Over You Page 6

  Lisa got up to change the CD. ‘I am not resentful,’ she repeated in a quieter voice. It was almost as if she was trying to convince herself, let alone the other two.

  ‘It all happened such a long time ago,’ Nell said. ‘To be honest, I’d totally forgotten about Nick.’

  Josie glanced over at Lisa, who was flicking intently through her CDs. We hadn’t forgotten, though, had we, Lise? she felt like saying.

  ‘Mmmm,’ Lisa said non-committally. ‘It’s all water under the bridge now, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes,’ Josie said, her cheeks cooling from the sudden rush of anger. ‘Sorry, Lisa. I shouldn’t have dragged it up. It was just what you said about my boys, I felt really—’

  Lisa finally looked her in the eye. ‘I shouldn’t have called them brats. I’m sorry, too. It wasn’t a personal thing, I tend to call all kids brats.’ She gave a small smile. ‘I’m sure your boys are perfect little angels.’

  Josie forced a smile too, grateful for the peace offering. ‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far,’ she said. ‘But thanks. And about Nick … this is all too late, and we should have had this conversation at the time, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry if I was insensitive, going off with him and—’

  ‘Oh, don’t,’ Lisa said hurriedly. ‘Honestly, there’s no need to say anything about it. What happened happened. And you two were great together, while it lasted. It wasn’t like I had any exclusive rights over him.’

  Nell picked up the champagne bottle and went around filling their glasses. ‘Right, that’s that, then,’ she said. ‘Nick – finally dealt with and laid to rest. Not literally, obviously, but …’ She giggled. ‘Let’s talk about something else now anyway. Something less emotive. Anybody been watching ’Stenders lately?’

  Josie rolled over in bed, dimly aware of morning noises filtering into her mind. It was strange, not hearing the usual sounds of her boys shouting and fighting, the birds singing in the rowan tree outside her bedroom window, Radio 5 burbling from Pete’s bedside clock …

  Lisa’s house sounded different. Josie could hear the faint buzz of traffic from the road outside instead. A bus rumbling as it slowed at the lights. Muffled voices from people walking along the pavement.

  She was in one of Lisa’s guest rooms – there were two – at the front of the house, with wisteria branches framing the window in a woody tangle. If you were going to wake up with a hangover, this was about as soothing a place as you could hope to be in, Josie thought, with its cream walls and large antique bed, its thick oatmeal curtains and honey-coloured waxed floorboards.

  She opened her eyes a crack to see sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains where she’d drunkenly only half closed them the night before. The light was dazzling, and she shut her eyes again immediately as a dull, heavy pain thudded inside her skull.

  Ouch, that had been a bad idea. How much had she drunk yesterday, anyway? Her own body weight in beer, wine and champagne, if the pounding of her head was anything to go by. Ugh. Ugh.

  Her face felt hot. Her eyelashes were clumpy where she hadn’t bothered to take off her mascara the night before. Her hair reeked of Nell’s roll-ups, and her skin had a sour, sweaty tang to it. And to think she had to get all the way home on a train later. She was so going to throw up on it, she knew already.

  Josie lay still for a few moments while the hangover raged around inside her. She could hear some kids shouting in the street outside and had a pang for her own two. How would they have got on, waking up without her this morning?

  She smiled, despite her headache. They were probably loving it. They’d be sprawled out on the sofa, no doubt, still in their Spiderman pyjamas, watching Return of the Jedi and doing their Chewbacca impressions. She couldn’t wait to see them again.

  Ahh. There was Lisa’s voice floating up from downstairs, so she and Nell must already be awake. Josie rubbed her eyes sleepily, then sniffed the air, suddenly feeling more alert. Mmmm. That was definitely the unmistakable scent of bacon drifting up from the kitchen …

  Bacon! All of a sudden, Josie was starving. A mug of tea and a bacon sarnie, dripping with butter and ketchup … Just what she needed. Exactly what she needed to see off this hangover. Good old Lisa had thought of everything.

  Josie sat up, swinging her legs out of bed. The sudden movement made her head spin, and she clutched a hand to her temple, knocking her make-up bag over on the side table as she did so. ‘Oh shit,’ she muttered, as her lipsticks bounced on the floorboards and rolled away under the bed. Her foundation, her eye pencils, her silver pocket mirror … they were cascading out of the bag like a cosmetic fountain.

