Just Between Us

‘I don’t know what we’d do without Charles,’ Liz said, ‘he’s so capable.’

Charles had a blank, unintelligent face and Tara thought he didn’t look as if he was capable of changing a light bulb. But he’d obviously lucked out by marrying Serena who was heiress to the B-M furniture kingdom, so he couldn’t be that dumb.

There were lots of double kisses, oodles of ‘oh you look wonderful, Gloria! Doesn’t she, Pierre?’ and it took ten minutes for everyone to be seated, according to a table plan, naturally. Tara hated table plans. She liked sitting beside Finn and hated all that rubbish about sticking him as far away from her as possible and putting her beside someone she didn’t know.

Pierre, on her right side, appeared tired, while Charles, on her left, looked uninterested until he found out that she worked on National Hospital, and then spent the next ten minutes plying her with stupid questions about what the stars were really like.

‘Theodora, I mean, Sherry,’ he said with glazed eyes, ‘she’s fabulous, isn’t she? Is she like that in real life?’

‘You mean man-mad?’ inquired Tara, bored. ‘Men adore her.’

Charles backtracked hastily. ‘Oh no, I don’t mean that. I just admire good acting.’

‘Of course you do.’

The waiter arrived and Gloria and Liz ordered melon and plain fish.

‘Thank you,’ Gloria said sweetly to the young waiter, who beamed back. ‘Can’t be too careful,’ she added to Liz. ‘Melon is the only option. A moment on the lips…’

‘…a lifetime on the hips,’ finished Liz and they both giggled.

Tara watched in astonishment. Nobody would recognise her stony mother-in-law in this giggly woman across the table. Talk about street angel, house devil.

‘I might have melon too,’ said Serena thoughtfully.

‘Nonsense!’ Gloria was kind but firm. ‘You don’t need to diet, pet. You’ve a lovely little figure.’

Despite being seated apart, Liz, Gloria and Serena talked to each other noisily across the round table. Finn and his father were laughing over some story, while Pierre and Charles had livened up enough to argue over the wine. Tara sat silently and watched it all, thinking of the wonderful time Mum, Dad, Stella, Holly and Amelia would be having by now in Kinvarra. Nobody could magic up an air of festivity like Mum, and by now, the house would be filled with the smells of Christmas cooking, with Mum’s absolute favourite, Frank Sinatra, belting out love songs from the kitchen. Holly and Stella would be laughing as they stuffed the turkey and Dad would be gleefully sorting out glasses for the traditional Miller Christmas Eve drinks party which always kicked off between half eight and nine. Everyone came to the party; all the close family friends and relatives, half of Kinvarra almost. Mum and Dad had been hosting the party for as long as Tara could remember and it was like the official signal for Christmas to start. Entire families turned up, people were delighted at the opportunity to let their hair down, drink flew around at a fierce rate and such was the spirit of fun that people who’d originally apologised that they could only drop in for a moment would have to be decanted drunkenly into taxis at half eleven before the family went to midnight Mass.

It would all be incredible fun, with no pretensions. Her longing to be there overwhelmed Tara and she felt a lump swell in her throat. It was so easy to forget how important family were until you weren’t with them.

She tuned back into the here and now to overhear Serena, Gloria and Liz discussing clothes.

‘I love your dress,’ Gloria was saying warmly to Serena. ‘You can never go wrong with a little black dress and a nice gold necklace.’

Tara glanced over at Serena, who looked quite overshone, despite the LBD, by her flamboyant mother, but who did have a heavy gold necklace hanging from her neck. Tara was not a jewellery person, which was just as well because Finn certainly didn’t have the money to shell out on chunky gold stuff. They just about managed the mortgage and the bills on both their salaries: TV script writing wasn’t the money-spinner everyone thought it was. That was why Tara longed to get into writing for someone like Mike Hammond. She loved working on National Hospital, but if only she could work on a film script or one of the big-budget television adaptations that Mike was involved with, well, she’d be on the road to fame and fortune.

‘…well,’ her mother-in-law was saying, ‘these media types don’t put the same store on dressing up as we do.’ She lowered her voice. ‘They’re really quite casual, which can be inappropriate on occasion.’

Tara knew exactly who Gloria was referring to. Bitch. Double bitch.

She glared across the table at Finn who seemed oblivious to it all.

‘Does Sherry have a boyfriend?’ asked Charles, unable to get his mind off her.

‘No, rumour has it she’s a lesbian,’ snapped Tara, although the lie backfired because Charles drooled even more; no doubt at the notion of being sandwiched in bed between the beauteous Sherry and another stunning woman.

Trust him to be one of those blinkered men who saw gay women as some sort of kinky challenge. She’d have to tell him it was a joke. She gave up on Charles and turned to Pierre, who looked grey in the face and was trying to keep awake.

‘Are you looking forward to Christmas?’ she asked brightly.

Pierre fixed her with a glassy stare. ‘No,’ he said and turned back to his wine.

Think of tonight as research, Tara told herself firmly. Writers couldn’t write unless they observed. But despite her good intentions, separated from Finn and stuck in conversational limbo with Charles, the evening crawled past.

Pierre came out of himself enough to keep ordering bottles of wine but remained monosyllabic otherwise.

‘Poor darling Pierre is worn out,’ Liz admitted. ‘The pre-Christmas rush has been so busy. What about you, Tara? Do tell us all about the glamorous jet-set life. Do you get to see many stars?’

‘Sherry, the girl who plays Theodora, is a lesbian,’ interrupted Charles, sounding shocked.

Tara gasped theatrically. ‘Charles, you old tease. You know I was joking! She loves men.’

That shut Charles up. She turned to Liz. ‘I know them all,’ she sighed. ‘All the stars. We’re like one big, happy family.’ Ooops, another lie. The big television stars wouldn’t have any time for lowly script editors like herself.

‘Really.’ Liz leaned big bosoms on the table in her eagerness to hear all. Tara could see the young waiter’s eyes popping out of his head as Liz’s plunging dress front plunged further still. ‘You mean Daniel Anson, from Anson Interviews?’ Liz named one of the country’s biggest chat show hosts. ‘You know him?’

Tara nodded. Well, she had stood behind him in the canteen one day; that was almost meeting.

‘What’s he like?’

Tara thought about the contents of Daniel Anson’s tray that day: burger, chips, diet soft drink. He’d thrown his packet of cigarettes and a disposable lighter onto the tray when he was searching for change.

‘Very normal,’ she said.

‘Tell us about Dr McCambridge on National Hospital.’ Serena looked animated for the first time all night.

‘He’s handsome,’ said Tara truthfully. ‘He has that special something that really works on camera…’

‘Animal magnetism,’ growled Serena.

Finn, who knew from Tara that the actor could be hard to work with, smothered a giggle. Tara smiled across at him. She could just about cope with the evening if Finn was with her.

‘Welcome back,’ she mouthed.

Finn raised his glass to her. He was going to have another hangover in the morning, Tara reflected.

It was just after eleven when the taxi deposited the Jeffersons back at Four Winds.

Tara, exhausted after an evening of trying to be polite under difficult circumstances, wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and cuddle up to Finn. But Finn and his father decided that liqueurs were the order of the day.

‘It’s less than an hour till twelve, let’s stay up and toast in Christmas,’ suggested Desmond.

‘Great idea.’ Finn fell onto the big grey armchair and held out his arms for Tara to sit on his lap. Mindful of Gloria seeing this as another breach of decorum, Tara sat on the side of the chair instead and put an arm round Finn’s shoulders.

Gloria disappeared on some errand.

‘What would you like, Tara?’ asked Desmond, poised over the drinks cabinet.