Woman to Woman (60 page)

“I don’t believe it!” she gasped.

“Oh Ash,” Jo laid a warm hand on her friend’s shoulder, ‘are you all right?”

“Yes,” said Aisling, still not sure exactly how she felt.

“Stunned, yes. It’s strange but, I’m OK, honestly.”

“He looking at us,” hissed Jo.

“Look the other way!”

Aisling obediently twisted around in her chair and smiled warmly at a surprised Miss Pink Satin who obviously felt obliged to smile back.

“Have we had our toast?” Aisling said brightly to the whole table.

“Let’s toast the future!”

Everyone raised their glasses and drank. Aisling drained her glass in a couple of frothy gulps.

Jo’s mouth fell open again.

“If I drank that fast, I’d hiccup for a month,” she said.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Ash?”

“I’m not sure,” whispered Aisling, a fixed smile still glued to her face.

“In a few minutes, I’ll either be over at their table battering Michael and Jennifer with your handbag yours is bigger than mine or I’ll be perfectly fine. I don’t know which. Now, are they sitting down yet? Where are they sitting?”

“What are you two whispering about?” said Mark, leaning towards them. , “It’s Michael and his girlfriend hissed Jo, ‘over there.”

“Where?” demanded Mark.

“The second table on the left, beside the dance floor.”

Aisling turned her head slightly. She had no idea whether she wanted to talk to Michael or not.

The woman in that dreadful white meringue dress Jo told Mark, bridling like a mother hen seeing someone hurt her favourite chick.

“It’s a dreadful dress. Doesn’t she have a full-length mirror in her bloody house? I can’t believe anyone would go out looking like that.”

For the first time since she’d spotted Michael, Aisling smiled properly.

“You’re a howl, Ryan.” she said affectionately to Jo.

“You’re so protective.”

“Well, she ran off with your husband said Jo indignantly.

“I

mean, really!”

“You can only run off with someone who wants to run off in the first place,” Aisling said, in the tone of someone who’d spent an awful lot of time turning the whole situation over and over in her head.

“Look what’s happened to me as a result. Michael’s leaving changed my life. It was brutal, and not the sort of experience I’d recommend, but it worked. It changed my life and, boy, did it need changing. And now look at me.” She smiled and flicked back a lock of blonde hair.

“You’re one hell of a woman, Aisling,” Mark commented.

There can’t be many women who’ve coped the way you have.”

“Not to mention losing practically two stone and starting a new business,” put in Jo.

“How about a toast to you, Aisling and to Reservations?”

said Mark.

“Hello, guys.” Sam slid into his seat beside Aisling.

“What have I missed?”

“Oh, we’ve just been gossiping.” Aisling shot a warning glance at the other two.

“So I asked him why it was going to take two weeks to put down a wooden floor in the kitchen,” Jo said, ‘since it had only taken one week to replaster all the downstairs.”

“What exactly are you having done to the cottage now?”

inquired Sam idly.

Aisling stifled her irritation. Sam spent hours in her house and had listened to Jo and herself discussing the renovation of the cottage often enough to know precisely what was going on, down to the last nut and bolt. He obviously hadn’t listened to a word they’d said:

“It’s nearly finished apart from a few minor details,” explained Jo patiently.

Aisling remembered when she’d indulgently repeated herself every time Michael muttered.

“What?”

He usually said “What?” halfway through dinner when Aisling was

regaling him with details of her day or telling him about the funny thing she’d heard on the radio that morning.

Dinner chez Moran. Michael indifferently munching his way through Aisling’s delicious stuffed pork with one eye on the newspaper and one eye on his ratatouille to make sure that his fork didn’t miss his mouth and spill food down his shirt front.

Aisling couldn’t suppress a shiver. Had she really lived her life like that? Repeating herself endlessly. When Michael hadn’t been bothered to listen? Had she really been that quiet little mouse? A mousey mouse, she realised with a grin, running one hand through her blonde mane. A mouse with no confidence, no conversation and no waist. She took a sip of champagne to calm herself down.

Even her hands looked better nowadays, she realised, admiring the fingers that curled around her glass, the short, well shaped nails painted with a soft opalescent pink. They were never going to look like Vivienne’s perfectly manicured hands.

