One Glass is Never Enough

by Jane Wenham-Jones

Genres: Friendship; Women's Fiction; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

If you love Milly Johnson, Trisha Ashley and Catherine Alliott, you'll love Jane Wenham-Jones's deliciously entertaining tale of love, friendship and secrets ! 'Funny, realistic and full of insight' Katie Fforde 'I love Jane's writing!' Jill Mansell 'Feel-good' Woman & Home Three Women. One Bar. Three chances to live again. The opening of Greens Wine Bar means something very different to each of its owners. Single mother Sarah needs a home for her children and Claire is fulfilling her business ambitions. For Gaynor - who already has money, looks, a beautiful home in the picturesque seaside town of Broadstairs, and a generous, successful husband in Victor - it's just one more amusement. Or is it? While Sarah longs for love and Claire is consumed by making money, Gaynor wants answers. Why is Victor behaving strangely and who does he see on his frequent trips away? What's behind the threatening phone-calls? As the bar takes off, Gaynor's life starts to fall part. Into her turmoil comes Sam - strong and silent with a hidden past - offering an unlikely friendship and maybe more. As Gaynor's confusion grows, events unfold that will change all of their lives for ever... Don't miss Jane's other delightfully entertaining titles, filled with humour and insight: The Big Five O, Mum in the Middle, Prime Time and Perfect Alibis are all out now!

Release date: October 11, 2012

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 272

Sample

1. Bollinger Special Cuvee
A fine Champagne. Fresh and vigorous, bursting with potential.

Welcome to Greens. Kiss. Welcome to Greens.

How lovely to see you. Kiss. Welcome to Greens.

Welcome to Greens. Kiss. Now under sparkling new management. Kiss. (Whoops – don’t know her.)

Please help yourself to a complimentary glass of Fleur de Lys – our specially-selected house wine in red or white. Kiss, Kiss. (Mmmn. Ooh yes…) Welcome to Greens. (Oh. That must be his wife glaring.)

Do come in. Kiss. A warm welcome to Greens. Kent’s Premier wine bar and…

“A bottomless money-pit run by three mad women who don’t know what they’re doing.” Victor pushed his way to Gaynor’s side, holding a glass of champagne high in front of him. He hadn’t brought her one. She grimaced. A supportive husband was such a boon in business.

“Good evening!” Gaynor fixed a blonde just coming through the door with her biggest smile. “Welcome to Greens.” She gave Victor a sharp nudge with her elbow. “Could you take over for a moment, darling? Just got to pop to the loo…”

Let him chat her up. Gaynor needed more alcohol. So far, she’d ushered in what felt like five hundred people – all on a quick snort of Bolly and the tiny glass of Chablis she’d managed to grab when Sarah, one of her two new business partners, wasn’t looking.

“You’re not allowed to get pissed till later,” Sarah had said. (For someone about to open a wine bar, she could be very boring about drinking.) “You’re meeting and greeting! Your job’s to look lovely and make them feel wanted.”

Hmm. Gaynor could have done with a bit of that herself. She stepped sideways to let more people through, looking at the back of Victor’s glossy brown head as he moved forward to shake hands with a tall man in a suit. She sighed. She’d been so looking forward to this and she should have been feeling marvellous. Instead, this odd feeling kept welling up inside her, making her want to rush away and hide somewhere.

They’d worked so hard for tonight, she and Sarah and Claire. Six weeks ago, when they’d bought it, the place had been run-down and filthy with only three old drunks propping up the bar.

It had been hard to imagine, then, that it could look like this, but Claire was a woman with a vision. With military precision, an army of builders and a frighteningly long list of Jobs-to-be-Done, she’d led them firmly through the battle of creating it.

Now Greens had reopened in all its freshly-stripped floor boards and newly-painted glory. The bold Mediterranean oils – sun-drenched squares of bright yellows and blues against the white walls – set off the huge terracotta pots, the dark beams, the delicate fronds of the deep-green palms.

