Now or Never

Self-protection had been a necessity following the breakup of her marriage and had become a way of life for her. Strong, feisty, successful career women in their forties were vulnerable in a way that women one or two decades younger were not. All the more so when, like Maggie, they broke one of society’s taboos by falling in love with a younger man. Because of that, Maggie was very protectively careful of her emotional responses. It was rare for her to make such an open admission of her feelings. That alone was enough to alert Oliver to the fact that something—or somebody—had seriously hurt her.

‘Tell me,’ he insisted.

‘It’s Nicki,’ Maggie admitted shakily. ‘She hates the idea of me having this baby.’

‘She what?’ Oliver frowned. He knew how important Maggie’s friends were to her; he had heard the full history of their relationship, their shared traumas, and the way they had always supported and protected one another. He knew too how excited Maggie had been about telling them the news, and he could see beneath the brittle bravery of her smile just how hurt and shocked she was.

‘She says that I’m too old,’ Maggie told him. ‘She says that I’m depriving another younger woman of the chance to have a child. She says that I’m doing it to … to keep you—’

‘To keep me!’ Oliver interrupted her. ‘Maggie, there is no way on this earth that you could ever or will ever get rid of me. You know that. You know how much you mean to me. How much I love you. You know what I think … what I believe.’ He looked at her, holding her gaze with his own. ‘You … us … our love, they are my destiny, Maggie. You are the woman I have longed for all my adult life. If one of us deserves to be accused of holding the other to our love via our baby, then that one is me.’

Maggie felt the tight lump of anguish inside her easing. This conviction that Oliver had, and spoke so naturally and easily to her about, that he had been destined to love her, which he made sound so down-to-earth, so much an irrefutable fact, was something she simply could not discuss with anyone else. Because she was afraid she, they, Oliver would be laughed at?

Her friends were mature women and mature women did not believe in fate. Or that love could transcend time, cross the generation barrier? Why? Because she herself dared not allow herself to believe it, no matter what Oliver might say? Because she suspected that had any other man but Oliver spoken to her in such a vein she would have dismissed him as being some daydreaming crank?

‘Nicki’s main concern is that I’m not aware of the problems of being an older mother. She says she can’t understand how I can claim to want a child now when I refused to have one with Dan.’

Now it was her turn to look into Oliver’s eyes.

‘Isn’t it time you told her the truth about that?’ he suggested gently.

Restlessly Maggie moved away from him.

‘It isn’t as straightforward as that. Nicki has always thought a lot of Dan. He was her friend before he and I started dating. She actually introduced us. I don’t want to …’

‘Destroy her illusions?’ Oliver supplied.

He had a habit of lifting one eyebrow when he asked a question and Maggie found herself wondering if it was a mannerism his son or daughter would inherit. Just to think about the coming baby made her heart turn over and melt with love and yearning.

‘Which do you least want to destroy, Maggie? Her illusions or your friendship? Which do you think she values the more? Which would be most important to you? Don’t you think she might even feel a little insulted to know that you believed both her friendship and her ego to be so fragile? Or are you afraid that she will be offended that you have withheld the truth from her for so long?’

‘It wasn’t a deliberate decision,’ Maggie defended herself. ‘And it wasn’t so much that I wanted to withhold the truth from my friends …’

‘No, what you wanted to do—your prime concern,’ Oliver emphasised, ‘was to protect Dan.’

‘It wasn’t his fault that he was infertile,’ Maggie protested. ‘He was devastated when we learned that the problem lay with him …’

‘So devastated that he went out and had an affair!’ Oliver agreed dryly.

‘Oliver, you aren’t being fair! Try to put yourself in his position. He desperately wanted us to have children. He had always wanted to have a family, and when nothing happened, he was wonderfully supportive of me.’

‘Until he found out that he was the one who couldn’t give you a child and not the other way round.’

