Christmas at Tiffany's (62 page)

‘Shame you forgot about that then when you decided to keep my husband’s secret.’

‘I know, I know,’ she said, staring at the floor. ‘It was unforgiveable. Everything you said that night, it was true. All of it.’ She gave a small nod. ‘I just didn’t want to face it.’

She looked up at Cassie, her pale face like a sad moon, her dark eyes like limpid pools. ‘The thought of being without Jacques, even the little bit of him that I got to have . . . I didn’t think I was strong enough to bear it any other way. I can’t remember a time when he
wasn’t
in my life. Like you and the girls.’ She looked up again and Cassie saw the red rims of her eyes. She looked like she’d been crying for years. It occurred to Cassie suddenly that she probably had.

‘He was the love of my life, Cassie. I had my chance with him, but I threw it away. I was
careless
about him. I thought I made things passionate and exciting. But he got bored with my games. So he married Florence. My friend Florence. He knew what it would do to me – what it did do to me – but I always thought he would leave her for me eventually. He’d loved me first, longest. I thought he’d loved me hardest. Only when I heard him dismiss me to you . . . well, it was the first time I realized I’m nothing to him.’

Cassie stared at her, realizing that what she had taken for Anouk’s Parisian cool had actually been the strain of living a lie – keeping up the pretence with a decoy boyfriend, her fragile self-esteem that Claude had shaken so easily, her near-neurotic emphasis on grooming and seduction. For the first time, Cassie saw her friend’s pain written all over her as clearly as if it had been tattooed.

‘Does Florence know?’ she asked.

Anouk nodded. ‘I have not seen or heard from Jacques since, so I can’t be sure.’ She gave a small shrug but it came out as more of a judder. ‘I think she has probably always known. We will continue to be polite when we see each other. Of course she will have forgiven him.’

Cassie raised an eyebrow.
‘Of course
,’ she echoed, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Anouk looked up. ‘I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t mean to imply that you should have forgiven Gil too. I think you were right not to, actually.’

‘You do?’ She well remembered the dismayed reactions at the dinner party, Jacques’ scorn.

‘Yes. He was never right for you.’

Cassie stared at her. Is that what she thought? That she had left simply to find someone better?

‘I didn’t leave Gil for
my
benefit, Anouk,’ she cried suddenly, her hand smacked across her heart. ‘God knows it would have been easier to stay – to have just refused to leave, swallowed my pride and thrown Wiz out – as was my right!’

Anouk looked confused. ‘So then . . . why did you go?’

‘Because there was only ever one possible healthy outcome – the chance of a stable family life for a little boy every bit as innocent in the whole bloody charade as me! Rory’s my godson, Anouk. I loved him. I was there when he was born! But my marriage stopped being about me the second he was born. Even if Gil and I
had
been able to patch things up, how could I have knowingly kept his father from him?’

Her voice choked and Anouk stared, horrified. ‘I didn’t . . .’

Cassie looked away, staring at the far wall, blinking furiously.

‘So I was wrong again,’ Anouk said quietly, in a small voice. ‘I . . . I am so sorry.’ She shrugged hopelessly. ‘I was so desperate to justify what I was doing. When I realized that Wiz was doing to you what I was doing to Florence . . .’ She bit her lip. ‘I didn’t want to see it. I couldn’t bear to face it. I was so frightened of losing him. Then, when you found out and left Gil . . . it actually gave me hope. I thought maybe Florence would leave Jacques. Perhaps that was how it would work after all. He wouldn’t leave her, but she would leave him. I could get him back again if I just waited.’ She shook her head. ‘I had lost sight of all reason, all friendship.’

She raised her hand to touch Cassie on the arm, but Cassie flinched, and her arm hovered in the air instead. She dropped it and nodded defeatedly, understanding that words were not enough.

‘I am truly sorry,’ she said, turning away. She walked back towards the doors, a tiny figure in the night-time hospital lights.

Cassie looked down at her coffee still sitting in the machine, and heard her name suddenly echo down the hall. She looked back towards Anouk and saw that she had heard it too. It was unmistakably Kelly’s voice. Anouk paused for a fraction, then carried on walking towards the doors.

