Once in a Lifetime. Cathy Kelly

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      ‘That’s obscenely expensive,’ said Ingrid, shocked.

      Marcella laughed. ‘You sound just like Molly when she was going through her second-hand stage,’ she said.

      ‘She still is. Mind you, it’s better than spending millions on clothes.’

      ‘You old Leftie! You’ve only yourself to blame. You and David gave her a social conscience so she wouldn’t be another spoiled brat celebrity child. It’s nice that she prefers to give money to developing countries than to spend it on clothes.’

      ‘You’re right,’ Ingrid said proudly. ‘There aren’t many people as kind as Molly out there. Although I’d love her to come round to the idea that you can feed the world and wear nice things. Still, she borrowed a dress of mine for a wedding, so perhaps she’s moving out of the all-second-hand stage.’

      ‘There must be a man on the scene.’

      ‘No.’ Ingrid was thoughtful. She rather wished there was. Not that she desired her daughter married off for any reasons of propriety, but because she wanted to think Molly was happy being loved the way Ingrid and David loved each other. Love and honest partnership with someone you cared for and respected: what a joy that was.

      It was Ingrid and David’s thirty-year anniversary later that year and they’d talked, idly, about a party and a cruise in the Indian Ocean. They were so lucky, Ingrid thought every time she heard of another marriage going belly-up. And luck was involved, no doubt about it. They worked at their marriage for sure, but it had been luck that had brought them together in the first place, two people so instantly compatible.

      Lots of break-ups came as no surprise to Ingrid. As a person wildly interested in human behaviour, she couldn’t be shocked when Laurence and Gillian, old friends of hers from college and married twenty-seven years, separated abruptly. The only surprise was that they’d stuck with each other for so long. Laurence was at his happiest sitting in his garden doing the crossword and planning, some day, to mow the lawn. Gillian played badminton competitively, worked full time and was never home.

      She and David, on the other hand, were very different in many ways but they complemented each other. She felt a rush of love for him and wished he’d confide in her over whatever was wrong. He might not understand the fierce, feral passion of a mother’s love, but then, could any man? And she loved him with all her heart, no doubt about it.

      When she got home at three o’clock David was back and with a small gift: a tub of goose fat from Kenny’s exquisite food hall.

      ‘For me?’ she asked in amusement, turning it over in her hands. ‘Am I supposed to rub myself in it…?’

      ‘It’s for the potatoes tomorrow,’ David said, planting a kiss on her cheek. ‘I know, a tub of bath oil would be better, but Molly’s coming for Sunday lunch and you know what she’s like about roast spuds. This is a present for all of us, not just you. Although,’ he was smiling, ‘you can rub yourself with it if you’d like to…’

      He seemed in such good humour that Ingrid knew she must have been entirely mistaken to worry about him earlier. She put her present down, grinning. Many women would have thrown the tub at him, but Ingrid had always been realistic about romance. David, despite working in a store overflowing with feminine gifts, had never been the sort of man who came home every week with perfume and flowers. And Ingrid could cope with that: if she wanted flowers, she bought them herself.

      ‘There’s nothing like goose fat for proper roast potatoes,’ he went on, opening the fridge and poking in it for a snack.

      ‘Did you not have lunch?’ Ingrid asked.

      ‘I had brunch,’ he said from the depths of the fridge. ‘I woke up very early and thought I might as well go into work and get it over with, and then Stanley came in with a BLT

      and it smelled so good, we all had them. From O’Brien’s Deli–the place is booming since they got that new cook.’

      Ingrid relaxed some more. She knew there was an explanation for his early start. She was right not to have said anything to Marcella.

      ‘You must be tired, darling,’ she said now. ‘We can skip dinner out tonight if you want.’

      They’d planned a pizza out, just the two of them in the place down the road.

      ‘Well…’ he said and he looked a bit shamefaced. ‘We can’t. Jim Fitzgibbon is over from London, he was on to me this morning, and I’d forgotten I’d promised him dinner next time, and he insists it was tonight we set it up for–’

      ‘Dinner with Jim and Fiona?’ Ingrid gulped. Fiona was a sweetheart but Jim, one of David’s oldest friends, was a property-obsessed bore.

      ‘Not Fiona, no,’ said David reluctantly. ‘He and Fiona are going through a bad patch. It’s someone else.’

      ‘Someone else? Are they getting divorced?’

      ‘I think that might be on the cards. They’ve separated. He’s very cut up about it. Sorry, love, I know it’ll be a pain for you, but I can’t let him down. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I can say you’re not well or…’

      ‘I’ll come.’

      Solidarity was another vital ingredient in a marriage, Ingrid thought. Women’s magazines from years ago used to go on about how romantic gestures were the be all and end all of a relationship, but Ingrid, recipient of a lovely tub of goose grease, knew there was a lot more to it than that. If David wanted to comfort his old friend about the breakdown of his marriage, she’d be there too. She made a mental note to contact Fiona on Monday. There were few things Ingrid hated more than people who cut off one half of a couple after a split.

      ‘Who’s this woman he’s bringing tonight?’ she asked David in the car on the way to the restaurant.

      ‘Don’t know,’ he said simply.

      ‘You’re desperate,’ she said in exasperation. ‘That’s the sort of thing I like to know.’

      ‘Ah, that’s only people like you and Marcella,’ David replied, ‘people who are obsessed with the world’s private business. The rest of us are quite happy to meander along.’

      ‘Are we obsessed?’

      ‘Totally,’ he replied.

      Ingrid was wary of what was waiting for them in the restaurant. Jim was bad enough with the lovely Fiona to offset his awfulness, but God alone knew what sort of woman he’d come up with now. Fiona dated back to the time before he had loads of money.

      Ingrid loved eating out. She always reckoned that the people who ran restaurants were the people who really knew what was happening in a city. Renaldo’s was one of the country’s premier spots with a Michelin star to its name and a twenty-year reputation for fabulous food and wonderful service.

      But tonight she wasn’t in the mood. Two nights with people she didn’t know was two nights too many. At least Molly was coming to lunch the next day, something to keep her sane.

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