Just Between Us (27 page)

‘Look at this mess,’ Amelia had said crossly one day, hands on hips, imitating her mother perfectly. Hazel and Stella had to hide in the kitchen and stuff their hands in their mouths to stop themselves laughing out loud.

‘I wonder where she picked
that
up?’ Hazel said wickedly.

‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ Stella added, shaking her head. ‘It just shows, you can never forget they’re listening.’

Stella hung up her jacket but left on her pink skirt and white cotton shell top. In the bathroom, she brushed her hair and took a look in the mirror, wincing at the sight of mascara smudged under her eyes. Wetting a finger, she rubbed it away, knowing that such treatment didn’t do anything for her wrinkles. And there were definitely more wrinkles these days. She gently pulled the skin around her eyes taut, trying to imagine what she’d look like after an eye lift. Would plastic surgery be worth it? Stella wasn’t sure, but she wished Nick had met her when her face was smooth and unlined. Until she was thirty-five, her skin had been perfect without the slightest effort on her part. Her women friends had told her she was lucky not to be plagued with PMT spots, dry patches or pores the size of dinner plates. But suddenly, almost as soon as the ink was dry on her thirty-fifth birthday cards, everything in her face had gone downhill at the speed of an avalanche. Now her dark eyes had a fan of tiny lines around them and she needed to draw a firm line around her mouth to make sure the lipstick stayed put and didn’t bleed.

Still, she wasn’t too bad. Age meant her cheekbones were more pronounced, giving her face a sculpted air it had never had as a full-faced twenty-something. Being on the road to forty had its compensations. She spritzed herself with perfume and then went to phone Holly and Tara to discuss the ruby wedding present conundrum. Neither of them was home yet, so she left messages and had only just put the phone down when she heard Nick’s key in the door.

‘Hello,’ he said loudly from the hall.

Stella rushed out like a schoolgirl. He came into the sitting
room looking tired, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced than usual ‘He’s got that lived-in look,’ Tara had pronounced after their first meeting in Stella’s for Sunday lunch. Tara loved to get people’s descriptions right instantly. Part of being a scriptwriter, Stella knew. She couldn’t pass a stranger in a phone box without writing a mental précis.

‘Lived in, but sexy,’ she’d added approvingly. ‘You lucky thing. I’m dead jealous.’

Stella had grinned proudly, knowing that Tara, with the gorgeous Finn in tow, was only kidding about the jealousy.

‘Hi, Stella, hi, Amelia,’ said Nick, dropping his briefcase and several shopping bags onto the floor.

Smiling, Stella went towards him but Amelia got there first. Now dressed in a lurid purple dressing-up fairy costume that her Aunt Holly had got her the Christmas before, Amelia danced up to Nick and did her twirl. ‘Isn’t that good, isn’t it?’ she demanded.

‘Perfect,’ said Nick. ‘You’re a fairy ballerina, then?’

‘No, a swan princess,’ Amelia corrected. ‘We had ballet today and the teacher said I was very good.’

‘You need someone to lift you up to do proper ballet,’ Nick pointed out. He lifted her up by the waist and she pointed her toes as he bounced her along, her feet barely touching the floor in an imitation of a
pas de chat
.

‘Stella, you should have dancing music on the CD player,’ Nick reproved, his eyes shining as he met Stella’s.

‘Yessir,’ she said, saluting. Nothing could have made her happier than the way Nick and Amelia got on with each other.

‘
I’ll
do it,’ said Amelia eagerly, keen to make the entire ballet experience more realistic.

Nick put her down and she rushed off to the sound system to look for CDs with pictures of ballerinas on them. Nick smiled at Stella and moved forward to hold her. They fitted together perfectly, her body just the right height for his, her head able to rest perfectly against his shoulder. At five eight,

Stella was a tall woman and Nick was four inches taller than her, tall enough for her to wear high heels with him.

‘You wouldn’t be threatened if I wore platform shoes and was taller than you, would you?’ she teased once.

‘I’m too old to feel threatened,’ he replied truthfully.

That was the lovely thing about Nick. She knew that some women’s partners were made uneasy by clever women but not Nick. He was proud of her. He loved her cleverness just as much as he loved her kindness.

