The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker

by Jenni Keer

  ‘George?’ Lucy offered.

  ‘Yes. George. George.’ She repeated the word a couple of times, trying to lodge it more securely in her memory. ‘He’s a lovely lad and a good listener. I told him that as much as I loved the beautiful flowers, his time was worth far more to me, and he said he was starting to realise that. Apparently, he’s making an effort to spend more time with his own mum.’

  ‘Those of us who don’t have enough money to buy ourselves out of trouble every time things go pear-shaped learned that years ago,’ said Lucy, notching up another reason why he wasn’t a great match for her. ‘I expect he will pop by to say hi. I think he gets lonely, rattling around in that big house with no real friends or family visiting. Perhaps you could invite him in again. I think he works too hard.’

  Brenda threw her a stern look. ‘If you are trying to convince me that I will be the one doing George a favour, it was a nice try. But I’m not gaga quite yet, Missy. It’s wonderful that you care so much, and I think George genuinely cares too.’ She emphasised his name almost to prove to herself that she could remember it. ‘But what I really want to hear about is where we are up to with the locket. Have you given him the feverfew tea yet?’

  ‘To be honest, I’ve been so preoccupied with other things, I’d forgotten all about it.’ With everything at work, and her worries about Emily, the locket had slithered to the bottom of her list of priorities.

  ‘Well, get on it, my girl. There are a few spells to complete yet, and I want to see a conclusion to all of this before…’ She trailed off.

  ‘Of course. In fact, I’ll nip into town now for the cupcake ingredients. It’s not late. I can have them baked and around to him within a couple of hours. He won’t know what’s hit him.’

  ‘Love,’ Brenda said. ‘Love will have hit him. And it is more powerful than a speeding train.’

  ‘Why would you randomly bake me cupcakes? It’s not my birthday, for goodness’ sake. Your excitable friend insisted on plying me with some foreign liqueur and a home-made flapjack at the weekend. And there was that woman from the WI who tried to force-feed me cheesecake when I first moved in. What are you all up to? Everyone seems to want to shove cake at me. It’s hardly like I need fattening up. Are you all after something? Or is there some weird cult operating in the area that I’m unaware of? First you fatten us up, then you sacrifice us to the Neighbourhood Watch God or something?’

  Lucy hadn’t realised Jess’s impromptu visit to George had involved bringing her own refreshments. And home-made flapjack. That was a first for Jess.

  ‘It’s a thank you for looking in on Brenda last weekend.’

  ‘Not necessary.’

  ‘I know. But please take them. They’re dairy-free.’

  He made a grumbly sound but took the plastic container.

  ‘I know it was a bit of disaster, but I was hoping you could do the same again this weekend?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Ah. Bribery. The truth will out. You’d better come in. You can help me eat them.’

  There was a pause. George cleared his throat and tried again.

  ‘What I meant to say was: would you like to come in for a cup of tea and share these delicious-looking cupcakes? I would very much like it if you would.’

  Lucy grinned and skipped over the threshold.

  Sitting on the black leather corner sofa in his minimalist living room with Scratbag on her lap, Lucy waited for her host to make an appearance with the promised tea. This room really needed a woman’s touch. Actually, it really needed someone’s touch. A solitary geometric abstract hung over a bare mantelpiece that didn’t even have a clock on it. Having spent so much time surrounded by so much time at Brenda’s, the absence of timepieces was noticeable, and the silence unsettling.

  The locket was warm against her skin and she could swear she felt a tiny electric tingle as George returned with two mugs awkwardly clasped together in one hand and the plastic box of cherry and chocolate cupcakes with their dubious magical properties in the other. Scratbag immediately abandoned her lap and made for George, rubbing around his legs. Breaking into a smile at the sight of the cat, possibly the first unguarded one Lucy had seen him give, George unceremoniously deposited everything on the coffee table, some of the tea slopping over the edge and onto the glass top. He could have at least put the cakes on a plate, she thought. Her mother would have turned purple and collapsed on the floor at the thought of presenting them in a plastic tub.

