Epilogue

‘To high seas and mermaids!’

Helena held out her glass while Dylan, Bette and Tina all gently clinked theirs against it. ‘To high seas and mermaids!’ they echoed, with puzzled smiles.

‘My uncle Harry was a sailor,’ Helena explained. ‘And it sounds right for a table like ours, doesn’t it?’

The irony, of course, was that when this grand old dining table was made the idea of four women sitting down to a meal, two of them married to each other, two of them divorced from each other, all of them raising children without men, pursuing careers and making money, even eating vegetarian food – all of that would have been unthinkable. So they were joyous, even festive, as they began passing round serving dishes full of colourful, mouth-watering food. There was roasted cauliflower with fennel, eggplant with almonds and pomegranate, butternut squash risotto, salads, sambals, and Bette’s best approximation of Waddy’s legendary bruschetta . . .

‘Well, well . . .’

‘Mmm . . .’

‘Smells amazing . . .’

‘I could eat a horse.’

Bette glanced at Helena. ‘Note to self: put lock on stable doors when getting a horse around here.’

Helena smiled, then said, ‘I have eaten it, actually.’

‘Me too.’

‘Oh. In France?’

‘Montreal.’

‘Did you know you were ordering it?’

‘Of course,’ Bette said. ‘I was twenty. I thought I was edgy.’ She winked at Tina.

‘I’d have loved to have seen you back then,’ Helena said, gazing at Bette.

‘She has photos,’ Tina said, licking olive oil off her fingers.

‘Don’t we all, darling,’ Helena said. ‘We’ll get them out one night and you can see what Dylan looked like with a perm . . .’

They laughed, with Dylan looking obligingly shocked, and then the conversation moved on to weekend plans. It was Friday night and the Porter-Kennards had arrived around five. Angie was eating at Rocco’s house but would be back in time for a nightcap on the patio around ten. Tomorrow, Bette and Tina were going to go explore a little on bikes, maybe take a picnic and look at the plot of land their purchase had added to the vineyard.

‘We thought we’d go after breakfast,’ Tina said.

‘Lovely,’ Helena said. ‘Take care with the sun, though.’

Some hours later, Tina was called to wakefulness with a dry throat and a confused mind. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. The vineyard? Toronto? Then it hit her.

Home.

The knee she could feel against the back of her thigh was Bette’s. The arm wrapped around her waist was Bette’s. The rising and falling breath was Bette’s, and the body she’d made love to – that was Bette’s too. She closed her eyes and said an inchoate prayer. However it had come about, whatever she’d done to deserve this, she was thankful.

She turned her face slightly towards the pillow. Fracas, faint but unmistakeable, its heady warmth like hot, rubbed flesh. She swallowed. Their lovemaking at bedtime had been nice, an essential reconnection, but not even close to what Tina craved.

The sun was not yet risen. She guessed it wasn’t even six. She turned over slowly and Bette let her go, rolling back onto her side of the bed. They were still naked. Tina ran her eyes over Bette’s form, only just visible. Her eternally elegant neck and shoulders. She might have been skipping yoga, but she was still strong and lean and the ache between Tina’s legs was not going to be ignored.

She bowed her head and gently nipped Bette’s right shoulder. No response. She knew Bette liked mornings, but she didn’t want to wake her if she was tired . . . But fuck it. Angie’s alarm was always at seven, the decorators were due at eight, eight-thirty, which meant the bedroom – no, the entire house – would be off limits all day! She lowered her head again and flicked Bette’s right nipple with her tongue. Nothing. She wetted her lips and did it again, harder. Still nothing. Tina frowned, and had just resigned herself to booking a hotel room later when she suddenly found herself on her back, her arms pinned above her head and a dark-eyed beauty staring at her.

‘Hello,’ Bette said, with a smile in her voice.

‘Hi,’ Tina grinned, and bit her lip. ‘Hope I didn’t wake you.’

Tina could just make out Bette’s gaze roaming over her, consuming every detail before locking back onto her eyes.

‘You’re here,’ she said huskily.

Tina stopped chewing her breakfast bagel. Carrie’s face was backlit against sun bouncing off the commercial buildings of Dupont Street, but as Tina’s eyes adjusted she could see that she was just staring at her.

‘Carrie,’ Tina said.

The other woman didn’t reply, but looked around a little. Tina had the impression that, having sprung her surprise, she now didn’t know what to do. She was in running gear but didn’t look sweaty. Her hair was a little longer, the roots more visible than Tina could recall, her large blue eyes duller.

She sat down on the wall, about a foot away. Tina put her breakfast back in its bag and tucked it away to her right-hand side. When she looked back, Carrie was staring at her again.

‘How are you?’ Tina asked.

A thin smile flickered on Carrie’s lips then was gone. She looked away, across the road towards Creeds, the coffee place they’d always used, and that Tina had just come from. You might have known better than to stick to the same routine, Tina scolded herself.

