Second Chance - Jane Green [26]
‘Forgive the movie cliché,’ says Saffron, emotion choking her voice, ‘but I feel like I’ve come home.’
Olivia breaks the sudden silence by prodding Paul. ‘You’ve obviously eaten well all these years,’ she says with a grin.
‘Oh charming,’ Paul says. ‘I don’t see you for, what, twenty years? And the first thing to come out of your mouth is an insult. I see you haven’t changed a bit.’
Olivia puts her arm around Paul’s shoulders and squeezes, leaning down to kiss him on the cheek. ‘You look great. I’m just teasing. Anyway, you should be happy I still feel so comfortable with you.’
Saffron wanders into the living room, looking at the photographs dotted around. She picks one up – Holly and Marcus grinning at the camera as they perch on a wooden gate in the country.
‘Holly,’ Saffron calls, ‘is this your husband?’ She holds up the photograph.
‘Yup,’ Holly peers around the doorway, ‘and those are my kids over there.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Saffron shakes her head. ‘Holly Mac married. With children, no less.’
Holly comes back in from the kitchen with a smile. ‘Hey, Paul. Speaking of married, I saw some spread you did in Vogue when you got married. Mr bloody Prada. I almost phoned you then just to laugh at you.’
Paul dips his head sheepishly. ‘Ah yes. Did feel a bit of a poseur. Had the piss taken out of me for weeks, and only did it because Anna thought it would be great publicity.’
‘Was it?’
‘Yup.’
‘God, I love Fashionista!’ Holly says. ‘I used to spend a fortune with that other clothes website, but the service was crap. Everything always used to arrive about two weeks late because it was always out of stock, and they never apologized, which drove me bonkers. So now I only use Fashionista and it’s amazing. Seriously, the packaging, the speed. Tell your wife I’m a huge fan and she’s doing an incredible job.’
‘I don’t suppose your wife would give us mates’ rates?’ Saffron attempts.
‘Sure. You’d have to meet her first, and she’d have to like you, which is obviously a problem, but I’ll work on it.’ Paul smiles.
‘Why do you buy so much stuff from them?’ Olivia asks.
Holly shrugs. ‘Two reasons. First, whoever is buying for the website has the most spectacular taste imaginable–’
Paul nods smugly. ‘That’d be the wife.’
‘–and,’ continues Holly, ‘it seems that one of my vices as I have grown older is compulsive shopping.’
And so it goes on… As the evening wears on, inhibitions are loosened, and connections are being made again. Whatever it was that kept them from one another all these years has now disappeared without a trace.
Olivia, so nervous about seeing these people compared with whom she always felt so inadequate, doesn’t feel inadequate any more, is surprised and moved to find that she no longer feels Saffron is prettier or that Holly is cleverer and, although it may still be true, it doesn’t bother her now, doesn’t provide a yardstick against which she constantly has to measure herself and find herself falling short.
Saffron is calmer, more measured somehow. The Saffron of old was a shrieker, but the Saffron sitting here today seems, even through her sadness, to be at peace. The drama queen of old has settled down, she is comfortable in her skin and far more beautiful today because of it.
Paul is the same. He hasn’t changed at all, despite Holly dragging out the copy of Vogue (she’d gone out and bought it immediately). Tom was right, Holly thinks back with pain, remembering her conversation with Tom when she first saw Paul in Vogue. He is still a scruff, just one with the ability to scrub up incredibly well.
And Holly? Holly is the one you might perhaps worry about the most. She is the one who seems lost. Even here, among people who have known her longer than anyone else, although she appears comfortable, her feet tucked under her at one end of the long, squishy sofa, even here she looks lost.
‘Tom was probably the most consistent thing in my life.’ Olivia reaches over to the coffee