Читать книгу: «Just Between Us»
Just Between Us
Cathy Kelly
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2002
Cathy Kelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007268641
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780007389322
Version: 2017-11-21
Praise for Cathy Kelly:
‘A must for Kelly’s many fans; a warm, moving read.’
Daily Mail
‘Totally believable.’
Rosamunde Pilcher
‘An upbeat and diverting tale skilfully told…Kelly knows what her readers want and consistently delivers.’
Sunday Independent
‘An absorbing, heart-warming tale.’
Company
‘Her skill at dealing with the complexities of modern life, marriage and families is put to good effect as she teases out the secrets of her characters.’
Choice
‘Kelly dramatises her story with plenty of sparky humour.’
The Times
‘Kelly has an admirable capacity to make the readers identify, in turn, with each of her female characters…’
Irish Independent
To John, with love
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Cathy Kelly:
Dedication
PROLOGUE: MARCH
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
KEEP READING
Acknowledgements
Excerpt from The House on Willow Street
Prologue
Chapter One
Back Ads
About the Author
By the same author:
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE: MARCH
Adele looked at the invitation and wondered exactly how much it would cost to print up at least a hundred such creamy, expensive cards. A fortune, she’d bet. It was the embossing that cost so much. And for all that it looked so nice, it was a waste of money.
There were perfectly acceptable invitations available in the newsagent’s – ones that you filled in yourself – but clearly, run-of-the-mill invitations weren’t good enough for her sister-in-law. But then, Rose had always had notions above her station.
Adele ran a deeply disapproving finger over the extravagant letters.
Rose & Hugh Miller have great pleasure in inviting Adele Miller to a lunch party to celebrate their Ruby Wedding Anniversary on Saturday, April 25th at Meadow Lodge, Kinvarra.
She scanned down to the dress code, which was ‘smart casual’, whatever that meant.
She’d wear one of her knitted suits, as she always did. She might be sixty-five, but she was proud of the fact that she was still trimmer than many women of her age. Maybe a shawl just in case it was cold, because it would only be April, and the party was going to be in a marquee and not in the actual house. Adele hadn’t been keen on the idea of a marquee. Talk about a waste of money, not to mention delusions of grandeur. Then Hugh had told her it had been his idea, which had suddenly made the whole plan sound like a great idea after all.
‘A big party in the house could destroy the place, what with high heels digging into the wooden floors and red wine on the chairs, you know that, Della my love,’ Hugh had said the previous week when he’d popped in on his way back from a meeting with a client in a nearby town. Adele had smiled fondly at her little brother as he tucked into the steak sandwich she’d made for him as a little treat. He was the only person in the world who still called her Della. Not that Adele would have permitted anyone else to call her by a pet name. Even the doctor she’d known for forty years was on pain of death to call her anything but Miss Miller. The cheeky pup of a postman had tried to call her by her first name once, but Adele had soon put a halt to his gallop. She wasn’t one for modern ideas of familiarity.
But Hugh could call her any name he liked. Her darling brother could do no wrong.
‘You’ve got to have a party for your fortieth wedding anniversary,’ Hugh went on, munching his sandwich appreciatively. Hugh liked his food. He was a big man after all, and handsome, Adele thought, with that six-foot frame and the shock of silver hair. His hair had been an Arctic white-blond once, so he was truly a golden boy. All Adele’s friends had been half in love with him all those years ago. If only she’d found a man like her brother, she might have married too, she thought wistfully.
She glanced down at the invitation. ‘RSVP’ it said. No time like the present.
Her sister-in-law answered on the third ring, sounding out of breath.
‘Hi, Adele,’ Rose said, ‘I was just running the vacuum over the rugs. The place is such a mess.’
Adele thought this was highly unlikely. Her sister-in-law’s home, eight miles away on the other side of the sprawling country town of Kinvarra, was always sparkling. And elegant too. Although it irked Adele to admit it, Rose did have fabulous taste. Who else would have thought of knocking down all those internal walls to transform the rather dark reception rooms into a well-proportioned open-plan space? Adele preferred carpets herself, but the pale wooden floors with their muted rugs looked elegantly modern and fresh compared with the conservative dark maroon carpet that graced Adele’s more traditional Victorian-style house.
‘I got the invitation,’ Adele said stiffly.
‘Did you like it?’ asked Rose. ‘Hugh picked it. I feel a bit guilty spending so much, Adele. They’ve just laid off twenty more people in the tyre factory down the road, you know, and here we are having a big party with a marquee and caterers and flowers…The poverty action group is in serious need of funds and all this excess doesn’t seem right…’ Her voice trailed off but, in her indignation, Adele didn’t notice.
‘My brother’s an important person in Kinvarra; people would think it odd if he didn’t celebrate according to his status,’ Adele said stiffly. ‘They’d certainly think it was odd if you didn’t have a grand party for your ruby anniversary.’ Rose seemed to forget that the Miller family were pillars of the community. How would it look if they weren’t seen to be doing things properly? People might talk. Adele was deeply against having people talk about the family.
‘You’re right, Adele,’ Rose said lightly. ‘I’m getting paranoid in my old age; I worry about the silliest things. I do hope you can make it? Hugh would be devastated if you couldn’t. We all would be. It wouldn’t be the same without you,’ she added kindly.
Adele pursed her lips. This was not going as planned. She hadn’t meant to endorse the whole event, certainly not without some reservations. But for Rose to even imply that she, Adele, might miss it! Her darling brother’s party. By rights, no arrangements should have been made until she had been consulted. She was the oldest member of the Miller clan, three years older than Hugh. She should have been consulted. What if she’d had something planned and couldn’t manage the third Saturday in April?
‘I must fly, Adele,’ Rose was saying in that low, soft, accentless voice of hers. Adele often wondered how Rose had drilled the accent out of her speech. ‘I’ve got another call coming in. Probably the florist. Thank you for calling so early, you are a love. Take care. Bye.’
And she was gone, leaving Adele as highly vexed as she usually was after conversations with her sister-in-law. Florist indeed. Far from florists Rose had been reared. The Miller family had always had lovely flowers in the house, of course. They’d had a maid, for God’s sake, when nobody else in the country had one. But Rose came from a tumbledown house on some backroad in Wexford; a house with slates coming off the roof and plumbing out of the Ark. There hadn’t been enough money for food in the Riordain house, never mind flowers. Marrying Hugh had been Rose’s ticket out of there. Adele glowered at the phone. She had a good mind to phone back and point out that Rose could do the flowers herself and not waste money on a florist. Rose had a knack with flowers. As if in honour of her name, in summer there were always roses all over the place: blowsy yellow ones that matched the buttercup yellow walls and a big china bowl of riotous pink blooms which usually sat on a low, Scandinavian coffee table. All Rose ever did was to carelessly place a handpicked bouquet in a vase and the flowers all fell into place beautifully. She was the same when it came to clothes, thought Adele resentfully. The oldest white shirt looked elegantly informal on Rose Miller because she always had some trick of pinning her dark hair into a soft knot, or of hanging a strand of pearls around her neck, and then she looked instantly right.
Adele had spent years doing her best not to resent Rose. It hadn’t been easy, for all that Rose was so kind to her. Kindness, like other people’s happiness, could be very hard to deal with. And speaking of happiness, here was more proof of how lucky Rose was. She had a lovely home, three grown-up daughters, Stella, Tara and Holly, who’d never given her an iota of bother, and no financial worries, thanks to dear Hugh.
Hugh, Adele had always felt, was the real reason that Rose had had such a wonderful life. Adele adored her baby brother passionately. He was so clever and kind. He’d plucked Rose from an impoverished background and her dull secretarial job and turned her into a Miller lady. And now Hugh and Rose were celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary, complete with uniformed caterers and florists, the whole nine yards. It was like their wedding all over again, Adele thought bitterly, remembering herself, a drab bridesmaid next to the radiant Rose. All eyes had been on the bride with tiny coral-pink rosebuds pinned into the cloud of her dark hair. Even Colin, Adele’s young man, had remarked upon how lovely Rose looked.
‘Good old Hugh.’ Colin had been frankly envious. ‘He’s a lucky fellow to be marrying a girl like her.’
Adele had never forgiven Colin for not understanding how much she felt she’d lost Hugh to Rose. She’d spent hours pinning her fair hair up with little hair clips to show off her long neck and had even dabbed on a bit of rouge and Coral Surprise lipstick, angry with herself for giving in to vanity. It had been no good. Rose had glittered like the sun, overshadowing Adele without even meaning to, and Adele had never, ever been able to forgive her.
Lost in her memories, for a moment Adele let her customary guard down. Her normally stiff back drooped and she sank down onto the arm of a faded old wing chair. If she’d said yes to Colin all those years ago, would she have had a golden life, a family like Hugh and Rose? Colin had been a nice man, sweet and gentle. He simply hadn’t measured up when compared to Hugh, though. Nobody could. At the time, measuring up to Hugh had seemed very important, but now it was different. Adele was lonely. The sidelines were cold and she was always on them, watching other people’s lives and, somehow, not feeling a part of it all. While Rose had everything. Everything. Why had Lady Luck shone so brightly on Rose, who was only a Miller by marriage, and utterly bypassed Adele?
Even the autumn blight that had savaged Adele’s beech hedge had left her sister-in-law’s untouched. And Rose had her beloved girls, the golden Miller girls. Those three girls had led charmed lives, Adele felt, and though they’d undoubtedly been indulged by Hugh, it had all turned out so well.
Adele went to the desk where she kept her stamps and notepad, and wrote formally to accept the invitation to the anniversary party. The phone call had been more in the line of information gathering, rather than an actual response. Adele Miller had been brought up properly, and written invitations got a written reply. It was the kind of behaviour that implied breeding, the sort of thing that people who were dragged up in little cottages in the back of beyond didn’t understand.
‘I would be delighted to attend…’ wrote Adele, her language as formal as the Queen’s. She sighed. Despite everything, she was looking forward to the party, actually. Parties in Hugh’s were always fun and a fortieth wedding anniversary was sure to be a splendid affair. She’d get her hair set, of course. Happier at this thought, Adele began to plan.
CHAPTER ONE
The previous December: two weeks before Christmas
Rose Miller hated committees. Which was a bit unfortunate, because she was on three of them. The Kinvarra Charity Committee was the most irritating for the simple reason that its internal wranglings took so much time, there wasn’t a moment left to actually raise any money for charity. Discussions about the size of the type on the menus for the annual ladies’ lunch, and whether to serve salmon or beef, had taken endless phone calls and two lengthy meetings. If Rose hadn’t practically lost her temper, the committee would still be arguing over it.
‘Does it really matter what the menus look like or what we eat?’ she’d demanded fierily at the final, drawn-out meeting, rising to her feet and making all the other committee ladies clutch their copies of the minutes in shock. Mrs Rose Miller with her dark eyes flashing in anger was not a common sight. A tireless worker for the local charities, she was known for her calm self-possession and for her organisational skills. Tall and strikingly elegant with her trademark upswept hairdo, she was almost regal in her anger. ‘We’re here to raise money, not waste it. Is this our best effort for the underprivileged of this town? To sit in a cosy hotel bar and slurp our way through urns of coffee and entire boxes of custard creams while we discuss minutiae?’
‘Good point,’ squeaked Mrs Freidland, the current chairwoman, who’d been stubbornly holding out for flowing script type and seafood chowder followed by beef despite the fact that the majority wanted salmon for the main course and tiger prawns to start. ‘We’ve been wasting far too much time; let’s stop arguing and vote.’
Feeling rather shocked at her own outburst, Rose sat down and wondered, as she did every year, why she didn’t just resign and take up something less stressful, like hang-gliding or swimming with sharks. But every year she let her name be put forward because, if she wasn’t on the committee, no money would be raised at all. And she passionately wanted to help people. A life lived selfishly was a life half lived: that was her credo. The only difficulty was that for some of the other committee members, charity work was more a sign of social status than anything else.
The Church Hospitality Committee only met a couple of times a year and was the least trouble, as it only involved putting together a couple of suppers for inter-church gatherings and, occasionally, a party for a visiting missionary priest.
Rose’s third committee, the Kinvarra Motorway Action Group, was halfway up the scale of annoyance. Set up to oppose the proposed new route through Kinvarra’s nature park, an area of outstanding beauty around the midlands town, the KMAG committee included a highly efficient local solicitor, several prominent business people and three local politicians. Therefore things got done. But the public meetings were a total nightmare which usually ended up with the committee being instructed to work on at least four wildly differing approaches.
Rose needed a stiff gin and tonic after the KMAG public meetings, although Hugh grinned and told her that in his experience of public meetings, she’d be better off with a stiff drink beforehand.
