Having It All (50 page)

Maybe if she ignored him he’d go away.

But Garth clearly had no intention of going away. Ten minutes later he was still there, elbow on the buzzer, shouting through the letter-box. ‘I’ve got a message from
Olivia.’

Grudgingly she opened the door a few inches, the chain still firmly on, trying to expose as little of herself as possible to his gaze. ‘So what’s this message from Olivia?’

‘She says that what you need is a virile young man to take your mind off your troubles and massage your neck.’

‘Bullshit! If Olivia knew any virile young men she’d keep them for herself!’

‘Well do you?’

‘Do I what?’

‘Do you want a virile young man to massage your neck?’

She peered through the crack in the doorway at the deep V of Garth’s chest which peered out at her from his black leather jacket. She remembered the hardness of his thighs, and the long,
lean weight of his body on hers. She opened the door and leaned against it.

‘Is that all you’re offering?’ She pulled him towards her and, smiling, began to undo his buttons.

Stop grinning, Mel told herself, you must look like the village idiot! But as she lay in bed the next morning studying Garth’s face, she felt another unashamedly
self-satisfied grin sneak across her face. He was so beautiful! And he wasn’t a shit after all. He had felt hounded, and he couldn’t cope with screwing the boss. It was as simple as
that. And if it wasn’t she was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The phone rang interrupting Mel’s fantasy somewhere between the proposal and the full white wedding.

‘Hello Mel. It’s Liz. I know this probably sounds crazy out of the blue but Ginny and I have been wondering if, since you’re out of a job, you’d like to join us at
WomanPower? We’re growing so fast we need a really good PR, and we thought of you. We could give you a sliver of the action, if you wanted. What do you think?’

Mel was speechless. ‘Me? Come and live in the country? Where there’s no salt-beef sandwiches, no Heal’s, no all-night Turkish restaurants?’

‘Mel, when’s the last time you went to an all-night Turkish restaurant?’

‘I can’t remember. But that’s not the point. If I fancy a mixed meze at three a.m. I can have one. I’m a city girl, Liz, I find rubbish and muggers and taxis that sail
past me with their lights on comforting. I couldn’t cope with silence and peace and no McDonald’s.’

‘I could,’ interrupted Garth, waking suddenly and starting to kiss her all the way up her arm. ‘I think it’s a brilliant idea.’

She looked down at Garth in surprise. She hadn’t even noticed him wake.

‘I grew up in the country,’ he persisted, ‘I was born in Suffolk.’

‘
You?
Don’t have me on.’ Mel put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘You came from Harrods Toy Boy Department! I ordered you last week.’

As revenge he began to tickle her.

While Liz waited for someone to give her a sensible answer she heard muffled giggling and a cry of ‘Stop it, stop it!’ Then Mel dropped the receiver. In the background Liz could hear
a male voice singing ‘I’m Gonna be a Country Girl Again’ very loudly. And no one needed to tell her that things were looking up for Mel.

As the first issue of the revamped
Selden Bridge Star
rolled off the presses, David felt an exhilaration he hadn’t felt for years. As editor and proprietor he
had complete freedom to write whatever he liked, and no one could pull it because it trod on powerful toes or force him to cover a story he found distasteful. It might be small beer, but it had the
heady and powerful taste of freedom.

He thought about the editorial conference yesterday. Some of the young reporters had had terrific ideas, and the News Editor was so young and keen David had to hold him back. There was only one
problem. The Woman’s Page. It was edited by a blue-rinsed harridan whose ideas about women’s interests had been frozen about 1934. The solution was obvious. And yet each time he’d
reached for the phone to call Suzan Brown and offer her the job, something had stopped him.

He’d told Liz Suzan was coming to work for him but the truth was he hadn’t even asked her. And he didn’t know why. Whether it was just pride, that he couldn’t bear Liz to
have been right after all, or his own doubts about getting involved with someone as young as Suzan. Or maybe even out of some kind of crazy loyalty to Liz.

How ludicrous. Suddenly he felt blindingly angry remembering that dreamy, aroused quality in her voice and he picked up the phone and began to dial the number of the
Daily News.

