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Chapter 42
Cilla had tried to reach out to her daughter after the row but Flick had been adamant that she didn’t want to hear from her until she’d apologised to both Marielle and Sabrina in person. She wouldn’t shift on that and she wouldn’t pick up the phone to her mother after she’d delivered her terms. So, though it was with much reluctance, Cilla drove round to Marielle’s house on Saturday morning to say what she had to to get out of the poop. Shoresend was a gossipy little enclave and she really didn’t want people talking about her behind her back in less than glowing terms. If they were going to discuss Cilla Charlesworth at all, she would rather it were in the context of her always having a balcony on a cruise and that her lover had been to Eton and owned a Rolls-Royce.
Sabrina was beyond curious to see Cilla in person, the woman who had done such a horrible thing for no valid reason. She was surprised to see how much she was the physical opposite of her daughter, short and compact with thick blonde hair perfectly arranged in soft lacquered curls, creamy-pale skin, oversmooth forehead. Her facial featureswere like little circles: beady blue eyes, a pudgy nose, a cat’s-bum of a mouth painted dark pink.
Cilla was every bit as curious over this Sabrina person who was the reason she was here, brought to heel, so she wasn’t predisposed to be her greatest fan. After all this fuss, she expected to see something more impactful than just a plain woman with brown hair. Her daughter had painted her as some sort of marvellous, kind and clever paragon, plus other nice words that she never seemed to apply to her – the mother who had carried her for nine long months, not to mention the agony of spitting her out at the end of them. Cilla prepared to deal with this as quickly as possible so she could get on with her life.
For the first time ever, Cilla noted Marielle hadn’t asked her if she wanted a cuppa when she entered the house. She was standing up, arms folded; she hadn’t even invited her to sit.
‘Go on, you can say it to Sabrina first and me afterwards.’
Cilla took in a breath and then let it go.And begin.
‘I am really sorry for insinuating that you were to blame for the purse. Please accept my deepest apologies.’ She nodded at Sabrina, signalling the end of part one, and then turned to Marielle.
‘Marielle, I am really—’
‘Whoa, hang on there, lady,’ said Marielle, holding up the flat of her palm. ‘If you’re supposing that’s it done with, you have another think coming.’
‘Well what else do you want me to say?’ asked Cilla with a trill of laughter. ‘Come on, in the circumstances you do have to accept that I might have been justified in—’
Marielle cut her off. ‘There is no justification for stealing from someone in order to cast blame onto someone else. It’s just… wicked.’
‘I beg to differ,’ countered Cilla. ‘As we have already said in past conversations, you are not the most reliable in terms of character assessment. I could see it coming – again – and I was trying to protect you from further hurt.’
Marielle moved her head slowly from side to side. No, she wasn’t buying it, however clever Cilla might think herself. Her cousin was an expert at stain removal and she was prepared for this sort of verbal tripe.
‘How could you protect me from hurt by being the one hurting me?’
‘Because… I thought a small hurt would save you from a big hurt.’ Cilla smiled, in the manner of someone who thought she’d delivered a cracking answer there.
It wasn’t the first time Sabrina had come up against someone like this, someone who dressed up bullshit in a gift box. She thought it could be someone she worked with because she had a flash vision of a man sitting in a large swivel chair, long fingers pressed together, telling her something in an oh-so-genuine tone that she knew was utter garbage.Dickcame to mind but she wasn’t sure if that was a name or a description.
Sabrina had the measure of Cilla, but she could also recognise that it would have taken a lot to come here and face her and this shambles of an apology was probably all she had in her to offer. It would do. She butted into the increasingly heated exchange between the cousins in a voice that brooked no argument and said, ‘I accept your apology, Cilla. Now I’m going to leave you both to talk.’
As she closed the adjoining door between Big Moon and Little Moon she could hear Cilla saying, ‘I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. If she’s accepted my apology, what’s your problem?’
Sabrina’s hackles rose at being referred to as ‘she’ in sucha disparaging tone. She had meant to put on the television to give them privacy, but the desire to listen was too strong and, in the circumstances, she allowed herself to eavesdrop. She didn’t trust Cilla not to say something she’d later retract and she wanted to be able to back up Marielle if needs be.
‘I’ll tell you what my problem is, Cilla,’ Marielle replied. ‘You might try and convince yourself that your motives were wholly altruistic, but you haven’t convinced me.’
‘Marielle, I can’t convince you if you are set against being convinced, but I can assure you I only had your best interests at heart.’
‘Swear it,’ Marielle demanded then.
‘I will not. It’s using God’s name for trivial purposes and that’s blasphemy. I never swear, as you well know.’
Marielle dropped a sarcastic laugh. ‘Nice swerve. Why did you really do it? Come on, while it’s just us two in the room. Tell me the truth and I’ll let it go and never mention it again. Were you jealous that your daughter and Sabrina get on so well? Or maybe it’s me you have a bee in your bonnet about and that’s why you wanted to wreck my friendship with her. Why would you want to try and make me look stupid? This goes back way further than the thing about the purse and I’ve had enough of it, Cilla. What has been your problem with me for all these years? Because I’ve never been able to work it out.’
It was Cilla’s turn to laugh now. ‘You think I might be jealous of some woman who cleans for a living and is running rings around you all? Er, no. And if you’re trying to insinuate that I’m jealous of you then you need to have a word with yourself, Mari. What have you got that I could possibly want? You’re the jealous one. You resented me from day one and you still do,’ spat Cilla.
‘I did not,’ refuted Marielle. ‘I was never nasty to you. I really tried to make you my little sister.’
‘You hated sharing anything. I remember your screwed-up sullen face when Mum and Dad said you had to let me play with your toys.’
‘I was an only child when you came into our lives. I’d never had to share before, but I learned,’ Marielle threw back.
‘You did that all right,’ Cilla scoffed. ‘You had to learn to share your husband with god knows how many other women, didn’t you?’
