Between Friends (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

Tom Vallely was inside Jane’s head, refusing to leave. In the years since he had walked out, her feelings for him had run full circle. Love – obsession – heartbreak – longing – hate. And now she had to add fear to that list.

You never told Carrie about the baby? Such a very big thing in your life, surely?

His voice echoed in her head, that mellow, rich, seductive voice. Seductive? No, not that, never that. Oily. Oleaginous. The word rolled round her head. Yes, that was it. Ol-e-agi-nous. Slimy and greasy and quite disgustingly slick.

How could she ever have loved that man? And yet he inhabited her, even now.

And did Carrie ever tell you about our affair?

At first, she hadn’t believed him. He was lying, winding her up, trying to destroy her friendships just as he had almost destroyed her life. Then, as his words bounced round her head, they began to make sense. Carrie had been very evasive when Tom had left. She’d spoken to her, briefly, on the phone, but they hadn’t met. There had been no hugs, no tearful confidences, no comforting. She hadn’t thought it odd at the time, she’d just concluded that Carrie was busy – but the lack of someone to turn to had been a key contributor to her breakdown.

Now she saw it. And if what Tom said was true, Carrie’s betrayal was as big as his.

But the baby... Jane’s hands went instinctively to her stomach.

I was so weak,
she thought.
I never thought it would be like that.

She marched round the house, her limbs restless. Settling to anything was out of the question. In the boys’ bedroom, she picked up jotters, some Lego, Ross’s Nintendo, assorted crumpled and grubby socks, a limp T-shirt. She smoothed the beds, restored a semblance of order, and called Benji, who was nosing at some unidentified spillage by Ian’s desk.

In Emily’s room, her poster of the cellist Stephen Isserlis stared down at her, the eyes soulful, as though reflecting the music he was creating. She’d added another poster of Paolo Nutini. Jane scowled at the image before it remembering that this was normal teenage behaviour. After all, aged sixteen, she had been into Mark Knopfler and Bruce Springsteen as well as Elgar and Bach.

Emily.

Her firstborn.

No.

Again the wrenching pain in her belly.

No
!

The truth was ...

‘You’re over-protective of Emily,’ Neal had said to her a few days’ ago when they’d brought Emily back from the hospital, pale, shaky and scared.

‘Over p-protective? What are you talking about? She clearly can’t be trusted.’

‘I know that’s what it seems like, love, but perhaps if we treated her a bit more like a young adult – if we show her we trust her – she might take some responsibility for herself. She’s sixteen now. She’s old enough to get married.’

Jane shook her head violently. ‘That’s rubbish. She’s still a child, Neal. She obviously needs rules – and punishments.’

As Jane closed Emily’s door with her arms full of washing, Benji scampered down the stairs, a whisk of pepper and salt on the grey carpet. Perhaps Neal was right, maybe she was over-protective. But then, he didn’t know the reason.

She had never told Neal the truth. She’d been on the verge of it so many times. Once, she’d even planned it all out. She’d tell him over dinner. She had the words rehearsed. But that day, he’d proposed and the truth had become unmentionable. Because if he knew—

The thought of losing him was unendurable.

In the kitchen, the television was on. Some hospital drama. She glanced at it as she thrust the washing into the machine. It looked like a repeat of
Emergency Admissions
, a twice-weekly soap the kids liked to watch. With little interest, she brewed herself a mug of tea, and sank onto a chair in front of the screen. Ten minutes’ rest would be welcome.

The story line was familiar: three different incidents, seemingly unconnected; three sets of people who would end up in Accident and Emergency; three stories that would link loosely together with the general aim of adding to the store of human understanding and compassion. Nothing new. Exhausted, she closed her eyes. Recently, days had dragged and nights had offered little respite from her turbulent emotions.

‘And you were – where exactly?’

Jane jerked upright, her eyes snapped open, and she watched in fascinated horror as a consultant marched in to a small windowless office and confronted Hazel Gunnion, the hapless nurse in the series.

‘I ask you one more time, Nurse Gunnion, where were you?’

There was no mistaking the man who was playing the part. Tom Vallely had the kind of face that aged slowly, but with distinction. In another era, he might have been described as a matinée idol. At forty, the looks he had had in his twenties had matured into something altogether more urbane – he appeared suave, debonair, polished. As an actor, he made a brilliant corporate executive or government minister. Or hospital consultant.

‘Running an errand for Andy. Honest I was, Mr Darling.’

It was obvious to Jane, as it probably was to the young nurse, that there would be no escape, but she had to follow the script and tried the lie first.

‘You’re lying, Nurse. That’s not what I heard from Harriet Love.’

