Now or Never Read online

  ‘Poor Dad,’ she claimed. ‘He must be bored out of his mind.’

  Alice could feel the anger rolling down over her and with it a desire to retaliate. But Zoë was her daughter, her creation, hers and Stuart’s!

  Where had they gone wrong? How had they produced a daughter so cynical and self-centred, so implacably determined to put herself first and do whatever she wanted, so devoid of any sense of responsibility towards others, and so devoid too of any responsibility towards herself? Alice had read somewhere that the current late teenagers and early twenty-somethings had been so cosseted by their parents and the system, so protected, so often and unceasingly indoctrinated with the belief that they and their self-esteem were the most important things on earth, that they were completely incapable of understanding, never mind accepting, a situation in which this was not the case.

  Which, if it was true, of course meant that the blame lay with their parents, mothers like her.

  And she did feel to blame, Alice acknowledged. She felt to blame and, if she was honest, she also felt cheated and angry, cheated of the daughter she would have loved to have had, and angry because Zoë was the way she was.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Ma,’ Zoë suddenly announced, ‘there’s no need for you to keep coming round so often. Not now that Laura’s here to look after the boys.’

  Alice could feel the pain of her daughter’s comment scorching her face.

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear that, Zoë,’ she managed to respond calmly, her pride coming to her rescue as she added, ‘You see, I’m going to be starting an Open University course in September, and so in future I shan’t have as much time to spare.’

  Alice thought that her daughter’s shocked expression should perhaps have given her more pleasure.

  ‘You’re doing what?’ Zoë demanded. ‘You’ve got to be joking. You doing an OU course! What on earth for? I mean, what is the point? It isn’t as though you need a degree, is it, or as though you’ll be using it for anything? Oh, I get it,’ she derided Alice mockingly. ‘It’s the empty-nest syndrome thingy, isn’t it? Dear Agony Aunt,’ she mimicked savagely. ‘What shall I do now that all my children are grown up? I suppose Maggie or one of the others have put you up to this, haven’t they?’

  ‘Actually, Zoë, it was my own idea,’ Alice told her sharply, adding emphatically, ‘Contrary to what you seem to think, I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions.’

  Laura and the boys were still playing in the garden when Alice left. Both her grandsons came running up to her to hug and kiss her. The fresh air had brought welcome colour to the two small faces, which she often felt were too pale, but George the elder, caught at her heart as he asked her in an anxious voice, ‘Is Mummy all right now, Grandma?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ she reassured him. Over his head her eyes met Laura’s and she could see the discomfort in the younger woman’s eyes before she looked away.

  According to Nicki, Laura was a possessive monster, a potential marriage wrecker, a daughter who hated the thought of anyone else having any kind of emotional relationship with her father. But the boys had obviously taken to her, and Alice knew what would happen if she tried to question Zoë’s decision!

  As Alice drove away the new mobile that Laura had acquired rang. Immediately she tensed as she saw the number flashing up on her screen and recognised it immediately.

  She was reluctant to answer the call, but she knew that sooner or later she would have to respond to it.

  Taking a deep breath, making sure that she could see the boys, who were enjoying the unfamiliar freedom of being allowed to exercise their imaginations and play out in the garden, she said firmly, ‘Hi, Dad.’

  ‘Laura! Thank goodness! What’s going on? Where are you? Are you okay? Why didn’t you—?’ he began immediately.

  ‘Dad…Dad…Everything’s fine,’ Laura interrupted him. ‘I’m at Zoë’s. Alice and Stuart’s daughter,’ she added. ‘I bumped into her in town yesterday and, well, to cut a long story short, she’s offered me a live-in job helping out with her sons, and I’ve taken it!

  ‘Yes, I know that with my qualifications working as a child-minder isn’t…but to be honest, right now anything that gets me a roof over my head that isn’t also over Nicki’s has got to be good news. Look, I’m going to have to go,’ she told him. If she stayed on the line he might start asking her about the row she had had with Nicki, and it just wasn’t something she wanted to discuss, just as she didn’t want to analyse why even mentioning it brought her an unwanted sense of defensiveness. After all, she wasn’t the one at fault, was she?

