by Jill Mansell
Patrick keyed in a few more numbers.
‘Don’t know. Haven’t given it much thought.’
‘You’ll be forty.’
‘Better get me a Zimmer frame then.’
‘Come on, I need some clues.’ Something to remember me fondly by, thought Dulcie with a burst of uncharacteristic sentimentality. A gorgeous watch, perhaps? Flying lessons? A fabulous painting?
Patrick glanced up at her. He shrugged.
‘I really don’t know. Clothes, I guess. I could do with a couple of new shirts.’
Men, they were hopeless.
‘That’s so boring. What would you really, really like, more than anything?’
Patrick grinned. Ah, thought Dulcie, now we’re getting somewhere.
‘Okay.’ He reached past her, picked up a copy of last month’s PC Answers, and flipped through a few pages until he found what he was looking for. ‘There you go. The new Hewlett Packard Laserjet. What a machine ... six hundred dpi output, no less—’
‘A computer!’ wailed Dulcie. ‘I’m not getting you a bloody computer.’
‘It isn’t a computer,’ Patrick explained patiently. ‘It’s a printer.’
’Whatever, it’s still a crap present.’
‘Sorry, but you did ask what I wanted.’ He looked resigned, then gave her hand a squeeze.
‘Never mind. Just shirts then.’
‘No, no. I’ll get you the printer.’ She could do that much for Patrick. He would have something to keep him company during the long, lonely evenings after she had left.
It was his money anyway.
Dulcie just thought how ironic it was that her parting gift to him would be a computer-type thing, when they were what had effectively destroyed her marriage in the first place.
Still, at least the present-buying problem was solved. ‘What shall we do then,’ she persisted, ‘on your birthday?’ Patrick was trying hard to concentrate on the flickering VDU.
‘You choose, sweetheart. We could go out to dinner if you like.’
They always went out to dinner on Patrick’s birthdays. It wasn’t going to win awards for most riveting suggestion of the year. Dulcie wished he’d say, just once, ‘How about a torrid weekend away, making love under the moonlight in Marrakesh?’
Wherever Marrakesh was when it was at home. She hadn’t a clue, but it certainly sounded torrid.
She remembered a discussion she had heard the other day on Talk Radio, about men hitting forty.
‘Do you think you’ll have a mid-life crisis?’
Patrick was used to Dulcie’s startling about-turns in the middle of conversations. He drained his coffee and handed her the empty mug.
‘I haven’t got time for a mid-life crisis.’
‘You never know.’ She looked wistful. ‘You might suddenly realise that all you’ve done is work yourself stupid while life passes you by.’
Smiling, he glanced at his watch.
‘If I don’t get a move on I’m likely to have a mid-morning crisis. These figures have to be faxed to Manchester by twelve.
Thanks for the coffee, sweetheart.’ He ruffled Dulcie’s spiky dark hair. ‘See you later, hmm?’
A party, Dulcie decided. That was what she would do. Hold a spectacular surprise fortieth birthday party, to show Patrick she still cared about him and to launch him painlessly into single middle-agehood.
It would ease her own guilt and be fun into the bargain, she thought happily.
And then a week or so later, when all the excitement had died down and the timing was right, she would leave.
‘A party?’ Bibi Ross sounded amused. ‘Darling, it’s a lovely idea, but we couldn’t come. Too complicated for words.’
‘But it’s a surprise for Patrick,’ Dulcie protested. ‘You’re his mother. You have to be there.’
‘Impossible,’ Bibi replied flatly. ‘How can I bring James to a—’
‘Don’t bring James.’ Dulcie had already thought of this. ‘Tell him you’re ill. Tell him you’re going to an old girls’ school reunion ...’
Bibi visibly winced at the words ‘old girl’. She shook her head.
‘I can’t do that. Anyway, we’re already busy that night. James has invited some terribly important client and his wife round for dinner. He really has,’ Bibi insisted when Dulcie gave her a look. Rummaging in her bag, she pulled out a diary. ‘See, I’ve written it down. Friday the twenty-eighth. Dennis and Meg Haversham, seven thirty.’
