Fast Friends (59 page)

It was one of the very few occasions
in her life when Roz had
felt
utterly helpless. The child she had conceived when she was
fifteen and to whom she had given birth on her
sixteenth
birthday had never completely faded from her thoughts, but to
have this proof of her existence thrust at her so abruptly had knocked her for
six. Her daughter was impatient to re-enter her
life and she was hopelessly unprepared. She was, naturally,
aware
of the adoption laws enabling eighteen year olds to seek contact with their
natural mothers, but somehow Roz had never imagined that it could happen to her.

Natalie, however, had obviously decided otherwise.

But Roz,
who had functioned on auto-pilot for the last twelve hours, still did not know
what to do. She was confused, torn . . . afraid . . . and although it made no
sense to her whatsoever, for
some
unfathomable reason there was only one person in the
world whose advice
she wanted to hear.

It wasn’t until Lili winced and
flailed her chubby bare brown
arms that
Loulou realized she was holding her too tightly. Her daughter gazed at her
reprovingly, then beamed forgiveness and
nestled
her head against Loulou’s neck, the whimpering which
had prompted her late-night arrival downstairs now
a thing of
the past.

Loulou, absently kissing her hair, made a final circuit of
the
kitchen and gazed out at the wet
blackness of the night. Rain
was sliding down the windows and the wind
howled around the house like a swarm of indignant ghosts.

Sighing with impatience she turned and headed for the
stairs. Lili was ready for bed once more and at least if she was putting her
back into her cot she couldn’t be listening at the closed door of the
sitting-room, frantically attempting to eavesdrop on the conversation taking
place inside.

What on
earth,
she wondered with burning, tortured curi
osity,
could possibly be going on in there? Roz and Camilla, together?

’I came to say I’m sorry,’ said Roz, ‘for
everything. My
behaviour has been
unforgivable and I’ll understand if you want
me
to leave, but I had to say it anyway. I’ve been a prize bitch.
I was
jealous of you. Now I know how wrong I’ve been, and I’m so ashamed of myself .
. .’ She shook her dark head and searched for the words which she had been
practising for hours. ‘I’m just very, very sorry,’ she ended simply, and lifted
her head so that Camilla could see the truth and sadness in her eyes.

Camilla, listening to the slow, steady
thud of her pulse and
the rattle of rain against the windows, could think of no words
to say. That Roz could be here, apologizing and asking for
her
forgiveness, was so improbable that she
still wasn’t entirely
sure she wasn’t dreaming. She glanced out of the
window at the rain, then at the clock. Ten past midnight.

It was no
dream.

And how, in
all honesty, could she refuse?

‘I’m glad
you came.’

‘
I’m glad, too, I think,’ said Roz, a glimmer of a smile
touching
her lips although her slanting dark eyes still registered anxiety.

‘
Lou kept telling me how good a friend you were
to her, so I knew you couldn’t be all bad.’

‘
Loulou
spends her entire life reeling from one disaster to another. She isn’t happy
unless she’s got something to be really unhappy about. I wasn’t jealous of her.’

‘
Were you really jealous
of
me?’
said Camilla incredulously.
‘I can’t believe it. Why?’

Roz’s black eyebrows straightened with
concentration. ‘Not
at
first. I didn’t know that Jack was your husband, but I suppose
I didn’t care
that
much when I
found out. Oh, I cared that he’d
tried to
trick me, but I wasn’t too bothered about how badly it would affect you. And
then there was the thing with Nico. You’d really pulled yourself together by
then –’

‘
Thanks to Loulou,’ interjected Camilla.

‘
-- you’d gained confidence, you looked great, and you
virtually told me to get stuffed. That’s when I first started to
feel jealous. And after that, it seemed you could do no wrong.
You were
rocketing ahead and at the same time I was sliding further and further
downhill.’

Roz paused, lost in thought, then
gestured impatiently with
her hand. ‘When
Nicolette died I had nothing left and you had
everything,
a brilliant career, a wonderful man, two perfect
children . . . everybody seemed to
love
you. And no-one at all
loved
me. The letter you wrote to me was the final straw. I’m afraid I went a bit
crazy when I read it.’

With sudden clarity Camilla realized that Roz’s words were
echoing Christo’s almost exactly. Dear, perceptive Christo had realized just
what was going on that night at Vampires when she and Roz had last met. How
incredibly astute he was, she thought
with a
rush of affection for the red-haired Irishman. The idea
that Roz might
envy
her would never have entered her head in a thousand years.

‘
And you must still have been terribly upset
about Nicolette,’

she murmured, but Roz stopped her.

‘
You see?’ she
demanded with a trace of exasperation. ‘You’re
too
nice –
making
excuses for me already! I said some hateful things. Do you really think you can
forgive me?’

Camilla
smiled. ‘I really think I already have.’

’How could you
leave
me outside!’ wailed Loulou,
perching on
the arm of the settee and
jiggling her tulip-shaped glass,
demanding an immediate refill of the
slightly warm champagne. ‘I was practically climbing the walls out there. You
abandoned me for
hours.’

