by Rosie Blake
‘I love you, Lottie Campbell,’ Luke said, sincerity edging his eyes.
‘I love you too,’ I said, swallowing, my throat feeling full. I was gratified to see the edge of Luke’s mouth lift, how adorable with his tousled hair and early-morning stubble. ‘Sorry for being such a bitch recently.’
He shrugged, wariness edging into his eyes. ‘You’ve got a lot going on, Lottie, you don’t need to apologise.’
The lump in my throat made it hard to speak and anyhow I didn’t want to respond, didn’t want to ruin this tentative peace, so I stood up, picking up my bag again and walking out of the bedroom, Luke singing, ‘Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone’ behind me, a giggle escaping as I slammed our flat door.
Amy was already there when I puffed my way into the shop. Surrounded by racks of ivory tulle, sequins and satin, she had one hand on a dress with a full skirt and was smoothing at the fabric as I arrived in front of her.
‘Hey,’ I said weakly, raising a hand.
She arched an eyebrow my way and in that tiny movement I got a taste of what all her students must feel when they were summoned to the deputy headteacher’s office. I wasn’t going to go for the foiled handbag snatch/witness to a murder story.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I said, sinking dramatically on to a rust-coloured velvet chaise longue. ‘Forgive me, forgive me—’
Amy, who hated scenes, was darting a look over her shoulder to see if the dress-shop owner was there. ‘Oh my God, get up, ssh, you are an embarrassment.’
I looked up at her. ‘I really am sorry,’ I said, my voice serious.
Amy rolled her eyes, holding out a hand, ‘I know. Now come and tell me if I should go for a tulle skirt in blush pink or a satin bodice with a lace bolero.’
‘What on hell’s earth is a bolero?’
Amy nudged me with a giggle as a woman with the sleekest, shiniest blonde hair and the most perfect eyebrows stepped across to talk to us.
‘Ladies, welcome to Diamonds and Dreams,’ she said, her smooth forehead frozen in place. ‘And who is the lucky bride?’ she tinkled.
‘We both are,’ Amy said brightly, and it was my turn to look at her. ‘Lottie here’s getting her ring re-sized, aren’t you,’ she said quickly, noticing Sleek Blonde was staring at my bare left hand. ‘Aren’t you, Lottie?’
‘Oh!’ I jerked to attention. ‘Oh yes, it was too big. Kept slipping off into . . . into stuff,’ I said, the sentence tailing away into a whisper.
Sleek Blonde flicked her sleek blonde mane.
‘Well, do have a look at our range and let us know when you want to try on your first dress. A magical day for you both,’ she said, her voice still sparkling as if she was auditioning for Lead Princess in Disney movie.
‘A magical day indeed,’ I said aloud, both my arms thrust out, palms raised. I had gone too big. Sleek Blonde raised another eyebrow and walked away. I turned back to Amy, who was holding up a bodice in champagne satin that made her black skin even richer. ‘That looks—’ I was about to compliment her when I remembered. ‘Hey, I can’t try on dresses, Amy. Isn’t that bad luck or something?’
Amy laughed and turned back to the rail in front of her. ‘Not unless Luke appears in the doorway and sees you in the dress you have selected for your imaginary wedding with him.’ She placed the bodice back on the rail and spun round. ‘Oh come on, Lottie, don’t pretend you’re not seriously tempted. You love dressing up. Any excuse. Remember Casual Clothes Days at school? There was nothing casual about your selections.’
Feeling the stirrings of excitement in my stomach for the first time in days, I suddenly didn’t feel so tired. My workload was fading in my mind, Luke wasn’t angry with me, even Grandad’s worries were minimised in the face of the incredible mountain of fabric. ‘Helloooo, Lottie, are you ready?’ Amy was waving in my face.
I preened and pouted and encouraged Amy to get Sleek Blonde to pull on ribbons, fetch us more dresses, top up our glasses. We tried on fishtail dresses, meringues and bias-cut, sweetheart necklines and delicate lace.
I was dressed in full veil, tiara and feathered skirt when my phone rang and I hopped down off the box I was admiring myself on and padded over to my handbag.
