‘Good. The parents will be pleased.’
Strange that the first thing he should think about was them.
So that was it, that was the proposal she had been waiting for since last summer although she might have hoped for something just a touch more romantic.
Knackered after the shopping, they had spent that afternoon in bed. James had had a rough week and the lovemaking that followed was subdued. Adele knew he was busy and worried about work but honestly, you would think he would put a bit more effort into pleasing her, his brand new fiancée.
That evening, they had gone out for a special meal with champagne and they had chosen the ring the next week before breaking the news to their parents.
One step nearer then.
They were neither of them too concerned about naming an actual date for the wedding although Adele could feel the pressure to do so building. James’s mother Jennifer was already panicking about all the best venues being booked up and her mother was worrying about which of the two possible churches would look the most photogenic. Already Adele could feel the whole business being taken out of her hands, her mother beginning to sound out potential bridesmaids and so on.
Sometime next year.
Maybe.
ELEVEN
ADELE CLIMBED OUT of her car in her mother’s drive, leaning down to fuss the black and white spaniel that had raced to meet her. As always, she took a minute to look fondly at the grand old house, a complete and utter hotchpotch of a house both inside and out, but beautiful for all that.
It was a crisp autumn day and Adele was bundled up, fashionably so, in cream trousers, a quilted jacket, scarlet cashmere scarf, smart leather boots with a rakish cap on top of her long dark hair. As expected, the dog having given the game away, her mother was round the back, sweeping up leaves, wearing her gardening wellies, old baggy cords, a chunky ancient Aran sweater and a sheepskin body-warmer plus a hat that looked like a tea-cosy. No matter how many times Adele tried to encourage her into smart clothes, she never paid the slightest attention. She never bought cheap clothes, on the contrary, but what she could do with top-quality gear beggared belief.
‘I’ve got a nasty cold,’ she said as Adele drew near. ‘Don’t kiss me. I’ve caught it from your father.’ She smiled, wiping her nose on the side of her gardening glove, holding on to her back gingerly as she straightened. ‘He’s been making such an unholy fuss. It’s only a cold, for heaven’s sake, not yellow fever.’
‘Mother, honestly! What are you doing out here? You should be indoors sitting by the fire. It’s cold.’
‘I needed some fresh air. I thought it would do me good.’
‘Why don’t you get one of those leaf buster things?’ Adele asked, watching as her mother piled the leaves into a wheelbarrow. ‘That looks back-breaking work.’
‘It is but I prefer to be a martyr,’ Louisa said, looking relieved, however, to be offered a valid reason for taking a break. ‘And poor old Wilson doesn’t like noisy contraptions like that. I didn’t expect you today, darling. Are you all right? How’s business? I hear you’ve been talking to your father about expanding?’
‘Yes. I’ll tell you about it in a minute. I’m popping to see a potential client this evening. He’s divorced, lives alone, and he’s invited a lady for dinner at his home and hasn’t a clue what to give her to eat. He phoned Emma in a panic. SOS, he said.’
‘Is that safe? Visiting a man living on his own? A complete stranger. Are you mad? Shouldn’t you take somebody with you just in case? Do you want me to come with you? I can leave your father something in the fridge.’
‘No. I’m not a child. Thanks for the offer,’ she said with a smile. ‘But I don’t need you to hold my hand. He sounded fine.’
Louisa sniffed. ‘So do most serial killers, I expect.’
‘You’re paranoid.’
‘No. I’m just sensible.’ Louisa sat down on the low bench in what had been the old tack room to remove her wellies, sniffing them suspiciously before standing them by the door to air out. She removed the hat to reveal a wild mass of curly greying hair, ruffling it with grimy hands before flinging the hat in the general direction of the coat rack. It missed, landing instead on the floor, but Louisa ignored it, heaving the thick sweater over her head to reveal a surprisingly new cashmere one underneath. ‘Come on, let’s go and have a cuppa,’ she said, reaching for the box of tissues and blowing her nose vigorously. ‘Damn it to hell,’ she said. ‘This cold is going to take some shifting. I can feel it settling on my chest.’
