Читать книгу Best of Friends - Cathy Kelly - Страница 11

That same afternoon, in the doctor’s surgery in the centre of Dunmore, Lizzie Shanahan searched the correspondence pile for a letter to the specialist. Mrs Pender stood in front of the desk, looking only slightly less shocked than she had the previous day when she and Mr Pender had emerged from the surgery with the gently delivered but nonetheless startling news that Mr Pender needed to see a specialist for further discussion on the results of his blood test for prostate cancer.

Lizzie found the letter and the attached Post-it note on which she’d written directions to the specialist’s office.

She smiled warmly at Mrs Pender, doing her best to radiate both calmness and complete ignorance of whatever was in the letter to the specialist. Lizzie knew exactly what it said because she’d typed it and because the doctor’s receptionist knew almost as many secrets as the doctor. But the patients were better off not really being aware of that.

This patient was too worried to go along with the sanctity-of-the-surgery façade. ‘I haven’t slept a wink since I heard,’ Mrs Pender said weakly. ‘Do you think it’s bad, since they got him an appointment so quickly?’

Lizzie, who’d been told to plead emergency on the phone to the specialist’s office because Mr Pender’s blood test results signalled prostate cancer, felt a huge surge of pity for the woman but managed to look innocently surprised at the question.

‘They may have had a cancellation, Mrs Pender,’ she said kindly, weighing up the merits of lying and deciding that the poor woman would possibly hear enough bad news from the specialist tomorrow without lying awake all night from anxiety.

Sleeplessness was a problem Lizzie knew all about. And she was aware that women worried five times more about their husbands’ health than they did about their own. Not a problem Lizzie had any more.

‘Yes, a cancellation, that could be it.’ Mrs Pender brightened at the news and went off with her letter.

Lizzie scanned the reception room. It was a quarter to five. There were two people waiting. One was an elderly gentleman who’d looked uncomfortable on being told that Dr Morgan, the lady doctor, was on. The other patient was a weary-looking young woman with a small, red-faced baby on her denim lap. The baby cried non-stop, the tormented tears of teething that could reach ear-shattering decibel levels. The woman shot apologetic looks at Lizzie as the baby launched into another miserable aria. Lizzie had paid her own dues at the coalface of teething babies and gave the young mother an understanding grin in return. Lizzie had a very infectious grin. It was something to do with the combination of her wide, smiling mouth, rosy cheeks that shone through all cosmetics, and lively chocolate-brown eyes that sparkled beneath her shaggy blonde-streaked fringe.

It was ten to five when Dr Morgan opened the surgery door and called in the elderly man. Lizzie was due to leave at five and Clare Morgan, who was the most considerate employer Lizzie had ever encountered, leaned round her office door and said: ‘Lock the door when you go, Lizzie. I’ll let the patients out when we’re finished.’

Lizzie smiled her thanks and began to tidy up, leaving a list of the evening’s patients for Dr Jones, who’d be in at seven for two hours. There was no receptionist on in the evenings, and although Lizzie could have done with both the money and the time out of the house, she’d never suggested working at night too. Dr Morgan, who’d been kindness itself since the divorce, would have been shocked at the notion of Lizzie spending all her time working. Dr Morgan, divorced and the mother of adult children herself, was a firm believer that freshly single women had to make new, exciting lives for themselves. Lizzie outwardly agreed with all of this and inwardly wondered whether Clare Morgan planned her week’s television viewing on a Saturday too, circling the programmes she wanted to watch in the TV guide, putting asterisks beside interesting documentaries. Probably not.

Lizzie locked the surgery door and, twenty minutes later, she was walking round the supermarket on Dunmore’s Cork Road, a basket over her arm as she debated what to buy for dinner. That was one of the nice things about living alone, she thought to cheer herself up. You could eat whatever you wanted. Myles had hated tuna in tins, while Lizzie could have eaten it every night. He loved proper dinners too, not speedy suppers like beans on toast. Now, she could eat beans and tuna together if she felt like it. She rounded the frozen pizza corner and went bang into Josephine who lived four doors up. Josephine, a gossiper of professional standard, was wielding a loaded trolley that proclaimed to the world that she had a husband and four big sons to feed. Giant family packs of meat and many loaves of bread were packed precariously on top of each other. If her trolley could speak, it would have loudly said, ‘I have a life.’

‘Oh, hello, Lizzie,’ she greeted. ‘How nice to see you.’

Lizzie made a sudden decision. She couldn’t face Josephine’s gentle probing. Her single-person basket clearly said that she had no life and the carafe of red wine that had been on special offer would proclaim that she coped with this lack of a life by knocking back litre bottles of booze.

