Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

“Daddy didn’t do that, did he?” She stared at her mother, suddenly understanding for a brief moment how Charlie felt, the shock of betrayal.

“No, he didn’t; he never cheated on me, thank God, but several of my friends had to endure it. Some of the marriages survived. Well, most of them, actually. They did in those days. And there was a lot of turning a blind eye, pretending you didn’t know.”

“So… are you saying I should take him back?”

“No, of course not. Unless you really want to. And as I say, I wouldn’t find it easy if you did. I’m simply saying that you’re not the first woman to have to endure this.”

“No, I know.” She hesitated. “He… well, he did say he was about to finish the relationship. That it was over.”

“Well… that’s something in his favour.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

“Laura, you know Jonathan a great deal better than I do. If you believe him, then I’d trust your judgment. And maybe you’ve been too perfect, too good to him. You do-well, you did-spoil him dreadfully.”

“Would you like to go for a walk, Russell, dear?” said Mary, walking into the morning room where Russell was reading the Financial Times . He had been persuaded to take it instead of the Wall Street Journal; he complained every day about how unsatisfactory it was, and made a great thing of reading the Journal online, but Mary had observed he still became totally absorbed in the FT for at least an hour and a half each morning. Which was a relief, actually; now that all the excitement of the wedding and Christmas was over, Russell was often restless. He spent a lot of time on the Internet studying the markets and then instructing his broker to buy this or sell that. And he was on the phone for at least an hour a day to Morton discussing the business. Mary had a pretty shrewd idea that Morton didn’t welcome these calls, and indeed he had told her over Christmas that it was wonderful to see his father so relaxed and happy.

“He really seems to be letting go of the reins at last.”

“The reins?”

“Yeah, of the business. He was supposed to have retired ten years ago; we gave him a dinner, everyone made speeches, we presented him with a wonderful vintage gold watch-that was a kind of a joke, of course-and he even wept a bit, and said good-bye to everyone. Monday morning, nine a.m., he was back at his desk. He’s cut down a bit since then, of course, but I’d like to see him taking it really easy.”

Mary could see very clearly that what Morton meant was that he’d thank God on bended knees for his father to be taking it really easy, and assured him that she absolutely agreed and that she had all sorts of plans for the coming year: “A bit of travelling, for a start. We haven’t had our honeymoon yet, and I’m not letting him get away with that,” she said, “and he seems to have plans for making over some of the land here to what he calls a vegetable farm. So that we can be self-sufficient.”

Morton grinned at her. “Sounds good to me. He needs new projects. May I warn you, though, he could get tired of the vegetable farm…”

Mary said she didn’t need the warning. “It’s a problem with retirement, Morton. Donald had his bird-watching; it had been a passion all his life; he’d longed for more time to spend on it, and after a few months, he even got bored with that. We started learning bridge just so he could focus on something else.”

“Don’t play bridge with my father, Mary,” said Morton. “He becomes extremely aggressive.”

“How do you think he’d be on archaeology? That’s always interested me.”

Morton considered this. “I can only say the world would hear of some amazing new buried city within months. As for the archaeological outfitters, how are they on bespoke shorts?”

“Russell, dear, do listen to me. I said, would you like to go for a walk?”

“Not just now, Sparrow. I’m worried about some of my stocks. Thinking of selling them. I’m going to draft a letter to my accountant just as soon as I’ve finished reading this.”

“Well, all right, dear. I’ll go on my own.”

“Mary, you know I don’t like you going out on your own.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Mary impatiently, “what on earth do you think might happen to me? Might I meet a herd of wild boar in the lane?”

“Don’t mock me, Sparrow,” he said, and his eyes were quite hurt. “I want to look after you.”

“I know you do. But I need to get out. Can’t the stocks wait another day?”

“Possibly. Yes, all right.”

“Now, Russell, dear,” she said, tucking her arm into his as they walked through the gate at the bottom of the garden and into the wood, “I really would like to start planning our honeymoon. I don’t want to be cheated of it. Where would you like to go?”

“Anywhere you like, Sparrow. Italy, maybe-I’ve always longed to go there, would find all those works of art so wonderful. Or maybe the Seychelles, or even Vietnam…”

“Russell, I don’t think I want to do anything quite as… as adventurous as that,” said Mary.

“Well, why on earth not?” he said, looking genuinely puzzled. “We should do these things while we can, Mary, before we get old and stuck in our ways.”

“Oh, Russell,” she said, reaching up to kiss him, “I love you for so many reasons, but perhaps most because you don’t see us as old.”

“Well, of course I don’t. We’re not old. We’re certainly quite young enough to enjoy ourselves.”

“Yes, of course. But… well I would still rather have a quiet honeymoon. I’ve never been to the lake district. Wonderful scenery, good driving… and walking. Would you consider that? Just for now.”

“If that’s what you want, Sparrow. As long as we can go to Italy in the spring.”

“I promise you,” she said, “we’ll go to Italy in the spring.”

It had gone… not badly, but not really very well, Linda thought. They had been polite, but wary, undemonstrative. And Alex had been pretty similar; obviously nervous of appearing in any way foolish, romantically inclined, uncool. He hadn’t even touched her, except to kiss her hello and good-bye. And she felt under inspection by him all over again, seeing herself through their eyes.

It had been her idea to take them to a preview. A formal meal would be a minefield: where would they go? Somewhere easy and informal, obviously, but… high-profile like Carluccio’s or the Bluebird, or really local and undemanding. And then the former might seem like trying too hard, the latter like selling them short and not bothering much. And then it would be a minefield as well of silences and studied manners. If it had just been Amy, then maybe they could have gone shopping; although what self-respecting fifteen-year-old would want to go shopping with someone of… well, knocking on forty, and where on earth could she take her? And would she buy her lots of stuff, which would look like trying too hard, or not anything at all, which would look mean?

Not shopping, then. Anyway, they were all coming together, the three of them.

And then the tickets arrived for a new comedy smash hit, and that seemed too good to be true. She was sent two, asked for two more. The show was for early Friday evening, which was ideal, really; they could just go for a pizza afterwards, the ice broken by laughing-hopefully-and if it was going really badly, just a coffee at Starbucks and then Alex could take them home.

She chose what to wear with as much anguish as if she was going to meet the Queen or Brad Pitt. Both of whom would actually have been easier, she thought. In the end she settled on a short black skirt and polo shirt, and a leather jacket. Any hint of cleavage seemed a bad idea; the skirt was shortish, but that was all right. She initially put on pumps, but they looked wrong and frumpy, so she slightly anxiously changed into some Christian Louboutin high heels. She removed her red nail varnish, and wore much less eye makeup than usual.