In fact, come to think of it, hadn’t Josie invited her over later that evening if she had nothing on? Faye reached for her mobile and scrolled down until she found Josie’s number. That she might smudge her nail varnish in the process didn’t matter one jot.
Miranda Cutler pressed hard on the accelerator of her BMW convertible as she sped along Buttersley’s narrow country lanes. With the roof down, the cool October evening air whistled through her hair. She closed her eyes, wishing it would whip away all thoughts from her head. When she opened them again, she found the car hurtling towards a high stone wall. Miranda jammed on the brakes and pulled over onto the grass verge, her heart thundering. What the hell was she doing? She could have killed herself. Not that anyone would have cared. Herself included. An impromptu death would at least offer one escape route from the hideous predicament she found herself in. A hideous predicament entirely of her own making. She ran a hand through her hair and heaved an almighty sigh. How could she have been so stupid? She was thirty-seven, for God’s sake, not seventeen. She’d been around the block enough times to know how these things worked. And having unprotected sex with her daughter’s tennis coach, who also happened to be her best friend Lydia’s toy-boy lover, was definitely not on the list. But six pregnancy tests could not be wrong. So, the burning question now was what to do about it. The answer required minimal consideration. She had only one option. A termination. But where? She couldn’t go to her GP in Buttersley. She’d have to go private. Somewhere she could be completely anonymous. Somewhere like … London. And she wouldn’t tell a soul. She’d make out it was a shopping trip – a totally spontaneous one to avoid Lydia inviting herself along.
Miranda leaned forward and rested her head on the leather steering wheel. God. Just concocting the plan exhausted her, never mind actually implementing it. And, despite intending to keep the whole sorry business to herself, there remained the ordeal of facing Eduardo and Lydia, and, more importantly, her own husband, Doug, while pretending everything was perfectly fine.
Just thinking about Doug caused Miranda’s heart to sink. Not that theirs was a conventional marriage. Nor was Miranda’s a conventional life. And certainly not a straightforward one. From a young age, things had been complicated and, even after all this time, she could still recall, as if it were yesterday, the precise day the complications began …
‘Well, I never,’ declared her dad one morning, bowling into the kitchen in his bus driver’s uniform.
‘What’s the matter, love?’ asked Miranda’s mum, frying sausages on the gas cooker.
Her dad wafted the letter in his hand. ‘Apparently I’ve been left an inheritance.’
At the kitchen table, in the navy-blue skirt and sweater which compiled the uninspiring uniform of Jarrow Comp, thirteen-year-old Miranda whipped up her head from her teen magazine. ‘An inheritance, Dad? But we don’t know anyone who’s died.’
Her father plumped down on the chair opposite hers, his kind, round face flushed. ‘Well, actually I do. Vaguely. It’s my Aunt Maud – your grandad’s youngest sister. She emigrated to Australia in the 1960s. I remember Dad organised a leaving party for her and Maud turned up in a dress with kangaroos printed all over it. She was a funny old soul. Always wore bright orange lipstick. Never married. Probably as a result of the lipstick. But, according to this letter, she passed away last month and, as her only surviving relative, she’s left everything to me.’
‘Goodness,’ gasped Miranda’s mother, momentarily neglecting the sausages. ‘Does it say how much “everything” is?’
Her father shook his head. ‘No. I have to make an appointment with the solicitor to “be furnished with full details”. I’m on an early finish today so I’ll see if they can fit me in this afternoon.’
Miranda couldn’t concentrate at school that day. Not a particularly unusual occurrence. Her ambition stretching no further than a two-mile radius of her home town, she could see no point in equations, essays and experiments, her only interest in the scholarly world being purely of a social nature.
Shuffling along to their first class, Miranda related news of the inheritance to her best friend, Tina.
‘Oh my God,’ Tina gushed. ‘What if it’s millions? You could buy one of those really posh houses on the new estate. They’ve got bidets and everything. And you could go abroad for your holidays. America. That’s where I’d go. On Concorde.’
Miranda giggled. She hadn’t really thought about moving before. She liked their house. It was only a semi on the council estate, but it was lovely and cosy. And as for going abroad for their holidays, she’d never given that much consideration either, always looking forward to their annual family jaunt to Skegness. But she decided to play along with Tina just the same. ‘If it is millions, I promise I’ll take you to America on Concorde,’ she said.
Tina’s heavily made-up eyes grew wide, her mind evidently awhirl with possibilities. ‘And you know what else we could do? Go and see Duran Duran. They might even let us backstage if we tell them you’re a millionaire.’
Hmm. Now that was something that did appeal to Miranda. Very much. Excitement began fizzing in her stomach. And so the day continued, maths, biology and history completely passing them by as she and Tina concocted increasingly elaborate schemes of how to spend the inheritance – which grew larger with every passing hour. By the time Miranda arrived home later that afternoon, she thought she might burst with anticipation.
‘Well?’ she asked breathlessly, dumping her school bag on the floor. ‘What did the solicitor say?’
‘You’re not going to believe it, sweetheart,’ gushed her mum. ‘I still can’t take it in.’
‘Is it millions?’ pressed Miranda. ‘Can we go to America on Concorde and take Tina?’
‘Woah!’ said her dad, chuckling. ‘Come and sit here beside me, love.’
Miranda joined her father on the worn brown sofa.
‘It’s not millions,’ he informed her. ‘And there’ll be no jetting about on aeroplanes. Given that it’s money we wouldn’t have otherwise had, your mum and I have decided not to waste it on anything frivolous, but to spend it on you. To invest in your future.’
Sensing, by her dad’s earnest tone, that this ‘investing’ would also not include tickets to Duran Duran, panic began nibbling Miranda’s innards.
‘We’re going to use the money to send you to a better school.’
Miranda’s heart skipped a beat. Her mouth grew dry and for a few seconds she thought she might pass out. But perhaps she hadn’t heard properly. ‘A … a better school?’
‘That’s right, love.’
Miranda shook her head in an attempt to clear it. This was becoming surreal. Were they really having this conversation? ‘B … but what’s wrong with the Comp?’
‘Far too much, in our opinion,’ huffed her mum. ‘That school’s been going downhill for years. And now we have the money to get you out of there, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We want to give you the best start in life we can, sweetheart. Send you somewhere that will bring out your potential. You’re a clever girl and I don’t want to see you wasting your life working in the factory like me.’
‘We obviously need to do a lot more research,’ her dad ploughed on. ‘But the solicitor has recommended the school his own daughters went to. It’s called Briardene in Derbyshire.’
Miranda spotted a glimmer of hope. ‘Derbyshire? But I can’t travel to and from there every day.’
‘You won’t have to,’ said her mum smugly. ‘It’s a boarding school, so you’ll be living there. It’ll be a fantastic experience. Just like something out of Enid Blyton.’