Mixed doubles

by Jill Mansell

  ‘I won’t tell. And you,’ Pru reminded him, ‘mustn’t say anything about my ears.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Liam. He managed to yank open the passenger door. When he had climbed out, he turned and added cheerfully, ‘It’s our secret, sweetheart. Just between us.’

  The wind had changed. Earlier when Eddie had strained to overhear Liam’s conversation with Pru, he hadn’t been able to catch any of it.

  This time, having heard only too clearly more than he wanted to hear, he turned away from the window. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach like a lorryload of wet sand.

  So much for thinking he had a chance with Pru. Liam — God help her – had clearly got there first.

  ‘Hi,’ said Pru, appearing in the doorway still breathless from the stairs. ‘I’m back.’

  Her cheeks glowed pink. She looked bright-eyed and incredibly happy. Like a fresh-faced teenager in love with the school cricket captain, thought Eddie. He felt horribly old and tired in comparison.

  ‘Hi.’ He forced a smile. ‘Good holiday?’

  Pru’s flush deepened.

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  She wasn’t particularly brown, but she looked well. Eddie noticed she was wearing her hair differently, tucked behind her ears. All the better for Liam McPherson to fondle them, no doubt, he thought with a spasm of jealousy.’Nice earrings.’

  ‘Oh! Thanks.’ Pru’s eyes sparkled, and all of a sudden Eddie knew who had given them to her.

  The sick feeling in his stomach intensified and he sat down behind his desk, flicking abstractedly through his diary.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Fine. Just fine.’

  ‘Um ... it’s almost midday,’ Pru ventured. Something was wrong but she couldn’t imagine what.

  ‘Aren’t I supposed to be driving you to a meeting in Oxford?’

  Eddie had cancelled the meeting. He had planned, in a surge of hopeless optimism, to whisk Pru out somewhere wonderful for lunch.

  ‘It’s been rescheduled,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’m seeing them on Monday instead.’

  ‘Oh.’ Pru watched him, apparently engrossed in the contents of his diary. ‘So, you don’t need me then?’

  Yes, I need you, Eddie longed to blurt out.

  He shook his head, wishing he were thirty-five again, with less paunch and more hair. He wondered if his life would have turned out differently if he’d cultivated muscles and blond highlights.

  ‘Eddie.’ She sounded hesitant. ‘Have I done something to upset you?’

  YES. YES. YES.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay.’ Pru wasn’t convinced. ‘So what time on Monday?’

  When he looked up, she was fiddling with one of her earrings. It occurred to him that if he wanted to, he could sack Liam McPherson. Lay-’em McPherson, he thought bitterly. But what would be the point?

  ‘Ten thirty.’

  ‘And roughly when will we be back?’ Pru was mentally juggling her cleaning jobs. She had some serious catching-up to do after her fortnight off.

  Listen to her, she just can’t wait to rush home to him.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Eddie kept his tone even to hide the pain. ‘You’ll be back by six.’

  ‘Liza, you look terrible,’ said Margaret Lawson.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  Liza was in the kitchen huddled next to the Rayburn, clutching a mug of tea and watching her mother peel onions for a shepherd’s pie. Her offer to take her parents out to dinner had been met with the usual brisk refusal. Restaurants, according to Margaret Lawson, were a ridiculous waste of money. Anyway, she insisted, cooking for her family was never a chore. ‘I enjoy it,’ she told Liza. ‘And shepherd’s pie is your father’s favourite. He doesn’t care for all that fancy, faffedabout-with food.’

  Liza had had this argument too many times before to think she could change their minds. She offered, they refused. That was the unalterable pattern of her visits.

  She didn’t want to eat out anyway.

  Margaret Lawson began vigorously chopping the onions.

  ‘I mean it. Terrible,’ she declared, glancing over her shoulder at her daughter. ‘You look as if you’ve been crying for a week.’

  Wrong, thought Liza. I’ve only been crying for three days. ‘Been sacked, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So it’s man trouble,’ her mother concluded, turning her attention back to the onions.

