SUE WELFARE

Fallen Women

Dedication

This book is dedicated with love to all the usual suspects, in particular Susan Opie at HarperCollins, Maggie Phillips at Ed Victor, and Mike Bell in Oakington, but most of all to my mum, who – with her impeccable sense of timing – managed to break her ankle three months after I began writing this book … although as yet there are no signs of her trading my father in for a toy boy.

Epigraph

‘May you live in interesting times …’

An ancient Chinese curse

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

About the Author

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

‘So, how tall do you want this dream man to be then, Chrissie?’ Kate scanned down the form on the computer screen, her face blank with concentration.

‘You can specify height as well? Jesus,’ said Bill, who’d been helping fill in Chrissie’s profile. He popped the top on another can of Bud. ‘And there’s you girls always telling us that size doesn’t matter.’

He said it in a sly, sarky way, which made Chrissie and Kate both turn round to give him a withering look. Grinning, he held up his hands in surrender, while Kate’s attention moved back to the screen.

‘Okay, so what have we got here? 5′ to 5′5″, 5′6 to 5′8″, 5′9″ to 6′00″,’ Kate read, ‘small, medium or large. Mr Right comes in several handy sizes apparently.’

‘Not in my experience he doesn’t,’ said Chrissie bitterly. She was half way through her second large glass of Archers and orange juice, the glow from the screen picking out cheekbones that only appeared when she was seriously depressed. Leaning over Kate’s shoulder, she peered myopically at the what are you looking for wish list. ‘Or over 6′4″? Good God no, I’d have to take a stepladder out with me every time I wanted a snog.’

‘Up to about 6′?’ suggested Kate.

Chrissie nodded.

‘How about hair?’

‘I’m getting bored with this,’ whined Bill. ‘It’s Friday, end of the week. I want to – to …’

They all looked at him.

‘What?’ snapped Chrissie. ‘Cut loose? Get lucky? Get laid? What did happen to What’s-her-name anyway?’

‘Oh, meow. Did you ever get that job in personnel?’ Bill growled right back.

‘No, I’m still flogging frocks; they decided I wasn’t fit to be let loose on real people.’

‘Hair,’ Kate said, attempting to whip them in.

‘Is that a straight choice between without or without?’ asked Joe, Kate’s husband, who had been watching the three of them. He ran his hand back over a crew cut that couldn’t quite disguise the fact he hadn’t got an awful lot of hair left.

Joe had been idly picking out a riff on the guitar in his lap, making out he wasn’t at all interested in what was going on. Since Kate first knew him Joe had constantly doodled with music; living with Joe was like having your very own incidental music, a soundtrack to all life’s little ups and downs.

‘What is that?’ said Bill, taking a pull on the beer. ‘Fleetwood?’

Joe shook his head. ‘Unfortunately not. It’s a jingle for a margarine commercial that I’ve been working on for one of Kate’s clients.’ He picked at the strings again, with more determination this time, transforming something sensual and bluesy into a hayseed cartoon sound. ‘Why don’ all you good folks rush down to y’local convenience store and buy our delicious yella spreadable fat,’ he mugged in a southern-style deep-fried accent.

‘Yes, very nice. Now about hair,’ Kate said impatiently, dragging everyone’s attention back to the task in hand.

‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ Joe snapped peevishly. ‘I’m not a bloody expert on cyberdating. What does it for you in the hair department, Chrissie? Bald, a mullet, football boy perm? Early Jon Bon Jovi?’

Kate glared at him, not that it did a lot of good.

It was Friday evening in early summer in a semi-detached off a little side street on the Muswell Hill Road. Kate’s home was a mix of tasteful and cosy, cream walls hung with good prints, generous chairs and sofas upholstered in autumnal shades of orange and reds, the whole place dotted with plants. It was a house that encouraged you to lie back and linger

Tonight the whole place was full of the smell of tikka masala and Bombay potatoes. The supper party was a cheering up, new start, relaxing after a long rough week kind of an evening – or at least that was what Kate had in mind when she’d invited them round.

The four of them were sprawled around Kate’s office while Kate and Joe’s two boys were watching TV and creaming assorted life forms on the Playstation upstairs.

Working from home was a mixed blessing. Under normal circumstances the office was the holy of holies. Kate worked very hard to maintain a boundary where domestic life stopped and earning a living began, in case clients thought it implied a lack of professionalism, but tonight, for Chrissie, who was currently getting over some heartless bastard who had cut her up, made her cry and generally messed her around just three short months after being declared Mr Right, she was prepared to make an exception.

When she wasn’t patching up her best friend’s love life, Kate freelanced for a PR agency, which always sounded glamorous but these days mostly seemed to involve writing advertorials, press releases and recruitment stuff, helping to co-ordinate the odd trade show, and generally keeping her clients out there in the public eye. It paid well enough, though, and meant that Kate had been able to work from home since the boys were small. There were just about enough jollies, freebies and days out to make sure it was, if not exactly exciting, then at least never truly monotonous.

So, Friday night; Kate was on the computer while in one corner of the office Joe was lolling in her new incredibly uncomfortable ergonomically-designed swivel chair that had cost an arm, a leg and a kidney. Chrissie was grazing through the munchies on top of the filing cabinet, eyes firmly on the screen, while Bill was propped up alongside her drinking a beer.

