by Jenni Keer
As was that, thought Lucy, eyebrows almost hitting her hairline, as she switched the line to take an incoming call.
Sam started to work her magic on the limp carcass that was Tompkins Toy Wholesaler. Each department had been visited, observed and was now being evaluated. Everybody knew that the company was behind the times; one look at the photocopier could tell you that, so they were expecting change, but most were hoping Sam would be gentle with them. Teaching the old dog new tricks was okay as long as you explained the trick several times and didn’t shout if he got it wrong. Nervous whispers and hushed speculation was rife as Sam shut herself away to collate the data, and Adam was asked to help drag the huge desk back into her office so she could do so in peace.
As part of her final assessment of the company, and after a promising start shifting the old and damaged stock, Sam decided to do a complete stocktake, even though the company usually only undertook them annually. This meant overtime, which was generally welcomed, but also cross-examinations over missing, damaged and faulty stock, which were not.
Persuading most of the staff to stay late one evening, Sam paired everyone up and allocated each pair a section. Lucy found herself with her new general manager but didn’t feel as nervous as she would have been without the locket to see her through. They worked together on the mezzanine floor at the back of the warehouse, counting Disney jigsaw puzzles, and Lucy respected her boss for getting her hands dirty. Richard Tompkins usually took a supervisory role in these situations. You wouldn’t find him heaving heavy boxes out from dark corners or scaling shelving to count lime green alien space hoppers.
‘I think we can have this wrapped up in half an hour. I’m sure you’ve got someone waiting for you at home,’ Sam said, perching on a pile of pallets while she caught her breath.
‘I live alone. I don’t even have a cat,’ Lucy answered, thinking briefly of Scratbag and how lovely it would be to come home to someone or something.
‘Friends to socialise with then?’
‘Not so much midweek. Sometimes a small crowd of us go out after work, although Jess and I usually do something together on a Friday or Saturday.’ She didn’t want to sound like a sad loser who stayed at home most of the time. She also didn’t mention Knit and Natter. Or her seventy-nine-year-old best friend.
‘I don’t go out at all,’ Sam said. Lucy looked up and noticed her focus intently on the stack of fifty-piece Jungle Book puzzles. ‘Too busy carving out my career to have a social life.’
‘But you are good at your job; general manager at such a young age.’
‘Nice of you to say, but I’m in my thirties. Suddenly not so young any more. And when I pause for breath and look around, I don’t really have anyone – never mind a boyfriend. Sometimes I go to work-related events, or stay away for conferences, but there’s been no man for two years. And no close girlfriends. School friends tailed off over the years and the women I come across in a professional capacity seem to see my success as a threat.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you remember me asking you if the other ladies in the office were unkind to you?’
‘Yes, but they really aren’t,’ Lucy assured her.
‘I had a lot of trouble a few years ago when I worked at a London-based firm. I hadn’t been in the job long when I got promoted and it didn’t go down well with some of the staff who had been there considerably longer than me.’
‘But if you got the promotion, you were the best person for the job.’
‘You know how women can be? There was never anything I could put my finger on, but there was a lot of whispering and giggles. I wasn’t included in things and they were uncooperative and forgetful when it came to carrying out my instructions.’
‘It was only jealousy.’
‘Absolutely. And I decided to ride it out, convinced it would die down, but it went on for months. In the end, it prevented me from doing my job properly and I had to resign. I couldn’t prove anything, but I kept encountering delayed orders and a lot of work to rule – that kind of thing.’
‘So you let them win?’ said Lucy, suddenly feeling quite indignant on her behalf.
‘Yes.’ Sam sighed. ‘I let them win, in a way. But you have to choose your battles, Lucy. And I’ve always been in it for the long game. Although I’m not sure I appreciated the social cost when I set my career goals.’ Another sigh escaped from her scarlet lips.
Lucy couldn’t bear to see Sam, someone she was slowly warming to, look so sad.
‘You could come out with Jess and me sometime, if you like,’ Lucy blurted out.
