Women of a Dangerous Age
Women of a Dangerous Age
Fanny Blake
Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Buchan and Katie Fforde, this is a warm novel about women, relationships and why it’s never too late to change.Lou is married to a man who no longer loves her. It’s time to move on, to begin a new business venture and to start her life over.To celebrate her new-found freedom, she travels to India, where, in front of the Taj Mahal, she befriends Ali after taking each other’s photographs on ‘that’ bench.Ali is a serial mistress. But when she returns home, she discovers her latest lover is not the man she took him for. She too needs a new beginning.As Lou and Ali put their pasts behind them, they start to discover new possibilities for life and for love, until the shocking realisation that they have far more in common than they thought.
Fanny Blake
Women of a Dangerous Age
Dedication
To Robin, Matt, Nick and Spike
Contents
Cover (#u4497ab0a-8c10-558a-87ce-54dd29a79680)
Title Page
Dedication
1
‘You’re going to India?’ Fiona had sounded as if Lou…
2
Delhi airport was teeming with people. Lou’s suitcase felt heavy…
3
The unearthly flickering light of the tiny TV screens set…
4
Lou’s eyes felt as if they’d been forcibly removed, sandpapered…
5
Standing in her walk-in closet, Ali looked around her. Everything…
6
Arriving at the studio the following morning, Ali immediately saw…
7
The pub was busy with early-evening drinkers as Lou pushed…
8
When she woke the next morning, Lou’s head seemed to…
9
The Tube was jammed. People pressed up against one another,…
10
‘How could you have ended up on the same holiday…
11
By the time Lou arrived, the three rooms in the…
12
Beyond the shutters, the night was dark. Reflected back in…
13
As the day drew to a close, the two women…
14
Ali tugged harder. The retractable ladder didn’t move. Another even…
15
Ali was already fifteen minutes late. She pushed through the…
16
Under a washed-out blue sky, a gust of wind lifted…
17
Ten o’clock in the morning and Don and Ali were…
18
The fire was lit, the salad made and the smell…
19
They had almost completed their first lap of the park…
20
Lou clasped her coat to her as the wind screamed…
21
The chimp swung up to the glass, rolling back his…
22
The great joys of driving north late at night were…
23
Hooker took a tangerine taffeta dress off the rail, held…
24
The moment Lou dreaded had arrived.
25
Gardening was not Lou’s natural forte. When she and Hooker…
26
Ali was getting dressed when she heard the sound of…
27
The nearer she got to Don’s apartment block, the more…
28
At the sound of the door opening, Lou looked up…
29
Lou was watching the kitchen clock. Never had the second…
30
A month later, an ear-splitting din interrupted Lou’s dream, checking…
Acknowledgements
Bonus Material (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author
Other Books by Fanny Blake
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
‘You’re going to India?’ Fiona had sounded as if Lou was about to enter a dark labyrinth: fraught with danger and quite unsuitable.
‘Yes, I am.’ As she spoke, Lou had realised that was exactly what she was going to do. Going away would absolve her from all the problems of Christmas at home. She would escape from Hooker, their three children and her match-making friends who seemed to pursue their goal with an untimely and unwelcome fervour. Instead, she would separate the last thirty years of her life from the next thirty by getting out of the country – on her own.
Lou was enjoying for as long as possible the anticipation of the moment when she’d enter the Taj Mahal. Joining the scrum of tourists, she put the cloth overshoes provided for visitors over her functional but deeply unflattering walking sandals and climbed the steps towards the main entrance. Despite people crowding by her as she photographed the intricate inlaid marble-work, the interior was every bit as impressive as she had hoped. She skirted the tourists throwing coins down the steps to the tombs and followed the perimeter of the wall, admiring the detailed workmanship up close, looking up towards the solar motif in the dome. The noise made by schoolchildren experimenting with the echo was deafening. Twenty minutes later she emerged, squinting against the brightness and wishing for the umpteenth time that she hadn’t left her wide-brimmed sun hat and sunglasses in their last hotel, in Jaipur.
The clear blue sky was only interrupted by the winged silhouettes of kites soaring high above the white dome. Lou walked behind the mausoleum to stare across the dried-up Yamuna river bed, imagining Shah Jahan, imprisoned by his own son in the Agra Fort not far along the bank with only a view of the Taj to console him. When Mumtaz, his favourite wife, died giving birth to their fourteenth child, he had embarked on the task of creating this exquisite memorial to her. Twenty-two years and twenty thousand workmen and specialists later … Lou tried to imagine what it must be like to feel that strongly about someone after so many years of marriage. Some of the shine must surely have worn off with all those children. Three had proved quite enough for her and Hooker.
She found a quiet spot in the ornamental garden where she could sit on the grass. After a moment, she delved into her string bag for a bottle of water and the guidebook that smelled of the suntan lotion that had leaked onto it the day before. She peeled apart the couple of pages devoted to the Taj, then shut them. She could read later. The thing was to experience the place to its full in the short time she had.
Feeling a little less frazzled now she was in the shade of a tree, she watched the chipmunks race through the bushes. The sound of tourist chatter was broken by screeches from electric green parrots that swooped over her head. A group of Indian students asked in broken English if they could have their photo taken with her. She smiled into their camera, conscious of how different she must look to them, her lime green linen outfit and red scarf standing out against their drab trousers and white shirts, her fair skin and wild reddish hair providing such a contrast to their dark complexions.
Once they’d finished asking her about London, she went to hunt for her travelling companions. The sun beat down on the queue of tourists jostling to be snapped on ‘Diana’s bench’, with the Taj framed behind them. Demure Indian women in coloured saris rubbed shoulders with scruffy backpackers, neatly turned out schoolchildren and well-heeled Europeans and Americans on luxury tours. Lou was in two minds whether or not to join them. In exchange for a short wait, she’d have an ironically apt memento of her visit. Like Diana, alone in life. She was amused by the comparison, but only for a second. Come on, woman. Get over yourself. After all, whose choice is it that you’re on your own? Certainly not Hooker’s.
‘I’ll take yours,’ said a voice behind her, ‘if you’ll take mine.’
Lou turned to find one of the other two single women on the trip standing behind her. She knew her name was Ali but that was about it. During the previous ten days, as they’d journeyed from Udaipur to Jodphur and Jaipur, Ali had kept herself at a discreet distance from her fellow travellers. Not that she had been unpleasant, joining in with whatever was going on, but, when the opportunity arose, she’d bury herself in a book or separate herself from the group, going off to explore on her own. Wandering around a gallery of exquisite Indian miniatures, exploring the Amber or Merenghar Forts, the piled-high fabric emporiums or cluttered jewellery shops, Ali was always the last to tear herself away, as if not wanting to miss the slightest detail, sometimes sketching in her notebook or taking a final photograph. After dinner, she almost immediately retired to bed. Lou, on the other hand, had thrown herself into the group, keen to find out more about the people she was travelling with, wanting to share and compare everything new she was experiencing. She had nicknamed Ali ‘the cat who walked alone’, yet couldn’t help but be intrigued by her, the one person on the trip she’d failed to get to know. Ali was taller than Lou, younger, trimmer (not hard) and more elegant than her too. Not of course that any of these things could be held against her. Her oval face was framed by bobbed dark hair whose neat shiny finish gave away a small fortune spent on hairdressers and products. At that moment, she was looking at Lou, waiting for her answer.
Lou made up her mind. ‘Yes. Why not?’
Together, they walked towards the Lotus Pool.
‘Isn’t this place incredible?’ asked Ali. ‘Beats every photo I’ve ever seen of it.’
They both gazed at the Taj.
‘Those screens and the inlay-work in there are amazing, quite beautiful.’
‘Bloody noisy though,’ said Lou, and laughed.
So, as they began to talk about their reactions to the Taj, to the contrasting chaos of Agra and about the highlights of their trip, their friendship took its first steps.
By the time it was their turn to sit on the marble bench, Lou could feel the sweat running down her spine. Anxious about dropping Ali’s professional-looking camera, she wiped her hands on her linen trousers. When she’d packed them in London, she’d imagined herself looking cool, stylish even, amid the heat and dust of India. Instead, they looked as if they’d been scrunched into a ball and put on without sight of an iron. She was aware of the sweat marks spreading under the arms of her not-quite-loose-enough, short-sleeved top as she waited for Ali to pose.
Wiping her brow, Ali took up Princess Diana’s exact position: hands on her knees, clasped around her sunglasses, legs at a slight angle, head lowered to one side. She looked up coyly through her fringe. Afterwards, she laughed. ‘That’ll confuse my boyfriend. He’s bound to wonder if there’s a hidden message. Something about my wanting to be alone. As if.’
Lou returned Ali’s camera, then fumbled in her bag for her modest compact bought especially for the holiday. As she passed it over, it slipped from her grip. Her attempt to catch it was about as successful as any she’d made on the rounders pitch at school. The camera bounced out of her hands and clattered to the ground. She could feel the crowd behind them growing mutinous at the delay so she snatched it up, saying tightly, ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’ But when she pressed the On button, nothing happened.
‘Let’s use mine,’ offered Ali. ‘I can at least email you the picture.’
Lou took her place, annoyed by her clumsiness, and pushed her hair back, hoping her touch would tame the wayward frizz (much worse in the heat) into something as effortlessly chic as Ali’s bob, and mustered a smile. As soon as the camera clicked, an American couple were already edging her off the seat, wanting their turn.
‘What do you think?’ Ali asked, tilting the camera so Lou could see.
In the sun, Lou’s hair had transformed into a hectic halo that framed her face. Off the forehead was never a good look on her, but especially not when she was squinting and her forehead and nose were shiny with sweat. Her irritation with herself showed in her face. The way she had half turned from the camera made her look as if she had put on about a stone in weight. Not of course that she cared. Not really. But it was a look she’d rather wasn’t captured for posterity. In the background, the Taj gleamed in the sunlight. She grimaced. ‘Not exactly Princess Di, is it?’
Ali studied the image again. ‘Mmm. But you’re not exactly working with Mario Testino either.’
Laughing and, in Lou’s case, resigned, both women stepped away from the bench and joined the crowds thronging the gardens.
‘If you don’t mind, I really want to have a last walk round alone,’ said Ali, slinging her camera over her shoulder. ‘Just to take it all in. I’ll see you back at the gate.’
Lou nodded, happy at the chance of having a final wander herself. As the trip drew to an end, she was conscious of trying to drain every last sensation from the few days she had left. She wanted to be able to relive the holiday in detail during the winter months that lay ahead back home.
She thought back to that conversation with Fiona three months earlier, when she’d had no plans to go away over the Christmas break. Then, just as she thought she would explode if anyone else asked her how she was, or what she would be doing at Christmas now that she was single again, inspiration had come from nowhere. In reply to her close friend’s invitation to her and her husband Charlie’s remote Devon farmhouse bought only for its vast unrealised potential that, two years later, had still to be realised, Lou blurted, ‘Actually, I’ve made plans. I’m going to India.’
The words were out before she’d even thought them. She still wasn’t sure which of them had been more surprised by her answer.
To everyone’s surprise, her own included, she had booked herself the last place on a ‘Highlights of Rajasthan’ tour. She had been told to expect the poverty and squalor, the streets teeming with people, the colours, the smells but nothing had prepared her for what she had experienced. Never had she been exposed to so many dizzying extremes at once. As exciting, after years of holidaying as a family or alone with Hooker, was the discovery that she enjoyed meeting new people, having responsibility for no one but herself. The holiday had done just what she’d hoped and drawn a thick line between her past and her future. When she returned home, everything would have changed. She would no longer be living with Hooker in their family home. She would be an independent woman with a life, a new business and a home of her own. She was resolved not to mess up this second chance.
As Ali walked away from Lou, she thought about their conversation. ‘My boyfriend’. That’s what she had called Ian. A word she had never used to describe him before, but it had emerged all by itself when they were waiting their turn for the photograph. She liked the description, the unexpected way the two words made her feel: secure, loved, part of a unit even though she and Ian had seen so little of one another since the evening he made his surprise announcement. He wanted ‘to put the relationship on a more permanent footing’, to have her not as a mistress but as a partner. That’s what he had said. There was a lot to work out, not least of all his breaking the news to his wife, which he wouldn’t do until after Christmas. ‘It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.’ Even though his marriage had been over in all but name for years, he still had the decency to treat his wife with consideration and respect. That was just another aspect to his character that she loved and admired. Until he told his wife, Ali had to hug her secret to herself, enjoy its promise, and wait.
For the last couple of months before she came to India, work had taken them both in different directions. The lead-up to Christmas was always the busiest time of her year when people wanted to splurge their money on bespoke jewellery, so she had been busy designing and making to commission, as well as selling from her latest collection. At the same time, Ian had been called abroad to discuss some potential corporate merger. She hadn’t taken in the details. They had at last managed to find time for each other the evening before she left. To her disappointment, he had to go home before midnight. He didn’t go into details and she hadn’t pressed him. She didn’t want to know how he was spending Christmas with his wife while she was away. Next year, it would just be the two of them. Knowing that had been enough.
As Ali browsed through the rooms of the tiny museum, she thought how much Ian would have enjoyed being here with her. Well, as this was the last holiday she’d be taking on her own, she had decided to make the most of it. When she’d joined the group in Delhi, she’d been disappointed to find her travelling companions were a more sober bunch than she’d holidayed with in the past. Three smug couples, a middle-aged mother and her son, a widowed doctor and a man travelling alone since his wife had a fear of flying, and another slightly older woman she now knew to be Lou, whose idiosyncratic dress sense and wild hair made her look as if she at least might be fun. Ali had watched Lou with the others. At first Lou had been tentative, as if exploring her ability to make new friends but, as the days passed, she had become more confident. Soon her laugh was one of the things that marked her out, a loud earthy giggle, often at the centre of whatever was going on. Unlike her, Ali preferred to hold herself back so no one could make any demands on her, nor she on them.
She glanced over the architectural drawings, then stepped outside for a final look at the Taj, magnificent symbol for eternal love. With Ian in the forefront of her thoughts again, she crossed the garden to join the others near the huge arched main gateway, where she found Lou engaged in a vigorous discussion with Bharat, their guide.
‘But I’d rather walk to the car park,’ Lou was saying, quite unaffected by the way those in the group already there were glaring at her, no doubt impatient to reach their hotel, a good wash and a gin and tonic.
‘No, no, madam,’ insisted Bharat. ‘You must take bus.’
‘But Bharat, it can’t be more than half a kilometre at the most. I won’t hold you up if I start now and I’ll meet you there.’ She was being quite calm, controlled but determined.
Ali walked over to the two of them. ‘I’d like to walk too, Bharat. Nothing’ll happen to us, if that’s what you’re worried about. There are too many people around.’
Surprised by her intervention, Lou smiled, clearly glad of the support. She flicked her scarf over her right shoulder.
Apart from the anxiety about deviating from the schedule by letting two of his charges out of his sight, Bharat seemed bemused that any right-minded visitor would want to walk when there was perfectly good transport. But he folded in the face of their joint determination. ‘OK, madam. You go together. We’ll meet you in the car park.’
Once beyond the gateway, past the entry queues – one for nationals, one for foreigners – waiting to get through security, they found themselves outside the sandstone walls. Immediately, they were besieged by postcard and souvenir sellers, mostly young children, who swarmed around them, thrusting their wares under their noses, shouting prices and persuasion alongside would-be guides.
‘Where you from, madam? England? Very nice place. London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester … You want tour guide for Red Fort? Very important see everything.’
Dejected-looking horses and camels decorated with tinsel, their skin stretched tight over protruding bones, were hitched to carriages at the side of the road. Tuk-tuk and rickshaw drivers were touting for business too. ‘You want rickshaw. Good price. Baby Taj then Agra Fort. Show you my magical India. Two hundred rupees.’
The two women had been in India long enough to know that the only way through was to say little, and keep on walking. Eventually, to their relief, everyone’s attention switched to a large group of Americans emerging from the complex behind them and they were left alone.
‘Thank God for that,’ said Lou. ‘I don’t want to get Bharat into trouble but we spend so much time cooped up in the minibus. l had to experience some of this for myself.’ As they waited in a herd of goats for the stragglers to climb onto the scrubby verge, a pair of ragged dark-eyed children approached them, hands out, begging, ‘Dollar, dollar.’ A man selling sugar cane juice turned his blue mangle and shouted something from the other side of the road. Lou shook her head and carried on walking, Ali running to catch up, the ragamuffins running behind her. The smells of horseshit, bad drains, woodsmoke and cooking drifted through the dusty air. They stood to one side as an electric bus whirred past. Ali took a couple of snaps of a moth-eaten camel pulling a cart, then another of the children who giggled when she showed them the image on her camera.
‘I just wanted to escape the group for a bit longer. Not that there’s anything wrong with them,’ she hurried to add. For some reason, she didn’t want Lou to think badly of her.
‘They’re not that bad.’ Lou smiled. ‘You just haven’t got to know them.’
‘I know, I haven’t made much effort.’ She sounded suddenly anxious.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lou reassured her. ‘You’re down as a free spirit. I think everyone rather envies your independence.’
‘Well, it’s my last holiday alone, so I’ve been making the most of it.’
‘Seems to me that travelling alone but in the company of strangers is about a million times less fraught and tantrum-filled than travelling with family – especially my husband.’ Lou laughed at the thought. ‘Show him an airport and I’ll show you a man on the point of a coronary. And that’s before we’ve even left the country.’
‘You’re married?’ Ali noticed Lou wore no rings.
‘Not any more.’ Her face assumed a guarded expression. ‘I guess you’re not either?’
‘No, but I’m moving in with my boyfriend when I get back.’ Her cheeks were burning. Letting even a bit of her secret go made it feel less special, even though Lou didn’t know her or Ian. She immediately wished she hadn’t said anything. ‘I’m not meant to talk about it really. At least, not until he’s told his wife.’
‘Oh! His wife,’ Lou echoed.
Ali thought she heard disapproval, but when she looked, Lou simply smiled and gave the slightest shake of her head. They detoured round a white cow standing among a pile of rubbish and plastic bags. ‘Odd the way sacred animals exist on such an unsacred diet.’ And the subject was closed.
For the rest of the short way, they walked in a companionable silence, each lost in her own thoughts. Entering the busy car park filled with sudden exhaust and engine noise, they found their minibus and chose two seats side by side.
As they drove to the safari lodge on the Chambal river where they were spending their last two nights, Lou found herself enjoying Ali’s company more and more. There was something about her that reminded Lou of her younger sister, Jenny, killed only eighteen months earlier in a motorway pile-up. Although Jenny had been a loner all her life, the two sisters had shared a particular bond. Since they were teenagers, they had confided only in one another, knowing that all their secrets were safe. Since Jenny’s death no one had come near to filling her place in Lou’s life, not even Fiona, her closest friend. Talking to Ali, Lou found a similar intensity to Jenny’s. She heard something like Jenny’s dry sense of humour, and sensed the same reserve. Lou had been given a glimpse into Ali’s life but she didn’t expect her to tell any more. Given her own unwillingness to bare her soul at this point in her life, Lou sympathised with the younger woman’s reticence and didn’t press her. She was relieved not to have to account for herself and explain the actions she’d taken only months before. There’d be plenty of time to examine the repercussions of those when she got home.
For those last two nights, Ali unexpectedly opened up. She followed Lou’s lead and chatted with the others after supper around the dying embers of the bonfire, easily finding her place within the group. But this happened so late in the trip that there was no pressure for her to give anything of herself away. By the time they returned to Delhi for the flight home, Lou had arranged to meet Ali again on their home turf. She was intrigued by ‘the cat who walked alone’.
2
Delhi airport was teeming with people. Lou’s suitcase felt heavy and unwieldy as she concentrated on tipping it to one side so that it could roll along on the one wheel that hadn’t jammed. She hated airports, hated flying and was trying to drift into the zone necessary for any air travel to be … not pleasurable, never that, but endurable. She was looking for that Zen-like calm where anything problematic would just slip by her. Key to that condition was maintaining a cool indifference towards everything going on around her. Otherwise, she would be reduced to a gibbering state of impatience, then fear.
She and Ali stood together in the queue that snaked away from the check-in desk. They didn’t talk, just observed the hordes: families with children refusing to stay in line; trolleys laden with belongings heading with their owners towards a new start in another country; couples entwined after the romantic holiday of a lifetime; others barely speaking.
Eventually, they reached the front. She hefted her case onto the scales, catching her breath as she felt an ominous twinge in the small of her back, and watched the number of kilograms clocking up. Please God, let the airline official turn a blind eye.
‘It’s four kilos overweight,’ he announced, barely looking up.
Fuck. She should never have put in the fabric she’d bought in Udaipur. Instead, she should have had them shipped home like the rest of the fabric and the two bedspreads she hadn’t been able to resist in Jodhpur. ‘But you’ll let it go?’ she wheedled.
The official was unmoved. ‘You’ll have to pay the surcharge, I’m afraid. The desk’s over there.’ He could have been pointing anywhere. ‘Or you’ll have to remove some of the contents.’
And do what with them? Leave them on the terminal floor?
She could feel herself dithering, flustered, incapable of making a sensible decision. To pay a fortune for a few lengths of Indian silk, or not to pay? That was the question. Fortunately, Ali answered it. ‘For God’s sake, you mustn’t pay on principle. You don’t have to pay more for your seat because you’re heavier than me.’
‘Thanks for that,’ Lou muttered.
‘No, seriously, the same should apply to luggage. There’s some room in my case. Let’s just transfer a few things and I’ll give them back when we land.’
Relieved to have her dilemma so easily resolved, Lou agreed and yanked her case off the weighing machine. As she slid it back towards the queue, the implications of this perhaps rash decision struck her. She was about to reveal her totally shoddy packing techniques to the entire airport. But too late now. Someone else had taken her place at the desk and Ali was already unzipping her case. She flipped the lid back to reveal her perfectly folded capsule wardrobe taking up two-thirds of the available space.
Reluctantly, remembering the haphazard approach she had taken to her own packing, Lou began to pull at the zip of her suitcase, eyeing the straining seams. It had only consented to fasten when she’d sat on the case and shifted her weight about on top so the zip could inch round. The only way forward was to repeat the process. She sat down heavily, then, holding onto the zip, her knuckles white with the effort of not letting go, she began to pull. Slowly at first, it then gave with a little rush before slowing again. With Ali holding the two open sides as close together as possible, the last corner was turned and eventually, to the amusement of everyone alleviating the boredom of their wait by watching her, the final side was coerced into unzipping.
Self-conscious, Lou clambered off the case, half falling as she did. Steadying herself with her hand on Ali’s butt, she was aware that most of the queue could almost certainly see all the way down her cleavage as she bent forward. Mortified, she straightened up as fast as she could, adjusting her top at the same time.
Released from her weight, the case sprang open at the very moment that someone’s uncontrolled child cannoned into it. The contents jack-in-the-boxed into the air. Her Zen-like calm still nowhere in the vicinity, Lou could only think of one thing as she watched her most intimate garments hit the terminal floor. Why had she packed the Indian silks at the bottom of the case, leaving all her more personal bits and pieces on top? Galvanised into action, she reached for the bra that was spread-eagled on the floor in front of the crowd and folded it in half, tucking the straps inside. She’d never thought of her breasts as especially large until this moment when the D-cups assumed an embarrassing enormity. Neither had she noticed how much the once pretty pink lace had faded and discoloured to a dusty greyish colour. If only she’d invested in the sexy new underwear she’d thought might help mark the start of her single life.
Just then a young boy made a dash for it, her other bra capping his head, the straps dangling over his ears. She watched in disbelieving horror as his mother yelled after him to stop, then gave chase across the terminal.
Ali was no help. She was bent double laughing. At least everyone else had the grace to pretend not to be.
As Lou shoved one bra down the side of Ali’s case, the second was handed to her by the smirking child whose apologetic parent had a firm grip of his arm. She stuffed that one down the other side, her face burning with embarrassment. Still no one moved to help her. On her hands and knees, she reached out to grab the pairs of pants that littered the floor. Once they were stowed, she turned her attention to the contents of her washbag that had rolled towards the check-in.
As she snatched up the tweezers (the laser treatment to her chin was something else that had been too low on her priority list) and the bumper pack of ibuprofen, she became aware of a pair of unfamiliar male hands retrieving the pair of Bridget Jones knickers that she’d missed – the big cream M&S ones that only she knew she possessed. Until now. She’d brought them because they were perfect for the woman who only took her kit off when she was alone and who wanted to disguise her VPL without resorting to the bum-splitting discomfort of a thong. She certainly hadn’t envisaged sharing them with anyone else. They had landed on his very shiny dark brown left brogue. She watched aghast as the hands folded them once, then twice, before holding out the neat parcel to her. She wasn’t sure she could endure another moment of this.
Who would fold another person’s knickers? Mortified, she glanced up to lock eyes with a smart, suited Indian man of a certain age who was squatting beside her. He smiled a sympathetic smile. She had watched the DVD of Slumdog Millionaire for the nth time before she left, and the only thought that crossed her mind was that he was a dead ringer for the quiz-show host played by Anil Kapoor. It couldn’t be. Could it? Of course not. She took the knickers from his hand as briskly as she could without snatching.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled, wishing the floor would rip apart to swallow her and her bloody case.
He nodded, straightened up and looked away. But Lou hadn’t missed the glint of amusement in his eye.
Meanwhile, Ali had recovered herself and had squatted down beside her to help Lou retrieve the last few clothes and shove them into her own case. ‘Let’s get this sorted. Quick. A gin and tonic is definitely called for.’
‘A large one!’ Lou agreed.
An hour and a half later, they had reached the departure gate, the alcohol having aided the recovery of Lou’s sense of humour. They were still laughing about what had happened as they walked down the tunnel onto the plane. Dodging elbows as hand luggage was stowed above heads and sidling past passengers preparing to sit down, they made their way through the nirvana of business class to the unholy limbo at the back of the plane. Lou was leading the way, checking the numbers of the seats, when she stopped dead. Ali bumped into her. ‘Easy!’ she said, taking a step back. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘It’s him!’ said Lou, feeling her inner temperature soar, the perspiration prickle. She gestured down the aisle to where, in the outside seat of three, sat her knicker-rescuer immersed in a magazine. ‘Those are our seats! You’ll have to sit in the middle. I can’t small-talk with someone who’s on such intimate terms with my underwear.’
‘Sounds like a perfect match to me,’ said Ali.
For once, Lou was unamused.
As they waited for him to stand up and let them into their seats, Lou tried but failed to avoid his eye. They acknowledged each other with the briefest of nods before Lou, feeling herself blush, looked away and slid into her seat by the window, followed by Ali.
Trying not to panic about having to spend the next eight hours cramped in the economy seat, Lou jammed the airline freebies into her seat-back pocket. Preparing for take-off and landing were the parts of the flight that scared her most. Shutting her eyes, she tried again to find the calm that had so far eluded her. She breathed in, closing her eyes and trying to direct her breath out through the centre of her forehead, her third eye. Wasn’t that what the yoga teacher had said on the course she’d taken that summer, as he encouraged the class in the final relaxation exercise? She hadn’t understood what he was on about as she lay freezing on the floor of the decaying church hall, wishing she’d remembered to bring a blanket, and she certainly didn’t understand now. She tried again.
‘What are you doing?’ Ali’s voice interrupted her concentration.
‘Breathing. Not panicking. I’ll be fine.’ (Don’t talk to me.)
‘Tell me about your shop then.’ Ali ignored the incipient hysteria in Lou’s voice. ‘Now we’re on our way home, we might as well think about what we’re going back to.’
‘Give me a minute.’ Lou took in another breath and tightened her grip on the armrests, closing her eyes again. She was better dealing with her fear on her own. She refocused her mind. What would be waiting for her at the end of the flight? Just the words ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz: vintage and vintage-inspired clothes’ gave her a buzz of excitement. Her online business selling the vintage clothes that she’d acquired over years of working in the fashion biz, trawling vintage fairs, charity and junk shops, car boot sales and relatives’ attics was going to expand into the here and now. Finding the premises would be her number one priority when she got home.
Home. Rather than open her eyes to her present surroundings, she let herself drift back to the day, a couple of months earlier, when she had moved into the small Victorian house that she had inherited from Jenny.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Hooker, her husband of nearly thirty-one years, had grasped her hand as tightly as if he was trying to pull her from a fast-flowing river. Then she remembered how, apparently satisfied that he’d succeeded, he leaned forward for a kiss.
She pulled back, ignoring the look of displeasure that crossed his face, reclaiming her hand and abandoning herself to the current that was already carrying her out of his reach. ‘I’ll be absolutely fine,’ she said, firmly.
Until months earlier, that moment had only been wishful thinking, just like those times when she was drifting off to sleep and had fantasised about him leaving her or had even gone as far as imagining his funeral, what she’d wear and how she’d behave: respectful and grief-stricken on the outside, but gleeful about her new freedom on the inside. She was ashamed about those darker moments but he hadn’t always been the most ideal husband, especially of late, and it wasn’t as if she’d really believed anything bad would happen – or wanted it to. Not really. She had tightened her grip on the door as she began to shut him out of her life.
‘You are sure you’re doing the right thing?’ He stood his ground. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind and come home, you know.’
Leaning against the door frame, she willed her apprehension not to show. She knew him too well. If he spotted any weakness in her, he’d be quick to exploit it. ‘We’ve been through this a thousand and one times.’ She spoke slowly, as if drumming the information through his skull and into his brain. ‘We don’t love each other any more. We’ve agreed on that. So I’m going to live here now. It’s over.’
She remembered how she’d been reduced to romantic clichés. But they were true. She didn’t love him any more. And she doubted that he’d loved her for years, not really. Her sadness came less from their parting and more from the fact that their separation marked the end of their family as they had all known it.
Cramped in her airline seat, she flexed her feet, lifted one leg and rotated her ankle, then the other. Ali said something, but she took no notice. To take her mind off the flight, she forced herself to return to that day, the day that marked the start of her new independence. From now on, she was going to be devoting some time to herself instead of to the hours demanded by being Hooker’s chief wardrobe mistress, cook and bottle-washer: hours during which she had chosen to dismiss the occasional unfounded suspicion that Hooker might be playing away. That was a side to their recent life together that she’d never confronted. While the children were in their teens, she was determined to put them first. But they were grown up now and the need for that was finally over.
He’d run his hand over his thinning hair as if checking it was still there, clearly bewildered by her unfamiliar resolve but not convinced. ‘All right,’ he said, an edge of aggression entering his voice. ‘I’ll go. But don’t expect me to wait for you forever. That’s all. Let’s hope my door hasn’t closed by the time you change your mind.’ He turned to leave, obviously pleased with his parting shot, and quite confident that she’d be back.
‘Mmm. Let’s.’ She directed the words towards his back, not expecting him to turn this time. Insisting on having the last word was one of his shortcomings. One of his many shortcomings, she corrected herself, as she shut the door at last. She’d heard him rev his precious midlife-crisis of a sports car before he roared off, leaving her alone at last.
As if on cue, the roar of the jet engines intensified and the plane shook as it trundled towards take-off. Her white-knuckle grip on the arms of her seat tightened. Only another few minutes and she’d be able to relax – unless they crashed, of course. Everyone knew that take-off and landing were the most vulnerable moments of any flight. The shaking stopped, her ears filled as if she was underwater, then popped. Pushed back in her seat by the pressure, as the plane climbed to cruising height, she relaxed her hands.
‘You’ve gone very pale.’ Ali’s voice came from a distance. ‘Are you OK?’
Lou opened one eye, then the other. Everything was as it should be. The other passengers were strapped into their seats, adjusting the in-flight entertainment, chatting, reading magazines. The prevailing atmosphere was one of calm. How unnecessary to get so worked up – but necessity had nothing to do with it, her behaviour was instinctive. ‘I am now.’ She smiled as she let go the armrest. ‘Still want to know about the shop?’
By the time the stewardesses were working the aisle, bringing drinks and dinner, Lou had finished explaining the plans for her business and had moved on to Nic, her daughter. ‘She thinks I’m crazy, that I’ve no brain for business. She just doesn’t get the market for “dead people’s clothes” as she insists on calling them.’
‘Then you’ll just have to prove her wrong,’ Ali said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. ‘What does she do?’
