Frankie suspected that Sorrel had secretly experimented with Botox, not that she needed to in Frankie’s opinion, but then Sorrel had always been more conscious of her appearance than Frankie ever had. Their different attitudes had obviously rubbed off onto their daughters, for Rachel was much more interested in fashion and shopping than Jenna. Jenna loathed clothes shopping; she had as a child, and back then she had always been happy to throw any old thing on.
Of them all that evening in the garden, when Alastair had revealed his plans, Jenna had been the least vocal, but then that was so typical of her –think first, speak later, was her creed. Rachel, on the other hand, had jumped straight in with both feet and said exactly what she thought.
Of course Alastair had a perfect right to do as he wanted, but their shocked reaction to his plans rather went to show just how much they had taken Alastair – and Linston End – for granted. It implied ownership of something they had no right to think they owned, just as they couldn’t own their friendship with Alastair. Yet they had, and it was counter to everything Frankie believed in. But the uncomfortable truth was that she was as guilty as the others in assuming something was theirs because it had always been available to them. Over the years they had come to think of Linston End as their second home, knowing they were always welcome, knowing too that it would always be there for them.
Alastair had joked many a time that the only way he’d ever leave Linston End would be when he was carried out to be put in his final resting place. He’d called the house his sanctuary, and in turn it had become a sanctuary for his closest friends and their children.
Now here he was, excitedly making plans to sell up so he could embark on a new life. Poor Danny and Simon, the expressions on their glum faces had made them look like a couple of abandoned toys, tossed into the toy box by a child who had outgrown them.
Hearing the sound of the toilet being flushed in the en suite bathroom, then the tap running, followed by the creak of the door opening and light spilling out, Frankie turned over.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked. Ever since she had picked up the phone that cold winter’s evening nearly six months ago and had been told her husband had suffered a heart attack, she watched over him, constantly on her guard, constantly fearing the worst. She was vigilant to the point of madness, her relentlessly watchful eye noting the slightest twitch or grimace of pain he made. She monitored what he ate and drank, particularly alcohol and coffee. She had got him used to decaffeinated tea and coffee, but it had taken some doing and he didn’t always stick to her advice.
She worried about him all the time, especially when they were apart. She very nearly gave up teaching her quilting classes at the Sewing Bee so she could be at home with him, but Jenna had warned against doing that. ‘You’ll suffocate each other if you don’t spend any time apart.’
Wise words from their daughter, ever the voice of common sense. As a consequence Frankie forced herself to hide the worst of her anxiety, accepting that the last thing Danny needed was her fussing over him.
‘I’m fine,’ he answered, sliding into the bed beside her, his body cool against hers as he moved in close. ‘Just a bit more wide awake than I’d like to be. My own fault, I shouldn’t have had that espresso; I should have stuck to the decaf as you suggested.’ He gave a small tut. ‘“Wise after the event”, that’ll be on my gravestone.’
Frankie raised her head and looked at him in the darkness. ‘Jokes like that aren’t allowed,’ she said sharply.
‘Sorry. A slip of the tongue and in poor taste. So what do you think this Valentina will be like?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Frankie said, ‘but for Alastair’s sake we’re going to have to keep an open mind.’
‘He’s clearly besotted. Bit like he was when he first met Orla. Do you suppose she’s similar to Orla? That often happens, doesn’t it; people are attracted to carbon copies of previous partners? But it’s hard to imagine there being another Orla, she was pretty much a one-off, wasn’t she?’
‘She was,’ agreed Frankie thoughtfully, a one-off who would be a very hard act to follow. But at least there weren’t any children that Alastair would have to factor in to this new relationship. That was one less minefield for him to deal with. The nearest he had to that problem was with Callum, Rachel and Jenna.
‘Do you think he’ll really do it?’ asked Danny. ‘Sell up and go and live in the sun somewhere, like he said?’
‘I don’t know,’ Frankie said. ‘But would it be so bad if he did? After all, and as Alastair said, we’d be invited to stay just as we always have here.’
‘It wouldn’t be the same,’ said Danny. ‘You know it wouldn’t.’
He was right; of course it wouldn’t be the same. How could it be? Valentina wouldn’t want a bunch of Alastair’s old friends hanging about the place. The whole point of moving away was for the two of them to make a fresh start.
‘I feel as if it’s not just the house he’s getting rid of,’ murmured Danny, ‘it’s us; he doesn’t need us anymore. We’re redundant.’
‘Oh, darling, don’t be so melodramatic, you and Simon are his oldest and dearest friends, he’s not about to forget you.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure. Once this Valentina has got her hooks firmly into him, we’ll be surplus to requirements. Mark my words, it’ll be a case of divide and conquer.’
‘Then we’ll have to do all we can to ensure that doesn’t happen,’ said Frankie. ‘Now go to sleep, it’s late.’
Chapter Nine
Three days later and Alastair was still reflecting on how badly the weekend had gone. He had known it would be difficult, that his news would be met with equal measures of disbelief and alarm, but he hadn’t expected to be left feeling the way he did.
Every night since his friends had gone home, he had tossed and turned in bed, too restless to sleep, and when he had slept it had not been for long: the haunting nightmares he’d suffered before going away had returned, wrenching from him any chance of sleeping for more than an hour at most.
For some reason last night had been particularly bad. He had been tempted to ring Valentina, had wanted to hear her voice, to be reassured that they were doing the right thing. But to have rung her, or even texted at so late an hour, would have alerted her to the truth of what she had warned him, that being back at Linston End, surrounded by his old friends, would give him pause to doubt.
He was not a doubter. Never had been. Once he made his mind up about a thing, it was as near as dammit carved in stone. He stuck at things; he was not a quitter. But the depth of his friends’ shock had shaken him. Danny had managed to disguise the extent of his reaction, but Simon, never one to conceal his emotions, had made it all too clear how he felt. It was that look on Simon’s face that had preoccupied him last night in bed, an expression he had never seen before and which had rendered his friend almost unrecognisable.
As the hours had slipped by in the night, and resisting the urge to contact Valentina who was visiting her mother in Moscow, Alastair had instead trawled through the hundreds of photographs on his laptop of his time away, mostly lingering over the pictures of Valentina. The ones he liked best were the photos they’d taken of themselves together, their heads touching while they posed like a couple of grinning teenagers. There was no denying the smile on his face in those pictures; he looked happier than he’d been in a very long time. Younger, too. If only his friends could understand that.
There were pivotal moments in every life. Meeting Simon and Danny had been two such pivotal moments, as had encountering Orla in his last year of university atUCL. A year older than him, she had recently graduated from Saint Martin’s School of Art and was entirely different to what he’d previously regarded as his ‘type’ – cool blondes. At the time of meeting Orla he had recently taken up with a new girlfriend, a particularly stunning cool blonde. As far as he was concerned it was early days of their relationship, so he hadn’t felt too awful about ending things with her when Orla spun into his orbit. But in one of those unpredictable twists of fate, the girl he dumped became destined to remain a part of his life: her name was Sorrel and she went on to marry his good friend, Simon.