‘How are you?’ he murmured now, content to hold her close and let the stresses and strains of the day wash away from both of them.

‘Better now,’ she murmured back, breathing in the familiar scent of his body, his cologne and his jacket. She loved that Nick-smell that lingered on the pillows when he’d gone: a hint of vanilla from his cologne and the smell of him.

‘Did you remember to buy a free-range chicken?’ she asked, still leaning against him dreamily.

‘You old romantic, you,’ he replied. ‘Should I have got one with giblets or one without?’

‘Stop talking dirty to me,’ she said, giggling. She planted a kiss on his cheek and made to move away to start work on the chicken, but Nick held her firm. ‘Do giblets turn you on?’ he asked, a glint in his eyes. ‘If only I’d known that, I wouldn’t have bothered with chocolates and flowers.’

His mouth, smiling, came down upon hers and they kissed as new lovers kiss, softly at first and then deepening, eyes closed and sighing. Finally, they drew apart.

‘I’m ravenous,’ he confessed. ‘Can you roast a chicken quickly?’

‘No. But I could carve it up, slice the breast and we could make a speedy stir-fry?’

They ate their dinner of stir-fry chicken in the conservatory and afterwards, Stella got Amelia ready for bed.

When Amelia was dressed in fresh flowery cotton pyjamas, Stella realised that the bottoms were now at least two inches above Amelia’s ankles.

‘You’re getting so big,’ she sighed.

‘I know,’ said Amelia proudly. ‘Hazel says I’m going to be tall, not a little fairy like Becky.’

Stella smiled at the thought of Becky as any sort of fairy.

‘Mummy, Becky isn’t as good at ballet as me,’ Amelia announced.

‘Don’t say things like that, Amelia,’ Stella said, absentmindedly. ‘That’s very unkind. Becky is your friend.’ She picked up her daughter’s discarded clothes for the laundry basket, thinking that it only seemed like yesterday when Amelia was a tiny baby, snuggled in Babygrows.

Amelia’s bottom lip wobbled, a sure sign that she was tired.

‘I know you didn’t mean to be unkind,’ Stella said, backtracking. ‘I’m sure Becky will be good too if you help her. Now, what story do you want tonight?’

When Amelia’s light was out, Stella and Nick sat down on the low russet sofa and talked about the holiday they’d been planning and their days at work. Stella skirted cautiously round the subject that had been niggling at her all day. ‘I’ve been thinking about the girls. Your girls,’ she said finally. ‘It may take them some time to get used to the idea that you’ve got somebody new in your life.’

‘Kids adapt,’ Nick said easily. He looked so content that Stella almost didn’t have the heart to ruin it for him. But she had to. These girls would be her stepchildren, give or take a wedding ring. There were two families to be carefully joined together and she and Nick needed to talk about this.

‘It might not be that straightforward,’ she said carefully. She looked up at Nick. His face was still happy. ‘They may find it hard to deal with, you know…me and you being together so soon after the divorce. Just because your marriage is legally over, doesn’t mean it’s over in the eyes of your kids. I’ve been reading this book on divorce and stepfamilies and it can take a long time for kids to get over the trauma of a split.’ Stella paused. ‘Their mother might find it hard to deal with too, and that will affect how they feel
about us,’ she added. ‘People don’t just get over a divorce that quickly…’

Nick’s mouth set in that uncompromising line. ‘Wendy will have to learn to live with it, then, won’t she?’ he said, the content look vanishing to be replaced by a taut expression.

Stella bit her lip. This was not going as planned. ‘Jenna and Sara live with their mother. They’ll be thinking of how this affects her too. We can’t bulldoze them into meeting me or accepting the new situation…’

‘Amelia’s perfectly happy, she’s much younger and she can deal with it,’ Nick said.

‘Yes, but she’s not recovering from her parents’ break-up,’ Stella pointed out. ‘Amelia has never known a time when Glenn and I lived together. She’s used to seeing Mummy and Daddy separately. That’s normal for her so you’re not replacing him. Yes,’ she added quickly, ‘I know I’m not replacing the girls’ mother, but they might see it that way. You’re only just divorced and it all happened so fast, Nick, remember that. You’ve said yourself that both girls want nothing more than for you two to get back together again. I’ll be like the one obstacle to that happening, they could hate me.’ There. She’d said it: what she was most frightened of.

