Woman to Woman (61 page)

“So you don’t hate the dress after all,” she couldn’t resist saying.

“It’s very nice. I’d prefer it if I was the only one to see you looking this sexy,” Sam said.

“You’re mine and nobody else’s.

Remember that.”

She wasn’t likely to forget it from the way he was holding onto her.

“Sam,” she began, ‘you’ve got to understand, I’m not a thing.

I’m a person. I don’t belong to anyone except myself.”

He wasn’t listening. The band had just launched into the first bars of Glenn Miller when Sam caught Aisling’s hand and pulled her out of her chair.

“C’mon, honey. Let’s show them how it’s done.”

Normally Aisling couldn’t have thought of anything worse than being practically the first couple on the dance floor, but for once she didn’t mind. She and Sam made a handsome couple and she wanted to give Michael the opportunity to see what he’d dumped.

When Sam spun her around, she could see Michael’s poker face. Jennifer sat a little apart from him, looking strained. Let them watch, thought Aisling, bestowing a warm smile on Sam. She’d put him straight about the question of ‘ownership’ later.

Sam may have looked good, but he was no dancer. After two fast numbers, she was ready to sit down and rest her bruised toes when the tempo of the music slowed. Sam immediately slid one arm around her waist and started to waltz clumsily, her body crushed against his.

“You look wonderful,” he murmured through boozy breath.

“Thank you,” Aisling replied with the sexiest smile she could muster. Now was not the time to remind him that he’d hated her outfit a couple of hours ago. She closed her eyes and kissed him, a long, passionate kiss more suited to the bedroom than the dance floor. God, but she was enjoying this.

She opened one eye and took a surreptitious look in Michael’s direction, delighted to see that he looked as if he’d just had a root canal done at the dentist and been presented with the bill into the bargain.

Another kiss, I think, she decided. Poor Sam was going to be beside himself with passion if she didn’t stop.

“We should go home early,” said Sam huskily when their lips finally parted.

That wasn’t part of Aisling’s plan.

“We can’t just go and leave Jo and Mark after they invited us,” she said hurriedly.

“Anyway, we’ve all tomorrow morning to lie in bed and … read,” she added with a meaningful grin.

“I’ve had enough dancing, Sam. I want to go to the ladies’ room,

OK?”

They walked leisurely back to their table. Aisling deliberately chose a route which avoided Michael’s table. She’d go over to say hello in her own time when she’d powdered down her undoubtedly shiny nose and put on more lipstick.

In the ladies’, she decided against giving herself another blast of perfume it would look too obvious. But she brushed her hair and slicked on plenty of the coral lipstick which made her lips look full and glossy.

“Hello, Michael, how are you? Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” she practised. No, that sounded wrong.

“Michael, darling, so nice to see you again.”

Too false. How about.

“Hi, Mike, nice to see you. Can’t stop.

My boyfriend’s insatiable and we have to get back to bed immediately. Bye.”

There had to be a right way to do it. Maybe there was a book How to Behave When You Meet Your Ex and His Lover for the First Time. And if there wasn’t a book, perhaps she would write it. It would be a bestseller, she was sure of it.

A woman washing her hands at the basins looked at Aisling enviously, a quick peep when she thought Aisling wasn’t looking. She was tall and heavily built, and wore the sort of size sixteen dress that Aisling

herself would have had to wear a year ago. Poor thing, Aisling thought, sympathetically.

She held the door open for the other woman as they left and smiled at

That’s a lovely dress,” the woman said longingly.

“I wish I could wear something like that.”

Thank you,” said Aisling with a friendly look.

“I’m still not used to being able to wear it myself, you know. Six months ago I wouldn’t have been able to get away with this, but I’ve lost loads of weight.” .

“Really?” asked the woman, with the fascinated gaze of the eternal dieter who knows the calorific content of every single type of chocolate biscuit.

“Really,” Aisling repeated.

“And if I can do it, anybody can. See you.” She walked off, thinking about the smile which had spread across the other woman’s face a there-is-hope-for-me-after-all sort of smile. I’d be great as a diet counsellor, Aisling thought happily. She was so busy thinking about how satisfying it would be to help other depressed and miserable women lose weight and regain control of their lives, that she almost didn’t realise she had walked straight up to Michael’s table.

