Always and Forever

‘I didn’t.’

‘It’s only an appointment,’ she begged. ‘It can’t hurt to go and see what they say. Please, Alex. For me. We’ve been through so much the past few years, with doctors and tests. I know you hate all that.’ So had she. For every blood sample he’d given, Daisy wished she could have proffered her arm. And she’d been there with him through all of it. Couldn’t it be her turn now?

Alex looked as if he was under enormous strain but he nodded tightly. ‘We can go,’ he said finally. ‘If that’s really what you want.’

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_807a3029-acca-5d18-b679-7a9f29aac170)

Mel wished she’d had more time to make an effort for the Lorimar charity ball at the end of February. A black-tie event which all senior staff were expected to turn up at upon pain of death, it had been the subject of much discussion in the office for the past month.

One Lorimar contingent – a Samantha from Sex and the City lookalike from marketing, three executive assistants and the head of telesales – planned to go all out for Sex and the City glamour, with perilous heels, just-left-the-Elizabeth-Arden-counter make-up and wildly contemporary outfits.

‘Lots of red lippy is the key,’ said the woman from marketing, who had spent hours on the party preparations, a mammoth task, which also involved ensuring that hundreds of red Lorimar balloons would fall from the ballroom ceiling when Edmund Moriarty announced a special Lorimar donation of €100,000 to the charity, a heart surgery research foundation. Edmund would go ballistic if his big moment was ruined, so most of marketing and a fair part of publicity were deployed on charity detail.

Another group of female staff were planning to get themselves fake-tanned to a decent colour, go to the hairdresser’s, then dig out their reliable old black dresses, because nobody wanted to splash out on a new outfit for a mere office do. Vanessa had borrowed a red satin knock-out evening gown from her sister and said she was fully expecting Hilary to go into cardiac arrest when she saw it.

‘Although there will be lots of cardiologists on hand if she does,’ Vanessa said cheerfully.

And Mel…Mel had planned a bit of personal grooming time so she’d look her best on this important occasion. A new dress, perhaps. Or a trendy haircut. Something to show the world, and the top people at Lorimar, that Mel Redmond had her finger on the pulse.

Yet somehow, with fifteen minutes to go before she and Adrian had to leave the house on the Saturday night in question, Mel was upstairs frantically trying to revive her limp hair with a blast of hairspray. Her maquillage consisted of a faded bit of eyeliner that had originally been plastered on at nine that morning, and her skin tone was more Wet Weekend in Greenland than the delicious shade of Malibu Bronze most of the other Lorimar women were aiming for. Adrian was recovering from the flu and Mel realised miserably that even he looked better than she did. Feeling worn out after a hectic day and an even more hectic month, all she wanted to do was lie down on the bed and sleep.

Her diary had been black with dates for the whole of February. The second Friday of the month had been Adrian’s younger brother, Eddie’s, fortieth birthday and the landmark party had involved a big meal for the extended family in his favourite restaurant.

‘My kid brother, forty…’ Adrian kept remarking in an astonished way. ‘It seems so old. I can remember us talking about what it would be like to be forty.’

‘It was like being a million years old,’ reflected Eddie. ‘It seemed so far away. I sort of hoped I’d be forty before you because I was fed up with being two years younger and you got to do everything first.’

‘For you to be forty first, Adrian would have had to have died,’ said their mother, Lynda.

‘Just as well it didn’t happen then,’ Eddie said gravely, ‘although I came close to killing you often enough, big bro.’

The following weekend, Mel’s aunt and uncle celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary and their children organised a big lunch party in a Dublin hotel, complete with a band playing Jim Reeves songs, and enlarged photos on the walls of the happy couple during their married life. Arrangements of pale pink roses decorated the tables, and to recreate the whole wedding effect, which had originally been low key because of a lack of funds, there was a blessing by the parish priest, champagne toasts and speeches.

‘It’s such an emotional event, isn’t it?’ said one of the guests dreamily to Mel after Uncle Dermot reduced the whole room to floods of tears by telling them how he didn’t want to cope a single day without his Angela.

