The Men in her Life

killed him...’ she said, at last speaking the thought that had harried her subconscious since Jack’s death.
    The pale, petrified face and the white hair finally broke down Clare’s defences. She got up and crossed the room to Philippa’s sofa, sat down next to her, and put her arms around her.
    ‘Of course you didn’t kill him,’ she said, stroking her mother’s hair as she wept into her shoulder, ‘he lived for you. He loved you...’
    In the end, she thought, it doesn’t really matter who gives and who receives comfort. It is the exchange that is important.

    * * *

    ‘Do you think you always take other women’s men because your father was taken from you?’ Colette asked.
    Colette’s brand of amateur psychology always seemed to make Holly feel worse rather than better.
    ‘I don’t always take other women’s men...’ she protested.
    ‘Matt, Joss... and don’t let’s forget Piers...’
    It was a shameful list.
    ‘I didn’t really do anything with Joss...’ she offered lamely, ‘but he’s the only one I feel bad about. Matt didn’t mean anything, it was a kind of one-night stand that went on for more than a night, and I’ve always thought that if Piers hadn’t had me he would’ve had someone else, and since I was never a threat, I kind of think I did his wife a favour... I feel bad about Joss, though...’
    ‘Your own sister,’ said Colette, underlining the sin, and confirming Holly’s suspicion that Colette had been rather jealous of her relationship with Clare. ‘There’s an article in one of the glossies this month called When Your Best Friend Fancies Your Man, I thought of you...’ she added helpfully.
    ‘I can’t remember fancying any of your men,’ Holly retorted. ‘I think I’ve been a bit mad since Jack died... and it was so weird being away from London in that week...’
    ‘It was an extraordinary week.’
    ‘All I wanted was a bit of peace and tranquillity and I landed in the middle of a marital minefield and then Diana died, and it all turned weird, and if you think I’m bad you should meet Joss...’ she defended herself.
    ‘What’s he like?’ Colette wanted to know.
    ‘Gorgeous to look at, and really... bad ,’ Holly tried to think of a way of describing the sheer bastardness she had found so intoxicating, ‘it was a bit like when you’re with someone who’s so drunk it makes you feel practically sober. They’re falling over and slurring their words and you’re still standing up, so you think you’re fine, and you lose count of the number of glasses of wine you’re knocking back because you think you’re so in control because they’re so pissed?’ Colette was nodding. ‘And then you leave the party, congratulating yourself on how un-drunk you are, and out in the street you try to tell the taxi-driver where you live and the words get all tangled up and then you pass out in the cab...?’ She checked to see that Colette was still with her. ‘Well, Joss was like that, except with flirting. He flirts so outrageously and he looks at you so intensely that by comparison I thought I was only fluttering my eyelashes, except I wasn’t, I was licking his dick... d’you see what I mean?’
    ‘Sort of,’ Colette replied, ‘any more of this?’
    She held up the empty bottle.
    ‘There’s another one in the fridge, you get it,’ Holly said, ‘I don’t like going into the kitchen now...’
    ‘The smell’s not nearly as bad as you made out,’ said Colette.
    ‘What d’you mean? There isn’t a bloody smell any more... Simon bought a face mask and rubber gloves, found the offending item behind the sink, wrapped it in about fifty plastic bags and buried it in a rubbish-bin at a secret location somewhere on the other side of Soho...’
    ‘God, he’s nice to you,’ Colette said.
    ‘Well, he knew it was either that, or me on his sofa for ten days... he sealed up the gnaw-hole too. So hopefully that’s the end of it, but the flat’s not the same to me now. Every sound makes me freeze… Nothing’s really the same now. I feel as if I’ve come to the end of a phase, and I can’t see what’s next...’
    ‘I can’t recommend my dating agency highly enough,’ Colette said, as if she were in an advert for washing-powder, ‘you might as well know that I’m seeing a guy called Nigel.’
    ‘Nigel? That’s worse than Piers, and he’s a...?’
    ‘Financial manager of a sports-equipment supplier...’
    ‘An accountant.’
    ‘Well, all