Always and Forever (45 page)

‘That must be wonderful, staying at home to raise your children,’ Daisy said enviously. ‘I’d love children but …’ She stopped, having been about to say something oblique like

‘it hasn’t happened’. Why lie? Where had lying got her? ‘My boyfriend and I split up recently, just when we were about to have fertility treatment because I wasn’t getting pregnant, so the whole baby business is off the agenda right now,’

she said shakily.

‘Poor you,’ said Mel in sympathy.

‘What happened?’ Caroline seemed to have forgotten her own problems for the first time that day.

‘He said we needed a break.’

‘Ah yes, I’ve heard that one before,’ said Cleo vehemently.

‘Typical bloody man,’ added Caroline.

Daisy shrugged and slid further under until her shoulders were beneath the water. ‘I thought he was scared of the treatment, but it turned out he was in love with someone else, someone he worked with. And she was pregnant. Is pregnant.’ Caroline gasped.

‘That’s terrible,’ Mel said.

‘It’s awful.’ Cleo was white-faced. ‘I had no idea, Daisy. At dinner last night, Leah said you’d come here for a bit of recuperation, but I hadn’t a clue it was something that bad.

What a betrayal!’

She thought that her family briskly turning their backs on her had been the ultimate betrayal - it hadn’t been. It had been a family row and there was a way back from it. She was the one who’d decided that her family had to capitulate or they didn’t love her. Imagine if they’d real y pushed her coldly out of their lives, the way Daisy’s boyfriend had done. ‘What are you going to do?’ Cleo asked. ‘Is he staying with this other woman or what?’

Daisy nodded. ‘He loves her.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Mel said sympathetical y. ‘That must be so difficult for you.’ Daisy was so pretty: very sexy in a voluptuous way, and vulnerable too. Mel didn’t think there were many women who could manage to look sexy in a hot tub with their hair al tied up, but Daisy somehow managed it. ‘You wouldn’t want him back anyway,’ Cleo declared. A few days ago, Daisy knew that was exactly what she’d wanted. ‘Before I came here, I would have taken him back,’

she admitted. ‘Under any circumstances.’ It was good to say it out loud, to remind herself how hopelessly addicted to Alex she’d been.

‘You couldn’t have him back,’ Cleo said passionately. No way could she settle for second-best. Love should be a hundred per cent pure or there was no point to it. ‘What about the other woman and the baby? They’d always be there.’ ‘I stupidly thought she could go off somewhere, though he’d be involved with the baby because it would be the right thing to do,’ Daisy said. ‘But we’d have our own baby, so he’d stil be mine. We would have our little family and that would make everything better again.’

‘And you’d never look at him in the middle of the night as he slept, and wonder what the smile on his face was for?’

demanded Cleo. ‘I would.’

Mel had wanted to ask the same question but felt it was too personal, especial y with Caroline sitting across from her, on the verge of tears.

‘He’d be with me,’ Daisy said, as if that was enough. ‘That was what I used to think,’ she added. ‘I know it won’t work now. It’s obviously my fault we couldn’t have a baby. Alex has just proved that. But anyway, we can’t go back to the way it was before. If Alex wanted to try again, we probably could, but he doesn’t, so that’s that.’ That pinging in her head was there again, tel ing her something. But what?

‘You think you could have tried again if he wanted to?’

Caroline asked shakily.

‘Maybe. Who knows?’ Daisy said.

‘It’s just that …’ Caroline reached behind her on the tiles for her towel so she could wipe her eyes dry. ‘I think my husband is having an affair and I don’t know what to do about it.’ Mel held her breath.

‘You think?’ said Cleo, leaning forward. ‘I’d confront him and demand the truth. If he was, he’d be out on the street like a shot with his entire wardrobe flung out after him! And I’d take his wal et before I threw him out so he had no money and would have to scrounge off his friends. Let him see what it would be like to be humiliated!’

Mel burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. Cleo was hilarious and so fierily passionate in her beliefs.

‘Sorry, Cleo,’ Mel said. ‘That’s a bril iant plan but it mightn’t be that easy. What if …’ She looked at Caroline and thought how different they al were. Cleo, youthful and impetuous, would throw her man out on the street, while Caroline wanted to do her best to keep the marriage together at any cost, for her children. ‘What if you had kids and you stil loved him?’ ‘It would depend on whether he loved you enough,’ Daisy said thoughtful y. ‘If he wanted to try again, and you did too, you could. Your relationship would be different and it would take a long time to trust him again, but you could do it.’ She realised that if Alex had come back to her, so much about their relationship would have had to change for things to work out. If she’d remained the passive, lesser partner, then they’d have been back to square one instantly: Alex in charge and her eager to please him, because she was so desperate to be loved. ‘I don’t know if Graham loves me any more or wants to be married,’ Caroline said softly.

