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Mum’s the Word
Kate Lawson
Whoever said life began at 40 was dead right…A riotous romantic comedy about never-ending motherhood, second chances and growing old disgracefully.What do you do when:Mr Could Do Worse dumps you on the very night you think he's going to propose?Your twenty-something son turns up on your doorstep, with a broken heart and dirty washing in tow?You find out you're going to be a granny - at 45?Your son's maybe ex-girlfriend's father starts making wickedly naughty suggestions?Your ex's new bit of stuff wants to become your new best friend?Your 70-year-old father is dating someone young enough to be your sister?You make the same mistakes you made in your twenties two whole decades later?You can't get the one person you want out of your head?You grab the vodka and wonder if you're too old for all this crap…
KATE LAWSON
Mum’s the Word
Copyright (#ulink_636e7f26-ba95-5a6e-b0a2-1f4117277a37)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
A Paperback Original 2008
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 2008
Copyright © Kate Lawson 2008
Kate Lawson asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
Extract from Kate Lawson’s new novel © Kate Lawson 2008.
This is taken from uncorrected material and does not necessarily reflect the final book.
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9781847560520
Ebook edition © June 2008 ISBN: 9780007284092
Version: 2018-05-29
Dedication (#ulink_3ca9d7de-00d7-5bd1-a0c1-5f723dd8f8c9)
To Phil, and my family and friends – you know who you are. Oh and my sister Angela, who keeps complaining that she never has anything dedicated to her. With love, K x
With special thanks to Maggie Phillips at Ed Victor, Max and the team at HC and Phil, who had no idea when we got together what sharing life with a writer would be like. He has now …
Contents
Cover (#ub59d1886-63fa-5815-a389-b896630369c5)
Title Page (#udc9aa03b-cc1c-55a5-9cbd-e0dbf0bc7c26)
Copyright (#ulink_194ffb99-9204-5e26-bbb2-12e7c3b56538)
Dedication (#ulink_2607dc25-1173-50d2-8f6f-5e284f145c4d)
Chapter One (#ulink_121aeffb-0af5-5fa0-bdf4-704fe9d57fce)
Chapter Two (#ulink_2eeeea8c-5557-5a5d-b710-a650edfcc3e6)
Chapter Three (#ulink_25d85cbc-885f-50ba-902d-eb9695e31b0f)
Chapter Four (#ulink_74ebef8f-2717-5459-8014-a324490a434b)
Chapter Five (#ulink_ef4b4be6-8613-5dbb-affe-811e4c7b8921)
Chapter Six (#ulink_efae19dc-3ecc-50fd-a6f9-93c56fc1b02e)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Read On (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_375073c2-3e3e-5db4-b4be-a1b62eb8fe1f)
‘Candles, corkscrew, wine …’ Susie’s gaze moved slowly across the table, which was standing in the bay window of the sitting room, overlooking the garden. It was early summer and still warm, the long day just beginning to soften into evening. A breeze, gently strumming the leaves on next door’s laburnum, brought the heat down to a gentle purr.
Through the open windows, a string of fairy lights strung between the branches of the trees, bright as glow worms, twinkled and shimmered, picking out the shrubs and pots on the terrace, while the honeysuckle and glittering dark green climbers rambled nonchalantly up over the wicker trellis, perfuming the air – the whole thing set off by the golden glow of the sun sinking in the west.
‘Serving spoons, salt and pepper.’ Susie glanced up at the clock; another ten minutes and Robert ought to be arriving, always assuming he wasn’t late. Time, as Robert had once pointed out, wasn’t really his strong suit. Although actually it wasn’t time that was Robert’s problem, it was punctuality that gave him the slip. He seemed to think people had nothing better to do than wait for him, which was why Susie had cooked a casserole – although her instincts told her that tonight he would be on time. Tonight was special. Memorable. Important.
She smiled and tweaked the curtains straight. The sitting room looked wonderful, like something out of the Sunday supplements. Susie Reed entertains at home in her stylish Norfolk country cottage.
There was a vase of pink peonies in the centre of the table and acres of lighted candles arranged on various shelves and side tables close by, reflecting and glittering in the only two crystal glasses to have survived marriage, children, divorce and now singledom in the cottage on the edge of Sheldon Common. There were French-blue cotton napkins, casually folded and dropped onto the side plates – Susie didn’t want to look as if she was trying too hard; spotless matching cutlery – Robert had a whole thing about smears and the odd bit of broccoli welded on by the dishwasher; alongside a little dish of pitted olives and some bread-sticks.
In the oven the main course – chicken breasts, tiny button mushrooms, roast garlic, spring onions, ginger, cashew nuts and strips of red pepper – was doing interesting things in a clear stock.
While Susie patted and fluffed and tweaked, Milo, her mongrel, watched her from the rag rug in front of the hearth, wondering about chicken division vis-à-vis faithful hounds and long-standing lovers.