‘They’re not children, Stella,’ Nick said quickly. ‘You don’t know them yet. Sara’s the smartest girl in the world. She’s genuinely brilliant, she always was, even when she was little. And Jenna’s just as bright, all her teachers say so. They’re smart. They’ll get it.’ He moved closer and stroked her arm lovingly. ‘It will work out, you’ll see.’

Stella thought of her book on stepfamilies. Brains were not seen as a get-out clause when it came to family strife. Nothing was. No matter how bright the children were, dealing with a stepfamily caused friction.

Small children were the way to run stepfamilies, as far as she could see. Little ones were less likely to throw wobblies when confronted with new mummies and daddies. Older children took sides and fright. Nick just didn’t seem to
understand this. But then, they were his daughters. He knew them, he knew what he was talking about.

Nick left at ten. ‘I wish you didn’t have to go,’ Stella blurted out as they hugged goodbye at the front door. She knew it was crazy to say this when she’d pointed out to Nick that it might confuse Amelia to have Nick stay over. He’d never stayed the whole night—they made love, quietly, and then Nick would leave.

‘One day, I won’t be going anywhere,’ he murmured, his face buried in the silk of her hair.

‘I know.’ Stella snuggled closer, wanting one more hug before he left.

She was constantly astonished by how much she wanted to wake up with him every day, to fall into bed wearily every night, doing the mundane things like setting the alarm clock and groaning when it went off next day; Stella longed for that normality because she’d be sharing it with Nick.

‘I’ll call you in the morning, OK?’ He walked halfway down the path, then turned abruptly and came back to kiss her again. ‘Love you.’

‘Love you too,’ she said.

She watched until his car had disappeared at the end of the street. It was funny how her life had felt complete with just her and Amelia until she’d met Nick. Now, she was incomplete without him. It was both a wonderful and a scary feeling. Wonderful: because she loved him, and scary: because she was no longer in control. The self-sufficient unit of herself and Amelia was no longer enough. Stella needed Nick. She’d taught herself not to need anyone after Glenn. Independence was safer. And now she was back relying on someone. She didn’t allow herself to think of what it would be like if it all went wrong.

She locked up and checked on Amelia before getting ready for bed. Finally, she slipped under the pure white covers and sank back against the pillows. Bliss. Her bedroom was the most feminine room in the house, complete with a kidney-shaped dressing table dressed with a white frilly skirt, and
a faded floral bedroom chair with girlish, embroidered cushions. People who knew only the businesslike, efficient Stella Miller would have been astonished to see her feminine bower with its junk-shop crystal perfume bottles and padded satin hangers in peachy pinks and soft lilacs.

Her bedside table was dominated by a cluster of framed photos showing Amelia and the rest of the family, all laughing and smiling for the camera. Her favourite was one of the three generations of Miller women: her mother, her sisters, herself, and Amelia, looking impish on her grandmother’s lap. Dear Mum. Stella stared fondly at her mother’s lovely face. Rose Miller steered clear of beauty salons, and had her hair trimmed only a few times a year. Yet her warm face shone with beauty, of both the inner and the outer kind. Love, decided Stella. True love gave you that glow.

‘Night, Mum,’ said Stella, switching off the light.

A week later, Tara strode into the children’s department of Lee’s, looking like she’d just stepped off the catwalk in her red leather biker’s jacket, lean black trousers and wedged boots, and with a Prada shopper hanging off her shoulder. Holly, who’d been waiting for her eagerly all afternoon, waved hello.

‘It’s my sister,’ she said to Bunny, who was in a daze re-folding a gigantic pile of identical white T-shirts.

‘Tara Lucretia, the Borgia sister,’ said Bunny delightedly, eager to leave T-shirt folding behind. ‘How nice to meet you finally! I’ve heard all about you.’

Tara grinned. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to hear my side?’ she asked.

Holly laughed. ‘I only say nice things about you,’ she insisted. ‘I never mentioned all the terrible things you did to me as a kid!’

‘She told me
everything
,’ said Bunny in a grim voice.

