Just Between Us (35 page)

‘Speechless, eh?’ said Richie, still looking delighted with himself. ‘You always were quiet but wow, look at you now, babe.’

While Richie’s gaze travelled unashamedly from her head to her toes, Holly smothered the impulse to giggle out loud with relief. She could barely believe that she’d ever fancied him, motorbike or no motorbike. And as for that suit. Chalk-stripe suits were always on the tightrope of fashion and could look very classy or, as in Richie’s case, very tacky. All he needed was a huge pinkie ring to complete the effect.

‘How have you been, Richie?’ she asked.

‘Great, just great. Business is top,’ he boasted, making a gesture with both hands to prove this. A pinkie ring glinted in the sun. ‘I’m in import/export,’ he elaborated. ‘Doing well.
Very well
.’

‘You don’t have the motorbike any more?’ Holly said, for lack of something else to say.

‘Hell, no.’ He was shocked. ‘Got the latest Jag. So,’ he moved closer to her. ‘Are you going to be around for a while? We could go out maybe, I’ll show you how fast the Jag goes from nought to sixty, eh?’

‘No thanks,’ said Holly gravely. ‘Speed kills. I’ve got to go, Richie. Bye.’

She hurried back to her seat in the marquee. Had Richie really changed beyond all recognition? Or, had he always been awful and, because she was lost in her first romance, she’d just never realised it?

Rose stood at the main entrance and watched the guests enjoying themselves. Most people were seated and eating. The jazz band were purring their way through a Cole Porter medley. Rose loved Cole Porter, both for the melodies and for the memories.

Hugh stood waiting for her, arms outstretched, an expansive
smile on his face. She could see the family already seated at their table, with places waiting for Hugh, herself and Adele. Hugh had a microphone in his hand.

‘Welcome my darling lady wife,’ he said to roars of applause.

The band stopped playing, ready to leap into song whenever Hugh ended whatever clever speech he’d worked out on the back of an envelope.

‘It’s a very special day for myself and Rose,’ he began, ‘the anniversary of our wedding, one of the most important days of my life.’

Hugh smiled at Rose and put an arm round her, drawing her close.

The crowd sighed happily. Wasn’t this lovely?

At one of the front tables, Alastair Devon was still a bit anxious. Rose didn’t look herself, he could tell. He’d known her for nearly thirty years and although her face looked outwardly serene, she had a mad look in her eyes. Women got like that, Alastair knew. The change. Stupid name, that. It wasn’t a change, it was a bloody cataclysm. But Rose must have gone through all of that already, surely? So what could be wrong with her?

Tara and Finn were sitting as far apart as it’s possible to sit when you’re actually seated beside someone. Finn was still not drinking and he’d barely touched the Thai chicken he’d piled his plate with. Tara had taken some shellfish and salad, but couldn’t eat either. Her fingers beat a tattoo on the tablecloth as she watched her parents.

Stella and Nick were seated next to Tara. Amelia was standing between them, leaning against her mother who had one arm round Amelia’s waist. Nick was holding Stella’s other hand, stroking her fingers with his thumb as they watched Hugh address the crowd.

Holly sat at the bit of the table nearest the edge of the marquee. She was smoking surreptitiously, holding the cigarette down near the tent flap and turning away from everyone to take a lengthy drag every few moments. Imagine
meeting Richie Murdoch again after all these years. Imagine not feeling anything but dislike for him.

‘As you all know, I wouldn’t be where I am today without Rose,’ Hugh continued. ‘She’s been my rock, my centre, the centre of our family. And it’s thanks to Rose that our lovely daughters, and granddaughter, are here today.’

Amelia grinned, delighted to be included.

Holly threw down her fag and stamped it out hurriedly. Maybe they’d have to get up and stand beside their parents in front of all these people. Her triumph with Richie notwithstanding, Holly quivered with nerves at the very idea.

‘I want to pay tribute to Stella, Tara, Holly and little Amelia,’ continued Hugh.

Everyone clapped.

‘But,’ Hugh shut them all up by talking even more loudly into the microphone, ‘the jewel in the crown is Rose.’

Alastair must have helped him write the speech, Rose thought, still smiling. Hugh would have never thought of that ‘jewel’ nonsense on his own.

‘I’m sure you’ll agree with me on that.’ Cue more clapping.

‘I want to…’

Rose had heard enough.

Smiling, she leaned over and gently took the microphone from Hugh’s hands. ‘It’s my day too, darling,’ she said, eyes glittering.

