Now or Never

by Penny Jordan

  A large glass of wine on an empty stomach had made Laura unusually reckless.

  ‘He’s married,’ she told Zoë defiantly, ‘and I think I’ve fallen in love with him.’

  ‘You’re in love with a married man…Join the club, so am I,’ Zoë said to her.

  Laura goggled.

  ‘The only difference is,’ Zoë continued, picking up her glass and taking a deep swallow, ‘that the married man I love is my husband. And, like I’ve already told you, he doesn’t love me!’

  Laura stared at her. For once Zoë was not being theatrical.

  ‘Zoë, I’m sure you must be wrong!’ Laura tried to comfort her. ‘You’ve got two children and…’

  She stopped speaking as Zoë burst out laughing.

  ‘Oh my God, Laura, and I thought my mother was naïve! What does having children have to do with love? Nothing!’ she told her savagely. ‘And anyway I was the one who had the children, not Ian. Oh, yes, he “begat” them…but he did not “have” them. He does not “have” them, and yet he has the gall to criticise me because I don’t spend twenty-four seven with them. I took a degree, Laura. I had dreams. I wanted to travel…to live…to love and be loved, and yet here I am stuck in the same town I grew up in. I hate it all so much sometimes. And I hate myself even more!’

  As she heard the anguish in Zoë’s voice Laura tried to focus on the menu she had picked up. She knew she needed something to eat, but the intoxication, not so much of the wine she had had to drink but the confidences she and Zoë were sharing, the unexpectedness of feeling that she had at long last found herself an ally, coming so close on the heels of having felt so alien and alone, was pushing to one side such practical considerations.

  ‘Ian hates me drinking. In fact sometimes I think he just hates me full stop,’ she heard Zoë saying. ‘His mother was an alcoholic!’ Her eyes widened. ‘You are the first person I’ve told about that. He hates anyone knowing about it.’

  Laura took a deep breath.

  ‘I had the most awful row with Nicki this morning. I mean, it was like my teenage years revisited!’ she found herself confessing in return.

  Conspiratorially, they smiled tentatively at one another.

  ‘Don’t look now but there’s a man over there at the bar who just can’t take his eyes off you,’ Zoë hissed to her.

  ‘What…where?’ Automatically Laura looked towards the bar, her heart pounding as, illogically, she searched for Ryan’s face and found instead that she was staring into a pair of chilly, disapproving, steely grey male eyes.

  ‘Do you know him?’ Zoë demanded.

  Laura shook her head, suddenly conscious of her wine-flushed face and windswept hair. ‘He’s probably wondering what we’re doing in here at half-past five in the afternoon, drinking,’ she told Zoë a little uncomfortably.

  ‘Balls,’ Zoë retorted. ‘He fancies you, I can tell. This is good, Laura. You and I have a lot in common. After all, we’re both fellow victims.’ She made a face and laughed.

  ‘We both know what it’s like to suffer from the “one for all and all for one” cabalistic terrorism of those women. God, do you know, Stella once saw me hanging out in the street with some other girls, trying to be cool, you know how it is, and she actually came up to me and told me that she knew it was past my bedtime. I mean, it wasn’t like having one mother, it was like I’d got four of them! Of course, Maggie was always okay.’

  ‘Well, Maggie’s always been in a class of her own,’ Laura had to admit. ‘After my mother died she gave me a huge diary box with a lock on it. She said it was for me to put special memories of my mother in.’

  ‘Yeah, her own mother died when she was young, didn’t she? And she was brought up by some eccentric old aunt,’ Zoë replied carelessly. ‘How long are you going to be in town for?’ she added eagerly.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t got a job at the moment so…’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d fancy a bit of child-minding, would you?’ Zoë asked ruefully. ‘Ma has the kids for me three days a week so that I can work—it keeps me sane. It’s not that I don’t love them to bits, I do. But…’ She paused. ‘Ma has suddenly gone all difficult about having them—heaven knows why, you’d think she’d be thrilled to spend time with them; they are her grandchildren, after all. Now, if they were the twins’ kids…’ Zoë closed her eyes. ‘Of course I know why she’s doing it. She thinks that I can’t manage without her help; that I’m dependent on her! Well, I’m not! And I’m going to prove it to her. I’m going to find a live-in nanny and then…’

  ‘Live-in?’ Laura queried. ‘What exactly would you be expecting? I mean, I’m not trained or anything, but I do like children, and I’ve worked on a voluntary basis at a local school—nothing dramatic, just helping out with the special needs kids.’