  Josie grimaced. She had never been the most coordinated person to start with, but a hangover always made her ten times clumsier. Bollocks.

  She took a slurp of water from the glass on the bedside table – thank goodness she hadn’t knocked that everywhere too – and got down on her hands and knees to pick up all her bits and pieces. Ouch. It hurt, bending her head so low. Josie groaned aloud. Why had she drunk so much? And oh God, she’d just remembered that row with Lisa about Nick. Why had she dredged his name up after so long? Why hadn’t she just left it buried?

  Josie shut her eyes as the memory slammed into sharper focus. Oh no, and she’d said all those awful things about Lisa being on her own, and resenting her, and … Oh, help. She was a total liability after a few drinks. A nightmare friend, as well, to come out with such stuff. What were the chances of Lisa suffering a memory block and having no recollection whatsoever of the conversation?

  Josie rolled her eyes. Zero, at a guess.

  Still, the rest of the evening hadn’t been so rancorous at least. They’d all hugged each other good-night when they’d finally run out of steam, so things had ended up OK. And didn’t all the magazines say that it was the sign of a good friendship, when you could be honest with them, sort things out and move on, still friends?

  Josie picked up her lipsticks and stuffed them back in her bag. She, Lisa and Nell would always be friends now, she reckoned. They just had too much history for that to change. It was reassuring, when other things in life were forever shifting, that you could have your best friends as constants, through thick and thin, good times and bad …

  In went the eyelash curlers and the tweezers and the eyeshadow pots and the nail varnish. Not that she’d used any of that last night: Nell had made Josie up with a load of freebies Lisa had donated to them. There was the foundation and the perfume – phew, mercifully unbroken. Was that everything? Where had her little mirror landed?

  Bending her neck stiffly, Josie peered under the bed. Christ, even the space under Lisa’s spare-room bed was tidy and ordered. Josie lived in horror of anyone seeing the cardboard boxes crammed with stuff, and fluffballs like tumbleweed under the bed she shared with Pete.

  Not so in Lisa’s case, though. Of course. There were several rose-patterned storage boxes stacked up neatly right at the back, and a smart black suitcase. Was that her mirror next to it? She stretched an arm under the bed, groping around for where she’d seen the tell-tale flash of silver. Her fingers closed around something – oh, it was the edge of another storage box – and then she managed to knock that over. God, what was wrong with her? She was a right oaf this morning!

  She peered under the bed again and sighed. Now there were heaps of Lisa’s stuff all over the floor. Bloody hell. She was never going to get her bacon sarnie at this rate. She swept her arm around it, dragging everything out into the light. There was the mirror – oh, and another eye pencil she’d missed. And there …

  She blinked uncertainly. There, in a small round frame, was a photo. Of Pete.

  She stared in surprise, her brain racing to make sense of the discovery. Why on earth was there a picture of her husband under Lisa’s bed? How had it ended up there? It wasn’t even a photo she recognized. In fact, she was quite sure she’d never seen it before.

  There he was, Pete, gazing up at her from her hand, as if he could tell the answer to the r
iddle, smiling into the camera, his eyes crinkling at the corners. The photo had been taken a few years ago, she guessed, because he was wearing a top that he’d loved to death one summer – when was it? She couldn’t think suddenly. His hair looked different in the photo, too. Slightly shorter than it was now.

  Josie frowned, confused. She didn’t recognize the photo. She was sure she hadn’t taken it. It had been cut small to fit in the tiny frame, so she couldn’t see the background, couldn’t give it a context. He looked happy, wherever he was. He looked really happy. Josie could tell by the brightness of his face that the sun was shining, and he had a wide smile, head slightly tilted, shoulders relaxed, as if he were on holiday.

  But who was he smiling at? And why was it making her feel so unsettled to look at it?

  Josie took another slurp of water and got to her feet. Still holding the photograph, she went downstairs to the kitchen, head spinning with questions. She felt as if she was in a strange dream, where everything was muddled.

  She opened the kitchen door, and Nell and Lisa both turned towards her, smiles on their faces.

