Page 16 of A Midlife Gamble

Caro blinked.

And at the light switch, Helen stood guilty as a child caught stealing sweets.

‘Oh.’ Lawrence straightened up. ‘But the video isn’t eight hours,’ he smiled.

‘Thank God for that,’ Craig murmured.

Kay kicked him.

‘No,’Helen said carefully, ‘but pudding will be ready soon.’

‘Andwe have the presents to do,’ Caro added.

Helen looked down at her wine. She’d lost track of how many times Caro had mentioned presents now. Silly as it was, considering that it was now spring, they were doing a Secret Santa. A delayed Christmas meal, because back in December Kay wasn’t in any fit state to eat more than half a rusk, let alone the three-course banquet Helen had planned and was currently enjoying serving. Dinner had been a triumph. Even the beetroot soup, a Polish tradition that Shook had brought along, had been a revelation. Never mind that Lawrence had managed to spill some down his white shirt and spent the best part of the meal looking as if he’d been shot in the chest. Her house was a cauldron of warmth and fragrance and voices and light, and there had been moments when Helen had thought that she’d never been happier in it. If Caro could just ease back from trying to organise the presents. The tiniest ripple of irritation stirred; she wished it hadn’t.

‘There’s probably not enough time to do the descent justice?’ Kay offered diplomatically.

‘Not unless they all slid down,’ Craig hissed.

Helen looked at him and pressed her lips together, thoughts of Lawrence sliding down Everest on a tin tray flitting through her head. He was funny, this young man Kay had bought along. Very funny. ‘Anyway,’ she managed. ‘I’ll get on.’

Back in the kitchen,she leaned against the sink and raised her glass to her lips, savouring the last drops of wine while watching the microwave count down minutes on a luxury Marks and Spencer Christmas pudding no one had been able to face at Christmas. Libby had been trying to lose her baby weight; Jack was always hung over; Lawrence was perpetually in training and Helen was tied up in knots of worry for Kay. It was good to see it get used. With Jack back at university and Libby away, Craig and Shook she was sure would enjoy it. She turned to the window as she so often did, and stood staring out across the back garden.

Lawrence’s Everest slideshow had been as spectacular this third time around as it had been the first. Kay and Caro, Shook and Craig, for whom it had been a first, had all been suitably impressed. Lawrence, thankfully, had been suitably falsely modest and she was now, in a funny sort of way, content. All of which was astonishing given the fact that it wasn’t even a year ago she’d been bored to tears with the idea of dinner parties, vowingneverto sit through another Lawrence video ever again. But this was what she did! She looked after people very well. It was a gift she knew how to curate and enjoyed dispensing. Her love of good food, good company, of beauty and order. The table had looked glorious, the meal had been delicious, andifthis was going to be Kay’s last Christmas…

Slicing the thought clean off, Helen twisted away from the window, the suddenness of the movement so momentarily disorientating that she stood, blank, but successful in having outrun the one thing she couldn’t bear to think. It took a long silent moment for the sound of voices floating along the hallway to anchor her back into time and place. Here she was, Helen Winters. Making dinner for her friends. One of whom was dying.

She managed to get her glass down on the bench before her head dropped to her hands and she folded under the swing of an ever-present wrecking ball. It didn’t last long. One heft forward, one blow back, a few chest-wracking gasps and she had wrested back control. She grabbed a beetroot-stained napkin from the table and blew her nose. The idea of losing Kay was a storm that would consume her if she allowed it free rein. And it would gather in every other loss she’d suffered, amalgamating them into a force she knew she wouldn’t be able to withstand. And what was the use? It wouldn’t bring anyone back. Screwing the napkin into a ball, Helen did what every woman in the world does with such grief. She picked it up and packed it away in a special place. A place where she would not stumble across it, but where it was safe, where she would always be able to find it, bring it out and hold it soft against her cheek in the sanctuary of a private moment. Daniel, her lost baby. Her mother. At some time in the future… Kay. Her chest heaved and as it did her bra strap slipped. She stuck a hand under her blouse and yanked the strap back up and stood staring across the room, eyes blank.

‘Can I help with anything?’

The voice, clear and cheery, startled her. Craig was in the doorway.

You’ll like him,Kay had said, when she’d asked if she could invite him. He’d started, Helen knew, as Kay’s mother’s carer, but was now so much more. Plus, he was driving Kay to see her mother at Ashdown House afterwards, which meant that Kay could have a glass, or two, of champagne.The more the merrier,Helen had answered. Frankly, Kay could have brought Atilla the Hun if it had meant that Helen could keep topping her glass up.

‘Yes,’ she answered and didn’t move.

‘Are we doing pudding?’

‘Yes,’ she said again.

‘Caro…’ Craig turned and nodded back along the hallway. ‘She wanted to know when we were doing the presents.’

‘Ok.’ Helen’s nose wrinkled. Caro, she could see, was altered. The death of her mother, the miscarriage, had softened her. And then of course there was this new man, who seemed lovely and was unlike any other man Caro had ever been involved with. Twice she’d seen him place a hand on Caro’s arm, a relax signal, which, to Helen’s surprise, Caro had responded to. It was almost amusing to see. He was a calming presence and he seemed to be able to reach a part of Caro neither Kay nor she ever had.

‘I think,’ Craig laughed now, ‘she’s more excited than I am. She seems a bit worried about time.’ He looked at the clock. ‘We do have to leave by five.’

Helen nodded. And then again, in other ways, Caro hadn’t altered at all. Here she was back in full micro-management control mode. The microwave pinged. ‘It’s ready now,’ Helen said. How long did anyone need to open a five quid Secret Santa present?

With only a fewraisins left littering plates, and coffee cups filled, Craig knelt under the small artificial tree Helen had clambered up into the loft for. He was smiling like a Cheshire cat, one last package on his thin knees.

‘I’ve been a bit naughty,’ he said. ‘I bought an extra one for Kay.’ He blushed a deep red.

‘But I’ve had mine.’ Kay held up the bottle of bath oil she’d received. ‘And whoever bought this was naughty as well.’ She looked at Caro.

Caro smiled. Clarinswas obviously more expensive than the five pounds allowed, but as soon as she had seen who she was buying for, the budget had gone out of the window. How many more occasions were there going to be when she could buy for Kay? She shifted her weight on the settee, allowing her thigh to rest alongside Shook’s. Bath oil wasn’t the half of it. She had been far far naughtier than anyone might guess, and right now all she could hear was the chorus of voices in her head, singing their doubts.How presumptuous she’d been. How impetuous. How foolish.

I’m thinking about Vegas,she’d told Shook, barely a week ago. And then as if it had been ordained, Helen’s text had arrived that same evening.

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