Always and Forever. Cathy Kelly

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      Mel wished she’d had more time to make an effort for the Lorimar charity ball at the end of February. A black-tie event which all senior staff were expected to turn up at upon pain of death, it had been the subject of much discussion in the office for the past month.

      One Lorimar contingent – a Samantha from Sex and the City lookalike from marketing, three executive assistants and the head of telesales – planned to go all out for Sex and the City glamour, with perilous heels, just-left-the-Elizabeth-Arden-counter make-up and wildly contemporary outfits.

      ‘Lots of red lippy is the key,’ said the woman from marketing, who had spent hours on the party preparations, a mammoth task, which also involved ensuring that hundreds of red Lorimar balloons would fall from the ballroom ceiling when Edmund Moriarty announced a special Lorimar donation of €100,000 to the charity, a heart surgery research foundation. Edmund would go ballistic if his big moment was ruined, so most of marketing and a fair part of publicity were deployed on charity detail.

      Another group of female staff were planning to get themselves fake-tanned to a decent colour, go to the hairdresser’s, then dig out their reliable old black dresses, because nobody wanted to splash out on a new outfit for a mere office do. Vanessa had borrowed a red satin knock-out evening gown from her sister and said she was fully expecting Hilary to go into cardiac arrest when she saw it.

      ‘Although there will be lots of cardiologists on hand if she does,’ Vanessa said cheerfully.

      And Mel…Mel had planned a bit of personal grooming time so she’d look her best on this important occasion. A new dress, perhaps. Or a trendy haircut. Something to show the world, and the top people at Lorimar, that Mel Redmond had her finger on the pulse.

      Yet somehow, with fifteen minutes to go before she and Adrian had to leave the house on the Saturday night in question, Mel was upstairs frantically trying to revive her limp hair with a blast of hairspray. Her maquillage consisted of a faded bit of eyeliner that had originally been plastered on at nine that morning, and her skin tone was more Wet Weekend in Greenland than the delicious shade of Malibu Bronze most of the other Lorimar women were aiming for. Adrian was recovering from the flu and Mel realised miserably that even he looked better than she did. Feeling worn out after a hectic day and an even more hectic month, all she wanted to do was lie down on the bed and sleep.

      Her diary had been black with dates for the whole of February. The second Friday of the month had been Adrian’s younger brother, Eddie’s, fortieth birthday and the landmark party had involved a big meal for the extended family in his favourite restaurant.

      ‘My kid brother, forty…’ Adrian kept remarking in an astonished way. ‘It seems so old. I can remember us talking about what it would be like to be forty.’

      ‘It was like being a million years old,’ reflected Eddie. ‘It seemed so far away. I sort of hoped I’d be forty before you because I was fed up with being two years younger and you got to do everything first.’

      ‘For you to be forty first, Adrian would have had to have died,’ said their mother, Lynda.

      ‘Just as well it didn’t happen then,’ Eddie said gravely, ‘although I came close to killing you often enough, big bro.’

      The following weekend, Mel’s aunt and uncle celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary and their children organised a big lunch party in a Dublin hotel, complete with a band playing Jim Reeves songs, and enlarged photos on the walls of the happy couple during their married life. Arrangements of pale pink roses decorated the tables, and to recreate the whole wedding effect, which had originally been low key because of a lack of funds, there was a blessing by the parish priest, champagne toasts and speeches.

      ‘It’s such an emotional event, isn’t it?’ said one of the guests dreamily to Mel after Uncle Dermot reduced the whole room to floods of tears by telling them how he didn’t want to cope a single day without his Angela.

      ‘Er, yes, very emotional,’ replied Mel, sweat ruining her hair as she rushed off after Carrie, who’d run rampant as soon as she realised that the hotel was the perfect place for escaping her mother. So far, Carrie had hidden in a stall in the women’s loos, under the draped tablecloth where the anniversary cake stood in state, and behind the swing door into the kitchen.

      ‘Sit down and rest and I’ll take care of Carrie,’ said Mel’s mum, as Mel sprinted past.

      Mel stopped and thought of how her high-heeled party sandals were killing her and how the people who organised these events and invited children never seemed to plan anything specifically for them. ‘Children welcome!’ meant nothing when it didn’t include a special child-friendly room where parents could alternate care while round-the-clock Barney’s Great Adventure/One Hundred and One Dalmatians played on the video. Or else on-demand tranquillisers for the parents. Those glasses of red wine sitting invitingly at the edges of the tables were like a magnet for a child of Carrie’s age.

      ‘You’re tired, Mel. Have a sit-down with Adrian. Get yourself a piece of the cake, go on. I’ll keep an eye on her.’ Karen got up from her seat and began to head off after the lilac-clad whirlwind that was Carrie.

      ‘No, Mum, it’s OK. You do enough,’ Mel said firmly. If her feet hurt, she’d just take her shoes off. Who’d notice? ‘Next thing, Carrie will think you’re her mother and not me!’ The brittle laugh that accompanied this comment didn’t escape either of them.

      ‘She wouldn’t, don’t be silly.’ Karen’s soft hand gripped her daughter’s tightly.

      ‘Course not. It was a joke!’ Mel’s face adopted its best PR executive smile. They both knew it was fake.

      ‘See you later then, love,’ said her mother. And although she’d never worked in PR, she managed a creditable imitation of her daughter’s smile.

      There was no respite at the office either. Mel was snowed under as the company’s magazine, which was sent to all subscribers, was going quarterly instead of biannually, and everyone in the publicity department was being called upon to work overtime. To make matters more tense, there were ominous rumours of huge cutbacks. More work and less money – not a good combination, Mel felt.

      Vanessa was under the same pressure and the only time they got to talk was in the morning in the ladies’, where they compared notes on the dismal vibes that were circulating about how the company could Save Money.

      ‘I was reading a bit in the paper the other day about how most working women do so much first thing in the morning that by the time they actually get СКАЧАТЬ