Just Between Us

‘Sounds like Hazel’s Christmas present,’ remarked Hazel’s husband, Ivan, as he closed the front door and walked into the kitchen. A tall, wiry man with laughing blue eyes, trendy tortoiseshell glasses and almost no hair at all, Ivan was a building society manager whose first love was his wife and their twins, followed by a lifelong passion for opera. Hazel sometimes grumbled that she was deaf from listening to ‘The Ring Cycle’ played at full volume, but Stella knew she didn’t really mind. She was just as mad about Ivan as he was about her. Affectionate teasing was the glue that held their marriage firmly in place.

‘You didn’t buy me another huge diamond, sweetie?’ inquired Hazel, turning her face up to her husband’s for a kiss. ‘I’ve run out of fingers!’

‘Sorry, yes.’ Ivan did his best to look penitent. ‘I’ll bring the ring back tomorrow and buy you a tasty red nylon negligee set instead. Any tea left in the pot?’

‘I want pink nylon, silly. You know I like my clothes to clash with my hair. Ooh, get the biscuits out, Ivan, while you’re at it,’ Hazel added, as he took a mug from the cupboard. ‘We won’t be back here before nine and you know school parties: if we get one soggy sausage roll between us, we’ll be lucky.’

Stella and Hazel watched as Ivan wolfed down five chocolate biscuits, while they forced themselves to eat only one plain one each.

‘How can you eat like that and not put on weight?’ Stella marvelled.

Ivan patted his concave stomach. ‘Superior genes,’ he mumbled with his mouth full.

Hazel took off her apron and threw it calmly at her husband. ‘Surely remarks like that are grounds for divorce?’ she said to Stella.

‘Don’t ask me: I’m not a family law specialist,’ Stella laughed, used to their banter. ‘I’m the property queen.’ She headed out of the kitchen, calling over her shoulder: ‘Fight amongst yourselves, I’m going to tart up quickly.’

In the small cloakroom under the stairs, Stella took out her brush and began tidying her hair. Although she stared at her reflection in the mirror, she didn’t really see herself. Instead, she thought about Ivan and Hazel, and the couple in the jewellers. Stella could live out the rest of her life quite happily without a knuckle-dusting diamond on her ring finger. You didn’t miss what you’d never had, as her mother often said. But it was possible to miss something you’d grown up with, even if it hadn’t been yours exactly. Stella had grown up with parents who adored each other. And she saw true love every day with Ivan and Hazel, who teased each other, had arguments about eardrum-splitting opera, and yet still each worshipped the ground the other walked on. Stella had spent years claiming that love was the last thing on her list, but occasionally, just occasionally, she wished it wasn’t.

She came back into the room two minutes later with her cloud of hair swinging from the vigorous brushing she’d given it.

Hazel smiled affectionately at her friend. Stella never bothered with too much make-up either. But then, the difference between them, Hazel knew, was that Stella didn’t need it. The huge dark eyes framed by thick lashes dominated her oval face, giving her the serene look of some medieval Madonna, patiently waiting to have her portrait painted. Dark brows winged out in perfect arches above her deep-set eyes. Her straight nose didn’t need any careful shading and her creamy skin was good enough to manage without all but a hint of base, which should have made Hazel madly envious. Her skin was freckled, red-tinged and needed buckets of concealer. Not that it got it.

Stella had the sort of fine-boned elegance that Hazel, a great admirer of beauty, appreciated, with tiny ankles and wrists which she said she’d inherited from her mother. But Hazel loved Stella far too much to feel jealous of her. Instead, she took pride in her friend’s beauty and despaired of Stella ever knowing how lovely she was.

Tonight, Stella had painted her mouth a surprising crimson that matched the rich colour of her satin shirt. She rarely wore such vivid colours and she looked fabulous.

‘Get you, missus,’ Hazel said.

‘Do you think the lipstick’s too much?’ Stella asked. ‘I bought it today but maybe it’s overdoing it a bit…’

‘It’s lovely, really sexy,’ Hazel insisted. ‘I don’t know why you don’t wear red lippie more often.’

‘School parties aren’t the right occasions for “sexy”,’ Stella pointed out. ‘Remember last year?’

At the previous Christmas play, the children’s teacher had worn a flirty little sequinned dress in honour of the occasion, and had been shocked to be on the receiving end of a jealous outburst from one mother whose husband had a roving eye. Both Stella and Hazel had felt very sorry for sweet, enthusiastic Miss Palmer, a newly qualified teacher, who’d thought she was doing the right thing by wearing her best clubbing outfit. Dancing energetically with the children at the party, Miss Palmer had almost bounced out of her dress, making her very popular with the fathers and not so popular with some of the mothers.

‘Simple dress code disaster,’ Hazel agreed. ‘But there’s a difference between a bit of red lipstick and a va-va-voom sequinned dress.’ She eyed Stella’s grey suit. ‘Unless you’re planning to rip that off and sing “Jingle Bells” in your knickers?’

