Once in a Lifetime (7 page)

He knew her signals by now.

‘Another cognac, David? Ah, you will. Sure, it’s Sunday tomorrow. You don’t have to get up or anything. Herself can bring you the breakfast in bed.’ This was accompanied by a nudge and a wink.

Ingrid folded her napkin and put it firmly on the table.

‘Jim, Carmel, what a lovely evening,’ she said crisply, reaching down for her small clutch bag. ‘But we’ll have to pass on another drink. I’m exhausted and I know David is too. Thank you so much.’ She got to her feet, slipped her wrap from the back of the chair and put it round her shoulders.

Jim and Carmel stared up at her, but David, who’d seen Ingrid utilise her emergency departure trick before, merely smiled and got to his feet too. Action was important, a legendary Irish actress had once told Ingrid.

‘If they’re bores, they’re going to want to continue to be bores and no matter how much champagne you drink, that won’t improve. Get up gracefully, move back from your chair, gather your things and say goodbye firmly. There’s no way back from that.’

‘Might they not think you’re rude?’ Ingrid wondered.

‘You do it with style and speed,’ the actress went on. ‘Imbue yourself with the glamour and power you’ve worked for, my dear. You’re a star and, though you might not like to turn it on, you can when you need it. Flick that switch, become the TV star, and state that it’s time for you to go. Never fails.’

It didn’t fail now either.

Jim blustered a little bit.

‘You don’t have to go yet -‘ he began.

‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ Ingrid repeated. Really, there were things in her fridge that were smarter than Jim.

‘Goodnight, Carmel.’ Ingrid held out her hand. She couldn’t face the hypocrisy of kissing this woman goodbye.

They didn’t speak in the taxi on the way home. If David had wanted to ensure they didn’t have any civil conversation that night, he’d done a good job, Ingrid thought as she lay in bed, too annoyed by the whole evening to sleep.

He was dozing already and Ingrid sighed and picked up her book.

Ingrid enjoyed Sundays: they were family days and she prided herself on cooking Sunday lunch. She liked cooking. Nothing fussy, just good simple food with no pretensions. Everyone had their favourite. Molly adored grilled fish, salad and roast potatoes followed by Ingrid’s homemade caramel meringue.

Ethan loved roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and something sinful in the chocolate department for dessert. David’s favourite was garlicky chicken with stuffing and smelly cheese to follow.

Ingrid’s own favourite was nothing to do with food: it was having them all there.

Today, she had the radio set to her favourite Sunday news chat show, the double doors into the garden were ajar to let a little air in, and the dogs were arranged bonelessly on the tiled floor, worn out after a fast four-mile walk. Ingrid had woken early again and found she couldn’t sleep, except this time, David was fast asleep beside her, looking grey with tiredness.

She’d slipped out of bed quietly, and taken the dogs out for their walk before buying the papers and sitting down to read them with a pot of coffee beside her. He’d finally emerged at nearly one, unshaven and unshowered.

Coffee?’ Ingrid had asked. It was unlike him to sleep so late and now he looked wretched. ‘You look terrible, David,’ she added. ‘Didn’t you sleep?’

No,’ he said and it was almost a growl of exhaustion. ‘I’m overtired.’ He sank into one of the kitchen chairs.

‘You don’t have any pain in your arm or anything?’ she asked, trying to stay calm but feeling terrified because he was looked so unwell. He could be having a heart attack and he mightn’t know it. It would be just like him to sit there and say, ‘Yes, darling, phone for an ambulance if you have a moment.’

‘Don’t fuss, Ingrid,’ he said sharply. ‘I’m fine, really. I’ve a pain in my head, not my arm and coffee would be great.

Please,’ he added after a pause.

She nodded, feeling weak with shock. And then anger.

There was no need to speak to her like that. She’d only been

asking

‘Surprise!’

said a voice.

‘Molly!’

Their daughter stood in the kitchen, arms full of bags.

‘You’re all getting deaf,’ she said, putting down her stuff and then petting the dogs. ‘I yelled hello when I came in.’

Ingrid shot her daughter a look which Molly could interpret easily after twenty-three years. It was the ‘don’t bother your dad’ look.

