A Time for Friends Page 3

  An angry honking of a car’s horn at the Artane roundabout brought Hilary back to earth and real life. Thank God it wasn’t directed at her, she thought guiltily. She had been driving on auto pilot, her thoughts way back, what was it, ten or more years since the days of their giddy early twenties? And now both of them were married, she to Niall who had indeed phoned her to arrange a date, and Colette to Des, a London-based financier whom she had married in a fairy-tale wedding in Rome.

  Both of them married, both of them mothers, she to Sophie and Millie, Colette to Jasmine. And both of them with very, very different lives, Hilary reflected as she stop-started her way to work. Colette was such a complex character, it was a wonder their friendship had lasted as long as it had. She was one of the most competitive people Hilary knew. She had to be the centre of attention. Had to have a bigger car, better job, sexier boyfriend than any of their circle of friends. But Hilary knew that behind the confident, smug, superior façade lay a young woman who was plagued by insecurity. Hilary was one of the few who knew the real Colette. The Colette who was generous to a fault, the Colette who would cry buckets because of a broken heart, the Colette who had longed to be ‘ordinary’, just like Hilary and her sister Dee, and have a mother who was waiting at home when she came in from school, who would be interested in hearing about her day, and who would have a yummy dinner waiting for her. Even though her friend could drive her mad with her selfish, thoughtless behaviour, Hilary could never stay annoyed with her for long, because she was a big softie and she knew Colette’s vulnerabilities and she knew that Colette thought of her as the sister she’d never had.

  Colette wouldn’t be stuck in traffic, doing the school run and the bumper-to-bumper commute to work though. Hilary couldn’t help the pang of envy, knowing that her friend had a nanny and housekeeper in her luxurious London flat. She wouldn’t come home to breakfast dishes on the draining board and a hastily swept kitchen, or a mountain of clothes in the linen basket that had to be washed, ironed and put away, like Hilary would. Their lives had always been dissimilar, even when they were little girls, but their friendship, imperfect as it was, had lasted this long. That in itself was an achievement, Hilary thought, amused, remembering some of their humdinger rows as she swung into the car park of Kinsella Illuminations, the showrooms of the family’s lighting and electrical business.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Colette O’Mahony stretched luxuriously between her Frette Egyptian cotton sheets and watched the sun dapple the apple-green leaves of the trees that lined the street on which her white-painted, stucco-pillared Holland Park mansion of luxurious flats stood.

  She was tired and a hint of a headache lingered around her temples. She was sorry now that she’d told her husband that she’d accompany him on a business trip to Dublin. They were booked to fly from Heathrow later that evening, after meeting a Japanese client for afternoon tea in Cliveden House, and the thought of traipsing around that grey, grim tunnel they had the nerve to call an airport terminal made her head ache even more. What was it about Heathrow that always left you feeling wilted, hot and sweaty, no matter what terminal you went to? She’d stay in bed for another twenty minutes and then pack. Colette yawned and turned over, snuggling into the pillows, dimly aware of the sound of the vacuum down the hall. At least she didn’t have to get up and set the flat to rights. That would have been the pits, she thought groggily.

  They had hosted a dinner party the previous evening for some of her husband’s Wall Street colleagues who were in London for myriad meetings with their UK counterparts, and while it had all gone very well – as all of her dinner parties did, thanks primarily to her housekeeper, Mrs Zielinski, her caterers, and, of course, her own organizational skills – it was still wearing. Des always amped up the psychological pressure in the days coming up to an impress-the-hell-out-of-the-colleagues dinner party.

  ‘Have you scheduled the mini-maids and the window cleaners? Have you ordered the lobsters? Should we have venison instead of steak? Have you ordered the flowers? How about orchids only? Are you using the Crown Derby and the Lalique?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes and yes, Lalique for the champagne, pre-dinner drinks, Waterford crystal for the meal and the brandy. STOP WORRYING, for God’s sake!’ she had exclaimed in exasperation.

