by Della Galton
‘Of course we can. I’ll get started on the roses?’
‘That would be brilliant. Are you really sure about taking the cake tomorrow? We’re not going to get much sleep.’
‘I’ve always thought sleep’s overrated,’ Aunt Dawn said briskly.
‘Thank you,’ Olivia whispered, ‘So much. Not just for the cake.’ Her aunt’s eyes softened in acknowledgement as Olivia slid out of her chair and escaped to the bathroom. She wasn’t a good crier. Her skin always went blotchy. She splashed water onto her cheekbones and then retied her dark hair back up on top of her head.
Now Tom was in her mind, it was hard to get him out again. They’d met in 2010 when she was twenty-eight and he was thirty-three at a wedding exhibition at Olympia. At the time, she’d been baking cakes for a wedding planning company, prior to setting up her own cake making company, and he’d been selling diamonds.
Tom was a brilliant salesman. He had one of those faces that people trusted and he could literally sell anything, although she’d discovered later that he tended to focus on high-end commodities. In his career to date, he’d sold Sunseeker boats, shepherd’s huts to rich landowners and holiday homes in Iceland.
He’d asked her for a coffee when they had a break at the exhibition and they realised they actually lived within five miles of each other, in Weymouth, and had a mutual friend who was a member of the same gym they were. Not that either of them went. They laughed about this. They laughed about a lot in that half an hour, and when he’d asked rather shyly whether he could take her to dinner the following weekend, Olivia had agreed happily.
She was only slightly fazed when he took her to the most expensive restaurant in town. They both laughed when he told her he was just trying to impress her and after that it would be McDonald’s all the way.
It wasn’t though. Tom Boyd was very wealthy – that quickly became apparent – but he wasn’t ever flashy and neither did he take it for granted. ‘I work really hard and I’ve also been lucky,’ he told her. ‘I like nice things. But I may not always have money. I’m only as good as my last commission. Let me spoil you while the going’s good.’
Olivia had always been fiercely independent, but she had to admit it was lovely being spoiled.
Their relationship had slowly become more serious. They wanted the same things. Stability, socialising with friends. They both loved their work. He liked the fact she was an actress and had actually been in things he’d heard of. He liked showing her off. They both wanted kids – one day in the future when the time was right. There was no rush.
Seeing as they both worked and operated in the wedding biz scene, neither was keen on marriage. They’d both seen it as an unnecessary label. It had been Olivia who’d changed her mind first, just after she’d turned thirty-three.
She’d mentioned it to him in passing, in a ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ kind of way, and he’d seemed hesitant. Then, to her surprise, three weeks later when they were on a weekend away in Florence, he’d proposed.
It had been the most incredibly romantic proposal. Tom was the king of big romantic gestures. They’d just been for lunch in a gorgeous open-air trattoria, and they’d been walking back towards their hotel across Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge lined with goldsmiths and jewellers, when Tom had grabbed her hand and pulled her towards a shop window.
‘What is it?’ she’d asked, slightly alarmed when he’d dropped to one knee on the pavement and grinned up at her.
‘Marry me, Olivia? Live with me forever and be my wife?’
Several passers-by stopped to watch. The Italians did have a reputation for being the most romantic of all Europeans after all. Hadn’t they invented the language of love? And it was obvious to everyone exactly what was going on.
‘Of course I’ll marry you,’ Olivia had said, tugging him to his feet and kissing him, to the delight of the crowd of cheering, applauding onlookers.
She realised that they had stopped outside the most expensive, most exclusive jewellers and they went straight in to buy Olivia a ring.
‘Why didn’t you buy it in advance?’ She had teased as they’d browsed the trays of diamonds. ‘Did you think I’d say no?’
‘I wanted you to choose,’ he’d murmured, touching her cheek. ‘I didn’t want to make a mistake.’
The romance of that weekend had shone brightly over the next year and had only tarnished slightly when another two years had passed without them actually setting a date for the wedding.
‘There is no rush to set a date for the wedding,’ Tom had said and she had agreed. Even though she was beginning to think this was the longest engagement in history.
