One Husband Required!. Sharon Kendrick

thought that they made an ill-assorted gathering, all lying on plaid rugs beneath a sweet chestnut tree and swatting at the occasional wasp which dared to dive-bomb the pizza. The children, Ross and most of The Connection ate heartily, and Ursula limited herself to just two delicious pieces, then sat licking her fingers. But Julian continued to swig from a beer bottle, staring at Jane intently, while Jane ate nothing at all.

      Once they had staved off their hunger, the girls began to grow restless.

      ‘What can we do, Ursula?’ asked Katy.

      Ursula had been expecting this. ‘Why don’t you each bring me back seven different leaves?’ she said. ‘And I’ll award a prize to the child who finds the most interesting one! But please don’t take any from a plant which looks already bare!’

      ‘Bags I look down by the Wendy house!’ yelled Katy. She kicked off her impractical platform shoes and ran barefoot over the grass, looking her true age at last, and not just a scaled-down version of a grown woman.

      Ursula hastily excused herself and went off to explore the walled garden, glad to escape the fractured atmosphere herself. She thought how parched the flowers looked against the warm, red bricks. The heat was bouncing off the walls, sizzling behind the sweet peas which were massed in a fragrant blaze of mauve and pink.

      She stopped by a sundial and slowly traced her finger round the metal circle of the clock. She was peering closer to see how accurate it was when a dark shape fell over the clock face, and she looked up to find Ross standing there studying her, his expression shadowed and heavy.

      They looked at one another in silence.

      ‘Well, go on, then—’ his voice sounded raw and grazed ‘—say it.’

      ‘Say what?’

      ‘What you’re really thinking—or are you afraid it will hurt me too much?’

      ‘I don’t imagine that the truth would hurt you,’ she said slowly. ‘I was thinking about how hot it was, if you must know, and before that...’

      He was very still. ‘Yes?’

      ‘Before that I was wondering how you could bear to have Jane bring that band to your daughter’s birthday party.’ She shrugged. ‘Though I guess she could say the same thing about me.’

      ‘The difference is that you’re a positive asset at a party, while Julian and the others are a bunch of self-indulgent idiots! But that’s probably how she’ll seek to justify it,’ he agreed.

      Ursula looked at him in bewilderment. ‘You make it sound like a war, Ross!’

      ‘No.’ His look was sceptical, his laugh bitter. ‘Just a marriage.’

      He sounded so disillusioned. ‘But if it’s like that, then...’ ‘Then, what? We have a child, you know, Ursula.’

      ‘Yes, I know.’ And to children, parents meant stability. Hadn’t she once read somewhere that a child was often the glue which held a marriage together? Was that the case here?

      He was still looking at her. ‘Ursula—’ he began. ‘About Jane and Julian—’

      ‘I know what you’re going to say, Ross, and it doesn’t matter.’

      ‘How can you possibly know what I’m going to say?’

      She pushed a damp strand of hair back off her hot cheek. ‘That you’re sorry if I was offended by any of the many references they made about my weight?’

      ‘Well, that too,’ he offered drily. ‘It was damned rude!’

      ‘Don’t worry, I’m used to it.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘Sure,’ she shrugged. ‘People often tease me. Sometimes the things they say are flattering—like telling me that Rubens would have adored to have painted me. And telling me that skinny women don’t have pure, clear skin like mine.’

      ‘Well, while we’re on the subject, you do have an extraordinarily fine complexion.’

      Ursula smiled. ‘You see?’

      ‘But what gives people the right to think they can say things like that to you?’

      ‘It’s because I’m not big enough to be labelled as obese, so they think I don’t care—’

      ‘But you do care?’

      She gave him a steady look. ‘What do you think?’

      ‘I think that you should wear that colour more often,’ he told her unexpectedly. ‘It makes your hair look sensational.’

      ‘That’s exactly what my sister told me!’ She screwed up her eyes suspiciously. ‘Unless you’re just saying that to make me feel better.’