Foursome (21 page)

24

Isabel stops over on her way back from the airport. Alex will have dropped the girls off at ballet and she has an hour or so to kill before she needs to go and pick them up. If ever a woman could be described as glowing, then Isabel is it. Even Dan notices, which is saying something because Dan has basically no observational skills whatsoever. He could never be a witness. Even if a burglar walked over to him, took off his balaclava and introduced himself by name, Dan would still have trouble picking him out of a line-up the next day.

She gives me the edited highlights of the past twenty-four hours, which include a bit of shopping, a sixteenth-century castle and the entire plot of a Mills and Boon novel. Luke has proved to be romantic, not to mention insatiable on top of his other qualities. Actually I do ask her to, in fact, never mention that again. But, such is Isabel’s state of euphoria that whatever I say I can’t seem to get it into her head that I don’t want to hear the details of her sex life. She’s my friend. I don’t want to be forced to imagine her… well, you know what.

I put to Isabel my dinner plans with Rose and Simon and she’s delighted. She wants to show Luke off. She has told him all about me and Dan, of course, and, she hopes I don’t mind, about Dan and Alex’s falling out. Luke suffered badly where friends were concerned in the separation from his wife, because most of their coupley circle was made up of people she knew before they were married. They had always tended to socialize with her friends, he told Izz, because his mates were scattered all over the country while his wife’s had, by chance, all settled in London. Great, I think, he can join our little tentative new circle. I hope I like him. I daren’t even think that I might not and, to be honest, seeing the effect he is having on Isabel I don’t see how I couldn’t.

‘Sound him out for next week,’ I say. ‘We can do any night, that’s how sad we are.’

Later in the day Isabel calls me, not sounding anywhere near so happy.

‘It’s Alex,’ she says when I ask her what’s happened. ‘He was there when I went to pick the girls up and… this is going to sound crazy… but he asked if he could come back to the house with us and then, once the twins had gone off to their room, he started begging me to take him back.’

‘You are kidding me.’

‘He said he had realized finally that he’d made a huge mistake and he misses us so much…’

‘Not to mention you just went away for a few days with another man. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction. It’s textbook.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. He’s asked me to at least think about it. Not to say never, which, of course, I never would because he’s still my kids’ father so…’

Oh no.

‘Think about what you really want. You told me you were never really happy with him, remember.’ Not that she knows the half of it, of course, because we chose to protect her from the full horror of his declaration to me and, let’s not forget, all the other women.

‘Don’t worry. I’m not about to take him back.’

She’s saying the right words, but I’m not sure they sound that convincing. Well, that’s something, I suppose. I couldn’t stand back and watch Alex mess up Isabel’s life again just because he couldn’t bear to be on his own and he’d been rejected by the woman he supposedly really loves and his best friend. And I can’t even think about the nightmare of having him back in our lives after everything that’s gone on. Although, if she did go back to him, what would be the alternative? Lose Isabel and the girls too?

‘Isabel, he’s manipulating you. He’s guilt tripping you about the girls and being on his own and God knows what.’

‘I know. I know all that. Like I said, I have absolutely no intention of taking him back. I’m just concerned about him, that’s all. I’ve agreed to let him spend more time with the girls because he misses them like crazy. And they miss him, obviously. You know,’ she says, ‘I thought you’d be all for me getting back with him, getting our cosy little group back together. I guess him hitting on you and then falling out with Dan has really changed the way you feel about him.’

‘You could say that. Just don’t let him inveigle his way back into your life. Of course he should be able to spend more time with Nicola and Natalie because it’ll be good for them. But don’t let him use that as a way of trying to spend time with you too.’

‘I won’t. I’m just worried about him, that’s all. Don’t be too hard on him.’

‘He’s an adult. He’ll cope. And look at how far you’ve come now…’

‘Rebecca, listen to me. I said I have no intention of taking him back. Stop going on about it. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now.’

She’s right. I’m lecturing. I just want to make sure she’s really got her guard up. Alex is insidious. If he gets it into his head that he wants her back, then he’ll work on her and work on her till she relents.

