Mixed doubles

Mixed Doubles

By

Jill Mansell

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 1

Pru was getting hassle from her spaghetti. It was playing her up. Twirling away valiantly, willing the stuff to stay on her fork, she wondered enviously what it must be like to be Liza, who seldom bothered to even glance down at her plate, yet whose spaghetti miraculously stayed put.

It was New Year’s Eve, four o’clock in the afternoon and already dark outside. In Liza Lawson’s Provençal-style kitchen, around the scrubbed pine kitchen table, sat Dulcie, Liza and Pru, lining their stomachs in preparation for the long night ahead.

Far too impatient to bother with Le Twirl, Dulcie had used the edge of her fork as a knife and hacked her spaghetti to bits. It might not be the done thing but it was efficient; her stomach was no longer empty and her plate was clear. Anyway, if you couldn’t do the undone thing in Liza’s kitchen, amongst friends, where could you do it?

Having finished eating, Dulcie pulled a battered exercise book from her bag. ‘Look what my mother found the other week during a clear-out.’ She held it up for them to see. Emblazoned across the cover, in loopy, eighties-style lettering, were the words PRIVATE, KEEP OUT and TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSTITUTED.

‘My little joke,’ Dulcie said fondly. ‘I was fifteen. Imagine.’ Resting her chin on the cupped palm of her hand, Liza grinned.

‘I was never fifteen.’

‘I spent ten years being fifteen,’ said Pru with feeling. When everyone else had graduated to tights, her domineering mother had refused to let her wear them. Pru’s recurring nightmare had involved walking up the aisle in white knee socks.

‘We were all fifteen,’ Dulcie reminded them, ‘and all at the same time. This is the whole point of having friends of your own age,’ she explained with exaggerated patience, ‘so you can share your experiences. Like when you had a crush on Simon Le Bon, they had one too. When you couldn’t sleep at night for worrying about that huge spot on your chin, at least you knew they were worrying about their spots as well. And when you weren’t sure about one or two of the facts of life, you always had someone to ask who wouldn’t laugh.’

‘I never had spots,’ said Liza.

‘And you both definitely laughed when I asked you about French kissing,’ Pru pointed out. ‘You told me it was to do with French letters and the boy having to wear a condom on his tongue.

Honestly, it’s a wonder I ever kissed anyone after that.’

Dulcie giggled, recalling her lecture on the subject and Pru’s solemn belief in every word.

‘Anyway,’ said Liza, ‘that was donkeys’ years ago.’ Reaching across the table, she filled their glasses with Pouilly-Fumé. ‘And this is New Year’s Eve. We’re supposed to be making resolutions.’

‘That’s why I brought the book along.’ Opening it, Dulcie riffled through graffiti-strewn pages.

‘God, school must’ve been boring to make me doodle this much. Ah, here it is.’ Triumphantly she showed them the list. ‘January the first. My New Year’s resolutions are: 1. Buy a black satin shirt (long pointed collar).

2. Snog you-know-who.

3. Do more homework, especially maths.

4. Watch Top of the Pops every week.

5. Keep my room tidy.

6. Buy silver nail polish.

7. Join the Starsky and Hutch fan club.’

‘A black satin shirt with a long collar.’ Liza pulled a face. ‘Yuk.’

‘The ones about doing more homework and keeping my room tidy were in case my mother had a snoop.’

Pru was looking puzzled. ‘Who was you-know-who?’

‘D’you know, I haven’t the foggiest. I’ve been trying to remember. Isn’t it sweet, though?’ said Dulcie happily. ‘When I was fifteen those were my New Year’s resolutions. That was what mattered. Such innocence.’

‘Things are a bit different now,’ Liza mocked. ‘Sixteen years later. We’re ancient.’

‘Go on then.’ Dulcie closed the book. ‘What’s your resolution for this year?’

Liza’s humorous dark-brown eyes flicked from Dulcie to Pru.

‘Oh, I want to get married.’

She spoke with the easy confidence of one who knows all she has to do is take her pick.

‘How about you, Pru?’ asked Dulcie.

Pru took a gulp of wine. She thought of Phil, her husband, and the odd way he had been behaving recently. She hoped nothing was wrong at work.

‘I just want to stay married.’

Dulcie was leaning her chair back on its hind legs, wondering again who you-know-who could possibly have been. It was frustrating not being able to remember. Glancing at her watch, she realised she should be making a move. Patrick would go mental if she was late home; they were supposed to be meeting friends at seven, before going on to the country club dance.

‘Dulcie,’ prompted Liza. ‘Your turn.’

‘Me?’ Dulcie brought the chair back down on to all fours with a thump. ‘All I want is a divorce.’

‘So who’s the lucky chap?’ Dulcie asked Liza as they said their goodbyes on the doorstep.

‘Anyone we know?’

‘Haven’t decided yet.’ Shivering in a thin white shirt, Liza hugged herself and edged back into the hall. Glancing up, she saw a couple of moths batting furiously around the outside light like rival lovers competing for attention.

‘Still road-testing, I suppose. So many men, so little time.’ Dulcie was flippant. What did Liza expect, sympathy? ‘Maybe it’s just as well you aren’t coming to tonight’s bash at the club. Less competition for me.’ She looked smug. ‘Personally I plan on snogging as many men as I can get my hands on.’

‘You’ll have to catch them first.’ Liza’s smile was deceptively innocent. ‘Do you have any idea how much garlic went into that pasta sauce?’

Dulcie’s hands flew to her mouth in horror.

‘I hate you,’ she exclaimed. ‘When I said I wanted men to fall at my feet, I meant them to be overcome with lust, not garlic fumes.’

‘You shouldn’t want men to fall at your feet. You’ve got Patrick.’

‘I’m tired of Patrick!’ It came out as a howl. ‘Dammit, you know better than anyone how that feels! How come you’re allowed to do it and I’m not?’

‘I’m not married.’

‘Of course you aren’t! Who’d have you?’

‘Come on, if you want a lift home,’ said Pru, because once these two started, they could bicker for England.

‘I’m coming, I’m coming. Even if my life is over.’ Dulcie huffed into her cupped hands and gazed heart-rendingly at Pru. ‘Can we stop off at a chemist on the way, pick up some Gold Spot?’

‘Bye,’ said Liza, hugging them both. She kissed first Pru’s icy cheek then Dulcie’s indignant one. ‘And let’s have a Happy New Year. May all our resolutions come true.’

When it came to people’s lives, it was generally agreed that Liza Lawson’s was the kind you could envy.

She was single, successful, blonde and beautiful, with dark- brown, come-to-bed-this-minute eyes, flawless skin and a bewitching smile.

There is little more alluring than a woman utterly at ease with her body, and Liza – a curvy size fourteen – had never experienced the slightest urge to diet. She liked herself just as she was, and everyone else seemed to as well. She’d certainly never had any complaints.

Liza’s job was pretty enviable too. Her career as a food writer had received a massive boost eighteen months earlier when she had landed the plum position of restaurant critic for the dazzlingly successful Herald on Sunday. Now, each week, her article appeared beneath the same photograph of herself smiling provocatively up from the last page of the colour supplement, with her gold-blonde hair falling over one shoulder and the beginnings of a heavenly cleavage peeping over the scooped-out top of a low-cut black velvet dress.

Men were forever falling in love with this photograph of Liza, and writing to tell her so.

Women envied her, because if looking like that and eating for a living wasn’t a dream existence, they didn’t know what was.

And restaurant owners wondered frustratedly why they had never spotted Liza Lawson in their restaurants, even when they knew she’d visited them because there in the Herald’s glossy Sunday supplement was the review.

Waking up late the following morning, Liza made her way gingerly downstairs. Two letters lay on the mat by the front door. She stuffed them into her dressing gown pocket, put the kettle on for coffee and opened the new packet of paracetamol she had had the foresight to buy yesterday afternoon. A hangover on New Year’s Day was pretty much de rigueur; it was just a shame the way the older you got, the more blistering the effects became.

It was also a shame she had to work today, but a deadline was a deadline and the job had to be done. Slotting bread into the toaster – just one slice, to reassure her nervous stomach – she made coffee and hoped her appetite would recover in time for lunch.

While Liza ate breakfast she played back last night’s messages on the ansaphone. One was from an old lover, calling from London to wish her a happy New Year and inviting her to visit him at any time. The second was from her sister in New Zealand, drunkenly bawling ‘Auld Lang Syne’

down the phone along with what sounded like an entire team of All Blacks. The third message was from someone called Alistair, sounding self-conscious but determined, shyly telling her that having for many months admired her from afar, he would be thrilled if Liza would do him the honour of accompanying him to the theatre one night.

. we’ve never spoken, but maybe you’ve noticed me playing squash at the country club,’ he explained falteringly. ‘I’m thirty-seven, six foot two, not in bad shape ... um, I have dark hair, grey eyes and I drive a blue Volvo. Does this ring any bells?’

‘No,’ said Liza, swallowing another paracetamol.

‘... oh dear, this isn’t working out.’ Alistair’s voice was sounding worried now. ‘I don’t know how else to describe myself. Look, I’ll hang up. I don’t live too far from you. Why don’t I drop a photograph of myself through your door? Then at least you’ll know—’

At that point the tape ran out, because Liza had forgotten to rewind it the night before.

‘Good thinking, Alistair.’ She smiled as she retrieved the envelopes from her pocket. The first was a belated Christmas card from another ex, married and with children now but from the wry postscript sounding as if he wished he weren’t. ‘Missing you,’ Liza read at the bottom of the card. ‘Really missing you. How about dinner sometime?’ And he had scrawled the number of his mobile phone.

The second envelope, hand-delivered as promised, contained a small photograph of Alistair, whom she wouldn’t haverecognised if he’d run her over in his blue Volvo. Still, he looked perfectly presentable and considering he was shy, the note enclosed with the photo was written in a masterful hand.

‘Have I made a complete pig’s ear of this attempt to ask you out?’ he had written with endearing candour. ‘I assure you, I’m not the hopeless case you must by now think I am. A few more salient details – I’m a barrister, divorced, three children, healthy income, detached house, fond of theatre, opera, Scrabble and Maltesers. Now I’m embarrassed again – I sound like a one-man dating agency. Enough. If you would like to contact me, my number is ... If the prospect is too awful, please throw note and photo away and pretend this never happened. But I hope you don’t.

Yours respectfully, Alistair Kline.’

This was the kind of thing that happened to Liza. It was the kind of girl she was.

When Dulcie accused Liza of being a flirt, Liza declared she wasn’t. Men simply liked her; she didn’t do anything to actively encourage them. The way she acted towards men was never contrived.

‘Do I flutter my eyelashes at them? Do I flash my cleavage?’ she argued. ‘Do I clutch their biceps and tell them how big and strong they are? No I do not. I never do any of that. You do.’

This was true, Dulcie couldn’t deny it.

‘I’m married; it doesn’t count. Anyway, that’s harmless flirting. Amateur stuff. You’re the professional. You don’t make men think you’re flirting with them, you make them think you’re in love with them. Dammit,’ protested Dulcie, ‘you make the poor sods think they’re the only person on the planet worth being with.’

‘You’re jealous.’

‘Of course I’m jealous! I want to know how you bloody do it.’

Having witnessed the phenomenon a million times, Dulcie had an inkling. She suspected it had something to do with Liza’s dark-brown eyes and the way she looked at men when she was talking to them, the way she concentrated on them with such total absorption, the way she smiled

.. .

Sadly, it didn’t appear to be copyable. Dulcie had tried it a few times herself on her own in front of a mirror, but — being brutally honest here — all she’d looked was constipated.

There must be an art to bewitching men, and you either had it or you didn’t. Dulcie could do standard flirting — she giggled, she joked, she could make men laugh, which was something —

but she was never going to be in Liza’s league. Which was a shame, because it was undeniably a handy knack to have.

Yet Liza, in turn, envied Dulcie, because attracting men might never have been a problem but staying interested once she’d got them was something else again.

She didn’t know why, she simply couldn’t do it. Something to do with a low boredom threshold, maybe. She could adore them initially, fall head over heels in lust, love — whatever — think this is it, this is the big one ... then after four or five weeks the old, niggling tell-tale signs would begin to surface. She’d got to know them, she was up to date with the stories of their lives, she’d heard all their best jokes. Insidiously, boredom started to set in. While they were still enraptured by Liza, Liza found herself noting — and becoming increasingly irritated by — the way they cleared their throats, scraped their forks on their dinner plates, revealed a penchant for irritating catch-phrases, watched endless reruns of Star Trek .. .

It was a failing over which she had no control. Liza thought she must be a hopelessly shallow person, happy to pick the icing off the cake but uninterested in the sponge underneath. Once she grew tired of someone, there could be no going back. The adrenaline had seeped away, the spark was gone. Another relationship bit the dust.

It was sad. Liza sometimes wondered if she would ever meet a man who didn’t bore her witless.

She so badly wanted to. She wanted to be normal, to marry someone and have childrenand grandchildren. She wanted to share a life with them, not a few giddy weeks. At the rate she was going, she was going to end up a sad old maid.

This was why she envied Dulcie, who might now be hell- bent on divorce but who had at least spent the last six years married to the same man.

Chapter 2

Liza pulled up outside the Songbird at one o’clock. It was a newish restaurant several miles to the west of Bath, whose delights — or otherwise — she had intended to investigate a fortnight ago but a streaming cold had put paid to that. When you were a restaurant critic, a sense of smell and fully functioning tastebuds were a bit of a must.

But the Herald on Sunday needed the piece in order to make the printer’s deadline, and it had to be faxed through before tomorrow. Luckily, although most restaurants didn’t open for lunch on New Year’s Day, the Songbird did.

Liza briefly checked her reflection in the car’s rear-view mirror. It was amazing the effect a nondescript mousy wig, minimal make-up and a pair of unflattering spectacles could have. She was never recognised. Never chatted up, either. No men cast admiring glances in her direction.

She was so uninteresting they seldom even acknowledged her presence. She became invisible.

It was an experience that never failed to entertain Liza. Handy, too, when you didn’t want the publicity-hungry restaurateurs to know who you were.

Mark was already there, waiting for her, when she entered the restaurant. An ex with whom she had stayed on friendly terms — because he might be mad about Star Trek but at least he shared her passion for good food — he greeted Liza with a grin and a kiss on her un-made-up cheek. A dining companion was another must-have in Liza’s line of work, enabling two meals to be assessed rather than just one. It also meant thestaff’s curiosity wasn’t aroused by the sight of a woman — albeit a mousy one — lunching alone.

‘You look well,’ Mark told her, when the waiter had taken Liza’s sensible navy-blue mac. ‘New outfit?’

She was wearing a high-necked cream blouse, brown cardigan, calf-length beige pleated skirt and sturdy lace-ups. Mark adored the subterfuge; it gave him a kick. When he shared these meals with Liza he frequently found himself on the receiving end of sympathetic glances from waitresses wondering why a good-looking chap like him should be landed with such a frump.

They were seated in a far corner and left to study their menus. An agitated-looking blonde in her mid-twenties whisked through from the kitchen, murmured something to another waiter and whisked back again. As the doors swung shut behind her, the smell of burned garlic wafted across to their table. A party of eight, evidently still going strong from the night before, piled noisily into the restaurant and bombarded the girl behind the bar with orders. A loud cheer went up as the girl fumbled and dropped a glass on the tiled floor.

This could be promising. Liza had been given a lecture at the staff Christmas party by her editor-in-chief.

‘We’ve been getting a bit of negative feedback,’ he had explained as he sloshed whisky into a half-pint mug. ‘Your reviews, my darling. Too complimentary by half. Some readers are asking if the restaurants pay us to advertise them. All this crap about enchanting presentation ... elegant sauces .. . heavenly fish dishes ... darling, a critic has to criticise, don’t you see? You need to get the claws out, bitch it up a bit. Be wicked! Think more Michael Winner, less Dana. More Private Eye, less Hello! magazine. Aim for the jugular, sweetheart. Give the readers something to smirk about. Don’t be afraid to make those restaurant owners cry.’

Liza didn’t want to be Michael Winner. She wasn’t naturally an aim-for-the-jugular type. But she saw her editor’s point and the Dana jibe had hurt.

In the past she knew she had tended to gloss over the occasional less-than-perfect paella, the chef’s overexuberant use of salt, the insufficiently chilled vichyssoise.

Maybe she was about to have her chance to bitch it up a bit, here at the Songbird. Liza glanced across at the flustered waitress on her knees sweeping up broken glass and mentally hardened her heart. If the meal wasn’t up to scratch, she decided, she would go for it.

She still had the remains of her hangover too. That would help.

To begin with, Liza chose deep-dish aubergine Parmesan torte. Which was good, if a bit on the heavy side. The accompanying tomato sauce could have done with being a little less sweet.

Bah, humbug.

Mark had Provençal fish soup. He pronounced it delicious. Liza tasted some.

‘Too much saffron,’ she remarked briskly. ‘And the bread should be hot.’

Mark raised his eyebrows.

‘Whose bed did you get out of on the wrong side this morning?’

‘No one’s. I’m in training to be a cow.’

The restaurant was beginning to fill up. The party of eight, seated by the window at the front of the restaurant, emptied bottles of wine at a rate of knots and sang rousing choruses of ‘Why Are We Waiting?’. The flustered waitress, serving them finally, got her bottom pinched. The other girl, the blonde, came out of the kitchen and told them sharply to keep their wandering hands to themselves. Three fingers on her own left hand were adorned with blue catering plasters.

‘What happened?’ jeered the chief bottom-pincher. ‘Don’t tell me, you tried to stab the chef and missed.’

For their main course, Mark had ordered tournedos of beef with wild mushrooms and vin santo.

‘Is the steak tough?’ Liza asked eagerly.’No.’

‘You asked for it rare. That’s not rare, it’s medium.’ Mark sat back in his chair.

‘I don’t think I like you like this.’

‘It’s my job.’ Narrow-eyed, she surveyed her lamb with polenta and artichokes. It looked divine, which was no good at all.

Happily, when she tasted the lamb with its herb and breadcrumb coating, she hit paydirt. The garlic they had smelled burning earlier was right here, on her plate.

The wine was good and Mark stubbornly refused to fault his sweet – which was a trio of home-made ice creams in a brandy snap basket – but Liza was well into her stride now. Her plum and apricot tart was definitely stodgy, the sweet almond pastry case way too thick. The crust around the edge, which had been doused with icing sugar in a futile attempt at a cover-up, was burnt.

‘It’s busy,’ said Mark, valiantly defending the little restaurant. ‘Must be good to be so popular.’

‘It’s New Year’s Day.’ Liza wasn’t to be deterred. ‘Everywhere else is shut. Anyway,’ she pointed out, ‘you’re only saying that because you fancy the blonde.’

‘I feel sorry for her. Poor thing, she’s in a flap.’

‘Not surprising. I’d flap too, if I had to serve up burnt offerings like this.’

‘Shall we ask for the bill?’

