What She Wants (83 page)

‘Did you think I was a prude because I was a virgin?’ she asked Darius suddenly.

‘Nobody who knows you would ever call you a prude,’ he said. ‘I admire you, Nicole. You’re the sort of person who knows what she wants and doesn’t want to settle for anything else.’

Nicole smiled a cat-like little smile. ‘That’s it exactly,’ she said.

Eventually, thirst made them get up and head for the fridge and suddenly, the now cold lunch smelt tempting.

‘Could we heat it up, do you think?’ Nicole said, standing stark naked in the kitchen and looking curiously into the take away bag.

‘Cold would be nice,’ Darius said.

So they sat on the sitting room floor with their lunch spread out in front of them and drank vast gulps of icy lemonade.

‘Have a piece of lemongrass chicken,’ Darius said, leaning over and placing a dripping yellow sliver of food onto Nicole’s thigh. Nicole laughed delightedly as he knelt and gobbled it up from her thigh, licking her skin languorously to get rid of all traces.

‘Would you like some of my stir fried mushrooms?’ Nicole asked, leaving a trail on his chest. ‘Lie back there, how else can I lick it off?’

Suddenly they were licking bits of food off each other and the exhaustion had mysteriously vanished.

‘How about we wash up and go to bed?’ Nicole suggested.

Darius grinned. ‘The way we’re going, we’re going to christen every room in the flat, so the bathroom is next.’

In the bathroom, Nicole lovingly sponged the lemon chicken from Darius and then said, ‘It’s no good. We need a shower.’

‘Ooh!’ she cried in astonishment as Darius swept her easily up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

‘I’ll lick you clean,’ he promised, holding her over the bed as though he was going to drop her. ‘I thought we might try a traditional venue this time.’

‘I bought those sheets specially,’ Nicole said, looking at the still-virginal whiteness.

‘We can’t waste the sheets,’ he laughed, then rolled them both onto the bed in one giggly heap, legs and arms tangled. ‘Mmm,’ he added, licking his way up Nicole’s thigh, ‘this is definitely That to die for. Yum yum … or Tom Yum for spicy lemon grass soup.’

‘Bad pun alert,’ groaned Nicole. ‘If I didn’t love you, I’d have to throw you out for making remarks like that.’

Darius stopped licking. ‘Do you mean that?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Do I love you?’ Nicole repeated. She stroked his cheek. ‘Yes. Do you love me?’

‘Oh God, Nicole, so much!’ he said, burying his face in her shoulder and hugging her tightly.

‘Good,’ she said and exhaled slowly. They lay there together, wrapped in each other’s arms. This was perfect, Nicole thought. Just perfect. She had everything she ever wanted.

By the time the weary party of travellers clambered into a people-carrier at Kerry’s airport at six that evening, they were all exhausted. Reenie and Sandra weren’t talking to each other after a tiff about the suitability of the pink chiffon dress Sandra had worn for travelling, and Pammy had lost the Barbie she liked best out of the four she’d brought in her hand luggage.

While Sandra and Reenie sulked with each other, Sam was left looking after Pammy, and began to appreciate why Nicole was so mature. If she had to referee fights between the other volatile pair all the time, and take care of her little sister during the ensuing sulking session, no wonder she was the oldest twenty-three-year-old Sam had ever met. ‘Is Barbie sad because she’s lost?’ said Pammy, lower lip quivering, as she sat on Sam’s lap. She really was the most beautiful little girl, Sam thought, with those crystal clear blue eyes and shimmering blonde hair. The record company executive in Sam idly wondered if she’d have a voice like her sister’s in fifteen years’ time. If so, she’d give any star out there a run for their money. ‘Barbies have a special Barbie island they go to,’ Sam explained gravely. ‘It has all the ponies they like, and the Barbie hair salon and a place for Barbie to go swimming. Sometimes Barbies need a holiday, but don’t worry, we’ll get a new replacement Barbie for you.’ ‘Oh,’ said Pammy, fascinated. ‘Is there a story about the Barbie place?’ ‘Well, there might be,’ Sam said. ‘Would you like a story?’ Pammy nodded. Even the driver of the people-carrier listened as Sam wove a story about Barbieland for Pammy. Sandra and Reenie stopped sulking and smiled, slowly forgetting their row as they drove through the gloriously verdant countryside, still lit by the golden evening sun. Finally, they came to Redlion. ‘I didn’t think it was going to be so pretty,’ said Sandra as the people-carrier drove down a gently curving street where pastel-painted houses and shops shone red gold in the dusk. Reenie and Sandra stared at the window boxes and hanging baskets overflowing with riotous summer flowers; they looked at the people sitting at the wooden trestle tables outside the Widow Maguire’s pub, laughing and joking as Christy Moore’s mellifluous voice drifted out from inside the bar.