It was true. Dulcie gave in with good grace.
‘Well, it’s a shame. You’re going to miss a terrific party.’
‘Never mind, can’t be helped.’ With some relief, Bibi snapped the diary shut. ‘Anyway, you know me. Never a great one for birthdays.’
Bibi had more reason than most not to be a great one forbirthdays. Dulcie adored her mother-in-law but the past two years had been a definite strain.
Complicated wasn’t the word for it. To maintain the degree of deception Bibi had landed them with you needed your wits permanently about you. Not to mention a degree in maths.
At the age of nineteen, Bibi – christened Barbara – had met and married George Ross. At twenty, she gave birth to Patrick.
When she was forty-five, George had died of a heart attack on the golf course. Distraught, Bibi had mourned him for three years. When finally she rejoined the outside world, she vowed never again to love anyone as much as she had loved George. The pain was too great. She couldn’t bear to risk losing anyone like that again.
Bowled over by her astonishing looks, many tried, but Bibi stuck to her guns. Until she met James Elliott, and realised what she had been missing all these years.
This was when the awful subterfuge had begun.
Bibi had always taken pretty good care of herself but her chief ally was her genes. Her mother had been the same. Some people can’t help it, they just look older than they are. It isn’t their fault.
Bibi, going to the other extreme, looked a lot younger than her years. She always had. At forty, people refused to believe she could be the mother of a strapping twenty-year-old son. At fifty, in a police line-up (heaven forbid) she could have passed for thirty-five.
At fifty-eight she met James Elliott and was astounded by the strength of her feelings for him.
When, on their third date, he mentioned in passing that he was forty-three, Bibi had been stunned. James’ neatly trimmed beard had fooled her; she had put him at fifty.
And she liked him so much. Really liked him. The prospect of losing him was unbearable.
Panicking, she told James she was forty-six.
The repercussions of her spur-of-the-moment fib had been endless. No longer could Bibi relate the story of the day her father had come home from the war. Memories of her teenage years were hastily rejigged. Her entire past had needed to be unceremoniously hauled forward a decade-anda-bit.
And since owning up to a thirty-seven-year-old son was out of the question – ‘What, you mean you had him when you were nine?’ – Bibi had been forced to lop a few years off his age too.
Patrick hadn’t been thrilled.
‘Is this a joke?’ he had demanded. ‘Ma, you’re mad. It’ll never work.’
But Bibi wasn’t joking. She was desperate.
‘It will, it will. He doesn’t suspect a thing. Anyway, you only have to be twenty-nine. I’ve already told James I had you at seventeen.’
Only the fact that his mother was so obviously happy again for the first time in years persuaded Patrick to go along with the ludicrous charade.
‘It won’t last,’ he had warned her. ‘You’ll be caught out sooner or later.’
Bibi hugged him.
‘Not if we’re clever I won’t.’
And, miraculously, she hadn’t been caught out. Everyone played their part, all Bibi’s friends kept her shameful secret to themselves and Bibi kept her passport and driving licence locked securely out of sight. She and James were a couple, happier together than any other couple sh
e knew. From time to time, referring to the three-year age gap between them, he lovingly called her his older woman. From time to time as well, he asked Bibi to marry him.
If she could have done so without him finding out how old she really was, Bibi would have been up that aisle like a shot. As it was, she insisted she preferred living in sin.
‘For God’s sake, tell him,’ an exasperated Patrick had urged just before Christmas. ‘He’ll understand. After all this time, how can your age matter? It’s you he loves, not your date of birth.’
But Bibi flatly refused to even consider telling James the truth. She couldn’t take that risk. There was too much to lose. Besides, some ages sounded worse than others. James teased her enough about being forty-eight.
And she was sixty.
Could anything, Bibi wondered with a shudder, sound worse than that?
Chapter 6
Once Dulcie had made up her mind about the party she threw herself into organising it with enthusiasm.
She decided to hold it at Brunton Manor. Home was out of the question if the party was to be a surprise — immersed in his work he may be, but even Patrick’s suspicions might be aroused by the sight of a mobile disco being set up in the sitting room and Dulcie sweating away in the kitchen sticking a million sausages on to sticks.