  Liza didn’t say anything. She had been on the receiving end of the find-yourself-a-decent-man-and-settle-down lecture almost as often as the restaurants-are-daylight-robbery one. The high turnover of men in her life and her inability to stay interested in any of them was a source of deep concern to her parents, she knew. Nothing would make them happier than to see her safely married. They weren’t fussy either; any niceforty-year-old lawyer, bank manager, accountant or even architect would do.

  ‘What was it this time, then?’ Margaret persisted lightly. ‘What did this one do to deserve the push? Drum his fingers on the steering wheel? Part his hair on the wrong side? Sing off-key?’

  This was her mother’s attempt at humour. It was her way of trying to help. And at the same time have a bit of a dig.

  Liza thought of Kit and pressed her lips together. She mustn’t, mustn’t cry.

  ‘No.’

  The onions landed in the frying pan and were expertly tossed in hot butter. Margaret Lawson reached for the carrots. ‘You don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘So he’s married.’

  God, thought Liza, when it comes to interrogation, the KGB have nothing on my mother.

  As she shook her head, a single tear slid down her cheek. ‘Did he finish with you?’

  ‘No. I ended it.’ She heaved a shuddery sigh. ‘You don’t usually ask this many questions.’

  ‘You don’t usually look like a wet fortnight in Fishguard,’ Margaret Lawson replied with asperity.

  Mothers. Who’d have them?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Liza.

  The carrots were pushed to one side. Margaret Lawson wiped her hands on a tea towel and turned to face her daughter.

  ‘Liza,’ she said quietly, ‘you’re frightening me. Tell me what it is. Please.’

  ‘Oh, Mum ...’

  ‘This one was special, was he?’

  Helplessly Liza nodded.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Just remember your father and I will still love you. Liza ... is it that disease?’

  Liza stared at her.

  ‘What?’

  Her mother’s face was creased with concern.

  ‘Do you ... have you got Aids?’

  ‘No!’ gasped Liza, laughing and crying at the same time. She jumped up from the chair and threw her arms around her mother. ‘Mum, no, of course I don’t have Aids!’

  Margaret hugged her back, before reverting to type.

  ‘No "of course" about it, my girl. These things happen, and we all know how they happen. You haven’t exactly led a settled life, have you?’

  Liza smiled. There, she had something to be grateful for after all. She didn’t have Aids.

  Mini-lecture received and understood.

  ‘He’s nine years younger than me.’

  The words were out before she could stop them. Amazed, Liza wondered how it had happened.

  Probably because compared with Aids it didn’t sound quite so terrible after all.

  Chapter 42

  Slowly, Margaret Lawson digested this information. She wiped her reddened hands on her apron and leaned back, thoughtfully, against the sink.

  ‘You mean ... he’s twenty-one.’

  ‘No.’ Liza managed another weak smile. Maths had never been her mother’s strong point.

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘Oh. Still young though.’

  Why am I smiling? thought Liza. Nothing’s changed.

  She nodded. ‘I know. It w
ould never have worked. It didn’t bother me at first because I thought I’d get bored with him. Except I didn’t.’ She shook her head. ‘But it really wouldn’t have worked. I knew I had to end it. Rather now than in a few years’ time . .. like cutting off a toe that’s gangrenous,’ she went on helplessly, her eyes filling up again. ‘Better to lose a toe than the whole leg.’

  ‘Yes, well, I can see the sense in that.’

  ‘I just didn’t realise it was going to hurt this much.’ Liza sniffed, found a shredded tissue in her pocket and blew her nose.

  ‘This young lad. What’s his name?’

  ‘Kit. Kit Berenger.’

  Even the name sounded young.

  ‘Hmm. Got a job, has he?’

  ‘Family firm. Builders,’ mumbled Liza. ‘His father hates me.’

  Margaret Lawson nodded.

  ‘It’s so unfair,’ Liza went on. Extraordinarily, now she’d started she found she couldn’t stop. ‘If he was older than me it wouldn’t matter a bit. That wouldn’t bother anyone.’

  ‘I know.’

  There were dark shadows under Liza’s eyes. She hadn’t been able to sleep.