Chrissie, still mulling over the hair question, scooped up another handful of Bombay mix. ‘As long as they haven’t got any on the palms of their hands. Oh and no rugs, toupees, knits, weaves, transplants or comb overs either. What’s that?’ She pointed to a box on the screen. She wasn’t wearing her contacts because crying constantly and rubbing her eyes had made them unbearably sore and Chrissie was way too vain to wear her glasses out of the house, which was why Kate was doing the typing.

‘It’s a sample ad from the RomanticSouls.com web-site. A little taster of the delights on offer once you’ve signed up. “Adam X is 45, 6′, tanned, with his own business, he likes to work out, eat out, go sailing at weekends and enjoys the theatre. With his own holiday home in the south of France, he’s looking for …”’

‘Whoa,’ said Chrissie, grabbing Kate’s arm. ‘That’ll do very nicely, thank you. Can you just wrap him up, pop him in the trolley and lead me to the checkout? Is there a photo? What sizes does he come in?’

It was funny, or at least they all laughed – all except Joe.

Before Chrissie had shown up, and Kate was still fluffing the table and sorting the kids out, Joe had come through into the kitchen carrying the wine and a few more beers for the cooler.

‘I wish you’d asked me before inviting people round for the evening,’ he said, levering the fridge door open with his foot.

‘Oh for God’s sake, they’re not people, they’re Bill and Chrissie.’

‘You know what I mean and you know how I feel about Chrissie, Kate. You ought to be doing this computer dating thing when I’m not about. She’s, she’s – Oh, Christ, I don’t know.’

Kate lifted an eyebrow. ‘What, Joe? A bad influence? Trouble? A nasty rough girl? Why don’t you just spit it out and get it over with?’

‘You know that isn’t what I mean – she’s always in debt, credit cards whacked up to the hilt, one man after another. She ought to get herself sorted out. Those boys of hers must wonder what the hell is going on half the time.’

Kate stared at him in astonishment. ‘The boys are great, Joe, you can’t say that. She’s been through a tough time.’

‘Most of which is her own bloody fault.’

Kate paused, about to leap to Chrissie’s defence, and then considered for a few seconds before nodding. ‘Okay, maybe you’re right, sometimes she does weird stuff and makes bad choices – but it doesn’t matter, she’s still my best friend. Come on, we’re really lucky to have friends living so close –’

‘It’s your country roots showing. Kate, getting on with the neighbours is not what Londoners do best,’ Joe sniffed. ‘So, you really think you ought to be doing this?’ He picked up the sheet of paper where Kate had jotted down lonely hearts web-site addresses from an article she’d been reading in the Mail.

‘I’m not doing it, Chrissie is.’

Joe pulled his world famous don’t-prat-with-me face. ‘You know what I’m saying here, Kate. This is like giving a psychopath a loaded gun.’

At which point the doorbell had rung. Kate went to answer it to get away from Joe, and met Bill and Chrissie standing on the doorstep, each of them clutching a bottle of New World red.

‘You’re not trying to fix me up with Bill, are you?’ asked Chrissie suspiciously, eyeing him up and down. He was looking particularly tasty in faded jeans and a black tee-shirt, a well-worn leather jacket hooked on one finger slung over his shoulder.

Kate grinned, kissing first one and then the other. ‘Good God no, I like you both far too much to inflict you on each other. Come on in. Supper won’t be very long. Joe’ll get you a drink.’ And once he had, they had all crocodiled off to Kate’s office.

‘Maybe I should order one as well, get something with a little more get up and go?’ Kate said, throwing Joe a sideways glance. Since they’d arrived he’d been concentrating on playing his guitar, sulking, picking his nose and drinking his beer. Looking up, he grimaced in a way that implied Kate really shouldn’t push her luck.

‘Maybe I ought to have a look myself,’ he replied.

‘Maybe you should,’ Kate snapped right back. ‘If you think you could find some other mug who’d put up with you.’

Currently they were slap bang in the middle of one of Joe’s moody tortured artist phases. It was always the same when he’d got a well-paid bread and butter job that he considered a piss-take of his musical talent. Maybe, Kate thought, staring him out, willing him to look away first, under the circumstances it ought to be bread and margarine. But whichever it was he’d given her the whole soulless artless world speech earlier in the day, the one about how great men have always been paid peanuts for artistry and magic and mega-bucks for popsy-pink cute commercial drek. How he was worth more than this creatively, far more. Not that he was planning to turn the margarine commercial down, obviously.

‘Can you pair finish your row later?’ snipped Chrissie, ‘I’m famished.’

‘Just a couple more questions,’ said Kate

‘Age?’

‘Over thirty-five and under fifty, own teeth, and nothing that unscrews at night. I’ve only ever sent off for books and CDs, till now,’ Chrissie paused for effect. ‘Do these guys come with a no-quibble guarantee?’

‘Only if you haven’t tampered with the packaging,’ said Kate.

Across the room, Joe snorted.

So they finished off the questions and Kate nipped out to check on the food, while Bill checked the form through.

Joe followed Kate into the kitchen. ‘This is totally and utterly crazy,’ he hissed, pulling another beer out of the fridge.

‘What is?’

‘What do you mean what is? She’s got crap taste in men. She’ll end up picking some nutter and we’ll be the ones sitting up till three in the morning listening to her going on and on about how bloody awful he is to her.’

‘You mean, I will,’ Kate said, pushing a thick tendril of dark red-brown hair back behind her ear. She kept it long even when it was fashionable to have a crop or a bob. Naturally wavy, her hair framed a gamine face and huge grey eyes. Handsome rather than pretty, Kate Harvey had a face that lingered in the mind like a tune. A sensual bluesy tune that is, not popsy-pink cute commercial drek.