  ‘This is important, Colette. There’s a big promotion coming up, and it’s between me and Jerry Olsen and you know how competitive he is. He’s taking them to Gordon Ramsay’s but I want to entertain at home, so they can see the whole package. Let them see class! And talk to them about your work in Dickon and Austen’s. Tell them about our pieces. Impress the hell out of them – some of them wouldn’t know a Monet from a Manet.’

  Neither did you until I got my hands on you, Colette thought sourly.

  Des paced up and down, agitatedly firing off instructions.

  The trouble with her husband, Colette had realized shortly after meeting him, was that he was nouveau riche and it showed. He had made his impressive wealth in a relatively short but successful banking career, accumulating a substantial portfolio of stocks, shares and properties. Image to Des was everything! And she, always impeccably coiffed, groomed and dressed, was his greatest asset. He knew it and she knew it, Colette reflected. It was her finesse, her nous and her taste that kept them on the straight and narrow of the perilous path of who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out’ in the society circles they mixed in.

  Des Williams had come from an affluent, solid, middle-class background in the north-east of England. His father was a dentist; his mother ran a travel agency. They had two foreign holidays a year and a summer house in Cornwall. But Des, an only child, had wanted to escape his boring, insular life and his boring, insular girlfriend. The bright lights of London beckoned and as soon as he had finished his finance degree at Manchester University he had moved south and, now, rarely went home.

  Ambitious, competitive, acquisitive, he had worked tirelessly to climb the career and social ladders. He had lost his northern twang, he dressed in sharp designer suits, he ate in expensive restaurants and he mixed in seriously wealthy circles.

  By the time, Colette had met him at the debut launch of an up-and-coming abstract artist called Devone, Des was very much the sophisticated, successful, well-heeled young financier. He had been more than impressed by her confident discourse on Devone’s striking colourful brushwork, which to his eyes looked like something a five-year-old in a crèche might paint for playtime. And he’d been more than taken with her petite, trim figure, which had looked extremely fetching in the pale pink Chanel shift dress she was wearing.

  Colette, still suffering from the devastation of Rod’s rejection of her, was very taken with the good-looking, blue-eyed, tawny-haired man who had made a beeline for her. She was even more impressed when he had suggested they go for a drink afterwards, and had driven her in his top-of-the-range, sporty Merc to a pub on the banks of the Thames where they had quaffed champagne in long elegant flutes, raspberries floating on top of the sparkling bubbles. When Des brought her home to her aunt’s ground-floor-over-basement Holland Park flat, he had given a low whistle as he pulled up outside. ‘Nice pad.’

  ‘It needs a complete revamp. Since my uncle died ten years ago it’s gone downhill. My aunt has no enthusiasm for anything now. She’s a bit of a recluse. I’d love to get my hands on it and get the builders and decorators in to update it. My big fear is that she will leave it to a dog charity or something,’ Colette confessed.

  ‘Are you serious? How horrendous would that be?’ Des frowned. ‘Is there a mortgage on it?’

  ‘No. It was her husband’s family home, bought yonks ago, and it was signed over to him before his mother died.’

  ‘Very valuable now. Worth a mill or two. In a prime location, so close to Kensington. You should work hard on your aunt to make sure it goes to the right person. You know what I’m saying?’

  ‘I do,’ Colette agreed, liking his frankness and the fact that his thoughts mirrored hers.

  �
��Maybe I could take you and your aunt down to the river for Pimm’s and a picnic some day? Might she enjoy that?’ Des suggested casually.

  ‘She might,’ Colette shrugged. ‘And then again she might not. Thanks for a lovely evening.’ She blew him a kiss and was out of the car before he realized her intention.

  ‘I’ll call you, what’s your number?’ he asked, looking somewhat startled at her abrupt departure. He took out a business card and loosened the top of his fountain pen. She looked at him, with the evening breeze ruffling his hair as he leaned back in the leather seat of his sports car, pen poised.

  ‘Ring me at Dickon and Austen’s. Byeee!’ And then she was clattering up the marble steps, keys jangling in her hand. ‘I’m not that easy, Desmond Williams,’ she murmured as she closed the heavy red door behind her.

