‘I suppose your mother’s out,’ said the brusque voice of Lester Markham.
Katerina replied sweetly, ‘I’m afraid she is. How are you, Mr Markham? And how is—’
‘Never mind that,’ he interrupted harshly. ‘I’ll be a damn sight better when I receive the last two months’ rent your mother owes me. Tell her I’ll be round at nine o’clock tomorrow morning for payment. In full.’
Katerina popped another Liquorice Allsort - a black-and-brown triple-decker, her particular favourite - into her mouth and gave the matter some thought. Lester Markham looked a lot like Jim Royle from
The Royle Family
, only maybe a bit grubbier. He didn’t have as much of a sense of humour either.
‘I thought we only owed one month,’ she said carefully.
‘Plus another month in advance,’ snapped Lester Markham, ‘which she used up in December and conveniently appears to have forgotten about.’
Oops, thought Katerina. So that was how Izzy had acquired the money for their splendid Christmas Eve dinner at Chez Nico.
‘Of course,’ she replied in conciliatory tones. ‘I’ll tell her as soon as she gets home, Mr Markham. Don’t worry about a thing.’
‘I’m not worried,’ he said in grim tones. ‘You’re the one who should be worried. Just tell your mother that if I
don’t
receive that money - and I mean
all
the money - tomorrow morning, you’ll both be out of that flat by the end of the week.’ He sniffed, then added quite unnecessarily, ‘And I’m not joking, either.’
Chapter 3
Gina didn’t know why she was doing this - she wasn’t even sure any more where she was - but she did know that she couldn’t go home. Anything was better than returning to that empty house and having to relive the nightmare of Andrew’s departure.
Her fingers tightened convulsively, gripping the steering wheel of the Golf so hard that she wondered whether she’d ever be able to prise them free. And she was definitely lost now, but since she didn’t have anywhere to go, it hardly seemed to matter.
Having packed a couple of suitcases with guilt-ridden haste, Andrew had left their Kensington home at ten minutes past six and Gina, not knowing what else to do, had switched off the oven and run herself a hot bath. Then, unable to face the thought of taking off her clothes - she felt vulnerable enough as it was - she had pulled out the bath plug, watched the foaming, lilac-scented water spiral away, and reached instead for her coat and car keys.
Driving around the Barbican for forty minutes had been both stupid and unproductive. Gina knew that, but knowing too that somewhere amid the multi-layered nests of purpose-built apartments was her husband, she had convinced herself that if only she could locate him, he would come back to her. She had even found herself peering up at lighted windows, willing him to appear at one of them. Looking down into the street he might recognise her car. Then, overwhelmed by remorse he would rush down, fling his arms around her and beg forgiveness . . .
But, of course, it hadn’t happened, because there were simply too many apartments and because by this time his silver-grey BMW would be locked away in one of those expensive, security-conscious car-parks. Furthermore, her husband would undoubtedly have far more interesting things to do than gaze out of a window. He had a mistress, a pregnant mistress, who was probably with him at this minute, exulting in her victory and listening with quiet amusement as he relayed to her the events of the afternoon.
How To Discard An Unwanted Wife, thought Gina bleakly, a lump rising in her throat once more as she accelerated, pulling out to avoid a haphazardly parked car. Andrew and his mistress were probably talking about it right now, reassuring each other that since they were in love, nothing else mattered. What was a used wife among friends, after all? They were probably in bed, too, making passionate love and laughing at the same time because Andrew had been so clever and it had all been so wonderfully
easy
. . .
Blinded by tears, she didn’t see the junction looming ahead until much too late. The next moment a sickening thud and the grating shriek of metal against metal shuddered through the car. Screaming, Gina slammed on the brakes and slewed to a halt as another dull thud echoed violently through her eardrums. Trembling so violently that she could barely get the seat belt undone, she fought rising nausea and wrenched open the car door. Fear and panic propelled her - somehow - towards the figure of a motor cyclist lying immobile in a pool of ice-blue light reflected from a nearby cocktail bar. My God, she thought, whimpering with terror, I’ve killed him . . . he’s dead . . . oh please, God, don’t let this be happening . . .
Izzy wasn’t dead. Dazed, distantly amazed by the extent of the pain tearing through her legs - and by the astonishing fact that she wasn’t kicking up more of a fuss about it - she lay in her crumpled position at the roadside and listened to the sound of an hysterical female yelling, ‘I’ve killed him . . . someone help . . . I’ve killed him.’
Opening an experimental eye, Izzy found herself at grating level. Now
everything
was starting to hurt and to add insult to injury the icy wetness of the road was beginning to permeate her clothes. But at least she could see her bike which was oddly reassuring, even if the front wheel was badly buckled and the handlebars appeared to have twisted in all the wrong directions.
Then she saw the legs of the female who was making all the noise. Thin, pale-stockinged legs in high-heeled, mud-splashed shoes loomed before her.
‘He’s not dead!’ screamed the voice that went with them, and Izzy began to lose patience. Attempting to raise her head in order to see the injured man for herself - how many people had been involved in this accident, for heaven’s sake? - she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t able to do so. Embarrassed by her own weakness, she glared at the skinny, stupid legs in front of her. ‘Make up your mind,’ she said irritably. ‘And will you
please
stop screaming? He’s still going to need a bloody ambulance, whether he’s dead or not.’
‘She isn’t quite herself, but you mustn’t let it worry you,’ explained the young male doctor reassuringly. He neglected to mention that Izzy - to the delight of the night nurses - had just informed him that he had a gorgeous body. ‘It’s the after-effects of shock combined with the sedatives we needed to give her,’ he continued, his eyes kind. ‘She didn’t sustain any concussion.’