‘Lovely to see you!’ she said gaily, and kept walking. ‘Sorry, but I’m rushing. I have someone dropping in and I’m late!’ Lizzie smiled broadly to imply a busy, action-packed existence that left no time for concerned ‘how are you doing?’ conversations amid the frozen food.

From the corner of her eye, Lizzie could see Josephine’s garrulous husband amble over to the trolley. Thank God she’d made her escape. She couldn’t face both of them. She rushed round another corner and hurried down the tea and coffee aisle, knowing exactly what Josephine would be saying: ‘Poor Lizzie, isn’t she wonderful, though?’

Lizzie knew that was what people said about her: ‘Isn’t she wonderful?’, as if she was some simple soul who’d finally learned to tie her shoelaces. What they meant was ‘Isn’t it great that she isn’t riddled with bitterness and with a long-term Prozac habit since Myles left her?’ She had not been people-watching all her life for nothing. Her natural intuition told her what they were really thinking and she hated it. She knew that her friends and acquaintances had half expected her to slide into a decline when she and Myles had split up five years previously. But she had proved them wrong. She hadn’t buried her head in the sand and told people they were ‘taking time apart’, like one neighbour who’d kept blindly insisting that her dentist husband was merely working a long distance away when everyone and their lawyer knew he’d set up home with a curvaceous female colleague.

Prevaricating wasn’t Lizzie’s style. When Myles had moved out, she’d told people the truth. Well, most of the truth. ‘We’re getting a divorce. It’s over, I’m afraid,’ she’d said brightly. What she hadn’t said was how shocked and devastated she felt, how humiliated, at the abrupt end of their marriage.

Tellingly, nobody seemed surprised. Not her friends, not her family. They all seemed to have half expected it. Only Lizzie, who’d prided herself on being practical, hadn’t.

‘I know things haven’t been right for years,’ her elder sister, Gwen, said comfortingly. ‘It’s for the best.’

Lizzie, who was rarely speechless, was reduced to utter silence. Gwen had always been an old-fashioned advocate of marriage, and thought that women who didn’t get married had a screw loose and were to be pitied. What desperate lack of harmony had been so apparent in Myles and Lizzie’s marriage that even Gwen thought they were better off apart?

Unfortunately, in the months after Myles moved out, Lizzie had a lot of time to think about this.

It was their younger child, Debra, turning eighteen and moving to Dublin that had been the catalyst. Until then, all appeared well in the Shanahan household. They had a nice home in a small housing estate on one of the older, tree-lined roads in Dunmore: a red-brick semi with four bedrooms, a dining room that, admittedly, was used less and less, and a small garden in which Lizzie spent an increasing amount of time. She had her job, her friends, her garden, and Myles had his work in the planning department in the council and his pals in the squash club.

If life wasn’t exactly exciting, then Lizzie consoled herself that it would be once the children had both left home.

She and Myles were, or so she was led to believe, in the enviable position of having had their children early. Very early, she used to laugh, thinking of herself in maternity tights at the wedding. But that had its advantages. With twenty-one-year-old Joe in art college in London, and Debra starting nursing in Dublin, it was just Lizzie and Myles again. She could barely remember what life felt like without the kids.

But there was going to be no empty-nest syndrome in her house. No way, José. Not for her the resigned gaze at the empty places round the table. She adored the children, adored them, but they wouldn’t thank her for turning into a resentful old woman just because they’d moved on and grown up. Lizzie and Myles Shanahan were going to live life to the full.

In this new, zestful frame of mind, she’d wondered if they could install a conservatory, maybe, or go on the sort of dream holiday they’d always promised themselves but had never been able to afford because there were always things to be bought for the children. A safari, she thought, wistfully imagining dawn Jeep rides into the grassland like the ones on the holiday programmes.

Lizzie looked after herself too. No sliding into slatternly ways for her. When tendrils of grey began to sneak into her shaggy light brown curls, she got streaks put in at the hairdresser’s. Myles seemed pleased with all of this.

He hadn’t let himself grow old before his time either, Lizzie thought approvingly. They were both forty-four. Some people were only just getting married or dealing with young kids at that age, and they’d done it all!

She got brochures for the conservatory and one day, just for the fun of it, picked up some safari ones too.

That evening, Myles sat in his armchair in front of the fire and looked mutely at the brochures Lizzie had left with such excitement on the coffee table. Then, in a quiet voice, he told her that he wanted a divorce, that he was so sorry but hadn’t she realised? Didn’t she agree that it was the right thing to do?

Lizzie, who’d already checked her husband’s diary to see if he’d be able to take holidays during the best season for a safari, stood frozen beside the mantelpiece, one hand clutched around the china seal Joe had given her after a childhood trip to the zoo.

