what you are, Tara. A kept woman.’
Tara had had enough of this. ‘Firstly, there is nothing dirty about my relationship with Max. We love each other and he treats me like a princess. Secondly, Max does not keep me a dirty little secret. We often go out together in public, as you very well know. You used to show your friends the photographs in the paper. Quite proudly, if I recall.’
‘That was when I thought something would come of your relationship. When I thought he would marry you. But there have been no photographs in the paper lately, I’ve noticed. Maybe because he doesn’t have time to take you out any more. But I’ll bet he still has time to take you to bed!’
Tara clenched her jaw hard lest she say something she would later regret. She loved her mother dearly. And she supposed she could understand why the woman worried about her and Max. But modern life was very complicated when it came to personal relationships. Things weren’t as cut and dried as they had been in Joyce’s day.
Still, it was definitely time to find somewhere else to live. Tara could not bear to have to defend herself and Max all the time. It would sour her relationship with her mother.
She could see now that she should not have come back home to live after her return from Tokyo. Her two years away had cut the apron strings and she should have left them cut. But when her mother had met her at the airport on her return, Tara didn’t have the heart to dash Joyce’s presumption that her daughter was back to stay with her. And frankly, it had been rather nice to come home to her old bedroom and her old things. And to her mother’s cooking.
But that had been several months before she’d met Max and fallen head over heels in love.
Things were different now.
Still, if she moved out of home, her mother was going to be very lonely. She often said how much she enjoyed Tara’s company. Tara’s board money helped make life easier for Joyce as well. Her widow’s pension didn’t stretch all that far.
Guilt screamed in to add to Tara’s distress.
Oh, dear. What was a daughter to do?
She would talk to Max about the situation, and see what he said. Max had a wonderful way of making things seem clear and straightforward. Solutions to problems were Max’s stock-in-trade. As were decisions. He spent most of his life solving problems and making decisions.
Max was a very decisive man. A little inflexible, however, Tara conceded. And opinionated. And unforgiving.
Very unforgiving, actually.
‘Look, Mum, there are reasons why Max hasn’t taken me home to meet his parents,’ she started explaining to her mother. ‘It has nothing to do with our working class background. His own father was born working-class, but he…’ Tara broke off abruptly before she revealed things told to her in strict confidence. Max would not appreciate her blurting out the skeletons in his family’s closet, even to her mother. ‘Let’s leave all this for now,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I don’t feel up to arguing with you over Max today.’
The moment she added those last words, Tara regretted them, for her mother’s eyes instantly turned from angry to worried. Her mother was a chronic worrier when it came to matters of health.
‘I thought I heard you being sick earlier,’ Joyce said.
‘It’s nothing. Just a tummy bug. Probably the same thing Jen and her kids had. I’m feeling better now.’
‘Are you sure that’s what it is?’ her mother asked, still looking concerned.
‘Well, I don’t think I’m dying of some dreaded disease,’ Tara said. ‘Truly, Mum, you have to stop looking up those health websites on the internet. You’re becoming a hypochondriac.’
‘I meant,’ her mother bit out, ‘do you think you could be pregnant?’
‘Pregnant!’ Tara was totally taken aback. Dear heaven. Mothers! Truly. ‘No, Mum, I am definitely not pregnant.’ She’d had a period during the weeks Max had been away, which meant if she was pregnant, it had been because of an immaculate conception!
Besides, if there was one thing Tara was fanatical about, it was birth control. The last thing she wanted at this time in her life was a baby. Max wasn’t the only one.
When they’d first become lovers, Max had said he’d use condoms. But after one broke one night last year and they’d spent an anxious two weeks, Tara had taken over the job of preventing a pregnancy. She even had her cellphone programmed so that it beeped at the same time every day, a reminder to take her pill. Six pm on the dot. She also kept a spare box of pills in Max’s bathroom, in case she accidentally left hers at home.
Her mother’s tendency to always expect the worst to happen in life had trained Tara to be an expert in preventative action.
‘There is no sure form of contraception,’ Joyce pointed out firmly. ‘Except saying no.’
Tara refrained from telling her mother that saying no to Max would never be on her agenda.
‘I have to get going,’ she said. ‘The next train for the city is due in ten minutes.’
‘When will you be back?’ her mother called after her as she hurried from the kitchen. ‘Or don’t you know?’
It hit home. That last remark. Because Tara didn’t know. She never seemed to know these days. In that, her mother was right. Max came and went like a whirlwind, often without much information or explanation. He expected her to understand how busy he was at the moment. Which she did on the whole. Didn’t she?
‘I’ll let you know, Mum,’ Tara called back as she scooped up her carry-all and swept out the door. ‘Bye.’
CHAPTER TWO
HER wrist-watch said three-forty as Tara slid Max’s silver Mercedes into an empty parking space, then yanked the car keys out of the ignition. Ten seconds later she was hurrying across the sun-drenched car park, wishing she was wearing her joggers, instead of high-heeled slip-on white sandals. They were sexy shoes but impossible to run in. She’d found that out on the way to the station back at home.
Missing the train had put her in a right quandary.
Did she wait for the next train or catch a taxi?
A taxi from Quakers Hill to the city would cost a bomb.
Unfortunately, Joyce had instilled some of her frugal ways in both her daughters, so whilst Tara could probably have afforded the fare, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Aside from the sheer extravagance, she was saving this year to pay for next year’s uni fees.
She’d momentarily contemplated using the credit card Max had given her, and which she occasionally used for clothes. But only when he was with her, and only when it was for something he insisted she buy, and which she wouldn’t wear during her day-to-day life. Things like evening gowns and outrageously expensive lingerie. Things she kept in Max’s penthouse for her life there.
Till now, she’d never used the card for everyday expenses. When she considered it this time, her mother’s earlier words about her being a kept woman made up her mind for her. Maybe if she’d been still feeling sick, she’d have surrendered
