by Jill Mansell
The doorbell went an hour later.
‘You’re a star,’ Lucas told Millie when she opened the door. He broke into a huge grin. ‘I was passing, so I had to drop by. One of the theater sisters rang me this afternoon and said you were fantastic. In fact, she was so impressed, she wants to book you for the day after tomorrow.’
‘Oh wow.’ Millie was delighted. ‘Where?’
‘The big supermarket on the outskirts of Wadebridge. Her husband’s the manager. It’s their silver wedding anniversary and she wants you to turn up at one o’clock. He’ll be on his lunch break in the staff canteen.’ Lucas handed her an envelope containing all the details. ‘Bloody awful poem, so sloppy it makes you want to throw up, but hey, that’s not our problem—’
‘Ouch,’ complained Millie as she was knocked sideways by a highly perfumed human bowling ball. Whoosh, the air in the hallway was suddenly thick with Estée Lauder’s Dazzling.
‘I thought I recognized that voice!’ Hester exclaimed, clutching her bath towel around her and dripping water and bubbles all over the floor. ‘Lucas, how are you? You haven’t changed a bit—you’re looking great!’
‘Hello darling, so are you.’ Bending down, Lucas gave her a warm kiss on each cheek. Then, because he simply couldn’t help himself, he trailed an index finger idly along the line of her collarbone.
Hester trembled like a whippet. It was a wonder her tongue wasn’t lolling out of her mouth.
‘It’s so good to see you,’ she told Lucas, as if it weren’t already screamingly obvious. And now she was stretching her neck, imperceptibly straining towards him, yearning—like a whippet desperate for affection—for him to stroke her collarbone again.
‘Lucas just called by to give me my next booking,’ said Millie.
‘Oh, but you must come in for a drink.’ Eagerly, Hester clutched his tanned arm. ‘You must, we can chat about old times!’
The shame of it, Millie thought. Two hours ago Hester had lured Hugh into the house against his better judgment, and now here she was doing the exact same thing again. Honestly, she was like some insatiable Black Widow spider, preying on innocent young males.
Except Lucas, of course, was about as innocent as Peter Stringfellow.
‘Sounds great,’ he winked at Hester, ‘but we can’t stop. I’m driving Sasha down to St. Ives.’ As he spoke he jerked his head behind him to the car parked outside the house. Sasha, dressed as a nun, was leaning against the hood smoking a cigarette and casually straightening the seam on one of her fishnet stockings. A couple of pensioners waiting at the bus stop a little way down the road determinedly didn’t look shocked.
Hester’s face fell.
‘Is she your girlfriend?’
‘We get on well enough,’ said Lucas cheerfully. ‘See a fair bit of each other, you know the kind of thing.’
Hester did. She could also guess which bits of each other they saw. Lucky Sasha, the mere thought of seeing Lucas’s bits was enough to send Hester’s insides lurching into a spin cycle of joy.
Lucky, lucky Sasha.
Tarty bitch.
‘“A message from your loving wife,”’ Millie read aloud, having opened the envelope. She cleared her throat and began:
Twenty-five years of wedded bliss
And never a day without a loving kiss.
My darling Jerry I want you to know,
I never realized it was possible to be as happy as this.
‘God, you’re right,’ she told Lucas, ‘this is awful.’
A lump had sprung into Hester’s throat; she thought it was romantic.
‘All you have to do is keep a straight face.’ Flicking his dark hair out of his eyes, Lucas checked his watch. ‘Right, better not hang around, can’t keep the old boys at the Conservative Club waiting.’ He winked again at Hester and briefly patted her on the head. ‘See you around, sweetheart. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
‘See? I told you he’d got fat and ugly,’ Millie murmured as they watched Lucas saunter back to the car. Sasha, flicking her half-smoked cigarette into the gutter, gave them a wave goodbye and blew the pensioners at the bus stop a jaunty kiss.
‘He patted me on the head,’ Hester groaned. ‘On the head. I mean, how unromantic is that?’
‘It could be worse.’ Privately, Millie felt it was the very best thing Lucas could have done. ‘He could’ve given you a Chinese burn.’
