by Mandy Baggot
‘Was he taking the piss?’ Shelley asked, one eyebrow raising.
‘I… don’t think so,’ Megan answered, her sense of victory seeming to evaporate a little.
‘Had your tits slipped out?’ Shelley questioned. ‘Were they all copping an eye full of your great British baps?’
‘No!’ Megan answered, pulling up the neckline of her outfit a little self-consciously. ‘Of course not. It was all purely professional. I was just showing them all that I was prepared to go the extra mile to get It’s A Wrap the gig. And, that being the case, they can therefore have complete faith in our lunch-preparing expertise.’
‘It’s amazing, Megan,’ Becky told her sister. It was really good news. It was worth a lot of money to the business. It could be the growth they needed to push the enterprise to the next level. Maybe they should even submit an entry to the South Wiltshire Business of the Year awards. Becky made a mental note to suggest that to Megan later.
‘My boys want to go into the army when they grow up,’ Shelley announced with a sniff.
‘But they’re nine,’ Hazel remarked. ‘How can they possibly know what they want to do?’
‘My Frank says they’ve got skills he never had when he was a boy. Like, we found out last weekend that they’ve been digging a tunnel at the bottom of the garden.’
‘Oh, Shelley, that doesn’t sound like a good thing,’ Becky said. ‘What if they burrowed all the way out and ended up… I don’t know… not in your garden.’
Shelley’s expression oozed pride. ‘They said they wanted to dig until they’d reached the Chinese.’
‘Oh dear,’ Hazel said. ‘Well, what are you going to do? Because you can’t leave them unsupervised if they’re going to try something like that. It’s not safe like it was when I was a girl.’
‘My Frank’s gonna see if he can build them a zip wire,’ Shelley announced. ‘A distraction technique. But it should also help improve their other abilities, you know, balance and… hanging on.’
‘That’s lovely, Shelley,’ Megan interrupted, looking at her watch. ‘And, as much as I’d like to chat about the triplets’ attempt at The Great Escape, I’m going to head home and have a shower. And you three need to crack on if we’re going to get the deliveries out in time, yes?’
And there was Cool Corporate Megan back again. The roll-filling family vibe dissipated. But, Becky supposed, that was why her sister owned and ran the business and she just made the product…
‘You’ve remembered you’re going to the nursing home at eleven, Megan, haven’t you?’ Becky checked, recommencing her buttering.
‘What?!’ Megan exclaimed, eyes out on stalks. ‘No. I’m booked in for a pedi at eleven. And I’ve literally just told you what my feet have been through this morning. No one needs the care and attention of Saffron more than me.’
‘But you’re pitching for their summer party,’ Becky said. ‘Sadie from the charity shop recommended us and the manager called me on Tuesday and I made the appointment. I put it in the computer diary and in the paper one.’ She itched to get off her stool, go into Megan’s office and hold the leather-bound book aloft. Times and dates were one of her fortes.
‘Well, you’ll have to cancel,’ Megan stated, already halfway back to the door.
Cancel? Hadn’t Megan just got all gleeful and excited about this new business she’d secured with the military? They couldn’t afford to turn down potential work. They might currently be in a good position, but when the Great British high street was struggling, everything was always somehow balanced on a plastic catering knife edge.
‘I’m not cancelling.’
Becky swallowed after she’d delivered the sentence. Where had that authority come from? Ordinarily she only used that tone when the prawn man was late…
‘What?’ Megan said, her hands going to her hips.
Becky could feel Hazel and Shelley looking between the two of them like they were opposing factions of a Nigel Farage talkRADIO show.
‘You shouldn’t cancel,’ Becky said again. ‘You can charge good money. They’ll want scones and cake as well as sandwiches. We can even source some unique teas, there’s a website I found—’
‘Becky, we make sandwiches, rolls, wraps and paninis. We don’t do cakes.’ Megan spread her arms wide around the snug workspace. ‘I’m not really one hundred per cent sure we have the capacity to butter all these baps for the army, but we’ll have to make it work somehow.’ She sighed. ‘What we don’t have time for is silly little teas at the nursing home. I mean, it’s hardly bigtime, is it?’
