He's My Husband! - Lindsay Armstrong [20]
‘Reef and beef, Ellen—how does that sound?’ Nicola said that afternoon. ‘For this dinner party tomorrow night, I mean.’
Ellen, in her fifties and a widow, but spry and birdlike, and with the energy of a small dynamo, cocked her head. ‘My brother’s due in tomorrow morning. I’m sure I could get some fresh squid off him.’
Her brother was a trawlerman, in fact it was on his trawler that Brett had worked as a teenager, as a deck hand and prawn-sorter in his spare time. And that was how a bond had been forged with Ellen’s family, and how Ellen had come to think the sun shone out of Brett Harcourt.
‘Calamari,’ Nicola said with deep satisfaction. ‘Especially the way you do it, Ellen. The perfect entrée! Then I thought of Beef Wellington and...’ she tapped a pencil against her chin ‘...a mocha mousse?’
‘You do have a light hand with a mousse,’ Ellen commented. ‘Drat that child!’
‘What’s he done now?’ Nicola asked resignedly.
Chris deeply resented being left at home while Sasha went to school, although he did attend a kindergarten—baby school, as Sasha called it—three mornings a week.
‘I knew he couldn’t have eaten his mashed potato, although it was gone from his plate and him looking all angelic. He put it in my shoe! I slipped them off while I washing the floor.’
Nicola looked around to see whether Chris was in earshot, but there was no sign of him, and she started to giggle helplessly. Ellen, after a moment, joined in, although she said, ‘Just wait until I get my hands on him!’
‘I wonder if his father was as naughty?’
‘More likely he got it from his mother,’ Ellen said darkly. She’d never forgiven Marietta for leaving Brett—if that was how it had happened.
‘Here, I’ll clean it for you.’ Nicola picked up the shoe and began, distastefully, to fork mashed potato out of it. ‘You know, I’m thinking we should enrol him for something. Something physical.’
‘To tire him out? Good idea. Just don’t try judo or anything like that. He’ll be throwing us around the place before you know it.’
‘No.’ Nicola grinned. ‘But he is good with a ball. Maybe tennis lessons? Do they teach five-year-olds tennis? I’ll see what Brett thinks. OK. Back to this dinner party tomorrow night. I really want it to be special.’
Ellen glanced at her affectionately. ‘They always are. You have a touch of class. But why this one particularly?’
Nicola chewed her lip. If anyone was in a position to know what a sham their marriage was, Ellen was it, although she didn’t live in with them. But she never made any comment.
‘I...’ Nicola hesitated. ‘I just have the feeling I need to be on my mettle tomorrow night, that’s all.’
‘All right, I’ll make a bargain with you two. You can watch The Wiggles concert again provided you go straight to bed after you’ve said hello to the visitors—and stay in bed,’ she said the next evening.
‘What if I’m dying of thirst or want to go to the bathroom?’ Sasha queried. The children were roaming around her bedroom as she did her hair and make-up. Brett hadn’t arrived home yet.
‘You can go to the bathroom first and take a glass of water to put on your bedside table, Sash. Chris, don’t do that.’
‘Yuk.’ Chris put the perfume atomiser down. ‘Why do you want that stuff all over you? And why’re you rolling your hair up like that? It looks better down.’
Nicola paused in front of the mirror. She’d been arranging her hair in a neat, elegant and sophisticated pleat at the back of her head, but she studied herself critically. ‘Do you really think so?’
“Course I do. Only old ladies wear their hair like that.’
‘Oh.’ She pulled the pins out and let her hair flow down her back. ‘Is that better?’
‘Much better,’ another voice said—Brett’s.
‘See!’ Chris said triumphantly, and rushed to hug his father. It was a few moments before they realised why Sasha hadn’t done likewise—she had liberally and inaccurately painted her lips bright scarlet.
Nicola groaned, and reached for some cleanser and a tissue. ‘Really, Sash! That won’t come off as easily as it goes on. It’s like getting dressed with an army of—I don’t