Old Friends Reunited, page 1
OLD FRIENDS REUNITED
MADDIE PLEASE
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgments
More from Maddie Please
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
For Brian.
Then, now, always.
1
I need a break.
The thought came to me in a flash just as a blackbird cannoned into the French windows and stood looking dazed on the wet grass outside my garden office. (I wrote ‘garden office’, when what I should have said was ‘renovated shed’: it had been converted into a place where I could write in peace. And concentrate. And not tidy the cutlery drawer or be distracted by a pile of ironing. Especially when it was cold, like that day.)
‘I need a holiday.’ I said it out loud that time.
Actually saying it, and using the magical word ‘holiday’, seemed to make it an even more attractive and achievable prospect. I pulled on some fingerless mittens which had arrived that morning from Amazon, in the hope they would keep my hands warm enough to type. My circulation wasn’t what it used to be in those days; the same went for my hearing.
I hadn’t had a proper, enjoyable, restful break from my routine for a very long time. Not since my ex-husband dropped his bombshell and left. (And, let’s be honest, that had been over four years ago.) I was coping; I could manage. But surely I should have moved on far further with my life than I had…
The occasional weekend visiting my daughters didn’t really have the same reviving effect. Libby and her husband Simon were a hundred miles away and their preferred way of spending a weekend was a DIY project which invariably led to an argument. Katie and her boyfriend were closer but lived in a state of near chaos. There were always towering laundry piles (‘Mum, if Callum wants an ironed shirt, he can do it himself’), squabbles about the TV remote and, occasionally, requests for money.
Not that I minded any of that; I was always happy to help if I could, but I just wanted to get away. By myself. Give myself time to think at last. Properly get away from here, from my computer, from my new agent chasing me on a regular basis about the failed deadline for my next book, from my pathetic daily word count, from my editor begging me for a follow-up Christmas book (‘but make it absolutely crazy and hilarious’), from that awful, wet spring and disappointing summer and from blackbirds banging into the windows. I needed to do something different.
A few minutes later, I opened up an email from Audrie and it was like a sign. One of those strange coincidences. Like when you wonder, head slumped on your hand, if it is possible to buy a comfortable bra anywhere, and suddenly Facebook is full of adverts for them. By the way, it’s not possible: every woman who actually needs a bra knows that.
Subject: Baggies’ reunion.
Dear Bea, Hello fellow Baggie! Come and visit, I could do with some moral support! I know you must be so busy, every time I go into a bookshop there seems to be another new book you’ve written. How do you do it? Don’t you ever take a break from it? It’s ages since you were here, you’d be amazed how much it’s changed. The gîtes are free from the 25th. We are having a big wedding here the week before, so the house will probably be in chaos.
I wish you would come and stay? Gin is coming over to visit in October. The other founder member of the BAG gang - Bea, Audrie and Gin. We thought we were so clever didn’t we, but we really are Old Bags now, aren’t we? How long ago that seems. Gin’s stayed here in the gîtes several times, but I don’t think your paths have crossed. She’s been through another nasty sounding divorce and she sounds full of angst. She really did think it would be fourth time lucky, obviously not. At least this marriage lasted longer than the others. I think we could do with you to spread some cheer over us both. Get in touch, it would be such fun! Audrie xx
Was I in the mood to spread cheer? Admittedly, that had always been my role when we were at school. The class joker. The one who came up with the ideas, got caught and took the blame. At that moment though, I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task; I was the one who needed cheering up for a change. Even clowns have their off days.
I rummaged in the bottom drawer of my desk to find the school photo. Yes, there was Gin, standing at the back, a head taller than everyone else. A huge grin was plastered over her face, her wild, red hair escaping from its ponytail, as rebellious as she was.
There was Audrie – tiny, pretty and the one who got away with everything – slumped cross-legged in the front, scowling at the camera, probably because double art had been cancelled.
And there I was, placed safely next to a teacher to stop me from doing what I had done last time the school photograph was taken. Run around the back of the group when the camera started so I could be photographed twice.
Audrie and Gin had been my best friends since boarding school days. Audrie had been to visit me in Herefordshire several times over the years, getting away from all the dust and builders and officialdom at her home. Gin had been to visit too, when she had been between husbands, needing a breather from her complicated relationships.
Funny how some friends stay around for years, and others don’t. St Martha’s hadn’t been a big school, but looking through a magnifying glass at the long, cardboard coil of the school photo that evening, there were dozens of girls whom I had absolutely no recollection of. A few were memorable for the wrong reasons (for smoking, boy-trouble and growing pot – ‘Honestly Matron, they are just tomato plants!’), a couple were mega swots that everyone despised (not now obviously, because they were both running huge corporations and being smug in Seattle and Canary Wharf) and one had surely gone to prison. Arson is a terrible way to get one’s kicks.