‘The first time I see him in hundreds of years and he treats me like a five-year-old!’ To illustrate the unfairness of it all, Hester’s voice rose and she stamped her foot. ‘I thought jumping out of the bath would help. I’m wet, I’m naked, I’ve still got my make-up on… God, what more could he want?’
Millie thought of Sasha.
‘Maybe a nun in a basque?’
Hester tried hard not to be irritated when Nat rang in the middle of Coronation Street. She’d told him a thousand times not to even think of phoning her between seven-thirty and eight—on any night of the week—but he always forgot. It had to be a man thing. Either that, Hester thought darkly, or they did it on purpose.
Just when it had got to a good bit too.
‘I’ve got a five-minute break before all hell lets loose,’ Nat said cheerfully. ‘Jacques is convinced the guy booked for table six at eight o’clock is working undercover for the Michelin Guide. We’re packed out, Danny’s called in sick, and all the waitresses are crammed into the loo doing their make-up because table four’s been booked by Sean Connery, except I don’t think it’s going to turn out to be the Sean Connery they’d like it to be.’
All of a sudden Hester wanted to cry. Millie was right, Nat was lovely. And she missed him dreadfully, she really did. The sound of his voice brought it rushing back to her, like the surf crashing on to Fistral Beach.
‘Oh Nat, I wish you were here.’
She meant it. Nat loved her. He would never pat her on the head.
‘Now that’s a coincidence, because I wish you were here too. Actually, that’s why I’m ringing.’ Nat sounded pleased with himself. ‘I’ve persuaded Jacques to let me have next Saturday off. You could come up on Friday night, we’d have the weekend together and you could catch the train back on Sunday night. How about it, wouldn’t that be brilliant? A whole weekend!’
Hester’s spirits rose for a nanosecond, then sank again. In theory it sounded brilliant. But in reality it would mean a knackering train journey, followed by both of them being absolutely shattered on Saturday. Saturday evening, okay, they’d have a ball. But Sunday would be miserable, both of them knowing that by mid-afternoon they’d be clinging to each other on the railway platform, having to say goodbye for another goodness-knows-how-many weeks. And then, she would have the return journey to endure, the ultimate in depressing, slit-your-wrist experiences. Apart, maybe, from having to trudge back to work the next morning knowing that that was what you’d spent the whole of last week getting so ridiculously excited about.
It would also mean closing the stall on Saturday, the most lucrative day of any market’s week. And the train fare would cost a fortune she really couldn’t afford right now.
‘Hess? Are you still there?’
‘Of course I’m still here.’ Hester rubbed her forehead. Where else was she likely to be? ‘It sounds great, but… I don’t know, money’s pretty tight, and the train journey’s a pain… I just don’t know if it’s worth all that hassle for a Saturday night out.’
Brief silence.
‘But at least we’d be together,’ said Nat. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’
‘Time travel, that’s what I really want. A TARDIS I can step into, that’ll get me up to Glasgow in three seconds flat.’
Another, longer silence.
‘Shall I come down to you?’
‘Oh Nat.’ Hester’s eyes filled with hot tears of shame. ‘That’d be even worse. You don’t finish work until midnight on Friday… you’d sleep all the way through Saturday… it’s really not worth it.’
She heard someone in the background yelling at Nat.
‘Okay. Just a thought. Look, I’ve got to get back to work, the Michelin guy’s turned up.’
‘It was a wonderful thought, Nat.’ A tear rolled down Hester’s cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. ‘But seeing you again just makes it harder to say goodbye, I can’t bear it when the train pulls out of the station and—’
‘Have to go.’ More bawling in the background, instructing Nat to get his bloody arse into gear. ‘Love you, bye.’
‘Love you too,’ whispered Hester. But it was too late, the line had already gone dead.
Millie came through from the kitchen with a consolation mug of tea.
‘And a Snickers bar,’ she produced the bar from behind her back with a flourish, ‘to cheer you up.’
‘Bugger,’ said Hester as the familiar theme tune filled the living room. ‘I even managed to miss Coronation Street.’
‘It wasn’t that exciting.’
‘I still wanted to see it.’ Fretfully Hester slurped her tea. ‘Bloody Nat, why does he always have to ruin everything?’
‘Oh come on,’ Millie protested. ‘You can’t blame Nat, he phones whenever he has the time to phone. It isn’t his fault.’
