Made in Heaven (10 page)

‘What about Isis?' Joss had asked her.

‘Adrian adores her,' she'd answered.

‘Does she love him?'

‘No, but she likes him well enough. And what she'll really love is being a bridesmaid.'

Her mother had smiled the enigmatic smile that meant
I'm going to let you get on with your life and not say a word
. But surely, now that she'd met Adrian, she'd have to admit how perfect he was. As soon as she's feeling
better, Zannah decided, I'll ask her what she thinks of him. How could anyone not love him?

*

Some people had a gift for picnics. They managed to assemble food in fancy wicker baskets, and it wasn't just cheese-and-pickle sarnies but devilled chicken legs or perfect little meatballs, ciabatta rolls, dainty salads drizzled with the kind of oil you had to drizzle, olives straight from the slopes of a Greek mountain and fruit that looked as though each piece had been individually hand-picked. The wine was cold. There were proper knives and forks. Even the wasps that hovered politely near such feasts seemed posher than your average insect. No one in our family, Emily thought, has such a gift. Zannah had no imagination when it came to sandwich fillings and therefore there were no pleasant surprises or exotic combinations to be found when she had prepared the food. Emily was equally useless, getting into a panic and packing too much of one thing and not enough of another and forgetting to put in napkins or something to drink.

Cal, though, was a dab hand at the Supermarket Picnic. They'd just been through M&S like three whirlwinds, scooping up a combination of innovative sandwiches, small tubs of Mediterranean-type salads, packets of biscuits and crisps (
Healthy eating?
said Cal.
Naaah, you can get that at home any time
) and a selection of fruit juices and smoothies in magical flavours like mango and strawberry and banana.

Now they were on Wimbledon Common hunting for a good place to sit and eat what they'd bought. Isis had run a little ahead and Cal turned to Emily. ‘What
did
go on yesterday, Em? Zannah was being a bit tight-lipped, or was I imagining it?'

‘Nothing much, actually. Or I don't think it was anything. Ma went white and funny at one point and left in a bit of a hurry. She got Pa to drive her home. I
don't know what was wrong with her. She said it was a migraine and so did Charlotte but I think it might have been something else. Maybe something to do with the menopause. D'you think it could have been that?'

‘Menopause isn't one of my fields of expertise, I'm afraid. I can tell you all about the rigging of elections in Zimbabwe, but that's no help, is it?'

Emily laughed. Cal was so easy to talk to. Why couldn't Zannah see what she'd lost? She said nothing for a moment, wondering whether she would have been able to forgive his infidelity. She was pondering this when Cal spoke. ‘What are his parents like?' he asked.

‘You're very curious all of a sudden. Why's that? Not still pining after Zannah, are you?'

‘As if!' He spoke with seeming sincerity and almost enthusiasm, but Emily was sure that some kind of hurt, some kind of resentment, was hidden away in him. It just wasn't like Cal to complain about a situation when there was nothing to be done about it. He went on, ‘But there's Isis to consider. Those people are going to be her new family, aren't they? I want to know she's going to be okay. I feel bad enough as it is … '

‘What d'you mean?'

Cal stopped next to a tree and patted it briefly with one hand. ‘This'll do, won't it, for the picnic? Yes. I'll go and get Isis.'

‘No, Cal, come on, you can't stop there. What d'you feel bad about?'

He shrugged. ‘Not being around for Isis all the time. I wish I could be, really, but with the job and everything … '

‘You're a fantastic dad! Isis sees you every week when you're here. She's fine, honestly. You'd be able to tell if she was unhappy, and she isn't, is she?'

‘No, she's okay, I know that. And I also know I see a lot more of her than most divorced dads. Don't
worry. I'm not going to be putting on a Batman suit or anything. And, Em … '

‘Yes?'

‘Will you keep an eye out for me? To make sure she's okay? I think maybe Zannah's a bit … well, taken up with her new man. She might not notice stuff.'

‘She'd notice it if it had to do with Isis. You know that.'

Cal sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose I do, but still. Not being there, you get to worrying. You hear awful things, don't you? About step-parents and so forth. Cruelty.'

