What Women Want (7 page)

As she read on, Kate couldn’t help feeling envious. What Sam was describing was as remote and intriguing to her as the photographs she saw in the pages of
National Geographic
, which they kept in the practice waiting room. She and Paul had always talked about how one day they would travel together but somehow they’d never got further than Europe. Early in their marriage, Kate had been happy at the centre of her new family, pitying her friends who were missing out on the joys of family life but were able to holiday where and when they wanted. But perhaps it was she who had missed out. In the end all her friends had caught her up: careers were chosen and babies were born but without the sacrifice of those early years of freedom.

She pulled down a favourite old photo from a shelf in the corner. There were the three of them, Megan, Sam and Jack, sitting in a blue plastic paddling pool in the garden. How could she and Paul have produced three such contrasting children? Smiling out at her were nine-year-old Megan, fly-away brown curls, blue eyes under fine wide-apart brows, a tip-tilted nose and a gentle mouth; Sam, at seven, with blond curls, freckles, eyes already with that faraway look despite the broad smile at the photographer, which revealed a front tooth chipped when he had fallen out of a tree; and Jack, four years younger, with short darker hair, a determined chin and a slight frown. The photo gave away exactly the people they would become: Megan married to Ned and working in the drama department of the BBC in Bristol; Sam, out of easy contact, adventuring in Africa; Jack, confident, charismatic and too soon out of university to have found his way.

Suddenly there was an almighty crash from outside, followed by the sound of something being dragged along the street. She jumped to her feet and ran upstairs into the living room where she pulled aside the curtain. There, in the middle of the road, a mangy brown fox was tearing through the contents of their food recycling bin. So much for Paul’s care in sorting out the rubbish. The animal had dragged the bin out of their front garden, forced it open, strewn everything across the road and was now sniffing round, scoffing the best bits. A sharp bark heralded the arrival of a second, which slunk between two cars further up the street, then loped towards its mate, eyes gleaming under the street light. Kate shuddered. Sitting on the back of the sofa, she knocked hard on the window to drive them away. For a moment they stopped, looked up. One stared straight at her, defiant, before going back to its feast.

The curtains drawn and lights switched off, she went upstairs to tell Paul but he was flat out, sound asleep, one arm flung across the bed, gently snoring. With a small sigh, she got herself ready for bed and slipped in beside him.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Oliver came through the kitchen door, looking relaxed in his blue cashmere sweater, his hands behind his back. ‘Close your eyes.’

Oh, God. A present. Ellen knew she should have bought him the picture.

‘Hold out your hands.’

Apprehensive, unused to being given anything un expected, apart from the children’s half-baked efforts from art classes, Ellen put out a hand. She felt something, a bag, being hung over her arm. Then two more. ‘But I haven’t got anything for you.’ The part of her that had hesitated over buying the picture said that presents were reciprocal, to be given on special occasions; otherwise they were an unnecessary indulgence. Not even Simon had surprised her with something as spontaneous as this.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ She felt his hand lightly on the small of her back, aware that if he moved it a centimetre lower, it would be lying right on the roll of fat pushed up by the too-tight waistband of her skirt. He didn’t seem to notice or, if he did, to care. ‘Right. Now you can open them.’

She moved away from his hand, opening her eyes to see three bags hanging off her arm, a small one from La Perla and two large ones boasting names she had never heard of. She became uncomfortably aware of her greying, almost elastic-free Marks & Spencer underwear that had absorbed the colours from everything else in the wash over the last couple of years, of her once comfortable skirt that had seen better days, and her loose disguise-it-all cotton shirt from the same period. Out of the tissue paper came a confection (there was no other word for it) of copper-coloured lace. At least he hadn’t gone for a G-string, she saw with relief, as she separated a pair of flounced lace briefs in cotton tulle from a bra that frothed with more lace than she had ever seen on one garment. ‘Oh, God! They’re . . . well . . . beautiful.’ (And totally unsuitable.) ‘Thank you.’ (Please don’t make me try them on now.)