‘I think he had the affair to … to test out what he had been told,’ Maggie responded quietly. ‘I think it was a form of denial, coupled with a feeling of shock and bereavement, of grieving … and that afterwards he simply couldn’t bear to stay with me because of the destruction of the hopes we had both shared for so long and because …’

‘Because you knew the truth,’ Oliver inserted grimly.

‘Because he was afraid that my love might become pity,’ Maggie corrected him gently.

‘How long is it since he left you, Maggie?’ Oliver demanded.

Would it ever go away, this tiny, gritty piece of jealousy over the man who had shared so much of her life before him; who had had so much of her, with her, before him? He knew how much she had loved her husband and how much she had suffered when their marriage had broken up, but his anger against Dan went deeper than jealousy. Dan was, so far as Oliver was concerned, responsible not just for hurting Maggie, but for undermining her, for letting her take the blame for the failure of their marriage and, even more importantly, for their failure to have children.

Maggie watched Oliver warily. In her younger days she knew she would have been tempted to feel flattered by such evidence of jealousy, but Dan was an important part of her past and of herself, and not even to please Oliver could she deny what she and Dan had once shared. What they had once shared … but what about her ongoing protection of him?

That was merely a habit, and nothing more, Maggie immediately reassured herself. But nonetheless, Oliver had raised an issue that Maggie knew she ought to deal with.

No matter what she might have said in the heat of her distress earlier, the friendship she shared with the others meant far too much for her to see it damaged. Nicki’s reaction to her news had hurt her, yes, but that did not mean that she no longer valued what they shared.

She could tell Nicki that, but somehow she did not feel able to tell her the truth about Dan. Why? To protect Nicki, or to protect her ex-husband?

‘I’m sorry,’ she heard Oliver apologising ruefully.

A little guiltily Maggie shook her head. Oliver had obviously mistaken her absorbed silence in her own thoughts for anger and punishment.

Immediately she went towards him, leaning her head on his chest and wrapping her arms as far around him as she could. He had done so much for her; given her so much. After Dan she had believed there would never be another man she could love, another man who would love her enough to heal the pain of her loss.

‘You should tell Nicki,’ Oliver was insisting.

‘I think there’s more to her reaction than just the fact that Dan and I never had children,’ Maggie responded. ‘I’m concerned about her, Oliver. She was so wrought up, so … so unlike her normal self.’

‘Maybe so, but my concern is all for you and our baby,’ Oliver informed her.

Their baby … The baby her best friend felt she had no right to have!

These years of their lives they were going through now were, Maggie knew, a very, very dangerous rite of passage; a rite of passage that in many ways had become the last female taboo.

Maggie felt strongly that it was the responsibility of her own generation—the generation that had so successfully pushed back so many boundaries, and gifted so many freedoms to the decades of women following in their footsteps—to take up this challenge as they had done so many others.

This treacherous passage across the turbulence of the deep, dangerous emotional waters of these years were in their way as traumatic and life-defining as, perhaps even more so than, those of being a teenager.

Certainly no one—as far as she knew—wrote witty diaries featuring the hormone-induced miseries of her age group. Women of a ‘certain age’, to use a phrase that Maggie detested, had, it seemed, to be divided into two very different groups: those who clung gamely or ridiculously to the wreckage of their youth (depending on which paper and magazines one read) or those who simply opted to disappear and become ‘past it’ secondary people, useful only for the support they gave to others.

But why should this be the case? Maggie questioned. Where was it written down that it had to be so? Was it that women stripped of their youth but left with their power were such a strong force that they had to be mocked and reviled, taunted and made to feel that they were now second-class citizens? Maggie didn’t know. What she did know was that she was there in the vanguard, holding her breath, cheering on her own generation, waiting to see if they could perform the same transformation on this age that they had performed on every other they had passed through.

Her peers, her co-baby boomers, bulge yearers, were an awesomely powerful force, a huge wave of humanity, conceived in hope and celebration, a generation born into peace and prosperity, given unique gifts by their parents and their memories of those who had sacrificed their lives and freedoms.

