Once in a Lifetime

by Chrissie Manby

  ‘Not married,’ said Dani. ‘But I have one daughter. Flossie. She’s just turned sixteen.’

  ‘Worrying you silly by going out all night with her friends, is she?’ Mike Hayward asked.

  ‘And the rest,’ Dani said.

  ‘And you’re working at The Majestic, making beautiful cakes. Oh, I do hope Lola will be happy with this one …’

  Dani tried not to interpret that as meaning Lola hadn’t been happy with her birthday cake.

  ‘Where’s Nat?’ Dani asked.

  ‘He’s gone to fetch Lola from the spa,’ said Kate. ‘Apparently there was a problem with her manicure. She had to go and get the colour changed.’ Kate punctuated that with an eye-roll. ‘Here, have a drink.’

  Dani gratefully took a glass of champagne.

  Apart from Nat’s family, there weren’t many people Dani recognised among the party guests. All the same, she supposed she ought to make an effort to circulate. Even though more than two decades had passed, she was wary of being seen as the sad ex-girlfriend, clinging to the family, so she took her glass of champagne into the living room and positioned herself by the mantelpiece, pretending to look at the photographs upon it, while she surreptitiously checked out the other people in the room in the mirror above.

  Spotting no one she knew, her eyes were drawn back to the photos. A photograph that must have been taken on the engagement weekend had pride of place. Lola flashed her ring at the camera. It sent off a flare of light.

  To the left and right of that photograph were pictures taken over the years since Dani had last been there. Here were Kate’s children as infants. Kate’s wedding photograph. Nat’s graduation. He still had his floppy hair in that one. Was still recognisably the boy she’d once known. Had been in love with. Madly in love.

  ‘Hey, Dani.’

  It was Will.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ said Dani.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here either.’

  They pondered which of them had less reason to be at the engagement celebration of Nat Hayward and Lola Taylor.

  ‘It’s good to see you, though,’ said Will.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dani. ‘I’m sorry if … well, the last time we met, I think I might have had a bit too much to drink.’

  ‘You’re not the only one. That was one crazy afternoon. I spent the entire next day in bed sleeping it off.’

  ‘I had to go to work,’ said Dani.

  ‘Ouch. Sorry about that. So, have you been here before?’

  ‘Yes. This is where Nat grew up. It’s a bit weird being back here if I’m honest. The first time I ever came to this house was for Nat’s eighteenth birthday party.’

  ‘Good party?’ Will asked.

  ‘Sort of,’ said Dani. ‘In that it went down in the annals of Newbay history. Everyone between the ages of fourteen and forty who was living in the town at the time claimed to have been there. Most of them probably were. Suffice to say, it got a bit out of hand. A bit noisy. A bit raucous. The police were called. Someone drew a penis on the wall above Nat’s sister’s bed.’

  ‘Ah. It was that kind of party. I wish I’d been there.’

  ‘I wish some of the people who were there had stayed for the cleaning up afterwards,’ Dani mused. ‘So, tell me, Will, who do you know here? Apart from the bride-to-be.’

  ‘Well, I know her family, obviously. Her mother and father over there. Not that I imagine they’re pleased to see me. And that’s her brother.’

  Will pointed out a bruiser who’d joined Kate’s husband at the buffet table. They were comparing designer watches, which made Dani smile as she remembered a time when Damian had refused to wear a watch because time was an artificial construct used by the global lizard elite to keep the common man down or something like that.

  ‘That’s Lola’s sister, Francesca.’ Will indicated a woman standing by the French windows. ‘Her big sister.’

  She couldn’t have looked less like Lola if she’d tried. She was wearing the sort of trouser suit favoured by lady corporate lawyers.

  ‘I don’t imagine she’s too excited about the wedding. Especially if Lola’s asked her to be a bridesmaid. Lots of tension between those two.’

  Dani watched Francesca watching Lola make a circuit of the room to show off her ring. Francesca’s eyes were hard and narrowed. Definitely no love lost between those siblings.

  ‘And that’s Lola’s little sister, Ivana.’