‘There’s more. Look again.’ Oliver had sat down and was wearing a strange expression that Ellen didn’t recognise. For a split second, it was as if the spontaneous, generous man she loved had disappeared, to be replaced by someone far more cool and calculating. Disconcerted, she looked away, reaching into the bag again, this time to find a white (more my colour) push-up (oh, no, I don’t want to show off my wrinkled cleavage) bra with matching briefs.

‘Now look in the other bags.’ The Oliver she loved was back – caring and attentive. Uncertain what she should say, Ellen sat down without a word and continued to unpack. After five minutes, she was surrounded by his purchases – an elegant lime-green belted button-through linen dress, a floral silk skirt that hugged the hips, then flared in panels from just below to be paired with a simple grey T-shirt, and a second dress in lined smoky pink cotton lawn that was low cut and fitted at the top (too fitted), empire line (will at least hide my stomach) and sleeveless (has he not noticed my flabby upper arms?). Despite her reservations about their suitability, there was no denying that he had great taste.

‘They’re beautiful. I would never have bought them for myself.’ Ellen was dreading the moment she was going to have to go upstairs and try them on, confident that she would look utterly ridiculous out of the comfort zone of her normal don’t-notice-me-I’d-put-a-bag-over-my-head-if-I-could look. ‘You’ve even got my size right.’

‘I know you wouldn’t. When did you last buy yourself something?’ His question didn’t need an answer. They both knew it must be months, if not as much as a year ago. ‘But it’s important that you look good at the gallery,’ he went on. ‘In charge.’ What was he saying? That she normally didn’t?

‘What’s wrong with the way I look now?’ Ellen’s voice sounded muffled as she began to fold the wrapping paper, returning it to the right bags ready for when she would secretly sneak the garments back to their shops. To her horror, she could feel her lower lip begin to quiver and her eyes sting.

‘Nothing, darling, nothing at all. But just try them on to see. Please. For me.’ She couldn’t resist the appeal she saw in his eyes.

Oliver was pouring two glasses of chilled Sancerre when, half an hour later, she came back downstairs in the lime linen, having tried on the lot and been almost pleasantly surprised by what she saw. Having those moments alone had given her a chance to steady herself. Turning back and forth in front of the mirror, she could see that somehow he’d chosen lines that actually flattered her far from perfect body, taking attention away from the worst bits. Even her upper arms looked better than she remembered them. Was it a fluke that he’d done so well or did he have a good eye? And she had to admit that the touch of silk underwear gave her a frisson that didn’t come with M&S cotton.

She’d picked up the photo of Simon she kept by her bed, wondering if he’d understand. He looked back at her: a confident man with a high forehead, thick dark eyebrows and a nose that had been knocked out of shape in a childhood bicycle accident. His eyes were kind, his chin strong and his mouth tilted up at the corners. He wasn’t a man to turn heads but he had been a dependable, kind and loving one. He would never have thought to buy her clothes. That wasn’t what their relationship was like. She had known that and hadn’t wanted it any different. Her priorities had been him and their children, not the irrelevance of the way she, or indeed he, had looked. But things had changed. She wasn’t the same woman she had been when he was alive. How could she be?

‘You look gorgeous,’ said Oliver, giving her a glass. ‘Let me see. Mmm. I thought that green would suit your skin. I was right.’ Despite her discomfort at being so closely scrutinised, Ellen was surprised to find herself simultaneously melting under his attention. Nobody had ever treated her like this. Even though she had only known Oliver for a short time, she realised he was already pushing her towards a reassessment of her relationship with Simon. She was beginning to see that there were perhaps sides to it that hadn’t been quite as perfect as she had previously believed. Not that Simon hadn’t adored her, but he was a man of few words and by nature not particularly demonstrative. A pat on the back or a slap on her bum was the most appreciative she remembered him being. And presents, other than on her birthday or at Christmas? Never.

‘Now, tell me one thing.’ Oliver took a couple of steps towards the french windows and looked out down the carefully planned and planted garden to the small greenhouse where Ellen had spent so many happy hours sowing her flower seeds, pricking out seedlings and potting them on. ‘I am right in thinking that the gallery is closed on Monday, aren’t I?’