Molly nodded imperceptibly and hugged her father gently.

Ingrid watched him and could see his face relax.

‘How are you, Pumpkin?’

‘Fine, Dad.’ Molly planted a kiss on his forehead. ‘Late night?’

‘A bit,’ David admitted ruefully. ‘Jim Fitzgibbon was pouring wine into me.’

Molly chuckled, and left her father to give her mother a hello kiss. ‘Since when has anyone had to pour wine into you, Dad?’ she teased, and just like that, the tension went out of the room.

‘Are you calling me a boozer, you brat?’

Both women laughed.

‘If the cap fits …’ said Molly. ‘Only kidding. Where were you, anyway?’

‘Renaldo’s,’ said Ingrid, getting out another cup for her daughter. She poured more coffee and sat down at the table beside her family.

‘How’s Fiona?’ asked Molly.

‘That’s the problem,’ Ingrid sighed. ‘Jim and Fiona have split up, so we had to meet his new woman. I don’t think she was your cup of tea, either, love?’

Ingrid smiled at her husband, a peacemaking smile to say she was sorry she’d been so angry about having to endure the evening, and could he be sorry for being such a grouch?

‘No,’ David agreed. ‘Sorry about that. On the phone, Jim made her sound like a cross between Mother Teresa and Angelina Jolie.’

Molly’s eyes widened. ‘And was she?’

David’s smile to Ingrid reached his eyes. ‘Not really. She looked fine ‘

‘- a bit obvious,’ Ingrid interrupted. ‘A spray-on Gucci mini-dress and pole-dancing sandals isn’t exactly the right outfit for a first-time dinner with your new partner’s oldest friend.’

‘It was the conversation that was the problem,’ David went on. ‘She wants to be in television.’

‘You were listening?’

He grinned. ‘Sorry, I know you thought I wasn’t rescuing you. Despite all his boasting, Jim’s business is in trouble and he wanted to bend my ear about it. I couldn’t interrupt him, but I heard the bit about television.’

‘One of those.’ Molly groaned.

‘How’s Natalie? When’s Lizzie’s wedding?’

‘The fourteenth. Apparently Lizzie’s always had a thing about being married on Valentine’s Day. The hen night’s next weekend and the flat’s full of mad stuff: pink fluffy ears and things.’

Ingrid smiled. Her pre-wedding party had been a very sedate affair compared to the ones girls had now.

‘Are you going to the hen night?’

‘Not so far. Natalie wants me to, but I’m trying to get out of it. Lizzie’s great, but I’m not one of her long-time friends and everyone else on the hen night is. She’s known them for years.’

Ingrid nodded but she felt the catch in her throat she so often felt about her older child. Molly had always been shy, although she hid it well enough. She was friendly and charming, well brought up enough to be polite, so few people would know how shy she was. She’d never been one of those children comfortable in the middle of a group; for the first year of school, she’d cried every single morning when Ingrid left her.

‘Oh, hen parties are all a bit mad now,’ Ingrid said nonchalantly.

‘It’ll probably be wild,’ she added, wishing inwardly that, for once, Molly would want to join in. Ingrid knew that you couldn’t make a person behave in a certain way, but how could two such outgoing people as herself and David have a daughter who was the opposite?

At school, there had never been any special friend, never any one little girl Molly adored and brought home to play.

Molly was at her happiest in her own company, reading or talking to the pets - back then, the family had a mad collie with one ear, and a minxy cat who collected small cuddly toys and brought them into her bed at night.

Molly loved to curl up on her bed and read, with one or both of the animals snuggled beside her. Accepting that her daughter was a solitary little person had been one of the toughest lessons Ingrid had ever had to learn.

Ingrid was thrilled that her darling Molly shared a flat with Natalie. They’d met at college and for the first time in her life, Molly had found a close friend.

Both were serious in their own way: Molly with her charity

work and Natalie with her absolute dedication to jewellery design. She’d put herself through college and was working part-time in the cafe in Kenny’s to raise funds to set up her own business. She had lots of drive and ambition, and yet there was a vulnerable side to her, Ingrid felt.

