Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets - Cathy Kelly - Страница 38

Claudia threw her dummy at Hannah. With the phone still cradled between her ear and shoulder, Hannah picked the dummy up, dumped it in the sterilizer, removed another one and handed it to Claudia. Seeing the look in her mother’s eyes, Claudia, who was very clever for four months old, decided to hold on to the dummy. She twinkled endearingly at her mother, scrunching up her cherub face and letting the liquid brown eyes so like her father’s take the crossness out of Hannah’s expression. Before Claudia had been born, Hannah thought dummies were the work of the devil and lazy mothers. No child of hers would ever have one. After two months of constant screaming, one kind neighbour she’d met in the park had told her to forget her high-principled ideas and hit the chemist immediately for a six-pack. ‘Peace and principles are two very different things,’ the woman had said. ‘I swore I’d never use them, and look at my lot. They’ll be doing college finals with them in their mouths.’ Hannah took her advice and peace reigned.

Now Claudia sucked happily, big eyes watching her mother intently.

‘We need another waitress,’ Hannah said again to the man who ran A & E Catering. ‘One isn’t enough. We’ve got fifty people coming tonight, as you well know because you’re supplying the food. One waitress is ludicrous.’

He gave her the usual bullshit and Hannah rolled her eyes. Why Felix had insisted on using these people was beyond her. Just because his new best friend had recommended them was no reason to entrust their first big party to them. But he insisted it was a good idea.

‘Hannah, I’ve been at three parties lately where they’ve worked, trust me,’ he said bluntly.

As she hadn’t been to the same three parties because Claudia’s colic meant the au pair couldn’t manage, Hannah had no comeback. The au pair couldn’t manage very much. Neither, it seemed, could A & E Catering. Felix had told her grandly about plans for a seafood buffet with splendid raspberry tarts as dessert, like the last party he’d been at. The catering company had said that the woman who oversaw seafood buffets was on holiday and would she not settle for hams, cheese, the odd quiche and exotic fruit meringue?

Now the problem was the number of staff. Somebody had overbooked and there was only one waitress available for the party. Hannah, who thought it was all too expensive anyway and would have much preferred to cancel the bloody party, had no intention of being the second waitress, which was what would happen unless she could twist the caterers’ arms.

‘Look,’ she said finally, ‘I want two waitresses or consider yourself fired.’

She hung up.

‘Mercedes!’ she yelled.

Mercedes was the au pair, an indolent French charmer who could have been on the front of Vogue and was clearly biding her time au pairing until she was asked. A tall, sylph-like nineteen with endless legs, she had long platinum-blonde hair she could sit on and big blue eyes that must have looked wanton from the day she was born. Now she swayed into the kitchen, pink kitten heels clacking on Hannah’s terracotta tiles, a vision in black jeans and a pink gingham shirt with the ends tied carelessly about her tiny waist.

‘Oui,’ she breathed.

‘Can you take Claudia for a walk?’ Hannah asked. ‘I have a few more phone calls to make and she’s restless.’

‘But I must do my nails,’ Mercedes said plaintively.

Hannah’s own nails were unpainted and likely to stay that way because she still had to do so much before the party Felix wanted, a party they couldn’t afford.

‘Mercedes, please,’ begged Hannah. ‘You can have all of tomorrow off.’

For a brief, dizzying moment, Hannah remembered running an office, hiring and firing at will. Now she was reduced to begging the au pair for help. Mercedes was supposed to work for six hours, five days a week, the days to be organized between employer and employee. But after that first month coaxing Mercedes out of the desolation of homesickness for Marseilles, Hannah had crossed the line from employer to mother-figure and Mercedes now behaved exactly the way Hannah suspected she behaved at home: on the phone at all hours, by turn melancholy and jubilant, depending on which boyfriend had phoned, and uninterested in emptying out the dishwasher. She loved Claudia, which was wonderful, but hated nappy-changing and feeding. Getting her to take Claudia out for a walk was like getting NATO chiefs to reach a unanimous decision.

The promise of Saturday off did it. Mercedes liked nothing better than spending Saturdays with her au pair friends, idling away hours drinking coffee in Covent Garden, being eyed up by handsome young men and spending money their parents had sent on flirty little outfits from French Connection and Monsoon.

‘Oui,’ Mercedes said grudgingly, and because she was a kind girl, added, ‘Are you going to the ’airdresser, ’Annah? I’ll keep Claudia for the afternoon.’

Hannah could have kissed her. Once she’d decided to help, Mercedes was generous.

Claudia was the only one who didn’t like this plan. She scrunched up her face and bawled, hurling her bottle at Mercedes this time and making enough noise to frighten the cat.

Hannah picked her up and cuddled her tightly as the wails subsided. As she held Claudia’s heaving body close to hers, she marvelled again at the intensity of her feelings for her daughter. From the very second she’d been born, love for Claudia had overwhelmed Hannah like a volcanic eruption pouring ceaselessly out of a crater. She adored each dark curl on her daughter’s head, was obsessed with every breath she took, even sitting beside the cot when Claudia had been very small, listening to every inhalation, as if watching the tiny chest rise and fall could keep Claudia safe. Under the circumstances, it was a miracle that Claudia had remained so sweet and sunny-natured thus far. But despite her adoration, Hannah was terrified of spoiling Claudia, and the little girl had learned that her beloved mother occasionally had to do things and go places that didn’t include her.

She wasn’t in the mood today. Snuggling closer to Hannah, Claudia sniffed plaintively.

‘I hope she’s not getting something,’ Hannah said anxiously, immediately toying with the idea of cancelling her hairdresser’s appointment.

‘She’s fine,’ Mercedes said, taking a protesting Claudia away from her mother. ‘We’ll go to the common and play. Won’t we, ma cherie?’ Mercedes said in baby-speak to Claudia.

The baby’s eyes lit up at the attention.

She looked so adorable in her red woollen cardigan and blue spotty dungarees. ‘Go with Ruth from next door, won’t you?’ said Hannah. You never knew what sort of weirdo would approach a young girl with a pushchair. She’d become paranoid about security and felt much safer when the next-door nanny went walking with Claudia, Mercedes and her charge, a one-year-old bruiser named Henry who was training Claudia how to have terrible tantrums one minute and smile angelically the next.

‘Perhaps we should get a dog, a guard dog,’ Hannah had said worriedly to Felix when they moved to the house in Clapham. Claudia wasn’t even born at the time and Hannah had read a terrible story about a woman who’d had to run away from a crazed man in a park near her home when she was wheeling her twin boys out.