I focussed in on the teacher sitting next to me. Grim, grey-haired, humourless.
‘Beatrice Pinkerton, are you chewing gum?’
‘No, Miss Harvey.’
‘Are you lying?’
‘Possibly, Miss Harvey.’
‘Then spit it out… No – not onto my shoes!’
How young we were, how bored we all looked, how thin.
When was the last time I’d been to stay with Audrie? It must have been three years ago, long after William and I had gone our separate ways.
If I was honest, our divorce hadn’t been unexpected. I supposed deep down I’d always known that William couldn’t be trusted when it came to working late, business conferences and trips away. With the benefit of hindsight, which is always so much clearer than it is useful, I could see I had made a lot of mistakes, putting up with it. Still, good judgement came from experience, and I supposed experience came from poor judgement.
I alone had dealt with the fallout of William clearing out our bank account, and a considerable sum from his employers too, and leaving the country with a girl young enough to be his daughter: his furious colleagues, the police, the tabloids lurking behind the bushes, the endless paperwork and the phone calls, not to mention our daughters’ disbelief and anger.
Audrie and Victor had been wonderful to me; they were kind, thoughtful and encouraging as I faced the future alone. I kept going, I didn’t allow myself to think too much. At the time I was just numb, and I didn’t remember much about it now, only that I had needed to stay positive. To pretend everything was okay when it so obviously wasn’t. What fools we can be sometimes, I thought, pretending even to the people closest to us, the ones who love us, that we are capable and strong, when the truth is so different.
Gin had been married and divorced four times, still finding the energy to establish and run a recruitment company that was eventually sold for what she described as ‘a pleasing amount’ to a competitor. Most of my pictures of her seemed to be from her various weddings, apart from the one in Las Vegas. She was certainly resilient, I had to admit. She’d seemed to have found stability with Mel, the fourth one. But apparently not.
During my last visit to Audrie’s place, she had still been in the middle of renovations that seemed to go on forever, but her builders had been taking a break for August. Les Grandes Vacances they called it, when lots of things in France seemed to come to a stop. The television crew had been around on and off for years, and the week before I arrived, they had been filming Audrie’s husband unwisely taking a sledgehammer to an old barn. Their son, Matheus, had been there too for once, lured by the irresistible appeal of television cameras and some pretty blonde assistant. He’d been standing around smoking, looking cool and offering advice. From what Audrie had told me, it was the most he ever did.
The renovations of Chateau de St Cyr had taken nearly ten years and every painstaking detail had been filmed and discussed. The Chateau of Dreams TV show had been a sensation, and they had become minor celebrities for a while. There had even been a couple of coffee table books, with glossy, gorgeous photographs insid
People had loved watching Audrie and her outrageous colleague Gaston – who was famed for his interior design skills and his tantrums – shopping for vintage china and furniture in the flea markets of Aix, deliberating over glass vases, buying flowers and bolts of antique fabric. Audrie, a clipboard in her hand, overseeing the workmen as they replaced the wiring and the plumbing, always with a smile on her face, apparently unfazed by anything, even her arguments with the French officials, her hair and clothes chic and immaculate.
The trademark closing shot of Audrie holding a glass of their famous and prize-winning Souffle de St Cyr, giving a cheeky wink to the camera, had been inspired; sales of their rosé wine had rocketed. Admittedly, there weren’t many similar images of Victor because he had been away earning the money to pay for the building’s transformation, but occasionally he had been there too, smiling and admiring his clever wife’s handiwork and determination.
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to remember the heat: the rich Provençal sunshine beating down on the stone pergola, the warm air faintly scented with rosemary and garlic. There would be a small, convenient table with a mosaic top by the side of my chair. And just within reach, a bottle of their famous, sparkling Souffle de St Cyr in an ice bucket. Peace and quiet, apart from the twittering of a few small, French birds in the trees and the occasional engaging conversation of my friends. It would be the chance to catch up on their news, have some amusing and entertaining discussion which had nothing to do with resurrecting my finances, or with my word count, deadlines, structural edits or William.
Time to think. Perhaps I had been coping, been strong, for long enough.
Audrie and Gin would commiserate with me over my publishing dilemmas, perhaps offer some advice or tell me how much they had enjoyed my last book. We could cook together in Audrie’s vast kitchen with its huge Lacanche range cooker. I could imagine nights sleeping peacefully, my dreams unclouded by my continuing inability to put one decent sentence in front of another. To remember myself as I used to be. When I wasn’t just a bit part in other people’s lives.