Truly, if one wanted to look at it in such a way, a very special ‘Fairy Godmother’ had stood silently, rejoicing and hoping, in the wings at their births.

They’d been sprung free of the destructive trap of war that had snared their parents and grandparents, and no limits had been set on what they could achieve or what they could be.

Their lives had been a whole new learning curve for humanity, and, yes, there had been mistakes, foolishness, vanity, but also there had been spectacular life-changing, life-enhancing steps forward, ‘giant leaps’ for mankind of many different types, and this, their move forward into something so reviled and feared by folklore, was surely in its own way one very giant leap.

Get it right and, not just her own sex, but men and women alike of future generations would only look back in fond amusement that there could ever have been a time when a woman’s fiftieth birthday was something she suffered in fear and shame. Get it wrong and they would be consigning not just themselves, but heaven alone knew how many future generations to a life as medieval in its way as that of refusing to allow women to learn to read and write.

And, Maggie felt, it was men like Oliver who would share and rejoice in her sex’s crossing of this Styx-like river of fear.

The change of life! It was a turbulent and on occasion even frightening time, no one could deny that, but the strength it took to grow through it was life-enhancing and life-giving. Maggie knew far more about herself and her needs, her realities now than she had ever done as a girl. The things she had taken for granted then were infinitely more precious to her now, and those precious things included her friends. And her memories.

That her fellow humans had given her this chance to have the child she had so much yearned for, and with the right man, was surely something that should be celebrated, a glorious, wonderful gift that she had made a vow to appreciate and treasure, to love and send out into the world knowing how generously and with how much love he or she had been given life.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ Oliver was whispering sexily in her ear.

Maggie hid a small smile. How many times in the early days of their marriage had she and Dan exchanged those very words? Young lovers did make up in bed. And Oliver was young—at least compared to her. On the list of dos and don’ts they had been given by the clinic had been the information that sex was okay, so long as they were careful.

When she had learned about Dan’s affair her sex drive had deserted her completely, and she had believed that it had gone for good, destroyed by her pain, until Oliver had shown her otherwise! With him she had discovered the zest and excitement she remembered from her youth; she had relearned the pleasure of being physically loved, of giving and sharing that love. And she had also learned that perhaps the strongest aphrodisiac in the world was to be loved and desired by someone who simply wanted to put her needs first.

Dan had been a sexy, skilful, passionate lover, but it was Oliver who had shown her what sensitivity could bring to desire.

‘Mmm …’ she agreed, her eyes glinting with tenderness and teasing as she added insouciantly, ‘They did say at the clinic that I should make sure I got enough sleep.’

‘Sleep. That wasn’t …’

As she started to laugh Oliver grinned at her.

‘Okay, but just you wait until later,’ he mock threatened her as they went upstairs, their arms around one another.

The sight of Stuart’s car parked outside the house as she stopped her own made Alice’s stomach clench a little. She had known he was due to return home this evening, but she had not been sure when.

The others had thought it very glamorous when she had first met Stuart and she had learned that he was an airline pilot, and if she was honest so had she! He had stood out dramatically amongst the boys who formed part of their extended crowd of friends, tall, tanned from his stopovers abroad, blue-eyed, blond-haired and so good-looking that Alice had wondered why on earth he’d been singling her out.

‘Because you are stunningly pretty, and good and sweet, and he’s fallen in love with you, stoopid,’ Nicki teased her gently.

‘Yeah, and he’s seen how sexy you look in those hot pants.’ Maggie laughed, ignoring Alice’s pink-cheeked protests.

The outfits Maggie insisted they wore for their ‘gigs’, Alice suspected, got them far more attention than their music.

Stuart obviously thought so, because one of the first things he did was ask her not to wear them.

‘There’s only one man I want you to look sexy for and that’s me!’ he told her with the same dizzyingly masterful maturity with which he swept her off her feet.

Stuart no longer flew commercial flights. Instead he worked for the airline as an instructor, flying only as a relief pilot when necessary, which was what he had recently been doing.