As one of Kinvarra’s leading legal brains, Hugh was a committee veteran. He’d even served his time as the town’s mayor many years before, which he laughingly said had been a lesson to him Not To Get Involved. Rose had a photo of him in his mayoral robes on the mantelpiece: tall, stately and handsome with his immaculately brushed silver hair setting off the high forehead and the benevolent gaze. The camera hadn’t picked up the wicked glint in Hugh’s eyes that day, a look that said he didn’t mind the job but could have done without the mayoral necklace hanging like a cow chain around his neck.
‘It’s impossible to please even half the people a quarter of the time,’ was Hugh’s sage advice on committees. ‘Everyone goes round in circles for weeks. As for your public meetings, unless someone takes the planners to court, you’re wasting your time.’
‘We will if we have to,’ said Rose heatedly. ‘But we must show our solidarity as a community. We don’t want to be walked on. Don’t you care about the motorway?’
‘It won’t be anywhere near our house,’ Hugh pointed out.
Rose gave up. She found it hard to understand how Hugh could be so pragmatic about important matters. She herself became passionately involved in all her causes, whether they affected her directly or not, but Hugh didn’t seem to feel these things as deeply as Rose.
The girls had all taken after their mother. Thirty-eight-year-old Stella, for all she appeared to be a sensible lawyer, working hard to bring up her daughter on her own, hid a romantic soul beneath her sober office suits. Tara, seven years younger, was the same: a debating queen at school and college, she threw herself wholeheartedly into anything she did. She’d fallen in love the same way, marrying computer sales executive Finn Jefferson six months to the day after they met, half-astonishing people who thought that Tara was destined for unconventionality and liable to run off with a rock star if the mood took her.
And as for Holly, the baby of the family at twenty-seven, Rose knew that beneath her youngest daughter’s gentle exterior there was a vulnerable, fiercely passionate heart. But while Tara and Stella had the courage to fight for what they believed in, Holly didn’t. The secret fear that Rose carried round with her, was that Holly lacked self-confidence because of Rose and because of what she had or hadn’t done. Somehow, Rose felt, she had failed her beloved youngest daughter. But the thought was too painful, and Rose Miller, known for facing all kinds of problems with calm resilience, blocked it out. She wouldn’t, couldn’t think about it.
Today was the dreaded Kinvarra Charity Committee and as Rose parked her car outside Minnie Wilson’s sedate semi-detached house, she had a sudden desire to take off on a mad shopping spree and forget all about the meeting. Instead, she did what was expected of a sensible Kinvarra matron; she checked her lipstick in the mirror, re-pinned a wayward strand of her greying dark hair back into its elegant knot and carried a home-made lemon cake up the path.
‘Rose, is that the time? I’m all at sixes and sevens, I’m not a bit organised!’ wailed Minnie when she answered the door.
Rose gritted her teeth into a smile and walked in. Minnie had to be at least Rose’s age, round the sixty mark, but had the manner of a dizzy young girl and got flustered at the slightest provocation. Minnie was one of the people who’d worried so much about the type size on the charity lunch menus. She’d moved to Kinvarra three years ago when her husband retired and she’d thrown herself so frenetically into local affairs, it felt as if she’d been part of the community for years.
‘Don’t worry, Minnie, I’ll help,’ Rose said automatically. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Well…’ said Minnie anxiously. ‘The kettle’s boiled but I haven’t got the cups out. And look at my hair…’
Hang-gliding, definitely. It had to be more fun than this, Rose reflected. ‘Why don’t you go and fix your hair, Minnie,’ she said calmly, ‘while I sort out the tea.’
Minnie fluttered off upstairs and Rose grimly thought that the group’s chosen charities would be better served if its members all just sent a cheque every year to the charity of their choice. They’d save money spent on endless tea mornings where at least half the time was spent on the process of sorting everyone out with seats, cups and plates of cake.
Rose briskly organised the tea, her mind elsewhere. She often wondered how had she ended up in this life. She’d never wanted to be a pillar of the community and a leading light of every local concern going. When she was eighteen, she’d wanted to work in a modern office in the city, where people addressed her respectfully as Miss Riordain and where a wage packet with the anticipated amount of money was put into her hand every week without fail. The respect and the unchanging wage packet were important. On her father’s tiny farm, income fluctuated wildly, resulting in lean times and very lean times. Nobody felt the need to show particular respect to the beautiful and clever daughter of a small farmer and Rose had grown up deeply aware of the nuances of how people treated the daughters of the local doctor and the big landowners. One of her ambitions was to receive such respect. A good, settled job and a pay packet that came every week would give her freedom. She’d got her foot on the ladder all right, with the junior secretarial job in a construction company. Efficient and eager to learn, she’d dedicated herself to self-improvement. She’d battled with an elderly typewriter until her nails broke and she watched the senior secretary for hints on how she should dress. And then she’d met Hugh, the dashing young lawyer friend of the owner’s son. Hugh came from a world where people never needed to be told how to dress or which fork to use. But to two people in love, that didn’t matter. They were soul mates. Love turned Rose’s life plan upside down and within two years she was married with a small daughter.
Occasionally, she wondered what would have happened if she’d said no to Hugh? Maybe she’d be a high-powered businesswoman, having an exciting but selfish life instead of living for others in Kinvarra where her only day-to-day concerns were her charity work, getting the freezer fixed and helping Hugh organise Christmas hampers for the firm’s most important clients.
Tonight, his firm was involved in a Christmas fundraiser for the local poverty action group which, with the recent wave of redundancies among the area’s big factories, was even more stretched for funds than usual. A black tie gala dinner, it would mean top table stuff and all the Kinvarra glitterati out in force. Rose enjoyed getting dressed up but there were times when she got bored with the inevitable polite conversation at such events. Hugh, on the other hand, never got bored with gala dinners.
She dragged her mind back to the task in hand.
There were seven committee members, so she whipped out seven cups and saucers, because Minnie always made such a big deal about china cups and not mugs. She laid out milk and sugar, cut her lemon cake into slices, and had everything ready by the time Minnie came downstairs.
‘Oh, Rose, you’re so good,’ trilled Minnie when she saw everything. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without you.’
Rose had been about to say something mundane about how it had been no problem, when she really looked at Minnie. For once, Minnie’s girlish complexion (‘soap and water every morning!’ she claimed) was grey and tired. Her eyes were a telltale watery red. It wasn’t mere tiredness, Rose realised. It was something else.
‘Are you all right, Minnie?’ she asked gently. Minnie looked into the face of the woman she’d been half in awe of ever since she’d moved to Kinvarra. Rose was like some elegant television celebrity; gracious and ladylike, without a hair out of place. She had a look of that poor Jackie Kennedy, God rest her. Minnie had never met any aristocratic types but she knew one when she saw one. Rose Miller came from classy people, Minnie was sure. And she was kind; as friendly to the girl in the pub who served them tea as she was to Celia Freidland, the committee chairwoman.
Minnie had tidied the house extra specially for the meeting mainly because Rose would be there. Rose’s husband was a very important man, she had a beautiful house in the most expensive part of town, and she had three lovely girls. Minnie never met Rose without being overwhelmed with a desire to impress her.
‘Minnie,’ said Rose again. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Is there anything wrong?’
Minnie shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all. Now, the committee will be here any minute.’ Her smile was camera-bright. ‘I suppose we’re all ready?’ she added.
‘Yes,’ Rose said kindly. There was more to it than tiredness, clearly, but if Minnie didn’t want to talk, that was her business.
The doorbell pealed and Minnie rushed to answer it, welcoming in her guests as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
For once, Rose didn’t hurry the committee’s ramblings. She was quieter than usual and the meeting meandered on until half five when everyone began making astonished noises at how time had flown and how they had families to feed. Rose left after giving Minnie a meaningful handclasp on the doorstep.
‘Please phone me if you need to talk,’ she whispered.
As she drove home, Rose couldn’t get Minnie Wilson out of her mind. There was something wrong there and Rose longed to be able to do something to help. Poor Minnie. As she speculated on her hostess’s misfortune, Rose couldn’t help thinking again of her own life and how happily it had turned out.
Adele often said, grudgingly, that Rose was lucky. But Adele was right. She had been lucky.
Nobody could be prouder of their daughters than she was of Stella, Tara and Holly. Even if she hadn’t been their mother, she’d have thought they were special women. She had a granddaughter she adored, too. Amelia had a great way of staring up at her grandmother with those big, grave eyes and asking things like: ‘Granny, will you and Grandad have a baby so I can play with it?’
Stella had roared with laughter when Rose told her about it.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said we were thinking of getting a puppy and would that do?’
‘Oh no,’ Stella howled. ‘She wants a dog more than she wants a baby sister; she won’t let you forget that.’
If only, Rose thought, Stella had someone in her life. Tara was blissful with Finn, happier than Rose would have imagined she could be. Seeing her middle daughter so settled, made Rose long for the same happiness for Stella. She’d have given anything to see Stella content. Not that she would ever say that to Stella. But a mother could hope.
And as for Holly: well Holly never told anyone what she wanted. Rose did her best to be there for Holly in the background but her youngest daughter had retreated from life in Kinvarra, and Rose, desperate to help, had to accept it. Perhaps Holly was happy after all. Because you never knew, did you, reflected Rose.
Hugh insisted that Rose should stop worrying about her brood.
‘They’re modern women, haven’t they the lives of Reilly?’ he’d say, proud as Punch of his three bright daughters. When the girls came home to Kinvarra, Hugh was always keen to take them into town to lunch or dinner, to ‘show them off’ as Rose teased him.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t set up the Daughters Sweepstake Race,’ she joked, ‘where all the great and good of Kinvarra get their offspring in the race to see who’s the best.’
‘There’s a thought,’ he said gravely. ‘You’re always telling me you’re fed up with organising charity dinner dances and cake sales. A sweepstake would be a sure-fire winner.’
Dear Hugh. He’d been blessed with a great sense of humour, for all that he drove Rose mad with his ability to spread chaos all over the house without ever bothering to tidy up. No matter how many times she scolded him, he still left the bathroom looking like someone had been washing the Crufts Best In Breed in it, with at least three soaked towels thrown around and the top off the shower gel so that a trail of sticky gel oozed into the shower tray. But, despite everything, she loved him and he was a wonderful father. There had been bad times, for sure. But Rose had weathered the storms, that was all in the past. She was lucky.
The Millers’ rambling farmhouse was in darkness when Hugh Miller returned home. Once, Meadow Lodge had been the badly-maintained home of a small farmer with several rackety haybarns, a silage pit positioned right beside the kitchen window and sheep contentedly grazing in the garden, doing their best to fertilise the landscape. When Hugh and Rose had bought it forty years ago, they’d knocked down the crumbling farm buildings, turned the three-acre plot into a decent, sheep-free garden, and had modernised the whole house. Nobody looking at Meadow Lodge now would ever think it had been anything but a gracefully proportioned building with fine big rooms, a huge comfortable family kitchen and gas heating to cope with the winds that sometimes swept down through the midlands and Kinvarra. Rose had filled the house with comfortable couches, luxurious-looking soft furnishings, lots of pictures, lamps that cast a golden glow and plenty of unusual ornaments.
With his arms laden down with his usual consignment of papers and briefcase, Hugh unlocked the front door, shoved it open with his shoulder and turned on the lights in the hall. He wondered where Rose was. It wasn’t like her not to be there when he got home. Even if she had one of her meetings on in the evening, she rarely left until he was home and, if they weren’t going out, she always had something delicious cooking for him. It was strange, therefore, to find a dark, cold house, especially since it wasn’t long before they had to go to the Poverty Action Night dinner.
Dumping his cargo, Hugh threw his big sheepskin coat on the hall chair, dropped his car keys on the hall table not thinking that they might scratch the wood, and went into the big yellow sitting room.
Switching on the overhead light, not bothering to shut the curtains or even switch on one of the Oriental table lamps that Rose liked, Hugh sank down into his armchair, stretched his long legs onto the coffee table because there was nobody there to object, and flicked on the television news.
He was still watching half an hour later when Rose arrived. She switched on the hall lamp and switched off the main light before putting Hugh’s keys into the cream glazed pottery bowl where they lived.
Hugh was still glued to the news.
Rose swallowed her irritation when she went into the sitting room and found all the main lights blazing. If opened curtains were the extent of her problems, then she had little to worry about. Silently, she shut the heavy, primrose-yellow curtains and flicked on the lamps, all of which took mere moments. Why did men never do that sort of thing? Did being a hunter-gatherer absolve the whole species from domestic tasks?