‘What are you doing?’ Luke asked.
‘I’m trying on a wedding dress!’ I announced brightly.
There was a long pause and I pulled the phone away from my face to frown at the screen. Bringing it to my ear again I whispered, ‘Luke? Luke, are you still there?’
‘That is . . . well, that is . . . ’
It was only then I realised I should probably add, ‘ . . . for Amy. I’m wedding dress shopping with Amy, remember?’
Did he have to sigh so loudly? ‘Oh . . . oh well, I knew that. Great. Send Amy love.’
‘Will do. Did you call for anything in particular?’
‘No, I just wondered when you were getting back. I wasn’t sure how long these things take, we haven’t really seen each other.’
‘I saw you this morning,’ I pointed out, pulling the phone back so I could look at the screen. ‘Less than three hours ago, in fact,’ I confirmed.
‘Ha, ha,’ Luke said, deadpan. ‘I meant seen each other as in hang out, talk about something, do something together rather than just inhabit the same space?’
I turned my back on Amy who was wearing an expectant look on her face. ‘Oh, yes, I see.’ Why didn’t I laugh at this obvious tease? Why did I feel my shoulders tense, the grip on the phone grow tighter?
‘Look, I can’t be everywhere at once, Luke. I told you this was important. Amy hasn’t seen me in ages, she had to rearrange this appointment for me and I can’t just—’ All the old panic was stirring within me as I warmed to my theme.
‘Lottie.’ Luke tried to interrupt me but I was in full flow. ‘Lottie—’
‘And Grandad, what am I meant to be doing about Grandad?’
‘Actually I went round there after you left. He’d made these insane flapja—’
‘Yes, but I said I’d drop in there later,’ I cut him off. ‘He’ll be alone for the rest of the day and I ca—’
‘Lottie, I didn’t call to have an argument with you,’ Luke said in a weary voice. ‘And Arjun and him are playing golf.’
Amy had moved to stand next to me, her hand out for my phone. I shook my head at her but she didn’t move. I could feel her looking at me, standing in a netted skirt and white satin corset, pissed off. I felt the physical pull of Luke on the end of the phone and of Amy standing in the room.
‘Look, Luke, I’ve really got to go. I’ll be back in a bit and we can make a plan then,’ I said, my voice firm.
I could hear a sigh but then I was too busy jabbing at the buttons to turn the phone off. Amy’s face was unimpressed.
‘I thought you had all day,’ Amy said. ‘I haven’t seen you in forever, Lottie. I want to catch up with you.’
Amy was never like this. I knew I must have really hurt her. We used to see each other all the time. We’d been flatmates up until a year ago when I’d moved in with Luke and she’d moved in with Will.
‘I’m sorry,’ I started to say, the words tripping off my tongue, used so often these last few weeks – months, if I was being really honest. ‘Everything is so busy at the moment.’
Reminded of the time, of the things I had to do that weekend, I started to surreptitiously check my phone as I oohed over Amy’s outfits, refusing to try on more myself. She could tell I was distracted, my foot tapping as I stared out of the window at the Saturday shoppers moving by.
‘Hey,’ Amy said, centred in the changing-room curtain as if on a miniature stage, ‘it’s OK, Lottie, do what you need to do. Go, OK?’
I had been looking at my phone again, crossing and uncrossing my legs on the rust velvet chaise longue.
‘Really? Because I don’t want to let you down,’ I started, knowing I had barely been present for the last hour.
‘Go,’ she sighed, not quite meeting my eye.
Amy lifted a hand, swatted the air in front of her as if batting away my words. She didn’t say anything in reply.
I scooped up my coat and bag and turned to her, trying to ignore the slump of her shoulders, the saddest bride in town. ‘I’ll call you,’ I said, my cheek clashing against hers.
She nodded, a ghost of a smile on her face.
I paused. Something in her expression frightened me, a resigned look, one I had grown used to in recent months. She didn’t believe me. And I wasn’t sure she should.
