‘No hard feelings?’
He gave her a rueful smile. ‘Hardly any at all now, thanks.’
‘Good.’ She was pushing her luck, she knew, but victory over someone as desirable as Sam was infinitely sweet. And next time . . . in about two weeks’ time to be precise
. . . she would achieve an even greater one. Chucking the washing-up cloth into the sink and crossing the dimly lit kitchen, she stood on tiptoe and planted a careful, sisterly kiss on his cheek. ‘Good friends are more important than lovers,’ she murmured. ‘Every time.’
‘Depends how good they are,’ said Sam, keeping himself firmly under control. The bitch, he thought. Now he knew she was playing games.
‘Good night, Sam,’ said Izzy serenely.
‘Good night, John-boy.’
Chapter 14
Galvanised into action by the realization that she could get Andrew back, Gina had embarked upon a whirlwind plan of campaign in order to do so and stubbornly refused to listen to Izzy’s protests that this wasn’t what she’d meant at all. The terrible apathy which had dogged her for the past months was stripped away like Clark Kent’s office suit, to be replaced by a positive tidal wave of enthusiasm. Having lost almost a stone in weight - which didn’t particularly suit her - she regained her appetite and began eating again, had her hair rebobbed and her legs eye-smartingly waxed. Oblivious to the bank manager’s unamused letters she launched into a fresh orgy of spending, but this time it was carried out joyfully and with real purpose because nothing was too good for Andrew and whoever would dream of wearing underwear which didn’t match their clothes and clothes which didn’t match their Kurt Geiger shoes anyway?
And since nothing seemed impossible any more, gaining new-found independence in the form of a job no longer struck terror into Gina’s soul. Her determination to prove herself different in every way from that slothful, unkempt creature with whom Andrew had so stupidly - and
temporarily
- gone to live was a far more effective incentive than Izzy’s airy exhortations to ‘get out and do something’ had ever been.
‘Where are you going?’ Izzy demanded with suspicion a couple of days later when Gina presented herself downstairs made up and scented and wearing a new, navy-blue Chanel-style suit which looked suspiciously like the genuine article and which would no doubt reduce the bank manager to new depths of depression. At this rate, Izzy could almost feel sorry for him.
Gina, who had been practising a new, slightly deeper and hopefully more authoritative voice in the privacy of her bedroom, said, ‘I’ve got a job interview.’ But Izzy only looked more alarmed.
‘Are you going down with something infectious?’
‘No, I am not.’ Disappointed, Gina reverted to her normal tones. ‘And you’re supposed to be encouraging me.’
‘I tried doing that,’ Izzy reminded her. ‘And it went horribly wrong.’ Then she pulled herself together. ‘But I’m glad you’re looking for work; it’ll do you the world of good. What kind of job is it?’
It was indeed going to do her a world of good, thought Gina, scarcely able to control her smile. She had run through the plan a hundred times, yet the thought of it still sent the adrenalin racing through her body. The interview, set for eleven o’clock, was bound to be over by midday. Then, having secured the job she would arrive at Andrew’s office just before twelve-thirty and insist . . .
insist
that he join her for lunch in order to celebrate. From there on the details grew a little hazy; all she knew was that Andrew would be seeing her at her new and absolute best, she would be seeing him without that awful Marcy in tow and it would be the happiest afternoon of her life . . .
‘Are you
sure
you’re OK?’ Izzy waved a hand in front of her face, bringing her back to earth.
‘Of course I am. It’s a sales job,’ said Gina with renewed pride, ‘at Therese Verdun, just off Bond Street.’
Therese Verdun was one of the most exclusive dress shops in London.
Of course, thought Izzy wryly, silly me for asking.
‘Yes?’ snapped Andrew, when his secretary buzzed through to his office at midday.
‘Er, Mr Lawrence, your wife is here to see you,’ said Pam, struggling to contain her excitement. Having stayed up late the previous night to watch
Fatal Attraction
, she had high hopes for this real-life confrontation. Gina didn’t look as if she was carrying a gun, but you never knew. And Andrew Lawrence had been in such a lousy mood for the last couple of weeks that whatever he had coming to him now, Pam condoned absolutely.
‘Send her in,’ commanded the tinny voice over the intercom. Gina smiled at Pam. Pam, deciding that maybe she wouldn’t take her lunch hour just yet after all, smiled back. Andrew, ensconced in his office, didn’t smile at all.
‘Darling!’ said Gina, when the door was safely shut behind her. Swooping down on him like a thin, elegant bird and enveloping him in a cloud of freshly applied Shalimar, she kissed his cheek. ‘Isn’t this a surprise? I should have phoned, but I was so excited I simply had to come and tell you . . . I’ve just found myself the most marvellous job and I wanted you to be the first to know!’
‘That’s—’ began Andrew, caught totally off-guard by her arrival, but Gina had rehearsed her lines too often to allow him to interrupt.
‘And it’s all thanks to you, because if you hadn’t left I would never have even thought of going out to work!’ she gabbled joyfully. ‘So I insist, absolutely, upon taking you for lunch.’
‘Ah, well . . .’
‘No excuses,’ she continued with mock severity. ‘I checked with Pam to make sure you didn’t have any other appointments, and besides . . . what on earth is the point of having a civilised divorce if one can’t treat one’s husband to a superb lunch at Emile’s once in a while?’
It was all going disastrously wrong, she thought numbly an hour later. Here she was, doing and saying everything according to plan, here they were in Andrew’s favourite - and ruinously expensive - restaurant, and here was Andrew refusing to co-operate with all the quiet stubbornness of a small boy who doesn’t want to return to boarding school.
