Never Too Late (54 page)

stilettos, a tattoo and an ankle bracelet.

‘See? It’s terrible.’ Rosie sat up purposefully and went

through the rest of the clothes like a Medici poisoner

searching for hemlock. ‘You need some new things, Mum.’

For a laugh, Evie slid into a purple paisley midi-dress

that hadn’t even been that fashionable the first time

round, smeared red lipstick on her lips and posed for her

daughter. ‘Surely not,’ she simpered. ‘This is all I need. A

beach cover up by day and an evening gown by night!’

‘Ugh!’ Rosie was suitably disgusted. ‘I’ve never seen that

before.’

‘It was in the attic. I thought I might find something that

had come back into fashion,’ Evie said. ‘Hotpants did and

flares. You never know what’s going to be fashionable again.’

Rosie gave the dress a withering teenage stare. ‘That

thing is hideous and if it came back into fashion, I’d

become a nun.’

‘Sister Rosie, make us a cup of tea,’ Evie joked, cheered

by the presence of her daughter. When she was with Rosie,

she didn’t fret madly about Simon, Max and the future of

her world.

‘Not until I’ve gone through this junk.’ Rosie pronounced.

‘You can’t take a quarter of this stuff. It’s ancient!

I’ve only spent some of Grandpops’ money. How about if I

give it to you to buy something nice? You deserve it.’

Eyes filled with tears, Evie kissed the top of Rosie’s head

softly. ‘You are a wonderful daughter, you know that?’

‘But you still want me to trudge downstairs and make

you tea, huh?’ she laughed, unfurling her long legs and

dancing to the door as George Michael hit the high spots

with ‘Too Funky’.

‘Choccie biscuits?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Evie yelled after her, although she longed for one.

She didn’t want to look fat by the pool. Well, any fatter.

Her bum and thighs were enormous: they got bigger

every time she looked at them. She’d have to borrow a

couple of sarongs from Olivia, who kept saying Evie was

mad and that she wasn’t in the slightest bit fat. Typical

Olivia. Being kind as usual. Evie ripped off the purple

dress and cricked her neck trying to gaze at her bottom

in the mirror.

‘Horrible,’ she muttered to herself. So much for the

anti-cellulite diet. She went on to the landing and leaned

over the banisters.

‘Rosie, I’ve changed my mind. Bring up some choccie

biscuits, will you?’

Saturday morning dawned ominously dark. Clouds swollen

with rain loomed like giant blackberries over Dublin

airport as Evie drove up and parked the car in the

long-term car park.

‘We’re miles away. Nearer Belfast airport than Dublin.

Couldn’t you have parked nearer?’ grumbled Cara, lugging

her sister’s giant suitcase out of the boot and looking at the

unfinished surface of the car park over which it would be

hell to drag the cases.

‘No,’ snapped Evie, feeling nervy and irritated for some

reason. ‘The short-term car park is much more expensive,

Stephen says. I’m not made of money, you know.’

Rosie, having listened to the two of them snapping like

baby alligators during the drive across the city, was fed up.

‘Stop bitching,’ she said with rare sharpness. ‘We’re

going on holiday, the first proper holiday of my adult life, I

might add,’ she added dramatically, ‘and I want to enjoy it,

not listen to you squabbling. I’m supposed to be the

teenager, not you two.’

Head held high, she swept off, dragging her fit-to-burst

bag as if it weighed nothing, long legs undulating in her

faded denims, worn red espadrilles flopping off her heels

with each step.

Chastened, Cara and Evie stared at each other for a

moment before breaking into peals of laughter.

Evie dropped her smaller bag back into the boot and put

her arms around Cara. ‘I’m sorry. She’s right. We’re like a

couple of old biddies fighting over the remote control.’

Cara giggled. ‘Can’t you just see us in fifty years, sharing

a house with seventeen cats and nothing but the memory

of our lost loves between us?’

