by Heidi Swain
To Clare Hey
With love & thanks
Chapter 1
For what must have been the hundredth time that morning, I went back to the bedroom mirror, scrutinised my dark ponytail and wrinkled my nose at my reflection. I smoothed down the cherry-patterned skirt of my fifties-inspired dress and glanced nervously at the clock. All I needed were two tiny minutes in which to change into something a little less controversial, but it was too late. If I didn’t leave right now I wouldn’t make it at all. Wincing slightly, I thrust my feet into my narrow red patent heels, grabbed my bag and headed for the stairs.
‘I thought you said you were going to a funeral,’ frowned my housemate Helen as we collided on the landing. ‘I know my brain’s a bit scrambled when I’m on nights at the hospital,’ she added, shaking her head, ‘but I’m sure you said it was a funeral.’
‘I am,’ I said, ‘it is. If you’d known Gwen, you’d understand,’ I called over my shoulder as I rushed down the stairs.
‘So I take it you haven’t got time to drink this, then?’ she shouted after me, holding aloft a steaming mug.
‘No,’ I said, flinging open the front door. ‘Sorry. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, though. Sleep tight!’
Ordinarily I would have been excited by the thought of such a long trip on the bus. My heart would have been fluttering away in my chest like a trapped butterfly, thrilled by the prospect of one hundred and twenty uninterrupted minutes of luxurious people-watching, but all it could manage that morning, even as I jogged to the station, was a dull thud. Its lack of effort was a fitting reminder that this trip was all about the destination, not the journey.
My pretty but uncompromising shoes were pinching by the time I arrived at the designated bay at the bus stop and I could feel sweat prickling the back of my neck. It was going to be another unseasonal scorcher of a day, unnervingly hot for the beginning of April, and far too hot for a full skirt and net petticoats.
‘Return to Wynbridge, please,’ I panted as I jumped aboard the bus with just seconds to spare and clattered the money I had already carefully counted out into the tray.
‘You going somewhere nice?’ smiled the driver as he leant over in his seat and looked me up and down. ‘Bit early in the day for a party, isn’t it?’ he added, as the machine spat out my ticket.
‘Funeral,’ I mumbled, not quite managing to return his smile.
‘Oh,’ he said doubtfully, ‘right.’
I carefully folded and stowed away my guarantee to get home and headed for a window seat at the back. I wasn’t surprised by his or Helen’s reaction to my outfit, but it did go some way to chivvying my heart rate along a bit.
What if the rest of the mourners had forgotten that Gran’s best friend Gwen had long held the desire that her funeral should be marked by a riot of colour and laughter rather than dull reminiscing? What if they had all decided to opt for sober, sombre black? Well, if they had, they certainly wouldn’t forget my vibrant retro ensemble in a hurry. If it did turn out to be just me rocking the colour, I would no doubt be the talk of the town by the end of the day.
Gwen and my Grandmother Flora had been friends since childhood, a friendship that had spanned almost eight decades. To my utter dismay they had died within six months of each other, but even though they were no longer with me I could still sense their presence, along with their collective aura of discontent.
They had never stopped nagging me to make the most of my twenties, and when thirty was suddenly closer than my teens, they had really cranked things up a notch. Apparently the small life I had built for myself was nowhere near ambitious or exciting enough for the pensioners who in their youth had travelled the world, partied hard and left the globe littered with a string of keen suitors. As far as they were concerned, I needed to set my sights higher and take a few more risks.
Between the two of them Gwen had been the long-term party girl and had never ‘settled down’ in the conventional sense, but Gran had. She had married, moved away from Wynbridge and had a daughter, my mother. My arrival shortly after mum’s seventeenth birthday caused quite a scandal apparently, but it was nothing compared to the gossip that started when she decided to leave me in Gran and Grandad’s care and take off to Los Angeles in pursuit of a life more thrilling than the one on offer in Lincolnshire.