‘She’s a family lawyer. Took after her godmother Fiona who’s always encouraged her. Look, it’s not that we don’t get on really, she just has strong views.’ She paused with a short laugh, as always amazed to think how her almost edible, curly-haired toddler had grown up into such a touchy, opinionated young woman. Her father’s daughter, she guessed. Or else her mothering skills had let them both down. ‘My two boys, Jamie and Tom, are quite different,’ she said, feeling she had to justify herself. ‘They’re much easier and more understanding.’ She broke off as the trays were put in front of them, then changed the subject. ‘What’s waiting at home for you?’
‘January’s usually a bit of a hangover from Christmas in my business, so I’ve got a few small jobs plus a ring to finish for a guy who was too late with his ordering. There’s always someone.’ Ali looked resigned. ‘But, at the same time, I’ll be thinking ahead and starting to dream up designs for a new collection. Business is much harder than usual thanks to the rocketing metal prices. But before I do anything, I’ll have to go up north to visit my father and make up for missing Christmas with him.’ She made it sound more of a chore than a pleasure. ‘Not that we’ve spent it together for years.’
‘Both my parents are dead,’ Lou said wistfully, remembering the family trips they’d made to Scotland for Hogmanay when the kids were small. Log fires, long walks, icy cheeks and warm hands, skating on the frozen pond: annual pleasures that were all but ruined when her mother took to the bottle. Then, Lou would have to keep the children out of her way as her mother slipped from maudlin nostalgia into something more aggressive. When she was drunk, which she was more and more often after her husband’s death, everyone was a disappointment to her and she became angry and vocal about it.
‘Dad and I aren’t very close. We’ve tried but it’s been difficult.’ Ali stopped as she peeled the foil lids off the containers in front of her, then replaced them and pushed the tray the full two inches away from her. ‘God, the food never gets any better, does it?’
Realising Ali was not going to elaborate on her relationship with her father, Lou changed the subject. ‘But aren’t you moving in with your boyfriend? What’s that?’ Lou watched Ali pop a white pill.
‘Imodium.’ She grimaced and crossed her fingers. ‘Let’s hope it works. My boyfriend? Well, I’m going home to a new life, I guess.’ A dreamy expression crossed her face. ‘He’s a fantastic man, a little bit older than me, who I’ve been seeing for the last three years. He’s married but he’s going to leave her. I’ve promised not to say anything to anyone until he’s extricated himself, but by the time I’m back he should be there. Or near enough. Then we’ll be together. I can’t wait.’
Lou marvelled at Ali’s apparent lack of concern. ‘But aren’t you worried about his wife? Or his family? Won’t they make things difficult?’ She couldn’t imagine herself being in that position without having some concern about the hurt she must be inflicting.
‘Why should I be?’ Ali looked puzzled. ‘That’s their business, isn’t it? But from what he’s said, things have been pretty ropey between them for ages. Let’s face it, he wouldn’t have kept our affair going if they weren’t. We’ve seen each other almost every week, gone out for meals, to the cinema. I’ve even been away with him when he’s travelled on business. He couldn’t have done any of that if either of them cared more about the other, could he?’
‘But don’t you talk about it?’ Lou tried to sound interested rather than astonished, not wanting to point out the obvious: that plenty of men were happy to have their cake and eat it. Ali was too smart not to know that, but perhaps she was just salving her conscience.
‘Never,’ Ali said firmly. ‘That’s a rule I made and I’ve stuck with. Wife, children, pets and his domestic crises have always been right off the agenda. We have a great time together without them getting in the way. I never imagined he’d leave her, never wanted him to, so my being ignorant of all that stuff has meant that things have run happily alongside his marriage without nudging it off the rails.’
Lou almost choked on a mouthful of the rubber passing for chicken curry. ‘Then how do you know he’s the one for you? You can’t know much about him at all.’
‘I know enough. Really, I do. I know what I’m doing, and I know why I’m doing it.’
But Lou hadn’t been probing into Ali’s motives. She was just intrigued at why anyone would see this as an ideal basis for a long-term partnership.
Ali went on. ‘I know it’s not a conventional view of a satisfactory or fulfilling relationship but until now I’ve always thought I was getting the best of both worlds: my freedom plus plenty of no-strings passion and entertainment.’
‘Why change things? That sounds pretty damn perfect to me.’ And the polar opposite to Lou’s own marriage where, for the last few years, she’d sometimes felt as if she was being very slowly buried alive.
Ali looked uncertain of what to say for a moment. ‘When he proposed it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. At the same time though, I knew that we couldn’t keep things the same way forever. I’m not getting any younger …. Once I thought I’d get married, have children, but it never happened. Perhaps this is my chance. Perhaps it’s time for me to make a commitment to someone else.’
She leaned back so the stewardess could take both their trays.
‘Then you’re lucky to have found him.’ Lou remembered when she and Hooker had taken that same step together. So different, given that they had been more than twenty years younger than Ali was now, but how full of optimism they had been. And how disappointed now, so many years later.
While Ali disturbed her other neighbour so she could get out of her seat, Lou began to prepare herself for sleep. She didn’t bother to check which films were playing. As soon as the cabin lights were dimmed, she slipped herself a sleeping pill donated by a doctor friend for the occasion, wrapped herself in her blanket, reclined her seat, put on her canary yellow eye mask and rested her head against the side of the plane. Sleep was the only thing that would make the flight go faster. She would catch up more with Ali in London. Ten minutes later, her mouth had fallen open enough to signify she was asleep but not quite enough to warrant total embarrassment.
3
The unearthly flickering light of the tiny TV screens set in the seat backs illuminated the blanket-wrapped huddles of passengers. Walking back down the darkened aisle, Ali thought how she could justify what she’d said about Ian and his marriage so that Lou would understand. Although she’d only known her a short time, theirs was already becoming a friendship she wanted to continue. She didn’t want to derail it by not explaining herself properly. Besides that, she was intrigued by the fact that Lou obviously didn’t want to talk about her own marriage and how it had ended. No, there was plenty more to find out about each other.
But by the time she returned to her seat, Lou was out for the count.
Ali’s other neighbour was lying back, absorbed in a film, but let her pass with a polite nod before returning his attention to the screen. Denied conversation, she took out her travel pillow, blew it up and fitted it round her neck. She popped a second Imodium (probably a mistake) in response to a sudden cramping in her lower stomach, then closed her eyes and turned her mind to home, focusing on what she hadn’t told Lou, what she hadn’t told anyone: that setting up home with Ian was significant in more ways than one. It meant that her life as a serial mistress was almost over.
She hadn’t considered her relationship with Ian in any way different from those she’d had with the string of married lovers who came before him, until six weeks earlier when he suggested they rethink their relationship. None of her previous lovers had come close to suggesting such a thing. Perhaps they had all believed she was one hundred per cent against one hundred per cent commitment. And they would have been right. Until now, she had been. She suspected Lou would say that it suited them to believe that. Lou’s cynical take on life amused her, made her look at things in a new light.
Ian’s suggestion that they live together was so unexpected that, when it came, she had been unable to reply immediately. They’d finished dinner quickly, Ian looking uncomfortable, obviously wishing he had put it another way, another time – or not at all. If she agreed, she didn’t need Einstein to point out that her life and their relationship would change forever. What niggled her was how much that mattered to her. She couldn’t abandon her way of life without some thought. Being his mistress had meant the relationship ran on her terms while she allowed him to believe that it ran on his. That’s how she had preferred all her relationships with men to be since Don had left her over twenty years earlier. With him, she had enjoyed being half of the whole they made together. After they lost touch, she had remained single, unwilling to take the risk of committing herself to anyone else, scared of rejection.
Agreeing to Ian’s proposal would mean a shift in their dynamic. But why not take that risk? The more she had thought about it, the more that shift appealed. Every evening they would come home to each other. Weekends would be spent together doing those things that couples do together: cooking, talking, going out with friends, sharing interests, and getting to know one another in a new way, discovering the truth. Now it had been offered, permanent companionship, something that had been so absent in her life for so long, something she had never thought would be hers again, was suddenly something she craved. She even dared allow herself to imagine that she and Ian might have a child together. She’d read about women giving birth in their mid-forties. It wasn’t a total impossibility. She wondered what he’d say. After all, she was at an age where she could upend her life if she wanted to – as long as she held on to her independence.
Her memory of the morning following his proposal was quite clear. She had woken up beside him, her mind made up.
‘Morning.’ She’d kissed his left eye, then his right.
He’d groaned as he rolled to face her, squinting as he opened one and then the other eye. ‘God! That brandy was a mistake.’
‘But you’re usually OK.’ Their noses were almost touching and she could just smell his morning-after breath. She couldn’t help noticing the few broken veins in his cheeks, the incipient wrinkles around his mouth, his greyish overnight stubble: all reminders that time was marching on. He slid his arm around her waist.
‘Yeah, but last night was different.’ He pulled back a little and looked at her. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you the way I did. Stupid of me. I don’t want to spoil what we’ve got either. I’m happy to leave things be, if that’s what you want. In fact, perhaps that would be better for both of us.’
‘Stop right there,’ she said, not wanting him to retract anything, not now her own thoughts were changing so fast. ‘I lay awake for half the night, thinking about what you said.’
‘Did you? Poor baby. Forget it. We’re fine just as we are. Really.’ He kissed her, slow and lingering, the definite prelude for more. He slid his leg between hers.
She began to respond, then wriggled out of the embrace.
‘Come on. Don’t let a bloke down now. We haven’t got much time.’ He’d reached for her again. But she had something important to say.
‘I know, I know, but …’ She sat up, plumping the pillow behind her and adding a couple of the scatter cushions that had been relegated to the floor. ‘We’ve got to talk.’
‘About what?’ He scratched his head so his hair stood on end. He leaned across her and flicked the Today programme over to Radio 3 as the presenter announced Debussy’s La Plus que Lente. The notes of the piano swelled and fell in the quiet of the room as he waited for Ali to speak.
‘About last night. About what you said.’
He screwed up his right eye and with his right thumb on his cheekbone rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. ‘Yes?’
She heard how apprehensive he was, so hurried to put him out of his misery. ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea.’ She watched his eyes open wide in surprise. ‘I was shocked last night. But I’ve thought and thought about what it would mean and now I know that’s what I want too.’
‘You do?’ He sat up too, his voice coloured with disbelief.
‘I definitely do.’
He enveloped her in a bear hug, pulling her over so they lay face to face, but she hadn’t finished. ‘I love you and want to be with you. But … what about your wife? What will you do?’
‘Forget about her,’ he’d whispered. ‘You didn’t want to know about her before, so let’s keep it that way for now. I don’t want her to spoil anything.’
Remembering his words again now reminded her of how little she really knew about him. Lou was so right to have picked up on that. Aware of movement beside her, Ali opened her eyes, hoping to find her friend awake and in a mood to talk. But despite her change of position, Lou’s head was slumped against the headrest, her distinctive eye mask still in place.
Disappointed, Ali shifted in her seat, slipping off her shoes, and returned to her thoughts. She had curled herself around their secret until she’d got used to it, squeezing every drop of private pleasure from it. She was dying to see the expression on her friends’ faces when they heard she was going to settle down. Most of her women friends had become so wrapped up in their marriages and children, they didn’t look outwards any more. That was one of the things she liked about Lou, her interest in the world around her. But Ali’s friends saw her as a professional mistress – serially monogamous with other women’s husbands. And not all (if any) of them approved or thought it as amusing as they might once have done, especially not after they’d got married themselves. Then their views on marriage underwent a sudden transformation. Ali had become a threat to all they held dear. To hell with them. How gloriously gobsmacked they would be at the change in her fortunes now Ian had come along.
Opening her eyes again, she was confronted by the on-screen flight information. The cartoon plane had barely moved since she last looked. She fiddled with the control pad, trying to switch off the image. What did she care about the temperature outside the plane right now? She wasn’t intending to experience it for herself. She looked at Lou who had pulled her blanket right over her head, now dead to the world. Ali felt her stomach contract again. Cursing quietly, she excused herself from the row once again. ‘I’m so sorry but I’m not too well.’ To say she had Delhi belly seemed a somewhat insensitive euphemism to use to a native Indian. ‘Rather than disturbing you through the night, I wonder if we could swap seats?’ Lou would be horrified, but needs must.
‘If you think that would be better for you. Of course,’ he said, disentangling his headphones and gathering his possessions – a paperback, his airline toiletry bag and a bottle of water – and stood to let her past.
‘I think it might.’ Propelled by a certain degree of urgency, she transferred her belongings to the outside seat, then abandoned him to make his own arrangements.
When Ali returned, he was asleep in front of the thriller. She sat down, resigned to a long sleepless night ahead. She tuned in to an anodyne family comedy that required neither concentration nor intelligence but even so she could only think of Ian.
He had noticed how uncomfortable she was with the way he talked about his wife, and had hugged her tighter.
‘I don’t want her spoiling what we have. When I come here to your flat, I can forget everything else. I feel a different person. Do you understand that?’
‘I suppose so,’ she murmured, enjoying their closeness enough to drive away her concerns. ‘But we can’t exist in this weird little bubble forever.’
‘We can try.’ He began to kiss her again.
Once again, she pulled away, this time to his tsk of annoyance. ‘Where will we live?’ she asked.
‘Where?’ He let her go. ‘What’s wrong with here? I love this place.’
‘So do I. But if we’re going to have a new life together then I’d like to live somewhere that’s ours. Yours and mine. A new start.’ She snuggled up to him. He just hadn’t thought this through. She had moved into her flat when she had accepted she was probably going to be single forever so this was her domain, her home. The place held too many memories that had nothing to do with him, and, if she was honest, were hardly appropriate to the life they were planning. No, if they were starting a life together, they needed a place of their own. She could tell from his silence that she had surprised him. One all, then.
Despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm, she’d made up her mind that was definitely what was going to happen. She’d already put out a few feelers before she came away but as soon as she got home she’d be combing the property pages and pestering the agents. He’d come round when he realised how a move made sense. Then she’d have to broach the idea of a baby. Too much too soon? But time was against them. If they didn’t talk about these things now, it might be too late. And Ian loved her. He would understand.
Moments later, she had to leave her seat again. At the back of the plane, the cabin crew were in the galley, whiling away the hours until their more active duties resumed. The blonde I’m-Clare-fly-me one noticed Ali’s coming and going, and asked if she could help. So it was that, provided with a beaker of water, Ali found herself lying full length on an empty row of seats, reasonably comfortable at last. By the time the stewardesses began the breakfast round, she was fast asleep.
Lou was woken by the sound of the trolley and distant voices. Keeping the blanket over her head, she swallowed and ran her tongue around her mouth. The metallic taste was the side effect of her sleeping pill but her head was clear. Only a few hours and she’d be home, taking down the Christmas decorations. They’d looked so pretty all ready for her pre-Christmas Christmas dinner that she’d had with the kids before she left for India and Jamie and Rose his fiancée left for Tenerife to visit her family in their holiday villa.
Hooker had not been invited. Sitting the whole family round the table and pretending nothing had changed would have been inappropriate, not to say uncomfortable. As would a full-blown turkey extravaganza. Instead, she’d decided on the old family favourite – roast beef with all the trimmings. This was the first time they’d all be together at her new home, and she wanted everything to be right. This was the first time they’d celebrated Christmas without Hooker. She’d transformed her workroom with coloured fairy lights twinkling round the window. The chipped and scratched surface of her sewing table was hidden under a red tablecloth sprinkled with silver star confetti. No crackers this year. Instead, the table was elegant with Jenny’s white china, the only decoration being the gauzy red ribbons that Lou had tied in bows around the bases of the glass candlesticks.
The meal was a triumph, even her Yorkshire puddings, and after they’d eaten, they moved into the living room for present opening. The fire blazed, glasses were charged, chocolates and mince pies passed around. The kids had clubbed together to buy Lou a Total Pampering Package that aimed to rejuvenate and re-energise. Oh, the optimism of youth! She had given Jamie and Tom cheques, socks and a shirt each – anything else ran the risk of rejection. For Rose, there was a book about Reiki healing. Then she took the last package and passed it to Nic.
‘Honestly, Mum! You could have done better than brown paper.’
Aware of the effort that usually went into Nic’s extravagant wrappings, she just said as brightly as she could, ‘I’m saving the planet and anyway, it’s what’s inside that counts.’
As Nic tore away the paper, a loose deep green silk devoré velvet jacket slid into her hands. She shook it out and held it up to look at it, then against herself.
A pause as she examined it, then, ‘Is it one of yours?’
Lou caught the faintest hint of criticism in the question.
‘I’m afraid so,’ admitted Lou, who still smarted from the time when Nic, as a young teenager, had begged her to stop making their clothes. She wanted to go shopping with her mates, and wear what they wore. And who could blame her? Uniformity was what mattered then – for the boys too. Ever since, Lou had restricted her dressmaking to herself and to friends. But she hadn’t been able to resist this gorgeous fabric, which she had been so sure Nic would love.
Nic confined herself to shaking her head in a despairing sort of way. She slipped it on over her dress, then went upstairs to find a mirror. Despite Rose’s quiet ‘Wow!’ and Lou’s feeling of satisfaction in seeing a perfect fit, Nic’s appreciation was less than impressive. When she returned to the room, she slung it over the back of her chair and kissed Lou’s cheek. ‘Thanks, Mum. It’s lovely.’ Her lack of enthusiasm had been barely hidden. ‘It’ll be great for that flappers and gangsters fancy dress party at New Year.’
Stuck in her airline seat, blanket over her head, Lou could still feel her disappointment. How she longed to have one of those close mother–daughter relationships instead of one that blew hot and cold with no warning. The jacket should have proved to Nic how beautiful vintage-inspired pieces could be, how successful Lou’s business venture would be, but she should have known better. Nic had been as dismissive as Hooker sometimes was. They rarely thought of the effect their words might have. Well, she’d bloody well show them that she could make a go of this. If anything, Nic’s scorn had only served to stoke the fire of Lou’s determination. Who knew? Perhaps her success would bring them closer together. Success was something that Nic, like her father, respected.
The rattle of the trolley was getting nearer. She wondered what the time was, but was reluctant to brave the glare of the cabin to look at her watch.
‘Excuse me.’ An unknown voice sounded right by her ear. ‘Would you like orange juice?’
Annoyed by the disturbance, she peeled the blanket from her head and took off her eye mask only to be confronted by a familiar face in the next seat. Her knicker rescuer. Beyond him, the third seat was empty. Where was Ali? He was passing her a plastic beaker from the stewardess. She took it and unfolded her table. ‘Thanks. But that seat’s taken.’ Realising how rude she sounded, she apologised. ‘I’m sorry, that sounded awful.’
‘Not at all.’ He inclined his head and gave a slight smile. ‘Your friend was taken ill so she took the aisle seat, but I think she may now be sleeping at the back of the plane.’
Lou composed herself. She was a fifty-five-year-old woman, for God’s sake. This man had only tried to help her, not stripped her naked in front of the whole airport. Even if that was what it had felt like to her at the time. The memory of his hand holding out her knickers came into her head and she fought a desire to laugh.
‘I’m sorry about earlier on at the airport, too,’ she said. Then, ‘I’m Lou.’
He held out his hand, at least as far as the movement was possible in such a confined space. ‘Sanjeev Gupta.’
They shook, elbows digging into their sides. Before they could continue their conversation, a stewardess was leaning across, offering trays of breakfast. Lou stared at the separated lumps of scrambled egg and the warm burned sausage that floated in a thin sea of tomato juice, before turning her tray around and picking up the yoghurt.
‘Have you been on holiday?’ her neighbour asked while cutting his sausage as if expecting something foul to crawl out. He gave up and turned his attention to the roll and butter.
Within minutes, Lou was detailing their route through Rajasthan, remembering the highlights, excited to be able to talk about what she’d seen without the rest of the group, who were scattered through the plane, interrupting. She only stopped to allow the breakfast to be removed. Sanjeev was an attentive listener, concentrating on what he was hearing, interrupting only to ask whether she had managed to visit certain places she didn’t mention: Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Deogarh. By the time they’d finished their coffee, Lou was laughing.
‘Two weeks obviously isn’t anything like long enough. We’ve missed so much. I’ll just have to come back.’
Responding to her laugh, Sanjeev smiled back. ‘To Rajasthan? Or maybe somewhere else?’
‘What do you think?’ Lou wanted the opinion of someone who knew the country far better than her.
He began to tell her about the other very different parts of his country, from the unspoilt mountain state of Sikkim that lay in the Himalayan foothills in the shadow of Kanjenjunga, to the gentle white-sanded paradise of Kerala in the south. Lou listened, entranced by his descriptions and the stories of his visits there, at the same time making plans for countless future visits. Would her new business provide the necessary income? She would have to make sure it did. He took her journeying down the mighty Brahmaputra in the state of Assam, conjuring up the crowded ferries, the riverine island of Majuli, his visit during light-filled Divali, the ubiquitous tea plantations. He was describing the steep noisy street up to a Hindu temple outside Guwahati lined with stalls stuffed with devotional objects, crowded with holy men and pilgrims who had travelled there to have their wishes granted, when Ali returned to the outside seat.
Lou smiled a faint welcome but continued to let Sanjeev talk. So caught up was she in the places he was describing, she didn’t want him to stop. However, seeing he’d lost her attention for a moment, he broke off and twisted round to see Ali. He immediately asked her if she wanted her seat back. ‘Your friend has missed you. So, if you are better …’ He let the sentence hang.
‘Thank you.’ She stood to let him out, so she could slide into the vacated middle seat.
Lou was disappointed to lose Sanjeev but Ali wasn’t to know how much she had been enjoying his company.
‘What a bloody awful night,’ announced Ali, who was looking pale despite the make-up that she’d obviously applied in preparation for landing.
‘I’m sorry. I’d no idea. How are you feeling now?’ Lou felt guilty that she hadn’t even bothered to go to the back of the plane to find out. But Ali seemed not to mind.
‘Much better. Once I was lying down and the Imodium kicked in, I was OK. But I had so much going around my head, I couldn’t sleep for ages.’
‘Once you see Ian, everything’ll fall into place. You’ll see.’ Lou wasn’t sure why she was speaking with such confidence when she knew so little about either of them. ‘Is he meeting you?’
‘I wish. No. I don’t know when I’m going to see him. Depends on how things have gone with his wife, I guess.’
The pilot’s voice broke into their conversation, announcing the start of their descent into Heathrow. Lou stretched her ankles back and forth, suddenly aware that she had barely moved on the flight and that a blood clot might be lurking in a stagnant vein, waiting to finish her off. Why hadn’t she worn those awful white compression socks that had briefly graced the airport floor and were now buried somewhere in Ali’s case? Confusion and vanity had combined to prevent her retrieving them. Her grip tightened on the armrest again as her hearing buzzed and blocked and she struggled to catch what Ali was saying. She gasped as a sharp pain drilled into her eye socket, then swallowed hard. Cutting loose from her neighbours, she focused on the pain in her head and on all the methods she knew that might relieve the pressure: holding her nose; swallowing; yawning; drinking the last of her water; trying and failing to find the chewing gum buried in her bag. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it another moment and her head would split in two, the plane hit the tarmac. As it bumped along the ground, the pain began to recede as they taxied towards the airport buildings.
4
Lou’s eyes felt as if they’d been forcibly removed, sandpapered and returned to their sockets. Her limbs were leaden as she slid her suitcase through the melting snow along the path to her front door, vowing never to catch another overnight flight again. She stopped to look up at the windows, wound about with bare wisteria stems. Jenny’s home was hers now, and waiting to welcome her back. Even so, it was strange not to be returning from holiday to the home she and Hooker had shared for so long. For a second, she felt more alone than she had since their split. As she rummaged in her bag for her key, she felt Sanjeev’s business card. Would he make good his promise, hurriedly made as they walked towards Immigration, to invite her to dinner while he was in London? And if he did, how would she respond? Positively, she decided, given what she remembered of his manner, his way of conjuring up places, palaces, myths and Mughals, not of course forgetting his Bollywood good looks. And why not? There was no reason why she shouldn’t indulge in a little post-marital entertainment.
As soon as she was inside, she swapped her too-thin mac for her voluminous knee-length leopard-print faux-fur coat that was scattered with Minnie Mouse faces. Walking through the house, inhaling the familiar scent of home, reacquainting herself with everything, she glanced out of the window into the garden. In contrast to the black slush covering the London streets, here was a frozen winter wonderland, only interrupted by the paw prints of local cats and foxes. Despite having put on the coat, she shivered and went to turn up the heating, exchanging her holiday shoes for her Uggs, before making herself a cup of tea, builder’s strength.
Even though the house belonged to her now, she still felt Jenny’s presence. After months spent grieving for her younger sister, wandering round the place, remembering, Lou had finally galvanised herself. Being practical was one of the things she did best. At first she had planned to rent the house until the property market improved. She’d sorted out all her sister’s belongings before starting on a round of charity shop visits to get rid of the rest. Stuff – that’s all her sister’s possessions were now – just stuff that had little or no significance to anyone else, not even to Lou. She had found that terribly sad. Any tales about how Jenny came by certain things or why she kept them had died with her. Letters, old postcards from her friends, ancient bank statements and bills, diaries and notebooks: only fit for the bin. Lou had to go through them all first, despite hating the invasion of her sister’s well-kept privacy. Apart from one or two personal mementoes, some gifts for the children and a few clothes, all that Lou kept were the basics necessary for a rental property. If it was to appeal to any potential tenant, her job was to neutralise Jenny’s home, get rid of its character altogether.
But there wasn’t going to be a tenant, after all. The moment of realisation had come three months ago, as she planned the redecoration of the main bedroom. She was poring over a paint chart with a couple of fabric swatches in her hand, undecided between shades – Raspberry Bellini, Roasted Red or the one she knew she should choose: safe, innocuous white – when a blinding light dawned. Why do the place up for a stranger when it could be hers, done up exactly as she wanted? This could be her chance for a new start in life. How Jenny would have liked that: so infinitely preferable to the idea of a stranger taking over her home. Her sister had been the only one in the world who knew what Lou really felt about her husband in recent years, about her marriage. She would be so pleased to have helped her to an escape route. If her death was teaching Lou anything, it was to squeeze every drop out of life while you had it. There was no knowing when it would end. That same evening she had told Hooker she was leaving him.
To begin with he hadn’t believed her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t mean it.’ But she did, and over the following two weeks of protracted and painful rowing had finally got him to accept that her mind was made up. ‘You’ll be back,’ he said. ‘You won’t like being on your own.’ But the more he poured scorn on her plan, the more determined he made her. Any reservations she might have had were quashed.
In the living room, everything was as she’d left it. She tucked her knitting bag under the Eames chair that had been Jenny’s pride and joy, then sat and opened her laptop on her knee. With tea and a small(ish) slice of home-made Christmas cake on the low table by her side, she lifted her feet onto the ottoman and began to download her photographs. Unpacking could wait. As the images materialised in front of her, she was ambushed by memories: Jaipur’s Palace of the Winds; a Brahmin village chief preparing the opium ceremony; the swaying elephant ride up to the Amber Fort; groups of enchanting dark-eyed children; an old woman cooking chapattis over a fire in her front yard; and so they kept on coming.
At the same time as wishing herself back there, Lou also felt a deep pleasure at being back home. Now India was over, she was ready to concentrate on making a new life alone. The trip had given her a necessary shot of energy. Her current exhaustion aside, she felt stronger, empowered (though she hated the word), braced for whatever life would throw at her. Breaking up with Hooker had not been easy and she had an unpleasant sense that her problems might not be entirely over, but she felt ready to deal with whatever he threw at her next. The colours of Rajasthan had inspired her as much as the fabrics that she’d been shown in the large fabric emporiums where roll after roll of silk and cotton had been pulled out for her. She was itching to get on with her new summer designs for the shop. As she gazed at a photo of a sari stall in the Jodhpur market – all clashing colours, crowds and chatter – the phone rang.
‘Mum?’ Nic’s voice sounded different.
‘Darling! Did you have a good Christmas?’ Lou felt the familiar fillip to her spirits that came whenever she heard from one of her children.
‘I need to see you.’
Lou hit earth with a bump. Not even a Did-you-have-a-good-holiday? So this was how it was going to be. And just because she’d decided to absent herself for a fortnight to avoid any awkwardness over the Christmas break. She hadn’t only been thinking of herself, but of the kids who would have been caught between their feuding parents. ‘When were you thinking?’ she asked. As the high that had accompanied her arrival home from the flight began to dissipate, Lou thought with some longing of her clean-sheeted bed that was waiting upstairs.
‘Today? Now?’ Was that urgency or was her daughter just being her usual demanding self?
‘Has something happened, Nic?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you. I’ll be about an hour.’
‘And I can show you—’
But Nic had hung up. Lou took a bite of leftover Christmas cake. Mmm, possibly the best she’d made yet. Outside, a train rattled by on the other side of the garden wall: a sound that made her feel at home.
An hour. Not long enough for that sleep which was becoming increasingly pressing. Instead Lou woke herself up with a shower, so that by the time the doorbell rang, she was feeling just about semi-human. She had discarded the coat, knowing the scorn it provoked in Nic. The thick burned orange sweater she wore over her jeans almost compensated for the fact that the water had been lukewarm and the heating had yet to make any noticeable impression on the house. Nic’s disapproving glance at the jeans as she walked in didn’t go unnoticed. And her ‘Mmmm, very ashram’ directed at the sweater was quite unnecessary. Why was it that her daughter felt she had to sanction – or otherwise – all her mother’s life choices, including those in her wardrobe? However, once Nic had hung her overcoat on the end of the stairs Lou welcomed her with a hug, then took her into the kitchen, the warmest room.
‘How was Christmas? Dad OK?’ She pulled out a bag of coffee beans from the freezer.
‘Quiet. Tom was with us. We missed you.’ That reproving tone again, something Lou hadn’t missed while away.
‘Having someone to do all the cooking, you mean.’
They didn’t speak while Lou ground the beans for the cafetière, then: ‘That’s so unfair.’ Wounded now. ‘I just think the two of you should be together.’
Lou decided to ignore her daughter’s last remark. However uncomfortable Nic was with Lou’s decision to move out of the family home, Lou was not going to let her be the arbiter in her parents’ relationship. ‘I’m only joking. Don’t be so sensitive, Nic. Of course I missed you too, but going away was the right thing for me to do.’
Nic shook her head.
‘No, really. India was amazing. You’d love it there.’ Would she though? As well as everything that she had enjoyed, Lou remembered the dirt; the stink; the poverty; families living on the pavements, in the stations; child beggars tapping at car windows; Delhi belly; the drains; the reckless driving. None of that had been enough to negate her own thrill at experiencing the country – but would her over-fastidious daughter react in the same way? ‘Look. I’ve brought you a couple of things.’ She pushed across the table a yellow and green drawstring jewellery purse, a paper bag containing a scarf she’d bought at a stall in a gateway at the Mehrangarh Fort, and a newspaper-wrapped statue of the elephant god, Ganesh, for luck.
Nic pulled open the purse and slid out the star sapphire ring that Lou had chosen with such care. ‘It’s lovely, Mum.’
Had she actually got a present right for once? Filled with disbelief and pleasure, Lou plunged the knife into the Christmas cake. Just another small slice.
As Nic slipped the ring onto her right hand, Lou thought she heard her sniff. When her daughter looked up, her face was a muddle of emotions, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘Nic? Whatever’s the matter? I just wanted to bring you back something special but if you don’t like it … well, I can’t change it, but …’
Seeing Nic so upset induced immediate and unwelcome guilt. She should never have fled the country. How selfish she’d been. Instead, she should have skipped Christmas by burying herself in Devon with Fiona and Charlie after all. At least she’d have been in reach of home. However old her kids might be, they did still need her. She worried that this still mattered so much to her when she should be letting them go.
‘It’s not that, Mum. I do really love it.’ There was a long pause during which Nic struggled to compose herself, twisting the ring around her finger, watching the six-pointed star move through the blue-grey stone. Lou stretched out a hand to cover her daughter’s. Years ago, she might have been able to soothe any problem away but now, her maternal success rate was much lower. Nic was usually so strong, so self-contained. Since she’d been sixteen and had decided on a career in family law, following in the footsteps of her godmother, Fiona, she’d always given the impression that she’d rather lie bound to a railway track than seek advice from her parents.
Her daughter gave a final sniff and looked her straight in the eye. That familiar look of defiance was back. As Nic cleared her throat with a brusque cough, Lou had a sinking sensation, recognising that her daughter was about to say something momentous.
