Women of a Dangerous Age

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From the envelope, she took out a piece of lined paper. Two rings fell out: a plain wedding band and a ring with a simple solitaire diamond. Ali turned them in her hand, then opened the paper, recognising the handwriting immediately.

Eric. Don’t come after me this time. You won’t find me. I’m giving you back my rings. Alison will have a better life without me. I love her so much but I’m not the mother I wanted to be to her, nor am I the wife I wanted to be to you. It’s better this way. I’m sorry.

Moira

‘“This time”? She’d done this before?’ The assumptions that had supported Ali throughout the adult part of her life had been whipped away without warning. She felt as if she was in free fall.

He nodded his head, unable to speak.

‘But didn’t you look for her?’

He looked so weary, so defensive. ‘Of course I looked, Al. Of course I did. What do you think I am? I was no more confident of being a good father to you on my own than she had been about being your mother. And I wanted her back.’ He paused. ‘For me as much as for you.’

For a shocking moment, Ali thought he was going to cry. But he coughed, averting his head so she couldn’t see his eyes. That was the first time Ali could remember hearing or seeing him express any feelings for her mother. She had imagined arguments, other men, affairs, fallings out of love, but never this.

‘But why couldn’t you find her?’

‘Because when someone doesn’t want to be found, they can make it almost impossible for you. That’s what she did. That note’s the last thing I had from her.’

What sort of mother could desert her only child? The shadowy figure that her mother had become over the years was taking a step towards the light. Where could she have gone? Perhaps Ali should look for her. Perhaps she was waiting to be found.

Her parents must have been in their late forties then, a little older than she was now: a dangerous age, a time when you look at what you have and what you want. Life is getting shorter. Either you act and effect a change or you settle for what you know. She understood as well as anyone what was involved and how difficult it could be. Most of all, she identified with the person she imagined her mother to be: restless, questing, searching to be the best she could. The woman wasn’t quite such a stranger any more.

Later, lying in her old childhood bed, comforted by its familiar sag, Ali thought about their conversation. Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen looked down on her from the faded posters tacked to the wall, their edges curling: the few things in the house that her father hadn’t submitted to his desire for order. Perhaps there was a sentimental old fool in there trying to find a way out after all? Otherwise any other signs of Ali’s childhood had been stashed away in the chest of drawers and wardrobe or in the attic. In all these years she had never once dreamed that her mother might have left in the misguided belief that she was acting in her daughter’s best interests.

She twisted her mother’s two rings around her right ring finger. How would she have supported herself? Had Eric given her any money? Did she have some of her own? Where could she have gone? There must be more to the story than Ali’s father was giving away. But why? Who was he protecting? Her mother? Himself? Or Ali? Had she been such a terrible child? Was she the reason that her mother left? Then she remembered how Don had taught her that no one’s actions were governed by a single reason. Life was far more complicated than that.

Imagining her father through the wall, lonely in the room he had once shared with his wife, Ali wondered whether he was lying awake, staring into the dark, like her. She wondered briefly if she was destined for a life alone. After what Ian had done, she couldn’t imagine trusting herself to anyone again. When they had finally turned in, Eric was still visibly distressed, having been unable to tell her any more. After giving her a glimpse of the truth, the shutters had come down again. She would not prise any more out of him this weekend. Ali had never tried to imagine the life her parents had together. As soon as her mother disappeared, she was encouraged to forget her and, eventually, that’s what she had almost managed to do. Until now.

7

The pub was busy with early-evening drinkers as Lou pushed her way down the long Victorian bar, all dark wood and brass real-ale pumps. Behind it a couple of frazzled bar staff tried to keep up with the customers who were waiting, shouting orders, brandishing cash and turning away with their drinks held high so as not to spill them. The noise was way up the decibel scale and Lou was wondering why on earth she had agreed to meet Hooker here, a place where she’d have to strain to hear a word. Perhaps that was indeed the answer. She was protecting herself against his expected anger.