Tara’s throaty laugh could be heard rippling all over the children’s floor. Bunny joined in, wondering how two such different women could be sisters. It was as if the feisty, strong Tara had somehow got self-confidence enough for two, while Holly had none.

‘I’ve heard all about you too,’ said Tara to Bunny. ‘Are you one of the wild gang she goes off partying with?’

Bunny didn’t hesitate. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Mad party girls, that’s us.’ Beside her, she could feel Holly breathe more easily with relief.

‘Right, are you ready to go?’ Tara said, looking at her watch. ‘It’s just four o’clock, Stella said she’d meet us at a quarter past, which gives us two hours before the shops close. If we can’t find a present by then, I give up.’

Holly collected her handbag from the cupboard under the register and nipped over to say goodbye to Miss Jackson, with whom she’d arranged to leave early.

Bunny stayed chatting to Tara.

‘You’re looking for an anniversary present, aren’t you?’ Bunny said. ‘I hate that sort of shopping. My mother is impossible to buy for.’

‘We’re very lucky,’ said Tara, her strong features softening. ‘Mum is such a pet, she genuinely doesn’t care what we give her. She’ll love it no matter what. But we want to get something really special, she deserves it. They deserve it,’ Tara amended.

Bunny looked at her thoughtfully. Two strange revelations in one meeting. First, Tara clearly and incorrectly believed Holly was a wild thing who was never at home. And two, Tara adored their mother while Holly never spoke about her. She talked about Tara, Stella and Amelia all the time. Bunny could have written a thesis on Tara’s career and Holly was forever putting away little bits and pieces from Lee’s for Amelia, saying that Stella would just love that appliquéd T-shirt or that her niece looked so adorable in blue. But of Mum and Dad, nothing. Curious.

‘See you tomorrow, Bunny,’ said Holly, coming back. She slipped an arm though her older sister’s arm and they headed off to the escalators.

‘I want all those T-shirts folded when I get back,’ warned Tara as she went.

‘Yessir,’ joked Bunny. She turned back to the messy mound. ‘Yessir,’ she said again wearily. It was easier said than done.

Tara insisted on a detour into the china department. ‘Stella is keen on some big ornament type of thing,’ she said as she stalked through dinner service displays, casting disparaging
glances at fussy floral designs. ‘I still think a weekend away is the best idea but if we have to look at ugly vases, we have to.’

Holly wandered over to the silver flatware because she had a horror of upending a display of wildly expensive dishes. She’d never forgotten the time she’d cannoned into a table of special offer soup bowls in the supermarket and had broken pounds’ worth. ‘This could be an idea,’ she suggested, holding up a spoon from an elegantly old-fashioned canteen of cutlery.

‘Too traditional,’ said Tara. ‘For someone else but not for Mum and Dad. It’s got to be special. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Special,’ mused Holly, looking at some oddly-shaped salt and pepper canisters that fitted together. They were weird.

‘Proof of a lasting love from their daughters,’ added Tara, as if she was reciting from a soppy card. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Those salt and pepper things are awful.’

They left Lee’s and tried the expensive gift shop that sold Waterford Crystal, where they’d agreed to meet Stella. Tara preferred the modern designs to the more traditional ones, while Holly loved the dainty old-fashioned goblets which she knew would look lovely glinting behind the glass of her cherished armoire. But she was careful not to pick things up.

The problem, Tara decided, was that their parents had loads of crystal.

‘What are we going to get?’ she wailed.

‘Not so easy now, is it?’ teased Stella, appearing from the shop entrance, looking miles more glam than usual in a duck-egg blue macintosh with her dark hair tumbling lustrously around her face. Since meeting Nick, Stella’s wardrobe had livened up considerably and she’d abandoned her sober suits for more flattering and more colourful clothes.

‘I never said buying the anniversary present would be
easy,’ retorted Tara, hugging her sister hello. ‘I just said I refused to put money to some horrible gilt and enamel clock that looks like it came from a bordello.’

‘You have too much imagination, that’s your problem,’ Stella laughed. ‘Nobody else thought that clock looked like it came from a bordello.’ She hugged Holly.

‘You look lovely, Holls,’ she said. And it was true: Holly had a light in her eyes that Stella hadn’t seen for a long time. A sort of happy glint.