‘If that’s a genuine offer, I’d love to.’ And Sam gave her a half-smile. ‘I don’t know this area well, as I moved up for the job, so you’ll have to show me some of the places you hang out.’
Hmm, thought Lucy, I’m guessing The Yarn Shop isn’t the sort of hang-out Sam had in mind.
‘You said she could do what?’ Jess spluttered out a mouthful of Sprite as she coincided the morning coffee run with Lucy’s turn on the sales office rota.
‘Come out with us.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘I didn’t think she’d actually say yes. Besides, I felt sorry for her. I don’t think she’s got any friends.’
‘She’s our boss, Lucy. Technically more yours than mine, but still. What do you plan to sit around talking about? Because if she starts harping on about the new accounts software she’s having installed next week, I might just swing for her. I’ve got to go to Bedford for a two-day training course. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old system. This new one is going to make extra work for our department and possibly fry my already shrivelled brain in the process. Bloody woman.’
‘I didn’t think it through. I’m sorry.’
Pulling in to the last kerbside space at the top end of Lancaster Road that evening, Lucy noticed a well-dressed lady standing outside number twenty-four. She was tall and graceful, with legs up to her elbows, and she was wearing the sort of killer heels that would do a splendid job of aerating any bowling green lawn. Her glorious auburn hair fell down her back, inches from her Jennifer Lopez pert behind, and swished from shoulder to shoulder as she tried to peer through the frosted glass to spot any sign of life from within. She looked vaguely familiar, but then Lucy wasn’t great with faces.
George was rarely back before seven o’clock, so Lucy suspected the woman might have a long wait. The stranger continued to alternate between knocking and peering as Lucy walked past.
‘He’s not usually home until later. Can I take a message?’ she offered.
The woman looked Lucy up. Then down. Then up again.
‘Yes. He’s not answering my calls. Can you tell him his wife is trying to get in touch with him?’
Chapter 31
Lucy was so shocked to discover George had a wife that she went home and knitted seven rows of flesh-coloured stocking stitch for the new Poldark she’d started, without even taking off her shoes.
It was her first Etsy order – a private request for a Poldark – and she’d read it through three times, still stunned someone would pay good money for something she rattled off as she watched the television. Reluctant to sell her prototype, but so pleased with the result, she’d listed Poldarks as an option and had a lot of interest, but then the man was everywhere at the moment.
Two minutes later and she unpicked her work, because her mind was flitting around like erratic disco lights and she’d dropped a stitch in the first row. Why she was quite so flustered by this revelation about George’s private life was a mystery. Perhaps because he’d come across as such a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor that she simply couldn’t imagine him having a relationship with a woman, let alone marrying one. It would mean having to communicate. Not one of his strengths.
Brenda was equally caught out by the news when Lucy went over later to check she’d eaten, taking the half-knitted Poldark with her.
‘I don’t know how I missed that,’ she muttered to herself. ‘It explains the muddiness and swirls I
can often detect in his aura. Although I still can’t quite believe it.’
‘That’s the end of the spells then. I can’t follow them now,’ Lucy sighed, her mother’s Big Birthday tapping her on the shoulder.
‘Don’t be so hasty, young lady.’
‘But he’s married, Brenda.’
‘He’s married but living alone. I wouldn’t say that was a happy marriage, more likely the end of a failed one.’
‘If you’ve brought me something to eat – I don’t want it. If you’ve set something on fire – I’m busy. And if you have another mammal carcass to beautify – I’ve run out of hair gel.’ George peered over the rim of his glasses at the girl on his doorstep. He was clutching a bundle of papers and looked quite harassed.
It had been hammering down all evening. While Lucy understood the farmers needed the summer rain for their crops to flourish, she wished it would have the courtesy to do so overnight, and not in the day. Or in June. She wiped the strands of wet hair away from her eyes and took a good look at George’s stressed face. Not the faintest trace of a smile.
‘I’m merely here to pass on a message.’
‘Let me guess: you want to borrow a cup of cornflakes to make breakfast for the unemployed, blind, suicidal alcoholics?’