  Despite a cursory rub of his nose, George bent over to pet Scratbag behind the ears and the silence was broken by a loud, rumbly purr. There was an awkward pause as Lucy and George caught each other’s eye and both looked away.

  ‘I like the picture,’ she said, pointing to the abstract.

  ‘I don’t. I only bought it because I couldn’t stand looking at the bare wall any more. It looks like bits of Swiss roll. Twelve hundred pounds is a lot to pay for a picture of chopped-up cake, but I was in a hurry.’

  ‘When I look at it I think of colourful balls of wool stacked in the cubbyholes of a yarn shop. It’s really eye-catching.’

  ‘If I ever change it for a decent picture, you can have it.’

  ‘You can’t give a twelve-hundred-pound painting away.’ There it was again – George’s flippant attitude towards money.

  ‘Why not? You like it. I don’t.’

  Lucy sighed, and momentarily wondered what it must be like to have the kind of money where you thought nothing of giving away an expensive painting, like you might pass on a spare can opener to a friend, because you happened to have two.

  ‘So, how’s the knitting going? The furry muffs?’ George asked.

  ‘Twiddlemuffs. They’re for people with dementia: knitted tubes with ribbons, buttons and twiddly bits for people to, well, twiddle. It keeps anxious hands occupied and alleviates stress. I’ll drop you off some leaflets and perhaps you can take them into work?’

  ‘Of course, but you do know that a muff—’

  ‘Yes, thank you. But, historically, it was a perfectly acceptable word for something you put your hands in to keep them warm. I popped along to Renborough Hospital last week to drop off some more and it was so heartening to see an old gentleman with one on his lap, fiddling away. The nurse said it’s drastically cut down on his wandering.’

  ‘How very community-spirited of you. Hmm…these actually look rather good.’ He reached over for a cupcake.

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  George devoured it in two bites and then grabbed a second, which he practically ate in one. He didn’t comment on a bitter taste, so adding extra cherries and using a high cocoa content chocolate had worked.

  After a couple of minutes, he began to look slightly uncomfortable. He pulled a face and stretched open his mouth, sticking out his tongue.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Not sure. What’s in these?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you are allergic to something else?’

  ‘My mouth feels tingly. I get this sometimes with apples, but then I’m not a big fruit eater as a rule.’ He was still contorting his face and his cheeks were flushed. ‘I feel a bit sick.’

  ‘You did stuff them in rather.’

  ‘Oh, tho it’s my fault you’ve put thomething poithonous in these bloody caketh? Are you trying to poithon me?’

  ‘No, no…’ blustered Lucy. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘My tongue is thwelling. I can feel my thwoat getting tighter.’

  George’s face had gone pink and slightly blotchy, and he looked really unwell.

  ‘Oh. My. God. I need to get you to the hospital. Right now. At this time of night we can scoot through town in five minutes. I’ll grab my car keys.’

  ‘I don’t like the look of that. Come with me.’

  A passing nurse whisked a blotchy George through a set of double doors before they’d even approached the triage desk, not realising Lucy was with him, so she slunk into a chair at the back of the Renborough Accident and Emergency waiting
room and sipped at a watery coffee. Trying in vain to stop her bottom sliding off the shiny plastic chairs – a rainbow of green, red and bright blue, bolted to the floor in military rows – she gazed around at the unfortunate souls who had found themselves at hospital on a sticky June evening.

  Rows of tired faces, many with traces of blood and pained expressions, sat awkwardly on the hard chairs with body language suggesting they understood they were there for the long haul. Most were on their phones, playing games of Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans to see them through the lengthy wait.

  Lucy was finally called over and directed to resus, where she found a noticeably less pink and swollen George lying down with his gigantic feet dangling over the end of the hospital bed.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to wait for me. I assumed you’d gone.’

  ‘I couldn’t leave you. I felt responsible. Anyway, how will you get home?’ She walked over to his bed and stood awkwardly before him.

