The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker

by Jenni Keer

  ‘Don’t suppose you’ve seen a tiny, white lop-eared rabbit about?’ she asked.

  ‘No, sorry. Have you lost one?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Chloe left the hutch door open last night and he’s gone missing. He shouldn’t be too hard to spot as he’s only truly camouflaged when we have snow.’

  ‘I can check my back garden now for you, if you like? What’s he called?’

  ‘Turnip. That’s what you get when you let a four-year-old choose the name. Thank you. I’ve asked all the neighbours to keep an eye out and I put up some posters with my number on. Poor Chloe is really upset. Spread the word.’

  ‘What is it with your neighbourhood and lost animals? Are you like a Bermuda Triangle for mammals or something?’ said Jess, as they rummaged around in the begonias and peered over the wall into Brenda’s garden. But there was no Turnip to be found and with time ticking on, the girls gathered their bags and headed to their cars for a second time.

  Thursday was sunny, but Friday was wet and windy, the sudden drop in temperature making Lucy dig out a cardigan. As a rule, people looked forward to Fridays at work. They were certainly a damn sight better than Mondays, but for the sales office at Tompkins Toy Wholesaler it meant the intimidating presence of Sam back in their office.

  Adam was having what Jess called ‘A Mare’ and made sure everyone suffered as a result.

  ‘Can I have a volunteer to get the initial order for the new Norwich Cheeky Monkeys Toy Shop sewn up by ten? They open in two weeks and if we cock up their first big order, they won’t place another one. Come on, ladies…’ Connor’s sigh drifted out from behind his partition. ‘We need to show them we’re made of metal,’ Adam said.

  ‘That’s a totally unrealistic ask, Adam,’ Sonjit said. ‘Have you seen how much there is to do?’

  ‘Look, I’m going to be deep in the doo-doo of a dog if we can’t pull this off. I told her it was no biggie.’ He jerked his head in the direction of Richard Tompkins’ office, where Sam was running through the monthly sales figures. ‘So don’t make me look like an idiot.’ Lucy bit back the obvious retort. The locket may have been increasing her self-confidence, but she wasn’t totally suicidal. ‘We don’t want the old crow thinking we’re slackers,’ he added.

  ‘She looks more like a black widow spider to me,’ Lucy mused. ‘All that black with a splash of red.’ She instantly regretted her comment because she was warming to her new boss, but the locket was poking its oar in.

  ‘The Black Widow. Nice one,’ said Adam in a loud voice.

  ‘Shhh…’ Lucy didn’t want everyone to know what she thought of Sam’s wardrobe.

  ‘Don’t sweat it, she’s in with old Dickie boy, so unless she’s got supernatural hearing, I think we’re safe.’

  ‘We could divide the workload up into sections,’ Lucy ventured, returning to the problem in hand. ‘Rather than someone wrestling with the whole order.’

  ‘If you think you can do my job, then be my all-expenses-paid guest, Lucy-Lou, because I’m stressed to old bollocks over here. She’s trying to squeeze magic from a very overworked wand.’

  Can I do this? Lucy asked herself. Probably, her new braver self answered. So she took Adam at his word, collected the order from his desk and cast her eye over it to assess the nature of the beast. Then she divided it up into the different categories (wooden toys, preschool age, electronic, outdoor games, and so on) and photocopied sections for Pat, Sonjit and herself to focus on. The office still needed to run as normal, but with three of them off the phones, they could wrap it up for Adam’s deadline. Pat and Sonjit were heads down immediately, working on the sections Lucy had allocated them and didn’t question her assumed authority.

  ‘So where are we with the Cheeky Monkeys order?’ Sam asked as she came out of her finance meeting with Richard Tompkins a little while later.

  ‘Nearly diddly-done, your majesty.’ Adam did a theatrical bow as Sam walked past. ‘I’ve got Sonjit, Pat and Lucy working together and they are just doing a final check. We wouldn’t want any errors, would we, girls? It’s been intense, but we’re almost there.’

