Women of a Dangerous Age (17 page)

Ali sat back in the sofa, moving Lou's knitting out of the way. ‘I didn't know you knitted. Is there no end to your talents?'

‘Nope, none.' Lou grinned. ‘Anyway knitting's the new sex. Didn't you know?' She picked up the front of the Fair Isle vest, winding it round the needles before putting it away. ‘Just as well, since I'm not getting any of the old one.'

‘So you want me to instead?'

‘Well, one of us might as well, while we've still got the chance.' The knitting bag was shoved under the Eames chair, alongside her neglected patchwork, before Lou picked up the wine bottle.

‘You've got the chance. What about Sanjeev?'

‘I don't think I'm quite ready for that. Early days. And even if the spirit was willing, the flesh isn't all it might be.'
She topped up her glass, then squeezed her waistline. ‘Pinch an inch? More like six.'

‘But you look great. And besides, body fascism is for the young. We're at an age when other things matter. I thought we agreed on that.'

‘I do. Just sometimes I forget.' She stretched out in her chair, crossing her ankles. ‘Come on, how did you get on?'

Ali was not going to escape without giving some kind of answer. She could see that. But although her instinct was to keep the affairs of her heart private, perhaps talking through her muddled feelings with Lou might help her understand them better. She hesitated. ‘I don't know. It was so weird seeing him after so long. So much has changed and yet so little has. It's hard to explain.'

‘Well, try.' Lou leaned forward in her chair, encouraging her. ‘Is he married?'

‘Was. Twice.'

‘And?'

‘No children and he's moving here for good.'

‘No!' Said loud and with such glee that, if she'd been twenty, it would have been accompanied by a scream of pleasure. ‘You're in there, girl.'

Ali wished Lou could be a bit less keen to see her hooked up with Don and a bit more attentive to her state of mind. ‘God, ease up on the excitement. Even if anything were to happen, which it's not, we've got a long way to go.' Then she remembered their parting kiss.

‘Yeah, right,' said Lou, disbelieving. ‘If you could see your face, you'd know that's not true.'

They moved through to the kitchen where the tea lights
were lit, the lights dimmed, the table laid. Lou made the last additions to a steaming Provençal fish stew while Ali tried to persuade them both of her casual indifference towards Don. However hard she tried to convince herself and Lou otherwise, something had happened this evening to revive so many feelings she'd all but forgotten.

At last, Lou sat down and looked at Ali. Finally, she observed, ‘You're nuts. It's blindingly obvious that you've still got the hots for him after all this time, but you're just scared. I can see it in your face. I'm not going to let you throw this chance away. Do yourself a favour and phone him. I know you're still a bit raw after Hooker, but Don isn't Hooker.'

‘I don't know,' groaned Ali. ‘He left me too. There must be something wrong with me. To lose one is bad luck, but to lose two – and all those in between …' She stopped, despairing of her own carelessness.

‘There probably is.' Lou dished up, ladling the aromatic stew into two bowls. ‘But probably not more than there is with any of the rest of us. Trust me. Call him. Just once. Go on.'

Ali held up her hands.

‘OK. OK. I will, just to shut you up. Happy?'

Lou grinned and banged her fist on the table. ‘Result! Well done.'

Making the decision was like removing a stone in her shoe. With it came instant relief. Ali did want to see Don again but was nervous, despite having nothing to lose. She wasn't the same person he had left behind. She had years of experience under her belt now that would stand her in good stead for whatever happened. She could cope with this. Decision
made, she moved the conversation on to Hooker, to how Lou was going to confront him about the contents of his new will. Suddenly his discovery of their friendship had paled into the background. She was as concerned as Lou that he should be made to pay for his duplicity.

‘He got back today and I'm going round to the house to confront him, tomorrow morning,' Lou announced with the confidence born of a couple of glasses of wine.

‘Not neutral territory?' Ali poured them both another as Lou removed their bowls, replacing the stew with green salad and a choice of cheese.

‘Nope. My whole argument is about family and I've decided where better to have it than in the place where our family lived for so long. If we're there, I might be able to get him to understand what an idiot he's been. Not with me but with his other
three
…' she stressed the word, ‘children. I've said nothing to them about this at all but I'm going to make sure
he
does.'

