Dark Room

'In vino absolutely, but don't be too harsh on her. Josh says she sounded genuinely upset for you.'

Sudden irritation seethed in Jinx's soul. Why shouldn't she be harsh on the silly woman? By what right did anyone suggest that she temper her scorn? 'You will never speak about your stepmother like that again,' her father had said when, at the age of ten, she had pointed out with genuine anxiety that Betty was so stupid she thought the moon orbited the sun and that Vietnam shared a border with America, which was why they were fighting a war there. 'All she does is paint her fingernails and go shopping,' she had told him severely.

But all she said now was: 'She was very sweet to me yesterday,' before plucking a cigarette from the packet on the arm of her chair and lighting it. 'So has Josh managed to track down Meg? I gather he's pretty annoyed with her for leaving him in the lurch.'

Simon shook his head. 'Not as far as I know, but I haven't spoken to him since last night.'

She studied his face through the smoke from her cigarette and saw he'd been lying when he said he wasn't embarrassed. He looked deeply uncomfortable-almost as drained and wretched as she felt herself-with his thin fingers smoothing and pleating the black serge of his cassock and his eyes looking anywhere but at her. Her irritation mounted. 'I couldn't give a toss about Leo,' she said harshly. 'If you want the truth, he was beginning to get on my nerves.' A tear glittered along her lashes. 'The only thing that's upsetting me is the embarrassment of everyone thinking I tried to kill myself over him.' She gave a hollow laugh. 'I don't envy Meg at all. Believe me, Leo will be absolutely insufferable if he thinks I couldn't bear to lose him.' Oh, stupid, stupid woman! No one will believe the grapes weren 't sour.

Simon sighed. 'Dad and Mum don't know which way to turn. They felt badly enough before your accident, but afterwards-well...' He lapsed into silence. 'I don't know what to say to you, Jinx, except that I've never felt angrier with Meg than I do at the moment. God knows she's no angel, but none of us thought she'd do something like this.' Mo<'Like what?' She took quick nervous drags on her cigarette.

'All I've been told is that Leo said he wanted to marry her and that they then left for France. But does Meg want to marry him? If so, it'll be a first. She's never wanted to rnarry anyone else.'

'You really don't remember anything about it?'

'No,' she said grimly. 'I've made a prize arse of myself by telling everyone I'd be prancing up the aisle on July the second.' Tears threatened again. 'Look, it's not important. Tell me what's been happening in the world in the last week. Is everyone still killing each other in Bosnia? Is the Queen still on the throne?''

He ignored this and addressed himself to what she really wanted to know. 'Meg phoned Mum and Dad a week ago last Saturday and sprang on them that she and your fiance had been having an affair for some time, that he wanted to marry her instead, and that they were off to France until the fuss died down because they thought it would be more tactful.' He pulled a rueful face over the word 'tactful.' 'Rather predictably, she and Dad had a flaming row about it. He accused her of being shameless, and she accused him of being holier-than-thou as per usual. Result, they hung up on each other. Mum threw an almighty wobbly, screamed at poor old Dad that it was his fault because he would insist on preaching at her, then phoned me. My view was that if Leo was prepared to jilt you so unceremoniously, then he was probably a scoundrel and would abandon Meg just as unceremoniously, and Mum got on the blower to her and said she wasn't to go anywhere until they'd met him. Meg told her she was worrying unnecessarily and that she'd bring Leo down the minute they got back from France. And that's all we knew until we read about your attempted suicide.'

She flinched at the word 'suicide' but let it go. 'He wasn't a scoundrel, Simon. You're not old enough to use words like 'scoundrel.' He was a fucking scumbag.'

'I'm a vicar, Jinx.'

'So? I'm a millionaire's daughter who went to public school.' She rubbed her hands over her shaven scalp and prodded ineffectually at her headache. 'Look, I don't care. They can shag each other to death as far as I'm concerned.' Tears flooded her throat. 'It's no big deal. I'd hate to lose Meg because of it. She's my friend, Simon.'

He felt ashamed in the face of such generosity, and as usual rushed to condemn his sister. Would Meg, he wondered, in the same circumstances be as unjudgmental of the woman who had stolen her fiance? 'Does it help if I say I don't believe you tried to kill yourself? Is that what's worrying you? What people are thinking?''

Jinx fished the newspaper clipping that Betty had given her from her pocket and stared at it. 'Except that it doesn't look like an accident, does it?' she said slowly, offering him the picture. 'They say it's a miracle I escaped.'

'Miracles do happen, you know.'

Not in her philosophy they didn't. 'Apparently I was drunk when it happened.'

'Does that matter?'

'Yes,' she said flatly, 'it does. To me anyway.'

'Because of Betty's problems?'

'Partly.' She paused. 'No, it's more to do with my own self-esteem. I refuse to believe that I'd need to get drunk in order to kill myself.' She smiled faintly. 'You see, I'm a very proud woman, which makes me doubt I'd have given anyone, least of all Leo, the satisfaction of knowing I cared that much.'

'I believe you,' he said.

Tears flooded her eyes again, and she jabbed at them with the palm of her hand. 'Look, don't take any notice, okay? I'm tired, I'm pissed off, and I wish to hell I was back in London.' She took deep breaths to bring her sorrow under control. 'Will you do me a favor? Tell Meg I'm happy for her, and that I don't bear any grudges. And tell your parents that I'm not about to end a damn good friendship because a bastard like Leo swaps horses midstream. Truly, Simon, I don't care.'

He nodded. 'I'll tell them,' he promised. 'You're very generous, Jinx.'

She listened to the screams of frustration that echoed off the walls of her mind. 'I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true,' she said carefully, glancing sideways at him. 'There's no generosity involved.'

He leaned forward, staring at the floor. 'You think you know a person and then something like this happens. She wasn't even remotely apologetic, just said, 'These are the facts, stick them in your pipe and smoke them.' It's caused the most unbelievable bitterness between the folks. Mum's blaming Dad for trying to force religion down