‘Of course I can blame him,’ shouted Hester, ‘and it is his fault. If he hadn’t gone away to Scotland I might have some kind of life, and then I’d never have stayed in every night like a sad old spinster and got hooked on bloody soap operas in the first place.’
Chapter 16
Millie began to feel as if she were embroiled in a soap of her own the following lunchtime when she answered the front door and found her mother, clutching a copy of the glossy magazine The Opera Lover, on the doorstep.
Even more bizarrely, Millie’s ex-boss, Tim Fleetwood, was standing in the road behind her, panting slightly as he unloaded a set of tartan luggage from the boot of his slate-grey Renault Megane.
‘Mum! What are you doing here? What’s going on?’
Adele, as always ludicrously overdressed, this time in a turquoise Chanel-style suit and matching stilettoes—in Newquay, at one o’clock in the afternoon—enveloped Millie in a cloud of Byzance as she leaned forward and kissed her on each cheek.
Each cheek, Millie noted. Adele and her fancy city ways. She’d be switching to semi-skimmed milk next.
‘I think I should be asking you what’s going on.’ Her mother wagged a finger at her. ‘I had planned to surprise you, turning up at the travel agency. Imagine the shock when Tim told me you weren’t working there anymore! You could have told me, darling—I felt a complete ninny.’
Hmm. No change there, then. Much as she loved Adele, Millie couldn’t help wishing sometimes that her mother would stop wafting around the place like a genuine opera diva and just behave in a more normal fashion.
‘I tried to ring you the other night,’ she lied, ‘but there was no reply.’
‘And that was it? You couldn’t be bothered to try again? Honestly, young people today, I don’t know! Just pop them in the hall for me, Tim, would you please?’
Tim struggled past them with the suitcases. Having at first tried to pretend he hadn’t noticed her, he was now forced to glance at Millie and say—a mite sheepishly—‘Hi, how’s it going?’
Of course he sounded sheepish. He was such a wimp he couldn’t even stand up to his wife for long enough to tell her he wasn’t having an affair, Millie reminded herself.
What a total woolly vest.
Aloud, she said, ‘Brilliant thanks. I’ve got a terrific new job, the people I work with are really nice, and the money’s fantastic.’ Having made her point, Millie added sweetly, ‘How’s Sylvia?’
‘Fine.’ Tim deposited the last two cases on the floor—plonk, plonk—and straightened back up. ‘Right, well, better get back to the shop.’
Where Sylvia will no doubt be waiting with her index finger poised over the timer button on her stopwatch, thought Millie with a bland smile.
‘Tim, you’re an angel, mwahr, mwahr.’ Adele kissed him on both cheeks too, causing him to break out in a light sweat. The poor fellow was terrified, Millie realized, in a blind panic. Maybe Sylvia was waiting for him not with a stopwatch but with a machete.
‘I thought I’d surprise you, whisk you away somewhere glamorous for lunch,’ Adele explained over coffee. (‘Oh God, darling, please not that awful instant stuff.’ ‘Mum, awful instant’s all we’ve got.’) ‘There was nowhere to park outside the travel agency so I paid off the taxi. Imagine how silly I felt when I realized you weren’t even there!’
‘You should have phoned,’ said Millie. ‘Still, it was nice of Tim to offer to drive you over here.’
‘Tsh, I had to drop enough hints first,’ Adele snorted. But in an elegant way.
‘So how long are you down for?’ As she said it, Millie crossed her fingers behind her back.
‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe a couple of weeks. Just needed a change of scenery,’ sighed Adele, who had been really quite keen on a merchant banker who had had the gall to dump her for somebody else. But that was by the by, and certainly not the kind of tale one would want to relay to one’s daughter. ‘London’s so stuffy and bustly at this time of year—we’re up to our eyes in tourists.’ She shuddered dramatically. ‘Awful. I couldn’t bear it. Had to get away.’
And of course Newquay, the surfing capital of Europe, was so empty and tourist-free, Millie thought dryly. Man trouble, this was what this was all about, she’d bet money on it. Just as she knew the reason Adele never went anywhere without an ‘intellectual’ magazine tucked under her arm was because you never knew who you might bump into. Evidently, it was a wonderful icebreaker for fellow ‘intellectuals,’ announcing to the world in general—and potential husbands in particular—that you weren’t a brainless airhead.