‘Susie, there is something I really need to talk to youabout,’ Robert had said when he’d popped by on Tuesday evening on his way home from work. He had looked very earnest. ‘I think that we really need to talk about the future.’
The future. Susie smiled, and then huffed on a serving spoon before giving it a brisk once-over with a tea towel.
They had been going out for the best part of three years. Robert wasn’t exactly the kind of man she had ever imagined herself settling down and growing old with, but he was a nice guy. He could sometimes be a bit overbearing – pompous and snobby was how her sister had once described him, but then she was married to a man who thought anything you didn’t grow, catch or shoot yourself was fast food, so she was hardly in a position to talk about peculiar male habits.
Robert was bright and reliable, intelligent, and even though he didn’t do fun very often, he was presentable. Presentable, and tall, and well-dressed, and forty-six; he liked dogs and was a bit public school and, okay, yes, he was just a teensy-weensy bit on the bald side, but nothing that couldn’t be coped with – after all, we all have faults – and he was rather endearing, and she loved him.
Susie glanced up at her reflection, caught in the mirror above the fireplace. Candlelight was a good choice, she thought, screwing up her eyes to focus. She looked fabulous, or perhaps it was just that she wasn’t wearing her glasses.
‘There is something important that I want to discuss,’ he’d said. ‘To be honest I don’t feel I can leave it any longer.’
Something important that couldn’t wait any longer. She set the spoon back down on the table. Moving in together? Maybe marriage? Maybe both?
Would she change her name? Mrs Robert Harrison … Mrs Susie Reed, wife of Mr Robert Harrison … Or would they be hyphenated? Mr and Mrs Reed-Harrison; or did Harrison-Reed sound better? The Reed-Harrisons entertain at home in their stylish Norfolk country home.
Susie was wearing a long, elegant cream linen dress, with low-heeled brown leather sandals and some chunky wooden jewellery, although not too much because Robert wasn’t keen on frills and had a ‘strictly no fluff, feathers or sequins’ policy, since he’d been rushed to casualty with a bugle bead up his nose after a particularly raucous scout-gang show. Not that she had many of those kind of things in her wardrobe, but she might have a mad moment, a show-tune, corset, kitten-heeled mule and fishtail frock afternoon.
If pressed, Robert said that he preferred white cotton underwear from Marks and Sparks. Unlike her ex-husband, Robert had never bought Susie anything black and red with suspenders for Christmas that needed taking back. Obviously Robert just didn’t see her as that kind of woman, and Susie wasn’t sure if she should be pleased by that or not …
‘Dessert spoons,’ Susie murmured thoughtfully, touching them with her fingertips. She’d made this thing from the cookery page of the local paper for dessert, with summer fruits, double cream and Muscovado – it was currently chilling in the fridge. She planned to serve it with Florentines from Waitrose, after garnishing the top with a couple of fat raspberries and a mint leaf, all dusted down with a quick flick of icing sugar. It looked great in the photo.
Robert worked in the Environment Agency, doing something which mostly seemed to involve wearing a dark suit, sending memos, having meetings and getting really grumpy by Wednesday afternoon. They’d met at Sheldon Common’s annual midsummer’s dinner dance in the village tithe barn. He’d looked very good in black tie.
He’d said, ‘Are you the woman with the long-eared hairy mongrel who’s bought Isaac’s Cottage?’
Hardly a chat-up line to make a woman go weak at the knees, but she’d never seen herself as high maintenance and didn’t trust flash, so it wasn’t a bad opening. Apparently he had always loved the cottage, seen it every day for years as he drove home from work – and before she knew it Susie was inviting him round to take a look at what she’d done by way of renovations. He’d arrived the next day with a decent bottle of red – a good sign – she’d cooked a spag bol and they’d been seeing each other ever since.
Robert was a little more staid and sensible than she would prefer in a perfect world, but Susie was getting to the point of thinking that maybe staid and sensible might be a good thing. She’d done her share of unreliable, lying, two-timing bastards. She’d been married to one for the best part of fifteen years, and once really was enough. Maybe staid and reliable was the new rock and roll.
And besides, Robert was good with power tools and he’d got a pension plan and a good income and was always on about the future and financial security. It wasn’t that Susie couldn’t manage on her own – she could manage very well indeed and had done for years – it was just that she preferred life when there was someone to share it with, and when she considered it long and hard, Robert Harrison, if not exactly Mr Right, came out very high on the Mr Could-Do-a-Lot-Worse index.
In the kitchen the timer went ping, and while Susie wondered how she would say yes, she practised gliding effortlessly across the floor like a nun she had once seen in a film, and reconsidered the possibilities. Should she smile and say, ‘Oh Robert, of course,’ or should she make him wait, explain that she needed time to think. Or maybe she should just smile winsomely and nod, all bright-eyed and overcome by emotion.
She bobbed down to open the oven door, the heat hitting her like a slap before Susie carefully manoeuvred the cast-iron pot up onto the worktop, imagining she was Delia.
