Miranda's Big Mistake (8 page)

Chloe had known she was making a big mistake when she phoned her mother the night before. But some things—no matter how much you didn't want to do them—had to be done.

‘What do you mean, he's left you?' Pamela Greening had barked when she had finally managed to stammer out the words. ‘Chloe, don't be ridiculous, is this your idea of a joke? Why on earth would Greg want to leave you?'

Quailing in the face of her mother's wrath, Chloe had promptly chickened out of telling her about the baby. Instead she had mumbled something feeble about not getting on and things not really working out.

‘My God, that boy has a nerve! You just wait until I get my hands on him, I'll make him realize—'

‘Mum, please, there's nothing you can do,' Chloe had begged. ‘He's gone. It's not the end of the world. Marriages break up all the time.'

‘Not in our family they don't,' her mother had grimly replied. ‘Never before in our family.'

‘Well, one has now.'

‘You give up too easily, my girl. You always have.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake,' Chloe had yelled, exasperated, ‘what was I supposed to do, tie him up and lock him in the broom cupboard?'

‘Now you're just being stupid. There are ways and means, Chloe. If you want to keep your husband there are
always
ways and means.'

Her mother had sounded almost crosser with her than she was with Greg.

***

That had been last night. And now it was about to get worse.

As she rounded the corner, Chloe saw the familiar outline of her mother standing on the pavement outside her flat.

‘Mum, you didn't have to do this. Truly, I'm fine.'

‘You've put on weight.'

No kiss, no reassuring hug, thought Chloe. No words of comfort either.

Oh well, no change there.

‘A bit.' She sucked in as much of her stomach as she could.

‘Come on then, where's your key? Three hours on the coach, this trip's taken. You can make me a cup of tea before we get down to business.'

‘What business?' Fumbling, Chloe fitted the key in the lock. The flat wasn't hideously untidy, but her mother wouldn't be impressed when she spotted last night's saucepans still lounging in the sink.

‘Greg, of course.'

‘But—'

‘Don't even try and talk me out of it, Chloe. That lad stood up in church and made public vows. Marriage is for life,' she wagged a terrifying finger at her daughter, ‘not for as long as it suits him. He needs to be reminded of that,' she announced ominously. ‘And if you won't do it, I will.'

After a long day at work, Chloe was exhausted. To give herself a bit of breathing space, she went on ahead into the kitchen.

‘I'll make that pot of tea. If you're staying the night, you can have my bed and I'll sleep on the sofa.' Since her mother was carrying a small suitcase, she guessed this was the plan. ‘But you aren't going to be able to lecture Greg about his wedding vows,' she called over her shoulder—quite bravely for her—‘because he isn't here.'

‘We aren't all as useless as you,' her mother retorted. ‘I'm going to pay him a visit, aren't I?'

Startled, Chloe looked around. Her mother was standing in the kitchen doorway like Wyatt Earp in a polyester shift, brandishing a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other.

‘You can't do that!'

‘Just give me his address.'

‘I don't have it.'

‘Don't be ridiculous.'

‘I'm not,' Chloe lied, her palms beginning to sweat. ‘I don't know where he is.'

She did. Word had filtered through on the local grapevine that Greg had moved in with Adrian, but she'd had enough pride not to contact him.

Largely because there was no point.

And if there was anything more publicly humiliating, thought Chloe, than turning up on the doorstep of the husband who'd dumped you, begging him to change his mind and come back…well, it was having your mother do it for you.

‘I can always tell when you're lying,' said Pamela Greening. ‘Of course you know where he is.'

Chloe's hands shook as she poured boiling water into the sugar bowl. Oh God, how much more of this could she take?

‘Mum, Greg's gone. He didn't tell me where. I haven't seen or spoken to him for weeks. Now why don't you stop interrogating me, put your pen away and just go and unpack?'

For a woman who wore Hush Puppies, Pamela Greening could certainly stomp her feet. Taking a deep breath, Chloe managed this time to fill the teapot. She was emptying the sugar bowl down the sink when the stomping grew louder. The floor began to quiver.

Oh, for heaven's sake, thought Chloe wearily, what now? It was like something out of
Jurassic Park
.

The split second before she turned round, she guessed.

But since there was no chance of escape—not even through the tiny kitchen window, which would never accommodate her hips—she turned anyway.

Her mother was doing that Wyatt Earp thing again. Only this time she was clutching a copy of the paperback Chloe had been reading last night in bed.

Miriam Stoppard's
Book of Pregnancy and Birth
.

At that moment Chloe quite envied Greg. She wished she'd never given her mother this address.