I hadn’t met up with Gin for years. The last time, I had been to stay with her and her then husband Mel in their holiday cottage by the sea, which was so far from being a ‘cottage’ that the American version of the Trade Descriptions Act must have been seriously breached. They had been celebrating a wedding anniversary, something that was unusual for Gin. Indeed, she had made a joke that one of her four marriages hadn’t lasted long enough for the ink to dry on the paperwork.
Gin would bring her usual brand of crazy positivity, her loud, American optimism which had been so uplifting during those interminable school days of timetables, hockey on a muddy field and detentions.
Yes! That was exactly what I needed. A break. And some sympathetic encouragement. And some plain, old-fashioned fun.
I would come home refreshed, my batteries recharged, and I’d be back to my old self in no time, producing books just as I had done for nearly thirty years. Maybe I would even summon up the energy to get to grips with my new agent, Vesta.
I’d been with Vesta’s predecessor for thirty-one years; Laila had found me my first publishing contract and we had understood each other. Many years ago, Laila had got a couple of my books optioned for films, which had produced a very nice sum, but there had been nothing like it since then.
Laila had been supportive, fending off irritated publishers when I was going through the divorce and all the investigations. It was obvious Vesta didn’t work like that.
Thinking about her now, I shivered with panic.
Perhaps I had used up all my ideas? Perhaps I was too old to be current? I was just over sixty, how was that even possible? I didn’t feel sixty inside my head.
I’d had a new, professional photo for my author profile taken, with proper make-up and hair done by experts, wearing an expensive dress and using flattering lighting. Not a casual snap of me laughing on a beach. I’d sold millions of books all around the world. But I couldn’t compete with all the gorgeous young things who were attracting the media’s attention these days. I would never be on Loose Women answering embarrassing questions about my drug habit or my celebrity boyfriend.
I felt another chill of panic run up my spine. I had to do something about this. There was absolutely no way I was ready to give up on my career or on myself. Apart from anything else, I couldn’t afford to. Only now, after four years, was I beginning to see real progress with my finances. I’d been a writer for most of my adult life, apart from a stint teaching English at the local secondary school when the girls were small. I didn’t think I could cope with that again, even if someone would employ me.
No matter how good I was, being sixty wasn’t cool. The head teacher of the local comprehensive had just recently been on the local news, she looked about twenty-five and had pink hair.
But if I wasn’t a writer, what was I?
In my head, I was firming up on things. I needed, indeed, I deserved, a holiday, a break, a sabbatical. And come hell or high water, I was going to have one.
I just needed to find a way to tell Vesta.
I was already eight months late sending her You Left Me Behind, and she was getting very spiky. Laila would have understood the sort of pressure I’d been under. Perhaps I would post Vesta a letter to tell her, at the airport, just before I got on the plane…
In the end I plucked up the courage to see Vesta and tell her that I needed some time out. She was thin lipped, exasperated and almost angry. I reassured her I would still be working, though inwardly I clung to the idea of a clean break. She didn’t sound convinced but to start with we had a reasonably civil discussion while she tapped the end of her pen on the desk in front of her.
‘Okay, if you need a break then I can’t really stop you, but we can’t go on like this, Bea. I know you and Laila worked well together for so many years; you were a powerhouse and you have a fantastic track record, but the publishing industry has changed, you must realise that?’
‘Well, I’m past being a surgically enhanced celebrity,’ I said rather tartly.
She clicked her tongue at me. ‘Don’t be daft. It has nothing to do with looks or your age, Bea. You have a great following; people buy your books and they want the next one. I bloody want the next one. I’ve wanted it for a long time, and you seem no closer to finishing it than you were when I took over.’
I didn’t meet her eye. ‘I’m nearly there with it.’
She sighed.
‘So you’ve sorted out the original synopsis, like we discussed, and now you’ve finished the first draft?’
I made an evasive sort of noise that said, yes, but also no.
‘Just about.’
It felt like being back in the headmistress’ office for another telling off and, heaven knows, I’d had enough of those in my time. And it wasn’t strictly true, I had about seventy thousand words done, and the rest scribbled on post-it notes and in various notebooks. I still needed another ten or fifteen thousand words from somewhere, and then time to edit out all the plot holes and bad grammar. I’d get there eventually, I just needed inspiration. And time. Perhaps this holiday would give me the chance to do that.
She sighed. ‘What is the matter, Bea? There’s obviously something that’s not been right for a while. I know you’ve been through a difficult patch. I’m trying to understand, I want to help, but I can’t if you don’t reply to my emails.’
I clenched my fists under the table. But this is the way it is at the moment, I wanted to say. I know it’s been ages since it all happened. On paper I’d dealt with it. In my head, things were still very muddled. Didn’t I deserve a break? I’d done well for the Peston-Vance Agency; I’d made them a lot of money over the years. I’d adapted and changed; I’d listened to their advice.
