“I never have more than one function a day,” Faith assured her. “Unless it’s, like, a small cocktail party after a private lunch, something like that. I’d never double up on a wedding, no way. The advantage of a small operation like mine is you get a personal service.”
The wedding was only three weeks away and Faith’s mind was already running ahead, wondering how she could pull together the staff to help her. Erica was off to South Africa straight after Christmas, and they’d be flat out in the ten days before she went.
“Good.” The bride sighed. “Now, what’s the best thing? Shall we meet to discuss the menu?”
“E-mail me what you’ve agreed with the other firm and I’ll let you know if there’s a problem,” Faith suggested. “I can supply references …”
“No need for that. You were highly recommended by a friend whose judgment I’m happy to rely on.”
“That’s nice to hear.” Word of mouth, thought Faith with satisfaction. What had she always said?
“Maybe we should meet at St Saviour’s anyway,” the bride said, with the no-nonsense tone of a woman who’s used to people doing what she wants. “So you can get a sense of the layout. I did tell you it’s two hundred people?”
“You did.” God help me, Faith thought. “Next Monday any good to you?”
The thought of this wedding, another happy bride agonising over her big day, made Faith feel doubtful and hopeful all at the same time. Things had felt a bit weird with James since the birthday evening that went so horribly wrong. He was as sweet and loving as ever when they were together, Faith thought, but despite her business being quieter, it had been harder and harder to find time to see him. Or perhaps now she had more time on her hands she’d realised how busy he was, and how hard to pin down?
Either way, she hadn’t seen him for two weeks now, and the phone was no good. James had always been funny on the phone, and Faith had more or less given up ringing him. She’d tried texting, but he couldn’t seem to get the hang of it – just sent her back blank messages, half the time. She hadn’t forgotten how she’d let herself fantasise about marriage the very first time she and James went out. Faith, the lifelong independent woman, dreaming of a white wedding to a handsome doctor: what would her old mates say? And what would they say now, as she pinned her hopes on a bloke who didn’t even answer her calls?
But as luck would have it, James left a message the very day she got the call about the wedding. His evening clinic was cancelled, he said. Was she busy later? Faith was chuffed about the timing. It was always at the back of her mind that she wasn’t quite good enough for James, a consultant gynaecologist. She wanted to make a go of her business partly so she could show him she was a woman who could stand on her own two feet.
By the time James arrived, though, Faith was panicking. She was going to have a few sleepless nights over this wedding, she could see that. The menu the bride had agreed with the original caterers had come through, and she was definitely going to need an Erica to help with the cooking, and a few extra girls to serve on the day. When James rang the doorbell she was still sitting in front of the computer, staring at columns of words and figures.
“God, I’m sorry,” she wailed. “Look at me, not even changed!”
“You look gorgeous, as ever,” James said. “What have you been so absorbed by?”
“A new booking. Big wedding, in three weeks time, at St Saviour’s College.”
“That sounds like a reason to celebrate.” James produced a bottle of champagne from behind his back.
“Well.” Faith beamed. “Aren’t you a love?”
“I like to think so.” He grinned, and kissed her ostentatiously.
Faith wriggled out of his arms with a consolatory squeeze and went to fetch a couple of glasses.
“What was it really for?” she asked.
“What?”
“The champagne, you prune.”
“Do I need an excuse to drink champagne with the sexiest woman in Oxford?”
Faith settled herself on the tiny sofa and patted the cushion beside her. “Well, I think we’ll have to look into that, Doctor Young.”
James had explained the whole thing about gynaecologists being surgeons, but although she got that it was more exclusive to be a ‘Mr’, Faith still liked thinking of James as Dr Young. It gave her a thrill, addressing him like that, and because it wasn’t his proper title any more she thought of it as their private game. She glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the mantelpiece and was pleased to see that it was only half six. Plenty of time for some private games before dinner, she thought. Probably that was why he’d brought the champagne.