But they were improving. She’d been stirring chocolate sauce one night at one of her catering jobs when she noticed that, though her hair, clothes and figure were much improved, her hands let her down completely.

Now she made herself wear rubber gloves when she was cleaning the bath and scouring saucepans, something she hadn’t bothered with for years.

Aisling glanced over to Michael’s table.

Thank you, Jennifer, she said silently. Thank you. If you hadn’t come along, I’d still be living on automatic pilot, still worried about what to cook for dinner, still utterly depressed.

You’ve no idea what a difference you’ve made to my life. Or my hands.

Aisling, honey, what are you going to have to eat? Sam asked.

“I think the lamb sounds nice.” Sam was looking at the menu hungrily, the subject of Jo’s cottage obviously closed.

Aisling picked up the small menu. Each course of the five-course meal offered at least two choices. Raw oysters or roast pepper salad, two types of sorbet, consomme or rive mushroom soup, rack of lamb, salmon

cutlets or aubergine lasagne, dessert trolley or Irish cheese board. A wonderful menu. “Oysters make me sick and I hate peppers,” Sam muttered.

He sounded just like Phillip when he was sulking for some reason or other, Aisling realised. And Sam was certainly sulking. He’d been shocked at the sight of her daring dress, but he hadn’t been able to make a fuss in front of Jo and Mark. Instead, he was being charming to all and sundry, while being very cool with her. She hated childish adults.

Stop it, Aisling, she told herself sharply. He’s funny, kind, very sexy and crazy about you. Don’t ruin it.

“Maybe they can rustle up something else, a salad perhaps?” she said in a , placatory tone.

“I hope so.” He sniffed.

Aisling reached over for one of the bottles of white wine that had just been placed on the table and filled Sam’s glass to the brim. When he drank half, she filled it some more. If that’s what it took to keep him amused, then she’d keep filling his glass all night. It was like giving the boys 7-Up when they were sick, or Calpol when they were babies.

Could they rustle up a green salad or some alternative to the two starters? Aisling inquired.

When the waitress promised to bring a mixed salad for the gentleman, Sam didn’t even say thank you. Aisling felt her temper rise. If there was one thing she couldn’t bear, it was people who couldn’t be civil to waitresses, bar staff, whoever.

It drove her mad. She looked down to find that she’d shredded her cloakroom ticket.

By ten o’clock, the meal was practically over. A few people were still forking up the remains of some wonderful profiteroles.

The classical music, which had been piped through the room all through dinner, was turned off and a woman with a microphone announced that the charity auction would shortly begin.

“We’ve got a raffle for some marvelous prizes,” she explained.

“The top prize is a luxury holiday for two to Tunisia.” Everyone

clapped appreciatively. Tickets are five pounds each, or six for twenty-five pounds.”

“Oh, gimme a hundred, then,” Jo said under her breath to

The classical music was slapped back on and the organisers started to work their way around the tables, bearing books of tickets and cash boxes.

“What were you going to tell me about Richard earlier?”

Aisling whispered to Jo.

“He rang me,” Jo whispered.

“He didn’t!” said Aisling, aghast.

“Shush,” hissed Jo.

“I haven’t told Mark yet.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” demanded Aisling.

“What did he say?”

Jo leaned back in her chair and said nothing for a moment.

“Sorry. I just felt very faint suddenly,” she said.

“He rang me at work yesterday and he upset me so much, I didn’t want to talk about it. The pig. Hand me that menu, would you?”

Aisling gave her the menu and Jo immediately began fanning her face.

“He wanted to see me. He said he was sorry he’d left me and he wanted to try again.”

Aisling was stunned.

“I can’t believe it.”

“Neither could I. I told him he could get stuffed,” Jo said with relish.

“And I have to say,” she added, a triumphant smile hovering around her lips, ‘he was absolutely gob smacked when I said it. He honestly thought I’d welcome him with open arms and when I said “Get stuffed”, he was speechless.”

“I’m almost speechless at the sheer nerve of him,” Aisling said.

“Imagine phoning you for the first time in six months and having the temerity to think you’d have him back.”

