Once in a Lifetime. Cathy Kelly
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Название: Once in a Lifetime
Автор: Cathy Kelly
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные любовные романы
isbn: 9780007389346
isbn:
‘The past hurts,’ said Dara, determined to spare her beloved daughter the pain.
‘But knowing can bring about healing,’ Star replied. ‘You can transcend the misery: you have.’
But Dara was firm. For Star, who lived on instinct, staying out of Natalie’s life as she grew up had been one of the hardest vows she’d ever kept.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the double doors on to the street swinging shut. A blast of icy February air whirled in, along with a man in a long grey overcoat, the collar turned up. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and he walked at speed, as if there wasn’t enough time to do all he wanted in life.
From her position beside a display of jewelled clips and silk-flower hairclips, Star watched David Kenny pass though his department store. He didn’t survey his surroundings the way she imagined he normally did, those clever eyes noting every detail and marking it down in his memory if something needed to be changed. His eyes were focused on something else entirely, something inward. The closer he got, the more she could see the tension in his face. His hair was greying, salt and pepper around the temples. Distinguished, Star thought; that was the word for it. He reached the stationary escalator in the centre of the store and instead of climbing up, showing how fit he undoubtedly was, he jabbed a red button. The escalator hummed to life and he stood in perfect stillness as it bore him up to the next floor.
Star had heard that David Kenny, like his father before him, made a practice of walking through his beloved store every day, making sure all was well. All might have been well in the store this morning, but watching him now, Star was certain that all was not well with David Kenny.
Most people wouldn’t have noticed. Only someone who knew him well could detect the strain on his carefully composed face. Once, she’d known David Kenny better than she’d known any other human being. Now, the closest she got to him was when she reached a hand out in her garden and touched his tree, a rowan that had grown tall and strong in the thirty-five years since she’d planted it. She hadn’t talked to him since then, though she was sure he was well aware that she was Bluestone Tapestries. Lena’s initial attempt to arrange an introduction had been gently brushed away, with Star explaining that she ‘didn’t do corporate stuff’.
‘Oh, but David meets everyone,’ Lena said.
‘Not me,’ Star replied, smiling to show that she was happier that way. And she was grateful that David appeared to accept this, for he had made no attempt to meet her.
It wasn’t that she was angry with David. No. It hadn’t ended that way at all. It just wasn’t meant to be for her and the passionate young poet who’d written verses to her beauty, and made love to her as if he’d found his life’s meaning when their bodies were together. No, she wasn’t angry with him. Her life had worked out in its own way. Until now, she’d imagined David’s had too.
But seeing how tense he looked, she wasn’t so sure.
An old saying of her mother’s came to mind: ‘What’s meant for you will find you.’ Many people took that to mean good things, but Star was enough of a student of the universe to know that it could mean bad things too.
Whatever terrible sadness was touching David, Star hoped he was able to deal with it.
Be kind to other women. It really works–most of the time. And even on those days when it doesn’t, it’ll make you feel better inside.
That night, Ingrid sat at the beautifully laid dinner table in a grand old house, with her husband David and eleven other elegantly dressed couples, and wished with all her heart that she wasn’t there. The scent of the freesias in the crystal bowl in the centre of the table fought valiantly with the women’s perfumes, which were predominantly musky with the odd note of sharp florals. Ingrid loved scent, but she hated the heavy, cloying perfumes so many women wore at night, as if they were using pheromones to attract a caveman rather than attending a civilised dinner party with their husbands.
She reached across the snowy white tablecloth and pulled the bowl closer to her, leaning forward to smell the pure, clean flowers. Instantly, she was transported to her terrace on a late spring day, where she would sit revelling in the seclusion as she read the morning papers. Pity she wasn’t there now. Stop, she told herself. The evening wasn’t going to grow magically shorter by wishing it was over.
The problem was that these people were David’s friends. Odd how a couple could be married for thirty years and still have such disparate friends. They shared some, people they’d known all their married life, but their careers had brought them a collection of acquaintances from two completely different worlds.
Tonight was a night for David’s people, in particular their host, the owner of a large transport company, useful to Kenny’s. Three other businessmen whom David knew were also present: wealthy men with glamorous wives; women with beautiful hair and nails and wearing diamonds of every possible cut.
Looking around the table, Ingrid decided that the dinner party was entirely made up of successful men and their wives. There were no business women; Ingrid could spot them from fifty paces, for no matter how successful they were, they were never quite as polished as the wives of alpha men. Years interviewing the great and the good on Politics Tonight had taught her that it was rare for an alpha man to form a lasting relationship with a woman who had as much power as he did. People were probably amazed that she and David had stuck together; most men would have been uncomfortable sharing the limelight with a woman who made her living grilling politicians on live TV. But then, David wasn’t most men. He was, Ingrid thought, smiling across the table at him, special.
He caught her eye and smiled back, and she thought how well he looked in his grey suit and pale pink shirt. She knew he was tired because of the lines around his eyes, but nobody else would pick up on that. They’d see the usual handsome, charming David Kenny, the man who’d inherited the family firm and taken it on to a whole new level. In the same way, nobody looking at Ingrid would see a woman with a mild headache who didn’t want to be here. They’d see what she wanted them to see: a woman who’d pulled out all the stops with hair and make-up, yet remained modest in the diamond department. Ingrid felt that knuckle-duster rings were like push-up bras: you either liked them or you didn’t.
The only interesting thing about nights out schmoozing David’s business acquaintances was that Ingrid ceased to be Ingrid Fitzgerald, the television personality who’d kept her maiden name from her days as a radio producer; she was Ingrid Kenny, David’s wife. And sometimes, just sometimes, that made her deliciously invisible. Like now.
The man seated on her left turned to talk to her.
‘You’re Mrs Kenny, aren’t you?’ he said. He was sixty something, balding, with a weathered complexion that spoke of many hours spent outdoors, probably on the sea, Ingrid decided. His outfit, a blue blazer with gold buttons, had a hint of ‘Commodore of the Yacht Club’ about it.
‘Yes,’ said Ingrid gently, sensing that he had no idea who she was professionally. ‘I’m Ingrid, David’s wife.’
‘Marvellous business,’ the Commodore said, grabbing СКАЧАТЬ