She had been surprised by how pleased her ex had seemed at hearing from her although, like Nic, he’d been un interested in her holiday beyond the fact that she’d come back in one piece. She had hoped her family might like to know what she’d got up to without them. Equally, she hoped he hadn’t interpreted the call, so soon after her return, as a sign that she had been missing him. She thought she’d detected a warmth in his voice that had been absent towards her for years. For a moment, her feelings towards him softened before she told herself to get a grip. Old habits, she warned herself. That’s all it was.

As soon as he realised that she wanted to meet him, he had suggested the Maryatt Arms, a pub she hadn’t visited for more years than she could count. Long ago, she came here with her brother Sam and his teammates after those dreaded university rugby matches. She used to stand with Jenny, shivering on the sidelines, united in their incomprehension at what was happening on the pitch, freezing to death, yelling their hearts out when Sam scored a try. The Maryatt Arms was where she’d first met her future husband. His keen sportsmanship was of course how he’d got his name. To everyone, including his family, he was ‘Hooker’. He’d caught her eye both on and off the pitch so when he offered her a drink and to educate her in the finer points of the game, she accepted. Wirier than some of his teammates, he had a certain twinkle in his eye that translated into a come-and-get-me charm. So she had gone and got him.

Lou couldn’t begin to count the number of nights she’d whiled away in this place, first with Sam and the team, and later with Hooker when they’d continued to come here, long after the matches had stopped and the players had moved on to life after university. Convenient to the house that he was then sharing with three other would-be lawyers, the pub was warm compared to the unheated chill of home, and convivial since someone or other they knew would usually turn up of an evening. Since then, the place had changed. The old boys and locals who propped up the bar were long gone, turfed out in favour of gastro-pub splendour.

She knew exactly where he’d be sitting. At the table by the fire, where thirty-something years ago (no, she couldn’t remember exactly: always a small bone of contention between them), he’d leaned across and asked her to marry him. Moments after accepting, she’d watched him get dragged off to a game of pool. Given the flak from his mother’s appalled reaction to the unromantic nature of his proposal, he’d taken Lou out to dinner and repeated it, organising the diamond engagement ring to be found in the bottom of her champagne glass. She accepted delightedly to a bored round of applause from three Turkish waiters.

Now she thought about it, the romance that was so absent from his original proposal had been absent from most of their married life. They had loved one another, of that she was sure, but those early years devoted to their careers and babies made it hard to carve out pockets of time for themselves. Their separate jobs – hers as a fashion journalist, his as a corporate lawyer – took them travelling to opposite ends of the country and sometimes of the world, leaving a succession of overpaid nannies to hold the fort. The money she earned salved Lou’s conscience – at least she was paying for the best childcare possible when she was away. By the time she began working from home, when Jamie was fifteen, Nic thirteen and Tom ten, the original driving force had disappeared from their marriage altogether. Almost without them noticing, Lou and Hooker’s paths began to cross less frequently until they had started to live their lives almost entirely in parallel.

There he was, just as she expected, nursing the remains of a pint, an untouched glass of white wine opposite him. He looked up, spotted her and raised a hand. Measuring in at just over six feet (with a heel on his shoe), he was still a handsome man, distinguished-looking some might say, with deep-set eyes, a vertical furrow running up from the bridge of his slightly skewed nose (rugby-playing break), smooth skin that, when he was feeling particularly smug, reminded Lou of a frying sausage about to split its skin. Imagining the speed with which this bonhomie would be transformed into something far less pleasant as soon as he heard her news, made her want to turn and go home. Then she remembered Nic and her resolve stiffened.

‘Excuse me?’ A young woman touched her arm. ‘Excuse me, but aren’t you Lou Sherwood?’

‘Mmm?’ Half turning, Lou took a closer look. Shiny fifties-styled hair, heavily lashed brown eyes intent on her, lipsticked lips, neat black suit, glass of champagne in hand. A distant bell of recognition clanged somewhere in the back of Lou’s mind but she couldn’t place her.

‘It’s Tess. Tess Granger. It’s been years. How are you?’

Tess Granger? Lou racked what she laughingly called her brain for something that would give her a clue to the younger woman’s identity.

‘Tess, of course.’ She was still trying to identify her while she bluffed. ‘What are you doing now?