‘I thought you knew; I thought you agreed with me,’ pleaded Myles. ‘You were getting on with your life and I was getting on with mine. We were only together for the kids and now they’re gone, well…’ His voice trailed off.

With terrible clarity, Lizzie saw that he meant what he said.

‘We married too young, Lizzie,’ he added sadly. ‘We didn’t have time to think about the future or whether we were really suited. If you hadn’t been pregnant with Joe, we’d have never done it, would we?’

Lizzie gazed back at him. The shock of this made her remember another: the shock of discovering she was pregnant, standing in the loo of the restaurant where she was working and thinking that the test had to be wrong, it had to be. She’d only ever slept with Myles and she knew girls who’d slept with scores of men, so why did she have to be the one to get caught? The slender streak of independence that ran through her shrivelled at the prospect of coping with this momentous happening on her own. Her parents were good and kind people, but they were locked in the morality of the past. Their beloved daughter becoming pregnant – pregnant and single. This would shake their world.

Lizzie would never forget the relief when Myles had said, with a lump in his throat, that they’d get married and he could support her and the baby on his salary from the council.

Now Myles was earnest again as if he could convince her by the force of his argument.

‘Lizzie, I’m not saying I regret any of it but we had to get married. It seemed like the only option at the time. We did it and we’ve stuck together but we both knew it wasn’t what we’d wanted. Didn’t you always think there should have been more?’

She had never thought there should have been more. True, there were no violins playing in her head when Myles kissed her, but had there been violins in her parents’ heads during their marriage? Marriage wasn’t about that, surely? Did her happily bickering sister and brother-in-law share some secret hand-holding when they were out of the public gaze? No way. Violins were for soppy movies, not real life.

‘We’re still young enough to enjoy life,’ Myles said, desperately trying to make her understand. ‘We can make up for lost time.’

‘What’s her name?’ demanded Lizzie, suddenly finding her voice. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Oh, Lizzie…’ The look Myles gave her was full of pity. ‘There’s no one else. Dunmore is too small to hide a secret like that. I just want out before I’m too old, before I lose the confidence to do it.’

And that was the most painful thing of all. There was no one else. No other woman had made Myles decide to leave his wife. The only woman involved was Lizzie herself. The spur was the nature of their marriage.

For months after he’d gone, she asked herself how she, who thought she was in touch with the world, missed what was plainly obvious to everyone else – that there was a magic ingredient to marriage and that hers lacked it?

She replayed Myles’s words over and over again: ‘Is that what you want, Lizzie? Us here, stuck together by necessity and children, unable to live full lives together but never having had the courage to live apart?’

Debra had been devastated and had arrived home from nursing college shaking and crying. ‘How could you do this to us?’ she’d shrieked at her mother. ‘How could you?’

And Lizzie, who longed for Myles to stay but who wouldn’t hold him against his will no matter what, had calmly told her daughter that people grew apart and wasn’t it better to admit to it instead of living a lie?

‘Life goes on,’ she said with a serenity she didn’t feel. ‘This is still your home, but your father won’t be living here any more. His home will be like another home for you.’ Lizzie did not know how she managed to get that measured, ‘everything will be fine’ tone into her voice but she did it. Debra’s sobs lessened, the way they had when she was a child and had a hurt only Lizzie could cure. Did mothers ever stop mothering, Lizzie wondered as she stroked Debra’s head.

Joe had reacted differently. Then twenty-one and living happily in London, he’d come home for a few days, and when Lizzie had confided her genuine shock and bewilderment at what had happened, Joe was momentarily lost for words for possibly the first time in his life.

‘Oh, Mum,’ he said sorrowfully, ‘even when I was younger, I knew you and Dad were staying together for me and Debs. I thought you’d both made a choice to do that.’

Lizzie stared at him. He looked so like his father: a wiry frame, the shock of receding dark hair that defied all brushing, the same gentle brown eyes. Even he had seen it.

She never told anyone what Joe had said to her. From then on, she was stoic about the break-up.

‘People change and move on,’ she said when anyone commiserated with her.

‘Myles and I had our good times but you know we married too young and for all the wrong reasons,’ she told her sister, Gwen. ‘What did we know of love at our age? There should be a law against people getting married before they’re thirty!’

‘We should have split up years ago,’ she said to Dr Morgan. She hid her misery and bewilderment from everybody.

Myles made it easier by moving out of Dunmore into the city and by virtue of the fact that there wasn’t anybody else in his life – though, at first, nobody quite believed that.