‘It’s just that …’ Deep breath. Twist of the ring around her finger. ‘I’m pregnant.’ For a second, Nic looked just as she had fifteen-odd years ago when confessing to some childish prank, anticipating the appalled parental reaction, her justification at the ready.
Lou stared at her, her hand frozen mid-stroke. ‘You’re what?’ Of all the things Nic might have said, this was the last she would have expected. Until now, her daughter’s career had taken precedence over everything, including any boyfriends who were dispatched whenever they got too much.
Immediately Nic was on the defensive, moving her hand out of reach. ‘I knew you’d be like that.’
‘I’m not like anything. It’s a bit of a shock, that’s all.’ Lou stood up to pour the coffee, as her mind raced through the implications. Having a baby would get in the way of Nic’s life, her work, and she wouldn’t like that. Presumably she’d come to ask for her mother’s support for an abortion. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ she asked, playing for time.
Nic tutted. ‘Of course. One hundred per cent.’
‘Who’s the father? Max?’
‘That’s irrelevant.’ She made a scything movement through the air with her hand, cutting off any further discussion about her on–off boyfriend of the last year or so. She pushed her cake away from her.
‘Nic! How can you say that? Of course it isn’t. You have to take him into consideration too.’ But Lou could see that Nic was way ahead of her. She had made all her decisions and, as usual, Lou was going to have to try to catch up.
‘He’s made it plain that he wants nothing to do with this. He wants me to get rid of it.’ She sounded both outraged and determined.
‘And you? What do you want?’
‘I’m going to keep it. This is what I’ve wanted for ages.’
Despite the relief she felt, Lou thought it wise not to point out that Nic had never suggested she’d wanted any such thing. A career, yes. A solid relationship, yes. But a baby? This was the first Lou had heard of it.
‘What about your career?’ she said, sounding like the sort of mother she didn’t want to be.
‘Mum, thousands of women have babies and return to work.’ Nic was trying to control the note of impatience that had crept into her voice. ‘You should know that better than anyone. That won’t be a problem. I’ve thought it all through.’
‘You have?’ Lou took Nic’s plate and transferred the cake back into the tin. Giving herself something to do meant she didn’t have to look at her daughter while she tried to catch up with the conversation.
‘Yes, I have. I’m going to take the statutory maternity leave and then find a nanny share. Like you did.’
This was not the moment to elaborate on the difficulties that could come with nannies however lifesaving they might be. Lou remembered how torn she’d been between her job as fashion editor at Chic to Chic and her young children. The job had been demanding and competitive, complete with the extra strain of feeling she didn’t entirely fit the role with her sometimes off-beat sense of style. And when she’d been at home … How could she forget the soul-lacerating guilt when the smallest thing went wrong, the sense of abject despair when the children turned to the nanny rather than to her, the dull background feeling of in adequacy in both spheres of her life? They were only alleviated when she eventually became a full-time mother – even though that decision was forced on her. But there was no arguing with Nic once her mind was made up. If anything, any objection raised by Lou would only make her dig in her heels. Lou needed time to think through the ramifications of the news before discussing them with her daughter. Nothing had to be decided this second.
A baby! For a moment she envisaged the two of them, heads bent over this unexpected addition to the family, sharing the pleasure together. She felt a thrill of anticipation before she was brought back to the moment as Nic spoke.
‘I just need you to help me with one thing.’
‘Of course. I’ll do whatever I can.’
Nic was fidgeting, tipping her mug back and forth, intent on her coffee, anything rather than catch her mother’s eye. Obviously something else was troubling her and she was finding a way to say it.
Lou held her breath.
Without moving her head, Nic glanced up at her, then away again. ‘Dad doesn’t know.’ There it was. The all-important missing detail lay between them like a ticking bomb.
‘Why not?’ As if Lou didn’t know.
‘He’ll go ballistic, that’s why.’
Light dawned. Nic hadn’t come to share the news with her so much as to persuade her to be the messenger. ‘And you want me to tell him?’
‘You’ll have to, Mum. The boys think so too.’ Nic banged down her mug, as final as a judge’s gavel. Decision made.
So she’d told her two brothers first. Even though Lou had been away when Nic broke the news, that hurt, too. What had gone wrong with the adult mother–daughter relationship, which Lou had anticipated with such pleasure when Nic was little? She had imagined them sharing confidences, shopping together, even taking the occasional weekend break – everything Lou had missed out on with her own mother. But none of that had happened and it now looked as though it never would. Nic had always behaved like a cuckoo in the nest, making her presence loudly felt before taking to her wings as soon as she could.
‘Shouldn’t we talk this through properly first?’
‘Mum, there’s nothing to discuss. Not now anyway. I’m not asking you to be ecstatic for me, though that would be nice, but just to help with this one little thing. Please.’ She drew the last word out into a childish entreaty. ‘I’m nearly three months and I’ll be showing soon.’
‘But I haven’t seen him for weeks.’ Lou racked her brains for a better objection.
‘Mu-um?’ Nic knew there wasn’t one.
Despite all her misgivings, it was hard to refuse her daughter. Lou remembered the excitement that had accompanied her own pregnancies, the absolute joy she had felt, the hopes for the future, the pure unfettered longing for a baby.
The news would travel among their old friends like a forest fire. Just as it probably had when they learned that Lou had moved out. How the more conventional among them would sympathise yet relish in the Sherwood family’s misfortunes. How they would sigh with relief at having been spared a similar fate themselves. That thought gave Lou strength. Who gave a damn what they thought? She had summoned up the will to ignore their views when she left Hooker, and that’s just what she would do again. Nic should be encouraged to take the path in life she chose for herself.
‘All right.’ Lou saw relief colour her daughter’s face. ‘I’ll talk to him. And I’ll give you all the support you need. Anything you need for this baby – you can rely on me. That’s a promise.’
Perhaps Nic’s motherhood would at last bring the two of them closer. Being a single grandmother had not been part of Lou’s plans, in fact it wasn’t a concept that had even crossed her mind. But at least Nic would understand what Lou had gone through trying to balance her work with the children’s demands – and that she had done the best she could.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ said Nic, getting up and flinging her arms around her. ‘I knew you would.’
Lou hugged back and for a moment all their differences melted away. Lou breathed in the smell of her daughter’s hair, noticing how tense and bony her shoulders were. But she didn’t comment or tell her to relax. Nic would tell her if anything else was troubling her in her own good time. If Lou couldn’t have all of her daughter, she would take whatever part of her was on offer.
‘Oh, and I’d keep off the cake if I were you,’ Nic suggested as she shrugged on her coat and stepped out through the front door.
After her daughter had gone, Lou washed the coffee pot, thinking over their conversation. Communication between them had clearly broken down more than she had realised. Why did Nic want this baby so badly? Had Lou and Hooker unintentionally failed her somehow, so that she needed something more in her life to love and be loved by? But they hadn’t been such bad parents, had they? Not when she compared them to all the dysfunctional families that were paraded through the pages of the daily tabloids. She couldn’t believe that their growing distance from one another had been the cause. Now finally separated, they were about to become grandparents. Another tie that was bound to throw them together again.
Sighing, she picked up the phone and dialled Hooker’s number.
5
Standing in her walk-in closet, Ali looked around her. Everything was as it should be. Her boxes of shoes were stacked one on top of another, illustrated labels outwards, so she could see which pair was where at a glance. Beside them were the drawers with transparent fronts. The order with which she’d organised her wardrobe would have amused her in someone else, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. Behind her was the hanging space, divided into sections: trousers, skirts, shirts, dresses and coats. No item remained unworn for longer than a year before it was thrown out. On the end wall was a well-lit mirror. She checked herself, stood sideways on, anxious to make the best possible impression on Ian, pulling at her black and cream striped asymmetric jersey dress so that it sat straight on the hips, then adjusting her hair. He’d once said how much he liked it short because it emphasised the length of her neck. A half-smile crossed her lips as she anticipated him running his finger along her naked right clavicle and up her throat to the point of her chin, before they kissed.
Satisfied she could do no more, she turned to walk through the bedroom, glancing round to make sure everything was ready. She touched the bedside table, checking that her few sex toys were out of sight. They were for later. Nothing too way out but she knew what he liked, and what she liked too. She ran her hand over the bedspread, making sure every wrinkle was smoothed out, before pulling the heavy curtains and arranging precisely the way they pooled on the floor. She straightened the pile of books by her side of the bed and moved the three red roses on the table to be just so, then moved to the door where she stood for a moment, surveying the scene she’d set for seduction, and dimmed the lights a little more.
As she went downstairs, Ali thought how lucky she was to have the apartment. Ten years earlier, one of her lovers, Peter Ellis, a wealthy middle-aged property developer, had been converting the Victorian school into a number of des res. A generous and kind man, he had thought nothing of offering her a place of her own in exchange for the several years of pleasure she had given him. Resistant at first, she had eventually been persuaded to accept.
She was as much in love with the place now as she had been then. She loved its quirkiness and the utilitarian elements of the design that featured exposed RSJs and cast-iron school radiators. Upstairs, the two bedrooms and bathrooms were designed to be more intimate but she never tired of the large dramatic space of the living area with its vast multi-paned windows and wide oak floorboards. She’d furnished it minimally but as comfortably as she could afford, concentrating on good lighting and statement rugs to separate the different living areas. A sofa sat in the centre with a coffee table in front of it, two smaller chairs opposite. Her dining table stood by the open-plan kitchen and in the opposite corner, under the low hanging light, was her jigsaw table, where Brueghel’s Allegory of Sight and Smell lay scattered in six thousand pieces awaiting her attention. Enlarged photographs from her travels hung on the walls: rolling blue mountains of Mongolia from the Great Wall; Mount Fuji from the railway line; a farmer with horse and plough tilling a terraced hillside in Vietnam.
She poured herself a cranberry juice. Leaning against the divide between the kitchen area and the rest of the living space, she checked the time. Fifteen minutes and he would be here. He was never late. She switched on the wide-screen, wall-mounted TV and flicked through the channels unable to find anything that grabbed her interest. Instead, she went to the dining table, where her laptop lay open, her accounts file on-screen.
There was no escaping the truth. Her turnover was down on last year’s. She’d hoped the three months before Christmas would make the difference as well as help cover the cost of her holiday. She ran her finger down the sales and stopped at the name ‘Orlov’, suddenly remembering that their order was still sitting in her safe, uncollected and unpaid for – a pair of emerald and diamond earrings with a matching necklace worth over three thousand pounds. She always asked clients to pay a fifty per cent deposit on commission so she was still owed the other fifty per cent. She made a note to contact the Orlovs as soon as she got to the studio in the morning. But for how long would that and her other commissions tide her over?
Perhaps she should call in the loan that, in headier days, she’d made to Rick, her studio share and friend. When he was starting up his silversmithing business he was having trouble meeting his mortgage and alimony payments so Ali had agreed to let him use a space in her studio rent-free until he started making ends meet. Then, she could afford to be generous. Now, it was less easy. At the same time, she didn’t want to jeopardise their friendship. Despite the odd reminder, he never seemed embarrassed by the debt. While she was debating how to persuade him to part with the few grand he owed her, the doorbell rang.
As she crossed the room, she felt she might burst with excitement. She was so looking forward to seeing Ian again, to making plans together. Three years of passionate but clandestine encounters, of secret overnight stays in hotels when he travelled on business, of meals in discreet restaurants and of entering and leaving theatres and cinemas separately – ‘just in case’ – were almost over. Soon their relationship would be in the open. She prayed that he had broken the news to his wife and that everything would be reasonably civilised between them. She didn’t want anything to cloud their happiness.
But the minute Ian walked into the flat, Ali knew something was wrong. Earlier, on the phone, he’d been unusually abrupt but she’d put that down to his being preoccupied by something at work. Now she could see there was more to it than that. Although they hadn’t seen each other for over two weeks, he barely reciprocated her welcoming kiss. She thought she detected alcohol beneath the strong smell of peppermint on his breath. By the time she’d hung up his coat, he was sitting on the sofa, staring into the middle distance, elbows on knees, hands steepled in front of his face, fingers tapping against one another. His shoulders rose and fell with each breath.
‘How was Christmas?’ she tried.
‘Yeah. Fine.’ He still didn’t look at her. And he didn’t mention his wife.
‘Is something the matter? Difficult day?’ This was hardly the reunion she’d envisaged.
‘I’m sorry.’ He snapped out of his reverie and turned to her. ‘Something at work’s bothering me. That’s all. Give me a minute or two to come down. I want to hear about the holiday.’
Experience had taught Ali never to probe into whatever was troubling a lover. Her role was to distract, to provide an alternative to their other world. That was why they liked coming here. Her apartment was a retreat, not just for her, but for those men who had lives they wanted to forget for a few hours. Spending time with her was therapeutic although she was no therapist. She asked no awkward questions, never held them to any kind of emotional ransom. And in return, she got to run her life just as she wanted it.
She busied herself by bringing over two small bowls from the kitchen, one filled with the black olives he liked, and the other with cashews. After returning for the bottle of Medoc and two glasses, she turned her iPod to Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, one of the most soothing pieces of music she knew, and went over to him. She was practised in jogging a man out of his worries for a few hours. That was what she did. As she sat down, she thought she heard him sigh but she just tucked her feet under her and sat with her head resting on his shoulder. This was where she belonged now. This was how they would spend so many evenings in the future, just the two of them.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she murmured. ‘Really missed you.’
‘Have you?’ he asked, sounding as if he was a million miles away.
‘I think that was your cue to say how much you’ve missed me.’ She gave a nervous laugh, sat up and looked at him, puzzled by what could be distracting him so much, feeling the first whisper of alarm.
But instead of turning to her, he stood up and went over to the window, staring out across the communal garden. His hands were in his pockets, jingling his loose change. ‘Of course I did. You must know that.’
‘But it would be nice to be told.’ Annoyed with herself for sounding like the nagging wife she imagined he was escaping, she tried again. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you.’ Going over to stand behind him, she wrapped her arms around his waist. ‘We could go upstairs. Or I’ve got champagne in the fridge.’
‘Not yet.’ He turned and kissed her nose. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment. I probably shouldn’t have come.’
‘But we haven’t seen each other for weeks. We’ve got so much to talk about.’ She took both his hands and kissed him back. Over the two years she had known him, Ali couldn’t remember a time when he had refused an invitation to her bedroom. But, having trained herself not to question her lovers’ moods but just to wait them out, she didn’t object. She was confident he’d tell her what was bothering him when he was ready. Despite her growing unease, she was prepared to wait. Worming his troubles from him was a wife’s job, not a mistress’s. In a few weeks, when everyone knew they were together, things would be different. They would be able to talk and share so much more than they ever had before. She would get to know him so much better. She could afford to maintain a sympathetic silence now.
‘Tell me about your holiday.’ He held her hand and guided her back to the sofa.
‘How long have you got?’ Ali pretended she hadn’t noticed how uninterested he sounded. But rather than bore him about what he didn’t want to hear, she passed across the linen Nehru shirt she’d had specially made for him. In the Udaipur fabric emporium, she had been so sure it was the perfect present. But as he pulled it from the packet, there was something distinctly charity shop about it. The stitching, which had looked charmingly authentic in Udaipur, now looked embarrassingly amateur, the linen cheap, and, when he held it up, the sleeves were obviously way too long.
‘It’s not you at all, is it?’ she said, disappointed.
‘Not really.’ As he put it over the arm of the sofa, they exchanged a smile that reassured her that he was coming back to her.
‘OK, let’s forget Christmas and India,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk about now, about us.’ Since it seemed the wrong moment to ask him if he’d told his wife about their plans, she went to the table where she’d put the particulars she’d collected from a couple of estate agents just before she went away. ‘I love the look of this one. And I’m sure we could get the price down.’ She picked up a brochure showing an end-of-terrace three-storey Georgian town house. ‘Great kitchen and look at the roof terrace.’ My God, I’m trying so hard, I even sound like an estate agent, she thought. Ease up or you’ll never get him onside.
But Ian was pouring himself a glass of wine without even asking if she’d like one. ‘I thought we’d decided to live here,’ he said, his voice flat and matter-of-fact, the enthusiasm of a few weeks ago vanished.
‘You decided to live here, but I thought that once you saw what was around, I might be able to change your mind.’ She flicked over the photos in the brochure. ‘I know we could be so happy somewhere else. A house of our own, with none of the history this place has.’
‘You make it sound as if someone was murdered here,’ he said, coming over to take the details from her. He didn’t look beyond the first page.
‘Oh, you know,’ she said, becoming more exasperated with his refusal to engage. ‘There were other men before you.’
His face tensed as he put the brochure down. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to talk about them.’
‘But of course there were,’ she protested. ‘I thought you’d be happy that I want to leave behind the life I had before you.’ She could feel herself beginning to gabble, so reined herself back. It would be a wrench to leave the apartment but she felt sure it was the right thing to do. ‘Anyway, we need somewhere a bit bigger than this.’
Ian placed his hand on top of hers, heavy and warm. ‘I honestly don’t think we do.’ His grip tightened. ‘I can live with your past if you can.’ Her relief at the sudden improvement of his mood was muddled by the growing realisation that they didn’t see their future in the same way at all. During her holiday, she had used the time she spent on her own to think of little else, planning and plotting their life together. How disappointing to realise that he obviously hadn’t done the same. There was so much ahead of them that he hadn’t even considered.
‘And if I get pregnant?’ The words slipped out without her having time to stop and think. Watching his face darken, she would have given anything in the world to be able to retract them.
‘Pregnant!’ He sat down as if he’d been winded, the wine tipping in his glass. He saved it just in time. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Why not? Why are you looking at me like that? Wouldn’t it be wonderful? We’d be a family.’ She wished she could erase the need from her voice.
‘Family,’ he echoed, so quietly that Ali could barely hear him. But she didn’t need to, to know that she had just made a huge mistake. She began to backtrack as fast as she could.
‘Not that I mind if we don’t, of course. I can understand that you might not want any more.’ She stopped, not knowing what else she could say, at the same time feeling sadness engulf her as her dream foundered.
‘But you’ve never mentioned anything about wanting children.’ He seemed perplexed. ‘That was never part of the deal.’
‘Because they were never an option. But when you asked me to live with you, I couldn’t help thinking. I want more out of my life now than I’ve ever dared to admit to myself. You’ve presented me with a chance …’ She wanted to explain, to persuade, for him to take her in his arms and assure her everything would be all right. But that was not going to happen.
He’d put down his drink and crossed his arms over his chest, wearing an expression that was new to her: distant, calculating.
‘But of course, I was being stupid,’ she went on, desperate to rewind the whole conversation and start again. ‘It was a silly fantasy. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I would’ve thought I’d done my bit towards populating the world. I’d never imagined us …’ Words failed him as he tried to imagine. ‘And, well, aren’t you a bit …’ He paused, searching for a kinder way of putting it and failing. ‘… too old?’
He had no idea how hearing him say that hurt. Fired up by his insensitivity, she retorted, ‘Women can have babies any time before the menopause. It just gets more difficult.’ To her fury, she felt her chin wobble, and her voice began to crack. ‘Just forget it. Please. I shouldn’t have said anything.’ She went to pour herself a glass of wine. She took a big gulp before turning to look at him. He had emptied his own glass and returned to stare out of the window. Something had happened to make this evening go way off track. He’d arrived in the wrong mood and she had only made it worse. Much worse. But why should she make it easy for him? A few weeks ago, he had been desperate for them to be together. What had changed? Perhaps she had gone a bit too far, but she didn’t deserve to be knocked back so cruelly. She sat down again, and waited, dreading whatever he was building up to say.
Eventually he turned, but his face was hidden as he concentrated on his right thumb, pushing at the cuticle of his left. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘So sorry.’
‘So am I.’ A sigh of relief escaped her. They would sort out their differences and things would be all right after all. ‘I got far too carried away. Of course we can live here – to start with, anyway. Whatever you like.’ She plumped up the deep red cushion beside her and rested it against the back of the sofa, making a space for him, but he made no move to join her.
Instead, he murmured, almost as if he was talking to himself, ‘It’s too late.’
Nervousness churned in the pit of her stomach. ‘For what? We’ve got plenty of time.’
He seemed to summon all his energy, lifting his shoulders and closing his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you this today, but …’
‘But what?’
‘I’ve met someone else.’ His shoulders dropped with the evident relief at having got it off his chest.
‘Someone else? I don’t understand.’ The shock took her breath away for a moment. ‘But I’ve only been away for two weeks. How can you have?’
At least he had the grace to look shamefaced before he spoke again. ‘She’s someone at work who I’ve known for months. Then, at one of the Christmas parties …’
‘At one of the Christmas parties,’ she repeated. ‘But that can only have been weeks, days after we agreed we were going to live together.’
‘I know. But you’ve been so busy we’ve hardly seen each other over the last month or two.’ He shifted from one foot to the other, his thumb worrying at the cuticle.
‘And you couldn’t wait?’ Her outrage was mixed with a profound sense of injustice. She had trusted him. ‘For God’s sake, Ian. You sprang the idea of living together on me. I had to work every hour God sent to complete my Christmas orders. It’s my busiest time of the year. We agreed. I offered to cancel India, but you said I should go while you sorted everything out.’
There was a long pause. An unpleasant thought wormed its way into her head. ‘Have you just come here from her?’
An even longer pause.
His thumbs were still as he stared at his feet and nodded.
She shook her head. ‘I loved you.’ The three words were laced with recrimination, regret and sorrow as she realised how little she knew him.
‘I know.’ He crossed the room to stroke her head with a gesture that, only hours ago, would have made her shiver with pleasure.
‘Don’t,’ she said, shrugging him off, as he went on.
‘Surely you understand that I can’t provide the sort of commitment you’re asking. I’d no idea that’s what you wanted. Yes, my wife and I are separating but we’ve still a lot to work through. I can’t take on the responsibility of a new house and I certainly don’t want a baby.’
‘So, what exactly were you planning?’ she spat, knowing the answer. ‘You were going to live with me and have another mistress on the side. Same pattern all over again?’
‘I hadn’t planned anything. It’s just the way …’
‘I thought so much more of you. You should go.’
There was nothing else to be said. She went to get his coat, her eyes blurring with tears that she refused to shed until he had gone. Suddenly, all she wanted was Ian out of her home with the minimum fuss and with her dignity intact. Then she would allow herself to absorb what had happened between them.
He pulled on his coat. ‘Thank you for being so understanding.’ He leaned forward to kiss her but she jerked out of reach. ‘Perhaps in a week or two, we could have a drink or something.’
She looked at him, astonished by his nerve. Eyes burning, she opened the door and stood back to let him pass. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘Ali, you can’t …’
She silenced him with a look as he edged by her, then shut him out of her life for good.
For the next half-hour, she moved around the flat taking down her Christmas decorations. She wrenched off the balls hanging from the twisted arrangement of willow, breaking their threads and stuffing them disorganised into their box. Cards with new addresses were saved while the others were ripped and thrown away, the lid of the recycling bin snapping loudly every time. Her shock and hurt alternated with fury. She had let down her guard, fallen in love, and been completely screwed over as a result. Other relationships had broken up and she’d recovered, but none of them had been with a man who had led her to expect so much. Most of them went home to their wives, their marriages sometimes reinvigorated by the liaison with Ali. Others drifted away, found someone else. She had believed Ian was different. How could she have been so stupid?
Ali had resolved a long time ago never to let herself be cast in the role of victim. As a result, whenever one of her lovers decided to move on, she always picked herself up and got on with her life, however painful. That was part of the deal. And she would survive this too, despite the intense hurt that she felt right now. She slammed the box of decorations into the cupboard with a bang.
When the flat was back to normal, she went upstairs and ran herself a deep bath where she lay for ages, thinking, every now and again topping it up with hot water.
Still pink from its heat, she wrapped herself in her kimono, her hair in a towel, and came downstairs to pour herself a glass of the champagne she’d bought specially for them to toast their new life. She picked up the Nehru shirt that he’d left behind, draped over the arm of the sofa. Taking the kitchen scissors, she cut and ripped it into the smallest possible pieces. Then, and only then, did she allow herself to cry.
6
Arriving at the studio the following morning, Ali immediately saw that Rick wasn’t far away. The kettle was hot, and the beginnings of a bridesmaid’s tiara lay across his soldering brick, beside a half-drunk cup of coffee. Beneath the large window, their long, shared workbench was the usual organised jumble of pliers, hammers, files, cutters, tweezers and soldering equipment crowded round the two semicircular cut-outs, each underhung with a leather skin to catch precious cut-offs and filings. Every time she walked into this room, Ali felt this was the place she belonged, the place where she could lose herself in creating beautiful pieces of jewellery, where the world could be kept at bay.
However much she wanted to bury herself under the duvet for the rest of the week, she had dragged herself out of bed. Whatever it had done to her, she wasn’t going to allow Ian’s bombshell to blow away her business. Cleo Fellowes was due at eleven thirty to see the sketches for the pendant necklace that Ali had designed using the diamonds from a brooch belonging to Cleo’s grandmother. After that, if the design was approved, Ali would spend the rest of the day untangling a chain that had got mixed up in the tumble polisher before polishing a couple of rings. She switched on her laptop for the first chore of the day: dreary admin. Her heart sank as she went to her mailbox and saw the number of incoming emails. She ran her eye down them, deleting any junk or spam that had found its way through the firewall. What was left was mostly bills.
She pulled up her accounts on the laptop again and grimaced. She remembered Mrs Orlov coming to her a couple of years ago, ordering an elaborate floral brooch using pink tourmalines and tiny round diamonds. For pieces that valuable, she rarely took on a customer without a personal recommendation and Mrs Orlov had been introduced by a previous client. That sort of word-of-mouth business had been crucial to her livelihood so far. However, in her excitement over Ian’s proposal followed by her rush to get away to India, Mrs Orlov’s failure to collect the new pieces had slipped her mind. As a result, over three thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery was languishing in her safe, contributing to the hole in her finances. A customer’s failure to collect an order was unusual but it did happen. Ali was uneasy, furious with herself for allowing her eye off the ball for the first time that she could remember. Bloody, bloody Ian.
She tried ringing the Orlovs. An automated voice picked up the call, informing her that the number she was calling was no longer recognised. She swiftly fired off an email. Within minutes, it pinged back into her in-box marked Delivery Status Notification (Failure). The gentle pealing of alarm bells went crazy. Was Mrs Orlov going to be one of those rare customers who didn’t collect? It never failed to amaze Ali that anyone could pay a hefty deposit for a piece of beautiful bespoke jewellery and then go away for weeks on end without a word or even never turn up again. She looked up at the sound of the door slamming.
‘Happy New Year.’ Rick walked over to his end of the bench, touching Ali’s shoulder as he passed her, simultaneously slipping on his overall over his checked shirt and jeans. ‘Good time away?’ He sat down and slugged his lukewarm coffee before picking up the tiara.
‘Happy New Year. Yes, wonderful, thanks.’ On her way to the studio, she had resolved not to discuss her personal life with Rick. Saying aloud what had happened would only drive home what she already knew: how stupid she had been to believe in Ian. Not talking about herself meant she could focus on something else. However crushed she was feeling, she was not going to risk her business any more than she had to. Life had to go on. So, sharpened by grief, she addressed her most pressing problem. ‘One of my customers hasn’t collected, so I’m going to have to ask you for that money you owe me. I’m sorry. Things are a bit tight.’
He ground some borax into a bowl and, with a drop of water, mixed it into a paste. As he brushed it onto the tiara, he said, ‘They’re probably on holiday – skiing or something. And I’m really sorry but I can’t pay you back at the moment. I don’t have the spare cash. Simple as that.’
His laissez-faire attitude to life usually amused her, but not today. She watched him cut the solder into tiny squares that he placed on the joints with precision, then she back-pedalled. ‘You don’t have to pay me the full whack immediately. What about two grand? That should tide me over. If I had another big client on the horizon, it wouldn’t matter so much.’
‘Haven’t you got any exhibitions coming up?’ He swivelled his stool to face her, picking at a stray bit of borax on his jeans.
‘Not until the spring and anyway, that’s not the point,’ she insisted, irritated by his attitude. ‘We agreed when I lent you the money that it was a loan, not a gift.’
‘Al, be reasonable.’ He switched on his blowtorch, focusing as the solder flooded the joints of the tiara. ‘It’s hardly my fault if your business is going through a bad patch. You can’t expect me to repay you without giving me any notice.’ His look challenged her to an argument but Ali was stunned into silence. She had always considered Rick a friend. They spent hours in the studio together, working, gossiping or discussing their respective designs. They had shared so much heartache and heartbreak – his mostly as he flitted from one woman to another in the wake of his divorce. His indifference was shocking.
His face relaxed as he switched off the torch. ‘I’m sorry. Really. But I don’t have the money. I paid off my credit cards and I’m just about on course with my overdraft, but Anna’s still bleeding me dry. Christmas was expensive. I’m only just keeping on top of things. Can’t you give me a little bit longer?’
How many times had she heard that? She was sympathetic to the drains on his pocket, especially from his ex-wife and young daughter, but, given the circumstances, she couldn’t let this go. ‘OK, let’s say in two months you start paying me back. Fair? And if you can’t, I’m going to have to get someone else in to share this place. I can’t go on supporting both of us.’
‘That’s fair. That gives me time to find the money. Thanks.’ Although his voice was cheery, his eyes betrayed his anxiety. But, Ali reminded herself, she couldn’t let that concern her. For the rest of the day, they worked in silence apart from when Cleo Fellowes turned up to go over Ali’s sketches for the pendant design. Otherwise the studio was filled with music from Radio 3. Ali relaxed, concentrated on polishing the first of her rings and put her finances and Ian to the back of her mind.
On her way home, she decided to call at the Belgravia address Mrs Orlov had given her. In her bag was the uncollected jewellery. From across the street, the imposing six-storey Georgian terraced house looked uninhabited. The upper windows were uncurtained, the ground floor and basement were shuttered up. Two plant pots chained to the railings on either side of the porch were empty. Thinking she saw a faint light in the basement, Ali crossed the road and rang the bell. While she waited in vain, a diminutive Filipino maid in a navy uniform came out of the neighbouring house. She blinked quizzically over the fence at Ali.
‘I’m looking for Mrs Orlov,’ Ali explained.
The maid looked uncertain. ‘Mrs Orlov?’ She shook her head. ‘Mrs Orlov not here. They gone.’
‘What do you mean “gone”? Gone where?’ Ali thought of the gems in her handbag. ‘They can’t have.’
‘I’m not sure. They don’t live here no more. Maybe home – Russia. Sorry.’ With no more to say, she ran down the steps, leaving Ali staring after her.
Perhaps giving her fortunes a couple of months to turn about was way too optimistic after all.
The four-hour drive north to visit her father in Preston was no more nightmarish than usual. Long queues of traffic crawled by stretches of unmanned roadworks. As Ali drove, her thoughts turned repeatedly to Ian. Eighteen hours had passed since she’d asked him to leave and she was still reeling. What had he been thinking? Had he really been trying to leave his wife to live with her when, all the time, he had another woman waiting in the wings? Had he been hedging his bets all along just in case this mystery woman turned him down? Ali couldn’t believe that anyone, least of all a man she believed she had loved, would be so calculating, so careless of the lives of people he professed to care for. How she had misjudged him. How she had misjudged herself.
As the miles passed, her mind flitted between what had happened and what she was going to do with her life now, one possibility fading out as quickly as another came into focus: move to another country, change career, find a man, adopt a child, run away, become a recluse, retire under the duvet for good. Time for a change. But a change was impossible without a cash injection to pay her bills. Her father was unlikely to help her. She knew exactly what he’d say. ‘It’s your mess. You get out of it.’ She couldn’t count the number of times she’d heard that as she grew up. He believed in the school of hard knocks and, thanks to that, she’d learned her independence.
She eventually turned in between the two brick gateposts and parked beside her father’s old silver Honda. Her heart sank a little as she envisaged the twenty-four hours that lay ahead, but at least she would have to think about something other than herself. Grabbing her overnight bag from the boot, she walked through the side gate and round the corner of the house to enter it by the back door. Her father would be in his study, tuned out from any interference including the doorbell.
‘Dad!’ Ali yelled.
She was greeted by the muffled sound of barking: Sergeant, the ageing but still sprightly Border terrier who was her father’s fierce and constant companion.