‘After you left, I was made assistant to Belle Flanders. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have got this far.’

Aha! So they’d worked together over ten years ago at Chic to Chic. Belle had been one of the hungry young things snapping at Lou’s fashionable heels, but who the hell was Tess? She must have been there when she’d left, forced to give up her exhausting career partially thanks to redundancy but also by the equally exhausting demands made on her by Nic who was setting out on her teenage years with alarming abandon, and the two boys – so much easier. Nic was running wild, refusing to curb her will to any au pair. That and the redundancy had come at a time when Lou had begun to wonder what she was doing in the magazine world. She had become tired of the travelling and the endless demands made on her time. Her face didn’t fit any more, but she’d had enough. She’d even thought she might start her own dress shop then but Hooker had insisted the children needed their mother at home. He didn’t trust the sequence of au pairs looking after them not to fill their heads with rubbish and foreign swear words. He said only a parent could be trusted to teach their children what they needed to know. But Lou sometimes wondered whether she’d managed to teach them anything at all. However, she had begun to notice the way he had been looking at the young women they’d employed in the name of childcare, and caved in, partly for that reason and partly because she was too exhausted to resist.

‘I’m so glad it’s all worked out for you.’ Her powers of recall had totally deserted her.

‘It certainly has! I left six months after you and went to the States. Now I’m back as the new editor of Stylish. We’re celebrating.’ She gestured towards a young man and a couple who were talking and laughing at a table by the window. ‘Where are you now?’

Stylish? The glossy young rival to Vogue and this young woman was the editor. Suddenly Lou felt about a hundred years old. She looked down at – oh, no – her fleece, the convenient style bypass for the middle-aged woman. Shit! She deliberately hadn’t followed her resolve to stick to statement dressing that would advertise her business, because she hadn’t wanted Hooker to think she was making a special effort just for him. She hadn’t given a thought to the fact that she might bump into someone she knew. If only she’d changed into the pomegranate velvet coat she finished just before she went away. It had taken ages to make but the cut was so flattering, it had been worth every minute.

Hideously aware that the make-up she’d put on that morning was no longer a refuge for her almost certainly shiny nose, and praying her lipstick hadn’t leaked into the tiny vertical wrinkles that had recently been making a bid for domination around her mouth, she thanked God that her recent haircut had temporarily tamed things so at least in that department she looked acceptable. Perhaps Tess wouldn’t notice the rest.

Of course she would. Just move on, swiftly.

‘That’s fantastic news. I’m so sorry I can’t stop to chat, but I’m late meeting someone.’

‘Well, great to see you. We should catch up. Lunch or something.’ She held out a small embossed card.

Knowing Tess had absolutely no intention of following up this suggestion, Lou took the card, at the same time registering how useful the other woman might be to her. But it wasn’t too late to say something. ‘In fact, I’m setting up a new business that might interest you.’

Tess cocked an eyebrow. ‘Really? Then we should definitely stay in touch. Call me.’ But she sounded as if anything initiated by Lou would be of little interest to her.

‘Thanks. I will.’

They both turned back towards their respective engagements, Lou aware that Hooker was watching her, his glass now almost empty. He gestured a request for a replacement since she was by the bar. Irritated by the way he assumed she would do his bidding and even more by the fact that she was doing it, she shouldered her way through and ordered a pint of Adnams, Hooker’s long-time preferred real ale, and a large vodka and tonic for herself as the need for a shot of Dutch courage more powerful than the waiting glass of wine overcame her.

Hooker half stood as she approached, hobbled by the chair seat digging into the backs of his knees. By the time she’d put down the drinks, divested herself of her coat and sat down, his welcoming smile had changed into a grimace of pain. He sat down with evident relief. Unlike so many men his age, he still looked good in jeans – not bagging round the arse and knees or disappearing under a beer gut – teamed that day with a deep blue shirt. This was a man whose looks still counted – to him at least. Which was more than they did to Lou any longer. She controlled the urge to point out the two rogue eyebrow hairs that curled over the frames of his specs. No. No longer her concern.

‘The holiday’s obviously done you good,’ he commented. Now she’d arrived, he could relax.

