Stop the Clock (3 page)

Tina shrugged. ‘Wasn’t sure till the last moment I was actually going to get it. I only got the chance because they’re cost-cutting and ditching some of the freelancers.’

‘I’ll have to have a good read in a minute,’ Lucy said, folding the newspaper and tucking it under her arm.

Natalie ushered them into the living room and put the hyacinths next to a large vase of coral-coloured roses on the coffee table. Lucy guessed these were from Tina, as they were the only splash of colour in the room.

The decor was strictly minimalist – too much so, for Lucy’s taste – hardwood floors, walls in different shades of off-white, beige blinds. It was all studiously neutral, to the point of feeling like a hotel rather than a home.
A baby, and the clutter that went with it, would do the place good – warm it up a bit.

Natalie started saying something about antenatal classes. Tina perched nervously on the sludge-coloured sofa, as if waiting for an audition, as Lucy settled into an armchair, opened up the newspaper and began to read.

At this point Lucy cast the paper aside in disgust.

‘What happened to you?’ she asked Tina.

Tina looked nonplussed. Natalie regarded Lucy with mild anxiety.

‘There was a time when you would never have written anything like that. The old Tina was loyal,’ Lucy said.

‘It’s just a series of general observations, exaggerated for comic effect. I didn’t intend anyone to take it seriously,’ Tina said.

‘But it’s obviously about me, all the way through,’ Lucy said. ‘Though maybe there’s a bit of Natalie in there too.’

‘Look, please, keep me out of this,’ Natalie protested.

‘Oh, stop sitting on the bloody fence!’ Lucy said, and rounded on Tina again. ‘Why do you have to be such a bitch? What gives you the right to look down your nose at me? I’ve got two children, a husband and a home to look after, and you know what? That’s a lot harder work than sitting around in an office sipping lattes and occasionally flapping about deadlines. The problem is, you have no idea what it’s like to be responsible for someone other than yourself. You know what? I feel sorry for you. I really do. You’re on your own, you
haven’t got a man, and you’re running out of time. Another couple of years and it’ll be too late for you to have a baby even if you do meet someone!’

Tina stared at her in wounded, watery-eyed shock. Her lips twitched as if she would have liked to retaliate but was too close to crying to trust herself to open her mouth. She dropped her head into her hands and breathed in sharp bursts, as if struggling to restrain herself, then reached for her handbag – could that really be Hermès? Was that what thirty pieces of silver got you nowadays? – and rummaged for a handkerchief.

Then something even worse happened. Natalie snuggled up to Tina, put an arm around her, murmured something soothing and looked at Lucy accusingly.

‘Oh go on, turn on the waterworks,’ Lucy said automatically. It was what her mother had always said.

Natalie frowned. ‘Lucy, please, give it a rest.’

Tina blew her nose and said, ‘I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to offend anyone. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for so long . . . I just felt I had to go for it.’

‘Don’t apologize,’ Natalie said. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’ She looked at Lucy significantly.

Lucy’s fury was already beginning to ebb away, leaving behind the horrible feeling of having wildly overstepped the mark – possibly irretrievably. But how could this be? How could Tina have slagged her off (albeit under the disguise of impersonal commentary), and she, having merely stuck up for herself, end up in the wrongdoer’s corner?

Yet she had made Tina cry – and Tina just didn’t do tears. Natalie, yes, at pretty much any opportunity
– soppy films; weddings (both her own and other people’s); one gin and tonic too many – but Tina: no. Not even about men, but then, as far as Lucy knew, she hadn’t had a boyfriend since she was a student at Edinburgh, before they’d all met on their journalism course.

And as for what Tina had just written . . . how could anybody send up a friend like that and expect to get away with it?

‘All I did was come out with a few home truths. Seems you can dish it out better than you can take it,’ Lucy said. She got to her feet. ‘I think I’d better go.’

‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ Natalie said. ‘Can’t we all just calm down?’

‘Are you going to ask her to go?’ Lucy demanded. ‘Because it doesn’t look like it.’

‘I want you both to stay,’ Natalie said.

‘I’m sorry, Natalie, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time,’ Lucy told her, and with that she took her leave.

When she got to the car and rummaged for her keys she realized her hands were shaking. God! What a terrible fuck-up. How could she have blown her top like that? But then, how could Tina have written that awful stuff about her?

Or . . . was she just being paranoid and neurotic and chippy? Over the years she and Natalie had helped Tina out with numerous ridiculous assignments, invariably with urgent deadlines. They’d road-tested blackhead strips, gone out and got drunk so Tina could write about what young women talked about down the pub
(the reality had been much ruder than the published version), worn blonde wigs for a day to see if men paid them more attention (they did – but Tina, as a brunette, didn’t get any less).

There had been an understanding between them that you backed each other up. Yes, Tina had called on her and Natalie more than they had called on Tina, but it wasn’t exactly as if Tina’s services were needed to enable Lucy to check stockists for a
Beautiful Interiors
photo shoot, or for Natalie to write about the latest early intervention initiative for underprivileged inner-city children. And Tina had been more than generous in return – there had been advance film screenings, goodies purloined from the beauty desk, and drinks in clubs that the other two didn’t belong to and had never been invited to join.

Had Lucy just been guilty of taking the game too seriously? Had she read herself into something that Tina had probably put together in a half-hour flurry of desperation? Had she failed to give Tina the benefit of the doubt?