‘I wouldn’t have recognized the place,’ Reenie said finally. ‘It was poor, a little old town in the middle of nowhere when I left and now it’s … it’s lovely and prosperous.’ Her eyes were wet as her gaze roamed over the elegance of the carefully restored premises on the main street. The Victorian courthouse that had been half falling down in her day was now a restaurant with stars outside it; the battered post office had been done up and was now a refined looking estate agent’s with no less than two posh sports cars parked outside it and a well-dressed woman in a suit closing up, talking on her mobile phone as she locked the door. The old cottages by the bridge were unrecognizable. When Reenie had been young, the row had been rundown and disreputable, a place where slates regularly fell off the roofs when you walked past, a place where the worst drunk in the village lived in state, screaming and roaring until the wee small hours. Now, the cottages were charming little homes, with window boxes, carefully painted doors and windows, and fine cars parked outside. ‘That’s Mary-Kate’s place,’ said Sam, pointing out the well-appointed chemist shop with its stylish Lancome display in the window. ‘You’re going to love her, girls. She’s great fun. And we’ll have to have a night in the Widow’s, if we can get a seat with all the tourists here. Apparently, since Belle Maguire got this delectable young Californian barman, the place is totally jammed at night. Half of the tour bus guides are women and they keep dragging their busloads here for dinner, just so they can ogle Elliot.’ ‘Put Sandra down for a night of ogling,’ remarked Reenie. Sam gulped at the thought of hostilities resuming but Sandra just giggled and stuck her tongue out at her mother. ‘I don’t ogle young men,’ she said happily, ‘only ones my own age.’ ‘Well, put me down for a session ogling Elliot, then,’ Reenie shot back, going off into peals of laughter. ‘There’s life in the old dear yet.’ Sam raised her eyes to heaven. She’d never understand

the pair of them. Maybe that was how mothers and daughters got on. Who knew?

They drove to the hotel and Reenie went off into fresh sighs of astonishment about how such a place would never have been able to make a living in her day. The hotel was nice, Sam thought approvingly, as a liveried doorman helped them in with their luggage. She just hoped she got to make the acquaintance of one Mr Christy De Lacy. He would not enjoy the encounter, she thought grimly.

‘Is Mr De Lacy around tonight?’ she inquired idly as they checked in.

The receptionist squirmed. ‘Er … no, not tonight,’ she said, clearly uncomfortable. ‘He is indisposed.’

Sam did her best to look nonchalant but vowed to get to the bottom of it. There was a story there, to be sure. Hopefully, one which involved pain and ignominy for Christy.

She dumped her bags in her room, went to see that the others were fine, then left to drop in on Hope. On the phone the day before, she had thoughtlessly suggested dinner at the hotel but Hope had pointed out that she’d die of hunger rather than eat there.

‘Sorry,’ Sam had winced. ‘The Widows then?’

‘I’ll round up the troops,’ Hope said, feeling brighter than she had all week. She missed Toby and Millie so much that it physically hurt.

The sisters were late getting to the Widow’s. They’d both cried when they met, Sam at the sight of her beloved sister’s gently rounded belly. ‘Oh Hope, love, you have to tell Matt. He loves you, this will all blow over. You’ve got to sort it out for the sake of the baby.’

‘You can’t glue a marriage together with a baby,’ said Hope, wiping away the tears. ‘Band-Aid babies don’t work. It’s not fair on the baby or the parents.’

‘I give up,’ said Sam. ‘C’mon. The poor driver thinks he’ll never get home for his dinner.’

