“OK,” Robert acknowledged, but he didn’t sound too chuffed about it. “What about selling one of them? That would help.”
Jen considered it might appear as if she was being uncompromising in co-funding their future. She didn’t want it to look like that. She wanted them to be equal partners in their life together, but she was in the position of having to consider other people too. She didn’t want to boot Charlie, Alice or Max out either.
“Do we need a new house straight away?” she asked. “You can move in with me. We could rent yours out, if you like. Start a portfolio or sell later?”
Robert tried very, very hard to disguise his wince, but failed. Jen raised her eyebrow at him, keen to know what the problem was. She loved her home.
“I was thinking, we should be together – by ourselves – in our first home Jen, no disrespect to Lydia of course, and also that I might need somewhere to work. I can’t see a room in your house to do that.”
Jen had to agree there. It was a Victorian two bed terrace with a lounge, dining room and kitchen downstairs. Definitely little study potential. She nodded to say she understood, but he took it as encouragement to go on. “Plus we could move now to something big – if you release the equity – and stay put there. Our forever home.”
A forever home. She’d never given that much thought. Thinking about it now didn’t give her the goose bumps she thought it should. More the chills.
“Don’t people have a first home first? Then save for a forever home?”
“They can, but we could skip that.” He seemed so keen, and normally that might have carried her along, but given all the other things she needed the money for, Jen didn’t buy into it.
The waiter came to take their order and Jen decided to park the issue. She wanted time to think it through. She didn’t want to sell anything her parents had worked so hard for, she didn’t want to turf Lydia out or disadvantage her in any way given it was largely Jen’s fault she was facing a lifetime of challenges, and if that meant she had to live more modestly, then fair enough. But she could see, having agreed to marry Robert, she was going to need a plan which satisfied his life expectations too. She felt a sudden yearning to be in her outbuilding, working on her beer. She did her best thinking when her hands were busy and she was creating.
“Ahh, the brewing maestra, Jen Attison.” The voice made Jen look up. The waiter had left the table and in her place was a figure in chef’s whites. Robert was looking between them surprised.
“Hello Anthony,” she said, hoping to get away with the familiarity. She was a customer after all, so she could probably take the liberty. Meanwhile Robert was looking decidedly on the backfoot. “Can I introduce my fiancé Robert?” That still sounded strange on her tongue. “Robert, Anthony judged the brewing at the show.” Jen kept a blank face. Robert still hadn’t asked her about it.
“You must be very proud of her and her beer, Robert,” Anthony said. “They really are quite exceptional flavours she can conjure. You’re a lucky man.” Was it appropriate behaviour to kiss a relative stranger in front of your fiancé? Jen forced herself to err on the side of caution and remain seated. She couldn’t stop her face from beaming though.
“I, um, yes, of course.” Robert looked at her. Jen took the expression to be shame.
“Lovely to see you again, Jen. Enjoy your meal.” At that the chef nodded and headed off to greet the few other diners, leaving a pregnant silence between them that overrode the room’s low-level jazz music. Given her feeling from this afternoon, she let him stew in it, until he caved.
“You placed then?”
“I did. First place.” There seemed to be something else going on here, as he didn’t seem as enthused as she might have hoped. Anthony had been more effusive.
“Well done.”
“Thank you.”
“We both had a winning day, then,” he said perking up. “Toby and I won the Fourball.”
It took everything Jen had to calmly congratulate him in return, when really she wanted to yell that her being awarded first place for the third year running was light-years away from him winning a Saturday morning golf game. The crossness in her wouldn’t be curbed though, not entirely, and so she found herself blurting out the thing she’d role-played all the way to the restaurant.
“I’m continuing with the brewing, Robert.” She held her breath to see what he’d say. He was busy buttering another bite of bread, so she carried on, taking a conciliatory angle. “The beer I’m on now is one I’ve planned for the wedding. I want it to be a one off, just for our day. We could give the guests a bottle instead of favours. I’ll design a label with our names and wedding date on.” She looked at him expectantly, hoping the wedding idea would ease this through. She’d always found in her negotiations that giving the other party something they’d like took the sting off the thing they didn’t.