‘Do we have to wait fifty years?’ asked Evie blank-faced,

suddenly thinking how nice it would be to live with Cara

and Rosie: safely, happily, with no horrible decisions about

weddings and men or anything to torture her day and

night.

‘Why?’ Cara was startled out of her Patsy and Edwina

from Ab Fab reverie. ‘What about Simon and the wedding?

You don’t fancy living with me now? You always say I’d

drive you round the bend.’

‘Lord, no,’ her sister said briskly, recovering. ‘Only kidding.

We’d murder each other. You’d be better off with

Ewan, wouldn’t you?’

It was Cara’s turn to look guarded. ‘Yeah,’ she said

morosely.

Now wasn’t the time to tell her sister it was all off

between her and Ewan. Maybe later, over some Sangria by

the pool. They could talk then. She brightened up at the

thought of letting the sun warm her limbs and burn the

memory of Ewan out of her skull. Although it would have

to be very powerful to do that.

Two weeks of going out on the booze with Zoe hadn’t

accomplished it, so why did she think seven days in Spain

would achieve what so many pints of beer had failed to

do? Miserable again, but hiding it, she hauled her luggage

into the airport.

The departures hall was like Henry Street on the first

day of the January sales. There were people everywhere,

manically rushing around with suitcases, trollies and pushchairs.

All brightly dressed in anticipation of arriving in

some scorching far-flung destination: all looking ludicrously

out of place in Dublin where the rain had finally

decided to pelt down like some Biblical curse.

‘It’s certainly wet enough to be tropical,’ Cara remarked,

shaking rain off her black curls like a soaked dog just out of

the bath. ‘Pity it’s so cold we’ve all got goose bumps. I

can’t wait to feel real Spanish heat.’

‘I’m going to start queuing for checkin,’ Evie said. ‘It

takes hours for charter flights. Will you wait here and keep

an eye out for Rosie? Although, on second thoughts, she’s

probably gone off to Knickerbox to buy another bikini.

Dad gave her money for clothes and she’s bought four

already.’

Cara prodded Evie’s enormous borrowed suitcase. ‘And

you’ve just brought a couple of things yourself then,’ she

teased.

Her sister grinned. ‘I couldn’t make my mind up so my

entire wardrobe is in there. If the airline loses it, I’ll be naked for the rest of my life!’

‘Simon will be a happy man on honeymoon, if that’s the

case,’ Cara remarked drily, privately thinking that her

future brother-in-law was such a wet, his eyes would

probably stay glued to the cricket on the TV even if Evie

stood in front of him starkers for hours on end and writhed

around like a stripper.

‘Now,’ began Evie, starting to worry about her daughter’s

whereabouts in this massive, holiday-crazed crowd, ‘if

you can’t find her, meet me in ten minutes in the queue

and we’ll have her paged …’

‘Don’t worry,’ Cara said gently, not wanting to start a

row and knowing that worrying was second nature to her

sister. ‘I’ll find her. There’s one advantage to being tall you tan see over crowds.’

They parted, Evie heading into the throng of travellers

with her laden-down trolley and Cara striding determinedly

in the direction of the shops, staring around

looking for her niece.

Evie’s trolley had a mind of its own, lurching in every

direction but the one she was pushing it in.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she gasped, barely avoiding colliding with a

gang of golfers blindly steering club-laden trollies in the

direction of checkin.

‘If that’s the way you drive, I’m not getting in the hire

car with you,’ said a deep voice, rich with amusement.

Evie, turning her head to see where the voice was

coming from, cannoned into a barrier.

‘I’ll drive,’ said Max, appearing beside her.

She furiously wrenched the trolley around like Ralf

Schumacher on the chicane at Monza. ‘It’s my trolley,’ she

shrieked, utterly unnerved by the sight of Max, cool and

holiday-ish in jeans and a comfortable denim shirt, looking

for all the world as if he’d just stepped out of a Ralph

Lauren advert.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. Then,

realising he didn’t have any luggage with him, she

assumed he’d come to see his mother off. Which was nice but odd, particularly as he’d be seeing them all in Spain in five days.