‘No way. I want to try the coffee. Wouldn’t it be fab if it was instant? Oh my God—’

Liza stared at the door, opening to admit two more customers.

‘What? What?’

Twisting round in his seat, Mark craned his neck to see who had come in. Liza was just glad she was wearing her glasses and mousy wig.

It was Phil Kasteliz, Pru’s husband. He was laughing and holding the hand of a woman with piled-up white-blonde hair.

Her leopard-print top ended above her belly button, and a black rubber skirt began several inches below it. The amount of make-up she wore was staggering. She looked like Lily Savage, only less demure.

She wasn’t Pru by a long chalk.

‘That bastard,’ Liza hissed as the waitress showed them to their table. The moment they were seated, the blonde slipped off one spiky black stiletto and began teasing Phil with her toes.

Mark looked ill at ease. He hated scenes. (It was another reason Liza had gone off him; his anything-for-a-quiet-life attitude had driven her to distraction.)

‘Who is he?’ He prayed it wasn’t the latest man in Liza’s life. She was in such a weird mood today. He prayed even harder she wasn’t about to start a cat fight.

‘His name’s Phil. He’s the pig my friend Pru’s married to.’ Her dark eyes narrowed to slits. ‘I think I want to kill him.’

‘So that isn’t his wife?’

‘That old bike, are you kidding? My God, the nerve of the man!’

Liza’s knuckles were white around her pudding fork. Mark envisaged the headlines: RESTAURANT CRITIC PUNCTURES DINER TO DEATH.

Or: WOMAN FORKED TO DEATH.

Feeling sick, he said, ‘I don’t think you should cause a scene.’

Liza gave him a pitying look. ‘No, I’m sure you don’t.’

But for once Mark was right. Maybe it was just as well Phil hadn’t recognised her, although his attention was so clearly taken up with his companion she doubted whether her disguise was even necessary. From the look of him, he’d hardly notice if the SAS stormed the restaurant and smoke-bombed the place.

Liza had never had much time for Phil Kasteliz. She wouldn’t have liked him even if he wasn’t an estate agent. Despite working long hours – allegedly – he always seemed tohave plenty of time left over for gambling, drinking and having a laugh with The Lads.

Pru, who adored him, stoutly maintained that she didn’t mind her husband’s late-night excursions to Bath’s clubs and casinos. Phil worked hard, she explained patiently whenever anyone dared to criticise him. He needed to relax. He wasn’t the stay-at-home, watch-a-bit-of-TV and put-up-a-few-shelves type. Anyway, Pru invariably ended up saying, where was the harm? At least Phil wasn’t a womaniser, she had no worries on that score. He was far more interested in roulette.

Shame it wasn’t the Russian kind, thought Liza, who had never believed a word of it anyway.

When you were as generally lacking in moral values as Phil Kasteliz, what would be the point in making the effort to remain faithful? It was like expecting a crack addict to throw up his hands in horror and say: Oh no, I’d never touch grass.

So it didn’t exactly come as a surprise to find Pru’s husband dabbling in adultery, but the urge to kill him was still there.

What annoyed Liza more than anything was the kind of woman Phil was with. It was shaming to Pru. Letting her down.

If he had to cheat on her, he could at least have had the decency to do it with someone who wasn’t a complete dog.

‘Umm ... would you like coffee?’

The young waitress was back, escaping further hassle from the rugby types and looking closer than ever to a nervous breakdown. It occurred to Mark that any stabbing spree instigated by Liza would give the waitress just the opportunity she needed to join in.

Imagine the headlines then:

BLOODBATH AT THE SONGBIRD.

No, even snappier: BLOODBATH IN BATH.

He began to nod. Liza shook her head.

‘Just the bill, thanks.’

As the waitress hurriedly began clearing their table, her hand slipped. The chargrilled pastry Liza had left on her plate slid on to the tablecloth.

‘Oh God I’m sorry—’

Liza wasn’t normally rude but Phil Kasteliz hadn’t improved her mood. She picked up the pastry, examined it speculatively for a moment and said, ‘So am I.’

On their way out they passed within feet of Phil and his lunch companion. The woman, pretending to read Phil’s palm, was saying, ‘... I predict an afternoon in bed with a sexy blonde.’

Phil’s answering smirk was too much for Liza to bear. Just loudly enough for him to hear – and when she was sure he couldn’t see her face – she murmured to Mark, ‘Yes, but where on earth’s he going to find one?’

There was no denying it; when you were in the mood, writing a really bitchy review was fun.

And easy, too. The six-hundred word piece practically wrote itself.

‘Was the chef at the Songbird having an off-day,’ Liza tapped into her word processor, ‘or a day off?’

Too cruel? N000.

.. I couldn’t help noticing the management’s advice to book early in order to avoid disappointment. Well, if you really want to avoid disappointment, my advice to you would be don’t book at all.’

Unfair? Unkind? Maybe, but it was the truth.

.. unable to face the prospect of coffee, we left. Happily, the day wasn’t totally wasted. On our way home we stopped at Reg’s mobile café on the A46. Reg’s egg and chips,’ Liza concluded with a flourish, ‘were heaven on a plate. Not a speck of burnt garlic in sight.’

True? Well, not quite. Reg’s had been shut. But if he had been open, she was sure she would have enjoyed his egg and chips.

Chapter 3

Liza might have envied Dulcie her marriage but as far as Dulcie was concerned, marriage sucked.

Anyway, she had made her New Year’s resolution now. And she was jolly well going to keep it.

Yes, it was a shame, especially when everyone was forever telling you how lucky you were to be married to someone as dishy and wonderful as Patrick Ross in the first place, but they didn’t know what it was really like. Because what was the point of having a dishy and wonderful husband when you hardly ever got the chance to experience his dishyness because all he ever did was bloody work work work?

It was particularly annoying, Dulcie mused, when you had been so sure you’d hit the marital jackpot. After years of falling for the wrongest men imaginable – and boy, had she had a talent for sniffing them out – meeting Patrick had come as such a shock to the system she’d barely known how to handle him. It had taken her months to learn to trust him, to realise she didn’t need to know how to handle Patrick, because he wasn’t playing an elaborate trick on her, he actually was as nice as he seemed.

Weird. It took some getting used to, especially when you were as addicted to bastards as she had been. HHB, Liza had called it, as in: ‘Oh, Dulcie’s HHB. Hopelessly Hooked on Bastards.’

She hadn’t meant to be, but somehow that was always the way Dulcie’s relationships had managed to turn out. Something to do with the adrenalin rush that went hand in hand with chronic insecurity, or some such crap. Reading about it once in a magazine, Dulcie had recognised herself at once. Any man who was nice to you clearly didn’t deserve you and had to be a complete wimp. If, on the other hand, he lied, cheated and treated you like dirt, you obviously didn’t deserve someone as fantastic as he was and were promptly desperate to hang on to him at all costs.

Except Patrick Ross hadn’t been awful to her, nor was he a wimp. He had obviously never studied the rule book. Confusion all round. Patrick was witty, he was smart, he had girls drooling over him everywhere he went. Even Dulcie’s parents had approved of him, which was a startling new experience for all concerned.

Patrick had carried on being charming, phoning when he said he’d phone and turning up when he said he’d turn up. He brought Dulcie presents, made her laugh and never embarrassed her at parties. Other girls, pea green with envy, continued to swoon. Dulcie’s mother even looked once or twice as if she might swoon too.

It took time, but in the end Dulcie couldn’t fight it any more. She resigned her membership of the HHB club and allowed herself to fall in love with Patrick Ross. She was twenty-five, he was thirty-three. She was lazy, he was ambitious. She liked chicken breast, he liked leg. She enjoyed a drink, Patrick ‘Better keep a clear head, big meeting tomorrow’ preferred to drive.

It was a match made in heaven. It was perfect.

For the first four years at least.

Things had only started to go really wrong when Patrick, tired of making money for the computer company for which he was working, decided to take the plunge and set up in business on his own. The hours he put in were ridiculous. He made junior doctors look like part-timers.

He would leave the house before Dulcie was awake and return home just as she was crawling back into bed.

‘I never see you,’ she wailed one night when it all got toomuch. ‘You never see me with make-up on. It’s not fair ...’

‘I’m sorry.’ Patrick sat down on the bed and hugged her, getting moisturiser all over the lapels of his best suit. ‘I know it isn’t fair, but I’m doing it for us. From now on things will be better, I promise. I’ll do more work from home.’

He had been as good as his word and the result had been as disastrous as Dulcie had known it would be. She’d have got more conversation out of a Madame Tussaud’s waxwork. Patrick’s body might be there but his mind was so occupied with work it may as well have disappeared on a round-theworld cruise.

Like a small child desperate for attention, Dulcie found herself putting three sugars in the cups of tea she took him, just to provoke a reaction. One evening, frustrated beyond endurance and having read in Cosmopolitan that the element of surprise could pep up a marriage no end, she danced naked into Patrick’s study, threw herself on to his lap and uncorked a bottle of champagne with her teeth. Children, don’t try this at home. All it achieved was foam everywhere, a chipped upper molar and a fused disk drive. All the work Patrick had been about to save was lost and he had needed to stay up all night replacing it.

Dulcie considered suing Cosmopolitan. Her marriage had been pepped down.

‘Get a job,’ Liza had suggested when Dulcie had moaned to her about how bored she was.

‘Are you mad?’ Dulcie looked appalled. ‘The whole point of Patrick working these stupid hours is to make money. The last thing we need is me slogging my guts out as well, earning more of the stuff. That really would defeat the object.’

‘You might enjoy it.’

‘No I wouldn’t.’ Honestly, Liza had the oddest ideas sometimes.

‘Okay, what about charity work? Just a few hours a week.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ cried Dulcie, ‘aren’t I already suffering enough?’

Happily, another of Liza’s suggestions met with greater success.

‘Why don’t you come along to Brunton Manor? Give it a try?’

Brunton Manor Country Club, situated three miles outside Bath, was where Liza went to play tennis and squash. Pru, also a member, swam there two or three times a week.

Dulcie, who was to sport what Scooby Doo was to astrophysics, wrinkled her nose.

‘Don’t give me that look. You might enjoy it,’ Liza argued.

‘People say that when they try and make you eat frogs’ legs.’

‘And you don’t have to do anything sporty if you don’t want to. Brunton’s a country club, not the Foreign Legion. During the day it’s full of pampered housewives drinking gin and ogling the musclemen in the gym.’

Perking up considerably at this news, particularly cheered by the prospect of a little gentle ogling, Dulcie had agreed to go along and check it out.

Brunton Manor had proved a revelation. It was, quite simply, one of the most glamorous country clubs in England.

The old manor house itself, two hundred years old and built of honey-coloured Bath stone, was gloriously situated on the side of a hill with unrivalled views over the Langley Stoke Valley. The estate surrounding the house comprised ninety-three acres of wooded and landscaped gardens.

The sporting facilities were, of course, superb.

The club prided itself on its decidedly upmarket image, and astronomical membership fees ensured it stayed that way. People liked to boast – in passing – that they belonged to Brunton; it was on a par with casually flashing a platinum Amex. If having to pay next year’s fees was likely to keep you awake at night, Brunton wasn’t the place for you. You went somewhere less exclusive instead.

Dulcie had fallen in love with the club at first sight. Brunton Manor was her idea of heaven.

You really didn’t have to be energetic at all.There was an endless supply of gin, as promised.

There was a sun-drenched terrace overlooking the glittering turquoise outdoor pool and – as Liza had also promised – plenty to ogle.

There was a terrific restaurant, a cinema, sunbeds, saunas and a beauty salon. There were evening discos, impromptu parties and barbecues around the pool. It was the easiest place in the world in which to while away all those surplus hours. You could watch other members puffing and sweating their way through step classes or launching themselves around the squash courts.

You could jeer – quietly – at the Wimbledon wannabes playing hopeless tennis. You could admire the miraculous tanned legs of the tennis coaches. You could laze in the sun drinking Pimm’s and pretending to read a book.

Perhaps best of all – and Dulcie felt in this respect it had all the comradeship of an AA meeting, not of course that she had ever been to one – you could moan freely with the other wealthy, bored housewives about your workaholic husband and know they knew exactly what you meant.

As far as Dulcie was concerned, Brunton Manor was the answer to all her prayers. Miraculously, and certainly unintentionally, it had even turned out to be economical, since every day spent lazing by the pool in a bikini was a day not spent shopping in Bath.

The phone rang. Since Patrick was in his study working – well, it was New Year’s Day, a Bank Holiday, what else would you expect? – Dulcie picked it up.

‘It’s me,’ said Liza.

‘Oh well, I’m not speaking to you. That garlic totally wrecked my chances last night. Even Luigi in the wine bar pretended he couldn’t come near me because he’d got flu—’

‘Never mind your snogathon. I had lunch today at the Songbird and guess who was there?’

‘Cliff Richard and Angela Rippon. They were holding hands. No, wait, they were canoodling.

Don’t you love that word?’ Dulcie sighed. ‘Canoodle-oodle-oodling—’

‘Sometimes I wonder about you,’ said Liza.

‘You started it. Go on then, so who was he with if it wasn’t Angela Rippon?’

‘Phil was there. With another woman. In a rubber skirt.’

‘You mean—?’

Liza said firmly, ‘She was the one wearing the skirt. And it isn’t funny. She was awful.’

‘Oh,’ said Dulcie. ‘Were they... um ... canoodling?’

‘Big time.’

‘Oh fuck.’

Dulcie decided there must have been some kind of a mix-up, a typographical error, when God or whoever organised life had been organising Pru’s. She was supposed to have been given a loving husband. Instead she’d been landed with a roving one.

Poor Pru, it wasn’t what she deserved.

‘Did he see you?’

‘No.’

‘So what happens now?’

‘We’re going to tell her.’

When the phone had rung Dulcie had been draped across the sofa watching a trashy New Year’s Day-type film. Now, glancing across at the television, she saw the tear-stained heroine covering her face with her hands and sobbing: ‘But I love him, I love him! Please don’t do this to me ... I love him...’

Dulcie thought uncomfortably that nobody loved anyone more than Pru loved Phil.

‘It’ll kill her.’

‘She should know. It’s only fair. Dulcie, we have to tell her.’ Liza wasn’t a fan of dishonesty.

‘Okay, you do it. If you really have to:’

‘We’ll do it,’ Liza corrected her briskly. ‘Together.’

Pru and Phil Kasteliz lived in a modern detached house on the outskirts of Bath, on one of those exclusive keeping-up-with the-Joneses type of estates bristling with carriage lamps and bay trees.

Anyone whose car was more than two years old was regarded with suspicion. If your curtains weren’t swagged and tailed and your windows not cleaned every week you were riffraff. If the grass on your front lawn exceeded an inch and a half in length ... well, you were scum. Any small children, needless to say, were expected to show consideration for their neighbours and play quietly. And tidily. But preferably not at all.

It was that kind of estate.

‘What if he’s there?’ Dulcie peered ahead as they swung into Acacia Close. Loads of roads were called that, she really must find out what it meant. She wouldn’t know an acacia if it leapt up and bit her on the bum.

‘He won’t be. It’s Wednesday, everyone’s back at work. Anyway,’ Liza rounded the corner and nodded at the empty drive, ‘see? His car’s gone.’

‘I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing.’ Dulcie was already racked with guilt. It was all right for her, she wanted a divorce. Pru didn’t. ‘What if you got it wrong? It could have been an innocent meeting with a client.’

‘In a rubber skirt?’ Liza wasn’t having any of that. Her tone was dismissive. ‘And with her foot buried in his crotch? Come off it, the woman was a scrubber. If anyone was the client, it was Phil.’

When they rang the bell and the gold and white front door was pulled open, Liza got something of a shock to come face to face with the rubber-skirted scrubber herself.

Chapter 4

Upstairs, Pru didn’t hear the doorbell. She was bent double with the hair dryer going full blast, putting the necessary lift into her straight conker-brown hair. Luckily it was thick and there was plenty of it; with a bit of tweaking and a lot of hairspray (maximum hold, what else?) the illusion would be complete. Her ears wouldn’t peep out, they wouldn’t even be glimpsed. There would not be the slightest tell-tale sign that they stuck out like jug handles at all.

Pru hated it that Phil’s pet name for her was Toby.

‘Well, I can hardly call you jugs, can I?’ he had quipped, eyeing her 32A breasts. Playfully he had tweaked her awful ears. ‘Come on, Pru, where’s your sense of humour! Would you prefer Dumbo?’

Pru would have preferred it if he’d stopped making perpetual fun of her ears. It was hard to have a sense of humour about something that had blighted your life since you were eleven when a group of boys in your class had asked how far you could fly.

She had tried sleeping with a scarf tied round her head, praying nightly that by morning she would wake up with miraculously flattened ears. She had even been so driven to desperation one Friday night that she had gone along with one of Dulcie’s brilliant suggestions.

This had involved superglue. ‘It’s what Clark Gable did,’ Dulcie had exclaimed, thrilled by her own cleverness. ‘It’ll be like instant plastic surgery, only pain free!’

As the doctor had later drily remarked, maybe they should have practised first with UHU. They had ended up in the casualty department of Bath Royal United with Dulcie’s right hand glued to Pru’s left ear, Dulcie’s left hand glued to a great deal of Pru’s hair and Pru in floods of humiliated tears.

Dulcie’s jokes that they were Siamese twins about to be separated didn’t help. Three hours of serious solvent abuse and intricate work with a scalpel later, they were allowed home.

‘Don’t do it again,’ warned the young male doctor, attempting to keep a straight face.

‘Oh well,’ Dulcie shrugged, ‘it was worth a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

Pru, who had left most of her hair behind on the floor of the casualty department, was forced to endure the next six months with her ears on show while she sported the ultimate haircut from hell.

She jumped as the bedroom door swung open and Liza and Dulcie came in.

‘Hi!’ Pru switched off the hair dryer, delighted to see them. ‘What are you two doing here? Hang on a sec, I’ve just about finished.’

‘Pru, what’s that woman doing downstairs?’ demanded Liza.

‘You mean Blanche? Hoovering, I think.’ Pru reached for the Elnett and sprayed vigorously, checking her reflection in the dressing table mirror. There, magic. No ears.

But Liza, behind her, was looking grim. Pru swivelled round.

‘Why, what’s the matter? Don’t tell me you caught her pocketing the silver spoons?’

‘She’s ... your cleaner?’ Dulcie sounded dazed. Pru looked shamefaced.

‘I know. Mad, isn’t it? Here’s me, no job, at home all day .. . and I’ve got someone coming in to do the housework. Honestly, it was Phil’s idea. He got it into his head just before Christmas that everyone who’s anyone has to have a lady-who-does. I told him it was stupid, we didn’t need a cleaner, but you know what Phil’s like. As far as he’s concerned it’s another status symbol, like a Gucci belt.’ She paused, frowning. ‘Is everything okay? She wasn’t really nicking spoons, was she?’

Liza barely knew where to start. She’d never realised Phil could sink this low.