‘Yes. Why?’ Just the two of them alone together. She’d like nothing more.

‘I’ve booked you a hair appointment. No, wait . . . Let me finish. And they’ll give you a facial and a manicure at the same time. I just thought you should have a day all to yourself, being pampered.’

‘Oliver, stop. I can’t possibly accept all this. It’s too much.’ She knew his generosity was well meant but, instead of adding to her confidence, paradoxically she felt the little she had gained over the past weeks with him ebbing away. ‘Besides, I like my hair the way it is.’

‘I know you do. But I want you to feel even better about yourself. I was just walking past that salon on the high street and I thought you’d like it. That’s all.’ The smile left his face and he began to snap his left thumbnail with the nail on his middle finger. ‘I can easily cancel the whole thing, if that’s what you want.’

Ellen had always thought of the beauty business as an excuse for absurd self-indulgence, something for women with more money than sense. Although Bea’s and Kate’s battle waged against the onslaught of time had always amused her, she had no wish to join them. Shouldn’t women accept the inexorable march of time, and age the way nature intended? She was used to a quick trim with Angie at the small hairdresser’s on the corner, with the result that style and chic had eluded her for years. But she was happy with that. Overcoming her discomfort and accepting Oliver’s present gracefully would be hard, but she could see he was going to be so disappointed if she didn’t. Weakened by his forlorn expression, she waved her hands. ‘No, no. I’d love to go. It’ll be a real treat. I haven’t done anything like that for years. Thank you.’

‘Right. Well, that’s agreed, then. The other thing I wanted . . .’

Before he had finished his sentence, Ellen had picked up the empty bags and was halfway up the stairs with them, crying, ‘Back in a minute. Let me show you the skirt . . .’ She stuffed the bags into the bottom of the wardrobe, just in case she changed her mind and needed to return anything, and sat on the bed to take a few deep breaths. No more! This generosity was overwhelming. Since Simon’s death she’d had to get used to being in control of her own life, but since Oliver had visited the gallery, her world was spinning off its axis and she couldn’t right it. She had been swept into this unlooked-for relationship with a man she didn’t know yet felt as if she’d known for ever. She was besieged by unfamiliar feelings that thrilled yet threw her off kilter.

Close by the photo of Simon, there was another of him with Emma and Matt on the last family holiday they’d had together in Cornwall. The four of them together on a family picnic at an isolated cove not far from Towan beach, a favourite spot that the summer tourists to the Cornish Roseland rarely discovered. The children were due to come home in just over a couple of weeks. What were they going to think of all this? She had wondered whether she should ask Oliver to move out until she’d told them, but she didn’t want him to go. Their relationship had given her a new recklessness that had overthrown almost everything she’d held close. At the same time she was frightened by what was happening to her, not knowing how to pull things back under her control but at the same time not wanting to. She felt as if she had climbed aboard a giant switchback, increasingly petrified as it neared the top of each peak, her stomach rising into her mouth as it tipped over into the descent, screaming to get off yet wanting the excitement never to end.

She looked beside the radiator where she always left her shoes, never having got round to organising a shoe rack in the wardrobe. To her surprise, the jumble that she had left this morning had been transformed into a neat row of six matching pairs. She opened her underwear drawer in the hope of finding tights she could wear with the floral skirt. As she pulled out a pair, a cascade of red confetti flew up and fluttered to the floor. Startled, she bent down and scooped up the pieces only to see that each one was shaped like a heart.

Suddenly she felt an unfamiliar sense of relaxation. How wonderful that this adoring and adorable man had come into her life and wanted to look after her. However in control of things she had appeared, there had always been an ever-present underlying fear that everything was about to fly apart. If he would do something as special as buy her clothes, tidy her shoes without being asked, and add a sprinkle of romance to her drawers (she smiled at the pun), what else might he be capable of?

She slipped the skirt over her head, then the T-shirt, pulled on the tights and one of the four pairs of heels she owned and almost skipped back downstairs.

