‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ asked Karin. Under her wraparound sunglasses, Karin could see her friend’s eyebrows crease into crooked lines.
‘Not really,’ she smiled weakly.
Karin touched Diana’s knee sympathetically. ‘Honey, what’s wrong?’
A single tear rolled down from under Diana’s shades. ‘Last week I told Martin I had come off the pill and he almost had a seizure,’ said Diana, pressing a fingertip on her cheek to blot the tear.
‘Didn’t you discuss it?’
Diana shook her head so a wispy tendril of hair escaped from her chignon. ‘We’ve been married a year. I thought it was about time we started thinking about children.’
‘But he doesn’t?’
‘Got it in one, girlfriend,’ said Diana, dabbing under her shades with a table napkin. ‘After I told him, it was as if he suddenly decided he didn’t want to be married.’
‘Come on, he loves being married to you,’ laughed Karin gently. It was true. Every one of Diana’s girlfriends had been envious of the energy with which Martin had pursued her. She’d moved in with him only three months after they had met at that day in Savile Row and within six months he had presented her with a twenty-carat diamond engagement ring that set a new yardstick for her circle’s trophy jewellery.
‘I thought so too,’ said Diana, her voice cracking. ‘But the issue of children … it’s as if it’s made him wake up and want to be young, free and single again.’
‘But you did ask him if he wanted to have children with you before you got married …?’
Diana’s sob gave Karin her answer. It was so easily done; an unspoken issue was always an awkward one, and why bring up something that could break a deal? ‘I didn’t ask him then, no,’ said Diana. ‘But I asked him now. He said he didn’t want any more kids. Said he just wanted it to be just me and him and no responsibilities, no decisions to be made other than where we should go on holiday, Miami or Mustique, Barbados or the Bahamas.’
‘And I take it that’s not your dream?’
‘I love our life,’ said Diana, her voice almost a whisper.
‘But I’ve always wanted children. I never knew how much until Martin said he didn’t want to have any more.’
Karin looked at her. Behind the grooming, the diamonds, the head-to-toe Gucci, was a traditional, blue-blooded Home Counties girl. Her family’s star had fallen, their fortune dwindled to nothing, and in Martin she thought she could rekindle her family’s glory by marrying well. But that’s what she’d wanted all along; not the position, but the family.
‘And is having children a deal-breaker?’ asked Karin, trying to meet Diana’s gaze.
She couldn’t see her friend’s eyes through the black lenses, but she could see the tiny sad nod of her head, the movement that said ‘yes’.
Karin looked out at the Chiltern Hills, a smudge of muted colour in the sun, and shivered. It was funny how things changed. By the end of the summer, Diana could be falling out of the magic circle of millionaire wives. And Molly could be coming in.
Summer was standing by the hog-roast, helping the six-year-old son of the village butcher squeeze ketchup onto his hot dog. She was in a short white cotton dress so thin that the shadow of her body was visible in the sun, a stark contrast to the hazelnut brown of her long legs. It was the first weekend Summer had had off since Monaco and, while it had been enormous fun, she needed a break. Filming for ‘On Heat’, she had been to opera festivals, literary festivals, summer parties, Royal Ascot, the tennis, the Veuve Clicquot polo, Sardinia and St Tropez. Professionally, she had been on a steep learning curve, but she thought she was doing pretty well. Certainly, Simon Garrison kept saying that ‘On Heat’ was the best programme their production company had ever done. She took a swig of Pimms and the little boy ran off in the direction of the pony rides.
‘Why don’t you come and squeeze my hot dog?’ whispered Adam into her ear, running his fingers lightly along her arm.
She turned round to see him looking relaxed in a pair of jeans and a navy polo shirt, while the sun had smeared a streak of colour across his nose.
‘Adam. Don’t,’ giggled Summer behind her hand, looking round anxiously to see if anyone was watching. ‘Where’s Karin?’
‘She’s gone for a tour around the house with your mother. I think we’re safe for a while. But, just to be sure, why don’t you come and have your fortune read?’ he asked, jerking his head towards a striped tent at the bottom of the garden. ‘Meet you there in two minutes.’
Feeling a frisson of nerves and sexual excitement, she loitered for a count of 100, then followed Adam into the small tent. There was barely enough room for the two of them to move – and there was no sign of the fortune teller.
‘Where’s Madam Zorba then?’ asked Summer as she felt Adam’s hand slide up her thigh and under her panties. She groaned, every nerve end jangling with anticipation and the real prospect of getting caught.
‘I crossed her palm with silver to make her go and take a coffee break,’ mumbled Adam, biting gently on her earlobe.
Lifting her slightly into the air, he pushed her onto the tiny table behind her, slipping his hand up her thigh while his lips brushed her neck with kisses.
Summer arched her back and groaned softly. ‘Adam, please. Don’t. Someone is going to come.’
‘Hopefully you,’ smiled Adam, his fingertips dipping under her panties, finding her hot and wet. As he slid his finger over her clitoris, she gripped the edge of the table with desire, her nails clawing at the red baize of Madam Zorba’s table. Gasping, struggling to regain control, she forced herself to think of Karin only 100 feet away. Suddenly Summer had a flashback to all the times she had lain in her bed at night, the sounds of her mother having sex filtering through the walls. Right then, Summer felt the same guilt and shame, the same uncomfortable mixture of desire and disgust.