‘Did your therapy go well?’

The question made the hairs on Tina’s neck stand up.

‘How did you know I was in therapy?’ she asked.

‘You know our industry.’

Her tone was blithe, and she’d gone from staring to not looking at Tina at all. Tina felt her own mood shifting from fear to irritation. Gossip was circulating about her and she had a meeting at nine and she didn’t have time for this fucking drama . . .

‘Well, I—’

‘Don’t you think you owe me five minutes?’

Carrie turned to her now. Her eyes were glistening, the skin around them drier and more lined than the last time Tina saw her. And she knew that look, the spectral affect of someone who’s spent too long crying and not eating and not sleeping. Remorse gripped Tina in the gut. Her jaw slackened.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, then cleared her throat, worried Carrie might not have heard. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated.

Carrie gave her a long, strangely distant look. Hatred? Disgust? And then she seemed to snap out of it and glanced at the time on her FitBit.

‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘Are you available for dinner?’

She walked into the living room and saw a figure standing in the window bay. The room was dark. It was winter. New York dusk. Panes gleaming like slabs of deepest violet behind the solitary silhouette.

The figure was a woman, with her back to the room. As Bette approached her, she realised she was naked. They both were. And now she knew it was Tina. The narrow shoulders, the flare of her hips. Bette watched as she shifted her weight, one foot to the other, and lifted up her hair, twisting it into a knot and pressing it to the back of her head.

‘Turn around,’ Bette said.

Nothing happened. Bette laid her forehead against the nape of Tina’s neck. She could smell her, all of her. ‘Turn around,’ she said again, but again nothing, and then she moved her mouth close to Tina’s ear, ‘Turn around,’ and Tina instead leaned forward, placing her hands wide apart on the window frame. Bette looked down. Tina’s legs were parted, her ass moving slowly from side to side a matter of inches from Bette’s right hand.

A thought was nagging at Bette, like a phone ringing in a far away room. Tina let her head drop. Bette ran her left hand all the way up Tina’s back to her neck, caressed her, held her firmly but gently, feeling her silken hair, then reached out and cupped her between the legs . . . so much heat, so wet already . . . Tina moaned and pushed back. Bette tightened her grip, closed the gap between them and slid two fingers inside. Tina gasped. Bette covered her body, pulling her hair aside and licking her neck, sucking, feeling the muscle twitch and then something else . . . Yes! A thin rope of silver metallic under her tongue . . . and they were moving together, Bette’s clit against the back of her own wrist as she fucked Tina, back and forth—

‘Bette!’

Her eyes snapped open.

‘Shane’s going!’

Tina’s voice carried along the hallway as Bette sat on the sofa, her heart pounding at being wrenched from sleep. She raised her hand to her neck and felt the chain of her ‘A’ necklace. Looked around at her study, warm yellow sun outside, and down at the printout that had slid halfway off her lap, her red pen on the floor.

Angelica Porter-Kennard exhaled softly. In her sixteen years and eight months of life, she’d been fortunate to spend very little time in hospitals. Mama T sometimes teased Mama B about the time she caused a panic by misreading an ear thermometer but Angie herself had no memory of it. In New York, there were a few visits to her mothers’ friends or colleagues who’d had babies or minor procedures. But by far the person Angie most associated with the environment she found herself in now was Kit.

‘Want a soda?’ Bette asked, although she was in no position to fulfil the offer.

Angie shook her head. They’d arrived in the ER about half an hour ago in high spirits. The accident was, after all, pretty funny – Mama B giving Mama T a ride back to the house on the handlebars of a mountain bike and then getting distracted when she noticed Angie filming them from the raised driveway, trying to wave flamboyantly as they swooped to a stop and then overbalancing the whole bike. Tina did a pretty impressive leap clear but Bette went down hard on her right side, her foot turning under.

Angie had burst out laughing, but then it became clear that Bette couldn’t quite get up.

‘Bee!’ Angie had shouted, running down to them.

‘Angie, it’s okay,’ Mama T had called. ‘I think she’s just winded, honey.’

Mama B was leaning back on her arms, her right leg straight out, left leg still under the bike, which Mama T was lifting free. Kurt appeared and said he’d get an ice pack while Angie watched Tee speaking carefully and deliberately to Bee, obviously checking she was functioning okay.

‘Where’s Helena?’ Angie asked.

‘Concetta’s,’ Mama B replied.

‘Tell me everything that hurts,’ Mama T asked her.

‘Oh, just my pride, ego, self-respect . . .’

‘Bette—’

‘Right ankle.’

Angie had been staring at it already. It was double the size of the left one, and getting bigger. Mama T and Kurt did some first aid but they agreed she’d have to see a doctor. Kurt had left a group of visitors in the tasting room, and Bee didn’t think Tee should drive in case she was concussed, so Angie was given the keys to the Lexus. She thought she did a pretty good job of not looking too happy about it . . .