Five years after the engagement, when even Aunt Dawn had begun asking whether they still planned to get married, Olivia had raised it with Tom and that, she’d finally realised with hindsight, had been the beginning of the end.
‘I’d like us to start a family, Tom,’ she had said one evening when they were eating at Harbour Views; their favourite fish restaurant, which was contemporary and served gorgeous food but had cold tiled floors and modern, slightly uncomfortable furniture. ‘I know it’s old-fashioned, but I’d really like us to be married when we do.’
They’d just finished their main course – seafood linguine, which was to die for and all sourced locally.
Tom reached across the glass table and took both her hands in his and there was something in his face that had stilled her. ‘I’ve been thinking about families, Olivia.’ He frowned and chewed absently at the corner of his lip and then he’d dropped a bombshell. ‘The thing is, I’m not sure whether I actually want one.’
She looked at him in shock. ‘But you’ve always wanted kids. You’ve always said that when the time’s right…’ She broke off.
He was nodding but his blue eyes were shadowed. ‘I know what I said. And, believe me, I meant it. But it’s been on my mind a lot lately and I don’t think I do. I love my life – our life – as it is. I don’t need kids to complete it. In fact, I don’t think they would complete it. I think … Well, I think it might be the opposite.’
He’d rubbed at the five o’clock shadow on his chin while Olivia stared at him in disbelief. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was such a complete turnaround.
Or was it? Suddenly, his reluctance to set a date for the wedding made a lot more sense.
‘How long have you been feeling like this?’ she’d asked.
‘I don’t know. Six months. Maybe a year.’ He shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes, I think it does.’ She knew suddenly that it had been much longer than a year. He must have had doubts for ages. She pulled her hands from his.
‘It doesn’t affect us,’ he said, looking anguished. ‘I still want to marry…’
‘Of course it affects us,’ she cut across him. ‘I do want a family, Tom. It’s what I’ve always wanted, as you know. But I can’t have one by myself, can I?’ She was shocked at the bitterness in her own voice and he’d clearly heard it too.
He looked stricken. ‘I know, but…’ He blew out through his teeth. ‘Look at what happened to Alfie and Lin.’
For a second, she’d paused and her heart gave a wild swing of hope. Maybe that’s what this was all about. Alfie and Lin were two of his closest friends – he’d been best man at their wedding – they’d married when they were both in their thirties but had trouble conceiving. After five rounds of IVF, they’d finally got their much-wanted twins, who’d been born premature, but the trauma of the whole thing had been so great that they’d ended up splitting up and were now in the throes of an acrimonious divorce.
‘You’ve been talking to Alfie?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. A lot. Having a family hasn’t brought him any joy. Au contraire. He’s totally messed up.’
‘That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to us, Tom. I might fall pregnant straight away. We’ve never even tried. I’ve never even missed a pill.’ That wasn’t quite true, but it hadn’t happened often and she’
d always made sure they’d used some other form of contraception if it had.
Her mother had a lot to answer for in this respect, as both herself and Ruby had been conceived the first time she’d tried to get pregnant, which had left both of them with the impression it would be incredibly risky to do as much as breathe while a boy was present.
She had held Tom’s gaze and he’d nodded slowly and for the longest moment Olivia had thought he was considering what she’d just said. She went on quickly. ‘When my parents wanted a baby, they got pregnant the first time they tried. And here I am – the living proof. Same with Ruby. They didn’t split up. They’ve always been blissfully happy.’
Tom lowered his eyes. ‘I don’t want a family. I’m really sorry – I truly thought I did, but I’ve made up my mind. Please don’t walk away from me. Just say that you’ll think about it for a while. Think through the pros and cons.’
Olivia didn’t walk away. Not at first. They’d talked and they’d cried, but neither of them had budged an inch. She was desperate for a family. Tom was completely against having one. In the end, the only possible solution had been to end the relationship. They’d been together for just over ten years. She had been shocked to the core. His complete turnaround had devastated her. She didn’t think she’d have felt any worse if he’d gone off with someone else.
The sound of her doorbell flicked Olivia back into the present and a few moments later she heard voices in her kitchen.
