‘Oh.’ So much for thinking she’d been the one they couldn’t bear to lose, thought Maxine.

Mercenary little sods.

‘Josh is going to buy a computer.’ Ella’s nose wrinkled in evident disgust. ‘Ugh, computers are stupid. I don’t want one!’

‘That’s because you’re a girl,’ he sneered. ‘You want a stupid horse.’

Ella pushed him, then turned to Maxine, her smile angelic. ‘A real, live horse,’ she said happily. ‘Called Bum.’

Chapter 50

Janey, lying in the bath, told herself she was being stupid. She was a mature adult, after all, not a child for whom a birthday was a real landmark. The importance of birthdays worked according to a sliding scale; as you grew older, their significance decreased. Heavens, it was almost fashionable to forget your own birthday .. .

It was downright depressing, on the other hand, if everyone else forgot it too.

But she had dug herself into a hole from which, it now seemed, there was no face-saving escape, because her birthday was tomorrow and to mention it casually in passing at this late stage would be too humiliating for words. The trouble was, Janey thought with a pang of regret, she hadn’t bothered earlier because she’d stupidly assumed everyone else would remember.

She was still in the bath when the telephone rang. Seconds later, Alan opened the bathroom door. ‘Phone, sweetheart. It’s Maxine.’

Superstition told Janey that if she climbed out of the water and went to answer it, Maxine wouldn’t have remembered her birthday. If she stayed where she was, on the other hand, it might suddenly click.

‘Ask her what she wants.’ Slowly and deliberately she began to soap her shoulders. ‘Take a message, or say I’ll call back.’

He reappeared after a couple of minutes. ‘She asked if you could babysit tomorrow evening. Guy had already said she could take a couple of days off and she and Bruno have arranged to go up to London,’ he recited. ‘But now Guy has to be somewhere tomorrow night, so he wonders if you wouldn’t mind doing the honours. He says he’ll definitely be home by midnight.’

So much for superstition. Wearily, Janey nodded. ‘OK. I’ll call her back in a minute.’

‘No need.’ He sounded pleased with himself. ‘I’ve already told her you’ll do it. She says can you be there by seven-thirty.’

Janey stared at him. ‘Well, thanks.’

‘What?’ Alan looked surprised. ‘I knew you’d say yes. All I did was say it for you. Why, have you made other plans?’

‘No.’ She closed her eyes. ‘No other plans.’

‘There you are then,’ he chided, tickling the soles of her feet. ‘Stroppy.’

Janey forced herself to smile. It was only a birthday after all. Not such a big deal.

‘How about you? Are you doing anything tomorrow night?’

‘Ah well, I was planning a quiet romantic evening at home with my gorgeous wife.’ He rolled his eyes in soulful fashion. ‘Just the two of us ...’

‘You could always come and help me babysit.’

.. but since you won’t be here,’ Alan concluded cheerfully, ‘I may as well meet the lads for a drink at the surf club.’

Janey, curled up on the sofa with a can of lager and a packet of Maltesers, was so engrossed in the book she was reading she didn’t even hear the car pull up outside. When Guy opened the sitting-room door she jumped a mile, scattering Maltesers in all directions.

‘Sorry.’ He grinned and bent to help her pick them up. ‘So which is scariest, me or the book?’

‘You said you’d be back at midnight.’ Still breathless, Janey glanced up at the clock. ‘It’s only half past nine. Oh no,’ she said accusingly, ‘you haven’t walked out on her again. Tell me you didn’t dump her at the hotel ...’

When Charlotte had phoned Guy the night before and begged him to partner her at the firm’s annual dinner, he had made strenuous efforts to get out of it. But Charlotte had been truly desperate. Everyone else was taking someone, she explained, evidently frantic, and she’d been let down at the last minute by her own partner who’d thoughtlessly contracted salmonella poisoning. ‘Oh please Guy, I can’t possibly go on my own,’ she had wailed down the phone at him. ‘It’s not as if I’m asking you to sleep with me; I know it’s over between us, but just this one last favour? Pleeease?’