‘
You would have been interrupting every five seconds,’
pointed out Camilla reasonably, accepting a rare cigarette
from Roz.

‘
I would not!’

‘
Of course
you would,’ Roz joined in. ‘We
know
you, Loulou. And besides, with what
I had to say, I didn’t want an audience.’ Loulou sniffed loudly. "That
must be a first.’

‘Oh, shut up and drink your drink. We’re together, we’re
celebrating and we’re happy for Christ’s sake.’

‘Happy?’ yelled Loulou, struggling to stay dead-pan. ‘Happy!
How can you
say
that? How on earth can we be happy when we don’t have a
single man between us?’

C
hapter 44

It wasn’t until eleven o’clock the
following morning that Roz
could bring herself to broach the subject of Natalie with
Camilla. Loulou was upstairs in bed nursing both Lili and
a hangover. But it was Camilla whose advice she sought, whose opinions she
needed. She knew without asking what Loulou’s would be.

Camilla, who had taken Toby and
Charlotte to school over
two hours earlier, was dressed in a lilac cashmere golfing
sweater which had been Matt’s, and close-fitting denims.

Roz still found it difficult to believe how totally
Camilla had changed. She was scarcely recognizable now as the anxious,
overweight housewife who had fussed and panicked her way
through a dinner party, unaware that within hours
her com
fortable, sheltered little life
would be lying in smithereens at
her feet.

All Roz had to do now was retrain her mind to admire
rather than envy her.

Draining her coffee cup, she said, ‘Thanks
for letting
me
stay last night. I really didn’t feel like going back to the
hotel.’

‘We were up until three thirty,’ Camilla reminded her with
a smile. "There didn’t seem much point in your leaving. It’s lovely,
anyway, to have more people in the house. Especially friends. More coffee?’

‘No thanks, it’s coming out of my ears. Actually, I need
to ask your advice about a very personal matter.’

‘
Me?’ Camilla looked surprised.

‘
You. Because you know what I’m really like. More
than anyone else,’ she said wryly, ‘you’re aware I’m not always
the nicest person in the world, or the easiest to get along
with. And that needs to be taken into serious consideration in
this case.’

Camilla poured herself a refill of fresh, strong coffee
and sat
down opposite her, watching as Roz
dug in the pocket of her
scarlet jacket and pulled out an envelope.
After a moment’s hesitation, she handed it across the table.

‘Read this. I’ll wait outside in the garden.’

The grass was still wet from last
night’s rain, but the sun was
out and the scent of roses hung in the air. At the edge of the
patio Roz stooped to retrieve a small white sandal and a
pair of
knickers abandoned there by Lili.
Just like her mother, she
thought with affectionate amusement, then
wondered whether
Natalie was like
her,
and
how Camilla was at this moment
reacting to the news that Natalie
existed. The knot of tension in
her stomach
was growing inside her like a living thing, the
waiting becoming intolerable.

Less than five minutes later Camilla joined her, the ex
pression on
her face grave.

‘
Why do you
need my advice?’ she asked slowly, and Roz averted her gaze, staring intently
at the dew-laden roses which covered the old stone wall bordering one side of
the garden.

‘Because I’m afraid.’

‘You don’t want to meet her?’

‘I do, I do. I’m afraid she’ll be disappointed.’

Camilla
took her arm and they began to walk slowly together
around the
garden, the imprints of their footsteps trailing in the wet grass behind them.

‘
She’s seen me on
television. She thinks I’m like that,’ said
Roz in a low voice. ‘How can
she accept the
real
me?’

‘Oh, the real you isn’t too bad,’ Camilla assured her with
a squeeze and a smile.

‘
What if she meets me and realizes that she
hates me?’

‘Why should
she?’

Roz turned to her, her dark eyes
filled with pain. ‘And what
if I get to
know her, then discover that I’m
jealous
of her?’

‘
You won’t,’ said
Camilla positively. "There is no reason on
this earth why you
should envy
anyone.
Instead there’s every reason why you should love
her. She sounds terrific.’

Roz managed a smile at last. ‘She does, doesn’t she?’

‘
And in many ways she’s
like you,’ Camilla continued, willing
Roz
to understand. ‘She certainly used her initiative, writing
directly to
you like that. And she must be mature, to be able to consider your feelings
enough to wait until now before sending the letter.’

‘
She’s certainly got
character,’ said Roz with growing pride
and enthusiasm. Thank God she
had been able to talk to Camilla about this. She was so right – you didn’t envy
your own daughter for all her good qualities, you loved her instead!

‘And a sense of humour.’

‘She’s clever. Not sending a photo of herself . .

‘And determined.’

Roz grinned. ‘In fact,’ she said slowly, and with triumph in
her voice, ‘she’s
a lot like . . . no,
exactly
like . . . me!’

Natalie ran her fingers through her spiky, shoulder-length
dark hair and glanced at her watch for the hundredth time in an hour.