Women of a Dangerous Age (29 page)

Call me, please

She pressed the Delete button without a thought.

She hardly noticed her journey to the studio. Don had made good his words of all those years ago, and had come back. Susie was part of his past. As importantly, they had settled on a modus vivendi that would suit them both – for the time being at least. Perhaps one day she would feel
differently but not having that pressure to change was the best gift he could have given her.

As soon as she walked into the studio, Rick looked, not very subtly, at his watch. ‘What kept you? You're never usually late. I've got to get off in a minute.'

‘Relax. We won't take long. Call her to say you'll be half an hour late, that it's your business partner's fault.' Ali wasn't going to let anything spoil her mood.

‘How do you know it's a her?' He took a tray from the bench and brought it to the table.

‘I know you!' She took off her jacket and hung it on the back of the door before joining him on the sofa. Since Rick had paid off his debt to her (she hadn't asked how he'd found the money), the awkwardness between them had vanished and their friendship was back on track. And now, Ali was delighted if her connection with Lou could mean a break for him too. She picked up one of three open-ended bangles loosely modelled on the outer petals of an iris and turned it in her hand. She slipped the bracelet over her hand and twisted her arm to examine it from different angles. ‘Rick, this is wonderful.'

He looked pleased. ‘I'm glad you like them. That means a lot. I had to experiment a bit but I think I've got it now.' He stared at her. ‘Has something happened? You've been grinning like a lunatic ever since you came in.'

She picked up one of his sweet-pea earrings between her thumb and forefinger and held it so it hung against the black velvet pad they kept for display. Again, he'd managed to catch the fragility of the flower through the undulating silver. ‘I'm sure these will sell.'

‘Hope so, I could do with a change in fortune. So … Are you going to tell me or not?'

Unable to keep her own good fortune to herself for another minute, as she examined the rest of his work, Ali began to tell him everything.

At the sound of the door opening, Lou looked up from her work table, pleased to have an excuse to stop working on the set of accounts that lay in front of her. On the other side of the counter, the shop was exactly as she'd once imagined it with her own designs complementing the mint-condition vintage stock. Her careful selection was paying off. She had built up the accessories, modern and retro, until the shelves were crowded with hats, bags and belts competing for space. The only line was drawn at shoes and underwear. Vintage shoes always looked like cast-offs, however unworn they were – it was one thing on which she agreed with Nic – and were invariably bloody uncomfortable. As for underwear? No need for a justification there. The business had started to tick, albeit slowly, and her reputation for custom-made clothes was beginning to spread. At this early stage, she could ask for little more. The day so far had been spent sorting out her accounts, one of the least appealing chores that underpinned all the stuff she did enjoy: buying, designing, making, selling. From now on, she vowed, she would be more organised and would
fill in her accountant's spreadsheet as she spent and sold. Anything to avoid this disorienting chaos of numbers. She put down her pencil as Ali crossed the shop, lifting the flap of her satchel.

‘What's happened?' It was impossible not to notice the transformation from the last time they had met. All signs of Ali's previous anger and disappointment had vanished.

‘Why?' Ali was pulling something out of her bag, un tangling it from her white earphones cable.

‘You're glowing. I take it you saw off Susie then?' Lou had been imagining the confrontation between the two women and what she would say should Ali emerge the loser. Hard though she found that to imagine.

Finally, with a flourish, Ali produced a jewellery roll and closed her bag, dumping it on the floor. ‘You know what? All that fuss was a complete waste of time. When I arrived, she was already at the airport on her way back to Melbourne. And, when the divorce comes through, which it will …' She paused for maximum effect. ‘… we're getting married!' She looked up, beaming, giving Lou time to rehinge her jaw and come out from the back of the shop to hug her.

Lou remembered their other Don-centred conversation. ‘So when does the house-training start?' she ventured cautiously, wanting Ali's happiness to be complete.

Ali looked as if she was about to explode with pleasure. ‘No need. Not yet anyway. We're going to keep our own places. I did what you said and told him how I felt and that's what he suggested.'

If anyone ever admitted to having followed her advice, Lou was always fearful. She didn't want the responsibility
of someone else's decisions. Being in charge of her own was quite enough. That was the downside of having an opinion. Why didn't she just keep her mouth shut and her views to herself? She watched Ali untie the jewellery roll and unfurl it on the counter.

‘And you're confident that'll work?' she said, trying not to sound too doubtful.

‘Completely.'

She'd never heard Ali sound so sure.