‘Don’t you ever worry about him … I mean, mixing with all those air stewardesses?’ She was asked that question so many times over the years that she had her response off pat. A smile, a gentle laugh and small shake of her head. But of course she worried. Especially in the early years of their marriage. Stuart was after all a highly sexed man. But he was also a man who showed in many different ways that he loved her.

This house, for instance, that he insisted on buying when they first knew that her second pregnancy was twins. She was horrified at the cost of it—a very large detached house, set in its own immense garden, with an adjacent paddock. She protested that they could not possibly afford it, but Stuart was equally insistent that he wanted them to have it.

When the twins arrived, Stuart changed his own expensive car for a much smaller model and bought her a top-of-the-range four-wheel drive so that she could transport the children in comfort and safety. Zoë’s riding lessons and her pony and all the other extracurricular activities the children wanted, Stuart paid for without complaint. The allowance he insisted on giving her was a generous one, and the presents he brought her back from his trips drew the envious admiration of her friends.

No, Stuart never neglected her either in bed or out of it, something for which, if the stories she heard from other women were to be believed, she ought to be extremely grateful. And of course she was.

But the house, the allowance, the car, all of them were things she sometimes felt she would gladly have bartered just for the opportunity to sit down with Stuart and talk to him, to have her opinions sought and valued, to feel that he regarded her as an equal partner in their relationship, and that she mattered to him not because she was his wife, but because she was herself!

He was in the kitchen when she walked in, still an extraordinarily handsome man, his thick once-blond hair silver-grey now, the reading glasses he still pretended he did not really need adding an extra touch of subtle sexuality to his features. He always had been and always would be the kind of man who drew women’s glances, and, although he might deny it, Alice knew that there was that little touch of vanity in his make-up that meant that he needed their female recognition of his maleness.

As he saw her he shuffled the papers he had been reading and stood up.

‘Have you been in long?’ Alice asked.

‘A couple of hours. When I realised it was your night out with the others, I went down to the gym for an hour.’

Unlike her, Stuart was something of a gym fanatic, his body still lean and muscular. Alice had at one stage endeavoured to become more exercise conscious, but Stuart had laughed at her, refusing to take her seriously.

‘I love you just the way you are,’ he had told her fondly, spoiling his compliment slightly by adding, ‘Every single bit of you!’

He looked tired, Alice recognised, but diplomatically she did not say so. She had learned early on in their relationship that Stuart hated to admit to any kind of vulnerability or weakness, no matter how small. She suspected that this had a lot to do with the fact that his father had been a high-achieving, very macho man, a Second World War fighter pilot, decorated for bravery and revered by his wife and Stuart’s three older sisters. Stuart had been reared in a family where his maleness had elevated him to almost godlike status, but the price for this had been that he’d never been allowed to show himself as mortal.

Her own father had fought in the same war, but the experience had affected his nerves in some way, and Alice could remember her mother’s constant anxiety that Alice did not make too much noise or do anything that might upset her father, around whom their small household had revolved every bit as much as Stuart’s had revolved around his.

To some extent Alice knew that she and Stuart had repeated this pattern. Stuart’s job had meant that when he had been at home there had been times when she had automatically kept the children away from him so that he could catch up on his sleep. Times when she had in a number of small ways protected Stuart from the children and the children from him!

So, rather than commenting on his tiredness, and mindful of the news she had to give him about her plans, she said instead, ‘I’m glad you’ve got some leave days now—’

‘I wish!’ Stuart interrupted her grimly. ‘I’ve got a series of meetings coming up in the city.’

He had his back to her as he was speaking and Alice suddenly had the feeling that for some reason he didn’t want her to see his face. A tiny sharp spike of unease touched her, like the beginnings of an unwanted spot, as yet unseen, but still felt beneath the outer skin.

And yet there was no reason for her to feel like that. Stuart was frequently away on business after all. Perhaps it was because she had been building herself up to telling him about her OU plans, waiting for the right moment. Yes, that was probably what it was, she reassured herself.

‘How long do you think you will be away?’

