Best Laid Plans (20 page)

Her Aunt Sylvie had always moved in illustrious circles and so far as Monique could see had never had a career as such, although she, too, thought of herself as artistic. Monique wondered as she grew older just why the sisters were antagonistic towards each other although perhaps her father’s philandering ways were a clue to that. After one long visit, Sylvie had been effectively banished so perhaps something had gone on in the past, a bit of a fling, something that her mother did not talk about, although it may have been a contributing factor to the break up.

She was, Monique reflected, the product of two not very nice people and she worried that she would be as bad a mother herself if she chose to keep this baby.

She had no feelings towards it as yet, which was perhaps a sign that it would be history repeating itself but at the same time she did occasionally still think of the child that might have been if she had not lost it.

It was difficult to think about but it – boy or girl – would have been beautiful indeed because she and Sol were beautiful people. She was honest with herself and had no qualms in thinking such a thing for it was an undisputed fact. He was not her first man for, virtually abandoned as she was, she had tried out a few before him but it was different with Sol. Just recently she had wanted to tell him about that time when they were at college and the baby they might have had and how it had momentarily sent her into a spin but she held her tongue because what good would it do for
him to know? He was a loner, not a family man, and it would have been wrong to saddle him with the memory of a child just as much as it would be wrong to trap him into a relationship now. Sol wanted it all but was not prepared to give a thing and even though she loved him she knew it was an impossible situation.

She had no reason to believe this was Sol’s child; it could just as easily be Mike’s for they had consoled each other a good deal following Frank’s death. It might be best not to know. Babies were babies and family resemblances were often vague and with a bit of luck it might look like her. A confession just now would ruin her marriage and she now knew she did not want that. She may have married Mike for the wrong reason as her aunt suggested but that wasn’t to say that she hadn’t grown to love him and the thought of being without him was not one she wished to contemplate.

Outside her door, she could hear voices, Sylvie’s prominent, and she knew they would come for her in a few minutes to take her to the clinic. She had no concerns that it would be safe and straightforward. It would be so simple to go through with it, to have it over with once and for all so that she would be saved the agony of seeing a child grow up, hoping against hope that it resembled her with just the barest tinge of its father. If that was the case she would get away with it. But how could she live with that hanging over her? How could she do such a thing to Mike, who was kind and caring and worth ten of Sol?

Sol Diamond – she very nearly hated him.

She heard a man’s low laugh and she struggled to her feet, slipping her shoes on and sitting there a moment, heart pounding. Aunt Sylvie had gone to a lot of trouble to persuade this man to come along and it would be dreadful of her to let her down.

It was as if she was in the condemned cell and if that was the case then she had missed her last meal for she was feeling queasy today and had declined even a simple
French breakfast.

She clutched at her stomach as it heaved and suddenly, she thought of the bean-sized baby inside her and placed her hands protectively over it. If that man out there had his way then within hours it would be gone, tossed aside and forgotten. But if she went ahead she was opening up a lifetime of deception. Could she live with that? It wasn’t fair to Mike, who had always treated her so well. It wasn’t fair to Mike, who loved her. It was a simple procedure; she could be pregnant again soon and next time it would definitely be her husband’s child.

Her mother ought to have done it too, got rid of
her
, for she had never wanted her so why had she gone through with it? If only she could see her mother one more time to talk about it, to ask her so many questions, to ask what she should do now.

A knock on the door.

‘Are you ready, Monique?’

‘Coming.’

There were turning points in your life and this was one of them.

She went to open it.

‘It’s good to have you back,’ Christine said as they strolled around the garden. Something had happened in France, she knew that, but she was waiting for Monique to tell her. She did know that the cottage had been a huge disappointment, which she ought to have been delighted about but was not. She had finally realized that it was no earthly use being selfish and it would have been lovely for them, an exciting new life, if it had worked out.

‘It’s good to be back,’ Monique said with a smile. ‘I can’t tell you how nice it was to see the English fields again. It sounds silly but for a while there I imagined that I was truly French when I’m not. I’m every bit as English as you and I would never have fitted in and as for Mike …’ she
laughed. ‘He would have been a fish out of water. He would have hated it eventually and he would have resented me for dragging him there in the first place. His place is here running the business.’

‘Yes.’ Christine reached down and pulled up a weed to add to the little bag she always carried around in the garden. ‘I’m thinking of moving,’ she told her. ‘The house is starting to get on my nerves.’

‘Moving?’ Monique gasped. ‘But I thought they would carry you out in a box.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Sorry, but you know what I mean?’

‘I’m not moving far,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m looking at a house in the village, the old post office, and I already have a potential buyer for this.’

‘Have you told Amy? After all she lives here, too.’

