Fast Friends (58 page)

He had hit her, hard. Defending herself, she had fought
back
and Simon, unsteady as a result of all
the alcohol, had fallen
against the dining-room table, hitting his head.
Lying there, he
hadn’t moved. His breathing
was alarmingly erratic, his eyes
closed. Loulou had panicked and run
away, coming to Camilla’s house for sanctuary.

‘
Oh God, I bet I’ve killed him,’ she moaned,
clutching the
ice-pack
to her cheek and looking anguished but unrepentant.
‘That sonofabitch would die just to pay me back for pushing
him. He’d do it out of spite, to make me suffer.
Do you
know
what he called Lili?’

‘
What’s his number?’ said
Camilla calmly. ‘Why don’t I
phone him first and find out if he’s dead?’

’Alive,’ she announced, replacing the
receiver. ‘He sounds like
a bear with
the proverbial. I told him that if he was extremely lucky we wouldn’t press
charges and that you never want to set eyes on him again.’

‘
You told him that!’ wailed Loulou. ‘But Cami –
I love him.’

‘
He beat you
up.’ Camilla inwardly despaired of Loulou’s hopeless attraction to men who
treated her badly. ‘Next time he could murder
you.
Lou, it’s over.’

Now Loulou was looking even more alarmed than she had when
she thought Simon might be dead.

‘He won’t do it again,’ she said quickly. ‘It was probably
all my fault anyway and he was only—’

‘Trying to break every bone in your face,’ snapped
Camilla,
her tone deliberately brutal. ‘If
you went back to him he could
do it to Lili. Anyone who’d hit a woman
would have even more fun beating up a young child. That’s even easier – they
can’t put up so much of a fight.’

‘Don’t!’ moaned Loulou, agonized. ‘OK, OK . . .
I
won’t see him. I suppose you’re right. Shit.’ She gazed absently at her
fingernails. ‘We were going to go and live with
him next week
as well.’

‘
You’ll be far happier
staying where you are,’ Camilla told
her firmly. ‘And Lili adores
Christo, after all.’

said
Loulou. "The trouble is, Lili isn’t the only one.
Christo’s girlfriend adores Christo too. She’s moving in with him, and
although they’re both far too nice to say so, I know
they’d really
prefer not to be part of a
ménage a quatre.’

‘
Lou, sometimes you really are the absolute limit,’
exclaimed
Camilla, fizzing with exasperation.
‘Don’t you ever even
think
of your friends?’

Loulou
looked hurt. ‘What have I done now?’

‘
Come on, get up.’ Pulling the melting ice-pack from her friend’s hand,
Camilla dragged her to her feet. ‘We’re going
over to
Christo’s flat right now to pick up Lili and your things –
God knows, you don’t have enough even to fill the
car. And
don’t argue. You’re coming to live with me. Now.’

They stayed up late into the night, talking non-stop, both so
excited about being there together that they didn’t even notice -
the
grandfather clock chiming first twelve, then one and two.

‘
I can make sure you eat properly,’ said Loulou,
adding with
a gleam of triumph, ‘I can
cook
for you!’

‘
I want to
gain weight, not lose it,’ Camilla reminded her.

Their conversation ricocheted from one subject to the
next. Whilst Lili, Charlotte and Toby slept peacefully their mothers
discussed their upbringing, then moved on to men.
Nico,
Camilla learnt, was taking Caroline away to Barbados. Caroline had
confided to Loulou that they were hoping to start a family.
Loulou was aware that their marriage wasn’t
perfect, but since
she evidently had no idea of the extent of Nico’s
unhappiness
Camilla thought it prudent to
keep the news to herself. Likewise,
she
censored her own account of his visit to her cottage in
Scotland, saying
only how nice it had been to see him.

Loulou was delighted and relieved to see that she was
overcoming
her desolation following Matt’s death. The grief
had lessened and Camilla was obviously
more cheerful. She was regaining her old sparkle, at last.

They also discussed Mac and Cecilia and it rapidly became
clear to Camilla that Loulou had regarded Simon as a form of
retaliation, a weapon with which she had hoped to
make Mac
think again.

‘
He doesn’t love her,’
she said, twisting a long strand of
blonde
hair around her fingers. ‘It’s been almost eighteen
months now and he still hasn’t even
married
her,
which must
mean something. They have
the most appalling fights – far
worse than he ever had with me – yet for
some reason they stay together. The photographer and the model,’ she enunciated
with
disgust. "They’re only doing it
because it boosts both their
careers.’

All Camilla could do was agree with
her because that was
what Loulou
wanted to hear.

Then their conversation turned to Roz,
who was also having
a
less than happy time at present. Apparently she was at
loggerheads with the new producer of
her TV show and as a
result the ratings were suffering. As the well-publicized mother
of a cot-death baby, Roz had wanted
Loulou to guest on the
show. Loulou’s enormous contribution to the charity devoted to
its research had also generated a vast amount of publicity
at the
time and Roz felt that this show could
renew public interest in
the charity and its continuing need for funds.
The producer, a
raving homosexual, had
flatly informed her that such a pro
gramme
would be morbid, dull and of no interest to anyone
apart from the parents who had been affected.
Instead, he
suggested, she should be doing a fashion special,
concentrating on the talents of the new designer, Marco Ciati.

