by Maeve Haran
‘Helen would like to be your Finance Director.’
Glenning’s face was a picture of amazement as though he could not actually believe what he was hearing.
Liz decided to press home before she lost her nerve. ‘How much does the job pay?’
‘Thirty K.’ Glenning looked irritated with himself that he had supplied this information.
Liz made a face. ‘She was earning eighty at First Int. Still, this would only be a three-day week.’
Peter Glenning’s disbelief turned to sarcastic laughter. ‘You are proposing that I hire this woman as my Finance Director for £30,000 for a three-day week?’
‘With the usual perks of course. Private health care, company car, six weeks’ holiday, free life insurance. Do you operate a share option?’
‘Mrs Ward, have you gone stark staring mad? I already have a Finance Director.’
Liz smiled winningly. ‘No, Mr Glenning, I’m afraid you don’t. I think you’ll find that the present incumbent is on the point of handing in his notice. So inconsiderate. And just when you’re bidding for Southern Life Insurance too.’
Peter Glenning spat out his cigar and Liz noticed with satisfaction that his nose had gone the colour of an overripe tomato and that a vein had started ticking gently in the side of his head. ‘Is this another stupid publicity stunt?’
‘Certainly not. Why don’t you ask him?’
Without saying a word he pressed the buzzer on his desk again and again until it sounded like an angry wasp was trapped in the room. ‘Veronica. Get me Jack Godstone. Tell him I want to see him now, and I mean now.’
For two or three minutes the tension was unbearable and Liz tried not to watch, mesmerized, as the nerve in Glenning’s forehead ticked away the seconds until finally there was a knock at the door, and a confident-looking young man in his early thirties walked in. ‘You wanted me, Mr Glenning?’
‘Indeed I did, Jack.’ Glenning’s eyes narrowed until they were two pig-like slits of fury. ‘I have just been informed of some unpleasant gossip that you are intending to leave us soon and I thought I would give you the chance to put my mind at rest.’
‘Ah.’ To Liz’s relief Jack Godstone looked uncomfortable but not dismayed. ‘Yes, well. I was actually about to ask your secretary for an appointment this afternoon so that I could tell you myself.’
Liz thought Glenning was about to explode. The broken veins on his face were filling up with blood and turning from an unflattering red to a vivid purple. Liz hoped he wasn’t prone to heart attacks or all this work would have been for nothing.
Glenning sat down heavily and tried to dredge up a voice of authority. ‘In that case, clear your desk now. Jim from security will be down in half an hour to escort you from the building.’
Liz waited perhaps thirty seconds before passing over the CV again. ‘Would you like to read this now? If Helen started on Monday no one would be any the wiser, she could simply say she’d been coming to take over the deal all along. With her experience no one would bat an eyelid. Otherwise you’ll have to look around and word is bound to get out. There might even be a story in the local paper . . .’ She smiled and let her voice trail off.
‘Mrs Ward, are you threatening me?’
‘Mr Glenning. Would I?’
‘Yes, Mrs Ward, I believe you would. When can I see this financial wizard of yours?’
Liz tried to repress a grin and not rub his nose in it. ‘As a matter of fact, Mr Glenning, she’s waiting outside in the car park.’
‘To WomanPower! Half a woman is the best man for the job!’ The cork came out of the champagne with such force that it soaked Dawn’s brother’s masterpiece on the wall behind but nobody cared. Peter Glenning had agreed to take on Helen Stevens for a three-month trial period and WomanPower was finally on its way.
Dawn began to do the can-can balancing on a pile of spread sheets and Ginny juggled with two desk-tidies as they discussed how much to charge as a placement fee. Clearly not much more work was going to get done this afternoon, but it was four p.m. on Friday and now that this moment had come, they could all admit how much they’d needed it, how near they’d been to losing heart.
In the midst of the chaos, the phone rang and Liz picked it up. When she realized who it was, without knowing it she flushed slightly and subtly turned her back on the party, poking a finger in her ear to cut out the din.
‘Hello. It’s Nick Winters here’ – as if he needed to say –‘I’ve just heard the good news and wondered if you felt like dinner to celebrate?’
To her surprise, Liz felt herself hesitate. And she realized that the strength of her reaction to him had scared her. What if they went out to dinner, even went to bed together, and she never saw him again? She was too old to behave like a teenager, to spend her life hanging round waiting for some man to call like Mel did. She was happy with her job and her home and the kids. She had enough in her life without risking getting hurt again. And Nick was clearly quite an operator.
‘Nick, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m rather tired, I . . .’
She stopped for a moment as Ginny handed her a large piece of cardboard with a message scrawled on it in felt-tip pen.
‘SAY YES,’ it commanded, ‘OR I WILL SHOOT YOUR CHILDREN.’
‘What I meant was,’ she aimed a kick at Ginny who swooped out of the way making kissing noises, ‘I’m rather tired so tonight’s out, but would tomorrow be OK instead?’
As she put the phone down, smiling, to a round of applause from Ginny and Dawn, Liz realized it was the first day in five months that she hadn’t thought about David once.
As Liz shook out the red silk dress she’d chosen to wear tonight she told herself to stop worrying. Maybe Nick was just what she needed.