‘Not yet. But …’ Christine hesitated, ‘don’t say anything but I think she’s serious about this man she’s been seeing recently. It’s her old boss, the man she worked with in Leeds and he has a flat in Preston now so I can’t see that she’s going to be homeless. In fact she’s probably just waiting for the right moment to break it to me that she’s moving in with him.’

‘Will you keep Oscar?’

‘Of course.’ She bent down to stroke the dog that had bounded up to them from the other end of the garden. ‘We can all share him.’

They sat on the bench. Monique was all in white, an ankle-length cotton skirt with a loose top, her hair in a single heavy plait. She was pale and there was an ethereal quality about her, something different.

‘I’m pregnant, Christine,’ she announced.

‘Pregnant?’ It was unexpected even though long expected and for a moment Christine was speechless. ‘That’s great, absolutely fantastic! What does Mike think?’

‘I haven’t got round to telling him yet,’ she confessed,
cheeks colouring. ‘Isn’t it daft but I’m a bit shy about it. I want it to be the right moment and there hasn’t been one since I got back. He usually asks month after month … you know … but he’s been so busy with everything and we’ve had a lot to think about since I got back from France so I haven’t told him.’

‘Tell him tonight because I’m not going to be able to keep it a secret,’ Christine said, hugging her. She felt so small and vulnerable, shaking a little under her touch and Christine, knowing the enormity of that first realization that you were carrying a child, comforted her. ‘Don’t worry, darling, everything will be fine.’

‘I am taking a risk in having it,’ Monique mumbled giving a sob against Christine’s shoulder. ‘It’s a huge risk and I can’t tell you about it.’

‘Nonsense. You’re young and healthy and you’ll be perfectly all right. You’ll have a lovely baby, you’ll see.’

‘Christine …? It’s not that, it’s—’

‘What? Is there something you want to tell me?’

Monique shifted, sniffed back tears. Christine could see the hesitation in her eyes, knew she was weighing up things, knowing, too, that it could go either way at this point.

‘You can tell me. I won’t be shocked.’

‘Shocked?’ The hesitation disappeared and the sudden smile meant a decision had been reached and a confession was not on the cards. ‘I’m worrying about nothing. Mike’s going to be thrilled.’

Holding her, patting her back, murmuring comforting words, Christine, remembering the man in the bookshop, could only wonder and allow her suspicions to run riot.

T
hat very morning Amy and Mike were working together at the office.

Amy had spent the last few weeks going through the files that Shirley kept close to her chest. Everything was on computer, of course, paper files rapidly becoming a thing of the past, but it was interesting to look back at what had been happening this past year. There was nothing untoward, which she was glad about but Shirley did have her own peculiar system, which needed a little deciphering. When other people were not quite sure what was what, it meant that you kept control and that is precisely what Shirley had liked to do.

She had been the face of the company to some extent and Amy had to acknowledge with some reluctance that she would be missed. She had been wrong about Shirley; she had done her job well and that was a shock because it made her doubt her judgement where people were concerned. Her mother was just the same, making instant judgements about people, telling her later that she hadn’t trusted Brian from the very beginning.

This was why she had not yet introduced her mother to Daniel. Christine kept asking and she knew that it had to come about sooner or later but she was desperate that her mother should like him. She wanted everybody to like him because she had long decided that he was the man she was
going to spend the rest of her life with. She hesitated to tell anybody that yet and she wished that Janet was around because she was the one person she could have talked to about it.

‘Fancy a spot of lunch?’ Mike asked, stretching and yawning. He had already been here this morning when Amy arrived, looking bright and confident having got over the disappointment of the French connection that had apparently misfired big time.

‘Why not?’ She glanced at the clock. The lads from van one were off on a long-haul and the other lads were packing up one of the smaller vans for a short domestic. The order book was filling up, if not exactly full to bursting, and the new, much-improved website was up and running, resulting in a spate of inquiries that might or might not come to something. They were considering a new logo, a catchy slogan to go with it plus a batch of advertising but that was expensive and they needed to be sure the outlay would be worth it.

‘How’s Monique?’ she asked as they set off to the Rose and Crown. She knew Mike so well that she anticipated that he would settle for the steak and ale pie and chips, with maybe some mushy peas on the side. She would probably be boringly healthy and go for a salad.

‘She’s fine,’ he said guardedly. ‘Although she’s acting a bit like she’s got jet-lag when she hasn’t been on a plane.’

‘She’s probably not been sleeping very well, probably due to the disappointment about the cottage. I still can’t believe that, Mike.’

‘Neither can I. Her aunt was pulling a fast one, no two ways about it. Why would she show us that photograph of the wrong cottage if she wasn’t trying to fool us? I can’t understand it; she must have known that she would be found out as soon as Monique set eyes on it. It was an absolute shambles according to her. Roof caving in, mice living in it, damp and depressing, you name it.’

