‘But you have to admit, an affair changes everything. Now suicide doesn’t look so out of the question, does it?’
Jenna recalled that day in London with Callum when he had hinted that maybe Orla’s death wasn’t quite the accident it had been made out to be. ‘I think your brother knows more than he’s ever let on,’ she said.
‘Why do you say that?’
Jenna explained. And then she said, ‘You don’t seem overly shocked that your mother might have had an affair.’
Rachel shook her head. ‘I’m not sure that my brain is fully functioning yet, maybe shock will come later when I’ve had more time to think about it.’
‘Do you suppose it’s inevitable when a group of friends have lived their lives so closely linked that the lines become blurred and—’
‘They end up in one another’s beds?’
Jenna winced. ‘That’s one way of putting it, yes.’
‘If it’s true, then I want you to swear here and now that you’ll never sleep with the man I marry. That’s if I ever do marry.’
‘I’d never do that,’ said Jenna, ‘not in a million years.’
‘Swear it. Swear it on your mum and dad’s lives.’
‘I swear it on Mum and Dad’s lives. And you need to promise me that you won’t say anything of what I’ve told you to your parents. Just pretend we’ve never had this conversation.’
Rachel nodded, but she didn’t promise. Instead she said, ‘It just goes to show that you never really know your parents, do you?’
‘Maybe that’s because we see them only as parents and not fallible like us.’
‘Parents are supposed to have it all sussed. They’re not meant to make mistakes. That’s our job.’
Thinking that she would be utterly devastated if her own parents decided to separate, Jenna said, ‘What would you do if your parents divorced over this?’
‘I’d stop them. I’d do everything I could to make them stay together.’
‘Even if it makes them unhappy?’
‘Bloody hell, are you trying to break up my family?’
‘No!’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Honestly I’m not, quite the contrary. I hate the way so much has changed in the last year. I want everything to be the way it used to be.’
‘Up until yesterday, I would have agreed with you, but now I’m beginning to see things differently. Perhaps Alastair has the right idea in wanting to start a new life somewhere else. Although God knows why he thinks Valentina is the person to do it with. I wish I knew what it was that he sees in her. She’s a Class A bitch.’
‘He loves me because I make a refreshing change to his dead wife and judgemental friends,’ said a firm and very clear voice.
At the sight of Valentina appearing from nowhere at the side of the pavilion, Jenna all but sprang out of her chair. But Rachel didn’t flicker. Perhaps coming so close to death really had desensitised her to shock.
‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s rude to eavesdrop on a private conversation?’ Rachel said with an imperious coolness that reminded Jenna of Sorrel. Not a trace of embarrassment did she show that they had been caught talking about Valentina so unflatteringly.
‘I couldn’t help but hear you, you were hardly being discreet,’ the woman said.
‘Was there anything you actually wanted?’ asked Rachel.
‘I came to ask how you were feeling.’
‘As you can see, I’ve made a good recovery, considering what happened to me.’