Beneath the varnished oak canopy above the bar, rows of sparkly wine glasses twinkled in the spotlights. Gaynor listened to the chink of many more amongst the buzz of voices and laughter from the clusters of beautiful people jostling for every square foot of space. Faint strains of the high, sweet voice of Norah Jones came through the speakers, almost drowned out by the hum of chatter below. They’d known they’d be busy – but nobody had expected this.

They were six deep at the bar. Gaynor could see Sarah and Jack’s heads bobbing about as they moved rapidly to and fro serving. She started to wriggle through the hot crush

of bodies so she could get to the fridge.

Every few seconds someone stopped her.

“What a transformation!”

“Gosh, I didn’t recognise the place.”

“Fabulous wine list, darling – did it take ages to choose?”

It had taken several near-terminal hangovers. Claire had been in touch with every wine supplier in the country, it seemed, and the cases of samples had reached the ceiling. One night they’d tasted so many mid-range Cabernet Sauvignons Gaynor couldn’t say it, let alone pick one.

“Lovely place you’ve got here!” Someone grabbed her arm. “And what we want to know is …” It was a dark-haired woman with mad eyes and an alarming amount of eyeliner. “Are you going to do Sushi?”

“Not sure about that.” Gaynor slid her wrist from the woman’s grasp and edged away. God knows who she was. Sushi?

Claire and Sarah had spent hours poring over recipe books discussing the menu, but she didn’t remember raw fish appearing on it. Claire was for free-range, organic, ‘kindly-killed’ meat. Gaynor had snorted at the incongruity but Claire, a fierce vegetarian, had been serious. “People will expect steaks,” she’d said regretfully, “but we can at least choose where we get them from.” Sarah talked of beautifully simple pasta dishes, colourful salads and delicious soups – everything made from scratch. Gaynor looked up at the blackboard where she’d earlier written up a list of sample dishes, in coloured chalks. She’d felt so excited. Wow, she’d thought, hugging herself inside, as she carefully drew the outline of a long-stemmed wine glass in green, I own part of this…she looked back at Victor on the door. If only she felt she could share it.

As she pushed her way through to the bar, she felt two hands close over her buttocks. She squealed and swung round. Local stud, Danny, was grinning. “Hello, gorgeous – phroor – you look horny in that dress.” Someone shoved past behind her and she was pushed up against him. He pulled her closer.

Gaynor’s heart sank. Danny was tall and good-looking with curly blond-brown hair, shiny hazelnut eyes and very white teeth. Much fancied and with more notches on his bedpost than Greens had wineglasses. He was the last person she wanted to see. She glared at his sun-tanned features and dazzling orange and green designer shirt. “For God’s sake!” She glanced anxiously towards the front door. “Victor’s over there.”

“It’s OK – he’s not looking. He can’t see my hands anyway.” He raised his voice to be heard over the noise and Gaynor squirmed away from him, frowning. She could only move a few inches without squashing the people behind her. She began to slide sideways. He caught hold of her again and put his mouth against her ear. “I want you.”

“Charmed I’m sure,” she said, twisting her head, trying to see if Victor was still occupied.

Danny was still pressed close. “When am I going to see you? It’s been weeks since…”

“I’ve been busy with this place – took ages to get ready. Painting, cleaning. We had to…”

“It’s done now. Thought the other two were going to run it.”

“They are, but I have to help too. I’m going to be hands-on sometimes.”

“I want to be hands on all the time.” His fingers were sliding up the hem of her dress.

“Danny! The place is full of people I know.”

“But they aren’t looking. Remember when we…”

“Get off!”

She dived between two waiting customers and through the gap in the bar, nearly colliding with Claire, who was coming through with a tray. She stepped back again.

“I’m bringing up more meatballs,” Claire cried, as Danny pushed his crotch against Gaynor’s thigh. “This is fantastic. If all these people just come in once a week each…”

“Yeah, great.” Gaynor wanted her wine. She scowled at Danny and slid round behind Jack, their young and enthusiastic barman. He eased out a champagne cork with an expert flourish, turned and grinned at her.

“Hello, sweet-pea.”

“I need a drink.”