She tried again. ‘Dad! I’m here.’
‘Be down in a minute.’ His voice travelled from the study where Ali knew he would be at his battered but trusty Corona typewriter, the laptop she’d given him ignored, surrounded by what mattered most to him: shelves containing his library of history books, including those he’d written himself; maps stuck about with pins marking out military campaigns hung beside pictures of the historical figures who fascinated him; a huge noticeboard littered with hundreds of yellow Post-it notes tracing the structure of his latest book. By his desk was a table covered in toy soldiers that he manoeuvred as if he was in the Cabinet War Rooms.
Ali went into the kitchen where she poured herself a gin and tonic – no ice, no lemon. Her father hated his drink diluted. The tonic was the only concession he made to his few guests.
When her mother had walked out, Ali had been thirteen. From that day, everything in this house had changed. She leaned against the sink, looking around the room. Without her mother to put a bunch of flowers at the centre of the table, to weigh in against the nasty aluminium Venetian blinds that replaced the floral curtains, or object to the removal of the dining chair cushions, the room had taken on the shipshape air of an officer’s mess. There was no feminine touch here. The welcoming smells of baking and stewing, washing and ironing belonged to the time when they had been a family. Her father had done his best and so had Ali, but this kitchen had stopped being the heart of the family home long ago. Anything not put away was neatly aligned on the pristine worktop. Without thinking, she pulled open a drawer to discover his cooking utensils regimented, all handles to the right. Knowing the contents of the other drawers would all be similarly arranged almost made her laugh. The stainless-steel sink shone. Dishcloths were draped on the Aga bar, all folded and hung in exactly the same way, their edges level. The pans hung above it in descending sizes. Order. That was what stopped you from going under. Like father, like daughter.
‘Al! There you are.’ He entered the room just as she shut the drawer. ‘Having a good poke around? Don’t blame you. Checking up, I suppose. No need.’ He laughed grimly as he grasped the whisky bottle and a tumbler, and poured himself a generous slug. ‘See you’ve helped yourself. Cheers.’
‘How are you, Dad?’ Ali ignored his accusation. No point in getting her visit off on the wrong foot. Plenty of time for that. He looked well. Despite the hours he spent at his desk, writing and researching, he still held himself ramrod straight. The legs of his trousers were sharply creased, the brass buttons on his blue jacket bright. His moustache was neatly trimmed although there was a piece of tissue stuck with dried blood just beside his nose.
‘Can’t complain. Deep in research over a little-known aspect of the Wars of the Roses. Made some fascinating discoveries. Won’t bore you with them though.’ He tipped back his head and sucked his whisky through his teeth with a noisy hiss.
Ali gritted hers in dislike of a drinking habit that had something unnervingly Hannibal Lecterish about it.
‘I wouldn’t be bored,’ she protested, despite knowing that within minutes of him detailing whatever historical minutiae he was studying, she would be yawning. She longed to be able to sit down and share his enthusiasm and had often thought how being thrown together should have made them closer. Instead, her mother’s departure thirty-two years ago had driven a wedge between them. A bitter cocktail of blame and guilt had driven each of them into their respective shells as they struggled to cope with the loss. As a teenager, Ali had blamed herself for not being a good enough daughter. As an adult, she learned that nothing was ever that clear-cut. Always, at first in the forefront of her mind and then, as time passed, fading to an infrequent fantasy, was the idea that her mother might come back for her. But they never heard from her again. Ali came to understand how devastated her father must have been, how humiliated when his wife left. His reaction had been to clam up, retiring to his study as frequently as he could, refusing even to mention her mother’s name. Moira Macintyre. Ali wondered whether he ever thought that he might have behaved differently towards her, his daughter, by trying to explain what had happened to her mother so that she would understand. She had long wanted to bridge the gap that had existed between them since her mother left, but he’d always rebuffed her.
‘Of course you would.’ He chuckled. ‘Tell you what, though. I’ve got a little surprise for you.’
‘You have?’ She pretended to think for a moment, knowing what was coming. ‘We’re going to the pub for dinner?’ He nodded, clearly looking forward to the evening out. So no surprise there, then. Whenever she came to stay, they always had their first meal in the Swan, and the next morning she went to the supermarket and stocked up for him before making lunch, then going home.
‘We are.’ He began to do up the buttons of his jacket. ‘But that’s not it.’
‘What then?’
‘Don called me, asking for you.’ His faded blue eyes shone with pleasure at the startling effect of his news.
‘Don?’ She repeated the name she hadn’t heard for years. ‘Don Sterling?’
He nodded.
‘Are you sure?’ He must have made a mistake. Don was a chapter in her life that had been closed for many years. Yet just the mention of his name was enough to unsettle her. She checked herself. Why was that surprising? They had been sweethearts since they met in the sixth form, both determined to escape their roots and make a new start. She remembered their disbelief when they’d both been offered places to study in London, she at the Cass and he at the London School of Economics. They had shared a rundown flat in Hackney from the start. The years during which they had lived together there had meant everything. Back then, she had believed that Don was her saviour and her soulmate, each of them useless without the other. To think that she had ever been so sentimental. Her friends had loved him. Her father had loved him – as much as he’d loved anyone since the disappearance of Ali’s mother. She’d loved him.
‘Are you sure?’ she repeated.
‘Oh, one hundred per cent,’ he said, satisfied with the effect his news was having. ‘He wanted to contact you so I gave him your email address. That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, I guess. But why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Because he only called a couple of days ago and I knew I’d be seeing you today.’ He spoke deliberately slowly, always impatient if he thought she wasn’t immediately cottoning on, never more so than when he was primed to do something else. Right now, get down to the Swan.
‘Don! I can’t believe it. I haven’t heard from him for years.’ When he left to join the Greenpeace ship – the dream job that nothing, not even Ali, could stop him accepting – his letters, at first frequent, excited and newsy, dried up to a trickle and then nothing as he abandoned himself to his new circumstances. In return, Ali’s had been frequent and sad, abandoned as she was by the second person she’d truly loved. She’d given herself to him so completely that she didn’t have any close friends to help her through.
‘Well, maybe you won’t hear from him now.’ Her father was heading for the door. ‘Maybe he’ll think better of it. Come on, table’s waiting.’
‘Maybe he will.’
Ali followed him out into the rain-slicked street, disconcerted by the long-buried memories that were beginning to surface. ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’ But was it really? And to have lost twice over when she had been so young: her mother, then Don. And now, again. Despite her resolve, she couldn’t stop her thoughts returning to Ian. She wouldn’t talk about him to her father, but she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Wrapping her coat around her, bowing her head into the wind, she followed her father, imagining that the evening would now follow its familiar pattern. As indeed it almost did.
The pub was its usual humming Saturday night – at least four people at the bar and one table out of seven taken. Eric nodded at the other regulars, took his usual table and ordered a bottle of wine. He read the menu through, eventually ordering the steak and kidney pie that he always had, allowing her to order scampi, before he spoke to her again.
‘He sounded well, you know. Phoning from Australia, he was. Must have done well for himself. Always liked the boy.’ He stroked his moustache with little up-and-down movements of his finger.
‘I know you did, Dad. So did I.’ She remembered with a jolt just how much and added as an afterthought, ‘He saved me, you know.’
His finger stopped moving as he looked puzzled. ‘Saved you?’
‘After Mum left, don’t you remember?’
‘I don’t know what on earth you mean.’ His face closed up, just as it always did whenever her mother was mentioned. Thirty-two years of unasked and unanswered questions lay between them. Characteristically, he changed the subject. ‘How’s the business?’
‘Tough. Money’s tight at the moment,’ she answered automatically, then the frustration she had controlled for so long surfaced without warning, not giving him a chance to deliver his stock answer to her business problems. ‘Dad, why won’t you talk to me about her? She left so long ago and I still don’t know why.’
Across the table, he unrolled the napkin containing his knife and fork, then placed them very deliberately, first one, then the other, on either side of his mat. He didn’t look up as he aligned the salt and pepper exactly in the middle of the table. He was still expecting Ali to return to the matter of her business. All he had to do was wait long enough. He was oblivious to the recklessness that all of a sudden possessed her.
‘What I meant was that I used to blame myself for Mum leaving until Don made me understand that there could have been any number of reasons. That’s what I mean by “saving” me. He showed me a way through when you wouldn’t – or couldn’t.’ She surprised herself. That was more than she’d ever admitted to her father about what had happened. But it was true. To this day, she had no idea why her mother left or where she had gone. Divorce and death were words never mentioned in her hearing. She had only been thirteen, stretching her wings, testing the boundaries by bunking off school to smoke and snog boys down in the bushes by the public playground, by lying about going shopping when she and her friend Laura went to their first X-rated film or, when she was grounded, squeezing herself through the tiny bathroom window, shinning down the drainpipe and racing off to meet Mick Kirby and his mates in the car park of the local hotel. Life was hers for the taking. Or so she’d thought. Then, one day, she came home for tea to find the table laid and her mother gone. ‘You didn’t even tell me where she went.’
‘I didn’t know. That’s why.’ He sighed as if all the life had been punched out of him. ‘I didn’t know.’ He kept his eyes on his table mat, chipping with his fingernail at a scrap of food that was stuck to it.
‘But …’ Ali had so many questions that had been bottled up since that time. Now the moment to ask them had finally presented itself, she didn’t know where to start.
‘Perhaps I should have talked to you, but I didn’t know what to say.’ He looked in the direction of the pub kitchen, as if willing his dinner to materialise and give him an excuse to stop the conversation. ‘Not talking made it easier. Still does.’
Now that, she understood completely. That was another trait she had inherited from him: batten down the hatches and pretend nothing has happened. Keep going. Show no emotion. And the truth was that now she had breached his defences and could see his anguish, even after all these years, she didn’t want to make it worse. ‘Dad, I know that. I’ve always known and I learned from you to do the same thing. But sometimes, I do still wonder where she went. How could I not? Some of the girls at school joked about her running away, and I remember telling them she’d be coming back for me. Eventually everyone lost interest. But I didn’t.’ She didn’t want to remember the alienation she’d felt throughout the rest of her schooldays until she could reinvent herself at art college.
She shifted to one side as her scampi and chips was put in front of her and watched as her father tucked into his pie, his relief at having a distraction plain. She played with her food, waiting for him to continue. However, he ate as if his life depended on it, not pausing to talk. As soon as he had cleared his plate, he asked for and paid the bill, then stood up. ‘Finished? Let’s go home. We’ll talk there. Not here.’
Back at the house, he led her into the living room, a faded memory of what it once had been. The musty unaired smell gave away how infrequently the room was used. While her father lit the ancient sputtering gas fire, Ali drew the curtains against the increasingly wild night outside before sitting on the spring-bound sofa. Her father took the chair opposite, perching on its edge, his body stiff and angular: knees bent, elbows on them, hands clasped, staring at the floor.
‘Perhaps I should have spoken to you but I thought you’d come to terms with the loss of your mother in your own way.’ He raised his eyes to her, then looked away as he smoothed his hair with one hand. ‘I didn’t want to open old wounds and make it worse for you.’
Ali’s frustration got the better of her. ‘For God’s sake, Dad!’ How, after so many years, could he not understand her better than that? ‘She was my mother. You owed it to me to tell me what you knew. You still owe me.’
He got up and crossed to the bureau at the back of the room, pulling open a desktop drawer to remove an envelope before closing it again. ‘It’s complicated, Al. Too complicated for me.’ His voice was so low that she had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. ‘Moira had such a miserable upbringing herself, constantly undermined by her father and older brother. She wanted to do everything she could to make yours the perfect childhood. But, because of that upbringing, she grew up with no faith in herself. In the end, she left because she thought she was doing the best by us. There. Now you know.’
‘But how could she possibly have believed that?’ This went against everything she remembered about her mother. ‘Why couldn’t you make her see she was wrong?’ Her agonised plea came from the young girl she’d once been. Her eyes stung with tears.
Her father was looking ill at ease. He wouldn’t look at Ali, wouldn’t comfort her. So much so that Ali had the distinct impression that there was something he wasn’t telling her. This was as hard for her as it was for him. Now they’d finally come this far, she had to know – if only to put the subject to rest at last.
‘I tried, believe me. But she left with no warning. All I had from her was this.’ He passed across the envelope that contained something solid. ‘I never wanted to tell you this, because I thought it would hurt you as much as it did me. You didn’t deserve that. But maybe I was wrong.’
From the envelope, she took out a piece of lined paper. Two rings fell out: a plain wedding band and a ring with a simple solitaire diamond. Ali turned them in her hand, then opened the paper, recognising the handwriting immediately.
Eric. Don’t come after me this time. You won’t find me. I’m giving you back my rings. Alison will have a better life without me. I love her so much but I’m not the mother I wanted to be to her, nor am I the wife I wanted to be to you. It’s better this way. I’m sorry.
Moira
‘“This time”? She’d done this before?’ The assumptions that had supported Ali throughout the adult part of her life had been whipped away without warning. She felt as if she was in free fall.
He nodded his head, unable to speak.
‘But didn’t you look for her?’
He looked so weary, so defensive. ‘Of course I looked, Al. Of course I did. What do you think I am? I was no more confident of being a good father to you on my own than she had been about being your mother. And I wanted her back.’ He paused. ‘For me as much as for you.’
For a shocking moment, Ali thought he was going to cry. But he coughed, averting his head so she couldn’t see his eyes. That was the first time Ali could remember hearing or seeing him express any feelings for her mother. She had imagined arguments, other men, affairs, fallings out of love, but never this.
‘But why couldn’t you find her?’
‘Because when someone doesn’t want to be found, they can make it almost impossible for you. That’s what she did. That note’s the last thing I had from her.’
What sort of mother could desert her only child? The shadowy figure that her mother had become over the years was taking a step towards the light. Where could she have gone? Perhaps Ali should look for her. Perhaps she was waiting to be found.
Her parents must have been in their late forties then, a little older than she was now: a dangerous age, a time when you look at what you have and what you want. Life is getting shorter. Either you act and effect a change or you settle for what you know. She understood as well as anyone what was involved and how difficult it could be. Most of all, she identified with the person she imagined her mother to be: restless, questing, searching to be the best she could. The woman wasn’t quite such a stranger any more.
Later, lying in her old childhood bed, comforted by its familiar sag, Ali thought about their conversation. Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen looked down on her from the faded posters tacked to the wall, their edges curling: the few things in the house that her father hadn’t submitted to his desire for order. Perhaps there was a sentimental old fool in there trying to find a way out after all? Otherwise any other signs of Ali’s childhood had been stashed away in the chest of drawers and wardrobe or in the attic. In all these years she had never once dreamed that her mother might have left in the misguided belief that she was acting in her daughter’s best interests.
She twisted her mother’s two rings around her right ring finger. How would she have supported herself? Had Eric given her any money? Did she have some of her own? Where could she have gone? There must be more to the story than Ali’s father was giving away. But why? Who was he protecting? Her mother? Himself? Or Ali? Had she been such a terrible child? Was she the reason that her mother left? Then she remembered how Don had taught her that no one’s actions were governed by a single reason. Life was far more complicated than that.
Imagining her father through the wall, lonely in the room he had once shared with his wife, Ali wondered whether he was lying awake, staring into the dark, like her. She wondered briefly if she was destined for a life alone. After what Ian had done, she couldn’t imagine trusting herself to anyone again. When they had finally turned in, Eric was still visibly distressed, having been unable to tell her any more. After giving her a glimpse of the truth, the shutters had come down again. She would not prise any more out of him this weekend. Ali had never tried to imagine the life her parents had together. As soon as her mother disappeared, she was encouraged to forget her and, eventually, that’s what she had almost managed to do. Until now.
7
The pub was busy with early-evening drinkers as Lou pushed her way down the long Victorian bar, all dark wood and brass real-ale pumps. Behind it a couple of frazzled bar staff tried to keep up with the customers who were waiting, shouting orders, brandishing cash and turning away with their drinks held high so as not to spill them. The noise was way up the decibel scale and Lou was wondering why on earth she had agreed to meet Hooker here, a place where she’d have to strain to hear a word. Perhaps that was indeed the answer. She was protecting herself against his expected anger.
She had been surprised by how pleased her ex had seemed at hearing from her although, like Nic, he’d been un interested in her holiday beyond the fact that she’d come back in one piece. She had hoped her family might like to know what she’d got up to without them. Equally, she hoped he hadn’t interpreted the call, so soon after her return, as a sign that she had been missing him. She thought she’d detected a warmth in his voice that had been absent towards her for years. For a moment, her feelings towards him softened before she told herself to get a grip. Old habits, she warned herself. That’s all it was.
As soon as he realised that she wanted to meet him, he had suggested the Maryatt Arms, a pub she hadn’t visited for more years than she could count. Long ago, she came here with her brother Sam and his teammates after those dreaded university rugby matches. She used to stand with Jenny, shivering on the sidelines, united in their incomprehension at what was happening on the pitch, freezing to death, yelling their hearts out when Sam scored a try. The Maryatt Arms was where she’d first met her future husband. His keen sportsmanship was of course how he’d got his name. To everyone, including his family, he was ‘Hooker’. He’d caught her eye both on and off the pitch so when he offered her a drink and to educate her in the finer points of the game, she accepted. Wirier than some of his teammates, he had a certain twinkle in his eye that translated into a come-and-get-me charm. So she had gone and got him.
Lou couldn’t begin to count the number of nights she’d whiled away in this place, first with Sam and the team, and later with Hooker when they’d continued to come here, long after the matches had stopped and the players had moved on to life after university. Convenient to the house that he was then sharing with three other would-be lawyers, the pub was warm compared to the unheated chill of home, and convivial since someone or other they knew would usually turn up of an evening. Since then, the place had changed. The old boys and locals who propped up the bar were long gone, turfed out in favour of gastro-pub splendour.
She knew exactly where he’d be sitting. At the table by the fire, where thirty-something years ago (no, she couldn’t remember exactly: always a small bone of contention between them), he’d leaned across and asked her to marry him. Moments after accepting, she’d watched him get dragged off to a game of pool. Given the flak from his mother’s appalled reaction to the unromantic nature of his proposal, he’d taken Lou out to dinner and repeated it, organising the diamond engagement ring to be found in the bottom of her champagne glass. She accepted delightedly to a bored round of applause from three Turkish waiters.
Now she thought about it, the romance that was so absent from his original proposal had been absent from most of their married life. They had loved one another, of that she was sure, but those early years devoted to their careers and babies made it hard to carve out pockets of time for themselves. Their separate jobs – hers as a fashion journalist, his as a corporate lawyer – took them travelling to opposite ends of the country and sometimes of the world, leaving a succession of overpaid nannies to hold the fort. The money she earned salved Lou’s conscience – at least she was paying for the best childcare possible when she was away. By the time she began working from home, when Jamie was fifteen, Nic thirteen and Tom ten, the original driving force had disappeared from their marriage altogether. Almost without them noticing, Lou and Hooker’s paths began to cross less frequently until they had started to live their lives almost entirely in parallel.
There he was, just as she expected, nursing the remains of a pint, an untouched glass of white wine opposite him. He looked up, spotted her and raised a hand. Measuring in at just over six feet (with a heel on his shoe), he was still a handsome man, distinguished-looking some might say, with deep-set eyes, a vertical furrow running up from the bridge of his slightly skewed nose (rugby-playing break), smooth skin that, when he was feeling particularly smug, reminded Lou of a frying sausage about to split its skin. Imagining the speed with which this bonhomie would be transformed into something far less pleasant as soon as he heard her news, made her want to turn and go home. Then she remembered Nic and her resolve stiffened.
‘Excuse me?’ A young woman touched her arm. ‘Excuse me, but aren’t you Lou Sherwood?’
‘Mmm?’ Half turning, Lou took a closer look. Shiny fifties-styled hair, heavily lashed brown eyes intent on her, lipsticked lips, neat black suit, glass of champagne in hand. A distant bell of recognition clanged somewhere in the back of Lou’s mind but she couldn’t place her.
‘It’s Tess. Tess Granger. It’s been years. How are you?’
Tess Granger? Lou racked what she laughingly called her brain for something that would give her a clue to the younger woman’s identity.
‘Tess, of course.’ She was still trying to identify her while she bluffed. ‘What are you doing now?
‘After you left, I was made assistant to Belle Flanders. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have got this far.’
Aha! So they’d worked together over ten years ago at Chic to Chic. Belle had been one of the hungry young things snapping at Lou’s fashionable heels, but who the hell was Tess? She must have been there when she’d left, forced to give up her exhausting career partially thanks to redundancy but also by the equally exhausting demands made on her by Nic who was setting out on her teenage years with alarming abandon, and the two boys – so much easier. Nic was running wild, refusing to curb her will to any au pair. That and the redundancy had come at a time when Lou had begun to wonder what she was doing in the magazine world. She had become tired of the travelling and the endless demands made on her time. Her face didn’t fit any more, but she’d had enough. She’d even thought she might start her own dress shop then but Hooker had insisted the children needed their mother at home. He didn’t trust the sequence of au pairs looking after them not to fill their heads with rubbish and foreign swear words. He said only a parent could be trusted to teach their children what they needed to know. But Lou sometimes wondered whether she’d managed to teach them anything at all. However, she had begun to notice the way he had been looking at the young women they’d employed in the name of childcare, and caved in, partly for that reason and partly because she was too exhausted to resist.
‘I’m so glad it’s all worked out for you.’ Her powers of recall had totally deserted her.
‘It certainly has! I left six months after you and went to the States. Now I’m back as the new editor of Stylish. We’re celebrating.’ She gestured towards a young man and a couple who were talking and laughing at a table by the window. ‘Where are you now?’
Stylish? The glossy young rival to Vogue and this young woman was the editor. Suddenly Lou felt about a hundred years old. She looked down at – oh, no – her fleece, the convenient style bypass for the middle-aged woman. Shit! She deliberately hadn’t followed her resolve to stick to statement dressing that would advertise her business, because she hadn’t wanted Hooker to think she was making a special effort just for him. She hadn’t given a thought to the fact that she might bump into someone she knew. If only she’d changed into the pomegranate velvet coat she finished just before she went away. It had taken ages to make but the cut was so flattering, it had been worth every minute.
Hideously aware that the make-up she’d put on that morning was no longer a refuge for her almost certainly shiny nose, and praying her lipstick hadn’t leaked into the tiny vertical wrinkles that had recently been making a bid for domination around her mouth, she thanked God that her recent haircut had temporarily tamed things so at least in that department she looked acceptable. Perhaps Tess wouldn’t notice the rest.
Of course she would. Just move on, swiftly.
‘That’s fantastic news. I’m so sorry I can’t stop to chat, but I’m late meeting someone.’
‘Well, great to see you. We should catch up. Lunch or something.’ She held out a small embossed card.
Knowing Tess had absolutely no intention of following up this suggestion, Lou took the card, at the same time registering how useful the other woman might be to her. But it wasn’t too late to say something. ‘In fact, I’m setting up a new business that might interest you.’
Tess cocked an eyebrow. ‘Really? Then we should definitely stay in touch. Call me.’ But she sounded as if anything initiated by Lou would be of little interest to her.
‘Thanks. I will.’
They both turned back towards their respective engagements, Lou aware that Hooker was watching her, his glass now almost empty. He gestured a request for a replacement since she was by the bar. Irritated by the way he assumed she would do his bidding and even more by the fact that she was doing it, she shouldered her way through and ordered a pint of Adnams, Hooker’s long-time preferred real ale, and a large vodka and tonic for herself as the need for a shot of Dutch courage more powerful than the waiting glass of wine overcame her.
Hooker half stood as she approached, hobbled by the chair seat digging into the backs of his knees. By the time she’d put down the drinks, divested herself of her coat and sat down, his welcoming smile had changed into a grimace of pain. He sat down with evident relief. Unlike so many men his age, he still looked good in jeans – not bagging round the arse and knees or disappearing under a beer gut – teamed that day with a deep blue shirt. This was a man whose looks still counted – to him at least. Which was more than they did to Lou any longer. She controlled the urge to point out the two rogue eyebrow hairs that curled over the frames of his specs. No. No longer her concern.
‘The holiday’s obviously done you good,’ he commented. Now she’d arrived, he could relax.
They clinked glasses, more out of habit than good cheer.
‘How was it? Christmas, I mean,’ she asked.
‘Quiet. I took Nic and Tom to dinner at the Mermaid’s Heart, that new fusion restaurant in Shoreditch. I thought being at home might make things a bit difficult, with you not being there and Jamie and Rose in Canada. Besides, can you imagine if I’d tried my hand at a turkey … ashes is the only word that leaps to mind.’
Surprised by this unusual sensitivity towards their children, she laughed nonetheless.
‘Where were you?’ he asked. So he was interested after all.
‘At a tented camp, sitting around a blazing fire under the stars. Not a turkey or a Christmas tree in sight.’ To be teleported there right now would be a prayer answered.
‘Camping?! That’s not like you. The Lou I know likes her creature comforts: good food and wine, sprung mattresses, hot water on tap, light to read by.’
‘Oh, we had all that. I didn’t know tents like those existed, or I’d have gone long ago. And there wasn’t a boy scout to be seen.’ She was about to wax lyrical about the luxury they’d enjoyed – the comfortable beds, the electric light, the home-cooked meals, the showers – when she noticed that he’d adopted that look she knew so well. Indulge her for a while and then, with a bit of luck, she’ll shut up and we can get onto the main agenda so I can get off to do the next thing on mine. Well, if that’s the way you want to play it, bring it on, she thought, draining her vodka. Feeling suitably fortified, she summoned up all her sangfroid and leaned forward. Then I’ll begin.
‘Actually, I called you for a reason.’
Hooker looked gratifyingly alarmed by her earnest expression, then snuck a look at his watch. ‘Come on, then. Spit it out. Whatever it is, can’t be that bad.’
‘There’s no easy way of putting this. I’ve got some news for you that you may be less than happy with.’ She hesitated and took a sip of the white wine, then taking a breath, she braced herself.
‘We’re going to be grandparents!’ There.
‘What? Jamie and Rose?’ He banged his glass on the table, looking more pleased than she could remember seeing him in a long time. ‘That’s terrific news. But why didn’t they tell me themselves? Perhaps they thought I’d prefer it if they’d waited till after they’d got married. Well, I would of course. The timing’s not perfect. But when’s the baby due? Are they bringing the marriage forward? My God!’ He crashed his fist onto the table, so his beer almost slopped over the edge of his glass. ‘A grandfather. That’s not something I ever expected to be so soon. What about you? Grandparents, eh? This calls for something stronger.’
Lou sat silent, unable to interrupt. Then, as he sat back, beaming with pleasure, she prepared herself to prick his balloon.
‘No, not Jamie and Rose.’ She took another sip.
‘Not Jamie and Rose.’ He repeated her words slowly as he absorbed their meaning. ‘Who then? Tom?’ He shook his head. ‘The little idiot. How many times have I warned him about not using condoms.’ He gave a little snort of laughter.
I bet you have, she thought. One of your specialist subjects, no doubt. There was an underlying pride in his voice at having a son who sowed his wild oats with abandon and virility. Every feminist bone in her body objected to his tone but she bit back any comment. This was not the time for personal recrimination. This was a moment when they should be pulling together. Let’s get this over with.
‘No,’ she said, her fingers stroking the stem of her glass. ‘Not Tom. Nic.’
As he stared at her, she thought his head might explode. His face grew a deeper and deeper shade of red until he let all his breath out in one convulsive rush. ‘Nic? No. She must have made a mistake.’
‘There’s no mistake.’ Keep calm, breathe deeply. If anyone’s going to make a scene, it’s not going to be you.
Hooker seemed genuinely flabbergasted at first, as if unable to believe such a thing of his beloved daughter. Watching his face, Lou saw his thought process: from shock, to confusion, to denial, to acceptance, to fury. With his anger came the return of his power of speech.
‘Who’s responsible?’
Pointing out that Nic inevitably bore fifty per cent of the responsibility would not help. Instead, Lou said, ‘Max, I think.’
‘You think? Why aren’t you sure? When I see him, I’ll …’ He stopped, unable to think of a sufficiently terrible threat.
The people on the next two tables had paused in the conversation and turned to see what was going on.
‘Shhh,’ Lou cautioned. ‘There’s no point getting worked up.’
‘Worked up? What the hell do you mean? I’ve every right to be worked up. You walk in here and tell me that my daughter’s having a baby and expect me to be calm.’ He lowered his head into his hands. ‘Oh, my God. A grandfather.’ His earlier pride had given way to despair. He angled his head so that he could see her. ‘I definitely need something stronger. A whisky.’
‘And you want me to get it?’ Lou bridled at being asked to go to the bar for him a second time. Nor did she relish the idea of a repeat encounter with Tess and her fashionista companions who she’d noticed looking in their direction.
‘No, no. I’ll get them. Same again?’ He picked up her empty wine glass as he edged out of the narrow space, his other hand already foraging for the change in his pocket.
She nodded, relieved to be left on her own for a moment.
By the time he returned, his expression was something approaching normal. Having finally accepted that a man had defiled his precious only daughter without his consent but with hers, he had moved on to a new tack.
‘Presumably you’ve persuaded her that the sensible way to deal with this is for her to have an abortion?’
Here we go.
‘No, I haven’t.’ She registered the taut straight line of his mouth. ‘This is Nic’s life and Nic’s decision. She wants to keep the baby and I only want to support her.’
‘For God’s sake, Lou. She’s far too young. Surely even you can see that.’ He was speaking to her as if she was irredeemably stupid. ‘A single mother. My daughter. No.’ He gave a heartfelt groan. If what they were talking about weren’t so serious, Lou would have laughed at the theatricality of his response.
‘Hooker, get a grip. Yes, she’s your daughter but she’s not the toddler you built sandcastles with every year any more. She’s not the thirteen-year-old whose pocket money you stopped when she threw her Bacardi Breezer bottles into the neighbours’ garden. She’s got her own life now and she doesn’t have to account to us for what she does any more. Whether you like it or not. Our job’s to give her all the help we can. That’s all we can do.’
‘But her career …’ His voice was muffled, as he nursed his whisky glass in front of his mouth.
‘Thousands of women have babies and return to work. That won’t be a problem because she’s already thought everything through.’ Echoing Nic’s words made Lou share her daughter’s confidence that everything would work out.
‘You say that …’
‘I know that,’ Lou said firmly. ‘She’s always loved looking after things so perhaps having a baby … Let’s see.’
‘Do you remember when she rescued that pigeon with a broken wing? She was always such a softie.’ Hooker smiled at the memory.
Lou’s recollection was less of the softie and more of the pigeon shit that had covered the living room when the bird had escaped its cardboard box. Nor had she forgotten the hours that it had taken to clear up the room to Hooker’s satisfaction, but without his help. Oddly, Nic too had found something urgent to do. But she was glad that Hooker’s mood was changing as the whisky took hold. ‘And Ripper, her hamster whose hair fell out.’ She smiled too, remembering how Nic had lavished affection and mite dust on the poor little wrinkled, bald creature until it had finally died.
As they began to swap reminiscences, their differences were put to one side. Whatever happened between them in the future, these memories would always be theirs alone. Their shared family experiences interested no one else in the world but them.
Once she leaned over and touched his arm. Still talking, he covered her hand with his just before she swiftly removed it. But one memory led on to the next and, as they travelled back in time, Lou began to recognise the Hooker she had once fallen for, the man who could make her laugh. She checked herself. Perhaps she should go home. But, memories and tongues loosened by alcohol, the two of them stayed where they were in the warmth of the fire, drinking and reminiscing, till the chairs were being put on the tables around them. By then she was aware of how pleasantly hazy the world seemed.
Reluctantly they dragged themselves out into the night air. Feeling definitely the worse for wear although triumph ant that Hooker had eventually taken on board and almost accepted Nic’s news, Lou stepped forward to give her ex an affectionate peck farewell. Slightly surprised at herself, she overbalanced, righting herself with one foot in the gutter, her hand on his chest. ‘Whoops. Shouldn’t have mixed my drinks. Sorry.’ She giggled and removed her hand as if it was burned.
