Women of a Dangerous Age (14 page)

By the time she left the house she had drunk so many cups of coffee that she felt as though she might take flight. She had chosen to wear one of her crêpe silk tea dresses in a vivid floral print on a navy background, smocked on the shoulder and under the bust, cut to skim the body. One of Ali's key pendants glittered in the V-neck. She hoped that she was demonstrating that a woman of any size could wear the style and look good. Or good enough. Teamed with a dark cashmere cardigan and dark tights, the outfit gave her a certain confidence.

When she arrived at the shop, Ali was already waiting. Lou admired her elegant eighties black wool Azzedine Alaia that clung in all the right places, accessorised with drop earrings and a glittering wide gold cuff. She looked stunning.

‘Are you planning to wear those shoes all day?' She couldn't help comparing her own kitten-heeled pumps with Ali's towering gladiator sandals that looked as challenging as a pair of stilts.

‘Mmm. Jury's out, but I thought I'd better look the part.
I can always take them off when the place is empty. I couldn't resist them though.'

‘Give me comfort over corns every time,' said Lou, remembering the intensity of the pain induced by the grey suede numbers that now lay abandoned in the recycling. ‘I'm thinking about giving up on heels altogether. Going flat – that's the way forward.'

‘You can't! Give up on heels and you give up on life. I won't let you.'

‘But I'll never be able to run away, never mind for a bus. And who'll push the wheelchair when they finally cripple me?' Lou laughed. ‘You remind me of Jenny, you know. She was always on at me to make the best of myself. But once I was out of the magazine, it was such a relief to be able to relax on that front.'

‘But the evidence says she was right. That dress looks a-may-zing. Have you lost weight?' Ali tilted her head and stared.

Despite her vows not to care, Lou enjoyed the compliment. ‘Sadly, no. I've squeezed myself into these bloody control knicker things that come right up to here.' She yanked the top of them back up to where it was meant to sit, just under her bust. ‘I can barely breathe and can't eat but the dress looks a billion times better.'

‘I wish I could say it doesn't, but …' She dodged Lou's hand that mimed a quick slap to one cheek then the other. ‘Right, let's do it!' Ali finished raising the security shutters, then crossed the road where she stood hands on hips, appraising what she saw and ignoring the wolf whistle from a builder on some scaffolding a couple of buildings down.
Lou gave a last check that everything was where she wanted it, then went outside to join her. The shop looked just as she had hoped it would: inviting. The signwriter had painted the fascia the same green that she'd chosen for the inside wall and the name stood out in shiny black.

‘Ladies,' came a voice. ‘This is your shop?'

‘It is,' replied Lou, turning to face a short, heavily moustached elderly man in a white overall who had just emerged from the deli a few doors down.

‘I'm your neighbour, Stefano. I've been in Italia for the last weeks. But now I congratulate you and I offer you my best espresso on the house as a well-wish.'

Lou's heart sank at the thought of more coffee, but it would be rude to refuse. At that moment, two women walking down the street stopped outside the shop window. ‘Thank you. But business calls – I hope.'

‘No problem. I bring them over.'

Lou and Ali both thanked him and crossed back into the shop where one of the women Lou thought she recognised as Stephanie Baker from
Flashion
, the definitive monthly style bible, was already scrutinising the stock, touching the vintage dresses as if she might catch something from them, despite not having removed her aubergine leather gloves. Her companion had taken out a notebook and pen from her shoulder bag.

‘Can I help you? Or give you a press release?'

‘I don't think so.' Ms Baker moved across the shop to Lou's own rail. She sniffed as she examined the cocktail dresses, saying something in an undertone to her companion who kept a careful half-step behind her as she scribbled something
down. Lou wanted to rush over and talk them through what was behind her choice of fabrics and styles but a second sense told her that these two didn't need a hard sell. They would form their own opinion without her help.

‘Did
you
make these?'

The question came just as Lou had sipped the hot coffee brought in by Stefano. She swallowed, burning the back of her throat. ‘Yes,' she whispered in momentary agony, reaching for the accompanying glass of water. ‘Yes, I did.'

With the self-satisfaction accompanying the assumption that one's revered wherever one goes, Ms Baker's face cracked into the slightest smile. ‘They're very good. Not original, of course …' Lou's bubble burst. ‘But very well made.' She looked Lou over, sizing up her dress.