  She had kept him at arm’s length, meeting him when it suited her, dating other men in between, letting him know that he wasn’t the only one. No one was going to break her heart ever again. She was always going to be in charge of any relationship she was in and that was that.

  Later that year, at the end of the summer, Colette had gone home for a long weekend to celebrate her mother’s birthday, starting with a lavish barbecue at their house on the beach in Sutton. The O’Mahonys had invited the Kinsella family, and Colette was looking forward to catching up with Hilary and telling her all the news about her exciting new life in London.

  Poor Hilary, she lived such a boring life in comparison with her own, Colette had reflected as the plane made its descent over the Irish Sea, with the Sugar Loaf etched against a clear blue sky and Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Port to her left, and the ferries gliding across a silver-sparkled sea beneath. Hilary and her humdrum existence in her father’s business, running that lighting shop, and still living at home, while she was swanning around cosmopolitan London, meeting all kinds of interesting people in the course of her work in Dickon and Austen’s, and having a terrific social life to boot. Far better than trad sessions, and evening classes, for sure. But Hilary wasn’t like her. Hilary was easy-going, content to let life take her where it would. Colette on the other hand had always wanted to make something of herself. To be a mover and shaker. To show her parents that she too could be a force to be reckoned with in her field.

  Colette knew that her parents had wanted her to study law and follow them into the legal profession. It had been their plan for her all along but she had rebelled. She had no intention of studying dry as snuff law tomes and arguing the toss about some legal point or other over interminable dinner parties such as she’d had to endure at home with her parents’ legal friends and colleagues.

  Francis O’Mahony had been horrified when Colette’s mother Jacqueline had suggested their daughter go and stay with his sister Beatrice in London to get over a failed romance. ‘That girl needs to knuckle down; she’s been gallivanting around Europe, partying like the end of the world was coming and spending money like it was going out of fashion,’ he grumbled. ‘We all agreed that she was going to study law after her travels. It’s time for her to grow up and get serious,’ Francis had decreed at his most thunderously impressive. To no avail.

  Colette had taken off to London and enrolled in a fine arts college. Her father was somewhat mollified by her choice of career. It wasn’t a common or garden career. Nothing worse than to have to say to his peers, many of whom had children studying law, that his daughter hadn’t started university yet, or was only taking an arts degree. Every Tom, Dick and Harry had an arts degree. He had wanted more for Colette. Legal preferably but a career in the medical or financial fields would have sufficed. Fine arts would just about cut it. It was classy if nothing else.

  Jacqueline was rather pleased. She knew in her heart of hearts that her daughter, although she had brains, was not cut out for a legal career. She would have spent her time flirting with the judges, she’d thought wryly, when Colette had sashayed into the Law Courts to meet her for lunch one day and had ended up with a flock of young legal eagles around her, much taken with her charms and the fact that she was Francis and Jacqueline O’Mahony’s – the hot power couple everyone wanted on their legal team – daughter. The difference between Colette and her mother was that Jacqueline had had to fight to get to where she was in life. She had worked with her best friend Sally, Hilary’s mother, in the local supermarket during their school holidays, and when she’d gone to university she’d worked as a hotel chambermaid to pay her way through her law degree because her father hadn’t been able to afford the fees. Jacqueline had clawed her way up the ladder of success rung by rung. Colette had cruised through life never wanting for anything because her parents had been hungry to succeed and had indeed succeeded beyond their aspirations. Both of them had ended up raking in massive fees. Their sense of entitlement grew, as did Colette’s, and the hoi polloi were now a different race.

  When Colette had flown home for Jacqueline’s birthday celebrations she knew that the first barbecue was for those very hoi polloi who peopled their life. The grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins who had grown up in Artane. The Kinsellas had been Jacqueline’s neighbours when she lived at home, and Hilary and Dee, who had been Colette’s childhood friends, were coming.

  Colette knew this was the ‘duty’ party. The one that was expected by family. But the more lavish one, the ‘real’ party where serious money would be spent and champagne would be the drink of choice, would be for their neighbours in Sutton, their golfing and bridge friends and their colleagues.