Trust Molly to have held out until she found a friend with integrity.

When Molly had gone, Ingrid walked around tidying up. She loved their house. Guests were surprised to see that it was the antithesis of Kenny’s Edwardian charm. Instead, Ingrid and David’s home was coolly modern, with large open-plan spaces and swathes of pale wall. The floors were bleached wood, except in the kitchen, where the restaurant-style stainless steel was offset by polished poured-concrete slabs. Ingrid’s love of white was reflected in couches and chairs upholstered in warm white loose covers, with colour coming from the artwork on their walls, including many works by the emerging artists that David loved to support. The large burst of colour in the hall came from a giant tapestry from Kenny’s, one of the unusual Bluestone Tapestries. It depicted a wooden house nestled in a glade of trees, all of which was partly obscured by banks of peonies in the foreground.

The nine o’clock news began and David was already yawning. Ingrid watched him affectionately and thought of the joke when they were younger about being ‘in bed before the news’. Of course, back then, they went to bed to make love. These days, that happened somewhat less. Tiredness, Ingrid knew, was a major reason. And although it was a subject they were careful to talk about, it took longer for both of them to get in the mood than it had when they were younger. The wham, bam, thank you, mam days were over.

Ingrid had never liked speedy sex anyway, even though it was flattering to think that David couldn’t wait for her, needed to be inside her. But she rarely orgasmed that way: she needed

time and gentleness, and now their lovemaking took time. It suited her, working up to heat instead of exploding into a fireball straight off.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ she said softly.

David looked up from the news, his clever grey eyes intense as they stared at her. Unreadable, she would have said, had it been anyone else. But she knew him and all his moods. She could see desire there.

He flicked off the television with the remote control, stretched long legs out slowly, then got to his feet. He held out his hand: ‘Come on,’ he said.

Their bedroom was one of the only carpeted rooms in the house and as soon as they reached it, Ingrid took off her shoes and let her bare feet luxuriate in the soft wool. She switched on the lamps, letting light warm the room, creating a burnished glow on the expanse of bed covered by a king-sized silk throw in a muted jade colour.

‘Are you too tired?’ she asked David as she sat on the edge of the bed and began unbuttoning her crisp white shirt.

He shook his head, then joined her.

Ingrid hadn’t been a virgin when she’d met David. She’d had three lovers, which, she knew, was quite average. He’d had more and they’d promised never to become jealous of people long gone in the way some couples did.

All Ingrid knew was that her other lovers had never been able to make her feel as if this was the only way to make love, as if now was the most perfect moment. She had no idea how many times they’d gone to bed together over the course of their marriage, but as soon as David’s hand wound its way around her to pull her closer so he could kiss her, she felt that familiar stirring inside.

Tonight, there was an urgency in his kisses and he cradled her skull in both hands as their mouths merged. When he gently pulled her shirt away from her body and curved his fingers over her breasts, it was like he’d never done it before.

Ingrid let herself melt into this fresh passion. This was his apology, she knew. He was saying sorry for his distance in the only way he could: by making love to her.

When he finally entered her, his familiar face above hers, Ingrid felt a surge of pure happiness. This was love, she I thought, raising her head to nuzzle his shoulder. Sharing everything with another human being. She knew his body as well as she knew her own, knew when he was close to orgasm, I knew that if she concentrated on the fierce heat and if his fingers reached into her wetness, that she’d explode at the same time as him. And then it came: fireworks inside her, a single explosion searing into thousands of exquisite ripples that made her cry out.

He fell on to his side of the bed with a groan afterwards, and Ingrid kept the contact between them by reaching one bare leg out over his. She lay there quietly and happily, listening to his breathing slow until she was sure he was asleep. ‘Goodnight, darling David,’ she murmured, kissing him.

In reply, he muttered something she didn’t quite hear.

With one last gentle pat, she drew the sheet up around his waist, then got out of bed to go through her night-time routine.

Cleanse, moisturise and brush teeth. As she stood in the bathroom and carefully creamed her skin with body lotion, she reflected again on how no cosmetic could make a person feel beautiful the way being loved did.