Andrew had never particularly approved of the friendship; Susie and her husband Jim didn’t move in the same social circles as they did. Jim was a self-employed builder who had established a small business for himself dealing mainly in property repairs and extensions; he had a very good reputation but, as Susie had once said ruefully but fondly, he would never become rich. Neither of them was particularly money-conscious or ambitious and their lives revolved mainly around their family. Susie had a warmth and generosity about her that had immediately drawn Philippa to her. They got on well together and Philippa knew that if she had been the type to confide in others Susie would have been the one person she would have felt able to turn to.
Susie had been away staying with her mother when Andrew had died, and Philippa had felt reluctant to get in touch with her. Afraid to put their relationship to the test.
But now, as she looked into her friend’s face, she realised how much of an injustice she had done her.
‘Pippa,’ Susie repeated now as she hurried over to her and gave her a fierce hug, ignoring Philippa’s warnings about the soil clinging to her wellington boots and her gloves. ‘How are you? I’m so sorry that I haven’t been in touch before now. Jim rang me with the news, but Mum was celebrating her seventieth birthday and I couldn’t rush away and take the children from their doting grandmother. I got back last night and I was going to call round then, but…’
‘Let’s go inside,’ Philippa suggested.
She could feel emotional tears prickling the back of her throat and stinging her eyes, and as she blew her nose she asked Susie shakily, ‘Why is it so much easier to cry over something that makes you feel happy than something that really hurts?’
‘Perhaps because it’s easier to acknowledge good feelings than bad ones,’ Susie suggested as Philippa opened the kitchen door and ushered her inside.
As she made a cup of coffee and they sat down, Philippa felt for the first time since Andrew’s death that she could unburden herself and share what she was actually feeling.
‘I still can’t believe that Andrew could act so recklessly and not tell you…’ Susie said angrily when she had related the full story to her. ‘I’m sorry, Pip,’ she added apologetically. ‘I know he was your husband and I…’
Philippa shook her head.
‘It’s all right,’ she told her. Although she had never discussed the specifics of her marriage with Susie, she suspected that it must have been obvious to her friend that she and Andrew did not share the same kind of close, loving relationship that Susie had with Jim.
‘Have any of Andrew’s friends been round?’
‘What friends?’ Philippa asked her cynically, and then added, ‘Although I have had one offer…’
As Susie waited and watched her she couldn’t help contrasting Philippa’s life with her own. She felt so sorry for her, not so much because of her financial problems—she and Jim had known some hard times in the past—but because of the paucity of her relationship with Andrew and her family.
‘Someone, a supposed friend of Andrew’s, called round last night. I must be pretty dim… I didn’t realise at first…’
Susie frowned as Philippa told her what happened.
‘I can see the funny side of it now,’ she told her wryly. ‘But at the time…’
Susie watched as her eyes became shadowed.
‘It wasn’t so much his cold-blooded suggestion that I should become his mistress that hurt as the fact that he so obviously believed that I would be only too grateful to accept. The way he took it for granted that I could be bought, like a… like a new car, or some other inanimate object that had taken his fancy. He said that all I’d ever wanted from Andrew was his money… made me feel that my marriage to Andrew had been a form of prostitution, and it hadn’t… I didn’t… Is that how people see me, Susie, as a woman quite happy to exchange her pride and self-respect for money?’ she said painfully.
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ Susie told her robustly. ‘To be honest I’ve always rather envied the way you not only don’t seem to have any vanity where your looks are concerned—and you certainly could have; I’ve seen the way male heads turn when you walk into a room—but also that you never seem to trade on them. Given the temptation of looking the way you do, I don’t know that I’d be strong-minded enough to resist.
‘In fact I suspect that very few woman would be. I’m sure I’m not the only woman to wear her husband’s favourite outfit or to make that little bit of an extra effort every now and again when I have to break the bad news about a huge fuel bill or when the kids want something…
‘Not that Jim doesn’t see straight through it. In fact it’s become a kind of early warning signal, I suspect, rather than anything else. It must have been horrid for you, though; you should have rung me.’
Philippa shook her head. ‘He left quickly enough once I’d threatened to tell his wife. He made me feel so dirty, though, Susie, as though something I’d said or done had somehow made him think that I…’ She gave a small shiver. ‘How awful it must be to feel that you don’t have any option other than to sell your body. How many women have to do that, Susie… ? How many women have no other way of feeding their children and themselves… ?’
‘Too many,’ Susie replied soberly.
‘No woman should be put in that position——’ Philippa began fiercely, and then broke off. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that thinking about it… about him and the way he treated me… has made me realise how much worse things could actually be. At least I’ve got the choice of refusing him. I wish the bank would get in touch, though. If they’re not prepared to… if they decide to sell the house immediately and I have to leave——’
‘You know you’d always be welcome to come and stay with us,’ Susie interrupted her quietly. ‘You and the boys. With Rosie starting at university in the autumn we’ll have two empty bedrooms and…’
‘Oh, Susie… that’s the second time you’ve made me cry,’ she accused as she blew her nose. ‘Sometimes I feel so angry with Andrew, Susie. Why couldn’t he have been satisfied with what we had? Why did he have to take so many risks? I feel now that the boys and I never really meant anything to him at all, and I can’t help wondering how much of that was my fault…’
‘None of it,’ Susie told her firmly. ‘You’re not responsible for Andrew’s faults, Pip, and you’ve got to stop blaming yourself for them.’
‘Pull myself together and get on with sorting my life out, you mean?’ Philippa laughed.
‘Come back with me for lunch,’ Susie urged her.