‘But, Liz, it’d be crazy not to open up in London! Maybe not now but in six months’ time.’ Ginny jumped up from her desk and started pacing.
‘It’s the obvious step. If we don’t have a London branch we’ll never be able to compete with Nine to Five or World of Work.’

Liz looked up from the report she was reading, her eyes troubled. ‘But Ginny, do we
want
to compete with them? I thought the whole idea of WomanPower was to be small-scale, so you
and I could both work part-time and still see our kids.’

‘You’re right. I suppose. It’s just that WomanPower’s got so much potential. It seems criminal to waste it.’

Liz sighed. She knew what Ginny meant. WomanPower was becoming a bigger success than either of them had ever foreseen. And, lurking in the background, Liz glimpsed the spectre of another job
that could, if she let it, take over her life.

The trouble was, though she knew the price of success only too well, Ginny didn’t. Ginny still had all the white-hot enthusiasm of the recent convert. And Liz couldn’t help
sympathizing. She could see how heady it must be to find you had an undiscovered talent, apart from being somebody’s wife or somebody’s mother. And she hated having to put the brake
on.

She glanced at her watch. Six-thirty. At this rate she’d miss bathtime.

‘Come on, Ginny, I’ll give you a lift.’

‘It’s OK, I’ve got a few things to clear up.’

‘Come
on
. Or I’ll run over your mobile phone.’

‘All right, all right.’ Ginny grinned back at her. ‘You’ve talked me into it.’

But even Liz wasn’t prepared for the sight that awaited them when they stopped outside Ginny’s house half an hour later. The weather had turned cold and damp and
the whole place was in darkness, and freezing cold. Sensing Liz’s surprise, Ginny ran ahead and hastily started lighting a fire.

But the worst shock was the kitchen. The cold seemed to seep out of the tiled floor, so that Liz found herself unconsciously hopping from one foot to the other to keep warm.

‘Damn!’ Ginny apologized. ‘I must have forgotten to riddle the stove.’

‘Where are the children?’

‘What day is it?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘In that case the childminder picks them up from school and Gavin fetches them on his way home.’ She delved in the freezer for a Marks & Spencer’s quiche and put it in the
microwave. ‘I do Wednesdays and Fridays. Would you like a drink?’

For a fraction of a second Liz hesitated. Maybe she should stay and see if she could persuade Ginny to take things a bit easier.

But why? It was Ginny’s life, not hers. And Ginny would probably think it the height of hypocrisy if Liz started interfering. ‘No thanks. I must get back. I’m late
myself.’

She picked her bag up from one of the kitchen chairs and made for the door, relishing the thought of her own warm-as-toast cottage, where it would be bathtime now and Minty would have draped two
small pairs of pyjamas over the Aga to warm. Then she stopped for a moment, her eye caught by the sampler that had had such an influence on her own decision to change her life.

As she read the delicate stitching, embroidered over a hundred years ago, she saw exactly what WomanPower’s success was already costing Ginny. Her home, once a haven of warmth and
happiness, was becoming a house like any other. And Liz knew that something immeasurably precious was being lost and that she had to say something before it was too late.

And yet, how could she? She who hadn’t seen her own children for months at a time? Who had been so sure that it was every woman’s right to Have It All. Coming from her such a lecture
would be rich indeed.

‘Ginny,’ she began tentatively, putting her bag down again and trying to keep her tone light and chatty. She knew how sensitive Ginny would be. ‘You don’t think
you’re overdoing it a bit at WomanPower? You seem to be there all the time instead of just half the week . . .’

She wondered how to go on without sounding holier-than-thou.

In the end the problem was solved for her by Gavin who came into the kitchen carrying Ben and Amy.

He took one look at the tinfoil dish in Ginny’s hand. ‘Oh no,’ he complained wearily, ‘not bloody quiche again!’

‘So, what do you think?’

David had just taken Suzan on a tour of the paper and had handed her the first edition.

For a few minutes she scanned it. Then she looked up and smiled. ‘It’s got lots of potential.’

David laughed. ‘You mean it’s provincial crap!’ Suzan looked at him hesitantly, not wanting to see the excitement leave his face or even admit to herself that now she was here
she regretted her decision.

