Chapter 11
11
CARINA
Oh. Dear. Lord.
Carina’s jaw almost hit the floor when she realised what Moira was asking. It wasn’t even a possibility that had occurred to Carina, but now she could see where Moira was coming from, and if it were true, well, how would her friend ever live with the sadness of knowing that something she’d done had resulted, so tragically and accidentally, in the death of their friend?
‘Oh, Moira, no,’ Stevie blurted, ‘Absolutely not. I’m so sorry that thought even came into your head.’
All the colour had drained from Moira’s face and she just looked utterly devastated. ‘But I’d understand if you did blame me. To be honest, it’s hard to see it any other way.’
Carina watched as Stevie slowly rocked her head from side to side. ‘No, no, no. That thought never crossed my mind, Moira, because the other thing in her bag was her electricity bill. She was going to the post office to pay it, as she always did, because she refused to do anything online.’
‘But maybe it was to do both?’
‘No. Because the other thing you need to know is that her letter to you already had a stamp on it. She could have posted it in any of the other post boxes in the village. I promise, Moira, your invitation to come here wasn’t the reason she was going to the post office that day.’
Moira took the biggest intake of breath and then blew out her cheeks as she exhaled. ‘Thank you.’ Carina saw her eyes well up, as the relief consumed her. ‘I barely slept a wink for thinking about that.’
‘I thought you were just always that attractive in the mornings,’ Carina teased, desperate to dispel the tension and help Moira shake off the worry. Sarcasm and mild insults had always been their love language and the way to Moira’s heart. This morning wasn’t any different. Moira’s pursed lips and roll of the eyes told Carina that she was going to be okay. Sad, but at least unburdened by guilt that any of this could be her fault.
Moira refilled all of their mugs from the large coffee pot on the room service tray. It was one of those insulated ones, so it was still piping hot. Carina felt her stomach begin to rumble, and reached for a croissant as she asked, ‘So, Stevie, what are your plans while you’re here?’
Before Stevie could answer, the landline in the suite rang and Moira reached for the phone sitting on the rosewood side table next to her. ‘Hello?’
Carina was about to continue the conversation with Stevie, when Moira took the phone away from her ear and held it out to her. ‘Carina, it’s for you. Apparently, I’m your personal secretary now.’
Carina got up and took the phone with a dry, lofty, ‘Thank you. But you’re going to have to improve your attitude if you want me to keep you on my staff.’
She put the phone to her ear, while Moira swapped positions, taking the place she’d just vacated on the couch, next to Stevie. ‘Hello?’
‘Hey, it’s me. Your travel buddy.’
‘Oh, thank God, Ben. For a minute I thought Spencer had already tracked me down.’ That wouldn’t have surprised her at all. She’d only switched her phone on for a few moments and she’d ignored the missed calls from him, refused to listen to her voicemails, and had zero interest in reading his texts, but considering the staff would have told him that she left in a car to go to the airport with Ben, he’d possibly made an educated guess that she’d be in Hong Kong. Although, her hotel room downstairs had been put on Ben’s credit card, so Spencer would have no idea where she was staying. For that matter… ‘How did you know to ask for this room?’
‘I asked reception to try yours first, but there was no answer. You said you were meeting Moira here, so she was my next try. Took me a minute to remember her surname, but it came to me. Used to be all over the posters in the Harbour Lights bar.’
The memory made Carina smile. ‘Yes, it did.’
‘Anyway, I won’t keep you, but I just wanted to give you a heads up that Spencer suspected you came to Hong Kong, but he thought you were staying at my place.’ Ben had a beautiful apartment in a brand-new high-rise right on the waterfront in Central, just a couple of miles away from where she was now. ‘I put him right on that and told him I left you at Dubai Airport and have no idea where you were headed from there. Actually, I might have suggested that you mentioned going to Shanghai to see Erin. Or back to London to see your dad. I think it’s probably bought you a bit of time, but I don’t know how much.’
‘Thanks, Ben. I just don’t want to deal with him right now and I don’t know when I will, so I appreciate your lies on my behalf.’
‘Least I can do. I told him he was a daft prick and a disgrace for what he did, so I’m probably not up there with people he’d turn to now. That should keep him out of Hong Kong too.’
Despite the awfulness of the situation, she couldn’t help but be amused by his defiance of his brother. The two of them had worked for the family business all their lives, but they were very different characters. Spencer was the one who brought the ambition and the big ideas that pushed the company forward. Ben was the cool head that implemented the plans and ran the financial side of the operation. Out of work, though, they reluctantly tolerated each other, their personalities too wildly different for them to be true friends as well as brothers. Spencer saw every man as a competitor, a rival to be the best, to be the winner. Ben had zero interest in the game, preferring to just enjoy his life on his terms. Once upon a time, Carina had been wildly attracted to Spencer’s drive and the excitement that he brought into every room. She wasn’t sure when that had dissipated, but if she were being honest with herself, it was well and truly gone by the time she caught him having sex with someone else in her newly decorated guest bathroom. Now, she was struggling to even care. In fact, if she hadn’t discovered Spencer with Arabella, she’d be in London right now on an anniversary trip with a man who was screwing around, and Moira would be here dealing with the news about Lisa on her own. In that one, tiny way, her faithless, deplorable, excuse for a husband had done her a favour.
Last night, when she’d gone to bed, she would have expected to have spent her first night post-adultery fretting about her marriage, her future, the fact that her whole life had just imploded. Yet, every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was Lisa, on stage in the bar downstairs, her gravelly, exquisite voice singing the hell out of ‘Don’t Stop.’ Or ‘Rhiannon.’ Or ‘Silver Springs.’