Dulcie, needing something to occupy her hands and determined to leave Liza to do the dirty work, began investigating the make-up on Pru’s pretty dressing table. As she undid the top of a pink Chanel lipstick the sound of the Hoover being switched on drifted up from downstairs.

‘This Blanche person. How did you find her?’ Liza realised she was prevaricating.

Dulcie closely examined a Lancôme mascara.

‘From an agency. She was highly recommended.’ Beginning to look flustered, Pru said, ‘She lives half a mile away, on the Everton estate. She’s divorced with two grown-up sons. I know she doesn’t look it, but she’s nearly forty ... Oh, for heaven’s sake, what’s wrong? What are you going to tell me, that she’s a mass murderer?’

Estee Lauder translucent powder and a swansdown puff. Nice. Dulcie picked up Pru’s bottle of Youth Dew and gave herself an experimental squirt.

‘Pru, I’m sorry. This isn’t easy.’

Get on with it, thought Dulcie.

‘The thing is ... the thing is ...’

This was Liza for you. All mouth and no trousers. Dulcie, who was leaning into the mirror trying out a smoky Clinique eyeshadow, said, ‘What Liza’s trying to tell you is that Phil’s the one who’s got himself a lady-who-does. Except we aren’t talking vacuum cleaners and I don’t think you can call her a lady.’

‘That isn’t fair,’ Pru sounded almost. angry. ‘Blanche is a hard worker. Just because her clothes are a bit ... well, a bit skimpy—’

‘I’m not talking about her clothes,’ said Liza.

‘And she isn’t only a hard worker,’ Dulcie put in, ‘she’s fast, too.’

Liza took the plunge.

‘Look, I saw them. Having lunch together on New Year’s Day.’

Pru’s face was white. ‘No you didn’t. Phil was working. He told me.’

‘I saw them. And I heard them. He’s having an affair with her.’ Liza shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.

I wish it wasn’t true, but it is.’

Dulcie thought she might buy herself one of these Clinique eyeshadows. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the expression on Pru’s face. Downstairs the Hoover was switched off.

Moments later there was a tap on the bedroom door.

‘All done, Pru. I’m off.’

Pru rose slowly to her feet and went to the door. Liza and Dulcie exchanged alarmed glances.

Liza swallowed. Dulcie held her breath.

‘Blimey, are you all right, love? You’re as white as a sheet.’

‘I’m fine, Blanche. I’ll come down with you. You’ll want your money.’

Dulcie, wearing too much eyeshadow, collapsed on the bed.

‘Will she kill her in the kitchen, d’you think?’

It was what Liza had had in mind at the Songbird. She moved across the room and opened the door a fraction. ‘If we hear a scream, we go down,’ she told Dulcie.

But all they heard was the low murmur of voices, the sound of Blanche’s high heels tip-tapping across glossy parquet, and the front door slamming shut.

Dulcie and Liza raced to the window in time to see Blanche, now wearing a red leather bomber jacket over her green top and short white skirt, making her way jauntily to the end of the road.

Pru reappeared in the bedroom doorway. She watched them watching Blanche leave.

‘No, I didn’t say anything to her, if that’s what you’re wondering.’

‘But Pru—’

‘Don’t. I like Blanche. She’s friendly and she’s good company when I’m here on my own.’

‘But—’

‘And I love Phil.’ She was still pale but her jaw was clenched, her expression defiant. ‘He’s my husband and I love him. What was my New Year’s resolution, can you remember?’

Of course they remembered.

‘Well, I’m sticking to it,’ said Pru. ‘I’m going to stay married. I still don’t believe what you told me about him and Blanche, but even if it is true, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.

Certainly not the end of a perfectly good marriage.’

Liza had to say it.

‘Pru, it is true.’

Her grey eyes bright with tears, Pru demanded, ‘Did you see them actually doing it?’

‘Practically. She had her shoes off, and her foot in his—’

‘Don’t say it!’ Her voice rose to a shriek, her hands went up, stopping Liza in her tracks.

‘Anyway, I’ve already told you. There are worse things a man can do than have an innocent fling. If you hadn’t seen them, no one would have known anything. If you hadn’t told me, I would never have found out.’

‘Pru, how can a fling be innocent when you’re married to the man?’ Liza blurted out. ‘He’s cheating on you, for God’s sake! I know how upset you must be, but—’

‘Don’t lecture me,’ Pru said coldly. ‘How can you possibly know how I feel? You’ve never had a proper relationship in your life.’

‘That went well,’ said Dulcie conversationally when they were back in Liza’s car. ‘Oh yes, I’d call that a great morning’s work. A raging success.’

Liza shook her head. ‘How can she stand it? How can she hear that kind of news and stay so calm?’

‘She isn’t calm.’ Leaning across from the passenger seat, Dulcie commandered the rear-view mirror. ‘How about a spotof shopping?’ she said brightly. ‘I want to buy one of these eyeshadows. This colour really suits me.’

‘How can you be so shallow?’

Dulcie grinned. ‘Sallow? I’m not sallow, I’m tanned.’

Pru sat in the middle of the bed surrounded by photograph albums. Each album was full of pictures of herself and Phil, separately and together, at home or abroad, in Cornwall, in Tunisia, in Scotland, swimming, sunbathing, skiing, partying .. .

How can Liza and Dulcie ever understand how I feel? thought Pru, carefully turning another page and smiling at photos of Phil and herself on holiday last year in Morocco. Phil, sunburnt and peeling, was balancing a glass on his head, showing off for her benefit. And here was one of the two of them, taken by someone they had become friendly with in the hotel bar. They were dancing, and Phil’s arms were clasped around her waist, and just looking at the photograph Pru was able to relive that blissful moment, experience again the feeling of utter security.

No, neither Liza nor Dulcie could ever have understood how she felt about Phil, Pru decided.

Dulcie had put herself about a fair bit before settling down with Patrick, and Liza... well, Liza was still putting herself about.

But Pru, who had been with Phil for fourteen years, had never even looked at another man. He had been her first and only love, rescuing her from the terrors of teenage dating, and she had been more than happy to be rescued. Phil was all she wanted; he made her feel safe, she was Phil Kasteliz’s girlfriend, she belonged to him .. .

Pru’s hand trembled as she took the photograph out of its cellophane casing and looked more closely at it. Phil was her whole life. Finding out about Blanche had been horrible, of course it had, but she wasn’t a complete innocent. Sometimes men did stupid things. Their hormones got the better of them, they took risks they shouldn’t have ... and were found out.

But it doesn’t mean he’s stopped loving me, thought Pru. It’s a temporary weakness, that’s all.

I’m his wife. He still loves me best.

Slowly, she bit her tongue. Not enough to draw blood, but almost. Although it hurt, the pain was bearable.

Like this thing with Phil and Blanche, Pru thought, carefully sliding the photo back into the album. Dulcie and Liza were acting like it was the end of the world, but it didn’t have to be.

She could bear this too.

Chapter 5

Telling your husband you no longer wanted to be married to him was proving less straightforward than Dulcie had imagined. When she had first envisaged the scenario, it had seemed simple. She would just deliver her speech and that would be that.

Now she was ready to do the deed, however, a problem had cropped up.

The problem was .. .

... timing.

It would be so much easier, Dulcie thought, if Patrick was awful. If he used her as a punchbag, blacked her eyes and sent a few teeth flying, all she’d have to do was scream, Right, that’s it, get out of my life NOW.

Ditto if she found out he was having an affair.

But Patrick wasn’t awful and she didn’t want the break-up to be any more traumatic than it needed to be. Which was why the timing had to be right.

Before Christmas had been a no-no. That would be too cruel, too inconsiderate for words.

Knowing she couldn’t bring herself to do it in December was what had prompted Dulcie to make it her New Year’s resolution instead. Get the festive season out of the way and do it then.

Except now it was the middle of January and Patrick’s birthday loomed. His fortieth, at that.

Unhappily aware that only a complete cow would wreck her husband’s birthday, Dulcie realised she had to sit on her bombshell for a couple more weeks yet.

Forty. God, the more she thought about it the more terrifying it sounded. Whoever said life began at forty must have been senile. Feeling sorry for her ancient husband, Dulcie made two mugs of coffee and wandered through to the study. Patrick was tapping lists of figures into one of the computers and peering intently at the screen. It probably wouldn’t be long before he started to need glasses.

‘It’s your birthday in ten days’ time.’ Dulcie perched on the edge of his desk, both hands clasped around her mug. ‘What do you want?’

The least she could do, she had already decided, was buy him a really nice present.

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 she 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, of 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.

The answer had to be, therefore, to let James find out for himself.

And what better place for it to happen than at a party, when everyone was already in carefree party mood ... and where Bibi’s little white lie could be laughed off?

Dulcie knew she was right. It was a brilliant solution. James would know the truth at last and it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference to his feelings for Bibi. And Bibi would be so relieved. And grateful.

I was meant to bump into James today, Dulcie decided.

Everything happens for a reason. This is fate, taking a hand.

‘I’ve had an idea,’ she told James as they loaded the green and white carrier bags into the boot of the car. ‘Bibi doesn’t know yet about the party. Don’t tell her, okay?’

James looked amused. ‘Why not?’

‘It’ll be more fun! Just say it’s a wedding anniversary do for friends of yours and bring her along.’ Dulcie’s eyes were shining. ‘Then, when you walk in, it’ll be extra special. A double surprise.’

Pru had worked flat out all afternoon. At five o’clock, having done as much as she could, she jumped into the bath. By six she was dressed and ready. All she had to do now was load the food into the car, take it over to Brunton Manor and help Dulcie lay everything out.

She phoned Phil’s office but he was out.

‘Showing a client around a few properties,’ said Janet, his secretary. ‘Try him on his mobile.’

No joy there either; the mobile was switched off. Instead, Pru scribbled a note explaining what had happened and left it on the kitchen table. When Phil came home he could shower and change and follow her down to the club in his own time.

In one way, Pru was glad the food crisis had arisen. Coming to the rescue as she had meant Dulcie would be so grateful she wouldn’t dare say anything awful about Phil. She knew she had Dulcie’s solemn promise not to anyway, but a little extra emotional blackmail never went amiss.

Dulcie was already there when Pru staggered into the banqueting hall with her arms full of salad bowls.

‘Hey, you look fab!’ Rushing across, she helped Pru unload and gave her a hug. ‘And these look brilliant too. You are an angel. Honestly, Pru, that git of a husband of yours doesn’t deserve you.’

Pru leapt away as if she’d been electrocuted.

‘If you’re going to start—’

‘I’m not, I’m not.’ Dulcie grabbed her back and kissed her noisily on both cheeks. ‘It’s okay, I’m just getting it out of my system before jerk-of-the-year turns up.’ She grinned. ‘Would I say anything to upset you when you’ve done all this for me?’

Probably.

‘Not if you don’t want a bowl of rice salad over your head,’ said Pru.

‘Anyway,’ Dulcie changed the subject, ‘you do look fab. Love the dress.’

Pru was pleased. The white silk jersey was clingier than her usual style but as ever she had been too afraid of hurting the sales assistant’s feelings to walk out of the shop without it. Now she was glad she’d been a wimp. Dulcie and the sales girl had been right; it was a great dress.

‘Love yours too,’ said Pru, cheering up. ‘And the hair. Very chic.’

Pink-faced and shiny from her exertions, Dulcie was wearing an orange sweatshirt over a lime-green elongated vest. Her short hair stuck up at weird angles and she had a shopping list scrawled in mauve felt-tip up one arm.

She checked her watch.

‘Half six. I’d better get a move on. Look, can you finish putting everything out? Liza’s promised to turn up before seven thirty and everyone else has orders to be here by eight. I’ll arrive with Patrick just after eight. Any problems, give me a ring.’

‘Right.’ Pru was struck by the look of excitement on her friend’s face. She smiled. ‘You can’t wait, can you?’

‘I promise you,’ Dulcie declared dramatically, ‘this is going to be a night to remember. And whatever happens, don’t get drunk and pass out before ten o’clock.’ Her green eyes sparkled.

‘There are going to be a couple of late arrivals. Call it a special guest appearance.’

‘Who?’

The temptation to confide in Pru was overwhelming. Manfully, Dulcie held back. Instead she held a finger to her lips.

‘Ssh, not another word. Top secret.’ She winked at Pru. ‘After all, if you’re having a party, why settle for one surprise when you can have two?’

Eddie Hammond wasn’t a great one for examining his reflection but in the aerobics studio, which was mirrored from floor to ceiling on three sides, he didn’t have a lot of choice. While he waited to speak to Diana, Brunton’s terrifyingly fit aerobics instructor, he studied himself without much enthusiasm in the nearest of the mirrored walls.

Terrifyingly unfit was the phrase that sprang to mind.

Or maybe overweight, overstressed and over forty.

Eddie tried sucking in his stomach but all it did was make him feel dizzy, since you couldn’t suck in your stomach and breathe at the same time.

He gave up, combed his fingers through his greying hair instead, briefly closed his baggy eyes and mopped his perspiring forehead with a handkerchief. No wonder he looked harassed, he thought gloomily. Who wouldn’t be, faced with a day like this, his first crisis since moving down to Bath and taking over the running of Brunton Manor two months earlier? His staff were still dropping like flies, the health inspector was on his tail, the publicity could be disastrous for the club .. .

Eddie’s smile was rueful. It was no good, he could go on making excuses until he was blue in the face but he couldn’t get away from the fact that stress or no stress, this was the way he looked.

This was him. He was unfit, overweight and over forty. Okay, forty-five.

Let’s face it, he was no Jean-Claude van Damme.

A flash of lime green and orange made Eddie jump. Dulcie, whose reflection he had glimpsed in one of the other mirrors, stopped and stuck her head around the glass door.

‘Everything okay?’ Eddie prayed she hadn’t tracked him down in order to report some new catastrophe.

But Dulcie, thank God, was grinning.

‘No problems. All under control,’ she told Eddie, entertained by the sight of him studying his own reflection as intently as any teenager. ‘The rest of the food’s being set out and I’m off home for a bath. Didn’t know you’d signed up,’ Dulcie added.

‘Signed up?’ Eddie frowned. ‘For what?’

‘One of Diana’s aerobics classes.’ She winked. ‘I can’t wait to see you in a leotard.’

Amused, Eddie said, ‘There’s about as much chance of that as of seeing you in one.’

As he spoke, Diana and the next scheduled class spilled out of the changing room, heading down the corridor towards the studio. Dulcie, who lived in terror of waking up and finding out she’d got drunk the night before and signed up for one of Diana’s classes, said, ‘Help, Cruella’s coming. I’ll see you later.’ She waggled her fingers at Eddie. ‘And cheer up, okay? Everything’s fine. It’s going to be a night to remember.’

Chapter 7

The great advantage of surprise parties, Pru discovered with some relief, was the way they got everyone there on time. Instead of having to endure that awkward first couple of hours of guests trickling in, all leaving it as late as possible because nobody wanted to be the first, everyone had piled in through the doors dead on five to eight.

Everyone except Phil.

Ducking out to reception at five past, Pru tried ringing home again. No reply. Ditto his mobile.

But she didn’t have time to start worrying. Dulcie and Patrick had arrived.

‘What’s going on?’ Patrick was looking suitably confused. ‘I thought the table at Langharn’s was booked for eight fifteen ... Hello, Pru, what are you doing here? Did Dulcie tell you it was my birthday? Come and give me a big kiss.’

‘Right, that’s enough,’ barked Dulcie moments later. She seized his arm. ‘No time for snogging.

As soon as I’ve booked a sunbed for tomorrow, we’re off. Pru, where’s Anna?’

Pru pointed obediently in the direction of the banqueting hall.

‘Through there.’

‘Do I deserve you?’ Patrick murmured, wrapping his arms around his wife as they danced to something slow and slushy. Dulcie was looking amazing in a skin-tight little black dress and the kind of seriously high heels he liked. Her black hair was slicked back Valentino style. The diamond studs he had given her for Christmas glittered in her ears. Dulcie had the figure, the looks and the legs; what’s more, she knew how to flaunt them.

And she had gone to the trouble of organising a surprise party for him, even to the extent of doing all the food. Well, with a little help from Pru.

Patrick was touched.

Dulcie stuck her tongue out at him.

‘Deserve me? Of course you don’t.’ His dark-brown eyes narrowed with amusement.

‘I do love you.’

Patrick didn’t say it often, he wasn’t that kind of man. But Dulcie knew he did.

It was just a shame he loved work more.

‘I should bloody well think so.’ Reaching up, she flicked his ear lobe with her tongue. It had been so long, she’d quite forgotten how nice Patrick was to dance with. If she wasn’t so excited about James and Bibi’s imminent arrival she might have put the pleasurable churning sensation in her stomach down to the effect of her husband’s body pressed against hers.

‘Come on then.’ Patrick gave her waist a pinch. ‘Your turn. Only fair.’

It was a long-standing joke between them. When she said it, Patrick didn’t. When he said it, she didn’t.

But this was the last birthday they would celebrate together. On impulse, Dulcie gave it one final try.

love you too.’

Patrick looked startled.

She went on, ‘But I’d love you more if you worked less.’

‘Dulcie—’

He had that look on his face, the look she had come to know oh so well during the course of the last couple of years. The one, Dulcie thought bitterly, that was about to end their marriage.

‘Not a lot less,’ she urged, ‘just a bit.’

‘Sweetheart, don’t you think I would if I could?’ Sherecognised the note of exasperation in his voice as well. They had had this argument too often in the past. The novelty had worn off. ‘I’m building up a business. It’s tough.’

Damn right it’s tough, thought Dulcie.

‘But I’m doing it for us,’ Patrick went on. This was how he always justified himself; she could have recited the words by heart. Dulcie hated this bit. She hated the way he always managed to make her feel like a spoilt child. She wasn’t selfish. Well, not very. She just wanted a husband she could see occasionally, and talk to. She wanted a normal married life.

‘Okay, I know the rest,’ said Dulcie before he could launch into the next phase of his defence.

‘Let’s not argue. This is your party. And we can’t stay here smooching, either.’

Patrick, as keen to change the subject as she was, looked affronted.

‘Why not? It’s my birthday.’

‘You’re supposed to spread yourself around. Smooch with other women.’ Dulcie detached herself from his grasp and peered around. ‘Go on, there’s Pru. That bastard husband of hers still hasn’t turned up.’

Pru was glad she was dancing with Patrick when Phil eventually appeared. Well, she’d rather not have been there at all, but dancing with Patrick was at least better than standing on her own propping up a wall.

Not a lot better, considering it was the most horrendous moment of her life, but a bit.

Pru felt the blood drain from her cheeks. Phil was drunk. Seriously drunk.

And ... oh God ... Blanche was at his side.

‘Shit, shit,’ breathed Liza, startling the banker she had been introduced to only moments before.

She watched in horror as Phil shambled on to the dance floor.