‘I'm sure Adrian's not cruel,' said Em, wondering how they'd got here, with her defending her sister's fiancé.

‘I'm not suggesting he beats her or anything, just that … Well, I don't know exactly, but I'll feel better if I know you're on the case.'

‘I'm on the case, Guv!' said Em, saluting him. In the days just after he and Zannah had started going out together, Cal had started a running gag that continued to this day: they pretended they were in a TV police show. Possibly, shamingly, it had all started with
The Bill
, which she still watched sometimes. He called her Sarge and she called him Guv. Silly stuff.

‘That's a weight off my mind, Sarge. I just miss her like mad when I'm not with her … know what I mean?'

He started to run towards his daughter, who was standing some distance away and waving energetically. Emily stared after him. She had no intention of adding to Cal's worries by telling him that Isis missed him too, however
okay
she was. Let him think she was blissfully happy all the time.

*

Maureen Ashton admired Nigella Lawson, and thought of Delia Smith as very reliable but if she had a heroine, it was definitely Martha Stewart, the American lifestyle expert (
a lifestyle guru
, they called her these days) who had spent time in prison. Maureen had been deeply
shocked to hear that her heroine had misbehaved so badly and wondered whether it would be possible ever to take her advice again. Prison was somehow so
low
and
drab
. It had to taint you in some indefinable way. Set you apart from decent society. For some time, she found herself condemning Martha, but after she had emerged into freedom again, Maureen decided to forgive her. In her heart of hearts, Maureen knew that if it had been anyone else at all, she'd have found it easier to shun them, but the fact was, she had missed Martha while she'd been out of action and longed to see what she would do when she returned to civilization.

It must have been strange for her fellow inmates to have such a person imprisoned alongside them. Maureen wouldn't have been a bit surprised to find that the cell Martha inhabited had ended up fit to be photographed for her lifestyle magazine. And now, according to her website, the empire continued as it always had. Maureen loved that word …
empire
 … and in her more private moments daydreamed vaguely about magazines, websites, TV programmes and more with her name on them. She knew it would never happen and, if she was honest, it didn't worry her. Her home was her empire, and she was proud of it.

The morning room, at the front of the house, was where Maureen went to do her thinking. She'd been at her desk since lunch, and her laptop computer was open in front of her, Martha Stewart's face beaming out of the screen. Graham had gone upstairs to his study. He must have a poem brewing, she thought. He'd been rather silent as he ate, and didn't seem to be in a mood to discuss the forthcoming wedding.

Never mind, Maureen thought. Plenty of time for that. She leaned forward and clicked on
wedding suggestions
. There were some rather good ideas here, she told herself. She'd pass them on to Zannah. Pausing for a moment to take a sip of coffee (ordered from Betty's in
Yorkshire, their special house blend which she enjoyed) she looked out of the window admiringly. Declan, her gardener, was good at keeping things trimmed and tidy, and her fuchsias and begonias were satisfyingly pretty: pinks and purples with touches of white here and there. The Clapham garden yesterday wasn't bad, but it was a little straight up and down for her taste. Just a long expanse of grass at the back, with borders on each side, when all was said and done. The dips and slopes of this lawn as it went down to the high fence that kept the road out of sight were more … Maureen searched for the right word …
landscaped
. Also, there was definitely something imposing about a detached house standing at the top of a longish drive that sloped up to the front door. The round gravelled space in front of the porch, with its flowerbed full of rosebushes in the centre of the circle, had been specially designed to ensure that even the largest car wouldn't have to reverse out of the gate.

Maureen liked looking at what she'd done to each room in the house and calculating how far she'd come. The girl she had been when she married Graham would have stood open-mouthed if she'd known that this was how she would end up. Still, she'd never had any intention of remaining in the rather genteel poverty of her childhood. Anyone who felt nostalgic for the fifties should have lived in Grandma Dora's poky little house, with the coal fires that had to be lit in grates, which needed clearing out every day. I was, Maureen thought, just like Cinderella. Everywhere was freezing cold in winter. If you moved six inches away from the hearthrug, that was it: you were in the Arctic. There was a tiny little two-bar electric fire in the bedroom, which meant that most mornings Maureen got dressed under the bedclothes. Her mother and grandmother did nothing but moan and complain all day long, and as soon as Maureen left school, she enrolled at a secretarial
college, determined to get a qualification and a job as soon as possible.