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Fanny Blake
Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Buchan and Katie Fforde, this is a warm novel about women, relationships and why it’s never too late to change.Lou is married to a man who no longer loves her. It’s time to move on, to begin a new business venture and to start her life over.To celebrate her new-found freedom, she travels to India, where, in front of the Taj Mahal, she befriends Ali after taking each other’s photographs on ‘that’ bench.Ali is a serial mistress. But when she returns home, she discovers her latest lover is not the man she took him for. She too needs a new beginning.As Lou and Ali put their pasts behind them, they start to discover new possibilities for life and for love, until the shocking realisation that they have far more in common than they thought.
Fanny Blake
Women of a Dangerous Age
Dedication
To Robin, Matt, Nick and Spike
Contents
Cover (#u4497ab0a-8c10-558a-87ce-54dd29a79680)
Title Page
Dedication
1
‘You’re going to India?’ Fiona had sounded as if Lou…
2
Delhi airport was teeming with people. Lou’s suitcase felt heavy…
3
The unearthly flickering light of the tiny TV screens set…
4
Lou’s eyes felt as if they’d been forcibly removed, sandpapered…
5
Standing in her walk-in closet, Ali looked around her. Everything…
6
Arriving at the studio the following morning, Ali immediately saw…
7
The pub was busy with early-evening drinkers as Lou pushed…
8
When she woke the next morning, Lou’s head seemed to…
9
The Tube was jammed. People pressed up against one another,…
10
‘How could you have ended up on the same holiday…
11
By the time Lou arrived, the three rooms in the…
12
Beyond the shutters, the night was dark. Reflected back in…
13
As the day drew to a close, the two women…
14
Ali tugged harder. The retractable ladder didn’t move. Another even…
15
Ali was already fifteen minutes late. She pushed through the…
16
Under a washed-out blue sky, a gust of wind lifted…
17
Ten o’clock in the morning and Don and Ali were…
18
The fire was lit, the salad made and the smell…
19
They had almost completed their first lap of the park…
20
Lou clasped her coat to her as the wind screamed…
21
The chimp swung up to the glass, rolling back his…
22
The great joys of driving north late at night were…
23
Hooker took a tangerine taffeta dress off the rail, held…
24
The moment Lou dreaded had arrived.
25
Gardening was not Lou’s natural forte. When she and Hooker…
26
Ali was getting dressed when she heard the sound of…
27
The nearer she got to Don’s apartment block, the more…
28
At the sound of the door opening, Lou looked up…
29
Lou was watching the kitchen clock. Never had the second…
30
A month later, an ear-splitting din interrupted Lou’s dream, checking…
Acknowledgements
Bonus Material (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author
Other Books by Fanny Blake
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
‘You’re going to India?’ Fiona had sounded as if Lou was about to enter a dark labyrinth: fraught with danger and quite unsuitable.
‘Yes, I am.’ As she spoke, Lou had realised that was exactly what she was going to do. Going away would absolve her from all the problems of Christmas at home. She would escape from Hooker, their three children and her match-making friends who seemed to pursue their goal with an untimely and unwelcome fervour. Instead, she would separate the last thirty years of her life from the next thirty by getting out of the country – on her own.
Lou was enjoying for as long as possible the anticipation of the moment when she’d enter the Taj Mahal. Joining the scrum of tourists, she put the cloth overshoes provided for visitors over her functional but deeply unflattering walking sandals and climbed the steps towards the main entrance. Despite people crowding by her as she photographed the intricate inlaid marble-work, the interior was every bit as impressive as she had hoped. She skirted the tourists throwing coins down the steps to the tombs and followed the perimeter of the wall, admiring the detailed workmanship up close, looking up towards the solar motif in the dome. The noise made by schoolchildren experimenting with the echo was deafening. Twenty minutes later she emerged, squinting against the brightness and wishing for the umpteenth time that she hadn’t left her wide-brimmed sun hat and sunglasses in their last hotel, in Jaipur.
The clear blue sky was only interrupted by the winged silhouettes of kites soaring high above the white dome. Lou walked behind the mausoleum to stare across the dried-up Yamuna river bed, imagining Shah Jahan, imprisoned by his own son in the Agra Fort not far along the bank with only a view of the Taj to console him. When Mumtaz, his favourite wife, died giving birth to their fourteenth child, he had embarked on the task of creating this exquisite memorial to her. Twenty-two years and twenty thousand workmen and specialists later … Lou tried to imagine what it must be like to feel that strongly about someone after so many years of marriage. Some of the shine must surely have worn off with all those children. Three had proved quite enough for her and Hooker.
She found a quiet spot in the ornamental garden where she could sit on the grass. After a moment, she delved into her string bag for a bottle of water and the guidebook that smelled of the suntan lotion that had leaked onto it the day before. She peeled apart the couple of pages devoted to the Taj, then shut them. She could read later. The thing was to experience the place to its full in the short time she had.
Feeling a little less frazzled now she was in the shade of a tree, she watched the chipmunks race through the bushes. The sound of tourist chatter was broken by screeches from electric green parrots that swooped over her head. A group of Indian students asked in broken English if they could have their photo taken with her. She smiled into their camera, conscious of how different she must look to them, her lime green linen outfit and red scarf standing out against their drab trousers and white shirts, her fair skin and wild reddish hair providing such a contrast to their dark complexions.
Once they’d finished asking her about London, she went to hunt for her travelling companions. The sun beat down on the queue of tourists jostling to be snapped on ‘Diana’s bench’, with the Taj framed behind them. Demure Indian women in coloured saris rubbed shoulders with scruffy backpackers, neatly turned out schoolchildren and well-heeled Europeans and Americans on luxury tours. Lou was in two minds whether or not to join them. In exchange for a short wait, she’d have an ironically apt memento of her visit. Like Diana, alone in life. She was amused by the comparison, but only for a second. Come on, woman. Get over yourself. After all, whose choice is it that you’re on your own? Certainly not Hooker’s.
‘I’ll take yours,’ said a voice behind her, ‘if you’ll take mine.’
Lou turned to find one of the other two single women on the trip standing behind her. She knew her name was Ali but that was about it. During the previous ten days, as they’d journeyed from Udaipur to Jodphur and Jaipur, Ali had kept herself at a discreet distance from her fellow travellers. Not that she had been unpleasant, joining in with whatever was going on, but, when the opportunity arose, she’d bury herself in a book or separate herself from the group, going off to explore on her own. Wandering around a gallery of exquisite Indian miniatures, exploring the Amber or Merenghar Forts, the piled-high fabric emporiums or cluttered jewellery shops, Ali was always the last to tear herself away, as if not wanting to miss the slightest detail, sometimes sketching in her notebook or taking a final photograph. After dinner, she almost immediately retired to bed. Lou, on the other hand, had thrown herself into the group, keen to find out more about the people she was travelling with, wanting to share and compare everything new she was experiencing. She had nicknamed Ali ‘the cat who walked alone’, yet couldn’t help but be intrigued by her, the one person on the trip she’d failed to get to know. Ali was taller than Lou, younger, trimmer (not hard) and more elegant than her too. Not of course that any of these things could be held against her. Her oval face was framed by bobbed dark hair whose neat shiny finish gave away a small fortune spent on hairdressers and products. At that moment, she was looking at Lou, waiting for her answer.
Lou made up her mind. ‘Yes. Why not?’
Together, they walked towards the Lotus Pool.
‘Isn’t this place incredible?’ asked Ali. ‘Beats every photo I’ve ever seen of it.’
They both gazed at the Taj.
‘Those screens and the inlay-work in there are amazing, quite beautiful.’
‘Bloody noisy though,’ said Lou, and laughed.
So, as they began to talk about their reactions to the Taj, to the contrasting chaos of Agra and about the highlights of their trip, their friendship took its first steps.
By the time it was their turn to sit on the marble bench, Lou could feel the sweat running down her spine. Anxious about dropping Ali’s professional-looking camera, she wiped her hands on her linen trousers. When she’d packed them in London, she’d imagined herself looking cool, stylish even, amid the heat and dust of India. Instead, they looked as if they’d been scrunched into a ball and put on without sight of an iron. She was aware of the sweat marks spreading under the arms of her not-quite-loose-enough, short-sleeved top as she waited for Ali to pose.
Wiping her brow, Ali took up Princess Diana’s exact position: hands on her knees, clasped around her sunglasses, legs at a slight angle, head lowered to one side. She looked up coyly through her fringe. Afterwards, she laughed. ‘That’ll confuse my boyfriend. He’s bound to wonder if there’s a hidden message. Something about my wanting to be alone. As if.’
Lou returned Ali’s camera, then fumbled in her bag for her modest compact bought especially for the holiday. As she passed it over, it slipped from her grip. Her attempt to catch it was about as successful as any she’d made on the rounders pitch at school. The camera bounced out of her hands and clattered to the ground. She could feel the crowd behind them growing mutinous at the delay so she snatched it up, saying tightly, ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’ But when she pressed the On button, nothing happened.
‘Let’s use mine,’ offered Ali. ‘I can at least email you the picture.’
Lou took her place, annoyed by her clumsiness, and pushed her hair back, hoping her touch would tame the wayward frizz (much worse in the heat) into something as effortlessly chic as Ali’s bob, and mustered a smile. As soon as the camera clicked, an American couple were already edging her off the seat, wanting their turn.
‘What do you think?’ Ali asked, tilting the camera so Lou could see.
In the sun, Lou’s hair had transformed into a hectic halo that framed her face. Off the forehead was never a good look on her, but especially not when she was squinting and her forehead and nose were shiny with sweat. Her irritation with herself showed in her face. The way she had half turned from the camera made her look as if she had put on about a stone in weight. Not of course that she cared. Not really. But it was a look she’d rather wasn’t captured for posterity. In the background, the Taj gleamed in the sunlight. She grimaced. ‘Not exactly Princess Di, is it?’
Ali studied the image again. ‘Mmm. But you’re not exactly working with Mario Testino either.’
Laughing and, in Lou’s case, resigned, both women stepped away from the bench and joined the crowds thronging the gardens.
‘If you don’t mind, I really want to have a last walk round alone,’ said Ali, slinging her camera over her shoulder. ‘Just to take it all in. I’ll see you back at the gate.’
Lou nodded, happy at the chance of having a final wander herself. As the trip drew to an end, she was conscious of trying to drain every last sensation from the few days she had left. She wanted to be able to relive the holiday in detail during the winter months that lay ahead back home.
She thought back to that conversation with Fiona three months earlier, when she’d had no plans to go away over the Christmas break. Then, just as she thought she would explode if anyone else asked her how she was, or what she would be doing at Christmas now that she was single again, inspiration had come from nowhere. In reply to her close friend’s invitation to her and her husband Charlie’s remote Devon farmhouse bought only for its vast unrealised potential that, two years later, had still to be realised, Lou blurted, ‘Actually, I’ve made plans. I’m going to India.’
The words were out before she’d even thought them. She still wasn’t sure which of them had been more surprised by her answer.
To everyone’s surprise, her own included, she had booked herself the last place on a ‘Highlights of Rajasthan’ tour. She had been told to expect the poverty and squalor, the streets teeming with people, the colours, the smells but nothing had prepared her for what she had experienced. Never had she been exposed to so many dizzying extremes at once. As exciting, after years of holidaying as a family or alone with Hooker, was the discovery that she enjoyed meeting new people, having responsibility for no one but herself. The holiday had done just what she’d hoped and drawn a thick line between her past and her future. When she returned home, everything would have changed. She would no longer be living with Hooker in their family home. She would be an independent woman with a life, a new business and a home of her own. She was resolved not to mess up this second chance.
As Ali walked away from Lou, she thought about their conversation. ‘My boyfriend’. That’s what she had called Ian. A word she had never used to describe him before, but it had emerged all by itself when they were waiting their turn for the photograph. She liked the description, the unexpected way the two words made her feel: secure, loved, part of a unit even though she and Ian had seen so little of one another since the evening he made his surprise announcement. He wanted ‘to put the relationship on a more permanent footing’, to have her not as a mistress but as a partner. That’s what he had said. There was a lot to work out, not least of all his breaking the news to his wife, which he wouldn’t do until after Christmas. ‘It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.’ Even though his marriage had been over in all but name for years, he still had the decency to treat his wife with consideration and respect. That was just another aspect to his character that she loved and admired. Until he told his wife, Ali had to hug her secret to herself, enjoy its promise, and wait.
For the last couple of months before she came to India, work had taken them both in different directions. The lead-up to Christmas was always the busiest time of her year when people wanted to splurge their money on bespoke jewellery, so she had been busy designing and making to commission, as well as selling from her latest collection. At the same time, Ian had been called abroad to discuss some potential corporate merger. She hadn’t taken in the details. They had at last managed to find time for each other the evening before she left. To her disappointment, he had to go home before midnight. He didn’t go into details and she hadn’t pressed him. She didn’t want to know how he was spending Christmas with his wife while she was away. Next year, it would just be the two of them. Knowing that had been enough.
As Ali browsed through the rooms of the tiny museum, she thought how much Ian would have enjoyed being here with her. Well, as this was the last holiday she’d be taking on her own, she had decided to make the most of it. When she’d joined the group in Delhi, she’d been disappointed to find her travelling companions were a more sober bunch than she’d holidayed with in the past. Three smug couples, a middle-aged mother and her son, a widowed doctor and a man travelling alone since his wife had a fear of flying, and another slightly older woman she now knew to be Lou, whose idiosyncratic dress sense and wild hair made her look as if she at least might be fun. Ali had watched Lou with the others. At first Lou had been tentative, as if exploring her ability to make new friends but, as the days passed, she had become more confident. Soon her laugh was one of the things that marked her out, a loud earthy giggle, often at the centre of whatever was going on. Unlike her, Ali preferred to hold herself back so no one could make any demands on her, nor she on them.
She glanced over the architectural drawings, then stepped outside for a final look at the Taj, magnificent symbol for eternal love. With Ian in the forefront of her thoughts again, she crossed the garden to join the others near the huge arched main gateway, where she found Lou engaged in a vigorous discussion with Bharat, their guide.
‘But I’d rather walk to the car park,’ Lou was saying, quite unaffected by the way those in the group already there were glaring at her, no doubt impatient to reach their hotel, a good wash and a gin and tonic.
‘No, no, madam,’ insisted Bharat. ‘You must take bus.’
‘But Bharat, it can’t be more than half a kilometre at the most. I won’t hold you up if I start now and I’ll meet you there.’ She was being quite calm, controlled but determined.
Ali walked over to the two of them. ‘I’d like to walk too, Bharat. Nothing’ll happen to us, if that’s what you’re worried about. There are too many people around.’
Surprised by her intervention, Lou smiled, clearly glad of the support. She flicked her scarf over her right shoulder.
Apart from the anxiety about deviating from the schedule by letting two of his charges out of his sight, Bharat seemed bemused that any right-minded visitor would want to walk when there was perfectly good transport. But he folded in the face of their joint determination. ‘OK, madam. You go together. We’ll meet you in the car park.’
Once beyond the gateway, past the entry queues – one for nationals, one for foreigners – waiting to get through security, they found themselves outside the sandstone walls. Immediately, they were besieged by postcard and souvenir sellers, mostly young children, who swarmed around them, thrusting their wares under their noses, shouting prices and persuasion alongside would-be guides.
‘Where you from, madam? England? Very nice place. London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester … You want tour guide for Red Fort? Very important see everything.’
Dejected-looking horses and camels decorated with tinsel, their skin stretched tight over protruding bones, were hitched to carriages at the side of the road. Tuk-tuk and rickshaw drivers were touting for business too. ‘You want rickshaw. Good price. Baby Taj then Agra Fort. Show you my magical India. Two hundred rupees.’
The two women had been in India long enough to know that the only way through was to say little, and keep on walking. Eventually, to their relief, everyone’s attention switched to a large group of Americans emerging from the complex behind them and they were left alone.
‘Thank God for that,’ said Lou. ‘I don’t want to get Bharat into trouble but we spend so much time cooped up in the minibus. l had to experience some of this for myself.’ As they waited in a herd of goats for the stragglers to climb onto the scrubby verge, a pair of ragged dark-eyed children approached them, hands out, begging, ‘Dollar, dollar.’ A man selling sugar cane juice turned his blue mangle and shouted something from the other side of the road. Lou shook her head and carried on walking, Ali running to catch up, the ragamuffins running behind her. The smells of horseshit, bad drains, woodsmoke and cooking drifted through the dusty air. They stood to one side as an electric bus whirred past. Ali took a couple of snaps of a moth-eaten camel pulling a cart, then another of the children who giggled when she showed them the image on her camera.
‘I just wanted to escape the group for a bit longer. Not that there’s anything wrong with them,’ she hurried to add. For some reason, she didn’t want Lou to think badly of her.
‘They’re not that bad.’ Lou smiled. ‘You just haven’t got to know them.’
‘I know, I haven’t made much effort.’ She sounded suddenly anxious.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lou reassured her. ‘You’re down as a free spirit. I think everyone rather envies your independence.’
‘Well, it’s my last holiday alone, so I’ve been making the most of it.’
‘Seems to me that travelling alone but in the company of strangers is about a million times less fraught and tantrum-filled than travelling with family – especially my husband.’ Lou laughed at the thought. ‘Show him an airport and I’ll show you a man on the point of a coronary. And that’s before we’ve even left the country.’
‘You’re married?’ Ali noticed Lou wore no rings.
‘Not any more.’ Her face assumed a guarded expression. ‘I guess you’re not either?’
‘No, but I’m moving in with my boyfriend when I get back.’ Her cheeks were burning. Letting even a bit of her secret go made it feel less special, even though Lou didn’t know her or Ian. She immediately wished she hadn’t said anything. ‘I’m not meant to talk about it really. At least, not until he’s told his wife.’
‘Oh! His wife,’ Lou echoed.
Ali thought she heard disapproval, but when she looked, Lou simply smiled and gave the slightest shake of her head. They detoured round a white cow standing among a pile of rubbish and plastic bags. ‘Odd the way sacred animals exist on such an unsacred diet.’ And the subject was closed.
For the rest of the short way, they walked in a companionable silence, each lost in her own thoughts. Entering the busy car park filled with sudden exhaust and engine noise, they found their minibus and chose two seats side by side.
As they drove to the safari lodge on the Chambal river where they were spending their last two nights, Lou found herself enjoying Ali’s company more and more. There was something about her that reminded Lou of her younger sister, Jenny, killed only eighteen months earlier in a motorway pile-up. Although Jenny had been a loner all her life, the two sisters had shared a particular bond. Since they were teenagers, they had confided only in one another, knowing that all their secrets were safe. Since Jenny’s death no one had come near to filling her place in Lou’s life, not even Fiona, her closest friend. Talking to Ali, Lou found a similar intensity to Jenny’s. She heard something like Jenny’s dry sense of humour, and sensed the same reserve. Lou had been given a glimpse into Ali’s life but she didn’t expect her to tell any more. Given her own unwillingness to bare her soul at this point in her life, Lou sympathised with the younger woman’s reticence and didn’t press her. She was relieved not to have to account for herself and explain the actions she’d taken only months before. There’d be plenty of time to examine the repercussions of those when she got home.
For those last two nights, Ali unexpectedly opened up. She followed Lou’s lead and chatted with the others after supper around the dying embers of the bonfire, easily finding her place within the group. But this happened so late in the trip that there was no pressure for her to give anything of herself away. By the time they returned to Delhi for the flight home, Lou had arranged to meet Ali again on their home turf. She was intrigued by ‘the cat who walked alone’.
2
Delhi airport was teeming with people. Lou’s suitcase felt heavy and unwieldy as she concentrated on tipping it to one side so that it could roll along on the one wheel that hadn’t jammed. She hated airports, hated flying and was trying to drift into the zone necessary for any air travel to be … not pleasurable, never that, but endurable. She was looking for that Zen-like calm where anything problematic would just slip by her. Key to that condition was maintaining a cool indifference towards everything going on around her. Otherwise, she would be reduced to a gibbering state of impatience, then fear.
She and Ali stood together in the queue that snaked away from the check-in desk. They didn’t talk, just observed the hordes: families with children refusing to stay in line; trolleys laden with belongings heading with their owners towards a new start in another country; couples entwined after the romantic holiday of a lifetime; others barely speaking.
Eventually, they reached the front. She hefted her case onto the scales, catching her breath as she felt an ominous twinge in the small of her back, and watched the number of kilograms clocking up. Please God, let the airline official turn a blind eye.
‘It’s four kilos overweight,’ he announced, barely looking up.
Fuck. She should never have put in the fabric she’d bought in Udaipur. Instead, she should have had them shipped home like the rest of the fabric and the two bedspreads she hadn’t been able to resist in Jodhpur. ‘But you’ll let it go?’ she wheedled.
The official was unmoved. ‘You’ll have to pay the surcharge, I’m afraid. The desk’s over there.’ He could have been pointing anywhere. ‘Or you’ll have to remove some of the contents.’
And do what with them? Leave them on the terminal floor?
She could feel herself dithering, flustered, incapable of making a sensible decision. To pay a fortune for a few lengths of Indian silk, or not to pay? That was the question. Fortunately, Ali answered it. ‘For God’s sake, you mustn’t pay on principle. You don’t have to pay more for your seat because you’re heavier than me.’
‘Thanks for that,’ Lou muttered.
‘No, seriously, the same should apply to luggage. There’s some room in my case. Let’s just transfer a few things and I’ll give them back when we land.’
Relieved to have her dilemma so easily resolved, Lou agreed and yanked her case off the weighing machine. As she slid it back towards the queue, the implications of this perhaps rash decision struck her. She was about to reveal her totally shoddy packing techniques to the entire airport. But too late now. Someone else had taken her place at the desk and Ali was already unzipping her case. She flipped the lid back to reveal her perfectly folded capsule wardrobe taking up two-thirds of the available space.
Reluctantly, remembering the haphazard approach she had taken to her own packing, Lou began to pull at the zip of her suitcase, eyeing the straining seams. It had only consented to fasten when she’d sat on the case and shifted her weight about on top so the zip could inch round. The only way forward was to repeat the process. She sat down heavily, then, holding onto the zip, her knuckles white with the effort of not letting go, she began to pull. Slowly at first, it then gave with a little rush before slowing again. With Ali holding the two open sides as close together as possible, the last corner was turned and eventually, to the amusement of everyone alleviating the boredom of their wait by watching her, the final side was coerced into unzipping.
Self-conscious, Lou clambered off the case, half falling as she did. Steadying herself with her hand on Ali’s butt, she was aware that most of the queue could almost certainly see all the way down her cleavage as she bent forward. Mortified, she straightened up as fast as she could, adjusting her top at the same time.
Released from her weight, the case sprang open at the very moment that someone’s uncontrolled child cannoned into it. The contents jack-in-the-boxed into the air. Her Zen-like calm still nowhere in the vicinity, Lou could only think of one thing as she watched her most intimate garments hit the terminal floor. Why had she packed the Indian silks at the bottom of the case, leaving all her more personal bits and pieces on top? Galvanised into action, she reached for the bra that was spread-eagled on the floor in front of the crowd and folded it in half, tucking the straps inside. She’d never thought of her breasts as especially large until this moment when the D-cups assumed an embarrassing enormity. Neither had she noticed how much the once pretty pink lace had faded and discoloured to a dusty greyish colour. If only she’d invested in the sexy new underwear she’d thought might help mark the start of her single life.
Just then a young boy made a dash for it, her other bra capping his head, the straps dangling over his ears. She watched in disbelieving horror as his mother yelled after him to stop, then gave chase across the terminal.
Ali was no help. She was bent double laughing. At least everyone else had the grace to pretend not to be.
As Lou shoved one bra down the side of Ali’s case, the second was handed to her by the smirking child whose apologetic parent had a firm grip of his arm. She stuffed that one down the other side, her face burning with embarrassment. Still no one moved to help her. On her hands and knees, she reached out to grab the pairs of pants that littered the floor. Once they were stowed, she turned her attention to the contents of her washbag that had rolled towards the check-in.
As she snatched up the tweezers (the laser treatment to her chin was something else that had been too low on her priority list) and the bumper pack of ibuprofen, she became aware of a pair of unfamiliar male hands retrieving the pair of Bridget Jones knickers that she’d missed – the big cream M&S ones that only she knew she possessed. Until now. She’d brought them because they were perfect for the woman who only took her kit off when she was alone and who wanted to disguise her VPL without resorting to the bum-splitting discomfort of a thong. She certainly hadn’t envisaged sharing them with anyone else. They had landed on his very shiny dark brown left brogue. She watched aghast as the hands folded them once, then twice, before holding out the neat parcel to her. She wasn’t sure she could endure another moment of this.
Who would fold another person’s knickers? Mortified, she glanced up to lock eyes with a smart, suited Indian man of a certain age who was squatting beside her. He smiled a sympathetic smile. She had watched the DVD of Slumdog Millionaire for the nth time before she left, and the only thought that crossed her mind was that he was a dead ringer for the quiz-show host played by Anil Kapoor. It couldn’t be. Could it? Of course not. She took the knickers from his hand as briskly as she could without snatching.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled, wishing the floor would rip apart to swallow her and her bloody case.
He nodded, straightened up and looked away. But Lou hadn’t missed the glint of amusement in his eye.
Meanwhile, Ali had recovered herself and had squatted down beside her to help Lou retrieve the last few clothes and shove them into her own case. ‘Let’s get this sorted. Quick. A gin and tonic is definitely called for.’
‘A large one!’ Lou agreed.
An hour and a half later, they had reached the departure gate, the alcohol having aided the recovery of Lou’s sense of humour. They were still laughing about what had happened as they walked down the tunnel onto the plane. Dodging elbows as hand luggage was stowed above heads and sidling past passengers preparing to sit down, they made their way through the nirvana of business class to the unholy limbo at the back of the plane. Lou was leading the way, checking the numbers of the seats, when she stopped dead. Ali bumped into her. ‘Easy!’ she said, taking a step back. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘It’s him!’ said Lou, feeling her inner temperature soar, the perspiration prickle. She gestured down the aisle to where, in the outside seat of three, sat her knicker-rescuer immersed in a magazine. ‘Those are our seats! You’ll have to sit in the middle. I can’t small-talk with someone who’s on such intimate terms with my underwear.’
‘Sounds like a perfect match to me,’ said Ali.
For once, Lou was unamused.
As they waited for him to stand up and let them into their seats, Lou tried but failed to avoid his eye. They acknowledged each other with the briefest of nods before Lou, feeling herself blush, looked away and slid into her seat by the window, followed by Ali.
Trying not to panic about having to spend the next eight hours cramped in the economy seat, Lou jammed the airline freebies into her seat-back pocket. Preparing for take-off and landing were the parts of the flight that scared her most. Shutting her eyes, she tried again to find the calm that had so far eluded her. She breathed in, closing her eyes and trying to direct her breath out through the centre of her forehead, her third eye. Wasn’t that what the yoga teacher had said on the course she’d taken that summer, as he encouraged the class in the final relaxation exercise? She hadn’t understood what he was on about as she lay freezing on the floor of the decaying church hall, wishing she’d remembered to bring a blanket, and she certainly didn’t understand now. She tried again.
‘What are you doing?’ Ali’s voice interrupted her concentration.
‘Breathing. Not panicking. I’ll be fine.’ (Don’t talk to me.)
‘Tell me about your shop then.’ Ali ignored the incipient hysteria in Lou’s voice. ‘Now we’re on our way home, we might as well think about what we’re going back to.’
‘Give me a minute.’ Lou took in another breath and tightened her grip on the armrests, closing her eyes again. She was better dealing with her fear on her own. She refocused her mind. What would be waiting for her at the end of the flight? Just the words ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz: vintage and vintage-inspired clothes’ gave her a buzz of excitement. Her online business selling the vintage clothes that she’d acquired over years of working in the fashion biz, trawling vintage fairs, charity and junk shops, car boot sales and relatives’ attics was going to expand into the here and now. Finding the premises would be her number one priority when she got home.
Home. Rather than open her eyes to her present surroundings, she let herself drift back to the day, a couple of months earlier, when she had moved into the small Victorian house that she had inherited from Jenny.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Hooker, her husband of nearly thirty-one years, had grasped her hand as tightly as if he was trying to pull her from a fast-flowing river. Then she remembered how, apparently satisfied that he’d succeeded, he leaned forward for a kiss.
She pulled back, ignoring the look of displeasure that crossed his face, reclaiming her hand and abandoning herself to the current that was already carrying her out of his reach. ‘I’ll be absolutely fine,’ she said, firmly.
Until months earlier, that moment had only been wishful thinking, just like those times when she was drifting off to sleep and had fantasised about him leaving her or had even gone as far as imagining his funeral, what she’d wear and how she’d behave: respectful and grief-stricken on the outside, but gleeful about her new freedom on the inside. She was ashamed about those darker moments but he hadn’t always been the most ideal husband, especially of late, and it wasn’t as if she’d really believed anything bad would happen – or wanted it to. Not really. She had tightened her grip on the door as she began to shut him out of her life.
‘You are sure you’re doing the right thing?’ He stood his ground. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind and come home, you know.’
Leaning against the door frame, she willed her apprehension not to show. She knew him too well. If he spotted any weakness in her, he’d be quick to exploit it. ‘We’ve been through this a thousand and one times.’ She spoke slowly, as if drumming the information through his skull and into his brain. ‘We don’t love each other any more. We’ve agreed on that. So I’m going to live here now. It’s over.’
She remembered how she’d been reduced to romantic clichés. But they were true. She didn’t love him any more. And she doubted that he’d loved her for years, not really. Her sadness came less from their parting and more from the fact that their separation marked the end of their family as they had all known it.
Cramped in her airline seat, she flexed her feet, lifted one leg and rotated her ankle, then the other. Ali said something, but she took no notice. To take her mind off the flight, she forced herself to return to that day, the day that marked the start of her new independence. From now on, she was going to be devoting some time to herself instead of to the hours demanded by being Hooker’s chief wardrobe mistress, cook and bottle-washer: hours during which she had chosen to dismiss the occasional unfounded suspicion that Hooker might be playing away. That was a side to their recent life together that she’d never confronted. While the children were in their teens, she was determined to put them first. But they were grown up now and the need for that was finally over.
He’d run his hand over his thinning hair as if checking it was still there, clearly bewildered by her unfamiliar resolve but not convinced. ‘All right,’ he said, an edge of aggression entering his voice. ‘I’ll go. But don’t expect me to wait for you forever. That’s all. Let’s hope my door hasn’t closed by the time you change your mind.’ He turned to leave, obviously pleased with his parting shot, and quite confident that she’d be back.
‘Mmm. Let’s.’ She directed the words towards his back, not expecting him to turn this time. Insisting on having the last word was one of his shortcomings. One of his many shortcomings, she corrected herself, as she shut the door at last. She’d heard him rev his precious midlife-crisis of a sports car before he roared off, leaving her alone at last.
As if on cue, the roar of the jet engines intensified and the plane shook as it trundled towards take-off. Her white-knuckle grip on the arms of her seat tightened. Only another few minutes and she’d be able to relax – unless they crashed, of course. Everyone knew that take-off and landing were the most vulnerable moments of any flight. The shaking stopped, her ears filled as if she was underwater, then popped. Pushed back in her seat by the pressure, as the plane climbed to cruising height, she relaxed her hands.
‘You’ve gone very pale.’ Ali’s voice came from a distance. ‘Are you OK?’
Lou opened one eye, then the other. Everything was as it should be. The other passengers were strapped into their seats, adjusting the in-flight entertainment, chatting, reading magazines. The prevailing atmosphere was one of calm. How unnecessary to get so worked up – but necessity had nothing to do with it, her behaviour was instinctive. ‘I am now.’ She smiled as she let go the armrest. ‘Still want to know about the shop?’
By the time the stewardesses were working the aisle, bringing drinks and dinner, Lou had finished explaining the plans for her business and had moved on to Nic, her daughter. ‘She thinks I’m crazy, that I’ve no brain for business. She just doesn’t get the market for “dead people’s clothes” as she insists on calling them.’
‘Then you’ll just have to prove her wrong,’ Ali said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. ‘What does she do?’
‘She’s a family lawyer. Took after her godmother Fiona who’s always encouraged her. Look, it’s not that we don’t get on really, she just has strong views.’ She paused with a short laugh, as always amazed to think how her almost edible, curly-haired toddler had grown up into such a touchy, opinionated young woman. Her father’s daughter, she guessed. Or else her mothering skills had let them both down. ‘My two boys, Jamie and Tom, are quite different,’ she said, feeling she had to justify herself. ‘They’re much easier and more understanding.’ She broke off as the trays were put in front of them, then changed the subject. ‘What’s waiting at home for you?’