‘How are you?’ asked Hugh absently, without taking his eyes from the box.
‘Fine,’ said Rose. ‘We’ve got to be out of here in an hour: I’m going to make a cup of tea and then have a shower.’
‘Oh I’d love some tea,’ said Hugh.
Why didn’t you make some, then? Rose thought crossly. She stopped herself snapping just in time. She was grumpy tonight, for some reason. She’d better get a grip on herself. She, above all people, had no excuse for moaning. But as she went into the dark kitchen to boil the kettle, she thought that it was all very well deciding that you were lucky, but Hugh drove her insane sometimes.
She’d just made the tea when the phone rang. ‘Hiya, Mum,’ said Tara breezily. ‘How are you?’ Rose beamed to hear her middle daughter’s voice. Tara
was one of life’s the-glass-is-half-full people and it was impossible to be miserable in her presence. ‘Great, Tara love, how are you?’
‘Wonderful. Finn and I are just racing out the door to a special film screening but he just got a work phone call, so I thought I’d give you a quick buzz.’
‘Sounds like an interesting evening,’ Rose said, holding the portable phone in one hand and pouring tea into two pottery mugs with the other.
‘I wish,’ sighed Tara. ‘It’s a small-budget, black and white and boring thing written by one of National Hospital’s ex-writers.’ National Hospital was the television soap which Tara wrote for. ‘We’ve all been press-ganged into going. I’m terrified Finn will doze off in the middle of it.’ Tara laughed merrily. ‘You know what he’s like when he’s made to watch anything without either football, car chases or Cameron Diaz in it.’
‘Like your father, in other words,’ Rose said smiling. She poured the correct amount of milk into Hugh’s tea. ‘Why do women marry their father?’
‘It saves time,’ Tara said. ‘What have you been up to?’
‘The usual. Trip to the supermarket this morning, a charity meeting in the afternoon and the poverty action gala tonight.’
‘I hope you’re going to be wearing the Miller family emeralds,’ joked Tara.
‘But of course,’ rallied her mother. The Miller family emeralds consisted of old-fashioned earrings and a tiny and very ugly pendant, all of which were in Aunt Adele’s keeping. Adele was always dropping heavy hints about leaving them to one of her nieces when she died, but the girls were doing their best not to be remembered.
‘Actually,’ said Rose, ‘I haven’t worked out what I’m going to wear and we’ve got to leave soon.’
‘Shame on you,’ teased Tara. ‘The whole town will be talking if you don’t turn up in your glad rags. Do you not have some swanky cut-down-to-the-boobs dress that’ll make everyone so astonished they cough up even more money for charity?’
‘I’m trying to wean myself off the wanton trollop look,’ Rose said gravely. ‘Besides which, I don’t have the bosom for that type of thing any more.’
‘Shame,’ laughed Tara. ‘I better go then, but can I say hello to Dad?’
With the radar that meant he always knew when his beloved daughters were on the phone, Hugh had already picked up the phone in the hall.
‘Hiya, Tara love,’ said Hugh happily. ‘What mad sexy scenes have you been writing this week to shock us simple television viewers?’
Even Rose, on her way upstairs, could hear Tara’s groan of ‘Da-ad!’
‘She’s in great form,’ Hugh remarked when he walked into their bedroom a few moments later, pulling off his tie.
‘Yes, very happy,’ said Rose who was standing in front of the wardrobe mirror attempting to zip up a cream beaded evening dress. ‘Will you do me up?’ she asked Hugh.
He ambled across the room and threw his tie on the bed.
‘Were you talking to Stella today?’ he asked as he expertly pulled the zip to the top.
‘Not today,’ replied his wife. ‘She said she was going to have a busy day. And her neck’s been at her all week. I might phone her now.’
‘Great.’ Hugh grinned. He stripped off his clothes quickly, while Rose sat on the edge of the bed and dialled Stella’s number. She wedged the receiver in the crook of her neck and began to paint a coat of pearly pale pink on her nails.
‘Hello, Amelia,’ she said delightedly when the phone was finally answered. ‘It’s Granny. I thought you and Mummy were out when you didn’t answer.’
‘Mummy is in the bath. She has a cricket in her neck,’ said Amelia gravely, ‘and Aunty Hazel gave her blue stuff to put in the bath to get rid of the cricket.’
‘Poor Mummy,’ said Rose. ‘Tell her not to get out of the bath, whatever happens.’
‘She’s here,’ Amelia announced. ‘And she’s dripping wet bits onto the floor.’
‘Sorry darling,’ apologised Rose when Stella came on the line. ‘I told Amelia not to get you out of the bath.’
‘It was time I got out,’ Stella said. ‘I was in danger of falling asleep in there.’
‘How’s your neck?’
‘A bit better,’ Stella admitted. ‘It started off as a little twinge, or a cricket, as Amelia says, and today it just aches. I can’t lift a thing and Amelia has been very good, haven’t you, darling?’
In the background, Rose could hear her granddaughter say ‘yes’ proudly.
‘Have you got any of those anti-inflammatories left from the last time?’ Rose said worriedly. ‘If you’re out, remember, you left some here just in case. I’ll drop them up tomorrow if you want.’ Kinvarra was an hour’s drive from Stella’s home in Dublin, but Rose never minded the trip.
‘That would be lovely, Mum,’ Stella said. ‘I don’t have any tablets left,’ she admitted. ‘But are you sure you want to drive up? The traffic’s sure to be mad this close to Christmas.’
Rose smiled. ‘What else are mothers for?’ she said simply.
‘Can I say hello?’ said Hugh.
Rose held up a finger to indicate that she’d be another moment. ‘Tell me, what time do you want me there for?’ asked Rose. ‘If I come up for ten, you can go back to bed and I’ll bring Amelia swimming.’
‘Oh, Mum, that would be wonderful.’ Stella sounded so grateful. ‘But I feel so guilty…’
‘Rubbish. You need a break,’ her mother said firmly. ‘Here’s your father.’
Rose and Hugh changed places.
‘I’ll come too,’ Hugh told Stella. ‘Amelia loves swimming with her grandad.’
As he talked to their oldest daughter, Rose hung Hugh’s tie on the rack in the wardrobe, then picked up his shirt from the beige carpet and popped it into the laundry basket. The master bedroom was no trouble to tidy. Knowing Hugh’s propensity for mess, Rose had furnished it so there was nowhere to put clutter. There was just a king-sized bed with a quilted cinnamon-coloured bedcover, a small boudoir chair in the same fabric, and pale wood bedside cabinets which were adorned with lamps and photos of the girls in wooden frames. Rose kept her scent and make-up in the big cupboard under the washbasin in the adjoining bathroom. The unfussy lines of the room were comforting, in her opinion. Relaxing. Apart from the family photos and the big watercolours of four different varieties of orchid on the walls, there was nothing to distract a person from going to sleep. Hugh had wanted a TV in the room but Rose had put her foot down. Bedrooms were for sleeping in.
Sleep sounded very alluring right now. Rose wished they weren’t going out tonight. She’d prefer to get an early night and head off for Stella’s early in the morning. Supper on a tray would be lovely.
Hugh said goodbye and hung up.
‘Try phoning Holly,’ Rose said from the bathroom. She hadn’t spoken to Holly for a week, not that this was unusual, but even so, Rose still worried when there’d been no word from her youngest.
‘Nobody there,’ said Hugh after a moment. ‘Her machine isn’t on, either. I might buy her one for Christmas. That old thing she has is useless.’ He dialled another number. ‘Her mobile’s off too. Hi, Holly, it’s Dad. Remember me? Father-type, silver hair, known you for, oh, twenty-seven years. Just phoning to say hello. Your mother says hello too. I suppose you’re out enjoying yourself as usual. Another wild party? Talk to you sometime over the weekend, darling, bye.’
He hung up. ‘Holly’s terrible at returning phone calls,’ he grumbled.
‘She’s enjoying her life,’ Rose said automatically. ‘She’s entitled to be out having fun and forgetting about us. That’s what girls her age do.’ Well, she hoped that’s what Holly was doing.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Hugh.
In the bathroom, he and Rose stepped round each other in the expert dance of people used to forty years of sharing a bathroom. While Rose applied her lipstick in the mirror, Hugh ran water to shave.
In the harsh light of the bathroom, Rose noticed that there seemed to be more wrinkles than ever fanning around her eyes. If she’d religiously slathered eye cream on for years, would it have made a difference? Rose didn’t care. She’d do. She left Hugh to his shaving and went back into the bedroom to sort out an evening handbag, and to mentally plan her trip the next day. Then she scooped the dirty clothes from the laundry basket and went downstairs to the kitchen to put on a wash. She felt happier from just talking to her beloved daughters.
Stella had sounded so grateful that Rose was going to drive up and visit, but the reality was that Rose adored seeing Stella and little Amelia and loved being able to help her darling Stella out in some small way. Not that she pushed herself into their lives, no. Letting your children go was the one part of motherhood there was no manual for. Rose did her best not to be a clingy mother. She let her daughters live their own lives, which was why it was doubly wonderful that they wanted her around.
The kitchen in Meadow Lodge was Rose’s favourite room in the whole house. Probably, because it hadn’t changed much since Stella, Tara and Holly used to sit at the scrubbed pine table moaning as they laboured over maths homework. The walls were still the same duck-egg blue, the floor was still terracotta tiled, with a frayed scarlet kelim beside the shabby two-seater couch, and the cupboards had only changed in that they’d had several more layers of cream paint applied over the years. The child’s paintings stuck on the fridge were now Amelia’s, while the wall of family photos was crammed with the ever-increasing Miller family gallery. This now included Tara looking sleekly radiant in Amanda Wakeley on her wedding day, the normally camera-shy Holly looking uncomfortable in her graduation dress, and a beautiful black and white portrait of Stella and Amelia, taken by her friend Hazel.
Rose set the washing machine to a warm wash and then looked around for something else to do. This evening wouldn’t be too bad, she decided. Talking to the girls had invigorated her. Anyway, there were loads of people who’d love a glamorous night out at a dressy dinner. She was lucky to have such a good social life. She was lucky full stop. People were always telling her so. But then, it was one thing to look as if your life was perfect, it was another thing for it to be so. Looks could be deceptive. Minnie Wilson’s was a prime example: bright on the outside, with some sort of hidden misery clearly lurking on the inside. Rose wondered if everybody’s life was different behind the facade?
CHAPTER TWO
The following Monday, Stella Miller was also thinking about how appearances mattered as she waited patiently in the jewellers for a salesperson to help her. It was ten days before Christmas, and everyone and their lawyer was shopping for gifts and the streets were heaving with irate shoppers who didn’t care if their umbrella took someone else’s eye out. The season of goodwill be damned.
Stella had walked in the door of Austyn’s Fine Jewellers at precisely the same time as the expensively-dressed couple currently being served but the only available salesman, with an unerring nose for people about to spend bucketloads of cash, had gravitated instantly towards the well-dressed couple, who were looking for an engagement ring.
The woman’s coat was cashmere and reeked of money. Stella wryly thought that her coat reeked of nothing but good value, having been a sale bargain two years previously. Still, she didn’t mind waiting. Stella had long ago decided that life was easier if she didn’t sweat the small stuff.
Leaning against the counter, she watched the engagement ring show unfold in front of her eyes. The salesman’s eyes shone with joy as he reached into the shop’s main window and let his fingers settle reverently on the pale grey suede cushion. Cushion No 1, resting place of the finest diamond rings in the entire shop.
Carrying it as carefully as if it was a priceless antiquity and he was Indiana Jones, the salesman laid the cushion on the glass counter, discreetly attaching its steel chain to a hook underneath, just in case somebody dared to snatch it and make off with several millions’ worth of flawless diamonds.
The customers sighed at the same moment, sighs of relief at finding the perfect engagement ring. They looked thrilled. The salesman allowed himself a sigh too, thinking of the commission.
‘Would Madam like to try it on?’ he said hopefully.
Stella was close enough to get a really good look at the five rings on their bed of grey suede, each seeking to outdazzle the others. The ring in the centre was her favourite. She’d seen it in the window the week before when she was rushing down the street after meeting a friend for lunch. At the time, there were still at least fourteen shopping days till the holiday, but Stella was one of life’s organised people who colour-coded her underwear drawer, rearranged the freezer contents on a monthly basis, and viewed buying Christmas presents any later than the week before the event as reckless.
