‘Meaning?’
‘Oh, come on, Mother, surely you can’t imagine that I was oblivious to what was going on between you two when I was growing up? Please don’t insult me by pretending that you have the happiest marriage ever. Perhaps Alan and Paula can lay claim to that, but not you.’
‘We have been very happily married,’ Eleanor said stiffly, then seeing her daughter’s face she relented. ‘All right, it’s not been all roses and romance but I learned how to deal with it. With his little … dalliances.’
‘Dalliances?’ Nicola laughed. ‘Daddy and his dalliances. Did you always know?’
‘I …’ Eleanor was lost momentarily for words. It had never been spoken about but she guessed that, as Nicola grew older, it was pretty obvious what was going on under their very noses. So there was no point in denying it, not now. ‘It took a long time the first time to acknowledge it, but after that I always knew the signs to look for. But that’s something you have no reason to worry about. Matthew is not your father.’
‘No, he’s not and I love him and I can’t imagine life without him but it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped.’ Impatiently, she wiped her eyes where a few tears were now lodged. ‘Not getting the promotion was a big blow, Mum. I should have got it. The woman they’ve brought in is absolutely useless. I feel really let down. I think Gerry Gilbert only gave her the job because she’s had an hysterectomy so she’s not going to be going on maternity leave any time soon. I think I could sue him for discrimination because he has this extraordinary attitude to women of childbearing age. He thinks we’re all on the verge of having a baby and that’s why I didn’t get the job.’
‘Oh dear. I’m sure that’s not the reason. You are very young still and perhaps you need a little more experience. I remember when I was in line for head of department at school and I didn’t get it. It is very disappointing but it happens and it usually happens for a reason. Matthew was very sympathetic, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, but he wasn’t that concerned. He would be delighted if I took maternity leave.’
‘Then why don’t you?’ she asked gently. ‘Take a break. It’s time, surely.’
‘I can’t get pregnant. I haven’t said anything to him because I don’t want to worry him but I’m off the pill and I’m still not pregnant. What if I can’t have a baby? What then?’
‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Eleanor said. ‘The last time we spoke you told me that I had better not hold my breath about grandchildren. You more or less said you weren’t going to bother so what’s changed your mind?’
‘I don’t know.’ She bit her lip and looked like a child again. ‘I’m not going to have a baby just to please you and Matthew. I want one too and when Simone asked me to be godmother, I was really pleased, and baby Eli was a little dream at the christening. I held him and he took hold of my finger and …’ she shrugged, looking shamefaced. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
Eleanor nodded, not surprised. ‘I’m afraid it does rather creep up on you.’
‘In the house that I want …’
‘You’re not still on about Tall Trees, are you? You have to accept that you are not going to get that property, darling.’
‘It’s still on the market. Anyway, there is a room overlooking the garden which would make a wonderful nursery. It also has a dining room and a lovely conservatory, a proper old-fashioned one, not one of those tacky things. And it’s got this big terrace and a lawn and a separate little herb garden. If I’m pregnant then we will have to move. There’s no room for a cat, let alone a baby in the cottage.’
‘Oh, Nicola, when will you learn?’ Eleanor flinched. ‘I want a grandchild more than anything but I do not want you having a baby for the wrong reasons. You have to want one, darling, really want one. If not, then don’t bother. The problem with you …’ She hesitated because she was about to admit that her parenting skills had not been the best. ‘We’ve spoilt you. You are too used to getting what you want and I think Matthew is quite right. You must be patient about the house. And if that’s what all this is about, getting a bigger house, then it’s nothing to worry about at all. You will sort that out.’