‘Well, don’t say that I didn’t warn you. You know what she’s like.’

‘And exactly what am I like, Joe?’ Chrissie said, right on cue, as she stepped in to the kitchen behind him.

He spun round, reddening furiously. ‘I was just saying you need to be careful with this dating stuff, meet somewhere public. We’ve all read things in the papers.’ He was speaking fast, the words crisp, sharp and defensive. ‘Don’t give them your address or phone number. You don’t know who they are, they could tell you anything. Anything at all.’

Nice recovery, Kate thought, stirring the curry.

Chrissie lifted her eyebrows. ‘Oh right, and so real live men, talking face to face, always tell you truth, do they, Joe?’ She poured herself another long shot of Archers.

‘No. You’ve got to be careful, that’s all I’m saying.’

Chrissie rolled her eyes heavenwards as if to say she didn’t need nannying by anyone, least of all Joe. ‘How long till we eat?’

‘Few more minutes,’ replied Kate.

Back in the office, at the computer, Bill was still reading through Chrissie’s application form. ‘Do they have women on here as well?’ he asked, as Kate and Chrissie came back in.

‘Uhuh, in fact just about anything your pretty little heart desires.’ Kate slipped back into the seat as Bill vacated it and moved the cursor across to one of the menus.

‘Here you are, darling, no need to go without, what are you looking for? Male, female, bisexual, gay, lesbian, transsexual, transvestite. If you can’t find anything you fancy there, Bill, they’ve also got a category “Other, please specify”.’

‘Sweet Jesus.’

‘You want to knock yourself up a profile while we’re here?’ Kate asked with a grin

‘Not at this precise moment, no.’

‘So did we miss anything out?’ Kate enquired, glancing back at the screen.

‘Do you only want to see profiles of members with photos?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Chrissie, who was on a roll now. ‘I’d like to see who it is I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.’

Joe shot Kate another warning glance.

‘I’d take a chance if I were you,’ Bill was saying, ‘looks aren’t everything.’

‘Presumably that’s something you’ve learned from personal experience, is it, eh, Bill?’ said Chrissie.

‘Ouch,’ Kate said. ‘Saucer of milk, for this table please.’

The two of them enjoyed needling each other so much, although it always seemed to Kate that it wasn’t so much a fancying thing, more that they were both desperate to out-clever each other.

When he first moved in to their street she and Chrissie had suspected Bill was gay, for no other good reason than he was tall and dark-haired, softly spoken, nicely preserved and kept himself in good shape. He was a photographer, which kind of fitted the profile.

Then one summer, when the kids were smaller, they had invited loads of friends over for a barbecue and Bill had been included somewhere along the line. Half a dozen drunken musos jamming away at the bottom of the garden, picking out Neil Young tunes under a starry sky, lots of very right-on conversation and barefoot women cradling sleeping babies and wine glasses, rocking buggies, sitting around putting the world to rights; it had been a good evening.

When the party was whittling down to the well-known, well-loved hardcore, Bill had had a huge row with some little blonde bird, who stood in the middle of their patio, hands on hips, letting off a great tirade of abuse.

Seconds later they’d all watched Bill leg it out of Kate’s garden like a rat up a drainpipe, bolting back to his house, vaulting over the back fence, although unfortunately the little blonde had seen him go and hared down the alley to cut him off.

‘You bastard, Bill, you think you can just screw me and throw me out, do you? I’m not like your other women. You bastard! Talk to me. Talk to me. Bill? Bill? Let me in. Let me in. I love you, I love you,’ she had wailed, all bottle blonde hair, sun bed tan and white stilettos. So, definitely not gay then.

Everyone at the party was totally enthralled and shuffled out into the street with their drinks to watch the performance. By this time the little blonde was hammering on the front door and then began throwing handfuls of gravel up at the window. When that didn’t work and Bill didn’t come out, she’d thrown a milk bottle and then another one, followed by his precious red geraniums in their terracotta pots, until the front steps and the light well outside the basement window were totally covered in shards of glass and bits of pot plant. Then she had thrown something else, something bigger, that had smashed the main pane in the bay window at street level. Finally, exhausted and wild with frustration, she had burst into tears, jumped into her car and driven away, tyres screaming, horn blaring. When Bill came out a few minutes later, looking sheepish and scarlet with embarrassment, everyone had cheered furiously.

Kate glanced up at them; she and Joe and Bill and Chrissie went back a long way. Although Bill’s taste in women didn’t appear to have improved significantly over the years.

‘Play nicely, you two. Just because Bill’s latest woman was gorgeous but – but …’ Kate winced; it was too late to pull out of the dive where she was headed. ‘Is there any way I can put this nicely?’

‘No need to pull your punches, she was decorative but deeply, deeply dumb,’ said Bill, taking another slurp of his beer. ‘Which was a real shame, because she was a lovely girl, but what I’m really looking for is a good woman. No, make that a great woman. Someone you don’t have to explain the punch line of every joke to. It was bloody terrifying being with someone so young, she treated me like this heroic super stud, someone who knew everything, in and out of bed, someone who had all the answers.’

‘Oh right, that’s it, rub it in, why don’t you,’ said Joe.

‘No, I’m serious. It was flattering being picked up by someone like her but not once I realised she was looking for a father figure. It was bloody awful, I totally felt responsible for her,’ and then he grinned, ‘although actually I thought that Chrissie was talking about me, not my choice in women. Anything else we have to do before we send off Madam’s application?’

