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Helen

The thing about Darren was he’d always had a knack for giving people what they didn’t know they wanted. It occurred to Helen later that she probably shouldn’t have been so shocked when he finally managed to turn that talent into hard cash. Perhaps the more surprising thing, she mused, as she tried on her third little black dress and frowned hopelessly at the mirror again, was that it had taken him quite so long. Austerity ground on, and yet here she was, getting ready for a blowout Christmas party that would show the world just how damn successful Darren Harrison was.

The man himself, immaculate in Paul Smith, stuck his head round the bedroom door.

‘Are you getting there, Hels? The car will be here in twenty.’

Apparently they were too grand for minicabs these days.

‘Okay, thanks, I’m just going to swap this for my black one.’

‘I thought you’d got something new during the week?’ His brow creased slightly, with just the hint of a frown.

‘I didn’t find anything.’

The truth was, she’d only managed an hour to dash into a couple of local shops and, ten months after giving birth to Alys, she still found trying clothes on a miserable experience.

The business was called Date Night. Darren had started putting on these ironic telly-themed singles nights, having got the idea after watching one too many cheap nostalgic box sets. It was the seventh or eighth golden business brainwave he’d had, whilst her dull but steadily more lucrative career in financial-services HR supported them both. Finally, this one had stuck.

In a year, she’d gone from being a career girl in Shoreditch to maternity leave in Chiswick. Going back to work after Barney had felt like a return to civilisation. After Alys, though, Darren pointed out that he could pay for everything now – all the holidays they could handle. Wasn’t it better, he asked, for her to be less stressed and for the kids to be raised by their parents rather than strangers? She didn’t speak to him for three days after that and at the end of her first day back in the office she drank Prosecco with her friend Amy Stretton. Amy was in CID with the Met Police and, back then, still single. She could be relied upon to opine at length about all men being bastards.

The dress she had settled on for tonight was from the Shoreditch days. It was black, and forgivingly stretchy – although faded from too many washes. Well, surely it would be dark at the party anyway? She added a pair of silver earrings, looked in the mirror and smiled, feeling, finally, like she was herself.

‘The car’s outside, Hels.’

‘I’m coming!’

She quickly kissed her babies – they’d both been asleep for a while – then she popped into the front room to let her parents know they were off. She’d managed to persuade them down for a rare pre-Christmas visit and then Darren had casually informed her about the party. If she was being honest with herself, she’d be more comfortable booking the usual babysitter.

Darren was jiggling his keys against his hip as she came into the hallway; he looked her up and down but said nothing. His smile was flat.

*

Although it was after one a.m. by the time they got back, Barbara was not yet in bed. Instead they found her tucked in a corner of the sofa under the glow of a single lamp, peering at a laptop she had balanced on the arm of the sofa. Her dark bun had always given her something of the air of a ballerina, and she unfurled gracefully from her pose as they came into the room.

‘I hope you didn’t stay up for our sakes?’ Darren’s words were polite, but there was something querulous in his tone. He spoke more to the decanter and glass in his hand than to his mother-in-law.

‘Of course not, don’t worry.’ Barbara’s own voice was light. ‘I’m doing coursework – the time ran away with me.’ Helen and Darren had both been mildly amused when she’d announced a couple of years earlier that she was taking an OU course in computing, but although she’d initially shrugged it off as just a tactic to stay one step ahead of the endless cuts and redundancies in local newspapers, she seemed to have really taken to it.

‘Were the kids okay?’ Helen asked.

Barbara looked momentarily blank, as though she had possibly forgotten about them, but then nodded. ‘Not a peep out of either of them. All fine.’

‘Well, I’m going up,’ announced Darren, raising his whisky to them. Helen knew she should join him; after all, she had been the one who had insisted on leaving at the end of the party, rather than heading out into the West End, where many of the guests were going to continue their evening. Now she was home, though, she felt suddenly awake. And desperate to take off her heels and have a cup of tea. Barbara declined her offer and Darren slunk off.

‘Good night?’ Barbara asked as she shut down the laptop.

Helen shrugged. Had it been? She found it exhausting, having to keep track of the employees, the investors, the suppliers, the hangers-on and God knows who else. Over the years, she’d shared little of the day-to-day concerns of her life with her mother – taking her lead from Barbara herself no doubt. She wasn’t now about to start dissecting her insecurities about Darren and how she feared the business was changing him.

To be fair, the night had improved when Darren – probably irritated with her defensiveness – had insisted that she knock back a couple of glasses of champagne and led her onto the dance floor, swinging her around to Pharrell Williams. She knew they’d looked good together; they always did. And in the moment, she was ‘Happy’, just like the song said. The dancing made her feel less self-conscious about whether people were questioning what on earth he was doing with her.

Sometimes she wondered if he ever had crossed the line, and mixed play with the work he was so devoted to. She’d asked him about it once and he’d laughed. He said he’d spent thirty-five years with nothing to recommend him but his smile and his wits; he wouldn’t want to be with the sort of woman who might want him now that he had a belly and grey temples and a bit of cash. That was a couple of years ago, though. Back then he wouldn’t have slunk off to bed with a whisky. On the other hand, back then she’d probably have mustered the enthusiasm for a nightcap elsewhere.

‘Well?’ Her mother was still looking at her expectantly.

‘Sorry, I drifted off a bit – a bit woozy I’m afraid. It was lovely. The venue was spectacular.’

‘I’m glad you had fun,’ Barbara said, making Helen feel about seventeen again. Her eyes were on the laptop as it went through its shutting-down processes. It seemed Helen had no need to worry about her mother trying to get her to open up.

‘So how’s the coursework going?’ Helen asked, more to stop her own mind whirring than for any other reason. ‘I thought you were finishing up with that last spring?’

‘Yes, I did, but then I signed up for some of the degree-level modules. It’s fascinating, actually.’

‘It’s a shame you didn’t get into it when you were younger – you could have made a fortune.’

Barbara laughed lightly. ‘Yes, it would have been nice to have had the chance. But never too late, as they say – I’ve got a few little projects I’m dreaming up. Anyway, that’s my work done. I think I’ll get to bed.’

‘Night, Mum.’

But Helen’s mind had drifted back to the dance floor, to the moment when a slow Sam Smith number had come on and she’d insisted that she was exhausted and needed to go back to their table for a drink. Darren had nodded and they made their way back across to the low table where their bottle of champagne still waited, half full.

One of the new regional managers glided over, in painfully high sandals that pushed her chest forward.

‘Darren! You two were amazing on the dance floor. You kept that quiet!’

‘Louise …’ He clasped her shoulder warmly.

‘Lauren.’

‘Lauren, of course, so sorry. This is my wife, Helen.’

‘Don’t worry.’ She brushed his hand, as if to smooth away his mistake, laughing loudly. ‘There’s so many people here!’

She’d cornered them for the next ten minutes – despite Darren’s smooth attempts to move her on – sharing gossip and gushing compliments.

If he were going to get involved with someone at work, someone like Lauren would be last on the list. So why was the sound of her grating laughter continuing to rattle around Helen’s head as she failed to get to sleep?