Blanche was wearing the infamous rubber skirt and spike heels higher than Dulcie’s. Her emerald-green halter-neck top was studded with rhinestones. Despite the stilettos, she was doing a good job of keeping Phil upright.

‘Pru, sorry he’s late. I bumped into him in the Forester’s Arms. He kept saying he was supposed to be here so I put him in my car. You won’t be cross with him, will you? He’s had a few, but no real harm done.’

Pm, who had never been cross with Phil in her life, stared at him. Across the room, dimly, she heard Dulcie say, ‘Oh Christ.’

Blanche’s ex-husband had drunk for England. She had had plenty of practice with piss-heads; compared with her ex, Phil was only tiddly. Planting him expertly upright, she turned to leave.

‘Okay, Pru? I’ll be off then.’

Phil took one look at the frozen expression on Pru’s face and swung round like a cartoon drunk, grabbing her back again. ‘No you won’t. Don’t go. Stay and dance.’

‘Really, I can’t.’ Blanche shook him off.

‘Come back!’ roared Phil. He gestured recklessly in Pru’s direction. ‘Look at her, Miss Prim-and-bloody-proper .. . Blanche, I want you to stay. I don’t love her, I love you. I don’t want her any more ... I WANT YOU ..

Patrick couldn’t do anything – he was holding on to Pru. Instead Dulcie launched herself like a rocket across the dance floor and punched Phil Kasteliz so hard he toppled over.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ muttered Blanche, not looking at Dulcie. Evidently as strong as an ox, she hauled Phil to his feet and all but carried him out of the room. By the door, she encountered Liza.

‘I shouldn’t have brought him. This wasn’t meant to happen. I was only trying to help.’

Liza’s voice dripped with derision.

‘Oh well, that’s all right then. Give yourself a pat on the back, you’ve done your good deed for the night.’

Pru wasn’t crying. She sat on a chair in the loo, eerily composed.

Except she wasn’t composed, Liza realised as she handed her a massive brandy. How could she be? She must be in a state of shock.

‘You’re in a state of shock,’ she told Pru.

‘Am I?’ Pru stared straight ahead, her gaze fixed on the hand dryer. All in white like a jilted bride, she shrugged. ‘Probably.’

Liza felt uncomfortable. Weeping and wailing wasn’t Pru’s style but it would be far easier to deal with.

‘What do you want to do?’

Another shrug. ‘I don’t know. Go home, I suppose.’

‘Are you sure? Phil might be there. Stay with me tonight.’ Liza felt rather heroic; she had been enjoying herself tremendously. Now it looked as if she was going to have to miss the rest of the party and take Pru back to her flat instead.

Dulcie cannoned through the door.

‘He’s gone. I just hit him again, out in the car park. And I told that stringy cow to fuck off too.’

Her green eyes glittered. ‘I said if she ever sets foot in your house again she’s dead. Oh Pm, I’m so sorry it had to happen like this. And they could have ruined the party—’

She went to fling her arms around Pm, still sitting stiffly on her chair.

Pru flung the contents of her glass into Dulcie’s face. At least that was her intention but her aim was off. Most of it splattered against the mirror above the basin.

‘What the ?’ Dulcie staggered backwards, stunned by Pru’s reaction. It was like being spat at by a nun.

‘You planned all this, didn’t you?’ hissed Pru. She began to shake. ‘Wait until ten o’clock, you said, for an extra-special surprise. Two late arrivals. For God’s sake, Dulcie, what did you think you were playing at?’

Liza stared at Dulcie. Surely she hadn’t .. .

‘Oh come on!’ Dulcie howled, mopping helplessly at her wet left shoulder and brandy-spotted dress. ‘They weren’t the surprise! Do you seriously think I’d do something that crass?’

Nobody said anything. Dulcie stamped her foot in frustration. Some friends she had.

‘Well I bloody wouldn’t. What I’d planned was brilliant, the answer to a problem nobody else has had the guts to solve. And dammit’ – she checked her watch – ‘if we don’t get out there we’re going to miss the whole thing. It’ll happen without me.’

Pru rose to her feet.

‘Dulcie, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I just did that.’ She looked worried. ‘Is your dress okay?’

‘I can’t believe you did it either.’ Dulcie broke into a grin. ‘And my dress will be fine. Just as well it wasn’t egg flip.’

‘Come on, let’s go. We don’t want to miss your big surprise,’ said Pru with a ghost of a smile.

‘What is it, a Chippendale for Liza?’

Bibi looked pretty shell-shocked when she arrived on James’s arm and realised whose party he had brought her to. Rushing over to welcome them, Dulcie saw her eyes flicker around the hall in search of banners screaming: 40 TODAY!

To allay Bibi’s fears and prevent her dragging James back out to the car, Dulcie greeted her with a kiss, whispering in her ear, ‘Don’t panic, all under control.’

She wasn’t completely insensitive. It wasn’t as if she was going to jump up on to the stage with a loud-hailer yelling, ‘Hands up all those eligible for a bus pass.’

Oh no, that would be downright naff.

Subtlety was the key, Dulcie had decided. She wasn’t going to say anything at all. Just wait for the revelation to casually slip out.

It casually slipped out sooner than she had expected. Having recovered from the Pru-and-Phil incident, everyone had taken to the dance floor with a vengeance. Dulcie and James were telling Bibi about the panic over the buffet and Dulcie’s trolley dash around Marks & Spencer. Patrick returned with drinks for Bibi and James.

Suzannah Somers was the effervescent wife of one of Patrick’s old rugby friends – from way back, when he’d had time to play rugby. She tapped Patrick on the shoulder.

‘Hello, birthday boy! Dulcie, you don’t mind if I borrow him, do you? My hopeless other half dances like a gorilla with gout.’

‘Feel free.’ Dulcie waved an indulgent arm in the direction of the dance floor.

The DJ was playing something weird Patrick had never heard before. Looking worried he said,

‘Don’t expect miracles.’

Suzannah giggled. ‘Come on, you used to be a terrific dancer! Mind you, that was in the good old days. Before you turned forty.’

James gave Suzannah an odd look. Unable to help herself, Dulcie choked on her drink. Bibi turned white.

Patrick’s laugh was loud and unconvincing. ‘Suzannah, someone’s been spiking your shandies.’

Since the best course of action was clearly to get her out of earshot, he grabbed her hand and began hauling her on to the dance floor. ‘Forty, ha ha ha. That’ll be the day.’

At that moment the music stopped. Suzamah, by this time deeply puzzled, said loudly, ‘Patrick, are you drunk? Of course you’re forty. That’s why we’re all here.’

Patrick couldn’t bear it. He danced with Suzannah to something by Babylon Zoo, whoever they might be. If this toe-curling situation had something to do with Dulcie – as he suspected it had –

then Dulcie could sort it out.

Chapter 8

‘What’s going on?’ said James, who was even more confused than Suzannah. ‘Patrick isn’t forty.

He can’t be. He’s thirty-two.’

Bibi’s stricken expression made Dulcie feel uncomfortable. This wasn’t going as well as she had planned. Somehow, when she had envisaged this scenario, everyone had looked a lot happier.

Instead, Bibi looked as if she was about to pass out.

Panicking, desperate to get to the happy bit – and how could it be reached, until someone said something? – Dulcie gabbled, ‘Now listen, James, it was just a harmless fib that got out of hand ... and now the time’s come to sort everything out, clear the air, start afresh—’

‘Sort what out?’ demanded James.

Dulcie attempted a merry laugh but it didn’t quite come off. Unable to stand this torture a moment longer, Bibi turned and left.

‘Sort what out?’ James repeated, his voice dangerously quiet.

‘Look, women lie about their age, they do it all the time,’ burbled Dulcie. ‘You love Bibi, don’t you? All she did was lop a few years off ... What does it matter if she’s older than she said she was? It’s not as if she’s done something really awful, like have an affair!’

‘When I met Bibi she told me she was forty-six,’ said James. ‘Now you’re telling me Patrick’s forty. For pity’s sake, Dulcie. How old does that make her?’

Dulcie cringed. She did her best to soften the blow. ‘Nearly ... um ... sixty.’

‘Nearly sixty! How near?’

Oh well, that hadn’t worked. ‘Er ... that’s it, really. Sixty.’ Hurriedly she added, ‘But only just.’

James closed his eyes. He looked as if he was having a bad dream and wanted desperately to wake up.

‘Oh James, I know it’s a shock, but is it really so terrible?’ Wearily, he opened his eyes. ‘Thanks, Dulcie. I’ve heard enough.’

‘But Bibi’s still Bibi—’

‘Stop it.’

‘—and the only reason she wouldn’t marry you was because she was scared of you finding out!’

‘I’m not surprised.’

In desperation Dulcie cried, ‘We only wanted you to be happy.’

‘Really?’ James studied her for a second. ‘You’ve got a funny way of showing it.’

When he had gone, Liza and Pru joined Dulcie. Hovering not far behind her throughout the uncomfortable exchange, they had heard it all.

‘Was that it?’ said Liza. ‘Was that your other surprise?’ Miserably Dulcie nodded.

‘Oh dear.’

‘I was trying to help.’

‘Hmm. Somehow I don’t think trying to help is your forte.’ Patrick had returned Suzannah to her husband. He came up to them, looking grim.

‘Congratulations.’

‘It needed to be done,’ said Dulcie defensively.

‘And with such style.’

‘Oh shut up.’ She was feeling got at. ‘Anyway, James might be okay. Once he’s over the shock.’

‘You saw his face, Dulcie. Don’t count on it.’

So much for marital solidarity.

‘How can you be so horrible?’ Dulcie longed to kick his shins. ‘After all my hard work too. I organised this party for you. I wanted it to be memorable—’

‘Oh, it’s that all right. Nobody’s going to forget this night in a hurry. Especially not Bibi.’

Patrick’s tone was derisive. ‘You’ll be lucky if she ever speaks to you again.’

But luck wasn’t on Dulcie’s side. Bibi did speak to her again.

She reappeared as Dulcie was helping herself to a quadruple gin and tonic and grumbling, ‘Next time I say I’m planning a surprise party, just make sure you hit me over the head until I stop.’

Pru – who somewhat bizarrely was now comforting her – murmured, ‘Bibi’s back.’

For a split second Dulcie fantasised that everything was going to be all right. James had forgiven Bibi and Bibi had come back to thank her. There would be laughter and tears, emotional hugs and happy endings all round...

Extremely wishful thinking.

The fantasy skidded to a miserable halt the moment she turned and saw the stony expression on Bibi’s pale, unlined face.

The atmosphere was horribly reminiscent of the gunfight at the OK Corral.

‘Well, he’s gone. I don’t suppose I’ll see him again, thanks to you.’

Dulcie shivered. Was it her imagination or had the central heating just been turned off?

‘Bibi, I can’t tell you how—’

‘Sorry you are? Oh please.’ Bibi spat the words out like loose chippings. ‘You knew exactly what you were doing. You had to meddle, didn’t you? You had to interfere.’

‘But I—’

‘You’ve wrecked my life, Dulcie. I’ll never forgive you for this. I wish you’d never married Patrick.’

Oh no, this is too much, thought Dulcie. Glancing across atPatrick – surely now he would come to her rescue? – she saw that she was on her own. Patrick had no intention of backing her up. He was staring.grimly back at her, not on her side at all.

Fine.

‘I wish I’d never married him too.’ Dulcie’s fingernails gouged into the perspiring palms of her hands. Well, it was the truth. She may as well say it now. She’d started so she’d finish. ‘Still, we can soon sort that out. A trip to the solicitor, a quickie divorce ... and bingo, no more interfering daughter-in-law.’ To make sure Patrick understood, she turned her gaze on him and concluded bitterly, ‘No more bored-to-the-backteeth wife.’

Apart from their immediate circle the rest of the party was still going great guns. Eddie Hammond, who had been busy organising tomorrow’s squash tournament, spotted Dulcie and Patrick through a gap in the crowd and came up, munching a Marks & Spencer spring roll.

‘Everyone enjoying themselves? Having a jolly time?’ He gavé Dulcie’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. ‘Darling, the food’s great. You must have worked your gorgeous fingers to the bone. I hope this husband of yours appreciates all the trouble you went to.’

Bibi turned and stalked out without uttering another word. Dulcie, not trusting herself to speak, took a gulp of her drink.

Linking her arm through Eddie’s, Liza drew him diplomatically away, murmuring, ‘How about a little dance?’

Dulcie went in search of a much-needed refill. Then she perched on the edge of the table upon which Patrick’s laser printer was displayed and fidgeted fretfully with a strand of the blue and silver ribbon she had used to decorate it.

The trouble with spur-of-the-moment emotional outbursts, she realised, was nobody believed you meant what you said. It hadn’t occurred to Patrick that she actually wanted a divorce. He thought she was just in a strop.

Well, thought Dulcie, he’ll find out soon enough.

She watched him make his way towards her, still wearing his I’m-the-headmaster-and-you’re-in-detention look.

‘Terry and Jean are leaving. They have to get back for the baby-sitter.’

‘Better go and wave them off then.’

‘Are you coming?’

She felt her bottom lip jut out practically of its own accord. She was fourteen again.

‘They’re your friends, not mine.’

‘Come on, Dulcie, don’t sulk. That doesn’t solve anything.’

She longed to hurl her gin and tonic in his face, but Pru had been there, done that already tonight.

It was no longer original.

Besides, her glass was empty.

She watched Patrick heave a sigh. She was clearly being extra troublesome. Detention might not be punishment enough. Maybe she was going to be expelled.

‘Look, you brought this on yourself,’ he told her wearily. Dulcie snapped. She jumped down from the table, gripping the sides with her fingers. Lifting it was easy.

The super-duper laser printer slid backwards and landed with a crash on the floor.

Turning, she regarded the shattered printer with immense satisfaction.

‘So did you.’

Liza woke up the next morning cold and with a crowded flat. Dulcie, lying next to her, had hogged the duvet. Pru, who had taken the sofa, stood in the doorway holding mugs of tea.

‘Makes a change,’ Liza remarked cheerfully, ‘waking up next to someone who doesn’t have hairy legs.’ She prodded Dulcie, who was snoring, and looked at Pr-u. ‘How are you feeling, or is that a stupid question?’

‘Headache,’ grumbled Dulcie. ‘Ouch.’

‘Not you.’

‘Okay.’ When they were both upright, Pru handed them theirtea. ‘Better, at least, now I’ve had time to think.’

Dulcie underwent a lightning replay of last night. Hell, it really had happened. The fan had been well and truly hit.

‘This is it then.’ She sipped and burnt her tongue. ‘Here we are, all girls together. Welcome to the singles club.’

Pru plonked herself down on the end of the bed. She had been drinking tea for the last five hours.

‘I’m not single.’ She looked defensive.

‘Oh come on,’ exclaimed Dulcie. ‘You can’t stay with Phil! Not after what he did to you last night.’

‘He didn’t mean it. He was drunk, that’s all.’ Pru knew from experience what Phil was like after one of his infrequent benders. He would wake up feeling hopelessly sorry for himself, unable to recall much, if anything, of the night before. He would beg for Heinz tomato soup and spend the day being penitent and little-boyish. He would also be enormously affectionate towards her.

The pattern was always the same. And although she was ashamed to admit it, even to herself, while she hated the binges, Pru actually enjoyed the recovery periods after them. They made her feel wanted and secure.

‘He humiliated you in front of everyone,’ Liza protested, but with less force than last time. She knew when she was wasting her breath.

‘My marriage is worth fighting for. Phil didn’t mean those things he said last night. He won’t even remember saying them.’

‘You’re mad,’ Dulcie said flatly.

Pru looked at her.

‘Are you really going to leave Patrick?’

‘Too right I am.’ Dulcie thought for a moment. She had stalked out of the party, hadn’t she? She wasn’t at home, she was here. ‘I already have.’

Pru stood up, looking waif-like in one of Liza’s oversized white T-shirts, but utterly determined.

‘In that case,’ she told Dulcie, ‘you’re the one who’s mad.’

Chapter 9

Dulcie was in no hurry to get home. Sod Patrick, let him stew a bit longer, let the sanctimonious bastard wonder where she was.

But her conscience was pricking her on another matter. Okay, the other matter. Not that it had really been her fault. Her intentions had been good.

Still, Dulcie knew she would feel a lot better if she could solve at least one of the ticklish problems last night’s party had thrown up.

She phoned James on his mobile.

‘James, hi, it’s me! Where are you?’

He didn’t seem thrilled to hear from her. Somehow she could tell.

‘Is that your idea of being subtle, Dulcie? If you mean am I at home tucked up in bed with Bibi, then no, I am not. I’m at the Berkeley Hotel.’

Lord, he sounded positively grim. Dulcie pulled a face and did a thumbs-down at Liza, who was getting ready to go out. Wasting no time as usual, she was meeting last night’s banker for lunch.

‘Right, okay, stay where you are.’ Dulcie decided she wouldn’t waste time either. She would be bold and assertive. She was going to force James to see sense if she had to hammer it into his head with one of her high heels..

‘Dulcie—’

‘Don’t move, I’m on my way,’ she said very firmly indeed. ‘I’ll meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes.’

* * *

Dulcie found herself on the receiving end of some pretty dubious attention when she made her way through reception at the Berkeley. There was no sign of James so she settled herself on a sofa by one of the long windows. Within the space of five minutes she was asked by a porter, a snooty receptionist and the manager if they could help her in any way, madam.

‘I’m meeting someone,’ Dulcie told the manager pleasantly. ‘I’m not on the game. The reason I’m wearing this dress is because I left my husband last night, rather unexpectedly, and I didn’t happen to have a change of clothes with me, okay? I stayed with a friend who’s a good six sizes bigger than me and if you think I’d wear something the size of a circus tent just to keep your geriatric guests happy ... well, you couldn’t be more wrong.’

James appeared behind the manager.

‘Troublemaking again, Dulcie?’

He looked awful, as if he hadn’t slept for a week. The manager, glaring at Dulcie, muttered some insincere apology for an apology and melted away.

Dulcie glared after him. ‘I’m not a troublemaker. He’s a pompous git.’

‘Well, at least try and pull your skirt down. Everyone can see your knickers.’

‘Do them a power of good.’ Dulcie looked truculent. ‘At least I’m wearing some.’

Ignoring this, James waited until she’d managed to cover up at least a couple more inches of thigh. The black velvet dress certainly had its work cut out. He ordered coffee from a waitress and lit a cigarette.

‘Can I have one?’ In times of stress Dulcie always liked to smoke; it made her feel like Bette Davis. Pre-1950, of course. Before those lines and wrinkles had set in.

‘No. Why are you here, Dulcie?’

‘To make you see sense.’

He didn’t smile.

‘I’m forty-five. Bibi is sixty. For God’s sake, how sensible does that sound to you?’

Déjà vu loomed. Dulcie prayed she could come up with something original, some dazzling new tack she hadn’t already tried.

‘Yes, but she doesn’t look sixty, she doesn’t sound sixty, she doesn’t act sixty!’

