by Heidi Swain
I wasn’t, but I bit my lip. Some people could handle an existence where things happened out of sync, but that wasn’t for me. I liked my life events to be neat and tidy, organised and all happening in the correct order. Diversions from the path were all right for some, but I had always preferred the traditional route.
I would never in a million years have imagined that divorce would be a major feature of that route, but it had happened and now I was steering my own safe and sedate course. I was navigating a passage which limited hurt, upset and disappointment and I daresay, had Lisa been aware of it she would have added passion and unpredictability too, but that was fine. I was more than happy to live without both if it meant not risking my heart again.
‘Didn’t I hear you only yesterday, Lisa,’ said Heather, unable to resist challenging our friend’s determination to bend my thoughts to match hers, ‘lecturing your Tamsin about the importance of respecting other people’s opinions, even if they aren’t necessarily the same as yours?’
‘You did,’ said Lisa, yanking on her seatbelt. ‘But that doesn’t count in this case.’
‘Why not?’ Heather and I chorused.
‘Because Kate’s wrong and she needs telling.’
‘Simple as that,’ I said.
‘Simple as that,’ she agreed. ‘And I’m going to prove it.’
Chapter 15
A week later I was back in Harold’s house, sitting at his dining table and drinking tea, only this time I was surrounded by pieces of paper and notebooks, rather than photographs and magazine clippings.
‘I’m still not sure this is worth the bother, Kate,’ the old man grumbled, ‘or your time for that matter. You must have something better you could be doing.’
‘Not really,’ I shrugged, sharpening my pencil again, before I set about recording more of what he could remember, ‘not until the weather improves anyway. And like I’ve told you a hundred times, it’s now or never because once the sun starts to shine and spring puts in an appearance, then I will have better things to do. Plenty of better things, like stripping wallpaper for a start; you won’t see me for dust then.’
‘Literally,’ chuckled Harold.
‘Exactly.’
I was looking forward to making a start on the refurbishment of my cosy little abode, but I wasn’t so enamoured with the fact that I couldn’t rid myself of the thought of the kitchen wall being replaced by a retractable sheet of glass. I had even taken to drinking my first caffeine hit of the day standing in front of the space with my eyes closed, imagining the view beyond the bricks and thinking how lovely it would be to invite the outside in in such a dramatic way.
‘But really, Kate,’ came Harold’s voice again. He sounded more like a sulky teenager than a man in his eighties. ‘What’s the point? Not even that young man of yours has bothered to come and look at the snaps, so I can’t possibly imagine that anyone else will be interested in these tall tales. It’s all in the past and should probably stay there.’
I was as annoyed with Luke’s continued no-show as I was with myself for not being able to shake off his interior design suggestions. When he had been warming his toes at my fireside, I’d had absolutely no reason to doubt his sincerity when he said he was keen to meet Harold and look through his old photographs. He had sounded genuinely eager to discover more about the history of Prosperous Place and yet I hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of him, or anyone else for that matter, hanging around either the house or the Square.
‘He’s certainly not my young man,’ I corrected Harold perhaps a little too sharply, ‘and we aren’t just doing this for his benefit anyway.’
‘Who are we doing it for, then?’ he demanded.
I didn’t have an answer for him right at that moment, but was thankfully saved from admitting it by the sound of the letterbox being rattled.
‘I’ll go,’ I said, jumping up.
There was just the one letter, a rather smart envelope with Harold’s name written in beautifully curvaceous handwriting on the front.
‘Who is it?’ he called.
‘No one,’ I said, rejoining him at the table. ‘It was just the post.’
‘The post came hours ago,’ he frowned.
‘Well, this was sitting on the doormat,’ I told him. ‘It’s been hand delivered; look, there’s no stamp or address.’
‘Who delivered it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, handing the letter over. ‘I didn’t see.’
Harold took the envelope and turned it over in his hands, taking in the weight of the expensive stationery.
‘Feels like money,’ he sniffed suspiciously.