‘Ask him!’ It seemed so clear to Cleo. ‘Don’t waste time, just

do it.’

‘You’re absolutely right,’ Caroline said. ‘I wil . Tomorrow, as soon as I get home.’ She looked at Mel for confirmation that this was a good idea.

Mel nodded sympathetical y. ‘You owe it to yourself to find out, Caroline,’ she said. ‘It’s not going to go away if you ignore it. I know you want to do what’s right for the children, but ignoring it isn’t the right thing for them either.’ She decided to go ahead and speak her mind and hope it wouldn’t offend her friend. ‘Children are so sensitive, they’l notice if the marriage is in trouble, Caroline. So you owe it to them to find out the truth, and to yourself. You’re a bril iant mother and I admire you so much …’ She’d said enough, too much probably. Caroline bit her lip but she nodded bravely at Mel and mouthed, ‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t do anything you don’t want to just because I said it,’

said Cleo, suddenly contrite at seeing how upset Caroline was. ‘I’m very al -or-nothing, and lately, I keep making the wrong choices. In the past few months, I’ve had a huge row with my family and walked out on the only man who’s ever made my heart go jump, because at the time, they appeared to be the right things to do. Cleo, the Super Heroine! Flattens relationships in a single bound!’

‘It can’t be that bad,’ Mel said, glad they’d changed topics.

‘It is,’ Cleo sighed. ‘You see, I met this wonderful man,’ she began, and told them the story. ‘I thought Tyler had lied to me, and my friend Trish kept asking me why he’d bother lying? She’s queen of the conspiracy theory, so if she thought he was being honest, I should have listened to her.

But I was so angry when I saw Roth Hotels’ plans for the Wil ow and I just ran out on him.’ ‘You haven’t talked to him since?’ Daisy said.

Cleo shook her head. ‘I never gave him my mobile number because we saw each other every day and he could get me on reception, and I had his suite number, so, no. I ruined it, anyway. He’d hardly be interested now. That’s the past,’

she said firmly. ‘I’m not looking back.’

‘What about your family?’ asked Daisy.

‘I’m going to phone them,’ Cleo said. ‘But first I need to talk to my brothers. Just to clear the air.’

Caroline nodded. ‘Clear the air, that’s what I’ve got to do.’

She looked at Mel tearful y. ‘That’s what you’re saying, Mel?’

‘Caroline, it’s got to be your decision and you’ve got to feel: happy with it,’ Mel said careful y. ‘You have to think it over: and decide it’s right for you. I’m not the expert, you know.

Look how long it took me to make the biggest decision of my life.’

‘You made the right one,’ Caroline said. ‘You’re much happier now.’

‘What happened?’ asked Cleo. She had to know - these women had seen so much in their lives.

‘I was a working mother is what happened and it al got too much for me,’ Mel said wryly. ‘I worked in publicity in Lorimar, the health insurance company, and I loved it. But it got so much harder once I’d had Carrie and Sarah. Every day was a slog and it was so difficult to do it al . I had ideas about the sort of mother I wanted to be and how I wanted my career to go, and they weren’t compatible. This is boring for you two, you don’t want to hear this,’ she added.

‘We do,’ insisted Daisy.

‘Yes, go on,’ urged Cleo.

‘Lots of companies aren’t ready for working mothers,’ Mel went on. ‘They don’t see that job-sharing or flexitime can help everyone. Al they see is that working mothers leave on the dot of five and have to take days off when their kids are sick and the people in suits think their eye isn’t on the bal .

What the company wants are “team players”, and that means being at your desk later than everyone else, being able to go to the pub with the boss, and pretending you don’t have a life to get back to, and of course, you’l stay late for another meeting tomorrow, because the company is your life. Which is total rubbish. We al have lives outside work - working women are just more honest about the fact.’

Mel was getting into her stride now. ‘What makes it worse are the bal -busting corporate women who think that being as much like a man as possible is the only way forward in the business world, and they look down on every other woman who doesn’t want to be like them. My boss was like that, so there was no point accusing her of sexism. How could a woman be sexist to another woman, people would say.’

