Now or Never. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ side there was no age gap between them; here they were equals, partners, lovers.

      2

      ‘Alice, it’s Nicki. I’m just ringing to check that you’re still okay for tomorrow night?’

      Tucking the telephone receiver into her shoulder, Alice Palmer deftly retrieved the small toy the elder of her two small grandsons was trying to push into the ear of the younger.

      ‘Yes. I’m fine. Do you want me to ring Stella to make sure she’s still going?’ she volunteered.

      ‘If you would.’

      ‘I expect you’ve already spoken to Maggie?’

      ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

      It was an accepted fact amongst the four of them that Maggie and Nicki shared an extra-special closeness, so Alice frowned as she registered the unexpected constraint in Nicki’s voice.

      ‘Nothing’s wrong, is it? Maggie’s okay, isn’t she?’ she asked in concern. ‘I mean, everything’s all right with her and Oliver?’

      ‘Oh, yes, they’re still totally besotted with one another,’ Nicki Young answered her wryly. Alice laughed.

      ‘Stella was saying the other day that it’s not so much that Maggie is behaving as though she’s still a young girl that makes her feel old, as the fact that she can actually get away with it!’

      ‘Well, I dare say a good helping of the right kind of genes, a size eight figure, and the kind of glow a woman gets from regular helpings of orgasmic sex have something to do with it, although in all fairness Maggie has always looked young.’

      ‘Mmm … well, you’re looking pretty good yourself,’ Alice told Nicki, adding ruefully, ‘I am at least ten pounds overweight, and Zoë refuses to believe that I could ever possibly have had a twenty-four inch waist. Actually what she said was, “Mother, are you sure you aren’t losing your memory along with your waistline?”

      ‘Being slightly plump suits you, Alice,’ Nicki offered comfortingly. ‘It makes you look …’

      ‘Grandmotherly?’ Alice supplied dryly. On the other end of the line she could hear Nicki laughing.

      ‘I’ve got to forewarn you that Maggie has some news … something she wants to tell us when we are all together. Whatever it is, she’s obviously very excited about it.’

      There was a note in her voice that Alice couldn’t identify. Nicki had always been the calmest of all of them, careful both with her opinions and her emotions. Unlike Maggie, who was always so wildly passionate about everything.

      ‘Perhaps she and Oliver have decided to get married,’ Alice suggested, hopefully.

      ‘I don’t know. She said that there was no point in me asking her any questions because she wasn’t going to say another word until we’re all together. Which reminds me, I’ve booked us into that new place that’s just opened in the high street.’

      ‘You mean where the wet fish shop used to be? Honestly!’ Alice protested. ‘Since the new supermarkets opened on the outskirts of town, nearly all the old local shops have closed down and the high street now is virtually one long chain of coffee shops and restaurants.’

      ‘Mmm. I know, but since the motorway turned the town into an up-market dormitory area for the city, eating out has become the new trendy thing to do. Not that I should be complaining. The demand for extra staff has meant that we’ve been so busy at the agency that I’m going to have to take on someone new full-time to deal with the increase in business.’

      ‘I wish you’d tell me how you manage to do it,’ Alice said half ruefully, and half enviously. ‘You’re running your own business, being a full-time mother to a nine-year-old, and a wife. Which reminds me, Stuart said he bumped into Kit at the golf club the other day, and Kit said something about Laura giving up her job in the city and coming home to live with you.’

      There was a brief pause before Nicki responded with telling feeling, ‘Don’t remind me! I can’t wait for our get-together and the chance to let off steam! Look, I’d better go, I’ve got to collect Joey from school in fifteen minutes.’

      ‘Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow night, then.’

      As she rang off Alice reflected sympathetically on the situation that existed between Nicki and Laura, her husband Kit’s daughter from his first marriage.

      Ten years ago when Kit and Nicki had married, Laura had been sixteen and still at school. Right from the start Laura had made it plain that she did not want her father to remarry, and no amount of olive-branch offering on Nicki’s part had softened her attitude.

      ‘Grandma, biscuit … biscuit!’

      ‘Biscuit—please.’ Alice automatically corrected George as she went to get him and his younger brother William some of the homemade biscuits she made especially for them.

      They were adorable little boys, who reminded her very much of her own twin sons at the same age, and she loved them to bits, but there was no getting away from the fact that, after a full day of looking after them, she was more than glad to hand them back to their mother, her daughter Zoë.

      Thinking of Zoë caused her forehead to wrinkle in an unhappy frown. Like her, Zoë had married young. Too young? Alice was increasingly feeling that that was what she herself had done.

      Zoë wasn’t going to be pleased with the news Alice had to tell her. And what about Stuart? He wasn’t going to be very happy about her plans, was he? He had never encouraged or wanted her to be independent or to strike out on her own, and she knew that he was not going to understand, never mind approve of, the need that was motivating her now. She was going to have to be very strong, very single-minded if she was to be successful in reaching her longed-for goal, she knew that. But she knew too that her friends would support her. After all, they had always supported one another, been there for one another. She was looking forward to the excitement of breaking her news to them as much as she was dreading revealing it to her husband and daughter.

      Quickly she went to check on her grandsons before going to telephone the fourth member of their quartet.

      ‘Stella, it’s Alice,’ she announced when Stella answered her call. ‘Do you still want me to pick you up tomorrow night?’

      ‘Could you? The only problem is that I don’t want to get back late. Hughie’s coming home from university today—just for a couple of days. Apparently there’s a break in lectures he can take advantage of. He says he has run out of clean clothes, but I’m not falling for that one. No doubt the real reason he wants to come home is to see Julie.’

      The energetic 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 СКАЧАТЬ