by Katie Fforde
Joe peered into a bag. ‘That explains you buying a fatted calf among other little luxuries.’
‘I really want it to be nice.’
Caro had now joined Joe in the wheelhouse. ‘Are you going to be in?’ she continued. ‘There’ll be loads of food.’
‘No one could ever accuse you of being an under-caterer,’ he said, picking up the bags again to take them down to the cabin.
Caro shuddered. The thought of under-catering made her feel sick. ‘Nor you, thank goodness. So, will you be having dinner with us or not?’
Joe shook his head. ‘Not really my thing, making conversation with strangers.’ He paused for a second. ‘But I’ll be your sous-chef if you need me.’
‘Would you make a pudding?’
He nodded. ‘What would you like?’
‘Prune and Armagnac tart? You’re so good at it.’
He shook his head. ‘Prunes may split the crowd. How about pear and chocolate frangipane tart?’
Caro bit her lip. ‘Not everyone likes marzipan—’
Joe laughed. ‘You’re not in the mood to make decisions. Why don’t you let me decide?’
She hesitated. She didn’t really like not knowing what the pudding would be – it was an important meal – but on the other hand, Joe made brilliant puddings and she had a lot of cleaning to do as well. She decided to let go of some control. ‘That would be lovely. Let me know if you need cash for ingredients.’
Joe was peering into the bags. ‘You seem to have plenty of those and enough cream to float the Titanic. I’ll be fine.’
It was mid-afternoon by the time Rowan and Scarlet – almost completely unrecognisable in a different hat that hid her curls and most of her face, staggered down the steps into the saloon showing evidence of ‘big bag shopping’.
‘Something smells amazing!’ said Rowan.
‘Quite a lot of things smell amazing!’ said Scarlet. ‘I hope you haven’t gone to too much trouble, it’s only us.’
Caro wondered if Scarlet needed reminding that ‘only us’ included a major movie director but decided that she didn’t.
‘Us and Dad,’ added Rowan. ‘I’m going to put my things in my room now.’ She then selected several of the bags and carried them off proudly, the spoils of shopping.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ said Scarlet. ‘I treated her to a few things. Everything was so cheap!’
Caro laughed. ‘Did you last go shopping in Knightsbridge?’ Cheapness was all relative, after all.
Scarlet shrugged. ‘Rodeo Drive. What can I say?’
Caro walked over to the kettle. ‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’
‘Mint tea if you have it. And I bought cupcakes from this precious little stall where the girl said she made them all herself. I love markets!’
Although she must have been tempted, Caro realised, Scarlet didn’t fling herself on to the banquette and wait for her tea to be served, she went into the galley area and found mugs. ‘You’ll have tea and cupcakes too?’
‘I thought I’d never want to eat cake again after yesterday’s amazing feast,’ said Caro, adding teabags to the mugs, ‘but it’s amazing what a good night’s sleep does for you. Very happy to have a cupcake.’
‘So tell me about Rowan’s dad?’ asked Scarlet after she had, very impressively, Caro thought, bitten the top off a cupcake in one go.
‘Well, you probably know, Rowan’s parents are divorced. She mostly lives with her mother, but as they all live on this big Scottish estate, she sees a lot of her father, too.’
‘And what is he to you?’
Caro nearly spilled her tea. ‘Er – he’s not anything to me …’ Really, Scarlet was far too perceptive for a film star who was not very old. Maybe that was one of the things that David loved about her?
‘I just got the impression that – well – there was just a bit more to it than him being Rowan’s dad.’ Scarlet put down the cake, her need for sugar obviously satisfied by several ounces of buttercream. ‘You might as well tell me. I’ll get it out of you eventually.’
While Caro had lots of friends, the best friend she would have told everything to lived in Cornwall and didn’t really do email. And she really liked Scarlet and felt she could trust her.