Darling Cora,
Lottie is staying in the house for a trial and I’m making her bed in the spare room while she is out. You teased me for ironing your sheets but in those last weeks, when I didn’t know what else to do or say, it seemed important. I could make your bed up as nicely as you always made it, smoothing at the pillows, leaving the tiny sprigs of lavender in your top drawers, dragging the hoover around the room, wiping at the windows. You didn’t grumble about being stuck in there, eating soup from a tray and playing endless games of Scrabble with me.
You always looked after me and then it became my turn, bent over tea-stained cookery books, measuring out ingredients. The day-to-day tasks allowed me to keep marching on, busy, busy, not thinking too much about you upstairs, a book abandoned in your lap, too tired to finish your chapter, your head lolling to the side. Sometimes I would appear in the doorway and see you there, so still, and I would think it had happened, would approach feeling nausea swirl in my stomach, until I could make out the gentle rise and fall of your chest. Another day with you. The relief would take my breath away.
Luke has been dropping in lately. He seems to know what to do when he’s here. We sit in companionable silence in the kitchen or front room, my hands wrapped around your dancing sheep mug as he stands at the counter, both of us watching the television in the corner, occasionally looking up to swap useless sports trivia before returning to the screen. He doesn’t force me to talk or supply me with an endless stream of inspirational quotes: he’s just there. It has been good to see more of him. You always adored him, and I see him glancing across at the photograph of you on the mantelpiece with a small, sad smile and remember he has lost people in his life too.
He came last week. Lottie was out somewhere with Amy doing something for the wedding and he appeared with a bag of pains au chocolat.
‘It will be nice to have Lottie here next week,’ I said to him, pleased to see he was enjoying the flapjacks I had made the day before, a recipe I found in your handwriting in the pages of an old Filofax. You’d always had a sweet tooth.
Luke swallowed and nodded. ‘Yes, less running around for her too. She is manic at the moment.’
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something more but then bit into his flapjack.
There was a pause as he chewed and I waited, sensing he wanted to get something off his chest.
‘I think this last case has been difficult, I mean a lot of them are, it’s hard . . . ’
Something about the way he trailed away made me bite my lip.
‘She’s, well, it is stressful, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t really know what it’s like, people’s lives in your hands and all that. But I don’t really see her enough, not properly . . . ’
I went to open my mouth to reply but, not wanting to overstep the mark, shut it again.
‘I might call her when I leave here, actually, see where she’s at . . . pin the woman down.’ His accompanying laugh sounded a little hollow.
‘Good idea.’
You would have asked him directly if anything was bothering him but I didn’t want to delve. I might be wrong. There was just something in his voice, a sadness. I didn’t want to upset things, though, it was so nice to have him pop by. I knew when he left I would be wandering around the house again, straightening ornaments, opening the fridge, staring into it, forgetting why I was there.
‘Did you see the Liverpool game at the weekend?’
Luke took another flapjack from the plate, nodding, enthusiasm restored. ‘Amazing goal, they’re having a great season.’
‘Aren’t they!’
Lottie arrived less than 48 hours ago and I understood a little more. It hasn’t been what I imagined at all. I was a little nervous greeting her on the Sunday evening, had pre-prepared some topics of conversation – hoped she had seen the Sunday-night period drama last week. She hadn’t stayed the night since she’d lived with us all those years ago and of course it was so different now without you and her, heads bent together in conversation.
I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but she seems jittery with energy, just as I feel I don’t have enough to face the day. We seem to be out of synch with each other. She was tapping at the table on that first evening, her eyes scanning a document in front of her and her other hand shovelling food into her mouth. Her phone bleeped and pinged and she looked stressed as she glanced at it.
‘It’s Amy,’ she said, after the third call she’s ignored.
‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’
‘I should,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘It will be something to do with her wedding. I’m bridesmaid. I just don’t have time to get into it with her, whatever it is, or she’ll want to meet and I know I should, I really should, but I can’t. And I did see her on Saturday,’ she said, as if she was trying to persuade me of something.
I nodded, pushed a half-finished potato across my plate, making a pattern in the gravy.
She pushed her own plate away. ‘Do you think I’m being a cow?’ She tugged on the sleeves of her jumper, pulling the fabric down over her hands.