  Will gave Ivana – who looked about twenty – a little wave. She giggled as she waved back at him. Dani suggested that someone had a crush on her big sister’s ex.

  ‘Oh no. Not Ivana.’

  ‘I’d put money on it,’ Dani said.

  ‘I prefer a more mature woman,’ said Will. Which was nice to hear.

  Lola came in their direction next. She air-kissed Will before putting her hand out to Dani.

  ‘It’s Dani, isn’t it? The dog lady. Thank you for making the cake.’

  ‘It’s the least I could do under the circumstances,’ Dani said. After all, the last time she’d seen Lola was on the day of the unfortunate picnic.

  ‘I suppose it is,’ said Lola.

  ‘But you got a bigger ring out of it, as I understand.’

  ‘Yes!’ Lola fluttered her fingers. ‘It suits me much better. And I got a better proposal too. I mean, Paris or Duckpool Bay? Which would you choose? I know which one looks better on Instagram.’

  Dani thought she knew too. She wasn’t sure they had the same opinion.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Will was soon spirited away by Lola who wanted to introduce him to some of her new friends. He made his excuses to Dani, who went back to looking at the photographs on the mantelpiece. She wasn’t alone for long.

  ‘I saw you talking to Lola’s ex-boyfriend, Will,’ said Kate as she sidled up beside her. ‘How hot is that man? I swear, every time I see him, I feel like I’m thirteen years old all over again. I mean, I love my brother, but to think she’s chosen to marry him over that … that ridiculous hunk of lovable hotness.’

  Dani thought it was best not to comment.

  ‘I’m sorry. I think it might be my hormones. Do you find that you’re suddenly absolutely gagging for it all of the time? I thought the peri-menopause was when your sex drive was supposed to drop off a cliff but apparently some women get this sudden late surge of testosterone that makes them absolutely mad for it. That’s definitely been my experience.’

  ‘Damian must be happy with that,’ said Dani.

  ‘If only. These days he has the sex drive of a bowl of blancmange. In fact, a bowl of blancmange would turn him on far more than I do. Look at him. He thinks about nothing but food all day long.’

  Kate curled her top lip as she looked towards her husband, who was leaning against the buffet table, cradling a plate full of sausage rolls. He was mechanically posting them into his mouth, reminding Dani of a Victorian automaton in the museum on the pier.

  ‘It’s enough to make a woman want to have an affair. Don’t you think? If he doesn’t want to come anywhere near me, I should be allowed to look elsewhere. Like at Mr Hippety Hotness over there.’

  Will – the Mr Hippety Hotness to whom Kate referred – was now standing by the French windows. He was talking to Nat’s godmother, who, despite being in her late seventies, was flirting up a storm. Will seemed to have that effect on everyone. She was fiddling with her pearl necklace, twisting it around her manicured fingers until suddenly the string snapped and pearls scattered all over the floor, like stars shooting out at the creation of the universe.

  ‘Oh!’ Nat’s godmother gasped.

  Immediately, Will was on his hands and knees, chasing after the escapees. The children and some of the other adults followed suit, including Dani. Dani followed one of the escaping pearls under the buffet table. It was a good excuse to get away from Kate if nothing else. Will followed one in from another direction. The two friends met beneath the tablecloth when they almost banged heads.
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  ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ said Dani.

  ‘Having a good time?’ Will asked. Before Dani had a chance to answer, he said, ‘Me neither. Shall we get out of here, you and I?’

  A man who looked like Aidan Turner was asking if she would join him in escaping from her ex-boyfriend’s engagement party? Dani didn’t need to be asked twice.

  ‘OK. I suppose we ought to wait for the cake but as soon as that’s done …’

  ‘The signal is an owl’s hoot,’ Will said.

  It wasn’t long before Nat’s godmother’s pearls had all been retrieved. After that, Lola, thankfully, announced that it was time to cut the engagement cake. While the party guests crowded around the table to see Lola stick a knife in Dani’s creation – accidentally slicing off the sugar model of Nat’s head as she did so – Will and Dani hung back. Will necked a couple of glasses of champagne. The cake was cut. Dani gave a soft ‘twit-twoo’.