‘You’re such a worrier,’ Felix had remarked, patting her belly. ‘We’re not Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, you know. Nobody is going to kidnap our baby.’

Even so, Hannah did her best to ensure that when Mercedes went out with Claudia, they went with somebody else. She wasn’t frightened of meeting someone scary when she was on her own with Claudia: mainly because Hannah knew she’d savage anyone, man or beast, who tried to harm a hair of her precious baby’s head. Mother love could be a terribly violent thing.

Claudia grizzled a bit as Hannah put on her red woollen hat and matching coat. It was a glorious Friday in April but Hannah was paranoid about chills and it was a bit windy out on the common. Convinced that Claudia was buttoned-up safely from both the wind and mad men on the common, she let them off, reminding Mercedes to phone her in the hairdresser’s if there was a problem.

It was wonderful to have a few precious hours to herself, she thought as she let herself out of the house ten minutes later. The sun shone on the small terraced white houses on the road, and the scent of next door’s yellow jonquils filled Hannah’s head as she shut the door. Their house wasn’t the large, airy Edwardian mansion in Chelsea that Felix had promised her when he’d persuaded her to live in London. There was nothing airy about it. Tall and narrow, there was a basement kitchen, two pretty reception rooms on the ground floor, and three pokey bedrooms on the second floor. If the attic hadn’t been floored, Hannah didn’t know where Felix would have put his clothes.

Still, it was a pretty little house and would be even prettier if they had any money to spend on doing it up. They’d had the living room wallpapered in an apple green and cream patterned paper Felix had fancied and it had worked out so expensive that they’d been forced to abandon plans to redo the dark red kitchen.

It all came back to money. Felix hadn’t worked for two months now and, due to his reckless spending when he was working, they were a bit strapped for cash. Which was one of the reasons why Hannah wasn’t keen on the idea of tonight’s party.

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Felix had said crossly. ‘This sort of entertaining is vital for my career. Bill’s bringing this important casting director with her. She could do things for me.’

Hannah knew when she was beaten. Felix’s career was everything, especially since hers was on the backburner. But they needed to cut back on something. Mercedes was an expense they could do without. Hannah hadn’t wanted an au pair at all, saying she’d prefer to look after Claudia by herself, but Felix had insisted that people ‘like them’ always had some sort of help. She could get out more and maybe go back to work, he’d suggested.

However, an intense desire to be with Claudia meant her work was confined to two mornings a week working at a local charity shop, which her mother had insisted was good for getting her out of the house.

‘You don’t want to turn into one of those wives who have no life outside the four walls of your kitchen,’ Anna Campbell had said wisely. ‘Without my job, I’d have been ga-ga years ago.’

She spent an enjoyable hour in the hairdresser, reading magazines she wouldn’t normally buy and savouring a cup of sugary coffee. The small local salon always did a wonderful job of washing and blowdrying her hair. Felix went to Nicky Clark for his streaks but they couldn’t both afford to go there.

‘To think I believed this was natural,’ Hannah laughed, running her fingers through his silky blond hair the day she discovered he had it professionally coloured.

‘I was very fair as a child,’ Felix protested, sounding hurt at the notion that Hannah felt he wasn’t really the gilded creature she’d married.

She kissed him affectionately. ‘I won’t tell anyone, I promise.’

He’d had his hair done the day before and was now out meeting Bill in the Groucho Club, looking as if he was successful and gainfully employed instead of overdrawn and worried. Bill was a terrible woman for boozing and Hannah prayed she’d stay off the Black Label until she got to the party. Otherwise, she’d be pinching men’s bottoms at a rate of knots. Bill went through men faster than Claudia went through nappies. At least if she was bringing a famous and influential casting director to the party, she would be on her best behaviour. Hopefully.

On impulse, Hannah stopped at the chemist on the way home and treated herself to pillarbox red lipstick and matching nail varnish. She’d been very drab lately, slopping around in her old threadbare jeans and never bothering much with make-up or such niceties as painting her nails. Some days it was a miracle that she managed to brush her hair. Felix was such a sweetie, he never complained when she came to bed in a crumpled giant T-shirt and socks instead of some beautifully ironed silken slip of a thing designed to be whipped off.

But then he knew how tired she’d been after having Claudia. Caring for a baby who refused to sleep at night for more than two hours at a time until the last week, had knocked the stuffing out of Hannah. Sex and a beauty routine seemed to matter very little when you were so tired you could barely see straight.

Tonight, she’d remind Felix of the glamorous, sensual woman he’d married, Hannah vowed as she paid for the cosmetics. A smile lifted the corners of her generous mouth as she thought about it. And when the party was over, she’d bring him upstairs, cross her fingers that Claudia would sleep, and seduce him. Slowly, sexily, the way he loved.

‘What are they coming for?’ demanded Felix, pulling Hannah into the kitchen as soon as she had led Freddie and Michelle from next door into the sitting room and gone off to get them a glass of wine.

‘They’re our neighbours,’ Hannah whispered angrily, ‘and unless you want warfare along the road, you have to ask neighbours to parties. If Bill gets twisted and starts running up and down the street naked with a glass of whiskey in her hand and a rose up her bum, it’s better to have the neighbours on our side, don’t you think?’

Felix scowled. He hadn’t a leg to stand on. Bill had arrived home with him from the Groucho Club, much later than he’d promised and minus the famous casting director. Felix had been mildly drunk (he was far too ambitious to ever let his bleached hair down) but Bill was completely plastered, no matter how she tried to hide it. Hannah was an expert at gauging drunkenness. She’d shoved a cup of strong coffee into Bill’s hand, sent her into the garden to cool off, and had made Felix feed her a plate of the Spanish ham that the caterers were taking out of refrigerated packs. That had been an hour ago. Now the guests were beginning to trickle in, starting with their neighbours who all had small children and liked going to parties early because toddler alarm calls at five every morning meant they were too exhausted to stay out late.

‘Circulate,’ hissed Hannah to her handsome husband, who was now admiring his reflection in a shiny silver platter.

‘None of my people are here yet,’ he replied, adjusting the collar on the chocolate brown DKNY shirt that went so well with his eyes and golden skin.

‘Do you mean that all the neighbours are my boring friends and that the thrilling act-or types, who won’t get here for hours, are your friends?’ Hannah said angrily.

‘Keep your hair on,’ Felix said. ‘I’ll mingle. Just rescue me if I get stuck.’