It was three-thirty in the morning and the rest of the ward was in darkness as the doctor showed Katerina into the side ward beyond the sister’s office. Dry-mouthed with trepidation, Katerina stood at the end of the bed and gazed down at her mother, propped up against a mountain of pillows and apparently asleep. With her dark hair spilling over her shoulders and her make-up smudged around her closed eyes she looked so small and pale that Katerina found it hard to believe that all she had sustained were cuts, bruises and a broken leg.
Then, as if sensing that she had company, Izzy opened her eyes.
‘Darling!’ she exclaimed, holding out her arms. ‘Come here and give your poor battered mother an enormous hug.’
‘How are you feeling?’ Katerina said, kissing Izzy’s cheek and sending up a silent prayer of thanks for whoever had invented crash helmets.
‘Well, absolutely delightful as a matter of fact, but that’s because of the pills they’ve been shovelling down me. Tomorrow, no doubt, everything will hurt like hell. Did they tell you about the madwoman ploughing straight into me? Apparently I went flying through the air like a trapeze artist, then . . . splat!’
‘At least you’re alive,’ said Katerina, tears pricking her eyelids as she gave Izzy another hug.
‘And you’re positively indecent,’ replied Izzy sternly, doing up the unfastened top buttons of her daughter’s white cotton shirt. ‘Make yourself respectable, child, before that young Adonis behind you starts getting ideas.’
‘Mum!’ She stifled a smile, not daring to turn around.
‘Don’t laugh. I know what these doctors are like. Do you hear me, young man?’ she went on, waving an admonishing finger in his general direction. ‘This is my daughter, seventeen years old and as pure as she is beautiful, so I want you to control yourself.’
‘Don’t worry about me, Mrs Van Asch.’ The doctor, busy filling in charts at the foot of the bed, sounded amused. ‘I’m a married man.’
‘They’re the worst kind,’ said Izzy darkly, her eyes narrowing even as Katerina attempted to cover her mouth. ‘And you should be ashamed of yourself for cheating on your wife. Why, she’s probably at home right now, thinking you’re busy at work, while all this time you’re here instead, you wicked man, drooling like a pervert over my innocent teenage—’
‘
Mother!
’ It came out as an agonised whisper. Long accustomed as she was to Izzy’s outrageous talent for extracting blushes from people who’d never blushed before in their lives, this was too much. This was truly mortifying.
‘It really is quite all right,’ the doctor smilingly assured Kat, as the door to the side ward slid open once more. ‘Ah, you appear to have another visitor. Just five minutes, I think, then Mrs Van Asch really must get some rest.’
Having flown into a panic after receiving the call from the hospital, not believing for a moment that Izzy had sustained only ‘minor injuries’, Katerina had phoned Ralph and luckily found him at home. It was Ralph who had brought her to the hospital, Ralph who’d been waiting in the dimly lit corridor outside the ward, and Ralph, blond and handsome, who now entered the room and moved towards Izzy’s side with love and concern in his eyes.
‘Sweetheart, we were so worried about you . . .’
‘I’m fine,’ said Izzy happily, lifting her face for a kiss. Then she pointed at the metal cage covering her legs and gave him a woeful look. ‘Well, I’m fine but my leg isn’t. We aren’t going to be able to have sex for
weeks
. Oh Mike,’ she concluded piteously, ‘isn’t it just the most depressing thing you ever heard?’
Chapter 4
In medical parlance it was known, enigmatically, as ‘complications’ and they took a desperate turn for the worse the following day. Having hastily explained to Ralph that Izzy was under the influence of mind-bending drugs, Katerina had only partially - minimally, even - succeeded in convincing him that it had all been a ridiculous slip of the tongue. And when Mike had telephoned the flat the next morning to speak to Izzy, and Katerina had told him about the accident, she reasoned that she could hardly have done anything else. The man was in love with her mother, after all. He had to
know
that she was in hospital.
Consequently, and quite naturally, Mike had rushed in to visit Izzy, and to deposit armfuls of exotic hothouse flowers around her bed. It was sheer bad timing, combined with Ralph’s lurking suspicions, which brought about the unfortunate
tête-à-tête-à-tête
that had subsequently ensued.
Although not a coward, Katerina was glad she hadn’t been there. The way Izzy told it afterwards, it had all been too farcical for words.
‘. . . so there was Mike, sitting on the side of my bed unravelling miles of Cellophane and dumping all these incredible flowers into hideous tin vases, when all of a sudden Ralph wrenched open the door and
erupted
into the room, just like the Wicked Witch of the North.’ Izzy shuddered as she recounted the scene. ‘Then he just stood there in the doorway and said, “Don’t tell me, this is Mike.” And of course Mike said, “Yes, I’m Mike. Who are you?” and Ralph - my God, darling, never go out with an actor - made himself look as tall as possible and said . . . no,
proclaimed
. . . “I am Izzy’s other lover.” ’
She knew she shouldn’t be enthralled, but Katerina couldn’t help herself.
‘Go on,’ she urged, silently willing Izzy to have pulled it off. If anyone was capable of handling such an odds-against situation it was her mother.
Izzy shrugged, reading her mind. ‘I’m sorry, darling, but what could I do? The nurses told me afterwards that Ralph had been lurking in the corridor for hours; obviously he’d been waiting for Mike to turn up. And you know how proud and dramatic he is. He simply delivered his lines - “It’s over, Izzy.You’ll never see me again” - and swept out.’
Katerina had liked both Ralph and Mike, although Ralph had definitely been more fun. He had also, she felt, been more of a match for Izzy, whereas Mike was quieter, more serious and more inherently thoughtful.
‘And Mike?’ she asked hopefully, aware that she was clutching at straws. He might be thoughtful, but he wasn’t completely stupid.