Fast Friends (71 page)

Sebastian stared at her in amazement. Several seconds
ticked
by. He couldn’t find the words, so he
nodded. She
was
right.
The
game of hide-and-seek was up. And maybe it wasn’t quite
as disastrous as
he had thought it was going to be, after all.

‘
Why don’t you have a
proper drink?’ suggested Natalie
kindly, nodding at his glass of Perrier
as if she could read his mind. ‘And I’ll have a Malibu and pineapple juice if
you’ve got it.’

It was then, quite unexpectedly, that
Sebastian started to
laugh. The women he entertained in his elegant apartment
invariably drank chilled dry wine and were careful not to
crease
their clothes. Suddenly the utter
absurdity of the contrast
between them and this scruffy, untidy urchin
struck him as incredibly funny.

It crossed his mind that he really
should phone Danielle and
tell her
that their dinner date was cancelled, but with uncharac
teristic carelessness, he dismissed the thought, rose from his
seat
and disappeared into the kitchen.

When he returned, he was carrying a dark green bottle upon
which was balanced the red and white baseball cap.

‘You really recognized me today from a photograph taken
when I was seventeen?’ he asked.

Natalie nodded earnestly and
continued to chew the last
remnants of
her chicken leg. ‘Really. You don’t look all that
different, only . . . well, older. But not much,’ she amended at
great
speed, anxious not to offend her father. ‘In fact hardly any older at all.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sebastian, his voice grave as he flung
the baseball cap on to the table and expertly uncorked the Bollinger. ‘I don’t
normally drink champagne on a Friday but since you’re here I think maybe we
ought to be doing a bit of celebrating . .

Laura Scott’s parents lived in a far grander house than
either Camilla or Loulou had imagined. As their taxi snaked along the
wide, tree-lined drive they saw a vast Georgian
mansion
glittering with lights loom ahead of them. Dozens of cars
littered the gravelled driveway and plenty of people were milling to and
from a massive blue-and-white striped marquee set
up on the
lawn to one side of the house.

‘
Christo didn’t say it
would be like this,’ whispered Loulou
as they paid off the cab. ‘Bloody
hell, some of them are in dinner-jackets. And to think I almost wore my jeans.’

‘To think that we were going to bring a couple of bottles,’
exclaimed Camilla, trying not to laugh.

As they made their way through the
hall, towards a vast
room crammed with people they didn’t know, they overheard
one very done-up blonde say to her
friend, ‘The very worst
thing any woman can do when she gets married is let herself go. She
should
always
dress up, make up and wear perfume –
then her husband won’t be suspicious when she has an
affair. Suddenly splurging on silk underwear after spending months in nylon
knickers and thermal vests is the very worst giveaway.’

‘
Which is why I never
wear knickers at all,’ said Loulou
clearly, gliding serenely past with
her head held high. Then she
winked at
Camilla. ‘It’s going to be that kind of party, by the
sound of it.’

Eventually they located Christo and
Laura. Never having
seen her before in
anything more exotic than track-suit trousers and one of Christo’s enormous
Fair Isle sweaters, Laura was a
shock.
Encased in white chiffon with her brown hair swept up
she looked,
whispered Loulou, ‘very High Society, very
Taller.’
Christo, who had clearly been coaxed with extreme
reluctance
into a dinner-jacket,
looked decidedly shell-shocked by
comparison.

Loulou hugged him with such
enthusiasm that the silver
combs holding her long hair in a precarious topknot loosened
and slipped to the floor. ‘You look beautiful,’ she
assured him. Christo pulled a wry face.

‘You’ll hate me when I tell you what I’ve done. Mac
dropped into Vampires yesterday evening. He offered to do our wedding
photos. I had to invite him here tonight, darlin’.
After all, he
has been a good friend to me over the years. You both
have.’

Loulou’s
face dropped. ‘He’s here with Cecilia?’

‘
Cecilia’s in Paris. Mac’s coming here alone.’ Christo
shrugged
helplessly at the mass of people around them. ‘Or he may already have arrived –
I had no idea it was going to be like this. When Laura told me that her father
had always worked in factories I didn’t realize that he owned the damn things .
.

Camilla watched Loulou metamorphose before her very eyes.
Never one of life’s moths, and already striking in
a Russian-
style black and white
embossed leather dress by Fendi, fitted
jacket, black stockings and high heels, she seemed now to grow
a
couple of inches. Her grey eyes grew large and brighter, her
cheeks suffused with colour and her shoulders
straightened.
Even the scent of her perfume appeared to become stronger
as adrenalin coursed through her bloodstream.

‘
I hope Mac’s being here
won’t spoil the party for you,’
continued Christo, his Irish accent
becoming more pronounced with anxiety, ‘but I couldn’t not invite him, could I
now?’

‘
I’ll be fine,’ Loulou
assured him, bending to retrieve her
silver
combs from the polished parquet floor. ‘I’d better go to
the loo and
sort my hair out. Back in two minutes, Cami. See if you can find us some
drinks, OK?’

Straightfaced, they watched her disappear up the winding
staircase. Camilla gazed at Christo for several long seconds.

Christo cracked first. ‘Oh, OK,’ he said with a huge
smile.
‘Maybe Mac told me that Cecilia had
gone to Paris before I
invited him down here.’

