Behind the scenes the agents were already busy doing their work, ready for the opportunity to transfer players.
‘We wait till then, I try and get fit by then. See where I go.’
‘Would you mind leaving Shadwell?’
Sandro shrugged. ‘It will be good to be at a club that wins.’ Then suddenly he cheered up and smiled, his lovely baby-faced smile. ‘Becca is much better. She is recovering. We talk every day. When she is better she will meet my mother.’ He grinned. ‘I think they will like each other.’
‘Bound to.’
Catching the sound of Becca’s name, Claudia turned to look at Sandro and then back to my mother, clearly asking her what she knew about Becca. I couldn’t grasp much of the Italian, but by my mother’s tone I reckoned she was giving Becca a cracking character reference.
Claudia and Sandro left after many goodbyes and thank yous and a torrent of Italian that Sandro had given up attempting to translate. When they had gone, my mother leant on her stick for a while as if to catch her breath, and then she reached out and hugged me hard, harder even than Claudia had, harder even than when she was at my hospital bed, harder than I could ever remember her hugging me before.
‘Oh, Tilly,’ she said, her eyes full of tears, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ I was completely wrong-footed. I’d never seen my mother like this before. Frankie Flint didn’t do tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I think I must have been a bloody awful mother.’
‘You weren’t! You aren’t!’ I said, shocked.
‘No. After the accident, your father, your brother…it was as if I was scared of losing you too. I was too frightened to love you properly.’
‘Mum, I know. I understand.’
‘I wanted to keep you by my side all the time. I never wanted you to go out to play or to school even in case something happened. I knew that was wrong, so I had to make myself let you go. I know sometimes it seemed as if I didn’t care. But I did. Too much. I would come into your room when you were asleep and just watch you. Sometimes, I wouldn’t be able to hear you breathing and I would have to touch you just to be sure.’
‘I know. I remember.’
‘You remember? You knew?’
‘Once, I must have been about seven or eight—there was still pink princess paper on my bedroom walls—I woke up and you were kneeling by my bed, stroking my hair. I pretended I was still asleep but you knelt there for ages. All night, perhaps. It made me feel safe.’
‘It did? Really?’
‘Yes, Mum, really. I know things weren’t easy for you and I know you sort of closed yourself down and threw yourself into work. Maybe we weren’t like other families’—and I thought with a brief pang about the cheerful, noisy Aldersons—‘but, believe me, I knew I was loved. Always.’
‘But when Kate rang and told us about your accident and I thought that you could have died, and you would never know how much, how very much I loved you, it seemed such a waste of all those years.’
‘They weren’t wasted, Mum, far from it. You’ve been terrific. You’ve built up a fantastic business and you’ve shown the world you can be successful and principled at the same time—and made sure I did my homework. I’m really proud of you. It was pretty cool at school to have a famous mum. Did my street cred no end of good, you know. Anyway,’ I said, trying to lighten the suddenly serious tone, ‘I can honestly say, hand on heart, that you’re the best mother I ever had.’
Mum looked at me and laughed, rubbing her hand under her eyes to wipe away her tears as she did so. ‘Well that’s all right then, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘And I’m very lucky to have a daughter like you.’
Then both of us, exhausted by emotion and convalescence and the gratitude of Sandro’s mother, collapsed back on the sofa in the sitting room. And when Bill came round later with his gourmet version of meals on wheels, he found us sitting on the sofa, with a box of chocolates between us, watching Gone with the Wind on one of the movie channels. He looked at us both enquiringly. He could sense a difference in the atmosphere but he was too sensible to ask directly. Instead, he moved the chocolates and sat on the sofa, one arm around each of us, and the three of us watched happily as Clark Gable, my dear, frankly didn’t give a damn.
