What Women Want, Women of a Dangerous Age: 2-Book Collection

One kiss had been all that was needed to puncture the ten years of overwhelming numbness she’d felt since Simon’s death. Left on her own with two small children, then aged only five and three, she’d had no alternative but to batten down her emotions and concentrate on helping them cope with the lack of their father. What was important was that she kept Simon alive in their minds, making sure above all that they knew he’d loved them. To do that, she couldn’t include another man in their lives, however frequently her friends and family said that was exactly what the children, and indeed she, needed. Until now. At first the sex was awkward, unfamiliar, embarrassing, but Oliver’s confidence and consideration drew her out of herself until she relaxed and moved with him. Since that first night together, Oliver hadn’t left except to go to pick up a few clothes and check out of wherever he’d been staying. And she had never wanted him to.

Ellen couldn’t remember when she had felt so indifferent to what her neighbours thought of her. The net curtains of Oakham Road might be twitching as she and Oliver came and left together – let them! The only people, apart from her family, whose opinion she particularly cared about were Kate and Bea. She could imagine their faces when she told them about Oliver. After so many years of knowing her as a devoted widow and committed single mother, they would be completely taken by surprise. But keeping Oliver to herself made their relationship all the more precious, all the more intense. She didn’t want that to end by going public, even though she knew that, once the kids came home, she would have to. If not sooner.

When she did, Kate would listen to her without interrupting but Bea would probe, making Ellen give away details before she was ready. Up until now, Ellen had treated Bea’s own endeavours to hook a man with some scepticism, but suddenly she understood something of what her friend must be looking for. The discovery of Oliver had thrown a switch inside her that she had forgotten existed. That was all Bea wanted to experience. Ellen saw that now. With the menopause beckoning, they might have only a last few throws of the hormonal dice.

Musing on that unpleasant truth, she unlocked the door to the gallery, pushed up the security shutters and sorted her papers, ready for the usual steady flow of Saturday customers. She was in the back, looking at Starship, considering whether to buy the picture for Oliver as a memento of their meeting (so what if he didn’t have anywhere to hang it?), when the bell rang. Perhaps it was too soon to make such a big gesture, but she had the rest of the morning to think about it. In the meantime she would put her back into some work and go through the programme for her next exhibition, making sure everything was on track.

She went through to see her first customer of the day, and was surprised to find Kate standing there, the only woman she knew who was over fifty and could get away with a skimpy pale pink T-shirt and white linen trousers. Suddenly she felt self-conscious about the old cotton dress she’d yanked off its hanger that morning. What they said about a moment on the lips was true. All those consolatory biscuits that she’d packed away over the years had made their home very comfortably on her hips.

‘Kate! Good to see you. It’s been ages.’

‘That’s why I thought I’d drop by. Where have you been hiding yourself?’

Ellen’s mobile rescued her from having to answer. ‘Just phoning to tell you I love you.’ The sound of Oliver’s voice transported Ellen into her garden where she imagined him sitting.

‘Don’t be silly. You’ve already said that once today.’ Ellen laughed with pleasure.

‘Three times if I remember right,’ he corrected her.

‘I’ll see you later. Can’t wait.’ Ellen was anxious to cut the conversation short in front of Kate, who was staring at her open-mouthed. ‘I’ve got a customer with me.’

‘’Bye, darling. See you soon.’

‘Who on earth was that?’ Kate was watching Ellen’s face with amazement. ‘You’re absolutely glowing.’

Ellen couldn’t stop a grin spreading across her face. ‘I wanted to tell you,’ she began, ‘but I wasn’t ready or it wasn’t the right time. Look, sit down and I’ll fill you in before the gallery gets busy.’ An intense feeling of relief came with this unlooked-for opportunity to spill the beans as she launched into how she and Oliver had met.

When Kate heard that Oliver was only forty at most, she exploded: ‘Does he know that you’ve got at least eight years on him?’