  The bacon was sizzling. The kettle was whistling. Lisa was at the hob, holding a spatula as she turned, and seemed to be saying something, but Josie couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t take it in.

  Josie stood there in her pyjamas and bare feet, hair sticking up on end. She held up the photo in front of her. ‘I found this under the bed,’ she said, the words sticking to the sides of her dry mouth. ‘Why was this under your bed, Lisa?’

  Chapter Five

  Lisa blinked. For a split second, her face changed, a ghost of an expression crossing it fleetingly, and then it was gone. Closed book. She shook her head. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she said briskly, her features wrinkling in a frown. ‘How weird. Coffee?’

  It is weird,’ Josie said warily, her eyes fixed upon Lisa. The smell of bacon turned her stomach now, and the photo felt heavy in her hand. That look in Lisa’s eyes, that flicker of reaction – Josie had caught it before it was wiped clean. Something was going on. ‘I mean, I’ve never even seen this picture before. When was it taken?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Lisa asked, pouring coffee into a mug, her back to Josie. ‘He’s your husband, not mine. I can’t keep track of him!’

  ‘Yes, but I found it in your house,’ Josie said uncertainly. She was trying to catch Lisa’s eye but Lisa was busying herself stirring in milk and rinsing the teaspoon.

  ‘Where did you find it?’ Nell asked, coming over to Josie. ‘Can I see?’

  ‘It’s just a photo of Pete,’ Josie said, handing it to her. ‘It was under the bed. I wasn’t poking around,’ she added hastily. ‘I knocked my make-up bag off the side and everything spilled, and I was just gathering all my bits and bobs that had rolled under the bed, when—’

  ‘There you are, then,’ Lisa put in, flipping the bacon deftly.

  ‘What?’ Josie asked.

  ‘It must have been in your make-up bag,’ Lisa replied. She put down the spatula and handed Josie the mug of coffee. ‘Don’t you see? The photo must have been in your bag all along, and fell out with your other things. Pete obviously put it in there before you left, to surprise you. How sweet!’

  ‘How sweet,’ Josie echoed uncertainly, warming her hands on the mug. Could that really have been what had happened? She wanted to believe Lisa was telling her the truth. But wouldn’t she have noticed the photo last night when she was getting ready to go out?

  ‘Aw, how romantic is that?’ Nell said, passing the photo back. ‘He didn’t want you to miss him. Bless!’

  Josie sipped her coffee, trying to make sense of it all. If the photo had been right at the bottom of her makeup bag, there was a chance she wouldn’t have seen it last night. After all, she’d brought tons of slap with her, most of which she hadn’t even used. So the photo could easily have been underneath it all, unnoticed, she supposed …

  And, if she was honest, she did like the idea of Pete choosing a snapshot of himself, trimming it to fit in the small frame and hiding it in her bag. It was the sort of thing he might have done back when they were first seeing each other, in those heady romantic days. The thought that he could have done it again, after seven years of marriage … Well, it was lovely, wasn’t it? What a thoughtful gesture.

  Lisa was right. It was sweet. Romantic.

  ‘Bacon sandwich?’ Lisa asked pleasantly, and the conversation was closed.

  Josie stared out of the window as the city sped past. It was eleven-thirty now, and the sun glittered on the Thames, bouncing off all the glass riverfront buildings with a thousand different sparkles. It tricked you like that, London, showed you its best side just as you were leaving it behind.

  Now the train was hurtling through a maze of terraces, thundering through Battersea and Wandsworth Common and on towards Crystal Palace. Rows and rows of streets and houses and lives, all packed in together. She saw a barbecue in one garden, children playing on swings in another. A barking black Labrador bounced after a ball on somebody’s lawn, washing lines were full and fluttering, back doors and windows open to let in the sun. Lawns were being mown, flowerbeds tended. Inside, in the coolness of shaded rooms, young couples would be entwined in bed still, curtains drawn against the day. And in busy kitchens, Sunday lunch was being chopped and boiled and roasted, while children wound about their parents, droning, ‘Is it nearly ready? I’m starving! I’m THIS hungry!’

