‘I can’t imagine,’ Hilary said sympathetically. ‘Try your best to rest and sleep tonight.’
‘OK,’ sobbed her friend, hanging up.
‘I’m glad I said I’d go. I’ve never heard Colette in such a state.’ Hilary plonked down on the sofa beside Niall.
‘Just one thing, Hil!’ her husband said warningly.
‘What’s that?’ She looked at him warily.
‘Don’t get involved and don’t give advice. It’s not your drama. They have to sort it out between them. Knowing Colette of old, I’d imagine Des will pay dearly for his transgressions,’ he added cynically.
‘Well he deserves to, the skunk,’ Hilary protested.
‘Whether he deserve to or not, that’s not your call to make. Support Colette by all means but stay out of their business is my advice to you, for what it’s worth.’ Niall looked down at her and smiled his familiar smile that always lifted her no matter what.
‘Sound advice, hubby dearest,’ she sighed. ‘Do you want a ride before I go?’
‘No I’m saving myself for that young blonde Swedish au pair down in No. 184, when you’re gone,’ he teased, sliding his hand up under her jumper.
‘If you think Colette would be a tough cookie, she’d be nothing compared to me if I caught you with another woman.’ Hilary began to open the buttons of his shirt.
‘Why, what would you do?’ Niall grinned.
‘I’d slash your bodhráns and break your banjo into smithereens. Over your head probably,’ she teased.
‘My bodhráns! You sure know how to scare a musician. I’ll never stray,’ he murmured, kissing her with soft, lingering kisses until she moaned underneath him, tugging his belt open as he raised her jumper over her head and unhooked her bra.
‘I love you, Niall,’ she whispered against his mouth. ‘Just shove a cushion under my back or I’ll be creased on the plane in the morning. The sofa’s too soft for us to be carrying on like this at our age,’ she said ruefully.
‘Speak for yourself, I’m in my prime, and now I’m going to prove it, if I can straighten my knee out, that is.’ He smiled down at her, placing a cushion under the small of her back and tightening his arms around her as the firelight flickered in the stove and the rain lashed down on the Velux window above them.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-S
EVEN
‘I feel like getting hammered!’ Colette confessed, topping up Hilary’s wine glass.
‘That’s understandable. Go for it, I say.’ Hilary ate some of Encarna’s feather-light pastry and chicken.
‘I hope you don’t mind us not going out for dinner. I’m completely wiped.’ Colette took a slug of chilled Chardonnay.
‘I’m tired myself. I was up early and the flight was very bumpy. This is perfect. And besides we can talk and get tiddly and not have to worry about getting home. We can just tumble into bed,’ Hilary said reassuringly. ‘And you can rant and rave in peace. Get it off your chest, Colette, because it must be hard not being able to have a go at Des. That’s what would drive me mad, if I were in your shoes,’ Hilary said sympathetically.
‘Exactly, Hilary. It’s doing my head in,’ Colette fumed. ‘I want to scream at him, curse at him, pummel him, and I can’t. It would be good enough for him if he had another heart attack and died. At least I’d get the insurance.’
‘Aren’t you going to eat anything?’ Hilary pointed her fork at Colette’s plate. She had hardly touched the chicken pot pie.
‘I can’t! I feel sick. My stomach is tied up in knots.’ Colette pushed the plate away.
‘What are you going to do? Have you made any plans?’ Hilary asked gently.
‘I’m going back to London.’
‘For a while?’
‘No, for good!’ Colette said grimly.
‘Surely you couldn’t leave Manhattan and the gallery and your friends? And what about Jazzy?’ Hilary rested her elbows on the table, dropped her chin into her hands and studied her friend intently. Colette was drawn and tired and unusually pale. And utterly subdued.
‘Jazzy can make up her own mind about what she wants to do. Thank God I have a home to go to in London. If I’d signed those papers without reading them, God knows what he would have done.’
‘It was probably panic. I’m sure he wasn’t thinking straight. It must have been awful for Des to discover he’d been ripped off.’ Hilary tried to ease Colette’s distress.
‘As awful as it was for me to discover he was trying to pull a fast one on me,’ she retorted. ‘I’ll never be able to trust him again. Ever!’ she said vehemently.
‘Do you know how much money is gone?’
‘Nope! I’m afraid to find out. I’ll hardly even get a decent divorce settlement,’ she said bitterly. ‘What’s the point of taking him to the cleaner’s if there’s nothing to clean out?’
‘But haven’t you got properties?’
‘We sold them after the Lehman Brothers fiasco. I’d say that’s the money that he invested with Madoff. I’m sure we’re not penniless but we can’t sustain this lifestyle any more.’ She waved around at the large L-shaped kitchen diner, and the more formal dining room behind the panelled double doors.
‘Get a less expensive apartment.’ Hilary nibbled on a carrot baton coated in creamy chicken sauce.
‘I couldn’t bear that, Hilary,’ Colette exclaimed. ‘That fucking idiot has ruined everything we’ve worked for. Our social standing, our lifestyle, our pensions, Jazzy’s marriage prospects. You think there’s snobbery at home? Trust me, it’s trifling compared to what goes on here. Once you’re on the slope down they don’t want to know you. You become invisible. I won’t stand for that. I won’t let them edge me out. I won’t become a nobody because my fool of a husband lost our money. I will never, ever let anyone except myself direct my life again. I have the apartment in London. I can work to support