‘Send him home now,’ Hope said. ‘I’ll drive. That’ll give

me an excuse for the rest of them as to why I won’t have a drink.’ ‘As if they don’t know you’re pregnant,’ Sam said wryly. ‘They don’t,’ insisted Hope. ‘I’m very careful what I wear.’ Sam gave up. ‘And you say I’m stubborn?’ ‘Sam, you made it!’ squealed Delphine at the top of her voice when Hope and Sam finally made it to the pub. Virginia, Mary-Kate, Delphine, Giselle and Mai had annexed a big table near the bar - ‘and near Elliot,’ Hope whispered. ‘Is this your hen night?’ demanded Sam when everyone had been hugged and kissed. ‘Yes,’ sighed Delphine. ‘I can’t wait till Saturday.’ ‘Only a day and a half to wait,’ said Mai, brandishing a bottle of champagne sent over by Belle. ‘Can Elliot pour it?’ said Mary-Kate, batting nonexistent eyelashes. ‘Trollop,’ squealed Delphine, with several cocktails under her belt. ‘It’s my hen night. I get to behave like a mad woman with any attractive available men.’ ‘You’re both out of luck, I’m afraid,’ Virginia pointed out. ‘Since Sam came in, Elliot hasn’t been able to take his eyes off her. His eyes are out on stalks looking at her.’ ‘Stop taking the mickey,’ said Sam, embarrassed. ‘This is no joke,’ Virginia insisted. ‘He’s just given Emmet Slattery a pint of Guinness with no head on it, all from gazing over here at you, Sam. That’s serious infatuation. Emmet will murder him. He’s very particular about his pint.’ It was a fabulous evening. Delphine got hilariously tipsy, eventually ending up on a bar stool with her cardigan falling provocatively off one freckled shoulder, telling a group of exhausted Italian hill walkers who’d been hiking the Ring of Kerry that she was deeply in love with Eugene who was ‘de bestest man in de whole whorld. You don’t need to go to any campsite,’ she slurred. ‘Youz can schtay in my house tonight. Eugene won’t mind. He ish lovely.’

Sam rescued her, smiling at Elliot, who beamed back at her. Lord, thought Sam, he was only about twenty-five and a thing of beauty, a bronzed Californian love god. Maybe she wasn’t such a crabby old spinster after all. It was after twelve when Hope dropped her back up at the hotel and Sam felt exhausted, even though she’d drunk very little. ‘I’ll bring my visitors to see you tomorrow,’ she promised Hope. ‘We can have lunch in the garden,’ Hope said. ‘It’s lovely now. The hens have their own bit so you won’t be stepping carefully to avoid the chicken shit.’ Sam laughed. ‘I never thought I’d hear you being so blase about chicken shit.’ ‘I’m a country woman now,’ Hope grinned. ‘Mind you, I’ve failed utterly to grow basil. My lettuce is lovely and the cabbage is rampant, but when it comes to herbs, I’m useless.’ Sam kissed her on the cheek. ‘Never, ever let me hear you say you’re useless again. You’re survived on your own. Not just survived,’ she corrected herself, ‘but flourished. We’re survivors, us Smith girls.’ ‘You said it,’ Hope said. She drove down the Manoir drive, deep in thought. She hadn’t been there for months. After the disastrous encounter with Christy, she’d never come back. As she negotiated the bends and crunched over the gravel, she thought of how foolish she’d been to risk a wonderful marriage for something so insubstantial with Christy. Yes, she’d been bored and Matt had been so vague, so distant, that she’d felt neglected. But that had been no reason to throw so much away. She simply hadn’t thought it through, Hope knew. It was like Millie jumping in a puddle: fun for a moment, Millie never thought about the consequences. Which was fine for a child of nearly five, but not so intelligent for a woman who was about to turn thirty-eight. Hope gritted her teeth to stop herself crying. She couldn’t cry, she didn’t have that luxury. She had to be strong.

Matt had never realized just how tough it was looking after two small children until he had Millie and Toby on their own in his rented apartment in Bath for an entire week. It was one thing to look after them for a few hours, safe in the knowledge that Hope would be back from the shops or wherever soon, ready to take over expertly. It was quite another to take care of, feed and entertain them all by yourself for days at a time, with nobody else to take the strain. For the first time, Matt began to have a new respect for his wife. No wonder Hope had wanted some time to herself when they’d moved to Redlion. After being a working mother for years, suddenly becoming a stay-at-home one in a rural area where she didn’t know anyone, and, he admitted guiltily, where her husband was caught up with his own problems, must have been very difficult and frustrating. Small children were enchanting but damn hard work. Even more irritating was Millie’s habit of criticizing everything he did with her unblinking dark gaze. Used to thinking of Millie as ‘his’ little girl, Matt was disconcerted by her habit of telling him ‘Mummy doesn’t do it that way’ ten times a day. So far, he’d discovered that he didn’t put on socks the way Mummy did, he didn’t pour milk into cereal the way Mummy did, and he definitely didn’t know how to wash hair without getting water in the eyes the way Mummy did. After four days of this, he was nearly incandescent with joy when Betsey invited the kids over to her place for the afternoon to play with Ruby and Opal. ‘Give you a chance to tidy things up in the office,’ Betsey said. ‘Give me a chance to lie down and sleep,’ said an exhausted Matt. That morning, the children were even more energetic than ever. Millie decided she felt sick. She rushed into the bathroom every five minutes to hang her head over the toilet bowl and pretended to retch, which had Matt hysterical with nerves in case she really was sick. The morning paper and