‘Course not. It was a joke!’ Mel’s face adopted its best PR executive smile. They both knew it was fake.
‘See you later then, love,’ said her mother. And although she’d never worked in PR, she managed a creditable imitation of her daughter’s smile.
There was no respite at the office either. Mel was snowed under as the company’s magazine, which was sent to all subscribers, was going quarterly instead of biannually, and everyone in the publicity department was being called upon to work overtime. To make matters more tense, there were ominous rumours of huge cutbacks. More work and less money – not a good combination, Mel felt.
Vanessa was under the same pressure and the only time they got to talk was in the morning in the ladies’, where they compared notes on the dismal vibes that were circulating about how the company could Save Money.
‘I was reading a bit in the paper the other day about how most working women do so much first thing in the morning that by the time they actually get into the office seventy-five per cent are knackered,’ Vanessa said one day as she washed her hands and decided that she didn’t have the energy for any other primping.
Mel, applying jet-black mascara to give her tired eyes some definition, almost laughed. ‘Only seventy-five per cent? What sort of medication are the other twenty-five on?’
What had added most to Mel’s sheer exhaustion was the fact that Sarah wasn’t sleeping well. For several weeks, Sarah had refused to settle on week nights until she was falling with tiredness, and then she slept badly and woke up several times in the night crying. Mel had discussed this with Dawna, the nursery boss.
‘I think I’ve got to the bottom of it,’ Dawna said finally the Friday before the Lorimar charity ball, when Mel was at her wits’ end. ‘She doesn’t want to miss being with you, Mel. When Mummy’s out at work all day, we miss Mummy, don’t we?’
Sarah nodded gravely.
‘That’s all it is. She doesn’t want to go to bed and miss spending time when you’re home in the evening,’ Dawna went on blithely, not realising that she was injecting another hypodermic needleful of guilt into Mel’s heart. ‘I bet she goes down like a lamb at weekends when you’re there all the time?’
Mel nodded. It was true: on Friday and Saturday nights, Sarah always slept well and Mel had tried to convince herself it was because the weekends were packed with activity and she was tired. She should have known it wasn’t that.
Rather than ask for her mother’s help again, Mel enlisted the aid of Adrian’s mother, Lynda, to babysit on Saturday while she and Adrian went to the ball. Lynda was always thrilled to be asked, though that didn’t happen often. This was partly because Mel didn’t want to seem to take advantage of her but mostly because Mel felt that Lynda at some level disapproved of her.
Lynda had come from a generation who’d stayed at home with their children, and even though she never directly said a word to Mel about her job – Lynda wasn’t the confrontational type – Mel felt the vibes anyway.
A youthful sixty-something with a trim figure from playing badminton and the same blonde colouring as her son, Lynda seemed the ideal mother-in-law. She lived far enough away not to be dropping round all the time and, although she’d been widowed for several years, she had her own social life and didn’t cling to Adrian. But the odd comment Lynda made gave Mel to feel that she didn’t want her beloved granddaughters brought up by strangers and was suspicious of her granny rival.
‘Melanie, I can’t get over how good the girls are with strangers. Carrie particularly. When my boys were that age, they just weren’t used to people and they’d hide behind my skirt if they met new people,’ Lynda remembered fondly. ‘But the girls, why they’re regular little grown-ups! It must be being at nursery all day.’
Mel had ground her teeth at that one.
‘She didn’t mean anything by it,’ Adrian protested. ‘She’s only saying…’
‘I know,’ said Mel tightly. The memory of her mother-in-law’s last comment: ‘You career women! I don’t know where you get the energy from. I wouldn’t have been able to take care of my family and go out to earn a living, I can tell you!’ was still fresh in her mind. If Lynda was only saying, why did it sting so bloody much?
By half-past six that evening, Mel had done all she could with her hair and would have to put her make-up on in the car. The day had been swallowed up with grocery shopping, taking the girls swimming and getting everything ready for Lynda that night.
Sarah had been upset that her parents were going out, and had been miserable with her mother all day. With her tiny heart-shaped face, huge blue and violet eyes and silvery blonde ringlets, she had the look of an enchanting little angel. But the angel-face hid fierce determination to have her own way in everything and, at the age of four and a quarter, she was well on the way to being empress of the Redmond household. Mel had read all the books on how to cope with strong-willed children and had finally come to the conclusion that none of the childcare experts had ever met anyone like her daughter.
At least swimming had tired her out, Mel thought, rapidly pulling on her long black evening dress, the one that could almost go to the ball by itself, it had been to so many work parties. Standing in the pool, holding Carrie up, had tired her out too. Downstairs, Beauty and the Beast was in the video, ready to go. Two chicken breasts in garlic and wild mushroom sauce sat in a dish on the kitchen counter with a bowl of baby potatoes beside them, waiting to be warmed up for Lynda’s dinner. A joint of lamb was marinating in fresh rosemary and olive oil in the fridge for tomorrow, because Lynda stayed over till the following evening if she babysat and she was partial to a proper Sunday dinner. The spare bed was freshly made up with lilac sheets and Mel had even managed to iron the duvet cover, something she didn’t do for herself and Adrian. The soft sheets on Sarah’s bed and on Carrie’s cot had been changed, and all their favourite cuddly toys were lined up in their correct places. Mel had left the thermometer and the children’s paracetamol on top of the bathroom cabinet, too high for the children to reach but where Lynda could get them in an emergency, and the phone number of the local doctor and the venue for tonight’s party were both written in big writing – Lynda was half blind without her glasses – beside the phone.
Surely Lynda would have no excuse to think that Mel’s going out to work meant the family suffered.
‘We’re going to have a lovely time tonight,’ Lynda cooed to her two grandchildren, who sat snuggled up beside her on the couch, cosy in their pyjamas and ready for fun with Granny Lynda.
Lynda had brought sweets with her, the sort of sugar-laden confections that were banned in the household because they made both children hyper. Mel knew she couldn’t say anything.
Adrian, looking less pale, walked in finishing a biscuit. There was dinner tonight but what with the drinks reception first, who knew when they’d get a bite to eat. He was wearing a black fine wool suit with a silvery grey shirt that brought out the blue of his eyes. He looked great. ‘Will you miss Daddy?’ asked Adrian, quickly scooping Sarah up from the couch and turning her upside down, a game she’d loved since she was a baby.
‘Yes,’ giggled Sarah, trying to pull her long fair hair away from her face.
‘No, really?’ demanded Adrian, bouncing her up and down.
‘Yes!!’ she squealed with delight, loving being bounced. She had no fear of anything, Mel knew.
‘Me, me!’ yelled Carrie, her fat baby cheeks rosy with excitement. She looked like a mini version of her sister, without the stubborn chin.
More like our side of the family, Lynda said sometimes, and Mel took that to mean the stubborn streak in Sarah had come from her and was, therefore, not approved of.
‘We should go,’ Mel said automatically.
The fun seemed to stall for a moment. Sarah, still upside down, gazed at Mel with those knowing eyes