I took a deep breath.
‘Yes, a city break is an interesting idea,’ I heard myself saying. ‘I’ll mention it to Felix and see what he thinks. Although, you know, he’s very fit and outdoorsy these days, so maybe he’d prefer to go hiking in the Lakes.’
My mother laughed. ‘Just like when you and Becca were little!’
‘That’s right. And we could take a boat out,’ I said, smiling into the phone whilst picturing Felix rowing me across Coniston Water in the driving rain, wearing only a high-quality, form-fitting grey T-shirt and dark-blue pyjama bottoms, his hair plastered to his head in dripping ringlets.
‘Well I think that’s a marvellous idea,’ said Mum. ‘Now apparently I must let you go, Dot, because your father says people will be trying to call me. But I hate rushing away, so I’ll ring you tomorrow and we can talk about your holiday plans some more then.’
‘OK,’ I said brightly, but with an underlying sense that something quite disturbing had just happened. ‘Bye then.’
‘Bye-bye, darling.’
She hung up and, still smiling inanely, I slowly lowered the phone, placing it carefully on the arm of the chair whilst replaying the conversation in my head. After a moment, I reached the conclusion that in essence two things had just occurred. Firstly, I had missed the perfect opportunity to put an end to the web of lies and deceit surrounding my relationship with Felix Davis once and for all; and, secondly, I had lost my mind.
Groaning, I leaned forward, placed my head in my hands and left it there until distracted some minutes later by the buzz of my phone. Sitting up, I stared at the screen for a moment and then picked it up.
‘Hello, Becca,’ I said quietly.
‘Hi, Dot. You sound a bit subdued. What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘Mum hasn’t upset you, has she?’
‘No, no,’ I sighed, shaking my head as the full extent of just how pitiful I was hit home. ‘Not at all. This is all my own work.’
Chapter 30
‘Dot!’ beamed Fred, holding the front door open wide. ‘Great to see you. Welcome to the weekend. Come in and let me relieve you of that bottle of wine and your jacket, in that order,’ he said, taking the wine from me whilst bestowing a kiss on each cheek. ‘Priorities, priorities.’
I smiled up at him, contrasting his appearance and mood this evening with a month earlier, when his wife’s out-of-character behaviour had been weighing so heavily upon him. ‘I wasn’t sure whether or not to bring that,’ I said, pointing at the Malbec. ‘It’s a bit like rubbing her nose in it, isn’t it?’
‘Not at all,’ he said brightly. ‘You know how into her Ribena she has been this week, and I’ve just bought her a new six-pack.’
‘God, it’s been making my teeth ache just watching her guzzle those things,’ I said, as I followed him into the kitchen, where Kate was checking something on the hob, pan lid in one hand, carton of Ribena in the other. She had taken to wearing flowing tops into the office, or shirts invariably untucked, but this evening she had on a long grey jumper dress and her eighteen-week bump was very obvious.
‘Look at you!’ I exclaimed, walking over and giving her a hug. ‘And look at you too, whoever you are,’ I added, smiling and placing a hand on her tummy. ‘Oh my goodness, Kate, you’re actually, actually pregnant!’
She laughed and took a noisy slurp of Ribena, clearly nearing the bottom of the carton. ‘And don’t I know it. We didn’t sleep a wink last night, did we, Fred?’ she said, turning to her husband.
‘No we didn’t,’ he said, taking the lid from her and replacing it on the pan. ‘We were very uncomfortable and we had to talk about just how uncomfortable we were throughout the night.’
‘That’s right, and,’ continued Kate, raising the hem of her dress slightly and kicking off a pair of fluffy cream slippers, ‘just look what’s happened to my feet, Dot. They were fine this morning, but look at them now. It’s like someone’s set to with a bloody bicycle pump!’