‘Sorry. I was getting carried away. I’m just protective of you, you know that.’

‘Besides everything else,’ she says, ‘I have Luke now.’

‘You do. And he sounds like a prince in comparison to Alex.’

‘He is. Which reminds me. How about Tuesday for our dinner? He says he can’t wait to meet you, although I think really he’s terrified.’

‘It’ll be fine. I’m just going to ask him what his intentions are…’

Isabel laughs. ‘You have to be nice. Don’t frighten him.’

‘Me? As if I would…’

*

Luckily Rose and Simon are up for Tuesday too so I spend most of the weekend planning what I’m going to cook and making trips backwards and forwards to Waitrose because I keep changing my mind. I have warned them all that the food isn’t exactly going to be cordon bleu – it has to be stuff that I can make in advance or prepare in the short time I’ll have once I get home from work. I settle on monkfish tails marinated in lemon and rosemary. Dan is making the dessert – a baked cheesecake – and William has offered to bring something home from his Food Technology class, which is on Tuesday afternoon, for the starter, although I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. Zoe is torn between her natural desire to look upon the whole evening with disdain and to spend it in her room, and a seemingly almost overwhelming urge to get a look at Auntie Isabel’s new boyfriend. She settles on a strategy of coming out when they first arrive for a few minutes, just to see what he’s like.

‘Don’t pull a face if you don’t like the look of him,’ I tell her, and she rolls her eyes at me.

I still have to get through Monday and Tuesday at work before the big event and I feel a little flicker of excitement on my way in on Monday when I remember Mary has her audition this morning. I give her a quick call to check she’s ready and that she knows where she’s got to go.

By ten o’clock there’s no sign of Lorna so we figure she’s still holed up at home. I tell Kay not to bother with the check-up phone calls. ‘She’s fine,’ I say. ‘She’ll be back when she feels like it.’

Joshua and Melanie are understandably getting a little twitchy now about when she might return so I offer up a version of my visit to her flat on Friday for Joshua’s benefit: she’s desperate to come back but the doctor says she needs a few more days. She won’t stop working though and just relax, so it’s probably taking longer than it should.

And then, privately, a slightly different but still not entirely truthful version for Melanie: she’s very depressed still. It’s just going to take a while for the drugs to kick in and then she’ll be fine. It was true what I told Joshua, though, that she won’t stop working.

I’m a little concerned myself that she’s not appeared. All the lying is driving me crazy and I know that if at any point Joshua asks me straight out exactly what is going on with Lorna I’ll end up telling him. My mother always told me that if you tell a lie it escalates and she was right. It takes on a life of its own and you have to tell loads more untruths to shore it up. Plus I now have the added fear that if I can’t keep this up it’s going to become apparent to everyone that I have been being utterly deceitful over the past week or so. I have jeopardized the reputation of the company by covering up Lorna’s absence and trying to do her work myself. Even though I am enjoying myself in a way I never have before, I need Lorna to come back soon before everything gets forced out in the open.

We get through the day fairly uneventfully. Heather calls me to say where the hell is Lorna? She didn’t leave her last agency – one of the top agencies if I remember – to be ignored. I pacify her as best I can and remind her about her upcoming lunch with Niall Johnson. I ask her if there’s anything I can be doing for her in the meantime and she scoffs and says no, she doesn’t think so. Her tone implies that she’s way too important to need the help of anyone’s assistant, she needs the A team around her, but she somehow stops herself from saying it. The more dealings I have with Heather the more I decide I don’t really like her. She has this imperious attitude, this way of making you feel really small. She appeared out of nowhere on our TV screens a couple of years ago, having caught the eye of some TV executive in a bar somewhere and I wonder if she’s worried she could go back there just as easily if she’s too familiar with the little people. As if being unimportant might just rub off.

In all the excitement on Friday I forgot to watch Jasmine on
London at Six
, but luckily Kay had the presence of mind to Sky Plus it before she left, so we watch it together now. Jasmine has nothing at all to say about the subject really, but she delivers what she does manage to come up with with such conviction that she gets away with contradicting herself left, right and centre. Actually, her enthusiasm is a welcome relief from the po-faced worthiness of the other guests and I can see why it works to have her on there. I phone her to tell her well done and I promise to keep on Phil’s case about future shows.

