15 January
When Laurie picked up her Norwegian krone the next day, she called in to the nearby Forest Hotel where Bella was working. She’d been too hacked off to ring her after Reid had gone, decided to let herself simmer down and speak to her friend face to face instead.
‘What’s up, you look narked,’ said Bella, sitting down at one of the tables in the coffee bar. ‘Everything all right with you and Reid?’
‘Not really,’ said Laurie, curtly. ‘He stormed out of my house yesterday, because I wouldn’t book him into my cabin on the cruise.’
‘Wouldn’t you like that?’ asked Bella.
Her reaction told Laurie that she’d been right to suspect Bella of interfering in her holiday plans. Her infuriation cranked up a few notches.
‘No, I wouldn’t. And then he asked me if that was because I was going with Pete.’
Bella’s eyebrows almost crashed together in confusion. ‘Pete? Why would he say that?’
‘You tell me.’ Laurie answered her in a voice she usually saved for court.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It can only have come from Stu. Please stop feeding him so much detail about my life so he can pass it on to Reid, Bella.’
Bella slowly shook her head. ‘Laurie, I haven’t said anything to Stu about your cruise or mentioned Pete to him and even if I had, he’s not a gossipy sort of bloke. Wherever Reid’s getting his information from, it certainly isn’t him. I swear to you. I can keep my gob shut sometimes, you know.’
Laurie’s brow furrowed. Well that was odd. She had to admit, Stu never had come across as a man who indulged in small talk about other people’s business, but how else could Reid know so much about her and her plans?
‘. . . Although he told me not to say anything, but I’m going to tell you because I’m a bit worried,’ Bella went on. ‘Stu’s off work at the moment with stress. I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s always been a bit sniffy about people who go off work with those sorts of conditions, says they must be either wimps or swinging the lead, and then he has to swallow his own words and trot to the docs because he can’t sleep and keeps on getting the most awful cold sores.’ Bella sighed. ‘He won’t talk to me about what’s wrong, just shuts me down as soon as I ask.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Laurie. ‘I hope he opens up to you. What do you think it might be? Has his job changed?’
‘No, it’s exactly the same. The only difference is Reid joining the team, and he and Stu get on fine, so it can’t be that. What were you saying about him? That you’d had a lovers’ tiff about the holiday?’ asked Bella, cheering up slightly at the subject matter. ‘I’ve bought a hat.’
‘I hope you’ve kept your receipt then,’ replied Laurie.
Sharp intake of breath from Bella. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t think we’re a match.’
‘But he’s gorgeous, Laurie. And clever – he’s got a first from Oxford – and a Porsche and he’s witty and ambitious and masterful and romantic . . .’
Bella’s list went on and on and he was most of those things. But he wasn’t masterful, he was controlling and he wasn’t romantic, he was manipulative and his rich, attractive veneer was serving to mask it. Laurie had spent most of the evening after he’d gone thinking about her relationship with him and the recurring weave in the pattern: sulk, confrontation, profuse apologies, presents. Up until yesterday it had all been low-level stuff and that was the first time he’d shown his disapproval by stomping out, but somehow it signalled a cranking up of pressure. She’d taken a long hard look at them as a couple, recognised the changes he’d imposed on her own self: how she found herself bending more and more to his choices, his will, heard the alarm bells alerting her to the discreet chipping away at her confidence, how he turned the full beam of his attention onto her, then switched it off without notice, intending to disorientate.
She was right to think she’d been coerced into sleeping with him that first time in the Ritz. He’d wanted it and had wrapped up his intentions in a fancy-dancing Christmas present. She’d seen it often enough in the divorce cases she handled, how calculating some partners could be, how they slipped a choke chain on your neck when you least expected it, ready to be pulled tight when they felt it necessary to bring you to heel. She never thought she’d be the sort to fall prey to someone like this, but she had. She’d wandered into a spider’s web where the danger signs had been rendered invisible by the blinding light of shiny good looks and gallantry. She’d even realised that she had blamed herself for bringing out the flipside of his personality. Being stuck in traffic did not cause a rational person to demand photographs to prove where she was. Emotional abuse was all so much easier to spot from the outside than from in.
She told Bella about what had happened with Reid yesterday and didn’t leave her any space to comment.
‘If he doesn’t contact me again, that would be the ideal scenario,’ said Laurie. ‘If he does, then I will end it, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s over.’
Bella opened up her mouth then to protest, but shut it. The old Laurie was on her way back, the one who knew her own mind and her worth. The one who knew herself better than anyone else could.