Her departure from our lives had been both painful and shocking and subsequently my life had been marred by an inability to truly trust anyone who entered it. However, my grandparents, although devastated to have lost contact with their only child, somehow still managed to see the good in folk and did their utmost to ensure that I enjoyed a happy and stimulating childhood, and our annual visits to stay with Gwen at Cuckoo Cottage in the Fens were the absolute highlight of my summer holidays.
The trips stopped for a while after Grandad died and then completely some years later when Gran had a stroke. However, Gwen took it upon herself to travel to see us then, bringing with her a huge, dust-encrusted carpet bag and her temperamental terrier Tiny, who was eventually replaced with the equally unpredictable Minnie. It was inconceivable to even think that these two women, whom I loved so much and who had been so instrumental in my upbringing, were now both lost to me forever.
Despite the heat, I shuddered as I thought how I had failed to achieve any of the things I had promised Gran I would get to work on. I had solemnly sworn, just days before she died, that I would start developing a proper career and pushing my ambitions further and yet here I was, six months on, and nothing had changed. Truth be told, I was too afraid to even try.
Having lived with the consequences of my mother’s pursuit of her own hedonistic dreams, I hadn’t dared to even think up, let alone live out, my own. But now of course, I realised with a jolt, I was completely on my own and could please myself. If only I were that brave and if only I knew what it was that I actually wanted to do with my life . . .
‘This is your stop, love!’ shouted the driver over the noise of the idling engine. ‘Are you not getting offs?’
‘Yes,’ I said, jumping to my feet and scrabbling to pick up my bag. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise.’
‘I hope it goes all right,’ he said kindly as I drew level with him. ‘At least you’ve got a nice day for it.’
‘That’s true,’ I said as the door opened and a wave of warm air rushed in to meet me. ‘She would have appreciated that.’
I stepped down on to the pavement and blinked in the bright sunshine, trying to get my bearings. Time was pressing on and if I didn’t locate a taxi to take me to the church soon I’d be late.
‘Lottie!’
I spun round and spotted a man rushing towards me from the other side of the market square. It took a second for my brain to believe it, but it was definitely Chris Dempster. More at home in jeans and a checked shirt and working on the fruit and vegetable stall that had been in his family for generations, he was now sporting a bright blue suit and struggling to carry the biggest bunch of balloons I’d ever seen. The spectacle was wholly unexpected, but thoroughly appreciated. At least one person had remembered, but then, given that he was such a close friend of Gwen’s, I shouldn’t have anticipated any different.
‘You made it!’ he cried. ‘My goodness, look at you. It must be what,’ he faltered, ‘well, I can’t quite recall, but it’s been a while. You haven’t got any taller though, have you, love?’ he teased, regaining his composure. ‘Are you all right?’
I swallowed hard and nodded, knowing there was no need to remind him that the last time I had seen him was at the funeral of his eldest son Shaun, who had died in a tragic motorbike accident. I willed myself not to cry and felt relieved that he had spotted me before I went in search of a taxi.
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‘Come on,’ he puffed, taking my arm with his free hand. ‘I meant to say when I last spoke to you on the phone that we’d give you a lift. I hope you can squeeze in with this lot and that frock.’
The journey to the church, wedged in the back of Chris’s car with the balloons while his wife Marie sat with him in the front, was both bizarre and stiflingly hot, but as least I was going to be on time.
‘Don’t open the windows!’ Chris bawled at Marie when she complained of the soaring temperature and faulty air conditioning. ‘We’ll lose the bloody lot!’
We all began to laugh and I couldn’t help feeling grateful for Gwen’s quirky sense of humour.
‘Was this all Gwen’s idea?’ I asked, nodding at the bulging bunch around me.
‘Of course,’ confirmed Marie.
‘She’s certainly gone out of her way to keep everyone smiling, hasn’t she?’ I said, biting my lip and blinking hard.