Her mother adored those prettily painted enamelled pill boxes and Stella wanted to buy her something extra special to say thanks for the weekend when Rose and Hugh had arrived to take Amelia swimming. Rose had brought a basket with organic eggs, freshly baked bread and lots of her special fruit scones, as well as the wonderful anti-inflammatory drugs, which had helped her neck get better. Rose deserved much more than an ordinary pill box and Austyn’s had a huge selection: flowered ones, ones with strawberries cunningly painted on; you name it, they had it. Stella imagined that if she’d asked for a pill box with a finely painted dead cockroach on it, they’d have had one.
But it was the diamond ring, sitting fatly on Cushion No 1, that had caught her eye amidst the tinsel-strewn display of pendants and rows of bangles on the day when she didn’t have time to stop. Peering in the window and half-thinking that perhaps she should buy a department store gift voucher instead, Stella had spotted it instantly. One luscious marquise-cut diamond surrounded by oval diamond petals, like a wildly expensive flower perched on a fine platinum band. Large but certainly not vulgar; just big enough to proclaim love, devotion and hard cash.
‘Try it on, darling,’ urged the man, now. The woman beamed at him and stretched out manicured fingers.
The salesman expertly unhooked the ring, all the time thinking of what a bumper year this had been for the shop. They were running out of Rolexes and Patek Philippe watches faster than they could import them; he’d personally sold two sapphire-studded gold necklaces yesterday, and now this: a couple interested in the most beautiful (and expensive) ring on the premises.
In one fluid move, the ring was on the woman’s finger. It was exquisite. Stella sighed. Much and all as she adored the costume jewellery she bought for a song in markets and second-hand stalls, there was something irresistibly indulgent about the real stuff.
‘Can I help you, Madam?’
She looked up into the eyes of another salesman, who was in a very bad temper because he should have been the one serving the diamond-ring hopefuls and would have been if the credit card machine hadn’t been taking so long all day.
Stella straightened up, a tall, neat figure in a charcoal woollen coat with a crimson knitted hat adding the only splash of colour to her sober outfit. ‘Yes, I’d like to look at some of the enamelled pill boxes,’ she said.
With one last wistful look at the fabulous diamond being admired by the besotted couple to her left, she followed the salesman to the back of the store, where a display of enamelled boxes waited.
Within five minutes, Stella had chosen a Victorian-style box and was impatiently waiting for her credit card to be run through the machine by the still-grumpy salesman. She was in a rush because tonight was Amelia’s school Nativity play. Stella couldn’t wait to see it. Amelia had talked of nothing else for a month, her dark brown eyes shining when she practised her bit which involved shuffling onstage, kneeling at the front of three rows of angels, and singing a carol off-key. Amelia had inherited Stella’s tone deafness, but she looked so adorable when she sang that it didn’t matter.
Seven years old and cute as a button, Amelia was the image of her mother. In a police line-up, nobody could have failed to notice the similarity between the two, although the younger version had her glossy chestnut hair in pigtails, while her mother’s was styled in a chin-length bob. Amelia’s heart-shaped little face was graver than Stella’s serene oval one, and her huge eyes were watchful, which made people who didn’t know her think she was a quiet child. She was anything but. She was simply shy round strangers. But Amelia was perhaps a little more grown-up than most children her age. That was Stella’s only regret about divorcing Glenn – his absence and their status as a one-parent family had made little Amelia seem older than her years. Not that Amelia seemed to mind only seeing her daddy a few times a year, but Stella still worried about it.
The night before, Amelia had pranced around the living room in her white glittery angel robes and sang ‘Silent Night’ in her breathy voice.
‘David’s dad is going to video-tape it, Mum, and Miss Dennis says she’ll get copies for all of us if we give her a tape.’
‘We have to get two tapes, then, darling,’ Stella had said, hugging Amelia, ‘so we can keep one for us and send one to Daddy.’
‘OK. Will I sing it again?’ Amelia asked.
‘Yes, darling.’
The tape might just spark Daddy out of his habitual languor, Stella thought. He really was useless at remembering how important things like Christmas were to kids. Stella had hoped that Glenn’s beloved father’s sudden death two years previously might have forced him to grow up a bit and remember his responsibilities, but it hadn’t. Last year, she’d ended up buying Amelia a gift from Daddy, only to have Daddy turn up on Boxing Day with something else. ‘Another present, Daddy, you are good,’ Stella had said between gritted teeth, even though she’d told him she’d bought something for Amelia from him. He was working in the Middle East this year and his present had long since arrived, only because Stella had haunted him with phone calls reminding him to send one. Stella could never comprehend how her ex-husband didn’t understand children, seeing as he was such an absolute kid himself. At this rate, Amelia would be a grown-up long before her father.
Stella reminded herself to phone him again and reconfirm the arrangements for their Christmas Day phone call. As long as Amelia wasn’t disappointed, that was the main thing. Normally calm about everything else, Stella knew she was perfectly capable of ripping Glenn’s intestines out if he upset Amelia.
She glanced at her watch: ten past five. Time she was out of there. Where the hell was the salesman with her credit card receipt? Standing alone, she glanced back at the about-to-be-engaged couple who were still deliberating over the diamond ring.
They didn’t look wildly, madly in love, she decided. They looked content, but not candidates for a passionate lunchtime bonk because they simply couldn’t wait until evening. Maybe they were in like, which was easier than being in love. Less hassle. And a good way to cope with loneliness. Stella had lots of friends who’d do anything to find a good man to be in like with.
I am lucky, Stella thought gratefully, as the salesman appeared with her credit card slip. Without her darling Amelia, she might be one of the lonely people who left the radio on all day so there’d be some noise to come home to. Amelia was everything to her.
She brushed away the brief thought that having a man in her life might be fun. Stella Miller had no time for men – no diamond rings for her. Amelia was her number one priority and that was that.
The wind-chill factor was high and the rain was back as she rushed out of the jeweller’s and up the crowded street, ignoring the rows of over-decorated shop windows showing fabulous party dresses. Sparkly little tops and hip-skimming skirts were not on Stella’s shopping list. With her social life, she didn’t need clothes like that. Her most important night-time engagement for the festive season was Amelia’s play tonight, which was to be followed by a drinks party in the school hall. Stella’s work clothes were the dressiest in her wardrobe and she had nothing nicer than the tailored grey suit she was wearing with a cranberry silk shirt.
Thanks to streams of cars driving into the city centre for late-night shopping, the traffic home was astonishingly light and Stella parked the car outside Hazel’s house at half past five.
She rarely collected Amelia from Hazel’s house without saying a tiny prayer of thanks for having someone so perfect to look after her daughter. Hazel lived one street away from Stella, and she’d been looking after Amelia since she was nine months old. Hazel had started out as a childminder and become a much-loved family friend. To Amelia, Hazel was like another mother, someone who fussed over her, loved her and knew when she was up to mischief. Hazel’s own twin daughters were two months older than Amelia and the three little girls played together like sisters, which meant plenty of squabbling and plenty of making up. A former bank manager who’d had her daughters at the age of thirty-eight thanks to IVF, Hazel hadn’t needed any encouragement to give up her job to look after her longed-for babies. ‘I was waiting for the moment I could dump my business suits and become an earth mother,’ she often said ruefully, looking down at her daily uniform of elasticated-waist jeans and a big sweatshirt to hide her spare tyre. She’d certainly thrown herself into the role. Her home was lived-in, comfortable and always smelled wonderfully of home cooking. Hazel even made her own jam.
‘You make me feel so guilty,’ Stella would wail when she saw Hazel’s line of neat jars filled with jewel-coloured preserve.
‘We’ve four gooseberry bushes, redcurrants and an apple tree,’ Hazel would reply. ‘I can’t waste them.’
Today, when she reached Hazel’s house, Stella didn’t have the opportunity to ring the doorbell before Amelia raced out, pigtails flying, to open the front door.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said eagerly, pretty in flowing angel robes with silver ribbons trailing from her coat-hanger wings. Stella had almost wept making those damn wings. It had taken two nights and three broken nails to finish them.
‘Hello Amelia,’ Stella said, tweaking a pigtail and kissing her daughter on the forehead. She knew that Hazel didn’t allow the children to open the front door themselves but she couldn’t bring herself to give out to Amelia for it after such a welcome. ‘Are you ready for the play, darling?’
‘Yes, Mum. Can I do ballet? Becky and Shona are going to do it and we’ve got to get the shoes and a dress thing…’
‘Their class has gone ballet mad,’ said Hazel, appearing from the kitchen with a carrot in one hand and a vegetable peeler in the other. She was dressed for the evening in a brown stretchy velvet dress with a bright orange plastic apron thrown over the ensemble to keep it clean. Her russet curls were loose in honour of the event and her pale lashes had been given a speedy sweep of a mascara brush. That was it: Hazel had neither the time nor the inclination for long beauty routines.
‘The gymnastics craze is officially over and we’re now into tutus and proper pink dance shoes. In a vain attempt to calm them down before the play, Miss Dennis announced that ballet is back on the curriculum in the New Year. I said I was not driving into the city to the dance shop until January.’
Becky thundered out of the kitchen, another angel with golden ribbons in her red curls and gold painted wings hanging lopsidedly from her shoulders. With two little angels, Hazel had had twice as much trouble over making coat-hanger wings as Stella had.
‘Mary’s mother is going to make her a proper ballet dress,’ announced Becky, with the unspoken ‘Why can’t you, Mum?’ hanging in the air.
A small bundle of energy, Becky stomped everywhere like a baby elephant and when she climbed the stairs, it sounded as if the entire top storey of the house was collapsing. ‘I want to be a swan princess,’ she added firmly.
Hazel and Stella exchanged amused glances over the heads of their children.
‘I’m going to be a swan princess too,’ insisted Amelia.
Becky glared at her crossly.
‘You can all be swan princesses,’ soothed Hazel, ever the peacemaker. ‘But we don’t want to spend lots of money buying swan princess outfits and ballet shoes if you get fed up with it in a week.’
Both Amelia and Becky looked shocked at the very idea. As if.
‘They handed out a note on ballet lessons and I put it in Amelia’s schoolbag,’ Hazel said.
Stella smiled thanks.
‘Look, Mum!’ said Amelia, dancing around as if she was already in ballet class. She attempted a creditable prima ballerina spin, holding up her flowing angel skirts as she twirled. ‘Look at me, Mummy.’
‘No, look at me,’ insisted Becky, having a go herself and cannoning into Stella.
‘I’m sure you’ll be a lovely swan princess,’ Stella said kindly to Becky.
Amelia, who was at that age when she was keenly aware of the difference between what adults said and what they meant, stared up at her mother.
‘Right, girls, are we all set for the play?’ Stella said quickly.
‘Yes!’ shrieked the two girls.
‘Just give me five more minutes and I’m ready,’ Hazel said. ‘Shona,’ she called.
Another red-headed angel with gold ribbons emerged from the playroom, where she’d obviously been painting herself with glitter glue. The twins weren’t identical but both had their mother’s wild red hair and her hazel eyes.
‘Go upstairs and use the bathroom; we’re going in a moment,’ Hazel said. ‘Wash your hands properly. I’ll be up in a moment to check.’
The children thundered upstairs for one final look at themselves in the mirror and a half-hearted bit of hand-washing, while Stella followed Hazel into the homely kitchen. Apart from her two sisters, Stella felt closer to Hazel than any of her other friends. Their lives were totally different, and Stella was thirty-eight to Hazel’s forty-five, but they shared the same dry sense of humour. Hazel understood her, Stella felt. Hazel never tried to set Stella up with men, or berated her for not going on dates. She understood, without being told, that Stella was perfectly happy with her life the way it was.
And if Hazel often thought that she’d love her closest friend to have someone special in her life, she kept the thought to herself.
‘Do I have time for a quick cup of tea?’ Stella asked, flicking the switch on the kettle. ‘I’ve been shopping and I’m shattered.’
‘Course, make me one too.’ Hazel rapidly chopped up the carrots and added them to an earthenware dish. ‘Buy anything nice?’
‘A pill box for my mother in Austyn’s. I’ve got everything now,’ Stella added with satisfaction. ‘I saw this couple buying the most incredible diamond ring: it was enormous. God knows what it cost, but Securicor would need to follow you around permanently if you bought it.’
‘Sounds like Hazel’s Christmas present,’ remarked Hazel’s husband, Ivan, as he closed the front door and walked into the kitchen. A tall, wiry man with laughing blue eyes, trendy tortoiseshell glasses and almost no hair at all, Ivan was a building society manager whose first love was his wife and their twins, followed by a lifelong passion for opera. Hazel sometimes grumbled that she was deaf from listening to ‘The Ring Cycle’ played at full volume, but Stella knew she didn’t really mind. She was just as mad about Ivan as he was about her. Affectionate teasing was the glue that held their marriage firmly in place.
