Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel (29 page)

All I can think about is Joe and last night. And what I’ve done to Emily. My loyal, lovely friend who has been with me and Cate through thick and thin. I’ve always felt that she knew
what I’d been through when Dad died after her brother’s death in a car crash. It was Emily and Cate who got me through The Edwin Years, as much of a damp squib as they turned out. And
now, what kind of friend have I become that I’d allow her boyfriend, even for a second, to put his lips anywhere near mine?

What’s worse than any of this is the fact that I wanted it, not just in the half a minute or so when it was happening. I wanted him to continue.
All night
.

I take a spoonful of rice pudding and wonder if what happened in the Honeymoon Suite of the Moonlight Hotel represented some bizarre displaced affection on my part because he’s filled my
dad’s hotel full of nice cushion covers and kept the chandelier – and OK, saved the place from certain dereliction? Perhaps it was the hotel, the memories that I fell in love with, not
Joe and—

God, what am I saying?
Love?
Seriously?

There’s only one man I’ve ever used the L word about – ever – and he’s sitting in front of me now, trying to persuade me to come over tonight to watch
The Great
British Bake Off
with him.

‘It’s pastry night. Though I do realise it’s sad that I know that,’ he smiles.

‘Not at all – I love the
Bake Off
too,’ I reassure him.

‘I wonder how long it’ll take Paul to complain about someone’s soggy bottom? He hates them. Though don’t we all,’ he smirks.

I force a smile and he looks terribly disappointed with this reaction, as if it’s worthy of a voluminous guffaw. Like he’s used to.

‘OK, Edwin,’ I say decisively. ‘I’ll come and watch the
Bake Off
with you. It’s a deal.’

He sits up a little straighter. ‘Excellent. I might get some Prosecco in. Or I can cook for you again if you like? I honestly don’t mind.’

‘Oh, no – don’t go to any trouble.’ I squirm.

He sits and holds my gaze until it becomes a bit uncomfortable. ‘Nothing is too much trouble, Lauren,’ he says in a low voice. Then, to my alarm, he reaches over to whisper in my
ear. ‘If I could kiss you right now, I would.’

I realise a group of Year Ones are looking at us.

‘I need to fetch something from the staff room,’ I announce, standing up and grabbing my tray. ‘See you later, Edwin.’

‘See you at 8 p.m., then,’ he winks. ‘And don’t be late, or you’ll miss the technical challenge. Though I could always set you a technical challenge all your own .
. .’

I get back into the staff room and take a call from Brian, who tells me that my car just had a flat battery and, as a favour to Mum, he agrees to tow it to school for me and get it going again.
I’m ending the call, overflowing with profuse gratitude, when a text pings on to my phone. I somehow knew Joe would be in touch. But it doesn’t stop my stomach from lurching when I open
up his message.

I compose a text back.
Joe, I feel sick about what happened last night and the only way I can think of to deal with this is by staying as far from you as possible. I hope you
can respect that.

As I press Send, I am reminded that I am going to Singapore in a matter of weeks. Which is good. Because that’s when my world is going to get back on track. This is what’s going to
happen: I’ll end up with Edwin. And Emily will stay with Joe.

I am suddenly gripped by a panicked thought: that he might tell her what I did. What
he
did. Then I tell myself not to be so stupid. He’s hardly going to confess to her that
he’s
been unfaithful, is he? He might be a cad – and me a disloyal bitch – but neither of us are complete idiots. And neither of us, I suspect, could bear the effect this
revelation could have on Emily.

I sit on one of the soft-back chairs and close my eyes, desperate to try and think for the ten minutes left before my next lesson. But as the coffee machine drips, my head just seems to spin
harder – until my thoughts are interrupted by the beep of my phone. This time it’s from Emily.

Can you talk? I know you’re at work, but this is urgent. Will you give me a ring?
It seems uncharacteristically blunt and unfriendly.

I hastily gather my things and head outside into the car park, where I dial her number. She answers after one ring.

‘I need to talk to you, Lauren,’ she hisses, clearly trying to keep this conversation private from whomever she’s with.

I swallow. ‘What about?’

‘It’s not something I can discuss on the phone. Can you meet me?’ Her voice is strangled.