‘Ooh,’ I said, gazing down at her undeniably swollen feet and keeping a comment about balloon animals to myself. ‘Perhaps you should get some support tights, Kate. And definitely keep your feet up. That’s what my Auntie Marge did when she was …’ I hesitated, ending the sentence with a cough.
Kate looked at me. ‘When she was what?’
‘Ninety,’ I said quietly.
Fred laughed and Kate sighed. ‘Top tip from me, Dorothy. Never try to make anyone feel better. About anything. Ever.’
I nodded. ‘OK.’
‘Actually, that was very good advice from Dot,’ said Fred, hurriedly handing me an unrequested glass of wine. ‘So why don’t you two go into the living room, where you can put your enormous feet up, Kate. I’ve got everything under control in here.’
Kate smiled and popped the straw back into her mouth, sucking hard. ‘Maybe I’ll take another one of these with me,’ she said, moving towards the fridge, the straw still between her teeth.
‘Why not pace yourself?’ Fred placed a gentle hand on her back, steering her away from the fridge and towards the kitchen door. ‘There’s a bowl of blueberries on the table next door. Snack on a few of those. Dinner won’t be long.’
‘OK,’ she said, turning her head and kissing his cheek before taking my hand and leading me out of the kitchen and into the lounge. ‘We’re just in the way in there, and I do need to sit down actually, Dot,’ she said, flopping down as we reached the sofa and placing a cushion on the coffee table in front of her. ‘I’ll just pop my feet up on this,’ she murmured, hoisting her feet onto the cushion and emitting a long, contented sigh as she did so. ‘Ooh, that’s better.’
I settled myself down next to her and she immediately took hold of my free hand. ‘And how are things generally?’ she asked, a little earnestly I thought. ‘With you, I mean.’
‘Things are generally fine,’ I smiled, ‘with me. You know they are. We were at work together just twenty-four hours ago.’
She nodded, and we sat in easy silence for a moment or two until she placed her other hand on top of mine so that it was now encased between hers. Frowning, I turned towards her, to find her smiling up at me. She squeezed and then patted my hand.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, still smiling.
‘You’re being weird,’ I said. ‘I mean weirder. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ she insisted, her eyes misting. ‘I just wondered if there was anything that, you know …’ she paused and patted my hand again, ‘you wanted to talk about.’
Her lower lip trembled with emotion and I heaved a sigh. I had thought that I had become used to her erratic bouts of sentimentality and actually rather good at predicting them, but she was still clearly capable of taking me by surprise. ‘Please don’t cry, Kate,’ I said gently.
She nodded rapidly. ‘I think it’s the Ribena.’
‘And I think that’s unlikely,’ I said, raising my glass to my lips.
‘I just thought you might want to talk about Felix.’
Taken by surprise for the second time in a matter of moments, I paused mid sip and slowly lowered my glass. She hadn’t mentioned him for ages, other than to ask how my visit to Cheltenham had gone. In response to that enquiry, I had given her a very brief account of Martin’s party, including a passing reference to Beattie, and she had asked nothing more. I hadn’t been bothered by her disinterest, and hadn’t really even thought of it as disinterest, but had instead welcomed the break from being pressed over how and when I was going to tell my family the truth about Felix. So for her to mention him now, and in such emotional terms, was odd and unexpected to say the least.
‘Why on earth are you getting upset about Felix?’ I leaned forward, placing my glass on the coffee table. ‘Things are fine.’
‘Have you been in touch much since your visit?’
I shrugged. ‘The odd text last week.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘when is your next scan? That
must be coming up.’ I reached towards the large bowl of blueberries on the table, with the intention of passing it to her.
‘Yes, it’s next week. I was telling your mum about it—’
I sat back up, my head whipping round. ‘My mum? When did you speak to her?’
‘This morning, on the phone,’ she said, smiling but still looking a little tearful. ‘Becca had told her that I was pregnant and she called to congratulate me. Wasn’t that lovely of her?’
‘Yes, it was,’ I agreed, feeling immediately guilty that I hadn’t thought to pass on Kate’s news myself.