‘It might be a disaster,’ warned Camilla, trying to
control her own rising laughter. ‘It’s very brave of you to risk it.’

Hugging Laura to his side, he shrugged
once more. ‘But it
may
just work out, you know. They’re crazy about each other –
any fool can see that.’

‘
Except themselves,’ said Camilla.

‘
We’re so happy together,’ explained Laura, touching
Christo’s cheek with tender fingers, ‘that we want everyone
else to be
happy, too. And a little collusion doesn’t go amiss,
sometimes. Christo would have run a mile when he first met
me, if I’d told him about Daddy’s money. Sometimes
you have
to fib a bit to get what you really want in life.’

‘
And it’s about time
you had a bit of happiness yourself,’
Christo told Camilla with mock
severity. ‘Since I’m at present
sorting out
the troubles of the world, we’ll have to see if we
can’t find a handsome
gentleman to lift your own spirits. When
I’ve
done my duty meeting everyone I’m supposed to meet
tonight, I’ll
introduce you to a few likely candidates.’

Touched by his kindness, and suddenly
overcome with a
fresh
wave of loneliness, Camilla shook her head and gave him
a wry smile.

‘
Don’t worry about me,’
she said quietly. ‘I’m really not
looking for a man at the moment.’

‘Good,’ said Laura with great firmness, as if that settled
the matter. ‘That’s always the best time to find one.’

Several
minutes later, Loulou returned.

‘
I’ve looked everywhere, even under the beds upstairs,’ she
said,
shivering like an overbred greyhound and spilling most of the champagne Camilla
had handed to her. ‘Mac isn’t here yet.
Which
would be best – should I be flirting with someone
gorgeous when he arrives
or standing alone looking soulful?’

‘Most of your problems with Mac have been caused by you
fraternizing with other men,’ protested Camilla,
panicking
slightly as she realized that either way she was going to be
abandoned. ‘And if you’re on your own it’ll seem
as if no-one
wants to talk to you. Why don’t we stick together, then I
can - discreetly back off when he comes over?’

‘
You’re a gem!’ Loulou
hugged her, at the same time glancing
over
Camilla’s shoulder and locking eyes with a dissolute boy
with a wicked mouth who was lounging against the
white marble
fireplace. Not a day over
twenty-two, she thought, blowing him
a
kiss. And I’m not even going to
speak
to him because Mac’s
here,
Mac’s here, Mac’s here .. .

’Bloody hell,’ said Mac, feigning
surprise. "The further away
from London
I go, the more often I seem to bump into you. Is nowhere sacred?’

‘Don’t give me that bullshit,’ retaliated Loulou affably,
her
confidence bolstered by several glasses
of champagne. ‘You
knew I’d be here for Christo’s engagement party.’

‘
And I came anyway,’ he
riposted. ‘Despite the fact that
you’ve probably got a dozen reporters
hiding in the woodwork.
What the
hell
possessed
you to do that story in the paper, for
God’s sake?’

‘Me!’ screamed Loulou, her silver-grey eyes flashing like
marcasite. ‘I thought you’d organized that . . . I’m
going to kill
that worm when I get my hands on him . . . and where’s
Cecilia tonight, anyway?’

‘
France and you bloody
well know it,’ retaliated Mac. ‘And
if you start getting any ideas . .

Camilla made a strategic withdrawal. Their helpless
sparring, the undeniable explosion of attraction between them, was more than
she could cope with. Neither of them were even aware that
she was there, and the realization only enhanced
her own unease.
Nothing would please her more than if Loulou and Mac
could somehow be reconciled, but at the same time it left her conspicuously
alone and suddenly very, very lonely.

Escaping
through the front door she made her way towards
the marquee from which incredibly loud rock music was
pounding.
As she approached the enormous blue-and-white tent
in the darkness, taking care not to let her high heels sink into
the
springy turf, she encountered a solid object with her toe and almost tripped,
losing her shoe in the process.

‘
Ouch,’
protested a male voice and she ground to an uneven halt.

‘
I’m not a tent peg,’
he protested and Camilla giggled,
blinking
in the darkness and crouching down in search of her
shoe.

‘
You sound nice,’ the
voice continued. ‘How would you like
to share my picnic?’

‘You have a picnic out here?’ Relieved to be spoken to,
she
paused, only just able to make out the
dim silhouette of his
body close to hers, stretched out lazily on the
grass.

Next moment, a bottle splashed into
her lap. ‘Bollinger. It’s
all a
midnight feast needs. Who are you?’

‘Camilla.’ Emboldened by the darkness, she retaliated: ‘Why,
who are you?’

‘
Piers O’Donaghue,’
replied the voice which had a sensual touch of Irish in it not unlike Christo’s.
‘And are you pretty? I
only buy
champagne for girls who are pretty. Otherwise it’s lager.’

‘
Thank goodness it’s dark,’ said Camilla, raising the
bottle to her lips and wondering how Loulou and Mac were getting on.
Then she jumped as a warm hand touched her cheek,
lightly
tracing her profile.

‘You’ll do,’ said Piers O’Donaghue with a smile in his
voice. ‘Tell me why you’re here.’

‘
I know Christo . .’ began
Camilla, but he interrupted her. ‘I mean here on this grass, talking to a
complete stranger.
Had a row with your lover?’