Had her sister just said ‘silly little teas’? Tears pricked Becky’s eyes then, but she bit the inside of her lip and desperately tried to hold it together. She wasn’t going to back down over this. This was important to her. And it should also be important to Megan.
‘Well, I’ll go then,’ Becky stated. ‘I’ll do the pitch.’
Megan let out a laugh. An actual, proper laugh. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Becky asked. ‘I’ll go to the nursing home and tell them what It’s A Wrap can do for them and see what they were thinking of in terms of cake. If we can’t do the cake then—’
‘And pricing?’ Megan asked. ‘And working out exactly how many loaves of bread and rolls it all equates to? And how many more extra fillings we need to order in? Timescale, Becky? Stock control?’
Her sister was making it sound akin to organising that maybe-brigadier’s military invasion, or booking a slot with Tesco for pre-Christmas Day delivery… It couldn’t be that hard!
‘Well,’ Becky started, ‘I can see what their requirements are first, how many people they expect to come and then—’
‘No,’ Megan said bluntly. ‘No, you won’t. Because I don’t want the contract. And… you can’t possibly do the meeting on your own.’
All Becky could do was watch as Megan flew from the kitchen like she was now powered by rocket fuel and her feet didn’t hurt a bit. And, returning to her workstation, a little bit fragile, it felt like forever until Shelley reached a silent hand to the knob of the radio and turned the volume back up to six.
Two
Wetherspoons, Amesbury, Wiltshire, UK
‘You know she didn’t mean it, dear,’ Hazel said softly.
From their seat in the window of the old pub, Becky was watching the gorgeous pink, purple and white flowers in the hanging baskets fluttering in the breeze. It was a breeze not quite cooling enough to bring down the summer temperature, hence sitting in the window for any breath of air that didn’t feel like it was blowing out of the back of a vacuum cleaner.
‘She did mean it,’ Becky replied, turning back to her half a lager and lime. It was barely midday. She shouldn’t be drinking. They shouldn’t be in the pub at all, but Hazel had insisted after Becky had spent the rest of the morning virtually silent over the food prep. Usually, they would make jokes about the oddly shaped tomatoes or sing along to Spire FM, but after Megan’s stand, Becky had nothing she wanted to share.
Shelley had gone out in the van for the deliveries, the clock had ticked around to ten-forty-five and Becky had made a decision. She was going to call the nursing home. But not to cancel. Only to delay. When she was properly composed, when she had figured out how many slices of thin-cut white it would take to feed a hundred octogenarians, she was going to take the meeting on her own. Why couldn’t she? Apart from the fact that Megan didn’t think she could manage it. But, then again, maybe her sister was right. Perhaps she wasn’t capable. Except the thing that hurt almost as much as Megan not thinking she had meeting-taking abilities, was the fact her sister had apparently forgotten all about the care the nursing home had delivered to their late father.
‘You know how she can be, dear,’ Hazel continued, sipping at her Woo-Woo cocktail. ‘Single-minded with tunnel vision.’
‘Yes,’ Becky answered. ‘Yes, I do.’ Megan was full-on, opinionated, boisterous, all-knowing, even when she really wasn’t. In fact, the m
ore Becky thought about it, the more her sister could almost be Katie Hopkins. No, that was a tad harsh. She took another sip of her drink and immediately felt guilty for even thinking that. They didn’t spend as much time together as they used to, that was all. Yes, they might be at work alongside each other for a good portion of the day, but work wasn’t a relaxing sauna or a few lengths of the local pool and a chat over a cool glass of wine after the exercise…
‘What are you going to do?’ Hazel asked, ducking her platinum-blonde curls towards the straw sticking out of her drink and sucking. ‘About the nursing home?’
What was she going to do? She might have mentally just told herself she was going to go through with the pitch only a few seconds ago but… was she? That would mean asserting authority. And it was authority she didn’t really have in the business. She was an employee, exactly like Hazel and Shelley. Being the sister of the owner didn’t count for anything in contract law. And she would be going against Megan’s express wishes.
‘I’ve put them off for now,’ Becky said, fingers in her shoulder-length caramel-coloured hair, trying to draw it away from her neck to feel a little less sticky in the heat. ‘Until Friday. I’m hoping Megan might change her mind. You know, once her feet are feeling better and she’s recovered from the cargo net.’