Hannah followed him in with the wine and watched as he greeted Freddie and Michelle as if he’d been counting the hours till their arrival. Michelle flushed pink when he kissed her hello like she was Claudia Schiffer’s prettier little sister instead of a clever, rounded banker who moaned to Hannah that she was fed up to the teeth with Weight Watcher’s spaghetti.

‘Freddie!’ said Felix warmly. ‘When are you going to stop bullshitting me and give me that game of squash? You promised to fit me in.’

He was so charming, Hannah reflected, watching the tableau. People adored him; he could light up a room, not to mention what he could do to a woman’s eyes. No wonder he was so magical on film.

As the best, if somewhat bittersweet, review had put it: ‘Felix Andretti has a screen presence which draws your eyes to him. If he’s on the screen, you’re watching this magnetic man. It is star quality, but is it acting quality? Time will tell, but keep an eye out for his name.’

Hannah had been horrified by the review. And scared. Her great fear had always been that Felix was such a beautiful creature he’d succeed to a certain level within the business but no further, simply because he wasn’t a good enough actor despite his matinee-idol looks. With his lofty dreams of both critical and commercial success, it would kill him. This review seemed to confirm her fears, but Felix and Bill had been in raptures over it.

‘Acting, schmacting,’ Bill had crowed as they enjoyed a celebratory lunch in a chi-chi bistro on the King’s Road. ‘You’ve got star quality, babe. That’s what this business is all about.’

The condensation ran down the white wine glasses as Hannah stood inside the door and watched Felix ooze star quality.

Freddie and Michelle giggled like schoolkids at his jokes, as did the other people in the room who’d gravitated towards him instinctively.

‘Were you taking those glasses of wine to anybody in particular?’ demanded the waitress.

A & E Catering had come up with two waitresses, one competent and friendly, the other a surly girl who wasn’t much older than sixteen and looked as if she’d been dragged away from a particularly brilliant episode of Friends to waitress at this boring party.

It was Ms Surly speaking.

‘It’s OK,’ Hannah said, smiling in the hope that the girl might summon up a smile in return. ‘I’ll bring them.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said the girl before stomping off.

‘Darling,’ called Felix, giving her a look she recognized as his ‘rescue me’ plea. ‘Come here with the wine before we all expire from thirst.’

She made her way over to the group and Felix handed out the drinks before wrapping his free arm around her waist in a gesture as much of pride as possession.

‘Isn’t she wonderful?’ he said warmly. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without her.’

‘Wonderful,’ chorused the Felix acolytes.

It was Hannah’s turn to flush. She hated it when he did that, made her feel like a possession on display. She remembered a party at one actor’s house when she’d been heavily pregnant and Felix had pushed her round in front of him like a talisman, as if to say ‘Aren’t I a wonderful family man?’

Of course, he couldn’t really have been doing that. She’d been such a slave to her hormones at the time that she’d discounted her initial notion as pregnancy blues.

Yet it felt like it now. She was a part of Felix’s resumé, along with his stint in badly financed theatre shows, his year in America and the rep Hamlet in modern clothes set in Chicago. Her place on the CV was that of sweet Irish wife who looked after their adorable little daughter and their cosy Clapham home. The domestic bliss section of every actor’s life, without which they ‘simply wouldn’t be able to cope’, as they told every interviewer.

‘I must answer the doorbell,’ she said hurriedly.

‘Did it ring?’ asked Michelle in surprise. ‘I thought yours made the same noise as ours, and I didn’t hear it.’

Blessedly, the bell rang loudly.

‘There it goes again,’ Hannah lied.

Freddie laughed at Michelle. ‘One sip of wine and she doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going!’

Hannah escaped to let the newcomers in and to rest her hot forehead against the cool wall in the upstairs bathroom. There must be something wrong with her. She checked on Claudia and Mercedes. The baby was asleep, cherubic with those naughty eyes closed.

‘Would you like something to eat?’ she asked Mercedes, who looked shocked at the idea.

After nine, Mercedes never touched more than a crispbread. Which was why she was so slim, Hannah thought, a hand straying to her tummy, which had never quite regained its once-enviable slimness after Claudia’s birth.

The buffet went down a treat, along with the endless bottles of Roda wine. The acting fraternity turned up en masse and went through the food like a plague of locusts, especially enjoying knocking back the after-dinner champagne that Felix had apparently ordered without telling Hannah.

‘Good drink is the mark of a good party,’ breathed one of Felix’s pals drunkenly as he helped himself to another red wine-sized glass of champagne with the eagerness of a wino opening a new bottle of Thunderbird.

A waste of a good party, Hannah thought bleakly as she surveyed the scene of destruction that was the kitchen and thought of how much money the whole thing had cost them. Every time another cork popped, she winced and remembered their overdraft. It would have been bearable if Bill’s important friend had turned up to admire Felix and subsequently cast him in some career-making TV show or film. But she hadn’t arrived and now that it was after eleven, it didn’t seem likely she would.

The guests were almost all hard-up talent rather than wealthy, powerful behind-the-scenes people. The most powerful person in the room turned out to be a beautifully preserved actress who seemed to have been in every British film made in the previous ten years and who was clearly there because she fancied Felix.

To Hannah’s relief, he didn’t appear interested and even bitchily confided in her that the actress’s gorgeous young husband was in fact gay.

‘At her age, it’s the best she can get,’ he’d said dismissively.

Hannah was so consoled by the knowledge that Felix wasn’t interested in the other woman, that she never said a word about how ageist and sexist his remarks were.

She noticed, sourly, that he spent ages talking quietly in a corner with Sigrid, a Danish actress who’d had a small part in his last TV series. A taut and lean brunette with short spiky hair and a personality to match, she was amazingly dressed in tight suede trousers under which her body seemed to lean towards Felix as they stared deliberately over each other’s shoulders, talking fiercely.

Hannah chatted to other guests, laughed at old jokes and poured out wine, all the while watching her husband out of the corner of her eye. He and Sigrid never even looked at each other but there was something between them, some unmistakable sense that they were closer than mere colleagues. But they weren’t touching or anything. Was she imagining it?

Even when someone spilled a glass of red on the tapestry cushion that she’d meant to hide because it wasn’t Scotch-guarded, Hannah didn’t mind. She was too busy watching Felix, feeling nervous knots in her stomach.

When she returned from rescuing the cushion with a pound of salt in the kitchen, Felix was chatting to another group of people, one arm loosely round the shoulders of a woman she knew he disliked. Perhaps that was the clue, she thought with the shock of sudden comprehension.

He let himself publicly touch people he didn’t like and ostentatiously refrained from touching anyone he did.

