‘Be good for Granny,’ Adrian told both his daughters, who smiled adoringly at him as if to imply that they didn’t know the meaning of the word naughty.
‘Bye, Carrie.’ Mel bent to kiss her baby and was rewarded with two fat little hands clinging to her neck and a sloppy kiss planted on her cheek. She was growing so quickly, Mel thought with a pang. It seemed like only yesterday she was a tiny, fragile creature nestling in Mel’s arms, tiny rosebud mouth sucking on her mother’s nipple.
‘Bye, Mummy,’ Carrie cooed in her breathless voice.
Mel kissed her again. ‘I love you,’ she whispered gently.
On the other side of Lynda, Sarah now sat with a stash of forbidden sweets on her lap.
‘Can I have a kiss goodbye?’ Mel asked tremulously.
‘Byee,’ said Sarah, still engrossed in arranging her treasure, ignoring the request.
‘Little scamp, you should kiss your mummy goodbye,’ said Lynda fondly, ruffling Sarah’s hair.
‘Oh, they all get like that sometimes,’ Mel said in a breezy voice. She would not let anyone know how she felt like breaking into betrayed, bitter tears. ‘The new person is always more fun than boring old Mummy.’
‘Give your mum a kiss,’ urged Lynda.
Blissfully unaware of the pain it sent shooting into her mother’s heart, Sarah kept her head down and ignored them all.
‘Go on,’ Lynda said, half-laughing. ‘Isn’t she a little rascal? She hates you going out, Mel.’
Suddenly, Sarah looked up, smiled her breathtaking smile, and blew her mother a speedy kiss with an idle wave of one hand.
‘Good girl,’ said Lynda. ‘Now give me the television zapper and let’s watch our film.’
‘Have a great time.’ Adrian was already making for the door.
‘Yes, be good, darlings,’ Mel added as she walked mechanically after her husband, feeling her disappointment like a physical ache. Sarah hadn’t wanted to kiss her. Blowing a kiss didn’t count, not as a proper kiss. Sarah always kissed her mother goodbye, always…
‘Mel, your handbag,’ reminded Adrian, handing it to her. ‘How could you forget that?’
‘Silly me,’ said Mel, and went out of the door.
‘You’re exhausted, aren’t you?’ Adrian said, unlocking the car.
His wife sank into the front seat. As they sped down the road, she realised that her make-up bag was still on the hall table. All she had with her was a pale lipgloss and mascara. With limp hair and a nearly nude face, she’d look like she was the one with flu. But in her misery, for the first time in her perfectly groomed life, Mel Redmond didn’t care.
The event was being held in the ballroom of a posh five-star city hotel called McArthur’s, and the drinks reception in the foyer was already in full swing when Mel and Adrian arrived. Smiling gracefully, aware she must look like a plague carrier, Mel held Adrian’s hand as they progressed through the throng until they came upon one of Mel’s good friends from work, Tony Steilman, and his wife, Bonnie. They were friends outside of work too, and Tony was a person Mel trusted entirely.
‘Hey, great to see you,’ said Tony, kissing her. ‘You look terrible.’
Bonnie, hugging Adrian, gave her husband an exasperated look.
‘Left my make-up at home in the rush to get out the door,’ Mel shrugged.
‘I don’t have much with me,’ Bonnie said, holding up a tiny evening bag, ‘but you’re welcome to use mine.’
Leaving the two men to talk, Mel and Bonnie made their way in the direction of the loos, but as they turned into the corridor, they almost literally bumped into Hilary and the chief executive, Edmund Moriarty – the very last people Mel wanted to see in her current state.
‘Gosh, Mel, are you ill? A virus?’ asked Hilary, moving a step away because whatever it was, she didn’t want to catch it.
‘No, it’s being a working mum and always having to do everything at a rush,’ laughed Bonnie brightly, the effects of her two glasses of pink champagne loosening her tongue. ‘Honestly, Hilary, I don’t know how she manages it. Our Mel is a regular heroine. I always say to Tony that he’s lucky I’m there at home for him all day so he doesn’t have to come home to the washing, like Mel. It’s great that Lorimar are such supporters of working mums.’ Bonnie’s sweet round face shone with pride at her friend, thinking she’d said the right thing because Mel was incredible, really. Bonnie didn’t know how she’d manage if she had to work as hard as Tony and Mel, and still be a mum.
There was silence.
Mel felt the smile straining on her face. She knew that it was absolutely the wrong thing for Bonnie to say. Edmund did not want to be reminded that Mel was a mother with any other responsibilities. He and Hilary wanted Lorimar to be her first priority and they genuinely didn’t care what sort of hoops she had to jump through in order to do her job. A childless man, the only capricious, demanding and easily bored person Edmund wanted his employees interested in was himself.
Casting her mind about for some explanation that would satisfy everyone and keep her Super Career Woman image intact, Mel suddenly came up trumps. ‘Actually, I was at the gym training and I had to rush home. You know how time flies when you’re working out.’
Bonnie blinked.
‘The mini marathon,’ Mel went on. ‘Lorimar have a group running and, obviously, I want to be there.’
The vision of a gang of his female workers wearing head-to-toe Lorimar merchandise as they ran past waiting photographers clearly appealed to Edmund Moriarty. Health, charity and good publicity – the perfect combination.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Didn’t know we were sponsoring a team but excellent idea. Health is our aim and we are healthy. I like it.’
Hilary, who obviously didn’t believe a word of it, gave Mel a bland stare. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘We can talk about it on Monday.’ And she led Edmund off to schmooze some more.
Mel managed to keep a stiff upper lip for the rest of the night and it was only when they were safely on their way home that she let her guard down.
‘It looked so bad,’ she groaned as they drove out of the hotel’s underground car park. ‘And for damage limitation, I said I was training for the mini marathon, which means I’ll actually have to do it.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’ Adrian was bemused by all of this. So what if Mel had looked tired? She hadn’t been hired to look like a supermodel all the time; she was a normal person.
‘No,’ she snapped, angry at the world and, since the world wasn’t there, Adrian would have to do.
‘You can’t have to run a mini marathon just because you looked tired at a party?’ he went on.
‘Yes I do because I said it in front of the boss and the boss’s boss, so I have to, and it’s all my bloody fault for looking a wreck. I can see why people have eyeliner tattooed on. At least you always look as if you’ve tried.’
Adrian laughed. ‘Come on, love, it’s not that important, really. You’re great at your job, they know that. The rest is rubbish. Who cares about how you look?’
‘It shouldn’t matter but it does,’ hissed Mel furiously. ‘How I look does count because I’m a woman and I’ve got kids and I’m on borrowed time. You don’t understand that. You’re a man and nobody’s watching you like a hawk for signs that your family are coming before your job, and that goes for your appearance