by Judy Astley
‘For lunch?’ he asked her, thinking at the same time, What a crass response.
She shrugged. ‘Lunch, anything really.’ Oh Lord, she was as edgy as he was.
‘I’m glad I found you in here. I thought this was going to be easy but as I drove in I was a bit … worried.’ She smiled and chewed at her bottom lip, a sign he recognized as pure nerves.
‘Worried? You? What do you have to be worried about? I’m just so … happy to see you … um … if that’s all right.’ It sounded mad, he knew, but if he said the wrong thing he might frighten her away again. He was barely convinced she was real, that she’d actually turned up in the Holbrook House kitchen and was now alone with him. Manda and this box that had holes in the top.
‘Um … I got you something. A present.’ She held out the box. ‘Be careful with it, it’s fragile and … well, just be gentle. Put it on the table to open it, just in case.’
Oh please, Ilex thought, don’t let anyone come in and break this up. He pulled the top of the box apart and inside was a small chunky grey kitten, looking up at him with huge, round, deep blue eyes. It immediately began both miaowing and purring at the same time, trying to climb out to get to him. It wore a black velvet collar and a chrome name tag.
‘Oh, Manda – it’s just so … cute! I can’t believe you’d—’
‘Well, I had to give you an answer,’ she said, rather rushing her words and looking at him intently. ‘And it’s yes … um … I’d like us to have a cat.’ There was a silent moment while he relished the ‘us’, brutally interrupted by a whirl of teen activity as Sorrel came hurtling into the room.
‘Mum says where’s the cheese. Oh wow! Look at this!’ Sorrel went up to Ilex and took the kitten out of his hands.
‘Oh Manda, it’s so sweet! Hello, baby kitty-cat, aren’t you just the cutest?’ She stroked and patted it, fondling its triangular ears. ‘Come on, we must show the others!’ And she was gone, clutching the little cat.
‘No, wait! Don’t go yet! Sorrel, there’s something else Ilex needs to see!’ Manda chased after her. Ilex followed, and they found Sorrel out by the table, cooing over the kitten and showing it off to the rest of the gathering.
‘Oh and look, it’s already got a little name tag. Let’s see what it’s called.’
‘No! Sorrel, stop right there!’ Manda reached over to grab the kitten but Sorrel was already reading.
‘Ooh it’s called … It’s called Yes. What kind of a name …?’ she asked, looking at Manda with a mystified expression. She then turned the name tag over.
‘Oh-oh, er, for you, I think,’ she said, handing the kitten back to Ilex.
‘There wasn’t meant to be an audience,’ Manda hissed at Ilex, hiding her face in her hands. ‘God, I’ve done this all wrong!’
Ilex, conscious of the gaze of ten silent and tensely wondering people, looked at the kitten’s tag: on one side the word ‘Yes’ was engraved but on the other, and he realized that Manda knew him so well, she understood he might need to be reminded of the question, it said, ‘I will marry you.’
‘Oh God, another two loved-up ones,’ Sorrel groaned as she turned away from the appalling sight of them kissing. ‘How can they do that in front of people? Can’t we, like, go off to Australia tomorrow, Gaz, get away from all this?’
‘You don’t mean that,’ he teased her. Gaz could, she knew, mention – also in front of everyone – that she looked suspiciously tearful, but he wouldn’t. She appreciated that.
* * *
It was coming to the end of a lazy afternoon. Sophia and Elsa had found a couple of old Badminton racquets and were down on the lawn trying to hit a ping-pong ball to each other while side-stepping a group of hens that had strayed from the orchard. Their shrieks and giggles were the only intrusive sounds. Clover and Manda were quietly discussing tulle and silk and whether veils were unbelievably naff or merely ironic, Sean was reading the sports pages and Ilex was dozing on a lounger with his kitten on his lap. Lottie was pretty sure he wasn’t actually asleep though – as more and more expensive-sounding wedding items were mentioned, his foot twitched with understandable cash-stress.
‘We need to tell them some time soon,’ Mac murmured to Lottie.
‘I know. Over lunch would have been ideal but it all got a bit hi-jacked, didn’t it? Not that I minded, obviously. Shall I send Sorrel in to get some champagne? We should do a proper toast to Ilex and Manda. And Clover made a chocolate cake.’
‘Did she?’ Mac laughed. ‘I’m surprised Sean let her out of bed for long enough! And yes, it’ll have to be soon. Isn’t the agent phoning at five? We’ll have to have told them by then in case we’re not the ones who take the call. Then we’ll cop it, especially if it’s Clover.’
Lottie rounded up Gaz and Sorrel and the three of them went into the kitchen to sort out tea, champagne and cake.
‘OK – first of all,’ Mac said, when everyone had a glass in their hands, ‘huge congratulations to Ilex and Manda. Here’s to them having a long and happy life together.’
‘Are you supposed to have alcohol, Dad?’ Clover looked close to panic-stricken as Mac drank.
‘A centimetre of Bolly won’t hurt,’ he told her. ‘I won’t have more than that though, I promise. For now anyway. But look, Clover, everyone … I really don’t want to be treated like a fragile museum specimen from now on just because my blood went a bit iffy. It’s being fixed. I’ll be back to the real me in a few months.’
‘Yes, but … I mean it changes things, doesn’t it? Like, you won’t be able to go off racing round the world now, will you?’ Clover went on. ‘You’ll have to take things more easily.’