She was relieved when Sigrid left shortly afterwards with the man she’d arrived with. But the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach wouldn’t go away.

‘Everything all right, darling?’ Felix asked casually when Sigrid had gone, patting Hannah’s arm.

‘Fine,’ she said.

He smiled almost maniacally at her: she was tired of the party and he was on a high, thrilled that these people had come to see him, buoyed up on a mixture of drink and excitement.

He kissed her on the cheek and was gone, flirting, charming, enchanting everyone. The golden boy who captured every eye in the room.

By ten past twelve, she was exhausted from the combination of being hostessy with worrying that the party would upset Claudia, whom she’d checked on all evening. Most of the partygoers had gone except for the hard-core acting fraternity who were used to staying up late and who were now sitting round the kitchen table, stuck into the Scotch Bill had unearthed behind the tea towels in a kitchen cupboard.

When Hannah went into the kitchen after saying goodbye to some guests, the hard-core were happily ripping apart a period television series in which none of them had been given parts.

‘Derivative crap,’ sneered one.

‘I hate that corset and yes-your-ladyship stuff,’ said Bill. ‘I mean, didn’t they have sex in Jane Austen’s time? You’d never bloody know it.’

Hannah wondered if anyone would notice if she sloped off to bed.

Claudia had slept throughout the whole thing, in spite of the odd rowdiness, so she’d be awake as usual at half five. Hannah knew Felix wouldn’t have the energy to get up to her, and Mercedes, who’d been wonderful all evening and had taken Claudia’s cot into her room to make sure she was all right, was deservedly having the day off.

That was it, Hannah decided. She’d nip into Mercedes’ room and remind the poor girl that she’d take Claudia in the morning so Mercedes could have a lie-on. Felix must be in the loo or something, but he’d figure out she had gone to bed and would look after his guests without her.

She tiptoed upstairs, deeply grateful that the party was over. It had taken so much planning, mainly because of the inefficiencies of the caterers. And she’d been cleaning the house for a week. Mercedes was hopeless when it came to putting on rubber gloves and doing things with cream cleanser. She’d shuddered expressively when Hannah had even suggested it.

Poor Mercedes. She’d miss her Gallic charm.

Hannah was mentally working out how much they’d save by not paying an au pair when she came to Mercedes’ room. There was a lot of muffled noise coming from inside and she instantly assumed that Claudia was awake and demanding attention. Knocking perfunctorily, she didn’t wait as she usually did for Mercedes to say, ‘Come in.’ Hannah was extremely conscious that Mercedes was entitled to her privacy but this was the first time she had ever left Claudia’s cot in the au pair’s room for the evening. Thinking that she’d relieve Mercedes of the baby was foremost on her mind when she pushed the door open.

Only it wasn’t an over-tired Claudia stretched out on Mercedes’ bed, wriggling as her nappy was changed and grizzling for her mother.

It was Felix, only a pair of boxer shorts covering his long, lean limbs. His Next boxers, Hannah noticed, astonished at the details which seemed clear to her at this traumatic moment.

He didn’t look upset. On the contrary, he looked mildly surprised, as if he’d just woken up in their own bed and it had been Hannah herself beside him in bra and knickers, instead of the nubile body of Mercedes looking wonderful in matching ivory undies.

Claudia was mercifully slumbering in her cot, cherubic face peaceful in sleep, one small hand clutching the cuddly black sheep she refused to be parted from. Hannah would never have forgiven Felix if he’d screwed their au pair with the baby watching. That would have been unforgivable. Not that the current state of affairs was forgivable, but it was marginally more so because of Claudia’s slumber.

‘ ’Annah, I am so sorry,’ cried Mercedes, distraught. ‘I never meant to, I am too fond of you, you must believe me. There was no plan – it just ’appen.’

I wonder how often it has ’appened before, Hannah thought wildly.

‘How did it happen, then?’ Hannah asked coldly, looking at Felix instead of Mercedes, who was, after all, an impressionable nineteen-year-old and could hardly be blamed for her employer’s adultery.

Felix’s face went blank when he was in the wrong, a sort of bare canvas on which he could paint the correct expression. It was blank now, waiting to see what barbs his wife would fire so he could react correctly.

‘I’m waiting, Felix,’ Hannah said, ‘for an explanation from you.’

As if realizing that she wasn’t taking the traditional ‘blame the other woman’ line, Felix adjusted his face accordingly.

‘I’m sorry, Hannah,’ he said. ‘I was drunk. I came in to check on Claudia and Mercedes was here. She came on to me…’

‘I did not!’ squealed Mercedes hotly. ‘You ’ave been after me since I get here. I only give in because you pester me!’

‘Lying bitch!’ hissed Felix. ‘Don’t believe a word she’s saying, Hannah,’ he implored. ‘She’s been like a cat on heat ever since she arrived.’

At this, Claudia woke up and, on seeing her favourite people glaring angrily at each other, started bawling. Mercedes looked at Hannah briefly as if asking would she pick her up. But Hannah shook her head imperceptibly and reached for her squirming daughter.

‘How’s my pet?’ she crooned, snuggling Claudia’s curly head against her breast and marvelling that she could speak normally to her daughter after what had just happened. The bawling continued.

‘Felix, perhaps you could move the cot into our bedroom.’

He smirked at Mercedes. I won, he seemed to be saying. She believed me. Mercedes’ face fell and her full lower lip wobbled.

Hannah ignored all this and carried Claudia into what the estate agent had described as the ‘master bedroom’. Slightly less box-like than the other two bedrooms, there was only room for a bed, a pine dressing table, two tiny bedside tables and a chair. The master must have been very small, Hannah always thought. She would never have described such a small room as the master bedroom when it sounded so stupid, she’d thought. With the cot in there, she wouldn’t have room to move.

Once Felix had transferred Claudia’s cot and all her belongings, he went to sit on their big double bed with its flowery yellow duvet.

‘Don’t even think about it, Felix,’ Hannah warned, keeping her voice low because she was trying to calm Claudia. ‘You can sleep somewhere else tonight. I’m sure there’s someone who’ll oblige – maybe Sigrid, if Mercedes is too pissed off to let you back in her bed.’

His head shot up and he looked warily at Hannah, speculating as to how much she knew or guessed.

‘How dumb do you think I am?’ she asked harshly. ‘No, don’t answer that because it’s obvious that I am a bit dumb. I failed to notice what you were getting up to under my roof and I failed to notice you screwing probably half the actresses in London.’

‘I haven’t…’ he began.

