Claire, suddenly the focus of their attention, gave an awkward little shrug. ‘It must be this place, or maybe it’s just that here life is pared down to the basics. The next marker, the next drink of water, the next meal. Meeting with the people who exist here on the bare essentials.’ She took Belle’s needle, threaded it, began to work on the torn trousers. ‘There are no distractions, none of the day-to-day white noise of life to block out stuff you’d rather not think about and with nothing else to keep it occupied, the mind throws up stuff you’ve put in your memory’s deep storage facility. Not wanted in this life.’
‘Who did you lose, Claire?’ Simone, pale beneath the tan that no amount of sun screen could entirely block in the thin air, almost whispered the words.
‘My husband. Ethan. A decent, hard-working man…’
‘I had no idea you’d been married,’ Belle said.
Claire looked at her ringless hand, flexed her fingers, then with a little shiver said, ‘As far as the world is concerned, it never happened. One messy little marriage discreetly dissolved with a stroke of a lawyer’s pen.’
‘It can’t have been that simple.’
‘Oh, you’d be surprised just how simple money can make things.’ Then, ‘In my defence, I was twenty-one years old and desperate to get away from my father. He isn’t that easy to escape. He paid my husband to disappear and I was weak, I let him.’
‘Twenty-one? You were practically a kid.’
Claire lifted her head, straightened her back. ‘Old enough to have known better. To have been stronger.’ Then, ‘He’s been on my mind a lot lately. Ethan. I guess it’s all part of this.’ Her gesture took in the tent, their surroundings. ‘I work for my father, but as far as the rest of his staff are concerned I’m a joke, a pampered princess with a make-work job whose only concern is the next manicure, the latest pair of designer shoes. I came on this charity ride to shake up that image, to prove, to myself at least, that I’m better than that.’
‘And finding Ethan would help?’ Belle asked. ‘He did take the money and run,’ she pointed out.
‘Why wouldn’t he? I didn’t do anything, say anything to stop him.’ She shook her head. ‘It would undermine a man’s confidence, something like that, don’t you think? I need to find him, make sure that he’s all right.’ She swallowed. ‘More than that. I need him to forgive me. If he can find it in his heart to do that, then maybe I’ll be able to forgive myself.’
Simone, who’d been increasingly quiet, covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a moan. ‘Forgive yourself? Who will forgive me?’ As Claire, all concern, reached out to her, took her hand, a sob escaped her and then it all came pouring out of her, like a breached dam. A story so terrible that it made Belle’s own loss seem almost bearable.
For a heartbeat, after she’d finished her story, there was total silence as Simone waited, her eyes anticipating horrified rejection. As one, Belle and Claire put their arms around her, held her.
‘I can’t believe I told you that,’ she said finally, when she could speak. ‘I can’t believe you still want to know me.’
‘I can’t believe you’ve kept it bottled up for so long,’ Claire said tenderly.
‘Some secrets are so bad that it takes something special for us to be able to find the words,’ Belle said quietly. ‘It seems that each of us needs to walk back a way, make our peace with the past.’
‘This journey we’re on isn’t going to be over when we fall into a hot bath, crawl between clean sheets, is it?’ Claire whispered. ‘This has just been the beginning.’
‘The easy bit.’ Belle swallowed, feeling a little as if she’d just stepped off the edge of a precipice.
‘But at least we won’t be alone. We’ll have each other.’
‘Will we? You’ll be home in America, Simone will be back in Australia and I’ll be in England, looking for Daisy. She could be anywhere.’ Then, ‘I could be anywhere.’
Belle closed her eyes and for a moment the fear was so great that all she wanted to do was turn the clock back to the second before she stopped on the road and looked back. If she just kept facing forward, moving forward, she wouldn’t see the demons snapping at her heels. Then, as if sensing her fear, Claire took one of her hands, Simone the other.
‘It’s not just Daisy I have to find,’ she said, turning her hands to grasp them. ‘I’ve been living behind this image for so long that I’m not sure who I am any more. I need to be on my own. To get away from all the pretence.’
‘Belle…’ Simone regarded her with concern. ‘Don’t do anything rash. Ivo could help you.’
She shook her head.
‘I’ve used him as a prop for long enough. Some journeys you have to take alone.’
‘Not alone,’ Claire quickly assured her. ‘You’ll have us.’
‘If you have to do this, Belle, we’ll be there for you.’ Simone straightened. ‘For each other. Support, encouragement, a cyber-shoulder to cry on and with three time-zones we’ll have 24/7 coverage!’
They both looked to Belle and the three of them clasped hands, too choked to speak.
Belle hadn’t told anyone when to expect her. If she’d phoned ahead, the television company would have sent a car or Ivo’s sister would have despatched the chauffeur to pick her up. But having made the decision to cut her ties with both marriage and job, it seemed hypocritical to use either of them.
Or maybe just stupid, she thought as she abandoned the endless queue for taxis and headed down into the underground to catch a train into London.
She’d have to turn up for work until her contract expired at the end of the month.
She pulled a face at this reminder that her agent-right now pulling out all the stops as he negotiated a new contract for her-was someone else she was going to have to face…who was never going to understand.
She wasn’t sure she understood herself. It had all seemed so clear up in the mountains, so simple when she’d made that life-changing pact with Claire and Simone and they’d sealed it with their last bar of chocolate.
Back in London, faced with reality, she felt very alone and she shivered as, with a rush of air, the train pulled in to the station.
She climbed aboard, settled into a corner and automatically took out a book to avoid direct eye contact with the passengers opposite. Scarcely necessary. Who would recognise her, bundled up against the raw November chill, no make-up, her hair covered in a scarf twisted around like a turban to disguise the damage wrought by six weeks without the attention of her stylist?
How easily one slid from instantly recognisable celebrity to some woman no one would glance at twice on the underground.
Without the constant attention of those people whose job it was to polish her appearance, the lifestyle magazines, the safety net of her marriage, her career, who would she be?
What would it take for her to fall right off the face of civilisation, the way her mother had? One bad decision, one wrong turning and she, too, could be spiralling downward…
Fear crawled over her, prickling her skin, bringing her out in a cold sweat, and an urge to abandon all her grand ideals, crawl back into the comfort zone of the life she had and be grateful for it, overwhelmed her.
Daisy didn’t need her.
In all likelihood she’d forgotten she even existed. What would be the point of selfishly blundering in, disturbing her doubtless perfect life with memories they’d all rather bury, just to ease her own conscience?
Wouldn’t the selfless thing be to trace her, find out what she needed and help her anonymously, from a distance, the way she had always supported charities that helped street kids?
Daisy was nineteen, at university in all likelihood. She’d probably die of embarrassment to be confronted by a sister whose success was due solely to the size of her bosom, the huskiness in her voice.
Worse, once the press found out about her sister-and it was inevitable that they would-they’d keep digging until they had it all.
No teenager needed that and there were other ways to redeem herself. Daisy would need somewhere to live. She could fix that for her somehow. Ivo would know…
She caught herself.
Not Ivo. Her. She’d find out.
She exited from the underground station to the relative peace of Saturday morning in the capital before the shops had opened and was immediately confronted by a man selling