  Colette had been looking forward to showing off, especially at the first party. She had a fabulous Dolce & Gabbana dress that screamed money, courtesy of her parents’ more than generous allowance. She had told Hilary, who to Colette’s complete astonishment had still been dating Niall Hammond, to bring him to the party. Colette couldn’t quite see what Niall saw in Hilary. Hilary was just Hilary, dependable, loyal, unexcitingly normal. She had been more than miffed to hear that he had indeed phoned her friend and had passed on the chance to date her when she had last been home. Colette had been somewhat disconcerted to see the intimacy and frisson between her oldest friend and the hunky Niall. ‘Are you sleeping with him?’ she’d asked when Niall had gone to the marquee to get more drinks for them.

  ‘Of course I am. I’m practically living in his flat,’ Hilary laughed. She was glowing, she’d dropped weight, her hazel eyes were sparkling, and the new layered hairstyle suited her chestnut locks. Colette couldn’t help the surge of envy that washed over her.

  ‘Have you met the parents?’

  ‘I have.’ Hilary grinned. ‘I was invited to Sunday lunch, the first time, and I was rattling, especially when Niall told me his mother only brought out the good china, and the Irish-lace tablecloth, for very special occasions. I was petrified I’d drop gravy on it or something. But they were lovely and made me feel at home and I relaxed and we actually had a good laugh. Now we get on very well. His dad has the same easy-going way as Niall and his mum spoils him rotten. Niall can do no wrong in her eyes and I was worried Margaret might see me as a rival – you know the way some mothers-in-law are? But she’s very easy to get on with, thank goodness, although Niall’s sister’s a bit prickly.’ Hilary grimaced.

  ‘Older or younger?’ Colette probed.

  ‘Sue’s at least ten years older. I’ve only met her a couple of times, she doesn’t visit her parents that often. She’s very career orientated and very superior. A bit up her own ass actually. Thinks she’s an “intellectual”. Looks down her nose at Niall’s music and wouldn’t be “seen dead” at a trad session. We won’t be bosom buddies, for sure,’ Hilary observed ruefully.

  ‘So it’s serious? Is this what you’re telling me?’ Colette was taken aback at the speed of Hilary and Niall’s romance.

  ‘Yep!’ Hilary grinned. ‘We’re going to look at houses after Christmas!’

  That news had put a dampener on her visit home. It was unthinkable that Hilary would be married before she was. Colette had gone back t
o London with a mission. It was time to reel Des in.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘Now, son, are you sure you’re eating properly?’ Nancy Harpur asked anxiously, wishing she could get her hands on her only son to give him a decent feed.

  ‘Mam, honest, I am,’ fibbed Jonathan, averting his eyes from the biscuit jar, the bread bin with the crusty baguettes and Maltana, and knowing that his small freezer compartment contained a packet of processed chicken Kievs, while his fridge had a chunk of mouldy cheese, a black carrot, two splits of champagne and a bottle of Chardonnay.

  ‘What are you having for dinner today?’ Nancy demanded quick as a flash.

  ‘Chicken and veg,’ he riposted. ‘Lovely buttered carrots just like you make them.’

  ‘Good boy!’ she approved, appeased. ‘So how is work going?’

  ‘It’s OK. Busy.’ He nibbled on a bread stick, having no intention of telling his mother that he hated his job in the Civil Service and that his boss was a homophobic bully and he felt sick to his stomach going in to work every day. His mother didn’t need to know any of that. ‘I’ve got another interior design commission,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘And I’ll be needing curtains made up. Gorgeous gold brocade. I’ll bring the material down as soon as I’ve bought it.’

  ‘Grand, I’ll clear the decks so. I’ve been busy this last week with the sewing,’ Nancy said briskly, delighted with his news.

  ‘And I’m doing a lighting design course tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to that.’

  ‘I’m delighted you’re doing so well for yourself in Dublin. So pleased, Jon, you deserve it. You’re a great lad,’ Nancy praised, and Jonathan smiled. His mother was his greatest champion, always had been, and always would be. He adored her.

  ‘How about we plan a weekend for you to come up soon and I’ll bring you shopping, and to the theatre, and we’ll have dinner somewhere posh?’