‘There isn’t anything to tell, really, except I’ve got a stupid crush on him.’ As this sounded so ridiculous coming out of the mouth of a nearly middle-aged woman, Caro felt obliged to go on. ‘We did meet, just for one evening, when we were students, but it was at night. We just talked until I had to run off to catch a ferry – we were on the Greek islands. We didn’t give each other contact details, but I remembered the place he said he came from. So when a position came up there, just when I needed a job, it seemed like fate that I should apply for it.’ Caro nibbled on a sugar rose. ‘I recognised him straightaway but he didn’t recognise me. I expect he’s forgotten all about it. After all, it was just a summer night spent with a girl he didn’t sleep with.’
‘But you still want to cook him a nice meal and have everything looking spotless?’ said Scarlet.
Caro nodded.
‘Well, I can help with set dressing,’ said Scarlet. ‘My first job in the theatre – “off”, as many times as you can be bothered to say it, Broadway – I had to bring things in from home to make the stage look like an apartment.’ She looked around. ‘You have lots of brilliant props here!’
‘Well, if you’re up for it!’
‘You’ll trust me?’
Caro nodded. ‘I have a daughter who can be quite bossy. I’ve got used to relinquishing control over the finer details of the decor.’ Food was usually her domain although now it was shared with Joe.
Scarlet gave a little jump and clapped. ‘This is going to be so much fun!’ Just then her phone pinged. ‘It’s David! He’s early.’
‘I’ll put the code in your phone for you, so you can go and get him,’ said Caro. ‘And don’t worry about tidying up. It’ll be fine.’
‘I want to do it,’ said Scarlet. ‘I’ve been waited on like a princess ever since I’ve been in England. Here I can do normal things!’
Caro laughed. ‘Well, go and get your boyfriend first then.’
As Caro went to her bedroom to choose what to wear she remembered Posy getting the barge ready for a party. She’d draped red chiffon scarves over the lamps, which not only created a fire hazard but made the place look like a bordello. It had taken all Caro’s motherly guile to get Posy to change it. Eventually she made a comment about Posy’s make-up and was it the wrong colour for her and then said, ‘Oh no! I think it’s the lighting – it’s making you look about thirty. And me about sixty.’
Now, Caro wasn’t worried about her barge looking like a bordello; she doubted that Scarlet would have time to do very much when David was here to look after. She debated for a moment if she should go and greet him herself but decided not to. She really had to get ready.
She glanced at her watch. David was early but Alec was due to arrive at about five. It was now four o’clock. If she didn’t shower and dress soon she’d be greeting him in her dressing gown. She sighed. Had that not been faded and stained round the collar with hair dye she might have gone for that easy option. After all, it seemed just as suitable as anything else.
She was clean and wearing make-up but still in her cabin when Scarlet called for her. ‘Caro? Do you want a drink? I’m making David coffee. I hope that’s OK.’
‘Of course it is. I feel very rude not being ready to greet him, but I’m not dressed.’
‘Can I help?’
Caro shrugged. ‘Maybe!’ The dressing gown option was becoming more and more attractive, and she was clinging to it like a lifebelt.
‘Hang on,’ Scarlet called back. ‘Be with you in a minute.’
When Scarlet knocked on Caro’s door a few moments later she was carrying a soft parcel wrapped in pale pink tissue paper.
‘We bought this for you,’ she explained. ‘Will it help you choose an outfit?’
>
It was a pashmina of the softest cashmere you could imagine. It had an abstract pattern containing every shade of red from the palest pink to the deepest vermilion and was beautiful.
‘Rowan chose it,’ said Scarlet. ‘She has a great sense of colour.’
‘It’s fabulous! I love it. Thank you so much!’ She hugged Scarlet and then gave her a kiss.
‘But it hasn’t helped your decision, right?’
‘Not really,’ said Caro quietly.
‘Can I look at your wardrobe? You do have to keep your clothes in a very small space living on a barge, don’t you?’
‘I’ve sort of got used to it—’
‘Do you mind if I dive in?’
Twenty minutes later Caro emerged wearing a pair of soft, very worn velvet jeans she could still get on and a fitted and only slightly moth-eaten cashmere jumper. The whole was enhanced enormously by the scarf that Scarlet draped around Caro in a way that looked amazing and that Caro knew she’d never manage to recreate.
