The Ballroom Class (28 page)

Oh God, thought Lauren, they must be mine. I’d better get them filed before I get the lecture. But when she looked more closely, she realised they were for cards she didn’t have: First Direct, and Barclays. Lauren pulled out the statement, and saw her mother’s name on the top: Mrs Bridget Armstrong. The pay-by date was last month. Hastily she pushed it back in, feeling guilty.

She stood for a moment in the quiet kitchen, wondering what on earth her mother was doing filing bank statements in the jam and coffee cupboard. It was the kind of thing old people did when they were starting to lose it. How old was her mum? Sixty? Lauren saw a lot of old people at the surgery with senile dementia, their faces slack, eyes wandering helplessly at people they should love. It wasn’t something she could associate with her bright, neat mother, and a cold hand gripped at her heart.

She shook herself. Mum’s not senile, she thought. Probably Dad’s put them there while he was looking for the coffee.

She tucked them in her pocket and headed for the staircase, slipping off her shoes and treading quietly in case her parents had had an early night. But as her head drew level with the top floor she saw a thin sliver of light underneath her own bedroom door.

Curiously, she padded up the remaining stairs and pushed open the door with her elbow, trying not to spill her hot chocolate on her toast.

To Lauren’s surprise, Bridget was sitting hunched awkwardly at her computer, fiddling with a digital camera, trying to work out which port it slotted into. An array of knick-knacks were spread out on the bed – tea cups, belts, butter dishes, Lilliput Lane houses  . . .

Honestly, thought Lauren, I’ve only shown her this a thousand times. Maybe she is losing her marbles.

‘Here,’ she said, leaning over to get the lead. ‘Let me.’

Bridget jumped, banging her knees against the desk. ‘Ooh!’ she said, clapping a hand to her chest. ‘You gave me a shock. I thought you were staying over at Chris’s tonight?’

‘Yeah,’ said Lauren. ‘So did I. Look, it goes in here.’

‘Oh, never mind that. Do you want some supper?’ Bridget turned round, half hiding the screen.

‘No, I’ve got some toast. Mum, are you eBaying this stuff?’ Lauren looked impressed.

‘Well, I thought I’d get rid of some junk, save going to a car boot and having people pick over your things.’ Bridget swept the bits and pieces into a fold-down laundry crate.

‘What’s your seller name?’ asked Lauren curiously.

‘MrsArmstrong47,’ said Bridget. She looked flustered. ‘Listen, we’ll be waking your dad. I’ll get out of your way. You’ll want to get to bed  . . .’

‘It’s OK, Mum,’ said Lauren. ‘I don’t mind helping.’ She put her hot chocolate down on the bedside table and uploaded the photographs Bridget had been trying to add to her eBay listing.

‘Wow!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are these all the things you’re flogging?’

‘Erm, yes.’

‘You’re going to make a packet, with this lot. Have you been doing this all evening? Does Dad know? Won’t he wonder where his old power drill’s gone?’

‘He’s gone and got himself a new one, hasn’t he? Without telling me. Besides, we need a clear-out.’ Bridget gave Lauren a warning glare. ‘Don’t tell him, though. You know what he’s like – trying to buy back his old trousers from the firemen’s jumble sale.’

‘Fair enough. But, Mum, you haven’t put a reserve on this  . . . set of fish knives. Are you sure?’ Lauren added, clicking on the pictures of the fancy presentation case. ‘They look dead old. Were they a wedding present?’

‘Yes, from my auntie Doris.’ Bridget sighed and stroked the leather case on the bed. ‘Never used. Never likely to. But they’re silver, so they’re worth a bob or two. Mother-of-pearl handles.’

Lauren turned to look at her mother properly. ‘But you
love
stuff like this.’ Her gaze fell on something else she recognised. ‘Are you flogging your silver coffee spoons? No! Not the ones with the little silver beans on the ends?’

Bridget fiddled with her watch. ‘It’s a lot of clutter,’ she said, in a tone that didn’t quite ring true with Lauren, somehow. ‘You know what the house is like – full of stuff.’

