His face was starting to match his hair. He’d never liked confrontation. ‘It’s the best thing, Kate. Listen, I need the capital for another business.’
‘Then why can’t Magda just invest in that instead? And where’s she getting all this money from anyway?’
They weren’t worth millions but they were going concerns.
‘You probably won’t like this, but she’s a bit rich.’
‘She’s a bit rich? That’s a bit rich.’
‘I told you you wouldn’t like it. Her family has money, but she’s got her own investments as well. Besides, she’s interested in Love Match. And since I can’t be as involved as I need to be, we’ve got to have someone we trust to take over for me. And I trust Magda implicitly.’
But I don’t, Catherine thought. I don’t trust her at all. ‘So you’ve already decided this without even talking to me first?’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s not really your decision, is it? I’m the shareholder of my half and I can sell if I feel I need to. You’ve said yourself. It’s unfair for me not to contribute.’
‘I know but—’
‘Don’t you see? This way it’s still in the family.’
‘So are webbed toes, Richard, but nobody wants those either.’
He ignored her bravado. ‘Magda is really excited to work with you,’ he continued. ‘You’ll make a great team. And look at the bright side. This is just a business transaction. It’s not like we’re getting divorced again.’
He laughed and Catherine’s tummy churned, because he was right. Legally he could sell to whomever he wanted. He just so happened to want to sell to his twenty-three-year-old interfering fiancée.
Her head was too swamped by Richard’s news to see Rachel at first. What would Magda’s investment mean? If it was a matter of swapping one silent partner for another, she could just about live with that. But all those questions about the business Magda had asked when they met – what if she wasn’t planning to be silent?
‘Catherine?’ Rachel said, grabbing her arm as she wandered through the bar. ‘You need to wear your glasses. You just walked right past me.’
‘I guess I should!’ she said, forcing her thoughts aside. She needed more time to think before she talked to anyone about the sale. ‘You’re early.’
‘Well you don’t have a lot of free time. I didn’t want to waste it.’
Catherine smiled as she ordered a lime and soda from the passing waitress. Why couldn’t the men she knew be as considerate?
Stop thinking about men.
And definitely stop thinking about Richard. ‘Well it’s nice to be out together like this,’ she said. ‘It’s been ages.’
‘I know. What’s happened to us?’
‘Life happened. Sarah couldn’t make it?’
Rachel dropped her gaze. ‘I didn’t invite her.’
‘Oh?’
‘Not for a bad reason though! I just think we need to talk about her because I’m really getting worried.’
Catherine nodded. ‘She’s in such a rut, isn’t she? I know it must be horrible to lose your mum, and she’s got Sissy to worry about, but I hoped she’d be back to her old self by now. It’s been two years, hasn’t it?’
‘Nearly three. She’s regressing. It’s like she’s just given up on a social life. She only leaves the house to run or visit Sissy.’
‘Ugh, those jogging bottoms!’ Catherine said. ‘Seriously, if we can get them off her can we burn them?’
‘Definitely. She’s got to get her confidence back. I’m going to help her write her RecycLove profile. Otherwise she’ll just say she’s boring. Then nobody will get in touch.’
They watched the after-work crowd fill in around them. ‘Maybe we could join some kind of social club with her,’ Catherine finally said.
‘Please not a singles club though.’
‘No, no, nothing like that. Maybe a theatre club or something we’d do anyway if we weren’t so hopeless at organising. I keep seeing those Curvy Girls Club adverts in the Metro. They’ve got interesting events. Too bad we’re not curvy or we could join them.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Rachel, glancing at her burgundy dress and green tights. She looked like a dishevelled elf. ‘I qualify.’
‘Well, you’re lucky, but we don’t.’
‘They don’t discriminate.’
‘No, but even so. Maybe a cooking class or something like that?’
‘Maybe.’ Rachel’s eyes slid away. ‘Oh God, confession time.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve sent in Sarah’s application for The Great British Bake Off.’