Hugh relinquished the mike and kissed her hand in a courtly fashion.

The crowd clapped happily again.

Rose surveyed her audience, who were beaming up at her, their faces full of goodwill. She hated hurting them too but it had to be done.

First things first. She went over to Amelia.

‘Darling, would you go into the house and talk to Aunt Adele for a few minutes?’

Amelia nodded and ran off. Stella looked at her mother curiously, but Rose just smiled benignly and waited until Amelia was out of sight to begin.

‘At our wedding forty years ago, I didn’t have the opportunity to make a speech,’ she said. ‘Brides didn’t make speeches in those days, even though that will sound very odd to the younger women here.’ She spotted plenty of women grinning.

Rose moved away from Hugh and walked down the marquee, looking comfortable, like some skilled chat show host who could charm a crowd, marvelled Tara. ‘In those days,’ Rose said chattily, ‘marriage was seen as the be all and end all for women. Even if you were lucky enough to go to university, it was to keep you busy until you got yourself a husband. That was women’s lot.’ She laughed. ‘God help our sense.’

Alastair wasn’t the only man in the place who felt a frisson of anxiety at the way this speech was going. At the top of the marquee, Hugh himself experienced a smidgen of unease. This wasn’t very Rose-like.

‘When I married Hugh,’ went on his wife, still in that same conversational tone, ‘I didn’t expect a fairy tale. I came from a small farming community and marriage was often as not a matter of two people joining together to face the world, to earn a living from the land and, hopefully, raise a few children as well.’ She turned and looked lovingly at her daughters.

‘My daughters are the love of my life,’ she said, ‘my proudest accomplishment, if it’s fair to say that adult human beings who have found their own way in the world could be called my accomplishment. But, I brought them into the world, even if I was knocked out for Holly’s birth.’ She sent a smile of such extraordinary sweetness to Holly that Holly made a little noise of recognition, like a small animal in pain.

Rose carried on. ‘That’s what marriage became for me: my daughters. They were my life. And it’s all down to Hugh.’ The crowd smiled again, thinking that this was back on slightly more familiar territory.

‘Yes,’ Rose paused and sent another smile, this one chilly, up to her husband, who blanched. ‘I told you I didn’t expect
the fairy tale but I didn’t expect Hugh.’ If she hadn’t turned away from Hugh, she’d have seen him go even paler. ‘That’s why I feel that it’s unfair to invite all of you lovely people here to celebrate a ruby anniversary when in fact, there’s nothing to celebrate.’

The whole room held its breath in shock.

‘Hugh has been unfaithful to me throughout our entire marriage. I stayed with him because well, girls,’ she smiled at a group of her charity committee friends who were sitting, shell-shocked, to her left, ‘that’s what women of our generation do. We stay. We knit sweaters. We raise money for famine victims and for sick children. We carefully cook stews with the cheaper cuts of meat. We vacuum. But not any more.’

Stella’s hand dropped limply from Nick’s. She couldn’t believe it. Finn broke the Cold War to squeeze Tara’s knee in sympathy, but she seemed oblivious to it and just stared, open-mouthed, at her mother.

Holly, with tears glittering in her eyes, pulled an empty glass towards her to act as an ashtray and lit up openly.

There wasn’t a sound in the marquee.

‘Rose,’ croaked Hugh. ‘Please stop.’

‘Why?’ she asked in her clear voice, still amplified by the microphone. ‘You wanted this party, even though I told you I felt it was a mistake. You wanted to parade our marriage when I knew it was hypocritical. And look, you haven’t denied it in front of our friends.’

Alastair leapt to his feet to do something and Rose shot him a look that could fell a lion. Alastair sank down into his chair again.

‘I’m leaving you, Hugh,’ she said.

‘Oh my God,’ whispered Stella, leaning against Nick for comfort.

‘We must do something,’ said Tara, who’d been stunned into immobility.

Rose waved encouragingly at the band, who were just as dumbfounded as everyone else. She didn’t notice Minnie
Wilson, who was staring at her heroine in utter shock. ‘The party is continuing and maybe some music might be nice,’ Rose said. There were a few wrong notes and suddenly the marquee was filled with the strains of The Girl from Ipanema. There was no other noise.

Rose handed the microphone to Hugh and walked towards the house. Stella and Tara shot after her. The buzz of astonished conversation began to drone loudly with aghast guests saying ‘I can’t believe it!

