word with Mummy,’ he explained, having had a discussion with her aunt while Astra went to chatter to Mollie, Aunt Delia’s mongrel dog.
Astra loved her aunt Delia; everything was so calm around her, and with one arm around Mollie Astra waved her father off with the other. She had no inkling then of the almighty row that had taken place between her parents. Which, pieced together many years later, started with her father saying he had merely called to inform her mother personally that Astra wasn’t coming back, and that he was taking her to live with him.
Apparently, for all it was plain that Imogen Northcott had little interest in her child, she cared not at all to have her ex-husband laying down the law. ‘No, you are not!’ Imogen told him bluntly, and in the ensuing ‘Yes I am, no, you’re not’ argument his ex-wife informed him she had made arrangements—without consulting him—for Astra to go to boarding-school.
Carleton Northcott might have argued, but immediately saw that, while he still followed his business interests and much though he had grown to love his daughter, he would not be able to be a full-time father to her. Since his main objective was to get her from under her mother’s roof—perhaps boarding-school might be the answer.
‘She’s only seven.’ He wasn’t ready to give in easily. ‘She’ll be lonely—I’m not having her…’
‘She won’t be lonely. Her two cousins are going with her.’
Cold dislike had been in the air as Carleton Northcott looked at the woman he’d been forced to marry. ‘How long have you and your harpy sisters been planning this?’ he had wanted to know.
Imogen had smiled a triumphant smile as she informed him, ‘From the day she was born. Unfortunately, the boarding-school we’ve chosen wouldn’t take them younger than the age of seven.’
Astra had been happy at boarding-school. All three cousins were born within a month of each other, and, rooming together as they did, Astra, Yancie and Fennia became as close as sisters. Apart from school holidays, they were inseparable.
Astra considered herself the lucky one in that both Fennia and Yancie’s fathers had died, and while Astra, too, sometimes had an ‘uncle’ come to collect her at the end of school term more often than not it was her father who came for her.
Though, because he was busy a lot of the time, her mother demanded that she spend her school holidays at home with her. This, Astra soon discovered, was more to spite her father than from any deep-rooted maternal instinct. For Imogen, married again and now Imogen Kirby, was still carrying on as though she had never said ‘I do’ to Robert Kirby.
Holidays, apart from the time Astra spent at her father’s smart apartment, were in the main fairly awful. She couldn’t wait to get back to school—the same went for her two cousins. Astra clearly remembered how the three of them had met up again after a lengthy summer break and Yancie, having gone through a shocking time, had fervently declared, ‘No, no, no, no way am I going to be like my mother.’
‘That goes double for me and my mother!’ Fennia, having gone through a dreadful traumatic time too, unhappily asserted.
‘And that’s triple for me!’ Astra had chipped in, having been aghast at the way her mother had barely waited for the door to close on husband number two, whenever he left for his office, before she was on the phone to some other man.
Having spent weeks in the same close confines with their female parents, each cousin—aware enough by then, educated enough by then—had been absolutely appalled by what they had seen and heard going on. Absolutely appalled and—afraid!
‘What if we’ve inherited something?’ Fennia exclaimed, aghast. ‘A gene, or something—some promiscuous part of our mothers that makes them the way they are when any likely-looking man pokes his head above the parapet!’
They had gasped in dismayed consternation—it was truly a terrifying thought. And it was there and then, after a lengthy and fearful discussion, that the cousins vowed that they would defy any such wayward gene should it rear its ugly head. They would not be permissive, promiscuous or free-moralled. They would, they pledged, be alert and ready to stamp on any wayward urge that showed itself.
There had been no need to renew that vow two years later when, at the age of eighteen, they had left boarding-school for the last time. It was by then as if written in stone. There would be no string of lovers. Only one man would do. The right man. If they didn’t find him, they would give themselves to no man.
Yancie and Fennia’s ‘right’ men had come along, and they had married them. Astra, having undergone further extensive and in-depth business training, was career-minded and dedicated to her job. She had hopes of going higher and yet higher up the professional ladder. Marriage simply had no place in her plans.
She worked hard, evenings and weekends, and had no time for any kind of a relationship. Which was fine by her—she’d seen enough of her mother’s ‘relationships’ to know that that route wasn’t for her.
Not that Astra was lacking for offers. She had rich red hair, green eyes and, though naturally pale, a dream of a perfect skin. Her figure, while slender, curved in all the right places. And, according to Sukey Lloyd—a girl the three cousins had been at school with—Astra had legs to die for.
While feeling quite friendly on the inside to her fellow man, Astra found she could do little about her cool, aloof-looking exterior. Indeed, she had been completely unaware of her cool and aloof look until a couple of months ago when she’d turned down yet another invitation out from a newcomer to Yarroll Finance, who, peeved at her crisp thank-you-but-no, went away muttering, ‘Now I know why they call you North Pole Northcott!’
She hadn’t thought that had bothered her but, friendly with one of the secretaries who sometimes did some work for her, Astra found herself one day asking her if everybody at Yarroll’s had a nickname.
‘Only the favoured few,’ Cindy had replied. And, on a gasp as she realised what lay behind the question, she exclaimed, ‘You’ve heard?’
‘North Pole Northcott?’
‘Oh!’ Cindy murmured—and, obviously trying to make light of it, added, ‘Never mind—your mum loves you.’
That, Astra considered, was extremely doubtful. She had returned to live with her mother when she had finished school, but that arrangement had never been going to work. Her mother lived an idle life of socialising and greed. Astra—to her mother’s shame—wanted to work for her living.
It was a constant bone of contention between them that Astra, while living at home, was taking a full-time course which involved taking further exams for her chosen career. So that by the time Carleton Northcott decided to retire and move to his second home in the Windward Islands, and suggested that if Astra didn’t want to go to Barbados with him she could move into his London apartment and keep an eye on the place for him, Astra thought it the best idea she’d heard in a long while. Her mother must have thought so too, for this time she raised no objection.
All of which had worked out for the best, Astra reflected as she washed her used dishes at the kitchen sink. Over the last few years, what with being so busy with her job, and Imogen having a full social calendar, Astra rarely saw her mother. Though, dutifully, she would telephone and occasionally her mother—usually when she was having some kind of disaster with her current male, and both her sisters were engaged elsewhere—would pay her a visit.
Which, Astra thought, dragging her mind back to