He gave her a benign smile, one that suggested she’d overcome a hurdle.
“Jen,” he said, raising his wine glass to her, “I’m totally on board with that.”
“You are?” Jen was delighted. Didn’t that go to show that talking about things was always best? Being honest and expressing one’s thoughts often moved things along and unblocked stalemates. Maybe there had never been a stalemate at all, maybe she’d misunderstood him.
“Absolutely. If it’s what you need to let it go, of course I’m with you. Go for it. Weddings are all about the bride, aren’t they?” He clinked his glass against hers as if sealing the deal. The wind knocked right out of her, leaving her speechless. Which went unnoticed, as Robert was animated again. “I meant to say the ring will be back in another week. The jeweller rang. He had to send it to London. That ivy effect was a nightmare to work with.” Jen instinctively retracted her left hand from the table top to her lap and cradled it safely in her other hand. The ring was a nightmare full stop. “And Mumsie has been on my tail too. Wants to know how you’re getting on with the dress, or whether she can book the appointment at the shop?”
The rest of their meal was rather subdued. Jen had promised to talk to Celia about the dress and thereafter feigned exhaustion from the weekend’s stall-tending to explain her lack of conversation. She was too tied up in her thoughts to make the effort. And she didn’t really want to talk to him right now. Married couples had disagreements, maybe they were having one early. She just didn’t know how to deal with it, and he didn’t appear to be hearing her anyway. Had he always been like this, had she simply not noticed? Jen supposed that she too might get bull-headed about things when she had a plan in her head. That was possible, so perhaps she should make allowances for him. Partnerships were about compromise, weren’t they? Jen sighed. If business had taught her anything it was the value of a tactical retreat and so she took one now.
Jen focused on her food, enjoying Anthony’s flavours, playing her usual mental game of matching her beers to the dishes. At least it zoned out Robert’s account of the Fourball. She declined dessert, legitimately desperate for her bed now. She was having an internal battle of whether to accept his lift home to get there quicker, or whether to walk, to give herself some space to grumble in private. She didn’t need Lydia to be party to it. That wouldn’t be helpful. However, as they reached the restaurant door, she stopped.
“I’ve forgotten my phone, Robert.” He saw it wasn’t in her hand where it normally lived. Jen knew it was safely buried in her bag.
“I’ll pull the car around?”
“No need, darling, I’ll walk. Helps my digestion,” she said, keen for them to part on good terms, but also keen for them to part ASAP. She’d had a brain-wave and needed to execute it before she – or he – talked herself out of it.
Chapter 19
“What’s got you so perky?” Lydia asked. She was sitting at the kitchen table, mug of hot chocolate in hand. Jen had virtually bounced into the house, her exhaustion from the day and her dinner with Robert overridden by an adrenalin rush.
“Just landed myself a supply or
der on my beer.” Jen dropped down into the seat opposite Lydia with an air of pride, only just refraining from punctuating her announcement with jazz hands. Her eyes fell on the new edition of Brewing Times on the table. The headline heralded a US corporate having bought a smaller craft brewer. Distracted she pointed at it.
“Bloody corporates,” she sniped, “buying their way into the craft market.” She batted away the immediate thought of Yakob chairing his panel of bloody corporates. “Where’s the honour in that? They should stick to their own bland game.”
“Pssh. Enough of that.” Lydia plonked her mug down on the paper, eyes bugging. “The supply order, Jen. What? How?” Her smile was as large as Jen’s which was back to out-spanning her entire face. Jen still couldn’t quite believe she’d done it. She’d get more worked up about the corporate thing tomorrow when she read the full article, but for now it wasn’t enough to dampen her euphoric mood.