  Zoë stared at her.

  ‘Are you serious? I mean, I know you had this fantastic high-powered city job, and I can’t afford to pay you much—I don’t earn much myself…but I don’t work for the money. It’s the company, the sense of being part of the mainstream of life; of doing something that my wonderful mother hasn’t done before me.’

  Yes, she was serious, Laura acknowledged mentally. Anything to enable her to keep some distance between herself and Ryan. Anything, other than going back and living with her father and Nicki.

  ‘I’m serious,’ she confirmed. ‘How soon do you want me to start?’

  ‘Tonight? Ian’s away on business for a few days and Ma has already warned me that she can’t have the kids tomorrow. Oh, and of course it will depend on how they take to you.’

  ‘Of course,’ Laura agreed promptly. Her head was spinning, she recognised, and her stomach was churning nervously. So nervously that she no longer felt able to eat anything even though common sense told her that she ought to do so.

  ‘We’ll give it a trial run for, say, three days,’ Zoë told her, ‘and then if it looks like it’s going to work out we’ll sort out something more permanent.’

  Lifting her glass, Zoë proposed solemnly, ‘A toast, Laura, to us and to daughter power. It’s time we united and showed the older generation that we are every bit as good as them.’

  ‘Daughter power,’ Laura echoed, muzzily.

  As she put her glass down she realised that the man seated at the bar was still watching her—and she was pretty sure that the look in his eyes was not one of admiration!

  ‘Oh, God, is that the time?’ Zoë was exclaiming. ‘I should have picked the kids up from Ma half an hour ago. Look, here’s my address,’ she told Laura, reaching into her bag and scribbling it down on a piece of paper torn from her diary, and then removing a small handbag spray of breath freshener.

  ‘Just a precaution,’ she told Laura when she had finished using it. ‘It’s ridiculous, I know, but some people, mentioning no names, think that enjoying a glass of wine turns a person into an alcoholic.’ She pulled a face. ‘I mean, if I was I’d be trying to hide it, wouldn’t I? Stashing bottles all over the place. I mean, if I did have a drink problem, I’d know about it, wouldn’t I? And I know that I haven’t! You’d never think that Ma’s generation were so heavily into the drug scene, would you? Not of course that Ma was ever likely to have indulged. Squeaky clean wasn’t in it. I can’t wait to tell her that you will be looking after the kids.’

  ‘So when do you want me to start?’ Laura asked her again.

  ‘Whenever you like.’ Zoë shrugged, pulling on her jacket. ‘The sooner the better. Come round tonight if you can.’

  Briefly closing her eyes Laura saw a mental picture of her mother’s grave. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She was neither religious nor prone to otherworldly type thoughts, but right now…Right now if she was the kind of person who believed in the power of love and prayer, she would be thanking her mother for the escape route that had just been handed to her—not just from Nicki but from Ryan as well. There was no way he could track her down at Zoë’s!

  ‘Give me an hour,’ she told Zoë dete
rminedly, reaching for her own coat.

  On the way out, even though she had promised herself she would not do so, she glanced at the man at the bar, grudgingly acknowledging that he was quite good-looking if you liked the type; taller than Ryan and not as heavily built. Younger, too, closer to thirty than Ryan’s forty. His hair was as dark as Ryan’s, but straight. Unable to stop herself she looked at his hands. Hands were her thing; Ryan’s were musician’s hands, long-fingered and supple, a magician’s fingers. Capable of all kinds of sleight of hand and deceit? This man’s were squarer, stronger, his nails immaculately clean but not manicured. For a second Laura hesitated, not knowing what she was really waiting for. Some kind of acknowledgement from him? Of what? Zoë was already opening the wine bar door, and quickly Laura went to join her.