‘Don’t bother either apologizing or making excuses.’ Hannah walked around the room, gently rocking Claudia. ‘Now get out and look after your guests.’

Knowing when he was beaten, Felix left. A few moments later, a soft knock on the door and a little voice signalled the arrival of Mercedes.

‘ ’Annah, can I come and explain?’

‘Go away, Mercedes, you can explain in the morning,’ Hannah said wearily.

When she went downstairs half an hour later to get some milk for Claudia, the kitchen was empty. The stragglers were in the living room playing charades, porn-movie-title charades from the sound of it. Filthy laughter erupted when someone loudly guessed Dirty Cowgirls Do Downtown Delhi.

Hannah warmed milk for both herself and her daughter. Somehow the idea of hot milk appealed to her, probably because it was one of her mother’s favourite remedies. If you had a sick stomach, hot milk with ginger was a favourite. For flu, hot milk with the strange addition of black pepper was the remedy. Whether it worked or not, Hannah didn’t know, but she still associated hot milk with comfort.

When Claudia finally drifted off to sleep in her cot, Hannah pulled off her clothes and lay back against the yellow pillows wearing just her knickers, sipping the dregs of her milk. They were the black lycra and net ones she’d never worn before and had chosen because of her planned seduction of Felix. How ironic that when she’d been thinking of how she could give her beloved husband a reminder of their once-amazing love life, he’d been thinking of what opportunity he’d have to screw their au pair. Hannah tried to banish the image of him and Mercedes lounging on the bed, with the graceful insouciance of models in a Calvin Klein perfume commercial.

She didn’t want to think about what had just happened, didn’t want to have to face the painful lessons it was teaching her. Instead, she wanted to be able to talk to Leonie or her mother or Emma and cry. She wanted more comfort than a mug of hot milk.

For some irrational reason, she thought of David James. His strong face and those big shoulders came to her mind. You could cry into those shoulders, bury your head in their solidity and lean against them while gentle, strong arms held you tightly, saying comforting things. Not like Felix’s arms. Terrified of bulking up like a Schwarzenegger, Felix stuck to smaller weights in the gym, wanting his physique to be lean and honed rather than strong and masculine. She couldn’t imagine herself sobbing into his shoulders. Felix was the sort of man that women sobbed over and not to.

David had tried to warn her and she hadn’t listened. Who could she turn to now?

Morning came with painful slowness and, for once, Hannah had her eyes open before Claudia began mumbling and grumbling in her cot, cooing baby talk to Harvey the sheep. Hannah reckoned she’d managed about three fitful hours of sleep, punctuated by sweaty moments when she’d sat up in bed, dizzy from the memory of the night before. Felix consumed her nightmares; his lean, naked body curled around a succession of female ones, sometimes Sigrid, sometimes Mercedes, sometimes other anonymous beauties who laughed scornfully at Hannah and waggled pert, un-stretchmarked bodies at her.

She got Claudia up, kissing the wriggling pink baby who squirmed as she was being dressed. Hannah merely pulled on her old jeans again and dragged a marl grey T-shirt over her head. She ran a brush through her hair and cleaned her teeth, but nothing else. What was the point of going for glamour when your husband didn’t give a shit?

She peeped into the sitting room and saw Felix asleep on the couch. Bastard.

In the kitchen she made Claudia a bottle. It had been so much easier when she’d breastfed but her milk had unaccountably dried up after a month and she’d been forced to bottle-feed Claudia.

‘I’ll be able to help more now that you’re not breastfeeding,’ Felix had volunteered. That was a laugh, Hannah thought grimly. Felix’s help involved changing Claudia’s nappy whenever there was a press photographer around. Otherwise, he restricted his help to cuddles during bathtime and other occasions when the baby was clean. Laboriously feeding her a bottle was too boring for him because Claudia was a slow feeder.

Hannah managed to grab a cup of coffee and a piece of toast in between feeding Claudia and tidying up. She’d filled and emptied the dishwasher twice when Mercedes came tentatively into the kitchen.

Mercedes clearly hadn’t slept much either and her normally dewy complexion was grey with tiredness under the Dior foundation. Her big blue eyes were red-rimmed and she was obviously consumed with remorse. Even so, she still looked immaculate, a red polka-dot scarf tied jauntily round her neck to enliven the plain white fitted shirt and black trousers she wore.

‘ ’Annah, I am so sorry, please believe me,’ Mercedes said, twisting her hands anxiously.

She really was sorry. It was weird that her au pair appeared to care more about how hurt Hannah was than her own husband.

If Felix had really given a damn, he’d have been up by now, begging her not to leave him. As if she would, she thought hopelessly.

‘Mercedes, I think you better go home. I’ll phone your parents…’

‘No,’ shrieked the girl. ‘You can’t tell them!’

‘I wasn’t planning to tell them,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ll just say that we have to let you go and tell them what flight you’ll be on. Did Felix use a condom?’ she asked bluntly. She didn’t want to send Mercedes home pregnant. She felt sure it would contravene the employer/au pair guidelines.

The girl blushed. ‘Yes.’

‘I hope you don’t get pregnant,’ Hannah sighed. ‘You really should see your doctor when you go home.’ How strange, it was as if she and Mercedes were discussing an ordinary sexual encounter, not one where her own husband was involved.

‘It was safe,’ Mercedes said, still red.

‘Good. This whole situation is complicated enough without adding any more complications.’ Hannah found the Yellow Pages and opened it on the airline section. She shoved it and the phone towards Mercedes. ‘Mr Andretti will pay for your flight home, I have no doubt. It’s the least he can do. We’re going out for a walk,’ she added and left the room with Claudia in her arms.

When she got back, Mercedes and her belongings were gone, along with a tearful note saying she was sorry, so sorry.

Hannah folded the note thoughtfully and put it in her pocket. She’d been fond of Mercedes.

Felix was in the sitting room, watching football and drinking a glass of red wine. She was amazed that there was anything left to drink in the house after the party. She was sure Bill would have unearthed all the hidden booze, with her uncanny ability to sniff out alcohol.

‘Hi, babe,’ Felix said unconcernedly as Hannah put Claudia on a mat on the carpet for a wriggle and set her baby gym beside her. Claudia loved the gym: she whacked the bells and kicked the fluffy balls with delight, gurgling all the time.

Felix was still glued to the football. Hannah felt the rage grow deep inside her. She’d been on automatic pilot since last night, determined to cope with Felix’s hideous betrayal as calmly as she could. But his laid-back attitude pierced her heart. How could he sit there as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t screwed their au pair with the baby alongside, as if he hadn’t practically admitted to screwing half the actresses in London?