  ‘I can call a taxi. Don’t think I’m going anywhere for a while though.’

  ‘Well, I stayed. Wish I’d thought to grab my knitting bag. I could have knitted some furry muffs while I was waiting.’ She smiled. ‘So what’s the story?’

  ‘They gave me an adrenaline injection and I’ve been on oxygen for a while.’ He indicated to a mask by the bed. ‘Turns out I’m allergic to cherries, on top of everything else.’

  ‘Sorry, George. I had no idea.’

  He sighed. ‘It’s okay. Neither did I.’

  Chapter 30

  As George suspected, he was kept in overnight for monitoring. He was given further medication and was having bloods taken when Lucy eventually left that evening. Still feeling guilty, she insisted he told her when he was being discharged so she could collect him, and he rang early the following morning. Lucy contacted work and asked for the morning off so she could bring a friend home from hospital. Adam assumed she meant Brenda and Lucy chose not to correct him.

  The journey back, Lucy realised later, was one of the longest conversations she’d ever had with her neighbour. His answers were initially blunt and brutally honest (‘Are you feeling better now?’ ‘No.’), but the longer they were confined to the intimacy of the car, the more relaxed his conversation became. She negotiated her way around the bypass and back through town. Apart from catching his enormous knee every time she went for the gearstick, she felt more comfortable with him than at any point before.

  As they waited at the high street traffic lights, he finally began to open up.

  ‘I know you think packaging is boring, but it really isn’t.’ Where had that statement come from? He certainly didn’t need to justify anything to her. ‘And it’s not like it was part of my life plan. I studied economics at uni and was a qualified financial risk analyst when my father dropped dead at fifty-two. I put my life on hold to oversee the sale of the company.’

  George shuffled in his seat and Lucy glanced over at his strong profile as she pulled away from the lights. He did have lovely eyes.

  ‘Five years on and the company is growing, my team are a great bunch, and somehow I’m hooked. It’s a fascinating industry, especially at a time when everyone is pushing for less plastic and biodegradable alternatives. We intend to be market leaders in this area.’

  Lucy decided he was suffering after-effects from the hospital drugs because now he’d started talking, he didn’t stop. Most un-George-like behaviour. Normally she’d have joined in with some comment, but she was interested to see where this was leading. There was something endearing about his stilted attempts to be conversational.

  He cleared his throat to fill the pause. ‘And you won’t believe it, looking at the size of me now, but I was a three-pound, fourteen-ounce premature baby and spent most of my childhood as the runt of the class.’

  She glanced over. ‘Correct. Don’t believe it,’ she said.

  ‘Honestly. My growth spurt didn’t kick in until my late teens and then, oh boy, did it kick in. With unflattering NHS glasses until I was old enough to switch to contacts, and a lactose intolerance that meant I was the butt of dairy-based jokes ad nauseam, socialising never came naturally.’

  Was that it? Was he trying to be sociable? She felt flattered and was aware of the locket under her top. Had she done enough with her potentially life-threatening cupcakes to move the spells on? Because as she got to know George better, she was starting to hope the locket did possess magic properties after all. George Aberdour as a boyfriend was starting to appeal. Big time.

  As they pulled into Lancaster Road, George asked, ‘Why do you drive this horrendous banana yellow car?’

  ‘Because I ordered a pretty metallic blue one, but there was a mix-up at the garage so I settled for this.’ Lucy didn’t mind the colour now as much as she had at first. At least she could always find it in a car park.

  ‘I’m guessing you didn’t make a fuss? Try and beat them down in price for their mistake? Get angry and demand a refund?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t worth it.’

  ‘You are such a pushover.’

  ‘Was. I think I’d probably stand up for myself better if it happened now.’ She pulled up alongside his Audi and performed a passable parallel park in front of Brenda’s house.

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said, squeezing out of the car like a grown-up getting out of a pedal car. ‘I like talking to you. It’s good to have a friend.’ There was a slight crinkle around the eyes and Lucy willed him to give her his heart-stopping smile. ‘Although, and don’t take this the wrong way, don’t ever bake me Thank You cupcakes again.’

