Between Friends (25 page)

Chapter Thirty-nine

Tom Vallely strolled into the elegant living room of his rented penthouse. He was wearing a short silk dressing gown and looked as though he had just risen from a pleasant night’s exercise. He popped a Nespresso capsule into the machine and set it to work, yawned, stretched, wandered into the hall and came back with the morning’s post.

Bills. He tossed them to one side.

A letter. Angela’s writing. She’d been trying to call him for days but he’d been busy with his latest shag – the youngest actress to join
Emergency Admissions
and still very impressionable – and he couldn’t be bothered with Angela Cutler and her increasingly desperate need for sexual attention. He put the letter aside.

He took the cup and wandered over to the window, cradling it in his hands. He’d always dreamed of a penthouse like this. Smart, contemporary and very, very expensive, just the sort of place for a rising star – and with
Emergency Admissions
now providing a nice little income, he could afford it.

The last envelope was a large brown one, the latest script. He slit it open and skimmed through the papers it contained, slowly at first then leafing through the pages more and more frantically. Finally he reached the end and flung the whole lot down onto the white sofa in a rage. They spilled untidily across the leather as he let out a huge roar of pure fury.

‘Tom?’ A girl emerged from the bedroom, wearing only one of Tom’s shirts. She was petite and waif-like, her hair was screwed up loosely on top of her head and secured with a vivid pink clip. She looked very young. ‘What is it?’

She laid a questioning hand on his arm but he flung her off with such force that she spun round and hit the wall. She slid to the floor, looking dazed and shocked.

‘The
bitches
,’ Tom spat. ‘The fucking bitches.’

Chapter Forty

Shortly before Christmas, Jane called Carrie.

‘Neal’s taking the family out to the panto on Wednesday night,’ she said. ‘I’ve given my ticket to Suzy Patterson – Em’s delighted. So am I, I can’t stand panto. Anyway,
Emergency Admissions
is on. Come on round. We can have a girls’ night in.’

Carrie groaned. ‘You don’t expect us to watch that, do you? Couldn’t we just have a gossip?’

‘It might just be worth it this week,’ Jane said.

Marta was even more reluctant.

‘I can’t stand it, Jane,’ she confessed. ‘I feel responsible for getting that man the part. I hate being the agent of his good fortune.’

‘It’s only an hour.’

‘I didn’t know you were such a fan.’

‘A little birdie tells me it might be interesting.’

‘Oh yes? Tell me more.’

‘You’ll have to come and see.’

They arrived at the same time. Marta brought chocolates, Carrie was bearing champagne.

‘Bubbly?’ Jane enquired, raising her eyebrows, when Carrie handed her the chilled Bollinger.

Carrie shrugged off her coat and hung it as carefully as she could among the muddle of blazers, jackets, waterproofs and winter coats on Jane’s coatstand.

‘I’m celebrating. Henry Frew told me today that I’d been given a partnership.’

Jane shrieked and Marta enveloped her in a bear hug.

‘Fantastic!’

‘Brilliant! You must be so chuffed!’

‘I guess,’ she said, her voice flat.

‘Carrie? What’s wrong? You’ve waited all your life for this.’

She smiled. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Fetch the glasses. Let’s drink to success.’

She would not be drawn on what was bothering her.

‘Tell me about Jake, Marta,’ Jane said as they clinked their glasses and sank into the well-worn comfort of her sofa. ‘What’s the latest?’

Marta sipped the cold, crisp bubbles and gave a small shrug of her shoulders.

‘We’re working on it. When he started discussing whether we might get back together, I almost leapt for joy. But it’s not that simple. Jake’s changing, he’s much more his own man and he seems to have really found himself in London. I can’t ask him to come back to Scotland.’

‘Does he want to stay in London?’

‘I think so, though he says he’s prepared to think about a move back.’

‘What’s stopping you? Surely you should be moving heaven and earth to get him back here.’

‘There are so many options. If he came back here we’d be back in the same fix – no job, Jake miserable. Maybe it
is
time we went our separate ways, let each other have space to grow and develop.’

‘Listen to yourself, Marta. This is
Jake
we’re talking about. You’re made for each other; you always have been.’

‘You think? Even a different Jake, one who’s not so...’ she hesitated, searching for the right word, ‘ ...malleable?’

‘If a different Marta is prepared to let the man be his own man a bit more.’

She pursed her lips. ‘Maybe you’re right. But I can’t ask him to come back here, whatever he says. His career is in London, he’s obviously finding it stimulating. You should see him. He looks so different, like he’s really fulfilled. If I want to keep him, I’d have to move to London. And a move to London is a big thought, especially when you guys are closer than you have been for years.’