Here goes, she decided. There’s no backing out now.

“Hello, Michael. How are you? You must be Jennifer.” She was amazed at how calm and steady her voice sounded.

“Hello,” stuttered Michael in shock.

Aisling didn’t know which of them looked the more stunned. Jennifer stared up at her with wide, frightened eyes, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming juggernaut.

Michael looked utterly horrified.”

Relax,” Aisling said.

“I’m not going to bite. We’re adults, after all.”

“Of course,” Jennifer said breathlessly.

“Nice to meet you, Aisling. The boys are always talking about you.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Aisling said. Close up, the other woman looked tired and drawn, plenty of crow’s feet around her pale blue eyes. She had to be thirty-five or thirty-six.

“Would you like to sit down?” Jennifer asked politely, gesturing to

the empty chair beside her. Michael shot her a withering look and she flushed. Her eyes glistened with what looked suspiciously like tears.

They were having a row. Aisling couldn’t believe it. She hoped it was about her. She sat down gracefully, determined not to spoil the effect of her perfectly styled hair and beautiful dress.

“How are you both?” she asked graciously, feeling rather like the Queen at a garden party. All she needed were the elbow-length white gloves and the tiara.

“Fine!” said Michael sharply, shooting Jennifer another meaningful look. The other woman’s face fell and, for an instant, Aisling felt sorry for her. Michael had always been very talented in the withering-look department.

“Sorry.” Jennifer pushed back her hair clumsily and left, rushing towards the ladies’.

“Was it something I said?” asked Aisling, still with the serene smile on her face.

“No.” Michael sounded as weary as he looked. The band struck up The Carpenters’ Close to You.

“You always loved that song,” he said absently.

“And you hated it,” Aisling answered.

“Did I? I quite like it now.”

Aisling’s eyebrows shot up.

“Are you mellowing, Michael?”

she asked.

He snorted.

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” He ran one hand through his hair, leaving it standing up in dark peaks. Once, she’d have cried at this point, the point where she realised that she’d never smooth his hair down for him again. Not any more. Her hair-smoothing days were well and truly over.

“Did I interrupt an argument?”

“Sort of. It was a bit of a shock seeing you here, that’s all,” he admitted.

“You know why,” he said.

“You’ve never met Jennifer and she feels so guilty about everything.”

Typical, thought Aisling, she feels guilty but you obviously don’t.

“We have to meet sometime, why not now?” she said.

“I suppose he said, reaching for his cigarettes. Silk Cut purple, she noticed. Amazing. She’d tried to get him to stop smoking Marlboro for years. It took six months with another woman to have him down to a lighter brand. Things have been difficult recently and Jennifer got a shock when she saw you. You look amazing,” he added.

“You do, you know.”

“I know.” Aisling gave him her cat-devouring-a-meringue smile and prayed that she wouldn’t be struck dead for lying so blatantly. When did any woman ever say “I know to a statement about her looking good?

“Jenny’s been sick, she had a bug and she doesn’t look very good, so she was a bit freaked out to see you here looking like some bloody superstar.” He took a deep drag of his cigarette.

Score dix points to Aisling. He thought she looked good and so did “Jenny’. Marvellous. Make it douze points. At least that explained why Jennifer didn’t look like the stunner she’d expected. Perhaps she had better days. She’d want to.

“I shouldn’t be telling you any of that, I suppose,” Michael added gloomily.

“I’m afraid that there aren’t any rules for this type of situation Aisling said, a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

“So we’ll have to make them up as we go along. I’m sorry I don’t fit in with your version of the dumped wife a thirteen-stone heifer with a bit of a booze problem she sniped.

“It would have been easier for you if I still looked like that, wouldn’t it?

So you could tell “Jenny” that you couldn’t bear to live with me any longer and she’d have believed you. It’s not so easy when I look better than she does. Tough, Michael.”

Aisling gazed at him angrily. She hadn’t meant to lose her temper but she couldn’t help herself.

“It wasn’t like that he protested weakly.

