Although Joely hadn’t expected that, it about summed it up.
‘Or is it the loss of your best friend that’s causing you the greater sadness?’
Joely thought of Martha, detested her and was about to speak when Freda said, ‘She’ll never be your best friend again so you might as well forget about her.’
Well, that was Martha dealt with, and fleetingly sorry that Andee wasn’t around to be amused by Freda’s directness, Joely said, ‘She’ll have to be in my life going forward because my daughter’s father is with her …’
Freda’s hand went up. ‘Let’s talk about him and you, not her. We need to sort out the betrayal, and being someone who has known it, suffered it, many times in her life, my first piece of advice to you is to stop jumping to conclusions you have no evidence for, especially if they cause you pain.’
Joely frowned. ‘It happened,’ she said. ‘I’m not imagining it.’
‘Has he mentioned divorce before?’
Realizing her mistake, Joely shook her head. ‘But it has to come up at some point.’
‘Why does it have to? And why put yourself through the torment of imagining it when there are other things that should concern you more, such as who else is suffering because of this betrayal?’
Not having expected that Joely sat quietly thinking of Holly and her mother. Jamie too, because they always worried about each other.
‘You believe that you and your husband are the main players in this – though you acknowledge that your daughter and ex-best friend are also involved – but in your mind it’s really about you and … What’s his name?’
‘Callum.’
‘Callum. Of course it is about you two, because if you can resolve your issues the hurt will go away for those around you – apart from the best friend, but I don’t think we’re very concerned about her. She’s no more than a moth.’
Joely blinked before remembering that this was a reference to Freda’s literary works. ‘When you write,’ she said, ‘you usually turn moths into the main players.’
‘But they’re still moths, and if you’re familiar with my books you’ll know that they’re drawn to the luminous aura of success, love, power – you and your husband would have represented at least two out of the three for your friend – but moths are always burned when they go too close to the source of their fascination. They don’t survive.’
Finding this thought quite pleasurable, if a little extreme, Joely said, ‘In this case the moth has put the light out and is creating a new light of her own, so maybe I’m now the moth.’
Clearly unimpressed by that, Freda said, ‘Only if you choose to be. The question is, do you want to resolve your issues with Callum?’
Liking that she might have the option, Joely said, ‘As far as I was concerned, we didn’t have any, but obviously he wouldn’t agree with that or he wouldn’t have gone.’ She didn’t have to go into the entire truth of it all and the part she’d played herself, this was deep enough.
Freda gave a small sigh and checking the time on her watch she got up to go and take the pudding from the oven. After placing it to cool, she returned to her chair, dropping another log onto the fire before sitting down. ‘My husband and I didn’t have any “issues” as you put it,’ she said, ‘our marriage was sound, our understanding of each other had few flaws – I say few because I never did understand why he was unfaithful to me. Do you understand why yours was unfaithful to you?’
Joely shifted uncomfortably, not willing to take any blame in spite of knowing she should.
As though reading her mind, Freda said, ‘I’m not going to tell you what to do, I’m going to tell you what I did with my husband and you must decide for yourself if it was the right thing.’
Still suspecting that Sir and Mr Donahoe were one and the same, meaning Freda was about to jump forward many years in the story, Joely was eager to listen.
‘I knew before we were married,’ Freda began, her eyes starting to lose focus as her lips trembled slightly and her fingers tightened their hold on each other, ‘that he had a roving eye. I don’t think he actually misbehaved during our courting years, at least not in the biblical sense, but he was always very comfortable in female company. He adored women, revered them, and I know he adored me. That never changed. We always loved each other from the time we first met right up until the time he died. I still love him, of course, feelings that deep don’t disappear because someone has stopped living, we all know that. What I hadn’t realized until I lost David was that in some ways they seem to get stronger which makes them even harder to let go of.’
David. So it was Sir.
And he’d turned into a serial adulterer.
‘Certainly I’ve never been able to let go of mine, but I confess I don’t want to. They’re what hold me together. He was everything to me, and he always will be. Of course I’ve loved others, my family naturally – my nephews are the only ones still alive and I care for the youngest as much as if he were my own son.’ She broke off for a moment, pressed a hand to her brow as though smoothing out the frown and continued. ‘Each one of my husband’s affairs broke my heart and he knew it. He hated himself for hurting me, swore it would never happen again, but it did. Sometimes he’d leave me for a few weeks, even a few months, and my despair was so great that my family would fear for what I might do if he didn’t come back. He always did and I always opened my arms to him, because I knew he’d realized, yet again, that nothing would ever mean as much to him as the love we shared. Other women were like a drug, you see. It was the forbidden fruit, the risk, the danger even, and there was plenty of that. He craved it as profoundly as the music he loved. He tried hard to control the urges, he really did, and I did everything I could to help him, but he was a handsome and fascinating man with the kind of magnetism that made him irresistible to everyone who knew him, not just women. You could say that he was the candle burning bright, and we were his moths – and no amount of pain could force us to protect ourselves from him.’
She paused, touched a hand to her mouth and continued. ‘Unlike other addicts he didn’t have to go out looking for his drug of choice, because it – they – came to him.’ She gave a small, humourless laugh. ‘The women, tall, thin, short, blonde, English, foreign … Each of them with their obsessions, beliefs, delusions and most of all their temptations … In trying to help him I agreed to go through a period of isolation with him. We stopped our friends coming to the house and we didn’t go out unless it was locally and together. It didn’t last; he simply wasn’t cut out to be reclusive. He loved to socialize and entertain, and so did I. At weekends our home was always full of guests. We’d throw parties in the meadow, or on the beach, grand dinners in the dining room that’s now the den, or intimate soirées in the music room. He loved to play for our friends, and there were many who could take up instruments too and the rest of us would dance and sing and drink cocktails into the small hours.’
She raised a hand to her face again and Joely saw how shaky it had become. She even wondered if there were tears in Freda’s eyes, but there was no sign of any when she looked up, only of a small, knowing sort of smile.