Phil must have arrived.
Hurriedly, she rubbed away some smudged mascara and reapplied foundation. She and Phil were still at the stage where she wanted to keep the illusion of having perfect skin and being beautiful. She’d never decided whether this was insecurity or vanity. After all, he already knew what she looked like with no make-up on. They quite often woke up in the same bed at weekends.
When she got back to the kitchen, Phil was chatting to her aunt. She felt a twang of lust. He was gorgeous. Even with his black hair a bit windswept – in fact, especially with his hair a bit windswept – and still in his work jacket that fitted snugly over his broad shoulders. Her sister Ruby reckoned he looked like Aidan Turner in Poldark and it was true.
He broke off when he saw her. ‘I see that Operation Save The Day is in full swing. How’s it going?’ He dangled a carrier bag from the fingers of one hand. ‘I nipped into M&S and got “not just nibbles”. I’ll put them on plates and we can help ourselves – yes?’
‘Brilliant. Thanks.’ She went across and kissed him, aware that her aunt had busied herself making coffees.
‘I’ll just stick my jacket in your lounge,’ Phil said, shrugging it off as he spoke. ‘Save cluttering up the kitchen.’
He disappeared but was back very quickly, wearing a slightly bemused expression.
‘Did you know there’s a chicken sitting on your sofa?’ he asked Olivia. He opened his fingers to reveal something in his palm. ‘And she seems to have laid you an egg.’
4
A disgruntled and loudly protesting Emmeline was recaptured and returned to her box and Aunt Dawn moved her into the darkened bathroom and came back into the kitchen with an apologetic look at Olivia. ‘Sorry about that. She’ll roost now it’s night-time anyway. I’m just so relieved she’s OK. I should have known she’d escape from that box. When I first got her, she was forever trying to escape from the coop, and once, she got herself stuck in the netting on the gate. I called her Emmeline in the first place because she’s such a feisty little thing.’
Phil looked mystified at this announcement until Olivia explained. ‘Emmeline Pankhurst – the suffragette who’s famous for chaining herself to the railings in protests.’
‘Of course. How did I not clock that?’ He banged his forehead. ‘Doh.’
They all laughed and then turned their attention to the nibbles he’d bought.
Included were miniature pizzas the size of tablespoons, a selection of olives with Manchego, cherry tomatoes stuffed with mozzarella, gherkins which Phil and Olivia both loved and cocktail sticks to eat everything with so they didn’t have to use their fingers.
‘I figured they’d be quick to eat and not create any more mess,’ Phil said.
‘How thoughtful,’ Dawn glanced at Olivia. ‘I’d say he’s a keeper, this one.’
Olivia didn’t answer. Not because she didn’t agree but because she didn’t want to come across as clingy or heavy.
She’d been on the rebound when she’d met Phil. She’d split up with Tom less than a month earlier and another relationship had been the last thing on her mind. She was totally focused on Hamlet, which had come along at exactly the right time.
Relationships were not even on her radar, she’d told Phil when they were having a coffee one Saturday. Even that had been accidental – a few of the actors had got together for a social evening after rehearsal and they’d been the last to leave.
‘I’m not looking for a relationship either,’ he’d told her. ‘In fact, technically I’m seeing someone.’
‘Technically?’ she had asked, intrigued despite herself.
‘We met via a dating show,’ he’d explained. ‘It’s an unusual situation as in we’ve never actually been on a date, but we will be going on one. It’s going to be filmed and then hopefully aired on Netflix.’
‘I hope it works out for you both,’ she’d told him sincerely.
But as time had gone on, they’d found themselves drawn more and more to each other and Phil had finally explained that neither he nor his prospective date thought their relationship had a future. And that, actually, the lady in question had her eye on someone else too.
So, Olivia had agreed that a date might be fun. As long as they took things ultra slowly.
‘I don’t want anything heavy,’ she’d said.
‘Let’s just have some fun,’ he’d replied. ‘See how things go.’
‘Yes, we can take it a day at a time. We’re both really busy.’
‘Sounds good to me. No strings.’