  Finishing his drink, Marcus paid his bill. The wine bar had seemed like a good idea until the two women had walked in. One of them had provoked a physical reaction in him that had caught him off guard and angered him. He had moved to the town to give himself a period of reflection and not to make his life even more complicated than it already was.

  He knew if Hebe was with him she would be telling him robustly that a decent sex session was what he needed. Most men, he knew, would jump at the chance to prove her right. Was he an idealistic idiot for wanting more? Wasn’t it women who were supposed to find sex unfulfilling without an emotional commitment?

  Maybe once, but with the breaking down of the social barriers that had imposed strict differences between the sexes had also come a breaking down of the rigid stereotypes that had accompanied them, allowing people’s individual natures and not just their gender to dictate how they felt and behaved.

  ‘How did you get on with Nicki?’ Oliver asked.

  Putting down the estate agents’ details she had been studying, Maggie gave a small sigh.

  ‘She was very upset when I got there. She’d had a row with Laura. Oliver…’ She paused, her frown deepening. ‘I’m worried about her. Not because of what she said about us and the baby, it’s more than that…’

  ‘She doesn’t like having Laura there,’ Oliver responded. ‘You said so yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but…I don’t know what it is. I can’t put my finger on anything logical or concrete, but there’s something there…something wrong. For one thing…’ She hesitated. There was a strong code of loyalty between the four of them, which in its way transcended even her closeness with Oliver.

  ‘What?’ Oliver pressed her, coming over and wrapping his arms around her, holding her tenderly.

  ‘It’s hard to put into words,’ Maggie told him slowly. ‘But…Well, her reactions to everything, not just the baby, are so unlike her. She’s always been so rational, so…so orderly in her thinking and her behaviour, even as a girl, but now—If you knew her as I do, you’d understand. Her behaviour, everything, even the way she moves and talks are different, out of character…just not Nicki. It’s as though…’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘It’s almost as though somehow she’s become another person.’

  ‘You mean you think she’s got some kind of psychological problem?’ Oliver questioned.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Maggie uncertainly.

  ‘It sounds to me as though she needs professional help,’ Oliver pronounced forthrightly.

  ‘I don’t think…’ Maggie began and then stopped. ‘It could just be me. Perhaps if I talked to the others they might…’

  ‘Why not talk to Kit?’ Oliver suggested. ‘He is her husband, after all.’

  ‘Yes,’ Maggie agreed, but Oliver could hear the hesitation in her voice.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her.

  ‘Nothing. It’s just that…Well, there’s a sort of unwritten agreement between us all that husbands and partners are off limits, private territory, and to talk to Kit behind Nicki’s back is something I just wouldn’t feel comfortable doing. Nicki is my friend, Kit is her husband.’

  ‘But you’ve known Kit for years. You like him, I’ve heard you say so,’ Oliver exclaimed in disbelief.

  ‘Yes, I know. But he is still Nicki’s husband,’ she insisted. ‘I’ll talk to the others,’ she added reluctantly. ‘If they haven’t noticed anything then maybe it’s just me…’ Her voice tailed away.

  ‘Anything of interest come from the estate agents?’ Oliver asked, tactfully changing the subject.

  ‘Not really. I have got some good news though. We’ve got the Egerton contract, and I’ve told them that you are going to be overseeing everything, because my pregnancy would mean that I couldn’t be involved in the whole project.’

  They had already agreed that if Maggie did conceive, Oliver should take over the lion’s share of running the business, and Maggie had been grooming him for this purpose.

  He had a good deal more artistic flair than her, she recognised, and she suspected that ultimately he would become the driving force of the business. A rueful smile curled her mouth.

  ‘What’s that look for?’ Oliver demanded.

  Maggie laughed, admitting, ‘I was just thinking that at one time there was no way I would ever have allowed anyone else to take charge of my work because it was my “baby”, but now that I’m having the real thing—Oliver!’ she protested as he picked her up. ‘We have to be careful,’ she reminded him anxiously. ‘Especially for these first three months.’