Kate glanced back at the screen. ‘Not really, we just need a pseudonym now.’

‘Oh, this should be fun,’ said Joe in a voice that suggested it would be anything but.

‘How about Vulnerable Venus?’ suggested Bill after they’d tried out a few rude ones and a few clever ones and a few downright daft ones.

‘Oh please,’ said Chrissie, pulling a face.

‘It’s got a ring to it,’ said Joe.

‘And you can always change it later,’ said Bill. No one liked to say it but Chrissie’s laughter was getting more brittle with every passing second, it was time to wrap this up and eat, and so that’s what Kate typed in. ‘Vulnerable Venus.’

‘You don’t think this is a bit sad?’ Chrissie said, just as Kate was about to press ‘send’.

Bill shook his head. It was a very definite gesture. ‘It’s only another way to meet people. But like Joe said, just be careful. Then again falling in love is about chemistry and attraction and all that stuff you can’t possibly define on your shopping list.’

Kate looked at Bill and laughed, ‘Ohhhhh, my God, you are such a soft touchy feely bunny, Bill. It’s such a terrible shame you pair don’t fancy each other.’

And then Joe snorted, put his guitar down, and said. ‘And let’s face it, they can’t be any worse than the prats and no hopers that’s she’s picked up before.’ Before Chrissie could react, he continued, ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake, let’s go and eat. I’m starving,’ and so they did.

Later everyone was sitting around the kitchen table when they heard the phone ring. Nobody moved.

After three more rings it stopped and the hall door swung open.

‘Mum, it’s for you.’

‘Can you take a message?’ Kate said to Danny.

‘They said it’s really urgent.’

It was around nine o’clock, maybe half past. Half way through supper.

‘Nothing is that urgent. I’m not planning to deliver anything anywhere for anybody tonight,’ Kate said.

‘So, you want me to tell them that then, do you?’ snapped Danny. It was one of those family face-off moments. Danny looked a lot like Joe but with more hair. Same attitude.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, mother and son, and then Kate got to her feet. Clients really don’t like to be told the truth. ‘No’ does not appear anywhere in the Client-English dictionary. ‘Actually I’m working on it at the moment. I’m just waiting for agency to email more copy, more images, more bullshit,’ are just fine. Acceptable. ‘No’ is strictly a no-no.

‘Excuse me, folks, won’t be a minute. Bloody clients,’ Kate mumbled under her breath.

Except that it wasn’t a client. It was her little sister, Liz.

‘Kate? Is that you?’ The words were strung as tight as piano wire.

‘Yes, what on earth is the matter? Are you okay?’

‘It’s Mum. She’s had an accident.’

Kate felt an odd nip in her throat and then a great lurch of pain and panic in her solar plexus. ‘Oh God, what happened?’

‘She’s fallen over.’

Momentarily, the pain pulled back like a wave on a beach, replaced by relief, only to return an instant later, gentler but still raw. ‘Fallen over?’ Kate repeated.

‘She was coming home from the shops, I think, and fell down the steps at the back of the house. God alone knows how long she’d been lying there before they found her. It’s terrible. Anything could have happened. I mean, at her age. She’s getting frailer; when was the last time you saw her?’

There was a pause, well larded with guilt and any number of unspoken accusations. Kate leant back against the hallstand waiting for the next salvo.

The whole house smelt of curry. It hadn’t been a bad evening so far, a couple of beers and half a bottle of wine, and even Joe was starting to thaw out a bit.

‘Doesn’t bear thinking about, lying there, all on her own,’ Liz added, in case there was some possibility Kate might have missed the point. There was an even longer pause and then she said, ‘You know what Mum’s like, she won’t ask for help and she certainly wouldn’t ring up to let us know she had a fall. If it hadn’t been for her lodger, I probably wouldn’t have known at all. I told him that I’d ring you.’ Heavy sigh. ‘I wonder whether we ought to have a family conference. I’ve been looking at brochures for sheltered accommodation; if you can find the time to get up to Norfolk, obviously.’

The implication, of course, was that Kate was so busy in the fast lane that she never spared her poor old widowed mother a second thought. Kate glanced across the hall into the kitchen. The door was ajar, framing the supper party. The fast lane looked remarkably like a coffee advert, all low lights and soft autumnal tones. Behind the low babble of voices someone had put Gabrielle’s new CD on the hi-fi as a soundtrack.

‘So where did you say Mum is now?’

Bill was busy uncorking another bottle of red. Joe was holding court. Chrissie was looking pale and interesting.

‘The local hospital. They’re keeping her in for observation overnight. I’ve been over to see her, obviously. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay because of the girls, but she’s in plaster up to the knee and her face looks awful, dreadfully bruised, lots of stitches. It could have been very nasty. I thought you ought to know. I didn’t want to say anything to Daniel, didn’t want to upset him.’

Kate sighed. Presumably Liz had put on her best telephone voice so that he wouldn’t recognise who it was. There was that silence again, the one into which Kate guessed she was meant to leap head first.

In the kitchen, in the lamplight, Joe was rolling a joint while at the same time going on about how bloody terrible the parking was getting. The terrible dichotomy of hippiedom finally meeting middle age.

