Northanger Abbey. Val McDermid
of Charlotte Street. This time, Cat was determined to subscribe to the pathetic fallacy. The sun shone; therefore only good things could happen to her.
The event for which they had tickets was not due to begin till noon, but Susie minded the lengthy wait as little as Cat did, for it gave her the opportunity to see and be seen. It also provided her with plenty of time to bemoan the fact that she still hadn’t run into any of the legion of friends and acquaintances she knew to be in the city. ‘Honestly, Cat,’ she complained, ‘a more paranoid person than me would think they were deliberately avoiding me. I’ve been tweeting my movements on a daily basis, even texting some of the girls, but somehow we keep missing each other. I really must make more of an effort, if only for your sake, darling.’
But Cat was paying scant attention to Susie. She’d managed to secure them a table with a clear view of the entrance. And if Henry was already listening to Janice Galloway reading or to a pair of historians debating the Arab Spring, he would be unable to leave without her spotting him. She was like a pointer, casting about in every direction for the faintest spoor of Henry Tilney.
Yet it was Susie’s desire that was the one to be satisfied. At the next table, a woman dressed in the Edinburgh cultural uniform of linen and cashmere had been constantly glancing across at them. She would peer for a moment, frown then look away, only to turn back a moment later, her expression uncertain. After a few minutes of this behaviour, she leaned across the table and spoke. ‘Excuse me interrupting,’ she said. ‘But are you by any chance Susan Armitage?’
Susie reared back in her seat, flabbergasted. ‘I was once,’ she said, as if caught out in a misdemeanour. ‘But I’ve been Susie Allen for years. I’m sorry, do I know you?’
The woman had lost her air of uncertainty. ‘I used to be Martha Collins. We used to sit next to each other in Speccy Barton’s French class.’
Susie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Little Martha Collins? Oh my God, I see it now. How amazing. What are you doing here? And what have you been up to all these years?’
The former Martha Collins picked up her coffee cup and moved to their table. ‘The short version? Married, one son, three daughters, widowed. I’m Martha Thorpe now. I’ve got a little business in interior design. We help people refurbish their period properties, that sort of thing.’
‘Gosh. You’ve had an eventful time of it. Not that I’m complaining. I’ve been very happily married to Andrew for a million years. He’s made his money investing in musical theatre.’ Susie allowed herself to preen for a moment.
‘And is this your daughter?’ Martha nodded at Cat.
Susie looked startled, then guilty. ‘Cat? No, not at all, no.’ A look of pain flickered in Susie’s eyes, gone almost before it could be named. ‘Andrew and I have no children. Cat’s a neighbour from Dorset. We’ve got a house there, it’s where we spend most of our time. London’s so crowded and dirty these days. Even in Holland Park.’
Martha’s eyebrows rose. ‘Holland Park. How lovely. We’re in Crouch End. Even though I have a lot of clients in Chelsea and Notting Hill, I wouldn’t be anywhere but North London. So lively. My girls love it there. Though I wouldn’t wish three teenage daughters on my worst enemy,’ she added with a laugh that sounded suspiciously forced to Cat’s ears. As Martha expanded upon the achievements of her own brood, it gradually dawned on Cat that a previously unsuspected disadvantage of being childless was the lack of weaponry one had against the tidal wave of a proud mother’s conversation. For once, Susie was rendered speechless because she had nothing to chip in with. Really, if the Thorpe children were half as gifted as their mother claimed, the only question in their future would be which of them would be Prime Minister. If Cat had not had her own lively interest in her surroundings to preserve her, she might have lost the will to live entirely.
Then, ‘Here come my dear girls,’ cried Martha, pointing at three fashionably dressed females who, arm in arm, were moving towards them along the wooden duckboards, the swagger of their passage forcing everyone else to detour on to the still-damp grass. They looked as if they’d popped out of the same mould, each having slightly less clean-cut lines than the previous sister. So the eldest had features that could almost be described as sharp, while the youngest still had a puppy plumpness that lacked such clear definition. All three had identical tawny hair and eyes of a blue that is sometimes described as icy but which Cat preferred to think of as Scandinavian, having watched too many subtitled TV detective serials.
The trio, who were giggling at some private joke, made a scant acknowledgement of their mother and pulled up more chairs. ‘Girls, this is my old school friend Susie Allen. Can you believe it’s over twenty-five years since we’ve seen each other?’ Martha’s tone was apologetic.
The eldest raised her eyebrows. ‘I bet you didn’t recognise her,’ she said to Susie.
‘Of course I did,’ Susie said.
Martha butted in. ‘Susie, this is Isabella—’
‘Bella,’ the eldest interrupted, rolling her eyes in a ‘pity me’ expression.
‘—and then Jessica, and last but not least, Claire. Girls, this is Cat – I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your surname.’
‘Morland,’ Cat said.
‘Girls, this is Cat Morland from Dorset. She’s a neighbour of Susie’s, come to Edinburgh with Susie and her husband.’
Bella, who had looked bored up to that point suddenly perked up. ‘Morland? From Dorset? OMG, girls. Look at this.’ And she pointed dramatically at Cat.
Cat flushed. Was she so much of a country bumpkin that it was obvious on sight to these London sophisticates?
‘Oh God, you’re right,’ Jessica said. ‘I just thought we must have seen her out and about, but of course, that’s what it is.’
‘What are you girls on about?’ Martha asked.
‘Can’t you see it, Ma?’ Bella demanded. ‘She’s, like, his spitting image.’
‘Jamie Morland,’ Claire said wearily. Clearly her role in the trio was to clarify her sisters’ gnomic utterances. ‘Johnny’s friend from Oxford who came to stay at Easter. From Dorset.’
‘The one that Bella’s been losing sleep over,’ Jessica chipped in.
‘I so am not,’ her sister protested. ‘Can I help it if he totally likes me? I mean, if somebody keeps texting you, it’s really rude to not text them back, right?’
‘So, let me get this straight,’ Martha said. ‘Are you Jamie Morland’s sister?’
‘We call him James,’ Cat said. ‘He was at St John’s College.’
‘He’s our brother Johnny’s sidekick,’ Claire said. ‘And he’s very keen on Bella.’
This was news to Cat, who had thought until then that she and her brother were close. Obviously, when he was separated from his family, James had a very different life from the one apparent to those who thought they knew him. He had never mentioned Johnny Thorpe or his sisters round the family dinner table. Cat wondered why, since they seemed so fond of him.
‘Hey, Cat, let’s take a wander round and see who we can spot,’ Bella said, jumping up and pulling Cat to her feet. She linked arms with her as she’d done previously with her sisters, but shook her head briskly at Jessica and Claire when they made a move to join them. ‘Not now, brats. I need to get to know Cat.’
‘Get the inside track on Jamie, more like,’ Jess grumbled.
Ignoring her, Bella swept Cat along. Before she knew it, they were gossiping about the things that entertain young women of a certain age and type. It was all new to Cat, but as they strolled in the sunshine, she managed to appear as if she were entirely familiar with a conversational world that encompassed intimate gossip about people neither of them had ever met, current fashions and where the cool people were hanging out in Edinburgh. In short,