  Although she had refused to let her see it, Nicki’s brutal comments had left her feeling uneasy and anxious.

  ‘The consultant said that everything was fine,’ Oliver soothed her.

  ‘I know,’ Maggie agreed. ‘I suppose I’m just being over-careful; over-protective.’ It bemused her a little just how strongly protective she did feel towards the new life she was carrying; how fiercely and instinctively determined not to let anyone or anything harm it, even to the extent of resenting Nicki for thinking, never mind saying, what she had, just in case the baby might know and feel afraid.

  Did she feel like this because it was an instinctive and automatic reaction, the reaction she would have felt had she become pregnant naturally, or were her feelings stronger and fiercer because she felt such a sense of gratitude and responsibility towards the woman who had made her pregnancy possible, such a sense of guardianship over her child?

  It was at times like this that Maggie longed for someone to talk to; someone who knew and understood because they themselves had been through what she was experiencing now.

  Somehow, instead of bonding her to her closest friends, her pregnancy was alienating her, setting her apart. Every day the weight of the responsibility she was carrying seemed a little heavier; every day she felt a little bit more anxious and afraid that she might not be strong enough, that somehow she might let down Oliver’s child; that he or she might grow to hate and resent her because she was not really his or her mother, in the same way that Laura so obviously hated and resented Nicki.

  She had never, Maggie recognised, felt more in need of the support of her friends.

  7

  Nicki was upstairs in the empty bedroom she used as an office, in the middle of trying to work on her VAT return, when she recognised from the noisy exhaust of their small car that Kit had arrived home. He was pointedly refusing to drive the BMW, which ridiculously actually made her feel hurt and rejected.

  Now, though, the row they had had about the BMW had been pushed to the back of her mind by Laura’s outburst.

  Nicki’s head throbbed with pain, the figures dancing indecipherably in front of her. She could feel the increasingly familiar sense of panic and sickness beginning to fill her. What was the point of her trying to make sense of them? What was the point of anything?

  ‘Nicki?’ Kit queried as he pushed open the office door. ‘I saw that the light was on but I thought you must be out because the BMW wasn’t there.’

  ‘Laura has taken it,’ Nicki told him shortly.

  ‘Where has she gone?’ Kit asked.

  Nicki compressed her mouth. ‘I have no idea. She’s
your daughter, Kit. Not mine.’

  ‘What is this thing you’ve suddenly got, Nicki?’ Kit demanded angrily. ‘Why is everything suddenly divided into yours or mine?’

  ‘Because that’s the way things are,’ Nicki told him flatly. Her head was pounding even more badly and she felt slightly sick. Stubbornly she refused to give in to the pain, again bending her head over the figures blurring her eyes.

  Helplessly Kit watched her. There were so many things he felt they needed to discuss but recently she had been so irrational, so unlike her normal self, that he had become wary of saying anything to her.

  ‘You’re home late.’ Challengingly Nicki lifted her gaze from the VAT figures and looked at him.

  ‘Yes,’ Kit agreed. ‘I had a long meeting this afternoon with one of our main customers.’

  Nicki could feel her stomach muscles clenching. They had agreed prior to Joey’s birth that she would scale down her agency in order to give her more time to spend at home with their baby, but the downturn in Kit’s business had made this impossible. At first she had not minded, telling herself that she was after all working for all of them, but now, when Kit’s daughter was virtually living off her, driving her car, accusing her of…

  ‘Don’t tell me.’ She sighed sourly. ‘He isn’t renewing his contract.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Kit corrected her curtly. ‘He is actually increasing it. And he isn’t the only one. It looks as though finally business may be on the upturn.’

  Once such an announcement would have had Nicki flinging herself into his arms, her face alight with love and pride. Once…

  ‘I thought that perhaps we might go out and celebrate. Have dinner somewhere…’ Kit suggested tentatively, offering an olive branch but not sure that it would be accepted.

  ‘Now? Tonight?’ Nicki gave him a bitter look, confirming his fears. ‘We have a son, remember? But of course, unlike your precious daughter, you never really wanted our son, my son.’