‘You didn’t buy me another huge diamond, sweetie?’ inquired Hazel, turning her face up to her husband’s for a kiss. ‘I’ve run out of fingers!’
‘Sorry, yes.’ Ivan did his best to look penitent. ‘I’ll bring the ring back tomorrow and buy you a tasty red nylon negligee set instead. Any tea left in the pot?’
‘I want pink nylon, silly. You know I like my clothes to clash with my hair. Ooh, get the biscuits out, Ivan, while you’re at it,’ Hazel added, as he took a mug from the cupboard. ‘We won’t be back here before nine and you know school parties: if we get one soggy sausage roll between us, we’ll be lucky.’
Stella and Hazel watched as Ivan wolfed down five chocolate biscuits, while they forced themselves to eat only one plain one each.
‘How can you eat like that and not put on weight?’ Stella marvelled.
Ivan patted his concave stomach. ‘Superior genes,’ he mumbled with his mouth full.
Hazel took off her apron and threw it calmly at her husband. ‘Surely remarks like that are grounds for divorce?’ she said to Stella.
‘Don’t ask me: I’m not a family law specialist,’ Stella laughed, used to their banter. ‘I’m the property queen.’ She headed out of the kitchen, calling over her shoulder: ‘Fight amongst yourselves, I’m going to tart up quickly.’
In the small cloakroom under the stairs, Stella took out her brush and began tidying her hair. Although she stared at her reflection in the mirror, she didn’t really see herself. Instead, she thought about Ivan and Hazel, and the couple in the jewellers. Stella could live out the rest of her life quite happily without a knuckle-dusting diamond on her ring finger. You didn’t miss what you’d never had, as her mother often said. But it was possible to miss something you’d grown up with, even if it hadn’t been yours exactly. Stella had grown up with parents who adored each other. And she saw true love every day with Ivan and Hazel, who teased each other, had arguments about eardrum-splitting opera, and yet still each worshipped the ground the other walked on. Stella had spent years claiming that love was the last thing on her list, but occasionally, just occasionally, she wished it wasn’t.
She came back into the room two minutes later with her cloud of hair swinging from the vigorous brushing she’d given it.
Hazel smiled affectionately at her friend. Stella never bothered with too much make-up either. But then, the difference between them, Hazel knew, was that Stella didn’t need it. The huge dark eyes framed by thick lashes dominated her oval face, giving her the serene look of some medieval Madonna, patiently waiting to have her portrait painted. Dark brows winged out in perfect arches above her deep-set eyes. Her straight nose didn’t need any careful shading and her creamy skin was good enough to manage without all but a hint of base, which should have made Hazel madly envious. Her skin was freckled, red-tinged and needed buckets of concealer. Not that it got it.
Stella had the sort of fine-boned elegance that Hazel, a great admirer of beauty, appreciated, with tiny ankles and wrists which she said she’d inherited from her mother. But Hazel loved Stella far too much to feel jealous of her. Instead, she took pride in her friend’s beauty and despaired of Stella ever knowing how lovely she was.
Tonight, Stella had painted her mouth a surprising crimson that matched the rich colour of her satin shirt. She rarely wore such vivid colours and she looked fabulous.
‘Get you, missus,’ Hazel said.
‘Do you think the lipstick’s too much?’ Stella asked. ‘I bought it today but maybe it’s overdoing it a bit…’
‘It’s lovely, really sexy,’ Hazel insisted. ‘I don’t know why you don’t wear red lippie more often.’
‘School parties aren’t the right occasions for “sexy”,’ Stella pointed out. ‘Remember last year?’
At the previous Christmas play, the children’s teacher had worn a flirty little sequinned dress in honour of the occasion, and had been shocked to be on the receiving end of a jealous outburst from one mother whose husband had a roving eye. Both Stella and Hazel had felt very sorry for sweet, enthusiastic Miss Palmer, a newly qualified teacher, who’d thought she was doing the right thing by wearing her best clubbing outfit. Dancing energetically with the children at the party, Miss Palmer had almost bounced out of her dress, making her very popular with the fathers and not so popular with some of the mothers.
‘Simple dress code disaster,’ Hazel agreed. ‘But there’s a difference between a bit of red lipstick and a va-va-voom sequinned dress.’ She eyed Stella’s grey suit. ‘Unless you’re planning to rip that off and sing “Jingle Bells” in your knickers?’
‘How did you guess?’ Stella said deadpan.
‘What was wrong with Miss Palmer’s dress, anyhow?’ demanded Ivan, who was only half-listening to the conversation. ‘I don’t know why that stupid woman had a go at her. The poor girl looked nice. It’s a free country, she can wear what she wants.’
Hazel shot Stella a look that spoke volumes.
Stella tried to explain. ‘It was the right dress on the wrong occasion,’ she said patiently. ‘Imagine if I was going to a party here, for example, and a party at Henry Lawson, the senior partner’s house. I couldn’t wear the same thing.’
‘Why ever not?’ demanded Ivan.
Hazel interrupted. ‘Because if Stella turned up at Henry Lawson’s house wearing a PVC catsuit, Henry would have a coronary and his wife would have one too, from pure rage because she’d be firmly convinced that Stella was a harlot who was after her man.’
‘I blame those magazine articles telling women how high the chances are of their husbands having it off with someone he works with,’ Stella said. ‘They’re convinced the office is one big extramarital dating agency where everyone pants with lust. If you’re not married, all the wives think you must be after their husbands.’
‘Which is hilarious if you look at most of the husbands,’ remarked Hazel, who had met Henry at Stella’s office. Charming and friendly he might be, but he wasn’t hunk material.
Stella grinned. ‘I’d love to know what sort of offices they do that kind of research in because, clearly, I’ve been working in the wrong places all these years. Honestly, if I get a spare moment these days, it’s all I can do to rush out to the loo or grab a cup of tea. Chasing the senior partners round their desks would be very far down the list of must-do tasks.’
‘Surely not?’ Hazel teased. ‘There’s something about the way Henry’s belly swells majestically over his waistband…I find him devastating in a sea lion sort of way.’
‘You can have him, then,’ Stella said kindly.
‘I didn’t know you had a PVC catsuit, Stel,’ Ivan interrupted eagerly. ‘Could Hazel borrow it?’
‘I’ll drop it over tomorrow,’ Stella said drily.
They were still laughing a couple of minutes later when both families piled into Hazel’s space wagon. Sitting in the back with the children, Stella made sure they were all firmly strapped in and was putting her own seatbelt on when she felt a small cold hand sliding into hers. Amelia looked up at her mother, her face scared and pale in the gleam of the street lights. Stella put her arm round her daughter’s shoulders and nuzzled close until she could feel the fake fur of Amelia’s anorak hood tickling her face. ‘You’re going to be wonderful, love,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve practised loads of times and you know it off backwards.’
‘What if I forget?’ said Amelia in a hollow voice.
‘You won’t forget,’ Stella encouraged. ‘You’re far too clever for that. I know that you know all the words and you’re going to be brilliant, and mummies are always right, aren’t they?’
Amelia nodded at the logic of this and snuggled closely to her mother for the rest of the journey.
Benton Junior School was blazing with light when they arrived, and there was a line of cars ahead of them as parents pulled up outside the doors to disgorge angels, shepherds, wise men and a few farmyard animals.
‘That’s not a real sheep, is it?’ asked Ivan as they watched a white woolly animal bounce from a car and proceed to lift its leg on the headmistress’s prized box tree which was covered with festive golden ribbons.
‘That’s Mrs Maloney’s dog,’ said Shona. ‘It was in for the rehearsal yesterday. It weed on the stage.’
The children giggled.
‘I hope you don’t have to kneel in the wet bits,’ Ivan said solemnly.
‘Uuuughh,’ the girls shrieked.
‘But you probably will,’ he continued, ‘and you’ll be wet and smelly, and you won’t be able to get back in the car but you’ll have to run home in your angel clothes in the dark, all smelly and wet and yucky…’
Laughing and giggling over wet knees meant that by the time the space wagon reached the door, all performance nerves had gone and Amelia, Shona and Becky were eager to rush in to where scores of children were charging around, squealing at the tops of their voices. Some had glitter on their faces, while others had big Groucho Marx moustaches drawn on. Wings got stuck to other wings and there were several clusters of children yelling as Mrs Maloney, the worn-out music teacher, tried to unattach them. The noise level was pounding, despite the presence of three teachers and several harassed parents.
‘Whatever they pay teachers, it’s not enough,’ Ivan said heavily as he went off to park the car.
‘Where will you be sitting, Mummy?’ asked Amelia, suddenly anxious again and clutching tightly onto her mother’s hand now that they were in the middle of the excited crowd. ‘I want to be able to see you.’
‘Big hug,’ said Stella, crouching down. She held Amelia tightly, breathing in her fresh smells of shampoo and crayons. ‘I’ll wave to you when you come in so you can see me, I’ll be as near the front as I can, I promise.’
‘Promise?’
‘Cross my heart,’ Stella said gravely.
‘Quiet children!’ boomed a voice and the noise miraculously ceased. Mrs Sanders, the headmistress, had a commanding presence and when she spoke, people hopped to do her bidding. Suddenly, the angels were whisked away into a classroom for a final wing inspection, the shepherds were sent to the cloakrooms for one last pre-show visit, and the parents were told that everything was under control and would they please take their seats.
The hall was almost as noisy as the lobby had been, full of chattering parents and screaming little brothers and sisters who wanted to rush around and fight with other children. Hazel and Stella squeezed into seats halfway down and waited.
‘I wonder does Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother feel as nervous as this before a show?’ Stella said, twisting her handbag strap between shaky fingers.
‘Probably not. Don’t worry, they’re going to be fine,’ Hazel said. ‘They’re all word perfect. My only worry is that Becky will have a row with someone and hit them over the head with her tambourine. She’s so headstrong.’
‘It’s just a phase she’s going through,’ Stella tried to sound comforting.
‘She’s been going through that phase since she was a toddler,’ Hazel sighed. ‘If she’s like this at seven, imagine what she’ll be like when she’s a teenager. You do not know how lucky you are with Amelia; that child is so good. She puts Becky to shame.’
‘Shove up and make room, girls.’ It was Ivan, shivering from the cold.
Stella moved up a seat and tried to take her mind off her nerves by looking around.
She wasn’t the only single parent there, which was a relief, although there seemed to be more couples than normal. There were quite a few lone parents with children in Amelia’s class but, as it was Christmas, huge efforts had been made and people who usually only screamed at each other over the phone now sat side by side in icy silence for the sake of their children. Stella didn’t miss Glenn for her own sake but on occasions like this, she wondered how much Amelia’s heart ached for her dad.
‘OK?’ asked Hazel, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘You’re not getting the divorced Mummy guilts again, I hope?’
Dear Hazel. She was so perceptive, Stella thought fondly. She shook her head. ‘I’m fine, honestly.’
With a fanfare of trumpets from the school’s CD player, the performance began. It started with the babies of the school who trailed on nervously and all started to sing ‘Jingle Bells’ loudly and in different keys. With the school piano banging out tunes, and the various teachers in the wings urging their pupils on, the performers sang, giggled, sobbed and in one case, screamed their little hearts out. There was one dangerous moment when it looked as if the stable might collapse on top of the Baby Jesus, played by Tiny Tears in an elderly christening robe, but Mrs Sanders leapt onstage in time and pulled the stable backwards, averting the crisis. From halfway down the hall, it was hard to see. Parents kept hopping up and down in their seats to take photos and video footage and Stella was afraid she’d miss seeing Amelia. But when the angels crowded onto the stage, she immediately saw her daughter standing nervously between the beaming twins, and stood up and waved wildly at her. Please see me, she prayed silently as she waved.
‘Sit down,’ hissed someone behind her but Stella ignored the voice and kept waving.
Under her angel halo, Amelia’s expression was tense as she stared out at the unfamiliar sea of faces, the lights shining so brightly on the stage that she couldn’t see anything properly…and then suddenly she saw her mother’s frantic waving and everything was all right. Mummy was watching, Mummy was there. A huge smile lit up her little face. She looked at Miss Dennis who was at the front of the stage, ready to encourage her class to sing.
‘Ready children?’ said Miss Dennis.
Class 5 nodded earnestly and waited, eyes wide with anticipation, for their music to begin before launching into ‘Silent Night’ as they’d never sung it before.
All around the hall, parents went ‘aah’ and clutched each other’s hands with pride.
Stella felt the tears clouding her eyes as she watched Amelia singing her little heart out. With her big eyes shining like candles, Amelia was the picture of a Botticelli angel. Stella knew she wasn’t being biased – Amelia was the prettiest child there, for sure. And the most wonderful.