‘There are phones. Text. Email. Trains, planes and automobiles, for heaven’s sake. Friendship is forever, wherever. And you’d easily get a job in London.’

Marta’s features relaxed into a soft smile. ‘Thanks. The main thing is the lines are still open between us. We’re talking. In loads of ways we’re closer than we’ve ever been and whatever decision we make, it’ll be one we’ve thought through and decided on together. We might even have one last try at a family. Jake reckons if I don’t work for a bit, relax more, there’s a chance I might conceive again. The clock’s ticking, after all.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘I just need to be sure. We both need to be. I couldn’t go through all this again, it would kill me.’

‘Just go for it, Marta. You know it’s the right thing.’

Carrie’s mobile peeped and bleeped in her bag.

‘Answer it,’ Marta urged.

‘
Emergency Admissions
is about to start.’ Jane stood up and walked across to switch on the television.

Marta groaned. ‘Must we?’

‘Shush. Enjoy.’

The on-screen romance between James Darling, the surgeon played by Tom Vallely, and Harriet Love, a manager at High Hampstead hospital, had provided the
Emergency Admissions
script with many moments of high drama and not a few jokes at the expense of the two aptly named characters.

Darling, handsome, arrogant, charming and deeply dislikable, ran rings around the good-natured, adoring Love, who had allowed herself to be used as a doormat. In recent episodes, Darling had been conducting a parallel affair with one of the young nurses – and Harriet Love had finally found out.

‘What a rat,’ Carrie said.

‘But he
is
plausible, you have to concede,’ Marta argued.

‘That’s not acting, though, is it?’ said Carrie.

‘Shhh,’ Jane chided.

They watched in fascination as Love confronted Darling with her knowledge. He denied it. They saw her doubt. He seduced her with silky words. They made love (as much as was possible on an early evening show), he got out of bed, his smile irritatingly smug.

‘Don’t you just hate him?’ Marta said.

‘Talk about true to life.’

‘Shhh,’ said Jane.

It looked as though the lovers had patched things up. Harriet Love went out to work, Darling showered, preened, shaved, took a call on his mobile, arranged a dinner date.

Carrie’s mobile buzzed again. Again she ignored it.

Darling opened a drawer, rummaged around, shoved aside silky knickers. Marta sat up straight.

‘Jesus,’ she breathed.

Between the layers of neatly folded underwear, Darling had found a brooch. A beautiful gold bow, encrusted with pearls.

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘How could they have known—’

‘Shhh,’ said Jane.

The storyline moved on. An accident on the motorway, a multiple pile-up, a major emergency. Harriet Love was at the heart of the action, calling in extra staff, finding empty beds, calling other hospitals, organising what needed to be done. In the midst of it all, she called James Darling. He answered on his mobile, pleaded a sudden feverish chill, refused to answer her plea for help.

He ended the call. The camera panned out. He wasn’t sweating at home, he was in a restaurant. The girl he was dining with smiled at him adoringly. On her jacket was pinned a brooch. The brooch Darling had taken from Harriet Love’s underwear drawer earlier.

‘Jane?’ Marta looked at her friend inquiringly. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Shhh,’ Jane said.

Back at the hospital, the action was at its height. But one of the doctors, volunteering for an extra shift, had cut short his dinner – at the very restaurant where James Darling was dining with the young nurse. Thinking Harriet might call on the surgeon to come in, he mentioned it to her. Harriet Love’s reaction was intuitive, instant – and rather unprofessional. Handing over command to a colleague, she ran outside and flagged down a taxi. Within minutes, she was standing, framed in the doorway of the restaurant, watching her lover holding hands with her young rival. The camera focused on Darling’s profile, then panned to the girl’s face, then ... slowly ... to the brooch.

Distress, despair, fury, flitted across Harriet’s face. She made a strangled, inarticulate sound. The girl saw her and said something to Darling. As he turned and saw Harriet, she lunged for the door and rushed headlong into the street.

‘What’s going to happen?’ Marta reached for Carrie’s hand and gripped it tightly.

It was Carrie, this time, her attention riveted by the action on screen, who said, ‘Shhh.’

Darling tore open the door of the restaurant and raced down the street after the figure of Love, who was crossing at a red light.

‘No! They couldn’t, could they?’

Jane laughed. ‘Oh yes,’ she crowed, ‘I think they could!’

The light changed to green but Darling, intent on reaching Harriet, didn’t stop. There was a second when his face was clearly shown, shocked and disbelieving, as a lorry, unable to brake or swerve, mowed him down.

Cut to the A&E department. Darling, covered in blood, on a ventilator, in his own hospital, his own staff clustered around him. The heartbeat stopped, the monitor slipped to a single continuous note. A nurse reached for the defibrillator, but the consultant laid a hand on her arm, shook his head.