He hadn’t had the heart to refuse. But fate – for the first time in what seemed like years –

appeared to be on his side. Within minutes of arriving at the hotel, Charlotte had disappeared to the loo. Finally emerging half an hour later, pale and obviously unwell, she clung to Guy’s arm and groaned pitifully, ‘Oh God, I think I’m going to haveto go home. Tonight of all nights, as well. Bloody chicken biryani. Sodding salmonella.’

Guy, hiding his relief, had said goodbye to all the people he hadn’t even had time to be introduced to, helped Charlotte out to the car and driven her home. Mortified at the prospect of throwing up in front of him, she had vehemently refused his offer to stay for a while and make sure she was all right. Food poisoning was a singularly unglamorous illness and all she wanted was to be left alone.

‘Oh poor Charlotte!’ Janey tried hard not to laugh at the expression on Guy’s face. ‘She doesn’t have much luck, does she?’

‘Every cloud,’ he replied with an unrepentant grin. ‘I didn’t even have to give her a goodnight kiss.’

Janey looked at her watch; it was still only twenty to ten. Now that Guy was here, she supposed she could go home too. But Alan wouldn’t be there, and the prospect of sitting alone in the flat on her birthday was infinitely depressing.

Sensing her hesitation, Guy said, ‘Do you have to get back straight away?’

‘Well, no.’

‘Good. I’ll open a bottle.’

When he had finished pouring the wine, he picked up the paperback Janey had been so wrapped up in. ‘Hmm, so I was right. No wonder you nearly jumped out of your skin, reading horror stories like this.’

She laughed. ‘I found it buried under a pile of comics in your downstairs loo. You should give it a try; it’s actually very well written. I was really enjoying it.’

‘As if Mimi didn’t have enough fans.’ With a shudder he dropped the book into her open handbag. ‘Take it home with you. She always sends me a copy of her latest best-seller, though God knows why. The covers alone are enough to give me a headache.’

‘You’re such a chauvinist,’ said Janey cheerfully. ‘I like them.’

‘You shouldn’t need them.’ Guy’s expression was severe. ‘Alan’s back; you’ve got your own happy ending now.’

Janey fiddled with a loose thread on the sleeve of her pastel pink cotton sweater. ‘Mmm.’

Guy decided to chance it. Very casually he said, ‘Although I suppose it can’t be easy. Two years is a long time. Getting used to living together again must take a while.’

She hadn’t breathed so much as a word to anyone about the difficulties they’d been having.

She’d barely been able to admit them to herself, Janey realized. But there were only so many excuses you could make on someone else’s behalf. Alan was charming, funny and affectionate.

But the flipside was beginning to get to her. Despite having been back for over a month now, he had made no real effort to find work. The amounts of money he borrowed from her in order to

‘tide him over’ were only small, but with no way of repaying them they soon mounted up. Janey, watching her own bank balance dwindle, was at the same time having to spend twice as much as usual on groceries, whilst Alan appeared to spend his money buying drinks for all his old friends down at the surf club.

‘No, it isn’t easy.’ Janey attempted to sound matter of fact about it. There was no way in the world she would admit the true extent of her problems to Guy, but she was tired of pretending everything was perfect.

‘I expect it’s me,’ she went on, taking fast, jerky sips of wine. ‘When you’ve lived alone for a while you become selfish. It’s always the silly things, isn’t it? Like suddenly having to make sure there’s food in the house; remembering not to use all the hot water; the toilet seat always being up when you want it down.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Guy raised an eyebrow. ‘I share my home with Maxine. She might not leave the toilet seat up, but she drives me insane. You can’t move in that bathroom for cans of industrial-strength hair spray. At the last count there were eleven different bottles of shampoo up there, and she leaves great blobs of hair mousse all over the carpet.’ He shook his head in despair. ‘It’s like walking through a field of puffball mushrooms.’