“You’re the boss.” He put the heavy bottle of Bollinger in an ice bucket and reached up for two flutes from the shelf above. “What shall I get you?”

Sarah swung round. Her pale skin, against her shock of red hair, looked whiter than ever.

“We’re rushed off our feet here,” she hissed. “Can’t you do something useful instead? I need to go and check on the children. Mum’s supposed to be in charge – better make sure they haven’t trussed her up or anything. There’s been some very funny noises coming through the ceiling.”

She shovelled ice into two tumblers as Gaynor laughed affectionately. “Come off it! You can’t hear a thing down here with this lot.”

Jack draped an arm around Sarah’s shoulders on his way to the till. “Everyone’s entitled to a little paranoia.” He gave her a squeeze. “But I’m OK here if you want to go up.”

Sarah made a face. “In a minute. There’s people waiting to be served.” She turned a corkscrew deep into a bottle of burgundy. “Gaynor, can you go and collect some glasses?”

“Yep, sure.” Gaynor opened the fridge and grabbed at the Chablis bottle she’d opened earlier. There was about an inch left in it. Damn. Sarah would notice if she stood around opening another one. She hesitated, then emptied it into the largest glass she could find and topped up with house dry before Sarah turned round.

“You OK?” she asked her old friend and now fellow wine-bar-owner.

Sarah gave a sudden smile. “I think so. Just about.”

It had been a mad few weeks for all of them, with painters and electricians and plumbers and tilers and floor-sanders and God-knows-who crawling about the place. Not to mention Claire having them on twenty-four hour squad duty on the cleaning front, during which Gaynor had actually been forced to don Marigolds herself. But for Sarah, a newly-single mother with three kids to look after, a house move to the flat upstairs and all the ex-marital stuff to deal with… No wonder she looked permanently exhausted.

But she’d scrubbed up well tonight. You wouldn’t know she’d scurried upstairs to get ready just before the doors opened. She’d lost weight in the last couple of months and the red silk shift suited her. She’d slapped on enough concealer beneath her huge green eyes to cover up the dark circles unless you got very close.

“You look great.” Gaynor smoothed her hands over the hips of her own little glittery black dress. There’d been a point when she’d thought they’d be opening up in filthy jeans and paint in their hair. It was five o’clock before the electrician solved the mystery of why the cellar was plunged into darkness every time someone opened the upstairs fridge, and the plumber finally departed.

The ice machine was still balanced precariously on a beer crate and the glass-washer refused to work for anyone. But they were open. Gaynor had finished arranging the flowers mere minutes before seven and Sarah, Claire and Benjamin – a young trainee chef hastily recruited from the local catering college – had finished the food seconds later. There’d been little time to savour the moment – a quick mouthful of champagne and they’d flung open the doors.

Sarah turned to serve someone. “We got there in the end, eh?” she said, over her shoulder.

“Do you have any English wine?” The speaker was fifty-five and bore a striking resemblance to Ann Widdecombe. She was looking straight at Gaynor.

“We tried a rather nice one in a little vineyard near Canterbury,” her tweedy husband interjected helpfully.

Gaynor shuddered. “I’m not actually serving,” she said, squeezing back into the mêlée. “Our lovely bar-hand Jack will be with you shortly…”

Victor seemed happy enough on the door. Gaynor found space for a moment by the open brick fireplace, balancing her glass on the thick beam of mantelpiece. She saw a neighbour waving at her and waved back. She should be circulating. She was supposed to sparkle. That’s what she was good at. “It’ll be right up your street,” Sarah had laughed. “Kissing all and sundry.”

But it was hot and noisy and her heart wasn’t in it.

She could feel the wine zinging its way around her bloodstream – there’d been no time to eat since breakfast – and she longed to curl up in a corner.

A group of twenty-somethings laughed loudly next to her. She pressed her fingers against her ears and then released them. In and out, in and out, as she’d done as a child, hearing the roar of voices swell and recede in dizzying waves.

Her step-daughter Chloe appeared, in a cropped white T-shirt and low-slung raspberry silk combat pants.

“What are you doing?”