The signature tune faded in.

He was dead.

Jane looked at the others and her smile was full of glee and mischief.

‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Justice. At last.’ She switched off the television. Marta and Carrie stared at her in shocked silence.

‘Jane,’ Carrie said at length, her voice deeply admiring, ‘how the hell did you manage that?’

In all her life, Jane had never done anything so bold or so imaginative. Pride burst through.

‘I read an article in a magazine, an interview with a scriptwriter. I always thought the storylines of these soaps were decided on in committee, by the producers. I hadn’t realised that good scriptwriters have the ear of the producers – and when an actor is not popular, the door can be open for writers to make suggestions...’

‘Ann Playfair?’ Marta said, starting to laugh.

Jane nodded. ‘She was fantastic. I went to see her in Glasgow. I told her lots of things about Tom – funnily enough, none of it surprised her. But she seized on the brooch idea. It’s so visual, she said it was ideal. She did the synopsis for the episode and pitched it at the weekly meeting. I think the producers had actually seen through Tom’s charm – there had been quite a few mutterings among the cast – and they were quite receptive to the idea of killing off his character. Plus, they wanted something dramatic just before Christmas.’

‘Jane, you are utterly, utterly brilliant,’ Marta said appreciatively. ‘I would never have thought of that.’

Jane was sitting up very straight. Her eyes were shining, her face had begun to lose the greyness of despair and she looked more confident than she had looked for years. She’s changing, Marta thought, a weight has come off her shoulders and you can actually see it.

Carrie bent down and found her phone. ‘Back in a minute,’ she said.

They watched in silence as she left the room.

‘She’s not happy, is she?’ Jane said anxiously.

‘No. You’d think this would be the most thrilling day of her life – getting the partnership and everything,’ Marta sighed. ‘You know, for years I’ve tried to get Carrie hooked up with a decent guy – then the first time it happens, it all goes horribly wrong.’

There was a screech from the hall. They looked at each other, startled. Carrie burst in, her eyes luminous.

‘What?’

‘What’s happened?’

‘Look!’ She handed her phone to Jane. Jane read the text, but simply looked mystified.

‘
What?
’ Marta urged impatiently, holding out her hand for the phone. She read the message.

She looked up at Carrie. ‘What does it mean, Carrie?’

Carrie looked mortified, but the embarrassment faded almost instantly to joy. ‘DA Delight was my pseudonym on Bed Buddies. It stood for District Attorney, though no-one knew that, or cared. It was my private joke – except that Tom knew, and that’s how he sussed me. I had a dream, years ago, to go to the States and study law there. It all seemed so glamorous. The influence of Hollywood, I guess.
To Kill a Mockingbird
.’

‘I remember you loved that at school. So—’

‘I told Drew. When I confessed about Bed Buddies, I told him everything. He’s been trying to get me to talk and last week we finally did. But I felt so guilty that I set him free from our relationship. I thought he deserved someone better than me, so I destroyed everything we had together – or I thought I did. What this means, though—’ she danced a little jig on the carpet, ‘— is that he won’t take “no” for an answer. He wants me to be with him in the States. Permanently.’

Jane said, breathlessly, ‘But the
partnership
, Carrie. It’s all you’ve ever dreamed about.’

‘Bugger the partnership.’

She was so clearly in love that Marta, watching her, felt a momentary pang. The dynamics of the relationship between the three of them was shifting. Jane had become confident and more assertive. Carrie had developed a soft centre and was jettisoning the ambition that had driven her for so long. As for herself ... a choice lay in front of her and it was one that would dictate the direction of the rest of her life. Ever since Jake had left, she had thought there was only one thing she wanted: to get him back. Now it didn’t seem quite so simple, and she had to consider what was the right thing for Jake as well as for her. That meant that she had changed as well. All she had to do was work out whether they could still make their marriage work.

‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘Carrie’s off to America. It’s possible – just possible – that I may go and live in London. Jane’s become more independent all of a sudden.’ She looked at them both, filled with concern. ‘There have been so many awful things recently. We’ve fallen out, discovered we weren’t as close as we’d always believed we were – we’ve really tested our friendship. I thought we had got through it, that we’d be closer than we ever had been. But now – we’re in danger of losing it all again.’

‘Come here, you daft doughnut,’ Carrie commanded, taking her hand and pulling her out of the chair. ‘And you, Jane, come here.’

They stood, their hands entwined, in a circle. ‘Friends.’

‘Friends—’ Jane said, her face shining.

Stuff happens, Marta thought, scanning the dear, familiar faces of her two soul mates.

Life gets you.

Everything changes.

But my friends are a constant.

‘—Forever,’ she finished.

THE END