“So Robert and I were at Anthony St James’ place and he comes over to say hello, and mentions I’m a brewing goddess and then as we ate, I was thinking about which of my beers would work with the food and it sort of came to me; “local restaurant serving local beer” and I should give it a go, because maybe I met him this weekend for a reason. So, when we left, I went back in and asked him, and he liked the idea.” Jen slumped back in her seat, breathless.
“But Jen,” Lydia said with mock dismay, “you’re stopping the brewing.” Lydia raised a taunting eyebrow at her.
“Hmm, yeah, no. I can’t,” Jen said lightly and scrabbled for something else to say to mask her massive U-turn. She wasn’t a U-turny person. Have a plan, stick to the plan, complete the plan was her normal MO. Additionally, she didn’t want Lydia questioning her departure from Robert’s vision. Lydia would see it as some chink in their relationship, and it definitely wasn’t that. She was simply having to work a bit harder to show him what was important to her. Once this got off the ground and hopefully turned a profit, she’d no doubt change his mind. It could help fund their future home. The celebrity connection couldn’t hurt either. That was a useful name-drop for the golf course, right there. “Anthony’s currently in negotiations to open two more restaurants, along the coast, eventually with a view to more, and if I can get the quantities going, then I can supply those too.”
“That’s amazing, Jen.”
“I know!” Jen was simply over the moon. There was an excitement in her stomach, the heady cocktail of anticipation and self-belief, she hadn’t felt for … well, not since she’d been offered the job at the brewery years ago. The memories of that came back vividly; the opening of the letter, the euphoric happy dance, the squeeing call to her parents and their being truly stoked for her, hooting down the line. She felt her smile slide a little. They’d planned to come up to her uni digs, they’d told her to book somewhere to celebrate. Only they’d never arrived and her life had taken another mighty turn.
“Jen? Earth to Jen?”
Jen shook herself out of her memories. She wasn’t going to think about that. This was a moment to enjoy.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I was asking, not to put a dampener on things, but you know, logistics and that, how are you going to up your quants? The shed is only as big as it is.” The fermentation and conditioning tanks she had on a constant go were enough to supply her farmers markets and a pilfering sister, but not a steady supply to an eatery open six nights a week.
“I was thinking about it on the way home, as it hoppens,” Jen said, moving to make herself a cup of Ovaltine and ignoring Lydia’s groan. There was no way she’d sleep given her current pulse rate – she needed some sedation to reconnect her mind to her show-tired body and she had work in the morning. “I should probably have covered that before I hit him with the idea, but it was one of those seize-the-day things.”
Another thing her marketing experience had taught her was, in business, the universe sent you all sorts of opportunities – you just needed to spot them and exploit them. “I’ll need to rent a space somewhere and invest in the kit. I’ll take out a loan to cover it – I’m hoping the three years of show wins and my stall figures are enough to convince a bank manager. I’d start with a small unit somewhere. Nothing swanky, just clean and functional, with room for the vats and storage for the ingredients and the finished bottles.” She dreamed of a bottling machine, but that would have to be on the wish list for now. They cost a packet.
“Take the leg money,” Lydia said.
“What? No.”
“Jen, I’m sorted for a while. I’m not growing anymore, so I don’t need so many prosthetic changes. I know you’re saving the Arches rent for the next ones, but you can take some then replace it later when things are up and running.”
“No,” Jen was insistent. “That money is ring-fenced. It’s for your future.”
“What about your future, Jen? You’re just as entitled to the rent as I am. It’s our inheritance. So use some of the accumulated money now when you need it. Set things up, and then repay the account if you like – but without the interest.”
“I’m not using your money.” Both women had stopped smiling now and brows were creased as they each tried to out-stern the other.
“I’ll be a silent partner then,” Lydia conceded, “if it helps you get your head around it. I’ll shoulder part of the risk. I’ve got two shoulders and I’m willing.”
“But it is a risk, Lydia, and I can’t let you do that.”
