Gemma had headed towards the kitchen, thinking the class might have begun to congregate, when she heard the murmur of voices from the dining room. One she recognized instantly—Hazel. The other was female, English, and clipped with anger. Louise.
“I know you didn’t approve of my coming,” Hazel was replying, “but surely you can understand—”
“Understand?” Louise shot back. “Oh, I understand that you think you can waltz back into our lives as if you’d never been away. And that we’re all supposed to welcome the prodigal with open arms, no matter how much damage you left in your wake the last time.”
“But I— Louise, you don’t understand. I had no choice—”
“Didn’t you?” Louise’s voice was sharp as an ice pick.
“Or did you just take the easiest course? Run away, and don’t think about the consequences.”
“But—Donald—Donald had the distillery—”
“Donald was devastated. And you left me to try to explain to him why the woman he loved had left him without a word of explanation—”
“Donald knew— He didn’t need me—”
“Didn’t he? You’re always so sure of yourself, Hazel, but this time you were wrong. I don’t think he’s ever recovered. Did you not wonder why he never married?”
“Donald? But Donald—I just assumed—Donald always had women queued up—”
“When did that ever matter?” Louise laughed. “Did you think love was a commodity? And now you’re going to inflict the same sort of damage on your new family, and you want my approval?”
There was a moment’s silence. Gemma stood rooted in the dining room, afraid to breathe, unable to move forward or back without betraying her presence.
Then Hazel’s voice came again, softly. “Louise, whatever else happened, I never meant to hurt you.” Footsteps echoed, faded away, and then came the slam of the scullery door.
Hurriedly, Gemma slipped out the front door, making as little noise as possible. She didn’t want to confront Louise, didn’t want to appear as if she’d been eavesdropping. And she must talk to Hazel.
She found her friend standing at the edge of the back garden, looking out towards the river, twisting her hands together.
“You heard, didn’t you?” said Hazel, without looking at her.
“Yes.” Gemma waited, watching a few horses grazing leisurely in the far pasture. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve been so stupid. So stupid about everything, and so dishonest,” Hazel said, as if she hadn’t heard the question. “I managed to convince myself that I could come back here and dabble my toes in the water, just testing it to see if it was still as nice as I remembered, and no one would get hurt.” Her lips twisted in a grimace of disgust. “I told myself I could always back out—choose not to act, and my life would just muddle on. But the truth is—Oh, Gemma. I’m not sure I can give it up. Can I go back to living a shadow life, when I know what I’m missing? Nothing’s changed between us, not in thirteen years. I’ve never felt this for anyone else . . .”
She turned to Gemma, her face tear-streaked. “I’m a fraud, Gemma, a bloody charlatan. I make my living telling people how to sort out their lives. When they make a balls-up of it I’m gently patronizing, as if I had all the answers.” She shook her head. “But this . . . this I don’t know how to fix.”
They dressed for dinner in silence, Gemma shivering a little as she pulled a moss green sweater over her head.
The evening chill had come in early, and the central heating in their room had not yet come on.
Earlier, when John had called them into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner, Hazel had begged Gemma to make her excuses, saying, “I can’t face either of them just yet.”
“Donald and Louise?” When Hazel nodded, Gemma said, “Right, then. Migraine it is. And I’ll come and fetch you when it’s time for drinks.”
No one questioned Hazel’s headache, but to Gemma’s
discomfort, Donald immediately snagged her as his cooking partner. Together, they had stuffed fistfuls of basil into the food processor, along with peeled cloves of garlic, deep green olive oil, roasted red peppers, and toasted pine nuts. This mixture they spread over the salmon fillets, leaving John to grill them at the last minute. They stirred the cheese into their celery and Brie soup, strung and sautéed the mange-tout. She and Donald worked well together, quickly establishing a rhythm, and by the end of the session she found herself smiling in spite of herself.
When they’d finished, John had dismissed them with a reminder that the evening would be festive, and to dress accordingly.
Donald, walking out with Gemma into the dusky garden, had stopped her with a touch on her arm.
“Gemma, put in a good word for me, will you?”
Feeling an unexpected sense of regret, she said, “You know I can’t. She’s my friend, Donald. I won’t encourage her to ruin her life. I’m sorry.”
He had shrugged ruefully and patted her shoulder.
“Didna fash yerself, lass. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask. I’m glad she has such a good friend.”
Now, taking her turn in the bathroom, Gemma scrubbed her hands in a futile effort to remove the odor of fish and garlic. Defeated, she rubbed lotion on instead, pulled her hair up into a loose topknot, brushed a little shadow on her eyelids, and swiped a bronzy pink lipstick across her mouth.
Then she gaped at herself in the glass, lipstick sus-pended in midair. Whom did she mean to impress with all this primping? Donald?
Flushing with shame, she blotted her lips and brushed her hair back into its usual single plait.
When she came out of the bathroom, she found Hazel sitting at the dressing table, her mobile phone clutched in her hands.
“There’s no one at home,” Hazel said, looking up at her. “I thought . . . if only I could hear Holly’s voice . . .”
Gemma frowned. “I’ve been trying to ring Duncan, too. No one’s home, and he seems to have turned off his mobile phone. Do you suppose they’ve all met up and joined a cult?”
Seeing Hazel’s stricken look, she hastened to reassure her. “I’m only teasing. I’m sure they’re all fine.” She’d been whistling in the dark to combat her own worry; she hadn’t meant to aggravate Hazel’s.
Gemma sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her friend. “Have you decided what you’re going to do, love?”
“I’m going home on Monday, and I’m not coming back,” Hazel said reluctantly. “But I’ll have to tell Tim the truth—”
“The truth? That you love someone else and you’re only staying with him out of duty? Hazel, you can’t do that—you can’t expect him to live with that sort of knowledge.”
“No. I suppose you’re right.” Hazel looked up at Gemma, despair in her dark eyes. “But how do I go on, pretending nothing’s happened to me?”
“You make the best of it,” Gemma said, with more certainty than she felt. If Hazel thought herself a fraud, was she a hypocrite? What if she were faced with staying with a man she didn’t love—Toby’s father, Rob, perhaps, if the circumstances had been different—or being with Duncan? Would she find her choice so easy?
“What about Donald?” she asked.
“I’ll tell him tonight,” said Hazel. “What else can I do?”
*
When Gemma and Hazel entered the sitting room, they found the other guests assembled, except for Donald. The fire crackled, a lively Celtic air played softly in the background, and John was making the rounds with a bottle of single malt and a tray of cut glass tumblers. From the dining room came the clinking of china and cutlery—Louise setting the tables. “Aberlour, eighteen-year-old.” John raised the bottle towards them in greeting. “Thought everyone should taste a bit of the competition.”