Eleanor tried to get herself together, her daughter’s distress catching at her, but even as she made to get up to go over to her, Nicola waved her back impatiently as if to say ‘Leave me alone.’ She had always been like that, never one for the sympathetic reaction, never one really for a cuddle. ‘And you should count your lucky stars that he’s not having an affair for believe me that is ten times more difficult to cope with. I am not going into details but it has been far from easy. Let me tell you that Matthew is a good man and he works hard and he does not deserve a grumpy wife. So, it’s tough but you must snap out of this mood, darling, or you will drive him away. And then you will only have yourself to blame. As to becoming pregnant, you haven’t been off the pill for long and it takes a little time sometimes so it’s early days. You’ll be pregnant before you know it, but I do want you to be sure about it.’
‘I think I am.’ Nicola managed a rueful smile. ‘I’m scared stiff at the thought of having it, but you managed it, didn’t you?’
‘And millions of other women before me.’ Eleanor sighed with relief. So it was probably just stage fright after all, and deep down her daughter wanted a baby as much as the next woman. ‘Relax and it will happen and don’t bother Matthew about it. I know he will be thrilled when it does happen.’
‘He’s very preoccupied. I catch him sitting there staring into space.’
‘Men often are preoccupied. It will be work-related. It always is. Do you want your father to talk to him?’
‘What about? That’s the worst idea ever. I wonder if it might be something to do with that Chrissie woman. Do you remember me telling you about her?’
‘Yes, but it blew over, didn’t it? You haven’t heard from her since?’
‘No, I haven’t but has he? You don’t suppose he is seeing her on the quiet, do you? You don’t suppose that he’s meeting up with this woman whilst her husband is away flying his plane?’
Eleanor laughed. ‘I don’t suppose that for a moment. Don’t be suspicious, whatever you do. Talk to him. Tell him you’re worried. Ask him what is worrying him. Do you want me to ask Paula to have a word?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t. We don’t talk, if you must know. She irritates me too much and I’m scared I’m going to say something sooner or later that upsets her. So it is best if we stay clear of each other.’
‘I get on well with her.’
‘Do you? I suppose it will do no harm. See if she can throw some light on it. I don’t know if Matthew talks to her or not.’
‘I don’t understand. I thought you and Paula got on well together.’
‘Oh, come on, Mother. She’s never liked me and made that fairly obvious. The fact that I’ve met the Queen is my only saving grace in her eyes.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Eleanor paused. ‘You are wrong. Paula adores you, darling. You’re just like a daughter to her. She lost her real daughter and you’ve made up for it in a small way.’
‘No I haven’t, and please don’t patronize me, Mother.’
‘Don’t do anything in haste. Don’t upset Matthew too much. Play it very carefully. If I were you I would do absolutely nothing.’
‘And there speaks the voice of experience.’
‘You did ask for my advice.’ Eleanor felt a tightness in her chest. ‘You can be very brusque sometimes, Nicola, and it does not become you.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Nicola sighed, reaching out for a cake and taking it carefully from its paper case. She stuffed it in her mouth and chewed on it, dropping a few crumbs and shaking them off onto the carpet. ‘The trouble is, I don’t want to know in case he really is having an affair. Suppose he’s meeting up secretly with that Chrissie woman?’
‘Will you stop that? What have I just said about suspicion? Now you are being neurotic. That was all explained away. It was a schoolboy crush and it’s over a
nd he’s not going to see her again.’
‘Yes, but suppose he is. After all, she must still love him, even though she’s supposed to be the happiest married woman on the planet. Seeing him again that day must have rekindled it for her and seeing him at the station really set things alight.’
‘Nicola. For goodness’ sake, get a grip. You are building things up out of all proportion. You have to pull yourself together,’ she said briskly, knowing that those were words you should never ever use to the people she had occasionally counselled, but deciding that they were appropriate here. ‘Your honeymoon is over and life is full of ups and downs. This is just a little blip and you will get over it.’
‘I won’t be able to stay with him if he has been shagging another woman.’
‘Nicola!’
‘Sorry but I’m not like you. I suppose it was different in your day,’ Nicola said, regaining her composure. ‘You stuck together no matter what.’
‘I’m not that old and I know plenty of people who divorced,’ Eleanor said, stung by the ‘in your day’ as if she was a hundred. ‘I am just saying that you are in a stupid panic about nothing. Jumping to conclusions is very unwise.’