  10

  After leaving Zoë, Alice went into town. She was committed now. There was no going back, and an uncharacteristic sense of bravado was driving her and energising her. Buoyed up by it, she had decided to buy herself a computer to use during her OU degree course. She had a vague idea of how they worked—thanks to the twins, who had taught her how to receive and send email messages before their departure—but she was reluctant to use the one they and Stuart shared and so had decided to invest in her own.

  She knew that either Stuart or indeed Maggie, Nicki or Stella would have been only too pleased to give her their advice as to what she should buy, and in the case of her three friends no doubt help her to learn how to use it properly, but she had made up her mind that it was something she was going to do on her own. She was just coming out of the shop, having listened very carefully to the advice of the young salesman, and opted for the equipment he had recommended, when she saw Stella emerging from the nursery outfitting store on the opposite side of the road.

  ‘Looking for something for Maggie?’ Alice asked her with a smile. She was feeling so pleased and excited about her purchase, her reluctance to use anything technical being a joke amongst them all, that she immediately wanted to tell Stella all about it.

  ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve just done!’ she began, but, instead of urging her to explain, Stella looked as though she had barely heard her, her frown deepening.

  It had caught her off guard to see Maggie in the doctor’s surgery when she had gone there with Julie, Stella acknowledged, too engrossed in her own thoughts to pay much attention to what Alice was saying.

  Unlike Maggie, who was always so impulsive, Stella preferred to assimilate and chew over things before discussing them. She would have much preferred to tell her friends what had happened at a time of her own choosing, but now of course Maggie already knew.

  ‘Alice, have you made any plans for lunch?’ she demanded abruptly. ‘Only there’s something I want to tell you.’

  ‘Lunch would be lovely,’ Alice agreed immediately. She had planned to get home and start clearing out the boxroom that she intended to turn into her study, ready for the delivery of her computer, but automatically she put her own plans on hold, sensing Stella’s anxiety.

  Ten minutes later, as they faced one another over their warming bowls of home-made soup to keep out the chill of the day, Stella explained tersely, ‘We’ve just found out that Hughie’s ex-girlfriend, Julie, is pregnant. That was what Hughie had come home to tell us.’

  ‘Oh, Stella, what a dreadful shock for you,’ Alice commiserated sympathetically, knowing instinctively how difficult and upsetting Stella would find such a situation. She was a stickler for order, and for being in control of her life. ‘What…what will happen?’ Alice hesitated delicately.

  ‘Well, it’s too late for…That is, Julie has already made the decision that she intends to have the baby, and sensibly she’s also decided that it will be adopted. She and Hughie had already decided that their relationship was over when she found out she was pregnant. She didn’t tell him until he came home at Christmas! Apparently she was afraid that pressure would be put on her to have her pregnancy terminated, which she didn’t want. Since the baby was conceived during the summer holidays, when they actually told us she was already six months pregnant—she’s one of these ultra-slim modern girls and, of course, she’s been wearing those hu
ge baggy clothes, so that no one, not even her own mother, guessed.

  ‘Hughie was in such a state of shock that he went back to university in the New Year without telling us—but he recognised that the pair of them couldn’t go on keeping it a secret for ever, and that, quite apart from anything else, Julie ought to be receiving proper medical attention and that proper plans needed to be made. He persuaded her to tell her parents, and came home himself to support her and tell us.’

  ‘Well, that’s very responsible of him, Stella,’ Alice commented tactfully, correctly recognising in Stella’s voice her determination to protect and defend her son from any criticism.

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, he is the baby’s father, even if he had no idea that…and Julie has made it clear that she has no regrets about them breaking up.’