‘I never knew it was like that,’ said Cleo. ‘I thought there were laws to protect women at work.’ She sat up in the hot tub, quite worked up over this injustice. ‘Women are just as good as men at everything,’ she said fiercely. ‘We don’t need to prove it any more. We’ve done the feminist bit.

Nobody should have to chain themselves to the railings any more like a suffragette to win their rights.’

Mel sighed. ‘My mum’s generation had to prove that they were as good as men. Now the battle is to point out that we’re just as good as men, but we’re different because we give birth to the children. The majority of people looking after kids are women and nobody’s making it easy for them.’

‘I never thought of it al that way.’ Daisy had imagined having a baby would be part of a happy fantasy life where there were no problems and she could carry the baby into work in a sling if necessary. ‘I’m a partner in a clothes shop, Georgia’s Tiara,’ she said. ‘I suppose I could manage childcare better than most because I part-own the business.’

‘But if you weren’t part-owner and you worked in the shop,’

Mel said, ‘what then? Would your average boss be more understanding if you had to take days off to take your baby to the hospital, say, for an operation?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Mel, are you happier now that you’ve left your job?’ asked Cleo. She couldn’t imagine not having her career and yet she’d always assumed she’d bring up her kids in the Wil ow, the way she’d been brought up. That wouldn’t be an option now. Mel thought for a moment. ‘I don’t have to indulge the children with quality time, which means you try to cram a whole day into an hour, and stil feel guilty, while your child goes to bed tired, wondering why Mummy is so hyper,’ she said. ‘When I was working in Lorimar, I’d come home at night, try and play with the kids, and then lie there in bed later, shattered, and stil

feeling I was getting it wrong. So yes,’ she grinned, ‘I am happier. But it’s not always easy. When I was at work, I was guilty. Now that I’m home I feel guilty when I snap at Sarah and Carrie. There’s no free time, not even a trip to the loo.’

She smiled. ‘And I feel guilty that I should have tried harder to make it work in the office, because having only one salary is very tough financial y, so the girls might miss out that way. Guilt stil rules.’ ‘But,’ went on Cleo, because she wanted to have al the facts, ‘if you could have combined work and the children in a way that you were happy with, would you like to have kept doing your old job?’

It was the sixty-four-thousand-dol ar question. There was stil something missing from her life, Mel had to admit. Yes, she and Adrian were happy, they had time for each other, their conversations weren’t limited to the familiar hel o, how was your day, there’s a pizza in the fridge. And the girls were blossoming. But … Mel thought she knew what the missing ingredient was: balance.

She didn’t want to get on the hamster wheel again, like at Lorimar. But she did want to go back to work and this time she wanted it to be on her own terms. ‘I want to be a hands on mother and have some sort of career. Lots of people do it - it’s got to be possible. I couldn’t work out how.’ ‘But like you said to Daisy, if you were your own boss, then you could work and be with the kids,’ Cleo said triumphantly.

‘You could work hours that suited you, and you’d understand that women need flexibility in work to do their jobs properly.’ ‘Why don’t you do it?’ Caroline said eagerly.

‘You could run a company from home and staff it with other people who want part-time flexible work.’

‘Yes,’ Cleo was eager. ‘That’s the way forward.’ ‘And you could stil make muffins if the mood hit you,’ Caroline pointed out.

‘You’re missing one thing, girls: what sort of company would I set up?’

‘Oh,’ Cleo waved this problem away, ‘we’l come up with something.’

‘How about I try and get some part-time work first,’ Mel suggested, ‘and see if I can combine work and motherhood before I begin my fight to become an entrepreneur?’ ‘That’s a better idea,’ said Daisy wisely. ‘And we can meet up every month and discuss how you’re getting on.’ ‘How we’re al getting on,’ Caroline added, ‘with al our plans.’

‘I think I’l work on my plans tomorrow,’ Daisy said. ‘This evening, I just want to relax.’

The pinging in Daisy’s head suddenly made sense. ‘I keep thinking of something and I couldn’t quite remember it, but now I can!’ she said, thril ed. ‘When the student is ready, the master wil appear. I heard it ages ago and thought it meant I was ready to have a baby, but I think it means I’m ready to change my life. I know, I’m going to move apartment. I keep thinking about it because the whole place reminds me of Alex, and I was scared. Not any more. I’m ready! Bring on the changes.’