‘Aren’t they fantastic, Hazel,’ she said tearfully to her friend.
‘And the dog hasn’t peed on the stage yet,’ Hazel remarked.
Stella giggled but never took her eyes off Amelia. She was so very lucky. This mother-love, this was real love. The other sort of love, for a man, just couldn’t compete.
CHAPTER THREE
Four days later, Stella’s sister, Tara Miller, deeply in love with her husband of six months and deeply nervous about the awards ceremony she was attending, stood in the ladies’ room of the ultra posh Manon Hotel and hoisted up her dress for about the tenth time that evening. The problem with wearing a strapless evening gown and boob-enhancing plastic falsies – ‘chicken fillets’ to the initiated – meant that only industrial adhesive could keep everything in place. Toupee tape didn’t have a hope. The ladies’ cloakroom at the National Television & Radio Awards was full of famous TV stars, and was not the ideal place for major body repairs; however, Tara had no option but to reach down the front of her silver dress and manhandle each fillet up. ‘Built-in bra, my backside,’ she muttered at her reflection as she wriggled, hoping everything would fall into place in a vaguely booblike shape.
‘Ooh, Tara,’ cooed Sherry DaVinci, floating into view from one of the cubicles, ‘that dress is lovely.’
‘Thanks,’ said Tara faintly, as Sherry squeezed in beside her and unpacked half the Mac range from her Louis Vuitton evening purse. Tara could see why the casting director had been so keen to get Sherry DaVinci to play a sexpot hospital receptionist in the hit television soap opera, National Hospital. And it was nothing to do with Sherry’s acting ability.
Shoehorned into a clinging, gold, sequinned mini dress, Sherry was a porn-fan’s dream, her ample breasts sitting perkily under her chin like two tanned melon halves that threatened to escape at any moment. She didn’t need chicken fillets, Tara thought ruefully, comparing Sherry’s buxomness with her own flat chest.
‘Hi, Sherry,’ said a fellow soap beauty, smiling at Sherry in passing and ignoring Tara.
Feeling invisible, Tara wondered why the beautiful people weren’t given their own loos at glitzy events, so that ordinary, non-beautiful people didn’t have to face the perfection of the ‘talent’ when they were fixing their tights, rearranging falsies and painting gloss on thin lips. Not, Tara reflected, that Sherry was what you’d call talented. But she pulled in the viewers and she was a sweet girl. Her limitations only became obvious when you were a script writer trying to write lines she wouldn’t screw up. As a storyline editor and one of the team of contributing writers on National Hospital, Tara spent a lot of time writing lines which Sherry then delivered with all the élan of the postman delivering a credit card bill. Which all went to prove that looks weren’t everything, as Isadora, Tara’s colleague, muttered bitchily every time Sherry fluffed her lines.
Feeling as if she’d better make an effort, Tara investigated the contents of her handbag (black satin, borrowed, no visible logo). Underneath her mobile phone and a notebook and pen in case she had any brilliant ideas for the love triangle storyline she was working on, was a red lipstick, a very elderly concealer and her glasses case.
There had been a pair of tights in there for emergencies but she’d had to break them out after the smoked salmon starter when her watch had twanged a thread on her existing pair.
‘Do you want a lend of anything?’ asked Sherry, concentrating on applying eyeliner with a professional’s touch. She was expertly using a tiny angled brush, Tara saw.
‘Er, no thanks,’ Tara said. She slicked on a speedy coat of lipstick, and looked critically at herself to inspect the effect. Standing beside Sherry was a mistake. Tara was straight as an ironing board while Sherry was all glowing curves with sparkling gold dust on her silken skin.
Sometimes Tara wondered, in an idle sort of way, what it would be like to be beautiful rather than clever. Her mother, Rose, was beautiful, still beautiful, even in her late fifties. The family teased her about how the Kinvarra postman was besotted with her and how he nearly crashed the post van whenever she appeared. And Stella, her elder sister, was stunning too, with melting dark eyes and a serene, smiling face that made people gravitate towards her. And Holly, who had more hang-ups about her looks than a catwalk full of teenage models, was incredibly pretty in an arrestingly luminous way. But the beauty gene had clearly skipped out when it had come to Tara.
Not that she minded, really. Tara knew she’d been given a gift that made up for not being a head-turner – a brain as sharp as a stiletto and a talent for putting words together. A gift that had brought her here tonight.
She grinned as she thought of her Aunt Adele’s mantra at Miller family get-togethers: ‘Thank the Lord that Tara’s so clever.’ Tara knew that this was shorthand for ‘It’s lucky that Tara doesn’t have to rely on her looks.’ Her mother used to glare at Aunt Adele whenever Adele said this but it had no effect. Her aunt was one of those people who thought honesty and tactlessness were pretty close to Godliness in the hierarchy of virtue, and felt that speaking her mind was not just important, but compulsory.
But Tara, after a few pointless years of secretly longing to be a beauty, was perfectly content with the way she looked. She’d never be pretty but instead was a combination of quirky and unusual looking, with a sharp little chin, a mischievous full mouth, and a long nose which might have dominated her face were it not for deep-set hazel eyes that glittered with amusement and brilliance. Even beside a raft of golden-haired lovelies, people always noticed Tara’s clever, vibrant face. And once they got talking to her, they loved her because she was witty and funny into the bargain.
By the time she’d got to college, Tara had worked out a clever and eccentric look which involved very trendy clothes, short, almost masculine hair and fire-engine red lipstick. It helped that she was tall, so masculine clothes and hair worked on her. Now, at the grand old age of thirty-two and thanks to the confidence that came from having a career she loved, Tara was utterly at home with her looks. Her dark hair was expertly cut and its exquisitely tweaked style owed much to the salon wax she scrunched through the ends each morning. Trendy, dark-rimmed glasses gave definition to her eyes and drew attention away from her nose. She’d toyed with the idea of rhinoplasty for years but Finn had told her she didn’t need it.
‘I love your nose the way it is,’ he’d say, running his finger down it lovingly.
Tara’s face softened as she thought of her husband of six months. Darling Finn. Theirs had been the ultimate whirlwind courtship. They’d met a year ago at a party, fell madly in love and got married within six months, confidently telling astonished friends that once you met your soul mate, you knew instantly. Finn was everything Tara wanted in a man: funny, sexy, kind, clever – and drop-dead gorgeous. A rangy man with sleepy, fun-filled eyes, tousled dirty blonde hair and an air of languid sexuality, Finn was genuinely movie-star stunning. People told her he could have been Brad Pitt’s stand-in, but a proud Tara retorted that Finn was infinitely better looking.
Even his voice was sexy, automatically reminding her of making slow languorous love even when he was just asking her how much milk she wanted in her coffee.
It would have been lovely to stroll into the ballroom with him on her arm. He looked good in a dinner jacket; but then he’d look good in a sack.
At their wedding, Aunt Adele hadn’t failed the Miller family and had pointedly said, at least five times, that she couldn’t get over how Tara had netted such a good-looking boy. As if Tara had gone out with a huge fishing rod and reeled in the first gorgeous specimen she saw.
‘Your aunt keeps looking at me and shaking her head,’ said Finn at the reception. ‘Is she shocked that a creative genius like you has married a stupid computer salesman?’
Tara laughed. ‘On the contrary, she thinks I’ve won the lottery. Aunt Adele has been preparing me for spinsterhood for years by reminding me I’m not a great beauty, so she’s astonished I nabbed a hunk like yourself and actually got you to marry me within six months of meeting you. And you’re anything but stupid.’
Finn pulled her close for another kiss. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her. ‘Well,’ he conceded, his lips brushing her cheek tenderly, ‘maybe not that stupid. After all, I’ve just married a brilliant wife. And a beautiful one, too.’
If only he were here, Tara thought now with a fresh pang of longing. Finn knew how tense she was about things like awards ceremonies, and knew just how important this one was to her. The exact opposite of her; he was laid-back about everything and would have calmed her nerves better than a pint of Rescue Remedy. But tickets to the National Television & Radio Awards were like gold dust and not even all the show’s writers had been able to get one. There was no way Tara could have brought Finn with her. She’d phone him quickly, just to say hi, that she missed him. Switching her phone on, Tara dialled rapidly. The phone in the apartment rang out without being answered. She smiled at the thought of Finn rushing across the road to the twenty-four-hour garage to buy something, forgetting to turn the answering machine on. She loved the little things he forgot. They were so endearing. She tried his mobile but it was off too. Idiot. But she was smiling.
‘Perfume?’ asked Sherry, spraying the contents of a tiny bottle of Gucci Envy down her cleavage.
‘Yes please,’ said Tara, sorry that she hadn’t thought to bring the Coco Mademoiselle that Finn had given her for her birthday. The ballroom was murderously hot and the combination of a spicy main course and too much red wine meant that everyone had red, flushed faces. None of which would look good on television. Tara had a sudden horrified vision of her shiny, lobster-pink face being all that people remembered when the nominations for the soap awards came up.
She took the proffered vial of perfume, sprayed it liberally down her front and gave a final blast to her wrists. ‘Sherry, I’ve changed my mind. Can I borrow some make-up? I think I need it.’
Five minutes later, Tara was expertly revamped. In those few moments in the ladies’ she felt as if she’d learned more about Sherry than she had over several months of work. Sherry chatted away about how her mother had helped her shop for the dress she was nearly wearing, and how her whole family were going to meet up the next night when the awards were broadcast in case they spotted Sherry. They never missed an episode of the show, either. They were so proud of her.
‘I used to be a beautician, you see,’ Sherry said as she dextrously brushed eye shadow onto Tara’s lids. ‘Mum was worried when I gave it up for drama school.’
‘You’re brilliant at make up,’ Tara said enthusiastically as she admired her newly-sultry eyes, dark and intense thanks to smoky shadows.
‘Thanks,’ Sherry said happily as she zipped up her bag of tricks.
Tara felt bad that she couldn’t say how Sherry was a marvellous actress too, but she hated hypocrisy.
Together, they braved the ballroom. A vast, high-ceilinged room decorated with giant swathes of purple velvet to go with the gilt and purple chairs, it was crammed with every sort of television and radio worker. Actors and presenters rubbed shoulders with writers and producers, all pretending to have a roaring good time because the show was being filmed, and all trotting out the standard remark: ‘It’s such an honour just to be here: being nominated/winning doesn’t matter.’ Which was rubbish because it was all about winning.
The ceremony itself was going to make up ninety-five per cent of the TV show, but nobody wanted to risk glaring sourly at a rival and ending up with that broadcast to the world. Or even worse, being included in the inevitable out-takes video which would change hands as soon as the show was over. So the whole place was awash with smiles.
Tara lost Sherry within seconds, as the actress spotted a camera crew and wove her way through the crowds, her shapely hips undulating sexily as she shimmied along. Marilyn Monroe was said to have deliberately had a quarter of an inch taken off the heel of one shoe to give her that sexy lilting walk. Sherry had clearly upped the ante and had taken off an entire inch on one side, leaving her with a hip movement that Tara reckoned a passing bishop would surely declare an occasion of sin.
Weaving her own way through the tables, Tara said hello here and there but didn’t stop. She’d worked in television one way or another for nine years and knew loads of the people here: if she stopped, she’d never make it up to her table in its much envied place at the front.
As she passed the Forsyth and Daughters table, she nodded at an old work-experience pal of hers who now wrote for the series.
‘Good luck,’ said Robbie encouragingly. ‘I hope you win.’
‘You too,’ said Tara. Which was true because she hoped he would win. It was unlikely though.
Robbie smiled weakly and Tara passed on, knowing there was nothing she could say to raise his spirits. Forsyth and Daughters was a five-year-old show about a family of female lorry drivers and not even ER’s Dr Luka Kovac, manfully wielding the cardiac paddles, would be able to bring it back to life. The scripts were tired, the storyline was exhausted and the only option in Tara’s opinion was to can the whole series. Robbie and his team hadn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning anything, while the National Hospital team were hot favourites for a whole raft of awards.
A voice on the microphone was asking people to take their seats as Tara reached her place.
National Hospital, as befitting one of the nation’s hottest home-grown soaps, had two tables at the ceremony and, now that the empty bottles and the plates had been taken away, they looked bare and untidy with wine stains on the white tablecloths. The actors had been allocated a table close to the stage, while the writers and production people were behind them. There was nobody at the actors’ table because, as soon as the meal was officially over, they’d all rushed off to get their photos taken and to work the room. The writers, on the other hand, insisted that they didn’t believe in networking and sat getting dug into the wine and trying to out-do each other bitching about rival shows. The truth was that nobody was interested in taking pictures of writers, which galled them. They wrote the words, they created the canvas on which the actors shone, so why did nobody know who they were?