Was it her imagination or was James wincing every time she uttered the s-word?

He sounded irritated. ‘Obviously she doesn’t, otherwise she would never have got away with it for as long as she did.’

‘There you go, then.’

‘Dulcie, that isn’t the point. Not the whole point, anyway. Don’t you see? Bibi lied to me—’

‘It wasn’t a lie,’ Dulcie put in hurriedly, ‘just a fib.’

‘It was a lie. A big one. I thought we had no secrets from each other. Now I find out our whole relationship has been built on a lie. Relationships are all about trust, Dulcie. How can I ever believe anything she tells me now? She could be lying. She’s an expert.’

‘James, she wouldn’t! That was her only secret, believe me!’

‘Was it?’ He stubbed out his cigarette with a shaking hand and immediately lit another. ‘But that’s the thing, Dulcie. How would I ever know?’

Phil was sprawled across the sofa when Pru let herself into the house. A half-empty bowl of tomato soup, several bread rolls and a packet of paracetamol littered the coffee table. Strewn across the floor in front of him was a sheaf of letters.

Along with almost everyone else, it seemed, Phil was still wearing last night’s clothes.

He looked pretty rough, too.

‘Hello.’ Pru prayed she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt. ‘How are you feeling?’

Phil picked up one of the letters and glanced at it, avoiding Pru’s gaze. ‘Sick.’

‘Oh. More soup?’

This was normally when he held his arms out to her, gave her his little-boy look and said sorrowfully, ‘Pru, give me a cuddle. I don’t feel very well.’

Instead he said, ‘I meant it, you know. That stuff last night.’

‘Wh-what stuff?’

‘Come on, Pru! I might not be able to remember saying it, but Blanche assures me I did.

Anyway, it’s the truth. I’m getting out of here. I’m sorry if I showed you up in front of your friends, but you can’t plan these things. Sometimes they just happen.’

Pru couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t what Phil was supposed to say. Oh God, this was awful, awful .. .

‘You’re moving in with Blanche?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Probably. I just know I have to get out of here.’

‘But ... but ...’

‘Look, I’m sorry.’ For the first time his bloodshot eyes met hers. She saw weariness in them, and guilt. ‘You’re going to have to get out of here too.’

‘What?’

Phil held the letter in his hand out to her.

‘Go on, take it. And don’t worry,’ he gestured dismissively at the others on the floor, ‘there’s plenty more where that came from. Help yourself, read as many as you like. Take your pick.’

Shaking violently, wondering how on earth this could be happening to her, Pru read the first letter.

Then the second.

And the third.

She read all of them, forcing herself to keep going until she reached the end.

It was unbelievable. Phil owed money everywhere. The gambling she had always taken to be a harmless pastime had clearly rocketed out of control.

‘I didn’t know you’d remortgaged the house,’ she said stupidly.

‘Why would you?’ Phil, the traditionalist, had always taken care of the bills.

Well, until he’d stopped paying them and started stuffing them into the dustbin instead.

‘Anyway, now you see why you have to get out.’ He shrugged. ‘This place is being repossessed on Tuesday.’

‘But they can’t—’

‘Don’t be so bloody naive,’ Phil shouted at her. ‘Of course they can. Anyway, losing the house is the least of my worries. By this time next week I could be jobless, car-less ... minus a few other vital bits and pieces too, if that mob from the casino have their way.’

In the space of five minutes Pru had lost her home, her husband ... her whole life.

‘How much altogether?’ She spoke through chattering teeth. ‘How much do you owe?’

Phil shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Oh God.’

‘Look, it’s a hiccup, that’s all. I was doing okay until last summer. Then I hit a bad patch. The longer it lasted the bigger the bets had to be to cover my losses. But it’ll come good again, you’ll see.’

His eyes had lit up. God, thought Pru, even talking about it makes him more cheerful.

‘Phil, you have to go to Gamblers Anonymous.’

‘No I don’t. Listen, my luck has to change soon. It has to. Then as soon as that happens, I’ll get the house back—’ Pru’s eyes brimmed with tears.

‘Is this why you’re doing it? You’re leaving me because you’re ashamed of what’s happened?’

She felt a wild surge of hope. ‘Phil, gambling is an illness, you mustn’t blame yourself! Together we can get through this, we can get through anything—’

‘You’ve got it wrong.’ Phil shook his head. ‘This isn’t to protect you. I’m going because I don’t want to be married to you any more. I used to think you were my type. But you aren’t,’ he concluded coldly. ‘Blanche is.’

Dulcie knew she was really going to go ahead and do it when she arrived home and Patrick, looking supremely unconcerned, said, ‘Where have you been, stayed at Liza’s I suppose?’

So much for passion, possessiveness, an explosion of red-blooded jealousy, thought Dulcie.

She imagined his reaction if she told him she’d spent the night being happily ravished by the Bath first fifteen. That would capture Patrick’s attention all right. ‘Really? What, in the clubhouse? Did you happen to get a look at their computer system while you were there?’

Explosions of red-blooded jealousy weren’t Patrick’s scene. ‘Yes, at Liza’s.’ Dulcie couldn’t even be bothered to make up a more riveting story. What was the point?

‘Coffee?’ said Patrick, when she followed him into the kitchen. ‘Kettle’s just boiled.’

This was his contribution towards clearing the air. It was how they overcame arguments. A bit of stilted small talk executed in an I’m-right-and-you’re-wrong-but-I’ll-forgive-you kind of voice, followed by a hug and a kiss. Then everything would be back to normal.

Except this time it wasn’t going to happen.

‘No thanks, said Dulcie, ‘but I’d love a divorce.’

‘Sure you wouldn’t prefer a KitKat?’

Patrick had his back to her. She watched him pour boiling water into a mug. He was wearing a dark-green and white rugby shirt and his semi-respectable jeans, the ones patched together at the bum.

Oh, she was going to miss that bum.

Dulcie sat down, all of a sudden feeling terribly tired. It had been an eventful morning so far and it wasn’t over yet.

‘That wasn’t a joke,’ she said, when she finally had his attention. ‘Come on, Patrick. Look at the way things have been.

This marriage isn’t working, you know that as well as I do Time to call it a day.’

It was a no-win situation. If there was anything more futile than trying to knit fog, it was persuading Dulcie to change her mind. Patrick hadn’t been married to her for seven years without learning this much. Once Dulcie made decision, that was that. Nothing he could do or say would have any effect.

He did try, but not for long. Dulcie was immovable am Patrick couldn’t bring himself to beg.

Pride was one reason Another was the knowledge that — as far as Dulcie was concerned —

there was no bigger turn-off in the world than grovelling man.

So instead he had remained outwardly calm and heard her out. Oh yes, Dulcie’s mind was definitely made up.

‘Okay, if that’s what you want,’ said Patrick at last, his tone neutral. Anyway, how could he argue? She had a point, he hat neglected her. The knowledge that he was at least partly to blame for all this had knocked him for six.

Dulcie looked at him. ‘Fine, that’s settled then.’ She bit her lip, determined not to cry. ‘Good.’

‘Are you going to spend the rest of the day in there?’ she shouted, hours later, outside Patrick’s office.

All the computers were switched on but Patrick hadn’t don( a stroke of work. All he could think about was Dulcie, who wanted out of their marriage. Who, for God’s sake, wanted divorce .. .

He wiped his eyes, glad he’d remembered to lock the door The last thing he needed was for her to see him like this. ‘I’m busy.’

Dulcie could have kicked the door down with her bare feet How bloody dare Patrick be busy?

As she turned away she said bitterly, ‘What’s new?’

* * *

How can this be happening to me’?

Pru stood in the doorway and gazed at the bedsitting room being offered to her. It was hideous

— cramped and filthy and three floors up — but it was available. She could move in straight away.

‘I’ll take it,’ said Pru, and even the grimy-looking landlord had the grace to sound surprised.

‘You sure? When from?’

‘Today.’ Dry-mouthed, she opened her purse and counted out the deposit from her rapidly dwindling sheaf of notes.

‘And the first month in advance.’ The landlord cleared his throat, salivating at the sight of cash.

When he had pocketed the notes he handed Pru the key and gestured vaguely at the cracked pane of glass in the window. ‘I was ... um ... going to get that fixed. If I did it this afternoon, you could move in tomorrow.’

God, how can this be happening to me?

Pru shook her head.

‘I have to move in today.’

Not even mildly curious, her new landlord shrugged and headed for the stairs.

‘Suit yourself.’

Suit myself, thought Pru when he had gone. Did he really think that was what she was doing?

She had to move into this dismal room and she had to move in today.

Because between Phil, the bailiffs and the building society, she didn’t really have much choice.

Chapter 10

I’m single, thought Dulcie. Weird.

Technically, of course, she was still married, but separated. Morally, as far as Dulcie was concerned, that meant she was single again. And free to do as she liked.

It was exactly five weeks since Patrick’s party. Yesterday he had moved out of the house and into a flat above his office in the centre of Bath. The flat was tiny but the commuting time was four seconds. It would be two if he installed a fireman’s pole.

Dulcie still felt guilty about this. She had wanted out of the marriage and he was the one who’d had to find somewhere else to live. But Patrick had insisted.

‘Your parents gave us the deposit for this house,’ he had reminded her. ‘It’s more yours than mine. Anyway, you need the wardrobe space.’

He had been so damn reasonable Dulcie had wanted to hit him. If she had been expecting him to argue, to fight to save their marriage, she would have been bitterly disappointed.

Except she knew Patrick too well.

He never would.

So, it was done. She was on the market again, the sun was shining and the sky was blue.

Bring on the dancing boys. Dulcie stuck her Reeboked feet up on the chair opposite and closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face and waiting for Liza to finish her game of squash. The conservatory at Brunton Manor adjoined the bar. It was where people relaxed over Perriers —with ice if they were being decadent — after knackering themselves on the tennis courts. It was where Dulcie — in a fetching white tracksuit — relaxed over gin and tonics and a constant supply of salt and vinegar crisps.

Liza appeared looking hot and tousled but pleased with herself.

‘Hammered the bitch, six one. That’ll teach her to say I’ve put on weight. Another drink?’

Dulcie nodded. ‘And more crisps. Anyway, talking of bitches,’ she waved the Herald on Sunday’s colour supplement at Liza, ‘what happened to you? In a bit of a pooey mood, were we, when we wrote this?’

Liza cringed. The edition featuring her review of the Songbird had come out last week. Every time she read it, it sounded nastier. Her editor had been thrilled — ‘This is more like it, sweetheart! This is what gets people talking’ — but Liza was awash with guilt. The food hadn’t been perfect, but it wasn’t that bad, not as terrible as she had made out.

‘That was New Year’s Day, the place where I saw Phil and Blanche.’

‘Oh, I get it now.’ Dulcie grinned. ‘It’s the restaurant’s fault for letting them eat there. This is your revenge.’

‘Of course it isn’t. It was my editor’s bright idea.’ Liza, looking defiant, edged towards the bar.

‘He wanted me to be controversial, that’s all.’

Eddie Hammond, bumping into Dulcie earlier, had checked that Liza was meeting up with her for lunch. Someone had phoned, he explained, wanting to know when she would be around.

‘One of Liza’s besotted boyfriends,’ Dulcie guessed, but Eddie had frowned. ‘I don’t know about that. He didn’t sound besotted to me.’

Dulcie watched Liza flirting with the bar manager. He was gay, but she still flirted with him.

Even more weirdly, he was flirting back.

She hoped the phone call Eddie had taken wasn’t from a hit man, hired by the furious owners of the Songbird. It’s all right for Liza’s editor, urging her to be controversial, thought Dulcie; his kneecaps aren’t the ones at risk.

Liza made it back to their table by the window overlooking the entrance to the club. Since she could hardly put a PS in next week’s column saying ‘Oh by the way, that stuff I wrote about the Songbird was a bit mean, it wasn’t that bad really’, she chucked the magazine on to a spare chair and changed the subject.

‘So how do you feel, now Patrick’s gone?’

Dulcie ripped open her crisps and started crunching.

‘He was never there anyway. It’ll take me a year to notice the difference.’

Bravado. Liza said, ‘Are you looking for someone else?’

‘No way.’ Dulcie’s silver and tiger’s-eye earrings – not very sporty – rattled from side to side as she shook her head. ‘Play the field, that’s all I want to do. This is the start of my new life. I want to celebrate by being wild and irresponsible! I’m going to have more fun – with more men – than you could shake a stick at. Please, another relationship’s the last thing I need.’

More bravado. Actually, Liza amended, more like bullshit. Until Patrick, Dulcie had spent her life crashing from one wildly unsuitable man to the next. She craved excitement but she needed security.

She wasn’t nearly as independent as she liked to make out.

But this wasn’t the kind of thing people liked to hear about themselves. Diplomatically Liza changed the subject yet again.

‘Did you speak to Pru? Is she coming up here this afternoon?’

Dulcie shook her head. ‘Gone for an interview, some awful telesales thing. Can you imagine Pru selling, for heaven’s sake? She won’t get it.’

‘She needs to get something. That bedsit of hers is an awful tip.’

‘I know, I asked her to move in with me.’ Dulcie, gazing out of the window, watched a dark-green Bentley turn into the tree-lined drive. Crikey, look at it, who was visiting the club, the Queen? ‘It would’ve been ideal but Pru turned me down, said she couldn’t. She’s determined to stay where she is. Something to do with pride, I suppose.’ Dulcie tipped back her head, emptied the last crisp crumbs down her throat, wiped her hands on her tracksuit trousers and shrugged.

‘Maybe it’s just as well. If I’m going to be bringing men home all the time she might feel in the way. And I don’t want my style cramped, do I?’

‘Mm.’ Liza was no longer paying attention. She was peering out of the window along with Dulcie as whoever was driving the Bentley screeched to a halt and parked at a reckless angle in front of the entrance.

If this is the Queen, thought Dulcie, she’s desperate not to miss her step class.

It wasn’t the Queen.

‘Blimey,’ Dulcie whistled, ‘I thought only old codgers drove those kinds of cars. Mayors and stuff. I wasn’t expecting something like that.’

Having jumped out of the car and made his way rapidly up the flight of stone steps leading into reception, the driver was soon lost from view. Liza, who didn’t ogle like Dulcie, only had time to glimpse a fit-looking boy in his early twenties with longish dark hair. If the Bentley belonged to him, the chances were he had to be either a footballer or a rock star, Liza decided. The kind that liked to be noticed and bought his old mum a Barrett home in Basingstoke.

Dulcie was already looking excited.

‘I wonder who he is?’

‘No idea, but I know what he is.’

‘What? Tell me!’

Liza grinned and retied her ponytail, which had come loose. ‘Far too young for you.’

Dulcie had forgotten all about Eddie’s mystery phone caller. There were so many other riveting things to discuss, like Liza’s latest ex-lover (was there any bigger turn-off in the world, Liza argued, than discovering that the new Mr Wonderful in your life banked with the Co-op?) and how Pru was well shot of Phil, even if she didn’t yet appreciate this fact, and which clubs in Bath Dulcie should hang out in if she wanted to meet millions of seriously hunky men.

‘... not forgetting this place, of course,’ said Dulcie charitably as she ticked venues off on her fingers. ‘You do get the odd one or two dishy ones who aren’t married. Oh wow—’

‘What?’ Liza had scooped the slice of lemon out of her drink and was busy sucking it. She raised her eyebrows at Dulcie, who’d gone all glazed and stupid-looking.

Next moment Liza realised someone was standing behind her. She swivelled round, the strip of lemon peel still dangling from one corner of her mouth.

‘Are you Miss Lawson?’

‘That’s right.’ She smiled, deftly removing the peel. ‘Liza, please. And we know who you are; we saw you arriving just now. You’re the boy with the Bentley.’

Up close he was even more spectacular-looking than Dulcie had suspected. Hungrily she drank in every detail: yellow-gold eyes, the colour of freshly minted pound coins; thick black lashes; cheekbones to die for; a tan like peanut butter; and a narrow, fabulously cruel-looking mouth.

Cruel mouths were Dulcie’s favourite kind. She loved the transformation when they broke into a smile.

Except this one didn’t seem in much danger of doing that. ‘My name’s Kit Berenger, Miss Lawson.’

Oo-er, thought Dulcie, none the wiser but realising from the icy tone of voice that he was every bit as cross as he looked.

Liza, who recognised the name at once, stopped smiling. All of a sudden she knew what this was about.

L. B. Berenger was a Bath-based property-development company which specialised in tacking new estates on to existing picturesque villages. The people living in the villages– and those whose prized views were threatened by the springing-up of these new estates – had begun campaigning furiously against the company’s bulldozer approach.

In his New Year’s Eve letter to her, Alistair Kline had neglected to mention that his weekends were spent leaping into the paths of Berenger’s bulldozers and grappling with security guards.

Far from being shy, he had turned out to be a die-hard protester. He was eloquent too, persuading Liza – as a high-profile journalist – to write to the local paper publicly denouncing L. B.

Berenger’s latest plans.

She hadn’t minded doing that, but weekends ankle-deep in mud with only a thermos to keep her warm weren’t Liza’s idea of heaven. Her relationship with Alistair Kline had lasted three weeks.

Quite good, for her.

‘I see,’ she said now, surveying what must be the son-of Berenger. ‘And you’re the heavy mob, are you? Come to tell me to mind my own business and leave your family alone to make money in peace?’

Dulcie stared at Liza. What in heaven’s name did she think she was up to? If this was Liza’s idea of a new chat-up line, she had to be told it completely and utterly stank.

Kit Berenger clearly thought so too. His cruel upper lip curled with distaste. ‘Funny, that. You think we should be ashamed of the way we make our money. Does it never occur to you to be ashamed of the way you earn yours?’

Dulcie gazed at the pair of them, totally riveted. She’d always been a sucker for a curled lip.

‘Look,’ said Liza, ‘I’m a journalist. My job is to write the truth as I see it. The people who already live in that village would never have moved there in the first place if they’d known it was going to be turned into Milton-bloody-Keynes.’

Kit Berenger stared hard at Liza. Finally he said, ‘If you’re talking about West Titherton, thirty-six houses and a mini-roundabout hardly add up to Milton Keynes. Anyway, that isn’t why I’m here.’

Glancing across at the chair Dulcie was resting her feet on, he reached for the colour supplement Liza had thrown down earlier. Dulcie shivered with pleasure as his tanned arm – he was wearing a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up – brushed against her bare ankle.

Liza wished her glass wasn’t empty. Now she desperately wished he was only here to harangue her about that stupid letter to the local paper.

She didn’t want to hear what was coming next.

‘This,’ said Kit Berenger, ‘is why I’m here.’

Chapter 11

Liza’s jaw tightened in self-defence. Perspiration was breaking out on her upper lip. She didn’t take kindly to being sneered at by a mere boy.

‘Like I said, I write the truth as I see it.’

‘And does it give you a kick,’ Kit Berenger snapped back, ‘to write this kind of vindictive crap?