Lydia got up and using her crutches, moved across the kitchen to put her cup in the sink. “Jen, it’s a risk that I’m up for, because I and all our friends love your beer and I believe in you.” Jen thought it was ridiculous. Sometimes Jen felt Lydia deliberately overlooked her leg when it came to life decisions. Working in London was one example.
“Are you going to leave work?” Lydia asked. She obviously thought they were in agreement over the money, but Jen was simply pausing the discussion for now. She’d still go and see the bank. Lydia couldn’t make her touch the Arches money. “Surely you’d rather have the beer over the crampons?”
Jen shook her head. “Not while I’m starting up. I still need the income. I’ll just have to work a double shift until it’s up and running.”
Lydia gave her an emoji-worthy sad face. “You’ll be knackered.”
“Maybe, but I’ll be doing something I want to do with the aim of stopping doing something I don’t.”
“Fair enough,” Lydia said, heading towards the door. Then she stopped and turned. “This is what I was hoping for. This is what you were supposed to do, Jen. I’m really pleased and excited for you.” There was no doubt she meant it, her face was aglow.
“Thanks Lyds. That means a lot.” And it really did. For all their bickering and disagreements, Jen never felt happier than when she had Lydia onside and at her side. There was someone else who she believed was on her side too. “I wish,” she murmured, thinking of the two bunches of flowers which now hung drying from the outbuilding rafters, “I wish I could let Yakob know.” It seemed OK to say it to Lydia. She’d met him after all, and it wasn’t like Jen was declaring undying love for him or anything, just that she’d like to share her news with him. Not least because Robert’s joy had been minimal. It was impossible to stay angry with Yakob when she’d just had good news regarding something he’d been telling her to do. “He was really encouraging when I met him. I think he’d like to hear about it and I’d like to thank him.” Jen supposed she could go ‘old school’ and send him a letter. Between her memory and Google Maps, she could probably estimate his address. She could describe the boat in the address and hope the postman could work it out. Or she could go full GCHQ and see if Google Earth could magnify a name on it.
“Well, Cinders,” Lydia said, reaching for her back pocket, “that’s an easy do for a Fairy Godsister like me.” Lydia waved her phone in front of Jen’s face as if it was stardust from a wand. “You texted me from his phone remember? His number’s on here.”
; Jen had a moment of jaw flapping and hand waving.
“Oh my God Lydia,” she screeched, “why didn’t you mention it?”
“I didn’t know you wanted it. Nothing happened, remember?” Yes, that was Jen’s line and she was sticking to it.
“But we looked for him on the internet. You could have mentioned it then.” Couldn’t Lydia see how she’d let the side down?
“What? And you would have texted him to say Who are you?? Don’t be daft.”
“Well, I need it now,” Jen said crossly.
Lydia’s eyes narrowed at her tone. “Which is why I just offered it to you. Chill the fuck out, Jen. Considering ‘nothing happened’,” Jen scowled at Lydia’s annoying air-quoting, “I don’t see why you’re having a hissy-fit.” Lydia was displaying a mix of outrage and amusement. Jen was definitely on the back foot and didn’t like it.
Ominously unwilling to let Jen see her contacts, Lydia dictated the number, although she disclosed he was listed under ‘Jen c/o Boat Hottie’. Jen doubted the Copenhagen police would have been impressed with Lydia’s sisterly concern had anything untoward happened to her that night. With jittery fingers she typed the number into The Phone of Shame. Looking at it with disdain she knew she needed to get a new one sorted, but then the logo for ChAPPel loomed into her mind and she side-lined the thought. It felt like a symbol of her failure on the wedding project. She really needed a proper planning session where that was concerned, but right now, she had some Thank You’s to make.
Lydia pocketed her phone again and said goodnight. The salacious smirk on her face was one of triumph.
“Don’t get ideas, Lydia,” Jen said tersely, keeping her eyes on the crappy grey screen, “it’s just a hello and thanks. Nothing more to it. Nothing happened.”
Probably the Best Kiss in the World Page 16