‘
Who by some incredible coincidence,’ concluded
Loulou
with heavy irony, ‘is young, gorgeous
and also gay. Roz
evidently had a ring-ding stand-up show-down with him
in the
middle of the studio canteen and
called him a freak-show faggot
. . . well, that’s about the most polite
thing she called him . . . so
now he’s doing
his best to get her kicked out again. I have to
admit that I feel just
the tiniest bit guilty. Doing a programme
about
cot-deaths was my idea after all, and now Roz has got
herself into
trouble because of it. And I know she won’t give in.’

Camilla considered her friend’s words.
Roz was a total
enigma as far as she
was concerned; one minute she was going out of her way to be unpleasant, the
next she was risking her job in order not to let Loulou, or the charity, down.

‘
She’s very loyal,’ said
Loulou, reading her mind. ‘I know
she’s
been the most frightful bitch as far as you’re concerned,
but she’s
always been a good friend to me.’

Chapter 43

Roz was
indeed less than happy at the present time. She loathed M
urray Irving, her ghastly producer. He seemed
determined nv to make her life as miserable as possible, and he wasn’t
)ing too badly either. Work was no fun at all these
days, th
anks to that goddam fairy.

Her social
life, too, was less than gripping. No men interested T. Since her carefully
planned reunion with Nico had failed
dismally
– he had fled home to his boring wife and taken
eat pains to avoid Roz
ever since – she had failed to unearth
single
interesting
man. Or a married one for that matter, she
ought with
a vague attempt at humour. Sex was sporadic and unsatisfying and she invariably
wondered afterwards why she’d en bothered. At this rate, it was a toss-up
whether she’d die of Boredom or AIDS.

Altogether a very boring situation to be in, she decided. But wh
at on earth
was she supposed to do about it? Advertise in
The roes
for a white
knight?

Both these situations, however, paled into insignificance
mpared with
the new bombshell now facing her.

The letter lay in her lap, and she ran her index finger along
top edge of it rather than pick it up again. There was no lon
ger any need to do so, since she knew the contents by heart.
nce its arrival this morning she must have read it fifty times
d on every occasion she had experienced the same twist in
pit of her
stomach.

At first
she had assumed it to be a belated birthday card. The large, fuchsia pink
envelope had fluttered through the letter box
and
Roz, just leaving the cottage, had stuffed it into her bag without even
glancing at the front of it. Which meant that it
wasn’t until she was
comfortably settled on the Intercity train
heading
towards London that she pulled the envelope out and
saw that it had been addressed initially to the TV
studios.
The fact that URGENT, EXTREMELY PRIVATE AND
PERSONAL, and NOT TO BE OPENED BY ANYONE OTHER
THAN ROZ VALLENDER was plastered across the top
in black
ink had évidently prompted
her secretary to redirect it to her
home in Gloucestershire, since she
hadn’t been due to visit the studios until next week.

Roz had
smiled when she saw it. Probably some star-struck
teenage boy confessing his undying love for her. Sometimes they wrote
poems, or included photo-booth pictures of them
selves. She doubted, in view of the pink envelope, whether it
was
an obscene letter.

The smile
had faded from her face when she opened it and began to read.

Dear Miss
Vallender, First of all, I think you should sit down because what I
have to tell you may come as a shock. I hope you
will
think it’s a nice shock.

I could have written to you months ago but I waited
until today
– my eighteenth birthday – because I thought
you
might be more fully prepared. It must have occurred
to you that this
could happen, now.

Have you
guessed yet?

Yes, I am
your daughter, Natalie.

I’m sorry I haven’t done this through
the proper
channels,
but I was too impatient – and too afraid that if
the official woman contacted you, you
might refuse to
have
anything to do with me. A letter from me to you
seems better, more personal somehow. And more persuasive
too, hopefully.

Anyway, my adopted mother knew your
name. Six
months
ago I overheard her talking to a friend and dis
covered that you were my real mother.
It was weird,
because
not long before that we’d been watching you on
TV and I’d said how much like you I looked. We are very
alike, you know.

Mum knows I am writing to you. She and Dad are great and I
love them both very much but I have always longed to meet my
real
parents.
I don’t resent you for giving me
away – I can
count on my fingers and I realize that you
were very young when you had
me. And I have had a nice life so far, so no complaints.

But I
would
like to see you.
The reason I haven’t
enclosed a photograph is in the hope that this will make
you curious enough to want to meet
me.

I am interesting, intelligent (nine
GCSEs) and have a
good
sense of humour. I like Indian and Chinese food.
My favourite television programme – creep, creep! – is
yours.

Please,
please
write back to
me. It’ll be even worse
than waiting for exam results, so do it as quickly as
possible. Every morning I shall be
lying in wait for our
poor old
postman.

Yours very
sincerely, Natalie Purnell.PS I was so sorry about Nicolette. I didn’t even
know then that she was my half-sister, but when I heard that she had died, I
cried for ages.