They clinked glasses, more out of habit than good cheer.

‘How was it? Christmas, I mean,’ she asked.

‘Quiet. I took Nic and Tom to dinner at the Mermaid’s Heart, that new fusion restaurant in Shoreditch. I thought being at home might make things a bit difficult, with you not being there and Jamie and Rose in Canada. Besides, can you imagine if I’d tried my hand at a turkey … ashes is the only word that leaps to mind.’

Surprised by this unusual sensitivity towards their children, she laughed nonetheless.

‘Where were you?’ he asked. So he was interested after all.

‘At a tented camp, sitting around a blazing fire under the stars. Not a turkey or a Christmas tree in sight.’ To be teleported there right now would be a prayer answered.

‘Camping?! That’s not like you. The Lou I know likes her creature comforts: good food and wine, sprung mattresses, hot water on tap, light to read by.’

‘Oh, we had all that. I didn’t know tents like those existed, or I’d have gone long ago. And there wasn’t a boy scout to be seen.’ She was about to wax lyrical about the luxury they’d enjoyed – the comfortable beds, the electric light, the home-cooked meals, the showers – when she noticed that he’d adopted that look she knew so well. Indulge her for a while and then, with a bit of luck, she’ll shut up and we can get onto the main agenda so I can get off to do the next thing on mine. Well, if that’s the way you want to play it, bring it on, she thought, draining her vodka. Feeling suitably fortified, she summoned up all her sangfroid and leaned forward. Then I’ll begin.

‘Actually, I called you for a reason.’

Hooker looked gratifyingly alarmed by her earnest expression, then snuck a look at his watch. ‘Come on, then. Spit it out. Whatever it is, can’t be that bad.’

‘There’s no easy way of putting this. I’ve got some news for you that you may be less than happy with.’ She hesitated and took a sip of the white wine, then taking a breath, she braced herself.

‘We’re going to be grandparents!’ There.

‘What? Jamie and Rose?’ He banged his glass on the table, looking more pleased than she could remember seeing him in a long time. ‘That’s terrific news. But why didn’t they tell me themselves? Perhaps they thought I’d prefer it if they’d waited till after they’d got married. Well, I would of course. The timing’s not perfect. But when’s the baby due? Are they bringing the marriage forward? My God!’ He crashed his fist onto the table, so his beer almost slopped over the edge of his glass. ‘A grandfather. That’s not something I ever expected to be so soon. What about you? Grandparents, eh? This calls for something stronger.’

Lou sat silent, unable to interrupt. Then, as he sat back, beaming with pleasure, she prepared herself to prick his balloon.

‘No, not Jamie and Rose.’ She took another sip.

‘Not Jamie and Rose.’ He repeated her words slowly as he absorbed their meaning. ‘Who then? Tom?’ He shook his head. ‘The little idiot. How many times have I warned him about not using condoms.’ He gave a little snort of laughter.

I bet you have, she thought. One of your specialist subjects, no doubt. There was an underlying pride in his voice at having a son who sowed his wild oats with abandon and virility. Every feminist bone in her body objected to his tone but she bit back any comment. This was not the time for personal recrimination. This was a moment when they should be pulling together. Let’s get this over with.

‘No,’ she said, her fingers stroking the stem of her glass. ‘Not Tom. Nic.’

As he stared at her, she thought his head might explode. His face grew a deeper and deeper shade of red until he let all his breath out in one convulsive rush. ‘Nic? No. She must have made a mistake.’

‘There’s no mistake.’ Keep calm, breathe deeply. If anyone’s going to make a scene, it’s not going to be you.

Hooker seemed genuinely flabbergasted at first, as if unable to believe such a thing of his beloved daughter. Watching his face, Lou saw his thought process: from shock, to confusion, to denial, to acceptance, to fury. With his anger came the return of his power of speech.

‘Who’s responsible?’

Pointing out that Nic inevitably bore fifty per cent of the responsibility would not help. Instead, Lou said, ‘Max, I think.’

‘You think? Why aren’t you sure? When I see him, I’ll …’ He stopped, unable to think of a sufficiently terrible threat.

