again for the rest of our lives.’
‘Oh.’ Overcome with emotion, Maxine’s eyes abruptly filled with tears.Thankfully, they had by this time reached the school so she didn’t risk killing them all.
‘Well, it’s nice to be appreciated,’ she said gruffly, curbing the urge to fling her arms around them and smother them in noisy kisses. If she did that in front of their schoolfriends, Josh would certainly die of shame. She cleared her throat instead and attempted to turn the situation into a joke. ‘So that must mean you like me a little bit, then?’
‘I do,’ Ella declared lovingly. ‘And Josh was glad too.’ Maxine smiled. Was he, sweetheart?’
‘Ella,’ Josh murmured, his expression furtive.
But the sheer relief of having finally been allowed to break the silence proved too much for Ella. Having extricated herself from her safety belt she climbed forward between the front seats and adopted a noisy stage-whisper. ‘Because Grandpa gave us extra money for not saying anything,’ she confided, blue eyes shining. ‘Lots of money you didn’t even know about, but if we told the secret to anyone ... except you, now ... we’d have to give it all back.’
‘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.’