‘Hmm,’ said Lauren, but inside she thought, maybe Mum’s been watching those daytime antiques programmes. And they were about to retire, after all. What was the point of hanging on to fish knives when you could be using the money to fly to New Zealand to see your grandchildren?

‘Don’t tell your dad,’ Bridget insisted again, her cheeks flushed. ‘He’s still not convinced about the internet.’

‘OK. But you need to fix a reserve. See, that’s why modern wedding lists are a
much
better idea,’ said Lauren, typing. ‘You get what you want, and you can always swap what you don’t want for things that you do. Which reminds me, you can do lists on the internet now, save you going round the shops. Do you want to see? I’ve already registered with a couple.’

‘Yes,’ said Bridget, as if she had a choice. ‘Let’s do that.’

‘Oh,’ added Lauren, remembering the bills. ‘These are yours.’

She was too busy logging into her M&S list to notice the look of panic that went across her mother’s face when she saw the statements, or the guilty way she slipped them into her pocket.

Lauren was also too busy showing her carefully selected bathroom accessories, to notice the nervous way her mother was twisting her eternity ring round and round on her right hand.

Bridget thought the ring had been a lovely idea of Frank’s: ‘To thank you for the life we’ve had, and for the life we’re going to have when we’re
both
retired,’ he’d said, a smile splitting his face, as she opened the little box and gasped at the diamonds that sparkled inside.

She had started to remind him they couldn’t afford it, but Frank – the old romantic – insisted. ‘We’ve both worked so hard, and you deserve something beautiful. I’ve taken it out of my golden handshake, love. It’d only get spent on bills otherwise.’

He’d slipped it on her finger as he spoke and once it was on, Bridget hadn’t wanted to take it off. Ever. She knew he wanted to make a gesture, and it was the last chance they’d have of that sort of lump sum. But Bridget wished Frank would remember they just had the one full income now – he still went to M&S for the groceries, and splashed out on new hobbies like his camcorder. Somehow the overdraft had crept up to five thousand pounds; the bank had extended it twice already this year.

Then she thought of the bills in her pocket and for the first time in her life, Bridget didn’t think she had the nerve to open them.

She looked down at her finger.

How much did she really need this ring?

How much would it hurt Frank if she sold it?

It’s just money, thought Bridget, shoving her niggles away just like she’d hidden the credit-card bills. But that was the trouble.

16

Later on, sitting paralysed with misery in the darkness, Katie worked out that the bitter row that finally derailed her marriage could be traced back to Eddie Harding. Not directly – it wasn’t as though he had sat there between her and Ross and goaded them on – but via tight little links in a nasty chain that she couldn’t have undone, starting on Monday morning, when Eddie knocked and walked straight into her office.

‘Can I have a quick word, Kate?’

Katie gritted her teeth, and closed the Monsoon website. Jo was still nagging her to frock up for dancing, and was now sending her internet links to appropriate ruffly confections, since Katie had no time for real shopping. Katie had to admit she was softening to the idea: after the last class, Lauren had been raving on about how much easier it was to strike elegant poses when you were wearing something pretty – and Katie wanted to believe that perhaps it was just beading that transformed lanky Lauren into Ginger Rogers.

The parade of pretty dresses vanished and she looked up at Eddie. He had his ‘you’re going to do me a favour’ face on. It was impossible to imagine Angelica’s fantasy world of graceful women and chivalrous men while breathing the same air as Eddie Harding.

‘It’s about the town project,’ he said, still without bothering to wait for her response. ‘You’ve made such a cracking job of getting your research team underway that I’ve decided it’s only fair to let you take credit for the whole thing. Move you up to team leader at this stage. And you know what that means  . . .’ He tapped his nose, winked, then rubbed his fingers together.

‘Great!’ smiled Kate, interpreting his pantomime as something to do with promotion, then added, as it dawned on her, ‘But what about  . . . ?’