As her alarm cut through the clouds of sleep, Bea swam up towards consciousness and reached across the bed, congratulating herself on having remembered to change the sheets the previous morning. Not that she’d known what was going to happen then, of course. Anticipating the moment her hand would come into contact with a body of the male persuasion, she stretched out further, moving her arm up and down. Nobody. Suddenly awake, she opened her eyes. Definitely nobody. He must be in the shower. Or making them tea, perhaps. She curled round in the warmth of the duvet, luxuriating until he reappeared, piecing together for herself the previous day.

This time Let’s Have Lunch had got it right. As soon as she had seen him walking towards her across the airy, mini-malist Asian-fusion restaurant, she had known. A confident stride, a well-cut suit, brown eyes with a twinkle, a full head of hair, without a recessive gene in evidence, and, most important, an easy smile. If she half shut her eyes, there was definitely enough of a resemblance to Gabriel Byrne to make him extremely attractive. The second morning from hell since the arrival of Adam Palmer at Coldharbour Press had dimmed at the prospect of lunch in the company of Tony Castle.

She was not disappointed. There wasn’t a moment of awkwardness as they introduced themselves, not a moment of hesitation as they weighed each other up. Lunch sped past in a haze of laughter and conversation with an undertow of sexual tension that had made itself felt almost immediately, only to intensify the longer they spent in each other’s company. The dishes of sea bass with garlic, ginger and soy, oven-roasted lamb with fiery spices, flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce came and went, eaten almost unnoticed. Wine glasses were topped up with a never-ending stream of Sauvignon Blanc as they got to know each other. Lunch bled imperceptibly into the afternoon so that when Bea looked at her watch to see whether it was time to return to the office she was astonished to find it was already four thirty. It had hardly seemed worth going back for an hour, particularly when she briefly considered the glum faces that would surround her as they waited for Adam’s axe to fall. Her decision was made in a nano-second. She was having a good time. Why stop? If questioned, she’d just say she’d been with an author.

The graphic-design company in which Tony was a partner seemed to have little need of him either so, instead, they agreed that nothing would be nicer than to cross the river to Tate Modern. They wandered between the rooms, both of them less than half intent on the pictures on the walls. In the darkened space of a video installation, she accidentally brushed her hand against his. Did he too feel the jolt of electricity that had travelled between them? They emerged into the glare of the gallery, Bea feeling as though something in the world had shifted.

Rather than seeing more, they decided to stroll along the South Bank, stopping to watch the river traffic, leaning over the stone wall by one of the Victorian wrought-iron street lights in the shade of the giant plane trees, dazzled by the sunlight on the water. It was unusual for Bea to feel so relaxed in a stranger’s company but, she pinched herself, she really did. Tony must have kissed the Blarney Stone several times before he’d moved to London. His flow of conversation was effortless and amusing, his attention flattering, his company diverting. Everything she could have asked for in a date. As they took themselves into a small tapas bar, it dawned on Bea where all this was leading. And lead there it did.

The sex had been better than good, earth-moving, even. A half-smile slid across her face as she remembered how spontaneously and how well they’d connected. Her fear of embarrassment at getting her kit off in front of someone new had proved groundless. Tony hadn’t recoiled in horror at the sight of her body, stranger to the gym as it was. In fact, she seemed to recall, as her smile broadened, quite the reverse. Nor was she the inhibited sex-starved singleton she’d worried she might have become during the drought since Colin’s departure. To her surprise, she had found that her self-consciousness was disappearing with age.

What was keeping him for so long? Her thoughts were taking her in one direction and one direction only, and she was aware that there were a good forty-five minutes or so that could be put to good use before they both had to leave for work.

