Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

“No. Well, that’s very considerate of you, darling. Thank you for telling me.” She leaned back in her chair, took a sip of wine, smiled at him very sweetly. He allowed himself to relax just slightly.

“Tell me, Jonathan. Would that have been… Abi? By any chance? Was that this woman’s name?”

It would have helped, of course, if he hadn’t spilt his wine. He was very aware of Laura watching him while he mopped rather ineffectually at the tray with his handkerchief and the paper napkins she had brought out, and that she had that new, cool, slightly distant expression on her face. Finally he sat back in his chair and managed to smile at her.

“Sorry, darling. What a mess.”

“You could say that,” she said, and there was an edge to her voice that was unmissable.

“Anyway… yes, Abi, that was her name. Abi Scott. How… how did you know that?”

“A very nice young man rang up, said he’d been there on Friday, and that this… Abi… had given him her phone to look after. I’m not sure why. She went off without it, and yours was one of the names on it, so he rang. He said none of the other names meant anything to him, but he did recognise yours because she’d been with you, had mentioned you. He was very charming, and very diffident about bothering me and so on.”

“Yes, I see. Well, that was nice of him. Er… when did he call?”

“Yesterday afternoon. While you were asleep.”

“You should have told me.”

“Oh, darling, I didn’t want to wake you up. And then I forgot. Till now.”

She smiled again, the smile sickly sweet now.

“So… the only thing I wondered was, Jonathan, why was your name in her phone? Since you’d only just met her.”

“Oh” he said, thinking fast, “oh, I was moving around from car to car, she was doing other things, we didn’t want to lose contact with each other, so I put my number in her phone. I did the same for several people, a girl who’d gone into premature labour-that reminds me, I must call the hospital, see if the baby’s all right-and a nice young chap, best man to the bridegroom, the one whose leg was crushed…”

“I see,” she said, and then with a half sigh, “Oh, Jonathan! This had better be true. Otherwise, I can’t quite think what I might do. Except that I’d want to be sure you wouldn’t like it.”

And she got up and stalked out of the conservatory; when he followed her a few minutes later she was nowhere to be seen.

Linda’s initial reaction was to say no; she didn’t want to risk her reputation again, and Georgia simply didn’t deserve it.

But after two double espressos, she decided that Georgia was still her client and that she owed it to her-professionally-to put the proposal to her. She called Georgia ’s mobile; it was switched off. Not even taking messages. She tried the landline. Bea Linley answered.

“Oh-Linda. Hello. Nice to hear from you. Georgia ’s… well, she’s gone out.”

“OK.” Linda could hear the controlled exasperation in her own voice. “Ask her to call me, would you, Bea? As soon as she gets in. It’s important.”

“Yes, of course. Is it about that part? Are they reconsidering her?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh, Linda, that’s wonderful. She’s been so upset ever since she got back. Won’t eat, keeps crying. I’ll get her to call you the minute she gets in. Thank you, Linda. She’s a very lucky girl.”

“She certainly is,” said Linda, “very lucky indeed. Bye, Bea.”

“Mum! I can’t! I told you to say I was out.”

“I did,” said Bea, “and I really don’t think she believed me for a moment. Anyway, you’re to ring her immediately.”

“I’m not going to.”

Bea didn’t easily lose her temper, but she lost it now.

“ Georgia, I think it’s time you took a hard look at yourself. You’re not a child; you’re twenty-two years old. Your father and I have been very patient; we’ve supported you in every sense of the word all your life, never put any sort of time limit on it. You’ve taken that completely for granted-our faith in you as well as the practical help. And now, with what sounds like a real chance of actually getting a part, you just turn your back on it without a word of explanation to me, or to Linda. It’s absolutely dreadful and I feel quite ashamed of you. Now, I’m going out to work-it’s clearly escaped your notice that most of us have to do that-and when I get back, I either want to know you’ve arranged to go for this audition, or you can forget the whole wretched acting nonsense and go and find yourself a proper job. Your time’s up, Georgia. It’s your decision.”

Barney was sitting at his desk, trying to pretend it was any old Monday, when the police phoned. They would like to interview him about the crash; when would he be available?

“Oh-whenever it suits you,” Barney said, fighting down the fear that seemed quite literally to slither up from his stomach and take possession of his head several times each day. “Yes, course.”

“We could call round to your home, sir. If that suited you. More pleasant perhaps than a police station, but it’s up to you…”

“No, home sounds good. Around seven? Er… can you give me an idea of the sort of things you’ll be asking? So that I can be prepared, brush up on my memory a bit.”

“Oh-we’re just looking to get all the information we can, sir. Everything you can remember of the crash. You are, of course, a prime witness. Now, there will be two of us-I’m Sergeant Freeman and I shall be accompanied by Constable Rowe.”

“Very good, Sergeant. Thank you.”

Barney was feeling very odd altogether. He was terribly worried about Toby, of course, but he hadn’t yet got over the shock of his behaviour: that he had been capable of such a thing with that girl. And then there was the business of the tyre: OK, they hadn’t caused the accident, but they had had a blowout. And driven into the car in front and caused the girl to go into labour. It seemed very possible to Barney that the soft tyre could have contributed-or even caused that. He should have insisted on checking it, made Toby wait somehow… And was he supposed to mention the tyre to the police? He really needed to discuss it with Toby-who was in no state to discuss anything with anybody.

He was having trouble sleeping, having feverish dreams, and waking, sweating, several times each night, with a terrible sense of fear.

God, he felt a mess…

She had no idea how she was going to get through it. But anything was better than being alone in her room just… thinking about it. Being alone with the memory. And the terror. She must stop hiding, running away. And nobody knew what she had done, after all. She hadn’t thought of that in her initial blind panic. Except Patrick, of course. Patrick, who had been so kind to her.

And it looked like he was getting better, according to the papers.

Just take it a day at a time, Georgia. One day and then the next. And then, one day, possibly quite soon even, she would go and see Patrick in the hospital. She would. She really would. But… not today. It was going to be quite hard enough just getting up to London and doing the audition. After that she’d see. One day at a time. That was what she had to do. One day at a time.

Mary suddenly felt very restless; she had been stuck in this ward for too long. She longed to go for a little walk, just round the hospital, and wondered if they’d let her. Probably not. Best not to ask, perhaps, just slip out while no one was looking.

Feeling rather as if she’d escaped from prison, Mary made for the lift. She had no idea where she was going; just to be out of the ward was pleasure enough.