Best Laid Plans (8 page)

T
hey walked up from their house carrying the presents, for it seemed daft to use the car particularly as the snow was heavier now, falling in fat flakes, and the drive at Snape House was steep with an awkward curve halfway up.

‘I think we should leave it until after Christmas to tell them,’ Mike said as they set out. They had discussed this over and over and kept changing their minds as to when it would be the right moment or if indeed there would ever be a right moment. ‘It would be a shame to spoil things. You know how much Mum loves Christmas and all the fuss.’

‘You’re probably right.’ Monique could see the little puffs of air as they exhaled and, shivering, she pulled the hood of her jacket up, clumpy multi-laced boots poking out from under her long skirt. The sky was heavily laden with snow clouds, darkness fast approaching and everyday sounds were already becoming muffled as the snow settled softly around them. They were not staying over even though Christine had offered and now Monique wished they had taken up the invitation for she did not relish a late-night trudge back through what might be a significant snowfall, not in this footwear, although Christine would no doubt lend her a pair of Wellington boots.

‘We’ll stay tonight if it gets any worse,’ Mike said, reading her mind. ‘If I know Mum, the bed will be made up just in case.’

‘But I like my own bed best,’ she murmured, thinking of their high-sided French inspired bed with its sumptuously soft mattress, goose-feather pillows and super warm duvet. It was little more than a large single in order to fit into the little room but that suited them fine. Aunt Sylvie was right, French women knew all there was to know about the marriage bed and keeping the husband happy and maybe taking a lover was no bad thing. Her sex life, the safely married part, had been taken up a notch recently and although Mike was thrilled he had yet to know the reason why. Comparison was an ugly thing but she could not avoid it and happily, after all the soul searching of late, it was Mike not Sol who was making it happen for her now. As they headed for Snape House she knew that she had to end it with Sol once and for all before Mike found out and it all went pear-shaped. She would see Sol one more time and end it. It had to be done in person; writing a letter was not only cowardly but also dangerous as was the alternative – a text message – and a phone call would just end in tears.

It was nice while it lasted but, come on, surely he had known from the beginning that it would be short lived. She had tried to end it on several occasions but although she started off full of good intentions Sol refused to take her seriously, laughing her excuses away and, to her irritation every single time she had ended up having sex with him, supposedly for the very last time.

‘Hey, watch it.’ Mike grabbed her as she slid on a slippery patch. ‘We don’t want you breaking a leg.’

‘It would cause havoc, wouldn’t it?’ Redistributing the presents, she freed a hand so that she could hold onto him, her nose nipped by the cold.

‘You never know, if we can get here for next Christmas there might be three of us,’ Mike said, squeezing her hand through her gloves.

‘There might.’ She smiled into the darkness. She was sorry to disappoint him, over and over, but he would get
over it and the last thing she wanted was a child.

‘It’s a surprise, isn’t it, that Amy’s bringing somebody along,’ she said, switching to a safer subject. ‘Christine’s very excited about it. She thinks it must be serious.’

‘I hope she doesn’t frighten him off.’

‘She won’t. She didn’t frighten
me
off,’ she said, recalling how welcoming Christine had been but then she had worked out beforehand how to play the nervous newcomer to perfection. Christine wore her heart on her sleeve, which made her very easy to read. ‘I wonder what Brian will be like?

‘God only knows but he’s a saint in my book to take Amy on. Maybe he likes bossy women.’

‘Be nice to her, please.’ She caught the little grumble from him. ‘I know what you two are like. It might have been funny when you are little but you’re grown up now and you should stop the teasing.’

‘She asks for it,’ he said. ‘She acts like she runs that store when I bet she’s only a general dogsbody. She puts me down all the time and she’s willing me to fail because everybody knows she could do the job standing on her head.
And
, the thing I really can’t forgive her for is that she turns her nose up at your paintings.’

She pulled him to a halt, still in the part of the drive that was not visible from the house itself. ‘Let it go. It’s Christmas. We don’t want a repeat of last year not when we have a visitor.’

‘If he’s serious about her then he’ll have to get used to it,’ Mike grinned. ‘It’s just brother and sister stuff.’