Jane stared sightlessly at the screen as the row escalated. Would she never be allowed to forget? Reaching out, she found the television controls. In one snap, Tom Vallely and his intimidated staff were despatched to oblivion.

The washing machine was already spinning Emily’s clothes, the hum of its motor like a swarm of angry bees in Jane’s head. Like some drugged automaton from
The Stepford Wives
she took the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard, plugged it in and began pushing it to and fro, to and fro, with ragged movements, through the kitchen, the hall, the living room, the dining room. This was good. This was therapeutic. She must do it more often. Jane yearned for order, but three children, a husband and a dog got perpetually in the way.

Benji darted in front of her and she jerked the machine roughly sideways. A wheel caught on one of the heavy oak chairs and Jane cursed as the chair teetered and began to topple towards her cello. Quickly, she dropped the vacuum cleaner and lurched forward to save it.

Too late. It hit the cello case with a dull thud.

Jane stood frozen. There was a mark on the case where the chair had hit it.

No big deal, she told herself, the case had been bashed a few times, inevitably. All the same, I must check it. When did I last open the case? A couple of years ago perhaps? The last time Emily pestered me.

She laid the case on the floor and knelt down to unlatch it. One swift, well-remembered movement and the cover sprang open.

Then there it was. Her Forster.

Jane’s hand moved towards it, drawn inexorably to the gleaming wood. She needed to feel the grain under her fingers. Just one touch wouldn’t hurt. Her fingers hovered above the old instrument as gently as a hummingbird in quest of pollen. There. She had touched it. Everything was fine. She was still whole.

Put it away, Jane. Now.

She stared at the cello, her heart beginning to pump, her head swimming.

No! Don’t do this! Stop.

Impossible. She had to touch the strings again, feel the familiar catgut, make the connection. She watched her fingers drift towards the bridge, unable to stop them. There. But the strings had been loosened for safe storage and the note was dull.

I should look it over thoroughly.

It’s all right, no need to do a full inspection.

No, it needs to be checked, the instrument is my responsibility.

It’s all right, Jane, how could there be anything wrong?

All the same...

Stop, now.

I’ll tune it, just to be sure.

You know what will happen.

I can’t...

Stop.

I can’t stop.

She lifted the cello out of the case, unable to fight the impulse any longer.

Ahhhh. Yes. Good.

It felt so familiar in her hands, so right. Her arms went around it protectively, like a mother’s arms round a baby.

Her cello.

Her connection to the emotions that lay buried so deep within her.

All coherent thought was suspended. Automatically, her fingers wound the tuning pegs – very carefully because it had been so long since it had been tuned – until the strings rang true. She reached for the bow, tightened it, sank onto the music stool and started to play.

At first it felt good. The notes reverberated round the room, sweet and deep and strong. She hadn’t forgotten how to command the instrument, her technique was still good. The music was in her fingers, stored in some deeply ingrained memory bank that required only the touch of the strings to unlock it.

Time passed, but Jane gave no thought to its passage or, indeed, to anything. It might have been minutes, maybe hours had passed. Benji lay at her feet, peacefully dozing, his body twitching as he dreamed.

Why had she been so afraid of this? Once or twice she laughed out loud with the sheer pleasure of it as she played, her feelings swelling so that they became one with the sound and the touch and the melody.

The music was all that mattered.

And yet it wasn’t.

She thought of Tom Vallely, of the hurt he had caused.

She thought of Carrie, who had betrayed her.

She thought of Marta, stealing her daughter.

She thought of her baby—

Crash
!

She drew the bow roughly over the strings in a grating, blaring discord and came to a grinding halt.

My baby
!

She should stop playing now. Her fingers began to hurt. It had been so long since she had played that she had lost the calloused pads that had protected the tips.

It didn’t matter. Only the music mattered.

She couldn’t, in the end, avoid playing the Elgar – but playing it reminded her, as it always did, of school, where she had first learned the piece, and of Marta and Carrie.

She needed her friends. She had always needed them.

The bow moved quicker now, distorting the natural rhythm of the music as Jane’s emotions built up.

No
!

She drew the bow discordantly across the strings again and pushed the cello away so hard that it crashed against the corner of the piano. She watched in horror as the neck snapped off from the body and it crumpled to the ground.

No
!

Something in Jane’s mind snapped too.

Blood.

There had been blood when they had performed the abortion, the blood of murder. She was a murderer. The memory of the sin she had committed had never left her. That was a secret no-one shared, only Tom had guessed and he was not to be trusted.

The memory, so long buried, resurfaced like an angry red devil striking her furiously again and again.

Listen to me
!

Acknowledge me
!

You have done this thing
!

Admit it
!

