The Things We Do to Our Friends(32)

My thoughts about their lives weren’t set in stone. I’d seen Minta bumble from room to room, grunting as she bent down to coo over a cat. Observing us with a polite, detached confusion, like she wasn’t quite sure why we were in her house. From the moment I’d arrived, it had become clear that Tabitha’s future was far less certain. There probably wasn’t a massive pot of family money to dip into, no safety net.

I tried to focus on them all as they sat in a line in front of me, my head aching.

“I haven’t thought that much about it,” I said.

“Well, we’ve never talked much about it, have we?” she said. “Although we haven’t discussed it, I have a plan that’s very much coming together, and it involves you. I don’t want to faff around with anything, Clare. I’d rather just take you through everything honestly, and then we can eat and digest it—the food and the idea.” She sounded stern.

With all the time we’d spent together, I didn’t know her like the rest of them knew her, but I was beginning to get there. She didn’t want the flow of a conversation—she rarely did. Instead, our glorious dictator was handing me the script for reference so I could follow, with enter stage right clearly marked for her, our leading actress, as she took her position.

We, the audience, waited for the drunken performance to begin.





24


“So here it is. I’ve told you about my father. You know what he did to us, and it was awful. And now you’re here in France. I was desperate for you to come, you know, almost to the point that I was actually too scared to ask you myself!” She was rushing through this bit, then she stopped and chuckled to herself. “That’s why I asked Ava to see if you’d be up for it. Anyway, I have something planned for us. It relates to what he did to us, and the whole thing made me think about how I’m going to make sure that I’m financially independent. And how you can be too. How we can do something together!”

The wording didn’t sound like Tabitha; it was gabbled, but still it flowed in a semi-logical way. This had been rehearsed. This was a pitch, and I wondered if the wine was because she was nervous.

She continued. “What I’ve always wanted is to do something I care about—which probably comes as a shock to you, but I care a lot, and I want you all to be involved.” She swept her hands across the table to show her benevolent inclusion, nearly knocking over her glass.

“I want to create a business, something we can do now and grow, one that we’ll all work on. The premise is simple, Clare. We’ll have specific clients, some of which our Business Development Director has already started to look into.”

She gave Samuel an affectionate wink, more, it seemed, for my sake so I could identify him as Business Development Director than for him, as he looked away from her, a little embarrassed.

“And we’ll fulfill a service to those clients. The service is simple. These are women just like my mother. Women who are in a marriage where it’s almost certain they are going to be completely screwed over, and we help them.”

She wanted me to ask. I couldn’t help it. “How will we help them?”

“By putting them in control. The women will get the chance to create their own narrative, because we’ll be weeding out those men who are going to cheat, and we’ll do it using a term I hate, but I’ll use it for clarity—honey trapping.”

I wondered where she was going with this.

“The rest of them have known about it for a while,” she said, as if Samuel and Ava and Imogen weren’t even there and it was just me and her. “We’ve been exploring logistics and client acquisition. We need to find women who this will work for, and we need to do it discreetly, of course. I plan for it to become a premium service. So, we have Samuel, who’s been instrumental in setting up the bones of the thing, stitching it all together. We needed capital and he did an excellent job in securing that, some from Ava’s family.”

I looked to Ava. Not even a ripple of a smile or acknowledgment.

“Ava has been in charge of the purse strings as well as sorting out the website —” Tabitha started.

I interrupted. “You have a website for this?” I’d never really seen them use the internet much.

Tabitha looked at me, so still, suddenly clearheaded. “Of course! I’ll show it to you tonight if you want. Ava and Samuel have been working hard forging those connections in London and in Scotland.”

It was like she was speaking in a language I’d never heard her even touch the edges of, but it was all coming out of her mouth as if she’d been using it for years: client acquisition, forging connections.

She continued. “When it comes to those on the ground, that would be me and you mostly, with Imogen doing the research. We need to have you for this.”

“We’d be going out, finding…sleeping with them?” I asked.

She stared at me, wide-eyed. “Oh, we don’t have to sleep with them, Clare, although I’m not sure why that would bother you so much. It’s just about getting the evidence. Let’s focus on you. You’re perfect. Samuel was entranced the moment he met you, weren’t you?”

Drunk Tabitha was largely the same as sober Tabitha, only nastier, and I was embarrassed at Samuel’s response—a faint blush crept up his cheeks, he ducked his head.