‘There must be another woman,’ they said suspiciously, and all the single women in the squash club got fed up with being asked about Myles Shanahan.

‘He wasn’t the chatting-up sort of man,’ they insisted time and time again. ‘He was sweet and sort of lonely.’

But as time passed, and it became clear that he was genuinely happy but single, the chattering in Dunmore ceased.

Myles and Lizzie became the watchword for the modern world: they’d made brave choices and lived with them. They’d had the courage to swap two sets of slippers in front of the fire for the single life.

Myles had taken up sailing and, during a month’s leave, had become one of a crew taking part in a big yachting race. Who’d have thought it? Quiet Myles braving the Atlantic and coming home full of energy, with a windburned face and his middle-age spread gone, looking ten years younger.

There was no problem talking about this to Lizzie either. She knew all about it. She, Myles and the kids still had their Christmas dinner together in Dunmore. They went to the hotel in the square for it and, the first year, people had stared at the family smiling over the turkey and wearing paper hats as if nothing had happened. Civilised was the word for it, and while everybody in Dunmore admired them, nobody had a clue how they’d managed it.

The house was silent as the grave as she opened the door. Look on the positive side, Lizzie told herself firmly. A quiet house meant she hadn’t disturbed a gang of drugged-up-to-the-eyeballs burglars ransacking the place in vain for money.

The answering machine light was winking merrily and Lizzie felt her heart lift. Maybe it was Debra. She hadn’t phoned for a couple of days but she never left it longer than a week before getting in touch.

Without taking off her coat, Lizzie hit the button and smiled as her daughter’s light voice filled the hall.

‘Hi, Mum. Oh God, you won’t believe it, you just won’t. Barry’s sister is being impossible. She doesn’t like the pattern I’ve chosen for the bridesmaid’s dress. A-line suits everyone – I don’t know what the problem is. She’s just being difficult. She says she’ll buy her own dress but we can’t have that. It won’t be what I want. I think I’m going to hit her. Can I come over and talk to you?’

Dear Debra.

It was wildly ironic that Debra, who wasn’t pregnant and was of the generation who could have happily had a fleet of children without ever marrying the father or even introducing him to the rest of the family, was set on marrying her childhood sweetheart. The very words ‘childhood sweetheart’ made Lizzie shudder.

Both she and Myles had, separately, gently advised Debra that perhaps she should live with Barry for a couple of years first. Just because they’d been together since school and gone on holidays together for five years didn’t mean that they were going to make it as a couple.

But Debra wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Marriage is fashionable now,’ she told her mother, as if she was speaking to someone very elderly and very stupid. ‘Commitment is important. I don’t think older people understand that. What with terrorism and stuff in the world today, it’s younger people who know what matters. Barry and I are committed to each other and this is the proof. We’re trying to see if we can have doves at the wedding too because they symbolise peace. And just because you’re jaundiced about the whole marriage thing, Mum,’ she’d added tartly, ‘that’s no reason to put me off it.’

Lizzie, hurt at the idea that she was jaundiced about anything or that she’d harm a hair of Debra’s head because of her own problems, withdrew her gentle objections and began to help plan the wedding.

‘Commitment, commitment,’ said Myles bitterly on the phone to Lizzie later. ‘I’ve a good mind to remind her that she didn’t have the commitment to stick with nursing.’ Debra now worked in the offices of a double-glazing firm and shared a house with friends.

‘You can’t say that,’ said Lizzie. ‘She’d be upset.’

‘I’ve a good mind to,’ Myles went on, but he didn’t, as they both knew he wouldn’t. Debra was and always had been her daddy’s girl.

Lizzie dialled her daughter’s mobile.

‘Hi, love, you can come over. I’m home.’

‘I’m already on my way, actually,’ Debra answered. ‘I’ll be just five minutes.’

‘Great. I’ll make tea.’

Lizzie hurried off to whisk cushions into place and to check if the house still looked like the welcoming home Debra had grown up in. She put on lipstick to brighten herself up too and was ready with tea and home-made shortbread biscuits (Debra’s favourite and always ready for whenever she dropped in) when her daughter’s Mini stopped in the drive. The car, an eye-catching dark red, was her pride and joy, and Lizzie never caught sight of it without feeling glad that she and Myles had been able to contribute to its purchase. Lizzie’s part of the car had been money she’d saved to fix the leak in the roof in the kitchen, but there was plenty of time to deal with that. Debra’s happiness was more important than a bit of damp.

Debra let herself into the house with her own key and went immediately to the kitchen.

‘I shouldn’t have any shortbread,’ she said by way of greeting. She put two sugars into her tea, added lots of milk, and took a biscuit.

