Now or Never. PENNY JORDAN

an abbreviated outline of what had happened.

      ‘Laura hasn’t said why she’s here—at least not to me, and if she’s discussed it with Kit, he isn’t saying. All I do know is that she felt she needed to “take time out and reassess where she’s going”. It’s so ridiculous!’

      They could all hear the frustration and anger in her voice.

      ‘She’s twenty-six, after all, and more than old enough to already know where she wants to go, but of course Kit can’t see that! She knows exactly how to press all the right buttons and make him feel guilty, about his precious little girl and the stepmother he inflicted on her, and of course she’s loving every second of it! Poor Joey can’t understand what’s happening and why his father suddenly doesn’t want to be bothered with him any more. Why he’d rather spend time with his daughter. She even had the gall last night to suggest that Kit was working too hard, and to drag up the fact that when she was younger Kit had talked about selling up here and going to live in Italy! She claimed it had been his cherished dream! And of course she was making it all too clear that Joey and I were the reasons he hadn’t been able to follow it!

      ‘Naturally, all this is music to Kit’s ears, and he’s revelling in having an adoring daughter to sympathise with him—instead of a nagging wife who doesn’t,’ she finished bitterly.

      She could see that the others were watching her with varying degrees of compassion, but, predictably, it was Maggie who reached across the table and took hold of her hand.

      ‘Don’t let her get you down,’ she counselled her gently. ‘And try not to blame Kit too much. He’s a man, after all, and as we all know even the best of them can be emotional cowards.’

      ‘Oh, spare me the homily, Maggie!’ Nicki snapped. ‘Just because you’re deep in the throes of a fantasy romance, that doesn’t make you an expert on human relationships, you know!’

      Nicki knew that she was being unfair, but the words of apology she wanted to give were somehow stuck in her throat.

      She tensed as Maggie squeezed her hand before releasing it, whilst Alice burst into animated chatter, exclaiming, ‘Stella, you haven’t told us how Hughie is doing. Is he enjoying his course?’

      ‘Mmm … he says so,’ Stella replied cautiously. ‘But … you know what boys are like.’ She gave a small shrug, but there was a little frown of anxiety between her brows. Something was worrying Hughie, she could tell, no matter how heroically he pretended that it wasn’t.

      Nicki’s outburst had somehow cast a shadow over the evening that echoed her own inner feelings. The friendship between them all, which had trundled along so comfortably for so long, suddenly seemed to be showing signs of fracture and stress strains, of not being what it had once been. Alice’s desire to please, Maggie’s euphoria, Nicki’s outburst—tonight all of them had irritated her.

      The relationship between them that had always been so supportive suddenly felt constrictive, restrictive. It compelled each of them to play a preordained role, and somehow Stella wasn’t sure she wanted to play her designated part any more. It was all right for the others—rather like certain members of the local am-dram group she helped to manage, her friends had chosen the plum roles for themselves, leaving her to play the part no one else wanted!

      The thought of them all not sharing their close friendship was unthinkable, and yet wasn’t there a secret, dangerous allure to it—to the thought of being free to write her own role, to finally be that person she had recently come to feel she had always been denied the chance to be?

      ‘Tell us a bit more about this house move you’re planning, Maggie,’ Alice was demanding predictably pacifically. She hated arguments and upset, and felt very sorry for Nicki. ‘I thought that Oliver loved the apartment?’

      ‘Well, yes, he does,’ Maggie acknowledged. ‘But …’

      ‘But you’ve finally convinced him that your clothes need a proper home,’ Nicki interjected dryly, wanting to make amends for her show of bad temper.

      All of them, including Maggie, laughed. Her weakness for designer clothes had always been the subject of good-natured teasing between them.

      ‘Well, you’re sort of on the right track,’ Maggie agreed. ‘Although it isn’t my clothes we are going to need the extra space for. In fact …’

      ‘Zoë said something about you wanting a property with some land attached to it,’ Alice offered.

      ‘Oh, no.’ Stella groaned, stifling her own inner critical voice to follow Nicki’s lead. ‘Don’t tell us, Maggie. You’ve got the “must eat organic, back to the land and grow your own” bug. Well, let me tell you, if you are thinking of dragging us into it, you can definitely count me out! I know you and your wild ideas …’

      ‘Yes,’ Alice chimed in. ‘Like the time when you enrolled us all in the local theatre group, and we all ended up having to dress up as men!’

      ‘It wasn’t my fault they were doing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and they were short of male actors.’ Maggie defended herself indignantly.

      ‘And then there were the salsa classes,’ Alice reminded her.

      Maggie grinned. ‘They were fun. Especially that weekend we spent in Barcelona!’

      ‘Oh, yeah! Terrific fun,’ Nicki agreed drolly, rolling her eyes. ‘I have particularly happy memories of having to prise that ardent Spaniard off you, the one who said—’

      ‘Yes, yes, don’t remind me,’ Maggie pleaded, covering her eyes, her face suddenly deep pink.

      Alice looked round the table in fond happiness. For all that Nicki and Stella tended to tease Maggie, she did have a way of lifting everyone’s spirits and injecting adventure and laughter into their lives.

      ‘Come on, then,’ Nicki demanded, determinedly putting her own problems to one side and entering into the spirit of things. ‘Stop keeping us in suspense. What exactly is this good news you’ve got for us?’

      They were all looking at her. Maggie felt her heart give a funny little thump, almost as though the baby knew just how important this moment was; how important these women were going to be in its life. Her closest friends and supporters, the women who had shared her life’s sadnesses and joys with her, its failures and triumphs; the honorary family, she would be gifting to her child; three women who between them had enough experience to see any baby safely on its way to adulthood even if she, its mother, did not.

      It would be a relief to unburden herself to them, to tell them how wobbly and uncertain she felt, to tell them how much she needed their support.

      Maggie took a deep breath and looked round the table, at Stella who was so sanely calm and well balanced, Alice so maternal and protectively loving, Nicki who had her own problems, Maggie knew, but who out of all of them would surely understand her feelings. Joey after all had been born when Nicki had been in her early forties …

      ‘I’m pregnant,’ she told them shakily. ‘Oliver and I are going to have a baby.’

      The silence that had seized her audience made Maggie smile.

      ‘I’m impressed,’ she laughed. ‘You’re speechless. I …’

      ‘No! It isn’t possible! You can’t be!’ White-faced, Nicki had pushed back her chair and was standing up. ‘You can’t be!’

      Maggie’s smile wavered as they all looked at Nicki. Her face was suddenly as pale as Nicki’s, but where anger burned hotly in Nicki’s eyes, in Maggie’s the other two could quite plainly see the sheen of shocked tears.

      Helplessly Alice watched them both, struggling with her own shock and discomfort. Both Maggie’s disclosure and Nicki’s announcement had left her lost for words, and she guessed from Stella’s stiff expression that she felt the same.

      ‘You can’t be pregnant,’ Nicki was continuing. ‘You’ve