“You know that!”

“I didn’t know anything,” she said. That’s the whole point.

You never gave me a chance. But,” she gazed at him contemptuously, “you did me a favour. After all those years of telling me I’d be no

good going back to work, I did.” “Aisling!” begged Michael, ‘let’s not go into this now, please.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“Am I causing a scene?” She glanced around. Despite the loud music, people were staring at them.

But she didn’t care. She’d waited a long time to tell Michael what she really thought and now he was a captive audience.

“Thanks to you, I had to go out and get a job. And thanks to me and my skills, I started up a catering business. Reservations.

It’s very successful actually she hissed.

“But I doubt if you and “Jenny” would be able to afford to hire me. It’s an exclusive business, no riffraff.”

“For God’s sake, Aisling, let’s be adults about this.” Michael looked shattered.

“Adults? If you want to behave like an adult, why did you bite her head off when she was behaving like one? Don’t tell me she snapped.

“I know. It’s because that’s the way you are, Michael, isn’t it? Difficult. That’s the polite way of putting it, anyway Aisling “added sarcastically. She looked at him with disdain.

“If Jenny’s worried that I’m going to steal you back because I’m no longer the frumpy wife, I can put her mind at rest. Our relationship is over, dead as a dodo, finito, finished, gone.” Aisling enunciated each word clearly and crisply.

“So she can stop worrying. Get her to come back and I’ll tell her she offered.

She was pleased to see that Michael looked hurt. There wasn’t a thing he could say.

“In fact, I’ll get her myself.” Aisling got to her feet abruptly.

She walked out of the ballroom. Jennifer wasn’t in the ladies’.

Aisling found her at the bar, gulping a gin and tonic as if her life depended upon it. Slimline tonic, too, Aisling noticed.

“You didn’t have to leave Aisling said.

“There’s nothing we have to talk about that you can’t hear. All we need is to wait another four and a half years and Michael and I can get divorced. So don’t worry about me wanting him back. I don’t.”

Even as she said it, Aisling knew it was true. She didn’t want Michael back under any circumstances. She’d had twelve years of marriage and

that was enough. It had taken many hours of sobbing to figure it all out. But she knew what she wanted now. Aisling had tasted freedom and she liked the taste. Loved it, in fact. There was no going back. Jennifer would find that out for herself. Sooner rather than later, Aisling reflected, if Michael was true to form.

“Would you like a drink?” Jennifer asked tentatively.

“No thanks. I’ve got to get back to Sam. He’s so possessive, he hates it when I leave him Aisling couldn’t help adding.

Was she really here, talking calmly with the woman who’d stolen her husband? No, not stolen, she corrected herself. The woman who’d been there when he decided their marriage was over and that he wanted out.

“You know, new lovers can’t wait to get you home to bed!” Aisling smiled wickedly. She idly wondered if the wild start-of-the-affair sex between Jennifer and Michael had dimmed. Definitely, if the strained atmosphere between them was anything to go by.

“See you soon.”

She walked away with her head held high.

“Where’ve you been?” Demanded Sam when she sat down between him and Jo.

Talking to my husband,” she replied sharply.

“What!” he screeched, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet.

“Where is he?”

“Calm down, Sam,” said Aisling tiredly. She’d had enough trauma for one night without Sam’s histrionics.

“What did he say to you? If he upset you, I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him, anyway,” Sam raged. His face was flushed with alcohol, his eyes were angry and he was actually balling his hands up into fists.

“What did you talk to him for?” He glared at Aisling.

She’d had enough. This was ridiculous. Sam was going to fight Michael over her, probably because he -didn’t like the idea of Michael seeing her in a sexy dress. Or merely because he wanted to fight with anyone who dared to look at her.

Aisling stood up until they were face to face. She didn’t even raise her voice.

“Listen, Sam. Who I talk to is none of your bloody business.

Michael is still my husband, not even my ex-husband yet, so we have a lot of things to talk about. Like our children, for instance. Do you understand what I’m talking about?” she asked him as if she was talking to a five-year-old.

“Aisling!” he shouted.

“Shut up!” she hissed.

“This is none of your business. Do you understand?”