The people on the next two tables had paused in the conversation and turned to see what was going on.

‘Shhh,’ Lou cautioned. ‘There’s no point getting worked up.’

‘Worked up? What the hell do you mean? I’ve every right to be worked up. You walk in here and tell me that my daughter’s having a baby and expect me to be calm.’ He lowered his head into his hands. ‘Oh, my God. A grandfather.’ His earlier pride had given way to despair. He angled his head so that he could see her. ‘I definitely need something stronger. A whisky.’

‘And you want me to get it?’ Lou bridled at being asked to go to the bar for him a second time. Nor did she relish the idea of a repeat encounter with Tess and her fashionista companions who she’d noticed looking in their direction.

‘No, no. I’ll get them. Same again?’ He picked up her empty wine glass as he edged out of the narrow space, his other hand already foraging for the change in his pocket.

She nodded, relieved to be left on her own for a moment.

By the time he returned, his expression was something approaching normal. Having finally accepted that a man had defiled his precious only daughter without his consent but with hers, he had moved on to a new tack.

‘Presumably you’ve persuaded her that the sensible way to deal with this is for her to have an abortion?’

Here we go.

‘No, I haven’t.’ She registered the taut straight line of his mouth. ‘This is Nic’s life and Nic’s decision. She wants to keep the baby and I only want to support her.’

‘For God’s sake, Lou. She’s far too young. Surely even you can see that.’ He was speaking to her as if she was irredeemably stupid. ‘A single mother. My daughter. No.’ He gave a heartfelt groan. If what they were talking about weren’t so serious, Lou would have laughed at the theatricality of his response.

‘Hooker, get a grip. Yes, she’s your daughter but she’s not the toddler you built sandcastles with every year any more. She’s not the thirteen-year-old whose pocket money you stopped when she threw her Bacardi Breezer bottles into the neighbours’ garden. She’s got her own life now and she doesn’t have to account to us for what she does any more. Whether you like it or not. Our job’s to give her all the help we can. That’s all we can do.’

‘But her career …’ His voice was muffled, as he nursed his whisky glass in front of his mouth.

‘Thousands of women have babies and return to work. That won’t be a problem because she’s already thought everything through.’ Echoing Nic’s words made Lou share her daughter’s confidence that everything would work out.

‘You say that …’

‘I know that,’ Lou said firmly. ‘She’s always loved looking after things so perhaps having a baby … Let’s see.’

‘Do you remember when she rescued that pigeon with a broken wing? She was always such a softie.’ Hooker smiled at the memory.

Lou’s recollection was less of the softie and more of the pigeon shit that had covered the living room when the bird had escaped its cardboard box. Nor had she forgotten the hours that it had taken to clear up the room to Hooker’s satisfaction, but without his help. Oddly, Nic too had found something urgent to do. But she was glad that Hooker’s mood was changing as the whisky took hold. ‘And Ripper, her hamster whose hair fell out.’ She smiled too, remembering how Nic had lavished affection and mite dust on the poor little wrinkled, bald creature until it had finally died.

As they began to swap reminiscences, their differences were put to one side. Whatever happened between them in the future, these memories would always be theirs alone. Their shared family experiences interested no one else in the world but them.

Once she leaned over and touched his arm. Still talking, he covered her hand with his just before she swiftly removed it. But one memory led on to the next and, as they travelled back in time, Lou began to recognise the Hooker she had once fallen for, the man who could make her laugh. She checked herself. Perhaps she should go home. But, memories and tongues loosened by alcohol, the two of them stayed where they were in the warmth of the fire, drinking and reminiscing, till the chairs were being put on the tables around them. By then she was aware of how pleasantly hazy the world seemed.

Reluctantly they dragged themselves out into the night air. Feeling definitely the worse for wear although triumph ant that Hooker had eventually taken on board and almost accepted Nic’s news, Lou stepped forward to give her ex an affectionate peck farewell. Slightly surprised at herself, she overbalanced, righting herself with one foot in the gutter, her hand on his chest. ‘Whoops. Shouldn’t have mixed my drinks. Sorry.’ She giggled and removed her hand as if it was burned.