Although Lou sounded so strong and so certain of her next move, Ali heard the sadness in her voice. Having Hooker renege on his promise to her was one thing, but he had taken away much, much more from Lou. One of the foundation stones of the last ten to fifteen years of Lou's life had been removed the moment she read his will. Worse than betraying his wife with Ali or anyone else was the fact that Hooker had betrayed their children. For their sake, Lou was going to put matters straight once and for all. Ali had every faith that's just what she would do.

Under a washed-out blue sky, a gust of wind lifted a Tesco bag and sent it tumbling along the gutter. Standing at the end of the road, alone on the pavement, Lou was unaccountably reminded of all those spaghetti westerns that had gripped her and her brother in their teens. Nothing beat a night at the movies when the Man with No Name rode into town. She looked down to the end of the empty street, a stranger in this neck of the woods herself now, only returning because she was possessed with a sense of justice so strong, she was determined to put right Hooker's wrongs. She and Clint were as one. His worn Mexican poncho thrown back meaningfully over the shoulders of her chocolate shearling sheepskin gilet, freeing her gun hand; her straight-legged black trousers, his jeans; her shiny brogues, his dusty boots; her rakishly angled fedora, his battered stetson. Her imagination stopped short at his cheroot.

As she began to walk, she noticed the hush in the street. She stopped for a moment. Not even the sound of a bird. Not a car engine. Whistling Morricone's score under her
breath, she hitched her bag onto her shoulder, and took another step forward. Almost expecting the jingle of her spurs, she heard instead her Take That ringtone jangling in her bag. Her imaginings disintegrated as she fished out her mobile. Hooker.

‘Where are you?' His zero tolerance for unpunctuality obviously hadn't been modified by his holiday. ‘I'm going out and I'd like to leave before nightfall if possible.'

His tetchiness conjured up his face as he spoke: brow furrowed with annoyance that his plans were having to be changed, right eye narrowed in the way it always was when he was crossed. Lou bet he'd be chipping his left little fingernail against his front teeth.

‘Don't be absurd, Hooker. It's not even one o'clock. I'm in the street and I‘ll be with you in a minute or two.'

‘Is this really so important that it can't wait? Not something to do with one of the children, is it?' He didn't wait for her to answer. ‘No. You'd have said.'

‘Actually, in a way, yes, it is,' she replied, grimly satisfied by the knowledge that he had no idea of the trouble heading his way.

He huffed and puffed something about how she could have chosen a better time but she ignored him, cutting the phone off as she turned into the drive. She stood in the porch, taking a few yogic-type breaths to calm herself. The composure of the Man with No Name had almost totally deserted her now.

She had prepared what she wanted to say, going over and over it to the whirr of her sewing machine, and she was prepared for his reaction. This would not be easy. She
pressed the bell. The chimes sounded distantly on the other side of the door. Footsteps came closer, the bolt slid back, the key turned and the door opened.

Hooker looked unseasonal but relaxed in a hibiscus-printed short-sleeved shirt and summer trousers, as if he hadn't got round to unpacking. Around his neck was a hippyish-looking necklace of small brown beads. Rubbing his arms against the chill wind, he stepped back to let Lou pass.

‘Come in.'

‘You look well.' In fact about ten years younger, but she wasn't going to give him the pleasure of hearing her say that. The holiday had obviously done him good.

‘Mmm. Good holiday on the whole. Coffee?' He led the way into the kitchen. Lou stood in the doorway as he took two coffee cups and saucers that she'd never seen before and started fiddling with a brushed chrome state-of-the-art espresso maker. She guessed he hadn't had it long, judging by the tuts and muttered curses that accompanied proceedings. The whoosh from the steam nozzle was a signal for milk to spurt across the granite counter to the accompaniment of more sounds of frustration. Eventually, he turned to offer her a cup, his face flushed with exertion and triumph. As she took it, he grabbed a shaker and dusted chocolate powder over her coffee, her hand, her trousers and a sizeable patch of the floor. Rather than clear it up or apologise, he just suggested they move through to the sitting room.

Following him, Lou said to his back, ‘You're really OK after the mugging?'

