‘I’m so sorry,’ says Beth, her face crumpling. ‘If I’d known I was about to throw a bomb into your world . . .’
The two women approach each other awkwardly until Alice opens her arms and pulls Beth into her. ‘What do they say?’ Alice laughs snottily. ‘You should never allow a man to come between friends.’
‘Something like that,’ sniffs Beth. ‘So, we’re all good?’
‘We’re all good,’ says Alice, acknowledging how different it feels to have Beth back on side. ‘We can work out a plan, going forward, together.’
‘Is everything okay with Nathan now?’ Beth asks as they walk back to the kitchen.
‘It will be,’ says Alice, suddenly confident.
40
‘I thought that donkey would be able to withstand more of a beating,’ jokes Nathan as he comes back into the kitchen, his arms so full of piñata debris he can’t see where he’s going. He staggers blindly towards the bin. ‘I was hoping for at least half an hour of entertainment from that. What’s next, Mum?’ He lets out an exaggerated sigh as he picks up a glass from the worktop and takes a mouthful of red wine. ‘God, this kids’ entertainer malarkey is hard work – no sooner are they on one thing than they want to know what’s coming next—’
‘Nate,’ Alice interjects, feeling infinitely stronger. ‘This is Beth.’
‘Ah, the infamous Beth,’ he says, looking down to wipe his hands on a tea towel. ‘I was beginning to think you were a figment of Alice’s imagination, or a hunky rugby player she’s been seeing on the side.’
He looks up, ready with one of his wide grins that would beguile even the most unwelcome of guests. ‘Pleased to finally meet—’ The rest of his sentence is cut off as his glass flies from his hand and smashes onto the island, splintering into a thousand tiny pieces.
‘Argh!’ shouts Alice, jumping back from the missile.
‘Oh goodness,’ calls out Linda. There’s a splash of red liquid on her white skirt, but her eyes are on Olivia’s birthday cake, sat on the worktop with nine candles, soaked in red wine and pockmarked with shards of glass.
It’s only Beth and Nathan who don’t make a sound, seemingly frozen in time, like someone has pressed the pause button on them.
‘Okay, stay away kids,’ says Alice, throwing an arm out across the conservatory door, where several pairs of eyes are craning to see what’s happened.
‘But look at my cake,’ shrieks Olivia. ‘Olaf’s all red.’
The colour has drained from Nathan’s face – his expression suspended in disbelief whilst all around him chaos reigns.
‘B-but how?’ he manages in barely more than a whisper.
A crippling heat descends upon Alice as she looks to Nathan, to Beth and back again. ‘How what? What the hell’s wrong, Nathan?’
‘I . . . erm, I just . . .’ he stutters.
‘Are you okay?’ Alice asks her husband, as Linda reels off kitchen roll and starts soaking up the pooling liquid.
Nathan looks to Beth, his eyes blinking rapidly. ‘What? Erm, yeah . . . yeah I’m fine.’
‘What’s going on?’ Alice can’t help but notice the change in the atmosphere. As if somebody had come in and wired five hundred amps into a socket. That somebody appeared to be Beth.
Alice looks to her, but she just shrugs her shoulders and smiles.
‘Nathan?’
‘God, I don’t know what happened there,’ he says, running a hand through his hair and attempting to laugh. ‘You look just like somebody I used to know and for a moment I thought you’d come back from the dead. I got the fright of my life.’
Beth smiles sweetly. ‘Oh, I can assure you I’ve not died. Unless, of course, I’m in some parallel universe, living another life, and I’ve come back to haunt you.’
Nathan laughs awkwardly. ‘Yes . . . yes, maybe.’
Whilst Alice and Linda clear up the mess, Nathan and Beth stand rooted to the spot.
Alice’s sense of unease refuses to budge. The look on Nathan’s face was unlike anything she’d ever seen before, as if he really had seen a ghost. Yet Beth is the epitome of calm, as if she has everything under control.
Alice knows the thought she’s trying so desperately hard to stop infiltrating her mind. It can’t be. It isn’t possible. She’ll settle for any other explanation than that, because if she gives that room to breathe, it will suck all the breath from her.
‘I’ll just go and change,’ says Nathan. ‘I’d better go and see if I can get Livvy a new cake as well.’ He leaps