‘I’ll make the tea.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Louisa said. ‘I’ve got to wash my hands and everything. You go and sit down. Do you want a piece of carrot cake? It’s homemade but not as good as yours, of course.’
Adele smiled. Her mother was a terrific baker but she always felt she had to apologize for her efforts just because Adele had done a cookery course and was now involved in the catering business.
Considering she made such a dog’s dinner of her clothes, her mother’s house was always just so. Several vases of strong-smelling lilies were dotted here and there, the yellow and white striped cushions perfectly matching the two patterned sofas that faced each other across a square glass-topped coffee table. Her mother’s love of flowers was reflected in her choice of paintings, floral pastel affairs that hung about the deeper yellow walls in sets of four. It was all very precise, very exact.
There wasn’t much of her father in here but he was allowed free range in his study. On the walls there hung copies of Beryl Cook’s wonderful fat ladies.
By the time her mother reappeared with the tray, Adele had taken off her boots and was curled up on one of the sofas, Wilson the dog, eyes full of hope at the sight of the tray, sprawled on the other.
‘Silly animal.’ Louisa spent a moment shooing him off and he sloped away with a resigned grumble, tail down, into the kitchen. ‘It’s done me no good being out there. I still feel like death. What do I look like?’
Adele glanced up, at the wild hair, her mother’s face suffering from a lack of care and forever being out in her beloved garden. ‘The same as usual.’
‘Thank you, darling. So, let me get this business thing straight,’ Louisa said, handing her a cup. ‘Your father says that you and Emma are going to do outside catering as well?’
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wasn’t keeping it a secret but I needed to talk to Dad about the business plan first.’
‘That’s all right, darling. I understand.’
‘Emma’s pushing me a bit.’
‘I can see that.’ Louisa shook her head. ‘You were never ambitious, darling. But she is.’
‘Anyway, she’s convinced me that we have got to go up a gear,’ Adele said. ‘We need to make more money so we’ve got to stop treating it like a little hobby. Just selling cakes and pastries in the market and to our select outlets is not good enough. I know we shall have competition but I’ve been doing some research and there’s a big market in funeral teas alone.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. The wake. They’re always very jolly affairs and they do like a good spread. I went to one recently as a matter of fact. Somebody in the village. You wouldn’t know her. In fact, none of us knew her really but it was a good excuse for a get-together and we gave her a good send-off.’
‘Then there are weddings and any other kind of get-together, buffets, christenings …’ Adele carried speedily on before her mother picked up on that. ‘But what we really want to do is expand into catering for the private client. We want to do dinner parties, Mother. We think there’s real potential there. After all, people, particularly women, are so busy nowadays. How have most women the time to fuss around preparing for a dinner party when they have been at work all day? They will be delighted to palm it off on to us. We shall offer a complete service including laying the table and doing the flowers and clearing up later. They won’t have to lift a finger. We’ve sussed out the competition but Emma says we shouldn�
�t worry about them. There should be plenty of work to go around. What do you think?’
‘I think it needs thinking about carefully,’ her mother said. ‘But if it’s what you want to do then you must do it. Do you need any help with the funding?’
‘No.’ Adele felt herself flush. ‘It’s time I stood on my own feet.’
‘What does James think about all this?’
Adele shrugged, avoiding her mother’s gaze. She struggled with whether or not she should come out with it right now. She hated to do this, to burst her mother’s balloon just when her excitement about the forthcoming wedding was building to a crescendo, but it wasn’t going to go away, was it?
‘You have told him?’ With no response forthcoming, her mother frowned but did not pursue the subject, turning the conversation to the safer one of holidays. ‘I met Jennifer for coffee the other day. She’s going to sort out some holiday brochures for next spring. We thought Sorrento again; it’s so beautiful.’
‘I love the way you two ladies do all the organizing. Dad and Michael never get a look in.’
‘If we relied on them to come to a decision, we’d never go anywhere,’ Louisa said.
‘Don’t you get fed up? Always going on holiday with Jennifer and Michael?’