‘That’s perfect!’ said Caro, looking at herself in the mirror. ‘I look my best but as if I haven’t made a huge effort.’
‘It is the hardest look,’ Scarlet agreed. ‘Now, come and say hello to David and let’s see what Rowan has put on. I did get a bit carried away buying her things – it was all such a bargain!’ Scarlet obviously still hadn’t got over the price of things in a London market compared to her usual shopping haunts.
Caro went into the saloon where David was waiting. He stood up and kissed Caro’s cheek. ‘Thank you so much for looking after Scarlet. It’s been lovely for her to be able to hang out with people who just behave normally around her for a little while.’
‘It’s been a delight,’ said Caro. ‘I only wish she could stay for longer.’
‘Oh!’ said Scarlet as Rowan appeared. ‘Look at you!’
Rowan looked like a model. An asymmetrical dress with a cowl neckline gave her the look of a gazelle – graceful, vulnerable and incredibly beautiful. Long soft boots enhanced the length of her legs. Caro barely had time to register relief that it was her father whom she was about to see and not her over-protective mother before her phone pinged. Alec was at the gate and needed to be let in.
‘It’s your dad!’ she said.
A flash of panic crossed Rowan’s features and then Scarlet said, ‘You look great, honey. He’ll love your hair.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ said Caro. ‘It does really suit you.’ She didn’t add that it made her look less like a child and more like a woman. ‘I’ll go and get him.’
She had no idea what to say to him and trusted that ‘Hello’, and ‘Good journey?’ would suffice.
‘Make sure nothing burns!’ she said to everyone and then ran up the steps to the wheelhouse and from there, on to the pontoon that led to Alec.
As she walked along she realised she’d had a bit of a transformation herself since she’d last seen him. She hadn’t usually put on full make-up and tight jeans up in Glen Liddell.
‘Caro!’ he said when she’d put in the code and opened the gate. He seemed to look at her for a long time and so intently she wondered if he had suddenly recognised her.
‘Hello!’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘Flight OK?’
He shook his head slightly, as if clearing it. ‘Yes, fine.’
But he went on looking at her – he didn’t seem to have much in the way of casual conversation either.
‘It’s this way,’ said Caro after a few moments, and set off along the pontoon to the barge. It was hard to stop smiling. Although she’d been very anxious about seeing him, and was worried about what he’d say when he saw his daughter, short-haired and lovelier than ever, she was just so thrilled to be with him. ‘It’s that one there.’ She pointed to the barge with a glimmer of pride. It looked warm and welcoming. Someone had put the lamps on so all the portholes – round not square like many of the other barges – were glowing with light.
Alec stopped. ‘It was kind of you to think of me – about the perfume, I mean. I know I’d told you it was my dream but there are several companies who make bespoke perfume; you could have suggested one of them. Considering my little enterprise meant you couldn’t stay in the cottage that was meant for you, it was extra kind.’ His smile of gratitude had something else in it that made her stomach do a little back flip.
‘My sister would have gone mad if she’d found out and if my father discovered his eldest son was doing a woofterish thing like making scent – it would finish him off!’
‘How is Murdo?’
‘Good, really. Pleased to see Lennie, of course, but missing you, I think.’ He paused and smiled again shyly. ‘We all miss you.’
‘You’ve hardly had time to miss me!’ said Caro, although she was incredibly pleased. ‘Now let’s get on board and you can see Rowan. She and Scarlet, the young woman who wants the scent, have become very close, very quickly, and in spite of the age gap, I think it’s a real friendship.’
‘But they’ve only known each other about a day and a half!’ he said.
He had a point. ‘True, but Scarlet is so normal.’
‘Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘Because—’ Caro stopped. Alec could see for himself when he met her. While he may not realise what a golden couple David and Scarlet were, he would quickly find out how important David was in the movie-making business.
Rowan was in the wheelhouse waiting for her father. When he arrived, she flung herself into Alec’s arms. They hugged for several moments.
But at last he let her go and got a proper look at her. ‘Oh my God! Your hair! What will your mother say?’
‘It’s my hair, Dad! Don’t you like it?’