“Here’s to the big wedding,” James said. He looked tired, Faith thought: burning the candle at both ends, her Mum would say. “Why such short notice? Is it a rush job?”
“The catering, yes, the wedding, no. The bride found out the caterers were double booked and she wasn’t getting the head honcho, so she pulled out.”
“High risk strategy.”
“Not if you land with your bum in the butter and Faith’s Functions doing the business for you.”
James frowned. “There was something interesting in that sentence, Miss Sargent: could you run it past me again? Something about bums and butter I didn’t quite catch …”
“I’ll help out,” said James, as he scooped up the last spoonful of pannacotta. “I’m not on call that Saturday. I’ll be your gopher.”
Faith stared. Every time she reckoned she’d got James figured out, she thought, he’d pull something unexpected like this.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Why not? Bit of fun for me, see what you get up to when I’m not around. I did some waitering when I was a medical student. I wasn’t bad.”
“I don’t pay much.” Faith grinned.
“You can pay me in kind. I’ll prepare an invoice.”
She laughed, and took his hand across the table.
“You’re full of surprises,” she said. “What d’you usually do at the weekends, then?”
“Ah, that’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Twenty questions?”
“All right.”
Faith sat back, and stuck her tongue into her cheek. What she wouldn’t give to know the real answer to that question. Now she thought about it, it was obvious James didn’t work all weekend, every weekend, even with his private patients, but apart from that one time he’d taken her to Aldeburgh he never seemed to be free. The Aldeburgh weekend and this one, now: that was two in, what, almost four months. When they were together it didn’t seem to matter, any of that. What counted was the moment, how he spoke to her and looked at her and touched her. She didn’t need to ask questions. But now she’d asked, she wanted a straight answer. And she knew, part of her knew for sure, that she wasn’t going to get one.
“Golf?” she asked.
“Hate golf. Play occasionally, mainly with my father, who still beats me hollow.”
“Gardening?”
“Ought to, but no. Mow the lawn once in a blue moon and leave the rest to its own devices.”
“Conferences?”
James pulled a face.
“Too many conferences. Damn patients, expecting me to be up with the latest developments, as if last year’s knowledge wasn’t good enough.”
Faith considered. What else could she ask that he wouldn’t mind answering? Friends he didn’t want her to meet? His ex-wife? Other women, old or new?
“Must be call-girls, then,” she said.
James mimed horror. “My secret’s out! Will you ever speak to me again?”
He lifted his hand to stroke her cheek.
“The truth is I’m a very boring person. I work, I sleep, I watch the telly, I dream about my beautiful girlfriend, and when she can fit me in to her busy life I ply her with champagne in the hope that she’ll decide I’m too fascinating and lovable to resist.”
Faith’s lip quivered, despite herself. �
�You don’t need the champagne,” she said. “You’re fascinating and lovable all on your own.”
James smiled. “And so are you.”
Chapter 39
The Christmas decorations were up at the day centre, a modest tree in one corner and streamers made of garish metallic ribbon strung across the ceiling. Olivia arrived early, in time to help Shirley load mince pies onto trays while they sang.
“Carols, today?” asked Shirley, although she knew the answer. “I thought of getting the playgroup children to sing to them, but they don’t learn carols any more. Not the kind of carols our lot would recognise.”
“Frosty the Snowman,” said Olivia.
Shirley pulled a face. “Jingle Bells, maybe. But it didn’t seem worth it. How many of these d’you think we’ll need? I reckon I’ve bought too many again.”
Olivia was grateful for the diversion of fussing over foil trays and tubs of brandy butter. There was more in store this morning than carols and mince pies: Clive Shotter had phoned the night before to confirm that he was coming to Oxford today. They’d agreed that the Wednesday Club would be the best place for him to meet Georgie. It kept things simple, meant no one else had to be involved except Shirley. But now the time was approaching Olivia felt queasy with anxiety. The thought of Clive having a wasted journey was the least of it: what might the shock do to Georgie?
She’d mentioned the visit to Shirley as casually as she could manage, and if Shirley was unduly surprised she hadn’t shown it.
