What Women Want, Women of a Dangerous Age: 2-Book Collection. Fanny Blake

new studio. It’s a shed. Oliver thought he’d surprise me with somewhere I could paint. So he got the whole thing installed while I was in Cornwall.’

      Both Bea and Kate stared at her as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

      ‘He surprised you with a shed?’ Bea spoke slowly as if she might have misunderstood. ‘Completely out of the blue? He can’t do that. He hardly knows you. What about your garden?’

      ‘Put like that it does sound a bit unusual.’

      ‘Unusual? I’ll say.’

      ‘But he’s a man who acts on impulse. He wanted to give me something special for my birthday, and thought putting a studio into the garden was what I’d want.’

      ‘Did you?’

      ‘Of course.’ She didn’t sound entirely certain. ‘And I’ll enjoy planning and replanting parts of the garden.’ As she went on to describe it, Kate could see that Bea’s continuing interrogation was making Ellen uncomfortable. She obviously didn’t like Bea’s implication that Oliver had gone too far. Kate decided to change the subject. ‘What about a job?’ she asked. ‘Has he had any luck yet?’

      ‘Nothing.’ Ellen looked relieved and grateful. ‘But you know how difficult it is at the moment. There aren’t that many jobs around and he isn’t known on the circuit since he’s been in France.’

      ‘But he’s not in a position to be fussy, is he? There must be something he could do.’

      ‘I know.’ Ellen sighed. ‘I’ve said as much. But he bites my head off.’ She seemed quite resigned to the way he was.

      ‘Ah, so all is not one hundred per cent in the Garden of Eden, then?’ Bea couldn’t resist.

      ‘Bea . . .’ warned Kate. ‘I’d better get the pie.’ She was anxious to move the conversation on to a less controversial tack. After all these years, the last thing she wanted to do was throw cold water on Ellen’s contentment. They still hadn’t met Oliver, so were hardly in a position to judge him.

      ‘Well, if Kate envies me, I envy you actually,’ Bea volunteered suddenly, looking at Ellen, who had ignored her previous remark. ‘Apart from the clothes thing, of course – that’s a bit too controlling for me. But he’s obviously mad about you.’

      ‘You will find someone, Bea. Probably when you’re least expecting it.’

      ‘That should be about now, then!’ She and Ellen went over to the table and sat down while Kate wrestled the pie out of the oven. ‘Do you want a hand?’

      ‘No. I’m fine. Ellen’s right, you know.’

      ‘Mmm. Maybe. But look at me! I’m beset by a hormonal teenager who, as far as I know, has as much chance of becoming a nuclear physicist as he does a mass murderer; an overbearing boss; a Mr Bean type in the City whom I’ve met for one drink; and some knob who left a calling card that took me to the clap clinic. And he left fake contact details with the agency so I can’t even have the pleasure of passing on the good news. Bloody marvellous.’

      Just then Kate reached the table. ‘Put like that, I see what you mean. And who’d want to compete with them? Mind out! This is hot!’ Her voice rose to a shriek as the tea-towel she was using as an oven glove slipped. The pie-dish pressed against the heel of her right hand. She tried to get it to the table in time. But, in agony, she let go a moment too soon, just before the dish was fully on the table. In horrified silence they watched as the pie arced over and down, the dish shattering into smithereens and the pie splattering across the pristine limestone-tiled floor.

      The three women stared at it. Kate was the first to break the silence. ‘Paul’s favourite dish. He’ll kill me!’

      A clearing of Bea’s throat was followed by a stifled cough from Ellen. Kate looked up to see that the two of them were trying to contain their laughter.

      ‘God, look at us. It’s not exactly Sex and the City, is it?’ As Bea choked the words out, she couldn’t control herself any longer and, with an explosive snort, she cracked up completely. At that, Ellen followed suit, leaving Kate to join in as she held her hand under the cold tap. They laughed together till the tears rolled down their faces.

      At last, when the only sounds to be heard were a few muffled whimpers from Bea, and Ellen was wiping her eyes with a bit of kitchen roll, Kate spoke: ‘Fish and chips, anyone?’

      *

      A couple of hours later, Kate was alone again in the kitchen. The fish pie was in the bin, the fish-and-chips papers had been recycled and the plates and glasses were in the machine. Paul was still not back. Bea had left with Ellen half an hour earlier, prompted by a call from Oliver wondering where Ellen was. He couldn’t be blamed, Kate supposed. He wasn’t to know that the evenings they spent together always ran on into the night. There was always so much to catch up on, now more than ever, and none of them ever wanted their time together to be over. Oh, well. Possessiveness wasn’t such a bad thing, she supposed. Better than not being wanted at all. Poor old Bea. If only she and Paul could magic up a single friend for her. She checked the clock. Half past midnight. It was unlike Paul to be as late as this.

      She wasn’t tired so made herself a cup of peppermint tea and took it up to the living room. She’d wait for Paul. She collapsed into the familiar comfort of their old sofa, currently reupholstered in an off-white calico (something she could never have chosen until Sam and Megan had left home) and scattered with the rose-print cushions she’d found at a brocante during the same holiday that Paul had bought the pie-dish. What a good weekend that had been. Was there this unfamiliar distance between them back then? She didn’t think so. Something had definitely happened that had stopped them communicating in their old familiar way.

      Or someone? Her sudden gasp caught her by surprise. The thought was as unwelcome as it was shocking. As she tried to shake it off, it only tightened its hold. Could history be repeating itself? Yet again she dismissed the idea. Now part of the warp and weft of their marriage, his affair was an incident they’d weathered and he’d promised there wouldn’t be another. Surely this was one of the occasional downturns to be expected in a long-term partnership. But she didn’t find the thought all that reassuring.

      She put down her tea and stood up to look at herself in the large mirror over the fireplace. Stuck about with invitations and cards from the children, her reflection stared back, showing a thoughtful face only slightly lined and framed by fine dark hair. She could never be as open as Bea or Ellen in discussing her relationship with Paul: it wasn’t something she wanted to air with them or with anybody, not in any detail at least. No, this was something she was going to have to work out alone.

      She crossed to the assorted family photos ranged on the top of the console table and picked up their wedding picture, so old it was beginning to fade. There they stood, radiant and full of hope for the future. So much of that hope had been fulfilled, she thought. An abrupt miaow announced the arrival of Mouse, the grey stray that had adopted them about ten years earlier. Sam had found the bedraggled young cat in the bushes at the end of the garden. He had tempted him out with a saucer of milk and a bit of cold chicken, and ever since Mouse had been Sam’s most devoted fan. He hopped up beside Kate now, rubbing against her hand and clawing at her trousers.

      ‘Mouse! Stop it!’ She lifted him up and laid him on her lap, stroking him until his rumbling purr filled the silence. ‘There, you silly old thing. Where do you think Paul’s got to?’

      She picked up her book on Africa. Reading about someone else’s experiences travelling through Ghana and other countries brought her a little closer to Sam and helped her understand something of the country where he was. She found her place, although she wasn’t in the mood to read tonight. What would Paul say when she told him Ellen had invited them for lunch? Would he be as interested in meeting Oliver as she and Bea were? Probably. He liked Kate’s friends and was pleased to see them when he did but wasn’t as involved with their lives as Kate was. As far as he was concerned, they were a part of her life that