‘Oh yes.' Bracing herself, she mumbled, ‘I forgot to mention it. I'm expecting a baby.'

Pamela Greening's face went purple, then white, then purple again.

Finally she thundered, ‘
Whose?
'

***

It took Pamela no time at all to find out where her runaway son-in-law was now living.

Thirty seconds to look up the number of his insurance company in Chloe's Yellow Pages.

Another thirty seconds to learn that Greg had left the office early.

Forty-five seconds to inform his startled secretary that it was imperative—yes,
imperative
—she be given his new address. ‘I don't care what your company policy is. My name is Dr Blake and I'm calling from St Thomas's Hospital. I need to speak to Gregory Malone regarding a matter of extreme urgency.'

At the other end of the sitting room, cringing on the sofa, it occurred to Chloe that her mother had been watching too many episodes of
Murder She Wrote
.

When it came to intimidation, Jessica Fletcher had nothing on her.

‘There.' Pamela hung up the phone and stuck the address under her daughter's nose. ‘You could have done that.'

Chloe watched her grimly shove her arms back into her sensible navy mac.

‘Oh no, you can't do this.'

‘Watch me.'

‘It'll just make things worse!'

The look her mother gave her was loaded with contempt.

‘You're pregnant. He's abandoned you. How much worse can it get?'

***

‘He's not here.' Warily Adrian clutched the towel around his hips. He dimly remembered Chloe's ferocious mother from the wedding, when she had told him in no uncertain terms to stop dancing on the tables.

‘You mean he's hiding upstairs, too frightened to face me? Tell Gregory his mother-in-law is here to see him and I'm not moving from this spot until I do.'

‘But he isn't, I swear! You just missed him,' Adrian insisted. ‘He left five minutes ago. You can search the house if you like.'

Pamela Greening eyed the stranger before her with distaste. If Gregory wasn't there, she wasn't about to put herself at risk by entering a house with a naked man in it.

‘What time will he be back?'

This, Adrian thought fleetingly, rather depended on whether or not Greg got lucky with whoever he was seeing tonight. But since Chloe's battleaxe of a mother wasn't likely to appreciate this information, he said, ‘I don't know. Probably not too late.'

Just as well he was going out himself. He didn't envy Greg one bit.

Before leaving the house an hour later, Adrian wrote a note on the back of a gas bill and propped it up in full view on the kitchen table.

Poor Greg, the least he could do was warn him that his mother-in-law was in town and on the loose.

At the end of the road, not taking any chances, Pamela Greening lurked behind a postbox. She watched Gregory's friend let himself out of the house and head up the road in the opposite direction.

No sign of Gregory.

She rang the doorbell again, to check. Still no reply.

Never mind, she was in no hurry.

Grimly Pamela thought, I can wait.

***

It wasn't a terrible anticlimax. Miranda had been petrified it would be, but it wasn't. When she saw Greg climb out of his car outside the house—looking even more handsome than she'd remembered—she found herself leaning so far out of her bedroom window that she almost toppled out.

Grinning and waving like some besotted groupie, she yelled, ‘I'm coming down. You're
early
.'

Not very cool, maybe, but who cared?

Certainly not Greg, who grinned and waved back, and shouted up, ‘I couldn't wait.'

He took her to Le Vin Rose, an unpretentious candlelit wine bar in Bayswater packed with couples holding hands.

‘How's your chest?' said Miranda, and he undid the middle button on his shirt, revealing the scrawl of faded black numbers.

‘They won't go. I'm tattooed for life.'

‘God, I'm sorry.'

‘I'm not.' Smiling, Greg buttoned himself back up. ‘Some people are worth getting tattooed for. Did you tell Bev who you were seeing tonight?'

‘I couldn't. She's still suicidal because you didn't ring her. How about you?'

‘Oh, I'm not suicidal.'

‘Git. I meant, have you told Adrian yet?'

‘No.'

‘Every time Bev mentions your name,' Miranda blurted out, ‘I blush. Honestly, it's mad. I feel so guilty, as if I'm sneaking around with somebody who's
married
.'

‘You poor thing.' Greg took her hand, curling his fingers protectively over hers. ‘So you've had a terrible day?'

The physical contact sent quivers of pleasure zooming up Miranda's arm and down her spine. Heavens, it was ages since she'd felt like this.

‘Actually, it wasn't that bad. I went for a swim with Miles Harper in Tabitha Lester's swimming pool. He invited me to a party tonight but I had to turn him down because I was seeing you. Still, he was okay about it.' She shrugged, flicking her blue-tipped fringe out of her eyes. ‘He took it pretty well, in fact.'

