‘I’ve tried that,’ I cried. ‘But when I say it out loud, it just sounds so pathetic, like I’m a spoilt child. Even I think that, so God knows what Adam makes of it all.’
‘What did he say about Charlotte being on your hen do? That’s not pathetic. That’s a very real line she crossed, one that many wouldn’t even think of, let alone do.’
‘I haven’t told him . . .’
‘What?’ exclaimed Pippa. ‘You’re getting married in two weeks, and you haven’t told him something as important as that?’
I shook my head. ‘We’ve only been back a few days, and the odd times we have been together we’ve either spoken about Las Vegas, or the wedding itself.’
‘You’re burying your head in the sand,’ she said stiffly. ‘It’s going to make you ill.’
I nodded weakly, already aware that the situation was having an adverse effect on me. ‘I’ll talk to him tonight.’
When I got home, Adam was in the middle of watching a rugby game on TV.
‘Can we talk?’ I asked quietly, almost not wanting him to hear me, hoping I could push the inevitable under the carpet for another week.
‘Yep, sure,’ he said absently. ‘But can it wait until the game’s finished?’
I nodded and walked into the kitchen. I took some peppers out of the fridge and started hacking at them aggressively. He hadn’t even asked how the day had gone.
‘Actually, no, it can’t,’ I said, sweeping back into the living room, knife still in hand.
He sat up a bit straighter, but only to see past me to the telly. I grabbed the remote control from the coffee table and switched it off.
‘What the hell?’ he called out. ‘It’s the semi-final.’
‘We need to talk.’
‘What about?’ he moaned, sounding like a petulant child.
I sat down on the coffee table, directly in front of him, so that he couldn’t shirk or fidget. He looked warily at the knife in my hand.
‘We need to talk about your mother,’ I said, placing it gently down on the wooden top beside me.
He groaned. ‘Really? Again? I thought we’d got over all this?’
‘You need to talk to her,’ I went on. ‘Her behaviour is just not acceptable, and I will not allow it to cause problems between us.’
‘It doesn’t,’ he said naively. ‘I thought you were getting on better. That was certainly the impression I got from her after your hen weekend.’
I rested my head in my hands, rubbing at my eyes, to give me time to think how best to approach it. ‘She did something utterly unforgivable in Portugal,’ I started. ‘And it has caused me so much anxiety and pain that I can’t move on until I tell you about it and you realize what she’s done and how it’s made me feel.’
He leant forward, but I could see he was in two minds as to whether to touch me reassuringly, or hold back for fear of being seen to go against his mother. He chose the latter. ‘Well, what did she do that was so bad?’
I cleared my throat. ‘She invited Charlotte.’
I waited for him to leap up and say, ‘What the hell?’ but he stayed where he was. ‘Who’s Charlotte?’ he said, unfazed.
This wasn’t going how I wanted it to go. ‘Charlotte. Tom’s Charlotte!’
He shook his head, nonplussed.
‘Are you doing this on purpose?’ I cried. ‘My best friend, the one who slept with Tom.’
He looked confused. ‘How did that happen?’
‘Exactly! That’s my point. Your mum thought it would be a good idea to reacquaint us, so she tracked her down and brought her to Portugal.’
‘But that doesn’t even make sense,’ he said. At last we were getting somewhere, but he wasn’t making it easy.
‘She did it to spite me,’ I went on. ‘She went out of her way to find her.’
‘But she wasn’t to know,’ he said defensively. ‘How was she to know what went on between you?’
‘Because my mum told her!’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, rising up from the sofa. ‘If Mum had had any idea of what had happened between you, she’d never have done it. She obviously thought she was doing a good thing, a nice thing, by surprising you.’
‘Adam, what part of this are you not getting?’ I cried, tears springing to my eyes. ‘She did it on purpose. She knew why we’d fallen out and got her there to upset me.’
‘But she wouldn’t dream of doing that,’ he said. ‘I think you’re just being paranoid.’
‘You need to speak to her, to find out what the hell her problem is because, if you don’t, she’ll destroy us.’
He let out a short laugh. ‘A little melodramatic, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I mean it, Adam. You need to have it out with her. This personal vendetta against me has got to stop.’
‘She’s never said anything about you, against you, or to belittle you.’ He was standing now.
‘You can believe what you want to believe, but I’m telling you, you’re living in cloud cuckoo land. You’re completely in denial.’
‘She’s my mother, for Christ’s sake. I think I know her better than you do.’
I looked at him and kept my voice calm and steady. ‘Whatever her problem is, you need to sort it out. I will not put up with it any longer.’
He smiled and shook his head condescendingly.
‘Do you hear me?’ I shouted, as if to labour the point.
I walked into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. If he wasn’t prepared to do something about Pammie, then I would.
26
I slid under the water as the doorbell rang, the sound suddenly deafened by the crackle of bubble bath quietly popping above me.
Go away, I silently pleaded.
And I thought my prayers had been answered, but just as I pushed myself up, the rudimentary chime echoed around the flat again.
‘Oh, leave me alone!’ I said out loud.
It buzzed and buzzed again.
‘Okay, I’m coming,’ I muttered, annoyed that my pampering session had come to a premature end. I scooped my hair up into a towel and grabbed my dressing gown from the hook on the wall.
‘This had better be important,’ I said, as I opened the door, expecting to see Pippa or Seb standing there.
‘James!’ I instinctively pulled my gown tighter around me, in the vain hope that it might somehow make me feel less vulnerable. ‘Adam’s not in,’ I said, without opening the door another inch. ‘He’s having a drink with the boys from work.’
‘I haven’t come to see Adam,’ he said, his speech a little slurred. He gently pushed on the door.
‘Now’s not a good time,’ I said, my heart beating fast, my bare foot trying to hold the door firm.
‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘I’ve not come here to cause trouble.’
I looked at him, his kind eyes and soft features, his full lips upturned ever so slightly at the corners. He’d been drinking, but he seemed friendly, approachable. I eased the pressure off the door and moved out of the way, letting him come in. He smiled and pushed his hair back, away from his eyes. It felt like I was watching Adam from ten years ago, back when he was with Rebecca. I wondered if the peppered spots of grey at Adam’s temples and the vexed frown he now wore daily were a result of Rebecca’s untimely death. It couldn’t have been easy, being such a young man, with his life planned out ahead of him, intending to share it with the one he loved, only to lose her so suddenly and so unnecessarily. I didn’t give Adam enough credit for having pulled himself out of the hole he must have been in, and fighting back.
‘Help yourself to a drink,’ I said, signalling towards the kitchen.
He smiled and raised his eyebrows suggestively.
‘A tea or coffee, I mean. I’ll just go and get changed.’
I heard a cork being sucked out of a bottle, as I combed my wet hair in the bathroom mirror, the glass still steamed up from my hot bath. The water lay stagnant, the foam bubbles dissipated, and I reached in to remove the plug, then folded my discarded towel and hung it on the heated rail.
It didn’t matter what I looked like – why would it? – but I wanted to check my reflection anyway. I rubbed a circle in the misted mirror, and pulled back as I saw James standing behind me, a glass of red wine in his hand.
Time seemed to stand still, the only sound the bath water gently gurgling as it ran away.
‘James, I . . .’ I spun round to face him, my wraparound gown falling open at the chest.