It was like everything had been put in perspective and suddenly her problems seemed meaningless, next to the loss of the incredible Lisa Dixon.
‘Okay, thank you. Keep him at bay for as long as you can. I’ve got no desire to see or speak to him.’
‘Ever?’
Carina wasn’t sure she knew the answer to that question. Was there a way to come back from this? And did she want to? She didn’t even want to think about that right now.
‘I don’t know. I need time to think about it.’
‘Take all the time you need. Look, I’m just about to head into a meeting, so I need to go. Call me if you need anything. And tell Moira and Lisa that I said hi. I’d love to see them both again, so let’s try and tie up at some point.’
Damn. On the plane, she’d let him read the invitation, so he knew that the trip had been at Moira’s instigation, and that Lisa had been invited too. He’d obviously assumed that they’d all made it. Now wasn’t the time to explain why Lisa wasn’t here, not with Stevie sitting across the room. She didn’t want to add to the poor soul’s sadness. Better to call him back later and tell him the whole story.
‘I will do… and Ben… thank you.’
‘Anytime. Always told you that you married the wrong brother.’
It was their inside joke, the one they’d repeated a million times over the decades, but today, for the first time, she wondered if there was some truth in there. Maybe she had.
She hung up and put the phone back on the base unit that sat on the beautiful table that matched the rosewood desk in the corner of the huge suite. The whole space was stunning. Floor to ceiling windows on two sides. A wrap around terrace. A separate bedroom with 1,000-thread-count sheets, no doubt. This was exactly the kind of room that she and Spencer would always stay in when they travelled. Ironic that the first time she travelled on her own, she was staying in a room so small she tripped over her own shoes this morning. And even more ironic that she really didn’t care. Moira had offered to have her move her things into the suite and use the sofa bed in the living room, but she’d gratefully declined. Her own room was a welcome breathing space while she worked out what she was going to do with her life.
‘Ben said hello, Moira,’ she told her friend as she rejoined them on the corner sofa, pulling her legs up underneath her as she sat down. ‘My brother-in-law,’ she explained to Stevie. ‘He lives in Hong Kong and was just calling to check on me.’ She realised she hadn’t told Stevie about the incident that had been the catalyst for coming here. What was the etiquette for telling your friend’s adult daughter about a salacious incident in your life?
‘That’s kind of him. Did he know my mum too?’ The question caught her off guard, but thankfully Moira stepped in with her usual frankness. ‘He did. We were just talking earlier about how both your mum and I had a crush on him. Not that I stood a chance with your mum around. She was the most lusted-after woman on the island back then.’
Carina noticed that Stevie flinched. Maybe Moira’s usual frankness was a bit too much today.
‘Sorry,’ Stevie said, shaking her head, ‘but I just can’t picture my mum being the young, carefree girl that you describe. It’s such a world apart from the woman I knew.’
‘In what way?’ Carina asked, surprised and genuinely interested.
‘My mum was cautious. Reserved. She didn’t drink. She didn’t smoke. She divorced my dad when I was a kid, and never – as far as I know – met anyone else. She didn’t socialise much, so she didn’t really have many friends and definitely no close ones. She was just always… safe. Yep, that’s the best word for her. Never took risks, never took chances. All she wanted was a quiet life, in her little village, with no drama, and…’ she hesitated, and Carina could see she was struggling with how much she should divulge.
‘To be honest with you, it caused a rift between us when I was a teenager because she didn’t want me to go out, or party with friends, or have fun or do anything even remotely exciting. She just wanted to keep me wrapped in cotton wool, and she was permanently worried that something awful would happen to me. I ended up leaving home and going to university in Glasgow because I wanted to live my life. I always got the impression that she’d never done that. I thought she’d always just led a super-sheltered existence. And then when I saw the photo that you’d enclosed with the letter…’
She didn’t have to say any more than that for Carina to know what she was thinking. The woman in the photo bore no resemblance to the mother she’d just described. And likewise, the woman Stevie was describing was not the Lisa they’d known.
Carina and Moira exchanged a glance of mutual astonishment, before Stevie went on. ‘That’s why I wanted to come and meet you both. Because I feel like there’s a whole person there who I never knew and I’d like you to tell me about her .’
The last words caught in Stevie’s throat and Carina ached for her. This woman was only a couple of years older than Imogen and Erin, and she couldn’t even bear to think about them being in a situation like this. And if they were, if the tables were turned and they were sitting in front of Moira and Lisa, what would she want her friends to do?
She raised her eyes so that they met Moira’s and despite more than three decades having passed since they’d last had a telepathic conversation, their facial expressions communicated in a way that they both knew what each other was thinking.
‘You know, Stevie, when we were all together here we were twenty-three years old. We had a moment in time that was incredible and exciting and wild. But we weren’t perfect people. We made so many mistakes and there were times when we didn’t have our proudest moments. What if you don’t like everything that you hear?’
Stevie pondered that for a minute and Carina could see what a lovely thoughtful woman she was. No matter what their relationship, Lisa had raised someone to be proud of.
‘Then at least I’ll truly know my mother. All of her. Not just the parts she trusted me enough to share.’
Ouch. It didn’t take expert perception to see that there had been issues between Stevie and her mum. Carina wanted, with every part of her, to help.
Moira was the first to cave though, as she threw up her hands. ‘Oh, love, that got me right in the heart. Carina, what time is it?’
Carina checked her watch. ‘Almost twelve.’
Moira nodded. ‘I think the young ones call that “day-drinking o’clock.” You pour the prosecco and get on to room service for some chips and mayonnaise, and I’ll go get my photograph albums. Time to let Stevie in on a few secrets.’