The Men in her Life

been Joss.
    ‘What does Simon say you are?’ Clare wanted to know, feeling the slightest pang of guilt. If Holly had seen her half an hour before, she might not have thought her quite so good and true.
    ‘Simon says that I’m incredibly bright and tough and difficult...’
    Clare couldn’t disguise her surprise.
    ‘... and that he loves me. So that’s all right,’ Holly laughed, but when she looked up Clare could see that there were tears in her eyes.
    ‘D’you know, nobody, except Mo. .. and you... and Tom, but that’s different,’ Holly took a deep breath, ‘nobody, by which I mean no man, has ever told me that he loved me. Except Simon. I mean, I’ve slept with dozens, literally dozens, and they’ve said that I’m wonderful in bed and all that, but nobody has ever told me that they loved me...’
    ‘Well, you’re marrying the right one then,’ Clare said, gently reaching out to touch her arm. Holly smiled and sniffed.
    ‘Yes. I suppose I must be,’ she said, ‘he loves me, and he got rid of the rat. D’you know, of all the horrible things that have happened this year, I think that bloody rat was the worst. Can you believe that?’
    ‘No,’ Clare said, ‘I think you probably transferred all the insecurities and fears that you already had deep down, about Jack dying, and where you were going in life, and all that, onto the rat, so it just seemed like it was the problem...’
    ‘Or perhaps it’s that I’m just a really shallow person,’ Holly said, only half joking.
    ‘Oh no, absolutely not...’
    Holly stared at her.
    ‘What makes you so nice?’ she asked, ‘you’re even defending me against myself.’
    ‘You do love him, don’t you?’ Clare asked, suddenly desperately needing Holly to say yes.
    ‘Simon? I do. Yes, of course I love him. I’m not in love with him. D’you think that matters?’
    ‘I think it’s probably better,’ Clare said, remembering exactly what in love felt like. In love was when you suspended all your critical faculties. It was a state of altered consciousness, rather like dreaming, but far more disorientating when you woke up.
    ‘How’s Ella?’ Holly asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the run of the conversation.
    ‘We’re going to see her tomorrow...’
    ‘You and Tom?’ Holly couldn’t disguise her surprise, ‘how?’
    ‘I’ve made my peace with Philippa. She insisted I have some of Jack’s money, and you know, it wasn’t so very hard to take after all...’ Clare gave a rueful smile at the easy loss of her own principles. ‘She would like you to have some too...’ she added quickly.
    ‘Oh no. That’s very kind, but I couldn’t...’
    ‘That’s what I told her. So which one of us is the honourable one now?’ Clare asked.
    ‘You’ve got children... you need to look after them...’
    ‘Thank you,’ Clare said, feeling as if Holly had granted her absolution. She saw that Holly was shifting around uncomfortably in her chair.
    ‘Look, since we’re getting all confessional, you might as well know, if you don’t already, that I slept with Matt too,’ Holly suddenly blurted out.
    ‘Matt? Not Ella’s Matt?’
    ‘’Fraid so,’ Holly replied.
    ‘You’re the older woman? He wrote to Ella about an older woman. How sweet!’ Clare roared with laughter.
    ‘Are you shocked?’ Holly asked.
    ‘I don’t think anything you could do would shock me,’ Clare said, suddenly understanding why she had found the boy’s manner overly familiar since Ella had left, ‘you wanted to from the moment you set eyes on him...’
    ‘How did you know?’
    ‘You told me!’ Clare said, which both of them suddenly found hysterically funny.
    ‘So, who’d have thought you’d be the one off to do a Thelma and Louise , and I’m left here playing... playing... d’you know, I can’t think of a film with a happily married woman as the central character...’ Holly said, ‘do you think that’s a good sign or a bad one?’
    ‘Good, because you can write your own script...’ Clare suggested.
    ‘Oh, very funny,’ said Holly, wondering whether to tell her about Ginger’s take on the theme of two sisters who meet in their mid-thirties, but Clare was standing up, about to go. She didn’t want to complicate the moment.
    ‘It’s been lovely,’ Clare said, ‘and I do wish that I was coming to your do tomorrow. I’ll drink a glass of champagne to you at thirty thousand feet.’
    ‘I’m scared,’ Holly suddenly blurted out. Clare was