Do you have any idea how hurtful it can be, or is that all part of the fun?’

‘I don’t—’ began Liza.

‘No, shut up, just listen to me. What you wrote was complete bollocks anyway. I’ve eaten there dozens of times and there’s never been anything wrong with the food. The Songbird’s a great little restaurant struggling to make a name for itself, and your review was totally out of order.’

Liza already knew that, but she was damned if she was going to admit as much now. How dare this arrogant bastard give her such a public ticking-off?

‘Who runs that restaurant, your girlfriend?’ she demanded furiously. ‘Okay, you’re on her side because I gave the place a poor review and hurt her feelings. But I’m on the other side, the customer’s side. When a man scrimps and saves for a month to be able to afford to park the kids with a baby-sitter and take his wife out for a meal, he doesn’t want the food to be crap, does he?’

‘But the—’

‘No, your turn to listen to me.’ Liza pointed an accusing finger at him. ‘Don’t you see? That’s what my job’s about. I try out these places and give my honest opinion of them. If a place is good, I say it’s good. But I’m telling you, I ate at the Songbird on New Year’s Day. And if that married couple had spent their hard-earned cash on the meal I ordered, they’d have had their big night out ruined.’

Dulcie was still ogling away quietly in the background, admiring Kit Berenger’s long legs in white Levis and Timberlands. She liked his aftershave too. The wristwatch was a bit of a let-down but he was young, she could forgive him for that. Anyway, there was definitely something cool about a man driving a Bentley and wearing a purple Swatch.

Disappointing news about the girlfriend, Dulcie thought bravely, although to be honest you’d wonder if he didn’t have one. And it was sweet that he cared enough about her hurt feelings to come storming over here on her behalf.

Dulcie couldn’t help noticing that Liza, not at all used to being spoken to in such a manner, was looking more and more like an outraged cat whose tail has got caught in a cat-flap.

‘She isn’t my girlfriend,’ said Kit Berenger. ‘She’s my cousin.’

Dulcie cheered up at once.

‘And she’s worked bloody hard to get that restaurant on its feet. If you had any idea of the hours she’s put in—’

Liza’s lips were pressed together. ‘It’s a tough business.’

‘I know, I know. Restaurants go under all the time.’ His amber eyes bored into hers. ‘But humour me, okay? Just tell me when this review came out. How long since it hit the news stands?’

Liza didn’t speak.

‘I’ll tell you. Five days,’ said Kit Berenger. ‘Right, next question. Bit more tricky this time. In those five days, how many people do you suppose have phoned up and cancelled their bookings at the Songbird? Hmm?’

Dulcie began to feel sorry for Liza.

Liza shook her head.

‘Come on, make a wild guess,’ he coaxed silkily. ‘No? Give up? Okay, I’ll tell you. Eighty-two covers. Eighty-two fucking covers in five days.’

Dulcie swallowed. She didn’t know what a cover was, but all the little hairs on the back of her neck were standing to attention. Kit Berenger was awesome when he was angry. He was positively lethal .. .

‘So give yourself a pat on the back, Miss Lawson. As you say, it’s a tough business. And now, thanks to your hatchet job, it looks as if you’ve singlehandedly closed my cousin’s restaurant down.’

Dulcie was beginning to get seriously on Liza’s nerves. If she didn’t shut up soon she was going to get a squash racket jammed down her throat.

‘Cruel mouths, I just love cruel mouths.’ Dulcie swooned, ticking off each dubious asset on her fingers. ‘Calvin Klein aftershave, that’s my favourite too. Did you recognise that was what he was wearing?’

Liza was too busy smarting furiously and thinking up brilliant ripostes. It was too late now, of course, he’d gone, but there was always the horrible possibility she might one day bump into Kit Berenger again. It didn’t do any harm to keep a few ripostes up your sleeve anyway. Just in case.

‘... and he’s the exact opposite of Patrick, you know. I mean, talk about gallant. Look at the way he leapt to his cousin’s defence. Patrick never leapt to my defence ... in fact he leapt as far as possible in the other direction, that’s how bloody loyal and gallant he was.’

‘It’s the family thing. You upset Patrick’s mother. He was being loyal to her.’

‘Yes, but I’m his wife!’ Dulcie tore open another packet of crisps. ‘Well, I was. Well, still am, I suppose ...’

Liza wondered which would be worse if you were kidnapped and held hostage in a damp cellar for five years. Solitary confinement or being made to share with Dulcie.

‘... anyway, you have to admit he’s gorgeous. Imagine the fantastic-looking children you’d have.

God, I could definitely marry someone like him ...’

Solitary confinement, no question.

‘Whatever happened to being wild and irresponsible and changing your men as often as you change your nightie?’ Liza observed drily. ‘What happened to celebrating a whole new life?’

‘Yeah, but what a way to celebrate,’ sighed Dulcie, well ensconced on Fantasy Island now. ‘And who’d need a nightie?’

Pru had a whole new life and she didn’t much feel like celebrating. In the space of five weeks she had exchanged a perfect home, a loving, faithful husband (ha ha), no money worries and an N-reg Golf Cabriolet for a hideous bedsit, no husband and enough money worries to float the Titanic.

Ironically, she would still have forgiven Phil and stood by him. Together they could have battled their way out of debt. But in the end Pru hadn’t been given that option. You could only stand by a husband who wanted you there at his side, she had belatedly discovered. If he couldn’t bear the sight of you, regarded you with undisguised loathing and contempt and was only interested in the new woman in his life ... well, there didn’t seem much point.

Since a car was a necessity if she was going to find work, Pru had answered a newspaper ad and bought an ancient mini for a hundred pounds. Taxing and insuring it used up the rest of her modest savings. At least they were her savings to use up, Pru reminded herself. When they had bought the house, she had been inwardly hurt by Phil’s insistence that only his name went on the mortgage. Now, thanks to his greed, his debts were his alone.

In fact, Pru discovered, becoming broke in such sudden and spectacular fashion had its weird advantages. When you spent every waking moment in a blind panic, trying desperately to figure out how you were going to cope money-wise, you didn’t have much time left over to feel depressed about the fact your husband had done a bunk.

She hadn’t seen Phil since the day after Dulcie’s party, although she knew where he was living.

With Blanche.

He wasn’t working either. Pru wondered if, desperate for money, he had got caught doing some dodgy deal or other and been sacked.

She wished she could hate Phil. If she did, Pru was sure it would make her feel better.

But how can I hate him, she wondered miserably, when I’d give anything in the world to have him back?

The interview had been a nightmare, no way was she going to be offered the job.

‘Come on, come on,’ Pru urged through gritted teeth as she turned the key in the ignition and prayed for the engine to catch. In the last month she’d had enough practice jump-starting the Mini to go on Mastermind (‘And your specialist subject, Mrs Kastelitz ...?’) but today she was pointing uphill. Anyway, her sadistic interviewers might be smirking out of their office windows, jeering at the moron who was as hopeless with cars as she was on the phone.

They had put a headset on Pru, given her a prompt sheet and instructed her to show them what she could do.

‘Come on! Give us your sales pitch ... show some enthusiasm!’ they had roared at her. ‘No, no, enthusiasm not exhaustion. Right, take a deep breath and try again! Give it all you’ve got! Okay, that’s enough.’ They had rolled their eyes at each other. ‘We’ll let you know.’

From the safety of her car, Pru looked up at the blank windows and mouthed bravely, ‘Well, fuck you.’

The engine, evidently stunned by this act of outrageous rebellion, coughed and spluttered and came to life.

Didn’t want to sell crappy conservatories anyway, Pru decided, determined to stay positive.

Especially not in some frightful office where every time you made a sale you were expected to jump up on your chair and go ‘Yee-haa!’

She made it home ... home! by five o’clock. Pru, used to a glistening, top-of-the range, fully fitted Neff kitchen, fed fifty pence into the ancient meter and made herself a mug of tea.

Clutching a copy of the evening paper in one hand and a couple of digestives in the other, she climbed into her narrow bed to keep warm.

I’ll be all right, thought Pru, astonished to realise that not getting the job hadn’t upset her nearly as much as she’d imagined. In fact it had quite cheered her up. So what if she wasn’t cut out for high-pressure telesales? There were plenty of other things she could do.

Definitely.

It was just a question of figuring out what.

Chapter 12

A fortnight later, at six thirty on a stormy Thursday morning, Pru was on her way to work when a car roared out of nowhere at her, smashing into the passenger side of the Mini and shunting it across the road into a ditch.

The road, a mile or so from Brunton Manor, was narrow and unlit. Pru screamed as the car toppled sideways and the headlights went out, plunging her into pitch darkness. The thick scarf around her neck flopped over her face. A can of Mr Sheen, catapulting off the back seat, hit her on the back of the head.

She wasn’t hurt. When she had scrambled out of the car she realised she didn’t have so much as a bump or a scratch on her. It was a miracle.

It was also raining stair rods.

‘... oh thank God! You’re out ... you’re alive ...’

A man was crashing through the blackness towards her. He slithered into the soggy ditch, colliding with Pru and almost knocking her flat.

He clutched frenziedly at her arms.

‘Are you hurt? Are you okay? The car just skidded—’

‘I’m all right.’ Pru’s teeth were chattering. ‘My car isn’t.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out.’

Pru found herself being hauled none too ceremoniously back up the slope and on to the road.

Bewildered, she wondered if this meant he was a mechanic, about to roll up his sleeves and start sorting it out this minute. But could he? Surely it was going to take more than a couple of spanners and a monkey wrench to get her car out of the ditch?

‘We’ll h-have to phone the p-police,’ she told him, struggling and failing to control her chattering teeth.

‘No need for that. I said I’d deal with everything and I will.’

‘B-but you have to inform them after an ac-ac-accident.’

His voice strained, he replied brusquely, ‘Look, never mind the police for now. It’s Arthur I’m worried about. He needs help, fast.’

Pru was confused. Had Arthur been driving the other car? Oh God, don’t say he was dead .. .

‘Quick, get in.’ The man, evidently frantic with worry, pulled open the passenger door of his car.

Pru shivered and braced herself, but there was no visible corpse. No visible anyone, for that matter.

Fearfully, wondering if she was being kidnapped by a madman, she turned and opened her mouth to say, ‘Where’s Arthur?’

Instead, getting her first glimpse of the man who had crashed into her, she exclaimed, ‘Oh thank goodness, it’s you!’

Eddie Hammond peered in turn at Pru. The light inside the car was dim and she was pretty damp and bedraggled but he recognised her finally as a member of the club. Hopefully this would go in his favour.

‘That’s right. You’re one of Dulcie’s friends.’

‘Pru. Pru Kastelitz.’ Sticking out her icy hand – and feeling idiotic – she said, ‘Phew, I was starting to get worried. Thought you might be a kidnapper.’

Eddie made his way around the front of the car – a gleaming, pillarbox-red Jaguar – and climbed into the driver’s seat. He restarted the engine.

‘Hang on.’ Looking bemused, this time Pru remembered to say it. ‘Where’s Arthur?’

‘On the back seat.’

She swivelled round in alarm.

And saw, half-hidden beneath a rumpled tartan blanket, a golden labrador. Asleep.

‘Arthur’s a dog?’

Grimly Eddie nodded. ‘He’s ill. I have to get him to the vet.’

He was reversing, putting the Jag back on course. Pm, never a tremendous dog lover, said, ‘What about my car?’

‘I’ll get it fixed.’

‘But I haven’t even locked the doors! I’ve got loads of stuff in there—’

‘Flaming Nora! What’s more important, Arthur’s life or your ... stuff?’ Eddie stared across at his passenger, exasperated. Then, remembering he mustn’t alienate her, he forced himself to smile.

‘Pru, please. Let’s get Arthur to the vet first. As soon as he’s been seen to, I’ll sort everything out with you. That’s a promise, okay?’

Feeling horribly ashamed of herself, because as far as she was concerned Arthur’s life wasn’t nearly as important as the contents of her car, Pru nodded and gave in. She couldn’t help not being keen on dogs. An unprovoked attack on her as a child by a neighbour’s Alsatian had left vivid scars on her mind as well as her arm. But to be fair, that hadn’t been Arthur’s fault.

To make up for being heartless, Pru twisted round and took another look at the animal snoring on the back seat.

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘I don’t know. I woke up half an hour ago and found him like that. Out cold on the kitchen floor.’

Eddie’s voice wavered. For an awful second Pru wondered if he was going to cry. He was desperately worried, she realised. No wonder he had been driving like a maniac along Brunton Lane.

And then, quite suddenly, something Dulcie had mentioned in passing last week popped into her head .. .

The vet, who lived above his surgery in Primrose Hill, was used to being woken up at unearthly hours by frantic pet owners.

‘He’ll live,’ he pronounced, when he had finished examining Arthur.

Arthur, opening a weary eye, looked appalled by the prospect and promptly closed it again.

‘Thank God, thank God.’ This time Eddie’s eyes filled with quivering tears of relief. ‘But what caused it? What did he have, some kind of convulsion?’

The vet shook his head.

‘More like some kind of cognac.’ Laconically he added, ‘Or it could’ve been Scotch.’

Pru, perched on a stool a safe distance from the examination table, exclaimed, ‘You mean he’s drunk?’

The vet nodded. Eddie stared at him, dumbfounded.

‘Glenfiddich,’ mumbled Eddie. ‘I was drinking it last night. I fell asleep in the armchair. When I woke up this morning I saw the bottle on its side. Thought I must have knocked it over with my foot.’

Arthur whined and rolled his eyes open again, the effort clearly immense.

‘Oh my poor boy,’ Eddie consoled him, stroking his head. ‘You must feel terrible.’

‘Take him home and let him have plenty of water,’ said the vet. ‘No Scotch with it this time. The last thing Arthur needs is the hair of the dog.’

‘Right,’ said Pru, when they had loaded Arthur gently back into the car, ‘time to call the police.’

He gave her a pained look. ‘Could we just get Arthur home first?’

Pru gazed steadily at Eddie Hammond over the Jag’s glossy red roof. Then she held out her hand, palm upwards. ‘I’ll drive.’

He twitched visibly.

‘Why?’

‘Because you lost your licence last week.’

Staring back at her, Eddie said nothing. Finally, wearily, he nodded.

‘Yes.’

’What was it, drink-driving?’

Eddie looked offended.

‘Certainly not. Only speeding. And jumping a red light. Nothing desperate,’ he went on defensively. ‘No big deal. They got me on points. Three months and a bit of a fine, that’s all.’

‘No wonder you didn’t want me to call the police,’ said Pru. ‘Driving when you’ve been banned.

No insurance. Causing an accident. And how much did you have to drink last night, before falling asleep in your armchair?’ She consulted her watch. ‘It’s only seven thirty. You’re probably still over the limit.’

Wordlessly Eddie passed over the keys. He knew Dulcie but had never actually spoken to Pru before. Having assumed she was the quiet, biddable one, he was experiencing a distinct sense of unease. Right now she looked about as biddable as Rudolf Hess.

He waited until Pru was driving before trying to explain.

‘I knew it was stupid of me.’ All he could tell her was the truth. ‘I just panicked. I thought Arthur was dying. I was desperate.’

The Jaguar was bliss to drive after the temperamental Mini; the gears were heaven on a shift-stick. Marvelling at the metronomic sweep of the windscreen wipers – no hiccups, no judders, none of those awful screeching bird-of-prey noises her own wipers liked to make – Pru flicked a sidelong glance at Eddie.

‘You could have phoned for a taxi.’

Wearily he shook his head.

‘Last time I did that, the bloody thing took forty minutes to turn up.’

‘What about a friend? Don’t you have any of those, to call on in an emergency?’

Since moving down from Manchester to Bath four months earlier, Eddie had discovered at first hand that all the guff about northerners being friendlier than southerners was true.

‘Plenty, thanks.’ He heard his voice sharpening but couldn’t help it. ‘I have plenty of friends.. In Manchester. How silly of me, I suppose I should have given them a ring.’

‘It was silly of you to drive.’ Pru remained calm. ‘You could have killed someone. You could,’

she pointed out, ‘have killed me.’

Eddie was beginning to wish he had. His eyes felt gritty and his head ached. He gave up.

‘So what are you going to do, call the police and turn me in?’

Pru indicated left as she turned into the entrance of Brunton Manor. He looked so crushed she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.

Her voice softened. ‘Is that what you think? Actually I wasn’t planning to.’

‘Oh.’

‘Look, phone a garage. Get my car towed away and fixed.’ Pru parked the Jag neatly by the side entrance to the club but kept the engine running. ‘Am I insured to drive this one?’

Bit late to ask now, thought Eddie, but he nodded.

‘It’s covered for any driver.’

Except banned ones.

‘Okay.’ Briskly Pru checked her watch; she was already late for work. ‘So if it’s all right with you, I’ll borrow this car until mine’s ready.’

Eddie panicked. He felt like a smoker having his cigarettes confiscated.

‘But I might—’

‘Might what?’ Pru’s delicate eyebrows lifted. ‘Need it? Oh no, you won’t need it, Eddie. You’re banned.’

Chapter 13

By the time Pru arrived back at the scene of the crash, someone else had got there before her.

The Mini was still lying on its side in the ditch but the five bulging black bin liners she had piled on to the back seat were gone.

This was a major blow; Pru’s landlord didn’t know it yet, but paying the rent depended rather heavily on the contents of those bags.

Pru, who had astonished herself this morning – she’d never been that bold and assertive with anyone in her life – now felt her eyes begin to prickle with distinctly unassertive tears. All her good clothes, fifteen years’ worth, had been stolen. It had taken her hours to wash, press and check everything, making sure no buttons were missing, no hems coming undone. The woman who ran the designer as-new shop in Carlton Street, the Changing Room, had been keen to take as many of Pru’s outfits, with their impressive labels, as she wanted to be rid of.

Pru didn’t want to be rid of any of them but it was fast becoming a question of selling either her clothes or her body, and she couldn’t imagine anyone being interested just now in her scrawny frame. Selling the clothes, on the other hand, would give her enough for six months’ rent.

Pru stared at the Mini’s empty back seat and hanging-open doors and wondered who could have nicked them. Had a smartly dressed young businesswoman spotted the car on her way to work, stopped to make sure nobody was lying hurt, and taken a peek inside one of the bags? Maybe she’d pulled out the navy-blue Escada suit, held it up against herself and thought, ‘Size 10, what a stroke of luck, let’s see what else we’ve got here ...’ Then, clearly liking what she found, had she stowed the five bin bags in the boot of her own sporty little car and zoomed off to work, happy in the knowledge that that was her spring wardrobe sorted out?

Or had a gang of school kids found the bags, torn them open and dumped her clothes in the nearest pond in disgust?

‘Don’t fret about it,’ Marion Hayes declared when Pru finally turned up at Beech Farm. Arriving two hours late, and in a posh car, meant Marion’s curiosity was aroused. Before she started work, Pru was forced to sit down, eat Hob Nobs, drink tea and tell all.