She was halfway to Thames Ditton by the time she realized she’d forgotten to give Natalie her third and final present: the little cushion she’d run up from an off-cut of the toile de Jouy fabric from her bedroom, filled with dried lavender from her garden. Oh well, she would have to post it.

It would be possible to make things right . . . wouldn’t it?

It didn’t occur to her to let Hannah know she’d be back early. By the time she turned on to the Green the
awfulness of the visit had receded, as if it belonged to a different life. She had never been more pleased to see the little circle of prettily maintained Edwardian villas, facing each other across a round expanse of grass planted with cherry trees and silver birch.

Home! As soon as she let herself in she was struck by how welcoming and comfortable it was. The only thing that was missing was a pet – a plump tabby maybe, or a friendly red setter? and that was because Adam was allergic.

She put on her slippers and her feet sank into the hall carpet . . . so much nicer and cosier than Natalie’s bare floorboards. She stuck her head round the door of the front room, but there was no sign of Hannah.

She went through to the kitchen. Her favourite part of the house: buttercup-yellow walls, William Morris curtains – lemon, lime and pomegranate – lots of pale oak, French windows leading into the garden, a sofa to one side, in what had once been a play area but was now clear of baby toys.

Still no Hannah.

She would have gone out to take Lottie to Stagecoach and Clemmie to her party, but she should have been back by now. Or had she popped out and neglected to double-lock the front door?

As Lucy started upstairs she heard an animal howl, like a cat doing battle.

She flung open the bedroom door. The smell of sex – visceral, dank, imperative, the opposite of sweet – assaulted her. If it hadn’t been for that, she would scarcely have known what she was looking at was
real: it was like a scene from the sort of dream that left her feeling vaguely ashamed.

The scene was shocking, yes, but also had the dreamlike quality of inevitable revelation.

Adam was fucking Hannah. Doggy-style, on the floor in front of the mirror.

‘You stop that right now!’ Lucy shouted.

Hannah yelped, and Adam saw Lucy standing behind them in the mirror. His face, which had been flushed and exultant, contorted painfully under the influence of two powerful and precisely opposed forces: the desire to stay exactly where he was and the desire to be a million miles away. He delivered one final, regretful thrust and then, as if with a wrenching effort, pulled out.

Hannah made a dash for the en suite. Lucy noted how smooth her little sister’s body was – no stretch marks and no saggy belly. No pubic hair, either, a look that Adam had hinted he might appreciate, but Lucy had been reluctant to provide.

As if surveying a crime scene Lucy took in the steam in the air, the damp towel on the floor, the discarded clothes and the faint scent of her expensive shower gel, the one Adam had given her.

Hannah shut the bathroom door behind her, and Adam grabbed the towel and wound it round his waist, sarong-style. The effect was incongruously camp.

‘You absolute fucking prick,’ Lucy said.

It was a surprise to hear her own voice – it was a surprise that she was capable of something as everyday as speaking – though it didn’t sound like hers: it was harsh and vicious.

He held out one hand to her, maybe to ward her off, or maybe in supplication.

‘I’d ask you how long this has been going on . . . but I don’t think I’d be able to believe you,’ she said.

‘It hasn’t . . . it hasn’t been going on.’

‘What – are you going to tell me this isn’t what it looks like?’

He stared at her in horror and in shame: it struck her that he would have looked at her in much the same way if he had accidentally killed her. But this had been no accident.

‘How could you?’ she said.

His face twisted with a spasm of remorse. ‘I don’t know. She was just there! All the bloody time! Why do you think I was so keen to go to Buenos Aires?’

‘Are you in love with her?’

‘No. No! No, I’m not – Lucy, you have to believe this, it’s you I—’

‘Of course. It was just sex. Right?’

‘It was . . . it was confusing, that’s all, I was confused . . .’

He sat down on the bed, and his back and shoulders slumped.

‘Lucy,’ he said, and he looked so pathetic now that a small part of her almost pitied him, ‘I know I’m a shit and I’ve just done a terrible thing, but if you can’t forgive me, if there isn’t even the faintest possibility, I don’t think I could bear it. Don’t leave me. Please.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said, ‘you are. Under the circumstances, I think it’s the least you can do. I’m going down to the garden now. When I come back in, I want both of you gone.’

He struggled for a moment, then managed to get it out: ‘What are you going to tell the girls?’

Lucy paused at the door. ‘If you really cared about them,’ she said, ‘you might have tried to be a little less confused.’

And then she made her exit.

Moments later she was outside in the garden, in the weak spring sunshine. She had a sudden urge to lie down – to feel the earth underneath her, holding her up. And then she was on her back on the damp, cool grass, looking up at the thin clouds and the sky – toile de Jouy blue – and trying not to think about the scene inside the house, the recriminations, the panic, the packing. What would they take? What would be left?

If only Tina hadn’t mouthed off in that silly column, if she’d just written about something else . . . But that was a ridiculous thing to think. It had happened, it couldn’t be undone.

Somewhere in the house she heard a phone ringing. Oh God – what time was it? Was she late picking Clemmie up?

She checked her watch; it was midday. Clemmie’s friend’s birthday party didn’t finish till one, so most likely it was Natalie, trying to smooth things over. Tina wouldn’t – she’d leave it for a bit. Maybe indefinitely.

She would have to pull herself together. She couldn’t go under. She had children to collect, washing to do, supper to sort out. She couldn’t allow herself to go to pieces. She didn’t have time.

What
was
she going to say to the girls?

JUST OVER A
week later it was Natalie’s turn to pick up a copy of the
Post
and see herself unflatteringly reflected in it.