Chloe was beautiful. She had an almost oriental look with her almond eyes, pale face and dark lips. Gaynor had been mesmerised by her creamy teenage skin when she’d first met her, not believing that anyone could have cheeks so pore-less, so smooth they looked airbrushed. At twenty-seven her complexion was still perfect. She was tall, like her father, with Victor’s strong chin and confident movements. She commanded attention like he did. People turned their heads to watch Chloe.

“Nothing. You look lovely,” Gaynor said, gazing into Chloe’s glass at a deep pink liquid that matched her pants. “Cranberry? Bet you’ve got a large vodka sneaked in there.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, you should have.”

Chloe put her arm through Gaynor’s. “It’s so fab.

Shame Ollie had a bloody client.”

Gaynor smiled. Not to her it wasn’t. There was nothing wrong with Oliver but since he and Chloe had moved in together things weren’t quite the same. Gaynor loved Chloe. But on her own. She liked staying up late with her after Victor had gone to bed. To drink wine, talk about clothes and shoes and hair and – sometimes – why Victor could be such a funny bastard.

Chloe would tell of the parties she’d been to and who was bedding who in the TV company where she worked. They’d paint each other’s nails, do each other’s hair, meet for lunch or cocktails when Gaynor went to town.

In Harvey Nichols – the two of them scooping up lipsticks – the decade between them disappeared. Gaynor smiled inside when she thought of Chloe holding up the latest eye-lift wonder-gel. “Dad’s credit card?” she’d asked mischievously. The saleswoman had thought they were sisters!

“Why’s Dad grumpy?” Chloe nodded towards the door.

“Probably because I’ve left him there and he’s got to be nice to people.”

Chloe frowned. Gaynor knew what she was thinking. Why should that be a problem? Victor had made a whole career out of being nice. He was Mr Smooth, Mr Charisma. Flattering a few over-dressed middle-aged blondes was right up his street.

Gaynor glanced over to where he was shaking hands at the door. In his dark suit, he looked every inch the successful executive he was. Tall, self-assured, clean-cut. With his charming, almost apologetic smile, the lock of hair that curled across his forehead, the even, slightly boyish, features, he could always endear himself to women. They watched him stoop to kiss a small brunette in a red dress. For a mad moment Gaynor thought about telling Chloe. Once, she might have done. Once, when they saw each other a lot, when they used to giggle together behind Victor’s back, when they sometimes really did feel like sisters. Until Chloe met Oliver. And something changed.

Chloe was gesturing around her. “You’ve made it lovely. What’s this Claire like? Will you all get on?”

Gaynor took a mouthful of wine. “I think so. Anyway, I’m not involved in the day to day…”

They’d worked it all out. Gaynor would put up a third of the cash and be a sleeping partner. “I’ll come down and circulate,” she’d said – seeing herself perched at the bar, champagne glass in hand – “and Victor and I will get all our friends down, but I can’t do things in the kitchen or anything.”

Sarah had laughed. “No, I wasn’t visualising you doing the washing up, don’t worry.”

“Claire’s very efficient,” Gaynor said now, remembering the spreadsheets and the PowerPoint presentation she’d prepared for the bank, the decisive way she’d dealt with the solicitor and the accountant. And a little scary, she added silently to herself. “She’s got all sorts of systems worked out. We’re going to…”

“Oh well, that’s good.” Chloe had lost interest already. “I’ve got tomorrow off, did Dad tell you? I thought we could have lunch and stuff – catch up properly.” She gave a sideways smile. “I might even stay another night. I’ve got so much to tell you.”

Gaynor made herself look pleased. The further achievements of Oliver the Oracle no doubt. But her heart sank. Victor was home tomorrow and she’d wanted to talk to him. If Chloe stayed it would be yet another chance for him to avoid her, another lost opportunity to confront him about what she’d found...

She switched on her bright voice. “No, he didn’t. I’ve hardly seen him.” And he barely spoke to her these days anyway. “But that’s great, great. That’ll be fun.”

She’d have to do it after Chloe had gone to bed. She glanced across the room. Victor had disappeared. She took another mouthful of wine and then a deep breath. “I’ll have to go back on the door.”