All of those little phrases that gave both of them a get-out clause, Olivia had thought at the time. But it was true they were busy. They both had two jobs for a start – and they didn’t live on each other’s doorsteps. Phil was in Brancombe, which was on the outskirts of Swanage. It was twenty-six miles, door to door – a fifty-minute drive if there was no traffic. Not exactly a long-distance relationship, but also not quite in the ‘pop by for a coffee’ range either. At least not without a prior arrangement.
Rehearsals for Hamlet had started in April and they’d started dating in May, but only casually. By Christmas, they’d decided they’d be exclusive, as in neither of them wanted to see anyone else. But they hadn’t yet ventured into discussions about commitment. Neither of them had ever said, ‘I love you.’ It had been on the tip of her tongue sometimes, Olivia thought, when they’d been snuggling up after a film night or he’d cooked her breakfast at his. But she’d never voiced it. Nor had she discussed her hopes for a family. Even though she was acutely aware that the clock was always ticking.
It seemed to get harder – not easier – to mention the c word. She was happy and she knew he was happy too and a part of her was scared of rocking the boat. Why risk the loveliness that they had?
By 10 p.m. the cake was cooked and cooling on her worktop. You can’t rush the cooling of a cake. Not if you planned to ice it so soon after making it.
By 11 p.m. she and Aunt Dawn were three quarters of the way through the sugar paste roses.
Phil was yawning, but stoic and supportive, keeping them supplied with caffeine and encouragement. At eleven thirty, Aunt Dawn said, ‘You should go to bed, Olivia. You need to be at your best tomorrow. I’ll finish the icing. I can work from the photos you took of the original. To be honest, love, it feels great to keep my hand in.’
‘Your aunt’s right,’ Phil agreed. ‘I’ll drop her home with Emmeline when it’s done.’
‘I’ll take the cake to the Greys in the morning,’ Dawn said. ‘Don’t for
get to give me the address.’
‘What about your car?’ Olivia asked, suddenly remembering. ‘What if it doesn’t start in the morning?’
‘I’ve got that covered. Lydia’s in tomorrow and she’s happy for me to take her car. I texted her earlier.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘A hundred and one per cent. Now shoo.’
‘Get to bed,’ Phil said.
They both looked at her with expressions that dared her to argue. Phil’s was mock stern and her aunt’s was uncompromising.
Olivia felt like a child. ‘I can’t thank you enough. You’ve both been so brilliant.’
‘It’s not a big deal,’ Phil said.
‘Now be off with you.’ Dawn waved a palette knife at her. ‘Night, night, darling.’
Phil came across and gave her a lingering goodnight kiss. ‘I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow. Break a leg.’
She was feeling all emotional again but for different reasons. It was another of those occasions, she realised as she drew away from Phil, in which she’d have liked to say, ‘I love you.’
Olivia thought she’d have trouble sleeping, knowing that the pair of them would still be in her kitchen, but she must have gone out like a light because she didn’t even hear them go.
When her alarm woke her at 5.15 a.m. and she went, bleary-eyed, to get coffee, there was barely a sign they’d ever been there. They’d cleared up after themselves too, the darlings. Her kitchen was spotless.
There was a note on the side in Aunt Dawn’s loopy handwriting. ‘Let me know how it goes. I’ll text you when the cake’s safely delivered.’
She was half hoping Phil might have added a line, but there was nothing. She chided herself for being disappointed. Phil was more of a ‘sending texts’ kind of guy than the ‘writing notes’ kind.
Her train was due to arrive at Waterloo at 9.53 and the tube journey would take about forty minutes. Her appointment wasn’t until midday, but she never left anything to chance. Knowing her tendency to get clumsier than usual when she was nervous, she’d even put an extra top into her backpack, in case there should be an incident with a takeaway coffee – this had happened once before – along with the script and directions. She was wearing her lucky necklace, a multicoloured stone on a long silver chain which went with nearly everything she owned, which might well be the reason she always had it on when anything good happened. After Phil and Aunt Dawn’s heroic efforts to ensure she’d make today’s audition, she was extra determined to make it a success.