‘It certainly has,’ I said, turning towards my screen. ‘I shall never pretend to my grandmother that I have a boyfriend when she’s dying of pneumonia ever again.’
‘Ignoring the sarcasm,’ said Kate, as she walked past me and towards the lobby, ‘but just—’ she began, only for the imminent advice fest to be interrupted by the ringing of the phone.
‘Oh dear, what a shame, I’m going to have to get that,’ I smiled, picking up the receiver gratefully as Kate’s lips pursed in disapproval. ‘Eat Fruit Design. Dot speaking. How can I help?’
‘Hello, Dottie, Mum here. I know you’re at work but I wanted a quick word.’ My face fell as Kate’s lit up.
‘It’s your mother, isn’t it?’ she whispered. ‘That’s karma.’
I glared at her before returning my attention to Mum. ‘Well, it’ll have to be very quick, Mum. We’re busy here.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to catch you because I got no answer when I called you at home yesterday. Three times,’ she added pointedly, pausing to allow me to explain my failure to pick up.
It was an opportunity I decided to ignore. ‘OK,’ I said.
‘And I did just want to say again how much your father and I like Felix. He’s as lovely a young man as he was a little boy.’
I massaged my left temple with my free hand and glanced up at Kate, who was eavesdropping intently and without shame. It was clear from her expression that she had heard if not the entire sentence, then at least the mention of Felix’s name. ‘Go on,’ she urged in a whisper. ‘Start the process. Drop some hints about things not being perfect.’
‘Hang on a moment, Mum,’ I said into the receiver before covering it with my hand. ‘I will start the process,’ I hissed at Kate. ‘But not with you standing over me.’
‘Calm down, calm down,’ she said, reaching out to pat my shoulder before walking away.
I waited until I heard the main office door open and slam shut before removing my hand from the receiver.
‘Sorry about that, Mum. Like I said, we’re quite busy here.’
‘Oh, but wasn’t it a lovely weekend, Dot?’ she gushed. ‘Didn’t Becca and Mark look gorgeous? And my goodness, how handsome is your Felix these days? Nobody I spoke to could believe how well you’ve done for yourself,’ she said with obvious pride.
I frowned. ‘You know, I’m not sure that’s actually a compliment to me,’ I said. ‘But thank you on Felix’s behalf, and yes, he’s very nice.’
‘Nice?’ she laughed. ‘Nice? I’d hope you think him a bit more than nice, Dottie.’
I heaved a sigh. ‘Of course I think of him as more than nice.’
‘You absolutely adore him, don’t you?’ she giggled.
‘Yes, that’s right, I absolutely adore him,’ I replied hurriedly, now desperate to end the conversation. ‘But Mum, I must go. I’ll call you this evening, or tomorrow.’
‘But I want to arrange popping to see you in Bristol while we’re staying with Uncle Geoff and Auntie Dawn later this month.’
‘That sounds great. Give me all the details when I talk to you later,’ I said hurriedly.
‘And hopefully we can see Felix too.’
I recommenced massaging my temple and closed my eyes in an added attempt to generate a state of well-being. ‘Yes, I’ll talk to Felix about coming. I’m sure he would love that,’ I said quietly. ‘But I must go now, or I’ll be working through lunch, Mum. Bye.’
I waited until she had said goodbye before hanging up. On hearing a theatrical clearing of the throat, I turned my chair to see Kate standing in the lobby, looking at me disapprovingly, her arms folded. She clearly hadn’t gone anywhere.
‘What?’ I asked, my chin jutting slightly as I attempted defiance.
‘Nothing.’ She shook her head despairingly, but laughed nevertheless. ‘But if that’s your idea of being direct, Dorothy Riley, God help us on your dithery days.’
I returned her grin with a sheepish smile of my own. ‘It’s not like cancelling the milk or a Sky subscription, Kate. It can’t be sorted with a quick phone call. It’s a complicated thing. There are a lot of feelings at stake.’
Kate shook her head a second time. ‘Poor analogy. Trying to cancel my Sky subscription was impossible. I spent two hours talking to someone called Dafydd, whose final bundle was so attractive that I just couldn’t turn him down.’
