The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker

by Jenni Keer

  ‘Someone needs to tell him his expressions are rubbish,’ whispered Jess.

  ‘Don’t you dare spoil our fun.’ Connor leaned forward, poking his head between Jess and Lucy. ‘I’m compiling a book of them. We need some entertainment to get us through the day.’

  An afternoon of customers chasing late deliveries and grumbles from the warehouse went by quickly, but Lucy wasn’t as focused as usual. The meeting had unsettled her. Jess’s job was safe as there were only three of them in accounts and they were always overworked. But this new manager might decide to make economies in the sales office, as there were often times when Adam paced the floor liked a caged, novelty-sock-wearing lion. If he wasn’t always fully occupied it meant they were overstaffed and Lucy suspected the disorganised girl with the messy desk might not make the final cut.

  After an unsettled week at work, with everyone trying their best to ignore the redundancy-shaped elephant in the room, the last thing Lucy felt like doing that evening was attending Vernon’s retirement party. As she wrapped her sausage sandwiches in foil and grabbed a yoghurt from the fridge, she saw the skinny black streak of cat leap up onto Brenda’s fence. Not having seen it since that night at George’s, she’d assumed it had moved on to pastures new, but if it was still hanging about, then it was still homeless, and this was something she had to address.

  Checking she had ten minutes to spare, Lucy rang the rescue centre for advice, hoping to catch someone in their office. The plight of the cat, with its kamikaze-esque homing device, was weighing on her mind. She was in luck. The cheery gentleman on the end of the phone offered to come out to the neighbourhood and look for the cat later that morning as he had a home check in the area.

  ‘We can bring the little fella in and scan him for a microchip, but in ninety per cent of cases, these are ferals. I find they make the best pets anyway – ferals. Don’t have the expectations of the domestic. Lovely animals if you take the time to gain their trust. Another black one though, poor little sod might have a long wait for a forever home.’

  There was an inaudible twang as one of her heartstrings was plucked.

  ‘You might like to try having a poke around number twenty-four,’ Lucy suggested. ‘The owner will be at work, but the cat seems to head for him every time.’

  Knowing it was less welcome than a ravenous fox in a hen coop full of fat chickens, she could only assume the cat was a reincarnated former acquaintance of George’s who had come back to exact some form of twisted, allergy-related revenge.

  The King’s Arms public house sat beside the River Douse as it wound its playful course around Renborough town centre and out into the countryside. In the summer, the large riverside beer garden was a major attraction. In winter, an open fire proved equally appealing. Whatever the season, the view across the river was stunning and, even in inclement weather, large windows offered the same impressive view, albeit from behind the glass. It was always bustling with people and the evening of Vernon’s retirement party was no exception.

  Pat, in her whispered and unobtrusive way, had been pushing for all company employees to come dressed as children’s toys or characters. Tompkins was, after all, a toy wholesaler. People responded with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Vernon had merely donned a Mr Men tie, while others had taken the trouble to cobble together home-made costumes of superheroes or characters from nursery rhymes. Jess was a particularly adult Little Red Riding Hood, complete with a black laced bodice and strangely erotic white, thigh-high stockings. Lucy was a vague approximation of Tom Baker’s Doctor Who but was relying totally on her accurate facsimile of his trademark scarf for identification. And one of the men from the warehouse had hired an expensive Buzz Lightyear costume. He spent a lot of the evening waving his laser gun in people’s faces and Connor threatened several times to send him to infinity and beyond if he didn’t pack it in.

  Adam had come as Chucky.

  ‘So, I’d like to end with a toast for old Vern,’ Adam said, his fake scars already having petrified a small boy who’d accidentally wandered into the function room looking for the toilets. ‘A man of few words, and even fewer talents. Ha ha. So, ladies, gentlemen and Pat – only kidding there, Pat-a-Cake…’ Pat’s head sank even further into the hood of her teddy bear onesie. ‘If you would kindly raise your glasses to Vern.’

  ‘To Vern!’ Everyone stood to toast the man who had given the company the best years of his life but had only been given a stomach ulcer and a novelty clock in return. (Adam had persuaded a local toy manufacturer to make a bespoke Magic Roundabout clock, as Vern had a soft spot for that particular children’s programme.)

