The Fury(52)

I didn’t say anything.

But let me tell you, I hated Barbara in that moment. I hated her so much.

I could have killed her.

It would be so easy, I thought, to kick that stick of hers and knock her off-balance.

Then just the lightest of touches would send her falling backward down the stairs—her body thumping down the steps, one by one, all the way to the bottom … until her neck broke, with a crack, on the marble floor.





9





You’d be forgiven for thinking, after everything Barbara West told her about me, that Lana would never speak to me again. Friendships have foundered on less.

Thankfully, Lana was made of strong stuff. I imagine how she reacted to Barbara’s character assassination; that cruel attempt to discredit me in her eyes, and destroy our friendship.

“Barbara,” Lana said, “the majority of what you said about Elliot is untrue. The rest, I knew already. He is my friend. And I love him. Now get out of my house.”

That’s how I like to picture it, anyway. The truth is, there was a definite coolness between Lana and me after that.

It was made worse because we never spoke about it. Not once. I only had Barbara’s word for it that the conversation had even taken place. Can you believe it? Lana never mentioned it. I often thought about bringing it up, forcing her to confront it. I never did. But I hated that there were secrets between us now, subjects to be avoided—we, who had shared so much.

Mercifully, Barbara West died soon afterward. No doubt, the universe sighed with relief at her passing—I certainly did. Almost immediately, Lana started calling me again, and our friendship resumed. It seemed as if Lana had decided to bury Barbara’s poisonous words along with the old witch herself.

But it was too late for me and Lana by then.

Too late for “us.”

By then, Jason and Lana had embarked on their “whirlwind romance”—as the Daily Mail breathlessly called it. They were married a few months later.

Sitting in the church, watching the wedding ceremony, I was keenly aware I wasn’t the only guest with a broken heart.

Kate was sitting right next to me, tearful and more than a little inebriated. I was impressed she had brazened it out—in true Kate style—and attended the wedding, head held high; despite having ignominiously lost her lover to her best friend.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have gone. Perhaps what Kate should have done, for the sake of her mental health—and this goes for me, too—was to pull away and distance herself from Lana and Jason. But Kate couldn’t do that. She loved them too much to give either of them up. That’s the truth.

And after Lana married Jason, Kate tried to bury her feelings for Jason and put the past behind her.

Whether she succeeded is open to question.





10





I may as well come clean. I had known about Kate and Jason’s affair for quite some time.

I discovered it by chance. It was a Thursday afternoon. I happened to be in Soho, for—well, let’s call it an appointment—and I was a little early. So, I thought I’d pop into a pub for a quick drink.

As I turned onto Greek Street, guess who I saw, emerging from the Coach & Horses?

Kate was exiting the pub, looking rather furtive, glancing from left to right.

I was about to call out her name—when Jason emerged, just behind her; with that same sheepish look.

I watched them from across the street. They could have seen me, either of them—if they had looked up. But they didn’t. They kept their heads low, parting without a word to each other. They hurried off in opposite directions.

Hello, I thought. What’s going on here?

What odd behavior. Not to mention informative. It told me something I hadn’t known before: that Jason and Kate were meeting independently of Lana.

Did Lana know about this? I wondered. I made a mental note to ponder this further—and think how I might best use it to my advantage.

I hadn’t given up hope, you see. I still loved Lana. I still believed that, one day, we would be married. There was no question about that in my mind. Obviously she was now married to Jason—which made things trickier—but my goal, as Mr. Levy would say, remained the same.

When Lana and Jason got married, I assumed—like everyone else—it wouldn’t last. I thought after a few months of being married to a bore like Jason, Lana would come to her senses. She would wake up to what a terrible mistake she had made—and she would see me there, waiting for her. Compared to Jason, I’d appear as suave and sophisticated as Cary Grant in an old movie—reclining against a piano, cigarette in one hand, martini in the other, witty, self-effacing, warm, lovable—and, just like Cary, I’d get the girl in the end.

But to my astonishment, their marriage endured. Month after month, year upon year. It was torture for me. No doubt it was Lana’s sheer loveliness that kept it going. Jason would have tried a saint’s patience; and Lana was clearly something more than a saint. A martyr, perhaps?

Therefore, as far as I was concerned, this surprise encounter with Kate and Jason in Soho was nothing short of a divine intervention.

I had to make the most of it.



* * *



I decided it would be a good idea if I started following Kate.