‘OK,’ I conceded with a sigh, now focusing determinedly on my screen. ‘Scrub that. Let’s just go with the milk analogy.’
‘Yes, I haven’t got a problem with that one,’ she said. ‘Oh, and you were right about another thing too,’ she added after a moment, her voice fading as she finally opened the office door and exited. ‘There are a lot of feelings at stake.’
Chapter 14
I relaxed back onto the cushioned wooden lounger, hand-crafted by Mark, and smiled. A visit to Becca’s was always such great therapy, especially now, during the summer months, when she was free from the stresses and strains of school, and I was free from any sense of guilt associated with perhaps adding to her schedule.
Looking towards the end of the long, lawned garden, with its view of the church and green hillsides beyond, I momentarily envied my sister her village existence and lifestyle, and the increased sense of home and belonging which had come with her decision to live within just a few miles of her birthplace. But I knew it wasn’t for me – not yet, anyway. While I was single, I still needed the easy-reach social and cultural distractions of the city: rurality and community could wait until I settled down and had a family. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back towards the early-evening sun. If I settled down and had a family.
I shrugged away the uncertainty, despite no one else being there to witness the gesture. And the absence of an audience was just as well, because even I wasn’t fully convinced by it.
‘Here.’
I opened an eye to discover Becca standing over me, smiling, a glass of Pimm’s held in her outstretched hand.
She had arrived back from her Greek island honeymoon a week earlier and had wasted no time in calling to confirm my visit for a wedding day debrief and general catch-up. We had spent the afternoon walking the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Wansdyke with Mark, arriving home just in time for him to start preparations for the Saturday evening meal he always cooked on my weekend visits. He was a lovely man, whom I was happy to accept thoroughly deserved my sister, a feat I had always thought impossible until she had introduced me to him five years earlier.
They had met when he, then a locally-based police constable, had come to deliver the annual stranger-danger lecture to pupils at her school. As a favour to the head, he had additionally agreed to make brief mention of a string of pencil case thefts which were at that time occurring in Year 3. It was hoped that just a few words from a uniformed police officer would put an end to the criminality, and so it had proved, with the culprits dissolving into tears and fessing up at the first mention of Oliver Lewry’s missing Transformers ruler.
Mark’s fateful school visit was an anecdote recounted without fail by my mother on introducing him to anyone, with her emphasis always on his impressive law-enforcement presence, rather than on the fact that the event led to him dating her daughter. It was to Mark’s credit that he always managed to maintain a smile during these introductions, although we all, with the exception of Mum, knew that this kindest of men did not count reducing two eight-year-olds to sobbing wrecks as the finest moment of his policing career.
I took the Pimm’s from Becca with a smile. ‘Thank you.’
She sat down on an adjacent lounger and sipped her own drink. ‘Greece was great,’ she said, ‘but you can’t beat a warm, still British summer evening, can you?’
‘Agreed,’ I nodded. ‘If only we had more than three a year.’ I ran a finger along the arm of the lounger, tracing the grain of the wood. ‘Mind you, these would make any evening special. Mark is so clever.’
She smiled proudly. ‘I know. He’s maki
ng Mum and Dad a pair for Christmas. Not very seasonal, but I think they’ll like them.’
‘Of course they will!’ I exclaimed. ‘Mum will be beside herself.’
Becca sighed. ‘Hopefully it’ll ease her disappointment over the fact that we’re spending Christmas with Mark’s parents this year.’
‘Let me be cruel to be kind and dash that hope for you right now,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Because we both know that nothing will ease that disappointment. Ever. She’s been bad enough about not getting to see Felix when he’s in Bristol next weekend. And Christmas is in a whole different league.’
‘Thanks for the reality check. I don’t know what I was thinking,’ sighed Becca. ‘And I meant to ask you about that, actually. How on earth did you convince her to stay away while Felix is visiting?’
‘It wasn’t a problem,’ I said. ‘He and I are going to the Hippodrome on Saturday night, so we are genuinely not free for dinner, and Mum and Dad couldn’t make lunch. So instead, they’re coming to stay with me on Sunday evening on their way home from Avebury. By which time, Felix will be long gone.’ I raised my glass to Becca and she clinked hers against it.
