Daughters by Elizabeth Buchan Page A

expand?’
    ‘Some negotiations with my ex-husband. He’s getting married again, and it looks as though I might have to make up a financial shortfall.’
    ‘You could do,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, you don’t have to be bullied either.’ Again a quick rub of the arm – a dusting-off gesture. ‘There’s a danger that the most significant relationship in one’s life turns out to be withone’s ex, whether happy or unhappy. Unlike the marriage, they’re there for life.’
    ‘There’s always a connection,’ she said.
    ‘You mean the memory of a connection.’
    Point taken.
    He looked at her. She looked at him.
    Their respective lawyers had got together and the upshot was that Bill’s solicitor phoned Lara early the following Tuesday morning. ‘I’m told this is the best time to get hold of you.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Mrs Russell,’ he barely concealed his impatience, ‘I don’t suppose either side wants to prolong negotiations.’
    The implication behind the smooth inflection was that she was tricky, and she wasn’t having it. ‘We’ve been through that stage,’ she replied calmly. ‘After I was left.’
    The rebound took a couple of seconds. ‘My client has honoured his side of the divorce agreement to the letter.’ True. ‘He now wishes to renegotiate the schedule. He will, of course, provide for Maudie as agreed until she leaves university. It’s the other payments.’
    He continued for some time in this vein, pointing out how punctilious her ex-husband had been and arguing that the proposed amendments to the settlement were fair. His smoothness irked her. Not good. Peering down the tunnel of the past, as she had done so many wearisome times, she couldn’t resist challenging him: ‘If it’s a choice between keeping up mortgage payments and behaving well, guess what ranks lowest on the list?’
    He had heard it before, but he didn’t like it.
    Once, before the divorce was done and dusted, she had spotted Violet and Bill emerging from a restaurant. Violet was in a pair of coupe cigarette trousers, as skinny as malinky, he in his best grey flannel suit. They looked so unencumbered, so pleased with life, so
at liberty
. It was cold and they were busy fastening their coats, adjusting bags and briefcases, neither of them having to think about buggies or bottles or keeping a child warm.
    And she went home, where the noise of children hit the ears, the needs of children tugged the heart. Three small heads clustered around her, drawing her deep into the conspiracy of their love.
    Would she have had it different?
    Bill’s solicitor was persistent: ‘May I remind you that when the original agreement was drawn up you were not earning. I am informed that you have been doing so for some years now.’
    Impossible to refute. ‘I would have to renegotiate my mortgage. Failing that, I will have to make plans to expand my practice.’
    He did not say,
But that is what most people do
. His silence said it.
    Cue sleepless nights and several evenings in the consulting room spent configuring and reconfiguring the numbers.
    Daniella spotted something was up and took to skewering Lara with her pale blue gaze. After a week of this, she slid into Lara’s room with a cup of tea. ‘Lara, you know ifanything is ever wrong, I’m here for you.’ She was always anxious to keep the practice humming and in shape. It was her job and job anxiety was a condition of the new era. She set the tea down carefully in front of Lara and steered a Bourbon biscuit into the saucer as bait. ‘Girls all right?’
    The biscuit was touching – she must have gone out specially to buy it. Clever Daniella. She was reminding Lara that everyone had to pull their weight. ‘Ex-husband – you know how it is,’ replied Lara, and felt guilty when Daniella gave her hand a pat in womanly sympathy and, satisfied, retreated.
    Teacup in hand, Lara wandered over to Robin’s desk. There was an assortment of books, papers and a festering coffee mug