  ‘God bless him and all who sail in him,’ Adam continued, still waving his glass about. ‘And as we’re on the subject of ships, have you heard the one about the old sailor and the prostitute? He put on his uniform—’

  ‘Thank you, Adam.’ Richard Tompkins stood up. ‘Your fifteen-minute toast was most eloquent but perhaps we should let Vernon take the floor?’

  Vernon spoke for less than a minute and then returned to his seat – his verbal brevity one of the reasons for his popularity. He looked quite moved by the clock and kept stroking Florence and Dougal when he thought no one was looking, but Lucy noticed. It had been a thoughtful idea of Adam’s. He did have them occasionally.

  Now that the formal presentation was over, people lined up to pile their tiny white tea plates ridiculously high with assorted buffet food. The pub had done a lovely spread and Pat had been in earlier to hang Happy Retirement bunting and scatter silver helium balloons.

  ‘I see Mr Tompkins has brought a hot date along,’ said Sonjit to a table of female colleagues.

  ‘She’s not all that,’ huffed Jess, whom Lucy suspected had a tiny sugar-daddy-type crush on their boss.

  ‘I think this one’s a keeper,’ Sonjit continued. ‘Apparently, he took her to Belgium over Easter, when he went on that extended business trip. She’s very glamorous – quite the trophy girlfriend.’

  ‘Aww, that’s lovely,’ Lucy said. ‘Everyone deserves to find love. He’s been single for years.’

  She craned forward to assess the lady concerned, but her view was largely obscured by a nervous Pat, bobbing about in front of the couple, waving platters of smoked salmon vol-au-vents and vegetarian sausage rolls.

  ‘Hrmph,’ Jess muttered. ‘I spoke to her in the ladies’ earlier and she was rather too gushy about it all for my liking. All lipstick and liposuction. She’s after his money. I know the type…’

  After a small glass of Prosecco and a wobbly feeling in her knees, Lucy tucked herself in the corner to sip lime and sodas as everyone mingled around her. She loosened her scarf and wafted it in front of her face to cool down. Jess was near the bar, throwing her head back and laughing as though she was with the funniest man this side of the Watford Gap, even though it was only the young lad who drove one of the forklifts. Moments later, collecting her third large glass of wine, she glanced across at Lucy and beckoned her over, but Lucy shook her head, content to be tucked away from the hordes.

  ‘Lucy? All alone? Room for a little one? Budge up, budge up.’ Adam was clutching a bottle of house red by the neck and tried to add a measure to Lucy’s empty tumbler.

  ‘Not for me.’ She tried to cover the top of her glass but wine dribbled over her fingers.

  ‘Come on. You don’t have to play Miss Goody Two-Shoes with me. We’re not at work now. What happens in the pub, stays in the pub. You know me? Well, not in the biblical sense, but there’s still time. Ha ha.’

  Lucy briefly closed her eyes but unfortunately he was still there when she opened them.

  ‘I don’t like to talk shippety-shop on a night out, but well done for sorting those problems earlier in the week. Deftly done. I’ll make sure I big you up to Sam-the-Man on Monday.’

  ‘Except, of course, she’s a woman.’

  ‘Yes, yes. You don’t need to take me so literary.’

  Lucy cast a desperate glance across the room at Jess an
d wished she’d thought to put the locket on, to give her the nerve to tell Adam where to stick his problems, if nothing else – not that she believed it possessed special powers but at that desperate moment, it would have been worth a try.

  ‘So, anyway,’ Adam said, leaning in closer. ‘There was this old sailor who visited a prostitute…’

  Chapter 6

  Sunday evening, as Lucy cut out a crescent shape from thick cardboard to support the blade of Poldark’s scythe, there was an impatient rapping at her front door. She reached for the remote and turned down the sound on the Create and Craft channel, abandoning her project temporarily.