‘I drove out here and had a sudden longing to hop on a

plane,’ he deadpanned.

Evie blinked in disbelief

‘I’m flying to Malaga with you,’ he continued.

‘You said you were only coming for the weekend,’ she

accused, suddenly wishing she’d bothered with makeup.

She’d been planning to plaster herself in Olivia’s Lancome

eyeshadow palette on the plane before they landed.

Max shrugged. ‘I changed my mind.’

‘You promised you were only going for a few days, not

the whole week,’ she added.

‘Did I?’

He could look irritatingly remote when he wanted to,

Evie thought. He was doing it now: looking distant and

blank. But he was, she realised, very pleased with himself.

‘You did,’ she hissed.

Gazing at her flushed little face, dark hair tied back in a

tight ponytail, the purple shadows under her eyes and not

a scrap of make-up on her face except for hastily applied

coral lipstick that gleamed on that full lower lip, Max

appeared to change his mind.

‘I need a holiday too,’ he said casually. ‘I didn’t think

you’d object that much, Evie. After all, I won’t be able to

get away again until after Christmas with the shooting

schedule. We’ve been asked to come in on another production

which will mean either myself or my business partner

have to go abroad to sort it out … sorry, I’m boring you.’

He flashed her a glittering smile.

You could never bore me, she found herself thinking.

‘I just thought a week by the pool now would be

perfect,’ he added. ‘If you wait here, I’ll find my mother

and Andrew. They were going to the bureau de change.’

‘OK,’ she muttered as he left abruptly. Evie couldn’t

think what else to say. The flurry of emotions she’d felt at

the sight of him retreated before this reasonable explanation.

Yet, paradoxically, she felt upset that he hadn’t

changed his plans to see her, that he hadn’t turned up at

the airport because he was desperate to go on holiday with

her. That was the stuff of her sweaty night-time dreams:

Max insane to spend time with her; Max rubbing sun

cream into her golden-brown skin as she lay by the pool,

soaking up sweltering heat from both the sun and him.

‘I’ll just undo your bikini top so I can do your back

properly.’ he murmured, as Evie lay face down on the lounger

on a soft blue towel, this strong warm hands had been

caressing her for at least five minutes, rubbing the coconut

scented cream into her toned, peanut butter-coloured body in

languorously slow strokes.

She moved under his expert hands, like a great cat

allowing itself to be touched by human hands for the very

first time, letting the pleasurable sensations shimmer deliriously through her body. Apart from his caressing voice, the

only sound breaking the tranquil peace of siesta-time was

the distant hissing noise of the water sprinklers showering

the lush lawn to the left of them with cool water. The villa

was silent — everyone else was asleep, leaving Max and Evie

alone by the white-tiled Moroccan-style pool. Alone for the

first time.

‘You don’t mind?’ he said, already untying the knot of her

tiny white bikini at the nape of her neck before his fingers did the same with the knot halfway down her back. ‘But you

want an all-over colour, don’t you?’

Yes,’ she breathed as his hands massaged Factor 10 into

her flesh, fingers splaying as they travelled down her rib cage, exquisitely close to the curve of her breasts.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said huskily. ‘I never dreamed you had such a beautiful body beneath those baggy clothes you wear. Why do you hide yourself?’

She knew she had to do it now. Evie moved sinuously,

sitting upright and facing him, hands holding the minuscule

white triangles over her breasts. His eyes were as hot with

wanting as hers were; he needed her just as much as she

needed him. Knowing this, she let her hands and the bikini

drop finally, feeling a flush of passion in her belly as his

eyes roamed over her naked flesh, staring with growing

hunger at her full breasts with their erect nipples aching for

his touch.

One large, tanned hand reached out towards her … ‘Aaagh!’ Evie’s shriek made all the people within twenty yards of her stop what they were doing immediately and

stare open-mouthed in her direction.

‘Evie!’ cried Cara, shocked, jerking back the hand that

had just touched her sister’s shoulder. ‘Are you OK? You