‘Thank you. I'm hoping one or two of the magazines might give us a mention or even feature the dresses.' Don't sell too hard, she warned herself, wishing the woman would turn her attention to Ali.

‘They're not really our sort of thing, are they, Flora?' Flora shook her head, her eyes never leaving her mentor. ‘But I like to consider new talent for myself. Tess Granger from
Stylish
mentioned you.' She moved over to the jewellery. ‘This is impressive. I'd like to look more closely at some of these.'

Ali stepped forward to take out the pieces Ms Baker was interested in. Eventually she swept out, ultimately non-committal, Flora in tow. Lou and Ali looked at each other as they heaved a joint sigh of relief.

‘Are they all going to be like that?' Ali collapsed into the chair.

‘I bloody hope not. I'm hoping a few familiar faces will show who'll be a bit more supportive or we're in trouble.' Lou pulled a face.

At that moment, two new women looked through the door. ‘Are you open?' said one of them. ‘Can we look around?'

Ali and Lou looked at one another, then Lou turned to welcome them. ‘Of course. Come in.'

While Ali whispered, ‘Let battle commence.'

As the day drew to a close, the two women were exhausted. After a slow and not particularly promising start, things had picked up around lunchtime and since then, a steady stream of journalists or friends had visited, picking their way though the rails, examining what was on the shelves. During the last couple of hours, the post-work crowd had arrived with a thirst for champagne and a party. The prosecco was opened and poured. Press releases were taken and encouraging noises made. A couple of orders were taken for Lou's dresses and three of the vintage items were sold. Ali's jewellery received a similarly positive response. The day was everything Lou had hoped for. The shop was now formally open.

By eight o'clock, numbers were thinning as people drifted on to their next party or off home. Eventually Ali and Lou yanked down the security shutter, leaving enough space for them to creep underneath, and put the Closed sign on the door.

They shook hands. ‘After la Baker, I thought we were doomed but I think that counts as a success,' said Lou,
diving behind the counter and into the loo, only to emerge with her unevenly overstretched and under-achieving control pants in her hand. ‘Thank Christ for that! I've been dying to rip them off all day. Now I can start to enjoy myself. Nic should be here to pick me up soon.' She fished in her handbag for her ringing mobile. ‘That'll be her running late.' She checked the caller's identity. ‘It's Hooker!'

‘Don't answer it. Don't let him spoil the day.' Ali made a face as she regretted what she'd said. ‘Sorry. None of my business.' She began to swap her sandals for the trainers she'd hidden behind the counter.

‘I don't want to, but I'd better.' Lou was puzzled. ‘He hasn't called me for weeks. He wouldn't from Thailand unless there was a reason.' She put the phone to her ear. ‘Hooker?'

The line buzzed, then she could hear his voice over the crackle. ‘Lou? I need your help.'

‘What's happened?' She was immediately reminded of the numerous times he'd called to ask her to do something for him.

‘We've been mugged …'

She caught her breath, making Ali look up. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes, fine, thank God. Just a snatch-and-grab in a busy street, nothing life threatening. But I've lost my passport. I need you to go to my desk at home and dig out the photocopies I meant to bring with me, scan them and email them to me. Can you do that?'

Why didn't he ask one of the children, she wondered.
Or Sally, his doormat of a PA? Why Lou? After everything she'd said to him about being taken for granted, she was still his first port of call. But, in the circumstances, she could hardly refuse. ‘Give me your hotel email and I'll do it this evening.' She scribbled down the details and hung up. ‘Bloody man! Why didn't he scan them himself before he went? He still treats me like the little wife. When will he realise that we've all moved on?' She spoke under her breath in an angry mutter.

‘When we tell him?' Ali made it sound like a question, as she titivated her make-up in the mirror, concentrating on her careful application of Russian Red gloss before smoothing her lips together.

‘We will.' Lou put on her coat. ‘You get off home. I'll shut up shop when Nic comes.'

‘OK. Tomorrow I'll be back at the coalface, working on a few more pieces of stock – more butterflies, bees and keys – and thinking about my Mughal collection. I'll call you.' With that, she squeezed herself under the shutter and disappeared into the night.

Within minutes, Nic arrived, apologising for her lateness. ‘A colleague called me into his office to discuss a child access case and I couldn't get away. How did it go?' She began to inspect the vintage rail, touching various hangers so she could see what was there.