  As she listened to her Alice was trying to imagine how she would feel if one of her sons were in Hughie’s position, if she were in Stella’s position! The thought of a child, any child, having to be separated from its mother tore at her tender heart, but when that child was also her own grandchild…She said nothing of her feelings to Stella though, partially out of tact and consideration for her and partially because she knew that Stella would deride her for her sentimentality.

  ‘Well, at least you know now,’ she began. ‘And Julie’s parents will—’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Stella interrupted, guessing what she was going to say. ‘Julie’s parents, or rather Julie’s father, has refused to do anything. In fact her father has virtually thrown her out!’

  ‘What?’ Now Alice couldn’t conceal her feelings. ‘Oh, the poor girl! Stella, she’s barely seventeen…’

  ‘Yes. I know. But according to Rich, who knows him vaguely, her father has very old-fashioned views, and a bit of a chip on his shoulder—something to do with his own upbringing. Anyway, naturally, I’ve said that Julie must stay with us at least until after the baby’s born. We’ve got the room after all, and, well, I just couldn’t not offer to help!’

  ‘Oh, Stella,’ Alice repeated. ‘Heavens, you must be run off your feet. When is the baby actually due?’

  ‘So far as can be worked out, in a little under three months.’

  ‘Three months!’

  ‘Yes. I know. Fortunately, according to the doctor, both Julie and the baby are healthy. And at least Julie is being sensible enough to give the baby up for adoption, once it’s born,’ Stella repeated, checking when she saw Alice’s expression before Alice could conceal it from her.

  ‘I can see that that would be the most practical thing to do,’ Alice agreed carefully.

  Stella’s mouth compressed. She knew Alice well enough to know she wasn’t deliberately trying to have a dig at her, but it still grated to hear both her instinctive use of the word ‘practical’ and the note of uncertainty in her voice.

  ‘Well, getting all emotional and giving in to sentiment isn’t going to help anyone,’ she countered more sharply than she had intended. ‘Julie is still at school after all, and Hughie is only just in his first year at university. They aren’t even a couple any more. And Julie’s such a child herself still. I mean, they think they’re so grown up, so streetwise, these girls, but in reality…I don’t think she has a thought in her head about the baby—not really. Oh, I know she’s been determined to make sure that her father can’t pressure her into having a termination, but apart from that…’ Again she sensed that Alice was hesitant about saying anything.

  A little exasperatedly, she exclaimed, ‘I suppose I sound dreadfully unsympathetic, but to be honest I’m still in shock!’

  ‘How has Richard taken the news?’ Alice asked her.

  ‘Well, you know Richard.’ Stella gave a small shrug. ‘Other than tearing a strip off Hughie, he hasn’t said much at all. I think he’s hoping that if he doesn’t acknowledge that it’s happening, then somehow it won’t. He’s no more prepared to be a grandfather than Julie is a mother,’ she told Alice waspishly. ‘I tried to persuade her to come shopping with me today. I know she intends to have the baby adopted, but there are still some things she’s going to need.’

  ‘I think that Zoë might still have Will’s baby things,’ Alice told her. ‘I could ask her if she wouldn’t mind Julie borrowing them, if you like?’

  ‘Would you?’ Stella gave her a relieved look. ‘I don’t even know where to start—I mean, it’s twenty years since I—’ She paused and shook her head. ‘Do you think that Maggie really knows what she’s letting herself in for? She was attending the same antenatal clinic as Julie.’

  ‘Did she say anything about Nicki?’ Alice asked her eagerly. ‘Have they made things up?’

  ‘Well, she did say that she’d been to see her, but…’ Stella frowned. ‘I really don’t feel I want to get drawn into taking sides, but I was a bit taken aback when Maggie started to hint to me that she felt that Nicki might be having some kind of problem. I mean, it’s the oldest defence in the world, isn’t it, that kind of emotional manipulation—laying the blame on the other person’s shoulders by claiming they have a problem?’

  Alice frowned as she heard the underlying criticism in Stella’s voice.

  ‘I don’t think that Maggie would ever do anything like that. She’s never been devious or manipulative.’