  ‘I know he could have died and everything, but it is sort of funny,’ said Jess, after Lucy had filled her in. ‘More importantly though, did it work?’

  She was at Lucy’s flat again, inviting herself over for the evening to watch Dirty Dancing for a hot-man fix and to try and persuade Lucy to let her experiment on her face with autumn colours. Lucy had never been so popular with her friend. Jess had abandoned her usual full-on dating regime and was content to spend most of her free time at the flat, even if a lot of it was spent at the living-room window.

  ‘Despite the allergy disaster, it seems so.’ The first thing Lucy had done after dropping George home was check the locket.

  ‘So you’ve got the next spell then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  Knowing she would be like a dog with a rawhide chew until she’d shown her the locket, Lucy placed her knitting on the coffee table, dragged the chain over her head and handed it to Jess.

  ‘You know I can’t open it. C’mon, Luce. Stop being a tease.’

  With no problem at all, Lucy opened the locket and passed it back. Jess read out the spell.

  ‘A drop of his blood on a linen square

  To carry your true love everywhere.’

  ‘The poor man has had to rescue me from a fire, nearly caught me trespassing in his house, and was almost killed when I poisoned him. Now, now I’m supposed to impale him with something sharp and take the very blood from his veins. He would be totally justified in having me arrested. Or having some sort of restraining order put in place, at the very least.’

  ‘The police is about the only emergency service you haven’t had to involve, apart from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, of course,’ said Jess.

  ‘To be honest, until all the spells have been revealed, I’m not ruling either of them out.’

  Rain was forecast for the rest of the week, which Lucy thought was bad sportsmanship for June, but temperatures were noticeably warmer, so she dug out some summer dresses in anticipation of the coming season. She was starting to wear more colourful clothes, no longer worried that her wardrobe would draw attention to her, and had even found time during her lunch hours to crochet a vibrant pink, short-sleeved cardigan. Her grandmother’s button tin had yielded some wacky mismatched buttons to complete the look. Derek and Roy had both commented how pretty she looked, which had in turn put an extra bounce in her step and an
attractive flush on her cheeks.

  Work was hectic, but Lucy thrived on being busy. She was getting in early and leaving late, and found herself singing out loud and smiling at everyone, even Adam. Although after her trip to A&E she felt more like punching him, because he spent the remainder of the day making tedious jokes about her poisoning everyone and how glad he was it wasn’t her day to do the tea round.

  ‘So, I had this dream about you last night…’ Daniel was in the office for the monthly sales meeting, which meant an office full of reps milling about waiting for Richard Tompkins to call them down to the conference room. He leaned over the partition and wiggled his eyebrows at Lucy.

  ‘Really? Do tell me all about it. In explicit detail.’ She put her chin in her hands and looked up to him with wide eyes.

  Daniel jerked his head back. ‘Oo, she has fight,’ he said, not fazed by Lucy’s response. In fact, his body language suggested it had only excited him more. Lucy heard Pat’s chair squeak backwards and, along with the rest of the office, witnessed Pat stand up and face up to Daniel over the top of the partition.

  ‘You…’ She faltered but found her voice. ‘You are a male chauvinist pig and I’ve had enough. Stop with the sexist comments or I’m going to report you.’ And then she sat back down.

  There was an eerie silence and a few uncomfortable glances until Sam burst through the main door, Richard Tompkins in tow, and announced the meeting was about to start. The reps filed out, Daniel giving Pat a nervous glance as he passed, and the low hum of the sales team started up again.

  Lucy dialled Pat’s internal line.

  ‘Way to go, Pat,’ she said. ‘Appreciate the support.’

  ‘No problem. I’ve been watching you stand up for yourself a bit more lately and it inspired me. I should be thanking you. I’ve already put my foot down at home. John doesn’t know what’s hit him. Mind you, the sex has improved. I get to do the tying up now. It’s been a revelation.’