That’s Richard for you,” Jo said, still fanning herself.

“He lives in a fantasy world where nothing ever goes really wrong.

If it does, he walks away. And to think I wanted him to be a father to my baby.” She shuddered.

“I’m so glad you have Mark,” Aisling said gently. “Me too. He’s involved, he wants to know how I feel and how the baby is doing every moment of the day.” Jo couldn’t keep the happiness out of her voice.

“He’s the real father.

Richard may be the biological father, but he’ll never be her real dad.”

Aisling didn’t want to upset Jo, but she knew she had to ask.

“What if he demands access to the baby?” she asked.

Jo absent-mindedly fiddled with a curl of her dark, glossy hair.

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“He’d have a right to see her, of course, but I’d hate it. I’d hate him having anything to do with her when he didn’t want me to have her in-the first place.”

“Have you talked all this over with Mark?”

“Yes,” Jo replied.

“We talk about everything apart from this latest bit of news,” she added hastily.

“I’m trying to find the right time to tell Mark so he won’t go ballistic.”

Knowing the sort of straightforward and honourable man Mark was, Aisling could well understand how this fresh example of Richard’s appallingly selfish behaviour would send him into a cold, controlled rage.

“We’ve talked about Richard wanting access and visitation rights,” Jo explained.

“Mark wants to do what’s right for the baby. He knows that she’s entitled to see her real father. But,” she broke off to emphasise the point, ‘he absolutely loathes Richard for what he did to me. If Richard has to come to my place to see the baby, I’ll need to lock Mark into the hot press beforehand so he won’t murder Richard.”

“Did someone mention that bastard’s name?” Mark turned to face them.

Jo blushed.

“I was just telling Aisling that we’ve been talking about Richard’s rights to see the baby.”

The muscles in Mark’s face tightened and his grey eyes grew icy cold.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed a voice, ‘the auction is ready to begin.”

Saved by the bell, thought Aisling. The loud voice of the auctioneer drummed out of the speakers around the room and made conversation all but impossible. Aisling squeezed Jo’s hand affectionately before turning to face the dais.

“What am I bid for this football jersey?” roared the auctioneer.

“A jersey signed by all the members of the Irish team, a perfect Christmas present for the soccer-mad teenager.”

Aisling watched with interest as people bid outrageous sums of money for the oddest things. Two china plates with butterfly designs hand-painted in nail varnish made 1,000 because the artist in question was the lead singer of a rock band. Just as well she’d chosen singing instead of art for her career, Jo said with a giggle.

A beautiful piece of driftwood made into a piece of sculpture went for half that, even though Aisling felt it was ten times more beautiful than the garish butterflies. I know the money is being raised for charity, but why do the items have to be so bloody daft?” she asked Jo when the auctioneer was giving his vocal chords a brief break.

“I think it’s supposed to be more fun for the seriously wealthy bidders if the stuff is totally useless Jo replied.

“Presumably, there’s a certain cachet in being able to tell all your rich pals that you spent 2,000 on a biscuit tin which Oscar Wilde’s cleaning lady swore belonged to him!”

It was when a man at the next table successfully bid for a tiny water colour painting, that Michael finally saw Aisling.

They’d both turned to look at the purchaser and their eyes locked. Though she was quite a distance away from him, Aisling could have sworn he went pale with shock. Not surprising. The very idea of his estranged wife and new girlfriend meeting at a party would be enough to give any man an ulcer.

Michael probably expected her to race over to his table and throw something at him, or to scratch Jennifer’s eyes out.

Well, she wasn’t going to do that.

Aisling allowed herself a little pat on the back. She’d come a long way from the enraged, grief-stricken wife of six months ago. Let Michael panic. She wasn’t about to lose her cool.

Sam had loosened up after numerous glasses of wine and two brandies. He wanted to dance with Aisling.

“Do you think they’ll play the tango?” he murmured into her ear.

“I’m quite good at Latin American dancing.”

“We better wait till the auction stops and the music starts,”

Aisling advised, as he started nuzzling her ear.

She could feel one hand moving stealthily up her thigh, gently caressing her through the fabric of her dress.