‘How did you guess?’ Stella said deadpan.

‘What was wrong with Miss Palmer’s dress, anyhow?’ demanded Ivan, who was only half-listening to the conversation. ‘I don’t know why that stupid woman had a go at her. The poor girl looked nice. It’s a free country, she can wear what she wants.’

Hazel shot Stella a look that spoke volumes.

Stella tried to explain. ‘It was the right dress on the wrong occasion,’ she said patiently. ‘Imagine if I was going to a party here, for example, and a party at Henry Lawson, the senior partner’s house. I couldn’t wear the same thing.’

‘Why ever not?’ demanded Ivan.

Hazel interrupted. ‘Because if Stella turned up at Henry Lawson’s house wearing a PVC catsuit, Henry would have a coronary and his wife would have one too, from pure rage because she’d be firmly convinced that Stella was a harlot who was after her man.’

‘I blame those magazine articles telling women how high the chances are of their husbands having it off with someone he works with,’ Stella said. ‘They’re convinced the office is one big extramarital dating agency where everyone pants with lust. If you’re not married, all the wives think you must be after their husbands.’

‘Which is hilarious if you look at most of the husbands,’ remarked Hazel, who had met Henry at Stella’s office. Charming and friendly he might be, but he wasn’t hunk material.

Stella grinned. ‘I’d love to know what sort of offices they do that kind of research in because, clearly, I’ve been working in the wrong places all these years. Honestly, if I get a spare moment these days, it’s all I can do to rush out to the loo or grab a cup of tea. Chasing the senior partners round their desks would be very far down the list of must-do tasks.’

‘Surely not?’ Hazel teased. ‘There’s something about the way Henry’s belly swells majestically over his waistband…I find him devastating in a sea lion sort of way.’

‘You can have him, then,’ Stella said kindly.

‘I didn’t know you had a PVC catsuit, Stel,’ Ivan interrupted eagerly. ‘Could Hazel borrow it?’

‘I’ll drop it over tomorrow,’ Stella said drily.

They were still laughing a couple of minutes later when both families piled into Hazel’s space wagon. Sitting in the back with the children, Stella made sure they were all firmly strapped in and was putting her own seatbelt on when she felt a small cold hand sliding into hers. Amelia looked up at her mother, her face scared and pale in the gleam of the street lights. Stella put her arm round her daughter’s shoulders and nuzzled close until she could feel the fake fur of Amelia’s anorak hood tickling her face. ‘You’re going to be wonderful, love,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve practised loads of times and you know it off backwards.’

‘What if I forget?’ said Amelia in a hollow voice.

‘You won’t forget,’ Stella encouraged. ‘You’re far too clever for that. I know that you know all the words and you’re going to be brilliant, and mummies are always right, aren’t they?’

Amelia nodded at the logic of this and snuggled closely to her mother for the rest of the journey.

Benton Junior School was blazing with light when they arrived, and there was a line of cars ahead of them as parents pulled up outside the doors to disgorge angels, shepherds, wise men and a few farmyard animals.

‘That’s not a real sheep, is it?’ asked Ivan as they watched a white woolly animal bounce from a car and proceed to lift its leg on the headmistress’s prized box tree which was covered with festive golden ribbons.

‘That’s Mrs Maloney’s dog,’ said Shona. ‘It was in for the rehearsal yesterday. It weed on the stage.’

The children giggled.

‘I hope you don’t have to kneel in the wet bits,’ Ivan said solemnly.

‘Uuuughh,’ the girls shrieked.

‘But you probably will,’ he continued, ‘and you’ll be wet and smelly, and you won’t be able to get back in the car but you’ll have to run home in your angel clothes in the dark, all smelly and wet and yucky…’

Laughing and giggling over wet knees meant that by the time the space wagon reached the door, all performance nerves had gone and Amelia, Shona and Becky were eager to rush in to where scores of children were charging around, squealing at the tops of their voices. Some had glitter on their faces, while others had big Groucho Marx moustaches drawn on. Wings got stuck to other wings and there were several clusters of children yelling as Mrs Maloney, the worn-out music teacher, tried to unattach them. The noise level was pounding, despite the presence of three teachers and several harassed parents.

‘Whatever they pay teachers, it’s not enough,’ Ivan said heavily as he went off to park the car.

‘Where will you be sitting, Mummy?’ asked Amelia, suddenly anxious again and clutching tightly onto her mother’s hand now that they were in the middle of the excited crowd. ‘I want to be able to see you.’

‘Big hug,’ said Stella, crouching down. She held Amelia tightly, breathing in her fresh smells of shampoo and crayons. ‘I’ll wave to you when you come in so you can see me, I’ll be as near the front as I can, I promise.’

‘Promise?’

‘Cross my heart,’ Stella said gravely.