“Who’s your friend?” Danny blocked her path.

“My step-daughter.”

“Hi.” Chloe looked at him coolly.

“Catch you later.” Gaynor shot a warning look at Danny and made her way back to the entrance. She hoped he wasn’t going to make trouble. Things were complicated enough as it was.

And her glass was empty again. Gaynor sighed.

Welcome to Greens. Kiss. Welcome to Greens…

“Well,” said a spiky blonde to Sarah at the bar. “I see our Gaynor’s not worried about mutton and lamb…”

Sarah looked from her to Gaynor on the door. “She looks wonderful, doesn’t she? Wish I had her body.”

The blonde examined her nails. “She’s got nothing to do but go to the gym all day. We could all be like that if we didn’t have to work.”

Sarah lifted a tray of glasses. “You a friend of hers, are you?” she asked sweetly. “Gaynor’s done a lot to get this place up and running.”

True, most of it had been on the phone to the fabric department of John Lewis, she thought, but she wasn’t going to have this old shrew running her new business partner down. “Excuse me.”

She dodged behind Jack and turned to serve the next couple. Gaynor might not be too hot on the practical stuff but she was perfect at this sort of thing – air-kissing everyone, greeting each new guest as if they were the most important of the evening.

Sarah smiled as she watched Gaynor thrust her chest out a fraction as two blokes walked in on their own. She wondered if she knew she did it. One of them kissed her on the mouth, his hand lingering for several seconds on her bare back. Gaynor smiled up into his eyes. Sarah shook her head. If only they’d flock round her so easily.

She thought of her mother’s words earlier. “You won’t find it so easy now, you know. At your age everyone’s paired off.” Her mother had sighed. “When I think of that lovely house…”

That lovely house with the repossession order on it. With the unpaid bills piling up on the window sills, the detached garage housing the car with the overdue HP payments. That house…

“And you nearly forty…”

Sarah was thirty-seven. Though first thing that morning, she could have passed for ten years older, she thought ruefully.

“Bottle of Bud, please, darlin’” The young man the other side of the bar could probably have been her son. If she’d got pregnant at fourteen, like half the other girls at school, he could be her grandson. Well, not quite. But he could have given her a grandson by now. If not two.

Over at the door, Gaynor turned and caught Sarah’s eye – her eyebrows raised suggestively. Sarah shook her head. “Do you want a glass for that?” she asked the boy. He shook his head, and put the neck of the bottle to his mouth. Sarah gave a small smile. Of course not.

It was late and nobody new was likely to arrive now. Gaynor headed back to the Chablis. Sarah was polishing glasses, talking to Seb, a friend of Claire’s naughty brother Neill. With their tight T-shirts and bleached-out jeans, both young men looked more like pop-stars than city bankers.

Sarah had her school-teacher face on. “I’m much too old for you – I’ve got three children.”

Seb laughed. “I wasn’t thinking of marriage, I was thinking of giving you one.”

Sarah rolled her eyes but also flushed. Gaynor moved round behind the bar and gave her a small prod. Sarah brought her foot up and poked Gaynor back with the toe of her shoe.

“How very kind of you,” she said dryly to Seb. “I’ll bear it in mind if I don’t get any better offers tonight.”

“Oh yessss,” Gaynor said, looking at Seb’s behind as he wandered off in search of more willing prey. “Just what you need – a nice, firm young body...”

“A toy-boy?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

“You never do.”

Gaynor jabbed at her with a long nail. “That’s not a very nice thing to say. I thought you and Jack were going to get it together.”

“Don’t be silly – we’re just mates. Though I think he might have got a bit of a crush on me, actually. We were having a little banter earlier…” Sarah laughed selfconsciously. “ I think he’d quite like to take me to bed.”

“Of course he would. Bloody hell, he’s nineteen – he’s going to be gagging for it all the time.”

“Yeah, but he’s a bit frightened of us.”

“Rubbish. Go and give him one – he’d be terribly grateful.”

Sarah shook her head. “I’d be grateful – it’s been that long.”