Alec studied his daughter and then ruffled her head. ‘Actually, I think it looks amazing, but your mother was always so proud that you’d never had your hair cut. She will be upset.’
‘I needed to take control of my life, Dad. That includes deciding how long my hair should be.’
Caro was impressed by this and wondered if maybe Scarlet had rehearsed her a little. ‘I think it looks amazing too, I must say,’ she said. ‘Now shall we go down? David and Scarlet are there; you can meet them.’
David had his arm round Scarlet and Caro thought it was very obvious that they’d just been kissing. Lucky them to be so in love, she thought.
‘Scarlet and David, this is Alec, Rowan’s father.’
Immediately the greetings were over, Scarlet said to Alec, ‘Don’t you just love Rowan’s hair?’
‘Actually I do,’ he said, relaxing a little, ‘but it does make her look very grown-up and I dread to think what her mother will have to say about it.’
‘There comes a time in every young woman’s life when she has to make up her own mind about stuff, and not just do what her mother tells her,’ said Scarlet, looking up at David with a quick adoring glance.
‘Quite right too,’ said Caro, briefly casting her mind back to when Posy was a teenager and remembering that she always seemed to have her own ideas about everything. ‘Now, Alec, what would you like? Technically it’s teatime but travellers have different rules. There’s whisky or wine.’
‘Whisky would be grand but only if you’ll all join me. I brought a nice malt as a present.’
‘We’ll have that then.’ Caro didn’t want to get drunk by any means, but a bit of something to take the edge off her nerves would help.
They ended up having tea and whisky as Scarlet and Rowan didn’t like it and didn’t fancy wine, although David joined them in a glass of malt.
Whether it was the strong drink or just the easy-going personalities of her American guests, Caro couldn’t decide, but everyone seemed to get on very well. She left them to it and went into the kitchen to fiddle about with dinner.
‘Unless you really need to be there,’ called David, ‘come and join us. We want to talk about Scarlet’s perfume.’
Caro took a last look at the leg of lamb and then went and sat on the banquett
e next to Rowan. Alec poured more whisky into her glass. ‘I should keep my head until after dinner,’ she said, but didn’t reject it.
‘So, about this perfume?’ Alec seemed in charge now. ‘Caro said you had a sample of it?’
‘Yes,’ said Scarlet. ‘But I didn’t bring it over with me.’
‘Oh,’ said Alec. ‘Then it will be hard to recreate. I mean it will be anyway, but without being able to smell it …’
‘I’m going back to the States soon,’ said David. ‘Maybe I could fetch it and bring it over?’
Scarlet looked at him, horrified. ‘Honey! It’s at my parents’ house! Like you can turn up there and demand to go through my things! They would never let you into my bedroom even if you got through the front door. They hate you.’
‘I’m sure they don’t hate me, darling,’ said David, ‘they just haven’t had a chance to get to know me.’
‘The age gap,’ Scarlet explained to Caro and Rowan. ‘It bothers them. They are very conventional people.’
‘I don’t entirely blame them,’ said David. ‘I’d probably feel the same if you were my daughter.’
‘When are you going back yourself?’ said Alec. ‘Maybe you could get it then?’
‘I don’t have an exact return date,’ said Scarlet. ‘I have my acting classes here and I don’t like to visit my parents when they are so horrid about David.’
‘What do they say about him?’ asked Caro, in case being horrid was merely worrying about the age gap between David and their daughter.
‘I don’t want to go into detail,’ said Scarlet. ‘But they don’t approve of movies, put it like that.’
‘My mother doesn’t approve of movies either,’ said Rowan. ‘Or anything, really,’ she added.
Alec cleared his throat. ‘She may be a little over-protective but—’
‘It’s why I had to run away from home,’ said Rowan firmly.
‘We’ll talk about it later, Rowan, but I have to tell you, your mother fully expects me to bring you back home with me.’
Rowan looked mutinous.
Caro broke in quickly, before there could be a row. ‘We’re thinking about perfume now.’ She shot Rowan a quick smile to indicate she was on her side before turning to Scarlet. ‘So you’re not going to see your parents before you marry David? Have you set a date?’