Having It All (59 page)

In fact the message from Sir Derek had been even stronger. Metro
needed
her. It was a terrific feeling after the sick emptiness she’d been left with since the showdown over
WomanPower. Losing her company and her friends along with it had hurt her more than she’d allowed herself to admit. And not one of them had even bothered to ring her and say,
‘Don’t let all this spoil our friendship. You matter more to us than a stupid company!’

Well, now she’d have something else to fight for. And maybe she could even use the fact that Metro needed her to demand more time off, time to get home and see the children.

She got up and leaned over the parapet, staring down at the grey river below. But what about their life in Seamington? Her dreams of a different life?

She saw a bench behind her and sat down next to a man reading a newspaper. God she hadn’t even read the papers for days. She realized how much she’d been cutting herself off, this
past year. Not even reading the papers or watching the news bulletins because bad news depressed her. She was turning into the kind of person she despised.

It was time she faced the truth. She’d been dreaming, playing Marie Antoinette. A pathetic townie who yearned for green wellies and couldn’t even remember to put the oil in the Aga.
She might as well admit it. The country dream was finished for her. It had died when she went back to Nick’s that night.

The whole thing had been a failure. She’d been a godawful mother, always snapping at them, and not even up to cooking Sussex Pond Pudding or making decent Christmas decorations. If one
child didn’t have its lunchbox at school it was bound to be hers.

Maybe it was time for a change. If there was one thing she’d learned in the last year it was that life wasn’t a story that unfolded smoothly with a beginning, a middle and an end. It
was a series of chapters, some of them unexpected, each different from the last, which could be read in any order. As she stared out at the river she felt the irresistible sense of a new and
unforeseen chapter opening in front of her.

She stood up, pushing her hair back from her face to feel the fresh invigorating wind. She would accept the job. But she wasn’t telling them yet. She’d make them wait. That way her
bargaining position would be even stronger.

As she turned off the main road on to the small B road to Seamington two hours later Liz realized with disappointment that she didn’t feel the usual elation, the familiar
lift of the heart at the knowledge she’d be home in ten minutes. And the admission cut her like a newly sharpened knife. Today of all days, she needed the healing quality of the place, that
sense of timeless peace which always put the jostling for power and success in such clear perspective. Instead she was racked with doubt. If she accepted the job would she be doing the right thing?
Or was she just fooling herself because she wanted it so much?

Would accepting it be a betrayal of all that she’d tried to achieve in the last year? Would it mean giving up the dream of balance for ever?

As she parked the car and walked up the path she was surprised to find that the front door was open, letting the sloping autumn light cast its long shadows through the hall. A big bowl of
pungent white chrysanthemums perfumed the sitting room and she saw the French windows into the garden were also open. Two pairs of shoes stood by the open window. Minty must have put on their boots
and taken them out for a romp.

As she put down her briefcase she decided to run upstairs and change, maybe she could peel off her uncertainty along with her city clothes, but two stairs up she stopped and listened. In the
garden she could hear Jamie’s laughter, happy and ecstatic, the kind of laughter she hadn’t heard from him in months. She stood there for a moment letting the magical sound wash away
her stress. And she realized she couldn’t wait another moment before seeing him.

She ran down the top lawn towards the orchard in her unsuitable shoes pausing for a moment behind an apple tree. And then she stopped, frozen. In the middle of the orchard Jamie and Daisy,
wrapped in coats and scarves, sat on a rug eating apples and biscuits. But it wasn’t Minty who was with them. It was David.

Liz stood still and silent as a birdwatcher. The pain of seeing him there so unexpectedly was almost too much to bear. She had imagined the scene so many times. Her family, laughing, together on
a rug. Except that she wasn’t part of it, and when she joined it everything would change.

Through the branches of the tree she studied David’s face, and she saw there a look of such longing and love for Jamie and Daisy that her heart turned over. Why couldn’t people love
each other like they loved their children? Then the divorce courts would be empty and families would be whole and happy.