‘Oh God . . . be tough, don’t crack’, Cassie warned herself.

The doors hissed open.

‘
Nooks, wait!
’ she cried, running towards her.

Anouk turned.

‘I just heard Kelly. I think the baby’s here,’ Cassie gasped, reaching her.

The tears in Anouk’s eyes spilled over and she placed a small hand over her mouth, nodding. ‘Will you send her my love?’

‘No.’ Cassie said with impressive firmness.

Anouk gave her an anguished look. ‘Cassie,
please!
’

Cassie took her hand and started pulling her down the corridor. ‘You can tell her yourself.’

‘But—’ Anouk dragged her heels on the lino.

‘You were right, Nooks,’ Cassie said, turning to face her. ‘We can’t be separated at a time like this. Suzy’s just become a
mum
, for God’s sake!’ Her own voice cracked with emotion.

‘But everything I did . . .’

Cassie sighed. Suzy would
kill
her for being this soft. ‘What’s done is done. You acted out of fear. Don’t you think I understand what it’s like to love a man who doesn’t love you enough? We’re both on different sides of the same coin. At the very least we should be looking after each other, don’t you think?’

Anouk nodded, beginning to cry again, but there was gratitude and relief in her eyes this time.

‘So come on, then!’ Cassie laughed, grabbing her hand and pulling her along the corridor just as Kelly called again.

Kelly’s and Henry’s jaws dropped as they saw Cassie skidding round the corner with Anouk in tow.

‘I know, I know what you’re thinking. You never thought you’d see the day when Anouk . . .’ Cassie held her hands up as they arrived . . .‘wore polyester.’

There was a stunned silence for a moment, and then Henry and Kelly howled with laughter, Anouk too, as the tiny mewls of a newborn baby sounded through the swinging doors.

‘A little girl!’ Archie sobbed, falling through them. ‘I’ve got a little baby girl!’

Henry hugged him delightedly, tears in his own eyes. ‘Congratulations, mate!’ he cried, thumping him on the back.

Kelly, Cassie and Anouk all embraced each other, half sobbing, half laughing as they celebrated the recovery of their friendship as much as Cupcake’s arrival. Archie came over to them openly crying, and Kelly and Anouk patted him soothingly, clucking around him like mother hens.

Cassie spun round, tearful and joyous. ‘Henry! You’re an uncle!’ she laughed, her anger forgotten as she rushed towards him, her arms outstretched in congratulations.

But Henry turned away at the sight of her, all his happiness suddenly evaporated.

Cassie stared at his back. It was like a wall. Defensive, defiant, protective. She couldn’t get near him. Her anger shot through her like a bullet again. How
could
he snub her like that at a moment like this?

‘What the hell are you so angry about?’ she whispered, marching round to face him. ‘What have
I
done?’ The unspoken reminder that
he
had kissed
her,
that
he
was the one engaged, hung between them.

But there was no time for him to answer. In the distance they could hear Suzy calling Archie back.

‘Arch!’ she hollered. ‘Get back here! I need some help with my boob!’

‘Your sense of timing has something of the epic about it,’ Cassie murmured, not daring to raise her voice in case she should wake the baby sleeping in her arms.

‘You’re either born with it or not . . .’

Cassie smiled. ‘Will they let you out in time for the ceremony tomorrow?’

‘It depends on how she feeds, I guess, and how our night goes, but they’ve said they’ll do their best.’

‘That’s great.’

‘Mmmm. I might have to come down the aisle in a wheelchair, of course.’

‘Why?’

‘Hello? I’ve just delivered a bowling ball of a baby.’

‘Tch. How could you say that about her?’ Cassie tutted, looking down adoringly at the little pink scrunched-up face.

‘She was ten pounds, eleven ounces. It’s a fact,’ Suzy said, inspecting a hangnail.

They carried on staring at the sleeping baby.

‘I just can’t believe she’s here at last,’ Cassie murmured.