  ‘Excellent delegating, Adam. Well done. I’m impressed.’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing. We thrive on the pressure up here in the sales office. As I always say, if you can’t ride a bumpy storm on a weathered horse, then what sort of man are you?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Sam, dropping into her seat and sliding her glasses from the top of her head to her nose.

  Lucy shot Adam an angry stare. He had the grace to look uncomfortable, and Lucy had the grace not to make an issue of it. Although she could feel her confidence growing, she wasn’t prepared to make a big announcement in front of her boss or undermine Adam. After all, he’d supported the time off she’d had for Brenda.

  Later, however, as he sidled up to her to ask if she could nip downstairs to do some photocopying, Lucy looked him straight in the eye and told him she was busy. He walked around the desk to Pat and bent down, and she heard a long sigh escape from Pat’s side. Her chair wheels squeaked and the auburn head bobbed up.

  By the afternoon, and under Sam’s watchful eye, the office was running smoothly. The South-West area rep secured a large Tramp’O’Bounce order and Adam successfully negotiated a better discount with a supplier. (Talking the talk over the phone, Adam could do. Paperwork, not so much.) At four o’clock, Sam left them to investigate a complaint regarding a faulty foam blaster that had shot the soft bullet out with so much force during a customer demonstration that it had smashed the main shop window. Although everyone continued to work hard in her absence, the atmosphere became noticeably more relaxed.

  ‘So, what’s the word on the street?’ Adam asked, wandering over to the back of the office where an animated discussion was taking place.

  ‘Do you mean what are the ladies talking about?’ Connor said. ‘Not sure it’s your bag, to be honest. Girl stuff.’

  ‘Unless we’re talking about freaky sexual fetishes, I’m probably right there with you. Ha ha. Has anyone got any freaky fetishes? Sonjit?’ He looked at his colleague with hopeful eyes.

  Sonjit’s cheeks flushed briefly and she held Adam’s gaze for a fraction too long. ‘We were discussing romantic comedies.’

  ‘Well, then you’ve misjudged me, my fair and pleasant maidens. Don’t mind a romcom myself. In fact, we have quite a collection of them at home.’

  Connor looked disappointed not to be backed up. ‘Really?’

  Adam coughed. ‘Of course, I prefer a violent war film or a gritty thriller. But real men are in touch with their feminine side, Connor. Plus, I read you are more likely to get lucky after you’ve sat through the soppy crap with a woman. It gets their hormones going or something.’

  Sonjit rolled her eyes and put her hand to her headset as a call came in. The friendly chatter dried up and Adam started to wander back towards his desk, getting caught up in the cord from the blinds as it snagged on a cuff button. Everyone immediately pretended to be busy.

  Lucy’s internal line buzzed as Adam sat down at his desk and ran his fingers randomly up and down the keyboard. It was Pat.

  ‘Adam said “we”. Do you think he’s got a girlfriend?’

  Chapter 23

  The phone call from Lucy’s mother that evening was more cautious after the napkin refusal, allowing Lucy to have an equal share in the conversation. She chatted to her mother about what was happening at work and was pleasantly surprised to find the conversation was a two-way affair for a change. Feeling buoyed up by her mother’s encouraging comments, she even dared to suggest there might be a man on the blurry horizon. The idea the spells would work was ridiculous, but she was at least getting closer to George, and he was starting to grow on her.

  Feeling positive after the phone call and her successful day at the office, Lucy continued her mission to be organised in other areas of her life and decided to tidy up the kitchen. She emptied out the cupboards onto the now clear kitchen table and tried to organise them in a more l
ogical manner. Grouping cleaning products and washing powders together, she placed them under the sink. Tins and packets went in a low cupboard, plates and bowls in another. The high cupboard over the kettle now held all the cups and glasses, along with the tea, her mother’s ground coffee, sugar and special chocolate sprinkles for her hot chocolate – and maybe one day soon her own cupcake of life.

  As she closed the last overhead cupboard, she noticed something moving about outside in the pots by the shed. She leaned over the sink to get a better look and noticed a patch of white fluff. Turnip? But he was too high off the ground to be a dwarf rabbit.

  Scratbag crept from the begonias with a mouthful of white.

  ‘Nooo!’

