Never Too Late (43 page)

one day with nobody to change it for you.’

‘Yes, thanks, dear,’ Evie said, not bothering to point out

that changing a tyre wasn’t beyond her capabilities. She

was glad he’d noticed the nail when the car was parked

safely on her driveway but didn’t want to spend the entire

evening discussing it. She stood behind Simon and stared

absently over the roof of her car. It was a warm March

evening and Countess Street was waking up after a long

winter where the residents had been forced to stay indoors.

A spurt of Mediterranean heat and a balmy evening meant

the place was positively buzzing.

Evie’s next-door neighbours were cutting the grass; a

man two doors down was labouring over his overgrown

borders: a couple pushed a pram leisurely on the opposite

footpath and three young boys played soccer on the road,

the ball whacking into the trees regularly. It was time she

cut the grass, Evie realised, looking at the tiny lawn she

rarely had time to do anything with. The heathers she’d

planted two years ago looked terribly straggly, as if they

wouldn’t last a wet week on a genuine Highland bank. She

ought to replace them. Especially if she was going to sell

up to buy a place with Simon. Evie felt a heaviness in her

chest at the idea.

‘When did you last have it serviced?’ he asked. ‘You’re

probably due one, you know. Well, actually, you should

think of getting a new car, Evie. Or a newer one. Of course,

when we’re married, you’ll be able to drive mine.’ He

stood up and beamed at her.

She smiled back, a fleeting smile, and then busied herself

pulling a weed from the rock-hard flower bed beside the

gate. ‘Look at this,’ she muttered, ‘I’ve really got to do

some weeding.’

Simon bent back down to roll one tyre off and replace it

with Evie’s spare. ‘Don’t forget to get this fixed,’ he said

gravely.

She controlled the impulse to hit him with the tyre iron.

By the time she’d pulled up most of the weeds in that

bed, Simon had gone inside to wash his hands and had

made a cafetiere of coffee. Irritated that he’d made coffee

at eight in the evening, despite the fact that she hadn’t slept at all the night before and could do without an injection of caffeine, Evie took a cup and a biscuit.

Simon sat at the kitchen table, lost in the sports supplement.

‘Do

you ever wonder why people fall in love?’ Evie

asked idly. ‘There are millions of people in the world and

then we find one and that’s it. It’s so … random.’

Simon ruffled her hair affectionately without looking up

from his paper. ‘You’re always dreaming, Evie,’ he said

fondly.

‘I don’t mean it like that,’ she pressed on. ‘You know how

do we find the right person? Lorraine and I were

talking about it today. Does true love really exist?’ She

gave a little laugh, as if talking off the top of her head.

Simon stopped reading about Inter Milan’s most recent

million-pound transfer for a moment. ‘You’re such a

romantic, Evie. I’ve got a more cynical view of life. I’ve

always believed you meet someone and then fall in love

with them, whatever that is,’ he added. ‘You know, gradually.

It’s about trust and familiarity. Like my parents,’ he

said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think they were madly “in love”,

as you’d say, but they grew to love each other. She still

misses him, you know.’

‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ Evie said faintly. But Simon

had gone back to European football.

Trust and familiarity, he’d said. Nothing about passion,

the spark of electricity that threatened to overwhelm you

or a fire that burned deep in your soul.

Evie sipped her coffee and gazed blankly into the middle

distance, for once not seeing bits of the kitchen that

needed a good going over with cream cleanser and a

J-cloth. She wanted fierce passion and Simon wanted a

kind companion, someone to sit in front of the telly with

or play bridge with in the distant future. That was the

amazing thing - she really did want fierce, intense passion;

that flooding feeling of desire and longing rushing over her

like a tidal wave.

For years, she’d read about it, immersing herself in the

fantasy world of beautiful women and sensual, cruel men,

and daydreaming about being one of the heroines in her

stories. But that’s all it had been: a daydream, a fantasy.