Well, that nearly got scuppered, she recalled now, admiring the Colefax and Fowler fabric of the morning-room curtains, with their pattern of vaguely Japanesey flowers in warm, autumnal colours. She'd been stupid, no two ways about it. She'd fallen in love with Mickey Whittaker (who was a spiv and a layabout, but fanciable with it), and discovered that she had a bit of a gift for sex.

When she became pregnant with Adrian, Mickey said he'd marry her, but even while she was totting up how to afford the dress she coveted, he'd disappeared from their town and from her life as though he'd never existed. All attempts to trace him had failed until two years or so ago, when his sister, who'd been a skinny little slag of fourteen when Maureen knew her, suddenly got in touch (
so she's kept her beady eye on me over the years
, was what came into Maureen's mind, even before she'd taken in the contents of the letter) to announce that her brother Michael had been killed in a car accident in Australia. Maureen thought: typical of him to run away as far as he possibly could without falling off the edge of the world. Then she thought: Adrian mustn't find out. It probably hadn't been the most sensible thing in the world to tell her young son, when he was about five, that his real father was dead, but it made life easier and she took a gamble on Mickey never coming anywhere near her. In his absence, she'd turned him into a kind of hero, telling Adrian tales of his wit, his looks, his charm and on and on. She hadn't realized, while she was building Mickey up, that the little boy was making comparisons with Graham that of course made his stepfather look bad by comparison. Anyone would have seemed inadequate. But it's not entirely my fault, Maureen consoled herself, that they don't get on well. Adrian was jealous of Graham and,
as far as she was concerned, that was natural in a boy who was devoted to his mother. He'd always regarded Graham as a rival.

When Mickey vanished, just before his son was born in 1971, Maureen took stock. Without a husband to support her, she needed a job, and found one quickly in the local hospital, as a receptionist in the outpatients department. After Adrian was born, she left the baby with Grandma Dora because her mother was worse than useless and, anyway, at work herself, and continued to sit behind the desk at the hospital, smiling nicely and being good at filing. Babies, she admitted to herself, were not her thing, even though she worshipped her son. She resolved to be a perfect mother later on, but meanwhile it was important for Adrian that she find a father for him. As soon as she caught sight of the young Graham Ashton, she knew that he was exactly what she'd been looking for.

She wasn't disappointed. She'd been surprised by how quickly she had snaffled him. It was easy, she decided, to pull some wool over a man's eyes, particularly if you could make him feel as though he was rescuing you from some dire fate. She learned very early on that Graham became genuinely distressed when he had to deal with a woman crying. The only thing he knew how to do was put a comforting arm round her, so she made sure that her underwear was pretty and the top button undone on her blouse, then let nature take its course. She loved him, of course she did, but had to admit that that came later, once they were safely married. The only thing she could have found to complain about was that he was a little distant, unless they were actually in bed together.

He'd always been generous, which was fortunate. I couldn't have lived with someone mean, she thought. When they were younger, and he was less busy all the time, he used to come shopping for clothes with her. He'd sit for hours outside fitting rooms while
she swanned in and out, showing off one article after another. Whenever she found it hard to choose, he'd wave a hand in the air and declare, ‘Oh, for goodness' sake, have both. Why not?' which was exactly what she wanted to hear.

He lived inside his head a lot and, given the choice, she'd have preferred a chattier spouse, but you couldn't have everything. He was good in bed, which was important. Mind you, she thought, that's down to me as well. He hadn't had much experience when she first met him. Missionary position. Five minutes from start to finish. The first time they went to bed together she thought: that's not how it's going to be. Not on your nelly. She'd taken charge and taught him, well, everything he was now so good at. To be fair, he was a quick learner. ‘Five gold stars, sweetheart,' she'd murmured breathlessly in his ear within days of their first encounter. ‘Top of the class.'