downed another glass of wine and added that too.
‘Really?’
Emily nodded. ‘Yeah – pretty sure that’s the look I caught on her face.’ She glanced at the bottle in Clarissa’s hand. ‘May I have another?’
Clarissa hesitated. ‘Are you sure? I mean, you’ve only been here like twenty minutes. You don’t want to be off your head when Joss arrives.’
Emily held up her glass, thinking,yes I do.
She was also feeling self-conscious in the nightwear she was wearing. It was ten o’clock at night, and they’d chosen this time for a get-together with wine and nibbles when her parents were tucked up in bed. They’d already had takeout together in her room earlier, Clarissa choosing to have dinner with Emily rather than the other guests. Earlier in the evening, they’d gone for a walk along the beach together, taking Donut for his evening constitutional, and spotted Alice doing the same with Hester. Although they’d both waved their arms, they’d failed to attract her attention further up the beach – either that or she was avoiding them. Much later, when all was quiet in the guest house, Emily had stolen into Clarissa’s room wearing her comfy pink pyjamas with hearts and ‘I love my sleep’ emblazoned on the top.
The moment Clarissa saw her pyjamas, she’d said, ‘Considering the company, I don’t think that will do at all.’
Emily had looked down at her pyjamas and wished she hadn’t insisted on sticking to the original plan of a slumber party, considering it was no longer just her and Clarissa. ‘You know what? This feels weird, now it’s not just the two of us,’ she’d said. ‘I’m going to go back to my room and get dressed.’
‘Oh, Emily. Don’t be a prude. What’s the harm?’ She’d eyed Emily’s pyjamas. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’
They’d swapped. Clarissa was now wearing Emily’s pink, albeit slightly small for her tall frame, cotton pyjamas, and Emily had changed into her much more sophisticated purple silk pyjama set that seemed to follow her contours. When she’d objected, at first, to changing, Clarissa had said, ‘Why do you think I brought these along?’
‘You were hoping you might meet someone here at the guest house?’
‘You never know.’
Emily shook her head, thinking of the age range of the guests who normally booked into her mum’s quiet guest house.
