A Midwinter Match
Page 25
‘But I didn’t give him chance to say no!’ I was still staring at the card. It did sound like a pretty posh lifestyle Gareth had moved on to.
‘Unless you talked at him non-stop during the entire duration of the purchase process, yes, you did,’ Zac said, gently. ‘He could have left the relationship at any time. He could have told you it wasn’t working and stopped you going through with the house buying. But he wanted to have you, convenient for him, and he also wanted to have whoever is bankrolling this.’ He tapped the card in my hand. ‘He made his decisions too. And he should help to pay for them.’ Zac pulled a face. ‘Although I suspect he will get whoever is helping to pay for this very fancy detached residence, four acres of land plus stables, to pay it off for him.’ He gave me a sideways smile. ‘I looked it up on Rightmove.’
I could be paying off only my half of the debts.
Silently, above us, the tinsel and lights glimmered. From across the road, I could hear an impromptu carol concert breaking out, feet crunched their way through the snow, as it iced over again in the cold air of the dark. The house smelled of cooking, of pine trees and chocolate.
I stood up. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better start getting you trained in the kitchen, then,’ I said. It was a prosaic statement, one that didn’t even hint at how my heart was suddenly full of hope for a future. I’d always be prone to the panics, it wasn’t all going to go away, but the medication and exercises were helping now, and they would continue to help in the future. And I was daring to imagine that less stress may mean less chance for the walls in my head to rock and crumble.
I looked at Zac, clambering to his feet to share in the peeling of potatoes and poking of the roast, and I knew I didn’t have to make any promises. Zac knew and understood. He had his own stresses and panics, but, maybe together we could help one another through.
Plus it was Christmas. There was food to eat and Die Hard to watch on TV. And a long, dark night to spend with Zac, before we started packing.
Life. Sometimes it could be a bitch, but sometimes it could surprise you too.
Epilogue
Eight months later
The sun streamed in through the large windows of the Residents’ Lounge as Bob, resplendent in blonde wig, blue velvet and his own bodyweight in sequins, blasted out ‘I Will Survive’ with evident relish.
‘This is wonderful,’ I said to Zac, who was sitting beside me. ‘Thank you.’
He took my hand. ‘I just wanted your birthday to be different,’ Zac said. ‘And you’ve got to admit, this is different.’
Bob segued into ‘R.E.S.P.E.C.T’ and batted his eyelids at us, grinning broadly. This was, I’d been told, his twentieth paid gig and he was clearly enjoying it immensely. His manager sat, handbag tightly clasped to her chest, mouthing the words along with him. Their eyeshadow was exactly the same shade of blue, I noticed.
‘It’s just lovely to see everyone again,’ I said.
Priya and Nettie, fresh from helping themselves to the buffet, at which there was not even the merest sniff of a spinach whirl, came over, plates brimming.
‘Elderly ladies really like pavlova, don’t they?’ Pri observed. ‘There’s hardly any left.’
‘Well, there isn’t now.’ Nettie gave Priya’s plate, which bore a representative sample of all the desserts, a meaningful look. ‘But it’s a lovely spread. Happy birthday, again, Ruby.’
I looked around the room. Debbie was there looking relaxed and happy, along with two of the nurses from the Secure Unit, one of whom was wearing a fair-isle knit hat with a pom-pom, several sizes too small. Several of my recent counselling clients had also come along with their elderly parents, ostensibly for a tour of our facilities, and had stayed for the party and there was an episode of jiving breaking out among them. It was perfect. I squeezed Zac’s hand and his smile broadened.
‘Go on, you can say it. Life’s not so bad now, is it?’ He squeezed back. ‘Even though you’re a year older and have wrinkles you could lose a small donkey in.’
Just for the tiniest second I felt that snatch of panic that said ‘is he trying to tell you you look old? Is he going off you? Falling for a blonde woman whose father owns a football club?’ But the panic just couldn’t compete with the yelling happiness that drowned it out. Zac loved me. Zac had organised this event; buffet lunch, Bob’s star turn, just for me. He’d arranged for us both to have the day off and, even though we’d spent much of the morning so far moving furniture into the larger flat – rationalising that we were merely moving in together to leave the small flat vacant for visiting doctors – it was turning out to be one of the best days of my life.
Even Miriam, now almost inexplicably Bob’s manager, had brought me a box of chocolates and given me a warm cheek kiss. ‘Found my perfect job,’ she’d whispered, nodding towards Bob as he’d sashayed his way into the room. ‘’E does the words and the readin’ an’ stuff. I does the money. We’ve got loads of bookin’s!’
‘Well, I don’t suppose many people would say “no” to Miriam,’ Zac had whispered in my ear. ‘Not without head-to-foot Kevlar and a riot shield, anyway.’
And now Bob was giving the performance of his life to a hugely receptive audience, who all whooped and cheered when he finished to a confetti-cannon and rain of glitter. The buffet was refreshed by the kitchen staff who had been lurking around in the background admiring Bob’s shoes, and the conversation which had been halted by the act, restarted.
I couldn’t remember when I’d ever felt so happy. My job counselling those whose family members were beginning to show cognitive decline was turning out to be something I’d been born to do, Zac was stressed but happy in his role of helping the residents through transitions. Miriam and Bob were delightful as a professional couple and even Priya had forgiven me for abandoning her to YouIn2Work’s tender mercies. She’d got the office to herself now and an entire drawer system for filing the confectionary.
Life wasn’t totally perfect, of course. I still needed my tablets, although the doctor was hopeful of weaning me off slowly soon. Zac’s mum was stable but we both knew she could worsen at any time and, although Gareth had paid his share of the house debts off, I was still paying mine.