‘Er, yes, very emotional,’ replied Mel, sweat ruining her hair as she rushed off after Carrie, who’d run rampant as soon as she realised that the hotel was the perfect place for escaping her mother. So far, Carrie had hidden in a stall in the women’s loos, under the draped tablecloth where the anniversary cake stood in state, and behind the swing door into the kitchen.

‘Sit down and rest and I’ll take care of Carrie,’ said Mel’s mum, as Mel sprinted past.

Mel stopped and thought of how her high-heeled party sandals were killing her and how the people who organised these events and invited children never seemed to plan anything specifically for them. ‘Children welcome!’ meant nothing when it didn’t include a special child-friendly room where parents could alternate care while round-the-clock Barney’s Great Adventure/One Hundred and One Dalmatians played on the video. Or else on-demand tranquillisers for the parents. Those glasses of red wine sitting invitingly at the edges of the tables were like a magnet for a child of Carrie’s age.

‘You’re tired, Mel. Have a sit-down with Adrian. Get yourself a piece of the cake, go on. I’ll keep an eye on her.’ Karen got up from her seat and began to head off after the lilac-clad whirlwind that was Carrie.

‘No, Mum, it’s OK. You do enough,’ Mel said firmly. If her feet hurt, she’d just take her shoes off. Who’d notice? ‘Next thing, Carrie will think you’re her mother and not me!’ The brittle laugh that accompanied this comment didn’t escape either of them.

‘She wouldn’t, don’t be silly.’ Karen’s soft hand gripped her daughter’s tightly.

‘Course not. It was a joke!’ Mel’s face adopted its best PR executive smile. They both knew it was fake.

‘See you later then, love,’ said her mother. And although she’d never worked in PR, she managed a creditable imitation of her daughter’s smile.

There was no respite at the office either. Mel was snowed under as the company’s magazine, which was sent to all subscribers, was going quarterly instead of biannually, and everyone in the publicity department was being called upon to work overtime. To make matters more tense, there were ominous rumours of huge cutbacks. More work and less money – not a good combination, Mel felt.

Vanessa was under the same pressure and the only time they got to talk was in the morning in the ladies’, where they compared notes on the dismal vibes that were circulating about how the company could Save Money.

‘I was reading a bit in the paper the other day about how most working women do so much first thing in the morning that by the time they actually get into the office seventy-five per cent are knackered,’ Vanessa said one day as she washed her hands and decided that she didn’t have the energy for any other primping.

Mel, applying jet-black mascara to give her tired eyes some definition, almost laughed. ‘Only seventy-five per cent? What sort of medication are the other twenty-five on?’

What had added most to Mel’s sheer exhaustion was the fact that Sarah wasn’t sleeping well. For several weeks, Sarah had refused to settle on week nights until she was falling with tiredness, and then she slept badly and woke up several times in the night crying. Mel had discussed this with Dawna, the nursery boss.

‘I think I’ve got to the bottom of it,’ Dawna said finally the Friday before the Lorimar charity ball, when Mel was at her wits’ end. ‘She doesn’t want to miss being with you, Mel. When Mummy’s out at work all day, we miss Mummy, don’t we?’

Sarah nodded gravely.

‘That’s all it is. She doesn’t want to go to bed and miss spending time when you’re home in the evening,’ Dawna went on blithely, not realising that she was injecting another hypodermic needleful of guilt into Mel’s heart. ‘I bet she goes down like a lamb at weekends when you’re there all the time?’

Mel nodded. It was true: on Friday and Saturday nights, Sarah always slept well and Mel had tried to convince herself it was because the weekends were packed with activity and she was tired. She should have known it wasn’t that.

Rather than ask for her mother’s help again, Mel enlisted the aid of Adrian’s mother, Lynda, to babysit on Saturday while she and Adrian went to the ball. Lynda was always thrilled to be asked, though that didn’t happen often. This was partly because Mel didn’t want to seem to take advantage of her but mostly because Mel felt that Lynda at some level disapproved of her.