‘I know, but I don’t know what to do. I feel bloody miserable.’
‘It’s probably just your hormones.’
‘Oh, please. That is supposed to explain everything, isn’t it? But you may be right because I’m getting myself worked up about the baby. I want to be knocked out, Mum, when I give birth. Can I request a Caesarean on the NHS or will I have to go private?’
‘Stop worrying. Good heavens, Nicola, I hope I won’t have to put up with all this nonsense for the next nine months.’
‘But you’re my mother. You know about these things,’ she said, looking so childlike and leaving Eleanor quite bemused.
‘I’m glad you’ve told me all this, darling.’ She smiled, genuinely pleased because they were not that close, the two of them, and it delighted her that when it came to the crunch Nicola thought of her. ‘As you are so concerned, I will speak to Paula but I want to do it face to face not over the phone. If – and it is a big if – if he is having an affair, then I can’t believe she doesn’t know about it because she and that son of hers are thick as thieves.’
‘Can I stay here tonight?’ Nicola asked. ‘I need some time on my own.’
‘No, you cannot.’ Eleanor decided the time had come to be brisk. ‘You will go home and act as if there is nothing wrong. Carry on as normal. Consider what is the very worst that can happen. Confront that and you will be fine.’
‘The worst thing is that he leaves me for this other woman. What if she loves him so much that she leaves the pilot and the kids just to be with him?’ Nicola spoke in a small voice, totally changed, and she was shocked to see the transformation, which she did not like. Where was her confident, sassy daughter, who like herself did not suffer fools gladly, the daughter who normally could give as good as she got? She wanted that girl back, because just now she looked in danger of becoming a snivelling wreck and it was so out of character that she was quite alarmed. ‘We’ve only been married just over a year. What will people say? What does that make me look like?’
‘Is that all you can think about? What other people might think?’
‘No it’s not, Mother, and you know it. I happen to love the bastard to bits and I don’t want to lose him and it’s taken something like this …’ She moved to put her plate on the table clattering it down as she did so. ‘It’s taken something like this when I think I might lose him to make me realize how much I want him to stay. I want him to move with me to the big house when we can afford it and if we never can then we’ll have to find some way of doing up the cottage so that it’s bearable there. I am not giving up on him, Mum. I want to grow old with him, like you and Dad.’
‘Thanks for that.’ Eleanor tried a small smile. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll have a little chat with Paula. I find she’s always more than happy to speak to me.’
Chapter Sixteen
PAULA RECEIVED A summons in writing from Her Ladyship to meet in town for lunch and a catch-up.
‘Why didn’t she send an email like anybody else?’ Alan said when she showed him the short note stating a time and place. ‘Or phone you?’
‘Because she knows I’m upset still about her making an excuse not to come over for dinner.’
‘Henry was ill, wasn’t he?’
She huffed at that. ‘You’d believe anything. I’ve been waiting for her to make a move. Perhaps she’s going to apologize.’
‘Will you accept it?’
‘I don’t know.’ She smiled. ‘I might and I might not. I might make her sweat a bit first.’
‘My God, Paula, you’ve changed,’ Alan said and he didn’t sound exactly pleased. ‘Once upon a time you wouldn’t have dared say anything to upset Eleanor. In fact, once upon a time, you would hardly have dared to say a word in her company. Coming into money has certainly changed you.’
‘Don’t say that. It doesn’t sound right. You should be pleased I’m standing up to her. I am every bit as good as she is and so are you, Alan. You are worth ten of Henry.’
‘Only ten?’ He laughed shortly.
