out pretty soon that he was making a mistake. Martha wouldn’t rub his back when it ached the way Joely did. She’d balk at cutting his toenails, and hate the way he hawked and coughed like a stuck volcano in the mornings. She already didn’t share his love of France and fine wines – Martha liked Spain and beer. What sort of woman preferred beer? Not Callum’s sort, that was for sure.
Maybe she’d never known him.
‘Come on, Dad,’ Holly shouted from the car.
Finding his brown eyes waiting for hers to reach them Joely turned away. Too many rows had already bounced around the walls of their beautiful home, she didn’t want to be left with the echoes of yet another as he walked away.
He was now living at Martha’s Edwardian end-of-terrace in Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith, where, over the years, Joely and Martha had spent hours, days, weeks, trying to work out why Martha had so much bad luck with men. Joely had always been there for her, turning up at a time of crisis with boxes of Kleenex, an overnight bag and a loyal friend’s shoulder. She brought wine and beer and vodka and all the support and advice she could muster.
She’d always known that Martha would die for someone like Callum. That was how Martha used to put it, that she’d die to have a man as successful and sensitive, as sensual and masculine as her best friend’s husband.
Now she’d taken not only him but Joely’s daughter as well. She’d given Holly the entire loft conversion as her own private space where Holly could hold sleepovers and take drugs. (To be fair, she hadn’t actually offered the option of drugs, nor had Holly ever shown any interest, but it could come and how was Martha going to cope with that?)
More to the point, how was she going to cope without a best friend to pour her heart out to, to bring booze and love and even laughter to a nightmare that couldn’t be borne alone?
The first call she’d received after the car had pulled away had been from Callum to check she was all right. He couldn’t have got much further than the end of the road. Then Holly had rung to say sorry for being so mean, probably because Callum had told her to, but at least she’d sounded as though she meant it. Minutes later Martha had rung, but Joely hadn’t picked up.
She’d stopped taking calls until the next morning when her mother had finally got hold of her.
She’d been standing in the kitchen staring at empty porridge bowls like a tragic, dumbstruck Goldilocks.
‘I had a text from Holly,’ her mother said gently, ‘so I know it’s happened. Are you OK? No, obviously you’re not. What did he have to say before he left?’
‘Nothing really.’
‘Do you want me to come over? I can stay for a few days, longer if you like.’
Tears had stung Joely’s eyes. Her mother was her real best friend and always had been, so why had she wasted her time with Martha? ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘We’ll only end up going round and round in circles and we’ve already done enough of that …’
‘But I don’t like to think of you on your own.’
‘I’ll be fine, honestly.’ She probably wouldn’t, since right at that moment she felt like topping herself, but her mother was a busy woman. Marianne Jenson might have retired from her job as the most glamorous and popular head teacher the local primary had known, but she was now a top part-time sales exec for an upmarket estate agent specializing in high-end properties, and with the way things were going in that world she was having to work extra hard.
Sighing, her mother had said, ‘I know it feels awful right now, but to be honest I really don’t think it’s over. He’ll come to his senses, I’m sure of it.’
How loyal and lovely of her to say that. It was the kind of thing you said as a parent who was also hurting, because how could you not hurt when your child was suffering?
‘And if he doesn’t?’ Joely asked crisply, unable to be kind. Was everyone destined to hurt their mothers? First Holly had hurt her and now here she was doing the same …
‘It’ll take time, but you’ll get over it,’ her mother said.
Such a platitude. It was outrageously insensitive and not what she’d have expected from her mother. ‘You mean the way you got over Dad?’ she shot