  ‘I shouldn’t have come down here,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s your birthday.’

  ‘You’re my daughter,’ said Margaret. ‘It’s not often I get the chance to comfort you. Isn’t that what mothers are for?’

  ‘I don’t think you can.’

  ‘Maybe I can’t.’ Margaret sat down opposite Liza. ‘But I do understand how you feel. I went through it too, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  The look on Liza’s face was almost comical. Margaret smiled.

  ‘Liza, I may be your mother but I am human. I was thirty-five when I married your father. What do you think I was doing until then, sitting up on a high shelf gathering dust?’

  ‘Um ... er ...’

  Well, yes.

  ‘I was working as a secretary in London.’ Margaret leaned back in her chair and gazed past Liza.

  ‘When I was thirty I fell in love with my landlady’s son. Michael, his name was. My bathroom window got broken and he came round to fix it. There was a spark between us right away. Of course, he knew how old I was, so he told me he was twenty-eight. We started seeing each other,’ she went on. ‘Neither of us had much money of course, but we’d meet in coffee bars, go for walks in Regent’s Park, see the occasional film. We were so happy together, but I always wondered why we had to keep it a secret from his mother. Michael said she’d only make a fuss if she knew, he said she was the possessive type.’

  She paused.

  ‘And?’ prompted Liza when the pause lengthened. Good grief, this was unbelievable. Her own mother ..

  ‘Oh well, she found out, of course. One of the neighbours saw us together one day in the park, holding hands. The neighbour told Michael’s mother and she turned up on my doorstep that night demanding to know what I thought I was doing to her precious son.’ Without realising it, Margaret Lawson was twisting her narrow wedding ring round and round her finger. ‘So I tried to make her understand. I told her we loved each other and said wasn’t it time she let him live his own life? He was twenty-eight, after all, I argued, hardly a little boy any more. Well, you can guess the next line. She wiped the floor with me, didn’t she? Michael wasn’t twenty eight at all, he was twenty-one.’

  ‘Oh God,’ gasped Liza.

  Her mother’s smile was dry.

  ‘Quite. And that was that. She called me all the names under the sun, gave me a week to get out of the flat and told me never to speak to Michael again.’

  ‘And did you?’

  Margaret Lawson shook her head.

  ‘No. I was so ashamed. I was as appalled as she was.’

  ‘But he ... did Michael try to contact you?’

  Another weary shake.

  ‘He couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to. I left London, moved to Bath. And a year later met your father.’

  ‘Mum!’ Liza was still struggling to take this in. It was like something out of a novel.

  Her mother shrugged.

  ‘It’s in the past. This was forty years ago.’

  ‘But ... but you’ve been happy with Daddy?’

  ‘Oh yes. Your father’s a good man; of course I’ve been happy with him.’ Her mother hesitated for a second; only her fingers moved as the wedding ring went on going round and round. She looked suddenly pale and tired. ‘You just – well, I’ve never stopped thinking about ... what happened. Or wondering if I would have been happier with Michael.’

  * * *

  There was only one Berenger listed in the Bath area, which was handy.

  ‘Berenger.’

  It was the voice of a man in charge. Brisk, brusque and not to be trifled with. He certainly didn’t sound like a twenty-three year-old.

  ‘Hello. Could I speak to Kit Berenger, please,’ said Margaret calmly.

  ‘Who’s speaking?’

  Next to the phone was her Grattan’s catalogue waiting for her to order a size fourteen ribbed cotton cardigan in shell pink.

  ‘Margaret Grattan.’

  ‘Hold on.’

  Margaret hung on for what seemed like an hour. It was a good job Liza was in the bath. Finally, at the other end, the phone was picked up again.

  ‘Kit Berenger speaking.’

  A younger voice this time, but well-spoken and self-assured. ‘Hello, Kit, my name’s actually Margaret Lawson. I’m Liza’s mother.’

  Margaret glanced out of the sitting room window. In the garden her husband was meticulously dead-heading the gone-over peonies.

  ‘I see.’

  The voice acquired a cool edge. Instantly he was on his guard. Maybe I’m too late, she thought.

  Interfering with a lost cause.

