After the One by Cass Lester (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

‘You weren’t rude,’ Charley reassured her, and was reassured to see the anxiety melt from Pam’s face. ‘I think we just need to work out how to share the flat together, how to work round each other’s social lives.’

‘It’s harder than I thought,’ admitted Pam with a charming frankness.

Me too, thought Charley, but she tactfully refrained from saying so, continuing instead, ‘And you should absolutely feel free to invite your friends here, whenever you want to; it’s your home, too.’ Although, and she was ashamed to admit it, as she heard herself say it, the thought still made her feel thoroughly uncomfortable.

There was a brief silence until Charley said, ‘D’you want to come and help me finish off the sea-salted caramels? I mean, don’t feel obliged to!’ she teased.

Pam smiled at her. ‘I’d love to. Do you want to help me finish the crossword?’

‘That depends,’ deadpanned Charley. ‘Do you feel obliged to ask me to help?’

‘No.’

‘Then, yes!’

The two of them went into the living room and sat side by side on the sofa, working their way through the clues and the remaining caramels with equal efficiently.

Chapter Twelve

Pam took Charley’s ‘house rules’ talk to heart. The flat was her home, for the foreseeable future at least, and she must stop thinking of it as some sort of bolt-hole and try to carry on with her life and get back to some sort of… normality. So she invited Zee for coffee. Still reluctant to impose upon her daughter-in-law’s hospitality, she had waited until she knew Charley was going to be out, and now here she was, pacing anxiously around waiting for Zee to arrive, feeling like a cat on a hot tin roof, which was ridiculous. Why was she restlessly plumping up cushions, checking there was loo roll in the bathroom and trying to find something to do, anything, to dispel the well of completely irrational anxiety mounting inside her? What’s the hell’s the matter with you? she asked herself. Zee was her oldest friend, and she of all people would be in Pam’s corner, but that didn’t stop the niggling fear wriggling its insidious way into her that people wouldn’t approve of her leaving Geoff. It didn’t help when Zee was uncharacteristically late, which plunged Pam into a deeper anxiety, wondering if her friend had had second thoughts, and wasn’t going to come at all.

She was infinitely reassured when Zee finally arrived, bearing a packet of posh biscuits and a preposterously large bouquet extravagantly packaged in cellophane and ribbons. ‘Sorry I’m late! I wasn’t sure it was the right place,’ gushed Zee as she handed her the flowers and embraced her.

‘Oh my God! They’re enormous!’ laughed Pam, taking the bouquet. ‘And lilies, my favourites! Thank you.’ She led Zee through to the kitchen, wondering if Charley would even have a big enough vase.

‘Oh, the flowers aren’t from me,’ Zee corrected her quickly, ‘I bumped into the delivery chap at the stop of the steps, I just offered to carry them in. I did bring the biscuits though!’

‘Oh,’ said Pam tonelessly, then, after giving the card attached to the cellophane a cursory glance, she opened the pedal bin with her foot and crammed the flowers in, breaking the stalks and crushing the blooms. Turning to meet Zee’s astonished look she said, ‘They’re from Geoff.’

‘Ah,’ said Zee and then she paused before adding, ‘Seems a bit of a waste.’

‘Yes. Like forty years of marriage,’ replied Pam. The she leant with her back against the worksurface and said defensively, ‘I’m not going back to him.’

Zee pulled out a kitchen chair, sat herself down and opened the biscuits. ‘Good. I don’t think you should.’

‘Is that what everyone thinks?’ asked Pam, busying herself with looking for a cafetière which Charley didn’t actually possess.

Zee shrugged lightly. ‘I don’t know.’

Which Pam took as a ‘no’. Her friends were all strong, independent-minded women, and Pam knew she was naive to think there would be a simple consensus amongst them, but nevertheless she found herself desperate wanting their approval, as well as their counsel.

Then Zee went on, ‘No one’s blaming you, Pam. You’ve done nothing wrong.’

Visibly relieved, Pam gave up on the cafetière and reached for the mugs and the instant coffee, while behind her Zee, her oldest friend, a woman she’d known for thirty years, calmly dropped a bombshell.

‘Theo had an affair.’

Pam’s head turned slowly, incredulously, towards her friend. It was the first she’d ever heard of it. She gave up on the coffee altogether and sank down in the chair opposite Zee.

‘When?’

‘When the kids were small. That’s why I put up with it. For them.’ She sighed.

There was a silence as Pam suddenly saw her closest friend in a new light. Not as a happily married woman living a comfortable life, but as someone living with an uncomfortable secret, who’d lived, and was probably still living, a decidedly uncomfortable life.

‘Do you regret staying with Theo?’ she asked, tentatively.

‘Yes. And I’ve often wondered if he regrets staying with me. Which is probably worse, actually.’

Yes, thought Pam, I imagine it is. She leant over the table and took hold of her friend’s hand. Zee wasn’t one to cry for milk spilt long ago, neither of them were. ‘God, Zee, I had no idea. I always thought you were happy together.’

‘We muddle along. But it changed everything.’

‘Yes, some things do,’ said Pam, quietly.

They both sat in contemplative silence for a while until the practical Zee asked ‘What are you going to do?’

Pam shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know, apart from leave Geoff.’

‘I didn’t have the courage to leave Theo,’ admitted Zee with painful honesty.

‘You had small children, Zee. I’m in totally different circumstances. I don’t have any kids to support or worry about. It’s only me.’

‘That won’t necessarily make it any easier,’ observed Zee.

Shortly after Zee had arrived to have coffee with Pam, Charley had walked, with what she hoped was an air of confidence, into the reception of the Avalon Indulgence Spa and