‘In that case I’m glad I don’t have a brother.’ She stamped her feet, feeling the cold, blowing away a snowflake that had settled on her face. ‘I am not moving an inch, Mike, until you promise to behave.’

‘Scout’s honour.’ He had a lovely smile, one of the things she found attractive about him, that and his voice. He was of a stocky build like his father but he managed to keep just
the right side of a weight problem but he had to take care for it could easily go wrong. An interesting-looking scar just below the eye was the result of a childhood mishap but it added character and the first time she met him she found her eyes drawn constantly to it. Now she scarcely noticed.

The house looked welcoming with its lights on and smoke puffing out of the chimney. The outside decorative lamp post was glowing, sending yellowy streams of light across the drive, illuminating the bank of shrubs near the entrance and giving them a strange ghost-like quality as the first of the snow settled upon them. The gravel closest to the door was only thinly covered as yet, the little stones sparkling in the light. There was a holly wreath fastened to the door, a solid door that afforded no glimpse of the hall beyond.

They would open the presents this evening, a tradition in their family long before they discovered the Royals did that too and then there would be a board game, God help the new man. She and Mike would get away hopefully before midnight, returning tomorrow for Christmas lunch.

They reached the porch and stamped their feet free of most of the snow before Mike opened the door to announce their arrival. Monique unlaced her boots leaving them in the porch, slipping her feet into the red ballerina pumps she had brought with her.

Stepping inside, Monique caught sight of herself in the large mirror over the hall table, approving of what she saw. She loved vintage clothes, liked to be just that little bit different and tonight she was wearing one of her favourite skirts; a black floral net with a stiff black under-slip attached to it and a cream twin-set, a double row of pearls completing the look. She did not possess a single pair of trousers and even in bed she preferred Victorian-style white cotton nightgowns to pyjamas. With the frilly bits, they were impossible to iron but again she could not bear to go to bed in anything other than a crisply ironed nightdress. Tonight she wore her hair loose and it hung
like shimmering golden curtains from its centre parting. After the walk in the cold night air, she was a little flushed, as was Mike.

She gave him a fond glance as they gently deposited the presents in the hall before taking off their outdoor things.

The door to the drawing room opened and Christine came smilingly through to greet them.

Monique was her usual breathless self, the childlike quality every bit as annoying as ever. Amy did her best to try to understand the woman, goodness knows, but she found women like Monique such hard work. Airy fairy was the kindest way to describe it; she wouldn’t last five minutes in the cut-throat world of retail.

Her brother and his wife must be the only couple in England who didn’t have a television and didn’t they like to go on about that? She had warned Brian what to expect but even so the sight of Monique bouncing into the room wearing the weirdest black skirt and Grace Kelly-type twin-set took him by surprise. She was barely five feet tall and the ballerina-like shoes did nothing to help. She wore not a trace of make-up, of course, which would cause Bea in Cosmetics to have a fit although it had to be said that Monique’s pale skin was as close to perfect as it was possible to be and her hair, naturally blonde, would you believe, was glossy and beautiful.

The contrast to her own short locks was alarming and not, she felt, to her advantage. Monique, small and slender and exquisitely pretty, was like a doll compared to her and she made her feel extra tall and extra bulky.

Kisses were exchanged and the likelihood of the snow lying was discussed at some length with Monique standing in the middle of the room directly below the centre light as if she was on stage. At Amy’s side Brian was unusually quiet but then Monique did have that effect on men – it must be the French blood and that coy sideways look from
those big grey eyes heavily fringed with long lashes. Who needed mascara with lashes like those? Bea would be on cloud nine if she got her hands on Monique, reaching gleefully for the palette of shadows and liners to enhance those eyes. Funnily though, the natural look was much more effective.

Christine sped off into the kitchen to finish off what she had told them was a simple Christmas Eve meal and Monique chose to squeeze herself between Amy and Brian, turning her attention firstly to Amy. A light perfume, delightful and subtle, rose from her like a cloud, contrasting with the heavier fragrance of ‘Bella-Sophia’, which, for all its hype, Amy had still not made up her mind about.

‘You poor darling. You must be shattered,’ she said, taking in every detail of Amy’s appearance in one swift glance. ‘I went into Preston last week and it was horrendous. The shops were heaving.’

