Chapter 56
There was a stunned silence in which no one spoke and it seemed to last for minutes, rather than the seconds it actually was. Strangely enough, Charlotte was the last to react. First was Lew who grabbed serviettes and started scooping the cake from Charlotte’s face and shoulders, his brain telling him that Gemma must have slipped. Second was Jason who leapt up from his seat with a ‘What the fuck . . .?’
‘Fuck? Fuck . . . oh yes, let’s talk about fucks and fucking and fuckers.’ Gemma gave a hard forced chuckle.
Charlotte had now stirred into life and was spitting out cream and wiping herself with her hands whilst making strange noises of distress. Lew’s skull was prickling; Gemma never swore. He knew something had been amiss with her. He’d felt it as soon as he’d laid eyes on her tonight.
‘What are you talking about?’ growled Jason, but there was something in his tone that inferred he might know exactly what his wife was talking about.
‘I had a visitor today,’ said Gemma, calmly licking a lump of chocolate-sprinkled cream from her finger. ‘Lovely cake. What a waste. Regina. Came to crawl up my arse because no one else was speaking to her. Wanted to wangle an invite for this evening but obviously I told her to stuff off. So guess what she told me, Jason?’ Gemma stared hard at her husband, then swivelled her head around to Charlotte, who looked as if she were metamorphosing into a snowman. ‘Sh . . . Harlot?’
Charlotte was silent under her cake mask. Jason was struck dumb, wide-eyed and his face was turning redder by the second. Lew was silent too but his brain was sparking, trying to work out what was going on.
‘Regina told me that you two had been screwing. My husband and my best friend, fucking like minxes,’ Gemma went on, calmly as if she was talking about the price of potatoes rather than the ultimate betrayal.
‘Regina is fucking evil,’ said Charlotte now, spraying whipped cream like a snow machine as she spoke. ‘I can’t believe that you’d actually take her seriously.’
But whilst Lew was listening to his wife’s reasonable response, he was looking at Jason, who had gone past red and was heading for purple. Jason hadn’t opened his mouth and Lew thought, If that were me, I would be screaming a protest.
‘You know, Charlotte, that’s exactly what I said to myself to begin with. But I have to admit, she was pretty convincing.’ Gemma’s composure began to slip now and her voice started to rise. ‘She said that the night Patrick left her, the two of you got wrecked on Jack Daniel’s and you fessed up to her, you bitch. As for you . . .’ Gemma’s attention swung to Jason. ‘Guess what I did this morning? A pregnancy test. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant to a wanker who is fucking my best friend.’
Jason folded like a concertina that had been kicked in the bollocks. ‘Oh no. God, I’m so sorry,’ he said, face creasing like a five-year-old who had just been told Christmas was cancelled.
‘What are you sorry for? Nothing happened,’ screamed Charlotte at him. ‘Tell them Jason, nothing bloody happened.’ But Jason had his hands on his head as if performing a penance for a teacher and he was saying absolutely nothing as he rocked backwards and forwards.
Lew stood as if in the eye of the storm, the cool, clear part that saw the disaster surrounding him, and none of it was making sense. Or rather it was and his brain was repulsing it, refusing to let him accept what his eyes were seeing and his ears were hearing.
‘Jason, tell them nothing happened!’ Charlotte was shrieking like a harpy, but he was dissolving in front of them, sinking to a chair, sobbing.
‘You pathetic shit,’ Gemma bawled at him. ‘You make me feel sick. What should have been the best day of my life, ruined. And as for you – ’ she screwed up her face at Charlotte ‘ – it’s a good job you never had kids, you selfish—’
‘That’s enough, Gemma. Do not go there,’ Lew cut in sternly. Whatever mess they were all in, that was just cruel.
‘Oh, oh,’ Gemma laughed almost manically. ‘Of course you don’t know, do you?’
Charlotte sprang from the chair, pushed past Lew and lunged at Gemma. ‘Don’t, Gem.’ Charlotte pressed her hand over Gemma’s mouth. Gemma prised it off.
‘You do know that while YOU thought you were trying for a baby, SHE was on the pill. She only came off it because you thought something was wrong and wanted to send her for medical tests.’
‘What?’ Lew’s eyes tennis-matched between Gemma and Charlotte.
‘You lying bitch. Lewis, don’t listen to her, she’s mental.’
‘Am I now? You’re painting me out to be the bad guy, are you?’ Gemma guffawed like a panto villain. ‘Bad news usually comes in threes, so guess what the third one is, Lew. SHE had an abortion, not a miscarriage.’
‘She’s lying, Lewis. You fucking bitch.’ Charlotte grabbed a handful of Gemma’s hair, Gemma reached for Charlotte’s, Lew threw himself between them and it was Charlotte he pushed away and Gemma whom he closed his arms around and whom he held firmly whilst she slumped against him and sobbed as if her heart was breaking up inside her.
He couldn’t remember how long he stood there holding her, giving her comfort, claiming comfort for himself from this terribly wounded woman. Later when he tried to recall the events of the evening, there were gaping black holes in his memory. He couldn’t remember what happened between standing there with Gemma and getting into a taxi with Charlotte. He could remember paying the taxi driver and storming up the path whilst Charlotte trailed behind, carrying her shoes.
Then they were in the kitchen and he recalled pouring himself a whisky and throwing it down his neck and he remembered how the burn on the back of his throat felt good, real, after the numbness of the last half-hour/hour . . . however long it was, he had no idea, his brain was scrambled.
‘Is it true?’ he said eventually, coming ‘back into the room’ as if a hypnotist had clicked his fingers.
‘No, of course not,’ snapped Charlotte, bottom lip pushed out so far Tom Daly could have dived from it.
‘She made it all up? Really? Did she?’ he bellowed and she jumped back a step.
‘Yes.’ That stupid giveaway nerve was jerking on the edge of her lip.
Lew picked up the glass and threw it across the room where it smashed against the wall clock. He walked straight up to bed with the thought in his head that he’d never liked the bastard thing anyway.