‘Not at all. It’s wonderful. When you were small, it meant we could take it in turns to babysit, have some time to ourselves. And now it means that we won’t get lumbered with some awful strangers we can’t get rid of. A party of four is ideal. It makes it difficult for people to squeeze in so we’re generally left alone.’
‘That’s very anti-social.’
‘I know and I’m sorry but we’ve been caught out before.’
‘Even so … James’s mother can be a bit overpowering. I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of her.’
‘That’s very unfair. Why do you say that? Jennifer and I get on so well. We never argue and, more importantly, we know exactly where we stand with them. They’ve been such good friends over the years. I have an idea. Why don’t you and James come along too?’ she asked suddenly. ‘It would be like old times. You could go off together, of course. We wouldn’t expect you young people to trail along with us old fogies. But you would love it. It’s so romantic a place.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Adele stretched forward for her cup. She wasn’t sure whether she had intended to come out with it just now but she had rehearsed what she would say on the way over and suddenly it seemed as good a time as any. Shocking or not, it would have to be said. ‘Mother …’ She glanced at her hand, at the emerald ring, a slight movement causing the little diamonds surrounding it to catch the light and sparkle. ‘Can I talk to you a minute?’
‘Is there a problem, sweetheart?’ Her mother sat up straighter. She was still wearing her gardening socks, odd ones at that. With her face bare of make-up, flushed from both the fresh air and her present cold, she looked tired and older than usual. With a pang, Adele realized she was not ageing particularly well. There was nothing wrong with grey hair but it had to be kept under some sort of control and her mother’s was getting wilder and weirder by the day.
Oh heavens, this was going to be so hard.
‘Are you not feeling well?’ Her mother peered at her. ‘You look peaky. Oh my word, you’re not pregnant, Adele?’
‘No, absolutely not,’ she said quickly, sorry to dampen the sudden excited gleam in her mother’s eyes. ‘I’m all right. It’s just that …’ Adele looked up, catching her mother’s concern, which made her eyes fill unexpectedly with tears. ‘Well, I’m not all right really. It’s James. He’s seeing somebody else, Mother. I know he is.’
Her mother’s cup wobbled in its saucer before she put it down.
‘What absolute nonsense,’ she said briskly. ‘Whatever’s put that into your head? He’s not the sort and Jennifer would know if he was. She hasn’t said a word.’
‘Why would she know? Is he likely to tell her? He hasn’t got round to telling me yet,’ Adele said, producing a scrunched-up tissue from her pocket and dabbing at her eyes. She was surprised at the tears, had not expected this reaction, but it was just seeing her mother’s that had done it. She did not want sympathy; that was the last thing she wanted.
‘Then how on earth…?’ There was doubt in her mother’s eyes now. ‘Who is it? Is it someone from the hospital?’
‘I don’t know. Why do you say that?’
‘Because it’s the most likely thing, surely?’ Louisa said, struggling up to pop another log on the fire. It spit and hissed a minute and her mother poked at it before settling back down with a very big sigh. ‘Someone he’s met at work. If you believe all those doctor/nurse romances, it seems to happen all the time. Goodness knows how they find time to care for the patients with all the shenanigans that go on. After all, he is handsome enough.’
‘I saw them together,’ Adele said, twisting her engagement ring round and round her finger. ‘Quite by accident. I thought he was on duty and I was in town doing some shopping, just on impulse, so he wouldn’t have expected me to be there, and there they were. Right in front of me. He never saw me. He only had eyes for her. He had his hand in the small of her back, guiding her along.’
‘So? Aren’t you jumping to conclusions? That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. People do that, especially if it’s crowded.’
‘Oh, Mother, I’m not completely naïve. I followed them long enough for it to be perfectly obvious that they were more than just friends. The way she was laughing up at him. She has this long blonde hair …’ she said, biting her lip as she recalled it. ‘You know the sort? That pale golden Scandinavian look. Straight blonde hair down to her waist. She could do a shampoo ad no problem.’
‘Oh no. That sort of hair.’ Louisa clicked her tongue. ‘The sort of hair you’ve always wanted?’