‘Oh yes,’ said Chris, winking at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘I’ve been running around like a headless chicken these last few days making sure everything’s just as she wanted it. Mind you, it was a shock to discover she’d left such detailed instructions.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to say anything?’ asked Marie, twisting round to look at me. ‘During the service, I mean. It’s going to be very ad hoc so no one would mind if you got up and said a few words. After all, you’re the closest to real family she had.’
‘Oh no,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Thank you, but no. I just couldn’t face it.’
Chris had already broached the subject when we talked on the telephone. I’d said no straight away and I wasn’t about to change my mind.
‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ tutted Marie.
‘Me neither,’ I whispered, wishing I’d forced myself to pay her a visit after I lost Gran, rather than putting it off on the assumption that I could come in the summer.
‘But at least she hadn’t been ill,’ rallied Chris. ‘The coroner confirmed there had been nothing untoward. You know how she would have hated to be a burden.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, thinking of Gwen’s stubborn streak. ‘She would have loathed that.’
It had been late on a Sunday evening when Chris found my number next to Gwen’s telephone in the hall and called to tell me what had happened. He explained how he had popped in during the afternoon, just as he always did on a Sunday, and found her in the deckchair under the cherry tree in her little garden. He said she just looked asleep and the Jackie Collins novel resting on her lap suggested there had been no pain or trauma; she had simply taken advantage of sitting out in the early spring sunshine and serenely slipped away.
‘Right,’ said Chris, pulling hard on the handbrake as we arrived at the church and dragging me back to the present. ‘Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?’
‘Show’ turned out to be a pretty accurate description. I was deposited in the church doorway and instructed to give a balloon to as many people as I could convince to take one.
‘But mind you don’t get blown away,’ Chris teased as he handed me the muddled strings. ‘One gust of wind and a little thing like you, you’ll be up, up and away!’
I appreciated his unfailing sense of humour and was moved to discover that no one actually needed convincing. The line of mourners that stretched from the church to the road were more than happy to walk down the aisle with helium-filled balloons bobbing about above their heads and it was a tribute to just how greatly Gwen was loved that not one person was wearing black.
The service was an upbeat and surprising mix of poetry and anecdotes, interspersed with a variety of music ranging from Sinatra to Queen and everything in between, and for the most part it was a jolly affair. Afterwards, in the churchyard which was awash with primroses, we stood in silence as the tiny coffin was lowered into the ground. There were tears in abundance, but then the atmosphere shifted as everyone released their balloons and watched them float away.
‘Right!’ shouted Chris at the top of his voice, making us all jump. ‘Time to get to the pub!’
The Mermaid, Gwen’s much-beloved watering hole, was packed to the rafters and, even though it had been a while since I had last visited, no one had forgotten who I was. That, of course, was how it worked in Wynbridge, and having been adopted long ago as Gwen’s surrogate granddaughter, I was considered a token local despite the fact that I hadn’t frequented the town or the pub for some time.
‘What can I get you, love?’ asked the burly barman. ‘Lottie, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I smiled, scrambling inelegantly up on to a bar stool and inwardly cursing that they were always far too high for someone of five foot two, even if she was wearing heels.
‘That’s right, and you’re . . . ’ I faltered, wracking my brains, ‘John.’
‘Almost,’ he beamed, ‘Jim, and the wife’s . . . ’
‘Evelyn,’ I cut in, ‘of course.’
She wasn’t the sort of woman anyone would forget in a hurry.
‘It’s lovely to see you again,’ he said, ‘even under the circumstances.’
‘Likewise,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll just have some lemonade please, with lots of ice and lemon.’
‘One glass of lemonade coming up.’
It was cooler inside the pub and everyone was grateful for the gentle breeze which drifted through the open front door and out into the little garden at the back.
‘You all sorted?’ asked Chris, when he spotted me sitting waiting for my drink.
‘Yes, thanks,’ I nodded. ‘Jim’s just getting me some lemonade.’
‘Lemonade,’ he laughed as he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. ‘I had you down as a cocktail kind of girl.’