Mmm, a bit more cinnamon, I thought. And a bit more of the perry for the pan and—glug—a bit more for me. I let the mixture simmer for a little while and tasted it again. Yes, that was it. Already it smelt wonderfully Christmassy. Oh, it was good to be back in my own little kitchen, even if it was only a fraction of the size of Mum’s. Carefully I poured the mixture over the pears in the waiting dish and popped it into the oven. It would have been so easy to stay with Mum until Christmas and then over Christmas and then…
‘You go, Tilly,’ she had said cheerfully. ‘You have to make your own life. And after all, you’re only going a few miles. Anyway, your room is always here…’
‘I know, Mum, I know.’ Since her unexpectedly emotional outburst, life had become strangely more relaxed. It was somehow easier to move out again. No guilt. No pressure.
Bill had helped me move my stuff back to the flat—how had I acquired so much stuff in just a few weeks?—and as he dumped the last of my bags in the small sitting room, he perched on the arm of the chair and said, ‘Your mum’s looking better, isn’t she? And not just her ankle.’
‘Much,’ I said, as I whacked up the heating and filled the kettle. ‘She’s different somehow. Less driven.’
‘I thought I’d ask her—both of you—to come over for Christmas again.’
Every year since he set up his first restaurant alone, he had asked Mum and me to join him and his staff for Christmas dinner. Every year my mum said no.
‘Why have you never given up on her, Bill?’ I asked as I started putting food away and getting the coffee out. ‘Why have you always been there for her?’
‘Because I fell for her the moment I saw her walk into the kitchen at Bistro Nineteen,’ he said simply. ‘It was her first proper job and her shiny new whites were too big and too stiff. But,’ he shrugged, ‘she fell for your dad and that was that. When your father died, your mum needed someone to look after her. And I thought I was the best person to do that.’
I raised my eyebrows at the thought of my mum needing looking after as she launched her mega-career with single-minded determination. Then—in the middle of spooning the coffee into the cafetiére—I suddenly in a flash saw it all again…
Mr Cheeseborough, Mum’s brilliant accountant and now finance director had come recommended by Bill. The lovely Eileen who was Mum’s PA until she retired and Penny took over had worked for Bill. And all that publicity Mum had, all those write-ups in the paper that really got her going…‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ I said, waving the coffee spoon at him. ‘Yo u organised all that publicity for Mum.’
‘Journalists have always liked my restaurants,’ he said innocently. ‘And of course I talk to them, tell them anything that might amuse them, help them fill a few column inches…But only in the early years,’ he added hastily. ‘After that, your mum generated all the publicity she needed herself.’
‘And that’s when she didn’t have so much time for me…’ I said slowly, remembering all those times I had spent in the warmth and chaos of Bill’s kitchens, recalling that it was Bill who had taught me how to slice an onion so I didn’t cry, how to make a smooth white sauce, the perfect pastry or chicken stock. Bill who’d always been there when Mum couldn’t be.
‘I just tried to fill in the gaps she couldn’t cope with. The sort of things your dad would have done if he’d still been around. Take some of the load. Give her less to worry about.’
‘But there must have been other women. Weren’t there?’ I remembered one or two. Brisk cheerful women who worked in the kitchens with him and then eventually went off to other restaurants, other chefs, as is the way in the restaurant trade, taking some of his recipes but none of his heart with them. Or if they weren’t in the catering business, they
found it hard to cope with the hours. Tricky to conduct a relationship when you’re working in different time zones.
‘Oh, yes. There have been other women. Quite a few here and there. But after a while…’ He shrugged again. ‘Anyway,’ he said briskly, as if the conversation was in danger of getting too revealing, ‘I shall ask her again if you would both like to join me for Christmas dinner.’
‘And this year might, just might, be the year she says yes,’ I said, hugging him hard. ‘Worth a try, Bill, definitely worth a try.’
And now here I was two days later, trying out recipes. Life was almost back to normal. The human body is truly amazing, I thought, looking at my feet. Just a few weeks ago they had been battered, bruised and bleeding, so horribly swollen that I couldn’t walk. And here they were now, all perfect again, with lots of pale pink patches of new skin. If only battered hearts healed as quickly.
I was just clearing up the kitchen when the entry-phone rang. Soon Matty was bursting into my tiny sitting room.