  Stella raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Hasn’t she, Alice? Think back and take off those rose-coloured glasses. When did Maggie ever give up on anything until she’d got us all to do and think exactly what she wanted? The rock band! The weekend in Paris she coaxed you to get Stuart to get us all cheap flights for? That time she encouraged you to dye your hair? The puppy she almost foisted off on Rich and me…to name but a few instances.’

  ‘Oh, yes, but those were all done for a purpose, because she thought it was for the best…a good idea…’

  ‘Mmm, because she thought…You’ve always put her up on a bit of a pedestal, Alice! If you ask me, she’s come up with this suggestion that Nicki “might be having a problem” because it’s an excellent get-out for her!’

  Alice looked at her uneasily. ‘You sound almost as though you agree with what Nicki said.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have put it so…dramatically, perhaps, but yes, I do think she has a valid point, if only from a practical point of view. Let’s face it, Alice, Maggie has gone through life doing exactly what she wants to do, when she wants to do it. I mean…remember that villa holiday she had you organising, the one we all went on just before it came out about Dan’s affair? It was Maggie’s idea, but you were the one who ended up doing all the organising.’

  ‘I enjoyed doing it,’ Alice protested. Stella’s comments were making her feel anxious and upset. Their friendship had always been strongly based on their support of one another and yet suddenly it seemed as though what they were actually doing was undermining one another!

  ‘So, like Nicki, you don’t approve of what she’s doing either?’ Alice guessed.

  ‘It isn’t a matter of approval,’ Stella corrected her. ‘It’s just this habit that Maggie has of pigeon-holing us all. You, the sweet stay-at-home one, with the perfect husband and the perfect marriage, me the sensible, practical, unsexy one, and now Nicki the neurotic one! Right now I think it’s probably very convenient for Maggie to draw attention away from her own behaviour by suggesting that Nicki is reacting against her pregnancy to offset the pressure of other problems in her life! I know that Nicki has Laura living with her—’

  ‘Not any more,’ Alice interrupted her.

  ‘What? She’s gone back to the city?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Alice took a deep breath. ‘As it happens…’ She paused, and then continued, ‘Zoë has asked Laura to move in with her and look after her boys.’

  ‘What?’ Stella yelped. ‘Well, we all know what Zoë’s like, but I would have thought she’d have had more sense than to do something like that!’

  Alice flushed a little.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Laura is very good with them,’ she told her stiffly. ‘I
called round there this morning.’

  Stella realised that she had been tactless.

  ‘Alice, I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Alice reassured her with a smile. ‘I was a bit taken aback myself initially, but, truthfully, Laura was really good with the boys. And I won’t be able to look after them as much myself once I start on my Open University course. I know I won’t be starting it officially until September, but I’ve got a list of back reading I want to make a start on and, and this morning…’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’d forgotten about that,’ Stella acknowledged carelessly. ‘So you’ve told Stuart and Zoë, then?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I haven’t been able to discuss it in any great detail with Stuart yet. He’s in the middle of a busy time at work. He’s away at the moment, in fact, in the city.’ Alice paused, her body suddenly tense. There was no logical reason for her to suddenly start feeling anxious and on edge, just because Zoë had said that Ian had seen Stuart having lunch with a woman!

  ‘And as for Zoë,’ she told Stella, pushing away her unwanted introspective thoughts, ‘she was furious with me the other night when I couldn’t have the boys because I was having dinner with all of you.’

  ‘And this is her way of retaliating? Paying Laura to look after them instead?’ Stella guessed shrewdly.

  Privately Stella was wondering why on earth Zoë needed to have help looking after her children—her ‘job’ handing out details in the local estate agents’ a couple of days a week could hardly be called challenging, and it wasn’t even as though she needed the money! Stella didn’t want to hurt Alice by mentioning the gossip she had heard about Zoë’s behaviour and heavy drinking. After all, they all knew what a difficult child she had been and how hard Alice had always striven to both appease and protect her.