‘That’s his problem, not yours.’ Marion dismissed Pru’s worries with an airy flick of the hand.

‘Just give him an estimate stating how much the stuff was worth. He’ll send it on to his insurance people. They’ll pay up.’

Pru nodded and tried to look suitably relieved. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell Marion the whole story — about Eddie Hammond being banned and therefore uninsured — not out of any sense of loyalty, but because some things were simply safer left unsaid. She didn’t fancy being arrested and slung into prison for aiding and abetting a criminal.

She couldn’t help wondering, either, just how suspicious Eddie was going to be when she suddenly presented him with a hefty additional bill for stolen frocks.

I mean, how likely did it sound, Pru thought gloomily, thousands of pounds’ worth of designer labels being nicked from the back of a clapped-out Mini? She used to buy shoes that cost more than that car.

‘Well, at least you weren’t hurt,’ said Marion, draining her tea and standing up as the clock in the hall struck nine. ‘Time I was out of here. The cows’ll be wondering when they’re going to get fed. I’ll leave you in peace.’

* * *

When Pru had finished washing up the breakfast things she scrubbed the kitchen floor. While that was drying she vacuumed through downstairs. Next she cleaned the drawing room windows.

When the floor was dry in the kitchen she threw a great pile of muddy jeans into the washing machine. Then she sat down at the table to polish silver and listen to a radio phone-in on the subject of dishonesty.

‘When my husband’s been horrible to me,’ Teresa from Tunbridge Wells was confessing with a guilty giggle, ‘I wait until he’s asleep and pinch a fiver out of his wallet. The next day I spend it on chocolate.’

Pru idly considered phoning up the programme to say if anyone listening had her bin bags, could they please give them back?

She imagined herself on the radio, appealing to the thief’s better nature: ‘The thing is, I know they’re nice clothes, but please don’t think I’m rich. Because I’m not, any more. I’m horribly broke.’

At this point, the presenter would enquire gently: ‘Pru, if it’s not too personal a question, what brought this about?’

‘Well, Gary, let me put it this way. Two months ago I had a wonderful husband, a perfect home.

I employed a cleaning woman. Now I have no husband, no home, and I work as a cleaning woman.’

‘Pru, that’s terrible. But how did it happen?’

‘How did it happen? Gary, I’ll tell you how it happened. Some husbands do the routine thing, they have flings with their secretaries. But my husband had to be different, Gary. He didn’t even have the decency to have an affair with his secretary, oh no, he had to be different, didn’t he? He had to go and do it with our cleaner.’

‘Pru, are you all right?’

Pru leapt a foot out of her chair. Marion was standing in the doorway giving her an extremely odd look.

Horrified, Pru realised she was pressing a half-polished silver candlestick to her ear, holding it like a telephone.

Hastily she pretended to be testing its temperature against her sizzling cheek. ‘Oh hi! Amazing, don’t you think, how the harder you rub, the warmer it gets?’

‘Pru, you could have bumped your head in the crash.’ Marion sounded nervous. ‘Maybe you should see a doctor after all.’

Liza had never really felt guilty before. It was awful; she didn’t like it one bit. She wondered how long she would have to wait until it went away.

She was doing the stupidest things too, indulging in the kind of antics usually reserved for obsessed ex-lovers. Although the Songbird was miles out of her way, Liza found herself driving past it two or three times a week. Her stomach churning, she would count the number of cars in the restaurant’s tiny car park and try to figure out how many customers were inside.

Not many, by the look of things.

Once or twice she had phoned the restaurant, pretending to have dialled a wrong number, just to see if it sounded busy.

She even persuaded Dulcie to go along there one Friday evening, to report back on atmosphere and food. Dulcie dragged a protesting girlfriend with her — ‘God, Dulcie, can’t we go somewhere else? That place has had some terrible reviews’ — and enjoyed her meal but was hugely disappointed not to bump into Kit Berenger.

‘I thought he said he’d eaten there loads of times,’ she complained to Liza the next day. ‘I was really looking forward to meeting him again. Lying toad, I bet he never sets foot in the place.

What a swizz.’

‘But the food was fine?’ prompted Liza, bursting for details. ‘What did you have? Take me through each course.’

‘I can’t remember,’ Dulcie protested. She gave Liza a ‘you’re weird’ look. ‘We had three bottles of Côtes de something, told each other millions of dirty jokes and had to be poured into a taxi.

Isn’t that good enough?’

’You are hopeless.’

‘If you’re so desperate to check out the food, go there yourself.’ Dulcie was miffed. Honestly, do someone a favour and all you got was abuse.

‘Oh right, I’ll do that,’ said Liza with some sarcasm. ‘I’m sure they’ll welcome me with wide-open arms.’

Heavens, Liza could be thick. Dulcie rolled her eyes in despair. ‘Do what you did last time, stupid. Go in disguise.’

The mechanics at Joe’s Autos had a great laugh when they heard what Eddie Hammond wanted them to do to Pru’s car.

Joe explained to Eddie over the phone the meaning of the technical term write-off.

‘Basically, when a car like this has a headlight smashed, it’s a write-off. Repairing the headlight is going to cost more than the car’s worth, d’you see? And I’ve had a good look at the damage to the passenger door, the wing, the wheel arch, the bonnet ... it’s just not worth it, Mr Hammond.

You’re talking five hundred quid’s worth of repairs on a total rust heap.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Eddie with a sigh, ‘but do it anyway.’

The car was ready three days later. Eddie dialled the number Pru had left with him. A spaced-out-sounding hippy answered, mumbling, ‘Yeah man, like, I’ll get her, okay?’

About half an hour later, Pru picked up the phone. Eddie wondered who the hippy was; a son, maybe? God help her if that was her husband.

But it was hardly the kind of question you could ask over the phone. He switched into brisk mode instead.

‘Pru? Eddie Hammond. Your car’s here waiting for you, all fixed and ...’ No, no, he could hardly say as good as new. ‘.. . um, raring to go. So if you’d like to bring back the Jag we can do a swap.’

‘Right.’ Pru wondered why garages always did that. When you were desperate to get your car back, it took them a fortnight just to change a wheel nut. When, on the other hand, you were enjoying yourself thoroughly, zipping around Bath in a bright-red Jaguar, they managed to carry out six months’ worth of repairs in no time flat.

Full of spite, garage mechanics.

Pru bit her lip and took a deep breath. She was doing it again, daydreaming deliberately, in order to avoid doing what had to be done next. She had been putting it off for three days and now she mustn’t put it off any more.

‘Fine, great, I’ll come up now. Thanks very much. Only the thing is, there’s ... um ... something else I have to—’

‘See you in a minute,’ said Eddie, whose other phone had begun to ring. ‘You know where my office is. Just come straight up.’

Eddie wondered why Pru Kasteliz was looking so twitchy. She should be pleased, he thought, to be getting her car back.

Bloody hell, thought Eddie, who had just written out a cheque to Joe’s Garage for £536, if anyone around here should be twitching it’s me. He handed Pru the keys to the Mini. She promptly dropped them. He watched her kneel down, her long dark hair swinging forwards as she retrieved the keys from under his desk.

‘That’s settled then,’ he said generously, ‘all sorted out and no harm done.’

Pru felt sick. She knew she should have done it over the phone. Face to face was impossible.

‘What?’ said Eddie when she had opened and closed her mouth a couple of times and no sound had come out.

Three days ago, she had been awash with self-confidence. Pru wondered where it had got to now she really needed it.

Maybe that was my lot, she thought despairingly, and I used it all up in one go, like Phil at the roulette table. One glorious, exhilarating surge of assertiveness ... and then, boom. Gone.

The meek shall inherit the earth ... as long as that’s all right with everyone else.

Wimps rule, okay? No, but really, are you sure that’s okay?

‘Look, I told you I had some things in the car,’ Pru blurted out, ‘and you said there wasn’t time to go back and lock it, so we didn’t. The thing is, by the time I did get back there, my things had been stolen. So I’m sorry, but here’s a list of what was taken. I spoke to my insurers but I’m not covered, so I’m afraid this is up to you as well.’

Eddie stared at Pru in disbelief. Then he stared in even more disbelief at the sheet of paper she had pushed across the table at him.

Her hands were trembling so much it could have been a bomb. It was hardly surprising they trembled, Eddie thought when he saw the size of the bill. More of a bombshell.

‘You mean you want me to give you another fourteen hundred pounds?’ He sounded totally baffled. ‘For a bag of old clothes?’

‘Five bags,’ whispered Pru. She wanted to tell him that if she had sold them through the Changing Room, she would have got more than that, but the words wouldn’t come.

‘You can’t be serious,’ said Eddie.

Pru stared down at her fingers, scrunched together in her lap. She knew what she should be doing. She should be fixing Mr Eddie over-the-limit Hammond with a haughty glare and telling him in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t her fault her car had been smashed up and spun into a ditch, that he was the one in the wrong and that if he found the prospect of reimbursing her so appalling ... well, then she would see him in court.

Joan Collins would have done it. Joan would have carried it off brilliantly. Maybe that’s my trouble, thought Pru. No shoulder pads.

‘How do I know you’re telling the truth?’ Eddie Hammond demanded suddenly. It crossed his mind to wonder about the hippy on the phone. Was there a drug problem there? Was Pru so desperate for money to feed her son’s/lover’s/husband’s addiction that she would do anything to raise extra cash?

He jabbed at the list with an agitated finger.

‘How do I know these clothes were really stolen?’

Well, thought Pru, I could show you a few empty fitted wardrobes.

Or she could have done, if the house hadn’t been repossessed.

He was right, of course. She had no way at all of proving it. She couldn’t blame him for being suspicious either.

I’m gullible, Pru thought, but even I’d have my doubts about something like this.

‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.’ Realising she’d started to shake, she stood up and made a dash for the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Eddie half rose out of his own chair, confused by the abrupt volte-face.

Quick, thought Pru, get me out of here before I start blubbing.

‘Home. Thanks for getting the car fixed.’ She shook her head violently. ‘It doesn’t matter about the clothes.’

Chapter 14

Liza took Pru along with her to the Songbird on Saturday night. She picked her up at eight o’clock.

Pru, thrilled to be invited — anything to get out of that bedsitter — said, ‘This is a treat. I thought you’d have brought your new chap. Couldn’t he make it?’

‘No.’ Liza slotted Sibelius into the tape deck. ‘Mainly because I didn’t ask him.’

Pru recognised the look on her face. Clearly, new chap was no more.

‘But you said he was gorgeous last week.’

‘Last week he was. This week,’ Liza said heavily, ‘he started asking me about my star sign. I mean, give me a break. He’s supposed to be a grown man.’

It occurred to both of them, though neither said it aloud, that considering it was mid-April, so far their New Year’s resolutions weren’t turning out terribly well.

Entering the restaurant was nerve-racking. Liza, wigged-up and dressed-down, knew she was being irrational. No one had ever recognised her yet, so why should they suddenly start now?

But that didn’t stop her heart pounding like a Sally Army drum the whole time they were being greeted and seated.

Liza’s eyes flickered to the left. There was the little waitress who had been in such a fluster last time. Quick flicker to the right ... and there serving behind the bar was the attractive blonde who had tried so valiantly to keep the rugby rabble in check. Liza wondered if this was the girl whose feelings she had hurt so much, Kit Berenger’s cousin.

Sweat began to prickle her scalp beneath the unflattering mouse-brown wig. She felt like a spy, a wartime secret agent desperate not to attract the attention of the enemy.

‘Relax,’ said Pru, ‘no one’s looking.’

‘I know. I just don’t want to be recognised.’

‘It’s hardly likely, if even Phil didn’t spot you.’

Oh bum.

‘Phil!’ gasped Liza, covering her mouth in dismay. ‘Shit!’

‘Well, yes,’ said Pru, ‘I know that now.’

‘I mean I can’t believe I did this to you. This is where .. . and I completely forgot ... Hell’s bells, how could I be so insensitive? Why didn’t you say something?’

Liza cringed. Then she double-cringed, realising they were actually sitting at the table where Blanche had wriggled her toes with such enthusiasm in Phil’s trousered crotch.

‘It’s all right. I knew you’d forgotten. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.’ Prue shrugged. ‘Why should I be bothered?’

Liza said admiringly, ‘You’ve got brave.’

‘My husband ran off with my cleaner. I live in a bug-infested bedsit. The hippy downstairs plays bloody Donovan records non-stop and apart from this dress I own precisely two jumpers, three nighties and a skirt.’ Pru hesitated, looking as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘You’d be surprised; after a while you can learn to not care about quite a lot.’

Liza stared at Pru. Pru gazed back.

Pru tried hard to keep a straight face.

Liza said slowly, ‘Donovan records?’

Pru nodded. Liza began to smirk. Within seconds Pru was in fits of giggles. Liza was helpless with laughter.

Holding her sides, barely able to get the words out, she said, ‘This hippy of yours. Do they call him Mellow Yellow?’

Pru was giggling so much her mascara had run.

‘That’s right.’

They were drawing attention to themselves. The family at the next table nudged each other, watching them. With a huge effort, Liza controlled herself.

‘I mean it,’ she told Pru when they had both recovered. ‘You are brave.’

‘I’m not,’ said Pru, mentally reliving the moment she had fled Eddie Hammond’s office. Oh yes, that had been brave, that had been breathtakingly courageous. Give the girl a VC.

‘You definitely can’t stay in that bedsitter,’ Liza persisted. ‘Death by Donovan, imagine. Come and live with me instead.’

‘What, in your one-bedroomed flat?’ Pru was touched by the offer but untempted. For the first time in her life — at the age of thirty-one — she was on her own. The least she could do was learn to cope with it.

‘My flat’s a jolly nice flat.’ Liza leapt to its defence. ‘It’s bijou.’

‘And if I moved in, it’d be more than your style that got cramped. Thanks,’ said Pru, ‘but I’m fine. Really.’

They were supposed to be ordering their meal. Liza forced herself to concentrate on the menu.

Every time she looked up, she realised Pru was glancing across the room.

‘Right, I’ll have the Stilton soufflé and the duck with kumquats. How about you?’ she said finally. Pru was doing it again. ‘Someone you know?’

Pru shook her head.

The blonde girl arrived to take their order. She was pretty and utterly charming and Liza, deciding she must be the cousin, wondered how she would react if she knew who’d she’d just been charming to.

‘Come on, who is it?’ she persisted, when the girl had left them. Pru’s eyes were still darting across the restaurant. ‘No idea. He just keeps looking over.’

‘Fancies me. Fatally attracted to my stunning wig,’ Liza smirked, ‘not to mention my cardigan.’

She glanced over her shoulder and found Kit Berenger staring straight at her.

Shit.’

‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

Liza nodded, white-faced. ‘How did you know?’

Embarrassed, Pru pleated her napkin. ‘Dulcie said he was gorgeous.’

‘More to the point,’ said Liza, ‘does he know who I am?’ But how can he, she wondered, when I’m looking like this?

‘What happens now?’ Pru’s stomach rumbled; she hadn’t eaten all day. The prospect of not staying after all almost made her want to cry.

‘Right, no need to panic,’ Liza announced firmly. ‘I mean, let’s be logical about this. He can’t possibly have recognised me. And we’ve ordered now, so we can’t leave.’ Fretfully she said,

‘What I don’t understand is why I didn’t spot him before.’

‘He wasn’t there when we arrived,’ Pru whispered back. ‘He came through that door.’ She nodded at one marked Private. The look Liza gave her was long and measured.

‘So you guessed who he was straight away.’

‘I didn’t think it mattered,’ Pru protested guiltily, ‘so long as he doesn’t know who you are. I didn’t want to put you off your meal.’

The Songbird was a forty-seater restaurant. Tonight – and Saturdays are the busiest night of any restaurant’s week – it was half full.

Or half empty, depending on your viewpoint.

Either way, it wasn’t great news. Liza wondered how many of the unoccupied tables were down to her.

She couldn’t fault the Stilton soufflé, which was creamy and light with an outer crust browned to perfection. The roast duck with kumquats was brilliant too.

‘This,’ declared Pm, prodding her poached salmon with a fork, ‘is divine.’

Liza wondered how on earth it could be physically possible to feel a pair of eyes boring into your back. She didn’t need to look round, she just knew it was happening.

‘If you want to leave,’ said Pru heroically, sensing her discomfort, ‘we can.’

Liza wanted to. The trouble was, she wanted to sample the puddings more.

‘Is he still looking over?’

‘Well, kind of.’

‘That means yes.’

‘He’s standing up,’ Pru murmured, watching covertly as he pushed back his chair.

‘Hell’s bells—’

‘It’s okay, he’s gone through that door again, the one marked Private.’

He was away for some time. When the door finally reopened, Liza had just taken her first mouthful of almond and apricot tart. Pm, who had chosen the honey ice cream, was so carried away by its miraculous taste and texture that her eyes were closed.

‘You don’t mind if I join you for a moment,’ said Kit Berenger, pulling out the empty chair next to Pru.

Liza wondered briefly if it was worth putting on a German accent. If he challenged her, she could simply deny everything, say she didn’t know vot he was tocking about.

But really, was there any point?

She wondered instead if Kit Berenger was about to rip her wig off. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight if he did; she was wearing an Ena Sharples hairnet underneath.

He didn’t. He looked hard at her for several seconds. Then with his index finger he tapped the dark-blue linen tablecloth, less than an inch from Liza’s wrist.

‘Very good, but that was the giveaway.’

Pru stared at the tablecloth. Heavens, was there a microphone hidden beneath it? Was the table bugged?

‘I heard you laughing. When I turned round I couldn’t see your face.’ He tapped again. ‘But I saw this.’

She had always worn her watch, a man’s steel Longines, on her right hand. On her little finger she wore a narrow platinum ring. Liza was so impressed by his powers of observation she almost smiled. Maybe this is it, she thought, my chance to apologise and make amends, to tell him what a terrific meal we’re having .. .

‘I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing back here,’ Kit Berenger went on icily, ‘but you certainly aren’t wanted. So I suggest you leave, this minute.’

‘Now look—’

‘Haven’t you done enough damage?’ he demanded, hissing the words across the table like poison darts. ‘Haven’t you already hurt Nicky enough?’

Liza flinched. Mortified, Pru stared down at her melting ice cream.

‘This restaurant doesn’t need customers like you,’ said Kit Berenger, standing up. ‘Come on, out.

And don’t start bleating about the bill because we don’t want your money either.’

‘Have you told your cousin who I am?’ asked Liza, feeling sick. So much for making amends.

‘Are you mad? Why do you suppose I want you out of here?’

‘You’re making a scene.’

‘I am not. I’m getting rid of you before I make a scene. Because if I did,’ Kit Berenger spoke through gritted teeth, ‘I promise you, it’d be a bigger one than this.’

Chapter 15

Eddie Hammond’s frighteningly efficient secretary had left the computer print-out of last month’s renewed memberships on his desk, together with an updated list of applications to join the club. This list was growing, which was a good sign. Since taking over the running of Brunton Manor last November Eddie had worked hard to raise the club’s public profile.

