Cathy Kelly - Just Between Us

‘We’ve four gooseberry bushes, redcurrants and an apple tree,’ Hazel would reply. ‘I can’t waste them.’

Today, when she reached Hazel’s house, Stella didn’t have the opportunity to ring the doorbell before Amelia raced out, pigtails flying, to open the front door.

‘Hi, Mum,’ she said eagerly, pretty in flowing angel robes with silver ribbons trailing from her coat-hanger wings. Stella had almost wept making those damn wings. It had taken two nights and three broken nails to finish them.

‘Hello Amelia,’ Stella said, tweaking a pigtail and kissing her daughter on the forehead. She knew that Hazel didn’t allow the children to open the front door themselves but she couldn’t bring herself to give out to Amelia for it after such a welcome. ‘Are you ready for the play, darling?’

‘Yes, Mum. Can I do ballet? Becky and Shona are going to do it and we’ve got to get the shoes and a dress thing…’

‘Their class has gone ballet mad,’ said Hazel, appearing from the kitchen with a carrot in one hand and a vegetable peeler in the other. She was dressed for the evening in a brown stretchy velvet dress with a bright orange plastic apron thrown over the ensemble to keep it clean. Her russet curls were loose in honour of the event and her pale lashes had been given a speedy sweep of a mascara brush. That was it: Hazel had neither the time nor the inclination for long beauty routines.

‘The gymnastics craze is officially over and we’re now into tutus and proper pink dance shoes. In a vain attempt to calm them down before the play, Miss Dennis announced that ballet is back on the curriculum in the New Year. I said I was not driving into the city to the dance shop until January.’

Becky thundered out of the kitchen, another angel with golden ribbons in her red curls and gold painted wings hanging lopsidedly from her shoulders. With two little angels, Hazel had had twice as much trouble over making coat-hanger wings as Stella had.

‘Mary’s mother is going to make her a proper ballet dress,’ announced Becky, with the unspoken ‘Why can’t you, Mum?’ hanging in the air.

A small bundle of energy, Becky stomped everywhere like a baby elephant and when she climbed the stairs, it sounded as if the entire top storey of the house was collapsing. ‘I want to be a swan princess,’ she added firmly.

Hazel and Stella exchanged amused glances over the heads of their children.

‘ I’m going to be a swan princess too,’ insisted Amelia.

Becky glared at her crossly.

‘You can all be swan princesses,’ soothed Hazel, ever the peacemaker. ‘But we don’t want to spend lots of money buying swan princess outfits and ballet shoes if you get fed up with it in a week.’

Both Amelia and Becky looked shocked at the very idea. As if.

‘They handed out a note on ballet lessons and I put it in Amelia’s schoolbag,’ Hazel said.

Stella smiled thanks.

‘Look, Mum!’ said Amelia, dancing around as if she was already in ballet class. She attempted a creditable prima ballerina spin, holding up her flowing angel skirts as she twirled. ‘Look at me, Mummy.’

‘No, look at me ,’ insisted Becky, having a go herself and cannoning into Stella.

‘I’m sure you’ll be a lovely swan princess,’ Stella said kindly to Becky.

Amelia, who was at that age when she was keenly aware of the difference between what adults said and what they meant, stared up at her mother.

‘Right, girls, are we all set for the play?’ Stella said quickly.

‘Yes!’ shrieked the two girls.

‘Just give me five more minutes and I’m ready,’ Hazel said. ‘Shona,’ she called.

Another red-headed angel with gold ribbons emerged from the playroom, where she’d obviously been painting herself with glitter glue. The twins weren’t identical but both had their mother’s wild red hair and her hazel eyes.

‘Go upstairs and use the bathroom; we’re going in a moment,’ Hazel said. ‘Wash your hands properly. I’ll be up in a moment to check.’

The children thundered upstairs for one final look at themselves in the mirror and a half-hearted bit of hand-washing, while Stella followed Hazel into the homely kitchen. Apart from her two sisters, Stella felt closer to Hazel than any of her other friends. Their lives were totally different, and Stella was thirty-eight to Hazel’s forty-five, but they shared the same dry sense of humour. Hazel understood her, Stella felt. Hazel never tried to set Stella up with men, or berated her for not going on dates. She understood, without being told, that Stella was perfectly happy with her life the way it was.

And if Hazel often thought that she’d love her closest friend to have someone special in her life, she kept the thought to herself.

‘Do I have time for a quick cup of tea?’ Stella asked, flicking the switch on the kettle. ‘I’ve been shopping and I’m shattered.’

‘Course, make me one too.’ Hazel rapidly chopped up the carrots and added them to an earthenware dish. ‘Buy anything nice?’

‘A pill box for my mother in Austyn’s. I’ve got everything now,’ Stella added with satisfaction. ‘I saw this couple buying the most incredible diamond ring: it was enormous. God knows what it cost, but Securicor would need to follow you around permanently if you bought it.’

‘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.