“Clever old you!” she’d said. “How did you track him down, then? Oh, that’ll be a nice surprise for Georgie.”
Olivia had shrugged her shoulders and swallowed her misgivings.
“It’s gone half past,” Shirley said now. “You ready, Olivia?”
Olivia handed round printed word sheets, smiling; regretting Kenneth’s absence again. Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar, she thought. That would have been a treat.
Georgie was in her usual chair, wearing her usual white blouse and a crisp navy skirt that seemed to have resisted the degrading effects of the communal wash. Olivia’s stomach turned over again at the audacity of what she’d done.
“How are you today, Georgie?” she asked, and Georgie smiled – a plain, thin-lipped smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“Very well, thank you.”
“I hope you like carols,” Olivia said, passing on along the line.
She spotted Clive half way through Once in Royal. Shirley must have let him in, and the two of them were standing together by the kitchen door. Olivia saw Shirley point across the room towards Georgie, and then Clive caught her eye and grinned. His sparse grey hair was slicked down today over his smooth scalp, and he wore a tweed suit that, though well cut, was slightly too small for him. Even so, Clive looked different from the Wednesday Club regulars, even those who were only a few years older than him. He was still part of the outside world, Olivia thought. He’d come from his den, with its watercolours and its espresso machine. She played another couple of carols, as much to delay the moment as anything else, and out of the corner of her eye she watched Clive Shotter surveying the room.
Eventually she saw Shirley duck back into the kitchen, the sign for her to draw the music to a close.
“We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” Olivia called over the lid of the piano, and she struck up the introduction. The singing had been more vigorous than usual today. Nothing like Christmas to get people going, she thought. Nothing like a babe lying in a manger, a star above a bare hillside, a few shiny streamers strung across the ceiling. They serenaded the figgy pudding with gusto, their papery faces lit with enthusiasm, Elsie and Betty, Marjorie and William and the rest.
“Mince pies, everyone!” Shirley announced, appearing on cue from the kitchen with a tray laden with plates and pastries.
Amid murmurs of approval and pleasure Olivia moved quietly towards Clive.
“Moment of truth?” he said.
“I hope this isn’t a terrible mistake.”
Clive laughed shortly. “Nothing ventured.” He clapped a hand on Olivia’s shoulder and she led him across the room to where Georgie sat, a mince pie balanced on a plate on the arm of her chair.
Olivia knelt down beside her.
“Georgie,” she said, “there’s someone here to see you.”
Georgie looked up, her eyes shaded by heavy lids.
“Hello,” said Clive. “I’m afraid you don’t know me from Adam.”
For a moment Georgie said nothing. For a moment Olivia thought her alertness earlier had been misleading; that she was too hazy, today, to register Clive’s presence. Then her face twisted into an expression Olivia couldn’t read.
“Oh, I know you,” she said. “The spit of Henry.”
“Blow me,” said Clive. “No flies on you, eh?”
Georgie regarded him gravely. Her bearing remained stiff, the emotion in her face still too finely balanced to call.
“They’ve sent you, have they?” she asked.
“There’s only me left,” Clive said cheerfully. “Me and you. Last remnants, eh, Aunt Georgie? I’m your nephew, Clive. Eliza’s son.”
“Eliza’s dead,” said Georgie, with a hint of satisfaction.
“Afraid so. Long time ago, now. Henry too, and Edwin. Remember Edwin?”
Georgie gave a tiny nod of acknowledgment.
“Glad to have found you,” said Clive. “Flesh and blood.”
Georgie flinched slightly, and Olivia felt her eyes fill with tears.
“You’d better sit down,” Georgie said, and Clive settled himself in the chair beside her. He hadn’t brought the pug, Olivia noticed. He’d decided to rely on his wits instead.