‘Oh, yes, fine,' he replied without turning around. ‘It was just bloody inconvenient. Thanks for sending over that bumph, by the way.'

‘No problem.' If only you knew. She noticed the way his hair just overlapped his collar, remembering how she would have reminded him to get a haircut. Not her job now. Did he think it made him look more dashing?

They sat facing each other in the two chairs on either side of the fireplace, their coffee on the low table that provided a convenient barrier between them. On the mantelpiece was something new – a recumbent brass Buddha smiling benevolently down at them. Not a souvenir she would have chosen. Lou took a tissue out of her bag to wipe the chocolate from her hand. She looked up to see him staring at her. She stuffed the tissue back in her bag, leaving a smear behind.

‘Well? What's so urgent that can't wait till I've got over my jet lag?' Not aggressive exactly, but not particularly friendly either.

But what did she expect? Hooker liked to be the one in charge, and for once she had him on the back foot. She sat up straight, refusing to let herself be intimidated. It was now or never. ‘Who's Rory?'

He didn't miss a beat. ‘Who? Sorry, Lou, you've lost me.'

But she saw his right eye contract just a touch.

‘Rory. Rory Sherwood Burgess.'

He stared at her, his cup raised to his mouth then, very slowly, he put it down, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘Who?'

She willed herself not to look away. She was not, absolutely not, going to be psyched out by any of his bullyboy
tactics. She clasped her hands together in her lap so neither she nor Hooker would see them shaking. ‘You know exactly who I'm talking about. I found your will when I was looking for the passport photocopies you wanted.' She could see his jaw tense, small movements as he ground his teeth together: another tic in times of stress. Otherwise his expression remained immobile. ‘Yes, I read it,' she went on, gaining confidence. ‘I shouldn't have, I know, but I did and now I know. You owe me an explanation, Hooker, not to mention your other three children.'

‘You had no right,' he protested, as his right fist tightened and relaxed. ‘No bloody right.'

Lou refused to be intimidated. ‘What I want to know is why you weren't brave enough to tell us. Were you really going to keep him a secret? Can't you imagine what effect springing that on the kids after your death would have?'

‘Who said anything about keeping him a secret till I was dead?' His voice lacked some of its earlier strength.

‘How old is he? Where does he live?'

‘Eleven. Edinburgh.'

‘When were you going to tell us about him?' Her gaze moved to the framed family photographs that he'd kept on the console table. Beside the children's graduation portraits was one of their wedding, her veil blown across Hooker's face, her hair everywhere, them laughing together. At the back were posed and faded photos of both their parents and, in front, were the children in a paddling pool; another of them on a felled tree trunk, Hooker making sure Nic didn't fall; another of them screaming blue murder on a
Chessington roller coaster, Hooker in the middle. Occasions as clear in her mind as if they'd happened yesterday.

‘Oh, God!' he sighed, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. ‘All right. I always meant to, you know, but it was so hard at first, never quite the right time, and then it became impossible.'

His capitulation was so swift and so complete that she almost felt sorry for him. She couldn't help noticing the hair standing on end among the goosebumps on his bare arms.

‘What could I have said to you, that you would have accepted?' He rubbed his arms, reached for the apple green cashmere jumper that was thrown across the back of the chair and wrestled it on.

‘That
I
would have accepted?' Suddenly she was to blame for his silence. This was typical of the way Hooker always manipulated a conversation to give himself the upper hand. But this time she wasn't going to let him. ‘I would have had to accept the fact that you'd fathered a child with someone else, whether I liked it or not. The children would have had to accept that too. And at least you would have given them and him a chance to know each other. They do have that right, you know. Like it or not, he is part of their family.'

‘Family!' he snapped. ‘You're hardly one to talk about family. The woman who walked out on hers.'

‘Oh, Hooker.' Lou shook her head sadly. ‘What we had was over years ago.'

For a moment, he had the grace to look ashamed, but then he assumed the wily look of a child who's been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. ‘OK. Hands up. But what
do you expect me to do? The affair was over long ago.' His words betrayed his confidence that there was nothing she could insist he did to change the situation. A cocky half-smile played on his lips.