  Without taking their leave of the host and hostess, Dani and Will crept out into the hallway, retrieved their jackets from the pile hanging from the banister and made a break for it, tumbling out of the front door like greyhounds out of a trap.

  Once they were on the other side of the hedge that edged the Haywards’ long front garden, Will and Dani stopped running and burst into giggles. Dani had somehow managed to get a stitch. She doubled over and did her best to breathe through great snorting laughs that made Will laugh even harder.

  ‘That was rude, wasn’t it? Going off without saying goodbye?’ Will asked, when they both recovered their breath.

  ‘They won’t miss us,’ said Dani. ‘I can’t think of anyone who’ll even notice I’ve gone. Though maybe someone will miss you.’

  ‘Who?’ Will asked. A little over-eager perhaps.

  ‘Well, there’s Ivana for a start. And you know Nat’s sister, Kate?’ Dani asked.

  Will squinted.

  ‘Tall. Looks like Nat in a blonde wig? Well, I think she was rather hoping to get to know you better.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Will. He didn’t seem excited by either of those options.

  ‘I think you had a lucky escape,’ said Dani, making a playful growl. ‘Shall we go to a pub?’ she asked.

  Will agreed that it sounded like a great idea but Newbay was not London and their choices were distinctly limited. There were no pubs in the Hayward family’s smart residential area. A local hotel said it could only serve residents.

  Will and Dani ended up in a rather grotty bar near the train station, where they shared a bottle of red. And then another one. As the landlord announced last orders, Dani, worried that the next stage was for Will to say, ‘I guess that’s it, then. I’ll get a taxi home,’ racked her brain for further options. She could come up with only one.

  Flossie was having a sleepover at Xanthe’s birthday. Jane too was away from home, visiting a pal from her own childhood. Meanwhile Jezza could not be left alone for too much longer. Even with Sarah looking in on him from time to time.

  ‘We’ll have to go back to my place,’ Dani told Will.

  To her delight he said, ‘That sounds perfect.’

  And then he kissed her.

  ‘What are you doing …’

  He squashed the words back into her mouth. When she realised that he wasn’t joking, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Forget Nat Hayward.

  ‘Wow,’ she said when they came up for air. ‘Just wow.’

  ‘Still want me to come back to yours?’

  ‘More than ever!’ Dani said.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ‘I have to tell you I was not expecting this,’ Dani warned Will as they sat in the back of the cab they’d picked up in the town centre. ‘So the house is a tip and my bedroom is a tip and underneath these clothes …’

  ‘Ssssh,’ said Will, suddenly pulling Dani towards him again and kissing her so passionately that all thoughts of her untidy bikini line were banished. At least for the minute. Will was enjoying the moment. She just had to do the same. She’d once read a magazine article that insisted men didn’t really notice whether you’d had your bikini line done or whether your toenails were painted to match your skirt. They were simply happy to jump into bed with a real live female who wanted them as much as they wanted her.

  ‘Live for the moment,’ Dani breathed as Will buried his face in her cleavage.

  ‘Huh?’ Will asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Dani said. ‘Keep kissing me.’

  ‘This where you want to be dropped off, then?’ the cabbie asked, interrupting the moment with a cough.

  ‘Er, yes,’ said Dani.

  She scrambled upright. Her bra was undone.

  Will paid the taxi fare. Then they ran up the garden path hand in hand. Dani found it difficult to find her keys at the bottom of her handbag while Will was so intent on kissing her face, her neck, her arms, her hands. She hadn’t been ravished like this in a very, very, very long time.

  The house was a tip. Not least because Jezza had taken great umbrage at being left for longer than he thought was acceptable since Sarah had last looked in on him at eleven. The angry puppy had shredded Flossie’s second-favourite puffa coat. That was going to cause an issue when Flossie came home but for now, Dani gave a total of no fucks whatsoever. She opened the back door so that Jezza could go out for a wee. He was still wary of the dog flap. Meanwhile Will was asking if he could carry her upstairs.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dani quipped. ‘How much can you bench press?’