‘Sure, when?’ I ask.

‘Straight after work?’

‘Of course, no problem at all. How about at the Wateredge Inn?’

‘OK. Good,’ she replies. ‘I’ll see you then, shall I?’

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘And Emily – is everything all right?’

She pauses. ‘No, Lauren. I can’t honestly say it is.’

The rest of the afternoon is torture. All I can think about is Emily and how the conversation might unfold when I meet her. I’m so fixated on the issue that, as I dart
out of work as early as I can get away with and climb into my car, I almost don’t hear my phone ring. As I register a muffled tone, I wrestle it out of my bag and see Mum’s name on the
screen. I press answer.

‘I’m just phoning to see if Brian managed to fix your car?’

‘He did,’ I say, feeling too distracted to add anything further to this conversation.

‘Did he charge you?’

‘No, he didn’t, unbelievably. Thanks for putting me in touch with him, Mum.’

‘He’s a good bloke.’

‘I’ll drop him an email to say thank you again,’ I reply. ‘Listen, Mum, I’m sorry to run but—’

‘Before you go . . . I found out about the gazebo you were asking about.’

I put the key in the ignition. ‘Really?’

‘I bumped into Brenda McCullum. Do you remember her?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘She was your dad’s deputy for a while. She had a son with autism and they lived in Coniston, and—’

‘So what did she say?’

‘There was a fire, shortly before your dad became ill. It was only after she’d said it that I remembered. It wasn’t a big one, no one was hurt. But part of the gazebo was
damaged and had to be torn down. Your dad had been trying to persuade the owners of the Moonlight Hotel to let him order a replacement. Then he became ill and everything overtook it.’

‘I don’t remember any of this.’

‘No,’ she says softly. ‘We had other things to worry about at the time, didn’t we?’

I arrive at the Wateredge Inn, at the apex of Windermere and, seeing that Em isn’t here, buy two glasses of wine to take outside to the beer garden. There’s a table
in front of the marina, where I set down the drinks and sit, unable to stop my fingers twitching against the wood legs as I wait. There are a handful of swing benches across from me, all occupied
by couples gazing across the sunlit water and suppressing smiles at the two young boys playing hide and seek behind the bushes.

A shadow appears on the table and I look up to see Emily standing above, her jaw clenched. She lowers herself on to the bench, refusing to look at me.

‘I don’t want that,’ she says flatly, gesturing at the glass of wine.

And that’s all it takes for me to be certain: she knows.

She knows what’s happened between Joe and me and she hates me for it so much she can’t even bear to share a drink with me.

I can hardly blame her.

I brace myself for the conversation we’re about to have, the confrontation and the absolute knowledge that I will get down on my knees and beg for her forgiveness. But as she starts
talking, the words that tumble from her mouth feel woolly and disjointed, and it’s hard to process them.

‘You know how sometimes, you’re on your little path,’ she begins, ‘and things might not be perfect, but you’re so happy and grateful to be with someone that the
thought that something might happen to throw everything into disarray doesn’t even cross your mind?’

I nod and feel tears gather in my eyes.

‘That’s how I’ve been feeling lately: head over heels in love. Knowing that this is the strongest and hardest and best I’ll ever feel about another human being. And, not
even looking to the future, because I was so incredibly exhilarated by the present.’

‘Is that how you feel, Emily?’ I manage.

She looks down at the ground. ‘That’s how I
felt
.’

‘But something’s changed?’

She nods. ‘Everything’s changed.’

My spine seems to chill.

‘I’ve found out something and I honestly don’t know how to handle it, Lauren.’ She looks into my eyes.

‘I understand.’ I wait for her big eruption. For the drink thrown in my face. For the shouting, the screaming, the cries of what a bitch I am and how I’ve ruined her life, her
relationship. All of which I’d deserve.

But when I lift up my chin, I see that she’s not doing any of those things. And as a single, salty tear slips down her face, she looks up and says the words that change everything.

‘I’m pregnant.’

I feel as though I’ve been winded. I can’t talk, but neither can Emily. She just sits, sobbing quietly as I walk round the bench, sit down and embrace her, my mind
twisting and turning.

‘Does Joe know?’

She wipes away the tears. ‘Lauren, I don’t want Joe to know. Not yet. You mustn’t say anything.’