‘No. Your wife is trying to get hold of you.’
‘BLOODY WOMAN,’ he shouted and shut the front door with unnecessary force.
Not one hundred per cent sure if he meant her or the wife, Lucy turned towards her flat and stomped back along the pavement, not caring if she caught a few puddles along the way.
The pounding knock on her front door a few moments later reverberated through her flat like the aftershocks of a minor earthquake. She was comfort-kitting; doing row upon row of knit one, purl one to try and stop herself from hitting something. Where others turned to chocolate, she turned to mass twiddlemuff production. Poldark required more concentration than she had heart for at that moment.
The banging got louder. If she ignored him for much longer, the door would be off its hinges. She laid the knitting on her seat and turned down her Angry Music – a Linkin Park CD left behind by her last boyfriend. Walking down the hallway towards George’s oppressive silhouette in the frosted glass, Lucy felt something snap. How dare he shout at her like that! She yanked the door open and took a deep breath. There were a couple of things she needed to set him straight on.
‘The only reason I was hair-drying that poor rabbit the other day was because your cat killed it and the distraught four-year-old owner wanted its pathetic bloodstained body back.’ Lucy launched into her attack before George had even opened his mouth.
‘Oh.’
‘Yes – oh.’ Her hands went to her hips.
George took a deep breath. ‘I came round to apologise. One of the line managers walked out on me this afternoon, I’m in the middle of very overdue staff reports, and Karen showing up was an irritating end to a stressful and exhausting day. My behaviour was absolutely and completely inexcusable.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes – oh.’
She sighed. ‘Then you’d better come in. I don’t like to leave people standing on my doorstep when it’s raining. I don’t think it’s very polite. Tea?’
‘Please.’ He smiled.
‘My goodness, George Aberdour, you said please. There’s a first. You’ll have to have your tea black. I don’t have any fancy non-dairy, cherry-free, not-been-within-six-inches-of-an-apple milk,’ Lucy said, stomping down the hall.
She thought she heard a chuckle, but when she glanced back, his face was as straight as a professional poker player’s.
‘I’m not allergic to milk. I’m lactose intolerant. If I have too much it causes bloating, discomfort and…other things. A small splash in a cup of tea won’t kill me.’
‘Shame,’ she mumbled.
‘Okay. I deserve that.’
He followed her into the kitchen and pulled out one of her battered pine kitchen chairs, as she filled the kettle from the tap. She turned back to face him, leaning her bottom on the edge of the worktop with her arms crossed, not prepared to sit anywhere near him for fear of thumping him. Not emotions she usually had to put a lid on.
‘She’s my ex-wife,’ George said.
‘You don’t have to explain anything to me.’
‘She’s been my ex-wife for over a year and we haven’t lived together for two years.’
‘Honestly, it’s not my business.’
‘She took me for a lot of money in the settlement. I nearly lost my business.’
The kettle flicked off. She opened the top cupboard and rummaged around, looking for two mugs that matched but pleased that the cupboard itself was ordered and tidy. Not that she cared what George thought about her cupboards. Was a failed marriage supposed to excuse his rude behaviour? Not as far as she was concerned.
‘We weren’t together for very long before it became apparent we weren’t compatible.’
Lucy fished two teabags from the Tetley Tea removal van caddy someone had dared to give her mother and Lucy had taken off her hands. She popped them into the mugs.
‘You’ve apologised and that’s fine. Perhaps we could not talk about your ex-wife, please?’ She opened the fridge and pulled out the plastic carton of milk. ‘But can I just check? When you said “bloody woman” on the doorstep – you were talking about her, right?’
‘Ah.’ There was a moment while George replayed the scene from Lucy’s point of view and looked momentarily embarrassed. ‘Yes. Sorry. Ambiguous. I was furious that she’d tracked me down. It was the last straw balanced on the back of a very fragile camel. But stupid George’s usual lack of social skills meant I messed up again. Sorry. Friends?’ He looked up so hopefully, like a small child – or rather an oversized child sitting at a primary school table – that Lucy’s heart thawed the tiniest bit.