‘But that’s not so bad.’
Rachel closed her eyes. ‘It is. She doesn’t know I filled it in for her. She’s going to kill me.’
‘Will you tell her?’
‘Not yet. No reason to get her hopes up till she’s through, right? The deadline isn’t even till March.’
‘In other words, you’ve got time before she kills you,’ Catherine said.
‘Exactly. Between Bake Off and RecycLove, we’ll get her back on track. We’ve got to.’
Yes, they had to do something. They couldn’t sit by and watch their friend be ground down any more. Rachel was right: Sarah would kill her when she found out. But once she got used to the idea, hopefully she’d be happy about it.
Now if only she could rewind Richard’s decision to sell out to Magda, Catherine could be happy too.
Chapter Eleven
Rachel
Rachel tucked her new chocolate-brown woolly scarf more tightly around her neck and curled up her fingers inside her mittens. As she passed Ladbrokes’s window she noticed that they were giving six to one odds on snow for Christmas this year. It felt like a good bet.
Someone grasped her shoulder just as she opened the restaurant door. ‘I thought I recognised that hair. Fancy seeing you here!’
She spun around. ‘Hi Janet, hi Donald, perfect timing!’ She kissed her parents’ best friends as they all shed their coats for the cloakroom attendant.
Donald gestured behind them. ‘You remember Jonathan, don’t you?’
Rachel would know their only son anywhere. His hair was still dark, though thinning, and his small eyes still looked suspicious. How could she forget him? He’d stuffed her favourite teddy down the loo. Her parents said she shouldn’t hold a grudge. They’d washed it and declared it good as new. But it was never the same again.
‘Of course. Hello Jonathan.’
‘Jonathan drove us over. With my knee acting up we didn’t want to take the train, and we wouldn’t have missed this restaurant! Darling,’ Janet said to her son, ‘they’re supposed to have the best black cod in London here.’
‘Maybe the best in Wimbledon, Mum, but I doubt it’s the best in London. You haven’t been to Nobu.’
So he was just as arrogant as she remembered.
Janet laughed and shook her head adoringly. ‘My worldly son.’
Rachel had a different adjective in mind.
‘Jonathan, please join us,’ said her mum, Genevieve, as she sprang up from the table.
Rachel felt her excitement slipping away. She’d avoided her mum’s questions about the Zigler project all week, just so she could see her parents’ faces when she told them in person. She couldn’t care less about seeing Jonathan’s face.
‘You’ll love it here,’ Rachel’s mum continued, grasping his arm. ‘The black cod—’
‘Is delicious I’ve heard,’ he deadpanned.
‘Oh yes, please do stay, Jonathan,’ Janet piped up. ‘You did say you had no plans tonight.’
No surprise there, thought Rachel.
‘And you can drive us home later,’ added Donald. Always practical, was Donald.
‘Look, there’s room for six anyway,’ Rachel’s dad said. ‘Next to Rachel.’
‘It must be fate,’ murmured her mum.
‘You look nice, Dad,’ Rachel said. He’d swapped his paint-speckled builder’s jeans for a j
acket and tie and his sparse greying hair was neatly combed.
‘Thank you, love, so do you. All set for the renovations to start?’
Inwardly she cringed. ‘All set, Dad. The builders come the first week in January. Thanks again for getting Nate in for us.’
She picked at her napkin.
‘I’m just glad he can do it,’ Genevieve cut in. ‘It’s such a big job. Your clients would never have been able to do without you for that long.’
Rachel flashed her mum a grateful smile.
Her dad nodded. ‘I do have a lot on. I’ve got to get that kitchen wall rebuilt before Christmas. And the retiling.’
As much as Rachel hated even thinking it, her dad wasn’t the greatest builder in the world. It wasn’t that he was unscrupulous. Quite the opposite. He seemed to spend most of his time fixing his mistakes. That was the problem: there were so many to fix. She just hoped his mate Nate would be better.