‘Have you got nothing to say for yourself?’ she said bitterly.

Felix shrugged and flicked back a strand of silky blond hair as if to say, ‘About what?’

‘How could you?’ she yelled at him, losing her head. ‘How could you sleep with someone else? I loved you, Felix. Wasn’t that enough for you?’

‘Don’t be so fucking bourgeois,’ Felix snapped. ‘Everybody does it.’

‘Bourgeois!’ screeched Hannah. ‘Is that what you call it when you believe in fidelity? Because if it is, then I’m the most bloody bourgeois person I know!’

‘Don’t give me that crap!’ he said, curling his lip. ‘You can’t tell me you haven’t played around. Until we became serious, you had a thing going with David James, didn’t you, huh? Don’t lie to me, I know you did. You were two-timing me. He as near as dammit told me to leave you alone.’

‘He did what?’

Felix laughed at her. ‘Not so cocky, now, are you, Hannah dear? David told me that if I hurt you, he’d rip my throat out. I may not be a Mensa member but even I can figure out what he meant by that.’

Hannah was mute. ‘But, but…’ she stammered after a moment. ‘He didn’t, we didn’t…’

‘Oh yeah, right.’

‘We didn’t,’ she insisted. ‘I didn’t even know he liked me.’

‘And why did he pluck you from the office manager’s job and make you a junior agent, then? Because you were the most gifted person he’d ever met in his life or because he wanted to get into your knickers?’

She recoiled at the crudity. How typically Felix: to hit her while she was down. ‘You’re saying that my talent had nothing to do with my promotion, that David was cynically using me and that he’d demote me back to my old position when he’d got his leg over,’ she said calmly, hating Felix for what he’d said. ‘How flattering, Felix. It’s nice to know that you appreciate my finer qualities and have respect for my abilities. To think I gave up that good job to marry a man who sees me as a useless bimbo.’ She favoured him with the lethal, stern look she’d used to great effect for so many years. ‘The only person who cynically uses anyone round here is you, Felix. You married me because you thought a pregnant wife would be useful, another string to your bow.’

She waited for him to deny it but he didn’t. He merely sat looking at her with cool disinterest.

Claudia began to wail at the shouting around her. Hannah picked her up and cuddled her, murmuring soothing baby noises and holding her close.

‘If you couldn’t wait for our first anniversary before you started screwing around, I’ve got to ask why did you marry me, Felix?’ she asked quietly. ‘Mercedes wasn’t the first, was she? Why did you need someone else? I thought I was enough for you.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Will you stop with all this psychoanalysis stuff, Hannah. We got married, we are married, end of story. People screw around in marriage, it’s not the end of the world. Life isn’t Gone with the Wind, you know. It doesn’t all end happily ever after.’

‘It didn’t end happily in Gone with the Wind,’ Hannah said in a strange high voice.

‘Whatever. You married me and you’re stuck with me. This is the way I am. I can’t change,’ he said.

‘But I thought you loved me,’ she repeated blindly.

‘I do love you, I just wanted to fuck somebody else,’ Felix explained. ‘Haven’t you ever wanted to do that?’

‘No,’ she whispered, ‘I haven’t. You are enough for me.’

‘Jesus, you women and your obsession with what’s enough! It’s like red wine,’ he said, holding up his glass. ‘Just because I like it, doesn’t mean I want to drink it all the time. Sometimes I like whiskey or champagne.’

‘What am I, then? The dregs? Cheap wine of the screw-top bottle variety?’ she said, starting to cry.

Felix downed his wine in one gulp and headed for the door. ‘If you’re going to carry on like that, I’m leaving. I’ll stay with Bill for a few days, let you cool down.’

She wanted to beg him not to go but, miserable as she was, she knew she couldn’t completely degrade herself. She could hear him upstairs, throwing stuff into a bag. Within ten minutes, he was gone and Hannah allowed herself to cry properly. Claudia joined in.

When they’d both stopped, Hannah felt as worn out as if she’d swum fifty lengths. She made herself a cup of tea and considered her options.

She longed to phone Leonie, to hear her friend’s kind, comforting and sensible advice. Leonie would know what to do. She always did. But Hannah couldn’t phone her. She was too raw and hurt. It would be painful and humiliating to admit what had happened. Instead, she cleaned the house, tidying up the worst excesses of the partygoers. She scrubbed and polished, working until her arms ached with cleaning. Claudia watched and dozed. Eventually, Hannah stopped and sat down on the couch to watch Blind Date. The opening music had just ended when the phone rang and Hannah leapt to it, hoping it was Felix, phoning to declare his undying love and to apologize, both of which were highly unlikely. It was her mother. Anna Campbell always phoned on a Saturday night before she went to bingo with her friends. It was a comforting ritual they’d got into, discussing their week and sorting out the world’s problems.

‘Hello, Hannah,’ said her mother, who was not the sort of person given to saying ‘Hello, darling.’

Hannah burst into tears.

‘It’s Felix, isn’t it?’ Anna said matter-of-factly.

Hannah sobbed more loudly. It was a few minutes before she could control her sobs enough to tell the whole sorry tale. She left nothing out. Her instinct to keep the most humiliating bits to herself had left her, like Felix.

‘Come home, Hannah,’ said Anna Campbell when she’d heard everything. ‘You’re banging your head against a brick wall. Do it. I should have done it years ago, but I never had the courage. You’re young, you’ve got the child to think of, leave him.’

Hannah leaned her head against the cool of the wall. ‘I can’t just leave,’ she said weakly.

‘Why not? Because he’s everything you ever wanted?’ Anna sounded sour. ‘What will you do the next time? Because there will be a next time, you know.’

‘What would I do?’ Hannah said in desperation.

‘Your boss would give you back your job, wouldn’t he?’ Anna said. ‘You’ve always said he was one man you could trust in any situation.’

‘David James, you mean?’ Hannah fell silent. She could hardly ask David, of all people. She’d spurned his advances in every sense of the word. He’d obviously been crazy about her and she’d rubbed his face in it. He’d even given her a career when she had nothing else and she’d turned her back on that too. He’d done his best to protect her by warning Felix not to hurt her, dear David. He’d be the last person she could ring, even if she wanted to. And she wanted to.

‘Why don’t you phone him, Hannah? You can stay with me for a week or so to get you back on your feet and then go back to work. Leonie would have you, or that nice Donna you talked about. You could get a place for yourself and Claudia in no time, and a creèhe. I don’t know why you think you can’t.’