Just listening to her had made me anxious. What would you say at this juncture? That Amy would understand? That she should answer her phone? I wasn’t used to Lottie asking me for advice.
‘I, I’m . . . you’re not a cow.’
‘No, but do you think I could be a better friend? She wanted me to organise the hen do a couple of months ago and I was so useless she’s had to ask her sister instead. That’s bad, isn’t it?’
‘Well, it’s, I mean, I don’t . . . hen dos aren’t really my area of—’
The phone vibrated again and I glanced at it, relieved it had cut off my feeble attempts to help. I got up to clear our plates, wipe the table down.
She ignored the phone again. ‘I can do that, Grandad: you cooked.’
‘It’s fine, fine,’ I said, moving across to the sink, running the hot tap and reaching for the washingup liquid.
‘So do you think it will be OK? That I’m not helping much? I mean, she should get it, shouldn’t she? She knows I work long hours.’
‘I’m not sure, maybe,’ I said, circling a plate uselessly. Why couldn’t I do this stuff? You always made it seem so natural, Cora. It was why Lottie always asked you for advice. I tried to think about it. Lottie had known Amy for years and Amy had always been a great friend to her. She should be there for her now. By the time I had constructed an answer, something along the lines of helping Amy’s sister with the hen do, I noticed Lottie wearily picking up the various pages and folders in front of her, piling them into her arms. ‘Perhaps you could—’ I started to say.
My words were cut off. ‘I think I’ll take these up, work on them in bed.’
‘Oh right, great, good idea.’
‘Thanks for a lovely dinner, Grandad.’
We met awkwardly around the files, her lips just skimming my cheek.
‘Sleep well,’ she said.
I glanced at the clock. The period drama would still be playing, I could start watching it on catch-up. I felt a small bubble of relief as I listened to her retreating footsteps heading up the stairs, the pad as she crossed to the spare room. Knowing I hadn’t done a great job of making her feel any better, I hoped she liked the lavender sprig I had left on her pillow that morning.
Teddy x
Chapter 7
Love is
full of promise
ALISON, 80
It’s been more than two months since Grandma died and for the last week I’ve been working on a case in Guildford Crown Court and staying with Grandad.
Tonight the ‘golfing lads’, as Grandma had called them, are coming over to drink gin and play gin rummy.
‘We take turn hosting and someone is in charge of bringing a new gin to try,’ Grandad explained as he opened up the drinks cupboard and produced four crystal tumblers. ‘Your Grandma called it the Gin o’Clock Club.’ He chuckled softly.
Feeling the same bittersweet sensation I felt whenever Grandma’s name was mentioned, I got up to clear the table of court documents, errant biros and scribbled notes. ‘I’ll get out of the way.’
Grandad had moved through to the kitchen and was chopping limes, cucumber and orange. ‘I never quite know what will work best,’ he called out, already sounding happier and more relaxed than he had done all week.
I hadn’t seen Grandad’s friends all together since her funeral: all three dressed in dark suits, their heads bowed, their expressions sombre, so unlike the loud, guffawing group I knew. Geoffrey, his hands trembling so that the paper shook a little, had read beautifully from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Grandma’s favourite book. He had passed a handkerchief over his bald head when it was finished and had stumbled in the aisle back to his seat, the others nodding sadly at him.
The bell went and I ventured into the corridor to answer the door. Howard was first in, barrelling into the narrow space wielding two packs of playing cards still in their wrappers, bringing with him the smell of pipe smoke. ‘Get ready, old man. It’s gin o’clock and the fight is on,’ he announced, full beard quivering. ‘Lottie,’ he said, drawing up short. ‘Didn’t know you’d be here.’ He called over my shoulder, ‘Running scared, eh, old man? Sending in the youth?’
‘Never.’ I could just make out Grandad’s response from the kitchen and a low chuckle.
Geoffrey followed Howard inside, shaking his head as he removed his hat and giving me a one-armed hug, his face lighting up. ‘Lottie, how lovely. You are so good. Teddy’s been telling us how nice it has been to see so much of you.’