‘It has been busy,’ Amy admitted with a smile. ‘And it isn’t finished yet. We have the sales starting in a couple of days.’

‘No wonder you look so tired,’ Monique’s smile seemed sincere but it was a sly put-down for all that. Amy had refreshed her make-up before Mike and Monique arrived so she had thought she had successfully disguised the fact that the frantic activity of the past two weeks was finally catching up on her. She felt she could sleep for a week and last night’s bedtime activity had not helped. Even now, she was hard put not to yawn, putting up a hand across her mouth to stifle the impulse.

‘Well, yes, but then working for your living is quite hard,’ she said, cross to be saying it; it was uncalled for, drawing attention as it did to the fact that Monique did not have an actual job.

‘I work too,’ she pouted looking so hurt that Amy felt herself flush as Brian glanced sharply at her. ‘Don’t I, Mike?’

‘Monique’s a brilliant artist,’ Mike said, also giving Amy a look and making her feel as nasty as the Wicked Witch of the West.

‘Of course you are. Sorry,’ she muttered, smiling an apology. ‘I’m just tired that’s all and a bit snappy.’

‘I can vouch for that,’ Brian said with a grin, the glib remark offending her deeply because when had she been snappy with him? ‘So you’re an artist, Monique? That is very interesting. I’ve always wanted to be able to paint.’ Brian was all ears and with Monique giving her the cold shoulder Amy felt superfluous, exchanging a glance with her father, who merely shook his head in warning. If she looked tired then he did too and she worried for him. It might well have been only a little scare but nevertheless it was a warning they ought not to ignore. She knew he was difficult and she knew that she had let him down, too, because he had really wanted her to go into the business but at least he understood and respected her decision, which was more than her mother did.

Amy stifled a sigh. Again it must be the French blood but her dear sister-in-law was a dreadful flirt and she just knew even without seeing it that she was giving Brian the full benefit of that shy yet sensuous look she had perfected.

‘What’s your speciality?’ Brian asked and Amy could not be sure if he was genuinely interested or just making polite conversation. ‘I’m always on the look-out for original artwork.’

‘Really?’ She shot a glance at Mike. ‘Did you hear that, darling?’

‘Yes, well perhaps you can show Brian some of your work later,’ Amy said hoping to snip this topic of conversation in the bud. She had no talent for drawing, just as she couldn’t cook, and most importantly of all she could not do the sweet little woman thing that Monique was so good at. And to top all this she was annoyed at herself for reacting in this way. She was being an absolute cow. It was totally unjustified
and not worthy of her to think badly of Monique and she had no idea why she did it but she just did. Perhaps it was the way her mother hung on to Monique’s every word; perhaps there was even an element of jealousy lingering there, for sometimes it seemed that her mother thought more about Monique than her. Even her telephone calls were littered with ‘Monique this, Monique that’. As soon as a pregnancy was announced that would be it. When that happened, when there was a Fletcher baby in the offing, Amy might as well not exist in her mother’s books. Her earlier good mood of girlish pre-Christmas excitement was rapidly diminishing, tiredness taking over and making her act like this.

‘Amy, darling, give me a hand, would you?’ Christine appeared at the door waving a wooden spoon and looking uncharacteristically flustered.

‘No, you’re tired, Amy. You sit and talk to Mike,’ Monique said, leaping up in one graceful movement and stepping daintily over Brian’s outstretched feet. ‘On my way, Christine.’

Amy gave a shrug, not too unhappy about it, knowing she might well be a liability in the kitchen. Her mother’s idea of a simple meal had to be seen to be believed. She had already caught a glimpse of the preparations in the kitchen and there seemed to be an awful lot going on. She had also peeped into the dining room; the table was looking splendid but then her mother certainly knew how to entertain.

‘Long time no see,’ Mike said cheerfully, sitting opposite her. In direct contrast to hers, he had let his hair grow and in Amy’s opinion it was too long, dark like hers, the scar on his face as noticeable as ever. She hoped nobody mentioned it for that would mean everybody looking at her and shaking their heads as if she could be held responsible. She was only a child when it happened and it was an accident. She never meant to hurt him and it was mortifying that the scar should remain as a permanent reminder of
her fit of temper.