She stood still for a few moments after hanging up the phone; from upstairs Kate could hear the boys playing – the bass beat of Danny’s music overlaid with the ping-ping of a video game from Jake’s room. Where would they be when they got phone calls like this? Never mind getting married, giving birth, or signing up for a mortgage, the realisation that your parents don’t have the secret of everlasting life is the real ticket into adulthood.

Kate had been totally incredulous when her dad died. How the hell did that happen? How could it happen? He hadn’t even been ill. Part of her was still outraged.

Even after five years, the first thought Kate had whenever she thought about her dad was that he couldn’t possibly be dead, it had to be a trick of the light, he was there somewhere if only she knew where to look. He was just hiding, maybe in the next room, and along with a residual ache of loss was a terrible nagging frustration that he kept giving her the slip.

‘Who was that then?’ Joe asked, topping up his wine. ‘Not one of your clients again? You need to get them to ring in office hours, Kate. I’ve told you before. You’ve got this cosy cottage industry attitude towards business – boundaries, that’s what you need. I’ve always said that if you want people to consider you as a professional you have to –’

‘Actually, it was Liz. My mum’s had an accident. I’m just going to go and put a few things in a bag.’ For some reason saying it out loud made Kate feel shaky and weepy. ‘I ought to go and – well, just go and make sure she’s all right. Keep an eye on her. You know.’

‘You’re not going to drive to Norfolk tonight surely?’ Joe asked incredulously. ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

‘No, I don’t think it can, I’m not sure what sort of state she’s in – and I’ve only had one glass of wine. I’ll be fine. They’re keeping her in overnight. I want to be there for her, sort the place out, pick her up tomorrow. She can hardly come home to an empty house and Liz’s girls are still little –’

‘Of course you’ve got to go,’ said Chrissie, on her feet, instantly sober, and instantly supportive. She was always calm in a crisis, or at least always calm in someone else’s crisis. ‘We can see to everything here, can’t we, Joe?’

‘Well, yes,’ he began more hesitantly. ‘But I’ve got stuff to do; there’s some Yank flying in for a breakfast meeting tomorrow. I need to drop in to the office – I did tell you, Kate – it’s important.’ And then he looked at her. ‘And you said you’d be able to pick my suit up from the cleaners –’ He blew out his lips and shook his head as if all this had nothing to do with him. ‘And what about the boys?’

Kate stared at him.

Joe had polished off several glasses of Merlot. He had a patch of high colour on each cheek, like a Punch and Judy rouge spot, a little flush that only ever appeared in two situations: when he was drunk or in the first throes of post-orgasmic bliss; not something there had been a lot of just recently.

She felt a flurry of annoyance; she needed him to help her and here he was busy passing the buck before it had even landed. Joe returned the stare, obviously expecting her to come up with something that didn’t include him the equation.

Kate looked away first. In lots of ways Joe was a really good man. But recently they had been stumbling through the raw bickering no-man’s-land of some itch or other.

Forty-two and Joe was only just coming to terms with the fact he was never going to be Sting, that writing the odd jingle and helping out with the sound and light systems for corporate dos was probably the closest he was going to get to the big time or the bright lights of Wembley Arena, and that he was unlikely to be asked to guest at an open air concert in Hyde Park because some roadie had spotted him mingling with the hoi polloi, trying to blend in.

It was Kate who found a lot of Joe’s work – the radio jingles, anyway – and who’d introduced him to the guy who ran the light and sound company. They’d met when she was doing a trade show at the NEC in Birmingham and got talking. He had needed someone who knew something about sound, they had needed the money. How was it Kate could feel guilty about that? Because unfortunately somewhere down the line it had turned from a good thing into her fault; Kate felt as if she’d stolen something from Joe.

At the moment things between them were tense for no particular reason that she could define. But they’d been there before and would probably be there again. Kate had no doubt they’d sort it out; on the whole they were good together.

‘Danny is nearly fifteen, for God’s sake, he should be able to get himself and Jake up and stay out of trouble till you get home,’ Kate said coolly.

Joe didn’t look convinced. ‘I’ve got no idea what time I’ll be back.’

Across the table, Chrissie shook her head. ‘Oh please, Joe. This is an emergency. Jake and Danny can come round to mine. Robbie’s at home tonight. They’ll be fine. Now is there anything else you need?’

The question was aimed squarely at Kate but Joe was in like Flynn. ‘Any chance you can pick my suit up from the cleaner’s tomorrow?’

It didn’t take very long or very much to unravel what remained of the evening. Within half an hour Kate had packed a bag and sorted out Joe and the kids.

Chrissie, arms crossed over her chest, gathered a cardigan up around her shoulders. She leant in through the driver’s side window to say her goodbyes. ‘Now don’t you go talking to any strange men, and give me a ring as soon as you get to your mum’s. And don’t worry, there’s nothing here that we can’t handle between us.’

‘Thanks, Chrissie. What on earth would I do without you?’

‘Christ only knows. House train Joe maybe?’

Kate laughed. ‘Give me a break. I haven’t got that many years left.’

Chapter 2

M25, M11, A10: Kate’s parents’ house was in Denham, a small Norfolk market town a few miles inland from King’s Lynn, set on a rise of land high above the black rolling Fens. She could make it home in around two and a half hours, always assuming there were no major hold ups.

Once she was away from familiar streets, Kate stretched and settled herself in for the long haul home. The night seemed unnaturally dark outside the tunnel of lights. It was hard not to yawn. Hard not to let her mind wander. Resisting the temptation to rub her eyes, Kate tried to relax her grip on the steering wheel and settled into the drive.