Then, for some reason, she’d begun to want that in real

life, passion and hunger and excitement. Well, not for some

reason. She knew the reason. It was six foot something of

laughing, almost mocking eyes and a dark face that lit up

when Max saw her.

‘It’s time for the news,’ Simon announced, looking at his

watch. ‘Shall we put it on?’

They watched the news at nine in the sitting room,

Evie’s feet on the coffee table and her mind elsewhere. The

weatherman was forecasting another sunny day when

Simon nuzzled Evie’s neck hopefully.

‘What time is Rosie due back?’ he asked in muffled tones,

his mouth buried in his fiancee’s neck, inhaling the faint

scent of Anais Anais. Ordinarily, Evie loved him kissing her

neck: it was one of her most erogenous zones. Tonight, it felt

stiff, very unerogenous, not sensitive to kissing.

‘Very soon,’ she said. ‘Jenny’s mother is dropping her

home before ten. They’ve been studying together. Anyway,

Simon, I can’t right now …’ She paused delicately. ‘It’s

that time of the month,’ she said, knowing very well he

wouldn’t know she was lying.

Enough said. Simon sat up as if he’d been bitten by a

wasp. He really was so incredibly inexperienced when it

came to women, she thought with a rush of irritation. And

so gullible.

How many periods did he think women had every

month - two? She’d only just got over one and had had the most terrible cramps, but Simon wouldn’t know that. Just mention ‘women’s problems’ and sheer embarrassment

meant his brain ceased to function.

She remembered Rosie giggling while she’d told her

about a male maths teacher in school who went puce at

the very thought of any female gynaecological difficulty.

Rosie claimed that all you had to do to get out of maths

was stand in front of the teacher, press one hand to your

abdomen and moan about ‘not feeling very well, sir’.

‘You’re out the door in a shot to the nurse,’ Rosie cackled.

‘That’s terrible, Rosie,’ Evie had exclaimed. ‘Women

fought long enough not to be considered the weaker sex

and you’ll put the cause of feminism back hundreds of

years by that sort of “I’m a poor little girl” carry on.’

‘Aw, Mum, we’ve got to suffer periods, we might as well

get some benefit out of them,’ joked Rosie. ‘Anyway, that’s

the new feminism - using everything to get what you want,

the way men always have.’

Evie took a quick sideways glance at Simon now. She

couldn’t imagine him being ruthless to get what he

wanted. Not like Max.

‘Sorry, darling,’ she said, putting a hand on his.

‘It’s all right,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Shall we watch the

film or,’ his narrow face became animated, ‘there’s a

programme on about the Cold War.’

‘Cold War, definitely,’ Evie replied quickly, hoping

Simon wouldn’t begin to make comparisons between the

Berlin Wall and the one which had suddenly grown up

between them. She snuggled against him and tucked her

feet up under her on the couch. ‘This is lovely, isn’t it?’ she said and wondered for whose benefit she’d said that. Hers,

to convince herself it was lovely? Or Simon’s?

Rosie drifted in at ten, looking far too relaxed and happy

to have been studying English poetry in Jenny’s house. Her

sloe-black eyes gleamed with some secret Evie vowed to

winkle out of her when Simon left.

But Rosie took one look at what was on the TV and

announced she was going to bed. ‘I’m tired, Mum,’ she

said, giving Evie a kiss and pointedly avoiding saying

goodnight to Simon. Evie was too distracted to glare at her

angrily.

By the time Simon left, Rosie’s light was off and Evie

had to go to bed without discovering what mysteries were

tumbling around in her daughter’s beautiful head. It had to

be a boy. Who else would put that sort of dreamy look on

Rosie’s face? Had she really been studying with Jenny and

had Jenny’s mother dropped her home? If not, where

exactly had she been hanging out? Questions without

comforting answers rushed through Evie’s head. She had

to trust Rosie. After all she was seventeen, not a child.