  Josie took out her mobile, planning to call Pete and let him know when her train was due in. She’d originally thought she’d have lunch with her friends and head home this afternoon, but Lisa had made her apologies after breakfast, claiming to have hours’ worth of reading to plough through before a meeting tomorrow, and Nell had already arranged to go to her mum’s for Sunday dinner. So she was returning earlier than she’d guessed, but that was cool. She was looking forward to it.

  Josie was just about to dial when she stopped herself and put the phone down. Actually, it would be more fun to surprise them by rocking up when they weren’t expecting her, wouldn’t it? She could almost hear the excited shrieks from the boys as they mobbed her. It made her smile just to think about it. She couldn’t wait to hold them again, to put her arms around their wriggling bodies and feel their twin heartbeats thumping against her own. And, of course, there was Rose to gear up for now! Tonight was the night, after all Perfect timing – a romantic reunion with Pete was the very thing to top off the weekend, especially if there was some insemination as a Brucie bonus!

  Her phone bleeped as a text message came in. It was from Nell.

  Had such a fab w/e with u – loved it. N x

  Josie grinned and texted her back.

  Me too. Come and stay soon, she wrote. Love you.

  Oh, it had been great to see Nell again. The two of them had shared a cab to King’s Cross, then had a long affectionate hug on the concourse. It was only as they d been about to part that Josie remembered the photo of Pete. ‘Nell, you don’t think …’ she started. She paused, searching for the best way to phrase the question. ‘You know that thing with the photo this morning? Was it me, or was Lisa being a bit … odd?’

  Nell hesitated. ‘I’m not sure,’ she replied. ‘I could hardly think straight, my hangover was such a shocker, so the whole thing rather passed me by. But it did feel as if there was a bit of a strange atmosphere. Tense.’ She shrugged, then nudged Josie. ‘What, do you think she’s got a bit of a crush on your Pete or something? D’you reckon there was a stash of love poems under her bed as well?’

  Josie wrinkled her nose. ‘No, I …’ She felt stupid for having asked the question now. ‘It was probably nothing. I’d only just woken up, maybe I was reading too much into it. She seemed a bit … defensive, that’s all. Like I’d rattled her.’ She tried to remember the expression that had flitted across Lisa’s face, but it was hard to dredge it up in her mind now. Then a thought struck her. ‘Oh God! I wasn’t thinking. Maybe she was being cool with me after all the Nick stuff last
night!’

  Nell nodded sagely. ‘Could have been. It did go a bit heavy, didn’t it?’ She rolled her eyes in a comical way. ‘I bet Nick’s ears were well and truly on fire, with all that arguing over him.’

  ‘It wasn’t arguing over him, it was just a drunken lapse,’ Josie retaliated. ‘It wasn’t like either of us still carry a torch for him.’

  ‘Well, I dunno,’ Nell put in. ‘Lisa seemed very touchy on the subject.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Josie said. The more Josie thought about it, the more her hunch seemed plausible. ‘All the more reason why that must have been it – the tension this morning, I mean. She woke up, remembered the set-to with me and was feeling a bit humpy about it. Then I burst in, brandishing Pete’s photo in her face all accusingly, and …’ She giggled, relieved that she’d worked it out. ‘No wonder she wasn’t exactly chummy.’

  Nell raised an eyebrow. ‘By Jove, I think she’s got it. Listen, I’d better fly, anyway. Back to my mum’s for the Spanish Inquisition on why I haven’t settled down with my two-point-two children and mortgage and sensible job yet … God, how am I going to cope?’

  Josie laughed. ‘You don’t have to,’ she reminded her. ‘Spare room at ours whenever you need it.’

  Nell gave her a last hug. ‘Mrs Winter, you are too kind,’ she said. ‘I’ll probably be on your doorstep before the week’s out.’

  An hour or so later, Josie pushed open the front door and dropped her bags. ‘Hello! I’m back!’ she called. ‘Anybody home?’

  There was silence. Not the breathless, we’re-hiding kind of silence she knew from the boys, but a proper, dense, nobody-in absence of sound. ‘Oh,’ Josie said aloud. She glanced back out of the front door, and realized that Pete’s car wasn’t on the driveway. She’d been so excited about surprising them with her appearance she hadn’t even noticed.