  Lucy rapped on the window and the cat stopped dead. He turned his head, white bunny swinging in his jaws, and gave her an indifferent catty stare. She rapped louder and then dashed to the back door, fumbling to unlock it. Scratbag knew he’d been caught red-handed and dropped the bundle to the ground before making an elegant getaway over the wall into Brenda’s garden.

  Kicking on her turquoise Crocs, Lucy rushed to the white, fluffy, inanimate pile. Turnip had nibbled his last bundle of hay and lay on the grass a matted mess of blood, fur and mud. Poor Chloe.

  She gently picked up the rabbit, respectfully wrapped him in an old towel and nipped out the front to copy down her neighbour’s number. A phone call would be easier than a face-to-face.

  ‘I’m sorry but I’ve found Turnip this evening in my garden. It looks like he was erm…got by a fox, but I’m sure it was quick and painless.’

  ‘Oh dear, Chloe will be so upset but thank you for letting me know. It’s been a fraught two days. I guessed something like this had happened.’

  ‘Shall I dispose of him for you?’ Lucy looked at the grubby bundle and decided it wouldn’t be kind for Chloe to see him in that state.

  ‘She’ll want to bury him properly. When we lost our other rabbit, she tied flowers around his head and put pictures in with him. It’s what you do when you are four. Shall I come over and collect him?’

  ‘Erm, I’ll pop him over in a bit. I’m just in the middle of something.’

  She tenderly washed the tiny bundle and placed it on a towel. As she grabbed her hairdryer from the bedroom to dry poor Turnip off, there was a knock at her front door.

  That knock.

  She dumped the hairdryer on the kitchen table and walked down the hall.

  ‘The offer of coffee from earlier, does it still stand?’ George asked, as soon as she opened the door.

  ‘It’s a bit inconvenient at the moment.’ Bloody man. Although she was running around like a crazy thing trying to get him interested in her as a romantic prospect, his timing was awful.

  ‘I wanted to explain why I was so rude after the fire.’

  ‘Oh, okay. Come in.’ Maybe he was going to apologise.

  George, with his huge shoulders slumped forward and head low, followed her into the hallway, where they both lingered for a moment. George’s nostrils flared slightly and he pulled a troubled face.

  ‘Yes, there’s still a whiff of smoke. I think it’s in all the furnishings and I can’t seem to shift it,’ Lucy said.

  ‘No, you won’t. The smell will linger for weeks.’

  She turned to the kitchen but George stopped. His huge frame blocked out the light from the glazed front door and made Lucy feel small and fragile.

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘Look, I realise I’m a difficult and insular man. I don’t have adequate social skills and I say what I think, whether people want to hear it or not. I can’t dress up my sentiments with flowery words and I really do call a spade a spade. It’s how I am. But I’m not intentionally rude. I’m so busy with work that it’s become my life. I forget people exist outside of the factory, and when I come across them I don’t know how to speak to them.’

  ‘This being your cardboard-box-making factory?’

  ‘It’s rather more involved than that,’ he huffed. ‘We supply packaging for the food industry, and since we acquired a major supermarket deal I’m all over the place and rarely work from the office. There’s a lot going on at the moment and I find it difficult not to let my work eat into my private life.’

  She suddenly felt a bit sorry for him. At least she had a good group of friends. ‘Let the big boss worry about all that. Try and switch off when you come home.’

  ‘I am the big boss.’

  ‘You own the company?’

  He nodded.

  ‘When we first met and you said you worked in packaging I thought you meant on the production line or something.’

  ‘I have done in my time. It’s important to understand all the processes involved, and every aspect of the company, in order to be able to oversee it properly. Effective management can’t be confined to an office.’

  Lucy thought of Sam and her hands-on approach.

  ‘But sometimes I wonder what it’s all for,’ he continued. ‘Do I really want to work for the next thirty years and drop down dead with a heart attack, like my father?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you’d lost your dad.’ She thought back to the black and white photo by his bed but was not quite brave enough to reach for his arm.

