‘Oh no, are you sure it’s him? There will be a good explanation.’
‘Really, that’s what you have to say? Okay. I had hoped that would be enough. Ready?’
‘Oh no, I’m sure you’re mistak— oh, oh, that’s disgusting. Oh my goodness, okay, urggh.’ Pippa’s mother looked quite sick as Pippa flipped through images of James in the lap dance club with another rather young, but very generously endowed, woman writhing on his lap.
The back door slammed and Pippa’s mother dropped the phone, looking as guilty as if she had been caught watching porn by her children.
Pippa couldn’t help but laugh at the look of relief on Jan’s face as her husband walked in. Surely that will have done the trick, no mention of insider trading needed and no more talk of marriage! Result.
‘Oh my goodness, Jim. Come and look at this. you won’t believe what our Pippa has just shown me.’
‘Oh yes, what’s that then?’
Jan passed her husband the phone.
‘Oh my goodness, he’s got his hand in her knickers. What sort of… oh, oh. Is that James? Our James? Oh Pippa love, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine, Dad. I don’t want anything to do with him anyway, never have. This was to show you and mum what he really is like when the mask slips.’
‘See Jim, I always told you he was a wrong’un. Ever since he was a boy. Disgusting behaviour. Fancy you wanting him to get involved with our Pips!’
As Pippa lay in her bed that night, she couldn’t get rid of the smile on her face, made even broader by her phone pinging. Once her mother had flipped sides and turned against James, a burden was lifted. What was more, she hadn’t needed to risk ruining the investigation, or make her mother decide between loyalty to her oldest friend or the right thing to do. She felt so much lighter she couldn’t believe it. It was if all the weight in the world had been lifted from her, weight she wasn’t aware had been so heavy.
Hey, how did your day go?
Good thanks, had a really nice time with my mum.
Pippa started to type how she had managed to get her to see the truth of James but then deleted it. She tried again, and again. But no matter how she wrote it she heard her own voice in her head explaining to Hema that her relationship with James had nothing to do with Kam, and that even discussing it would blur the boundaries of their friendship. She knew that the underlying meaning was that she was too scared. That if she told Kam that James was out of her life and he didn’t immediately respond with ‘Great, let’s be together forever, build a future and make babies’, she would be bitterly disappointed.
And if he did, she’d be terrified.
The others were right, she was her own worst enemy. She left the sentence as it was.
That’s good to hear. No need for gin then. Have you got your vintage thing tomorrow?
Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.
Do you want some help?
Nah, my mum is excited about coming with me.
Okay, fair dues. I’ve got to run my mum to Falmouth at some point and do dutiful-son stuff, but she is leaving on Thursday. Fancy some celebratory drinks on Friday? One last night of fun before we have to go back to being terribly responsible adults that go to work?
Yes, please!
Chapter Thirty-three
The second bank holiday in May dawned and it tipped down. Rain battered at the windows of the car as Pippa drove to Portruthan Hotel perched up on the clifftops and looking out on a very grey sea – the sort that you wouldn’t be too surprised to see dotted with icebergs.
It did mean, however, that the roads weren’t as jam-packed as they would usually be. People had obviously decided to make the most of the extra day off to have a lie-in rather than race to the beach, and Pippa didn’t blame them.
Another advantage, though, was that the rain was so loud against the windscreen that Pippa could, without guilt, attempt to tune her mother out as she leant forward trying to see the road as clearly as she could. However, it would take a tempest to completely drown out Jan, who, after yesterday, had taken against James so vociferously that Pippa was almost – only almost – regretting showing her the screenshots.
Polly had been furious as Jan had told her very firmly over dinner that she must not accept any freebies from that pervert. Ironically, Pippa had been forced to jump in to defend the man she had been trying to turn her mother against, by pointing out that pervert was a little harsh, seeing as, with the exception of constantly turning up on Pippa’s doorstep (and the financial illegalities that Jan didn’t know about), nothing James had been doing was non-consensual. Jan didn’t seem to care. So much for wedding outfits and Debenhams.
They pulled into the hotel and dragged box after box in through the foyer to the big old ballroom, once filled with twinkling lights and empire-line dresses and these days playing host to high-end conferences, team building days and craft fairs like the one today. Pippa was glad to see she had a corner spot; it would give her slightly more room, and make her display more inviting, less two dimensional than had she been flat against the wall. She raised her hand to greet the familiar faces also present, who were busy unpacking their wares and making things as attractive as possible.
‘Hey Pippa, lovely to see you. Jan, what treats have you got today?’ asked Sally displaying her beautiful hand-made children clothes on the table one along from them.
