Never Too Late (15 page)

was around, which wasn’t very often, until she hit him over

the head with a skillet and he left.’

You could have fitted an entire honeydew melon into

the gaping hole that was Stephen’s mouth, Olivia thought

with amusement.

‘That’s amazing,’ she said, while her husband recovered

his composure. ‘Your mother sounds like a formidable

woman.’

‘You betcha.’ Vida stood up, a twinkle in her eye. ‘You

and I must have a cup of coffee some day, Olivia. Maybe

you’ll be able to persuade Evie to come along too.

She grimaced. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘We’d better go.’ Stephen announced, finishing his wine

rapidly. ‘Everyone else seems to have and we don’t want to

overstay our welcome. Thanks for everything, Vida. We

must say goodbye to Andrew.’

He shook her hand quickly and bustled Olivia into the

hall to collect their coats.

Olivia grinned to herself. She liked Vida, she decided.

Liked the way she’d taken on Stephen, gently but firmly,

and yet never appeared to imply that Olivia was somehow a doormat because she let him get away with his chauvinistic attitudes.

Instead, Vida had teased him and showed him that while

some women fitted into his vision of life, many didn’t.

Olivia would have loved to be able to talk to Stephen

like that: standing her ground firmly. Hell, she’d have

loved to be able to talk to him at all, to tell him that

teaching was driving her mad and that one unruly class

had undermined her so much her self-confidence was

shot. But if she said she couldn’t cope with teaching,

something she’d done for years, Stephen would be sure to

say she was obviously unfit to work full stop. There’d be

no point saying she could teach younger children or

maybe at night classes.

She kissed Andrew and Rosie goodbye and they left,

trudging through the rain towards the Lodge. Glancing at

her husband’s set profile as he marched alongside her, she

almost regretted getting involved in the conversation with

Vida.

But she was entitled to her own opinions, Olivia

decided. She’d humour him out of his bad mood. Someone

like Vida wouldn’t bother humouring him. She’d let him

stew for a few hours and get over it. Olivia, however, liked

a quiet life. Humouring Stephen was one of her most

finely honed skills these days.

‘Vida,’ said Rosie, standing at the kitchen door with a glass

of orange juice heavily diluted with vodka, ‘was your

mother really a washerwoman and was your father an

alcoholic?’

The older woman tidied away the remnants of the party

nibbles from the dining-room table.

‘Goodness, no, dear,’ she said briskly. ‘I just needed to

take the wind out of that particular gentleman’s sails.’

She grinned at Rosie. A conspiratorial grin.

Rosie, who loathed Stephen with a vengeance, grinned

back. ‘Welcome to the family, Vida!’

The dogs, who were worn out from begging for party

food all evening and had retreated to their baskets to sleep

off an excess of sausage rolls, started barking manically in

the kitchen.

‘Olivia or Stephen must have forgotten something,’ Vida

said.

‘Yeah, like his sense of humour,’ added Rosie. She ran to

the front door and wrenched it open.

Cara stood in the doorway, rain streaming down her face

and dripping on to the floor as she fumbled for a door key.

Her hair was plastered to her head and her coat looked like

she’d been swimming in it.

‘Hi, Rosie,’ she said, wearily unhooking her rucksack

with frozen fingers. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she added as her father

appeared to greet her. ‘Bloody bus broke down and we all

had to sit for an hour and a half until they got a new one.

Mind you, it’s so wet I could have swum here faster.’ She

grinned. ‘What have I missed?’

Dried off, wearing fresh clothes and with her hair frizzing

in a halo of curls around her head after a speedy blast of

the hairdryer, Cara sat at the kitchen table and wolfed

down a plate of reheated party food. The dogs flanked her,

drooling every time she raised a succulent bit of sausage

roll to her mouth.

Evie, who’d only emerged from her bedroom ten minutes

previously when she’d made sure Vida had gone home for the night, sat at the far end of the table and toyed with a cup of lemon tea. They were alone. Rosie had retreated

into the sitting room to watch the TV and smoke a

forbidden cigarette out the window, while Andrew Fraser

had gone next door to return two silver platters he’d

borrowed.

‘I don’t see what’s wrong with her,’ protested Cara, who’d

met her future stepmother briefly. Granted, ten minutes

with Vida who’d said, ‘I’d better go home and let Evie come

downstairs,’ wasn’t the basis for an in-depth character analysis.

But Cara had seen the way her father’s eyes lit up when

he looked at his fiancee and she was happy for him.

Just because her own lovelife was about as successful as

man’s attempts to reach Pluto didn’t mean she wanted

everyone else to suffer romantically. She had a totally

different view of her father’s future from her older sister.

Cara had lived with Andrew for longer as a widower than

as a happily married man so she’d seen him enjoy flirting

with his neighbours, seen him look a little wistfully at

couples. Evie would have snapped at any woman who’d

dared to look crossways at her beloved dad.

They also had very different views about mothers. Cara

had daydreamed about a real mother when she was

younger: for Evie, there’d only ever be one mother and she

was dead. Nothing and no one could replace her, Cara

knew that. But Vida wasn’t a replacement - she was a new

partner for their father, someone to love him and care for

him when they weren’t there.

She attempted to say some of this.

‘Vida seems lovely and they’re great together. He’s been

on his own for so long, he deserves some happiness.’

Evie shot her a look that’d curdle milk.

‘Jeez, I hope the wind doesn’t change and you get stuck

like that,’ muttered Cara, eyeing her sister’s sour face.

‘You just don’t see, do you?’ hissed Evie.

‘See what?’

‘See that she’s after Dad because he’s lonely and doesn’t

understand what sort of woman she is! She’ll clean him

out in a wet week and what’ll he be left with then?

Nothing!’