‘Same here,' Greg confided. ‘I had Madonna in the office this morning, pestering me to take her out to dinner tonight. Had to call security in the end to get rid of her.
No
, Madonna, I kept telling her, I can't see you this evening, I've already arranged to meet Miranda.'

Having opened her mouth to say yes, but he was joking and she wasn't, Miranda promptly shut it again. Boasting wasn't an attractive quality in a girl. Besides, what if Miles Harper did contact her? Much as she liked Greg, it was very early days. Being brutally honest here, if Miles rang the salon and invited her out again—and this time she happened to be free—well, she'd be there like a shot.

Instead, she said gravely, ‘Thank you. I'm glad you chose me.'

‘So am I. Glad you chose me, I mean. You wouldn't want to get involved with Miles Harper anyway,' Greg assured her. ‘You can't trust blokes like that, they'd mess you around no end.'

‘Oh, I know.'

‘He's seeing Daisy Schofield,' he went on. ‘There was a picture of them together in the paper this morning.'

Miranda took a gulp of wine. She nodded sagely over the rim of her glass.

‘I saw it too.'

An hour later, Miranda's stomach began to rumble noisily. Too nervous to eat earlier, she was now starving.

‘I've booked a table at L'Etoile,' said Greg, ‘for nine thirty.'

‘You always say just the right thing.' She could have kissed him. This was a definite step up from warm beer and soggy pizza.

Not that she was mercenary, but it showed he cared, Miranda thought hastily, hugging herself as she watched Greg make his way over to the bar to settle their bill. In fact the evening was going so well, she wouldn't care if pizza was all she ate.

I've met someone I really like, she thought joyfully, and he really likes me too.

‘Damn.' Greg was back, frowning. ‘My credit card's expired.'

‘Oh!' Miranda reached for her bag and began hunting for her purse. ‘I've got some money here somewhere…'

‘It's okay, I had enough cash on me to pay the bill.' He motioned her to put her purse away. ‘It just means a bit of a detour. The new card's at home. I need to pick it up before we head for the restaurant.'

Not keen to be arrested for loitering, Pamela Greening had spent the last two and a half hours pacing the length of Milligan Road, planning in detail what she would say to her abysmal son-in-law when she finally got her hands on him.

She was at the far end of the street, three hundred yards from the house, when she spotted a familiar car approaching from the mailbox end.

Oh yes, that was definitely his white Rover pulling up under the streetlamp outside number forty-two.

Pulling her navy trench coat more tightly around her waist, Pamela marched purposefully towards the car.

‘Two seconds,' Greg assured Miranda as he climbed out. ‘I know exactly where it is.'

‘Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere.' Waving him off, Miranda turned up the volume on the stereo as U2 launched into ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday'. This was blissful, they even shared the same taste in music. Imagine how horrible it would be, meeting someone as perfect as Greg, the two of you getting on like a house on fire, and then discovering that while you were a U2 girl, he was a…well, a Des O'Connor man.

With her eyes closed and the music blasting out, Miranda neither saw nor heard the middle-aged woman in the tightly belted trench coat hiss the word ‘Whore!' at her through the car's closed window before storming up the front path.

In the kitchen, Greg stared in disbelief at the scrawled note Adrian had left propped up against a dirty coffee cup.

Warning! Your mother-in-law was here looking for you and she's
coming back later
. If you want to hang on to your ging-gangs, hide the bread knife!

Cheers, Ade.

PS
If you murder her and need to dispose of the body, use the black binliners under the sink.

It was all right for Adrian to joke about it, Greg thought, she wasn't his mother-in-law. Then he went hot and cold; if they hadn't been late for the restaurant and Miranda had come in with him, she would have seen the damning note.

Crushing the gas bill into a ball, he threw it into the bin.

He liked Miranda a lot, too much to want to blow it on their first date. He certainly wasn't about to tell her he was married with a pregnant wife. Not that that was his fault, Greg thought with renewed irritation, but some girls could be funny about things like that.

So much for tidying his bedroom earlier and changing the sheets. No way now was he going to risk inviting Miranda back later for a nightcap.

The sudden shrill of the doorbell made him jump. Jesus, who was
that
?

Miranda?

Or the mother-in-law from hell?

Feeling sick, Greg realized that either way, he couldn't not answer it.

Praying it was Miranda, he pulled open the front door.

His head jerked back as Pamela Greening slapped him hard across the face.

‘So that's why you left, is it?' Furiously she indicated the car behind her with Miranda inside. ‘That's why you abandoned my daughter? Well, let me tell you, I won't stand for it! You're going to face up to your responsibilities, my lad. Chloe needs her husband, that baby needs a father, and you have a
duty
to—'

‘Pamela, not now.'

