sound of Stella Wilson’s voice reflected her personality, Alice thought. An almost frighteningly well-organised, no-nonsense person, she ran the lives of her husband and her son with streamlined efficiency. There was no agonising from Stella about a creeping band of weight transforming her body from that of a young woman to an older one; no soul-searching, or insecurities; no doubting or dithering; no hint, in fact, of any of the doubts and anxieties that so beset her, Alice recognised ruefully. But then Stella was one of those women who suited middle age.
The plainest of their foursome when they had been girls, Stella had grown from a girl whose looks, brisk manner and sensible, practical outlook on life had meant that she’d often been left in the background into a woman whose forthright manner and confidence in her own beliefs meant that she was now recognised as a valuable asset of the many committees she sat on and by those whose causes she championed. There was no sentimentality about Stella; she was not flirtatious or playful, and could when offended retreat into an awesomely dignified silence, but she was tremendously loyal and could always be relied on to offer straightforward advice and practical help. When it came to problem-solving Stella had no equal, and she was dearly loved by all of them.
‘Julie’s a great girl,’ she pronounced. ‘But she’s still at school, and Hughie has only just turned nineteen. I’m having to bite on my tongue not to sound like an over-anxious mother, but the last thing either of them need right now is an intense, emotional, long-distance relationship when they should be concentrating on their studies. I haven’t forgotten all the problems you went through with Zoë, when she was so determined to marry Ian that she threatened to drop out of university.’
Alice bit her lip. Stella never meant to be tactless, it was just that sometimes she forgot that others had less robust sensitivities than she possessed herself.
‘Zoë doesn’t know how lucky she is,’ Stella was continuing affectionately. ‘If anyone was born to be a wife and mother, it was you, Alice. How are the twins, by the way?’
‘Still in South America, so far as we know,’ Alice replied. It was far easier to talk to her friend about her twin sons than her elder daughter. ‘Stuart was saying only the other night, he doesn’t know which is going to prove the more expensive, financing their studies, or paying for their gap year! To be honest I think he’s a little bit envious of them. I mean, in our day, “gap years” were more of a rare luxury than an accepted fact of life. Stuart went straight from university into his career. We were married two years after that and then Zoë arrived and then of course the twins.’
‘Mmm. I know what you mean. Richard tends to grumble that Hughie has life far easier than he did at his age, but I suspect that really he’s a little bit jealous of him. After all, he’s just about to start out in life, and he’s got everything ahead of him, whereas for most of our generation the best thing that lies ahead is early retirement and the worst the threat of redundancy!’
Whilst Alice was wincing inwardly at the unwittingly brutal picture Stella had just drawn, Stella added wryly, ‘Unless of course you’re fortunate enough to be someone like Maggie! Richard was saying only the other day that it didn’t surprise him that she should end up with a younger man. He said that she’s always been the sort of person who challenged the status quo; a sort of minor social revolution in her own right, and at the forefront of new trends. And of course it’s true! Do you remember how she used to shock us when we were girls? How daring we thought she was, and how inside we all ached to be like her?’
‘Yes,’ Alice conceded. ‘It hasn’t all been easy for her, though, has it? She and Dan were so much in love when they got married. I never thought that they would split up.’
‘Well, no, but Nicki let it slip in a moment of weakness—you know how, normally, she’s always the first to leap to Maggie’s defence—that she wasn’t totally surprised, because she knew that Dan had always wanted children. Nicki dated him first, didn’t she? And apparently he had told her then that he wanted a family. I know that Maggie has never really talked about their divorce, but she did once say to me when I asked if they were planning to have children that the business was her “baby”. With her feeling like that I suppose it’s not surprising that Dan left her!’ Stella pointed out.
‘Well, at least she’s happy now with Oliver,’ Alice intervened pacifically. ‘I must say that when she first told us about him, I was a bit concerned. Especially when she admitted that he was much younger than she had at first realised. But you only have to see them together to see how much he loves her.’
‘Alice, you are such a romantic.’ Stella laughed.
Was it because she was just that little bit younger than the others that they always tended to treat her as though she were someone who was somehow not quite as up to speed as they were themselves? Alice wondered. There was a very fine line between affectionate indulgence, and patronising indulgence and sometimes she felt that her friends unwittingly crossed it. Or was she being over-sensitive?
Of course they had all been to university—had those life-shaping years in common—whilst she had not.
‘There isn’t any point, or any need,’ Stuart had told her, at the time. ‘I’m in love with you, Alice, and I don’t want to wait three years to marry you whilst you get a degree you’re never going to use. I can think of a much better way for you to occupy your time,’ he had added, with the powerful sensuality that had originally swept her so easily off her feet. At nineteen she had been impressed and awed by such a macho attitude.
At nearly fifty-one, though, she was beginning to feel that it was not so much sexy and sensual as domineering and selfish. Beginning to? Or had she in reality thought it for quite a long time but pushed the thought away, burying it rather than confronting it? Guiltily Alice reminded herself that Stuart was a good husband and father who worked very hard to provide them all with financial comfort and security. And who enjoyed a career that took him all over the world, whilst she stayed at home being a dutiful wife and mother …
‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ Alice told Stella, hastily dragging her thoughts back to the present. ‘Apparently Maggie has told Nicki that she’s got something to tell us. Wedding plans, do you think?’
‘I hope not,’ Stella responded forthrightly. ‘I mean, I know it’s all roses and romance now, but if you want my honest opinion it can’t last! Of course, the press has got a lot to answer for. It’s impossible to pick up a newspaper these days, even the sensible ones, without reading some hyped-up article about how our generation has still got the bit firmly between its teeth and is totally refusing to let go, and be turned out to grass gracefully as previous generations at our age would have done. The mystique we’ve managed to attach to ourselves is the most disgraceful propaganda really.’
‘But it is true that we have pushed back an awful lot of boundaries,’ Alice felt the need to point out.
‘Indeed, but although we might have convinced ourselves that we can hold back time, we still can’t actually turn it back,’ Stella told her dryly. ‘Oliver is well over a decade younger than Maggie and sooner or later that is bound to cause them problems.’
‘Mmm! And how are my two special boys?’
Alice stood to one side as she watched her daughter kneel down to hug her two young sons.
‘I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to collect them until eight tomorrow evening, Ma,’ Zoë announced, not quite meeting Alice’s eyes as she informed her, ‘I’ve arranged to get together with some of the girls at the wine bar after work. If you could bathe these two for me, so that I can just put them straight to bed when I get them home, that would be great. They’ll be good company for you with Dad away, and—’