Not wanting to wake Ben by shouting, Bea edged herself out of bed, draping her faded but attractively Bohemian silk dressing-gown round her. Her attention was caught by the dust on the bedside table-top and the base of the light, all too visible in the sunshine leaking through the gap in the curtains. Not wanting Tony to realise her slummy side just yet, she grabbed the black cotton knickers she’d been only too pleased to abandon on the floor the night before and did a quick dust with them before hurling them into the laundry basket. Pleased with the result, she went to find him in the bathroom. To her surprise, the door was wide open. There was no sound of running water from inside, no steam misting the windows, as it did after the shower had been used. The blue and grey towels sat neatly folded, untouched. Turning to go downstairs, she noticed that Tony’s shoes were no longer where she remembered him slipping them off by the radiator in the hall. She couldn’t hear him opening cupboards, trying to find what he needed to make tea in a strange kitchen.

There was a good reason for that, as she discovered when she reached the ground floor and could see along the hallway to the long kitchen. Tony wasn’t there. He had gone. Gone without waking her, without saying goodbye.

Mystified, not to say disappointed, Bea decided to make herself a cup of tea to have in the bath where she would ponder this turn in events. Why would he have gone off without saying anything the night before? It didn’t make sense. Perhaps he had thought that mention of an early meeting the next day would interrupt the enjoyment of the moment. He had been right. She stood on her tiptoes and stretched, confident that he’d call her later in the day. Waiting for the kettle to boil, she began planning what they might do that evening. Or was that rushing things? But going that fast seemed to be working for Ellen, so why shouldn’t it for her?

Except that, clearly, it hadn’t. The rosy glow that had enveloped her on waking began to evaporate as realisation dawned. The bastard had legged it and, worse than that, he’d gone in the middle of the night with no explanation. She cast her mind back, trying to find one for him. Had he disguised his real reaction to her body? Had gravity, food, drink and childbirth taken the toll she feared? Should she have had the Brazilian she’d been meaning to endure and hadn’t quite got round to? Perhaps she was even more out of practice than she’d thought and it had showed. What had been so good for her might not have been so good for him after all. But he had touched her, reassured her, even complimented her.

Puzzling over how someone could say the things he had without meaning them, her fury was compounded when she found the bathroom door locked. Could it be? Her hopes rose for a moment as she knocked – quite gently so as not to wake Ben. No reply. She tried again, louder this time.

‘What d’you want?’ Ben’s voice boomed through the glass panel.

Disguising her disappointment, Bea yelled, ‘For God’s sake, hurry up. You know I’ve got to go to work.’

Work. The day ahead rushed towards her, tsunami-like. This morning she was having her first official meeting with Adam to discuss ‘the future of the editorial department’. Being late was not an option. A headache that had until that moment been distant thunder on the horizon began to rumble unerringly in her direction.

‘Ben!’ she yelled again, rapping on the glass.

‘OK, Mum. OK.’ Ben unlocked the door and shambled out. ‘Chillax.’

‘If you say that to me once more, I’ll . . .’ For once words failed her as she pushed past him into the room that, minutes ago, had looked unused. Now it looked as if a whirlwind had blown through it. The pile of towels had been knocked to the floor beside an open magazine that lay half hidden by Ben’s discarded T-shirt and pants. The basin was dotted with black stubble, the razor left lying by the toothpaste tube, which was leaking into the soap dish. Bea started the shower and, with a heavy sigh, pulled off a bit of loo paper to mop up the splashes on the floor round the toilet where Ben had missed – again. No amount of asking, telling, shouting or begging seemed to make any difference. Every day started in the same old way, except that this one was even worse than usual, thanks to Mr bloody Castle.

By the time she was strap-hanging on the tube, already wilting in the heat, Bea realised she had made a big mistake in the wardrobe department. The cotton shirt she remembered looking so great on her the previous summer and that had still looked great when she was standing quite still in front of the mirror this morning was now straining dangerously across her bust while her shoes, fashionably pointed, gripped the joints of both her big toes in separate agonising vices. However, her Nicole Farhi deep blue cotton jersey skirt was nothing short of perfect.

The insult (which was how she now saw it) dealt by Tony Castle had insinuated its way to the back of her mind where it lay temporarily dormant as she concentrated on the morning ahead, going over how she was to protect her staff’s and her own jobs. Equally dormant were her concerns about how Ben might be spending his day and about her mother. She couldn’t afford to let anything or anyone deflect her focus. As she saw it, everyone who worked with her did a valuable job and didn’t deserve to lose it. They were relying on her to speak up for them and she would.