‘Did you hear the one about the bimbo who wanted to be in movies?’ muttered Tommy from the depths of his glass, as Tara slipped into her place beside him. Tommy was one of the show’s long-timers. ‘She went to Hollywood and slept with a writer.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ murmured the assembled group, who’d heard it all before.
Isadora, who’d moved so she had a better view of the stage, was now sitting on Tara’s other side. Isadora was another one of the storyline editors, writers who shaped the way the show developed and came up with long-range plotlines. She and Tara worked closely together and were great friends.
‘You look nice,’ said Isadora. ‘Have you been beautifying yourself for your acceptance speech?’
Tara laughed. ‘Sherry did it. It’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Very.’ Isadora was impressed. ‘Can she do something for me? I need emergency work. All this red wine has my face looking like blue cheese.’
‘Crumbly?’ inquired Tommy.
‘No, heavily veined,’ Isadora replied tartly. ‘But still, my veins aren’t half as bad as yours, sweetie.’
‘Miaow,’ Tommy retorted.
The lights went down and there was a frantic dash as people raced back to their seats. The babble of conversation went down to a low hum while the audience waited for the show to begin.
Watching the monitors to the side of the stage, Tara and Isadora could see what the cameras saw. The lenses panned across the room, coming to rest on the big male stars of the day and on the most beautiful of the women, all of whom had nearly killed themselves to wear the most talked about gown of the evening. Slit-to-the-navel, slit-to-the-thigh and slit-in-both-directions dresses were par for the course at these events. The more famous stars didn’t bare as much, while the wannabes craved attention and tended to look as if they hadn’t enough money to pay for a whole dress.
‘Leather is big this year,’ Isadora commented, glancing around. ‘Look at that woman from that kids’ Saturday morning show. That’s not a dress; that’s a python-skin bikini with a see-through overdress.’
‘I dunno why they call it an overdress,’ muttered Tommy. ‘Doesn’t look like overdressing to me.’
‘She’d better be careful,’ Isadora continued. ‘She won’t be the darling of the exhausted early morning mums and dads if she wears that type of hot little outfit. They want blue jeans, wacky sweaters, spiky hair and overall purity for their Saturday morning televisual babysitters.’
Silence reigned for a brief moment until the awards’ theme music blasted out over the sound system and the show began. Finally, the nerves began to get to Tara. This was an important evening for her. She’d been working on National Hospital for three years and in April, she’d been promoted to storyline editor. The youngest person ever to get the job, Tara had had a lot to prove. But she’d done it. Thanks in no small part to her input, the scripts since then had been ratings grabbers. The critics loved the show, the production company loved the show, now, it was time to see if the people who gave out the prestigious Soap of the Year award loved it too. They’d been nominated for the past three years but had been narrowly beaten by Ardmore Grove, their nearest rival, every time. If only tonight was the night to claim the prize for National Hospital. Tara felt sick with the anxiety of it all.
Across the table, Aaron, the show’s director, sat with his beautiful blonde wife. Tara thought of Finn sitting at home waiting for her phone call. Her nerves wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if Finn had been beside her, his hand holding hers comfortingly. But only people like Aaron were considered important enough to get two invites to the ceremony.
Onstage, clips were being shown of the best animated films. Tara glanced at her watch. Twenty minutes gone. Although the show wasn’t live, it would still run pretty much to time. The soap category was in the first hour but there was ages to go.
The veteran Irish actor on stage was slowly opening the purple envelope for the animation award. He read it out and a table at the back of the ballroom erupted with squeals of joy. Everybody at the National Hospital tables smiled. The whole ballroom smiled. They were on camera, after all.
Three more awards trundled by. Winners gravely thanked everyone from their kindergarten teacher to their Pilates coach. The only excitement was when the forty-something Best Actress gave rather an over-enthusiastic kiss to the teenage boy band member presenting her with the award. The audience applauded with delight. At last, somebody behaving badly.
‘Give him another Frenchie,’ yelled a drunk at the back of the room.
‘That’s one comment for the cutting room floor,’ Tara grinned.
‘Were there tongues involved?’ demanded Isadora eagerly.
‘Not on his part,’ Aaron said. ‘The poor guy looked scared out of his head.’
‘He should be,’ Tommy pointed out. ‘She eats boys like him for brekkie.’
‘Don’t be ageist,’ snapped Isadora, who was feeling sensitive about arriving at the big four-oh herself. ‘Just because she’s over forty, she’s not a figure of fun, you know. It’s perfectly allowable to snog younger men. You’re no spring chicken yourself, Tommy, and I bet you wouldn’t say no to a big kiss from a teenage starlet.’
‘Now, children,’ remonstrated Aaron calmly, ‘let’s not fight. We have to look like we’re happy. Save the fighting for the studio.’
Everyone grinned. Tempers often got frayed when they were under pressure at work.
‘After the break, we’ll be seeing who’s the Radio Presenter of the Year, who’s the Best Actor, and, which soap has won the Best Soap,’ said the MC suavely. The crowd applauded obediently.
The lights went up and the MC added that there’d be a fifteen minute break. Hands went into the air immediately, waving for wine waiters.
Tara thought the break would never end but it did. The Radio Personality of the Year, late-night talk show host Mac Levine, made a very funny speech.
Isadora squeezed Tara’s hand under the table so nobody would see how anxious they were.
‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ Isadora said between teeth clenched into a false smile.
‘Wonderful.’ Tara clenched back. ‘Will he ever hurry up before I die.’
And then it was their turn.
A glamorous female singer read out the nominations for Best Soap. There wasn’t a sound at their table as clips of the various shows were played. Tara closed her eyes in supplication and then realised how strange and desperate she’d look on film, so she opened them again. The clips were finished and the singer was taking forever to open the envelope. Tara watched French-manicured talons struggling with the paper in agonising slow motion. She could feel her heart rate slowing down to comatose level, please, please let it be us.
‘The winner is…National Hospital.’
‘We’ve won!!’ shrieked everybody with one voice. ‘We’ve won.’
Screaming with delight, the occupants of both tables stood up and hugged each other. Tara could barely see with the tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, Isadora, we’ve won, I can’t believe it,’ she sobbed.
‘Come on, Tara, get your butt over here,’ said Aaron, his voice cracking. ‘We’ve got to go up and take the prize.’
‘What, me?’ said Tara, shocked.
‘Yes, you and Isadora,’ he said. ‘We can’t have everyone on the stage, but you’ve both got to go up, you’ve both worked so hard this year.’
Isadora was off like a shot while Tara stumbled over to Aaron. He put an arm around her waist. ‘This is your year, Tara.’
‘But what about Tommy and everyone else…?’ gasped Tara, trying to wipe the tears from her face.
‘This is your year, kid,’ repeated Aaron. ‘Enjoy it.’ The entire table of actors and Isadora were already on the stage with the executive producer when Aaron and Tara made it up there.
‘Thank you so much!’ squealed Sherry, elbows together, boobs shoved up for the cameras. ‘Thank you for loving us.’
She was subtly shoved out of the way by the show’s female lead, Allegra Armstrong, a deceptively fragile-looking brunette.
‘You have no idea what this means to all of us at National Hospital,’ Allegra said warmly, ‘we’ve worked so hard for this and want to say thanks to all our fans.’
The audience applauded. Allegra was a genuinely loved star and her portrayal of a brilliant surgeon on the show had already garnered her many awards.
‘Also, we’ve got to say thanks to all the wonderful writers without whom we wouldn’t have a show,’ added heartthrob, Stephen Valli, who played hunky Dr McCambridge. Stephen Valli had also won many awards, at least half of which were for sexiest TV star and the man most women would like to wake up next to. He reached back and put one arm around Isadora and the other round Tara, who blushed. She stared blindly out at the audience. The fierce stage lights meant she could see nothing but darkness and yet she knew that everyone was looking up at the team, and her. It was a strange feeling.
Through the haze, she heard another interval being called.
‘Congratulations!’ shrieked everyone as the National Hospital team clambered off stage.
‘My name is Jill McDonnell, I’m with the Sentinel. How does it feel to be part of the team responsible for the best soap?’ said a woman, suddenly appearing in front of Tara and thrusting a tiny tape recorder in her face.
Tara stumbled on her high heels and had to cling onto Aaron’s jacket to stay upright.
‘Wonderful,’ she bleated, not able to think of anything else to say for the first time in her life.
‘Could I set up an interview with you?’
Tara smiled shakily. So this was fame. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Phone the office tomorrow and we can fix a time.’
At the table, there were more hugs and champagne appeared.
‘I must phone Finn,’ Tara said tearfully, feeling the shock waves of emotion finally wash over her. It was still the interval, so she hurried out of the room to find a quiet corner.
The home phone rang out endlessly again and she tried the mobile.
‘I’m in the pub with Derry and the lads,’ Finn yelled. ‘I couldn’t cope with sitting at home and not knowing,’ he said.
‘We won!’ said Tara, half-laughing, half-crying.
‘Oh my love,’ shouted Finn, thrilled. ‘Congratulations! I’m so proud of you.’
The final segment of the show was about to begin and Tara rushed back into the ballroom. A tall man with flashing eyes and a wild beard, like a movie version of an old Testament prophet, laid a hand on her arm to speak to her. Tara instantly recognised Mike Hammond, a mega successful producer originally from Galway who’d just worked on a season of Oscar Wilde’s plays for the HBO television network in the States.
He never even went to bashes like this; he’d be more at home at the Oscars or the Emmys.
‘Congratulations,’ he said in a soft Californian-Galway burr. ‘I’m Mike Hammond.’
‘I know. Tara Miller.’ She extended her hand. As if there was anybody there who didn’t know who he was.
‘I hear on the grapevine you’re one of the main reasons why National Hospital won the award,’ he continued.
Tara’s eyes were like saucers. Not only did Mike Hammond know who she was, but he’d heard good things about her.
‘That’s not exactly true,’ she said. ‘We work as a team. I’m just part of it. There are a lot of contributing writers and a large team of storyline people. You know that writing on that scale has to be team work or the whole thing self-destructs with a clash of egos.’
‘Modest too,’ commented Mike. ‘We should have lunch sometime.’
He reached into his inside pocket and removed a card on which he scribbled a number. ‘That’s my cellphone number. I’m going to be in the US for a few months but phone me, say in March. We can shoot the breeze, talk about forthcoming projects, whatever.’
‘OK,’ stammered Tara, taking the card.
‘Hi, Mikey,’ said a voice and a tall, striking dark-skinned woman came up and laid a proprietary hand on his Armani-clad shoulder.
‘Hi, Crystal,’ he replied, turning to her.
Tara slipped away, scarcely believing life could be quite this perfect. Mike Hammond wanted to meet her. The show she worked on had just won a prestigious award. And she was married to the most wonderful man in the world. What more could she want?
CHAPTER FOUR
Twenty-four hours after National Hospital won the Best Soap award, Tara still sounded as if she was on a high. She’d loved the congratulatory bouquet of flowers Holly had sent that morning, had spent the whole day pretending to work but being too excited to, and now she and Finn were going out for a celebratory dinner in their favourite restaurant.
‘You mean you aren’t going to stay in and watch yourself on the ceremony on TV?’ teased Holly.
From the phone came the sound of her sister groaning. ‘No way! I’m going to tape it instead and maybe one day, I’ll be able to bear to look at it.’
‘I’m going out too but I’m taping the show,’ Holly said, ‘so I can make everyone watch it in future and point out my fabulous sister, who was really responsible for National Hospital winning.’
Tara was still laughing when she hung up.
Holly, who was running late, rushed back into her bedroom to paint her nails, then sat on the edge of her bed waggling her fingers so the sparkly lilac nail polish would dry more quickly. She still had to wriggle into the instep-destroying boots she’d bought to go with her new black trousers, though she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to bend over to zip them up. The Dolce & Gabbana corset, lent at huge risk by Gabriella from the International Design department, was what could euphemistically be called a ‘snug’ fit. Breathing was difficult, bending over would be impossible.
‘It came back because it was too big for one of our best customers and it’s going in the sale in January, but whatever you do, Holly, don’t sweat on it!’ Gabriella had warned the day before. ‘And don’t smoke!’
‘She won’t,’ promised Bunny, Holly’s friend and colleague from the children’s department, who’d been the one to wangle the loan of the corset from the fabulously gorgeous Gabriella. Gamine and funky, with cropped blonde hair and a way with clothes that meant her uniform of white shirt and black trousers looked catwalk cool, Bunny was Holly’s idol. There was no way Gabriella would have loaned it to her, Holly thought, if Bunny hadn’t asked first.