‘Another bottle of wine?’ she asked in desperation, but he simply shook his head and glanced yet again at his watch. Gazing helplessly around at the other tables, Gina saw only couples enjoying themselves. She was running out of bright conversation at a rate of knots now. Her new job had become more and more grand . . . she was practically running the entire company . . . and Andrew still wasn’t as impressed as he was supposed to be. He also took little apparent interest in her wildly exaggerated stories of what sharing a house with Izzy and Sam was like. Unless he pulled himself together and started making an effort very soon, thought Gina as the first signs of real panic began to gnaw at her stomach, she didn’t know what she might do.
‘I hope Marcy isn’t cooking you a huge dinner,’ she said, although he hadn’t really eaten much at all.
Andrew shook his head. If he looked at his watch one more time, thought Gina, she would tear it off his wrist and hurl it across the room.
‘And the baby?’ she continued, too brightly. ‘Is everything going smoothly there? I expect Marcy’s up to her ears in ante-natal classes at the moment . . .’
‘Gina, don’t,’ he said abruptly. ‘Look, thanks for the lunch and I’m really very pleased for you about the job, but I have got to get back to the office. There’s no need for you to drive me back, I can take a cab.’
The fantasy hadn’t materialised; the charade was over. Unable to bear it, Gina’s eyes filled with tears and she rose jerkily to her feet, knocking the fork from her plate and splattering the front of her skirt with Madeira sauce. ‘Andrew, please, you can’t just leave like this. You don’t understand—’
‘I do understand.’ He didn’t know whom to feel most sorry for, Gina or himself. He was merely unhappy, whereas she was chronically insecure. ‘You’ve landed yourself a wonderful job, you’re making a new life for yourself and I’m
glad
about that.’
The tears were in full flood now, streaking her make-up and attracting the attention of other diners. ‘But I don’t
have
a new life,’ she sobbed, scrubbing hopelessly at the burgundy stain on her skirt with a snowy napkin. ‘And I don’t have a wonderful job, either. I don’t have any kind of job because they turned me down. They told me I needed experience,’ she wailed accusingly, ‘and I didn’t have any because all I’d ever been was a wife!’
Somehow he managed to get her out of the restaurant. A handful of tenners he could ill-afford to lose only just covered the bill. By the time they reached the car, Gina was shivering violently and barely able to stand. The fact that she was oblivious to the stares of passers-by convinced him that her grief was genuine.
‘I can’t drive, d-don’t make me d-drive,’ she begged, through chattering teeth. ‘The last time I was like this I nearly k-k-killed someone.’
‘All right, don’t worry,’ he said rapidly, praying he wasn’t over the limit. ‘I’ll take you home.’
‘I’m so ashamed.’
‘Blimey,’ said a man unloading a van. ‘What’s she got, syphilis?’
‘Get in the car,’ ordered Andrew, torn between irritation and sympathy. Once again the crushing weight of responsibility was bearing down on him. While he accepted that he was to blame for this entire sorry mess, he couldn’t help wondering why he should be the one with the wife who couldn’t handle it while other men seemed to escape scot-free.
‘Blimey.’ Katerina, spending the afternoon studying at home, unknowingly echoed the van driver when she answered the front door and saw Gina’s swollen, ravaged face.
‘I’m sorry.’ Andrew waved apologetically in the direction of the doorbell. ‘Gina couldn’t find her key.’
Katerina regarded him with interest. Gina in tears was nothing new - although she did look quite spectacularly dreadful - but as far as Katerina was aware she had left the house this morning in unusually high spirits, looking forward to her interview. From the look of her now, she could only assume that Gina hadn’t been offered the job. ‘That’s OK,’ she replied easily, wondering if this man was the owner of the dress shop. ‘But I’m intrigued. Who are you?’
It was a bizarre situation; for the moment Gina was quite forgotten. Having already deduced who Katerina was, Andrew could only return her unflinching gaze. She was wearing a faded honey-coloured sweatshirt and knee-length white leggings and her glossy brown hair hung straight to her shoulders. Her eyes were huge and light brown, her teeth very white. In her right hand she held a pen; in her left a marmalade sandwich.
‘Andrew Lawrence,’ he said and waited for her expression to change to one of disdain. Izzy’s dislike of him had been only too evident during their brief meeting the previous week.
Katerina, however, broke into a smile and gave him a look of such complicity that he knew at once she was on his side. The relief was overwhelming.
‘Right, of course you are.’ She stepped aside, enabling him to lead Gina towards the sitting room. Andrew found himself unable to tear his eyes from her rear view; those slim hips and long legs were almost hypnotizing in their simple elegance. She couldn’t possibly be more than eighteen.
‘Well, I’d better leave you to it.’ In the sitting room, text books littered the carpet. Within seconds Katerina had retrieved them and was standing in the doorway. When she had watched Andrew deposit his wife in one of the peach upholstered armchairs she said calmly, ‘Do you know who
I
am?’
He straightened, adjusting his tie and dropping Gina’s car keys on to the coffee table. He might not have contributed much towards the conversation in the restaurant, but he had at least listened. ‘You’re the clever one,’ he told her, his voice even, ‘who does the washing-up.’
‘Right.’ This time Katerina laughed. ‘Of course I am. And how clever of
you
to have guessed.’
Having planned to drop off Gina and leave immediately, he found himself phoning the office instead and telling them he wouldn’t be back that afternoon, which would fuel office gossip no end. And after thirty minutes of half-heartedly attempting to console his inconsolable wife, he was rewarded by the sound of footsteps descending the staircase. Snatching Gina’s teacup from her hands and murmuring something about a refill, he shot out of the room and slap into Katerina.