Greg froze as over his mother-in-law's shoulder he saw Miranda, in the passenger seat, observing the goings-on. This was a nightmare. He had to get out of here fast.

‘Oh no you don't,' Pamela Greening yelled as he slammed the front door shut behind him and tried to move past her. ‘I came here to talk to you!'

‘I don't need this.' Gritting his teeth, he forcibly removed her clawing hand from his arm. ‘I do
not need
this.'

In the car, Miranda stared open-mouthed at the bizarre scene. Until a few seconds ago she had been oblivious to everything, drumming her heels and singing along with Bono. Only when the last stirring chords of the song had faded away had she opened her eyes and seen Greg remonstrating with a middle-aged woman on his doorstep.

Now she watched him push past her and head back to the car. As he yanked open the driver's door, she heard the woman—hot on his heels—shout furiously, ‘You're not going to get away with this!'

‘My God, what's going on?' squealed Miranda.

‘Just ignore her.'

‘You
won't
ignore me! I'll make you sorry you ever—'

As the engine roared into life, Greg managed to wrench the door shut. The woman, her hands still scrabbling at the handle, leapt away as he stuck his foot down and screeched off down the road.

‘Sorry about that.'

‘Greg, who
was
she?' Miranda swiveled round in her seat, peering back at the woman on the pavement. Then she turned and stared at Greg. ‘What the hell was that about?'

He shook his head and braked as they took the corner.

‘Client with a grudge. It happens, I'm afraid. She and her husband took out massive life insurance. Then he killed himself. The policy didn't cover suicide but she won't accept that.' Greg breathed out slowly. They were safe now; his hands had stopped shaking. ‘Poor woman, I think she's lost her mind. I've told her a hundred times the insurance isn't valid and that the company isn't going to pay out. But it just doesn't sink in. She thinks I'm cheating her out of three hundred grand.'

‘You're kidding!' Miranda's eyes were like saucers. ‘That's
terrible
.'

Greg nodded.

‘She's been harassing me at the office. Now, clearly, she's found out where I live. I mean, I feel sorry for her, but what can I do?'

‘Tell the police, for a start.' Urgently, Miranda clutched his arm. ‘She could be dangerous!'

Bloody dangerous, thought Greg.

‘We've already spoken to the police. It's not worth it. They can't arrest her until she actually does something illegal. But they're aware of the situation,' he added. ‘If my windows get smashed or the house burns to the ground, they'll have a good idea who to blame.'

‘If your
house
burns to the ground?' Miranda echoed the words, aghast.

‘Don't worry,' Greg smiled at her, ‘I'm fully insured.'

Was that meant to be reassuring? Miranda wasn't the least bit reassured. It was, she thought indignantly, an outrageous state of affairs.

‘But what about breach of the peace, can't they get her for that? Or…or, those stalking laws,' she exclaimed. ‘I mean, that's what this madwoman's doing, isn't it? Stalking you?'

Any minute now, Greg sensed, Miranda was liable to make a dash for the nearest phone box and start dialing 999.

‘She's an old lady,' he told her, ‘who's just lost her husband. She's out of her mind with grief. Would a spell in a madhouse really do any good? And besides,' he went on gently, ‘imagine how I'd feel, knowing I'd helped to put her there. I wouldn't be able to live with myself.'

‘Stop the car,' said Miranda.

‘What?'

‘I said, stop the car.'

‘Why?'

Nervously, Greg looked around for a phone box. He couldn't see one, but dare he risk it?

‘Because you are the nicest, kindest, most generous man I have ever met.' Her voice catching with emotion, Miranda reached for him. ‘And I'm sorry, but I just have to give you a massive,
massive
kiss.'

‘Okay, moment-of-truth time,' Greg murmured several highly satisfactory minutes later. ‘You may be about to change your mind about me.'

Miranda, wondering if she'd ever been happier in her life, kissed his earlobe before snuggling her head further into the curve of his shoulder.

‘Why?'

‘I have a confession to make.'

‘About what?'

‘The bit about me being generous.'

‘Why?'

‘My credit card. I forgot to pick it up.'

‘Oh. Well, I've got eight pounds in my purse.'

‘I've got about eight pounds fifty.' Greg's smile was rueful.

Miranda turned his watch towards her and peered at the hands in the dim amber glow of the overhead streetlight.

‘We've missed our table now anyway. That's all right.'

‘Why is it all right?' said Greg.

Between kisses, Miranda whispered, ‘Because sometimes I actually prefer pizza.'