‘Nick? I’m moving him sideways onto liaising with the various contractors, playing to his contact strengths there, so you’ll be taking over his site analysis – shouldn’t be too hard, now you’ve got everything set up, eh?’

Katie’s mouth opened and shut. So Nick was now in charge of a punishing schedule of lunches and a few rounds of golf, while her paperwork nightmare had doubled. Tripled.

Eddie sensed her panic and added, condescendingly, ‘I mean, if you don’t think you’re really ready for more responsibility  . . .’

She set her jaw, and focused on the extra money, and the added days of holiday and the chance to go for flexitime.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind. But I’ll need all the documents he’s been working on so far. And I’ll be putting in for overtime.’

‘Good girl, Kate. Just as you like,’ Eddie had said, and slimed out of her office, a bit too quickly, which should have triggered alarm bells.

When she got the files from Nick’s intern after lunch, Katie realised why he’d been so keen to pass the buck: the other site was right in the middle of the town centre, centred on the precinct and the slab-sided tower blocks behind it. It would be a nightmare of leaseholds, freeholds, Compulsory Purchase Orders, commercial versus residential allocations  . . .

And the deadline was the same as for the site she was already working on. There was an initial appraisal meeting at the end of that week.

Katie made herself take deep, calming breaths as the enormity of it set in and her heart quickened with panic, but even as she did so, her professional pride began to rise inside her.

I can
do
this, she told herself. And he’ll owe me so many favours it’ll be worth it. And I’m definitely booking us a three-week summer holiday next year.

She had just started making notes of the contacts she needed to call when the phone rang, and she grabbed it automatically, thinking it might be Nick Felix wanting to apologise.

‘Katie, it’s Jo. Listen, sorry to phone you at work, but I wanted to check while I’m in Asda – do you and the kids need anything for our magical mystery tour?’

Katie stared out of the window, where a steady drizzle had set in. Now her brain was in hyper-work mode, it took a second to flick it back to home matters. ‘Er, one or two bits and pieces, but I was going to get them at the weekend.’

Jo laughed on the other end of the phone. ‘Bit late then!’

‘Late?’

‘Well, yeah, since we’ll already
be
there! We’re going on Thursday, dumbo. Three days.’

Katie looked at her desk diary, the days already blocked out with morning meetings and afternoon site visits with tenants associations and local business people, with her new dates for the second site pencilled in around them. Was she going mad? She flipped over the pages. Nothing.

Katie’s stomach turned as she flipped back and forth in her diary.

A cold sweat broke out on her forehead.

How had that happened? She’d definitely written it down somewhere.

She scrabbled in her handbag for her own diary, the one with dancing classes and counselling appointments, and there it was, clearly marked – Hannah/Ross birthday.

You forgot your own daughter’s birthday
, goaded the horrible voice in her head.
You are a careless, selfish mother.

I didn’t forget, she protested, trying to drown it out. I
didn’t
! I just  . . .

She’d asked Scott to sort out her holiday allocation. And he’d made a big deal about not doing her personal chores and she’d left it with him, and now – she checked frantically through her email inbox – there was no confirming email from Personnel about the days off.

‘Oh God,’ she groaned. ‘You’re not going to believe what I’ve done.’

‘Try me. I found the kettle in the fridge this morning.’

Katie sank her head in her hands and a lead weight settled on her shoulders. ‘Look, give me ten minutes, I’ll call you back.’

Scott was nowhere to be found; fortunately for him, he was off on a site inspection. Katie knew she’d have to call in a favour from Eddie to get out of the meeting, and that gave her a headache already.

He wasn’t alone when she knocked on his office door; he was ensconced with two men in suits.

‘Ah, Kate,’ he said, ‘I was just talking about you. Have you met Councillor York? And Clive Jenkins, our head of regional development?’

Katie’s stomach knotted. This wasn’t the best time, but she had no alternative. ‘Hello!’ She forced out a smile. ‘Eddie, this meeting on Friday  . . .’

Eddie beamed at the two other men. ‘Kate will be presenting initial findings for the proposed regeneration sites.’