‘If you want my opinion, dear, I think she’s forgetting where she comes from,’ Hazel said, ripping open a bag of salted nuts, some of which sprayed across the table between them.
‘What d’you mean?’ Becky asked.
‘You hear about it, don’t you? In the news and everything. These entrepreneurs who set up their own little companies then… boom!’ Hazel made an explosion gesture with one hand, corralling peanuts with her other. ‘The firm takes off and their humble beginnings are distant memories… or forgotten about completely.’
Becky really didn’t want to believe that was what was happening with her sister. Megan had set up It’s A Wrap with her share of the reasonably small inheritance she’d been left by their father. Megan had always had a will to succeed. It stood to reason that she would be the one to be her own boss and rise above her position as the daughter of a working-class family from Wiltshire who never really had much to rub together. When the idea was mooted, Becky had deliberated hard about leaving her straight-out-of-college job at the bank to assist her sister but, in the end, family loyalty had won out. And she enjoyed it, for the most part. All the parts that weren’t today.
In complete contrast, Becky’s small inheritance wasn’t yet destined for anywhere. Hence why she’d been quite happy to lend most of it to Megan to buy the It’s A Wrap van. And Megan had promised it was only a loan. Anyway, what did Becky need the money for really? She was perfectly happy renting her flat above the newsagent. It wasn’t like the new estate home Tara and Jonathan had just bought, but the cost was reasonable because it wasn’t double-glazed and didn’t have a parking space. And when you didn’t struggle with the cold and didn’t have a car these things were of little importance. So, Megan had the business and a home with boyfriend Dean and their mother had used what she’d been given after probate to buy a mobile home in Blackpool. Margery Rose now spent her evenings and weekends quite happily playing 10p bingo and dancing at the Tower Ballroom with her sister, June.
‘You were thinking about your dad, weren’t you?’ Hazel carried on.
‘No,’ Becky lied. She wasn’t sure how much Hazel knew about the loss of her father. It’s A Wrap had been established two years after his death and, still upset about the suddenness of his demise then, Becky hadn’t really liked to talk about it too much. Even now, Megan liked to talk about it even less. For her sister, apart from the monetary foundations her life and enterprise were built on, it was like their parents had barely existed. Becky had been to Blackpool twice since her mum’s move, Megan had simply made her excuses.
‘Death is hard, dear,’ Hazel told her. ‘Especially when you’ve got others wanting to brush it under the carpet.’ She sucked at her cocktail. ‘You’re not a brusher-under-the-carpeter though, are you?’
‘Apparently not,’ Becky said again. And she didn’t want to be. Not when she had so many wonderful memories of the times they had all been a happy family together when she was a child. Walks in the local woods, picnics at the park, watching motorbike racing at Thruxton… until the massive stroke had replaced the dad she knew with someone who had to learn to walk, talk and think all over again. But him being alive at all was much better than losing him completely. It might have been within the walls of the care home surrounding them, but Becky had still got to see him, to talk to him and to help him try to recover. There had been small shards of the man she’d looked up to still there, visible just under the surface. Until the second stroke took it all a year later.
‘You know what you need, dear, don’t you?’ Hazel said, hand going into her handbag. It was one of those bags that turned into a backpack should leisure pursuits require it. ‘A cruise!’
Spattering more peanuts, Hazel thumped down a wad of around six brochures Becky never would have believed able to fit in the handbag onto the pub table.
‘That’s what I’m going to be doing at the end of October. I’ve got two weeks booked off and I’m going to be wined and dined twenty-four hours a day,’ Hazel informed her throwing open the first brochure that had a mammoth ship-to-rival-all-ships on the front cover, sitting like a cake-topper on a completely tranquil skein of azure-coloured icing.
Becky immediately caught sight of the prices. Wow! Cruises did not come cheap.
‘And in the hours I’m not being wined and dined,’ Hazel continued, ‘I’m going to try my hand at shuffleboard, then acrobatics… and then more wining and dining.’ Hazel inhaled. ‘Look at that steak. Beautiful.’