‘Well, no. In fact, he hasn’t mentioned age at all. I thought that was so tactful that I decided to go along with it.’

‘But what will he think when he finds out?’

‘He won’t. Not yet anyway. He did ask me what my HRT pills were but I just told him they were contraceptives – if only – and I pretended the thread veins on my legs were scratches from the roses in the garden. And I told him I’d been grey since my early thirties! One of the drawbacks of having jet-black hair as a kid.’

‘Ellen Neill! I didn’t know you had it in you.’

‘Neither did I. At least, I’d forgotten. But white lying’s not the only thing I haven’t forgotten how to do.’

‘Not the only thing?’ Kate was so absorbed in the story that the exhaustion Ellen had noticed disappeared as her face grew more animated. Suddenly she cottoned on to what Ellen meant. ‘My God! How long have you known him? Four weeks? You don’t hang around, do you?’

‘I know. It does seem ridiculously quick but I haven’t felt like this since . . . I can’t remember when. Honestly, I feel like a teenager with a first crush. I think about him all the time, wondering what he’s doing, if he’ll phone. Do you remember that feeling? I’m as surprised as you are,’ she said, watching Kate’s expression. ‘I never imagined anything like this would happen. I never wanted anyone coming between the kids and Simon but I don’t think Oliver will. He’s so kind and considerate. I’d forgotten how good it feels to be wanted by someone and to share all those endless day-to-day tasks that otherwise you deal with on your own. It’s all happened so fast and – I know this sounds silly – I feel really happy for the first time since Simon died.’

‘Do the children know?’ As the most family-oriented member of the little group, Kate’s first thought, after her friends’ well-being, was always for their children, whom she loved almost as if they were her own.

‘Not yet.’ At the mention of them it suddenly occurred to Ellen that she’d been in massive denial. Of course she couldn’t wrap this delicious secret about herself and pretend the outside world didn’t exist for ever. What had she been thinking? Her children came first. ‘But you’re right. I must tell them. Now they’re older, I hope they’ll understand. Oliver loves kids and can’t wait to meet them. In fact, I’m thinking of taking him when I go down to see them before the bank holiday.’

‘Are you nuts? How do you think Simon’s family will react, never mind the children? His parents will probably both have a coronary. I know Simon’s mother’s been encouraging you to find someone else for years but, all the same, you’ve got to take this slowly. The reality might be harder for his family to take than they imagine.’

Kate was always so sensible. Now the secret was out, it wasn’t just about Ellen and Oliver any more. Ellen was going to have to confront and deal with the repercussions in the best way possible. If only she had kept her mouth shut, as she’d intended, and given herself a bit more thinking time – except she hadn’t been thinking.

‘You’re probably right there too but I know it’ll be OK.’ A finger of doubt gave her a sly poke but she slapped it away. ‘Oliver’s not going to try to replace Simon. How could he? But I’m so sure he’s going to get on with them.’

‘I still think you should take it a step at a time.’ Kate was obviously choosing her words, not wanting to prick the bubble. ‘It’s only been a month. You’ve got to be absolutely certain that you’re not making a mistake.’

The bubble wobbled but remained intact.

‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.’ As gentle a character as she was, a determined set came to Ellen’s jaw when she fought for something she believed in. ‘I’ve enjoyed keeping him secret so far, but now that’s over, I want people to know I love him.’

‘That’s fine. But take it easy. The children will adapt but they’ll find it difficult to start with. At least don’t make them deal with this in front of their grandparents. They need to be in their own home, near their friends and everything that makes them feel comfortable.’

Ellen knew that, as usual, Kate was talking sense. The excitement of the affair had temporarily blinded her to the realities of the situation. Much as she was dying to embark on her new family life, taking Oliver to Cornwall would be a mistake. She saw that. She would go down on her own, as originally planned, come back for one last glorious week alone with Oliver before Em and Matt finally came home in time for the start of the new school term. Then she would break the news slowly and carefully.