‘I can’t explain,’ Hannah said in exasperation. She felt too shattered to think straight, never mind make such a cataclysmic decision. ‘I can’t do it,’ she said tiredly. The Blind Date music played in the background. They’d been talking for an hour.

‘Your phone bill will be horrendous, Mum, and you’ll miss bingo,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone tomorrow.’

‘To hell with bingo,’ her mother said.

‘I’ll phone tomorrow,’ Hannah repeated. She didn’t want to be told what to do any more. She wanted to lick her wounds in peace. She wanted to have a bath and rinse away all the horrible things that had been happening.

The wrapper said it was a butterball, scented with vanilla, ylang ylang and with a helping of cocoa butter to soften your skin.

Hannah carefully unwrapped the bath bomb from its plastic covering and dropped it into the bath. It immediately began to fizz in the water, releasing a glorious scent of vanilla into the air, like freshly baked cakes mixed with the soft scent of a baby’s skin. She breathed it in and sighed. Her body ached for a hot bath. She never had time for them any more. Claudia was so demanding that a two-minute shower snatched between naps was the extent of Hannah’s beauty routine. She hadn’t conditioned her hair in weeks purely because it took too long to rinse the conditioner out of it. And as for face masks, forget it. Having a bath with a butterball bomb in it was the ultimate in sensual excitement these days. The hairdresser had tut-tutted about the state of her hair yesterday. Yesterday, before the party, it seemed a hundred years ago.

Opening the bathroom door, she gingerly crept into her bedroom and peered into the cot. Claudia was lying on her back, covers bunched up around her feet and one fat little hand crammed against her mouth. In sleep, she was like a cherub from a medieval painting: her dark hair curled around her head, her cheeks rosy and her expression angelic. Awake, she was very keen on having her own way, with the most beguiling smile in the world when she was happy. The rush of love hit Hannah again like an express train. She would never have believed you could love somebody so much. She simply couldn’t bear to be away from Claudia. They spent hours playing together, Hannah patiently showing her toys and objects, Claudia delightedly crowing when she got to bite something. She bit everything, from towels to fingers, and had a remarkably strong grip for a small baby. In fact, Hannah was worried that the kitten would find her tail in Claudia’s strong little hand and that neither would enjoy the experience. She loved the kitten but wished Felix had thought about it when he bought it. Kittens and babies were not necessarily the best housemates. But Felix didn’t care about the effect of his actions: he just did things and let other people pick up the pieces.

Satisfied that Claudia was asleep, Hannah stripped off her jeans and sweatshirt and underwear and sank gratefully into the steaming water. Drifting mentally as the hot water soothed the aches in her body, she faced the pain. Felix had betrayed her and would probably do it again. In choosing Mercedes, he’d shown his contempt for Hannah.

It hit her like a flash of lightning, a coup de foudre, as Mercedes would say. If she stayed, she’d be doing what her mother had done. Sticking it out for the sake of the children. Hadn’t Hannah railed against her mother for just that? Railed against the reasoning that insisted on maintaining the status quo, at no matter what personal cost. Ever since she’d been old enough to hear her father knocking over the furniture when he staggered home, drunk out of his mind, Hannah had wondered why her mother hadn’t left – or thrown him out. The answer was that Anna Campbell’s generation didn’t believe in that type of thing. They married for life – a life sentence as Hannah saw it. Her plan had always been to escape that sort of life and control her own destiny. Having a career and being independent was the only way out of marital slavery, and yet she’d followed her mother’s path as faithfully as if they were identical twins: getting involved with two men who’d used and abused her, both of whom had taken away her self-belief and left her like a hollowed-out gourd, empty and useless. First Harry, then Felix. If Harry hadn’t walked away, she’d have still been with him. Hoping they’d get married and settle down, when, in reality, Harry was incapable of settling down.

And now Felix was using her and humiliating her. If she stayed, he’d continue to do it, confident that he’d get away with any number of indiscretions, knowing that Hannah would be waiting for him dutifully, a sweet wifey who’d never walk out. No, she thought with growing horror, no way. The only way to break the pattern was to take control and leave him. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she longed for him. She was crazy about Felix, she longed for him physically, yearned for his smile, hungered to be with him when they were apart. But it was one-sided. She knew that in relationships there was always one who loved more. And that was the one who wasn’t in control. She was that person and Felix would make the most of it. Unless she left him now. Otherwise, both she and Claudia would suffer. She couldn’t let her daughter grow up in a family where the notion of respect was nothing more than a sham. She imagined Claudia at twenty, talking about her childhood memories and recalling Daddy screwing other women when Mummy was out and he thought Claudia was too young to take notice.

She got out of the bath and wrapped herself in her old blue towelling dressing gown. In the bedroom, Claudia gurgled at her mother, waking up and demanding love and attention. Hannah picked her up and marvelled at Felix’s incredible eyes staring out at her from Claudia’s cherubic baby face. He’d always be part of her life because of Claudia. Which was only right. Hannah didn’t believe in separating a parent from their child. But he wouldn’t be a part of her life, not in that way. She’d be destroyed if he was.

‘How would you like to go to Connemara?’ Hannah crooned to Claudia, who smiled her gummy smile.

Leonie was washing her hair when the phone rang. Streams of shampoo bubbles rushed down her neck as she squeezed her hair quickly and wrapped a towel around her head turban-style. She raced to the phone, panting in her eagerness. It might be Doug, after all. He’d been in Dublin all day and she was dying to talk to him. It still amazed her how much she missed him when they weren’t together. They were planning a quiet Saturday night in with the twins, a video and a takeaway. She couldn’t wait.

‘Hello?’ she said breathlessly, feeling the trails of water disappearing down her neck and into her sweater.

‘Hi, Leonie, it’s Emma. Can you talk?’ said Emma in her lovely husky voice.

‘Course, love. How are you?’ Leonie said, using the corner of the towel to dry her neck. She sat down on the small stool beside the phone. Her hair could wait. She hadn’t spoken to Emma for at least a week.

‘I’m fine,’ Emma said. ‘Actually, I’m more than fine, I’m absolutely delirious. You’ll never guess what’s happened.’

‘What?’

‘Are you sitting down?’

‘Yes,’ Leonie said nervously. ‘It’s good news, isn’t it?’

‘The best.’ Even over the phone, Emma’s triumph was apparent. ‘I’m pregnant.’

Leonie squealed. ‘OhmiGod! That’s incredible, Emma. I’m so happy for you.’