‘Well, it’s certainly different from the
News
!’

‘Thank God for that much. Of course it’s crap, Suzan. It’s the first edition and the staff have worked for years on
Noddytown News.
Suddenly they’re asked to
produce something fresh and new and challenging. All things considered they haven’t done a bad job. But in three months none of us will recognize it. And making that happen will be as much
your job as mine!’

‘Yes.’ She smiled with relief that he was still the same old David, candid and sharp as ever. And that it wasn’t true, as the hacks were saying in the
Daily
News
’s local pub, a.k.a. The Stab in the Back (because that was largely what went on there), that he had lost his marbles.

Fortunately for her, Suzan didn’t know the other thing they were saying about David and her in The Stab. That there was only one possible reason for her to have gone chasing off to Selden
bloody Bridge. And the Deputy Chief Sub had opened a book on how long it would take before it happened.

Suzan put her bag down on her new desk and smiled. ‘Let’s get down to it, then.’

David smiled back, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. He knew Suzan well enough to guess what she was thinking. She thought she’d made a terrible mistake but she was going to make the
best of it anyway. That was what he liked most about her. Her determination.

As she reached for the phone to make her very first call as Woman’s Editor of the
Selden Bridge Star
, he realized with a jolt who it was she reminded him of. Liz. She had the same
spunkiness, the same resolve to drag something positive out of adversity. There was even something about the curve of her cheek and the way she held her head that made him think of Liz all those
years ago, when she too had started out on a local paper not so different from this one.

Suddenly angry with himself, David turned brusquely away. He really must forget Liz. Looking up he caught Suzan watching him, and he smiled. She really was a very beautiful girl.

‘Hello, Ginny.’ Liz perched herself on the side of Ginny’s desk the next morning and smiled a shade sheepishly. ‘Look, I’m sorry about last night.
Why don’t we have lunch and talk about how to make the workload easier on all of us?’

Ginny looked up coldly. ‘Sorry, Liz, I’m busy today.’ Her tone implied that she would be busy whenever Liz suggested a time.

Liz picked up her briefcase and walked towards her office. Once inside she leaned on the door and closed her eyes and hoped against hope that WomanPower wasn’t going to cost Ginny and her
their friendship.

Outside in the main office there seemed to be some kind of commotion going on. Surely not a dissatisfied customer already? Maybe a tramp had wandered in off the street? Forgetting about Ginny,
she opened the door a few inches.

In the middle of the office stood Gavin holding Ben with one hand and Amy with the other. Liz had never seen him so angry.

‘For God’s sake, Ginny, what’s the matter with you? Ben was supposed to go to hospital today for a checkup on his asthma. We’ve waited months for this appointment and the
hospital just rang to ask where he is.’

Ginny looked stricken. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy I forgot.’

‘Just like you forgot to pick them up from the childminder last week? For God’s sake, Ginny, we never see you any more. Don’t we matter to you compared to your brilliant
career?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gavin, don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, why can’t
you
take him to the hospital once in a while, why does it always have to be
me
?’

Watching the unfamiliar sight of his parents shouting at each other in front of all these strangers, Ben, always brave and grown-up, suddenly started to cry and Amy copied him.

For the first time, Ginny seemed to realize where she was and what was happening. She held Amy close and patted her head. ‘Don’t worry, darling, everything’s all
right.’

She caught sight of Liz, leaning on her door, and for the first time seemed to realize what Liz had been trying to tell her. ‘Oh, Lizzie.’ She ran to her and Liz put her arms round
both Ginny and Amy, almost moved to tears herself. ‘Everything’s not all right, is it? What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know, Ginny, but we’ll think of something.’ As she said it, she knew they would have to find a solution. WomanPower was a brilliant idea. But it was becoming a
monster that would engulf all their lives if they let it.

‘We need more people on board for a start. More chiefs as well as more Indians.’ Liz had been thinking over what to do about WomanPower all night.

‘Who for instance?’

‘Mel, for a start. I’ve already talked to her and she’s definitely nibbling.’

Ginny was sceptical. ‘Mel would never leave London. She’s part of the scenery. Like Buckingham Palace, only less classy.’