Having thought long and hard about the answer to this, she knew exactly what she expected. ‘I expect you to tell me about him and his mother and I expect you to tell Jamie, Tom and Nic. Then I want you to invite him to stay so that they can meet him.'

The look of horror on Hooker's face was pure gold. ‘You're insane.'

‘Not at all. If anything, I've never felt more sane. I'm not having my children's lives upset some time in the future when a stranger marches through the door announcing he's their brother.'

‘They'll hate me.' He got up and went over to the fireplace where he stood, looking down on her. Up on his toes and down.

But Lou was not giving up the psychological advantage. ‘They're adults, for God's sake. Surely you see that they've got a right to know and a right to react in their own way. You may be surprised.'

‘And if I won't?' he challenged, defiant again.

‘I'll tell them myself. Don't look like that. I will. It's their right to know.' She separated her hands and reached for her cup to take a much-needed shot of coffee, relieved that he had obviously registered the determination in her voice. There was a silence as he took in her threat.

‘My God, Lou. What's happened to you? You never used to be like this.' He picked up a small bronze dancing hare,
the only other ornament there was room for on the end of the mantelpiece. ‘Remember when I gave you this?'

She nodded. They'd been on holiday before Jamie was born and he had given it to her on her birthday. ‘A mad March hare that reminds me of you,' he'd said. Remembering that made her soften but only for a moment. That was exactly what he was hoping for.

‘I've realised life's short and I know what I want from it at last, that's all. And one of the things I want is to hear the whole story from you. Now.' Leaning back in her chair, she waited for him to begin, feeling relief but knowing she could not relax yet. There was still time for him to hit back.

By the fireplace, any last vestige of holiday bonhomie had abandoned Hooker. ‘All right.' That combative note had returned to his voice.

‘So he's eleven years old, and he lives in Edinburgh?' she began.

‘Yes.'

Her first thought was how relieved she was that the boy wasn't in London. Even after leaving Hooker, she would have hated the thought that this child and his mother might have been around the corner for the last eleven years. Yes, distance was good.

‘With his mother?'

‘Yes. Shona Burgess. She's a lawyer too. Younger than us. I met her when she was on a secondment in London about thirteen years ago.'

‘How long did it go on?'

‘For about eighteen months.' He sounded clipped, matter-of-fact, as if he was challenging her to cross-examine
him. But she had no questions. Instead she was thinking back thirteen years to when Jamie, Tom and Nic were in their teens and she had been made redundant. New editor, new look, new staff. Simple. She remembered that as one of the toughest times in her life as she struggled to keep herself going, half persuaded that she was to blame for losing her job, forgetting how disillusioned she'd become. She knew better now, but at the time her self-confidence had been at its lowest ebb, perhaps not the best time to have found herself at home alone looking after the children. Nic had been in the throes of establishing her very own spiky personality, and throwing her weight around at the least opportunity. When Lou had needed Hooker's support most, he'd been unable to give it. Worse than his physical absences that he explained (and she believed) were essential to his career was his inexplicable emotional absence. If ever she tried to talk about the way he seemed to have withdrawn from her, he'd protest and blame her ‘ridiculous insecurities'. Of course, that was when they began their drift apart. And now she knew why.

‘When she went back north, Shona didn't tell me she was pregnant so I'd no idea. A couple of months after she left, she phoned me, told me, and insisted that I go up there to see her and discuss what we were going to do.'

Lou closed her eyes at the word ‘we', knowing it excluded her, but let him go on.

‘I didn't want to go, but she went on and on until I had to agree. That's when I had to miss Nic in that school play. Remember? But I thought I was doing the honourable
thing.' He spoke as if eliciting her sympathy with his predicament.

She remembered the hours of hysteria and blame she endured when Nic found out that her father wasn't going to be there to see her in her year's production of
The Crucible
. Her first starring role. Nothing Lou could say or do would console her. In retrospect perhaps not such a terrible thing, but at the time it had blown into a huge family drama that lived on for months of childish recrimination that none of them had completely forgotten.

‘Explain to me exactly which part of what you did is honourable?' she said, controlling her temper. ‘I'm sorry but I'm finding it hard to quite get that.'