I couldn’t help but smile at his canny observation.
‘I thought the same thing,’ I agreed. ‘It’s beautiful thick paper, excellent quality and not many people write with a fountain pen these days. Aren’t you going to open it?’
Still frowning, Harold pointed towards the little table which occupied the space next to his armchair by the fire.
‘Oh my,’ I said, passing him the slender bone-handled letter opener he had indicated. ‘This is rather beautiful.’
He stared at it intently, as if he hadn’t really looked at it properly for a very long time.
‘It was my grandmother’s,’ he told me. ‘Possibly her mother’s, now I come to think of it.’
He slid the end of the blade into the paper and slit the envelope neatly open with one deft twitch of his hand.
‘Could you please pass my reading glasses as well, my dear?’
I watched as he slowly read what looked like a prettily decorated card and shook his head.
‘It’s money all right,’ he said. ‘Have a read of this.’
The card was actually an invitation, but it had been made to look like a Victorian valentine. It was decorated with a violet border and although very beautiful I wouldn’t allow myself to be seduced by such pretty packaging, especially as I read on.
‘Dear Harold Brighton,’ I read out loud. ‘You are cordially invited to Valentine’s Day dinner at Prosperous Place on Friday February the fourteenth. Drinks at seven thirty, dinner at eight, carriages at ten thirty.’
‘Carriages,’ Harold sniffed again. ‘That’s a bit fancy, isn’t it? Considering it’s only at the end of the road, and what’s with the hearts and flowers?’
‘It doesn’t say who it’s from, does it?’ I observed, turning it over to look for clues just as the doorbell rang. ‘There’s just a mobile number to RSVP to.’
The long line of numbers didn’t quite match the prettiness of the card, but whoever had sent it had certainly gone to a lot of trouble to make it look appealing.
‘Well, I’m not going.’ Harold’s stubborn voice carried along the hall as I went to answer the door. ‘I’m not turning out after dark. It’s probably one of those scams you hear about on the news. Whoever sent it no doubt wants to empty the house and by the time I’ve worked out there is no fancy dinner I’ll have been robbed blind.’
I shook my head and tutted. It was an awful lot of trouble for a potential housebreaker to go to. What an imagination he had.
‘Oh goodie, you’ve got one as well!’
I discovered Lisa on the doorstep and she was brandishing a similar invitation to the one I still held in my hand. Carole, Graham and Heather were close behind her and they all held theirs up in a show of unity. From what I could see, each one was decorated slightly differently, but carried the same wording.
‘This is Harold’s, actually,’ I pointed out to my friend who was looking most excited about the prospect of a Valentine celebration inside the walls of Prosperous Place. ‘I’ve been here all afternoon, so I don’t know if I’ve got one.’
‘Well, go and see,’ ordered Carole. Her flushed cheeks suggested she was enjoying the excitement every bit as much as Lisa. ‘And then we’ll decide what we’re going to do.’
They all bundled into Harold’s front room and I went home to retrieve my own envelope which, sure enough, wa
s waiting on the doormat.
‘I take it we’ve all got one?’ asked Rob, who had heard the kerfuffle and come out to join in with the speculation.
‘Looks like it.’
‘Bit odd, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Not saying who it’s from, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It is a bit.’
Not surprisingly, Carole’s voice was the first I heard when I crossed the threshold into Harold’s again.
‘They’re obviously from the developer,’ she said sagaciously. ‘No doubt they think they can win us over with a fancy card and a classy dinner. It will be champagne all round to soften the blow of whatever it is they’re planning to do, you mark my words.’
At least one of my neighbours had worked out the justification for the elaborate invitations, even if she hadn’t mentioned the role her handsome hero may have played in distributing them.
I stared down at my own card which was decorated with all sorts of beautiful spring flowers and a smattering of pale pink hearts. I had to hand it to whoever had come up with the designs because they had certainly done their homework. The motifs they had picked out were perfect and I remembered what I had once read about the Victorian postal system being almost overwhelmed when the popularity of the cards really took off.