But as she got ready she realized for the first time how much losing David had dented her sense of being attractive or desirable. At the time, she’d tried to persuade herself that the affair with Britt was the result of their crazy lifestyles, but she’d known in her heart there was more to it than that. It couldn’t be just coincidence that Britt was thinner, blonder and smarter than she was. The stark truth was that David had left her after twelve years together for a more attractive woman.
And now someone found her desirable. And he was one of the most stunning men she’d ever met. It was high time she let someone make her feel good about herself.
She paused for a moment, trying to decide which underwear to choose: slinky or serviceable? Smiling to herself she took out the ivory silk briefs she hadn’t yet worn and held them up to her cheek. Even though the room was cold the silk felt warm to the touch and smelt subtly of lavender. And somehow the conflicting sensations of the sensuous silk and the old-lady-ness of the lavender felt oddly erotic.
Still smiling she slipped them on. But as she studied herself in the long mirror she felt her pleasure drain away. To her eyes the woman looking back at her was simply ridiculous. A 36-year-old mother-of-two who needed to lose a few pounds, poured into silk knickers that were ever so slightly too tight.
Tearing them off she rummaged for her usual cotton ones and pulled them on. She was damned if she was going to muck about with silk knickers. Why on earth had she allowed Ginny to talk her into this? She loathed having to worry whether her thighs were flabby or her spare tyre too obvious. She’d done all that at eighteen and it had been terrible then too.
All at once she realized the truth. She had lost her nerve. For twelve years she had been faithful to one man and the very idea of sex with another, especially one as beautiful as Nick Winters, suddenly seemed not so much a turn-on as a terror. He would be used to slender twenty-year-olds with skin like silk and bottoms as firm as crisp autumn apples that you can’t wait to sink your teeth into, not two old windfalls stuffed into M & S midi-knickers.
She sat down on the bed as it all flooded back to her. Sex and the Single Girl. From the first furtive grope, to the undignified move from sofa to bedroom, to the second thoughts when you smelt that unique ar
oma of stale air, old socks and essence of unmade bed. And there was worse to come. The way once he got you into bed every man insisted on Pulling Out all the Stops, and even if you’d only met him five minutes earlier, performing acts of such toe-curling intimacy that you counted the seconds till he put his tongue away and you could pull up the duvet and call a taxi.
And then there was the next day when, even though you never wanted to see him again, you were terrified he wouldn’t ring because that would mean that Mother was Right. Stuff the sexual revolution. He had only been after one thing. You had been used and chucked away like an old glove. And he had done the chucking before you did, God damn him.
How could she dream of going through all that again? She delved in her address book for Nick’s number and caught sight of her watch. Seven-twenty! He would be here in ten minutes and she wasn’t even dressed.
Forgetting all her doubt in her efforts not to put her finger through her only remaining pair of tights, she smoothed down her cotton knickers and slipped on a sensible white bra. She grabbed the silk dress and pulled it over her head, adding a pair of high heels and some red lipstick. Then she looked at herself again.
The bright red silk clung to her curves and emphasized the slimness of her waist and the swell of her heavy breasts. It also camouflaged the swell of her too-heavy tummy and the curves of her rather too generous thighs. She grinned. What the hell! As Joan Collins once said, not bad for an old broad!
And as she stood there waiting for the doorbell to ring she remembered the other side of the coin. The delicious nervousness. The excitement of a first date when anything could happen. She had been taking it all too seriously. If she didn’t want to go to bed with him, Nick could hardly force her, kicking and screaming, to have his wicked way with her. In the end, as her convent school had told her countless times, it was all up to her. She would just have to keep her hand on her ha’penny.
And remembering Nick’s provocative green eyes, and that smooth suntanned skin, as sleek and tempting as a toffee apple, she hoped it wasn’t going to be too difficult.
When the doorbell finally rang, she jumped up and ran downstairs before Jamie had time to get out of bed and come to the top of the stairs to see who it was.
What she needed was some fun. And Nick Winters was just the man to supply it.
CHAPTER 29
‘So tell me about Mr Ward. Are you divorced?’
They were sitting at a table next to a window overlooking the millstream of a watermill converted into a beautiful restaurant. It was less than three miles from her home, yet she’d never heard of it. Going out to dinner hadn’t been part of her life lately.
She picked up her wineglass. Nick clearly didn’t believe in beating about the bush. And yet, in a way, she liked his directness. Somehow it made things easier.
‘Not yet.’
He looked surprised. ‘Why not?’
For a moment she considered telling him about Britt but she didn’t want to sound like a victim, the wronged wife who would be grateful for any bone she was tossed.
‘David moved up North. Neither of us is involved with anyone else so it just hasn’t come up.’
She remembered Suzan striding into her sitting room loaded with presents and wondered if this was strictly true. If they hadn’t been lovers then, they might be by now. Why think about David for God’s sake, when she was sitting opposite the most stunning man she’d met in years.
‘But you have no intention of getting back together.’ She noticed that he said it more as a statement than a question.
‘Certainly not.’
‘Good.’ He raised his glass to hers. ‘I like to know where I stand.’
