‘Told her off? I stood in front of her and ate every last one. And I’ve told her that next week she has to go back, apologize to the manager and hand over two weeks’ pocket money. If she’s lucky he won’t send her to prison.’
‘She won’t do that again in a hurry, then.’ He looked amused.
‘She won’t speak to me again in a hurry either,’ said Maxine. ‘According to Ella, it was my fault for not allowing her to buy any Jellytots in the first place.’
Guy rose to his feet and picked up a tea towel. When he started drying the plates she’d washed, Maxine knew at once something was up.
‘But they do speak to you,’ he said, his tone casual. ‘Tell me, what do they think of Serena?’
Uh oh. It hadn’t escaped Maxine’s notice that Serena had arrived with four suitcases and only left with two. She might have known she shouldn’t get her hopes up. ‘Why? Are you thinking of marrying her?’
‘I’m just interested in hearing anything you may have picked up,’ said Guy.
Serena had stuck up for her, Maxine remembered, when he had bawled her out over the Oliver Cassidy incident. She’d also given her a Monopoly board-sized box of expensive makeup, an unwanted gift which she said she’d never use. In her own vague way, Maxine supposed, she wasn’t really that bad. Not scintillating, but bearable.
‘They think she’s OK,’ she replied, washing a teaspoon with care. ‘They don’t dislike her, anyway. She doesn’t really talk to them that much.’
Guy raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that it?’
Maxine handed him the teaspoon. ‘As far as Josh is concerned, most of your girlfriends go so far over the top they’re practically in orbit. At least Serena doesn’t do that. She doesn’t gush over them.’
‘Hmm.’ He paused, then said, ‘And how about you?’ She gave him an innocent look. ‘I don’t gush either.’
‘What’s your opinion of Serena?’
He wasn’t being very fair. If she said anything remotely bitchy it could only go against her.
With a trace of resentment, Maxine said, ‘Why are you asking me? My opinion hardly counts.
You’re old enough to make up your own mind about whether or not you like her.’ Furthermore, she thought grumpily, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why he should be so apparently taken with Serena and so uninterested in herself.
‘I know.’ There was a glimmer of a smile on his face. ‘I have. But it is going to affect you.
Serena’s sold her flat in London and she’s going to be moving in with us when she gets back from Barcelona.’
Oh hell, thought Maxine. If Guy and Serena were going to play happy families, did that mean she was out of a job? Aloud, she said, ‘Permanently?’
He shrugged. ‘We’ll see how it goes. She was looking at other flats, but completion on her own went through more quickly than expected, so it seemed an appropriate time to ... well, try it.’
Maxine turned, gave him a look and said nothing.
‘I know, it’s hardly the romantic gesture of the decade,’ hedged Guy, ‘but it’s tricky, with the children ... I just don’t want to make any mistakes.’
‘And what do Josh and Ella think of all this?’ she countered. ‘They haven’t said anything about it to me.’
‘I’m speaking to them this evening.’ He smiled. ‘I asked you first.’
‘What for, my permission?’
‘Your opinion.’
Maxine dried her hands on a tea towel. ‘Don’t their opinions matter?’
‘Of course they do,’ Guy retorted. ‘If they really couldn’t handle it, Serena wouldn’t move in. And this isn’t a cue,’ he added severely, ‘for you to put the boot in behind my back.’
She kept a straight face. ‘Would I?’
‘Of course you would.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s why I’m saying don’t even think of it. This is important to me.’
Me too, thought Maxine. Leaning against the sink and folding her arms she said mildly, ‘If Serena’s moving in, does that mean you won’t need me any more?’
‘Good God, of course not!’ Guy looked astonished. ‘Is that what you thought? No, Serena has her career .. . she travels abroad more often than I do. You’d still be needed to look after the children.’ He paused, then added, ‘If anything, I was more concerned that you might decide to leave.’
It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her, Maxine decided. Heavens, it was practically a full-scale compliment. ‘Does that mean you really want me to stay?’ she said, milking the situation for all it was worth.
But Guy wasn’t that easily fooled. ‘The children do,’ he replied neatly. ‘But then they don’t know about the incident the other night outside your sister’s flat.’
‘Oh, but I hadn’t really been arrested—’
‘I know.’ He looked amused. ‘I’m just saying there isn’t much point in fishing for compliments. There’s such a thing as pushing your luck too far.’
‘If you want to marry someone, why don’t you marry Maxine?’ said Ella, as if that solved the problem. ‘Then Serena wouldn’t need to move in.’
Guy tried to imagine what was going on in her seven-year-old mind. Ella’s memories of her mother were becoming sketchy. She had been cared for by nannies – first Berenice, now Maxine
– for over three years.