‘So, who cares?’
This came from Lisa and it made my heart sink.
‘I’m going to make the most of it,’ she rushed on, ‘and besides, if they’ve gone to all this bother for us, they can’t really be that bad, can they?’
‘That’s exactly what they want you to think,’ Carole pressed on, before I had a chance to say exactly the same thing. ‘This will be some clever exercise in the art of seducing potential problem neighbours.’
‘Well, you’ve changed your tune,’ Lisa snapped. ‘When your knight in shining armour carried you home in his executive carriage you were all smiles. You sounded more than a little seduced yourself then, Carole.’
I let out a long, slow breath, convinced that this in-house sniping was exactly what the team at the end of the road was hoping for. If we carried on talking to each other like this and starting to fall out, we were going to be playing right into their hands.
‘Look,’ I said, risking Lisa’s wrath. ‘Let’s not get caught up arguing about the whys and wherefores, let’s just have a show of hands as to who thinks it’s a good idea to go.’
Lisa’s hand shot up straightaway and Heather’s was only a nanosecond slower. I raised mine in a show of solidarity and Lisa looked smugly at Carole.
‘I’m not siding with you because I want a fancy night out, Lisa,’ I quickly told her. ‘I want to find out all I can about the development, and this will be a great opportunity to do that, and don’t forget, at the end of the day, the new owners might have some influence over the green. We don’t want to jeopardise our chances of securing that, do we?’
‘She has a point,’ Rob shrugged at Carole before raising his hand. ‘I think we should all go. After all there’s safety in numbers, right?’
‘Exactly,’ I agreed, thinking that I was going to have to keep a close eye on Lisa and wondering if Rob was sacrificing a romantic evening out with Sarah to come along. ‘And hopefully, what one of us forgets to ask, someone else will think of.’
‘Fine,’ Carole finally caved. ‘If that’s what you all want, then we’ll go.’
‘Do you think I’ve got time to slim into that dress I found in the New Year sales?’ Lisa asked Heather as we discussed the evening. ‘Such a posh invitation warrants a posh frock, doesn’t it?’
I knew we needed to be amenable, but I couldn’t help feeling my friend was rather missing the point.
There were no trinkets or bouquets for me on Valentine’s morning which wasn’t unexpected, but it was the first time in a long time that I hadn’t received an elaborate floral arrangement, complete with hidden jewellery and I hastily switched off the television when the so-called early morning news programme resorted to showing surprise live on-air wedding proposals complete with Princess-cut diamonds and horse-drawn carriages. If I couldn’t have my own fairy tale I certainly wasn’t going to get all doe eyed watching someone else’s.
‘You all set then?’ asked Lisa when she landed on the doorstep wearing the self-satisfied expression of a woman who had been treated to the love of a good man before she left the house.
‘Not really,’ I said, slamming my front door behind me. ‘I still can’t believe you’ve managed to talk me into this.’
‘We have to have our armour polished and intact before we go into battle, as you and Carole keep saying,’ she reminded me, waving to Heather. ‘We need to be strong and show them we mean business,’ she mimicked.
‘And I still hold to that,’ I said, climbing into the back seat of Heather’s car and hoping that Lisa hadn’t caught Carole’s matchmaking virus and was harbouring a motive that involved pushing me in Luke’s direction should he happen to be there that evening. Not that I’d given it much thought, hardly any in fact. ‘But we were thinking more along the lines of metaphorical armour really. I personally don’t think that an appointment with the hairdresser and then a manicurist is necessary at all.’
‘Well I do,’ she said firmly. ‘In order to play the part, you have to look the part. And besides, this is the first time in forever that John and I will be anywhere other than the sofa on Valentine’s night, so I’m going to make the most of it; anyway, you want to look your best for lovely Luke, don’t you?’