Only three people hadn’t renewed their lapsed memberships. He flicked the edge of the print-out with his thumb, to jog his memory. The Turner girl had got married and moved to Oxford.

Well, it was a reasonable excuse.

R. Cooper-Clark had emigrated last month to work as a flying doctor in the Australian outback.

Which was an improvement. This was what Eddie called a good excuse.

The third name on the list was P. Kasteliz.

So, Eddie wondered idly, what’s yours?

He found Dulcie indulging in her favourite pastime, swinging her legs on a stool in the bar and flirting outrageously with the captain of the local cricket club. The cricketer, who hadn’t been married long, looked relieved to make his escape.

‘You’re always working,’ Dulcie protested, eyeing Eddie’s crumpled grey suit and loosened tie.

‘You never have any fun.’ She pulled a face, remembering why the words sounded so familiar.

‘That’s what I used to tell Patrick. Eddie, how old are you?’

‘Forty-five. Too old to have fun,’ he said, humouring her.

Dulcie gave him a told-you-so look.

‘You men, all the same. And then you wonder why you end up on your own. I mean, you were married once, weren’t you?’ Eddie nodded.

‘Did you work non-stop?’

Nodding again, he caught the barman’s eye and ordered a refill for Dulcie, a Scotch for himself.

‘And she got more and more bored, until in the end she couldn’t stand it any more,’ Dulcie scolded, wagging a finger at him. ‘So when was that, how long ago did she divorce you?’

Their drinks arrived.

‘Cheers,’ said Eddie, clinking glasses. ‘Oh, she didn’t divorce me. She died.’

Dulcie clapped a hand to her forehead. Slowly, it slid down her face.

‘I’m sorry, I’m just so stupid. Does it ever happen to anyone else or am I the only one? I tell you, every time I open my mouth I manage to say the wrong thing. Honestly, I could kill myself.’

Eddie shook his head. ‘That’s all right. It doesn’t matter.’

‘But you poor thing, how terrible for you. Um ... how did she die?’

‘She killed herself.’

Dulcie was appalled. It wasn’t as if she’d even wanted to know, she had simply remembered that bereaved people got upset when you tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. They didn’t like you changing the subject.

But this was too much. For possibly the first time in her life Dulcie didn’t dare speak.

It seemed safest to keep her mouth shut and just look as sympathetic as she could.

‘Sorry,’ said Eddie, ‘that was awful of me:’I shouldn’t have said it.’

‘You mean it was a wind-up?’ squawked Dulcie, her eyes wide. ‘You total bastard.’

‘No, no, it wasn’t a wind-up.’ Hastily he shook his head.’She did kill herself. I meant I could have put it a bit more subtly. Not dumped it on you like that.’

Dulcie hung her head. ‘I kind of asked for it.’

She looked so forlorn Eddie began to wish he’d stayed in his office.

‘Anyway,’ clumsily he patted her arm, ‘that was all a long time ago. And it isn’t why I’m here now. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about your friend.’

Another one bites the dust, thought Dulcie with an indulgent smile.

‘You mean Liza?’

‘No,’ said Eddie. ‘Pru.’

What people say is true; word of mouth is the best form of advertising. No sooner had Marion Hayes at Beech Farm boasted about Pru to her friends than they were on the phone bagging Pru for themselves. Within a week she was booked up with two hours here, three hours there ... and as much extra work as she liked.

It wasn’t exactly a glittering career but at least she was in demand. And cleaning other people’s bathrooms all week had one major advantage; it definitely made you appreciate your days off.

Which was why, at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, Pru was still in bed when the doorbell rang.

She buried her head under the pillows. Donovan had been bellowing up through the floorboards until the early hours. The bell continued to ring.

Finally — because what if it was Phil? — Pru crawled out of bed and flung a dressing gown over her nightdress. Since the building didn’t stretch to luxuries like intercoms and buzzers, she had to stumble downstairs and pull the door open herself.

If it was Dulcie, she thought with bleary outrage, she jolly well wasn’t going to let her in. It wasn’t even midday; this was too much.

It was weird, opening the door expecting to see thin, laughing, spiky-haired Dulcie and coming face to face with paunchy, thinning-haired Eddie Hammond instead.

‘Oh,’ exclaimed Pru, startled by the sight of him on her doorstep and characteristically wondering what she must have done wrong. ‘Is it the car, has something happened?’ Her huge grey eyes grew defensive. ‘That scratch on the boot was there before I borrowed it.’

‘I know.’ Eddie couldn’t help admiring her slender figure, wrapped in an obviously expensive sage-green satin robe. ‘Sorry if I woke you up. May I come in?’

Pru automatically ran her hands over her slept-on hair, checking her ears weren’t sticking out.

She nodded, bemused by the request, and led the way back upstairs.

‘Tea? Coffee? Um ... would you like to sit down?’

Hurriedly she swept last night’s clothes off the only chair in the room. God, the place was a pit.

It was horrible seeing it through a visitor’s eyes. She must look a berk, too, she realised, prancing around such a dump in her best La Perla nightie. Like Zsa Zsa Gabor camping out at Greenham Common.

‘Dulcie tells me she offered you a room at her house.’ Eddie didn’t think Pru looked a berk but he was shocked by the state of the bedsit. There was mould on the ceiling and strips of wallpaper were peeling themselves off the damp walls. ‘Why didn’t you go?’

Pru busied herself making coffee. She shrugged.

‘I don’t know ... pride? Shame? Something like that.’

‘Come on, she’s your friend. What d’you think she’s going to do, gloat?’

Pru turned and looked at him. Clearly Dulcie had brought him up to date with the story so far.

Where gory details were concerned, holding back wasn’t Dulcie’s style. She couldn’t exercise discretion if she was strapped to a Nautilus machine.

‘She might not mean to gloat, but she’d find it hard not to say I told you so. She and Liza did warn me, you see. They told me what my husband was getting up to and I refused to believe them.’’But still—’

‘Anyway,’ said Pru, handing him his coffee and sitting down on the unmade bed, ‘that’s not the only reason. Dulcie’s still got her house. She doesn’t have to worry about money. I couldn’t bear to feel like the poor relation.’

Eddie shook his head.

‘You’ve had a rough time,’ he said gruffly. ‘I had no idea, until Dulcie told me.’

Cheers, Dulcie, thought Pru. What could she look forward to next, she wondered, charity fundraising? Collecting tins being rattled outside Sainsbury’s? Give generously to the humiliated wives appeal?

Save Pru from Poverty?

‘Here,’ said Eddie Hammond, ‘I’m sorry about the other day, in my office. I shouldn’t have doubted you.’

Pru took the cheque for fourteen hundred pounds. She bit the inside of her mouth and smiled a wry, lopsided smile. Maybe Dulcie wasn’t so bad after all.

‘Thanks.’

‘And I noticed your club membership had run out,’ Eddie went on, handing her a card made out in her name, ‘so I renewed it for you.’

Pru felt herself going red.

‘The thing is ... I can’t really afford ...’

‘You don’t need to,’ Eddie cut in brusquely. ‘It’s my way of apologising. I’m not usually that crass.’

Pinker still, Pru said, ‘Well, thanks.’

‘My pleasure.’ He cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. ‘That’s when you need somewhere to go, after all. When your marriage has just broken up.’

Pru giggled.

‘Now you sound like Dulcie.’

‘It’s what she told me last night,’ Eddie admitted. ‘Still, it seems to work for her.’

‘She’s man-hunting,’ Pru said simply. ‘I’m not.’

* * *

‘Bloody taxis,’ stormed Eddie half an hour later. He peered out of Pru’s second-floor window and yanked up the aerial on his mobile, jabbing out the numbers he had soon grown to know by heart. ‘Hello, hello? Yes, it’s me again. Where the bloody hell’s my cab?’

Pru, still in her dressing gown, watched him scowl into the phone.

‘I said Medwell Crescent, not Street! Just get on to him, will you, and tell him it’s Medwell Crescent. What? You mean he’s picked up his next call? So how long am I supposed to wait before someone—? No, I cannot hang on another twenty bloody minutes!’

The unsatisfying thing about a mobile phone is you can’t slam the receiver down. Eddie, ready to explode with frustration, did the next best thing and tried slamming the aerial down instead.

It snapped off.

‘This is silly.’ Pru dangled her car keys at him. ‘Here, go and sit in the Mini. It’ll take me two minutes to get dressed.’

‘Thanks,’ said Eddie when she dropped him at the railway station with two minutes to spare. The Mini might be a banger but Pru knew how to handle it. She was, he had to admit, an extremely good driver.

As he struggled to open the passenger door he joked, ‘Next time I need a lift, I’ll phone you.’

Pru wondered if it was sitting at the wheel of a car that gave her more confidence. She said, ‘Lots of people hire chauffeurs when they’ve been banned.’

‘I know.’ Eddie sighed. ‘But I don’t need a full-time chauffeur.’

‘You could do with a part-time one. My hours are flexible,’ Pru went on rapidly. ‘The people I clean for don’t mind when I turn up, so long as the job gets done.’

Eddie saw the quiet determination on her face. With that straight dark curtain of hair and those serious grey eyes of hers, Pru looked more like a schoolgirl than a grown woman.

She was painfully thin too, beneath the man’s dark-blue sweater – her husband’s presumably –

and those battered black jeans. ‘Are you volunteering?’

‘I need the money,’ said Pru bluntly. ‘You need a driver. I could do the job.’ Leaning across, she jiggled the handle Eddie hadn’t been able to get to grips with, and opened the temperamental passenger door. The train he was in a hurry to catch was just pulling into the station. ‘Quick or you’ll miss it. Look, think it over. If you want me, give me a ring.’

Eddie grinned. ‘If I want you ... ?’

‘Oh well,’ Pru went pink again, as he had known she would, ‘you know what I mean.’

‘Of course I do.’ He pulled himself together. ‘And I’ve already thought about it. How soon can you start?’ The enormous slate-grey eyes widened.

‘As soon as you like.’

‘Terrific,’ said Eddie, knocking the gearstick expertly into reverse. ‘In that case, back to Brunton to pick up the Jag. We can’t stand bloody trains anyway.’

‘We?’ said Pru.

‘Arthur hates them too.’

Chapter 16

Pru was in the pool when Dulcie saw the latest notice up on the noticeboard, announcing the appointment of Brunton Manor’s new tennis pro.

Dulcie’s eyes flickered incredulously from the written announcement to the photograph pinned beneath it, of a blond male in tennis whites being presented with a trophy the size of a fridge.

Her heart went kerplunk. Ignoring the receptionist’s indignant squawk of protest, Dulcie grabbed the photo, clutched it to her chest and raced all the way to the pool. Everyone who saw her stopped and stared; Dulcie had never been known to run before. Whatever next, sit-ups?

Pru was instantly recognisable in her daffodil-yellow swimming hat. Her head bobbed up and down as she doggy-paddled her way laboriously up to the shallow end, completing her sixteenth length. The hat was a must for Pru. If she didn’t wear one, her hair would plaster itself to her head leaving her ears on show to the world. This way her long hair stayed dry. In fact, as Dulcie had once innocently pointed out, the yellow rubber cap flattened her ears so nicely, it was a shame she couldn’t wear it all the time.

Personally, Dulcie wondered why Pru persisted with this swimming malarkey, especially when she was so bad at it. All swimming did, as far as Dulcie was concerned, was wear you out and totally wreck your make-up.

She crouched at the edge of the pool, waiting for Pru to reach her. It was no good yelling, trying to hurry her up; the hat wasn’t only a jolly efficient ear-flattener. When it was on, Pru couldn’t hear a thing.

‘What?’ said Pru, hanging on to the side and blinking chlorinated water out of her stinging, pink-rimmed eyes. She peered up at the photograph Dulcie was dangling in front of her nose.

‘It’s you-know-who,’ said Dulcie triumphantly.

Pru peeled the edge of the yellow cap cautiously upwards, just enough to be able to hear but not enough to let her ear spring out.

‘What?’

‘You-know-who,’ repeated Dulcie, her voice loaded with meaning. ‘Come on, think back a bit.

New Year’s Eve, Pru! New Year’s resolutions.’

Pru looked blank.

‘I give up. Is it someone Liza might want to marry?’ Sometimes Dulcie despaired of Pru.

Honestly, if this was what swimming did to your brain.

‘I’m talking about my resolutions,’ she said impatiently. ‘The ones I wrote when I was fifteen, remember? Do more homework, keep room tidy, all that guff?’

Pru remembered.

‘Join the Starsky and Hutch fan club.’ She brightened. ‘I forgot to ask, did you ever join? I liked Starsky best. Didn’t you think he looked sexy in that wrap-around cardigan?’

‘I preferred Hutch. He was gorgeous. Nobody fancied Starsky.’ Dulcie was full of scorn.

Seriously, was it any wonder Pru’s marriage had failed? She’d always had diabolical taste in men.

Pru peered more closely at the photograph. The chap was blond and tanned, but .. .

‘Dulcie, that isn’t David Soul.’

‘Give me strength,’ sighed Dulcie. ‘Did I say it was? Now listen to me. One of my resolutions was to snog you-knowwho.You said who was he and I said I didn’t have a clue. Right? With me so far?’

Cautiously, Pru nodded.

‘Well, this is him. This is you-know-who.’ Dulcie broke into an uncontrollable grin. She still couldn’t believe it herself. It was the fabbest thing to happen since Pop Tarts.

Pru looked up at Dulcie, still clutching the photo lovingly like a teenager. She didn’t know who you-know-who was, but he must be famous for Dulcie to have had a crush on him for so long. A rock star or something. A tennis-playing rock star like Cliff Richard.

‘And you’ve joined his fan club?’ said Pru. It sounded a bit of an immature thing to do but ...

well, this was a free country...

Gazing down at her, Dulcie decided they were both in need of a stiff drink.

‘I haven’t joined his fan club,’ she told Pru. ‘He’s about to join mine.’

‘Remember how I always used to moan about our family holidays,’ said Dulcie when Pru emerged from the changing rooms at last and joined her in the bar.

‘In South Wales? Tenby, wasn’t it?’

Dulcie nodded. ‘Bloody yacht club. Talk about mental cruelty. I should have sued my parents for dragging me along with them every summer. All day, every day, out in that sodding boat of theirs—’

‘Maybe that’s what put you off swimming,’ Pru suggested. ‘You’re just generally anti-water.’

‘Anyway, when I was fifteen we stayed in our usual cottage and a group of boys were renting the place next door. There were four of them and I fell in love with the best-looking one—’

‘Fell in love?’

‘Figure of speech,’ said Dulcie. ‘Had a crush on. Fancied like mad. His name was Liam and he was seventeen. I was sure he fancied me back but you know what boys are like when they’re with their mates. We chatted on the beach a few times.

When they played tennis they let me be their ball girl, that kind of thing. The others used to tease Liam about me. I was so besotted I didn’t even care.’ Dulcie sat back dreamily in her chair. So dreamily she spilt red wine down her T-shirt. ‘On our last night, he gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, "See you next year." I was so happy I almost died on the spot. I gave him my address and he promised to write to me. My parents couldn’t get over me crying buckets all the way home, when I’d always hated Tenby so much. I swear, that was the best holiday of my life.’

‘I don’t remember this,’ said Pru. ‘You kept pretty quiet about it. So what happened, did he write to you?’

‘Nope.’ Dulcie grinned. ‘I must have driven my mother mad. I kept accusing her of intercepting the post and destroying his letters. Poor Mum didn’t know what I was talking about.’

‘Did you write to him?’

‘Not often. Only about twice a day.’

‘Dulcie!’

‘Don’t go all feminist on nie. I was only fifteen.’

‘So this Liam ... he was the one you were so desperate to snog?’

‘He kissed me here.’ Half closing her eyes, Dulcie touched her cheek. ‘I can still remember how it felt. It was stupendous,’ she looked rueful, ‘but it wasn’t a snog.’ Then she smiled at the memory. ‘Can you imagine the sheer agony of having to wait a whole year to see him again? I was crossing off the days to August. Dammit, I was crossing off the hours.’

‘And did you?’ said Pru, by this time riveted. ‘Did you see him again?’

‘Did I heck! The cottage was let out to a pair of geriatric spinsters. No sign of Liam or his friends anywhere ... and God knows I spent enough time looking for them.’

‘You never told us any of this.’

‘What, that I was dumped?’ Dulcie started to laugh. ‘Excuse me, I did have some pride. I’d have told you about Liam if there’d been anything to tell.’

The photograph of Brunton Manor’s new tennis pro was back up on the noticeboard, having been plucked from Dulcie’s grasp by an irate receptionist.

‘And now he’s coming here to work,’ Pru marvelled. Dulcie hugged herself. ‘It’s fate.’

‘It didn’t work out brilliantly last time.’

‘I was fifteen,’ Dulcie rolled her eyes in exasperation, ‘he was seventeen. I had spots and the haircut from hell – how could it have worked out?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘That’s why it’s fate. We’re adults now. This is our second chance,’ she looked smugly at Pru, ‘a chance to make a real go of it. You’ll see.’

Chapter 17

Pru called Terry Lambert her mystery client because she had never seen him. Terry, brother of Marion Hayes over at Beech Farm, was a solicitor who lived alone in a picturesque Bath-stone cottage high on one of the hills surrounding the city.

‘I’ve been telling him for years to get someone in. Men, they’re hopeless,’ Marion had robustly declared, before phoning Terry and informing him that she had found him a cleaner.

Marion had given Pru the spare key to Terry’s house. Every Tuesday afternoon Pru let herself in, spent four hours restoring order from chaos, took the money her absent employer left for her on the kitchen dresser and let herself out again.

Even if she hadn’t met him, however, she felt she knew Terry Lambert quite well, having hung up his clothes, dusted his bookshelves, washed up his breakfast things and put endless CDs and videos back in their cases. Divorced four years earlier, he was in his mid-thirties, with no children. He earned a jolly good salary and drove a metallic-green Scorpio. Pru knew all this because Marion had told her. According to Marion, her brother was quite a catch: handsome, generous and kind to animals.

‘Once you’re back on an even keel,’ she told Pru with an encouraging wink, ‘you could do a lot worse, you know, than our Terry.’

Pru couldn’t imagine ever getting back on an even keel, nor was she the least bit interested in getting to know another man. Anyway, kind to animals he might be, but with the best will in the world you could never classify Terry Lambert as handsome.

She didn’t say this to Marion; it didn’t seem polite to point out that if the photo in Terry’s bedroom was anything to go by, he was half-man, half-anteater.

But the photograph of Terry and Marion with their now-dead parents was clearly of sentimental value. Whenever she polished the ornate silver frame Pru couldn’t help studying it, touched by the similarities between father and son. Both had dark eyes and thick, straight eyebrows, pronounced laughter lines and mouths that curved upwards when they smiled. They also shared the same nose, big and beaky and truly attention-grabbing.