‘He's going to move nearer me. In fact, the caretaker told me that one of the flats in my building's coming up. How spookily serendipitous would that be? It's going to be a thoroughly modern marriage. An apartment each. None of that old-fashioned stuff. Now take a look at these. I told you he'd do a good job.' Ali had started taking out several plastic packets and then arranged Rick's jewellery on the counter.

Lou picked up a small hand mirror and held an ivy-leaf-shaped earring to her ear, the tiny white price tag dangling by her hand. She looked at it. ‘Mmm. Pretty reasonable. These'll gallop out of here. Look at this bangle. It's beautiful.' She slid on the unfolded circle of silver, the light dancing off the hammer marks. ‘The word-of-mouth on your jewellery is definitely spreading, you know.'

‘That interview in
City Life
must have helped a bit, too. The photos anyway. As well as those recommendations in
Stylish
and
Chic to Chic
.' Ali took the key to the jewellery cabinet and began to rearrange her own pieces to make space for Rick's. ‘Mix them up – gold and silver on the same shelf – do you think?'

‘Whatever you like.' Lou was happy for Ali to display their work the way she thought best. In the past couple of weeks, several customers had come hunting out Ali's jewellery. Sometimes, they dickered over price, but she had made three sales – not a bad hit rate at all. There was no doubt their arrangement was beginning to pay off.

‘What I'd like is …'

Lou froze, aware from Ali's pause that she was about to broach something she thought was a sensitive subject.

‘… to know how you're getting on with Sanjeev. You've been very quiet about him lately. Your starter for ten.' Said casually but Lou noticed how she concentrated her attention a little too exaggeratedly on the task in hand as she waited for Lou's reply.

‘I'm seeing him tonight,' she said, preparing herself for Ali's reaction. ‘Happy?'

‘More than,' said Ali, this time looking up, her eyes alight. ‘What are you doing?'

‘I think he's got tickets for a concert. Not really my thing, but still.' Lou turned to straighten up the two piles of advertising postcards.

‘Shame. I was going to suggest we all met up.'

‘Really?' Things between Don and Ali must really have changed for Ali to suggest a foursome. But however curious she was to meet Don, Lou wasn't ready to introduce Sanjeev into the mix. She didn't want him to be a given in her life, to have the official sanction of her friends. More exciting was having him to herself, being in a relationship that didn't impinge on the rest of her life. As long as he was happy with the arrangement too, she had no plans for changing
it. She was beginning to understand the value of keeping one's private life to one's self.

Still irked by her last conversation with Hooker, she had since thought a lot about what he had said: ‘I need you, Lou. Just like you need me.' His continued attempts to undermine her decision to leave him had finally succeeded in unsettling her. ‘Don't say anything now. I'll wait until you're ready.' Since they'd last spoken she had envisaged them being grandparents together, helping with Nic's baby and even sharing the care of Rory on his visits to London. ‘Together' being the operative word. In some ways he was right, they had been a good team. Once. Long ago. Perhaps they could be again. Was she being unreasonable? Selfish? However, then she had reminded herself how conveniently selective his memory was. For the argument against, she weighed up everything she had worked so hard to achieve: her shop; her independence; her house; her visibility. Being a loving and involved grandmother did not mean she had to give them up. She and Hooker did not have to be a unit for her to achieve that. Eventually light had dawned. What Hooker really wanted was not her so much as Nic, his precious only daughter, who still refused to speak to him, taking the side of her wronged mother. He might not have realised that at a conscious level, but Lou understood him. Her returning home would make his life easier, true, but in fact she was only a means to an end. She was ready to say something, at last.

Ali had finished her arrangement and locked the case before standing back to assess the display. ‘What do you think?'

‘Actually, you're going to think this is a bit … but I was thinking about Hooker,' Lou confessed, only half hearing the question. ‘He's been badgering me about getting back together. The answer's no, of course.'

‘But you did stop to consider it? Lou, no!' Ali was shocked.

‘I'm worried about Nic and her baby. I'm worried about her not speaking to her father. So yes, I did wonder whether giving her back some sort of family stability would help her. Help them.'

‘Lou, she's twenty-six, not twelve,' objected Ali. ‘And anyway, that's no grounds for a reunion.'

‘Of course I know that. Though sometimes it's hard to accept that your children have grown up and don't need you in the same way any more. But in the end, even though I was dithering, I admit it … Hooker made the decision for me. He told me that he'd asked Emma to move out – proof of how serious he was about wanting the two of us to get back together. A bit of me even fell for it. But then Tom told me that he went to the house to pick something up and found her packing. The truth was that she had dumped Hooker, having fallen head-over-heels for a guy her own age. Hooker simply couldn't admit it to himself, and lied to save face and to convince me.' This new piece of information had come when she needed it, confirming to her that the Hooker she knew was never going to change. She had doubted the wisdom of her actions for the last time. ‘Maybe he's worried about being alone, but he only has himself to blame. I can't let that be my problem.'