Cara groaned as she speared a bit of mini-brioche. ‘Be

reasonable, Evie. What’s she going to clean him out of?

The family fortune? The heirlooms? Last time I looked, the

cottage wasn’t exactly bulging with the sort of bits and

pieces that’d make an antique dealer gibber with excitement,

unless the hall table is secretly Louis Quatorze

instead of mail-order self-assembly.’

‘It’s not just that …’ Evie looked around blindly, still

hurting terribly and astonished that Cara couldn’t see

things the way she did: that Vida Andersen was a money

grabbing professional widow who’d break their father’s

fragile heart and … and … change things. Change things

forever. Cara was so bloody gullible she had no idea what

was going to happen. Did she not care?

‘Evie,’ Cara said gently, knowing exactly how left out her

sister was feeling at the thought of being supplanted in

their father’s affections. Old beyond her years in every

other aspect of her life, Evie was still like a six-year-old

Daddy’s girl when it came to Andrew. ‘Dad is entitled to a

companion, someone to spend the rest of his life with. I

know it’s difficult to think of anyone taking Mum’s

place …’

‘It’s different for me,’ cried Evie in anguish.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Cara, pushing her half

finished food away.

‘You don’t remember her the way I do.’

‘What do you know about what I remember?’

demanded Cara. ‘You never even talk to me anymore, so

what do you know about how I feel?’

‘I know you can’t remember very much about when she

died because you were only six; I was sixteen. I remember

how much Dad cried when she died, I remember that!’

Cara gazed at her sister’s flushed face and took a deep

breath. She wasn’t going to lose her temper. She’d vowed

to sort out all the friction between them over the next few

days. She couldn’t ruin it all with one massive row. ‘Mum’s

dead,’ she said gently. ‘Dad marrying again doesn’t mean

he doesn’t remember her or miss her. It’s a new beginning

for him. You’re marrying Simon, for God’s sake. Can’t you

be happy for Dad?’

‘You’re so naive,’ Evie said hotly. ‘That’s always been

your problem. You let people walk all over you, Cara. You

do it in work or you’d have been promoted by now. I’ve no

control over your life but I won’t let Dad get walked all

over by that bitch!’

Cara gaped at her, shocked. ‘I don’t let people walk all

over me!’ she stuttered.

‘Yes, you do,’ fired back Evie heatedly, not even thinking

what she was saying because she was so hysterical. ‘I’ve

told you a hundred times to demand a raise so you can

afford more than that ice box of a flat you and Phoebe live

in, but you don’t pay any attention.’

‘It’s none of your business what I get paid,’ roared Cara,

finally getting angry.

‘It is because I’m your sister!’ roared back Evie.

‘Yeah, my sister, not my bloody mother!’ shrieked Cara.

‘And don’t you forget it. You think you can boss us all

around, even Dad. Well, you can’t. Keep your stuck up

little nose out of my affairs!’

‘Somebody has to stick their nose into your affairs

because you can’t handle them very well, can you?’

Evie was scarlet in the face now, her eyes feverish. She

barely knew what she was saying. She knew she’d said far

too many awful things but shock meant she couldn’t stop.

It was all too much for Cara. The misery of the past few

days, her awful hangover, and the damned bus breaking

down all caught up with her. She finally snapped.

‘You don’t know anything about me or my life because I

don’t tell you anything and you don’t ask,’ she said, her

voice icily calm. ‘I’m closer to the bus driver on the 16A

than I am to my own sister because I can’t handle your

petty small-mindedness, your conviction that you know

everything and your jealousy.’

‘Jealousy?’ screamed Evie, too stunned to care how

much noise she made. ‘What jealousy? What have I got to

be jealous of you for?’

‘Because I’m not some uptight cow who’s got a pole up

her backside and always thinks she’s right. And,’ Cara said

vehemently, ‘who’s marrying a bloke equally as bloody

boring and rigid just because he asked her! I can tell you

something - if you’re not going to Dad’s wedding, I’m not

going to put on a brave face of it when you marry pofaced

bloody Simon.’

With that, Cara threw her fork on to the table where it

hit her plate with a resounding clatter that roused both

dogs. She stomped out of the kitchen and pounded noisily

up the stairs, the way she had when she was a child and

Evie had given out to her for something.

Evie ran a hand faintly over her forehead, feeling the

beginnings of a terrible headache. What had she said?

Terrible, terrible things. Cara would never forgive her.

Whatever had happened to them? They’d been so close

once. What had turned them into strangers, people who

found it easier to hurt each other than to comfort? What

had made Cara so bitter, so angry? Wearily, she sank her

feverish head on to the cool of the old wooden table and

wished Christmas would disappear in a puff of smoke.

She’d meant to sort things out, to tell Cara she loved her

and that she wanted the best things in life for her. Now

she’d screwed it all up because she’d got the shock of her life. If only her father had told her, if only she’d been prepared. She’d still have been hurt but at least she’d have

been able to hide it.

It wasn’t his fault, though. Evie knew who’d really

messed up Christmas for them all. Vida. horrible Vida.

CHAPTER FIVE

Evie flicked on the lights in the office reception area with

a sigh. Another year. Another January. More snow. Shaking

wet flakes off her coat, she walked past the drooping

Christmas tree and past the scattering of pine needles that

littered the carpet.

Davis Wentworth had this fixation about real Christmas

trees and always insisted the company reception area had

one. Only because he didn’t have to placate Marj, the

cleaner, who spent hours trying to pick out the pine

needles that had knitted themselves into the hard-wearing

nylon carpet, Evie thought as she unlocked the door to the

stairs. Poor Marj would go mad when she saw the state of

the floor. Not to mention how cross she’d get when she

saw the amount of fake snow plastered on the plate-glass

doors between floors as a result of Kev in Sales getting

drunk at lunch on the last day and going berserk drawing