She wore a minute skirt, thick tights, slouchy boots and a huge cashmere sweater under an emerald green trench coat, topped off by one of Becca’s scarves. It was her version of London scruffy and she looked, of course, amazing. She was also carrying a huge bunch of flowers. Very striking. Very hand-tied. Very exclusive florist.
‘For you,’ she said handing them over, ‘to say welcome home.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, admiring their style and also their lovely scent. ‘How did you know?’
‘I was working round the corner from Bill’s Bistro so popped in to say hello and he said you’d vacated the Frankie Flint convalescent home, recuperation wing and force-feeding camp.’
During the weeks I’d been recovering, Matty had been a regular visitor at my mother’s flat. She had cheered me up, brought me treats and got on really well with Mum and Bill. She had become part of the family—part of this new family I suddenly seemed to be part of and liked a lot.
‘Bill said you were back in your own flat and going back to work. Is that wise? I thought you’d wait till after Christmas. Oooh, lovely smells. Cooking something nice?’ She peered into the oven.
‘Well, I thought about waiting till after New Year, but that was just putting it off really. If I go in for the next week, I’ll have done the tricky bit, got myself sorted, got over all the questions and stuff, so after Christmas I can just go straight back in. And it’s pears in mulled perry and they should be ready now. Would you like some?’
‘Fantastic, yes, please.’
Carefully I took the dish out of the oven and spooned some out for us both. The flat filled with a lovely steamy, spicy smell.
‘Wow. Proper food,’ said Matty, ‘but just one, please. I’m not running up and down fellsides at the moment.’ She tucked in happily. ‘Delicious. Nicest thing I’ve eaten since I was up at home.’ She looked longingly at the dish but resolutely refused any more.
‘Oh, by the way,’ she said, slinging her long skinny legs over the arm of her chair, ‘guess who I saw in The Brit last night?’
‘Who? And what were you doing in The Brit?’ The Brit was an über-trendy bar, theoretically open to all but generally occupied by the ritzy-glitzy set who could afford their ridiculous prices.
‘Your footballing friend, Clayton Silver. There was a whole gang of them in there, mainly from Shadwell, getting absolutely smashed. Very loud, very objectionable. Total pains in the arse. No wonder they can’t win a match. I’m amazed they can stand up. You are well shot of that one.’
‘Yes, I am, aren’t I?’ I said, shivering as I remembered the Halloween party. ‘But come on, who were you with in The Brit?’
‘Oh God, Josh Ritchie.’
‘You mean Josh Ritchie as in lead singer of Magic Boy? Wow.’
‘The very same.’ She sighed. ‘Would you like me to tell you all about him? Believe me, I can. From his wonderful mother, his distant father, his teachers who didn’t understand him, his girlfriends who apparently all thought he was the best thing ever in bed, how much he paid for his new house, every single detail of the alterations he’s making. By the time we got to his shellfish allergy I had lost the will to live. He was still talking when I called a taxi. I wonder if he’s noticed yet that I’ve gone.’
I was a bit disappointed, having harboured a small passion for Josh Ritchie myself for some years. Is it better to dream about someone and not know them at all? Or to know them and have to face up to the horrible truth? I think I’d need a lot of wine to work that one out. I poured myself a glass.
Anyway…’ Matty rummaged for a moment in her huge satchel-like bag and triumphantly pulled out a booklet. ‘Look at this!’
It was a college prospectus. Excitedly, Matt flipped through the pages and pushed it towards me.
‘Photography course?’ I asked, astonished, and started to read the details out loud. ’ “Professional industry-recognised photographic degree course. Working creatively you will explore a range of photographic genres.” Hey, Matt, is this really what you want to do? Now?’
‘Yes. Absolutely,’ said Matt. ‘I’ve always known it’s what I want to do and there’s no point in putting it off any longer.’
‘But you’ve got a great career having your picture taken, not being on the other side.’
‘Yes, but for how long?’ said Matt. ‘I don’t want to do it forever, so I have to have my exit plan sooner or later, and now seems a good time. I can’t spend too many more evenings being bored to death by the likes of Josh Ritchie.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And I can still do some modelling work. I don’t suppose they make students work forty hours a week, do they? I can fit it round classes. And learn from the people I’m working with at the same time. Paid work experience. How good is that?’ she said triumphantly.