‘Well, yes, who wouldn’t? I didn’t see her face properly but I bet she has these baby-blue eyes and I could just tell she was giving him the come-on look. I could kill him,’ she added. ‘After all this time … all our plans. I wonder when he’s going to get round to telling me? The eve of the wedding? I haven’t been able to let him near me, not that much has been happening recently.’ She shrugged, feeling her face flush for she and her mother did not talk about sex. ‘We can’t go on like this. I’m going to have to say something before I burst.’
‘Are you absolutely sure? If there’s a perfectly innocent explanation then you’re going to make a big mistake if you say anything. He’ll think you don’t trust him.’
‘I don’t.’ Adele uncurled from the sofa and stretched out her long legs. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot since it happened, Mother. Maybe he’s just got bored with me. Maybe I’ve been getting a bit bored myself. Maybe we’ve got into a rut.’
‘A rut?’ Louisa laughed. ‘Your father and I could be said to be in a rut, darling. You two are just starting out. You have your whole lives in front of you. Why don’t you keep quiet for a while, see how it pans out? If he is seeing another woman, and I’m still not convinced, then it could just be a flash in the pan. Sometimes the right thing to do is to do nothing. It’s never happened with your father, bless him, but a few of my friends have had it happen and the best thing is to wait a while. The worst thing is to go in with all guns blazing.’
‘And I’m supposed to forgive him? I’m not going to let it go. I’m hanged if I’m going to pretend it hasn’t happened. To be honest, Mother, I’ve got mixed feelings. Perhaps this was meant to be.’
They left it awkwardly at that, Louisa promising not to say anything to Jennifer for the moment until things became clearer.
Adele was relieved to have got it off her chest. For the moment, until she had it out with James, she would leave the ring on her finger, but she knew, deep down, unless he could come up with a believable explanation, get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness, that it would not remain there for much longer.
TWELVE
THE CLIENT’S HOUSE was a large Victorian villa in a
quiet tree-lined side street in one of the pleasanter areas of town. The nights were drawing in and it was getting dark by the time Adele arrived. Contrary to what she had said to her mother, she was now having doubts about the wisdom of going alone into a stranger’s home without doing the most basic of checks.
It was particularly foolish.
Suppose she disappeared off the face of the earth? That sort of thing did happen. How long would it take for people to realize she was missing? James was away, supposedly at some sort of medical conference in Manchester – supposedly – although it was much more likely that he was having an illicit few days away with that blonde. However, Emma knew she was coming here and her mother would ring her tomorrow to ask how things had gone, if not later tonight so, if she was to be abducted by this stranger, the police would be alerted pretty damned quick.
By which time, of course, it might all be too late.
She smiled a little to herself at the irrational fears. Come on, stop being such a baby. Businesswomen did this sort of thing every day, conducted meetings with strangers without the necessity of a bodyguard.
Switching off her lights, she sat a moment in the car, trying to get a feel for the street, the house, for its outward appearance, before going up the path. He must be prosperous to be living here, she decided, and he was probably thinking of moving at that because, a single man, he must be rattling around in a house this size. The houses in this particular street were meant for families: big happy families.
It was, Emma had told her, a former rectory, the name of the house ‘The Manse’ rather a giveaway, and she wondered how many lovesick couples had strolled hand in hand up this very path to speak to the minister about their nuptials. One thing for sure, she and James wouldn’t be doing that now. Talking to her mother today, even though her mother had not been any real help, had cemented her decision to call the whole thing off anyway. She would not, could not forgive him. Even if this little episode blew over as her mother hoped, if she decided to keep quiet, it was a recipe for disaster to start married life keeping that knowledge under her belt. It would fester inside and eventually she would blurt it out. She had James down as so straightforward, your archetypal nerd in many ways, good at his job but fairly bland and predictable otherwise. Even though this past year had had its ups and downs, the very fact that he was involved with somebody else had shaken her to the core. Yes, their love life had settled down to a routine lately but that was the result of too much work and too little time.
Rumours and Red Roses Page 9