Chapter 5

In the car, on the way to her mother’s, the voice of the Radio 4 presenter was overwhelmed by the noise of the motorway. Not that Bea noticed what she was missing. Her mind was on her son. These days, Ben was being less communicative than she could remember him in all their sixteen years together. He had barely mustered a grunt when she’d left, refusing to tear his attention from yet another old episode of Skins. Not even ‘Have a good time’ or ‘Love to Gran’. She left him lying on the sofa, his glass on the floor under his discarded socks, a faint whiff of sweat and feet hanging in the air.

She visualised his worldly possessions scattered in his room upstairs where they’d last been used, then buried under the T-shirts, pants and socks dropped on top of them. His wardrobe door hung open, revealing a row of empty metal hangers and shelves with various knots of tangled clothing that had somehow spread their way across to his unmade bed. Whenever she nagged him to tidy his room, he put the whole lot in the laundry basket downstairs – much easier than hanging it up again. If the door was shut, she always knocked – she had done ever since he’d shouted at her to keep out of his business. She hadn’t even commented on the last poster he’d Blu-tacked to the wall – two girls going topless, one touching the other’s breast, both slightly smiling with their topaz eyes staring out from under their strawberry blonde fringes. Ben had bought it from a boy at school last year. When she’d seen it, she’d frowned but managed not to say a word.

This morning, despite all attempts to bite her tongue, she’d been less successful.

‘I’m just off to Gran’s,’ she’d said, in her cheerful let’snot-get-off-on-the-wrong-foot-this-morning voice.

‘Right.’ Eyes fixed to the screen.

‘Darling. You will tidy up, won’t you?’

No reply.

‘If you could just try to do something with your bedroom so we can at least see the floor . . .’ The hope in her voice was met with silence. ‘Well, I’ll be back late tonight, then.’

‘Yeah. Right.’ He hadn’t even glanced round.

Since Colin had left, Bea had watched Ben turn more and more in on himself. Apart from having to deal with the inevitable teenage hormonal soup, he’d had to watch the father he’d adored go off with his PA, a woman almost young enough to be Ben’s older sister. Within a year, she had given birth to twins. Colin had never explained to Bea why he had fallen out of love with her. She sometimes wondered whether he had ever been in love with her at all. But, her own feelings aside, it had been hard to answer with any truth twelve-year-old Ben’s endless questions about why Dad had gone. Apart from the obvious one, she didn’t know the answers.

Together they watched as Colin morphed from a suit-and-tired executive into a complacent new husband and on into an even more self-satisfied but exhausted new father of two. Plumper than he had been, his skin shinier and more tanned, he oozed self-satisfaction. His hair, though greyer, was cut fashionably short; his clothes were no longer mail order (too busy to shop) but designer (‘Carrie helps me choose’). The idea of the pair shopping together made Bea laugh. The Colin she knew would no more set foot in a clothes shop than he would in a supermarket. But she had to hand it to Carrie: that girl had got Colin wrapped round her little finger in a way that Bea never had.

As soon as he’d announced he was leaving her for Carrie, Bea had known it would be only a matter of time before they started a family. Carrie would want kids and the only way Colin would keep her was to give them to her. What she hadn’t bargained for was the vigour with which he threw himself into second-time fatherhood. She hadn’t bargained for how upset she’d feel either. Colin had discovered the joys of nappy-changing, of bottle-feeding, of getting up in the night. When he looked for sympathy, complaining of how tired he felt at having to do all this and go to work, the floodgates of Bea’s fury opened.

‘Tired? How many women do you think feel exactly the same and have been working and looking after children for centuries?’

‘But, Bea,’ he had protested, sheepish, ‘that’s not the same. They’re used to it.’

‘Bollocks they’re used to it! What do you think I felt like when I was still breast-feeding Ben and struggling to keep my job going?’

‘But that was different,’ he had protested.

‘How? How was it different?’