‘I think maybe she knows that I don’t have that kind of interest from my own mum,’ continued Kate. ‘And she said that if I needed anything, or ever wanted a chat, just to call and she would always listen …’ She stopped talking as a tear trickled down her cheek, ‘… and I could tell she meant it, Dot,’ she concluded in a whisper.
I prised my hand free from hers and put my arm around her as she leaned her head against my shoulder. ‘I have no doubt she did mean it,’ I said. ‘Although you do realise that you’re going to have to block her calls now, or you’ll never get any work done.’
‘You’re very lucky to have her, you know.’
‘I know I am,’ I said, smiling. ‘But you’re still going to have to block her calls.’
She laughed and sat up, slapping my arm and then dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. ‘So yes,’ she began again, clearing her throat, ‘we had a lovely long chat, which included …’ She paused and lowered her head, looking up at me sternly as if over a pair of imaginary spectacles. She was now in no-nonsense mode, and I marvelled, not for the first time, at the current breakneck speed of her mood swings.
‘Go on,’ I sighed, retrieving my wine.
‘… which included an account of the holiday to the Lake District which you and Felix are planning.’
‘Oh.’ I drank my wine.
‘Except I don’t think you and Felix are planning a holiday to the Lake District, are you, Dorothy?’
I shook my head and looked at her. ‘No, we are not, Katherine.’
For a moment, her brow furrowed in frustration and her mouth hardened into a horizontal line of complete disapproval, before her features suddenly softened into a smile. ‘Look,’ said the one-woman good-cop-bad-cop, ‘I haven’t asked you about Felix lately because, well, it seemed pretty obvious to me that you really liked him. And I suspected that the real reason you hadn’t told your family you weren’t going out with him was because you actually wished that you were.’
Kate, I decided, might currently be as bonkers as a box of highly hormonal frogs, but she had lost none of her insight. It was my turn to feel tearful.
‘So my question to you, Dot, is …’ she continued softly.
‘Why, at the age of thirty-six, I am fantasising about going on holiday with a pretend boyfriend and sharing that fantasy with my mother?’ I suggested miserably.
She shook her head. ‘God, no. Let’s save that one for a trained therapist.’
‘Er … OK,’ I said, blinking a little.
‘The question I was actually going to ask is why you haven’t done anything about it.’
‘About what?’
‘About Felix. Why haven’t you told him how you feel?’
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I came very close to it. I was going to tell him when we were on our own at the party, but then Beattie turned up and the moment was lost. And from the way he behaved, I’m pretty sure he’s still besotted with her – or, at the very least, far from over her. And if that’s the case, then I don’t think it’d be a great time for me to throw my hat into the ring.’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t hide behind ifs and maybes, Dorothy.’
‘I’m not,’ I said simply, trying not to be distracted by the fact that, at this moment, she was sounding worryingly like my mother during my teenage years. ‘I thought it all through very carefully when I got home and realised that I have to find out where he is at re Beattie. But I don’t want to do that over the phone.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘So I decided I would invite him to Bristol. In fact, I invited him to come down this weekend, but he said he was busy.’
‘Oh, OK,’ said Kate, looking and sounding a little crestfallen.
‘Yes. So he’s not exactly champing at the bit, is he?’
‘What reason did he give for not coming?’
‘He just said that he couldn’t make it. And then, after that, I sent a few texts about this and that and trying to fish about Beattie a little bit.’
‘Good, good.’ Kate nodded approvingly.
‘And he replied quite quickly each time but gave nothing away. So as things stand, and reading between the lines, I think he’s either back together with Beattie, or wants to be.’
‘If this is what you want, Dot, then forget about reading between the lines. We need to know for sure.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘We?’
‘You and me,’ she said, looking puzzled. ‘Who else would I mean? There’s no one else in the room, is there?’