‘Why do you suppose I sent her up here to work for you?’ Janey laughed. ‘I’ve been through that mushroom field. I was desperate.’

She was starting to relax. Even more casually, Guy said, ‘But at least Maxine and ‘I aren’t married.’ Janey looked uncomfortable. ‘No.’

‘Look.’ Taking a deep breath, he decided to risk it. ‘I’m on your side, Janey. Maybe this is none of my business but I can’t help feeling there’s more to it than hot water and toilet seats.

Alan was away for two years. You’ve both changed. There are bound to be problems. Just because he’s come back, you aren’t automatically obliged to be happy.’ He paused for a second, his eyes serious. ‘These things don’t always work out. There’s no shame in that. Nobody would blame you.’

Janey bit her lip. What he said made so much sense, but she still couldn’t bring herself to admit quite how torn she felt. Alan loved and needed her, after all. How on earth would it affect him if she were suddenly to announce that she had changed her mind?

Feeling horribly disloyal just thinking about it, she willed herself to remain calm. She wasn’t going to pour her heart out to Guy; he’d suffered quite enough of that after the Bruno fiasco. He might be on her side, she thought, but she still had some pride. She didn’t want him to think she was a completely hopeless case.

‘We’re fine,’ Janey assured him, as convincingly as she knew how. She smiled. ‘Really. I was just having a bit of a moan, that’s all.’

Shit, thought Guy, not believing her for a second. He’d blown it. And he had thought he’d been doing so well.

‘Shit!’ Maxine yelled practically simultaneously, in London.

Bruno gave the maître d’ an apologetic grin and hoped he wouldn’t change his mind about giving them the last table in the restaurant.

‘She’s from Iceland,’ he confided. ‘Doesn’t speak a word of English. ‘I think she’s saying

"hello".’

But Maxine, staring at the reservation diary lying open on the desk before them, was too appalled to enter into the spirit of the game.

‘It’s the fifteenth,’ she groaned. ‘Oh hell, I can’t believe it’s really the fifteenth!’

Of November, thought Bruno, following her gaze. Big deal. Unless she’d suddenly realized her period was late, in which case it would definitely be a big deal .. .

‘Quick, I need a phone!’ Maxine launched herself across the mahogany desk. ‘Can I use this one?’

But the maître d’, who had quick reflexes, had already clamped his hand firmly over the phone. The last time someone had tried that trick, they’d called their mother in South America.

‘This one is reserved for table bookings, madam. We have a pay phone for customers at the far end of the bar.’

‘What is it?’ Bruno demanded, as Maxine rifled his pockets for change. To his alarm, there were tears glistening in her eyes.

‘That bastard,’ she seethed. ‘I asked him what she was doing tonight and he told me she didn’t have any plans. ‘I suppose he’s gone out ...’

‘Who?’

‘Bloody Alan bloody Sinclair.’ The words dripped with contempt. ‘Who else?’

Bruno raised his eyebrows. ‘Why, what’s he done now?’

‘Oh, nothing much,’ snapped Maxine. ‘At least, not by his standards. It’s only Janey’s birthday, after all.’

Chapter 51

Right, that’s it, thought Guy.

Janey, watching him replace the receiver, was unnerved by his grim expression.

‘Bad news?’

He nodded. ‘Very bad news.’

‘Oh no.’ Her heart lurched. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s November the fifteenth,’ Guy replied slowly. ‘Your birthday. Don’t tell me you’d forgotten too.’

‘The nerve of that man,’ cried Maxine, flushed with annoyance. ‘He wouldn’t even let me speak to her!’

Bruno frowned. ‘Alan? Why not?’

She looked at him as if he was being deliberately obtuse. ‘Not Alan, stupid. Guy. She’s babysitting up at the house. I thought he’d be out, but he’s back.’

By this time thoroughly confused and too hungry to care much anyway, Bruno had begun studying the menu. But Maxine was still muttering to herself, twirling her hair round her fingers in a frenzy of indignation. He sighed. ‘OK, so why wouldn’t Guy let you speak to her?’