‘And here we are, piping hot and ready to serve – smells absolutely wonderful, doesn’t it? Let’s have a little look, shall we?’
Susie lifted the lid; the chicken casserole was done to a turn, perfect. There were tiny new potatoes, sugar-snap peas and baby carrots in the steamer to go with it. She dipped a spoon in the sauce – maybe it needed just a tiny bit more pepper. Susie had brought a handful of chives in from the garden to chop up and sprinkle on top just before serving, hoping Robert wouldn’t be late. ‘And now, having adjusted the seasoning, just a few chives on the top to garnish – if you haven’t got chives you can always use a little freshly chopped parsley.’
Susie had had to stop being Delia out loud since dating Robert; nor was he keen on her being the woman on Gardeners’ Question Time, or Linda Barker when she was decorating either. She’d made a conscious decision to spare him the full Nigella. He’d said very early on in their relationship that he found it unnerving to hear people talking to themselves.
She looked round at the cosy kitchen and let her mind wander. Would they sell up and buy somewhere together? And what happened if Robert wanted a bungalow and she fell in love with a place with blackened beams and an ingle nook? What if he had always hankered to live on that horrible little housing estate near his fat, miserable sister and Susie couldn’t resist the lure of a narrowboat? Maybe renting somewhere together first was a better idea. Would he go down on one knee? More to the point, would he be able to get back up again, given the state of his back?
Susie sighed. None of this was straightforward at all, and it hadn’t got any easier since she’d got older. Still the same questions, still the same hopes and fears – nothing any simpler just because you were over forty.
You wait three years for someone to pop the question and when the moment finally arrives, all your brain can do is come up with excuses, obstacles, shortcomings and an internal commentary that wouldn’t be out of place on a daytime TV phone-in. Bloody thing. Worse still, it had been doing it all week; she was exhausted from weighing and reweighing the possibilities, the pros and cons.
Susie opened the fridge door and peered inside. They were going to have a little roule of salmon pâté for starters, whizzed in the blender, rolled up in a smoked-salmon sleeve and then cut into slices and served with melba toast – all of which was busy chilling inside a mould at the moment. She had thought about doing big meaty prawns on mixed salad leaves, trickled with chilli dressing and served with wedges of lime, but realistically, who wanted to kiss a hand that had been peeling prawns all afternoon?
Would they get married at the local registry office? she wondered.
First time around she’d been nineteen and living with Andy in a bedsit in Cambridge. He’d rolled in at three o’clock in the morning, drunk as a skunk, and before she could ask him where the hell he’d been, he’d said, ‘I was thinking, babe, maybe we ought to get hitched – what d’ya reckon?’
But second marriages were different, they were about knowing what you wanted, and knowing that it was totally unreasonable to expect someone else to provide it for you. Second marriages were not about children or convention or being able to share a bed when you stayed at your parents’ house, they were about wanting to be together, about wanting to say that this is it. Second marriages were about who you are, not what you planned to be.
Maybe they’d jet off to somewhere hot and foreign? Get married under a palm tree, barefoot and suntanned on the white coral sands of a tropical beach. Mind you, Robert was careful with his money so that wasn’t likely, and besides he was prone to heat stroke and sweat rash, so maybe they should think about one of those new wedding venues: a quaint, out-of-the-way hotel in the Cotswolds, an old railway station in Gwent or a castle in the Scottish highlands. Much simpler when you just bought a white meringue of a dress and hotfooted it to the local church like she’d done the first time. God, marriage was a minefield – and then there would be the question of the frock, and who to invite …
Just then the doorbell rang. Smiling, Susie whipped off her apron, took one last glance in the mirror, added a deep breath and hurried down the hallway towards the front door.
She was considering the guest list as she reached the door; there was her dad, his parents, her brother and sister, his brother and sister, her kids, her friends, the guys from work …
‘I’ve told you before just to come straight in,’ Susie said, wiping her hands and pulling the door open. ‘It’s silly to ring the bell after all this ti—’
‘Hi Mum, thank god you’re in, I was going to ring only I haven’t got any credit on my phone. Have you got some money for the cab?’
‘Jack?’ Susie stared at her son. ‘What on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Italy.’
Jack shuffled uncomfortably under her scrutiny, moving his weight from foot to foot. He was wearing long khaki shorts, battered army boots, a tour tee shirt that had, once upon a time in a universe far, far away, been black, and he smelt as if he needed a shower, badly.
‘I am. Well, technically I am. We got a call out of the blue, we’ve got some big presentation to do and the budget won’t run to flying the funders out there – they’re not the kind of guys who do bargain bucket and buses. It’s all gone a bit belly-up really.’ He grinned and leant in a little closer, kissing her on the cheek, a couple of days’ stubble catching her like a rasp. ‘I’ve only just got back; the flight was delayed. I went round to the flat –’ His voice cracked a little. ‘Ellie’s gone. I mean, I’m not surprised really, things have been a bit flaky over the last couple of months. Although I thought at least she would have waited till I got back home before buggering off.’