Becky regarded the photo of an admittedly tempting piece of cooked-to-perfection steak, a string of watercress laying over its width. She did love meat. Probably a little too much. While Megan was all about sourcing her protein from shakes and pulses, Becky had always preferred animal. Tender beef loin or perfect pork medallions. Some boiled new potatoes with sprigs of mint plucked from the business garden or mash with garlic and rosemary the way her dad used to make it…
‘It’s missing a few more chips though, isn’t it? Still,’ Hazel said, ‘it’s eat-all-you-can on these ships. No one goes hungry. Even the fat ones. And my friend Hilary is a testament to that.’
‘Is that who you’re going with in October?’ Becky asked, watching as Hazel turned the pages and more serene, gliding vessels were displayed, some docking near the waterways of Venice others underneath the famous blue domes of Santorini. It all looked perfect. Sun, sea, and saucisson was on offer for those boats docking in Cannes. Blackpool was the last break Becky had had. And watching her mum and Auntie June ride donkeys and purge their lunch after going on the Big One, hadn’t exactly been the epitome of relaxation.
‘Oh no, dear,’ Hazel said screwing up her face in close-to disgust. ‘No, I wouldn’t wish holidaying with Hilary on anyone. She really would spend twenty-four hours at the all-you-can-eat buffet.’
‘Then who are you going with?’
‘Well,’ Hazel said, ‘I know I should be inviting Stanley from the bowls club, because I have been leading him on a little lately but… I quite fancy going on my own.’
‘Really?’ Becky said, taking a sip of her drink. It wasn’t quite a cruise cocktail, but it was cooling her down and smoothing over her annoyance at Megan’s rapid and angry departure earlier.
‘Yes,’ Hazel continued, flipping over another brochure page. ‘Look at this, dear… Exhibit A you could say.’ Hazel spread her fingers over the photos and inhaled again.
Becky took in the photo of three silver-haired gents in their smart beige trousers and jackets in varying hues of pastel, leaning altogether slightly too posed against the railing of the boat as it slipped past the Rock of Gibraltar.
‘Maybe that’s what you need too,’ Hazel remarked. ‘A holiday and
a man. These cruises can deliver both, and even the lower-class rooms aren’t exactly shabby.’ Hazel sniffed like being a third-class passenger on the Titanic could have been bearable if they had been able to see Jane McDonald sing.
Becky pulled the brochure a little closer. These men Hazel was getting her to look at, actually make that all the people in the promotional photos, were Hazel’s age. Not that there was anything wrong with being in your sixties, but Becky didn’t want a sixty-year-old man-friend when she was only twenty-five. She didn’t know if she even really wanted a man-friend at all after the disaster of her last date. Angus from the sausage shop.
Angus had the most gorgeous eyes – a piercing blue, the type you only really found in film stars wearing altering contacts. His eyes had been the first thing Becky had noticed when she’d decided to give in to her meat needs one evening. Tara had stood her up again, said that Jonathan had man flu and he couldn’t cope alone. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Angus’s eyes that made the lasting impression, it was his constant indigestion. The poor guy couldn’t seem to breathe without first ejecting the most horrendous belches. How she had managed to order sausages from him and agree to a drink without noticing this before, Becky didn’t know. She had come to the conclusion that when he’d ducked down behind the counter to procure her chosen bangers he’d exhaled into a box or something so she couldn’t hear. But you couldn’t hide a condition like that over glasses of wine in a quiet beer garden for a whole evening. She felt sorry for him really, especially when he’d told her it was hereditary…
A holiday. It was a lovely idea. But it was just that. An idea. In reality, she had wraps to fold and buns to stuff to bursting for the rest of the summer and a care home summer party to coordinate if she could talk Megan round. And she did enjoy her job. On her van delivery days, she loved getting out and meeting the customers, hearing their ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ over her latest magic ingredients to expand their lunch repertoire.
‘It looks nice,’ Becky answered. It looked more than nice. It looked exotic and adventurous and all the things that secretly thrilled her, yet also terrified her. What would she do if she went away? Sunbathe on a ship eating steak and gateau? Visit the Pyramids? Swim with dolphins? How could she? It wasn’t her style to do anything like that. But then it hadn’t been anything like her mum to decide to throw caution to the North Sea wind and take off for a new life on the coast either.