‘January’s usually a bit of a hangover from Christmas in my business, so I’ve got a few small jobs plus a ring to finish for a guy who was too late with his ordering. There’s always someone.’ Ali looked resigned. ‘But, at the same time, I’ll be thinking ahead and starting to dream up designs for a new collection. Business is much harder than usual thanks to the rocketing metal prices. But before I do anything, I’ll have to go up north to visit my father and make up for missing Christmas with him.’ She made it sound more of a chore than a pleasure. ‘Not that we’ve spent it together for years.’
‘Both my parents are dead,’ Lou said wistfully, remembering the family trips they’d made to Scotland for Hogmanay when the kids were small. Log fires, long walks, icy cheeks and warm hands, skating on the frozen pond: annual pleasures that were all but ruined when her mother took to the bottle. Then, Lou would have to keep the children out of her way as her mother slipped from maudlin nostalgia into something more aggressive. When she was drunk, which she was more and more often after her husband’s death, everyone was a disappointment to her and she became angry and vocal about it.
‘Dad and I aren’t very close. We’ve tried but it’s been difficult.’ Ali stopped as she peeled the foil lids off the containers in front of her, then replaced them and pushed the tray the full two inches away from her. ‘God, the food never gets any better, does it?’
Realising Ali was not going to elaborate on her relationship with her father, Lou changed the subject. ‘But aren’t you moving in with your boyfriend? What’s that?’ Lou watched Ali pop a white pill.
‘Imodium.’ She grimaced and crossed her fingers. ‘Let’s hope it works. My boyfriend? Well, I’m going home to a new life, I guess.’ A dreamy expression crossed her face. ‘He’s a fantastic man, a little bit older than me, who I’ve been seeing for the last three years. He’s married but he’s going to leave her. I’ve promised not to say anything to anyone until he’s extricated himself, but by the time I’m back he should be there. Or near enough. Then we’ll be together. I can’t wait.’
Lou marvelled at Ali’s apparent lack of concern. ‘But aren’t you worried about his wife? Or his family? Won’t they make things difficult?’ She couldn’t imagine herself being in that position without having some concern about the hurt she must be inflicting.
‘Why should I be?’ Ali looked puzzled. ‘That’s their business, isn’t it? But from what he’s said, things have been pretty ropey between them for ages. Let’s face it, he wouldn’t have kept our affair going if they weren’t. We’ve seen each other almost every week, gone out for meals, to the cinema. I’ve even been away with him when he’s travelled on business. He couldn’t have done any of that if either of them cared more about the other, could he?’
‘But don’t you talk about it?’ Lou tried to sound interested rather than astonished, not wanting to point out the obvious: that plenty of men were happy to have their cake and eat it. Ali was too smart not to know that, but perhaps she was just salving her conscience.
‘Never,’ Ali said firmly. ‘That’s a rule I made and I’ve stuck with. Wife, children, pets and his domestic crises have always been right off the agenda. We have a great time together without them getting in the way. I never imagined he’d leave her, never wanted him to, so my being ignorant of all that stuff has meant that things have run happily alongside his marriage without nudging it off the rails.’
Lou almost choked on a mouthful of the rubber passing for chicken curry. ‘Then how do you know he’s the one for you? You can’t know much about him at all.’
‘I know enough. Really, I do. I know what I’m doing, and I know why I’m doing it.’
But Lou hadn’t been probing into Ali’s motives. She was just intrigued at why anyone would see this as an ideal basis for a long-term partnership.
Ali went on. ‘I know it’s not a conventional view of a satisfactory or fulfilling relationship but until now I’ve always thought I was getting the best of both worlds: my freedom plus plenty of no-strings passion and entertainment.’
‘Why change things? That sounds pretty damn perfect to me.’ And the polar opposite to Lou’s own marriage where, for the last few years, she’d sometimes felt as if she was being very slowly buried alive.
Ali looked uncertain of what to say for a moment. ‘When he proposed it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. At the same time though, I knew that we couldn’t keep things the same way forever. I’m not getting any younger …. Once I thought I’d get married, have children, but it never happened. Perhaps this is my chance. Perhaps it’s time for me to make a commitment to someone else.’
She leaned back so the stewardess could take both their trays.
‘Then you’re lucky to have found him.’ Lou remembered when she and Hooker had taken that same step together. So different, given that they had been more than twenty years younger than Ali was now, but how full of optimism they had been. And how disappointed now, so many years later.
While Ali disturbed her other neighbour so she could get out of her seat, Lou began to prepare herself for sleep. She didn’t bother to check which films were playing. As soon as the cabin lights were dimmed, she slipped herself a sleeping pill donated by a doctor friend for the occasion, wrapped herself in her blanket, reclined her seat, put on her canary yellow eye mask and rested her head against the side of the plane. Sleep was the only thing that would make the flight go faster. She would catch up more with Ali in London. Ten minutes later, her mouth had fallen open enough to signify she was asleep but not quite enough to warrant total embarrassment.
3
The unearthly flickering light of the tiny TV screens set in the seat backs illuminated the blanket-wrapped huddles of passengers. Walking back down the darkened aisle, Ali thought how she could justify what she’d said about Ian and his marriage so that Lou would understand. Although she’d only known her a short time, theirs was already becoming a friendship she wanted to continue. She didn’t want to derail it by not explaining herself properly. Besides that, she was intrigued by the fact that Lou obviously didn’t want to talk about her own marriage and how it had ended. No, there was plenty more to find out about each other.
But by the time she returned to her seat, Lou was out for the count.
Ali’s other neighbour was lying back, absorbed in a film, but let her pass with a polite nod before returning his attention to the screen. Denied conversation, she took out her travel pillow, blew it up and fitted it round her neck. She popped a second Imodium (probably a mistake) in response to a sudden cramping in her lower stomach, then closed her eyes and turned her mind to home, focusing on what she hadn’t told Lou, what she hadn’t told anyone: that setting up home with Ian was significant in more ways than one. It meant that her life as a serial mistress was almost over.
She hadn’t considered her relationship with Ian in any way different from those she’d had with the string of married lovers who came before him, until six weeks earlier when he suggested they rethink their relationship. None of her previous lovers had come close to suggesting such a thing. Perhaps they had all believed she was one hundred per cent against one hundred per cent commitment. And they would have been right. Until now, she had been. She suspected Lou would say that it suited them to believe that. Lou’s cynical take on life amused her, made her look at things in a new light.
Ian’s suggestion that they live together was so unexpected that, when it came, she had been unable to reply immediately. They’d finished dinner quickly, Ian looking uncomfortable, obviously wishing he had put it another way, another time – or not at all. If she agreed, she didn’t need Einstein to point out that her life and their relationship would change forever. What niggled her was how much that mattered to her. She couldn’t abandon her way of life without some thought. Being his mistress had meant the relationship ran on her terms while she allowed him to believe that it ran on his. That’s how she had preferred all her relationships with men to be since Don had left her over twenty years earlier. With him, she had enjoyed being half of the whole they made together. After they lost touch, she had remained single, unwilling to take the risk of committing herself to anyone else, scared of rejection.
Agreeing to Ian’s proposal would mean a shift in their dynamic. But why not take that risk? The more she had thought about it, the more that shift appealed. Every evening they would come home to each other. Weekends would be spent together doing those things that couples do together: cooking, talking, going out with friends, sharing interests, and getting to know one another in a new way, discovering the truth. Now it had been offered, permanent companionship, something that had been so absent in her life for so long, something she had never thought would be hers again, was suddenly something she craved. She even dared allow herself to imagine that she and Ian might have a child together. She’d read about women giving birth in their mid-forties. It wasn’t a total impossibility. She wondered what he’d say. After all, she was at an age where she could upend her life if she wanted to – as long as she held on to her independence.
Her memory of the morning following his proposal was quite clear. She had woken up beside him, her mind made up.
‘Morning.’ She’d kissed his left eye, then his right.
He’d groaned as he rolled to face her, squinting as he opened one and then the other eye. ‘God! That brandy was a mistake.’
‘But you’re usually OK.’ Their noses were almost touching and she could just smell his morning-after breath. She couldn’t help noticing the few broken veins in his cheeks, the incipient wrinkles around his mouth, his greyish overnight stubble: all reminders that time was marching on. He slid his arm around her waist.
‘Yeah, but last night was different.’ He pulled back a little and looked at her. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you the way I did. Stupid of me. I don’t want to spoil what we’ve got either. I’m happy to leave things be, if that’s what you want. In fact, perhaps that would be better for both of us.’
‘Stop right there,’ she said, not wanting him to retract anything, not now her own thoughts were changing so fast. ‘I lay awake for half the night, thinking about what you said.’
‘Did you? Poor baby. Forget it. We’re fine just as we are. Really.’ He kissed her, slow and lingering, the definite prelude for more. He slid his leg between hers.
She began to respond, then wriggled out of the embrace.
‘Come on. Don’t let a bloke down now. We haven’t got much time.’ He’d reached for her again. But she had something important to say.
‘I know, I know, but …’ She sat up, plumping the pillow behind her and adding a couple of the scatter cushions that had been relegated to the floor. ‘We’ve got to talk.’
‘About what?’ He scratched his head so his hair stood on end. He leaned across her and flicked the Today programme over to Radio 3 as the presenter announced Debussy’s La Plus que Lente. The notes of the piano swelled and fell in the quiet of the room as he waited for Ali to speak.
‘About last night. About what you said.’
He screwed up his right eye and with his right thumb on his cheekbone rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. ‘Yes?’
She heard how apprehensive he was, so hurried to put him out of his misery. ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea.’ She watched his eyes open wide in surprise. ‘I was shocked last night. But I’ve thought and thought about what it would mean and now I know that’s what I want too.’
‘You do?’ He sat up too, his voice coloured with disbelief.
‘I definitely do.’
He enveloped her in a bear hug, pulling her over so they lay face to face, but she hadn’t finished. ‘I love you and want to be with you. But … what about your wife? What will you do?’
‘Forget about her,’ he’d whispered. ‘You didn’t want to know about her before, so let’s keep it that way for now. I don’t want her to spoil anything.’
Remembering his words again now reminded her of how little she really knew about him. Lou was so right to have picked up on that. Aware of movement beside her, Ali opened her eyes, hoping to find her friend awake and in a mood to talk. But despite her change of position, Lou’s head was slumped against the headrest, her distinctive eye mask still in place.
Disappointed, Ali shifted in her seat, slipping off her shoes, and returned to her thoughts. She had curled herself around their secret until she’d got used to it, squeezing every drop of private pleasure from it. She was dying to see the expression on her friends’ faces when they heard she was going to settle down. Most of her women friends had become so wrapped up in their marriages and children, they didn’t look outwards any more. That was one of the things she liked about Lou, her interest in the world around her. But Ali’s friends saw her as a professional mistress – serially monogamous with other women’s husbands. And not all (if any) of them approved or thought it as amusing as they might once have done, especially not after they’d got married themselves. Then their views on marriage underwent a sudden transformation. Ali had become a threat to all they held dear. To hell with them. How gloriously gobsmacked they would be at the change in her fortunes now Ian had come along.
Opening her eyes again, she was confronted by the on-screen flight information. The cartoon plane had barely moved since she last looked. She fiddled with the control pad, trying to switch off the image. What did she care about the temperature outside the plane right now? She wasn’t intending to experience it for herself. She looked at Lou who had pulled her blanket right over her head, now dead to the world. Ali felt her stomach contract again. Cursing quietly, she excused herself from the row once again. ‘I’m so sorry but I’m not too well.’ To say she had Delhi belly seemed a somewhat insensitive euphemism to use to a native Indian. ‘Rather than disturbing you through the night, I wonder if we could swap seats?’ Lou would be horrified, but needs must.
‘If you think that would be better for you. Of course,’ he said, disentangling his headphones and gathering his possessions – a paperback, his airline toiletry bag and a bottle of water – and stood to let her past.
‘I think it might.’ Propelled by a certain degree of urgency, she transferred her belongings to the outside seat, then abandoned him to make his own arrangements.
When Ali returned, he was asleep in front of the thriller. She sat down, resigned to a long sleepless night ahead. She tuned in to an anodyne family comedy that required neither concentration nor intelligence but even so she could only think of Ian.
He had noticed how uncomfortable she was with the way he talked about his wife, and had hugged her tighter.
‘I don’t want her spoiling what we have. When I come here to your flat, I can forget everything else. I feel a different person. Do you understand that?’
‘I suppose so,’ she murmured, enjoying their closeness enough to drive away her concerns. ‘But we can’t exist in this weird little bubble forever.’
‘We can try.’ He began to kiss her again.
Once again, she pulled away, this time to his tsk of annoyance. ‘Where will we live?’ she asked.
‘Where?’ He let her go. ‘What’s wrong with here? I love this place.’
‘So do I. But if we’re going to have a new life together then I’d like to live somewhere that’s ours. Yours and mine. A new start.’ She snuggled up to him. He just hadn’t thought this through. She had moved into her flat when she had accepted she was probably going to be single forever so this was her domain, her home. The place held too many memories that had nothing to do with him, and, if she was honest, were hardly appropriate to the life they were planning. No, if they were starting a life together, they needed a place of their own. She could tell from his silence that she had surprised him. One all, then.
Despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm, she’d made up her mind that was definitely what was going to happen. She’d already put out a few feelers before she came away but as soon as she got home she’d be combing the property pages and pestering the agents. He’d come round when he realised how a move made sense. Then she’d have to broach the idea of a baby. Too much too soon? But time was against them. If they didn’t talk about these things now, it might be too late. And Ian loved her. He would understand.
Moments later, she had to leave her seat again. At the back of the plane, the cabin crew were in the galley, whiling away the hours until their more active duties resumed. The blonde I’m-Clare-fly-me one noticed Ali’s coming and going, and asked if she could help. So it was that, provided with a beaker of water, Ali found herself lying full length on an empty row of seats, reasonably comfortable at last. By the time the stewardesses began the breakfast round, she was fast asleep.
Lou was woken by the sound of the trolley and distant voices. Keeping the blanket over her head, she swallowed and ran her tongue around her mouth. The metallic taste was the side effect of her sleeping pill but her head was clear. Only a few hours and she’d be home, taking down the Christmas decorations. They’d looked so pretty all ready for her pre-Christmas Christmas dinner that she’d had with the kids before she left for India and Jamie and Rose his fiancée left for Tenerife to visit her family in their holiday villa.
Hooker had not been invited. Sitting the whole family round the table and pretending nothing had changed would have been inappropriate, not to say uncomfortable. As would a full-blown turkey extravaganza. Instead, she’d decided on the old family favourite – roast beef with all the trimmings. This was the first time they’d all be together at her new home, and she wanted everything to be right. This was the first time they’d celebrated Christmas without Hooker. She’d transformed her workroom with coloured fairy lights twinkling round the window. The chipped and scratched surface of her sewing table was hidden under a red tablecloth sprinkled with silver star confetti. No crackers this year. Instead, the table was elegant with Jenny’s white china, the only decoration being the gauzy red ribbons that Lou had tied in bows around the bases of the glass candlesticks.
The meal was a triumph, even her Yorkshire puddings, and after they’d eaten, they moved into the living room for present opening. The fire blazed, glasses were charged, chocolates and mince pies passed around. The kids had clubbed together to buy Lou a Total Pampering Package that aimed to rejuvenate and re-energise. Oh, the optimism of youth! She had given Jamie and Tom cheques, socks and a shirt each – anything else ran the risk of rejection. For Rose, there was a book about Reiki healing. Then she took the last package and passed it to Nic.
‘Honestly, Mum! You could have done better than brown paper.’
Aware of the effort that usually went into Nic’s extravagant wrappings, she just said as brightly as she could, ‘I’m saving the planet and anyway, it’s what’s inside that counts.’
As Nic tore away the paper, a loose deep green silk devoré velvet jacket slid into her hands. She shook it out and held it up to look at it, then against herself.
A pause as she examined it, then, ‘Is it one of yours?’
Lou caught the faintest hint of criticism in the question.
‘I’m afraid so,’ admitted Lou, who still smarted from the time when Nic, as a young teenager, had begged her to stop making their clothes. She wanted to go shopping with her mates, and wear what they wore. And who could blame her? Uniformity was what mattered then – for the boys too. Ever since, Lou had restricted her dressmaking to herself and to friends. But she hadn’t been able to resist this gorgeous fabric, which she had been so sure Nic would love.
Nic confined herself to shaking her head in a despairing sort of way. She slipped it on over her dress, then went upstairs to find a mirror. Despite Rose’s quiet ‘Wow!’ and Lou’s feeling of satisfaction in seeing a perfect fit, Nic’s appreciation was less than impressive. When she returned to the room, she slung it over the back of her chair and kissed Lou’s cheek. ‘Thanks, Mum. It’s lovely.’ Her lack of enthusiasm had been barely hidden. ‘It’ll be great for that flappers and gangsters fancy dress party at New Year.’
Stuck in her airline seat, blanket over her head, Lou could still feel her disappointment. How she longed to have one of those close mother–daughter relationships instead of one that blew hot and cold with no warning. The jacket should have proved to Nic how beautiful vintage-inspired pieces could be, how successful Lou’s business venture would be, but she should have known better. Nic had been as dismissive as Hooker sometimes was. They rarely thought of the effect their words might have. Well, she’d bloody well show them that she could make a go of this. If anything, Nic’s scorn had only served to stoke the fire of Lou’s determination. Who knew? Perhaps her success would bring them closer together. Success was something that Nic, like her father, respected.
The rattle of the trolley was getting nearer. She wondered what the time was, but was reluctant to brave the glare of the cabin to look at her watch.
‘Excuse me.’ An unknown voice sounded right by her ear. ‘Would you like orange juice?’
Annoyed by the disturbance, she peeled the blanket from her head and took off her eye mask only to be confronted by a familiar face in the next seat. Her knicker rescuer. Beyond him, the third seat was empty. Where was Ali? He was passing her a plastic beaker from the stewardess. She took it and unfolded her table. ‘Thanks. But that seat’s taken.’ Realising how rude she sounded, she apologised. ‘I’m sorry, that sounded awful.’
‘Not at all.’ He inclined his head and gave a slight smile. ‘Your friend was taken ill so she took the aisle seat, but I think she may now be sleeping at the back of the plane.’
Lou composed herself. She was a fifty-five-year-old woman, for God’s sake. This man had only tried to help her, not stripped her naked in front of the whole airport. Even if that was what it had felt like to her at the time. The memory of his hand holding out her knickers came into her head and she fought a desire to laugh.
‘I’m sorry about earlier on at the airport, too,’ she said. Then, ‘I’m Lou.’
He held out his hand, at least as far as the movement was possible in such a confined space. ‘Sanjeev Gupta.’
They shook, elbows digging into their sides. Before they could continue their conversation, a stewardess was leaning across, offering trays of breakfast. Lou stared at the separated lumps of scrambled egg and the warm burned sausage that floated in a thin sea of tomato juice, before turning her tray around and picking up the yoghurt.
‘Have you been on holiday?’ her neighbour asked while cutting his sausage as if expecting something foul to crawl out. He gave up and turned his attention to the roll and butter.
Within minutes, Lou was detailing their route through Rajasthan, remembering the highlights, excited to be able to talk about what she’d seen without the rest of the group, who were scattered through the plane, interrupting. She only stopped to allow the breakfast to be removed. Sanjeev was an attentive listener, concentrating on what he was hearing, interrupting only to ask whether she had managed to visit certain places she didn’t mention: Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Deogarh. By the time they’d finished their coffee, Lou was laughing.
‘Two weeks obviously isn’t anything like long enough. We’ve missed so much. I’ll just have to come back.’
Responding to her laugh, Sanjeev smiled back. ‘To Rajasthan? Or maybe somewhere else?’
‘What do you think?’ Lou wanted the opinion of someone who knew the country far better than her.
He began to tell her about the other very different parts of his country, from the unspoilt mountain state of Sikkim that lay in the Himalayan foothills in the shadow of Kanjenjunga, to the gentle white-sanded paradise of Kerala in the south. Lou listened, entranced by his descriptions and the stories of his visits there, at the same time making plans for countless future visits. Would her new business provide the necessary income? She would have to make sure it did. He took her journeying down the mighty Brahmaputra in the state of Assam, conjuring up the crowded ferries, the riverine island of Majuli, his visit during light-filled Divali, the ubiquitous tea plantations. He was describing the steep noisy street up to a Hindu temple outside Guwahati lined with stalls stuffed with devotional objects, crowded with holy men and pilgrims who had travelled there to have their wishes granted, when Ali returned to the outside seat.
Lou smiled a faint welcome but continued to let Sanjeev talk. So caught up was she in the places he was describing, she didn’t want him to stop. However, seeing he’d lost her attention for a moment, he broke off and twisted round to see Ali. He immediately asked her if she wanted her seat back. ‘Your friend has missed you. So, if you are better …’ He let the sentence hang.
‘Thank you.’ She stood to let him out, so she could slide into the vacated middle seat.
Lou was disappointed to lose Sanjeev but Ali wasn’t to know how much she had been enjoying his company.
‘What a bloody awful night,’ announced Ali, who was looking pale despite the make-up that she’d obviously applied in preparation for landing.
‘I’m sorry. I’d no idea. How are you feeling now?’ Lou felt guilty that she hadn’t even bothered to go to the back of the plane to find out. But Ali seemed not to mind.
‘Much better. Once I was lying down and the Imodium kicked in, I was OK. But I had so much going around my head, I couldn’t sleep for ages.’
‘Once you see Ian, everything’ll fall into place. You’ll see.’ Lou wasn’t sure why she was speaking with such confidence when she knew so little about either of them. ‘Is he meeting you?’
‘I wish. No. I don’t know when I’m going to see him. Depends on how things have gone with his wife, I guess.’
The pilot’s voice broke into their conversation, announcing the start of their descent into Heathrow. Lou stretched her ankles back and forth, suddenly aware that she had barely moved on the flight and that a blood clot might be lurking in a stagnant vein, waiting to finish her off. Why hadn’t she worn those awful white compression socks that had briefly graced the airport floor and were now buried somewhere in Ali’s case? Confusion and vanity had combined to prevent her retrieving them. Her grip tightened on the armrest again as her hearing buzzed and blocked and she struggled to catch what Ali was saying. She gasped as a sharp pain drilled into her eye socket, then swallowed hard. Cutting loose from her neighbours, she focused on the pain in her head and on all the methods she knew that might relieve the pressure: holding her nose; swallowing; yawning; drinking the last of her water; trying and failing to find the chewing gum buried in her bag. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it another moment and her head would split in two, the plane hit the tarmac. As it bumped along the ground, the pain began to recede as they taxied towards the airport buildings.
4
Lou’s eyes felt as if they’d been forcibly removed, sandpapered and returned to their sockets. Her limbs were leaden as she slid her suitcase through the melting snow along the path to her front door, vowing never to catch another overnight flight again. She stopped to look up at the windows, wound about with bare wisteria stems. Jenny’s home was hers now, and waiting to welcome her back. Even so, it was strange not to be returning from holiday to the home she and Hooker had shared for so long. For a second, she felt more alone than she had since their split. As she rummaged in her bag for her key, she felt Sanjeev’s business card. Would he make good his promise, hurriedly made as they walked towards Immigration, to invite her to dinner while he was in London? And if he did, how would she respond? Positively, she decided, given what she remembered of his manner, his way of conjuring up places, palaces, myths and Mughals, not of course forgetting his Bollywood good looks. And why not? There was no reason why she shouldn’t indulge in a little post-marital entertainment.
As soon as she was inside, she swapped her too-thin mac for her voluminous knee-length leopard-print faux-fur coat that was scattered with Minnie Mouse faces. Walking through the house, inhaling the familiar scent of home, reacquainting herself with everything, she glanced out of the window into the garden. In contrast to the black slush covering the London streets, here was a frozen winter wonderland, only interrupted by the paw prints of local cats and foxes. Despite having put on the coat, she shivered and went to turn up the heating, exchanging her holiday shoes for her Uggs, before making herself a cup of tea, builder’s strength.
Even though the house belonged to her now, she still felt Jenny’s presence. After months spent grieving for her younger sister, wandering round the place, remembering, Lou had finally galvanised herself. Being practical was one of the things she did best. At first she had planned to rent the house until the property market improved. She’d sorted out all her sister’s belongings before starting on a round of charity shop visits to get rid of the rest. Stuff – that’s all her sister’s possessions were now – just stuff that had little or no significance to anyone else, not even to Lou. She had found that terribly sad. Any tales about how Jenny came by certain things or why she kept them had died with her. Letters, old postcards from her friends, ancient bank statements and bills, diaries and notebooks: only fit for the bin. Lou had to go through them all first, despite hating the invasion of her sister’s well-kept privacy. Apart from one or two personal mementoes, some gifts for the children and a few clothes, all that Lou kept were the basics necessary for a rental property. If it was to appeal to any potential tenant, her job was to neutralise Jenny’s home, get rid of its character altogether.
But there wasn’t going to be a tenant, after all. The moment of realisation had come three months ago, as she planned the redecoration of the main bedroom. She was poring over a paint chart with a couple of fabric swatches in her hand, undecided between shades – Raspberry Bellini, Roasted Red or the one she knew she should choose: safe, innocuous white – when a blinding light dawned. Why do the place up for a stranger when it could be hers, done up exactly as she wanted? This could be her chance for a new start in life. How Jenny would have liked that: so infinitely preferable to the idea of a stranger taking over her home. Her sister had been the only one in the world who knew what Lou really felt about her husband in recent years, about her marriage. She would be so pleased to have helped her to an escape route. If her death was teaching Lou anything, it was to squeeze every drop out of life while you had it. There was no knowing when it would end. That same evening she had told Hooker she was leaving him.
To begin with he hadn’t believed her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t mean it.’ But she did, and over the following two weeks of protracted and painful rowing had finally got him to accept that her mind was made up. ‘You’ll be back,’ he said. ‘You won’t like being on your own.’ But the more he poured scorn on her plan, the more determined he made her. Any reservations she might have had were quashed.
In the living room, everything was as she’d left it. She tucked her knitting bag under the Eames chair that had been Jenny’s pride and joy, then sat and opened her laptop on her knee. With tea and a small(ish) slice of home-made Christmas cake on the low table by her side, she lifted her feet onto the ottoman and began to download her photographs. Unpacking could wait. As the images materialised in front of her, she was ambushed by memories: Jaipur’s Palace of the Winds; a Brahmin village chief preparing the opium ceremony; the swaying elephant ride up to the Amber Fort; groups of enchanting dark-eyed children; an old woman cooking chapattis over a fire in her front yard; and so they kept on coming.
At the same time as wishing herself back there, Lou also felt a deep pleasure at being back home. Now India was over, she was ready to concentrate on making a new life alone. The trip had given her a necessary shot of energy. Her current exhaustion aside, she felt stronger, empowered (though she hated the word), braced for whatever life would throw at her. Breaking up with Hooker had not been easy and she had an unpleasant sense that her problems might not be entirely over, but she felt ready to deal with whatever he threw at her next. The colours of Rajasthan had inspired her as much as the fabrics that she’d been shown in the large fabric emporiums where roll after roll of silk and cotton had been pulled out for her. She was itching to get on with her new summer designs for the shop. As she gazed at a photo of a sari stall in the Jodhpur market – all clashing colours, crowds and chatter – the phone rang.
‘Mum?’ Nic’s voice sounded different.
‘Darling! Did you have a good Christmas?’ Lou felt the familiar fillip to her spirits that came whenever she heard from one of her children.
‘I need to see you.’
Lou hit earth with a bump. Not even a Did-you-have-a-good-holiday? So this was how it was going to be. And just because she’d decided to absent herself for a fortnight to avoid any awkwardness over the Christmas break. She hadn’t only been thinking of herself, but of the kids who would have been caught between their feuding parents. ‘When were you thinking?’ she asked. As the high that had accompanied her arrival home from the flight began to dissipate, Lou thought with some longing of her clean-sheeted bed that was waiting upstairs.
‘Today? Now?’ Was that urgency or was her daughter just being her usual demanding self?
‘Has something happened, Nic?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you. I’ll be about an hour.’
‘And I can show you—’
But Nic had hung up. Lou took a bite of leftover Christmas cake. Mmm, possibly the best she’d made yet. Outside, a train rattled by on the other side of the garden wall: a sound that made her feel at home.
An hour. Not long enough for that sleep which was becoming increasingly pressing. Instead Lou woke herself up with a shower, so that by the time the doorbell rang, she was feeling just about semi-human. She had discarded the coat, knowing the scorn it provoked in Nic. The thick burned orange sweater she wore over her jeans almost compensated for the fact that the water had been lukewarm and the heating had yet to make any noticeable impression on the house. Nic’s disapproving glance at the jeans as she walked in didn’t go unnoticed. And her ‘Mmmm, very ashram’ directed at the sweater was quite unnecessary. Why was it that her daughter felt she had to sanction – or otherwise – all her mother’s life choices, including those in her wardrobe? However, once Nic had hung her overcoat on the end of the stairs Lou welcomed her with a hug, then took her into the kitchen, the warmest room.
‘How was Christmas? Dad OK?’ She pulled out a bag of coffee beans from the freezer.
‘Quiet. Tom was with us. We missed you.’ That reproving tone again, something Lou hadn’t missed while away.
‘Having someone to do all the cooking, you mean.’
They didn’t speak while Lou ground the beans for the cafetière, then: ‘That’s so unfair.’ Wounded now. ‘I just think the two of you should be together.’
Lou decided to ignore her daughter’s last remark. However uncomfortable Nic was with Lou’s decision to move out of the family home, Lou was not going to let her be the arbiter in her parents’ relationship. ‘I’m only joking. Don’t be so sensitive, Nic. Of course I missed you too, but going away was the right thing for me to do.’
Nic shook her head.
‘No, really. India was amazing. You’d love it there.’ Would she though? As well as everything that she had enjoyed, Lou remembered the dirt; the stink; the poverty; families living on the pavements, in the stations; child beggars tapping at car windows; Delhi belly; the drains; the reckless driving. None of that had been enough to negate her own thrill at experiencing the country – but would her over-fastidious daughter react in the same way? ‘Look. I’ve brought you a couple of things.’ She pushed across the table a yellow and green drawstring jewellery purse, a paper bag containing a scarf she’d bought at a stall in a gateway at the Mehrangarh Fort, and a newspaper-wrapped statue of the elephant god, Ganesh, for luck.
Nic pulled open the purse and slid out the star sapphire ring that Lou had chosen with such care. ‘It’s lovely, Mum.’
Had she actually got a present right for once? Filled with disbelief and pleasure, Lou plunged the knife into the Christmas cake. Just another small slice.
As Nic slipped the ring onto her right hand, Lou thought she heard her sniff. When her daughter looked up, her face was a muddle of emotions, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘Nic? Whatever’s the matter? I just wanted to bring you back something special but if you don’t like it … well, I can’t change it, but …’
Seeing Nic so upset induced immediate and unwelcome guilt. She should never have fled the country. How selfish she’d been. Instead, she should have skipped Christmas by burying herself in Devon with Fiona and Charlie after all. At least she’d have been in reach of home. However old her kids might be, they did still need her. She worried that this still mattered so much to her when she should be letting them go.
‘It’s not that, Mum. I do really love it.’ There was a long pause during which Nic struggled to compose herself, twisting the ring around her finger, watching the six-pointed star move through the blue-grey stone. Lou stretched out a hand to cover her daughter’s. Years ago, she might have been able to soothe any problem away but now, her maternal success rate was much lower. Nic was usually so strong, so self-contained. Since she’d been sixteen and had decided on a career in family law, following in the footsteps of her godmother, Fiona, she’d always given the impression that she’d rather lie bound to a railway track than seek advice from her parents.
Her daughter gave a final sniff and looked her straight in the eye. That familiar look of defiance was back. As Nic cleared her throat with a brusque cough, Lou had a sinking sensation, recognising that her daughter was about to say something momentous.
‘It’s just that …’ Deep breath. Twist of the ring around her finger. ‘I’m pregnant.’ For a second, Nic looked just as she had fifteen-odd years ago when confessing to some childish prank, anticipating the appalled parental reaction, her justification at the ready.
