Best Laid Plans by Patricia Fawcett

Fox’, so obviously Jill had taken charge of the business of writing the cards. ‘From Dad and Jill’ would have been more appropriate and she wondered if it was a deliberate slight on Jill’s part, who had never forgiven her for refusing to attend their wedding.
    The letter from her aunt, her mother’s sister, informing her of her mother’s death had arrived last month and she had not discussed that with anybody other than Mike. She had been tempted to tell Christine and, in fact, invented an excuse for disappearing for a couple of days when, alone, she attended the funeral down in Sussex. She did not want the bucket-loads of sympathy Christine would offer and Mike understood that. She and her mother Isabelle had been estranged for years and so she could not bring herselfto feel very much. Her Aunt Sylvie was there but even her relationship with her sister had been on cool terms and so it had been a dry-eyed affair at the local crematorium, the conveyor-belt effect painfully and rather amusingly obvious and afterwards the two of them, the sole mourners, had a meal in the hotel. Sylvie spoke English very well so at least that made things easier. Monique did not know her aunt at all and whenever her mother spoke of her it was with a sneer in her voice, ‘posh tart’ being the kindest thing she ever said about her.
    ‘Does Trevor know?’ Sylvie asked. Her aunt was very like her mother and as there was only a year’s difference in age they might well have been twins. It was disconcerting to say the least although Sylvie had a softer look to her face and that subtle elegance of the Parisian lady.
    ‘I think he must,’ Monique said. ‘I left a message on the machine.’
    ‘You left a message?’ Sylvie smiled thinly. ‘If he had a shred of decency he would have turned up today for your sake if nothing else. It was the least he could do although I don’t suppose he would have wanted that woman of his to be here. I certainly would not.’
    ‘It wasn’t Jill’s fault.’ Monique felt she ought to try to explain. ‘It was over long before then so I don’t suppose we can blame him for finding somebody else.’
    ‘And where is your husband?’ Sylvie said, immaculate in black, a pillar box hat completing her outfit. Like Monique, she was a tiny blonde lady although unlike her niece she chose to wear very high, spiky-heeled shoes.
    ‘I didn’t want Mike here today.’ Monique twisted the rings on her finger.
    ‘Why ever not? You need a husband’s support at a time like this. He should have insisted on being here.’
    ‘Mike’s not like that.’
    ‘Isn’t he? Oh dear.’ Sylvie glanced at her own hands, a large diamond and sapphire ring sparkling as it caught asunbeam. ‘Are you happy living up there?’
    She talked as if Monique had a house on the moon.
    ‘I have a lovely home. My husband and his mother are kind to me. I admit I don’t like my father-in-law or my sister-in-law but that can’t be helped.’
    ‘You haven’t answered my question. Are you happy?’
    ‘I suppose I am.’
    ‘You
suppose
? You made a mistake in marrying him.’ It was a statement from a woman who knew what she was talking about. ‘You married for clever reasons, I grant you that, because a little financial security is essential to life’s happiness but you chose badly. I married for the wrong reasons, too, my dear, and I am not ashamed to admit that but at least I came out of both my marriages with a little pot of gold. If you left your husband where is
your
pot of gold? He is not rich enough. If you are going to go down that route then you must do it with flair. A man of modest means is simply not worth the bother.’
    ‘I love Mike,’ she protested, surprised that Sylvie could read her so well.
    ‘You love yourself more, my angel. Like me, you are selfish and like me, your heart belongs to France. You should have married a Frenchman. They know how to treat a woman.’
    ‘Really?’ It seemed an odd thing to say