Chapter 57 Freya
FREYA
“Erm, I’d invite you to stay,” says Tess. “But…”
I look at her, waiting for what excuse she’s going to offer. And when she doesn’t, I make my way down the hallway into the room beyond.
It’s no surprise to find an open bottle of red on the sideboard alongside a half-filled glass.
“I was just…,” starts Tess in an attempt to justify its presence.
“Waiting for someone?” I ask, the thought of it being Charlie slamming into me like a ten-ton truck.
Despite myself, I can’t help but imagine the pair of them curled up on the oversized sofa, wrapped in each other’s arms, plotting how to get me out of the way.
They’d need to come up with a plan that left no room for error.
Because if Charlie knew me at all, he’d know that he could never leave me. I wouldn’t let him.
What roles had each of them played, to ensure that the “problem” was taken care of?
Had they been working together—so that between them they were able to control where I was going to be and how it was going to happen?
I take myself back to my weekend away with Tess.
Her insistence that I go and the lies that Charlie will know I told.
Had it all been part of the plan? To lure me there? To get me drunk? What were they intending to do in those lost hours? And how had I escaped with only a hangover?
But then I remember my ride the next morning.
Of a noise, sounding like a gunshot, ringing out around the woodland.
A frightened horse is always going to rear up, throwing even the most experienced rider off.
It’s not hunting season, the man had said.
And even if it was, the land you were on is private.
“You were so lucky,” Tess had gasped, looking like she’d seen a ghost when I hobbled up to her on the terrace. “It could have been so much worse.”
Was that what they were hoping? That I’d fall off and not get up again? How disappointed they must have been when I’d found my way back.
A bitter taste sours my tongue, as their duplicity is revealed, one episode at a time in my head.
“Were you ever in recovery?” I ask, nodding to the wine bottle. “Or was it all part of the ruse?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, and for a split second, I think she might be about to confess all. “But I’m not as strong as you.”
I laugh hollowly at the misplaced compliment. “You forget that I fell off the wagon, too.”
“Which was my fault,” she says, attempting to look ashamed.
“I trusted you,” I say.
Tess’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry I’ve let you down. I know how hard you worked and what it meant for you to get sober.”
My jaw spasms as I watch someone I thought was a friend pretend that falling off the wagon is more hurtful to me than sleeping with my husband.
“Meeting you, hearing your story gave me a purpose I’ve never had before,” she goes on.
Despite myself, I can’t help but cast my mind back to those tortuous meetings, where I was forced to face my demons.
Laying my problems bare and putting my vulnerabilities out there for people like Tess to exploit.
The irony that what was supposed to save me is actually going to destroy me hits hard.
“Was that the first time you met him?” I ask.
She looks at me, feigning confusion, and it takes all my willpower not to wipe that vexed expression from her face.
“Who?” she asks.
She doesn’t want to play hardball with me. “Charlie,” I say.
There’s that simpering look of bewilderment again. “Your Charlie?”
I offer a tight smile.
“Well, yeah, I’ve only met him that once,” she says. “As well you know.”
I nod as I walk around the room, picking up a silver photo frame, and as I look at the picture, Tess snatches a breath deep into her lungs.
The happy family scene of a couple holding a newborn baby reminds me of a similar one I have of my own parents and me on the day they brought me home from hospital.
“Why do you ask?” she goes on, unable to help herself. Big mistake.
“I’ve just got a sixth sense about something, you know?” I put the frame back on the sideboard, where Tess’s wineglass sits. “Because I think you know my husband far better than you’re letting on.”
Her face does nothing—absolutely nothing—as if it’s been rehearsing for this very moment for weeks, if not months. But I can tell that her muscles are contracting furiously under her skin, battling to control any telltale movement.
“I—I don’t know what you mean…,” she says.
I make my way to the sofa. Her sense of unease is growing now that she knows that I’m staying long enough to sit down.
I want to have got this all wrong. I want Tess to be the person I thought she was. All she has to do is offer me a simple explanation as to what her address is doing in Charlie’s satnav.
She sits down on the armchair and takes a deep breath. “Okay, I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to cause you any more problems than you already had.”
My eyes narrow. “Go on.…”
“He came to see me a couple of weeks ago,” she says. “Just after our weekend away.”
“What did he want?”
“He knew that you were with me—that you’d lied about where you were going.”
“How?”
“He followed you to the hotel,” she says.
If it had been a week ago, I would have thought the world might end, but there are now far bigger issues to deal with than him finding out I’d lied about where I went.
“So what has that got to do with you? Why did he come here?”
She sighs. “He came to warn me off. He didn’t want me seeing you because he knew I was drinking, and he didn’t want you to go down the same path.”
“How did he know you were drinking?” I ask, the gaping holes in her story still too big to plug.
“He saw me in a hotel bar. I’m sorry—I should have been honest. I should never have let it get this far”—she looks at me with tears in her eyes—“because I genuinely value our friendship.”
I want to believe her. Because she’s the only friend I’ve got.