“You didn’t get anywhere with…?”

“He’s not interested.”

They both turned and surveyed Richard, who was sitting on a bar stool looking pained. Gaynor could see he was a good-looking bloke in a quiet civil-servant, might-still-live-with-his-mum sort of way, but she couldn’t understand why Sarah viewed him with such longing. He’d clearly had a personality bypass and it was no surprise to her he’d never been married. But Sarah insisted he wasn’t gay, that he lived on his own in quite a big house, earned mega bucks in some important job at Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, and that lots of women would fall over themselves to get him to bed.

Hmm. As far as Gaynor was concerned, he should think himself jolly lucky someone like Sarah would look at him twice, and he should have been falling over himself to woo her! So far, however, Sarah reported sorrowfully, he barely appeared to have noticed her.

“Hmmm,” said Gaynor out loud, weighing up the options and making a snap decision. “Jack AND Seb – shag both of them.”

Sarah laughed. “Is that what you’d do?”

The last of the stragglers had gone and they were sitting in the courtyard. Tea-lights and lanterns flickered among the hanging baskets and tubs, throwing soft shadows up the whitewashed walls and over the trails of greenery. In the fairytale light the pansies and geraniums had lost their sharp crimsons and purples and looked dark and velvety. It was after one but the air was still warm and sultry. Or perhaps she was just full of alcohol. Gaynor breathed in the scent of the sweet, heady jasmine that climbed among the ivy and surveyed the various bottles and glasses littering the wooden tables. She looked around at the faces in the candlelight and felt a surge of pride and pleasure.

“Isn’t this lovely?” she said, waving an arm around her. “Isn’t it all wonderful?” She was slurring slightly and Victor frowned at her, but who cared. She took a large swallow of Pinot Grigio – it was the fourth different wine she’d had this evening; she’d just drunk what was open – and raised her glass to the others. “To us!”

“To us!” Claire, leaning back in her chair with Jamie, her partner, perched on the arm of it, raised her own drink. “It went so well, didn’t it?”

Jamie squeezed her shoulder. “After all that!” he said.

Neill, sitting on the paving slabs, his back against the wall, sucked on a large joint before handing it across to Seb.

“Yeah, you really had your knickers in a twist earlier didn’t you, Sis?”

Claire pulled a face at him.

Sarah laughed. “When that water started dripping through the bloody ceiling…”

Claire poured another glass of wine. “He’s coming back tomorrow, our so-called plumber, and I’m not letting him out of here until he’s checked every pipe in the place. And there’s still the hanging sign…”

She pulled a notepad towards her, suddenly frowning. “There’s a hell of a lot to do. It’s going to have to be all hands to the pump during the day until this is all sorted. She looked at Gaynor. “You’re around tomorrow, aren’t you? There’s still some cleaning…”

“I thought we were going to court for the full licence.”

“You don’t need to come – it’s only me and Sarah.”

“I want to support you both.”

“It’s only a formality. We’ve got the protection order and nobody’s going to object to us now. So who cares if we sell a few spirits too?” She nodded at the tumbler in Victor’s hand. “People like to have a choice.” She looked back at Gaynor. “And someone needs to be here when the deliveries come.”

“Chill, Sis.” Neill shook back his floppy brown hair, blew out a long stream of smoke and closed his eyes. “I’ll do it. You don’t want to give yourself high blood pressure. You’ve only been open a day.”

Claire screwed her mouth into a sarcastic pout and wrote more on the list. “No danger of that,” she said tightly.

Neill gave her a languid smile. Victor, glancing at Gaynor over the top of his Scotch, raised his eyebrows in an infuriating gesture that said, “Oh dear! Trouble already?” She ignored him.

“So how’s life with you, Chloe?” Sarah spoke brightly.

Chloe looked across at Victor and giggled, putting her hand over her mouth, uncharacteristically girly. Then her eyes flicked to Gaynor’s. “I was going to tell you both tomorrow,” she said.

Gaynor swallowed the last of her wine and poured another glass. As if they couldn’t guess. Ever since Chloe met Oliver and her. . .