The sight of the two of them left Olivia with an empty feeling; an unexpected sorrow. She realised that she’d imagined a kind of magic when she thought about this scene. She’d pictured Georgie transformed into a young woman again, Clive as a little boy leading her off to recover the lost years of her life. But here they were, simply two old people, the last survivors of their family. There was no going back, after all, and precious little time left to them. Precious little time for a happy ending, even if by some miracle Georgie wanted to see him again after this awkward first encounter among the plastic chairs and murmured conversations of the Wednesday Club’s Christmas party.
Shirley approached, handing round a second mince pie to the few whose appetites matched their enthusiasm.
“Okay?” she asked.
Olivia nodded. She stood up as gracefully as she could and followed Shirley back towards the kitchen.
“What a nice man,” said Shirley. “I wouldn’t mind him for my nephew. Was she pleased to see him?”
“Hard to say,” said Olivia. “She was polite, anyway. She recognised the family likeness.”
Shirley shook her head in wonderment. “Amazing,” she said. “Seventy years since she saw any of them. Ooh, I feel quite excited, Olivia. It’s a red letter day, this, isn’t it?”
They both looked across to where Clive sat squeezed tight into an upright chair, leaning slightly towards his aunt.
“I wouldn’t have known what to say, in his position,” Olivia said.
“Gift of the gab.” Shirley winked. “I bet he’s talked himself out of harder situations than this in his time. And into them, too. Proper charmer, don’t you reckon?”
It was what people said about a certain kind of man, Olivia thought. What people said about her Alastair, sometimes. Out of the blue she remembered their voices breaking, her older boys; how she’d heard men upstairs one day and wondered who they were. New people living in her house, patting her on the shoulder rather than pulling at her skirts. She felt tears gathering in her eyes again, not for Georgie and Clive but for herself.
On the other side of the room Georgie stared straight ahead, something approaching a frown on her face. But she was listening, Olivia surmised, to whatever Clive was saying. She hadn’t thrown him out, however vehement her objection had been when
Olivia first raised the possibility of tracing her family.
She felt exhausted, suddenly. Perhaps Clive might expect her to wait for him, but she’d done her part. She ate a mince pie to please Shirley, exchanged a few words of banter with Rex, then slipped away.
It was a relief to get out into the air. The layers of papier-mâché leaves on the pavement were overlaid with a sparkling of frost, and the sky was the pure powder blue of midwinter. Olivia looked up at the houses around her with their deep front gardens and red brick façades, the decorated trees in their windows marking their occupants’ cheerful progress towards Christmas. She had a familiar sense of yearning, recognising the tug of the zeitgeist, the communal spirit. Was she part of it, with her four boys, her decent life? Was she entitled to it?
She was on foot today; she didn’t trust her bike on icy roads. She crossed the canal and passed the Aristotle Lane playpark, where at this time of day there were only a couple of mothers pushing babies disconsolately on the swings. They were speaking a language Olivia didn’t recognise – Czech, perhaps, or Russian – citizens of this polyglot city, raising their children among its dreaming spires and its bustling traffic of people and buses and cycles, passing through and on, year after year.
The canal path was busy, though. Half a dozen fishermen sat at intervals along the bank with their camping stools and their tubs of bait, their tubular nets suspended in the water. Here and there narrowboat dwellers drank coffee in the open air, sitting on deck or on the bank, one of them flanked by a huge yellow dog. In a garden on the opposite side of the water, a man dragged dead branches into a heap, ready for a bonfire.
Under one of the bridges she spotted two mangled bicycles pulled out of the canal, grey with dried sludge and encrusted, improbably, with clusters of mussels. Olivia stopped to look. She wouldn’t have believed mussels could grow in the Oxford canal, with its grey-green water and its film of lacy scum. They had erupted through the saddles, strung themselves along crossbars and spokes, curved around the distorted rims of the wheels. A surreal sculpture, she thought; city trash colonised by sea creatures. The two bikes were entwined like lovers drowned together. She stood for a while to stare and to marvel. Such strange sights life offered, she thought. Such extraordinary things could be buried beneath the calm surface of the canal.
The Partridge and the Pelican Page 28