‘And where do you stand?’ She was amazed at her own outspokenness. Speaking frankly was clearly catching.
The green of his eyes held hers for a moment. They were mesmerizing, those eyes, their luminosity reminded her of a semi-precious stone, the kind she liked best. Diamonds and emeralds reminded her of old rich women. Opals and turquoises and moonstones were about real life.
‘On the brink of something very special, I hope. How about you?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to laugh and say Bet you say that to all the girls but something stopped her, some sense that he didn’t say it to all the girls. Instead she smiled back gently, recognizing the seriousness of the moment, but feeling things were moving too fast.
‘I like to get the lie of the land before I make up my mind.’
‘How very sensible.’ He laughed and cupped his face in one hand, his elbow on the table. ‘I, on the other hand, have always been exceptionally good at geography and know at once when I have found my America.’
Liz caught her breath. Was he consciously referring to her favourite poem, John Donne’s erotic masterpiece, or was it sheer coincidence that he echoed its phrasing?
Suddenly images flashed into her memory of her schoolgirl passion for Donne. While her friends yearned for Mick Jagger or Jack Nicholson, Donne had been her idol, her dream. And when, lonely and puzzled by the powerful awakening of her young body she had longed for a man to introduce her to the forbidden delights of the flesh, John Donne had been that man.
The lines from ‘To His Mistress Going To Bed’, as powerful and stirring now as when they were written more than three hundred years ago, came instantly back to her.
Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O my America, my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann’d .
It had to be coincidence. Nothing about Nick Winters suggested he knew the first thing about poetry. He looked as though he’d spent more time on the sports field than in the library. She glanced up and found his eyes on her, demanding that she return his gaze.
And then suddenly he smiled. A long, lazy, irresistible grin that instantly defused the pretentiousness of the moment.
She smiled back. She’d been mad to read so much into the conversation. Nick was attractive and charming but he was no intellectual.
Nick raised his glass to hers. ‘To John Donne,’ he toasted, smiling at her through the glow of the dark red wine, as though he could read her thoughts, ‘the greatest English poet.’
To Liz it was nothing less than a miracle. She felt alive again. Nick Winters was like no man she had ever met. She had been brought up with a saying of the English upper crust, ‘Never trust a man who is too good-looking or too well-dressed,’ and he was the living proof of its wrong-headedness.
She had never been able to talk to any man so freely – he seemed endlessly interested in her, wanted to know everything about her life from the day she was born, right down to the tiniest detail. And after years of David’s strong opinions and deep passions she couldn’t believe she’d met a man who was so non-judgemental. She tried to think of anything that would shock him or of which he would even disapprove and failed. Live and Let Live, was Nick’s philosophy. He simply took people as he found them. Especially women.
And of the fact that he took them often, she had no illusions. Everywhere they went women threw themselves at him. And yet, to her astonishment, when she made the hardest decision she could remember and refused to get into his bed that first night he had accepted it with astonishing ease, hadn’t even argued or tried to persuade her to change her mind.
Irrationally she had been almost insulted. But then she realized she was grateful that he had left her to set the pace. With one painful mistake so fresh in her memory she didn’t dare cloud her judgement with sex, especially the kind of sex she knew Nick would offer her. She knew that with him once she jumped into that deep and murky pool she would never want to come up for air again. And she knew she had to be right about him before she even put a foot on the diving board.
When the right moment came she would know.
So instead of making love, they laughed and romped with almost childish pleasure. And Nick planned romantic treats and sent her
single red roses and whisked her off to surprise breakfasts on the beach with a hamper and champagne, and from time to time she would find a small surprise hidden somewhere in the house, planted there by Nick to remind her of him. He was the most romantic man she’d ever met. And within weeks she wondered how she had ever got through life since she’d left London without him to tease her and laugh with her.
She didn’t need Mel to tell her she was falling in love.
‘So tell me about him! The way you’re looking these days you ought to bottle him! You’d make a fortune!’
Mel looked at her friend in amazement. It was early May and they were sitting in the garden. England was enjoying an early heatwave and already the paddling pool was out and Daisy was screeching with delight as Jamie soaked her with a water pistol.
She’d never seen Liz look like this before. Her hair had grown and now tumbled to her shoulders, reminding Mel of Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris, the role model for a million women who dutifully took her photo to their hairdresser and asked him to transform them, no matter how unpromising the material, into a vision of smouldering sex bomb.
Liz’s skin was brown and freckled and she’d left off her bra under her khaki silk top with its shoestring straps. She looked sensational. It was as though someone had switched on a light inside her. And Mel couldn’t wait to meet the man who’d done it. She thought for a moment of Garth and wondered if this was what she would look like if they ever lived together. So far she’d taken the clairvoyant’s advice and stopped chasing him – well, almost. And so far it had made no difference at all. She sighed.
‘So, go on, tell Auntie Mel. What’s his secret? Does he anoint you with almond oil and ravish you to within an inch of your life? Is he the best lover you’ve ever had?’
Liz blushed. Mel would find the truth far more shocking.
‘Well actually, er . . .’
‘Er, what? Er, yes or er, no?’
‘Er, I don’t know. We’ve never actually made love.’