Lynda had come from a generation who’d stayed at home with their children, and even though she never directly said a word to Mel about her job – Lynda wasn’t the confrontational type – Mel felt the vibes anyway.

A youthful sixty-something with a trim figure from playing badminton and the same blonde colouring as her son, Lynda seemed the ideal mother-in-law. She lived far enough away not to be dropping round all the time and, although she’d been widowed for several years, she had her own social life and didn’t cling to Adrian. But the odd comment Lynda made gave Mel to feel that she didn’t want her beloved granddaughters brought up by strangers and was suspicious of her granny rival.

‘Melanie, I can’t get over how good the girls are with strangers. Carrie particularly. When my boys were that age, they just weren’t used to people and they’d hide behind my skirt if they met new people,’ Lynda remembered fondly. ‘But the girls, why they’re regular little grown-ups! It must be being at nursery all day.’

Mel had ground her teeth at that one.

‘She didn’t mean anything by it,’ Adrian protested. ‘She’s only saying…’

‘I know,’ said Mel tightly. The memory of her mother-in-law’s last comment: ‘You career women! I don’t know where you get the energy from. I wouldn’t have been able to take care of my family and go out to earn a living, I can tell you!’ was still fresh in her mind. If Lynda was only saying, why did it sting so bloody much?

By half-past six that evening, Mel had done all she could with her hair and would have to put her make-up on in the car. The day had been swallowed up with grocery shopping, taking the girls swimming and getting everything ready for Lynda that night.

Sarah had been upset that her parents were going out, and had been miserable with her mother all day. With her tiny heart-shaped face, huge blue and violet eyes and silvery blonde ringlets, she had the look of an enchanting little angel. But the angel-face hid fierce determination to have her own way in everything and, at the age of four and a quarter, she was well on the way to being empress of the Redmond household. Mel had read all the books on how to cope with strong-willed children and had finally come to the conclusion that none of the childcare experts had ever met anyone like her daughter.

At least swimming had tired her out, Mel thought, rapidly pulling on her long black evening dress, the one that could almost go to the ball by itself, it had been to so many work parties. Standing in the pool, holding Carrie up, had tired her out too. Downstairs, Beauty and the Beast was in the video, ready to go. Two chicken breasts in garlic and wild mushroom sauce sat in a dish on the kitchen counter with a bowl of baby potatoes beside them, waiting to be warmed up for Lynda’s dinner. A joint of lamb was marinating in fresh rosemary and olive oil in the fridge for tomorrow, because Lynda stayed over till the following evening if she babysat and she was partial to a proper Sunday dinner. The spare bed was freshly made up with lilac sheets and Mel had even managed to iron the duvet cover, something she didn’t do for herself and Adrian. The soft sheets on Sarah’s bed and on Carrie’s cot had been changed, and all their favourite cuddly toys were lined up in their correct places. Mel had left the thermometer and the children’s paracetamol on top of the bathroom cabinet, too high for the children to reach but where Lynda could get them in an emergency, and the phone number of the local doctor and the venue for tonight’s party were both written in big writing – Lynda was half blind without her glasses – beside the phone.

Surely Lynda would have no excuse to think that Mel’s going out to work meant the family suffered.

‘We’re going to have a lovely time tonight,’ Lynda cooed to her two grandchildren, who sat snuggled up beside her on the couch, cosy in their pyjamas and ready for fun with Granny Lynda.

Lynda had brought sweets with her, the sort of sugar-laden confections that were banned in the household because they made both children hyper. Mel knew she couldn’t say anything.

Adrian, looking less pale, walked in finishing a biscuit. There was dinner tonight but what with the drinks reception first, who knew when they’d get a bite to eat. He was wearing a black fine wool suit with a silvery grey shirt that brought out the blue of his eyes. He looked great. ‘Will you miss Daddy?’ asked Adrian, quickly scooping Sarah up from the couch and turning her upside down, a game she’d loved since she was a baby.

‘Yes,’ giggled Sarah, trying to pull her long fair hair away from her face.