  Several years ago she’d knitted a two-foot-high Harry Hill on a whim, and it was shown on his TV Burp. Encouraged by her best friend Jess, she’d been producing knitted celebrities ever since. Not many people could boast Ed Sheeran, Harry Potter and Wolverine on their sofa. Currently mid-Poldark (a bare chest, tricorn hat and scythe), she rather thought he might end up on her bed.

  She opened the door to a sulky-faced George – heavy-framed glasses magnifying his puffy eyes. Lucy was surprised how much they suited him. Clark Kent George wasn’t as intimidating as Superman George.

  ‘The scrat-bag is back.’ There was no hello, or how are you.

  ‘Scrat-bag?’

  ‘The cat-thing.’

  ‘The adorable, homeless, half-starved cat?’

  ‘No, the bag of fleas that insists on wedging its scrappy backside up between my washing appliances and smells like a dead badger.’ Was that a microscopic twinkle in his eye or had she imagined it?

  ‘Would you like me to come and remove it?’ Why he felt she was his personal cat-catcher was beyond her.

  ‘I’m hardly popping by for tea and cake.’ He noticed her nostrils flare and softened his tone. ‘It must have slipped in between my legs this morning as I was leaving for work. I thought I saw something but I wasn’t sure and didn’t have time to investigate. Forgot all about it. Came back tonight, after a particularly long day up at the NEC, flicked on the TV, fell asleep and woke up with it nestled in my lap.’

  ‘Hence the eyes?’ she asked, thinking a dozy George with a bony cat nestled in his lap was an adorable image.

  ‘Hence the eyes. And these damn glasses are causing me all sorts of problems, not least because I keep misplacing them.’ He wiggled them Eric Morecambe style and left them balanced wonkily across his nose. Although there was still no smile, Lucy was beginning to suspect he had a Jack Dee approach to humour where a straight face was all part of the act. Both his eyebrows shot up as though he was waiting for an answer to the question he hadn’t actually asked. The glasses slipped back into place.

  ‘I’ll come over, but I really can’t take it in again.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to take it in. I’m asking you to get it out. Look.’ He tipped his head to one side, as if that would make him seem more reasonable. ‘I’ve had a long day. Eight hours talking about cardboard boxes and printing machines, and a two-hour drive each way. I want to walk into my utility room and be able to breathe. If you can’t take it, perhaps you could palm it off on the old lady between us?’

  ‘Um, no, I don’t think she’s—’

  ‘Well, whatever, Lisa, could you get it out of my house before my eyes swell up so much I can’t see to put one foot in front of the other?’

  ‘Okay, but this is the last time.’

  She waited for a thank you but was disappointed.

  And it’s Lucy, not Lisa, she added silently.

  Monday morning and Lucy was ready for work with a full half an hour to spare. She’d slept badly, having spent two hours worrying about the new general manager and the possible consequences of the planned company shake-up. For most of the night she rolled restlessly around the bed, tangling her legs in a knot of sheets and her mind in a knot of worries. But by the time the milk float rattled its way down Lancaster Road and daylight punctured the bedroom in long, thin shafts, Lucy decided the changes at work were the kick she needed. New boss – new me, she reasoned.

  Brenda was right, it was a matter of confidence, but she didn’t need a bit of fancy jewellery to bring it to the fore. She enjoyed working at Tompkins more than she could have imagined when she first started and, somewhere in the back of her mind, her mother’s birthday waved its immaculately manicured hand and gave her a determination to embrace the new and not look back.

  Sam Mulligan was a petite thirty-something woman with short, cropped black hair, power-dressed to maim, kill and take no prisoners. Her no-nonsense approach meant smiles were harder to come by than tickets for a Beyoncé concert. The contrast of her black tailored suit with the bright red of her glasses, matching manicured fingernails and glossy scarlet lipstick reminded Lucy of a black widow spider. It was an image she couldn’t get out of her head for the rest of the day and one that seriously hindered her plan to be more confident around the new boss.

  Richard Tompkins gathered most of the staff upstairs to formally introduce Sam and then retreated to his glass-fronted office to conceal his golf clubs in the corner cupboard and shuffle papers. The set of poseable Marvel superheroes that usually graced the back bookshelf in unfeasible sexual positions had also been evicted before the arrival of the new manager, Lucy noticed.