She felt the tears swell up in her eyes. Darling Emma had wanted this for so long; she’d gone through hell trying to get pregnant and she’d be such a wonderful mother. ‘I’m so thrilled, that’s wonderful news.’

‘I know.’ On the other end of the line, Emma’s own eyes were brimming too. ‘I never ever thought this would happen, Leonie. I’d wondered would I ever be pregnant. Even when we decided to get on the IVF programme, I didn’t know if it would work.’

As Emma spoke, her fingers idly stroked her still totally flat belly lovingly.

‘How far are you gone?’ Leonie asked anxiously.

‘Six weeks,’ Emma said. ‘Imagine, me six weeks pregnant and not knowing it until a few days ago.’ She laughed joyously. ‘Let me tell you all about it.’

She and Pete had made their appointment with the IVF clinic for the following month and Emma had been immersing herself in the literature she’d been sent. She wanted to know everything before their appointment, so she read and re-read about the strain the treatment put on couples, about how her ovaries would be stimulated with hormone injections and about precisely how her eggs would be collected. It all sounded daunting.

The literature recommended starting the IVF cycle at a time when work wasn’t too busy. Emma couldn’t imagine a busier time in KrisisKids: they were about to move to bigger premises and, because of a horrific child-abuse case which had gripped the nation over the past few weeks, the counsellors and Edward were in great demand to talk about the charity’s work.

The phones had never stopped hopping, the publicity department was in chaos because Finn had been struck down by food poisoning, and Emma had been coping with his work as well as her own. By Thursday morning, she was exhausted and couldn’t summon up the energy to get out of bed when the clock went off at half six.

‘I’m shattered. I can’t get up yet,’ she murmured to Pete, snuggling up against him, savouring the warmth of his solid body next to hers. It was a chilly morning and she couldn’t face braving the cold and stripping off for her shower.

‘Five minutes more,’ Pete said sleepily, pulling her close to him.

Emma’s body fitted into the curve of his, spooned against him. Pete slid one hand under her T-shirt to caress her bare skin. It wasn’t an erotic gesture, more of a comforting, loving one. Emma snuggled closer to him, enjoying the feeling of his warm hands stroking her.

Pete’s fingers found the curve of one breast. He stroked her softly, fingers splaying out over the sensitive skin of her nipples, skin that seemed suddenly very tender.

‘Have you been doing those bust exercises again?’ Pete teased gently. ‘You’re getting very bosomy in your old age.’

‘What?’ asked Emma, feeling as if she’d been doing a jigsaw puzzle and it had all begun to fall into place. She sat up in the bed, barely noticing the cool of the room compared to the cosiness under the duvet.

‘Only teasing,’ Pete said hastily. ‘You just felt bigger, that’s all.’

‘B-but…they are bigger,’ Emma stuttered, ripping her T-shirt off to stare down at her chest. She touched herself; there was no doubt about it: her breasts looked bigger and they felt different. Sensitive, almost painfully sensitive.

‘Are they bigger?’ she demanded.

Pete sat up too and looked at her. ‘They don’t look that different, but they feel bigger,’ he said. ‘Why?’

Emma spoke calmly: ‘Bigger breasts and sensitive nipples are one sign of pregnancy.’

Pete grabbed her in excitement. ‘Emma!’ he yelled with delight.

‘No, hang on, Pete,’ she warned. ‘Let’s not make the same mistake I always make. I’ve been down this particular road before. Let’s check it out for sure before we start.’

Her heart thumping, she swung herself off the bed and went into the bathroom. At the bottom of the cabinet, hidden in an old toilet bag, was a pregnancy tester.

‘Where did you get that?’ asked Pete, leaning against the bathroom door.

‘From an earlier, obsessed version of my life,’ she said wryly.

Together, they read the instructions. One pink dot meant you weren’t pregnant, two meant you were.

‘Let’s hope for two pink dots,’ Pete said earnestly, his eyes shining.

Emma hugged him. ‘Let’s do it.’

When she’d peed on the tester, they left it on the bathroom floor, then sat on the edge of the bed and cuddled. They were both too uptight to shower or dress. Emma couldn’t look at her watch because the seconds went so slowly. Three minutes the box said; the longest three minutes of her life.

‘It’s ready,’ Pete said finally, staring at his watch. They both stayed on the bed as if glued to it.

‘I can’t look,’ Emma said huskily. ‘I can’t. I’ve wanted this for so long, I can’t bear it.’

He held her so tightly it hurt. Emma could feel Pete’s heart beating through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. He was as tense as she was, every muscle strained with waiting and longing.

‘I’ll look,’ he said manfully.

She nodded tightly, afraid to speak in case she broke down.

Slowly, Pete went into the bathroom and picked up the tester.

Emma waited, breath held. He was an age. She watched his broad back as he stood with the tester in one hand.

‘Pete?’ she said.

‘Two pink dots!’ he roared and turned so she could see the tears streaming down his face. ‘Two dots! Emma, my love, we’re going to have a baby!’

Leonie had to use her sleeve to wipe the tears away.

‘That’s so wonderful, Emma,’ she said tearfully. ‘I’m so very happy for both of you.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma said, beaming. ‘I just had to tell you. We’re keeping it to ourselves for a few months. The doctor says I’m six weeks along, so I think we’ll make it public in another six. I’m so happy, I have to stop myself smiling all the time or people will think I’m some sort of idiot on drugs.’

‘Smile as much as you want to,’ Leonie advised, ‘you deserve to. When are you pair coming down here for the celebration dinner?’

‘Probably next month,’ Emma giggled, ‘because Pete has set himself a schedule of doing up the house, and especially the nursery, that would exhaust the most ardent DIY person. He’s already bought paint and wallpaper for the nursery.’

Leonie laughed delightedly.

‘Why don’t you and Doug come to us for dinner next weekend?’ Emma urged.

‘We’d love to. It’s a pity Hannah won’t be there,’ Leonie added. ‘We could have a proper Egypt reunion then.’

‘I feel so guilty about Hannah,’ Emma said. ‘I couldn’t cope when she got pregnant with Claudia and I wasn’t very nice to her. The night you phoned me saying she’d had Claudia, I got plastered,’ she admitted. ‘Pete had to literally put me to bed.’

‘Hannah understood how you felt,’ Leonie said kindly. ‘She knew how much you longed for a baby. Anyway,’ she added briskly, ‘that’s all behind us now. The next question is: when are you and I going shopping for pregnancy clothes?’

Emma sighed with happiness. ‘What are you doing next Saturday?’