Lou stared at her, her hand frozen mid-stroke. ‘You’re what?’ Of all the things Nic might have said, this was the last she would have expected. Until now, her daughter’s career had taken precedence over everything, including any boyfriends who were dispatched whenever they got too much.
Immediately Nic was on the defensive, moving her hand out of reach. ‘I knew you’d be like that.’
‘I’m not like anything. It’s a bit of a shock, that’s all.’ Lou stood up to pour the coffee, as her mind raced through the implications. Having a baby would get in the way of Nic’s life, her work, and she wouldn’t like that. Presumably she’d come to ask for her mother’s support for an abortion. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ she asked, playing for time.
Nic tutted. ‘Of course. One hundred per cent.’
‘Who’s the father? Max?’
‘That’s irrelevant.’ She made a scything movement through the air with her hand, cutting off any further discussion about her on–off boyfriend of the last year or so. She pushed her cake away from her.
‘Nic! How can you say that? Of course it isn’t. You have to take him into consideration too.’ But Lou could see that Nic was way ahead of her. She had made all her decisions and, as usual, Lou was going to have to try to catch up.
‘He’s made it plain that he wants nothing to do with this. He wants me to get rid of it.’ She sounded both outraged and determined.
‘And you? What do you want?’
‘I’m going to keep it. This is what I’ve wanted for ages.’
Despite the relief she felt, Lou thought it wise not to point out that Nic had never suggested she’d wanted any such thing. A career, yes. A solid relationship, yes. But a baby? This was the first Lou had heard of it.
‘What about your career?’ she said, sounding like the sort of mother she didn’t want to be.
‘Mum, thousands of women have babies and return to work.’ Nic was trying to control the note of impatience that had crept into her voice. ‘You should know that better than anyone. That won’t be a problem. I’ve thought it all through.’
‘You have?’ Lou took Nic’s plate and transferred the cake back into the tin. Giving herself something to do meant she didn’t have to look at her daughter while she tried to catch up with the conversation.
‘Yes, I have. I’m going to take the statutory maternity leave and then find a nanny share. Like you did.’
This was not the moment to elaborate on the difficulties that could come with nannies however lifesaving they might be. Lou remembered how torn she’d been between her job as fashion editor at Chic to Chic and her young children. The job had been demanding and competitive, complete with the extra strain of feeling she didn’t entirely fit the role with her sometimes off-beat sense of style. And when she’d been at home … How could she forget the soul-lacerating guilt when the smallest thing went wrong, the sense of abject despair when the children turned to the nanny rather than to her, the dull background feeling of in adequacy in both spheres of her life? They were only alleviated when she eventually became a full-time mother – even though that decision was forced on her. But there was no arguing with Nic once her mind was made up. If anything, any objection raised by Lou would only make her dig in her heels. Lou needed time to think through the ramifications of the news before discussing them with her daughter. Nothing had to be decided this second.
A baby! For a moment she envisaged the two of them, heads bent over this unexpected addition to the family, sharing the pleasure together. She felt a thrill of anticipation before she was brought back to the moment as Nic spoke.
‘I just need you to help me with one thing.’
‘Of course. I’ll do whatever I can.’
Nic was fidgeting, tipping her mug back and forth, intent on her coffee, anything rather than catch her mother’s eye. Obviously something else was troubling her and she was finding a way to say it.
Lou held her breath.
Without moving her head, Nic glanced up at her, then away again. ‘Dad doesn’t know.’ There it was. The all-important missing detail lay between them like a ticking bomb.
‘Why not?’ As if Lou didn’t know.
‘He’ll go ballistic, that’s why.’
Light dawned. Nic hadn’t come to share the news with her so much as to persuade her to be the messenger. ‘And you want me to tell him?’
‘You’ll have to, Mum. The boys think so too.’ Nic banged down her mug, as final as a judge’s gavel. Decision made.
So she’d told her two brothers first. Even though Lou had been away when Nic broke the news, that hurt, too. What had gone wrong with the adult mother–daughter relationship, which Lou had anticipated with such pleasure when Nic was little? She had imagined them sharing confidences, shopping together, even taking the occasional weekend break – everything Lou had missed out on with her own mother. But none of that had happened and it now looked as though it never would. Nic had always behaved like a cuckoo in the nest, making her presence loudly felt before taking to her wings as soon as she could.
‘Shouldn’t we talk this through properly first?’
‘Mum, there’s nothing to discuss. Not now anyway. I’m not asking you to be ecstatic for me, though that would be nice, but just to help with this one little thing. Please.’ She drew the last word out into a childish entreaty. ‘I’m nearly three months and I’ll be showing soon.’
‘But I haven’t seen him for weeks.’ Lou racked her brains for a better objection.
‘Mu-um?’ Nic knew there wasn’t one.
Despite all her misgivings, it was hard to refuse her daughter. Lou remembered the excitement that had accompanied her own pregnancies, the absolute joy she had felt, the hopes for the future, the pure unfettered longing for a baby.
The news would travel among their old friends like a forest fire. Just as it probably had when they learned that Lou had moved out. How the more conventional among them would sympathise yet relish in the Sherwood family’s misfortunes. How they would sigh with relief at having been spared a similar fate themselves. That thought gave Lou strength. Who gave a damn what they thought? She had summoned up the will to ignore their views when she left Hooker, and that’s just what she would do again. Nic should be encouraged to take the path in life she chose for herself.
‘All right.’ Lou saw relief colour her daughter’s face. ‘I’ll talk to him. And I’ll give you all the support you need. Anything you need for this baby – you can rely on me. That’s a promise.’
Perhaps Nic’s motherhood would at last bring the two of them closer. Being a single grandmother had not been part of Lou’s plans, in fact it wasn’t a concept that had even crossed her mind. But at least Nic would understand what Lou had gone through trying to balance her work with the children’s demands – and that she had done the best she could.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ said Nic, getting up and flinging her arms around her. ‘I knew you would.’
Lou hugged back and for a moment all their differences melted away. Lou breathed in the smell of her daughter’s hair, noticing how tense and bony her shoulders were. But she didn’t comment or tell her to relax. Nic would tell her if anything else was troubling her in her own good time. If Lou couldn’t have all of her daughter, she would take whatever part of her was on offer.
‘Oh, and I’d keep off the cake if I were you,’ Nic suggested as she shrugged on her coat and stepped out through the front door.
After her daughter had gone, Lou washed the coffee pot, thinking over their conversation. Communication between them had clearly broken down more than she had realised. Why did Nic want this baby so badly? Had Lou and Hooker unintentionally failed her somehow, so that she needed something more in her life to love and be loved by? But they hadn’t been such bad parents, had they? Not when she compared them to all the dysfunctional families that were paraded through the pages of the daily tabloids. She couldn’t believe that their growing distance from one another had been the cause. Now finally separated, they were about to become grandparents. Another tie that was bound to throw them together again.
Sighing, she picked up the phone and dialled Hooker’s number.
5
Standing in her walk-in closet, Ali looked around her. Everything was as it should be. Her boxes of shoes were stacked one on top of another, illustrated labels outwards, so she could see which pair was where at a glance. Beside them were the drawers with transparent fronts. The order with which she’d organised her wardrobe would have amused her in someone else, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. Behind her was the hanging space, divided into sections: trousers, skirts, shirts, dresses and coats. No item remained unworn for longer than a year before it was thrown out. On the end wall was a well-lit mirror. She checked herself, stood sideways on, anxious to make the best possible impression on Ian, pulling at her black and cream striped asymmetric jersey dress so that it sat straight on the hips, then adjusting her hair. He’d once said how much he liked it short because it emphasised the length of her neck. A half-smile crossed her lips as she anticipated him running his finger along her naked right clavicle and up her throat to the point of her chin, before they kissed.
Satisfied she could do no more, she turned to walk through the bedroom, glancing round to make sure everything was ready. She touched the bedside table, checking that her few sex toys were out of sight. They were for later. Nothing too way out but she knew what he liked, and what she liked too. She ran her hand over the bedspread, making sure every wrinkle was smoothed out, before pulling the heavy curtains and arranging precisely the way they pooled on the floor. She straightened the pile of books by her side of the bed and moved the three red roses on the table to be just so, then moved to the door where she stood for a moment, surveying the scene she’d set for seduction, and dimmed the lights a little more.
As she went downstairs, Ali thought how lucky she was to have the apartment. Ten years earlier, one of her lovers, Peter Ellis, a wealthy middle-aged property developer, had been converting the Victorian school into a number of des res. A generous and kind man, he had thought nothing of offering her a place of her own in exchange for the several years of pleasure she had given him. Resistant at first, she had eventually been persuaded to accept.
She was as much in love with the place now as she had been then. She loved its quirkiness and the utilitarian elements of the design that featured exposed RSJs and cast-iron school radiators. Upstairs, the two bedrooms and bathrooms were designed to be more intimate but she never tired of the large dramatic space of the living area with its vast multi-paned windows and wide oak floorboards. She’d furnished it minimally but as comfortably as she could afford, concentrating on good lighting and statement rugs to separate the different living areas. A sofa sat in the centre with a coffee table in front of it, two smaller chairs opposite. Her dining table stood by the open-plan kitchen and in the opposite corner, under the low hanging light, was her jigsaw table, where Brueghel’s Allegory of Sight and Smell lay scattered in six thousand pieces awaiting her attention. Enlarged photographs from her travels hung on the walls: rolling blue mountains of Mongolia from the Great Wall; Mount Fuji from the railway line; a farmer with horse and plough tilling a terraced hillside in Vietnam.
She poured herself a cranberry juice. Leaning against the divide between the kitchen area and the rest of the living space, she checked the time. Fifteen minutes and he would be here. He was never late. She switched on the wide-screen, wall-mounted TV and flicked through the channels unable to find anything that grabbed her interest. Instead, she went to the dining table, where her laptop lay open, her accounts file on-screen.
There was no escaping the truth. Her turnover was down on last year’s. She’d hoped the three months before Christmas would make the difference as well as help cover the cost of her holiday. She ran her finger down the sales and stopped at the name ‘Orlov’, suddenly remembering that their order was still sitting in her safe, uncollected and unpaid for – a pair of emerald and diamond earrings with a matching necklace worth over three thousand pounds. She always asked clients to pay a fifty per cent deposit on commission so she was still owed the other fifty per cent. She made a note to contact the Orlovs as soon as she got to the studio in the morning. But for how long would that and her other commissions tide her over?
Perhaps she should call in the loan that, in headier days, she’d made to Rick, her studio share and friend. When he was starting up his silversmithing business he was having trouble meeting his mortgage and alimony payments so Ali had agreed to let him use a space in her studio rent-free until he started making ends meet. Then, she could afford to be generous. Now, it was less easy. At the same time, she didn’t want to jeopardise their friendship. Despite the odd reminder, he never seemed embarrassed by the debt. While she was debating how to persuade him to part with the few grand he owed her, the doorbell rang.
As she crossed the room, she felt she might burst with excitement. She was so looking forward to seeing Ian again, to making plans together. Three years of passionate but clandestine encounters, of secret overnight stays in hotels when he travelled on business, of meals in discreet restaurants and of entering and leaving theatres and cinemas separately – ‘just in case’ – were almost over. Soon their relationship would be in the open. She prayed that he had broken the news to his wife and that everything would be reasonably civilised between them. She didn’t want anything to cloud their happiness.
But the minute Ian walked into the flat, Ali knew something was wrong. Earlier, on the phone, he’d been unusually abrupt but she’d put that down to his being preoccupied by something at work. Now she could see there was more to it than that. Although they hadn’t seen each other for over two weeks, he barely reciprocated her welcoming kiss. She thought she detected alcohol beneath the strong smell of peppermint on his breath. By the time she’d hung up his coat, he was sitting on the sofa, staring into the middle distance, elbows on knees, hands steepled in front of his face, fingers tapping against one another. His shoulders rose and fell with each breath.
‘How was Christmas?’ she tried.
‘Yeah. Fine.’ He still didn’t look at her. And he didn’t mention his wife.
‘Is something the matter? Difficult day?’ This was hardly the reunion she’d envisaged.
‘I’m sorry.’ He snapped out of his reverie and turned to her. ‘Something at work’s bothering me. That’s all. Give me a minute or two to come down. I want to hear about the holiday.’
Experience had taught Ali never to probe into whatever was troubling a lover. Her role was to distract, to provide an alternative to their other world. That was why they liked coming here. Her apartment was a retreat, not just for her, but for those men who had lives they wanted to forget for a few hours. Spending time with her was therapeutic although she was no therapist. She asked no awkward questions, never held them to any kind of emotional ransom. And in return, she got to run her life just as she wanted it.
She busied herself by bringing over two small bowls from the kitchen, one filled with the black olives he liked, and the other with cashews. After returning for the bottle of Medoc and two glasses, she turned her iPod to Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, one of the most soothing pieces of music she knew, and went over to him. She was practised in jogging a man out of his worries for a few hours. That was what she did. As she sat down, she thought she heard him sigh but she just tucked her feet under her and sat with her head resting on his shoulder. This was where she belonged now. This was how they would spend so many evenings in the future, just the two of them.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she murmured. ‘Really missed you.’
‘Have you?’ he asked, sounding as if he was a million miles away.
‘I think that was your cue to say how much you’ve missed me.’ She gave a nervous laugh, sat up and looked at him, puzzled by what could be distracting him so much, feeling the first whisper of alarm.
But instead of turning to her, he stood up and went over to the window, staring out across the communal garden. His hands were in his pockets, jingling his loose change. ‘Of course I did. You must know that.’
‘But it would be nice to be told.’ Annoyed with herself for sounding like the nagging wife she imagined he was escaping, she tried again. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you.’ Going over to stand behind him, she wrapped her arms around his waist. ‘We could go upstairs. Or I’ve got champagne in the fridge.’
‘Not yet.’ He turned and kissed her nose. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment. I probably shouldn’t have come.’
‘But we haven’t seen each other for weeks. We’ve got so much to talk about.’ She took both his hands and kissed him back. Over the two years she had known him, Ali couldn’t remember a time when he had refused an invitation to her bedroom. But, having trained herself not to question her lovers’ moods but just to wait them out, she didn’t object. She was confident he’d tell her what was bothering him when he was ready. Despite her growing unease, she was prepared to wait. Worming his troubles from him was a wife’s job, not a mistress’s. In a few weeks, when everyone knew they were together, things would be different. They would be able to talk and share so much more than they ever had before. She would get to know him so much better. She could afford to maintain a sympathetic silence now.
‘Tell me about your holiday.’ He held her hand and guided her back to the sofa.
‘How long have you got?’ Ali pretended she hadn’t noticed how uninterested he sounded. But rather than bore him about what he didn’t want to hear, she passed across the linen Nehru shirt she’d had specially made for him. In the Udaipur fabric emporium, she had been so sure it was the perfect present. But as he pulled it from the packet, there was something distinctly charity shop about it. The stitching, which had looked charmingly authentic in Udaipur, now looked embarrassingly amateur, the linen cheap, and, when he held it up, the sleeves were obviously way too long.
‘It’s not you at all, is it?’ she said, disappointed.
‘Not really.’ As he put it over the arm of the sofa, they exchanged a smile that reassured her that he was coming back to her.
‘OK, let’s forget Christmas and India,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk about now, about us.’ Since it seemed the wrong moment to ask him if he’d told his wife about their plans, she went to the table where she’d put the particulars she’d collected from a couple of estate agents just before she went away. ‘I love the look of this one. And I’m sure we could get the price down.’ She picked up a brochure showing an end-of-terrace three-storey Georgian town house. ‘Great kitchen and look at the roof terrace.’ My God, I’m trying so hard, I even sound like an estate agent, she thought. Ease up or you’ll never get him onside.
But Ian was pouring himself a glass of wine without even asking if she’d like one. ‘I thought we’d decided to live here,’ he said, his voice flat and matter-of-fact, the enthusiasm of a few weeks ago vanished.
‘You decided to live here, but I thought that once you saw what was around, I might be able to change your mind.’ She flicked over the photos in the brochure. ‘I know we could be so happy somewhere else. A house of our own, with none of the history this place has.’
‘You make it sound as if someone was murdered here,’ he said, coming over to take the details from her. He didn’t look beyond the first page.
‘Oh, you know,’ she said, becoming more exasperated with his refusal to engage. ‘There were other men before you.’
His face tensed as he put the brochure down. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to talk about them.’
‘But of course there were,’ she protested. ‘I thought you’d be happy that I want to leave behind the life I had before you.’ She could feel herself beginning to gabble, so reined herself back. It would be a wrench to leave the apartment but she felt sure it was the right thing to do. ‘Anyway, we need somewhere a bit bigger than this.’
Ian placed his hand on top of hers, heavy and warm. ‘I honestly don’t think we do.’ His grip tightened. ‘I can live with your past if you can.’ Her relief at the sudden improvement of his mood was muddled by the growing realisation that they didn’t see their future in the same way at all. During her holiday, she had used the time she spent on her own to think of little else, planning and plotting their life together. How disappointing to realise that he obviously hadn’t done the same. There was so much ahead of them that he hadn’t even considered.
‘And if I get pregnant?’ The words slipped out without her having time to stop and think. Watching his face darken, she would have given anything in the world to be able to retract them.
‘Pregnant!’ He sat down as if he’d been winded, the wine tipping in his glass. He saved it just in time. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Why not? Why are you looking at me like that? Wouldn’t it be wonderful? We’d be a family.’ She wished she could erase the need from her voice.
‘Family,’ he echoed, so quietly that Ali could barely hear him. But she didn’t need to, to know that she had just made a huge mistake. She began to backtrack as fast as she could.
‘Not that I mind if we don’t, of course. I can understand that you might not want any more.’ She stopped, not knowing what else she could say, at the same time feeling sadness engulf her as her dream foundered.
‘But you’ve never mentioned anything about wanting children.’ He seemed perplexed. ‘That was never part of the deal.’
‘Because they were never an option. But when you asked me to live with you, I couldn’t help thinking. I want more out of my life now than I’ve ever dared to admit to myself. You’ve presented me with a chance …’ She wanted to explain, to persuade, for him to take her in his arms and assure her everything would be all right. But that was not going to happen.
He’d put down his drink and crossed his arms over his chest, wearing an expression that was new to her: distant, calculating.
‘But of course, I was being stupid,’ she went on, desperate to rewind the whole conversation and start again. ‘It was a silly fantasy. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I would’ve thought I’d done my bit towards populating the world. I’d never imagined us …’ Words failed him as he tried to imagine. ‘And, well, aren’t you a bit …’ He paused, searching for a kinder way of putting it and failing. ‘… too old?’
He had no idea how hearing him say that hurt. Fired up by his insensitivity, she retorted, ‘Women can have babies any time before the menopause. It just gets more difficult.’ To her fury, she felt her chin wobble, and her voice began to crack. ‘Just forget it. Please. I shouldn’t have said anything.’ She went to pour herself a glass of wine. She took a big gulp before turning to look at him. He had emptied his own glass and returned to stare out of the window. Something had happened to make this evening go way off track. He’d arrived in the wrong mood and she had only made it worse. Much worse. But why should she make it easy for him? A few weeks ago, he had been desperate for them to be together. What had changed? Perhaps she had gone a bit too far, but she didn’t deserve to be knocked back so cruelly. She sat down again, and waited, dreading whatever he was building up to say.
Eventually he turned, but his face was hidden as he concentrated on his right thumb, pushing at the cuticle of his left. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘So sorry.’
‘So am I.’ A sigh of relief escaped her. They would sort out their differences and things would be all right after all. ‘I got far too carried away. Of course we can live here – to start with, anyway. Whatever you like.’ She plumped up the deep red cushion beside her and rested it against the back of the sofa, making a space for him, but he made no move to join her.
Instead, he murmured, almost as if he was talking to himself, ‘It’s too late.’
Nervousness churned in the pit of her stomach. ‘For what? We’ve got plenty of time.’
He seemed to summon all his energy, lifting his shoulders and closing his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you this today, but …’
‘But what?’
‘I’ve met someone else.’ His shoulders dropped with the evident relief at having got it off his chest.
‘Someone else? I don’t understand.’ The shock took her breath away for a moment. ‘But I’ve only been away for two weeks. How can you have?’
At least he had the grace to look shamefaced before he spoke again. ‘She’s someone at work who I’ve known for months. Then, at one of the Christmas parties …’
‘At one of the Christmas parties,’ she repeated. ‘But that can only have been weeks, days after we agreed we were going to live together.’
‘I know. But you’ve been so busy we’ve hardly seen each other over the last month or two.’ He shifted from one foot to the other, his thumb worrying at the cuticle.
‘And you couldn’t wait?’ Her outrage was mixed with a profound sense of injustice. She had trusted him. ‘For God’s sake, Ian. You sprang the idea of living together on me. I had to work every hour God sent to complete my Christmas orders. It’s my busiest time of the year. We agreed. I offered to cancel India, but you said I should go while you sorted everything out.’
There was a long pause. An unpleasant thought wormed its way into her head. ‘Have you just come here from her?’
An even longer pause.
His thumbs were still as he stared at his feet and nodded.
She shook her head. ‘I loved you.’ The three words were laced with recrimination, regret and sorrow as she realised how little she knew him.
‘I know.’ He crossed the room to stroke her head with a gesture that, only hours ago, would have made her shiver with pleasure.
‘Don’t,’ she said, shrugging him off, as he went on.
‘Surely you understand that I can’t provide the sort of commitment you’re asking. I’d no idea that’s what you wanted. Yes, my wife and I are separating but we’ve still a lot to work through. I can’t take on the responsibility of a new house and I certainly don’t want a baby.’
‘So, what exactly were you planning?’ she spat, knowing the answer. ‘You were going to live with me and have another mistress on the side. Same pattern all over again?’
‘I hadn’t planned anything. It’s just the way …’
‘I thought so much more of you. You should go.’
There was nothing else to be said. She went to get his coat, her eyes blurring with tears that she refused to shed until he had gone. Suddenly, all she wanted was Ian out of her home with the minimum fuss and with her dignity intact. Then she would allow herself to absorb what had happened between them.
He pulled on his coat. ‘Thank you for being so understanding.’ He leaned forward to kiss her but she jerked out of reach. ‘Perhaps in a week or two, we could have a drink or something.’
She looked at him, astonished by his nerve. Eyes burning, she opened the door and stood back to let him pass. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘Ali, you can’t …’
She silenced him with a look as he edged by her, then shut him out of her life for good.
For the next half-hour, she moved around the flat taking down her Christmas decorations. She wrenched off the balls hanging from the twisted arrangement of willow, breaking their threads and stuffing them disorganised into their box. Cards with new addresses were saved while the others were ripped and thrown away, the lid of the recycling bin snapping loudly every time. Her shock and hurt alternated with fury. She had let down her guard, fallen in love, and been completely screwed over as a result. Other relationships had broken up and she’d recovered, but none of them had been with a man who had led her to expect so much. Most of them went home to their wives, their marriages sometimes reinvigorated by the liaison with Ali. Others drifted away, found someone else. She had believed Ian was different. How could she have been so stupid?
Ali had resolved a long time ago never to let herself be cast in the role of victim. As a result, whenever one of her lovers decided to move on, she always picked herself up and got on with her life, however painful. That was part of the deal. And she would survive this too, despite the intense hurt that she felt right now. She slammed the box of decorations into the cupboard with a bang.
When the flat was back to normal, she went upstairs and ran herself a deep bath where she lay for ages, thinking, every now and again topping it up with hot water.
Still pink from its heat, she wrapped herself in her kimono, her hair in a towel, and came downstairs to pour herself a glass of the champagne she’d bought specially for them to toast their new life. She picked up the Nehru shirt that he’d left behind, draped over the arm of the sofa. Taking the kitchen scissors, she cut and ripped it into the smallest possible pieces. Then, and only then, did she allow herself to cry.
6
Arriving at the studio the following morning, Ali immediately saw that Rick wasn’t far away. The kettle was hot, and the beginnings of a bridesmaid’s tiara lay across his soldering brick, beside a half-drunk cup of coffee. Beneath the large window, their long, shared workbench was the usual organised jumble of pliers, hammers, files, cutters, tweezers and soldering equipment crowded round the two semicircular cut-outs, each underhung with a leather skin to catch precious cut-offs and filings. Every time she walked into this room, Ali felt this was the place she belonged, the place where she could lose herself in creating beautiful pieces of jewellery, where the world could be kept at bay.
However much she wanted to bury herself under the duvet for the rest of the week, she had dragged herself out of bed. Whatever it had done to her, she wasn’t going to allow Ian’s bombshell to blow away her business. Cleo Fellowes was due at eleven thirty to see the sketches for the pendant necklace that Ali had designed using the diamonds from a brooch belonging to Cleo’s grandmother. After that, if the design was approved, Ali would spend the rest of the day untangling a chain that had got mixed up in the tumble polisher before polishing a couple of rings. She switched on her laptop for the first chore of the day: dreary admin. Her heart sank as she went to her mailbox and saw the number of incoming emails. She ran her eye down them, deleting any junk or spam that had found its way through the firewall. What was left was mostly bills.
She pulled up her accounts on the laptop again and grimaced. She remembered Mrs Orlov coming to her a couple of years ago, ordering an elaborate floral brooch using pink tourmalines and tiny round diamonds. For pieces that valuable, she rarely took on a customer without a personal recommendation and Mrs Orlov had been introduced by a previous client. That sort of word-of-mouth business had been crucial to her livelihood so far. However, in her excitement over Ian’s proposal followed by her rush to get away to India, Mrs Orlov’s failure to collect the new pieces had slipped her mind. As a result, over three thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery was languishing in her safe, contributing to the hole in her finances. A customer’s failure to collect an order was unusual but it did happen. Ali was uneasy, furious with herself for allowing her eye off the ball for the first time that she could remember. Bloody, bloody Ian.
She tried ringing the Orlovs. An automated voice picked up the call, informing her that the number she was calling was no longer recognised. She swiftly fired off an email. Within minutes, it pinged back into her in-box marked Delivery Status Notification (Failure). The gentle pealing of alarm bells went crazy. Was Mrs Orlov going to be one of those rare customers who didn’t collect? It never failed to amaze Ali that anyone could pay a hefty deposit for a piece of beautiful bespoke jewellery and then go away for weeks on end without a word or even never turn up again. She looked up at the sound of the door slamming.
‘Happy New Year.’ Rick walked over to his end of the bench, touching Ali’s shoulder as he passed her, simultaneously slipping on his overall over his checked shirt and jeans. ‘Good time away?’ He sat down and slugged his lukewarm coffee before picking up the tiara.
‘Happy New Year. Yes, wonderful, thanks.’ On her way to the studio, she had resolved not to discuss her personal life with Rick. Saying aloud what had happened would only drive home what she already knew: how stupid she had been to believe in Ian. Not talking about herself meant she could focus on something else. However crushed she was feeling, she was not going to risk her business any more than she had to. Life had to go on. So, sharpened by grief, she addressed her most pressing problem. ‘One of my customers hasn’t collected, so I’m going to have to ask you for that money you owe me. I’m sorry. Things are a bit tight.’
He ground some borax into a bowl and, with a drop of water, mixed it into a paste. As he brushed it onto the tiara, he said, ‘They’re probably on holiday – skiing or something. And I’m really sorry but I can’t pay you back at the moment. I don’t have the spare cash. Simple as that.’
His laissez-faire attitude to life usually amused her, but not today. She watched him cut the solder into tiny squares that he placed on the joints with precision, then she back-pedalled. ‘You don’t have to pay me the full whack immediately. What about two grand? That should tide me over. If I had another big client on the horizon, it wouldn’t matter so much.’
‘Haven’t you got any exhibitions coming up?’ He swivelled his stool to face her, picking at a stray bit of borax on his jeans.
‘Not until the spring and anyway, that’s not the point,’ she insisted, irritated by his attitude. ‘We agreed when I lent you the money that it was a loan, not a gift.’
‘Al, be reasonable.’ He switched on his blowtorch, focusing as the solder flooded the joints of the tiara. ‘It’s hardly my fault if your business is going through a bad patch. You can’t expect me to repay you without giving me any notice.’ His look challenged her to an argument but Ali was stunned into silence. She had always considered Rick a friend. They spent hours in the studio together, working, gossiping or discussing their respective designs. They had shared so much heartache and heartbreak – his mostly as he flitted from one woman to another in the wake of his divorce. His indifference was shocking.
His face relaxed as he switched off the torch. ‘I’m sorry. Really. But I don’t have the money. I paid off my credit cards and I’m just about on course with my overdraft, but Anna’s still bleeding me dry. Christmas was expensive. I’m only just keeping on top of things. Can’t you give me a little bit longer?’
How many times had she heard that? She was sympathetic to the drains on his pocket, especially from his ex-wife and young daughter, but, given the circumstances, she couldn’t let this go. ‘OK, let’s say in two months you start paying me back. Fair? And if you can’t, I’m going to have to get someone else in to share this place. I can’t go on supporting both of us.’
‘That’s fair. That gives me time to find the money. Thanks.’ Although his voice was cheery, his eyes betrayed his anxiety. But, Ali reminded herself, she couldn’t let that concern her. For the rest of the day, they worked in silence apart from when Cleo Fellowes turned up to go over Ali’s sketches for the pendant design. Otherwise the studio was filled with music from Radio 3. Ali relaxed, concentrated on polishing the first of her rings and put her finances and Ian to the back of her mind.
On her way home, she decided to call at the Belgravia address Mrs Orlov had given her. In her bag was the uncollected jewellery. From across the street, the imposing six-storey Georgian terraced house looked uninhabited. The upper windows were uncurtained, the ground floor and basement were shuttered up. Two plant pots chained to the railings on either side of the porch were empty. Thinking she saw a faint light in the basement, Ali crossed the road and rang the bell. While she waited in vain, a diminutive Filipino maid in a navy uniform came out of the neighbouring house. She blinked quizzically over the fence at Ali.
‘I’m looking for Mrs Orlov,’ Ali explained.
The maid looked uncertain. ‘Mrs Orlov?’ She shook her head. ‘Mrs Orlov not here. They gone.’
‘What do you mean “gone”? Gone where?’ Ali thought of the gems in her handbag. ‘They can’t have.’
‘I’m not sure. They don’t live here no more. Maybe home – Russia. Sorry.’ With no more to say, she ran down the steps, leaving Ali staring after her.
Perhaps giving her fortunes a couple of months to turn about was way too optimistic after all.
The four-hour drive north to visit her father in Preston was no more nightmarish than usual. Long queues of traffic crawled by stretches of unmanned roadworks. As Ali drove, her thoughts turned repeatedly to Ian. Eighteen hours had passed since she’d asked him to leave and she was still reeling. What had he been thinking? Had he really been trying to leave his wife to live with her when, all the time, he had another woman waiting in the wings? Had he been hedging his bets all along just in case this mystery woman turned him down? Ali couldn’t believe that anyone, least of all a man she believed she had loved, would be so calculating, so careless of the lives of people he professed to care for. How she had misjudged him. How she had misjudged herself.
As the miles passed, her mind flitted between what had happened and what she was going to do with her life now, one possibility fading out as quickly as another came into focus: move to another country, change career, find a man, adopt a child, run away, become a recluse, retire under the duvet for good. Time for a change. But a change was impossible without a cash injection to pay her bills. Her father was unlikely to help her. She knew exactly what he’d say. ‘It’s your mess. You get out of it.’ She couldn’t count the number of times she’d heard that as she grew up. He believed in the school of hard knocks and, thanks to that, she’d learned her independence.
She eventually turned in between the two brick gateposts and parked beside her father’s old silver Honda. Her heart sank a little as she envisaged the twenty-four hours that lay ahead, but at least she would have to think about something other than herself. Grabbing her overnight bag from the boot, she walked through the side gate and round the corner of the house to enter it by the back door. Her father would be in his study, tuned out from any interference including the doorbell.
‘Dad!’ Ali yelled.
She was greeted by the muffled sound of barking: Sergeant, the ageing but still sprightly Border terrier who was her father’s fierce and constant companion.
She tried again. ‘Dad! I’m here.’
‘Be down in a minute.’ His voice travelled from the study where Ali knew he would be at his battered but trusty Corona typewriter, the laptop she’d given him ignored, surrounded by what mattered most to him: shelves containing his library of history books, including those he’d written himself; maps stuck about with pins marking out military campaigns hung beside pictures of the historical figures who fascinated him; a huge noticeboard littered with hundreds of yellow Post-it notes tracing the structure of his latest book. By his desk was a table covered in toy soldiers that he manoeuvred as if he was in the Cabinet War Rooms.