Anyway, sweating away in the kitchen wasn’t Dulcie’s forte. Eating food was more her line of country than preparing it.
Far better to let the Brunton Manor catering team take care of all that.
Better still, she wouldn’t have to clear up disgusting party debris the next day.
‘You’ll come, won’t you?’ said Dulcie when she rang Pru.
Pru hesitated. ‘What does that mean? Who are you inviting?’
‘Loads of people!’
‘I mean just me, or me and Phil?’
They hadn’t spoken since the awkward showdown at Pru’s house. Dulcie chewed her lip.
‘Whichever. Just you, if you’d prefer. Or both of you.’ Ouch, she’d chewed too hard. ‘Um ... do you want to bring Phil?’
‘He’s my husband. Of course I’d like him to be there.’ Pru sounded stilted.
‘Well, that’s fine.’
‘But only if you’re going to be nice to him. I mean it, Dulcie. No snide remarks. No digs. Not from you and not from Liza either. I couldn’t bear it. You both have to promise to behave.’
It was on the tip of Dulcie’s tongue to remark that if anyone should be promising to behave it was Phil. Heroically she kept her opinion to herself.
‘I promise.’ Heck, she felt like a schoolgirl being told off for smoking in the toilets. ‘And Liza will too. We’ll both be .. . angelic. On our very best behaviour,’ she assured Pru. ‘We’ll treat Phil like a king.’
King Rat, thought Dulcie as she put the phone down. Maybe she’d invite Rentokil along to the party. A spot of poison slipped into Phil’s drink might just do the trick.
Dulcie was wrapping up the box containing Patrick’s laser printer on the morning of the party when the phone rang. Armed to the teeth with Sellotape, she had used up at least three miles of foiled paper and six miles of curly ribbon. Cooking might not be her thing but if she said so herself, she wrapped a mean present.
Patrick knew what was inside the box, of course. Not trusting Dulcie to come back with the right one, he had gone to Computerworld and bought the printer himself.
Still, it was what he wanted and it was spectacularly wrapped. As soon as Dulcie had put the finishing touches to the sides she was going to cart it down to the club where he could open it tonight.
The phone was still ringing. Dulcie grabbed the receiver, fantasising briefly that it was one of their friends asking if they could bring Kevin Costner along to the party.
But life was somehow never that thrilling. It was Eddie Hammond, the manager of Brunton Manor. Sounding agitated.
‘Dulcie, bit of a hitch. I’m really sorry about this—’
‘What?’ yelped Dulcie, all of a sudden agitated too. If the club had been burned to the ground, where would she hold the party tonight? More to the point, where was she going to spend the rest of her life?
‘It’s the kitchen staff, darling. Gone down like ninepins. Fingers crossed it’s just a virus but the health inspector’s thrown a wobbler. Until salmonella’s ruled out, he’s shut down the kitchen. So
... ah ... no food, I’m afraid, tonight.’
Uh oh, panic attack. Dulcie went hot and cold all over.
‘No food?’ She wanted to cry. ‘What, nothing at all? Eddie, we can’t have a party without food!’
‘I know, I know,’ he said soothingly. ‘Sweetheart, I can’t tell you how bad I feel about this. But you’ve got a few hours to go ... that’s why I rang as soon as I could. If you organise your own buffet you can bring it down here yourself. I checked with the health inspector and he said that would be fine.’
‘Oh terrific. Hooray for the health inspector,’ howled Dulcie. ‘Maybe he’d like to whip up a couple of dozen quiches in his tea break.’
But it didn’t matter how sympathetic Eddie Hammond was to her plight, there was nothing he could do to help.
So Dulcie did the only thing she could do. She phoned Liza and Pru.
Liza was out. She had driven up to London to meet her editor, Dulcie remembered as soon as she got the answering machine, and wouldn’t be back before seven. Typical.
But Pru was at home, thank God. Pru with the best-stocked kitchen cupboards in Bath.
‘How many guests?’ she asked, cutting through Dulcie’s anguished wailings.
