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‘Believe it or not, at the start I was propping up your marriage because he was thinking about leaving you,’ said Les, annoyed, but keeping a lid on the volume.
Shay was sure he’d spun her that line, but he wouldn’t have left unless he had somewhere else to leap to. He was testing the water and found it lukewarm and welcoming.
‘So you were doing me a favour is what you’re saying? How kind.’
‘You’re mocking me but yes, I was actually.’ Les plunged her fork into a potato. ‘You were never meant to find out. We were only scratching an itch. Then I… I…’
Shay finished her sentence for her. ‘Won twelve million on the lottery.’
She raised her glass, swung it a little in Les’s direction and watched her instinctively lean back, and the security guard have a spasm through the window. ‘Congratulations. I did wonder what the deciding factor was when my husband left me for a multi-millionaire.’ It was a variation on the old Mrs Merton/Paul Daniels line but it worked because it incensed Les.
‘It wasn’t the money, I knew you’d think that. I was unhappy, he was unhappy, we clicked—’
‘So what exactly are you apologising for?’ asked Shay, cutting her off.
‘The way it happened. It wasn’t right. You were my friend.’
Were,past tense.
‘Why was our friendship not the same after Tan died?’ asked Shay. ‘I’ve been trying to work it out. You were never as available for me as you were when there were three of us.’
‘You’re imagining things.’
‘No, I’m really not, Les. You’d make plans to meet up and cancel them all the time.’
‘I must have had too much on, or else it was pure bad timing.’
‘No, it wasn’t that.’ Was the strength of their friendship defined only by there being three of them in it? She’d thought long and hard on this and not come up with a viable answer yet.
Les chewed; Shay could tell she was thinking as she did so, using the fact she couldn’t talk with a full mouth to work out a better comeback.
‘Okay then, if you must know, you were always more Tan’s friend than you were mine, so why should I be instantly available to you when you clicked your fingers after she’d gone. Don’t think I don’t know about your secret little coffee mornings together that I wasn’t invited to.’ Her bottom lip curled over as much as it could, like a spoilt child’s. Shay stared at her incredulously.
‘You mean when she was really ill? When she was in the grip of a crisis and needed someone and I could drop everything and be round at her house in five minutes flat?She only rang me because you were at work and she knew you wouldn’t have been able to talk. What do you think we did, Les? Have some scones and rip you to bits behind your back?’
Les swallowed and Shay hoped it was shame she was swallowing.
‘It just felt sneaky,’ she said eventually.
‘Oh, grow up, Les. Don’t you think Tan had a bit more going on in her head than to worry about you tallying up how many more minutes she saw me for than you? What about when you two went to the spa in Leicester together and I didn’t go? And when just you and I used to go to the cinema because Tan didn’t do thrillers, or doesn’t that count?’
But Les was not there to accept blame, she was there to apportion it.
‘Did you ever think how patronised I felt when youpretty girlsvolunteered to do my make-up and told me not to wear this and that?’
‘Because we bloody cared about you,’ said Shay, resisting the urge to shout this at her. ‘Would you tell someone they had lipstick on their teeth and risk embarrassing them or keep schtum and let them embarrass themselves in front of loads of people instead?’ Shay shook her head in wonder. ‘Is that how you really saw us?’ Her mum’s words whispered in her mind:Three will always be a crowd where friends are concerned. And the odd one out always knows who she is.
‘We were always you two and me.’ Les tossed her long caramel hair over her shoulder. ‘I wish Tan were here now because we just might have been a proper three.’
She meant she could have matched them for looks with her new knockers and figure, with her tan and her extensions and Angelina lips.
‘We always were a proper three,’ said Shay. ‘I loved you to bits and so did Tan. This would have broken her heart. Do you know, I always wished I had your sense of humour, Les, the way you could make everyone laugh, how you could mimic people, the way you could tell a tale and hold an audience in the palm of your hand, but I never turned myself inside out with jealousy because I couldn’t.’
How long had this unwarranted resentment been gnawing inside Les? Shay couldn’t bear to think about it. But Les had finally got her wish, she was the most beautiful of them all on the outside. Stunning. To the victor the spoils.
Shay loaded her fork with a scallop and then put it down; she couldn’t have eaten it if Jason Momoa was feeding it to her.
‘I think we’ve said all we need to, don’t you? I can’t believe how wrong you got it, Les.’