‘Believe me,’ I told her as she unwittingly confirmed my fears. ‘He’s the last person on my mind.’
Heather looked at me in the rear-view mirror and grinned.
‘He is,’ I said, slumping back in the seat.
I knew neither of them believed me, but it was true. Luke was the last person I was hoping to see sitting at the head of the dining table or dishing out cocktails at Prosperous Place because if he was there, that would mean he was definitely involved in what was going to happen to it and I wasn’t sure I could stomach that on top of everything else.
His no-show at Harold’s front door and his proprietorial handling of my fireside might have annoyed the hell out of me, but there was still something about him that had me hoping he would turn out to be one of the good guys. Obviously, I wasn’t going to try and explain that to my friends though, so I turned my attention to the view as they exchanged knowing looks in the front.
As one, with Harold steering the mobility scooter he loathed, but for the purpose of that evening relented was a necessary evil, we braved the freezing February air and set off from the Square at exactly twenty minutes past seven.
‘Kate, you look stunning,’ Mark whistled, as he took in my simple black gown and diamanté embellishments before I buttoned up my coat. ‘Is that a vintage ensemble by any chance?’
‘It is,’ I told him. ‘Thank you, Mark.’
In the end I had followed Lisa’s lead and taken my time choosing what to wear. I’d finally opted for the only outfit that didn’t hold memories of evenings gone by. I had tracked down this particular dress for a specific occasion, but circumstances had cheated me out of wearing it, a fact that I was suddenly surprised to note I was rather grateful about.
‘It’s Dior,’ said Neil, cocking his head to one side. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I laughed. ‘How did you know that?’
He shrugged and looked a little embarrassed.
‘It’s all in the details,’ he smiled.
‘She’s gone for the classic Hepburn,’ said Lisa, quoting what had been said in the hair salon as the stylist sprayed my elegant up-do. ‘She’s pure class, this one.’
‘Pure class indeed,’ said Neil and Mark slipping either side of me and linking arms.
As far as I was concerned we all looked pure class. John couldn’t take his eyes off Lisa’s elaborate lashes and Heather was revelling in wearing a dress that Evie wouldn’t have the chance to spit up on. The look Glen was giving her left me in no do
ubt that they would be ducking out of the evening and dismissing the babysitter as soon as they could.
We crossed the road and found that the wooden gate which I had previously vaulted over during my ‘visit’ with Carole had been pulled open. It was flanked with heart-shaped helium balloons and the winding path beyond was lit with glowing torches and tea lights in jars which illuminated our way around the side of the house and up to the open front door. There still wasn’t a soul to be seen and, having carefully stowed Harold’s scooter out of sight, Neil hammered on the doorframe and we all tentatively stepped inside.
The cavernous oak-panelled hall was softly lit with dozens more candles of all shapes and sizes and I could make out the gentle strains of classical music coming from the room to our right. It looked very elegant and impressive; however, I soon realised it was as cold inside as it was out and we all looked blankly at one another wondering what on earth was going on. Something was definitely amiss.
‘Anyone at home?’ John called out, his voice echoing off the walls and making us all jump.
‘Jesus,’ gasped Mark, theatrically clutching his chest with one hand and clinging to Neil with the other. ‘We’re here for cocktails and dinner John, not to play Cluedo.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’ he laughed, before adding in a deep voice that didn’t sound like it belonged to him at all, ‘It was John who did for Mark, in the hall, with his booming baritone.’
We all giggled and then fell silent as we heard heavy footfalls thundering down the stairs.
‘You’re here,’ said a voice I instantly recognised before any of us had eyes on its owner.
I felt my heart sink in my chest and my shoulders slumped a little. How lovely it would be, just every now and again, not to be disappointed.
‘You’re all here,’ said Luke, looking straight at me as he pushed his unruly curls away from his face.
His gaze lingered longer than was entirely necessary and my knees, no doubt as a combined result of the frustration that he was there at all and the cold which was penetrating my very marrow, felt a little wobbly in response.