She had even managed at one stage to become a partner in a boutique which was about to open. Rowan had been frankly appalled. Where, she had wanted to know heatedly, had Antonia got the money to invest in this chancy venture? Boutiques came and went like April showers, and often their erstwhile owners found themselves facing the Official Receiver.
But Antonia had waved her objections irritably aside. They had backers, she said, people who were not afraid to risk their money on possible success. She was so evasive on the subject that Rowan guessed this unknown backer had to be a man, but she was neither shocked nor disturbed by the knowledge. Her father had been dead for two years now, and Antonia was a man’s woman in every sense of the word.
Rowan herself was still thin rather than fashionably slender, and her brown hair remained as straight as rainwater, and about as interesting, she thought detachedly. Her teeth were straight now, but she still bit her nails on occasion. The chances, she decided objectively, of her getting married before she was twenty-one were remote in the extreme. Her only hope was that Antonia would beat her to it, preferably with someone who could keep her in the style to which she had been accustomed.
This mysterious backer, whoever he was, seemed hopeful. And he must have money to burn if he was prepared to risk it on the prospect of Antonia undergoing some kind of sea-change into a successful businesswoman.
She had waited resignedly for the inevitable crash. Neither Antonia nor her partner, another ex-actress called Alix Clayton, had any real working knowledge of the exigencies of the rag trade. They assumed blandly that they would get by because of their eye for style and colour, and that their friends would flock to support them. As it was, they lasted a bare three months before the sad ‘Closing Down Sale’ notices went up in the window, alongside the announcement that the lease was available again.
Rowan had wondered uneasily how much liability Antonia would have to bear for the failure of the business, but nothing had ever been mentioned on this score. The boyfriend, she decided drily, must be besotted as well as rich if he was prepared to write off that kind of loss. Or maybe he was doing it for tax reasons.
Anyway, Rowan thought as she pushed her key into the door, she’d heard nothing more on the subject, and at least Antonia had been fairly subdued since, with no more wildcat schemes for making her fortune in the offing.
The air in the small living room was thick with cigarette smoke when she entered, and Antonia was lying on the sofa in the act of lighting another from the previous butt.
‘Chain smoking, yet?’ Rowan dumped the heavy shopping bag down on the table.
Antonia surveyed it sourly. ‘What have you got there?’
‘Nothing very exciting,’ Rowan said lightly. She ticked the items off on her fingers. ‘Mince, stewing steak, carrots, onions, potatoes, spring greens …’
‘God!’ Antonia shuddered. ‘You should get a job catering for some kind of works canteen. Well, have fun with your nice mince, sweetie, because I shan’t be here for dinner tonight, thank heaven. I’m going out.’
Rowan sighed. ‘You could have told me,’ she observed with resignation.
‘I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t know myself until an hour ago,’ Antonia returned. ‘And I shall probably be late, so don’t bother to wait up for me,’ she added with evident satisfaction.
Rowan went into the tiny cramped kitchenette and began stowing the meat away in the ancient refrigerator, and piling the vegetables into the rack that stood beside the sink unit. She would make do with a poached egg later, she decided. She did the odd bits of washing up that had been left for her, then made herself a cup of instant coffee and carried it back into the living room. She set the cup down on the table and took her college file out of the bag, together with the reference books she had brought from the library that day.
‘More work?’ Antonia queried without interest. ‘You know what they say – all work and no play …’
‘Makes Jill a dull girl,’ Rowan concluded for her rather bleakly. She’d heard it all before. And she also knew that if she never lifted another finger as long as she lived, it would make her no less dull to Antonia.
‘You ought to get out more – enjoy yourself a little,’ Antonia declared. ‘You could look quite reasonable if you just took a little trouble with your appearance. As it is, no one would dream that you were nineteen.’
Rowan opened one of her books and studied the index with minute interest.
‘I’m not really concerned about appearing in other people’s dreams at any age,’ she remarked rather shortly. She was used to Antonia’s sniping by now, and didn’t let it disturb her particularly. Besides, she knew quite well that Antonia was quite satisfied that she appeared to be much younger than she actually was. It wouldn’t have suited her book at all to have a grown-up stepdaughter; she would have considered it ageing. When they had first moved to this particular flat, Rowan was quite aware that Antonia had informed some of the neighbours that she was her younger sister, and she had never bothered to correct this impression. If that was what Antonia wished people to think, then it was all right with her.
Antonia got up from the sofa and wandered across to look in the long mirror what was fixed to the wall.
‘I’m putting on weight,’ she complained, turning sideways to study herself. ‘It’s all this starchy food we eat. I shall have to go on a salad diet for a while.’
‘Do you realise what salads cost at this time of year?’ Rowan frowned as she tried to concentrate on her reading. It would be more sensible, she thought, to forget about trying to write an essay until Antonia had gone out, but on the other hand, Antonia was clearly in one of her difficult moods and Rowan wanted to avoid an overt row if possible. She shrank from scenes and raised voices, and always had done. Usually if she buried herself deeply enough in a book at times like this, Antonia contented herself with a few shrewish observations on her intellectual abilities and then relapsed into sulky silence.
‘That’s all you seem to think about – the cost of things!’
‘Well, someone has to,’ Rowan said temperately. ‘If we’re careful, we can manage, but …’
‘I’m sick of being careful – sick of managing!’ Antonia’s face was flushed with temper and her eyes were stormy. ‘Cooped up in this damned hole, day in, day out! At least you have that college of yours to go to.’
Rowan had to smile. ‘Well, you could always enrol for a course yourself if you wanted. And you do get out. You go anywhere you want, and you know it. You play bridge each week with Celia Maxwell and that gang and …’
‘I haven’t played with them for weeks.’ Antonia passed her hands over her hips, smoothing away the non-existent surplus.
‘I didn’t know that.’ Rowan gave her a surprised look. Bridge had always been one of Antonia’s passions.
Her stepmother’s lips tightened sullenly. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know. It’s all very well for Celia. When she loses at bridge, all she has to do is stretch her hand out to good old Tom and he’ll pay up without a murmur. She doesn’t realise it isn’t that simple for all of us.’
Rowan laid her pen down and regarded Antonia with startled eyes and parted lips.
‘Toni, do you owe Celia Maxwell money?’
‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact. Quite a hell of a lot, if you must know. I went on playing because I thought my luck was bound to change, only it didn’t. It just got worse.’ Antonia’s tone was bitter. ‘And if you don’t pay your debts in that circle, you’re soon persona non grata.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘And don’t look like that, for heaven’s sake. You must have known I played for money.’
‘I