‘That could be fixed,’ Amy said carefully as he drove into the pub car park. ‘It would cost money, true, but it would be worth it to get your dream place.’

‘I don’t think so. Structurally it’s dodgy and you might as well just pull it down and start again. It’s not just that. If it was just that we could consider it but she hates the village and we can’t do a thing about that so it’s best just to forget it. To tell the truth I was never convinced about the job I was offered. It was all a bit too vague for my liking and when I think about it we were damned fools to ever think it would work. You don’t get given something for nothing in this life, Amy.’

They found a table inside, not easy because it was a popular place, and they studied the board for a minute before settling on exactly what Amy had predicted.

‘How are you these days?’ he asked returning to the table with their drinks, soft for both of them. ‘You look good.’

‘Thanks.’ She smiled at him taking the glass of lime soda from him.

‘And a bit different,’ he added, peering at her with a brotherly interest. ‘What’s going on in your life? Still seeing that bloke?’

‘Which one?’ she asked cheekily as if she had two or three on the go.

He grinned at her and as he moved to pick up his glass the sun splintered through the window beside him and the whitened scar on his cheek glistened. She recalled the incident, the tantrum she had had and the heavy toy she threw at him, which had hit him and caused an instant rumpus, the cut deep so that a hasty trip to casualty was called for because it needed stitching.

‘Did I ever say sorry about that scar?’ she asked him now.

‘What?’ He put a hand up to his face, touched it. ‘What are you talking about? Surely you’re not still thinking about that? It was an accident, Amy, and accidents happen.’

‘We should try to get on better together,’ she told him.
‘I don’t know if you want to work with me and I wouldn’t have come back if I hadn’t thought that you were off to France. Now that you’re not, though, maybe I should bow out gracefully.’

‘And do what?’ He asked in astonishment. ‘God, Amy, you’ve given up your job and you’ve helped Mum a lot by moving in with her.’

‘I’m not sure about that and it’s not going to work long term. I thought it would but it’s not easy to go back to being a teenager living at home. We neither of us fit into those roles anymore and it makes it awkward. Anyway, she’s thinking of moving to something smaller and I’m thinking of moving in with my … friend,’ she said, uncertain what to call Daniel. ‘I know it might seem as if it’s sudden but we’ve known each other for ages. We just didn’t realize that we …’ she felt her cheeks flame. ‘We like each other a lot,’ she finished lamely.

‘That’s great news. I’m happy for you. Can I tell Monique? She’ll be delighted but let’s get one thing clear; you must not think that I don’t want you working with me. We can do it, damn it, and we
should
do it for Dad’s sake. He would be thrilled that you’re on board and I want to show him … if he’s up there … that he was wrong and that I can make a bloody good show of running things. Are you up for it? We can work together. I don’t care about titles. You can be number one if you want.’

‘I don’t much care about titles either,’ she said with a rueful smile. ‘I have thought of a few ideas that can run with yours so let’s not dismiss anything yet. Things will pick up but I think we can be doing a lot more to promote ourselves.’

‘I’ll leave that side of things to you,’ he said, smiling at the waitress as their food arrived. ‘And we can always call on that guy of yours if we need to.’

‘Have you been checking up on me?’ she asked, watching as he tucked into his pie. They were grown-ups, she
reflected, and it was high time they behaved like grown-ups instead of it degenerating every single time into a children. ‘How did you know what Daniel does for a living?’

‘Mum told me,’ he said innocently. ‘It isn’t meant to be a secret, is it? I think she’s expecting great things of him. Why not bring him to meet us?’

She frowned, remembering the last time she brought somebody to meet them but that would not happen again, would it? One thing she knew for sure. If it had happened and Daniel had been present on Christmas Day,
he
would have never left her.

‘We want you to be happy,’ Mike said quietly. ‘Honestly, Amy, that’s all we want. And I want you to be as happy as I am with Monique. Married life has a lot going for it and she’s just great. I know you two don’t get on that well and I wish you would but believe me she’s …’ it was his turn to struggle and look embarrassed. ‘Well, what can I say, sis? We intend to stay together for ever.’

‘I know you do.’ She made up her mind there and then to try harder. Monique was Monique and for better or worse, as sisters-in-law, they would be forever linked. Of course Monique had irritating little ways but then so did she.

Nobody was perfect although, just now, madly in love as she was with Daniel, he pretty much seemed so.

On her first visit, Christine ordered a book from the woman in the bookshop saying that she would pick it up when it came in.