‘Well, it’s really nice to see you,’ Millie said valiantly. ‘You can have my room and I’ll sleep on the sofa.’
Heaven knows what Hester was going to make of this alarming turn of events, but what else could she do? Hardly recommend a cozy B&B.
‘Darling, how sweet of you, but I couldn’t possibly stay here!’
Phew. Thank goodness for that. Even her mother was sensitive enough to realize she couldn’t just turn up without warning and take up residence—
‘In this poky little cottage?’ Adele laughed at the very idea. ‘Where there’s no room to swing a cat and you don’t even own a proper coffee machine? Lord, the very thought of it makes me shudder!’
Oh.
‘Oh,’ said Millie. It was a bit of a slap in the face, but actually the kind of slap in the face you didn’t mind too much. This was good news, after all. And Hester would be relieved. ‘Where are you staying then? A hotel?’
‘On my alimony? You must be joking, darling.’ As Adele sipped her coffee she pulled a good-grief-this-is-disgusting face. Then, recovering, she smiled brightly across at her daughter. ‘I thought I’d stay with Judy and Lloyd.’
‘You know what you are, don’t you?’ said Millie. ‘Mad, that’s what.’
They were sitting out in Judy and Lloyd’s garden, sharing a bottle of wine, and enjoying the warmth of the sun. Upstairs, Lloyd was showing Adele to her room.
Judy shrugged and batted away a hovering wasp.
‘Why, what am I supposed to do? Just say no?’
‘Yes!’
‘But then it would look as if I cared. And I don’t care. Not in a jealous way, at least.’
‘It must still feel a bit weird,’ Millie protested.
‘Not really. She isn’t that bad. I mean, she’s only your mother,’ Judy reminded her. ‘Not Pol Pot.’
‘Hmm.’ Millie wasn’t so sure. ‘She can be hard work, I don’t know why Dad didn’t put his foot down.’
‘Yes you do. We all do. Because he’s just too bloody nice to turn her away.’
‘Okay, but if she drives you mad, let me know. Otherwise it’s not fair on you.’
‘Don’t
worry, I can take care of myself.’ Judy sounded entertained. ‘She’s your father’s ex, that’s all. He was so good when I had dotty Aunt Sarah to stay for a month last year—and she was bedridden, poor old duck! So how can I kick up a fuss about having Adele to stay for a few days?’
Millie suspected it wouldn’t be long before Judy began to wish Adele was bedridden too. Glancing back at the house, she watched her parents make their way across the garden towards them.
Adele was now clutching a fringed lilac shawl and a hefty hardback biography of Placido Domingo.
‘Honestly, you’re hopeless,’ she was telling Lloyd. Turning her attention to Millie she said, ‘I asked him what he thought of Andrea Bocelli and he said signing for Aston Villa had been a big mistake.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He really is a total philistine.’
Lloyd, ambling along the path behind her, was chuckling good-naturedly to himself. He winked at Millie and said, ‘That’s great. What’s a philistine?’
The supermarket on the outskirts of Wadebridge was packed with shoppers. Feeling pretty daft, aware that people were laughing and pointing at her as she skated through the main doors, Millie consoled herself with the reminder that she was earning money. And spreading a little happiness. Not to mention giving the manager a silver wedding anniversary gift he’d never forget.
Nobody was expecting her. Pat, the theater sister, had made her wishes plain to Millie this morning.
‘His staff are great, just like one big happy family,’ she’d explained over the phone, ‘but I don’t trust them to keep it to themselves. If just one person lets slip to Jerry, it’ll all be spoiled. When you turn up I want it to be a fantastic surprise!’
A toddler in a stroller, spotting Millie, let out a wail of anguish and burst into noisy tears.
Oh well, can’t win them all.
***
As she skated past the newspapers and magazines, Millie realized she was attracting more and more attention. As if she was the Pied Piper, a number of children were starting to follow in her wake. Over to the left, the checkouts were all busy. To the right, a scrum of customers milled around the fruit and veg. A couple of teenage boys pummeled their chests and let out deafening Tarzan howls.