‘Sorry, I just got confused because I thought we were discussing my life.’ I placed a hand on my chest.
‘You’re veering off the point,’ she said, sounding mildly exasperated. ‘Do try not to get sidetracked. The important thing here is that you do not let this one drift. If ever there was a thing to pull your head out of the sand about, this is it. All you have to do is call Felix and tell him there’s something you need to discuss and that either he can come to Bristol or you can go to Cheltenham.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll give it a couple of weeks and then make the call.’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, why wait?’ she exclaimed impatiently, bad cop once more in the ascendancy. ‘What are you going to do in the meantime? Continue in a frustrated friendship? Or maybe lose contact altogether while you dither? Because time does have a tendency to march on, doesn’t it, Dorothy? Especially in your world. Oh, but maybe you’re OK with letting it all just bumble along while you continue to pretend to your parents and grandmother that he’s your boyfriend. I mean, why not go the whole hog and claim that you’re cohabiting? It’s no biggie. He can just be down the allotment or in prison whenever they visit.’
‘OK, OK, you’ve made your point.’
‘You can do this,’ she said, suddenly smiling, her eyes shining. ‘And it would be a real shame not to. Becca and your mother both say how lovely he is.’
‘Becca?’ I frowned. ‘You’ve spoken to Becca too?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘And the general consensus is that you and Felix are perfect for each other. Your dad is just surprised …’
‘My dad?’ I exclaimed. ‘Is there anyone you haven’t discussed this with, Kate?’
‘… that you didn’t get together years ago,’ she continued brightly, apparently oblivious to either the interruption or my annoyance, ‘and he’s so happy that you’re together now – except, of course, that you’re not,’ she added, her tone momentarily disapproving again. ‘And, although I don’t know really know Felix, it’s so obvious to me that you get on brilliantly. And I know what he’s done for you lately – and I don’t only mean the wedding. He’s definitely helped you to move on from Alistair. And to be honest, he’s so good-looking that he’d have to have a pretty shitty personality for this not to be worth a shot.’
‘Ah, so the language of romance is not dead after all,’ said Fred, entering from the kitchen. ‘Is that what she used to say about me, Dot? A bit of a shit but worth a shot?’
I looked up at him and then across at Kate, wondering just how much of the conversation he had overheard.
‘It’s OK, Dot,’ she said, in a tone which I assumed was meant to be reassuring, ‘I’ve already told Fred absolutely everything.’ She leaned forward, grabbing an enormous handful of blueberries and stuffing them into her mouth, whilst patting my knee.
‘Marvellous,’ I said
wearily.
‘Don’t worry,’ smiled Fred. ‘I screen out approximately ninety per cent of everything Kate says at the moment. It’s the only way to stay sane. But I do register her telling me every single day how lucky she is to have you as a friend.’
‘Nice catch, Frederick,’ I tutted, and then smiled. ‘Fortunately, I feel the same way about her,’ I said. ‘She keeps me on track – whether I like it or not.’
‘We keep each other on track,’ said Kate, spitting blueberries and squeezing my arm. ‘You are the sister I never had, Dorothy Riley. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You are family to me, and you will be to this little one too,’ she added in an emotional whisper, placing a hand on her stomach.
‘And while I’m sure Dot is very touched by that, Kate,’ said Fred quickly, with a nod in my direction, ‘let’s try not to cry before dinner. It’s just about ready, and your Ribena is on the table.’
‘OK,’ she said quietly. ‘And I’m sorry I keep welling up all the time. It’s just hard when I’m surrounded by so much love and am feeling things so much more deeply than usual. I keep being overwhelmed by waves of emotion. I think it might be the Ribena, Fred.’
Fred sighed, offering me the tiniest of eye rolls as he extended a hand towards his wife and helped her to her feet. ‘You know I think you’re probably right, Kate. It’s got to be the Ribena. Maybe you should give Fruit Shoots a whirl tomorrow.’
Finding Felix Page 22