‘Serendipity,’ she smiled. ‘So what are you and Felix going to see?’
‘Dirty Dancing,’ I replied, pulling a slightly anxious face.
‘What?’ Becca choked on her drink.
‘It was all I could get tickets for,’ I explained, reaching out to pat her on the back. ‘Girl from the North Country was sold out at the Old Vic, there was nothing on at the Colston Hall, and I thought the cinema seemed a bit ordinary, in light of the humongous favour he did me.’
‘But why not just take him out for dinner somewhere nice?’ she asked, quite reasonably doubting Felix’s desire to spend the evening surrounded by hundreds of women whooping at the sight of a young man with his shirt off.
‘The thing is,’ I sighed, ‘he’s arriving in Bristol in time for lunch, so we’ll talk then. Then I thought we’d go for a walk around Ashton Court, so we’ll talk then. Then I’m taking him on the open-top bus – love that.’ I grinned like a child. ‘And then I’ve told him we’ll go for a drink before the show, so…’
Becca nodded. ‘So you needed to cut down on the talk time.’
‘Exactly. We were definitely more relaxed with each other by the end of the wedding, but I still have no clue how this is going to go. It might be that by seven thirty he’ll be delighted to sit through two and a half hours of female fantasy if it means a break from me.’
She looked at me over the top of her glass. ‘You do talk rubbish sometimes, Dot,’ she said gently. ‘I saw the pair of you at the disco. You had a whale of a time.’
‘Whilst completely pissed,’ I reminded her.
She tutted. ‘It’ll be fine. You’ll have fun.’
‘I hope so. But I still have quite a lot of ground to make up in the friendship stakes,’ I added, smiling sadly. ‘And that’s quite aside from the whole pretend-boyfriend thing. He’s asked me twice now whether I’ve straightened that out with Mum and Dad.’
‘Is he worried?’
‘He didn’t sound worried, but I suppose he must be. Otherwise why mention it? Anyway, I told him yesterday that it was all sorted.’
Becca looked surprised. ‘Is it?’
‘Technically no,’ I admitted. ‘But it will be when I see Mum and Dad on Sunday evening. So when Felix asked about it again, I thought I might as well set his mind at rest there and then. He’s got enough stress at the moment with work and the ex-girlfriend thing.’
‘Well, if he’s looking for a shoulder to cry on,’ said Mark, emerging onto the patio carrying a tray laden with bowls of nibbles and a single open bottle of beer, ‘I know a certain detective constable who would be happy to oblige.’ He placed the tray on a low wooden table between Becca and me.
‘Really?’ I looked up at him, puzzled for a moment, until the penny dropped. ‘Oh, you mean your friend Rosie.’
‘She’s the one,’ he said, picking up a wrought-iron chair from the far side of the patio and setting it down next to us. ‘She thought he was great. Everyone on his table at the wedding really liked him, actually. But she was particularly keen.’ He winked and sat down, picking up the beer from the tray and lifting it to his lips.
I said nothing but felt my eyebrows raise involuntarily.
Mark lowered the bottle without taking a sip and looked between Becca and myself. ‘What?’
I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Then why the forehead twitch?’ he pressed.
I shrugged. ‘Well, it’s just that he was there as my boyfriend, wasn’t he? It’s a bit naughty of her to be eyeing up someone else’s man,’ I smiled, wagging a finger at him.
‘But he’s not your boyfriend. He’s single,’ said Mark, his expression now one of deepening confusion.
‘Well, yes,’ I said with a sigh. ‘But she didn’t know that. That’s the thing. It’s not a huge problem. It’s just a principle of sisterhood, that’s all.’
‘I see,’ he said uncertainly.
Becca reached out and put a hand on his arm, while addressing me. ‘Rosie’s lovely and Mark’s playing detective. He’s making a deduction based on body language.’ She turned to look at him. ‘Rosie didn’t actually say she fancied Felix, did she, Sherlock?’
‘Yes, she did,’ he said. ‘Loads of times.’
