Yes, thought Naomi,much too honest at times. Geraldine had always prided herself on her robust frankness, which didn’t necessarily go down well with everybody. She had once told Naomi that she had put on weight and that it didn’t suit her. Naomi had been mortified, but without retaliating – by saying that was rich coming from Geraldine! – she had lost the weight and resumed her usual size ten and consequently received compliments from other friends on how well she looked.That was the mark of a true best friend, Naomi had concluded, the one person in the world who could be relied upon to speak the truth.
But in her current frame of mind, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to be on the receiving end of Geraldine’s particular brand of home truths. Last week she had gone for a walk with Ellis along the beach as far as the dunes and asked him if he’d really meant it when he’d said that if she thought they’d rushed into things, he would understand and give her some space. With sudden wariness in his eyes, he’d said of course he had.
‘It’s your family, isn’t it?’ he’d gone on. ‘You’re upset by their reaction to me?’
‘Yes,’ she’d replied. ‘I don’t want to be pushed into making a choice between you and the girls.’
‘But you mustn’t let them convince you that you have to choose.’
‘It’s not that, it’s about considering their feelings.’
‘In that case, I’ll give you some space to work out exactly what it is you want.’
On returning home, he’d kissed her goodbye at her garden gate, and that was the last she’d seen of him. There had been no phone calls and no text messages. The ones she particularly missed were those when she woke in the morning when he hadn’t actually spent the night with her. She missed those times in bed together too. But mostly she missed the companionship of him; the easy unconscious way they fitted together. How often did two people fit together as well as that? Did she really want to give that up?
‘You know, I always wondered about you and Colin,’ Geraldine said, rising from her chair and going to look out at the sodden garden through the rain and salt-streaked glass.
Roused from her thoughts, Naomi said, ‘What do you mean you always wondered about us?’
Geraldine spun round. Her movements were brusque and sudden, there was no elegant finesse to her. There never had been. ‘No marriage is perfect,’ she said, ‘but how would you sum up yours with Colin?’
‘Where on earth has that question come from?’
‘From a lifetime’s friendship, that’s where. So what’s your answer?’
‘I’m going to take a stab at you already thinking you know what the answer is?’
‘I know what the glib answer would be, but as to the real one, I’m not so sure you’re brave enough to say it out loud.’
‘Are any of us? How would you sum up yours?’
‘Oh, that’s easy. Brian and I irritate the hell out of each other, and we bicker constantly. It’s a habit, of course, and one we’ll never break. It’s part of the fabric of our relationship and has, if you will, seeped into the bricks and mortar and the very foundations of our marriage. It cements us together. Of course, it helps that he does what he’s told, and I never complain about the amount of time he spends on the golf course or the hours he spends watching the wretched game on TV.’
It was interesting that after all this time, Geraldine should ask about her marriage to Colin. Why now? And more to the point, why had her friend never broached the subject when nothing else was off limits to her? ‘You just said that there have been no lines between us that you felt you couldn’t cross,’ Naomi said.
Geraldine drank from her glass. ‘I lied,’ she said. ‘There was always one non-negotiable line which I felt I had to respect:your marriage.’ Resuming her seat, she went on. ‘You and Colin never bickered, did you?’
‘No,’ Naomi said. ‘But then I’m not the bickering sort.’
‘Too accommodating, that’s why,’ she said, helping herself to a stuffed olive from the dish on the coffee table in front of her. ‘Although when you opened the door to me earlier, you were fair spoiling for an all-out fight, never mind a good-natured bicker.’
‘True,’ said Naomi with a smile.
‘There must have been times when you felt like giving Colin a piece of your mind. I know I did. Brian too.’
Taken aback, Naomi said, ‘Really?’
Her friend looked at her. ‘Gloves off time?’
‘Heavens, you mean you’ve been wearing a pair?’
Another olive eaten, Geraldine said, ‘Colin was great. Life and soul. Never a dull moment. Always ready to lend a hand. Always quick to lead from the front. A dynamo of a man who never knowingly undersold himself.’
‘That last bit sounds awfully like a criticism.’
‘It was meant to be.’
Uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going, and thinking that she might actually prefer to be interrogated about Ellis, Naomi said, ‘Are you sure you want to take this any further?’