  ‘If you have a couple of minutes,’ said Margaret, ‘I wonder if we could talk.’

  ‘That’ll be Rose Tresilian from over the• road. I promised to lend her my catalogue,’ said Margaret when the doorbell rang at nine o’clock that evening. ‘Answer it for me, would you, dear?’

  Liza’s hand flew to her mouth when she opened the door.It wasn’t Rose Tresilian from over the road.

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Kit’s hair gleamed in the porch light; his tone was carefully casual. ‘I would have been here sooner, only I couldn’t find my A to Z of Trezale.’

  Liza was glad of the door frame, keeping her upright. She leaned against it and stared at Kit, almost afraid to blink. If he was a mirage, fine. Better a mirage, thought Liza shakily, than no Kit at all.

  He was wearing a crumpled denim shirt and white jeans. There were dark shadows under his eyes, she noticed. He looked tired, drawn and somehow sexier than ever.

  ‘Unfair,’ said Liza, desperate to throw herself at him but not quite daring to. ‘How come men can get bags under their eyes and look great? When it happens to women, we end up looking like Clement Freud with a hangover.’

  ‘You haven’t asked me how I found you.’ Kit ignored her off-at-a-tangent ramblings.

  Hesitating, Liza pushed a flopping strand of hair out of her eyes. Following her bath, she hadn’t bothered to blow-dry it. Or put on any make-up.

  ‘I think I can guess,’ she replied finally. ‘Only it’s kind of hard to believe.’

  ‘Your mother rang me.’

  Liza nodded. She’d guessed right. It was just so unlike her mother to do such a thing.

  ‘She isn’t normally the interfering type.’

  Liza sensed rather than saw him tense up.

  ‘When you say interfering,’ Kit fixed her with his unswerving yellow gaze, ‘there’s welcome interference and there’s unwelcome interference. Liza, listen to me. I came down here because your mother told me I should. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but you already know that. So,’ he said pointedly, ‘now it’s up to you. If you want me to leave, I will. I’ll turn around and drive back to Bath. You, meanwhile, can go inside and tell your
mother she has no business meddling with your life. You can explain to her that this is an example of unwelcome interference.’

  ‘Okay,’ murmured Liza, nodding like an attentive pupil. ‘And what’s the other one?’

  ‘Welcome interference.’ Kit ticked the second alternative off on his fingers. ‘This is the one where you realise I was right and you were wrong,’ he explained, ‘and so what if I’m a few years younger than you? I mean, who gives a toss, really? I don’t. And your mother certainly doesn’t.’

  Helplessly Liza shook her head.

  ‘No, she doesn’t.’

  ‘Anyway, you apologise to me for making the last few days possibly the worst of my life,’ he continued. ‘We kiss and make up and all that stuff, and you throw yourself at your mother’s feet, thanking her over and over again for meddling in your life and forcing you to come to your senses.’

  Having listened carefully, Liza nodded again.

  ‘Okay. I’ll have that one.’

  ‘Sure?’ said Kit.

  ‘Definitely that one.’

  ‘The I’m-right-and-you’re-wrong one?’ Kit persisted, the corners of his mouth lifting as he spoke.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You were right and I was wrong and I’m sorry and I love you,’ murmured Liza, tears of happiness rolling down her cheeks. ‘I love you so so much, you have no idea ...’

  He held out his arms and she threw herself into them. It was the best feeling, Liza thought, absolutely the best feeling in the world.

  When Kit had finished kissing her he lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. They were both trembling.

  ‘Never do this to me again,’ he said in a low voice, brushing Liza’s wet eyelashes with his thumb. ‘Promise me you won’t.’

  ‘What, no more fights, no more arguments, ever?’

  ‘We can bicker. Bickering’s allowed.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re talking about the rest of our lives here, after all. Fifty years minimum.’

  ‘Oh, is that all?’ mocked Liza. Reaching up, she kissed each corner of his narrow, curving mouth and wondered if it was legal to feel this happy.

  ‘Maybe sixty. But we’re not going through this again. No more it’s-all-over stuff. I mean it, Liza.