‘Rachel, you and Jonathan have a lot in common,’ Janet said. ‘You know, Jonathan, Rachel is an architect.’
He didn’t look up from his menu. ‘Mmm.’
‘And Jonathan is an engineer.’
‘Oh? What type?’ Rachel asked, less out of interest than to force him to say something.
‘Architectural.’
‘You practically have the same job,’ said Janet. ‘Isn’t that interesting?’
Jonathan mumbled something.
If she wasn’t already tetchy about him being there, Rachel might have kept quiet.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,’ she said.
‘Nothing.’
‘No, really. What did you say?’
He finally looked at her, his grey eyes unblinking. ‘I said it’s hardly the same job, is it?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Who’s ready to order?’ her dad asked.
‘Meaning that I design buildings and you …’ he smirked, ‘draw with coloured pencils.’
Everyone at the table straightened up at this. Especially Genevieve, who happened to be one of the pre-eminent architects in the country. Jonathan knew this.
What a twat.
‘You’re right, Jonathan. I draw buildings that I’ve designed from the ground up to satisfy my clients. You make the calculations about how close the electrics can go to the sewage pipe. It is hardly the same job.’
She held his gaze. She’d do it all night if she had to.
Finally he looked down.
‘Actually, Mum,’ he said. ‘I don’t see anything here I want so I’m going to take off. I’ll pick you up in two hours. Or you can call me and I’ll come back.’
Without another word, he got up and left the restaurant.
Everyone stared at Rachel like it was her fault.
‘What?’ she said, knowing how defensive she must sound. ‘Shouldn’t I have said anything?’
‘Oh, no, darling,’ Janet said. ‘That was uncalled for. I’m terribly sorry. We just thought that you two might …’
‘Because of your work,’ added Mum.
Rachel stared between them.
So it had come to this. Her parents were trying to find her a date. The sooner she joined RecycLove the better.
The spectre of Jonathan hung over their table after he left, like the smell of boiled Brussels sprouts.
‘So, I have some news,’ Rachel said, handing her menu to the waiter. ‘I’ve been asked to design the building for Zigler.’
‘Oh that’s wonderful!’ Janet cried, clapping her hands even though she probably had no idea what Zigler was.
But Rachel’s mum knew. She pushed her chair back and came round the table to kiss her. ‘Darling, you got it. That is terrific, congratulations!’
Rachel felt her face glowing. Jackass Jonathan was forgotten. It was terrific. The Zigler buildings were getting to be icons in London, not quite on par with the Gherkin or The Shard or some of the buildings her mum had designed. But well-known enough to make her tummy flip every time she thought about it.
She’d worked for almost ten years for this chance. Studied at school till her head ached and said no to second glasses of wine and stayed at the office when everyone else went home. All the stress and sacrifice would be worth it. Finally, she’d prove that she’d inherited some of her mum’s design genes.
She just had to convince James that her idea was better than his.
Chapter Twelve
Sarah
Sorry, Sebastian, I can’t make drinks tonight. Thanks, Sarah
Sighing, Sarah deleted the text. Again.
Rachel would kill her if she cancelled. Plus she’d only make her reschedule, and she had no idea when she’d have free time again now that the builders were there.
Six of them had showed up just after seven yesterday morning. They all looked about twelve years old except for Nate, the foreman, who was in his fifties, grizzled and lined, with arms like Popeye.
After all the horror stories her colleagues had gleefully shared when they’d found out builders were coming, she was surprised to see them at all. And she hadn’t expected so many. With everyone running around in hard hats, Sarah had started wondering if it might be a bigger project than they’d thought.
Rachel had redesigned the floor plan so that the house would work as three flats ‘when the time came’. Sarah knew what that meant: eventually, when Rachel and Catherine found their soulmates, they’d want their own space and she’d need somewhere to live out her spinsterhood, knitting outfits for the million cats she’d probably have by then.