Ali went into the kitchen where she poured herself a gin and tonic – no ice, no lemon. Her father hated his drink diluted. The tonic was the only concession he made to his few guests.
When her mother had walked out, Ali had been thirteen. From that day, everything in this house had changed. She leaned against the sink, looking around the room. Without her mother to put a bunch of flowers at the centre of the table, to weigh in against the nasty aluminium Venetian blinds that replaced the floral curtains, or object to the removal of the dining chair cushions, the room had taken on the shipshape air of an officer’s mess. There was no feminine touch here. The welcoming smells of baking and stewing, washing and ironing belonged to the time when they had been a family. Her father had done his best and so had Ali, but this kitchen had stopped being the heart of the family home long ago. Anything not put away was neatly aligned on the pristine worktop. Without thinking, she pulled open a drawer to discover his cooking utensils regimented, all handles to the right. Knowing the contents of the other drawers would all be similarly arranged almost made her laugh. The stainless-steel sink shone. Dishcloths were draped on the Aga bar, all folded and hung in exactly the same way, their edges level. The pans hung above it in descending sizes. Order. That was what stopped you from going under. Like father, like daughter.
‘Al! There you are.’ He entered the room just as she shut the drawer. ‘Having a good poke around? Don’t blame you. Checking up, I suppose. No need.’ He laughed grimly as he grasped the whisky bottle and a tumbler, and poured himself a generous slug. ‘See you’ve helped yourself. Cheers.’
‘How are you, Dad?’ Ali ignored his accusation. No point in getting her visit off on the wrong foot. Plenty of time for that. He looked well. Despite the hours he spent at his desk, writing and researching, he still held himself ramrod straight. The legs of his trousers were sharply creased, the brass buttons on his blue jacket bright. His moustache was neatly trimmed although there was a piece of tissue stuck with dried blood just beside his nose.
‘Can’t complain. Deep in research over a little-known aspect of the Wars of the Roses. Made some fascinating discoveries. Won’t bore you with them though.’ He tipped back his head and sucked his whisky through his teeth with a noisy hiss.
Ali gritted hers in dislike of a drinking habit that had something unnervingly Hannibal Lecterish about it.
‘I wouldn’t be bored,’ she protested, despite knowing that within minutes of him detailing whatever historical minutiae he was studying, she would be yawning. She longed to be able to sit down and share his enthusiasm and had often thought how being thrown together should have made them closer. Instead, her mother’s departure thirty-two years ago had driven a wedge between them. A bitter cocktail of blame and guilt had driven each of them into their respective shells as they struggled to cope with the loss. As a teenager, Ali had blamed herself for not being a good enough daughter. As an adult, she learned that nothing was ever that clear-cut. Always, at first in the forefront of her mind and then, as time passed, fading to an infrequent fantasy, was the idea that her mother might come back for her. But they never heard from her again. Ali came to understand how devastated her father must have been, how humiliated when his wife left. His reaction had been to clam up, retiring to his study as frequently as he could, refusing even to mention her mother’s name. Moira Macintyre. Ali wondered whether he ever thought that he might have behaved differently towards her, his daughter, by trying to explain what had happened to her mother so that she would understand. She had long wanted to bridge the gap that had existed between them since her mother left, but he’d always rebuffed her.
‘Of course you would.’ He chuckled. ‘Tell you what, though. I’ve got a little surprise for you.’
‘You have?’ She pretended to think for a moment, knowing what was coming. ‘We’re going to the pub for dinner?’ He nodded, clearly looking forward to the evening out. So no surprise there, then. Whenever she came to stay, they always had their first meal in the Swan, and the next morning she went to the supermarket and stocked up for him before making lunch, then going home.
‘We are.’ He began to do up the buttons of his jacket. ‘But that’s not it.’
‘What then?’
‘Don called me, asking for you.’ His faded blue eyes shone with pleasure at the startling effect of his news.
‘Don?’ She repeated the name she hadn’t heard for years. ‘Don Sterling?’
He nodded.
‘Are you sure?’ He must have made a mistake. Don was a chapter in her life that had been closed for many years. Yet just the mention of his name was enough to unsettle her. She checked herself. Why was that surprising? They had been sweethearts since they met in the sixth form, both determined to escape their roots and make a new start. She remembered their disbelief when they’d both been offered places to study in London, she at the Cass and he at the London School of Economics. They had shared a rundown flat in Hackney from the start. The years during which they had lived together there had meant everything. Back then, she had believed that Don was her saviour and her soulmate, each of them useless without the other. To think that she had ever been so sentimental. Her friends had loved him. Her father had loved him – as much as he’d loved anyone since the disappearance of Ali’s mother. She’d loved him.
‘Are you sure?’ she repeated.
‘Oh, one hundred per cent,’ he said, satisfied with the effect his news was having. ‘He wanted to contact you so I gave him your email address. That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, I guess. But why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Because he only called a couple of days ago and I knew I’d be seeing you today.’ He spoke deliberately slowly, always impatient if he thought she wasn’t immediately cottoning on, never more so than when he was primed to do something else. Right now, get down to the Swan.
‘Don! I can’t believe it. I haven’t heard from him for years.’ When he left to join the Greenpeace ship – the dream job that nothing, not even Ali, could stop him accepting – his letters, at first frequent, excited and newsy, dried up to a trickle and then nothing as he abandoned himself to his new circumstances. In return, Ali’s had been frequent and sad, abandoned as she was by the second person she’d truly loved. She’d given herself to him so completely that she didn’t have any close friends to help her through.
‘Well, maybe you won’t hear from him now.’ Her father was heading for the door. ‘Maybe he’ll think better of it. Come on, table’s waiting.’
‘Maybe he will.’
Ali followed him out into the rain-slicked street, disconcerted by the long-buried memories that were beginning to surface. ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’ But was it really? And to have lost twice over when she had been so young: her mother, then Don. And now, again. Despite her resolve, she couldn’t stop her thoughts returning to Ian. She wouldn’t talk about him to her father, but she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Wrapping her coat around her, bowing her head into the wind, she followed her father, imagining that the evening would now follow its familiar pattern. As indeed it almost did.
The pub was its usual humming Saturday night – at least four people at the bar and one table out of seven taken. Eric nodded at the other regulars, took his usual table and ordered a bottle of wine. He read the menu through, eventually ordering the steak and kidney pie that he always had, allowing her to order scampi, before he spoke to her again.
‘He sounded well, you know. Phoning from Australia, he was. Must have done well for himself. Always liked the boy.’ He stroked his moustache with little up-and-down movements of his finger.
‘I know you did, Dad. So did I.’ She remembered with a jolt just how much and added as an afterthought, ‘He saved me, you know.’
His finger stopped moving as he looked puzzled. ‘Saved you?’
‘After Mum left, don’t you remember?’
‘I don’t know what on earth you mean.’ His face closed up, just as it always did whenever her mother was mentioned. Thirty-two years of unasked and unanswered questions lay between them. Characteristically, he changed the subject. ‘How’s the business?’
‘Tough. Money’s tight at the moment,’ she answered automatically, then the frustration she had controlled for so long surfaced without warning, not giving him a chance to deliver his stock answer to her business problems. ‘Dad, why won’t you talk to me about her? She left so long ago and I still don’t know why.’
Across the table, he unrolled the napkin containing his knife and fork, then placed them very deliberately, first one, then the other, on either side of his mat. He didn’t look up as he aligned the salt and pepper exactly in the middle of the table. He was still expecting Ali to return to the matter of her business. All he had to do was wait long enough. He was oblivious to the recklessness that all of a sudden possessed her.
‘What I meant was that I used to blame myself for Mum leaving until Don made me understand that there could have been any number of reasons. That’s what I mean by “saving” me. He showed me a way through when you wouldn’t – or couldn’t.’ She surprised herself. That was more than she’d ever admitted to her father about what had happened. But it was true. To this day, she had no idea why her mother left or where she had gone. Divorce and death were words never mentioned in her hearing. She had only been thirteen, stretching her wings, testing the boundaries by bunking off school to smoke and snog boys down in the bushes by the public playground, by lying about going shopping when she and her friend Laura went to their first X-rated film or, when she was grounded, squeezing herself through the tiny bathroom window, shinning down the drainpipe and racing off to meet Mick Kirby and his mates in the car park of the local hotel. Life was hers for the taking. Or so she’d thought. Then, one day, she came home for tea to find the table laid and her mother gone. ‘You didn’t even tell me where she went.’
‘I didn’t know. That’s why.’ He sighed as if all the life had been punched out of him. ‘I didn’t know.’ He kept his eyes on his table mat, chipping with his fingernail at a scrap of food that was stuck to it.
‘But …’ Ali had so many questions that had been bottled up since that time. Now the moment to ask them had finally presented itself, she didn’t know where to start.
‘Perhaps I should have talked to you, but I didn’t know what to say.’ He looked in the direction of the pub kitchen, as if willing his dinner to materialise and give him an excuse to stop the conversation. ‘Not talking made it easier. Still does.’
Now that, she understood completely. That was another trait she had inherited from him: batten down the hatches and pretend nothing has happened. Keep going. Show no emotion. And the truth was that now she had breached his defences and could see his anguish, even after all these years, she didn’t want to make it worse. ‘Dad, I know that. I’ve always known and I learned from you to do the same thing. But sometimes, I do still wonder where she went. How could I not? Some of the girls at school joked about her running away, and I remember telling them she’d be coming back for me. Eventually everyone lost interest. But I didn’t.’ She didn’t want to remember the alienation she’d felt throughout the rest of her schooldays until she could reinvent herself at art college.
She shifted to one side as her scampi and chips was put in front of her and watched as her father tucked into his pie, his relief at having a distraction plain. She played with her food, waiting for him to continue. However, he ate as if his life depended on it, not pausing to talk. As soon as he had cleared his plate, he asked for and paid the bill, then stood up. ‘Finished? Let’s go home. We’ll talk there. Not here.’
Back at the house, he led her into the living room, a faded memory of what it once had been. The musty unaired smell gave away how infrequently the room was used. While her father lit the ancient sputtering gas fire, Ali drew the curtains against the increasingly wild night outside before sitting on the spring-bound sofa. Her father took the chair opposite, perching on its edge, his body stiff and angular: knees bent, elbows on them, hands clasped, staring at the floor.
‘Perhaps I should have spoken to you but I thought you’d come to terms with the loss of your mother in your own way.’ He raised his eyes to her, then looked away as he smoothed his hair with one hand. ‘I didn’t want to open old wounds and make it worse for you.’
Ali’s frustration got the better of her. ‘For God’s sake, Dad!’ How, after so many years, could he not understand her better than that? ‘She was my mother. You owed it to me to tell me what you knew. You still owe me.’
He got up and crossed to the bureau at the back of the room, pulling open a desktop drawer to remove an envelope before closing it again. ‘It’s complicated, Al. Too complicated for me.’ His voice was so low that she had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. ‘Moira had such a miserable upbringing herself, constantly undermined by her father and older brother. She wanted to do everything she could to make yours the perfect childhood. But, because of that upbringing, she grew up with no faith in herself. In the end, she left because she thought she was doing the best by us. There. Now you know.’
‘But how could she possibly have believed that?’ This went against everything she remembered about her mother. ‘Why couldn’t you make her see she was wrong?’ Her agonised plea came from the young girl she’d once been. Her eyes stung with tears.
Her father was looking ill at ease. He wouldn’t look at Ali, wouldn’t comfort her. So much so that Ali had the distinct impression that there was something he wasn’t telling her. This was as hard for her as it was for him. Now they’d finally come this far, she had to know – if only to put the subject to rest at last.
‘I tried, believe me. But she left with no warning. All I had from her was this.’ He passed across the envelope that contained something solid. ‘I never wanted to tell you this, because I thought it would hurt you as much as it did me. You didn’t deserve that. But maybe I was wrong.’
From the envelope, she took out a piece of lined paper. Two rings fell out: a plain wedding band and a ring with a simple solitaire diamond. Ali turned them in her hand, then opened the paper, recognising the handwriting immediately.
Eric. Don’t come after me this time. You won’t find me. I’m giving you back my rings. Alison will have a better life without me. I love her so much but I’m not the mother I wanted to be to her, nor am I the wife I wanted to be to you. It’s better this way. I’m sorry.
Moira
‘“This time”? She’d done this before?’ The assumptions that had supported Ali throughout the adult part of her life had been whipped away without warning. She felt as if she was in free fall.
He nodded his head, unable to speak.
‘But didn’t you look for her?’
He looked so weary, so defensive. ‘Of course I looked, Al. Of course I did. What do you think I am? I was no more confident of being a good father to you on my own than she had been about being your mother. And I wanted her back.’ He paused. ‘For me as much as for you.’
For a shocking moment, Ali thought he was going to cry. But he coughed, averting his head so she couldn’t see his eyes. That was the first time Ali could remember hearing or seeing him express any feelings for her mother. She had imagined arguments, other men, affairs, fallings out of love, but never this.
‘But why couldn’t you find her?’
‘Because when someone doesn’t want to be found, they can make it almost impossible for you. That’s what she did. That note’s the last thing I had from her.’
What sort of mother could desert her only child? The shadowy figure that her mother had become over the years was taking a step towards the light. Where could she have gone? Perhaps Ali should look for her. Perhaps she was waiting to be found.
Her parents must have been in their late forties then, a little older than she was now: a dangerous age, a time when you look at what you have and what you want. Life is getting shorter. Either you act and effect a change or you settle for what you know. She understood as well as anyone what was involved and how difficult it could be. Most of all, she identified with the person she imagined her mother to be: restless, questing, searching to be the best she could. The woman wasn’t quite such a stranger any more.
Later, lying in her old childhood bed, comforted by its familiar sag, Ali thought about their conversation. Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen looked down on her from the faded posters tacked to the wall, their edges curling: the few things in the house that her father hadn’t submitted to his desire for order. Perhaps there was a sentimental old fool in there trying to find a way out after all? Otherwise any other signs of Ali’s childhood had been stashed away in the chest of drawers and wardrobe or in the attic. In all these years she had never once dreamed that her mother might have left in the misguided belief that she was acting in her daughter’s best interests.
She twisted her mother’s two rings around her right ring finger. How would she have supported herself? Had Eric given her any money? Did she have some of her own? Where could she have gone? There must be more to the story than Ali’s father was giving away. But why? Who was he protecting? Her mother? Himself? Or Ali? Had she been such a terrible child? Was she the reason that her mother left? Then she remembered how Don had taught her that no one’s actions were governed by a single reason. Life was far more complicated than that.
Imagining her father through the wall, lonely in the room he had once shared with his wife, Ali wondered whether he was lying awake, staring into the dark, like her. She wondered briefly if she was destined for a life alone. After what Ian had done, she couldn’t imagine trusting herself to anyone again. When they had finally turned in, Eric was still visibly distressed, having been unable to tell her any more. After giving her a glimpse of the truth, the shutters had come down again. She would not prise any more out of him this weekend. Ali had never tried to imagine the life her parents had together. As soon as her mother disappeared, she was encouraged to forget her and, eventually, that’s what she had almost managed to do. Until now.
7
The pub was busy with early-evening drinkers as Lou pushed her way down the long Victorian bar, all dark wood and brass real-ale pumps. Behind it a couple of frazzled bar staff tried to keep up with the customers who were waiting, shouting orders, brandishing cash and turning away with their drinks held high so as not to spill them. The noise was way up the decibel scale and Lou was wondering why on earth she had agreed to meet Hooker here, a place where she’d have to strain to hear a word. Perhaps that was indeed the answer. She was protecting herself against his expected anger.
She had been surprised by how pleased her ex had seemed at hearing from her although, like Nic, he’d been un interested in her holiday beyond the fact that she’d come back in one piece. She had hoped her family might like to know what she’d got up to without them. Equally, she hoped he hadn’t interpreted the call, so soon after her return, as a sign that she had been missing him. She thought she’d detected a warmth in his voice that had been absent towards her for years. For a moment, her feelings towards him softened before she told herself to get a grip. Old habits, she warned herself. That’s all it was.
As soon as he realised that she wanted to meet him, he had suggested the Maryatt Arms, a pub she hadn’t visited for more years than she could count. Long ago, she came here with her brother Sam and his teammates after those dreaded university rugby matches. She used to stand with Jenny, shivering on the sidelines, united in their incomprehension at what was happening on the pitch, freezing to death, yelling their hearts out when Sam scored a try. The Maryatt Arms was where she’d first met her future husband. His keen sportsmanship was of course how he’d got his name. To everyone, including his family, he was ‘Hooker’. He’d caught her eye both on and off the pitch so when he offered her a drink and to educate her in the finer points of the game, she accepted. Wirier than some of his teammates, he had a certain twinkle in his eye that translated into a come-and-get-me charm. So she had gone and got him.
Lou couldn’t begin to count the number of nights she’d whiled away in this place, first with Sam and the team, and later with Hooker when they’d continued to come here, long after the matches had stopped and the players had moved on to life after university. Convenient to the house that he was then sharing with three other would-be lawyers, the pub was warm compared to the unheated chill of home, and convivial since someone or other they knew would usually turn up of an evening. Since then, the place had changed. The old boys and locals who propped up the bar were long gone, turfed out in favour of gastro-pub splendour.
She knew exactly where he’d be sitting. At the table by the fire, where thirty-something years ago (no, she couldn’t remember exactly: always a small bone of contention between them), he’d leaned across and asked her to marry him. Moments after accepting, she’d watched him get dragged off to a game of pool. Given the flak from his mother’s appalled reaction to the unromantic nature of his proposal, he’d taken Lou out to dinner and repeated it, organising the diamond engagement ring to be found in the bottom of her champagne glass. She accepted delightedly to a bored round of applause from three Turkish waiters.
Now she thought about it, the romance that was so absent from his original proposal had been absent from most of their married life. They had loved one another, of that she was sure, but those early years devoted to their careers and babies made it hard to carve out pockets of time for themselves. Their separate jobs – hers as a fashion journalist, his as a corporate lawyer – took them travelling to opposite ends of the country and sometimes of the world, leaving a succession of overpaid nannies to hold the fort. The money she earned salved Lou’s conscience – at least she was paying for the best childcare possible when she was away. By the time she began working from home, when Jamie was fifteen, Nic thirteen and Tom ten, the original driving force had disappeared from their marriage altogether. Almost without them noticing, Lou and Hooker’s paths began to cross less frequently until they had started to live their lives almost entirely in parallel.
There he was, just as she expected, nursing the remains of a pint, an untouched glass of white wine opposite him. He looked up, spotted her and raised a hand. Measuring in at just over six feet (with a heel on his shoe), he was still a handsome man, distinguished-looking some might say, with deep-set eyes, a vertical furrow running up from the bridge of his slightly skewed nose (rugby-playing break), smooth skin that, when he was feeling particularly smug, reminded Lou of a frying sausage about to split its skin. Imagining the speed with which this bonhomie would be transformed into something far less pleasant as soon as he heard her news, made her want to turn and go home. Then she remembered Nic and her resolve stiffened.
‘Excuse me?’ A young woman touched her arm. ‘Excuse me, but aren’t you Lou Sherwood?’
‘Mmm?’ Half turning, Lou took a closer look. Shiny fifties-styled hair, heavily lashed brown eyes intent on her, lipsticked lips, neat black suit, glass of champagne in hand. A distant bell of recognition clanged somewhere in the back of Lou’s mind but she couldn’t place her.
‘It’s Tess. Tess Granger. It’s been years. How are you?’
Tess Granger? Lou racked what she laughingly called her brain for something that would give her a clue to the younger woman’s identity.
‘Tess, of course.’ She was still trying to identify her while she bluffed. ‘What are you doing now?
‘After you left, I was made assistant to Belle Flanders. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have got this far.’
Aha! So they’d worked together over ten years ago at Chic to Chic. Belle had been one of the hungry young things snapping at Lou’s fashionable heels, but who the hell was Tess? She must have been there when she’d left, forced to give up her exhausting career partially thanks to redundancy but also by the equally exhausting demands made on her by Nic who was setting out on her teenage years with alarming abandon, and the two boys – so much easier. Nic was running wild, refusing to curb her will to any au pair. That and the redundancy had come at a time when Lou had begun to wonder what she was doing in the magazine world. She had become tired of the travelling and the endless demands made on her time. Her face didn’t fit any more, but she’d had enough. She’d even thought she might start her own dress shop then but Hooker had insisted the children needed their mother at home. He didn’t trust the sequence of au pairs looking after them not to fill their heads with rubbish and foreign swear words. He said only a parent could be trusted to teach their children what they needed to know. But Lou sometimes wondered whether she’d managed to teach them anything at all. However, she had begun to notice the way he had been looking at the young women they’d employed in the name of childcare, and caved in, partly for that reason and partly because she was too exhausted to resist.
‘I’m so glad it’s all worked out for you.’ Her powers of recall had totally deserted her.
‘It certainly has! I left six months after you and went to the States. Now I’m back as the new editor of Stylish. We’re celebrating.’ She gestured towards a young man and a couple who were talking and laughing at a table by the window. ‘Where are you now?’
Stylish? The glossy young rival to Vogue and this young woman was the editor. Suddenly Lou felt about a hundred years old. She looked down at – oh, no – her fleece, the convenient style bypass for the middle-aged woman. Shit! She deliberately hadn’t followed her resolve to stick to statement dressing that would advertise her business, because she hadn’t wanted Hooker to think she was making a special effort just for him. She hadn’t given a thought to the fact that she might bump into someone she knew. If only she’d changed into the pomegranate velvet coat she finished just before she went away. It had taken ages to make but the cut was so flattering, it had been worth every minute.
Hideously aware that the make-up she’d put on that morning was no longer a refuge for her almost certainly shiny nose, and praying her lipstick hadn’t leaked into the tiny vertical wrinkles that had recently been making a bid for domination around her mouth, she thanked God that her recent haircut had temporarily tamed things so at least in that department she looked acceptable. Perhaps Tess wouldn’t notice the rest.
Of course she would. Just move on, swiftly.
‘That’s fantastic news. I’m so sorry I can’t stop to chat, but I’m late meeting someone.’
‘Well, great to see you. We should catch up. Lunch or something.’ She held out a small embossed card.
Knowing Tess had absolutely no intention of following up this suggestion, Lou took the card, at the same time registering how useful the other woman might be to her. But it wasn’t too late to say something. ‘In fact, I’m setting up a new business that might interest you.’
Tess cocked an eyebrow. ‘Really? Then we should definitely stay in touch. Call me.’ But she sounded as if anything initiated by Lou would be of little interest to her.
‘Thanks. I will.’
They both turned back towards their respective engagements, Lou aware that Hooker was watching her, his glass now almost empty. He gestured a request for a replacement since she was by the bar. Irritated by the way he assumed she would do his bidding and even more by the fact that she was doing it, she shouldered her way through and ordered a pint of Adnams, Hooker’s long-time preferred real ale, and a large vodka and tonic for herself as the need for a shot of Dutch courage more powerful than the waiting glass of wine overcame her.
Hooker half stood as she approached, hobbled by the chair seat digging into the backs of his knees. By the time she’d put down the drinks, divested herself of her coat and sat down, his welcoming smile had changed into a grimace of pain. He sat down with evident relief. Unlike so many men his age, he still looked good in jeans – not bagging round the arse and knees or disappearing under a beer gut – teamed that day with a deep blue shirt. This was a man whose looks still counted – to him at least. Which was more than they did to Lou any longer. She controlled the urge to point out the two rogue eyebrow hairs that curled over the frames of his specs. No. No longer her concern.
‘The holiday’s obviously done you good,’ he commented. Now she’d arrived, he could relax.
They clinked glasses, more out of habit than good cheer.
‘How was it? Christmas, I mean,’ she asked.
‘Quiet. I took Nic and Tom to dinner at the Mermaid’s Heart, that new fusion restaurant in Shoreditch. I thought being at home might make things a bit difficult, with you not being there and Jamie and Rose in Canada. Besides, can you imagine if I’d tried my hand at a turkey … ashes is the only word that leaps to mind.’
Surprised by this unusual sensitivity towards their children, she laughed nonetheless.
‘Where were you?’ he asked. So he was interested after all.
‘At a tented camp, sitting around a blazing fire under the stars. Not a turkey or a Christmas tree in sight.’ To be teleported there right now would be a prayer answered.
‘Camping?! That’s not like you. The Lou I know likes her creature comforts: good food and wine, sprung mattresses, hot water on tap, light to read by.’
‘Oh, we had all that. I didn’t know tents like those existed, or I’d have gone long ago. And there wasn’t a boy scout to be seen.’ She was about to wax lyrical about the luxury they’d enjoyed – the comfortable beds, the electric light, the home-cooked meals, the showers – when she noticed that he’d adopted that look she knew so well. Indulge her for a while and then, with a bit of luck, she’ll shut up and we can get onto the main agenda so I can get off to do the next thing on mine. Well, if that’s the way you want to play it, bring it on, she thought, draining her vodka. Feeling suitably fortified, she summoned up all her sangfroid and leaned forward. Then I’ll begin.
‘Actually, I called you for a reason.’
Hooker looked gratifyingly alarmed by her earnest expression, then snuck a look at his watch. ‘Come on, then. Spit it out. Whatever it is, can’t be that bad.’
‘There’s no easy way of putting this. I’ve got some news for you that you may be less than happy with.’ She hesitated and took a sip of the white wine, then taking a breath, she braced herself.
‘We’re going to be grandparents!’ There.
‘What? Jamie and Rose?’ He banged his glass on the table, looking more pleased than she could remember seeing him in a long time. ‘That’s terrific news. But why didn’t they tell me themselves? Perhaps they thought I’d prefer it if they’d waited till after they’d got married. Well, I would of course. The timing’s not perfect. But when’s the baby due? Are they bringing the marriage forward? My God!’ He crashed his fist onto the table, so his beer almost slopped over the edge of his glass. ‘A grandfather. That’s not something I ever expected to be so soon. What about you? Grandparents, eh? This calls for something stronger.’
Lou sat silent, unable to interrupt. Then, as he sat back, beaming with pleasure, she prepared herself to prick his balloon.
‘No, not Jamie and Rose.’ She took another sip.
‘Not Jamie and Rose.’ He repeated her words slowly as he absorbed their meaning. ‘Who then? Tom?’ He shook his head. ‘The little idiot. How many times have I warned him about not using condoms.’ He gave a little snort of laughter.
I bet you have, she thought. One of your specialist subjects, no doubt. There was an underlying pride in his voice at having a son who sowed his wild oats with abandon and virility. Every feminist bone in her body objected to his tone but she bit back any comment. This was not the time for personal recrimination. This was a moment when they should be pulling together. Let’s get this over with.
‘No,’ she said, her fingers stroking the stem of her glass. ‘Not Tom. Nic.’
As he stared at her, she thought his head might explode. His face grew a deeper and deeper shade of red until he let all his breath out in one convulsive rush. ‘Nic? No. She must have made a mistake.’
‘There’s no mistake.’ Keep calm, breathe deeply. If anyone’s going to make a scene, it’s not going to be you.
Hooker seemed genuinely flabbergasted at first, as if unable to believe such a thing of his beloved daughter. Watching his face, Lou saw his thought process: from shock, to confusion, to denial, to acceptance, to fury. With his anger came the return of his power of speech.
‘Who’s responsible?’
Pointing out that Nic inevitably bore fifty per cent of the responsibility would not help. Instead, Lou said, ‘Max, I think.’
‘You think? Why aren’t you sure? When I see him, I’ll …’ He stopped, unable to think of a sufficiently terrible threat.
The people on the next two tables had paused in the conversation and turned to see what was going on.
‘Shhh,’ Lou cautioned. ‘There’s no point getting worked up.’
‘Worked up? What the hell do you mean? I’ve every right to be worked up. You walk in here and tell me that my daughter’s having a baby and expect me to be calm.’ He lowered his head into his hands. ‘Oh, my God. A grandfather.’ His earlier pride had given way to despair. He angled his head so that he could see her. ‘I definitely need something stronger. A whisky.’
‘And you want me to get it?’ Lou bridled at being asked to go to the bar for him a second time. Nor did she relish the idea of a repeat encounter with Tess and her fashionista companions who she’d noticed looking in their direction.
‘No, no. I’ll get them. Same again?’ He picked up her empty wine glass as he edged out of the narrow space, his other hand already foraging for the change in his pocket.
She nodded, relieved to be left on her own for a moment.
By the time he returned, his expression was something approaching normal. Having finally accepted that a man had defiled his precious only daughter without his consent but with hers, he had moved on to a new tack.
‘Presumably you’ve persuaded her that the sensible way to deal with this is for her to have an abortion?’
Here we go.
‘No, I haven’t.’ She registered the taut straight line of his mouth. ‘This is Nic’s life and Nic’s decision. She wants to keep the baby and I only want to support her.’
‘For God’s sake, Lou. She’s far too young. Surely even you can see that.’ He was speaking to her as if she was irredeemably stupid. ‘A single mother. My daughter. No.’ He gave a heartfelt groan. If what they were talking about weren’t so serious, Lou would have laughed at the theatricality of his response.
‘Hooker, get a grip. Yes, she’s your daughter but she’s not the toddler you built sandcastles with every year any more. She’s not the thirteen-year-old whose pocket money you stopped when she threw her Bacardi Breezer bottles into the neighbours’ garden. She’s got her own life now and she doesn’t have to account to us for what she does any more. Whether you like it or not. Our job’s to give her all the help we can. That’s all we can do.’
‘But her career …’ His voice was muffled, as he nursed his whisky glass in front of his mouth.
‘Thousands of women have babies and return to work. That won’t be a problem because she’s already thought everything through.’ Echoing Nic’s words made Lou share her daughter’s confidence that everything would work out.
‘You say that …’
‘I know that,’ Lou said firmly. ‘She’s always loved looking after things so perhaps having a baby … Let’s see.’
‘Do you remember when she rescued that pigeon with a broken wing? She was always such a softie.’ Hooker smiled at the memory.
Lou’s recollection was less of the softie and more of the pigeon shit that had covered the living room when the bird had escaped its cardboard box. Nor had she forgotten the hours that it had taken to clear up the room to Hooker’s satisfaction, but without his help. Oddly, Nic too had found something urgent to do. But she was glad that Hooker’s mood was changing as the whisky took hold. ‘And Ripper, her hamster whose hair fell out.’ She smiled too, remembering how Nic had lavished affection and mite dust on the poor little wrinkled, bald creature until it had finally died.
As they began to swap reminiscences, their differences were put to one side. Whatever happened between them in the future, these memories would always be theirs alone. Their shared family experiences interested no one else in the world but them.
Once she leaned over and touched his arm. Still talking, he covered her hand with his just before she swiftly removed it. But one memory led on to the next and, as they travelled back in time, Lou began to recognise the Hooker she had once fallen for, the man who could make her laugh. She checked herself. Perhaps she should go home. But, memories and tongues loosened by alcohol, the two of them stayed where they were in the warmth of the fire, drinking and reminiscing, till the chairs were being put on the tables around them. By then she was aware of how pleasantly hazy the world seemed.
Reluctantly they dragged themselves out into the night air. Feeling definitely the worse for wear although triumph ant that Hooker had eventually taken on board and almost accepted Nic’s news, Lou stepped forward to give her ex an affectionate peck farewell. Slightly surprised at herself, she overbalanced, righting herself with one foot in the gutter, her hand on his chest. ‘Whoops. Shouldn’t have mixed my drinks. Sorry.’ She giggled and removed her hand as if it was burned.
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Fanny Blake
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Buchan and Katie Fforde, this is a warm novel about women, relationships and why it’s never too late to change.Lou is married to a man who no longer loves her. It’s time to move on, to begin a new business venture and to start her life over.To celebrate her new-found freedom, she travels to India, where, in front of the Taj Mahal, she befriends Ali after taking each other’s photographs on ‘that’ bench.Ali is a serial mistress. But when she returns home, she discovers her latest lover is not the man she took him for. She too needs a new beginning.As Lou and Ali put their pasts behind them, they start to discover new possibilities for life and for love, until the shocking realisation that they have far more in common than they thought.