She needed an excuse to see him again and she also wanted to see what his reaction would be when he realized just who she was, namely his lover’s mother-in-law. She was now convinced that something was going on, had been going on for a while, and she was mortified that she had not seen through Monique. She might have voiced her suspicions to Frank if he had been alive although he would not have been the least surprised for he had always harboured
doubts where his daughter-in-law was concerned.

How could she cheat on Mike? That man absolutely worshipped the ground she walked on and she had no business doing something that might hurt him. Resentment bubbled up on her son’s behalf and she had no idea what she was going to do about it. She did not wish to confront Monique directly and although she had talked it over in a quiet moment with Oscar, the dog listening patiently, it had not helped. She did not feel she could talk about it with Amy because Amy would demand facts and there were no facts. It was all based on that most irrational of things; female intuition.

‘She’s sweeter than a can of syrup,’ Frank had said after their first meeting with Monique and then, seeing Christine’s annoyed face. ‘Well, she is. I’ve met people like that before and they can’t be trusted. I just can’t believe she’s as nice as she’s making herself out to be. There has to be a bloody catch somewhere. I’ll tell you one thing. She’s going to run rings round him.’

‘Frank Fletcher! They love each other. Can’t you see that?’ Her exasperation reached boiling point. Mike had brought this young woman to see them, a woman he plainly adored and this was what his father – in private – thought of her. It was, she saw, up to her to take Monique’s corner.

And she had been doing it ever since.

A message left on her answerphone by the woman in the shop confirmed that the book she had ordered had arrived and was available for pick-up at her convenience. That morning before she left home she reached a decision. Following another discussion with Oscar, she determined what to do and that was to do absolutely nothing.

Female intuition was all very well but she was allowing her imagination to run riot here and all because of a foolish wrong number. She was still in that peculiar half-aware state that bereavement brings with it and had put
two and two together to make a ridiculous number when she had nothing to go on except the alarmingly powerful sexual field given off by this other man, coupled with Monique’s admitted worries about the pregnancy. She had assumed something, invented something, that was simply not correct and thank God she had not actually said what she had been thinking when consoling Monique. For a moment there she had nearly asked if the baby was definitely Mike’s. The truth was that Monique’s concerns were just the normal everyday worries of a woman in the early stages of her first pregnancy, that moment when you realized that there was no going back.

She would draw a line under all this nonsense. She would pick up the book from that shop, slip away and that would be that. She would leave the poor man alone and put a stop to the personal fantasizing about him. If she was ever to have a relationship again – and it was a very big if – then it would be with a man nearer her own age.

That was the plan and having made her mind up she made the bookshop her first port of call when she got into town.

Monique had told Mike the news and he was predictably delighted and already making plans for the future now that there were to be three of them. With the French move off, Christine suggested that they move in with Christine for the time being, which was eminently sensible. After some thought Christine had decided that a move to the village was premature and not something she should be doing at this stage.

‘For the time being’ had a sinister ring to it, though, and it was something they needed to discuss as a family. Christine was not old enough to be shunted into a granny flat on the premises; she was not even a grandmother as yet, and there was the eventual inheritance thing to think about and how it would affect Amy if they were lodged there.

‘For heaven’s sake, it’s only until you can find something else,’ Christine said to their doubts. ‘I don’t want you under my feet for long. The sooner you find something else the better but your buyers are starting to fret, aren’t they; they’re scared you’re going to take it off the market and you don’t want to do that, do you, because it’s going to be a squeeze when the baby arrives. Make a decision, Mike.’

So he had and they were duly getting ready to vacate River Terrace and move into the Snape House.

There had been no communication recently from Sol. She needed to have one final meeting with him – out in the open with no sex this time – to inform him that it was over and they must not see each other ever again. It was going to be awkward with him living close by and she would have to tell him about the baby but she would not tell him that there was an even chance that he was the father. This baby was most definitely Mike’s and the more she told herself that the more she believed it.

Sol was not answering his home number and she hesitated to ring him at the shop so it meant two visits to Lancaster; the first to drop a brief note – signed simply M – through his letter box giving a date and time and venue for their meeting and the second to actually turn up at the appointed time later that week in Williamson Park.

She knew now how spies must feel en route to an assignment as she made her way through the park towards the Ashton Memorial. There were few people about but then it was a chilly start to the day, dark clouds gathering overhead threatening a heavy downpour.

She was wearing a pale blue empire-line dress, perfect for early pregnancy, and a neat little cream cardigan with pearl buttons. Her flat shoes made no sound as she arrived a little early at the appointed place. On cue, the sun broke free of the clouds promising a few minutes of sunshine before it became hidden once more. She shook her hair free of its ribbon because Sol liked it that way, instantly
wondering why she had done so; it hardly mattered any more what he thought.