I smiled unconvincingly. ‘I have no skeletons in my closet.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Pippa said, laughing.
‘Can I ask?’ pleaded Tess.
I drained my glass and turned to her expectantly. ‘Truth or dare?’ she asked.
‘Truth.’
‘Okay, have you ever been unfaithful?’ she asked.
I didn’t even need time to think. ‘Never.’
There was a collective groan. ‘What, never? Not even when you were younger?’ Tess asked.
‘Nope, never.’ I looked to Charlotte, my oldest friend, to vouch for me.
She shook her head.
‘Well, it all depends on what constitutes being unfaithful,’ said Tess, rather forthrightly. ‘I mean, are we talking snogging, sexual relations, or full-on sex?’
They laughed and feigned shock at normally quiet Tess’s outburst.
‘What are sexual relations even about?’ asked Pippa. ‘They talk about that all the time on Jeremy Kyle, you know, when they do the big lie-detector reveal. “Have you, since going out with Charmaine, had sexual relations with anyone else?”’
‘Well, it’s more than a kiss, but not as much as proper sex.’ Tess giggled. ‘So, it’s got to be anything in between.’
‘Oh, well, that makes it a whole lot clearer, Tess. Thanks for enlightening us,’ Seb said.
‘Maybe it’s about even more than that,’ cut in Pammie. ‘Maybe even having the intention is enough to be deemed as being disloyal?’
‘Crikey, Pammie,’ called Pippa. ‘If just the idea of it means you’re being unfaithful, I’d be the biggest floozy ever known to man.’
I laughed as Pammie crinkled her nose in distaste. ‘I’m not talking about the thought of it in your head. I’m talking about the very real intention of doing something wrong, such as agreeing to meet someone when you know that’s the way it’s going to go.’
‘I don’t know that that constitutes being unfaithful, Pammie,’ stated Pippa.
‘It is if you keep the meeting a secret from your partner . . . regardless of whether you go through with it or not. The mere fact that you went there, fully in the knowledge of what might happen . . . that’s being unfaithful in my book.’
There was much tutting and disagreeing amongst the girls and Seb. ‘That means I’ve been unfaithful to my Dan several times,’ pitched in Trudy, suddenly downcast at the suggestion.
‘So, you’ve met someone, specifically with the intention of going to bed with them?’ asked Pammie.
‘Well, no, but I’ve met guys on nights out that I’ve found attractive.’
‘And have you ever arranged to meet any of them again, on the basis that both of you know why you’re there? Because, let’s be honest, that would be the only real expectation,’ continued Pammie.
‘Well, no . . .’ said Trudy.
‘So, you’re fine then,’ she went on. ‘I’m just saying that if you were to meet someone with the sole intention of cheating, even if you don’t go through with it, are you not being unfaithful?’
There were a few more muted nods than when she’d last posed the question.
‘So perhaps you should ask Emily the same question again,’ she went on.
My ears were starting to burn as I looked at her through narrowed eyes. Images of me and James flashed behind them: us looking cosy in the corner of a back-street cafe; the pair of us perched on stools in an exclusive hotel bar, his hand on mine, the body language that must have screamed, ‘will they, won’t they’. I knew what it looked like in my head, and I could only imagine what it would have looked like to someone else. Had someone seen us? Is that what she was implying?
Tess looked at me. ‘Okay, so I’ll put it to you again, Miss Emily Havistock, have you or have you not ever been unfaithful, by intention?’
Pammie crossed her arms in front of her and raised her eyebrows, seemingly waiting for my response. She couldn’t possibly know, could she? There would be no reason for James to tell her. Why would he? And the chances of someone seeing us and putting two and two together were a million to one. I was just being paranoid.
I looked straight at her. ‘No, never.’
She bristled in her chair, and the others turned their attention to the next player, but she mumbled something under her breath and I was sure she said, ‘James.’
23
‘What a fun night,’ said Mum, as we stood in front of the bathroom mirror, taking our make-up off. We were both swaying. Well, I was anyway. Maybe me swaying made it look like she was swaying too.
‘I haven’t laughed like that in years,’ she said, as she lifted one leg up to unbuckle her shoe.
I smiled. ‘I think that waiter had the hots for you.’
‘Oh, stop it!’ She laughed, before leaning precariously towards me, one leg still in the air. ‘Ooh, Em, help!’
I caught her as she leant into me. ‘What are you trying to do?’ I giggled.
‘Well, if I could just . . .’ she said, before dissolving into hysterics. I caught hold of both her elbows before she fell to the floor. I’d never seen her like this before.
‘And how good is it to see Charlotte again?’ she said. ‘I really am pleased that you sorted things out with her. No friendship is ever worth losing over a boy, especially not one like yours and Charlotte’s. I said the very same thing to Pammie.’
Just hearing her name sobered me up. ‘What did you say to her?’ I said, careful to keep my tone light.
‘Just that,’ she said unhelpfully, still sitting on the bathroom floor. ‘When I told her what had gone on, I said how sad it was because you were so close, you and her, weren’t you?’
There was a heat bubbling away under my skin. I sat down on the floor beside her. ‘Why were you talking about it, Mum?’
‘Pammie asked if there might be anybody that we’d left off the invite list. She was just double-checking that everybody that was supposed to be coming to the wedding was coming. I told her that I thought we had it covered, but when she started asking about friends from your younger years, it got me thinking.’
‘Ah, that makes sense,’ I said, although inside I was screaming, what the hell’s it got to do with her? We were paying for our own wedding, and Mum and Dad had paid for our honeymoon. Pammie had no right to ask questions.
‘So, I said that the only person that wasn’t invited, who under any other circumstance would have been, was Charlotte.’
I nodded my head, feigning patience and trying desperately to sober up.
‘And then you told her everything that had happened?’
‘Well, to some extent, yes. I didn’t think it appropriate to go into how you found out. I just said that Tom and Charlotte were seeing each other behind your back.’
There was a vice-like grip squeezing my chest.
‘Right, let’s get you up,’ I said, holding her under her arms.
She giggled all the way into bed, and I quietly left the room and closed the door.
I went across the landing and down the corridor to the bedroom at the back of the house, my stride getting faster and heavier with each step.
I flung the door open without knocking.
‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ I hissed.
Pammie didn’t even look up from the book she was reading. ‘I wondered how long it would take you,’ she said.
‘How dare you?’ I spat. ‘How dare you invite yourself to my hen weekend and bring her with you?’
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she said. ‘I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to bring you back together again.’
She put the book down on the bed beside her and took her glasses off, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.
‘It’s such a shame,’ she went on, ‘to have a good friend and lose contact with them. Was it over anything in particular?’
So, she wanted to play? Okay, let’s play.
‘No, not really,’ I said matter-of-factly. ‘We just grew apart.’