Free Life Begins by Amanda Brookfield

always thought the South Wind should be more important than the North, anyway. Because it’s nicer, more clement… Oh, I could so do with some now.’ She sighed, pulling a face. ‘March is so long and hateful, with Christmas a distant memory and still months and months until the summer hols. I’m pushing hard for an Easter trip somewhere but Paul says he can’t get the time off.’
    ‘Paul always says that and then you persuade him,’ said Theresa, smoothly, glancing at the clock and wondering what could have happened to Charlotte.
    ‘Graham’s got a conference in Dubai this summer,’ said Naomi, crossing to the mantelpiece to study Martin and Cindy’s invitation, which, thanks to the distraction of her various domestic dramas, Theresa had forgotten to hide. ‘He’s going to try and fix it so I can go too.’
    ‘With Pattie and the twins?’
    ‘I haven’t got that far.’
    ‘You never get to spend time with husbands at conferences, though,’ Theresa pointed out. ‘I know Graham’s banking, not medicine, but it’s all the same. You end up seeing more of the room-service boy than you do of your partner.’
    ‘Not always a bad thing,’ quipped Josephine, her brown eyes glinting.
    They laughed, united in a gentle, effortless companionship that offered no real threats to husbands or room-service boys, but was instead a simple acknowledgement of the fact of being female and young enough still to lament some of the constraints of the marital state.
    No longer an issue for Charlotte, however, Theresa mused, crossing to the window to peer out into the street, wondering if this was a fact over which, after a few moreswigs of wine, she might even be able to muster a frisson or two of jealousy. Bell-boys, estate agents – Charlotte, in her newly single state, could have her pick. Glancing down at her chest – a little too slack and ample since the children, but attractively displayed in a favourite blue lace-trimmed top – Theresa spent a moment trying to imagine the face of a nubile young man, as opposed to Henry, owl-eyed without his glasses, nuzzling at her cleavage. Then she thought of her stretchmarks, the large mole on her thigh that needed checking, the sag of flesh masking her hips, and the dear face of her husband came more clearly into focus. A stone overweight, aged thirty-eight, she was well past her physical best and any new lover would see that. Henry, on the other hand, she reflected happily, had known her at her best, just as she had known him before the glasses, the clicky knee and the tummy that swelled or shrank according to his level of self-discipline. For her there would always be that first enriching memory to fall back on – of the handsome, twinkly-eyed, newly qualified surgeon who had asked her to a rugby match and kissed her dry, freezing lips afterwards, saying now that he had found her he would never let her go.
    ‘We’ll have to start without Charlotte,’ she declared, dropping the curtain and turning back to the room.
    ‘Maybe she’s with her new man,’ suggested Josephine, casting a sideways glance at Naomi, normally her closest ally in the group.
    ‘Oh, but I think we should offer Charlotte nothing but encouragement,’ Naomi cried, releasing a snow-shower of glitter on to the carpet as she flapped the invitation. ‘It must be so hard, don’t you think, to feel any sort of confidence about dating when you’re nearly forty and you’ve been on the receiving end of such deception?’
    Josephine rolled her eyes. ‘You mean Martin and Cindy ?’
    ‘Of course.’ Naomi carefully put the invitation back in its place. ‘And the others. Remember, Charlotte thought there were others.’
    For a few moments the three women fell silent, recalling the woeful tales of the Turner marriage, recounted with increasing bitterness and frequency as the years of their acquaintance with Charlotte had ticked by. Difficult, unloving, unfaithful – Josephine had quickly dubbed him Martin