The Men in her Life

I’m not... everyone thinks I’m a softie, but really, I’m not...’
    Very gently, he put his finger against her lips to silence her.
    ‘Don’t...’
    His voice was gruff and sounded as if he were issuing an instruction to himself as much as to her.
    The sensation of his finger against her mouth was as intimate as the most tender kiss. They sat very still, the space between them a magnetic field of longing. She knew that if either of them moved a millimetre towards the other their bodies would be drawn inexorably together.
    Finally, she broke the intense silence.
    ‘Look, it’s late, I’d better be going...’
    ‘But...’
    ‘Send my love to Holly. Erm... have a lovely wedding...’ she couldn’t think of the appropriate polite formula. ‘I’m sure you’ll be happy...’
    Before he could get to the door, she had closed it behind her.

    As she put her key in the gate, Holly heard a door shut on the other side of the courtyard. Then a female figure walked towards her, and Holly braced herself. Not a prostitute, please. She knew it was his stag night but... and not Tansy, please not Tansy... she couldn’t decide which would be worse. And then suddenly the person she least expected to see emerged from the shadows.
    ‘Clare?’
    ‘Holly! I’m so pleased I didn’t miss you. I came to wish you well, and then Simon and I went out to dinner and...’
    ‘It’s one o’clock in the morning,’ Holly said, stunned. ‘I waited for you,’ Clare replied.
    ‘God, it’s so nice to see you,’ Holly finally said, ‘I’m so sorry about what I did. I just can’t believe...’
    ‘Let’s not talk about it here,’ Clare said.
    They were speaking to each other from each side of iron bars as if one of them were in prison.
    ‘Would you like to come up to my place? I mean, have you got time? Where’s Tom?’
    ‘With Philippa... look, it’s too complicated...’ Holly unlocked the gate and let herself in. Then she embraced Clare with such force she lifted her feet off the ground.
    ‘I’m so, so, so pleased to see you...’ she said.

    ‘He’s Cyrano of the bloody Internet!’ Holly said when she had taken in what Clare had told her about Joss’s international love affair.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Oh, doesn’t matter... just a movie that one of my clients came up with...’
    ‘They say that truth is stranger than fiction,’ Clare said.
    ‘Yeah...’ Holly agreed automatically, then thought about it, ‘but who are they that say that? Does anyone know? As a matter of fact, I’ve never heard anyone say that truth is stranger than fiction... They, whoever they are, also say if you put it in a movie no-one would believe it, which is also utter crap... So, like we wouldn’t believe that a guy’s conducting an affair in cyberspace, but we accept that a giant lizard is roaming the streets of New York ...’
    Clare laughed. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said.
    Holly looked at her and smiled.
    ‘Look, I’m really sorry about Joss... I’m sorry that he’s gone and I’m sorry about what I did...’
    ‘It’s OK,’ Clare said.
    ‘No, it’s not.’
    ‘All right, it’s not, but in the end, you probably did me a favour. Without that, I don’t know whether I ever would have got up the courage to confront him... it might have gone on for years... what you did kind of gave me the courage. You, and I suppose Princess Diana...’
    Holly looked aghast.
    ‘Well, that’s the one and only time my name and hers will figure in the same sentence,’ she said, ‘hey, that could be a game, couldn’t it... you know those games where one person has to go out of the room and everyone switches identities, well everyone could switch identities with the person least like them in the whole world, and then you’d have to guess what had happened...’ Her brain began to mull over whether it would work.
    ‘Who would mine be?’ Clare asked, reluctantly joining in.
    ‘Me, I suppose. I mean, you’re the sister who’s good and beautiful and true, and I’m the big, bad, ugly one...’
    ‘You’re not ugly,’ Clare protested.
    ‘I’m not beautiful though, am I? My face has got so much character ...’ Holly began to quote from the long list of backhanded compliments she had received over the years, ‘I look fun, sexy, dirty, up for it... not exactly overwhelmingly romantic, are they?’
    ‘Who said you were dirty?’ Clare asked.
    ‘I can’t remember,’ Holly replied quickly, flushing so pink Clare thought it must have