‘What’s responsible for this gleam in your eyes?’

‘Nothing,’ Holly grinned, thinking of Tom. It was nice to have a new friend, someone she felt she could be completely herself with. Since Tom had moved in, he’d become an important part of Holly, Joan and Kenny’s lives, d’Artagnan to their three musketeers. She knew he could never be anything more to her because he was in love with Caroline, but it was nice having him as a friend all the same. ‘If there’s a glint in my eyes, it’s exhaustion,’ she joked now. ‘Anyway, I can hardly compete with you two for glamour. I’m still in my boring work clothes. It’s you pair who are all glammed up. That’s a new mac, isn’t it?’

Stella blushed. ‘Nick bought it for me.’

‘Nice,’ commented Tara. ‘Does he have any brothers? I could do with a few new things in my wardrobe.’

‘He does have a brother but I daresay Finn would object if you went off with another man purely to boost your closets,’ laughed Stella.

‘Hardly,’ grumbled Tara. ‘I’m not sure he’d notice at the moment.’

Holly and Stella shot surprised glances at each other. Tara never moaned about Finn, never.

‘What about this?’ Tara asked, looking at a crystal clock.

‘I’d break it the first time I walked past it,’ said Holly. ‘Can we not go to one of the antique shops? There’s a lovely one I like. It’s too expensive for me normally,’ she added, ‘but they have beautiful pieces. We might see something there, something one-off and special.’

‘Lead the way,’ Tara said.

And then they found it, the perfect present. All three of them loved the golden-hued nineteenth-century oil painting of rolling, verdant hills with a pretty village nestled in the valley.

‘It was a brilliant idea to come here, Holls,’ said Tara when the painting had been paid for and delivery instructions had been given. Tara was going to bring it to Kinvarra on the morning of the anniversary and Stella was going to buy a suitable card.

‘I love this shop.’ Holly ran an admiring finger over a pair of jade fire dogs. ‘I could decorate my entire flat from here.’

‘Will you decorate mine first,’ begged Tara. ‘If we don’t do something with it soon, I’ll move out. Right, are we ready to go? My car’s in the garage, Stella, so I’ll come with you.’

They were all going back to Stella’s for dinner and, after a quick detour into the local grocery store for extra bread, they arrived at Delgany Terrace.

Holly volunteered to go to Hazel’s house to collect her beloved Amelia, while Stella and Tara sorted out food.

‘Is Nick coming tonight?’ asked Tara as she watched her sister laying out five places at the table.

Stella looked up from her task in surprise. ‘No, this is for Finn. He’s invited too, I did tell you, didn’t I? I’d hardly invite you for dinner and not mention poor Finn.’

Tara busied herself getting wine glasses from the cupboard. ‘I meant to say, he probably won’t be able to come until much later. He’s going to pick me up though.’

‘That’s a pity,’ Stella said, trying to keep her voice bland as she removed one setting and arranged the others symmetrically. She wondered if she should ask was everything all right. It had been very strange the way Tara had given out about Finn earlier. When they’d got engaged with such speed, Stella had tried to gently advise Tara that she didn’t need to rush into marriage, that if they truly loved each other, they could spend time getting to know each other. Tara had been furious, saying Finn was perfect, she loved
him and as she knew this for sure, why bother wasting time? Since then, she’d never said one negative thing about him. Not one.

‘It’s some work thing, you know,’ Tara added quickly, before Stella got the chance to say anything. ‘They’re trying to win this big contract and Finn’s busy night and day.’

‘Hello!’ sang Amelia, rushing in with her artwork for the day followed by Holly with Amelia’s schoolbag. ‘Mum, I’m starving!’ the little girl said, plonking herself down at the table.

‘Hello, you too,’ said Tara, kissing her niece on the forehead. ‘Does Hazel not feed you at all?’

‘Only biscuits,’ said Amelia dismissively. ‘Oh, and soup.’

‘Organic, homemade soup with wholewheat bread, also homemade,’ put in Stella. ‘She’s a deprived child. Did you wash your hands, deprived child?’

Amelia nodded, big eyes fixed on the dish of vegetable lasagne that Stella was carrying to the table.

The three sisters laughed.

‘She takes after me,’ said Tara. ‘I was always ravenous as a kid.’

