The Best of Friends by Alex Day (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

Women really do get dealt the bum hand, don’t they, I think sadly to myself. The menopause, with its dry skin and hot flushes and diminishing oestrogen, robs one of the useful function of child-bearing whilst it simultaneously steals one’s looks. The thickening waist and protruding belly taunt one, however hard one exercises and diets. A life of toil trying to keep body and soul together is followed by a slap in the face for bothering. For men, grey hair and a lined face can be so distinguished – look no further than Dan for proof of that – whilst the same things on a woman diminish and demean her. But I’ve not given in to the ravages of time and I’m not going to give in to being usurped.

It’s time to fight back on all fronts.

Chapter 34

Susannah

I’m struggling with the shock of what arrived in the post today.

Not another dreaded missive from the production company. No, this was a small padded envelope, the address typewritten, no note inside. Just my necklace, with the three silver charms, the arrowhead, the die, and the heart. The chain is broken which explains why I have not been able to find it over the past few weeks – it must have fallen off when I was with Dan and he has now returned it. It must be him, because if anyone else had found it, how would they know it was mine? It can’t be Charlotte; I saw her this morning and she was perfectly pleasant, though a bit distant, obviously still hurting. It’s the absence of any message in the package that seems most significant. No ‘Thinking of you’ or ‘Would have preferred to give this to you in person but you know the situation’.

Nothing at all.

I bury my breaking heart in a flurry of activity. Dan’s action – or lack of it – is inexplicable. I don’t know how he can love Charlotte more than me. I mean, any man would get bored of a trophy wife like her at some point, I’m sure. She’s immaculately turned out but there’s nothing behind the facade, no depth, nothing real. I mean, as a friend she can be entertaining, a laugh. But as a wife? A long-term relationship needs more to it than that. In contrast, Dan knows how good we are together, playing tennis, talking, in bed. It seems wilful, self-flagellating, for him to throw that away.

He hasn’t come into the cafe, or visited the club at all, since it happened. But I find a new chain and defiantly restring my charms anyway, fastening the necklace around my throat before heading to the cafe. If he does turn up, this will show him that I am unbowed, even though I hate going to work now and can’t stand the smell of rubber soles and air freshener and freshly laundered tennis kit that assails me as soon as I walk in the door. It makes my heart jump into my throat and cramps clutch at my gut.

The club is Dan and Dan is the club and I can hardly bear that I still have to come here every day, that the future for me and the boys rests on keeping my job here, that I can’t just simply run away. I can’t drop out, the way I did after Charlie left me, because I have Jamie and Luke to think about now, responsibilities I didn’t have then. I can’t so much as contemplate the idea of finding another job or even of moving again. It’s far too soon for that.

So I chop and dice and season and taste, and as I do so, some tiny part of my mind that believes in fairy tales and not in real life allows me to fantasise about Dan, to imagine that, despite everything, eventually it will all come right. I think about his and Charlotte’s imminent meeting and picture the scene, the looks on their faces when both of them realise that their differences are irreconcilable, that there has been an ‘irretrievable breakdown’ in their marriage, that citing ‘unreasonable behaviour’ and adultery will be the best way out of it. How, when that moment comes, Dan will turn to me to pick up the pieces and put him back together again. And how, because we’ll be discreet and subtle and take things slowly, Charlotte will never need to know that it was me, always me, for whom Dan was prepared to risk everything.

In the meantime, offering to provide the food was a way for me to make sure that I am present at that meeting, that both of them are reminded of me. Plus, cooking Dan’s favourite food – super-spicy curry – something that Charlotte has said she won’t do, will make Dan realise that I am so much better – more considerate, nicer – than her.

At this thought, I take my phone out and look, again and again, at the text Charlotte sent me the night she discovered Dan’s infidelity, venting her rage, telling me in detail what she felt like doing to her husband.

It’s one of those texts that no one should ever send.

Chapter 35

Charlotte

You call me to make sure I’m in and can take delivery of your gourmet offering. You’ve finished work for the day; the batch you’re giving me is a pepped-up version of the one you’ve been serving to your customers and you tell me it’s gone down a treat. You’ll pop over right away with it.

This is my cue to get my act together. I’ve been up and down all day, my mood vacillating from one of willing conciliation, of desiring to clear things up with Dan, brush all his misdemeanours under the carpet, pretend that none of it ever happened and that nothing has to disturb our comfortable life, to one where I rage and scream at him for what he’s done. Why should he get