Once in a Lifetime

He put out his arms to give her a kiss, and Ingrid felt some of her apprehension melt.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I thought I’d drop in on the way back. I haven’t been here in ages.’

‘Stacey’s making coffee,’ he added, going back to his papers.

‘I wanted to thank you for the flowers,’ Ingrid went on. ‘The roses. I’ve heard the flowers were Claudia’s idea,’ she said evenly.

‘Were they nice?’ David asked absently, head still bent over his paperwork.

Ingrid would have growled if she’d been able to, so she said nothing. The silence worked.

David’s head shot up and he looked at her inquisitively. ‘You all right?’

‘No,’ she snapped, keeping her voice low, conscious of the open door. ‘I am not all right. I am your wife and today you sent flowers to my office at the behest of your sparky little girl Friday, Claudia. So no, I am not all right. I am very much not all right.’

Nobody could ever call David stupid. He got it instantly.

‘This is about Claudia?’ he asked. ‘Claudia who works here?’

His look of absolute astonishment was all the evidence Ingrid needed. Nobody could fake astonishment with such utter truth. And Ingrid had seen plenty of people try it in her years as an interviewer. The faintest gleam of bemusement appeared on his face.

‘You’re worried about Claudia,’ he said and she could have sworn he looked relieved, as if there was something else she should be worried about.

The frisson of fear inside her diminished and she felt guilty at having wronged him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I got the wrong end of the stick.’

‘You did,’ he agreed, but he didn’t laugh with her or even hug her for thinking such a thing. ‘Claudia and Lena are so thrilled with the whole “last-minute gift” idea and yesterday Claudia came up with this plan to share how wonderfully it was going, that’s all.’

‘They were lovely flowers,’ Ingrid conceded.

Something was still wrong. David hadn’t said ‘How could you think such a thing?’ or hugged her.

‘What’s wrong? Is it the business? Please tell me, David. Tell me what’s wrong.’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing’s wrong, Ingrid. Please don’t interrogate me, I don’t need that.’

She never interrogated him.

‘But you’re worried, I can tell. Don’t lock me out.’

He rubbed his eyes as if getting grit out of them. ‘Money’s always a problem, especially in the credit crunch, but we’ll manage, we always do. Now, I need to finish this quickly, love. We can go to the café and have coffee then, if you’d like? I just need another half an hour.’

Ingrid shook her head. ‘I have to go back to work. I was going to make us fish pie this evening?’

His face lit up. ‘Great.’

Ingrid wandered round the store for half an hour before she left. She still felt guilty for not having been there lately, and she couldn’t help but want to set eyes on Claudia, just to see.

Kenny’s was a real jewel, she realised, walking through the home department with its carefully chosen pieces. The shop couldn’t compete with the big department stores in the area, so they’d specialised in things you simply couldn’t get elsewhere. There was unusual china, the gorgeous pottery with indigo glazes, wooden lamps with bases of carved flowers, Tiffany lamps held up by brass fairies, and the Bluestone Tapestries that Ingrid adored, even though they were worlds away from the sort of decor she normally liked.

A woman with a baby in a buggy stood in front of the tapestries, fingering a large mermaid one with longing. Ingrid could remember when Molly and Ethan had been babies, and she’d had so little time to meander around shops. She felt a strange yearning to have that time back again, and she’d do it differently. Make more time to meander, like this woman with her baby.

But she’d always been so busy, trying to fit work and housework into a day that was still only twenty-four hours long.

The woman with the baby turned and caught Ingrid’s eye.

‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ she sighed, meaning the tapestry. ‘But a bit expensive for me.’

‘I love them too,’ Ingrid agreed. ‘I’ve actually got one in my hall.’

‘Lucky you,’ said the woman.

Yes, thought Ingrid, lucky me.

5 (#ulink_1a414943-2dc7-514c-ac5c-0e2844fd3cc8)

Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.

Lizzie’s wedding morning was bitterly cold. Unusually low temperatures for the time of year, the radio weather forecaster said chirpily as Natalie and Molly sat beside the range in Natalie’s parents’ farmhouse.

Natalie was waiting for her stepmother’s porridge, which was slowly cooking on the range and tasted very different from anything she ever heated in a microwave in her flat.

Molly was foolishly having toasted home-made bread: foolish because a trio of dogs sat at her feet, making hungry, abandoned expressions and drooling.

‘I did tell you,’ Natalie said. ‘They think it’s their toast, not yours.’

‘They’re sweet,’ said Molly, who was a sucker for big brown eyes.

The back door opened and both girls could feel icy cold rush into the kitchen.

It was Des, Natalie’s dad, and even he was rubbing his hands together with cold.

‘This cold would take the balls off a brass monkey. I hope Lizzie’s wearing a blanket today,’ he said, going to the range and holding his hands over it.

‘Dad, you know how stubborn Lizzie is,’ Natalie said. ‘This is her Valentine’s fairytale and she’s refused all suggestions about wraps and fake-fur throws. She’s going to look like a princess, no matter how cold.’

‘Being covered in goosepimples isn’t going to look very nice in the photos,’ pointed out Molly mildly. She was wearing a vintage woollen dress, a coat and a pashmina to the church, and was already wondering if that was enough.

‘You try telling Lizzie that,’ Natalie said.

‘A bit of a mule, is our Lizzie,’ grinned Des, winking at Molly to show he agreed with her.

Molly loved Natalie’s dad, and she loved going to visit Natalie’s home.

Part of the charm was that it was so very different from her parents’ elegant house with its perfectly designed garden maintained by a gardener who came once a week.

Any grass around Woodenbridge Farm was nibbled low by a pet ram called Sydney who maintained decent lawn standards and ran to greet visitors when they got out of their cars. Sydney had been hand-reared indoors with milk from a bottle with a baby’s teat on it, until he got too big. As a result he thought he was a dog.

The house itself was a small and sturdy stone farmhouse, Natalie’s father’s family home for generations. It was heated solely by open fires and the giant range in the kitchen, with a few gas heaters here and there for people prone to cold.