‘How are you, darling?’ said Lizzie, not wanting to sound too like a concerned mother. Debra hated that.

‘Fine,’ said Debra through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Whatever am I going to do about Sandra? Fine bridesmaid she’s turning out to be. You’d think she’d be happy to have a dress bought for her. Stupid girl’s the size of an elephant.’

‘Not everyone’s skinny like you.’ Lizzie felt sorry for Sandra, a sweet-natured girl who didn’t share her brother’s good looks or slim physique.

‘That’s not my fault,’ Debra said with the disdain of one who’d never been less than pleased with her reflection in the mirror. She finished her biscuit and took another. ‘I just don’t want her to ruin my day because of this. We’ve only got a few months to go – you’d think she’d say something before this, wouldn’t you? But that’s typical of Sandra. Troublemaker.’

Debra’s temper made her face flush, and Lizzie did what she’d always done when her children were upset: she reached out and comforted her.

‘It’ll be fine, love. Barry will talk to Sandra. He’ll explain that this is your special day, that everything’s got to be perfect and that you want to pick the dresses.’

A brief flash of memory reminded Lizzie of her own hastily arranged wedding where the bride wore a dress a size too large in order to hide her burgeoning belly and the bride and groom’s parents wore stunned smiles. Times were different then, Lizzie reminded herself. Nobody had the money for big days out with three bridesmaids, a five-tier cake and an Abba tribute band at the reception. Mind you, nobody had the money for that now either. But Debra’s heart was set on a big day in mid-July and neither Lizzie nor her ex-husband had the heart to say anything.

Just then, an idea hit her.

‘Remember those lovely bridesmaid’s dresses in the wedding shop off Patrick Street? We could go and have a look at them again,’ she coaxed.

‘But I thought we couldn’t afford to buy the ones I liked.’ Debra was suspicious, thinking of the compromise that had been reached when the cost of the reception had begun to spiral beyond the agreed sum. Something had to give and Debra felt that it wasn’t any great risk to herself to have the bridesmaids wearing outfits from the dressmaker. Who would be looking at them? She was the star of the day. Her own expensive gown was worth the money but spending too much on bridesmaids was wilful waste. ‘The dressmaker’s doing a good job, really. It’s just Sandra who’s got a problem.’

‘Well, maybe we could let Sandra get a dress from the wedding shop. All three bridesmaids are going to be wearing different colours anyhow –’ began Lizzie.

‘I don’t know,’ said Debra, struck again by the unfairness of her future sister-in-law’s behaviour. ‘I hate weddings, honestly. It’s all a total pain. I’ve a good mind to tell Barry it’s off.’

Lizzie sighed. Debra was so highly strung that she sometimes failed to see others’ points of view. Unlike her mother, who saw everyone’s point of view. They may have looked alike – the same big eyes and round, open faces – but in character they were very different. Lizzie used to wish that Debra wasn’t so uncompromising but, in retrospect, she’d changed her mind. Being gentle and yielding got you nowhere in life.

Wednesday was manic in the surgery. First in the door on the dot of nine were Mrs Donaldson, a large, prune-faced pillar of the community, and her daughter, Anita, a shy, heavily pregnant woman in her late twenties, who would have been enjoying a perfectly normal pregnancy had it not been for her interfering mother. Mrs Donaldson, with five pregnancies behind her and a superiority complex, insisted on always seeing Dr Morgan because she thought male doctors knew nothing about female plumbing, but obviously felt that she herself was the expert on all things gynaecological.

She herself was ‘delicate’, she’d told a disbelieving Lizzie early on in Anita’s pregnancy. ‘My side of the family were all small-boned and pregnancy was such a strain,’ sighed Mrs Donaldson, folding big strong arms over a considerable bosom emphasised by a silky blouse with an inappropriate pussy-cat bow. ‘Dr Morgan won’t see that poor Anita’s the same. Poor lamb needs more ante-natal care and more visits. I can see it so why can’t her stupid obstetrician?’

Through all of this, Anita smiled sweetly at everyone and followed her mother meekly into the surgery for each unnecessary visit.

Clare Morgan, normally the soul of discretion regarding her patients, confessed that she loathed the sight of Mrs Donaldson.

‘Anita’s perfectly fine and I’m convinced her mother’s constant agitating is creating more stress for her than the pregnancy,’ she said.

Today Mrs Donaldson was on high alert because next door’s cat had been seen lurking in the vicinity of Anita’s clothesline.

‘Toxoplasmosis,’ said Mrs Donaldson darkly to Lizzie. ‘All cats should be put down.’