‘I'm sure he won't be alone for long,' said Ali wryly. ‘Have you told him?'

‘Not yet. Waiting won't do him any harm.' Lou took a couple of dresses from the changing rooms and replaced them on the rail. ‘No harm at all.'

 

Brahms' 2nd symphony was not the sort of music Lou would have chosen for herself. She was a self-confessed unreconstructed shlock chick. Cheesy pop and songs from the shows were more her thing but there was no way she'd admit her secret shame to Sanjeev. So far this evening, she hadn't had a chance to admit much thanks to her late arrival at his hotel. Not late because she'd been so busy at the shop but because she'd had a major wardrobe crisis. Her thoughts drifting with the music, she pictured her bedroom as she had left it, shrouded in clothes, all of them tried and discarded. Nothing had seemed quite the thing for the evening ahead. She wanted to wow him without embarrassing him, look edgy without looking as if she'd tried too hard. But the task she'd set herself was impossible. In the end, time had dictated her decision by simply running out. If she hadn't left at that minute, she would have been not just late, but unforgivably late. So she had arrived wearing a deep raspberry jacket that, with the right outfit, looked pretty damn sharp. However, that evening, teamed with a peacock blue skirt, the look she'd put together in her panic was a disaster.

Sanjeev had seemed not to notice. If anything he appeared preoccupied, not keen to communicate. He showed no signs of wanting to share whatever was bothering him and as
they rushed to the Festival Hall, it seemed the wrong moment to ask.

She shifted in her seat, glancing sideways at her companion. His head was tilted back, eyes half shut, lips slightly moving as if he was following the music. In his lap, the fingers of one hand spelled out the rhythm on the other, but so surreptitiously that the movement was hardly visible. His silver bracelet had slipped down his wrist. His hair was brushed back from his forehead, intermittent white hairs showing through above his ears. His skin was smooth, hardly touched by time. She studied his profile. A distinguished-looking man, she thought, before turning away, closing her own eyes. But instead of losing herself in the music, joining him there, she found she just couldn't let go.

Her mind kept returning to Hooker as she once again pushed herself to come to terms with the man he had turned out to be. She wasn't angry with him any longer. If anything, she was bemused, marvelling at the way they both had grown apart and changed without the other noticing. How little either of them seemed to know or understand each other now. They'd been so happy in the early years when she was still sure that, despite not being one of the last great romantics, he had felt the same way. Her memories returned, faded around the edges like old colour photos: the time they'd walked the Kerry Way from Killarney to Kenmare, and came on a red deer in the mist; the Tuscan farmhouse where they spent the first night of their honeymoon; moving into the small terraced house in Highbury; the birth of Jamie, their first precious child; and many more.
But then those early years together gave way to a blur of bringing up children and holding down jobs, succeeding not failing.

The demands of family life and their separate professions had ground away at them. She saw that now. Unlike other couples, they hadn't been enough for each other in the end. An old age staring across the fireplace at each other or fighting over the TV remote was not for them. They had been so busy keeping their heads above water, grabbing at whatever kept them afloat, that they had forgotten to put out a hand to help the other. She didn't blame Hooker for that. She had played her part in their game, obsessed as she had been with her work at
Chic to Chic
, then resentful at having to stay at home with the teenage children, however much she loved them. No wonder Hooker had looked for distraction elsewhere. All
that
she could accept, indeed had accepted. Her astonishment came from the fact that, after all they had recently been through, he was still lying to her. How little he must think of her now. Or how desperate he must be.

As the music drew to a close, Sanjeev emerged from his trance and gently touched her arm. They exchanged smiles. When the applause died down and the orchestra had left the stage, she followed him up the stairs of the auditorium to the exit. When they reached the street, he flagged down a cab, stood back while she climbed in, then clambered in beside her. To her surprise, he gave the cabbie the name of his hotel.

‘No curry?' So far, their dates had always included a curry house where they had eaten well and he had continued to
entertain her with his stories of home. Afterwards they would go to her place, she enchanted and wanting more, he as charming and loving as she could want.

‘Not tonight. There's something I need to say to you and I thought we could eat at my hotel or order room service. If you don't think that's too presumptuous of me. It's just that it's more private.' He tilted his head like a bird, eyebrow arched, asking for her approval.