  Sam took the opportunity to set out some ground rules.

  ‘I’m not Vernon and I work differently, so there will be changes. For a start, I am moving my desk into the sales office, at least to begin with. I want to be in the thick of it with you, not tucked away behind a glass door and only sought out when there is a problem.’

  Anxious glances were exchanged and Adam tugged at his tie as though he needed more air. Vernon had been a hands-off manager who trusted his team to get on with things. Now it seemed the office supervisor was going to be supervised.

  ‘Before I begin to tinker with the engine, I need to see how this machine is running. Then I can establish which components are squeaky and need oiling, and which are beyond repair. I plan to spend some time in all the departments, including the warehouse and a couple of days on the road with the delivery drivers and the reps, so I can get to know this company inside and out.’

  Suddenly Adam wasn’t the only one fiddling with his clothing.

  ‘I want you to carry on with your jobs as if I’m not there. I can assure you no major changes will be implemented until I’ve apprised myself of the current running of the company.’ She paused and smiled. ‘Talk to me, I’m here to get the best from you all and ensure Tompkins Toy Wholesaler becomes the leading supplier of toys and games in this region. I would prefer if people called me Sam. There’s no need for formality. I consider input from the staff essential if we are to work efficiently as a team. Don’t be afraid to speak up as I come from a retail background so there are a lot of areas within distribution that are new to me. Right, let’s streamline this machine and see if we can’t turn it into a Formula One winner.’

  Adam began an enthusiastic clap but stopped when he realised he was giving a solo performance.

  ‘Well said, Sam.’ He flashed her a smile and gave her a conspiratorial wink, as though she was his best buddy. ‘And I, in turn, would like to say a few words and welcome you to our little family, because I think of my team as family. You’ll find I run a tight ship, but it’s full of happy sailors and…’

  ‘I swear, if he wheels that joke out again…’ muttered Connor.

  ‘Thank you for the welcome, Adam, but I think we need to press on.’

  ‘Absolutely, mon capitan.’ The smile remained on his lips but had fallen from his eyes.

  ‘That said, if you would come with me?’ and she motioned for him to follow.

  Moments later they were heaving the dated, solid pine desk out from her office and setting it up in the corner of the sales office.

  Absent-mindedly counting the agate beads on her bracelet through her fingers, Lucy tried to concentrate on the order she was processing, but she felt hot and her left foot was repeatedly
bouncing up and down over her right. According to Brenda, agate was a stone of strength, courage and calm. As her fingers worked their way frantically around the bracelet, she remained unconvinced.

  ‘Thank you, Adam. Now I can start to assess the company from the ground up.’ Sam settled into her chair, pulled out an A4 notepad and, occasionally glancing around the sales team, she made copious notes. Everyone, including Adam, was head down and focused.

  She’s good, thought Lucy. I don’t stand a chance.

  Exhausted, Lucy threw her keys on the coffee table and collapsed into her squishy armchair. It had been a long day. She kicked off her shoes and they landed at odd angles across her stripy fireside rug. Leaning back, she stretched her arms up to the ceiling and yawned. For a moment she was painfully aware of the silence. There was no one to ask how her day had been or to make her a much-needed cup of tea.

  As she stared at nothing and wished she had at least a cat of her own to come home to, the locket caught her eye. It was next to her keys on the low coffee table where she’d abandoned it, slightly concerned her unpleasant neighbour might rugby-tackle her to the ground and proclaim undying love if she wore it. It sat in a shaft of early evening sun, catching the light and reflecting a beam back at her.

  ‘What’s so special about you then?’ she asked the locket as she fingered the delicate filigree edge and let the chain run through her fingers. It felt warmer to the touch than metal should – almost glowing. Flipping it open, she squinted at the ornate, tiddly writing, and angled it towards the light to get a closer look. That couldn’t be right…

  Although she had only been half-focusing when Brenda recited the words, she was pretty certain the inscription in the locket had changed.

  Chapter 7

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Brenda chirped when she saw Lucy at the door. ‘Tea? I still have some of the valerian and chamomile and I’m sensing you might need it. There’s some fruit cake in the tin as well.’