‘I have to start telling her what I really think. I’ve been biting my tongue too long when I’m with her and I’m getting too old to be such a wimp. The truth is I’ve always been lacking in confidence,’ she went on thoughtfully. ‘It was your father, you know,’ she told him. ‘When I heard him say that I wasn’t good enough for you, that you could do better than me, it had a big effect on me. At that time, I think I was just starting to feel more confident, breaking away from Mother and planning to get married to you. I was feeling good about myself and then I heard him say that and it knocked all my confidence because my mother thought much the same about me. She didn’t think I would ever make much of myself. She told me I would never be an actress, said I wasn’t good enough and I believed her. It’s a bit late in the day now but I’m finally starting to believe in myself. Does that make sense?’
‘Have you been reading one of those self-help manuals?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I’ve never heard you talk like this before but I tell you this. I wish my father was here now. I wish he could hear what you said just now. Because he would have to admit that he was wrong. Mind you, I have to admit that I loved you as you were. I loved taking care of you, looking after you, loved being protective towards you.’
It was a disturbing thing for him to say, talking about love in the past tense as if, now that she was starting to shake off all those old inhibitions about herself, he now had doubts.
‘You do still love me, don’t you?’ she asked, searching his face so that he gave her a much-needed hug and told her that of course he did.
He had had to be prompted, though, to say it.
She knew that she alone was responsible for the change in herself, that somehow Eleanor and her reaction to Eleanor was part of it too, so it wasn’t all about the inheritance. It happened on holiday. It was Juliet’s balcony that did it for she realized then that in fact she probably knew a damned sight more about that Shakespeare play than the lady herself.
A lot had happened since their holiday and she knew that Eleanor must be aware of their changed circumstances, although there had been no acknowledgment from her. In fact, things had been a little strained since the holiday. There was one dinner out together at a fancy hotel in Cornwall in early August but the way Eleanor had snubbed her invitation to come along to her home for a meal hit hard. Alan had suggested that they invite the Nightingales to a restaurant of their choice, somewhere in Plymouth, but she had thought that it was time they entertained in their home. In a sudden surge of domestic pride she was damned if she was going to be ashamed of her own home, which was her little palace and she wanted to show it off.
It was the fact that Eleanor made a fool of her that offended her most. She would not have minded so much if she had refused the invitation straight off but to
say yes and then back out at the last minute with a lame excuse was unforgivable. Much to Alan’s amusement, she had even bought a new rug and curtains for the dining room and some new dishes, some smart white ones, and she had planned the meal for a week beforehand because, although she considered herself a competent cook, she was not a confident one. Poor Alan had the same meal three nights running until she was sure she had it right.
Alan had sorted out some wine, something good from Waitrose, a couple of bottles at that, and she got the loft ladder out and rooted through some boxes to find the fancy wine glasses somebody had bought them for their silver wedding. And then she got some flowers from a florist’s and the woman had picked out a lovely big spray for her to arrange at home. She dusted and polished all day long and the house was so clean you could perform an operation on the kitchen worktop.
All that fuss and then, at the last minute, Eleanor had the brass neck to ring up and say that Henry was incapacitated and could they possibly rearrange at a later date.
She could forget that.
The inheritance was not through, not absolutely, but because it was just a matter of the solicitor sorting it all out for them, they had agreed that they could spend some of their own savings, which now seemed like a drop in the ocean compared with the amount they were going to get from Thomas. So she had been on a shopping spree and treated herself to a few new outfits.
For the meeting in town with Eleanor she wore a navy suit – knee-length pencil skirt, fitted jacket – teaming it with a colourful scarf and spanking heels, her hair newly coloured and a little longer because she was trying to grow it into a new style. She arrived in town in plenty of time because the last thing she wanted was to be rushed and flushed; because Eleanor would be neither.
Catching a glimpse of herself in a shop window she reflected that it was astonishing what a difference good-quality clothes – and high-end shoes and handbag – did for the morale. It was almost as if she was now playing a different character and it felt liberating. She was no longer Little Miss Dowdy and she felt so much more confident in herself, a new woman no less; Alice next door had remarked on it, telling her she looked a million dollars. She was going to treat Alice to a little something when the money came through, but it would have to be carefully thought out because she didn’t want to look as if she was showing off, so she must not overdo the gesture.
A Close Connection Page 14