She watched the three of them intently for one more moment, as though she were taking a snapshot in her mind to stick in some eternal album of memory. She supposed he’d come to talk about
the divorce, but she didn’t care. For a moment at least she was seeing her family as she wanted to remember it.

Steeling herself she stepped out from behind the apple tree and walked towards them. It struck her that there was no sign of Suzan. Maybe she was in the kitchen, making tea and unpacking the
bribes for Jamie and Daisy.

Jamie was the first to see her. ‘Mummy! Mummy! Look! Daddy’s here!’

Daisy too pulled herself up and clutched Liz’s legs, almost toppling her over. ‘Mummy! Daddy come see Daisy!’

She bent down and picked her up, somehow glad to have Daisy’s little body next to hers, as though it could shield her from the worst of the pain.

‘Hello, David, what brings you here?’

He didn’t answer for a moment, taking in her city suit and three-inch heels digging into the grass.

‘Did you get the job?’ he joked, his tone light and neutral.

Liz smiled at this question asked everywhere and always of people suddenly appearing in formal dress.

‘Yes, I got the job.’

She thought she detected a slight flicker of disappointment, but decided she’d imagined it.

‘What is it?’

‘Programme Controller and Managing Director of Metro Television.’

He whistled. ‘What happened to Conrad?’

‘Caught with his fingers in the till. Claudia’s gone too.’

Jamie looked stricken. ‘Are we going back to London, Mum?’

She put Daisy down and stroked his head, not looking at David, not answering, playing for time.

‘And did you accept?’ David’s voice was exaggeratedly casual.

‘I said I’d think about it and give them my answer tomorrow.’

‘It’s a big job. Do you want it?’

‘Of course I want it! How could I
not
want it? Without Conrad I could make Metro into something really worthwhile. But it’s not as simple as that is it?’

Liz looked round. There was still no sign of Suzan, unless she’d been left in the car. Maybe David had finally learned not to dangle the new chick in front of the mother hen.

Jealous of Jamie getting all the love, Daisy cuddled in to David’s neck and she saw his face soften. For a second she remembered how when she was a tiny baby Daisy often fell asleep on his
chest, soothed by the beating of his heart.

The picture was too painful to remember and she wiped it deliberately from her mind like a child’s magic slate. David was talking again. She tried to listen.

‘Did you know that WomanPower had pulled out of the take-over bid?’

Suddenly he had all her attention. ‘Why? They were so determined to go through with it.’

‘I got a call from Mel last week asking me if I could investigate Ross Slater for them. Naturally I was only too happy to oblige. I managed to track down an old colleague who told them
some fascinating stories about his business methods.’ He grinned at the memory. ‘So they lost their nerve and pulled out.’

Liz smiled too. So they’d taken her advice. At least WomanPower wasn’t going to be destroyed after all.

‘So now you’re going home.’

‘So now I’m going home. But I had to see Jamie and Daisy first.’

An awkward silence fell, which neither seemed able to break. Liz imagined Suzan waiting for him, shortening her miniskirt.

David made no attempt to leave. Finally it was Jamie who broke the silence.

‘Don’t go Dad, don’t go back there. Stay with us!’

Liz looked away, unable to listen to David’s measured, sensible answer and see Jamie’s disappointment.

Instead, as he knelt down to stroke Jamie’s hair, he looked up at her.

‘They asked me an interesting question after our meeting.’

‘Did they? What was that?’

‘They inquired – purely theoretically of course – if I would ever be interested in being Managing Director of WomanPower.’

Liz felt her pulse quicken and unconsciously she bit her lip. David would be brilliant for WomanPower but of course he’d never give up the paper to run an employment agency. Now it was her
turn to ask the difficult question.

‘And would you?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve been very happy in the last few months.’ He hesitated. ‘And the paper’s just starting to break
even.’

Liz felt an irrational jolt of disappointment.