Mac laughed. ‘“Take things easy”? Clover, sweetheart, that’s the sort of thing you say to someone of ninety-six, and even if you say it to me then I’ll tell you it’s patronizing! Anyway, the thing is … I wanted to tell you that a song we did years ago – “Target Practice” – it’s got itself a part in a bloody great film. Doug phoned this morning and it’s definite. So, we thought we’d go ahead with a few more idle plans, me and Lottie.’
‘Wow, a movie! Does that mean we’ll all be mega-rich again? Coo-well!’ Sorrel leaned across and hugged Mac. ‘So does that also mean I can—’
‘Hey wait! Don’t go giving me a shopping list just yet, please! Just be glad you should be able to get through university without loading yourself up with debts.’
‘She probably still will,’ Ilex said. ‘Students never have enough cash flow. You can’t expect her to resist a cheap loan. And they can make sense, in a borrowing—’
‘Well actually, I do expect her to resist,’ Mac interrupted. ‘I’m not having her mortgage her soul to some government loan-shark scheme if she doesn’t have to.’
‘Anyway, the point is, we’ve sort of decided what we’re going to do about the house,’ Lottie interrupted.
‘The house? What, this house?’ Sean asked. ‘You don’t need to sell it now, do you?’
‘Well no, but that’s not the point. We still intend to get out in the world and do the travelling we’d planned.’
‘But how can you? What about Dad? You can’t do long-haul flights, any flights, with embolisms! It’ll kill him!’ Clover looked close to tears. This, Lottie thought, wasn’t going as well as it should.
‘Well, you’re right, Clover, it could have killed me if I’d gone last week. Probably would have. But it didn’t, because we didn’t. And in a year from now it should be fine. Better, safer even than before because it’ll all have been sorted and medicated, do you see?’
‘We have to do this,’ Lottie insisted quietly, ‘while we can. Just as you all must do the things you want to do – don’t put them off till it’s too late and they’re just impossible.’
There was a silence, interrupted by the phone.
‘I’ll get it!’ And Sorrel was out of her seat and racing into the house before Lottie could catch her. In a moment she was back, clutching the phone. ‘Mum? It’s someone called Harry from
the estate agent’s for you?’
Lottie took the phone and, before she spoke, caught sight of Clover sitting with her head down, hands over her eyes. She’d looked just like that as a teenager, when Lottie caught her out lying about staying with a girl from school when really she’d stayed at her first boyfriend’s flat. So – Harry. That explained the Jimmy Choos and the lack of underwear at the hospital. One for her to forget about, definitely.
‘Harry? Hi. Any news?’ Mac reached across and took Lottie’s hand. ‘What, both of them? And they’re really prepared to wait that long? Brilliant! Thanks, I’ll call you back. Just got to talk about it for another minute.’
‘And? What did he want? What’s going on?’ Ilex demanded.
Lottie took a deep breath. ‘The Cresswells – they came round to look at the house a couple of weeks ago. They want to buy it, they’ve offered just under the asking price but they’ve got a lot to sort out so they really need to hang on till this time next year, which obviously suits us. So … Manda and Ilex, if you like, you’ll be able to have your wedding party here.’
‘Oh, yes!’ Manda squealed. ‘We’d love that!’ She looked at Ilex, suddenly unsure. ‘At least I think we would, wouldn’t we?’
‘Fine by me.’ Ilex grinned. ‘I definitely didn’t fancy some anonymous hotel.’
‘And why have you got to ring … him back?’ Clover asked. That confirmed it, Lottie thought. She couldn’t even use Harry’s name.
‘Because we still have one more thing to tell him. Mac and I made an offer on the Major’s old house on the green and it’s been accepted. We just need to tell him for definite about whether to go right ahead with it. What do you all think?’
Much later, when they’d all returned to their various homes and Sorrel and Gaz had gone to the pub to join their friends for yet another evening of post-exam celebrating, Lottie and Mac wandered down past the east long border and into the orchard to lock up the chickens for the night.
‘So … next year’s Burning Man, then?’ Lottie suggested as they went through the orchard gate.
‘We can start there, make an itinerary … be a bit more organized about it than we have been.’
Mac stopped by the pets’ graveyard and pulled a piece of ivy off the last wolfhound’s gravestone. ‘And when we get back … I was just wondering about getting another dog.’
‘Not another wolfhound?’
‘No. That would be going backwards. Time to move on, I think.’
THE END
About the Author
Judy Astley has been writing novels since 1990, following several years as a dressmaker, illustrator, painter and parent. Blowing It was inspired by her inability to be sensible with money. Being a high-maintenance blonde with a serious shopping habit (frocks, books, plants and music) uses up all potential pension-funds and Judy has unfortunately failed to make any plans for her own fast-approaching dotage except to request that her ashes be scattered in the Designers Guild fabric showroom.
Judy has two grown-up daughters and the world’s best-ever grandson and lives with her equally profligate husband in SW London and Cornwall.
For more information on Judy Astley and her books, see her website at www.judyastley.com
Also by Judy Astley
JUST FOR THE SUMMER
PLEASANT VICES
SEVEN FOR A SECRET
MUDDY WATERS
EVERY GOOD GIRL
THE RIGHT THING
EXCESS BAGGAGE
NO PLACE FOR A MAN
UNCHAINED MELANIE
AWAY FROM IT ALL
SIZE MATTERS
ALL INCLUSIVE
and published by Black Swan
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.transworldbooks.co.uk
Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Bantam Press edition published 2006
Black Swan edition published 2007
Copyright © Judy Astley 2006
Judy Astley has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409085447
ISBN 9780552773201
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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