Lizzie’s eyes instantly swivelled to the windowsill, where Clare Morgan’s ginger cat, Tiger, liked to sit and mew miserably to be let in, even though he knew he wasn’t allowed into the surgery. Luckily, there was no rotund marmalade shape there. Mrs Donaldson was quite capable of running out and hitting him with her handbag.

‘The doctor is very busy this morning but I’m sure she’ll fit you in,’ Lizzie said, knowing that there was no point in saying anything else. Mrs Donaldson did not grasp the concept of people saying no to her.

By half-past twelve, after a hectic morning where the surgery had been packed with sneezing and wheezing patients, including one white-faced man who’d had to keep rushing into the loo to be sick, Lizzie felt as if she had only one unjangled nerve left. Every appointment had run late and there were always a few impatient patients who felt this was Lizzie’s fault for overbooking and glared at her furiously as they waited. But somehow, the throng had cleared and the last person had just gone in to see the doctor. Lizzie got a glass of cranberry juice from the tiny fridge in the kitchenette and dosed it liberally with echinacea. She didn’t know if it was the immunity-boosting medicine or the fact that she was daily exposed to every bug going, but she rarely got sick.

Luxuriating in the silence, she leaned back in her chair and stretched her aching back.

‘Clang’ went the bell over the surgery door. Lizzie straightened up to attention.

‘Hi, Sally,’ she said cheerfully, and relaxed again. Sally Richardson was a friend as well as a patient. She, Steve and their two boys had lived in the road behind Lizzie’s for the past four years and Lizzie had come to know them both from the surgery and from bumping into each other in the tiny corner shop where they bought newspapers and emergency cartons of milk. She’d been to several of their parties, although she’d had to miss Steve’s now legendary birthday party six months ago. And when Lizzie’s funds ran to it, she’d enjoyed a facial in Sally’s gorgeous beauty salon, The Beauty Spot.

‘Hello, Lizzie,’ said Sally, wearily pulling one reluctant small boy after her by the sleeve of his anorak. His younger brother was clinging miserably to his mother’s neck and looking balefully at Lizzie. ‘Tonsillitis again. They were both a little off form this morning, but now Daniel’s started vomiting.’

From his vantage point in Sally’s arms, Daniel stuck out his tongue to prove how sick he was, obviously used to doing it so people could look at his tonsils.

‘Poor Daniel,’ soothed Lizzie. ‘Have you got a sore throat?’

He nodded tearfully, big brown eyes looking like a doleful puppy’s.

‘And are you sick too, Jack?’ Lizzie asked his brother.

‘Yes,’ said Jack croakily, looking just as miserable.

They were both big children, too big for the petite Sally to carry any more, Lizzie thought. She looked exhausted.

From behind the reception desk, Lizzie produced the box of kids’ toys she’d tidied up earlier. Jack wasn’t too ill to fall happily onto the colourful jungle train, and was soon banging each animal, making it wail, roar or chatter. Daniel, however, clung to his mother and refused to be put down.

‘The wait won’t be long, Sally,’ Lizzie reassured her.

‘I feel terrible. I should have brought them first thing.’ Sally’s face was creased with guilt. ‘I thought I’d stay home from work and see how they got on, and then Daniel began to be sick and every time I changed him, he’d be sick again, so it’s taken us an hour and a half to leave the house. And Steve’s in bits because work is a nightmare since his boss left last month, and he’s got to do everything.’ She looked so wretched, with her normally glossy dark hair tied back into a limp knot, and her grey fleece stained with dried sick on one shoulder. Lizzie decided emergency measures were called for.

‘You need a cup of tea,’ she said, hurrying to boil the kettle.

Then she produced the ultimate bribe of chocolate buttons, and Daniel grudgingly got onto the floor with Jack to play jungle train.

‘They’re soft, so they won’t hurt your throats,’ she said, dividing the chocolate between the two boys. Then she gave Sally a big mug of tea and an oatmeal biscuit.

‘It’s my medicine.’ She smiled, sitting down beside Sally.

‘You’re so kind, Lizzie. I suspect that’s why people tell you things,’ Sally said, gratefully drinking the tea.

‘They tell you things too,’ Lizzie pointed out. ‘The salon’s like a confessional, with people revealing all sorts of stuff to you as they lie back being pampered.’

A faint grin touched Sally’s wan cheeks. ‘I think I’m too distracted this week to have anyone want to tell me their secrets,’ she said. ‘I’m worried about the boys and their tonsils, and I’m worried about poor Steve. He’s working himself into the ground. I ought to make an appointment for myself too,’ she added. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit run down lately. Nothing out of the ordinary,’ she went on, ‘just I’m a bit weary. Mind you, isn’t everyone?’

