Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

Linda was going to the inquest too, partly as support for Alex, which he said was very nice but hardly essential-he’d attended thousands of the bloody things-but mainly as support for Georgia. Georgia was absolutely terrified at having the whole thing relived, and her own behaviour-and what she saw as her cowardice-publicly recorded. She dreamt about it night after night, couldn’t eat, was irritable and tearful. None of which, as Linda remarked to Alex, was unusual.

The only good thing was that she had got a part in another production. It wasn’t quite such a good one-in fact, nothing probably ever would be again, she thought, so perfect for her-but it was pretty nice, a comedy about a threesome, two girls and a boy, living together supposedly platonically; both the girls were secretly in love with the boy, and he was meanwhile hopelessly-and also secretly-in love with someone else entirely.

“It’s a marvellous script,” Linda said to Georgia, “shades of Noel Coward. You’re a lucky girl.”

It wasn’t until she turned up for a preproduction meeting that she discovered the first assistant director was Merlin Gerard…

“ Georgia, hi. Lovely to see you. And wonderful to be working with you again.”

“Yes. Yes, it’s great.” Thinking, thank God, thank God she had never let him know how hurt she’d been, how deceived she’d felt. “Er… how’s Ticky?”

“She’s great, thanks. Yeah. Gone back to New York, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Want to come for a drink tonight?”

“I’m sorry, Merlin, I can’t. Not tonight. Another time, maybe.” She’d even managed to smile at him.

She’d never felt more proud of herself than she had at that moment.

“You total star,” Lila said, when she told her. Lila had become just about her best friend. They spent a lot of time together, shopping, going to the cinema, and to clubs when they could afford it, sometimes jazz clubs-Lila and Anna had introduced Georgia to jazz, and she was slightly surprised by how much she loved it-but mostly just talking, often late into the night.

“Yeah, I was pretty pleased with myself. He looked pretty… pretty surprised.”

“Good. He needs to be. And… did you still fancy him?”

“Oh, yes. Completely,” said Georgia rather sadly.

Anna had agreed-rather nervously, but with great delight-that she and Lila would play a set at the festival. Abi had said she thought they should have some jazz, and Georgia-who was still a little in awe of Abi-said rather tentatively that she knew someone who had played jazz in quite a big way. Abi had never heard of Sim Foster, but she mentioned his name to a jazz enthusiast at work and had been astonished at his reaction.

“My God, Abi, he was one of the greats, you know. Some of his early stuff, absolute classics. And she was fantastic too, great voice. Anyone who knows anything about jazz’d give a lot to hear her. Even without him. They were an absolute legend.”

Abi went back rather humbly to Georgia and told her to ask the legend if she’d be kind enough to consider playing at the festival.

She was totally dreading the inquest; she shrank from having her relationship with Jonathan brought out in court, together with the fact that she had lied when she had first given evidence. She couldn’t imagine what the outcome might be; in her darkest hours, she saw herself in jail, or at best with a criminal record.

William had tried rather cursorily to reassure her once, but after that refused to discuss the whole thing. William just wanted it over: for more reasons than one. The thought of being in the same courtroom as Jonathan Gilliatt was not appealing.

Daisy was home now, frail and very thin, moving around with great difficulty but equal determination; fortunately it was her left leg but her right arm that were broken, so she could use a crutch to hobble from room to room. The family room had been turned into a bedroom for her, and her toys installed, so that she didn’t have to cope with the stairs.

With the resilience of children, she seemed fairly unaffected by her trauma emotionally: no nightmares, no display of anxiety. The thing that most worried her was that she had broken the rules, done what was expressly forbidden, and she said over and over again that she was very sorry she had run into the road, and that she would never do such a thing again; Laura had privately resolved that Daisy would never run anywhere unaccompanied again, or not for a very long time.

The person perhaps most adversely affected by the whole thing was Lily, whose pretty little nose had been put distinctly out of joint by all the attention lavished on her sister. Initially delighted when Daisy was pronounced out of danger, and especially when she was allowed home, she now spent a large part of every day quarrelling with her, and demanding that the bounty of new toys pouring into Daisy’s possession, supplied not only by her parents and grandparents, but school friends and neighbours, be replicated in her own, and bursting into hysterical tears when she was told they would not.

Charlie, who appeared in some ways to have become at least five years older than he had been before the accident, was alternately to be found telling her to shut up and to be glad she still had a sister to fight with, and patiently playing games with one or the other of them. He had begged not to have to go back to school until Daisy was completely well; after two weeks of acting the perfect brother he suddenly announced that even school was preferable. Laura and Jonathan, who had been a little worried by his newly saintly persona, were secretly relieved.

Jonathan had moved back home. Charlie had begged him to, and so had the girls; Laura could hardly refuse. She didn’t exactly want to refuse. But even given the surge of positive emotion towards him that she had experienced in the hospital, she wasn’t sure that she was remotely ready to start living with him again. Or indeed if she ever would be. A slow, but savage surge of anger and resentment was filling her once more; in the adrenaline crash after Daisy’s initial recovery, it shocked her. She had thought, felt indeed, that if Daisy was given back to her, she would never mind anything again. She was horrified to discover that she still minded about Jonathan and Abi Scott very much indeed.

Once the desperate, clawing fear had subsided, once they had gone home, properly home, faced with the long, long days of sitting at Daisy’s bedside, the exhaustion of coping with her querulous demands, her boredom, and her pain, then it began. She would look at him over the table as he laughed and joked with Charlie, teased Lily, as he sat by Daisy reading to her, as he helped her with things like shopping and the school run, for he had taken compassionate leave, would watch him being the perfect husband and the perfect father once more and at times she hated him. And was shocked at herself for it.

She struggled to fight it; she reminded herself constantly of his courage and his tenderness in the dreadful days at the hospital, when Daisy had swung so close to death; she told herself that more than ever now he had earned her generosity and her forgiveness… but she was still haunted by the betrayal, the easy lies that he had shown himself to be capable of, and the way he had allowed Abi Scott to cut into the heart of their marriage.

And the thought of sleeping with him was abhorrent; she could not imagine it ever again. There would be a third person in their bed forevermore now, and no longer a shadowy presence, a vague threat, but one she had seen, heard, smelt-she would never forget that rich, cloying perfume-and watched as she sashayed across the room and kissed her husband’s mouth.