Mothers who couldn’t let their children grow up lived in

the worst kind of dream world, Evie had always thought.

But theory and reality were very different.

Rosie had never had a serious boyfriend before, apart

from dates with a selection of guys who never quite

measured up to her exacting standards and didn’t last

beyond one trip to the cinema.

The positive side of this was that Evie had always been

convinced none of these rejected suitors would ever make

her strong-willed daughter do anything she didn’t want to.

Rosie was obstinate, almost bullheaded. No mere callow

youth could lead a girl like that into trouble. But a guy

who lit her face up, that was another matter entirely. Evie

twisted and turned in her bed for the second night in a

row. When she’d fretted for at least an hour about Rosie,

she moved on to Max and her encounter with him.

This wasn’t a game anymore. Not a fantasy from one of

her romantic novels. This was real. Undeniably, absolutely real. Max wasn’t a fictional hero, one who could be put away when she closed the book at night. He was flesh

and blood, and he was coming between her and Simon.

Poor Simon.

Whatever was she going to do? Forget Max, that was

what she had to do, must do. And as for going to Spain

in two months, forget that altogether. Anyway, she’d only be able to get a week off work what with the time she was taking for her honeymoon, so she could hardly go,

could she?

Olivia practised. ‘Stephen, you know the way you don’t

like me teaching those “juvenile delinquents” as you put

it …’

No, that sounded dreadful. She shook back her hair,

stared at herself in the bathroom mirror and tried again.

‘Darling.’ That was better. ‘Darling, I know you’ll be

cross with me because I kept this a secret, but I’ve got a

new job. Max Stewart …’

No, leave Max out of this, she told herself. Stephen

would hate the fact that Max was involved. ‘I heard about

this cookery slot going on that morning television

show …’

‘Mummy,’ called Sasha from her bedroom. ‘Daddy’s

home.’

Olivia abandoned her how-the-hell-do-I-tell-Stephen

masterclass and ran into the hall.

Stephen stood there with three strange men in suits, all

sniffing the lamb ragout-scented air appreciatively, all

slightly glassy-eyed.

‘Darling.’ He swept her up in a hug, holding her closely

to the new grey silk suit he’d worn in honour of having the

German businessmen over from head office. He kissed her

on the lips and she could smell red wine on his breath.

Letting her go, but with one unseen hand cupping her

buttock in an uncharacteristic move, he introduced her to

his guests. ‘Olivia, my beautiful wife. See,’ he added with a

wink to the oldest and obviously most important guest, ‘I

told you she was beautiful.’

They all giggled like noisy schoolboys caught reading Playboy behind the bike shed.

‘You must forgive us for being late, Mrs MacKenzie,’ said

the senior man once the introductions had been completed.

‘We took your husband for a celebratory drink once

our business had been concluded.’

‘It must have been very successful business for you to

get my husband to the pub,’ Olivia teased gently. ‘He’s not

much of a man for pubs.’

Unseen by the others, Stephen’s hand fondled her buttocks

some more through her silky skirt until, embarrassed

the others would notice, Olivia slipped out of his reach.

‘If you’d like to come into the dining room, gentlemen,

dinner is ready.’

As she orchestrated the complicated starters in her

immaculate kitchen, Olivia decided that tonight would be

the perfect time to break the news of her impending TV

debut to Stephen.

Slightly drunk, pleased about his business meeting and

obviously as randy as hell, he’d be in the ideal mood to

hear that his wife was starting on a new career. As long as

she could keep the news of her television name from him

for as long as possible, so he was accustomed to the idea of her working on TV before he realised she was using de Were instead of MacKenzie. But that shouldn’t be too hard. Stephen wasn’t a heavy drinker and with a bit of

help from her, he’d be merrily pie-eyed by the time she

got him into bed.

She resolved to find the recipe book with the vodka creme sauce in it. Just the thing to add extra flavour to her between-courses sorbet. She’d eaten it in Switzerland