‘Don’t be fooled by the outfit,’ I laughed back. ‘I need something that’s going to quench my thirst, not knock me off my feet. I can’t believe how hot it is again today.’
‘Me neither,’ he smiled, looking at the pint glass in his hand. ‘I probably shouldn’t be drinking this really. I had planned to set up the stall this afternoon.’
‘You’ll have to delegate,’ I suggested. ‘Can’t you get Steve to take the reins for today?’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ he chuckled at the mention of his lad. ‘He’s still globetrotting with his girlfriend Ruby.’
‘Of course he is,’ I said, gratefully accepting the glass Jim proffered and taking a long refreshing sip. ‘Gwen had mentioned that they were abroad a few months ago, but I’d forgotten.’
‘They’re in New Zealand at the moment,’ Chris said proudly.
‘How exciting,’ I said, thinking that my plans for my own future, when I finally got round to making them, wouldn’t be anywhere near as ambitious. ‘Although if today is anything to go by I’m not sure I could cope with the heat!’
‘Me neither,’ he agreed. ‘Give me a sharp frost and my market stall any day.’
‘And what’s happened to Gwen’s stall?’ I asked, the thought only just occurring. ‘I hope it’s still running?’
Gwen had run a stall on the market for years, selling all sorts of bits and pieces to raise funds for various local charities. Every day, come rain or shine, she turned out to peddle her wares and I hated the thought that now she was gone the stall would disappear too.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Marie, who had wandered up to join us. ‘It’s still going strong. Some of the WI ladies have taken it on and from what I’ve heard it won’t be closing down. There’s already a rota in the pipeline and a string of volunteers who are determined to keep it going.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ I said, draining my glass. ‘I’m relieved to hear it.’
Gwen had always worked hard, long hours and was a committed trader. It would have been a shame if her efforts fizzled out and were forgotten.
‘Fancy another?’ asked Chris, nodding at my glass.
I glanced at my watch, just to check I had enough time before I had to head back to the
bus. The thought of returning to my meanly proportioned single room suddenly weighed heavy on my heart. I’d far rather stay where I was amongst these friendly folk, talking about Gwen and sitting out in the colourful daffodil-packed garden that I could see through the door over Chris’s shoulder.
‘Go on, then,’ I smiled, ‘you’ve twisted my arm, but I can’t be long.’
I had just taken charge of my second glass when Evelyn took her place behind the bar and pulled sharply on the big brass bell.
‘Can I have your attention please?’ she called out and everyone filed in from the garden to raise their glasses to Gwen and share a moment’s quiet contemplation.
It was both cheering and moving to see so many people, so gaily attired, and I couldn’t help wondering how many other people in the room, or the town come to that, could have elicited such a turnout.
‘While everyone is gathered!’ shouted a man in his sixties, wearing a garish suit not dissimilar to Chris’s, as the level of chatter began to pick up again. ‘Could I just ask if there is a Miss Charlotte Foster amongst us?’
My throat went dry and I could feel my cheeks blazing.
‘Miss Foster?’ he called again.
‘She’s here,’ said Chris, grabbing my arm and thrusting my hand above my head, ‘this is Lottie Foster!’
Chapter 2
‘I’m sorry to have dragged you away, Miss Foster,’ said the man who had helped me down from the lofty bar stool and introduced himself as David Miller from Miller, Moffat and Matthews, the Wynbridge solicitors who were, he explained, dealing with Gwen’s affairs. ‘But this is the only opportunity I thought I might have to talk to you in person. As I understand it, you don’t live locally.’
‘No,’ I said, looking around his decidedly beige and beamed little office. ‘I don’t.’
I had absolutely no idea why he had singled me out and I shifted self-consciously in my seat, my petticoats rustling as I discreetly tried to clear my throat. Sitting bolt upright opposite a man who was staring at me over the top of his glasses made me feel like I was back in the headmaster’s office, although on this occasion I had no inkling as to why. I coughed again.