*

With the shirt problem righted with a large safety-pin (unpleasantly reminiscent of a nappy-pin) supplied by one of her younger colleagues, and unable to feel her feet, Bea knocked on Adam’s door and went in to face the enemy as the ten o’clock reminder beeped on her phone.

He barely glanced up. ‘Just one moment while I finish going through these figures.’

Rude, but at least it gave Bea time to sit down and assess her surroundings. In the couple of days he’d been there, Adam Palmer had made his mark, insisting that he take over Stephen’s office from day one. Not a popular decision with the rest of the staff, who felt that after so long with the company Stephen hardly deserved to be so humiliated. He, however, had been unbothered by the move. ‘What does it matter to me, Bea? It’s just an office. I’ll be out of here in a few weeks. I can see that he wants to make an impression and, let’s face it, I did have the best office in the building.’ Over the weekend, Stephen had moved into a smaller one on the other side of the open plan. Now that the axe had fallen, a change had come over him. Already, he looked like a man with a weight removed from his shoulders. He no longer wore a slightly anxious, distracted expression, as if something terrible was about to happen unless he did something to divert it. All those budgetary worries he had carried about with him for years had been parcelled up and passed on to Adam. He had been in the office as little as he could get away with as he silently prepared his exit. Bea was already missing his ready friendship.

She looked across the empty table to the bookshelves, where Stephen’s accumulation of Coldharbour’s titles had already been thinned so that the recent better-selling ones were standing face out to impress any visitor. Beside them were a select few that Adam had presumably been responsible for at Pennant, all having had an enviable stint on the bestseller list. Nothing like driving your success home where it’s not wanted, thought Bea. On the walls he’d hung a couple of modern prints and on his desk stood a large, framed snapshot of an attractive woman, all blonde pony-tail and cheekbones, and a freckle-faced curly-haired boy of six or seven.

So, like attracts like, thought Bea, as at last Adam looked up from his papers. She saw a lean aquiline face with steely grey eyes that appraised her for a moment before a slight smile was allowed to cross his lips. Beneath his casual but expensive striped open-necked shirt there was the suggestion of a well-worked-out body. A copper wristband sat just below the dark leather strap of his square-faced T
AG
Heuer watch. As he stood up to walk round the desk to join her at the table, she couldn’t help noticing his jeans (with a crease), silk socks and soft tan leather loafers.

‘So, you’re Bea Wilde.’ Far from unfriendly, his tone was more matter-of-fact.

Bea braced herself. ‘Yes. I’m the publishing director, as I think you probably know.’

‘I certainly do.’ He leaned across the table towards her and got straight to the point. ‘Would you say you’ve done a good job here?’

‘Yes, I would.’ Bea’s hackles rose in preparation to defend herself.

‘Let’s see. What was the last book you were responsible for that made the bestseller list? Remind me.’ He leaned forward. No smile now.

‘Jan Flinder’s
A Certain Heart
.’

‘My point. That was spring last year. Why nothing since then?’

‘You know as well as I do that that’s an impossible question to answer. We’ve had a couple that made it close, others we had high hopes for. But everyone knows that publishing’s not an exact science. If it was we’d all be rich.’

‘Of course I know that. But, these days, one would hope for more success on a list than you’ve had here.’ Adam smacked the palm of his hand on the table as he stood up to pace the room. For a few moments, he stared out of the wide plate-glass window across London. Then he turned to her. ‘We’ve got to do some drastic housekeeping. I’ve been going through the figures and, of course, talking everything through with Piers. He agrees with me that we have to reduce our overheads if we’re going forward. There’s no alternative but to lose the slack from every department.’

Bea’s stomach plummeted but she kept looking straight in his eye. This was what she’d been dreading. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Redundancies.’

‘But we need everyone we’ve got in Editorial,’ she protested. ‘There are only six of us. There really isn’t any slack. Everyone’s working to their full capacity.’