  His eyes went dark and his voice was quieter. ‘E.G.A. Packaging was his baby: Edward George Aberdour.’ He shrugged. ‘But if the pressure gets me in the end, what good is money in the bank to a dead man?’

  ‘Do you enjoy your job?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but I don’t have a life outside it. I don’t have a social life or even a hobby.’

  ‘You’re not seriously considering learning to knit?’ she joked, leaning her bottom on the hall radiator and sticking her chest out the teeniest bit, in an attempt to look alluring.

  ‘Absolutely not. I don’t care if Russell Crowe is a proficient knitter; it’s a girl thing. But it’s why I took on Scratbag temporarily. He’s something to come home to, even if I am sneezing within minutes of coming through the front door. Meeting you has made me realise I need to start getting out there, making friends…’

  Lucy wondered if perhaps there was something to these locket shenanigans after all. She fluttered her eyelids and flicked her hair over her shoulder.

  ‘It would be good to have a friend who gives me more than a rubbish meow in response and who doesn’t view me as a romantic possibility.’

  Or not.

  There was an awkward pause. Lucy shifted from foot to foot, conscious of the bitter smoke smell, and of George taking up more than his fair share of this small space and making her feel vulnerable.

  ‘But we’re digressing. The real reason for my visit was to explain my disproportionate reaction to the fire. When I realised you were still inside, and knowing how quickly a fire can rage out of control, I was worried. And then it transpired you’d been careless with candles and I saw red. You could have died.’ This time his tone wasn’t as angry as the night of the fire. It was almost as if he cared.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Lucy moved towards the kitchen, as being this close to George was unsettling. Her insides flipped as he followed.

  ‘I’ve had a tricky couple of years and had to learn the hard way that people aren’t always what they seem. It’s made me suspicious and even less likely to open up than I was before.’ George said as Lucy flicked the kettle on. ‘But talking to Brenda, she obviously thinks you are a sensible and trustworthy person, so I thought it was a good idea to tell you about…’ George stopped mid-sentence as he noticed Turnip lying prostrate across her kitchen table. ‘Are you…’ He paused, searching for the right words. ‘Are you in the middle of hair-drying a dead rabbit?’

  ‘Umm…’ she said, her voice rising in pitch as she tried to choose suitable words.

  ‘Do I even want to know why?’ George folded his wide arms across his chest.

  ‘Possibly not.’

  ‘It’s the missing rabbit from the posters, isn’t it? I saw one pinned to the lamp post
when I got home yesterday.’

  ‘I’m afraid so, and the little girl who owned him is very upset.’

  ‘So you’re styling him? Giving him a quick cut and blow-dry?’

  ‘I found him in the back garden and I didn’t think the little girl would want him back in this state.’ She gently stroked Turnip’s velvety ears as he lay across the towel, and she decided not to tell tales on Scratbag.

  ‘Is pet mortician another one of your bizarre hobbies?’

  ‘At least I have hobbies. And friends.’ She regretted her tone. This was not how to win someone over.

  ‘So be honest, wrap him in the towel and tell the mother it’s not a pretty sight. It seems ridiculous to pretend otherwise. I understand it’s upsetting, but that’s life. The rabbit was obviously killed by a fox, but nature is cruel. I thought the whole idea of pets was to teach kids this stuff.’

  Sanctimonious git. How dare he criticise when she was trying to do a kind thing?

  ‘Not when they’re four, for goodness’ sake! I can imagine you’ll be the sort of parent who responds to a question about death with a PowerPoint presentation depicting the various stages of decay occurring in the human body – maggots and all. What does it matter if the toddler has nightmares for years and ends up in therapy? At least they know the truth, right? Let’s not even start on Father Christmas.’ Lucy glared at George.

  An eyebrow rose to meet his thick, dark hairline. ‘Look, I didn’t come here for an argument, I’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime, so let’s take a rain check, shall we?’

  Lucy backtracked. Not only did his cross look send a thrilling ripple of something through parts of her body that had lain dormant for far too long, but her mother had been so thrilled her spinster daughter might be bringing a date to the Big Birthday that it would be foolish to alienate him at this stage. After all, she didn’t have to actually like him, just convince her mother she did.