Suddenly her phone rang. She scrabbled in her bag, flicked her phone open, looked dismissively at the number and then suddenly went pale. Then pink. She half turned away from me to answer it.
‘Well, yes. Fine. No, not tomorrow. All day. No, any time. When you can. Yes. But what? Well, why can’t you say? Oh, OK. You know where I am, don’t you? Right. See you then.’
She snapped her phone shut and looked at me, her face alight. ‘That was Dexter,’ she said. ‘He’s coming down to London tomorrow. To see me. He has an idea.’
‘What sort of idea?’
‘Don’t know. He won’t say. I’ve got to wait until tomorrow.’
And my wonderful, confident, successful, no-nonsense cousin looked as excited as a two-year-old.
Matilda was surprised at how often she looked out for him. When she was walking up and down to the farm, which she seemed to be doing more often as her daughter-in-law coped—or didn’t cope—with the latest baby, she was always glancing at the track that wound down from the main road, hoping to see the little pony pulling the cart and the photographer with the reins in his hand.
She hadn’t realised how much she had enjoyed the glimpses he brought her of another world beyond the dale. She thought of the way he concentrated when he set up the huge camera, and of how kindly he had explained things to the boy. The boy would be up and away soon. The mines were dying. His brother might find a place for him on the farm, but he was filling his own nest with chicks that would need to be fed.
She picked up the packet of ribbons, pushed aside the tissue paper, let the ribbons run through her fingers and remembered the way William Peart had looked at her as he had asked her to marry him.
If she said no to him on his next visit, she knew he would keep to his word and never come up the dale again. Suddenly she found that thought too hard to bear. She went to the door and looked across the fellside to where the road turned down by the chapel, scanning the horizon, looking, hoping to see him coming to hear her answer.
Chapter Twenty-Five
There was something I had to do. It had been weighing on my conscience all the time I’d been in hospital and while I was at my mother’s. Creepi
ng into my thoughts every now and then with great big black thud. Yes, the necklace. I had to get rid of the damn thing. My first instinct had been right. I couldn’t keep it. I couldn’t return it to him again, either. Not again. So now what?
Sadly, no one had stolen it from the hospital cupboard. It would have made life so much easier if they had. Instead, it was still carefully wrapped in an NHS paper towel in the pocket of Clayton’s leather jacket. The jacket had been in the back of the hire car from the north to London, dumped in the hall cupboard at Mum’s flat, and had now come back to mine. And the necklace was still there.
Perhaps I hoped that if I ignored it, it would go away, or get pinched, or be lost or slide down the back of a seat and be gone forever, not my problem any more.
But it hadn’t and it was.
Do you know how difficult it is to get rid of a designer necklace? Dreadfully. And embarrassing. I didn’t even want the money. That would make it so much worse. I’d give it to charity, if only I could get rid of it.
At first the jeweller I went to clearly thought I was a thief. He asked me for a receipt. He asked me how much it had cost. When I said £25,000, he just laughed.
‘Well, it was a charity auction,’ I said.
‘And someone just gave it to you?’ he said, doubt dripping from his voice.
‘Well, yes, actually, he did,’ I replied firmly.
‘You see, miss, this is a Theodore Bukala design. Unique. Very desirable. Very expensive. Very traceable.’
‘Yes. So?’
‘So for a piece like this we would need to be absolutely certain of its provenance.’
‘You mean you think I stole it?’
‘Of course not!’ He put on a convincing air of being shocked. ‘We just have to cover ourselves.’
‘Look, I just want to get rid of it. But it would be good to get a decent sum for a charity while I was at it.’
‘My my, he really isn’t a friend any more, is he?’
‘No. He is most certainly not.’
‘Well, you could always give it direct to a charity. But it’s such a distinctive piece they would want to make the most of the publicity over it—about where it came from and why. Could you cope with that?’
The Lost Guide to Life and Love Page 25