‘It’s good to hear you worrying a bit about yourself,’ Lizzie soothed, checking the appointment book. ‘You do too much, Sally. Running the salon, taking care of the boys and Steve…’

Sally laughed. ‘I don’t do too much,’ she said. ‘I don’t do half enough. You want to see the pile of ironing…’

‘You never stop,’ Lizzie said firmly.

‘Don’t bother getting me an appointment yet, Lizzie,’ Sally replied. ‘I’ll phone you for one when I’ve got time. Ruby’s away so the salon is madly busy, and Delia, Steve’s mother, is off on holiday soon, so she won’t be able to look after the boys, so I’ll be running round like a headless chicken for a few weeks. I’ll come and see the doctor after that.’

‘You have to look after your health,’ Lizzie said, waggling a finger in mock disapproval.

‘I promise I’ll phone you when everything calms down,’ Sally said.

The door to the doctor’s room opened and the last patient emerged with Dr Morgan close behind.

Lizzie got up to see the patient out, and Clare Morgan led an eager Jack into her office.

‘Thanks, Lizzie, you’re a star,’ whispered Sally as she got up to follow with Daniel.

On Thursday, Lizzie had a day off and Gwen arrived to take her shopping. They were not looking for clothes for Lizzie, who had already bought her wedding outfit – a lemon suit, which was the subject of much worry. She went to the spare-room wardrobe and looked at it every few weeks, hoping that the yellow colour wasn’t quite as sharp and hard as she remembered. It had looked fine in the shop during the heady days of the previous year’s August sales, when the thought of getting a bargain had outweighed all other considerations. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

‘Could I sell it in the small ads?’ she asked Gwen idly. ‘“Mother-of-the-bride outfit. Never worn. Makes MOTB look like before picture in makeover article.”’

‘You wouldn’t get the proper value of it,’ advised Gwen. ‘Sure, just plaster more make-up on for the wedding and you’ll be fine.’ Today’s trip was to buy clothes for Gwen and Shay’s cruise. Ten days on the Star of the Mediterranean in April would require lots of outfits, and Gwen, who wasn’t usually even vaguely interested in what she wore, had entered into the whole cruising notion with great vim and vigour. She’d been scouring the local boutiques for nautical outfits, and had gone so far as to make a list of suitable evening clothes from her own wardrobe so that she could be sure of not doubling up on anything.

Lizzie thought this was unlikely. Gwen’s life had not lent itself to cocktail gowns. A passionate knitter, she was far more likely to be remembered for her selection of oatmeal-coloured sweaters that could keep out even an Arctic chill. Unlike Lizzie, who could never resist colourful tops and flowing, gypsy skirts, Gwen preferred sensible outfits. Even her hair was sensible: cut short without any artifice covering the grey.

‘Shay’s giving out yards about having to buy a dinner jacket,’ said Gwen when they were both settled in her car and driving at a sedate pace down Lizzie’s street. ‘I told him to shut his trap and stop whingeing. I said you’d come with me if he didn’t. That shut him up.’

Lizzie grinned. Gwen and Shay had already warmly invited her to go with them, saying she hadn’t had a holiday for years and she’d be welcome.

‘You don’t want me along,’ Lizzie insisted. ‘You’ve both been saving for this for years and it’s special.’ She didn’t add that as well as being completely broke she hated to feel like the third wheel, and even Gwen and Shay, who hardly qualified for love’s young dream and who bickered amiably twenty-four hours a day, could do without a gooseberry. The world seemed very coupley these days and Lizzie felt like a gooseberry a lot of the time.

‘Did I tell you about the jumper I got in Marks?’ Gwen continued. ‘Pale blue ribbed cotton. The girl at the till said it was very Ralph Lauren, whoever he is when he’s at home. I told her I was going on a cruise. She was dead jealous, I can tell you. Everyone is jealous!’

In the shopping centre, Gwen headed straight for the sort of glossy clothes shop she’d never stepped into before in her life. She bypassed sensible coats and tweedy skirts for the shimmering evening wear. Within minutes, she was wearing a royal-blue floor-length jersey that clung to her ample curves with the shop’s three sales assistants standing around discussing how much the skirt needed to be taken up.

‘I’m going on a cruise, you see,’ Gwen informed them all gravely. ‘This needs to be perfect.’

It took ten minutes and lots of humming and hawing to get it perfect.

‘It mustn’t be too long or you won’t be able to tango,’ Lizzie said, her face serious.

The three assistants’ eyes widened.

‘She’s a marvellous dancer,’ Lizzie added. ‘And as for her husband…’

The blue jersey column began to shake with laughter. Shay had last danced at his own wedding and had refused to put a toe on any dance floor ever since.