‘Maybe you could be a regular,’ I say. ‘They know you can talk about anything.’

‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ Jasmine gushes. ‘Suggest it.’

I promise to sound Phil out, not even bothering with the whole ‘let me speak to Lorna about it’ preamble. I’m perfectly capable of handling this one on my own.

In the end I don’t get a chance to call Phil because there’s too much else to do and the day passes in a flash. Before I know it I’m walking into the mess formerly known as my kitchen where Dan and William are using every utensil we have to make a baked lemon cheesecake. I leave them having fun and phone the local Chinese for a take out.

Tuesday is much the same. I’m in a rhythm now and I don’t even think about whether or not Lorna will come in. I call any of the clients I think need a bit of attention, I read casting breakdowns and, spurred on by Mary’s audition, I have made a list of all the big, long-running productions – the soaps, the police and hospital shows – and I have begun to call them all to find out if they have any new – and as yet uncast – characters coming up. I’m making friends with all the production secretaries and they’re all very helpful, promising to call me back if there’s anything.

I get a call to say that Mary didn’t get the part on
Reddington Road
, but that they loved her and they’ll definitely keep her in mind for any future roles. She’s gutted on the one hand, but buoyed up by their positive comments. ‘It was a great idea to make that DVD,’ she says, and I don’t even bother trying to pretend it was Lorna’s idea. I’m allowed to take some credit.

I speak to Phil who sounds quite interested in the prospect of Jasmine as a regular – only once a week, though, he says quickly, not every day. He tells me he’ll have a think about it and get back to me.

By five thirty I realize I’ve barely noticed the day go by again and I suddenly remember I was meant to be leaving early to cook for my little dinner party. Everyone’s meant to be arriving at half seven so, by the time I get home, there’s just long enough to get the monkfish into the marinade and chop the vegetables before I need to get in the bath. I want to make a good impression on Luke. Not in an ‘I want him to fancy me’ kind of way. God forbid. No, I just want him to think that Isabel’s friends look like the kind of people he would want to socialize with. I squeeze lemon juice on the smoked salmon for the (very simple) starter that I have decided to go for rather than risk giving them all botulism from something William has concocted (‘eggs au gratin’ apparently). It suddenly occurs to me that I haven’t checked if everyone eats fish. I’m sure Rose had cod and chips in the pub the other night, but I have no idea about Simon or, obviously, Luke. I decide it’s too late to worry about that now.

I bully Zoe into helping William prepare the salad and then I take myself off to get ready. I’m actually really looking forward to tonight. I’m feeling optimistic about our chances of gelling as a group. Most of all I’m looking forward to meeting the man who is responsible for Isabel’s new lease of life. I wish we could fast forward a few weeks to get these first few awkward evenings over with, cut straight to the ‘we’re all so comfortable with each other there’s absolutely no pressure for us to do anything other than just get together’ stage, but, nevertheless, I’m excited about the evening to come.

Rose and Simon are first to arrive and we get them settled with a drink, then Dan chats away with them in the living room while I check on things in the kitchen. Zoe pops out of her bedroom and I shake my head to indicate that it’s not Isabel and Luke and she goes back in, disappointed.

Isabel and Luke turn up five minutes later. She looks gorgeous, but my eye barely rests on her for a second before moving off to give Luke the once over.

‘This is Luke,’ Isabel is saying. ‘And this is Rebecca, of course, and Dan.’

Luke shakes both our hands. He’s definitely handsome – more handsome than Alex, which pleases me. He’s tall, broad and has, I notice, very thick hair. But it’s the fact that he looks so… nice… that strikes me the most. He has deep-set lines around his eyes, which tell me that he smiles a lot. He looks like a man who’d be kind to you, a man you could trust.

‘Nice to meet you both,’ he says, ‘although slightly terrifying at the same time.’

‘I’ve told him he’s on trial,’ Isabel says. ‘So he’s going to be on his best behaviour.’