Lou waited for the inevitable riff on second-hand clothes. Instead, she was surprised when Nic pulled out the second Ossie Clark and held it against herself so that it obscured her dark suit.

‘This is gorgeous.' The astonishment in her voice made
Lou smile. ‘If only I wasn't about to be the size of a house, I might even …'

‘You'll never be that big. But I could save it for after the baby – a present from me.'

‘Mum, no!' She held it front of her, twisting and turning in front of the cheval mirror. ‘Actually, you know what? I think I'd prefer something new. The idea of it having hung in someone else's wardrobe gives me the creeps.' She screwed up her face at the thought and put it back, moving over to the jewellery cabinet. ‘I like these, though.' She pointed at a set of stacking rings in which Ali had contrasted smoky quartz with pale citrine and bluey indicolite. Can I try them?'

Lou unlocked the cabinet and passed the rings to Nic who slid them onto a finger and held out her hand, turning it to see the effect, obviously pleased with what she saw.

‘I wasn't expecting you to have such class stuff.' She stripped them off, swapping them for one with a toffee-orange coloured stone. ‘This is gorgeous.'

‘That's a spessartite garnet,' Lou informed her.

Nic looked surprised. ‘Get you! I didn't know you knew about jewellery.'

‘I don't,' Lou admitted. ‘But these make me want to find out. They all sound so beautiful – rubellite, tourmaline, peridot,' She picked up one with a greenish stone and held it under the light before putting it back. ‘And they are.'

Nic replaced hers in the cabinet. ‘I might take a rain check in a week or two.'

Lou basked in Nic's approval, then said, ‘We'd better go. We've got to stop off at Dad's first. I'll explain on the way.'

Pulling into the driveway, Lou shivered at the familiarity of the place as the security light came on, its glare illuminating the decorative tiling between the upper and lower bay windows. She hadn't returned here since the day she moved out, not wanting to be reminded of all the history she had left behind. Nothing seemed to have changed. The three storeys of the large semi-detached Victorian villa loomed above her, dark windows like eyes watching as she made her way to the porch on the right of the building. Nic stayed in the car while Lou slipped the key into the lock and went inside. Immediately she was struck by the smell of empty house: stale, cold and uninviting. She disabled the burglar alarm, the numbers automatically at her fingertips. Standing in the wide hall, she was overcome with nostalgia and had to fight back the memories: Jamie pushing Tom downstairs by mistake; the football that broke the hall window; Nic's little face staring down through the banisters to see guests arriving for dinner before she was packed off to bed.

To her left was the sitting room. Lou couldn't resist putting her head round the door, half expecting to find the children sprawled in front of the television, as they would have been years earlier. Flicking on the light, she saw the familiar deep brown sofa and chairs, the gingersnap Wilton, the crowded bookcases, the seascapes that Hooker and she had collected on holidays over the years against the gardenia walls. Her eyes travelled to the windows where, to her surprise, hung swags of heavy cream damask instead of her favourite floral Designers Guild curtains. She felt the change like a blow to her solar plexus, then recovered herself.
Almost. Of course Hooker was allowed to change what he liked, just not her favourite curtains! She would have taken them, if she'd known, cut them down to fit her spare-room windows. Then she noticed that the glorious light-filled painting of figures standing at the sea's edge in Dingle had been removed from pride of place over the mantelpiece and replaced by an ugly modern mirror. Whatever he liked, she repeated to herself. But that picture had been so perfect there for so long: a reminder of their many happy family holidays in Ireland when the kids were small. Hooker had bought it for her. ‘Because I love you,' he'd said all those years ago.

No, no. She stopped herself again. This was his house now and he was right to put his stamp on it. Just go to his office and ignore the rest, she told herself. Nic was waiting. She went upstairs, trailing a finger along the banister. Their bedroom was straight in front of her. She found herself standing in its doorway, her hand on the switch. Light flooded the room, showing the neatly made bed that had been turned side-on to the window. She was saddened, remembering how the view of her garden from the bed had been one of her favourite things about the room. On the bedside table, she noticed a Jackie Collins novel, not hers and not Hooker's. On the blanket chest, newly positioned at the end of the bed, was a red lacy bra. Not hers and certainly not Hooker's. Bile rose in her throat as she made a dash for the bathroom. She retched into the toilet, then put the lid down and sat on it, gathering her swirling thoughts. What had she expected? That Hooker would embrace a monastic existence once she'd gone? Stupid even
to think it, given what she now knew. As she took a few steadying breaths, she looked around her, noting the fluorescent pink toothbrush in the holder beside Hooker's, a pot of vanilla and anise body cream. On an impulse, she picked up the cream and stuffed it into the bathroom cabinet, snapping shut the door. Imagining another woman was one thing, being presented with the hard evidence in what had been Lou's home for so long was a violation.