Both Bunny and Holly crossed their fingers regarding the safety of the outfit: strange things regularly happened to Holly, weird and unexplainable things that ruined her clothes. Coffee miraculously leapt out of cups and flung itself at her; drunks on the street crossed perilous traffic to lurch happily against her; perfectly ordinary bits of the footpath reared up to trip her. Therefore, it was entirely possible that some unusual accident would mean the borrowed outfit would get shrunk/covered in bleach/otherwise hideously disfigured in the Bermuda Triangle effect which surrounded Holly. But Gabriella didn’t need to know that.
‘I know it’s a twelve and you need a fourteen, but they look better when they’re tight. And it’s perfect on you,’ sighed Bunny, earlier that day, when Holly had struggled into the corset in a changing room in Lee’s Department Store, where they all worked.
The two girls looked in the mirror. In a miracle of wonderful tailoring, the corset had jacked Holly’s waist into tiny proportions, giving her a siren-like hourglass figure which she didn’t have in real, non-D&G life. Bunny quickly pulled Holly’s scrunchie off so that her poker-straight chestnut hair shimmered over her shoulders.
‘Now,’ said Bunny, delighted with her efforts. ‘You look amazing. Those boots make your legs look so long. When you’ve got my necklace on you’ll look perfect.’
‘You don’t think I look fat, do you?’ Holly said anxiously. She wouldn’t have said it if Gabriella was around. Gabriella resembled a very beautiful twig on even more twiglety legs, and fat cells would have blanched at the thought of daring to even touch her.
‘Fat? Don’t be silly.’ Bunny shook her head vigorously. ‘You look wonderful, Holly. You’re going to wow them all tonight.’
School reunions should be banned, Holly muttered, testing a nail to see if it was dry. Ever since Donna had phoned with the exciting news about the ten-year reunion of their class from Kinvarra’s Cardinal School, Holly had fretted. For a woman with self-esteem so low it could limbo dance under a two-inch fence, the prospect of meeting the girls she’d been in school with was one filled with terror.
Old schoolmates would want to know what exciting things Holly was doing with her life and what sort of fabulous men she was going out with. ‘Er nothing’ and ‘nobody’ would not be adequate answers. On the plus side, at least she’d lost weight since school, but she was never going to be what anyone would call thin. And what was the point of being thinner when she had nothing to show for it?
Donna, her best friend from school, was thrilled at the very notion of a reunion, and had talked excitedly about how lovely it would be to catch up with everyone.
‘Just think, our class together again after all these years. I can’t imagine some of them as twenty-eight-year-olds: they’re stuck in my mind at seventeen. Obviously, I don’t mean Lilli and Caroline,’ she said. ‘I meet them every day at the school gates when I’m dropping Emily off and they’re just the same, really. But there are so many girls and I don’t really know what they’ve been up to. So many of them are living in the city or abroad…It’ll be wonderful to see everyone again, won’t it?’
‘Yes,’ bleated Holly.
‘I heard that Michelle Martin’s coming too, which is a coup for the organising group. Who’d have ever thought that one of our girls would be a big TV star.’
‘Donna, she’s a news reporter, not Britney Spears,’ Holly pointed out, overcoming her anxiety in order to set the record straight. Michelle had been a total nightmare at school: loud, overopinionated and determined to get the shy girls (like Holly and Donna) involved. Anyone who didn’t go along with her (Holly and Donna, again) received contemptuous glances which implied that amoebas were more fun. ‘We used to hide from her, if you remember.’
‘No we didn’t.’ Donna sounded cheerful. ‘Oh it’s going to be such fun. You are coming, aren’t you, Holly? I know you’re madly busy and probably have zillions of glamorous Christmas parties to go to, but this will be fantastic. I know December’s two months away but I’ve already told Mark he’ll have to baby-sit because I’m going to stay overnight in Dublin. That’s the whole point of having it in a hotel, so there’s no awfulness about getting taxis and lifts home.’
Donna still lived in Kinvarra, but many of the school’s old girls had moved to the city, which was why a hotel in Dublin had been chosen for the party. Donna was doubly pleased at this. For a start, there’d be no chance of wild misbehaving at a reunion in her home town where gossip spread like wildfire. Secondly, she loved visiting Dublin and this trip would mean a bit of blissful shopping the next day without having to manoeuvre a buggy round too.
‘The only problem is what to wear?’ mused Donna, before going on to list possible outfits and why they weren’t suitable because they were old/unfashionable/too tight on the hips. ‘Of course, you won’t have that problem, Holly. When you’re going out every night like you, you know exactly what to wear. Mark and I never get further than Maria’s Diner these days and you can turn up in a sweatshirt covered with baby sick and nobody bats an eyelid.’
After a few more minutes of this, Donna’s toddler, Jack, began crying loudly and she had to go.
Holly hung up slowly and smiled ruefully at the very notion of her having a wild life with zillions of glamorous parties to go to and the perfect wardrobe for every occasion. Dear Donna, she hadn’t a clue. She thought anyone who’d escaped the clutches of rural Kinvarra automatically entered some sort of Hollywood-style twilight zone where life was wildly exciting, invitations crammed the mantelpiece and gorgeous men were forever on the phone, demanding to know why you wouldn’t go to Rio with them.
Holly had given up trying to explain that being a sales assistant in the children’s department in Lee’s was short on glamour and actually involved a lot of time in the stock room patiently folding T-shirts for four-year-olds. The only way a man would ever throw himself at her was if one fell down the stairs on the 15A bus when she was on her way up. This had actually happened, although the man in question had been a deeply embarrassed teenager and had practically run off in mortification afterwards. Holly had been bruised for weeks.
And as for going out, Holly was far too quiet to merit inclusion in the Lee’s party-animal gang. Parties in general filled her with horror. She became obsessed with what to wear, inevitably ending up in black for its slimming properties, and even more inevitably ending up in the kitchen because of the crippling shyness that overwhelmed her on social occasions. Holly’s ideal outing was the pub with Kenny and Joan, who lived in the flat opposite.
She had once explained this to Donna, but Donna would have none of it.
‘You’re only trying to cheer me up,’ she’d insisted. ‘There’s no point denying it. Exciting things happen in cities, not like in this dump. For God’s sake, they nearly declare a state of emergency in Kinvarra when Melanie’s Coffee Shop runs out of fudge cake.’
‘Kinvarra is a lovely place,’ protested Holly.
‘If it’s that lovely, why did you leave?’ demanded Donna, refusing to admit that there was any comparison between the fleshpots of the city and a small, pretty town sixty miles away.
‘Ah, you know, I just wanted to travel a bit,’ Holly said.
Holly wrote down the date of the reunion in her diary and began a plan of worry. This was similar to a plan of action but involved no actual action and, instead, lots of soul-searching ‘how-can-I-get-out-of-it?’ moments in the dead of the night. She also wondered how Donna had grown so confident that she was looking forward to this reunion. Marriage and motherhood must be a fiercely powerful combination, Holly decided. Why had nobody put that in a pill? Those pharmaceutical firms were slacking.
At school, she and Donna been drawn to each other by virtue of their quietness. They’d never been part of the reckless but popular gang of girls who cheeked the teachers, knew how to roll joints and went to wild parties with wild boys. Holly would have been struck dumb if faced with either a wild boy or a joint. She and Donna spent their school years in the anonymity of being good girls and Holly would have bet a week’s wages that half the girls in the school wouldn’t remember either of them now. Except as the skinny girl with the big glasses (Donna) and the plump, shy youngest sister of the Miller trio. The people she’d really like to see were the other anonymous girls, but they were the very people who probably wouldn’t turn up. Holly tried to remember them: Brona, who spent all her time in the library and Roberta, a terminally shy girl who was forever drawing pictures in a sketch book and who could never look anyone in the eye.
As the reunion approached, Holly considered coming up with a previous engagement and avoiding it altogether, but then her mother had heard about it (Kinvarra was clearly still a hotbed of gossip where no snippet of information went unrecorded) and had phoned up to make sure she was going.
‘Darling, it’ll be wonderful,’ Rose had said. ‘I can still remember Stella’s ten-year reunion.’ Her mother’s voice was wistful. ‘She loved it; and to think it’s coming up to her twentieth. Time certainly flies. Are you going with Donna?’
‘Of course,’ Holly said automatically. There was little point in explaining the difference between going to a reunion when you’d been as adored at school as Stella, and going when you were one of those people that nobody would remember. Or even want to.
‘What are you going to wear?’ Her mother’s voice was suddenly a mite anxious, as if she suspected Holly of going to the party clad in some wild creation.
‘Joan’s making me a Lycra and leather mini dress,’ Holly said, unable to resist the joke. Joan was a fashion student who lived in the flat opposite Holly, and her idea of chic was ripped, heavily graffiti-ed clothes with the words spelt incorrectly. Her mother liked Joan but wasn’t so keen on her eyebrow stud. ‘Only kidding,’ Holly added quickly. ‘Something from Lee’s, I think.’ She crossed her fingers. She was terminally broke, as usual.
‘Oh good,’ Rose said, relieved. Lee’s had a reputation for beautiful, expensive, clothes.
‘You’re such a label snob, Mum,’ teased Holly.
‘I am not,’ insisted her mother firmly. ‘I simply want you to look your best.’
On the other end of the phone, Holly grinned wryly. That made two of them.
By the time the reunion was upon her, Tara, Stella, Bunny, Joan and Kenny were also involved in her nervous state.
‘You’ll enjoy it, I know you will,’ Stella had said sincerely. ‘I loved mine, although I know you feel a bit weird at first because everyone looks so different and you’ve lost that intimacy you used to have.’
Dear Stella, Holly thought fondly. For Stella, school hadn’t been a place she’d been eager to escape from.
‘And I do understand that school was a difficult time when you were hung up about your figure, Holls, but you’re so gorgeous now, that’s all in the past.’
That was Stella’s encouraging way of telling Holly that she’d moved on from being a shy, overweight girl who wouldn’t say boo to a goose in case the goose told her to go on a diet.
‘I’m, going to wear one of those sumo fancy dress costumes,’ Holly said, ‘then whip it off and give them a shock when they see I’m not twenty stone.’
Stella had laughed at that.
Tara was equally supportive when she rang, but more direct: ‘Think of what a kick you’ll get from turning up looking a million dollars. You and I have certainly improved since school. At my reunion, everyone was stunned when I turned up looking good. Go for hot, Holly. Impress the knickers off them. Make them jealous. I’m sure you’ve lots of great clubbing gear at home, and you get a staff discount in the store, don’t you?’
This was true but Holly didn’t use her staff ten per cent to purchase going-out clothes. What was the point if you only went to the pub? Tara believed her younger sister shared the same sort of lively social life she did. Tara was always at parties and glitzy media events. It was part of her job. But although Holly could wisecrack with the same insouciance as her older sister, she could only do it with close friends and family. In company, her wit deserted her and she clammed up.
Naturally, the generous Joan did offer to design an outfit for Holly.
‘I can see you in a space-age, semi-Edwardian bondage look; a comment about school in general,’ Joan said, sketching on a bit of an old envelope. Somebody had given her a video of the director’s cut of Blade Runner and she had got a bit carried away with visions of the future.
‘Space-age, semi-Edwardian bondage!’ groaned Kenny, who lived with Joan, though not as a couple, as they both constantly informed everyone. Kenny was gay, worked in a designer men’s boutique, devoured Vogue as his bedtime reading and wished Joan would give up being avant garde so she could worship at the altar of designer Tom Ford, Kenny’s greatest idol. They made ideal flatmates because they could argue endlessly about fashion and, together, they could afford the pretty flat with the balcony that neither would be able to afford on their own. ‘Holly wants to make all her classmates pea green with envy,’ Kenny insisted. ‘Not make them laugh at her. Six-stone fourteen-year-old models from Eastern Europe with cheekbones like razors can wear that type of thing but on anybody else, it looks ridiculous. What Holly wants is something…,’ Kenny paused dramatically, ‘fabulous. And credit-card droppingly expensive.’
Bunny, practical as ever, had come up with a suitably fabulous outfit which hadn’t involved any credit-card action. Holly would never be able to thank her enough. Encased in her borrowed finery – Holly had promised Bunny she wouldn’t spoil the effect by telling anyone it wasn’t actually hers – even someone as self-critical as Holly had to admit that she looked OK. Well, reasonable. Passable. All she needed to do was not spill anything on herself.
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