Less than an hour up the road and already her neck ached with tension and tiredness and an odd nagging fear. Taillights like demon eyes headed away from her into the dark. Kate loathed driving on motorways, nervous of getting so caught up and so tangled in the system that she’d never be able to find her way out again. Which was one of the reasons she told herself, pulling up hard behind some moron with a death wish, why she didn’t get home as often as she would like, why she hadn’t been to see her mum in, in – in – was it months or was it closer to a year? Surely it couldn’t be that long?

Kate pulled a face, trying to add up the time. Work had been crazy, which had been good, they could certainly use the money. The boys had both had flu at Christmas so they hadn’t gone home then, they stayed in front of the TV, sniffing, sleeping and drinking Lemsips, but Kate and her mum had talked a lot on the phone. New Year’s Eve, Kate and Joe had gone to a party in a flat overlooking the Thames with some of the guys Kate freelanced for while Chrissie had kept an eye on the boys. But they always rang each other once a week, most weeks, Kate’s conscience protested. And besides Mum liked her independence; Kate always felt that Maggie – her mum – was busy making a new life for herself. That was it. Her own life. She’d raised her kids and moved on, got herself a part-time job, always sounded really chirpy on the phone. They loved each other but that was no reason to live in each other’s pockets, no reason at all.

Kate squared she shoulders as her argument steadily backed itself up. Re-run over and over again in her head it still sounded like a series of pathetically weak excuses.

The traffic in front slowed to a bad-tempered unpredictable crawl and Kate forgot just how long it was since she had been to see Maggie and concentrated instead on trying to stay focused and not let sleep seduce her.

It wasn’t that her mum ever complained, but Liz did. Frequently. Liz, who was married to Peter who did something incomprehensible in the City and who always did as he was told. Good old Liz, with her three perfect little girls, lived in Norwich, about an hour’s drive away from Denham.

Kate peeled a mint out of the packet on the dashboard. The accusatory voice in her head, the one that berated her for not caring, not ringing or visiting often enough, was hardly the best travelling companion she could have wished for. It sounded an awful lot like her sister on a bad day.

Kate crunched the mint into gravel, tuned in to Radio 4, and let it haul her through the long dark miles while the voice in her head carried on moaning about the play, the book, the news and the price of fish.

Just over two hours later Kate indicated and pulled off the A10 and into Denham. Driving up towards Church Hill, slowing the car to a crawl, she looked out for the landmarks, etched deep on the retina of an older eye. The family house was up in the good end of town, up the long slow rise from the town centre, near the high school and the church. It was a big rambling Edwardian semi, faced with dark Norfolk carrstone and an over-abundance of Virginia creeper.

Kate vaguely remembered her parents struggling to make the move up there – it was a big step up in the world for them, marking some promotion that now, Kate realised, had changed their lives for ever, taking her dad off the shop floor and into management. She remembered the huge battered sofas in the big sitting room covered with Indian throws, and her dad out in the conservatory, rubbing down a table that her mother had found in an auction, remembered the whole make do and mend ethic of people trying to do better for themselves.

Glancing up at the handsome old house, Kate wondered whether Liz was right, whether the time had come to talk about selling up and getting something smaller. It was crazy keeping such a big house for just one person, particularly a person who couldn’t manage. She shivered; had it come to that already? Surely it hadn’t come to that yet?

Pulling into the drive, Kate struggled with the perpetual sense of déjà vu that inevitably preceded her arrival. Was she late? Would they still be waiting up for her? Had she forgotten to do or pick up something important? The sensation was fleeting but always left a peculiar bittersweet aftertaste.

Her car crunched over the gravel. Beyond the arc of the headlights the house was in total darkness. It wasn’t that late, a little before midnight. Here and there in the borders the magnolias glowed creamy white in the moonlight. Kate parked up under the laburnums. Which were poisonous. How many times had Dad told Liz and Kate that? The whole tree, every leaf, every single bud, every last flower just waiting to strike you down dead.

Giving the laburnum a wide berth she locked the car and stretched, feeling the blood creeping back through her body. The night was warm and heavy with the perfume of honeysuckle and night scented stock. Kate drank it all in. On the surface it seemed that nothing had changed; the spare key was there, tucked under the stone cat by the conservatory door where it had been ever since she could remember.

Inside the air was cool and still and smelt of home.

Tick-tick-tick, the hall clock welcomed Kate in. She shut the door and finally felt the tension in her stomach easing. Home. Dropping her bag onto the chest by the hallstand, every sense was suffused by wave after wave of compassion and nostalgia. It seemed like a very long time since Kate had been there. Certainly a long time since she’d caught the house this unguarded, undefended by the bright voices of her mother or her sister and the kids. Pulling off her coat, Kate walked across the lobby and switched on the kitchen light.

‘Who the fuck is that?’ barked a male voice.

Stunned, Kate froze and looked up as the landing light snapped on. Peering over the handrail was a figure, a half-naked man, and behind him, leaning heavily against the doorframe and blinking down into the semi-darkness was her mother, Maggie.

‘I’ve rung the police,’ snapped Maggie, in a tough no-nonsense don’t mess with me kind of voice. ‘They’re already on their way. Stay exactly where you are and don’t do anything stupid.’

‘Mum?’

There was a peculiar little silence, and then Maggie said, ‘Kate, is that you? What the hell are you doing here?’

Which wasn’t exactly the sort of welcome Kate had expected.