She made her way into Hooker's office. Nothing had changed here: blind pulled down, labelled box files regimented on wide shelves, legal textbooks on others – not one at an angle, pictures straight, desktop clear, leather executive chair half turned towards the door as if he'd just got out of it. Anxious to get away from the house as quickly as possible, she went straight to the desk and concentrated on what she had come for. The top drawer contained nothing but elastic bands, paper clips, propelling pencil leads and a few chewed Bics. The one below contained various papers. She pulled them out and leafed through what was there. Halfway down the pile, she could hardly miss the words ‘WILL OF IAN JAMES SHERWOOD' printed large on the front sheet of some stapled pages.

Years ago, they had spent hours with the lawyer drawing up their wills, entertaining themselves for months afterwards over their letters of wishes as, whenever someone annoyed them, they joked about how they would gift them something wholly undesirable. They'd enjoyed imagining the look on their relatives' faces when they found themselves empty-handed, or gifted something no one in their right mind would want. Unable to stop herself, she turned to the
letter at the back, to remind herself how his had been left. As she did so, she registered the date on the will. This wasn't the one he had drawn up at the same time as her. This was 25 September 2006. He had revised this five years ago, without mentioning to her that's what he was doing, or suggesting she do the same. She flicked back to the front of the will. 25 September 2006. But why would he have made a new will? It didn't make sense.

Lou had long ago been taught not to read other people's private papers. She once got stuck into her best friend's diary, to find that Emma's tortured thoughts about her, and their other friends, did not make edifying reading. That was the end of what until then had been a solid friendship. Postcards were private too. But if they were left lying around, how could one be blamed for reading them? Same goes for your husband's will, she reasoned. That it hadn't exactly been left lying around was neither here nor there. She needed to know what Hooker had been up to behind her back. For the children's sake, as well as for her own.

She skipped over the legalese until she got to the part she was looking for. She read it once, twice, put the papers down, picked them up and read them again. Her hand was shaking, her mouth dry. There was no doubt. She had not misunderstood. Hooker had changed his will. Instead of leaving his entire estate to her should he die first, as before, he had willed her the house, leaving his other assets to be divided immediately between his children. His four children.

She shook her head as if the number four would transform by some miracle into a three. The names of her
children were there: James, Nicola and Thomas Sherwood but followed by another: Rory Sherwood Burgess. A name completely unknown to her. There must be a mistake. But this was Hooker's will. What was there, in black and white, had to be true. This boy must exist.

She collapsed, winded, into the chair. It rocked backwards with her weight. Hooker had another child somewhere? A child she knew nothing about? Her initial shock gave way to fury as the implications of her discovery piled in on her. How old was this boy? Who was his mother? What did they look like? Would he look like Tom or Jamie? Where did they live? What was Hooker's relationship with them? Did the boy know Hooker? As she waited for her head to stop spinning, the car horn sounding outside brought her back to the moment, to the reason why she was here. His passport. Sod him. She was tempted to let him stew in Thailand. But he was no good to her there. If he was back in the country, she could at least confront him and get answers to her questions. So she replaced the papers in the drawer and banged it shut. Then she let out a sob. Don't, she reprimanded herself. Stop that, now. She reapplied herself to the drawers and opened the one below. In a file marked ‘Travel Documents' were the photocopied pages of his passport. Instead of switching on his scanner and computer and sending them immediately as she'd originally planned, she folded them and tucked them into her bag.

Enough surprises for one night. She didn't want to think what more she might find on his computer. In the six months since she'd left him, she'd already discovered that he had been leading a second life, quite separate from the
one they'd had together. But now there was this. The odd short-lived affair, she had suspected, but not one that had lasted for three years and certainly not the existence of a child from another. His deceit staggered her.

How old was this child? How old?

She switched off the lights, reset the alarm and slammed the front door, before double-locking it. That, at least, made her feel a little better. Nic's startled face was visible through the windscreen of the car.