Susan Lewis - One Minute Later

She wasn’t giving any of this a single thought on this glorious spring morning, although she expected her mobile to ring at any minute bringing a dutiful happy birthday call from home. The postman would almost certainly deliver a card from her mother later, and a text would no doubt pop up at some point during the day saying something like Hope you’re having a fabulous day, but please don’t have too much to drink. There wouldn’t be a present, because her mother had stopped buying them a few years ago, saying, ‘I always get it wrong, so there doesn’t seem any point in wasting my money. If you want something, just ask.’

That was Gina all over. In spite of being a glamorous and successful forty-six-year-old businesswoman with a good sense of humour and plenty of friends, she could be prosaically practical about things that called for frivolity or indulgence. (Although, Vivi reminded herself, their surprise trip to Venice a few years ago had proved her mother could be both imaginative and impulsive when she wanted to be.) However, it was true to say that Gina was usually awkward with celebrations, and as for showy declarations of feeling, well, that wasn’t her at all. Actually, she was nothing if not a maddening set of contradictions, because she could be a lot of fun when she wanted to be, and when it came to throwing a party she didn’t do things by half. Things had changed, however, since Gil, Vivi’s stepfather and Mark’s father, had left, just over nine years ago. Dear, wonderful Gil, who was still as much a part of their lives as if he’d never gone, except he didn’t live with her mother any more – and if anyone could work out the bizarreness of that relationship they’d certainly have a better insight into Gina’s mysterious psyche than Vivi had ever managed.

‘Don’t ask me,’ NanaBella had lamented at the time of the break-up. ‘I’ve never really understood your mother, you know that, and she could baffle the heck out of Grandpa when he was alive.’

‘But you always loved her and stood by her,’ Vivienne had pointed out, for it was true, her grandparents had always been there – for them all.

There was no NanaBella or Grandpa to stand by any of them now. Grandpa had succumbed to cancer when Vivi was six, and NanaBella had been the victim of a drunk driver four Easters ago while on her way into town.

That was another reason for Vivi to feel guilty about not going to see her mother more often. Gina had been devastated by the sudden loss of her beloved mother – they all had, including Gil. But trying to be supportive of Gina was like trying to hug a cactus. She couldn’t accept love without becoming prickly and awkward; although she clearly wanted affection, she just didn’t seem to know how to handle it.

What was that line about an enigma wrapped up in a mystery inside a riddle? Well, that was her mother, and even Gil, as besotted as he was with her, never tried to claim she was easy.

Reaching for her mobile as it rang, Vivi saw it was one of the GaLs and decided to let it go to messages. She simply had to go to the bathroom before speaking to anyone, and then she’d pop down to Max’s for an Americano and pastry to fuel herself up for the day. If her mother called and didn’t get an answer she’d assume Vivi was either out for a run, or at Greg’s, or still asleep with the phone turned off. She wouldn’t worry, because that was something Gina resolutely refused to do, in spite of the fact that the tight line between her beautiful eyes showed that she spent just about every moment of every day worrying about something.

Did she even realize that?

Vivi thought she probably did, but whatever was causing her anxiety – and maybe it was many things – she guarded it jealously, as though letting go of a single hint of an issue would snap the strings inside her and everything would fall catastrophically apart.

Standing in front of the twin-mirrored bathroom cabinet with its frame of snowball lights and inbuilt heat pad, Vivi pulled a face at herself and stretched out her jaw. She must have slept awkwardly because her neck seemed achy, and the stiffness in her limbs told her that she ought to get back to some proper exercise soon. Still, at least she was breathing more easily this morning, so the bug she’d no doubt picked up on one of several flights she’d made in the past three weeks might finally be clearing.

She was, by anyone’s standards, a strikingly lovely young woman. With almond-shaped eyes, blue as a summer sky, and a full, sloppy mouth (her description), she was so entrancing that her friends swore she could hypnotize at a hundred paces. Her complexion was smooth and olive, her cheekbones high, and her light brown hair was a wayward riot of waves that fell about her face and neck in a style all of its own.

Right now it was a tangled mess, and her still sleepy eyes were shadowed by the residue of last night’s mascara.

Last night?

Oh, that was right; she’d been at the office until almost midnight, after returning from New York on the red-eye in the morning. It had been a flying visit to the Big Apple, quite literally: one meeting, followed by a dull dinner at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse and an overnight stay at the Beekman.

After dragging some trackie bottoms on over her pyjama shorts and a T-shirt over the camisole, she slipped her feet into an old pair of flip-flops and texted Max with her order. Before leaving she made a quick scan of her emails to be sure nothing earth-shattering had cropped up overnight and finding that nothing had, she went through to the spacious open-plan kitchen-cum-sitting room and gave a small sigh of pleasure to find it virtually drowning in sunlight.

She loved this apartment so much she could marry it. With its high, stuccoed ceilings, tall sash windows and wonderfully airy rooms – all two of them, plus full bathroom containing utility area – she simply couldn’t bear to think of living anywhere else. It was certainly one of the reasons she and Greg hadn’t considered moving in together. It wasn’t big enough for two, and it would be crazy to make this their home when his riverfront duplex in Wapping was at least three times the size, and in real-estate terms far more desirable. Plus, he owned his place outright, thanks to his father, while her first-floor, street-view section of a Georgian town house close to Hollywood Road in Chelsea, was rented. It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford a mortgage, she was earning enough now to take on some hefty repayments, but the amount needed for a deposit in an area like this – in fact almost anywhere in London – was still out of her reach, largely thanks to her lavish lifestyle. Her friends had managed their down payments thanks to BoMaD – bank of Mum and Dad – but her mother could never have found a near six-figure sum without selling her own house or hairdressing salon, and even if she’d been prepared to do that (she wasn’t), Vivi wouldn’t have let her. However, her mother – refusing Gil’s offer to step in – had practically emptied her savings account to help raise a deposit for the lease on this flat. Having viewed it with Vivi she’d understood right away why her daughter had fallen in love with it, so she’d been keen to make it happen. Since that time, just over four years ago, Vivi had repaid almost two-thirds of the amount, and by the end of the year her mother’s account, thanks to the interest Vivi had added to the loan, was likely to be healthier than it had ever been.

Still feeling slightly stiff, she performed a couple more stretches, then grabbed her phone and wallet and let herself out of the flat into the black-and-white-tiled front hall where her upstairs neighbours had parked a bicycle and pushchair. There were also several paintings lining the walls, all done by the delightful and talented Maryanna, who paced about the large attic studio like a trapped cat in the grip of an artistic frenzy. Though her canvases were as indecipherable as they were confrontational (Maryanna’s word), Vivienne had long ago decided that she loved them. She owned two, but had left them in the hall for others in the building and their visitors to enjoy as they came and went.