Chapter 27

"Ged came to see us last night."

"Oh? What did he want?"

Cheryl had arrived and the two women had sat down on the sofa with coffee, and had exchanged some news when Cheryl had said the words she had come to say. Cassie's response was cold, even aggressive.

"He wanted to apologise for the way he'd spoken to me, and to tell us some things about his life and to ask me a favour. He clarified a lot of things."

"So?" Cassie's aggression continued.

"What's up with you, Cassie?" retorted Cheryl. "Why so nowty?"

"I don't particularly want to hear of him worming his way into your friendship, that's all."

"Well, if you're going to be so bitchy, I'm going home."

"OK, OK!" sighed Cassie with exaggerated patience. "How did it go?"

"Very well." Cheryl stopped and drank some coffee.

"That it?" asked a now inquisitive Cassie.

"Depends on whether you want to hear some home truths."

"I don't know what you mean. He's burnt his boats as far as I'm concerned. D'you know he's been phoning and texting me? He yells and screams at me, then when I ditch him he wants to 'talk'. What a wimp!"

"What did he say?"

"No idea, I erased them all. I'm not interested."

"Like you did while he was on tour." Cheryl said flatly.

Cassie looked up in surprise. "No. It's not the same thing at all. I was taken in then. Not any more."

"No one's taking you in this time, sweetheart," muttered Cheryl, grim faced, "you're doing it for yourself this time, and you're just as wrong this time, and you're repeating your last disastrous mistake."

"No I'm not!" she bridled hotly. "I know all about him this time."

"Last time, I backed you up, and shut him down. What a disaster that was! You realise that if I hadn't backed you up, you'd probably be married to him by now instead of to that bastard Zak. So this time, I listened to him. You're so wrong Cassie, you don't know. You can shut me down and him as well, and you'll be making another mistake."

"I don't believe you!" Cassie said, her voice rising.

"How come everyone who disagrees with you at the moment is lying?" Cheryl said, her anger showing. "Why can't you listen for a change and give your self and your future life a chance?"

"OK, convince me." Cassie folded her arms and glowered.

"I've no interest in convincing you, you stupid cow," Cheryl was on a roll, "but the facts can speak for themselves. Tell me, Miss 'always right and badly done to', when he came to your house that Sunday morning, who spoke or rather shouted first. Eh?"

Cassie stopped short. She called the scene to mind. Then realised.

"I did." she said. "He'd come running, after ignoring me for a whole week, sleeping with his designer woman. Then when he found I'd gone he realised what he'd missed."

"And you told him?"

"I told him I was finished with him, and to go back to his girlfriend. And don't deny it, he then went off to London and shacked up with that singer's sister."

"Oh Cassie," Cheryl replied dolefully, now much quieter. "You're so wrong on everything. You told him you were finished with him, he shouted something back. Remember?"

"He'd seen me with Liam. He told me he didn't want to see me again. Called me a hypocrite! The cheek of it coming from him!"

"You enlightened him about Liam?"

"Didn't get a chance."

"Why?"

"He left."

"Why?"

A pause. "I told him to get out."

"You allowed him to leave thinking you'd found someone else."

"Didn't get the chance."

"You followed him to tell him and he didn't listen?"

"No. I went back upstairs."

"So whose fault is it he went to London thinking you had finally rejected him?"

"But it's been like this all the time. I thought things had changed at Catherine's, but they're just as bad, if not worse."

"You were both badly hurt. What do you expect?" Cheryl was gentle. "Now, will you let me tell you what he told me?"

Cassie nodded, with a resigned air, but Cheryl could see there was still residual anger there.

"First. When he got back from the States, he didn't think he had to come running to you immediately. He got over part of his jet-lag, then he was genuinely busy – his job Cassie.

"Karin." Cheryl went on, "I think you called her a bimbo, looked after the house while he was away in London, working, all week. That Friday you saw them was the first time they'd met in person since he got back. She was in the house during the week, but he was in London the whole time.

"He told Karin about your story, and what happened at Catherine's, and she saw it meant the end for her with Ged. So they went for a 'goodbye and thank you' dinner at the restaurant. That's what you saw.

"Then he came to see you the very next day, but you'd gone off home in a huff. Did you know that before he went off to the States, Karin was trying to get Ged to see that he ought not to go, but try to get back to you?"

Cassie looked surprised but unconvinced. Cheryl sighed in exasperation.