The builders weren’t doing much, structurally, to the kitchen, sitting room or Rachel’s bedroom, but the top three floors were being turned into two self-contained maisonettes. Sarah and Rachel would live in them eventually but, till then, two of the bedrooms would be up there.
It was a case of musical beds for a bit while the living space on the upper floors was being jigged around, but Sarah didn’t mind sharing a room, like she had with Sissy.
As if that wasn’t enough for Nate and his team to get on with, they were also fixing the electrics, plumbing, floors and whatever else they found wrong.
All while the women lived in the house.
Something told Sarah that she didn’t have enough biscuits for the job.
‘How long do you think it’ll take?’ she asked Nate as he directed his team upstairs to start work.
He scratched his greying stubble and looked at the string of exposed electrical cables above their heads. ‘About a month, I’d say. All the materials are in stock, so once we get going it shouldn’t take too long. You’ll hardly know we’re here!’
His laugh boomed up the stairs as he followed his boys.
Sarah could live with a month of dust and noise. At least the house was big enough to find a quiet spot to work.
She took her drawing pad into the sitting room and curled up on the sofa with her legs tucked under the pale blue lambswool blanket that Rachel’s mum, Genevieve, had given them for Christmas. Despite the old radiators ticking and cracking and popping and rattling, the house was cold now that January officially had London by the bollocks.
She listened to the builders stomping and banging upstairs. They were building her maisonette first, on the second and third floors. She wondered how she’d feel with her bedroom all the way at the top of the house like that. Not that it scared her. The house had loads of creaks and groans but she was used to them. She couldn’t wait to have her own bath in a properly insulated room. At the moment they risked frostbite keeping clean in the winter.
She’d miss the old kitchen though, when they eventually broke up the house. It belonged in a country estate, not a Victorian house in East London. It had barely been touched since the 1920s, except for the new fridge and gas cooker. Some of the black and white floor tiles were cracked and a few of the hinges on the cabinets needed adjusting, but it was big and airy and perfect for baking. Sarah wanted joint custody with Catherine ‘when the time came’.
She closed her eyes
to clear her mind, since thoughts of spinsterhood were the last thing she needed when she was trying to work.
She’d been mulling over an idea for a new card that she thought her boss might like.
Starting with her black pen, she began sketching a couple. The woman was shapely without being too thin. He was tall and broad, with a loose-fitting suit. Then she got to work on her idea. Taking the deep red pencil—
Kaboom! Crash!
She bolted upright, her heart hammering. It sounded like someone had fallen through the floor.
Throwing down her sketch pad, she ran for the stairs. ‘Is everyone all right? What’s happened?’ she shouted as she took them two at a time.
The thunderous crashing continued. Billows of dust roiled out of the top floor door into the stairwell.
‘What’s happened?’ she cried as she rounded the corner.
‘Mind your feet!’ Nate shouted, moving to block her from entering the room.
Sarah could barely see through the dust cloud.
But she could see clearly through what had once been their wall.
‘What have you done?’
‘We’re taking down the wall. Nearly done now,’ Nate chirped.
‘Yeah, I can see that. Only, that wall was supposed to stay up.’
‘No it wasn’t. I’ve got the plans right here.’ He pulled a squashed roll of architecture paper from his back pocket. ‘See, right there you’ve got your wall, which needs to come down to extend this room.’ He nodded to his mate, who sent his sledgehammer crashing through another section of wall.
‘That’s right,’ she said over the sound of pulverising plaster. ‘The wall needs to come down to make room for the new kitchen … on the second floor.’
‘Right,’ he said.
‘Right. But this is the third floor.’
‘What the fuck. It’s not, is it? Oh, shit. Sorry about that.’ He rubbed his chin in what Sarah suspected might be a signature move. ‘Well, it’s almost down now. We’ll build it back. No charge, obviously.’
Obviously. ‘Thanks. Have you got the plans for this floor?’
‘Ah, I don’t think so. Not with me. I guess we’d better start on the second floor then. That wall wasn’t very sturdy anyway. It’ll be better new.’
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