‘I remember,’ commented Stella. ‘If I left a chocolate bar down for two minutes, you’d gobble it up.’ She hoped that she’d have a chance to talk to Holly privately so she could mention her worries about Tara. But there was never a chance.

Despite this, dinner was lively with Amelia chatting happily once she’d eaten a big portion of lasagne. The grown-ups drank a bottle of Chablis, hoovered up their own lasagne and finished a big bowl of Greek salad. Amelia, who was in charge of desserts, got a tub of ice cream from the freezer and Holly helped her dish it out.

‘Did Mummy get into trouble ever?’ she wanted to know tonight. Amelia was fascinated by the idea of her mother as a child and when she got her aunts together, she demanded stories of Stella.

Normally, Tara loved concocting stories of Stella’s mischief
but she didn’t seem to have the heart for it this evening.

‘Your mummy was never in trouble,’ she said. ‘I was always in trouble but then, that’s me. Nothing changes.’ She gave a little ironic laugh and alarm bells began to ring in her sisters’ heads.

They waited until Amelia was in bed before they began to investigate.

‘When Finn comes, can you drop me home too?’ asked Holly.

‘Sure,’ said Tara. She was flopped out on the couch flicking through the television channels with the zapper, cradling her wine glass with her other hand.

Holly dropped down beside her and Stella took the armchair.

‘Is everything OK between you and Finn?’ Stella asked gently.

‘Everything’s fine, Finn is fine,’ Tara said brusquely.

Both Stella and Holly glanced at her.

‘You sure?’ asked Holly.

‘He’s fine, right?’ Tara’s voice was shrill. ‘He’s just busy,’ she added more quietly. ‘Honestly, there are bound to be teething problems in a new marriage.’

Holly and Stella looked at each other again. Stella had a sinking feeling in her guts. Was there something wrong between Finn and Tara?

‘Stop doing that!’ Tara said angrily. ‘It’s like being out with Aunt Adele with you pair exchanging “I told you so” looks every five minutes.’

‘We’re not,’ said Stella calmly. ‘Don’t fly off the handle, Tara. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ Tara slammed her wine glass down on the big chest Stella used as a coffee table and stormed off to the bathroom. Holly got up to follow her but Stella stopped her with a gentle hand. ‘No, leave her. She’ll tell us when she’s ready.’

‘What do you think it is?’ said Holly, sitting down again. ‘I thought she and Finn were so happy.’

Stella shrugged helplessly. ‘It could be a row, that’s all. I hope that’s all it is, anyhow. You know how Tara hates rows, she’s too impetuous to cope with them and every argument is like WW2 to her. It’ll blow over.’ At least, she hoped it would.

Holly wasn’t so sure.

When Tara emerged from the bathroom, Holly was telling Stella a wildly hilarious version of the speed dating night. Tara, looking relieved to be off the rack and mildly apologetic for her outburst, sat down.

‘Sorry,’ she murmured.

‘For what?’ said Stella and Holly in unison.

All three laughed.

‘So then,’ Holly continued her story, ‘he said I had fabulous tits.’

‘Who said that?’ demanded Tara.

‘This prince among men I met at the speed dating in the Purple Mosquito. We had five minutes of conversation and that’s the bit I remember most.’

‘I’d have thrown my drink over him!’ said Tara, outraged at the very idea of anyone insulting her sister. ‘Who is he? It’s not too late to throw a drink over him now.’

Holly giggled. ‘That is just what I thought you’d do. I sat looking at him and thought that you’d fling your drink over him and that Joan would throw a punch at him. I told him I’d get Miss Mindy over to give out to him.’

‘Miss Mindy?’

By the time Holly had retold the whole story, making it clear that Miss Mindy was no idle threat, it was after ten. ‘I’m worn out,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll head off soon.’

‘Off to meet up with one of your speed dating boys?’ asked Stella wickedly.

‘I told you I wasn’t going out with anyone,’ Holly explained earnestly. She didn’t add that there was only one man on the horizon she had any interest in, and that he was taken. ‘Unfortunately, Joan and Kenny are determined to
set me up with somebody, but I’m not keen on blind dates. Especially not with friends of Finn’s,’ she added pointedly to Tara.