‘About a hundred.’
‘Right, I’ll make a start here. I can rustle up rice salad, pasta salad, stuffed baked potatoes, that kind of thing—’
‘That won’t be enough.’ Dulcie knew she sounded ungrateful. She didn’t mean to, but her heart was in her boots already. Any minute now it was going to start burrowing through the carpet.
‘Of course it won’t. That’s why I’m doing it. Leaving you free to shop. Got a pen and paper?’
said Pm, admirably unfazed by the crisis. But that was because it was all right for Pru, thought Dulcie, it wasn’t her crisis. ‘Now, start making a list. I’ll tell you what to buy.’
God bless M&S, thought Dulcie an hour later as she steered her trolley expertly past an old dear with a basket-on-wheels. This was okay, this was fine, her heart was back in its rightful place and she was actually beginning to enjoy herself.
Buying up Marks & Spencer’s food department was far more fun, too, than simply dropping in to pick up a couple of chicken tikkas and a lemon drizzle cake. Cramming a trolley with baguettes, boxes of hors d’oeuvres, bags of prawns, packets of Parma ham and twenty different kinds of cheeses was an exhilarating experience. No longer panicking, Dulcie meandered happily amongst the fresh fruit and veg, choosing the ripest Charentais melons, the reddest, glossiest strawberries .. .
A male voice in her ear made her jump.
‘Can I come?’
Dulcie spun round. Good grief, it was James.
‘James!’
Three lemons and a bottle of tonic were rolling around in the bottom of his wire basket. Dulcie remembered that he and Bibi had guests for dinner themselves.
James, meanwhile, was studying the contents of her overloaded trolley with interest. Grinning, he said again, ‘Can I come’?’
‘Come where?’ Dulcie prayed she wasn’t blushing.
‘Well, call it spooky intuition if you like, but something tells me you’re having a party.’ His eyes twinkled; he and Dulcie had always got on like a house on fire. ‘Either that or an attack of rampant bulimia.’
Dithering mentally, she decided it would be safe to tell him the truth. He and Bibi were otherwise engaged tonight, after all.
‘It’s a surprise party for Patrick,’ Dulcie explained. ‘At Brunton Manor. All very last minute,’
she added hastily, so as not to offend him. ‘I only decided to do it yesterday. And yes, o
f course you’re both invited. Eight o’clock tonight, it’s going to be great ... Patrick doesn’t have a clue ...’
She beamed up at James, waiting for him to frown and say, ‘Damn, we won’t be able to make it.’
Instead, beaming back at her, he said, ‘That’s terrific. Look, we’ve got a couple of dinner guests but they’ll be gone by ten. They have to catch the last train to Oxford. What we’ll do is drop them at the station and drive straight over. Better late than never, eh?’
Dulcie was by this time dithering in earnest. If she was going to conjure up a plausible excuse –
a reason why James and Bibi couldn’t possibly come to Patrick’s party – she had to do it in the next few milliseconds.
She stared up at James, wide-eyed and in desperate need of inspiration .. .
Bong. Too late.
James looked concerned.
‘Are you all right, Dulcie?’
‘Er ... um ...’
‘Come on, you must have everything you need by now.’ Taking control of her piled-up trolley, he began steering it in the direction of the checkouts. ‘The least I can do is help you load this lot into your car.’
Dulcie emptied the food on to the conveyor belt and James stood at the other end packing it into bags far more efficiently than she could have done.
The solution came to her as she was unloading the last armful of French sticks.
It was simple. All she had to do was phone Bibi and warn her. Then Bibi could either plead exhaustion or feign sudden illness.
Sudden illness might be better, then James would be worried about her. This meant he wouldn’t leave Bibi at home and come along to the party by himself.
Dulcie glanced across at him, still diligently packing bags at the other end of the checkout. That was the thing about James, he was considerate. Kind. Devoted to Bibi.
He really was a lovely man.
If Bibi could only bring herself to tell him her dark secret, they could marry.
Inspiration, like a bolt of lightning, struck for the second time. In that moment Dulcie knew what she had to do. Because Bibi never would tell James.