‘For heaven’s sake, Alice, I just don’t know. As long as it takes, however long that is. What is this anyway? What’s all the fuss about?’

His irritation made her clench her stomach muscles defensively.

‘I wasn’t making a fuss,’ Alice protested. ‘It’s just that … Well, there was something I wanted to discuss with you.’

‘If it’s about that idiot you hired who claimed he was a gardener, then we don’t need to discuss anything. Sack him.’

‘Stuart, it isn’t about the garden! It’s—it’s about me!’

Now that she had his attention, Alice felt her apprehension increasing.

‘You?’ He was frowning. ‘What do you mean it’s about you? Look, Alice, can’t we leave this for another time? Right now the last thing I want or need is an in-depth discussion on anything!’

He was getting annoyed, Alice recognised silently, registering all the tell-tale signs.

Her heart sank, but she was not going to back down.

‘No, we can’t leave it, I’m afraid, Stuart. It’s too important for that. I … I’ve enrolled for an Open University degree course.’

‘What?’

He was, Alice noticed, staring at her blankly, as though he hadn’t properly taken in what she had said.

‘I thought you said it was something important,’ he challenged her. ‘For God’s sake, Alice! Don’t you ever listen to anything I say? I’ve just told you that I’m up to my eyes in it at work and you’re prattling on about some blasted college course.’

Alice could feel her stomach muscles clenching, but not this time with tension. She very seldom got angry, it just wasn’t in her nature, but right now …

‘You don’t mind, then?’ she asked him quietly.

‘Mind?’ He gave a brief, almost contemptuous shrug. ‘I don’t really see the point, but it’s your choice.’

‘Yes,’ Alice agreed even more quietly. ‘It is.’

Changing the subject, she questioned, ‘You said you could be away for a few days?’

‘Yes.’ Stuart had turned away from her and was reshuffling his papers. His voice sounded muffled and strained.

‘It’s the way things are these days, Alice. It’s something to do with a new policy decision. Even you must surely be aware of the changes the aviation industry is undergoing? The pressures on it? I mean, you do read something in the papers, don’t you, other than the women’s pages? God knows we get enough of them, judging by the bill.’

Alice stared at his white-shirt-covered back, the words of rebuttal and anger log-jamming in her throat in their furious need to be heard, but protectively she held them back.

Stuart was normally a calm, logical man—his job meant that he had to be—but just occasionally he could explode into undeserved and lacerating verbal criticism that was as unprovoked as it was unfair. Backing him into a corner or demanding an apology only resulted in him retreating into an iron-hard sulk, from which she would patiently have to coax him and right now … Right now she simply did not feel like doing any such thing!

‘You’ll never guess what happened this evening,’ she said calmly instead, going to fill the kettle. ‘Maggie told us that she’s pregnant. She gave us all a shock, especially Nicki.’

Alice tensed as Stuart came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling the side of her neck.

‘You never change, do you, Alice?’ he told her as he bit sensually into her skin, oblivious to her rigid tension. ‘We could be invaded by green men from outer space and you would still be more concerned about your own little life.’

Alice could hear the familiar note of mockery in his voice. It seemed to her sometimes that Stuart had spent most of their married lives mocking her or putting her down in one way or another.

‘Come on,’ Stuart demanded. ‘Let’s go to bed. I’ve missed you.’

Just for a second Alice was tempted to refuse, to pull away from him, but he was already taking hold of her hand and tugging her towards the hall door. To challenge him to dare to mock her again! But typically she stopped herself.

And, after all, what was the point in deliberately creating a difficult mood between them? Didn’t it make more sense to give in, to keep him happy? Wasn’t that what her mother had always taught her by example? As she had taught Zoë. That men were people who needed to be pandered to and coaxed, pampered and protected. That either they or their love or both simply weren’t strong enough to bear reality …

‘You prefer the twins, you always favour them!’ How often had Zoë accused her of that? Had she ‘favoured’ them or had she in reality done them anything but a favour?