Becca groaned and I laughed.
Mark looked at me for a moment, and then at Becca. ‘I don’t really understand,’ he said.
‘That’s not unusual,’ said Becca.
‘I just thought it might be nice for Dot to pass on that Rosie fancied him.’ Mark sounded apologetic as he appealed to his wife. ‘I thought it might make Felix feel better about being dumped, and if he did decide to get in touch with her, she’d be over the moon.’
I leaned towards him and gave him a hug, his kind-heartedness making me feel churlish for even hinting at disapproval. ‘You’re absolutely right, and I’ll tell him next Saturday, when he comes to stay.’
‘Great,’ he said, patting my back and sounding relieved. ‘And now I’ll go and get on with dinner,’ he added, standing up. ‘I know where I am with Mediterranean chicken.’
Becca waited until he had disappeared back into the house before she spoke. ‘Rosie is genuinely lovely,’ she said. ‘Not the kind of woman to steal someone else’s man.’
I smiled. ‘I’m sure. And to be fair to her, I didn’t really speak to Felix for the first three quarters of the wedding, and neither of us was behaving as if we were attached.’
‘I can understand you being protective of him, though,’ said Becca. ‘It sounds like the split from his girlfriend has been a difficult one.’
I nodded. ‘And goodness knows, I was very vulnerable after Alistair left, and ours was a relatively smooth uncoupling. I’d have dated Nigel Farage if he’d said I had a nice smile and an OK personality.’
‘Don’t be so silly,’ she tutted. ‘You were never that low.’
I shrugged. ‘It’s irrelevant anyway. Because Nigel would never have got through the human firewall that is our mother. Remember how she kept telling everyone during the referendum campaign that he had a look of the underworld about him?’
Becca laughed. ‘I do.’
‘Plus Kate said he looked like his neck was eating his head, and she’s another pretty formidable firewall.’
I heard Becca sigh. ‘Felix would get through all firewalls,’ she murmured.
I turned to look at her to find her now gazing straight ahead. ‘Thinking out loud?’ I asked.
She turned towards me and smiled. ‘He seems to be just as lovely as he was when he was younger, Dot. And undeniably good-looking.’
‘Way too good-looking for me, apparently.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says everybody Mum spoke to at the wedding. She said that no one could believe how well I’d done for myself. Oh, the irony.’
Becca rolled her eyes. ‘What
rubbish.’
‘It’s not. I’m not blind. Rosie wasn’t the only one eyeing him up at the reception. But in any case,’ I continued quickly, preventing Becca from chipping in with the confidence-boosting compliments I knew she would have at the ready, ‘it doesn’t matter. I would just like us to be how we used to be.’
‘You’re not planning to dig out your DMs, are you?’ smiled Becca
‘No, and I don’t want Felix to put on four stone and wear an Alice band to keep his hair out of his eyes when he watches TV,’ I laughed. ‘I just mean that I would like to understand him again up here,’ I tapped my head, ‘and in here, I guess,’ I added quietly, placing a hand on my chest. ‘And right now, I don’t. I don’t feel like I’ve quite found the Felix I used to know.’
Becca looked at me for a moment and then smiled and raised her glass. ‘Well, here’s to you finding your Felix, Dot,’ she said quietly.
‘To finding Felix,’ I echoed. And leaning back in my lounger and sipping my Pimm’s, I wondered if I would.
Chapter 15
I glanced down at my mobile on the desk in front of me and groaned out loud at the appearance of yet another missed call from my mother; the third within the past hour.
It had been a busy and difficult week, with Kate having to leave work early on Tuesday afternoon after suddenly throwing up. And although she had since been attempting to work from home, her absence from the office had left me with three additional client meetings and double the number of phone calls to field. Consequently, repeated calls from my mother, no doubt to remind me, yet again, of her 5.30 p.m. arrival time on Sunday, were the last thing I wanted on a Friday when I was already looking at a very late finish.
I reached for my phone and quickly texted Dad to say that I would call Mum when I got home from work, adding that this would not be before eight. I knew he would take the hint, and sure enough, Mum’s 2 p.m. call proved to be her last of the working day.
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