‘Aren’t you going too?’ Finn asked Holly.

She shot him a sideways glance. ‘In a minute,’ she said. Her earlier anger at Rose was gone. It was as if somebody had punched her in the stomach and winded her. She felt wicked and ungrateful for ever feeling angry with her mother. Her mother had been hurt too, just like Holly had been.

Finn waved at one of the waiters, who’d just come back into the marquee with bottles of wine and who had clearly missed Rose’s bombshell.

The waiter filled Holly’s glass with white wine.

‘Red for me,’ said Finn happily, holding up a fresh glass. ‘After a shock like that, we all deserve a little drink to steady our nerves.’

‘Mum, talk to us.’ Stella and Tara rushed after Rose into the house but Hugh got there before them.

‘Girls,’ he begged, ‘let me talk to your mother.’

‘Dad,’ said Stella, her dark eyes awash with tears, ‘what’s going on?’

‘I don’t know,’ he hedged, ‘let me talk to her.’

He followed Rose up to their bedroom, leaving the sisters alone. Stella sank down onto the bottom step of the stairs. Her legs felt too weak to support her.

‘What can have happened?’ she said. ‘I don’t understand.’

Tara sat down beside her and put a comforting arm round her sister’s shoulder. ‘Neither do I.’

‘What’s going on?’ Hugh demanded, as he shut the bedroom door with a resounding bang.

‘You know exactly what’s going on,’ answered Rose calmly, opening a drawer and taking out a neatly folded pile of clothes. She put the clothes on the bed and did the same with another drawer. ‘I’m fed up with playing second best to your women. I’m fed up with your womanising. I’m fed up, full stop. But tell me, precisely how many have there been over the years, Hugh? Don’t lie to me because I know, I’ve always known.’

The blood drained from Hugh’s face.

‘Did you really think I was that stupid?’ she said. ‘I knew you so well that I could tell instantly the moment you fancied someone. The doctor’s wife all those years ago when Stella was a baby, was she the first? I always thought she was. And other people told me, you know. They’d say ‘
I saw Hugh with somebody at dinner
’ and they’d wait for me to look shocked or deny it, but I brazened it out, Hugh. I didn’t want to be humiliated.’ She glared at him, despite her intention to remain coolly calm.

‘Rose,’ said Hugh weakly, ‘don’t do this. I can explain.’

‘It’s too late for explanations,’ she replied, moving to her wardrobe and surveying the contents. ‘I genuinely thought it was all over, that you no longer had other women or brought them out to discreet lunches or dinners. But your latest phoned me. She says she knows you’ll never leave me but that it still hurts. Poor dear. I know how it feels. It still hurts me, Hugh.’

Rose wasn’t even angry any more. At least, not with anyone else. She was angry with herself for having put up with it all for so long.

She began taking clothes from the wardrobe, carefully smoothing skirts and trousers so there were no creases in them as she folded. She was probably bringing too much but where she was going, it was better to be prepared for any eventuality.

‘What are you doing?’ For the first time, Hugh realised that Rose had two big suitcases on the floor.

‘Packing. Leaving you.’

‘Oh, Rose, you can’t do that.’ Suddenly it was Hugh who was sinking onto the bed in shock, all the fight gone out of him like a punctured balloon.

She looked at her husband with a tinge of sympathy.

‘Hugh, what do you expect me to do?’

He hung his head in his hands. ‘I love you, Rose. Don’t leave me, please.’

‘I should have left you years ago, Hugh. I stayed for the children. I could cope with a certain degree of humiliation for them but not any more.’

‘I was discreet,’ cried Hugh in anguish.

‘Not discreet enough,’ she shot back. ‘I, personally, spotted you coming out of
Monsieur’s
earlier this year. ‘The redhead. Is she the current popsie?’

‘No, there hasn’t been anyone for years. I was friends with her once and her husband died and she wanted to meet me again…’

‘She thought you could take up where you left off? How convenient. You should offer a service to widows. A valued customer service.’

‘Rose, stop it.’ Hugh looked genuinely pained.

‘You’re right, that was below the belt, Hugh. I need to get away from here,’ she added, still packing.

‘Where will you go?’

‘I’m not telling you, Hugh. I don’t want you following me there and begging me to come home. We need time apart.’

Hugh picked up the jewellery box which still lay on the bed even though Rose had carefully tidied away the incriminating diaries and the phone bills. She’d used them to prove to herself that she wasn’t going mad. She didn’t need them any more.