And yet… and yet. Upstairs, in our new flat, on a little cushion of deep red velvet, was a ring. I hadn’t quite come to terms with the implications of that yet, but I knew that the mere existence of it made my chest want to burst and let my heart envelop everyone and everything.
Life didn’t have to be perfect to be happy.
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‘You’ve bought me a pony!’
As I sailed upwards from the warm comfort of sleep to the sharp-edged day, the words became part of my dream, and I was eleven, the air smelled of horse and the potential excitement that only an eleven-year-old can feel at the thought of mucking-out and cleaning tack into infinity. Then the excitement faded beneath an oncoming darkness, and I was awake, with my fourteen-year-old daughter bouncing on my feet.
‘Wha’?’ I said, less than elegant at this time on a September morning. Not that I’m all that elegant even in June, but there’s something about the chill of a late summer morning that makes me think my mother’s cardigan habit wasn’t entirely for show. There was an extra duvet on the bed and I was wearing fleecy pyjamas.
‘A pony!’ Poppy bounced on my feet again, reduced by the prospect of a potential e
quine from the cynical, world-weary teenager to an overexcited nine-year-old. ‘There’s a pony in the orchard!’
As my dreams had also taken me back to our old life in the London flat, with Luc, even the word ‘orchard’ wasn’t computing. ‘Wha’?’ I said again, struggling upright under the bouncing. The cold air hit me as I exited the duvet and with it came the whole of past life, hitting me around the head. ‘Oh.’
Whump went the sand-filled sock of memory as I stared at the bare walls of my bedroom, the tiny low window, which managed to let in as much cold air closed as open, and the dusty light of the old sun filtering through cobwebs I hadn’t yet had the heart to disperse. Dorset, not London. Small house, not flat. And, apparently, an orchard, which I now remembered was what Poppy had decided to call the overgrown patch of land that adjoined the house. Too big and uncultivated to be a garden and too small to be a field, the borrowed dignity of a couple of mossy old apple trees had designated it its orchard status.
‘Well?’ Poppy had her hands on her hips. ‘Did you buy me a pony?’
With the habit of motherhood I noticed that she was still wearing her pyjamas, despite it being a school morning, and went straight to the practicalities. ‘Go and get ready for school or you’ll miss the bus.’
‘Aren’t you even going to look?’ A humphy sigh, of the kind I’d got used to. ‘Because if you didn’t, and Dad didn’t, then someone has parked a pony outside, and I’m pretty sure that’s, like, a criminal offence?’ She slithered the long body that she still despised, although it could only be a year or so away from being her best asset, off the bed and stomped across the creaky boards. ‘And I’m going down to see him.’
‘Get dressed first!’ I called after her, pointlessly. It had been one of the many shocks of motherhood that the daughter who’d idolised me for the first five years of her life could come so quickly to the realisation that, basically, I was there to provide for her and keep her from harm, despite her increasing ability to outdo my ability to perform either of these tasks. She knew that I knew I couldn’t make her do anything. There was a lot of reverse psychology going on, that’s all I’ll say.
In the spirit of ‘don’t do as I do’, I dashed down the creaky, narrow-boarded stairs, trailing in the wake of Poppy, out across the stone-flagged kitchen into the orchard. The sun was up now, its low-level slant flinging the shadows of the trees back towards the house. There was a smell of incipient cider from a few windfalls, and the threatening hum of wasps starting the day’s motor.
By the time I caught up, Poppy was at the far side of the field, where the narrow hawthorn hedge bordered the lane. And she was stroking the nose of something that could only be called a pony because the phrase ‘badly put-together cow’ was already taken. I called a token, ‘Be careful,’ across the grass but she didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken.
‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ she breathed. ‘Where do you think he came from, Mum? Dad wouldn’t give me a pony. Would he?’ she finished on a note that was part acceptance of her father’s fickle and profligate nature, and part a deep hope.
I looked over the slightly sway back of the piebald pony, to the gateway that led into the orchard. ‘I’d say, just at a rough guess…’ I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my words, but I knew she’d reinsert it anyway ‘… he’s from that.’
Parked in the pull-in, where the lane became briefly wide enough between its tree-laden edges to allow a passing place, stood a caravan. One of the old-fashioned gypsy caravans, with a glorious bow top and painted front, a gilded split door surmounted by a little window and covered in gold-painted designs. The shafts were propped against the gate.
‘Oh,’ Poppy breathed, ‘it’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. Do we get to keep him? If he’s on our land, I mean?’
‘No.’ My voice was tight. I could smell the pony now, that mix of hay and newly mown grass and sweat and hooves and mud. ‘Of course we can’t. I’d better go and wake up the inhabitant and ask them to move.’
Poppy gave me a look. ‘You better get dressed first, Mum. You don’t want to look like a skank if you’re knocking on someone’s door at this time in the morning.’
In the spirit of not caving in to what my daughter thought of me, I climbed over the gate and cautiously approached the caravan door. I could feel the weight of Poppy’s stare between my shoulder blades, and the horse wasn’t helping either.
‘Excuse me?’ I tapped on the door. ‘Hello?’
The door swung towards me, unlatched, on a waft of fried-food smells.
‘Er, I live in the house…’ I poked my head through. ‘Your horse…’
The inside of the van was scrupulously tidy, beautifully ornate, and completely devoid of occupancy.
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About the Author
Jane Lovering is the bestselling and award-winning romantic comedy writer who won the RNA Novel of the Year Award in 2012 with Please Don’t Stop the Music. She lives in Yorkshire and has a cat and a bonkers terrier, as well as five children who have now left home.
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First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Boldwood Books Ltd.
Copyright © Jane Lovering, 2021
Cover Design by Debbie Clement Design
Cover Photography: Shutterstock
The moral right of Jane Lovering to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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