‘Don’t mind my sister,’ Gwen warned. ‘She’s a menace. Tango indeed. Who was in that Last Tango film? Burt Reynolds, wasn’t it? And there was some furore about margarine, was it? How can a bit of margarine have caused so much fuss? I don’t know. Although it’s hard getting grease marks out of clothes…’

Lizzie kept her head down.

By the time they left, the sales assistants and Gwen had decided that the royal blue would be perfect for the captain’s dinner, and that the silvery grey scarf would look great with the long black skirt and pale blue crepe blouse.

‘Imagine me at the captain’s dinner,’ sighed Gwen. ‘Who’d have thought Shay and me would ever be on a cruise?’

‘You’ll be the star of the ship,’ Lizzie said fondly, linking her arm through her sister’s. ‘That royal blue will be gorgeous, just perfect.’ And then she stopped. She and Myles had never been on a cruise. Now they never would together…Gwen was the one sailing into uncharted waters, the one who’d know all about tipping the staff on the ship and what the midnight buffet was like. Lizzie was left in the shadows.

‘You’ll have to tell me all about it,’ Lizzie said, rallying. ‘I want a detailed account of everything, from how big the cabin is to what the style is like at night.’

‘You could have come, you know,’ Gwen said again.

‘Nonsense,’ said Lizzie briskly. ‘Haven’t I so much to do here? Debra’s wedding is only round the corner and the organisation takes up so much time.’

Gwen, who had two sons and had managed to get them married without any fuss from either side, held her tongue about what she privately thought about Debra. The truth, Gwen knew, was that Lizzie couldn’t afford to go on a cruise with her daughter’s extravagant demands to pay for.

A cup of coffee revived them both and Lizzie began to relate the latest tale of the wedding.

‘I haven’t spoken to Myles about the extra cost but know he won’t mind,’ Lizzie finished. ‘We both want this to be perfect for Debra and if a different bridesmaid’s dress makes it perfect, then so be it.’

Gwen regarded her younger sister solemnly. Their mother had been a great woman for what she called ‘plain speaking’.

‘Blunt as hell,’ Lizzie and Gwen used to agree. Both had made conscious efforts to live their lives without resorting to such bluntness. In Lizzie’s case, this had translated into a gentleness with other people and a sharp sense of intuition, although this was strangely lacking when it came to her own immediate family, her sister fondly thought.

While Gwen knew herself to be straightforward, she always made an effort not to hurt anyone with her remarks. But today, watching good, kind Lizzie making a fool out of herself with that spoiled brat of a daughter of hers, Gwen itched to speak plainly.

‘I hate to see you both spend so much money on this wedding,’ she said, trying to be delicate.

‘If you can’t spend money on your only daughter’s wedding, then what can you spend it on?’ said Lizzie easily.

‘But, Lizzie –’ Gwen broke off, not wanting to give a speech along the lines of her mother’s: if Debra was a decent kid, she’d understand that her parents didn’t have much cash to spare and would tailor her plans accordingly. Did Debra have any idea how much penny-pinching had gone on to give her this big, glitzy wedding?

‘I’d love Debra to have a big day too,’ said Gwen, trying her best to find some middle line without being too critical. ‘But money does come into it, Lizzie, and maybe you should tell Debra that you can’t afford to spend quite so much…’

‘Stop worrying,’ replied Lizzie equably. ‘Course we can afford it. Debra deserves her big day.’

That was what was wrong with her sister, Gwen thought. Lizzie had so much time for other people that she neglected herself. She hadn’t even noticed what was happening in her own marriage. Now, she poured her energy into the kids or, more realistically, Debra, since Joe was away and, anyhow, didn’t need looking after. There was nothing else in her life.

‘Why don’t you come with us on the cruise?’ Gwen said urgently. ‘There’s still time to book. They always have cancellations, and you never know.’

‘No, Gwen,’ said her sister firmly. ‘This is your big holiday. And besides,’ she pulled her coat from the back of the café chair, ‘I can’t afford it. Next year I’ll have my holiday of a lifetime and scandalise you all by learning exotic dancing or something!’

‘Shay has a bit put by for a rainy day,’ insisted Gwen. ‘You could pay us back. I’d love you to have a break.’

‘Thanks but no thanks. I told you, Gwen, next year,’ said Lizzie. ‘Next year will be my year.’

She shot her sister a strong, happy smile but it took some doing. In her heart, Lizzie didn’t think next year was going to be her year any more than this one was. She was so firmly in a rut that she’d need climbing equipment to get out. She had absolutely no idea how to solve the problem, but she did know that spending money she didn’t have would not help.