‘Liz rang. She said you’d had an accident – she said …’ The words curled up and died in Kate’s throat. Her little sister, Liz, for whom every headache was a brain tumour, every chest pain a heart attack. It suddenly occurred to Kate that maybe it would have been a good idea to have rung the hospital and check on exactly how Maggie was and where she was before hurtling up to Norfolk.

Not that that explained everything.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Kate could see the man on the landing more clearly. He was naked except for a small pair of very white pants. They were tight high-cut cotton pants that did very little to cover his nakedness – rather they enhanced it. Behind him Maggie was wearing a plaster cast to the knee, a dark silky chemise and not a lot else.

Her mother.

Kate took a deep breath and made every effort to rekindle her explanation. ‘Liz said you’d fallen down and broken your ankle and that you were all on your own and had got stitches and – and that she couldn’t stay here with you because of the girls. And …’ Those weren’t necessarily the things Kate really wanted to say, so she stopped. ‘What exactly is going on, Mum, and who the hell is that?’

Maggie didn’t miss a beat.

‘Kate, I’d like you to meet Guy, Guy, this is my eldest daughter, Kate.’

Guy nodded. ‘Hi, I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he said, as if this was the most natural thing in the world, and as he spoke pulled a bath sheet off the banister and wrapped it tight around his waist. He had no hips to speak of; a belly like the underside of a turtle, broad shoulders, what could surely only be a sun bed tan, but no hips. Kate felt that the towel was more to cover her embarrassment than his.

‘I’ll go and put the kettle on, Mags-baby, go and get yourself back into bed. Would you like some tea, Kate?’

‘Er, yes, please,’ she mumbled.

He had to pass Kate on the stairs. He loped. He smelt of something trendy and couldn’t be more than thirty-five if he was a day. And he had been in bed with her mother. Her mother. Kate was very tempted to slap him.

‘Come on up,’ said Maggie, without a shred of the self consciousness or the shame Kate felt she surely ought to be feeling. ‘Why didn’t you ring to let me know you were coming?’

Making every effort to compose herself, Kate said, ‘Because Liz told me that you were still in hospital. Did you really ring the police?’

Maggie laughed. ‘No, no, of course not. You were making such a lot of noise that Guy thought if you were a burglar you were probably thick and might be taken in if we bluffed it out.’ She eased herself back into the bedroom, wincing with every step, and then lowered herself down very gently onto the side of her big feather bed. ‘There’s no way I could have stayed in hospital, it would have driven me crazy, and Guy was here, so they let me come home.’ As she spoke Maggie set about rolling a cigarette.

‘I thought you told me you’d given up.’

Maggie looked up at her. ‘Give me a break, Kate.’

Caught in the lamplight Kate could see that Liz hadn’t been exaggerating about the damage; one side of Maggie’s face was shiny, taut and navy blue with great claret and gold highlights, a row of stitches adding a macabre Frankensteinesque codicil to the fine skin above her eyebrow.

For the briefest of instants Kate caught a glimpse of the woman her mother really was. Maggie Sutherland was small framed and attractive in a handsome rather than pretty way; she had good bones and her hair, styled into a shaggy chin length coupe savage and coloured to a warm glossy chestnut, was thick and wavy and framed a strong jaw line. It was a face shaped by time rather than worn down by it. She watched Kate watching her, ran her tongue along the sticky edge of the cigarette paper and at the same time lifted one perfectly plucked eyebrow.

‘Well?’ she said, picking up the lighter from beside the bed.

‘You shouldn’t smoke.’

‘I don’t, at least not very much these days. And?’

‘What happened – and who is that?’ Kate indicated the stairwell with a flick of the head, unsure what she wanted to ask first, unsure whether she really wanted to hear the answers.

‘Oh, come on, Kate,’ said Maggie, through a rolling boil of cigarette smoke. ‘What do you call them when you’re over fifteen? His name is Guy Morrison and he’s my lover, my companion, and yes, before you ask, he is living here. He’s letting his place while we see if this works out. Kind of a trial run.’

Kate felt her jaw dropping but was powerless to stop it.

‘So that’s who Guy is.’ Maggie stopped talking and concentrated on flinching as she lifted her leg, trying to find a comfortable spot on the bed.

Kate felt her colour rising. ‘Liz told me that you were seeing someone, but I thought – well, you know I was thinking more whist drives, grey hair and driving gloves. Days out in the country with a picnic and a corgi – but he’s, he’s –’

Kate was squirming now. What exactly was it she was trying to say and why was she trying to say it? That Guy was way too sexy? Too young, far, far too good-looking. God, she would have been pleased these days if someone like Guy gave her a second glance, let alone clambered into her bed. Kate glanced back over her shoulder thinking about the way Guy had looked on the stairs; she’d have to make love with the light off and perpetually hold her stomach in. Kate tried to shift the image, while making a sterling effort to nip that particular train of thought in the bud.

Side-stepping what Guy might or might not be, Maggie continued, ‘You and I don’t see much of each other, Kate. We’ve both got busy lives – it’s not always easy to explain things over the phone.’ In contrast to her earlier conversation with Liz it was a statement with not the barest hint of accusation in it. ‘And anyway I assumed you knew. Liz met Guy when she was here at Christmas.’

Oh, Liz would have met him, thought Kate ruefully. How was it Liz knew all about her mother’s fancy man and why hadn’t she rung and told Kate? How could she have kept something like that to herself; Maggie was living with the man for God’s sake.