David’s eyes held hers. ‘Come back with me, Liz! You could come and work on the paper with me! It’d be like the old days when we were both starting out.’

For a moment she was tempted by the enthusiasm in his voice. But then she remembered Suzan. And what about Metro’s offer?

‘I can’t, David. We’re settled here now.’ She paused. ‘And now there’s Metro.’

He looked away from her as though he were finally coming to some painful decision. And when he turned back she saw a flicker of that old familiar intensity she’d once loved so much.

‘Then there’s only one solution I can see.’ The lightness had gone from his tone and she could hear the steel beneath. ‘I’ll give up the paper and accept
WomanPower. On two conditions.’

Liz felt her heart quicken until it almost hurt her chest.

‘And what are those?’

‘First that you turn down Metro and we run WomanPower together.’ He looked down at Jamie. ‘With half-term and school holidays off of course – if you want.’

Liz held tightly on to Daisy to steady herself. David might be perfect for WomanPower, but could they really work together? Or would they simply drive each other crazy, and everyone else with
them?

She didn’t answer. Realizing suddenly that she wasn’t sure what he was offering her. A business arrangement or something more than that?

‘And what was the other condition?’

‘That I’d be living in.’ His eyes held hers, demanding she look at him. ‘I want to come back, Liz. I want to be with you and my family where I belong. It matters more to
me than anything in the world. Even than the paper.’

She looked into his eyes. Could it possibly work out between them, trying again, together day and night? It would certainly be one answer to never seeing each other. And she had to admit
there’d been times when she’d misjudged him. She could see now the heartbreak had been her fault too.

‘Say yes, Lizzie! I know we could be happy! We’ve got more in common now than we ever had in London. And together we could make WomanPower into a real force!’

She smiled at the eagerness in his voice. He’d always had a way of making things come alive and suddenly she was caught by his excitement. Maybe he was right. Perhaps together anything
would
be possible. One day when the kids were older they could even start a newspaper of their own. The
East Sussex Clarion
was hardly competition.

And then she heard the small, stern voice of reality. Had he really changed? Did he really want a quiet, ordinary life with the small pleasures of home and family instead of the cut and thrust
of power and success? And would she be able to trust him again with that love she had once given so unthinkingly?

Glancing down she saw the pleading look in Jamie’s eyes. He had just turned six and he understood so much. Too much. She looked back up at David and he returned her gaze levelly. There was
no pleading there. That wasn’t his way. But she could see love in his eyes, and not just for Jamie and Daisy, but for her.

Maybe people didn’t change. Maybe you just got to understand them better. And maybe they got to understand themselves. Perhaps it was enough. No marriage came with a lifetime guarantee.
And she’d missed him so much.

In these last few months her dream had seemed almost within her grasp, then it had faded away. Now he was offering it back to her, with himself as part of it.

A sudden picture, sharp and clear, of David sitting in the golden light of endless summer evenings, the children at his feet, invaded her imagination. And she knew that this was what she’d
always wanted. WomanPower, David, the children, all together in this precious place. That truly would be having it all.

She reached out and took his hand. He pulled her to him, and held her tightly. As her cheek touched his she could feel the salt wet of his tears. And as they stood locked together, they felt
Jamie’s small arms creep around their legs, tying them in a knot of hope and optimism and love. A real family at last.

By Maeve Haran

Each month best friends Claudia, Sal, Ella and Laura meet for drinks, celebrating forty-five years of friendship. They know each other inside out. Their ambitions, careers,
husbands, lovers, children, hopes, fears, the paths taken and not taken . . .

Sal had spent a lifetime building a career as a magazine editor but she hadn’t banked on a nasty surprise from the one area of her life over which she had no control threatening her
success.

Claudia loved her urban existence – the thought of the country sent shivers down her spine. But, as many women will know, other people’s needs always seem to come first . . .

Ella is ready to try something different. But she hadn’t bargained on quite such a radical change . . .