Jane Wenham-Jones - The Big Five O

She took another mouthful of her wine. ‘If he’s got a rendezvous planned then he’ll have to make some excuse to be back late. So then I’ll know. And if she – whoever she is – has been putting him through his paces, he’ll find it was nothing to what I’ll be doing when he gets home!’

‘OK,’ said Fay. ‘So that’s a plan. Sounds good. Now, how are we getting on with the party?’

She watched Charlotte, as her friend reluctantly allowed the subject to be changed and brought Fay up to date with her investigations into cake designs and balloon prices. ‘Two hundred in silver, a hundred in this sort of pale lilac, and a hundred in burgundy – they look really stylish grouped together. And the pale ones will have burgundy lettering – The Big Five-O!’

‘I like it,’ Fay nodded. ‘Helium?’

‘Of course. Long strings so they come up from the floor, with shorter ones for the tables.’

‘Brilliant.’

‘I thought we could let them all go over Viking Bay at the end. Video it!’

‘Yeah, great.’

There was a small silence. Charlotte had finished her first glass of wine and was pouring a second. Fay put her hand over the top of her own glass. ‘Got the car.’

‘If I even feel like having a party then–’ Charlotte added.

‘You will!’ Fay ate a peanut.

‘I wish I was more like you,’ Charlotte suddenly burst out. ‘You’re so, so – sure of everything.’

‘You are like me!’ Fay grinned at Charlotte. ‘First time I met you – when you were still with Wainwright’s and there was that bloody woman with the poodles whose mortgage hadn’t gone through – do you remember?’

Charlotte shook back her curls. ‘How could I forget? You had two vans of her furniture outside and she was wailing and all those damn dogs were yapping.’

‘We were already short of a driver – that’s why I was there – and we had another job to load up the same day. I was about to land her one when you turned up.’ Fay laughed. ‘I can see you now. ‘Enough!’ you said. ‘Calm down.’ And even the dogs shut the hell up.’

Charlotte smiled.

‘I knew then that you were my sort of woman,’ finished Fay. ‘We don’t fuck about. We’re toughies.’

When Fay had left, Charlotte poured another drink, pulling a face as thirteen-year-old Joe, arriving home from school and dumping his rucksack and sports bag in the middle of the kitchen floor, frowned at her. ‘You’re not drunk, are you?’

‘Of course I’m not.’

She supposed it made a change from his usual repertoire of grunts and for once he wasn’t surgically attached to his phone or Xbox either. ‘Fay was round,’ she said, aware as she said it, of the effects of the wine on her largely empty stomach. She took the last handful of peanuts. ‘Have you had a good day?’

Joe shrugged.

‘Homework?’

‘Haven’t got any.’

‘Don’t believe you.’

He grinned at her and she heard his feet thumping their way upstairs, his bags and blazer left behind where they’d been dropped. She knew she wouldn’t see him again until she called him for dinner and that he’d disappear straight after. She sighed. The house felt different without Becky. They’d done nothing but row before she left for uni – it was time for Becky to spread her wings – but Charlotte missed her daughter more than she could ever have imagined. If it had been Becky standing here, who’d seen that text, she would have tackled Roger at once. ‘What’s this Dad? Who’s putting you through your paces? Sounds a bit strange …’

Last time, she’d tried to keep it from the kids, but Becky had picked up the tail end of the hoo-ha. Knew there’d been a woman chasing her father and had been none too impressed.

Charlotte rose and opened the fridge door, pulling out a bowl of chicken pieces she’d dragged the skin from that morning.

Fay was right. It wasn’t necessarily a repeat of anything like that. Roger had promised her. They’d made a pact never again to keep anything hidden, however bad. For a moment Charlotte felt a stab of guilt. She’d had a long conversation with Laura on the phone this morning. Lu had said she should be talking to Roger …

She pulled a baking tray from the drawer next to the Aga and began to spread out the thighs.

She was fond of Fay – as Fay had said, they’d hit it off straight away. Now they often ended up with shared clients and Fay was always reliable and straightforward. Fay kept her life uncluttered. No commitments, no husband, no kids. She worked hard, played hard – saw things in black and white. Charlotte found her entertaining and she’d filled a gaping hole when Laura had moved away. Laura was emotional and sensitive and if she were here now would have listened endlessly to Charlotte’s uncertainties and doubts. Fay was a fixer, but Laura would have hugged her and allowed Charlotte to debate the situation until Charlotte felt calm again.

She took a small sharp knife out of the drawer and began to slash at the chicken in front of her – squeezing more lemon juice over the rosy flesh she’d left marinating, trickling olive oil, adding herbs and black pepper.

As she sliced onions and crushed garlic, she wondered if Fay was right and she should just tackle Roger when he got in. But a part of her wanted to test him – to see whether he would be late on Wednesday, to prove to herself that the uneasy feeling in her solar plexus was the intuition that had been right before, and not the menopausal neuroses she could see Fay suspected.

She was chopping chillies when she heard his key in the lock. Hastily shoving the piece of paper out of sight, she listened to the familiar evening sounds, the jingle of his keys as he dropped them into the bowl on the hall table, the thud of his briefcase on the bottom stair – his low call of hell-oo as he walked into the kitchen already shrugging off his jacket.

Her gut twisted as he came in, big and smiling, the way he’d come in a thousand times before. He leant round her, bending to kiss her cheek. ‘Smells good.’

‘That’s just the oven pre-heating.’

Roger looked at the tray of chicken, as she scattered the finely chopped chillies and sloshed in red wine. ‘I can see it will smell good soon then!’

She bent to put the tray in the Aga and then turned and searched his face. He looked as he always did. ‘You seem happy.’

Roger nodded. ‘Yep, all going well. I’ve got a dinner with the chief exec of AG next week but it’s all going through remarkably smoothly and–’

‘What night?’ It was out – too sharply – before she could stop herself.

‘Err Thursday I think – is that a problem?’

‘No,’ she shook her head, turning away and pulling a bag of spinach leaves towards her. ‘Just wondered. What about the rest of the week? Have you got a lot on?’ She swung back to watch his face.

He looked surprised. ‘About the same as usual. Do you need me to do something?’ Was she imagining it or had that been a flicker of anxiety?

‘I might need to be out a couple of evenings myself, that’s all,’ she improvised. ‘I want to get together with the others about the party and I’m seeing a new client – she can only do after 8pm … Just thinking about Joe …’

‘I won’t be late any other night …’

She felt the relief wash over her as she continued to gaze at him. He was looking pretty good at fifty-two. Grey hair suited him. He was a bit heavier than he used to be but he had the height to carry it off. He was still an attractive man. Women would still be interested, but he was coming home to her. He smiled again. She could see he was wondering why she was so uptight.

‘I had a funny text exchange with Bex today,’ he said. ‘She sounds buoyant.’