  Will laughed. ‘You’re such a funny girl, Dani Parker. I like that about you.’ Then he swept Dani off her feet. To his credit, if she was heavier than he thought she would be, he quickly rearranged his face to suggest nothing of the sort.

  ‘Which is your bedroom?’ Will asked, as he staggered from wall to wall on the landing, finding first the door to Jane’s room, then Flossie’s aka the Pig Sty, then the spare room, aka the Other Pig Sty, before happening on Dani’s own.

  He threw Dani down onto the mattress. She almost bounced straight off.

  ‘Whoops,’ she said.

  Will helped her back into the centre of the bed and went back to the work of kissing her. Until Dani tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Er, Will, I just need to go to …’

  Dani pointed coyly towards the bathroom.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right here.’

  She left him sitting on what she thought of as ‘her side’ of the bed, checking his reflection in the mirror on the dressing table.

  ‘Whoah!’ Dani greeted her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Then ‘Rawr!’ she gave herself a little growl and made a clawing gesture at herself.

  Not too bad. Not too bad at all. Certainly not as bad as she’d imagined when they were in the dark taxi. All that kissing had brought colour to her cheeks.

  All the same, she would just do a little tidying up before she went back into the bedroom. First things first, she scrubbed her teeth, which were stained slightly lilac from all the red wine she’d downed at the pub. She scrubbed her lips too, which were black with tannins. Then she hopped into the shower and gave herself a very quick (and cold) douche.

  She dried herself off and stood on the loo seat so she could see her nether regions in the mirror above the basin. There was no time to do a DIY bikini wax but she decided she should deal with the really long bits. She hunted through the bathroom cabinet until she found the nail scissors.

  Just a little trim.

  The first attempt was wonky.

  It was like the day she tried to cut Flossie’s fringe. When she was small, Flossie was absolutely terrified of going to the hairdresser. At the same time, she hated wearing her hair too long because getting knots out was pure torture. So Dani did the only thing she could. She kept Flossie’s hair tidy herself. Until Flossie decided she wanted a fringe like her favourite television character, Dora the Explorer. She would not sit still and as Dani attempted to even the fringe out, it got shorter and shorter until Flossie looked
less like her favourite cartoon girl and more like a mad medieval monk.

  Desperate was how Dani felt as she examined her newest handiwork in the mirror. She looked as though she was going through some weird sort of moult.

  Still, there was nothing she could do about it now. She’d kept Will waiting for long enough. She flushed the hair she’d cut down the loo – it took three flushes for it all to go – gave herself one more spritz of Acqua Di Parma and stepped back out onto the landing.

  Then stepped straight back into the bathroom to see if just a couple more judicious snips might make all the difference.

  Not really, it turned out.

  It was a full fifteen minutes later when Dani flung open the door to the bedroom again.

  ‘Ta-daaa!’

  Will was still there. He was still on the bed. But he wasn’t awake.

  ‘Oh, bum,’ said Dani.

  She climbed into bed alongside her sleeping friend. At least she wouldn’t have to spend the night alone. It was a delicious novelty to have another body beneath the duvet beside her. Such a lovely body to boot. Never mind that he was dead to the world.

  As she lifted the duvet, Will stirred. Dani arranged herself on the edge of the mattress in faux sleep so that when Will woke, he would find her looking serene and beautiful. But Will didn’t wake. He just rolled over and once he was on his back in a starfish position, he began to snore. Snores that sounded like pneumatic drilling, like jet planes landing, like nothing Dani had ever before heard in her life.

  There was something rather endearing about it. Finding out that someone so insanely attractive had a fatal flaw.

  Dani decided she wouldn’t let it spoil things between them, the snoring issue. She’d get earplugs. Or he could get surgery. He could even wear one of those huge things that looks like an iron lung overnight. Whatever they had to to, they’d live happily ever after.

  After daydreaming for a while about life as Mrs Hippety Hotness, Dani too finally fell asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight