The Woman Who Lied(6)

Kristin leans into Jonas, and he drapes an arm over her shoulders, smiling contentedly. It’s been eleven years but it still gives Emilia a surreal jolt to see them so loved up, like she’s tumbled into an alternative universe.

‘We have some news,’ Kristin pipes up.

‘Oh, yes?’ Is Kristin pregnant? She’s surprised that it hasn’t happened yet. Kristin used to say she’d love kids one day. She glances at her former friend’s stomach, which is still as flat as it was when they were twenty-two.

‘We’re moving! At last!’

She feels a surge of relief that there will be no baby yet. Jasmine was still so young, just four, when Emilia met Elliot and then, three years later, had Wilfie. But the disruption and emotional upheaval of a new baby in their lives might not be the best thing for her daughter right now.

‘That’s great news. Where?’ Please don’t say Richmond. Please don’t say Richmond.

‘Teddington. By the lock. A gorgeous house. So much more space, isn’t it, darling?’

Jonas nods and smiles tightly, but Emilia isn’t fooled. She can sense the panic behind his eyes.

‘I’m really pleased for you.’ She knows it’s been hard financially on Jonas since they’d split and he’d had to find the money to buy her out of their house. He’d never wanted to move, which he’s always said was down to his parents living a five-minute walk away, but she suspects it’s because he’s lazy and can’t be bothered with the disruption. Although she remembers the flicker of envy in his face when she and Elliot bought their Victorian villa four years ago. She gets the feeling Kristin isn’t much help on the money front, swapping one venture for the next.

‘Thank you.’ Kristin’s bright blue eyes gleam. ‘I’m really excited about getting my hands on the decor. I’m thinking white walls and pale floors. The light is particularly special. Can’t wait for you to see it. It’s lovely to be able to choose my own home, at last. This one …’ she glances around the narrow hallway ‘… it’s not what I would have picked.’

Jonas raises an eyebrow at Emilia but doesn’t say anything, although she’s tempted to ask Kristin what she’d have chosen if she’d been working on a local newspaper for a meagre salary at the age of twenty-three and pregnant. Emilia had always thought she and Jonas had done okay for themselves, buying an actual house when they were so young. But Kristin hadn’t had to worry about all that. She’d been swanning around Australia at the time with some rich boyfriend whom everyone thought she’d marry.

‘Anyway,’ says Emilia, glancing pointedly at her watch – although without her glasses on she can’t actually read it, ‘where’s Jas?’

Jonas turns away from her to bellow up the stairs and Jasmine thunders down, rucksack over her shoulder and her mobile attached to her ear. ‘Yeah, yeah, I said I was coming.’ And then into the phone, ‘I’ll ring you back, Nance.’ She pockets her mobile and brushes her blonde hair off her face. When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she thrusts her feet into a pair of chunky white trainers that Emilia has always hated.

‘Come on, then, sweets. Let’s go,’ says Emilia, placing an arm around Jasmine’s shoulders.

‘Is Aunty Ottilie still coming over?’

She can’t help the small flicker of pleasure as Kristin squirms at the sound of their once mutual friend’s name. Not that Ottilie has spoken to Kristin for the last eleven years. The three might have been inseparable in their late teens and the first half of their twenties, after Emilia had introduced Kristin to Ottilie, but Emilia has known Ottilie since they’d joined their cold, uptight boarding school at the age of eleven and their bond runs deep. Ottilie has never forgiven Kristin for breaking what she’s always called the ‘girl code’.

‘Yes, she is, along with Grampy Trevor.’ Trevor is Elliot’s dad so not technically Jasmine’s grandfather but she’s always adored him and vice versa.

‘How is Ottilie?’ asks Kristin, trying to look disinterested, even though Emilia knows she’s always had a strange fascination with her. Most people who meet her do. She’s unlike anyone else Emilia has ever known.

‘She’s great. Amazing, actually. She’s started dating someone although I haven’t met him yet. He lives in Germany. She met him when she was visiting her dad in Hamburg.’

‘I’m pleased for her.’

‘And Elliot is cooking a roast.’

It’s childish of her, she knows, but Jonas is a terrible cook.

‘Ooh, Elliot does the best roasters,’ exclaims Jas, much to Emilia’s delight.

‘How lovely,’ Kristin trills, as Emilia opens the door, ‘to be able to eat roast potatoes. I haven’t eaten carbs since 2008.’

Jasmine gives her dad and Kristin a perfunctory hug goodbye and Emilia ushers her down the path as quickly as is humanly possible in the icy conditions, relieved to get back into the car. God, she can’t wait until Jasmine is old enough to drive so that she doesn’t have to face her former friend every other week.





5





Jasmine pushes open the unlocked front door, dumps her rucksack in the porch next to the expensive lurid green bicycle that Elliot always promises to ride but never does, races through the glass double doors that lead to their spacious hallway, and straight upstairs. Emilia is left to pick up the rucksack. She hasn’t the energy to call her back down.