She doubled over, clutching at her stomach, clawing at her clothes. Guilt and fear merged and turned to anguish and she kicked out at the bookcase until music scores, homework jotters and books cascaded onto the floor and lay twisted and torn under her lashing feet. She had lost her baby, she had lost her friends, and when Neal learned the truth about what she had done, she would lose him too.

The pain became unendurable.

Blood would be her escape. Blood for blood. A death for a death.

She stumbled past the shattered cello into the kitchen. Despairing, she slid open a drawer. In a shaft of sunlight, a blade flashed keenly.

With one swift movement she drew it across her wrist.

Pain sliced through her.

A cry escaped her and she threw her arms wide to welcome death.

She was going to be free at last.

She slithered to the floor, blood pooling around her, warm and sweetly metallic, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

By her feet, a frantic Benji started to howl.

Chapter Twenty-seven

October brought with it an unseasonable early flurry of snow. To the west of Fort William, in the wilds of the Highlands, Drew McGraw was about to set out for a day’s shooting.

‘D’ya think it’s gonna snow again?’ he asked anxiously, peering out at the blue skies, his mane of hair barely visible under a startling sheepskin hat.

Although the hotel felt stuffy, it was freezing outside. The snow was lying a foot deep on the hills, but the sun was bright and the view was breathtaking. Away to the east, Scotland’s highest mountain hunched its white shoulder against the wind and tried to make itself look innocent, yet Marta had heard on the news that three men, caught unprepared for the change in the weather, had just died near the summit of Ben Nevis.

Across the road, in front of the hotel, Loch Eil sparkled in the low morning sun, its banks fringed with white satin ribbons studded with diamonds and pearls.

Drew’s party of seven, plus Marta, had arrived the previous night, too late to appreciate the stunning scenery.

‘No chance.’

It was Jaime Martinez who spoke. A thin, plain-looking woman, her husband Arno was one of the wealthy potential investors Drew was assiduously courting on this trip. She smiled excitedly, pulled her fur-lined waistcoat up round her ears and pressed her nose against the window.

‘I wish. It’d be just amazing to be snowed in here. So beautiful. And such a cute hotel.’

Cute? Thick tartan carpets, heavy tartan curtains and dark green and burgundy walls, matched with Landseer prints of deer and McTaggart seascapes was hardly what Marta would call cute. But the hotel was warm, clean, well serviced and designed to appeal to American taste: the ultimate in expensive tartanalia. Marta had chosen it largely for its position, close to where the shoot would leave, but it also had a reputation for good food and wine and the proprietors knew their market. The rooms were spacious and comfortable, the views exceptional.

‘The forecast is fine, Drew,’ Marta assured her client, comfortable in the knowledge they would be in the hands of an experienced ghillie. ‘You’ll get a great day on the hills.’

He grinned amiably, his face already aglow.

‘Then I guess I’ll brave the outside world. You gals take care now.’

Jaime laughed. ‘We’re going sightseeing, not mountain climbing.’

Drew opened the front door. The cold was pinching, but there was something exhilarating about it too. In the stuffiness that built up again as soon as the door was closed, Marta began to feel slightly nauseous. Then urgently so.

‘Excuse me.’

She ran to the nearest Ladies.

Either I haven’t got rid of this stupid bug yet, or this is due to last night’s supper, she thought, hanging over the porcelain wretchedly. Yet she had eaten the same as everyone else: venison, tender and pink; roast potatoes, crunchy and crisp; green kale, baked with sweet apples; cranachan – cream, toasted oatmeal, raspberries, a hint of whisky. Good, simple Scottish food.

After a minute, she felt better. She rinsed her mouth at the washbasin, scooping cold water up in cupped hands to her lips, tasting its sweetness after the bitterness of the bile.

‘You all right, Marta?’ a voice said, behind her.

She swung round. Jaime Martinez had followed her into the Ladies. How much had she seen? How undignified, hardly what was expected of a top-class tour guide. She blushed scarlet.

‘Yeah, thanks. Just a touch of nausea. Must’ve been something I ate last night, but I feel fine now.’

Jaime laughed. ‘Either that or you’re going to give your husband a very happy surprise.’

Pregnant? Marta stared at Jaime.

‘I had the same with all my three. It’s worth it, I promise you.’

Pregnant? It isn’t possible.

But it was possible. Six weeks. That’s how long it had been since she and Jake had last made love.

I’m pregnant.

As soon as Jaime said made the suggestion, Marta knew it was true.

Sweet Lord, what am I going to do?

‘The minibus is due,’ she said, keeping her voice steady, ‘we should go. Thanks for your understanding.’

In the lobby, one of the wives was peering out of the window. ‘Is that our bus? Gee, I sure hope it’s heated.’