But her mum was still talking and still looking at her. ‘Who really knows how serious these things are going to be and, Kate,’ she said, taking a long pull on the roll-up, ‘when we get right down to it it isn’t really any of your business who I’m sleeping with, is it?’

Kate flinched and then blushed. ‘But you fell over,’ she said, in a tone that implied that somehow the two events were quite obviously linked.

‘Which was my own fault, which was why I didn’t ring. Guy and I went out to lunch – it was Taz’s birthday – I don’t think you’ve met Taz. She works in the bookshop with me? Anyway, there’s a great new brasserie opened in the high street. They do the most fantastic food and cocktails and we all got there about twelve and didn’t leave until three and I –’

‘Came back here, pissed as a whippet, tripped over her handbag and fell down the steps round the back. Don’t be taken in by all this poor me stuff,’ Guy said warmly. ‘Besides nursing those bruises she’s also got a stonking great hangover. Do you take sugar?’

Kate hadn’t heard him coming back up the stairs. She looked up into his big brown eyes and wished she hadn’t. Guy was truly gorgeous. Worse still, he loved her mother.

He grinned. ‘Actually you look as if you could do with something a bit stronger. I know it must be a bit of a shock but she’s going to be fine. Do you fancy a drop of brandy, there’s some in the kitchen?’

‘No, thank you. Tea, no sugar, will be fine,’ Kate managed in a clipped tone, realising that she sounded uncannily like Liz.

‘Okay.’ He vanished back downstairs and Kate turned her attention back to her mother.

‘Embarrassing, isn’t it?’ laughed Maggie

She could say that again, thought Kate, except Kate was almost certain that she and Maggie weren’t talking about the same thing.

‘I lay there for God knows how long. Guy had gone back to work. When I finally managed to get my act together I rang him on my mobile.’

‘Liz didn’t say anything about you being drunk.’

Maggie snorted. ‘Good God, you think Guy told her?’

Kate looked Maggie up and down, sitting there in her chemise, hair all mussed up, smoking a roll-up, and suddenly – amongst all the other emotions – was really proud of her.

‘Liz told me she thought it was a very good idea your mum taking me in,’ said Guy, returning with a tray. He sounded mischievous rather than cruel. ‘Someone to keep an eye on her, it put Liz’s mind at rest knowing that your mum wouldn’t be on her own at nights.’

This time Maggie giggled.

It was not the kind of giggle you would naturally associate with your mother.

‘It’s a damned good thing it happened today and not next week,’ Guy was saying. ‘I was supposed to be going to Germany first thing Monday morning.’

‘And you still will be. Stop worrying, I’ll be perfectly all right, I’ve already told you,’ Maggie said. ‘I can manage.’ She couldn’t, it was quite obvious, but that didn’t stop her sounding certain.

Guy looked at her. ‘Sometimes I think that Liz is right, you are such a stubborn cow. I’m going to cancel and that’s final.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s only for a few days. I can sleep downstairs if you help me make the bed up in the sitting room. It’ll be fine. I can use the loo downstairs and the shower.’

Kate took the mug Guy offered her and tried not to concentrate on their bickering or ogle Guy’s exquisite body as he clambered back into bed, very gently lifting Maggie’s foot as he did so that she could settle back amongst a great heap of pillows. It occurred to Kate that he had probably carried her upstairs too. Damn him.

Guy pulled the duvet up around them both. He had a tattoo, a dark blue Celtic knot that wrapped itself around his suntanned biceps. Kate looked away because her mouth had started to water and because she knew she was staring.

This was not the natural order of things. Watching them in bed together, Kate had the same kind of feeling in her belly as she had had when she’d found a pile of girlie magazines under Danny’s mattress. It had come as a shock to realise her son might be sexually active; to discover her mother was was totally beyond comprehension.

Maggie was still talking. ‘There are clean sheets in the airing cupboard, sweetheart. You can have your old room. Sorry that I’m not more talkative, but I’ve had a lot of painkillers tonight and I feel really spacey.’

Really spacey? Really spacey? What sort of expression was that for your mother to use?

‘It’s all right, you really ought to try and get some sleep,’ Kate said briskly, gathering her things and her thoughts together. ‘I was planning to stay overnight and then come and collect you tomorrow from the hospital. Maybe hang around if you needed help –’ the words were coming out a touch too jauntily. ‘But I can see that you’re in very good hands. No need for me to stay.’

‘Do you want me to help you sort the bed out?’ asked Guy. ‘I’ve put your bag in your room.’ He made as if to get up again.

‘No, no. I’ll be fine, really I – thanks,’ she said waving him back down. ‘I’ll take my tea into the bedroom. Been a long drive –’ Kate yawned theatrically. ‘It was Liz. You know what she’s like. I wouldn’t have come if she hadn’t … I mean, and there’s Guy, I didn’t know about – well, I just thought …’ the words jammed up in her throat.

Maggie smiled. ‘I’m really glad you did come, Kate.’ Spacey or not, her voice was soft and full of love. ‘Can you stay a day or two? It would be so good to catch up. It seems like ages since we’ve talked, I want to hear all your news. How are the boys? How’s work going? And Joe? I’ve missed you, sweet pea.’

Kate looked from one face to the other and felt tears prickling up all hot and raw behind her eyes, which was all the more disturbing because it was the last thing she had expected. And then she nodded, ‘Maybe, probably, possibly.’ As she got to the door Kate realised she’d promised to ring Chrissie. The question was what the hell was she going to say to her?