I frown, taking this in. ‘OK . . .’

‘I don’t want
anyone
to know. Not until I’ve decided what to do.’

It takes a second for the meaning behind her words to filter through. ‘You’re thinking of having an abortion?’ As soon as I’ve said it I wonder why I’m surprised.
Emily has never wanted kids and she doesn’t have a desk job where she could put up her feet and look forward to maternity leave. She quite simply couldn’t continue to climb up mountains
while pregnant.

She starts sobbing again. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. This is such a mess.’

I clutch her hand. ‘When did you find out?’

‘Last night, after salsa,’ she sniffs. ‘I’ve been puking up my guts for the last week – I can’t keep a damn thing down. Then I stopped off at Booths and
bought a pregnancy test on the way home. I did it as soon as I got in the house.’

The irony hits me with a queasy punch that I could well have been kissing Joe – rolling around in the Honeymoon Suite with him, no less – while Emily was busy discovering that he had
fathered her first child.

I feel sick with guilt. Sick with disgust. Sick with hatred – for Joe, but most of all for me. My treachery.

‘What am I going to do, Lauren?’

‘Surely . . . Joe is the first person you need to discuss it with.’

‘Lauren,
no
,’ she says, glaring at me defiantly. ‘
Nobody
can know. Not Joe. Not Cate. Not my mum. Not anyone.’

‘OK. I’ve got it.’ I take another slug of wine. She reaches for hers, then hesitates, before pushing it away. Her mind is clearly not made up on the future of this baby.

‘I want you to know this,’ I tell her. ‘Whatever you decide to do, Emily, I will be right behind you. I’ll support you. If you decide to have the baby—’

‘I can’t contemplate anything that far ahead. I just need to
think
.’ She reaches over and clutches my hand again. ‘Thanks for being such a good listener, Lauren.
I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘Don’t say that.’ This is the closest I’ve ever come to wanting to die on the spot.

‘But it’s true,’ she insists.

I look out across the lake as the two little boys find a free swing bench and start pushing it far harder than it was designed for. And one thought engulfs me: how impossible it would be to stay
here – with Emily, Joe and their baby – and for me ever to be able to live with myself.

I arrive at Edwin’s house forty minutes after we’d arranged and he answers the door in a state of breathless pandemonium. ‘They’re already on to the
second challenge. The first was a Princesstårta.’ He shuffles me through the door urgently. ‘It’s a tart made with custard, whipped cream, marzipan and a bright green
covering. Quite the thing if you’re at a Swedish dinner party. Quick – can’t miss the next one.’

He darts into the living room and leaps over the back of the sofa, in time to catch Paul Hollywood confide that he ‘prefers the big ones’, something I can only assume refers to the
batch of macaroons in front of him.

As I approach the sofa, the scene is similar to the kind you’d expect from a bloke during the FA Cup Final. Only Edwin’s version is rather different. He is not surrounded by cans of
Stella but there’s an empty bottle of Prosecco lying at his feet, along with half a plate of
bruschette al pomodoro
, garnished with rocket. I can tell before I sit next to him that
he’s tipsy, and for a moment it feels nice to be the sober one after the fiasco last time I was in this flat.

‘You look gorgeous,’ he declares, taking a bite out of a bruschetta.

‘Thanks, Edwin,’ I reply awkwardly as he tears his eyes away back to the television. I have no wish to be here after what I’ve just learned from Emily, but I didn’t want
to let Edwin down. Also, I thought it might distract me from the urge to throw myself under a bus. ‘Should I help myself to a drink?’

He is momentarily torn between good manners and Mary and Paul.

‘Of course. What can I get you, hun?’ he replies and, putting aside my abject shock at being called ‘hun’ by Edwin, I tell him I’ll have a glass of water but insist
on getting it myself.

When I return to the sofa for the rest of the
Bake Off
, it’s fair to say that I’m fighting a losing battle for Edwin’s attention against seven Austrian tortes and a
batch of rosemary-infused drop scones. The thing is, I don’t mind. I’m actually relieved that Edwin is so distracted, because it takes the pressure of his gaze away from me, at least
until Mel and Sue say cheeri-bye and the closing credits roll.