‘Yes,’ Marta confirmed, sternly banishing all personal worries. Only the responsibilities of the day ahead mattered at this moment. ‘That’s ours. Now, have you got everything you need? We won’t be back till after dark and it’s very cold out there. Coats, scarves, gloves ...’

‘... credit cards.’

They went out into the bright snow amid much laughter.

Pregnant.

Jake would be thrilled. She thought of her husband, of his once-bright pride in her, of the love she had taken for granted. No, she corrected herself, she could no longer assume that he would welcome this news. The truth was, she had no idea how he would take it.

Professionalism took over as the group embarked on a mini tour of the Highlands.

‘Gee, will we see the monster?’ Jaime Martinez ran down to the shore at Loch Ness enthusiastically.

It was nonsense, but it thrilled them, and Marta found herself smiling at their childlike pleasure.

‘Is that a genuine ruin?’ another woman asked as she stared at Urquhart Castle.

Thirteenth-century stonework was highlighted against the brilliant blue of the loch and the snow-covered landscape. Marta gazed at it through the American’s eyes and found something steadying in the immutability of the scene.

A third was horrified as they absorbed the story of the battlefield at Culloden.

‘You mean they
slaughtered
the poor soldiers as they lay there?’

In the scale of things, she considered, answering their questions patiently, her own problems paled. It was a good lesson.

Only when the history of the land had been wallowed in and its magnificent scenery photographed ‘for the folks back home’ did she suggest a shopping break. In Inverness, when the group scattered to explore, she was at last able to escape. In a quiet chemist’s she bought two pregnancy tests and when they at last arrived back in the hotel and she was finally alone in the oversized, tartan-carpeted bathroom that belonged to her oversized, tartan-carpeted bedroom, she tried both.

She should have been watching the results with Jake. As first one line turned blue, then the other, Marta’s heart was sore.

She was going to have a baby.
Their
baby. The child they had longed for.

Surely he would come back to her now? This made everything different.

‘Jane’s in hospital.’

Carrie’s voice sounded distant. Marta strode to the window to catch the best signal on her mobile.

‘Say again? I can hardly hear you.’

‘Where are you?’

‘In the wilds. West of Fort William. Did you say Jane was in hospital?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘She tried to commit suicide.’

‘
What?
’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘How? Why? I mean, what happened for heaven’s sake?’

‘She cut her wrist.’

Marta was struck dumb. Jane’s stutter, her crazy accusations about Emily, her erratic behaviour, all stacked up as signs of her increasing vulnerability. But
suicide
?

‘Marta? Are you still there?’

‘I’m here. Her wrist? You said she cut her wrist?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was she
thinking
of?’

‘I don’t know, Marta. I’ve thought about nothing else since Neal called. Either it was an act of desperation or it was intended as a powerful message. Either way, if Neal hadn’t happened to go home she would have died.’

‘Oh, Carrie. Dear God in heaven. Tell me what happened.’

‘Neal had nipped home for some file he’d forgotten. He says it was as if he was drawn home for some reason. She can’t have long done it. She was lying on the floor in the kitchen with Benji going mad. If he’d just been a few minutes later—’

‘Don’t. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘There was blood everywhere and she was deeply unconscious.’

‘Oh God!’

‘He managed to put on a tourniquet. The ambulance was there very fast.’

‘Christ, Carrie, the kids ...’

‘Yeah.’ Carrie went quiet. ‘There’s another thing. Her Forster was smashed.’

‘Her cello? I don’t understand.’

‘She’d been playing it.’

‘Really? But she never played it. She’s avoided playing it ever since she left the orchestra.’

‘I know. Neal wants us to go see her. Whatever is troubling Jane, he thinks it’s deep and longstanding. He believes there’s something she’s not telling anyone.’

‘And he thinks she’ll tell us?’

‘I think he sees us as his last hope. She’s not opening up to him. He’s tried.’

‘Is she still in hospital?’

‘They gave her some blood and stitched her up. They’re going to send her home later today. ’

‘Just like that?’

‘Hospital’s no place to linger.’

‘True. Listen, I’ll be back in a couple of days. We’ll go round when everyone’s out, shall we?’

‘I think her mother’s staying.’

‘Oh. Okay.’

Carrie was about to ring off when Marta said, ‘I need to talk too.’

‘Anything in particular?’

‘Oh ... you know.’

‘You know is permissible. You know is good. We’ll talk about you know by all means. Take good care of Mr McGraw.’

‘That’s easy.’

‘Yeah. Bye.’

‘Bye Carrie. Hugs.’

‘Hugs to you too.’

Marta sat thinking for a long time. One way or another, her world was turning upside down.