‘Okay, friends,’ she agreed.
‘The subject of my ex-wife is officially off topic and shall forever remain so. My problem. Not yours. But thank you for passing on the message.’
They clinked mugs and he smiled. Actually smiled. His mahogany brown eyes twinkled and she noticed small creases folding around them as two tiny dimples appeared either side of his mouth. If only he knew what difference a simple smile made to his face, she thought. But then, as he seemed generally off women at the moment, perhaps it was for the best. He clearly had no idea quite how magnificent that smile was and would totally fail to cope with the undoubted stream of lovestruck women throwing themselves at his size-thirteen feet should he choose to employ it more frequently.
The conversation moved on and he enquired about Brenda. She, in turn, asked how Scratbag was settling in. After a surprisingly pleasant half an hour of small talk, George drank the last of his tea and she stood up to take his mug.
‘I would offer you a more grown-up drink as it’s nearly nine o’clock, like a glass of wine or a beer, but I don’t generally keep anything in, I’m afraid. I can only offer you another tea.’
‘No problem. Not every evening needs to end with alcohol because, believe me, when it does, it often ends badly. As for the tea, thanks anyway, but I must get back. I’ve got a job vacancy to fill and a bundle of personnel reports to go through before the morning. They’re taking longer than I anticipated.’
His chair was clumsily scraped back, and then he stood up and paused.
‘Thanks for the chat. Never have been great at the whole socialising thing. Then with what happened to my father, and the business, and… Well, I need to start making more of an effort with people.’ And he graced Lucy with another of his knee-wobbling smiles. Something inside her fluttered. Perhaps ensnaring him wouldn’t be such a hardship after all. He would tick most of the boxes on her mother’s potential son-in-law list: good-looking, tall, successful businessman with his own excessively tidy home. Not that she was thinking of him as a potential husband, but her mother didn’t need to know that.
‘Perhaps you need to be a bit
more spontaneous and make an effort to have a life outside work,’ Lucy said. ‘Embrace opportunities as they present themselves? That’s a good way to make friends. Try to say yes to things. You never know what they might lead to, or what friends you might make along the way.’ Persuading him to be open to offers that came his way would be in her favour when it came to asking him about the Big Birthday.
‘Perhaps.’ He didn’t look convinced.
A drop of his blood on a linen square, she remembered and began to look around the room for something sharp, but it wasn’t thought through. She could hardly launch herself at him with a corkscrew. How on earth was she going to extract some of his blood without getting arrested in the process? Or smashing down these carefully constructed bridges that were finally enabling them to spend time together?
‘Then, as part of a concerted effort to be more sociable, perhaps Brenda and you would like to come round? Like a belated house-warming? Tomorrow? At seven?’
‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’ And she followed him to the front door, resisting the urge to pick up the sharp, pointy antique letter opener that was balanced on the radiator as she passed.
Chapter 32
‘And I thought, you’re really lax about doing this locket thing because you think he’s so rude and unpleasant, that you probably hadn’t got the linen yet. I assume it’s got to be the proper stuff and isn’t the same thing as any old scrap of cotton.’ Jess handed Lucy a square of fabric.
‘Yes, they come from different plants. Oo, it’s tiny. I didn’t think you could buy it in small squares.’
‘I bought a metre, but I was going to use the rest for a cushion cover or something.’
‘But you don’t sew.’ Jess simply didn’t have the patience for needlecraft – her disastrous flirt with knitting had shown Lucy that.
‘If you’re going to start cross-questioning me about this then I’ll keep it and you can buy your own linen.’
‘Sorry. Thanks.’ Lucy folded the square up and tucked it between her mug and the rim of the tray. It was Connor’s day to do the teas and coffees, but he was off with man flu so Lucy happily volunteered. The rota was working well; Adam even included himself, although it took him twice as long and they got through three packets of biscuits on his day, rather than the usual two.