Henry and Archie had gone off to the pub to wet the baby’s head with Brett and Bas and the rest of the wedding party. Kelly and Anouk were in the canteen, drinking bottles of sparkling water and catching up.

‘Miss Clemency Velvet McLintlock. Gorgeous name.’

‘Yeah, but what’s the betting we’ll still call her Cupcake?’

‘She’s so beautiful.’

‘Hmmmm, I think she looks a bit like a baboon’s arse, if we’re being truthful. Look at her nose – it’s all skew-whiff.’

‘Suzy! You are
so
your mother’s daughter.’

‘I know,’ Suzy chuckled before her face softened into besotted adoration. ‘But she
will
be beautiful. The most beautiful girl ever.’

‘Yes, she will. And the most stylish.’ Cassie looked up. ‘You have reinstated Anouk as godmother, I trust?’

Suzy raised her eyebrows. ‘Not officially. Not yet. I want to speak to you first before I commit us all to a lifelong bond. It was quite a shock you lot coming in with her, I can tell you.’

‘Well, maybe it was a bit heat-of-the-moment. But I heard Kelly yell and I knew that meant you were through. I just couldn’t bear for us to be warring at a moment like that. If you can’t pull together in the good times, what hope is there for the bad?’

‘Tch, I told you – you’re too soft.’

‘She’s been through enough, Suze. I think she’s been suffering in that relationship for years. Honestly, she was so sad the whole time I was living with her.’

‘I still can’t believe she wore a fleece.’

‘Me neither.’ Cupcake had fallen fast asleep in her arms.

‘Hey, you’re a natural,’ Suzy said, sinking back into the pillows. ‘Tell you what, enough already of the wedding. You can be my maternity nurse.’

Cassie smiled but didn’t say anything.

Suzy watched her, recognizing the longing in her friend’s eyes. ‘Why did you and Gil never have kids, anyway?’ she asked after a while. ‘You were married long enough.’

The question took Cassie by surprise. ‘Oh . . . uh . . .’ And then her shoulders sagged as Wiz’s taunts rang in her ears again. What was she protecting him for? ‘Because he kept telling me that he didn’t want to share me. That what we had was so precious. He said a baby would ruin it.’

Suzy looked at her, shocked by his manipulation.

Cassie raised her eyebrows. ‘I know. Bollocks, right? But he said we could start trying after our tenth-anniversary party.’ She shrugged.

‘Oh, that was good of him,’ Suzy drawled.

‘Yeah,’ she sighed. ‘The last three years were just awful, to be honest. I was practically ticking off the days. It was the thing I wanted more than anything in the world. I was on my own all the time, but he just wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t even hear of it. I had to get to ten.’ She nodded lightly.

‘Cass, why didn’t you say anything? I just assumed you and Gil weren’t bothered about cracking on with a family. You never mentioned kids at all.’

‘He made me promise not to discuss it with any of you. Said it was our private business when and why we decided to start a family.’

‘The sneaky little shit. He knew we’d make you see sense if you repeated any of that baloney to us.’

‘Oh, he wasn’t that bad, Suze! I guess Rory had been born by then, and . . . well, I think at the end of the day he just found himself in a situation he couldn’t walk away from, even if he’d wanted to. He’s fundamentally a moral man.’

‘Would you listen to yourself? What’s so moral about shagging his wife’s best friend?’

‘I meant him sticking by Rory.’

‘I know what you meant. It just seems to me that he got to have his cake and eat it. And now you’re being all understanding and forgiving.’ A look of horror crossed her face. ‘Oh no, you haven’t found God have you?’

Cassie chuckled. ‘No.’

‘Good. Because I don’t want Cupcake’s godmothers being all godly.’

Cassie arched her eyebrows at her and Suzy smiled wickedly, resettling herself in the pillows.

‘So. Are we all set for tomorrow?’ Cassie asked, changing the subject.

‘Yup. I collected the cake today. And I took delivery this morning of the stemware and china for the caterers to lay out in the marquee.’

‘And the flowers – did Dean get the right colour?’