‘What can I do to make things right between us?’ Joely asked, unable to let her go like this.
‘You’re asking me? Why don’t you ask yourself?’ She could be so sharp at times. An over-privileged, over-beautiful teen who hadn’t yet learned how easy it was to hurt people. Maybe because she was hurting too.
‘Holly, that’s enough with the attitude,’ Callum interrupted, appearing in the doorway.
Throwing out her hands, Holly cried, ‘You’re treating me like I’m the one to blame around here, but it’s her. It’s like we’ve all stopped existing, we don’t matter any more!’
‘I said enough. Your mother loves you and she’s going to miss you, so try to be nice before we leave.’
Holly’s frown darkened as she muttered, ‘From you, that’s great, but whatever.’
Later, when Holly was outside in the car waiting to go, Joely used pride to suppress her tears as she looked at Callum, still not quite believing he would go through with this. They belonged together; surely he felt that as deeply as she did. They’d shared so much, had digital albums full of it, and what about all the dreams they had yet to see through? He was going to find out pretty soon that he was making a mistake. Martha wouldn’t rub his back when it ached the way Joely did. She’d balk at cutting his toenails, and hate the way he hawked and coughed like a stuck volcano in the mornings. She already didn’t share his love of France and fine wines – Martha liked Spain and beer. What sort of woman preferred beer? Not Callum’s sort, that was for sure.
Maybe she’d never known him.
‘Come on, Dad,’ Holly shouted from the car.
Finding his brown eyes waiting for hers to reach them Joely turned away. Too many rows had already bounced around the walls of their beautiful home, she didn’t want to be left with the echoes of yet another as he walked away.
He was now living at Martha’s Edwardian end-of-terrace in Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith, where, over the years, Joely and Martha had spent hours, days, weeks, trying to work out why Martha had so much bad luck with men. Joely had always been there for her, turning up at a time of crisis with boxes of Kleenex, an overnight bag and a loyal friend’s shoulder. She brought wine and beer and vodka and all the support and advice she could muster.
She’d always known that Martha would die for someone like Callum. That was how Martha used to put it, that she’d die to have a man as successful and sensitive, as sensual and masculine as her best friend’s husband.
Now she’d taken not only him but Joely’s daughter as well. She’d given Holly the entire loft conversion as her own private space where Holly could hold sleepovers and take drugs. (To be fair, she hadn’t actually offered the option of drugs, nor had Holly ever shown any interest, but it could come and how was Martha going to cope with that?)
More to the point, how was she going to cope without a best friend to pour her heart out to, to bring booze and love and even laughter to a nightmare that couldn’t be borne alone?
The first call she’d received after the car had pulled away had been from Callum to check she was all right. He couldn’t have got much further than the end of the road. Then Holly had rung to say sorry for being so mean, probably because Callum had told her to, but at least she’d sounded as though she meant it. Minutes later Martha had rung, but Joely hadn’t picked up.
She’d stopped taking calls until the next morning when her mother had finally got hold of her.
She’d been standing in the kitchen staring at empty porridge bowls like a tragic, dumbstruck Goldilocks.
‘I had a text from Holly,’ her mother said gently, ‘so I know it’s happened. Are you OK? No, obviously you’re not. What did he have to say before he left?’
‘Nothing really.’
‘Do you want me to come over? I can stay for a few days, longer if you like.’
Tears had stung Joely’s eyes. Her mother was her real best friend and always had been, so why had she wasted her time with Martha? ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘We’ll only end up going round and round in circles and we’ve already done enough of that …’
‘But I don’t like to think of you on your own.’
‘I’ll be fine, honestly.’ She probably wouldn’t, since right at that moment she felt like topping herself, but her mother was a busy woman. Marianne Jenson might have retired from her job as the most glamorous and popular head teacher the local primary had known, but she was now a top part-time sales exec for an upmarket estate agent specializing in high-end properties, and with the way things were going in that world she was having to work extra hard.
Sighing, her mother had said, ‘I know it feels awful right now, but to be honest I really don’t think it’s over. He’ll come to his senses, I’m sure of it.’
How loyal and lovely of her to say that. It was the kind of thing you said as a parent who was also hurting, because how could you not hurt when your child was suffering?
‘And if he doesn’t?’ Joely asked crisply, unable to be kind. Was everyone destined to hurt their mothers? First Holly had hurt her and now here she was doing the same …
‘It’ll take time, but you’ll get over it,’ her mother said.
Such a platitude. It was outrageously insensitive and not what she’d have expected from her mother. ‘You mean the way you got over Dad?’ she shot back, and instantly regretted it, because her mother really hadn’t deserved that. ‘Sorry,’ she said, before her mother could respond.
‘Your father died; that was quite different.’
Yes, it had been different. No rejection there, just an awful, wrenching grief that he’d been taken from them too soon, and an emptiness where he’d been that never went away, sometimes seemed even bigger, and then so big … No one had told her that losing her father would be so destabilizing that it would change her in ways she didn’t even begin to understand, make her do things she could never excuse.
What she wouldn’t give now, sitting here on this train, to be on her way to her father, to know that he was probably already waiting at the station, an hour in advance, not wanting to miss her. He’d cry, ‘Ha! Ha!’ when he saw her and envelop her in an embrace that would shut out all the bad things and make her feel loved and safe and able to cope with anything as long as he was there.
Feeling the burn of self-pity in her eyes she blinked quickly to check her mobile as it rang. Seeing who it was, she felt the tug of a smile pulling her out of the gloom and clicked to answer right away.
‘Hey you. Mum tells me you’ve already set off for your secret assignation.’
Joely had to laugh. Her brother Jamie was as special to her as their father had been to them all. ‘You’re making it sound romantic,’ she chided.
‘You mean it isn’t?’
‘Nothing like. How are you?’
Affecting a southern Irish accent, he said, ‘We’re all great over here. Clare and kids send their love and we all want to know when you’re coming to see us.’
She’d always loved going to visit her brother in Dublin, Callum had too. ‘I’ll be there as soon as this job is over,’ she promised. ‘I feel in need of a you-fix.’