by Jenni Keer
‘So what’s the plan?’ Jess asked. ‘I was thinking: invite him over for a meal, start chopping up the onions, wave the kitchen knife about a bit and sort of slip.’ Jess was leaning her chin on her hands and grinning as she sat at the table, waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘Are you mad? The man would have me in a head lock and be on the phone to the police before I’d taken my first step. I was thinking more of a discreet prick.’
‘Back to Daniel again.’ Jess winked.
‘With a sewing pin.’
The kitchen door opened and Richard Tompkins gave one of his charming smiles. For an older man, he certainly still had it. Jess stood up and started riffling through the cupboards to look busy.
‘Ah, Lucy, could you make me up a separate tray with the decent coffee for the conference room? We have a garden centre chain coming in to discuss the Tramp’O’Bounce with us in half an hour and we need to make a good impression. Daniel is hoping to swing by as well to try and persuade them to order a few more of our lines – garden centres seem to sell everything these days from cookery books to headphones. So, including Sam, we’ll need coffee for four please.’
‘No problem. Shall I pop across the road to The Teaspoon and get some pastries? It would look better than a plate of broken Rich Tea. I can take the money from petty cash.’
‘Splendid idea. He’s come to squeeze us dry, of course, because he knows he can source similar products from other distributors, but I’ve always found the personal touch works wonders.’
Lucy’s mouth suddenly went dry. She’d had the germ of an idea bouncing about in her head for a few days and realised it was now or never. Her right hand went to the locket and she took a deep breath.
‘I’m not thinking specifically of this customer, but perhaps we could encourage customer loyalty with a bribe?’ Lucy began. It was Jess’s joke a few days previously, how everyone except her lit up at the thought of a glass of wine, which had started her thinking.
‘Go on. I’m listening…’
‘I thought we could offer, say, half a case of wine for buying in pallets rather than boxes, depending on the product, or spending over a certain amount with us. I think giving people something tangible, something they can enjoy outside of their work environment, means they forget about the monetary value and feel their business is appreciated. It’s like giving someone a gift, which always makes the receiver feel special. I looked into the wholesale prices of several suppliers and if we bought in bulk, each case would work out a fraction of the cost in real terms, rather than upping the trade discount we give to the customers.’ Now that she was saying the words out loud, her confidence flagged. ‘Oh, it’s probably a stupid idea…’
‘No, let’s see if it’s got legs.’ Richard was nodding. ‘Give me some hard figures and outline what you’re thinking, and I’ll take a look.’
As he left the kitchen, Lucy was left open-mouthed, surprised how easy it was to be brave.
Jess pulled a cheeky face. ‘Please, sir. Pick me, sir,’ she teased. ‘I want to be your best friend, Ricky.’
‘He’s not Ricky. His golfing buddies always ask to be put through to Dick.’ Lucy measured out spoonfuls of supermarket gold roast into the cups and added the hot water, her head spinning with ways to present her idea in a professional manner.
‘Oh, Ricky, Ricky, Ricky.’ Jess was singing into a silver teaspoon and winding her lithe body around one of the plastic chairs in a provocative manner. ‘I know you’ve always thought of me as a little mouse of a girl, but I’ve grown a pair and am set to take the world of toy distribution by storm.’
Lucy wasn’t impressed with Jess’s impersonation of her and closed the cupboard door rather forcefully. ‘He’s Mr Tompkins to us.’
‘Ricky to his lovers.’ Jess wiggled her eyebrows.
Lucy picked up the tray containing the office coffees, balanced it in one hand and fumbled for the door. She stepped back cautiously, turning her head to Jess.
‘You’re wrong. Richard Tompkins is a Dick.’
She turned back to face the hallway and her heart sunk to her ballet pumps as she stood nose to nose with Sam.
‘What can I get everyone? Tea? Coffee? A soft drink?’ offered George.
‘I brought a bottle of my home-made sparkling elderflower. Much more appropriate for house-warming drinks, wouldn’t you say?’ Brenda had a touch of rouge on both cheeks and a smear of pale blue eyeshadow. There was a sparkly necklace hanging low over her chest that matched the sparkles in her eyes. This was the Brenda she knew and loved. George was proving a good tonic for her friend.
‘Then I’ll look for some appropriate glasses. Through here, ladies,’ and he gestured towards the living room.
‘His emotional energy is a lot more positive than when he first moved to Lancaster Road,’ said Brenda when they were alone. ‘His aura is changing too; the green is less muddy and more vibrant. Ah, here comes my little friend.’
Scratbag wandered into the room and made a beeline for Brenda. He sniffed her outstretched hand and leaped onto her lap. She bent her head over his upturned nose.
‘Interesting. Thank you, Scratbag.’
‘Don’t pretend the cat is communicating with you. Honestly, Brenda, sometimes I suspect you are a massive fraud.’
Brenda smiled and edged her face closer to the curious cat. ‘What’s that, Skippy? The little boy has fallen down the well? And George is falling for our Lucy?’ The cat was nuzzling her hand now, and Brenda was getting in the swing of her role play.
They were laughing as George entered with a tray of goodies.
‘Excellent. Cake,’ said Brenda.
‘Yes, a fancy non-dairy, cherry-free, not-been-within-six-inches-of-an-apple sponge cake,’ George said, looking over at Lucy as his dimples put in a fleeting appearance. ‘Goes better with tea than elderflower wine, but still.’ He poured three small tumblers of the wine, apologising that they were the only glasses he owned, and then chose to sit on the sofa next to Lucy, rather than in the remaining empty armchair.
‘Welcome to the neighbourhood. I think you may have found your true home here. And your little lodger absolutely adores you. He told me so,’ Brenda said, looking at Scratbag and raising her tumbler.
‘It’s odd, but ever since he’s been around I’ve felt calmer and decidedly less stressed,’ admitted George.
Brenda threw Lucy an I-told-you-so look. ‘Animals have that effect. And good friends. How is the allergy now?’ she asked.
‘Better. Sitting on my lap is okay as long as I don’t stroke him because that makes fur fly everywhere. I’m even managing the contact lenses occasionally.’
Shame, thought Lucy. The glasses made him look sexy.
‘I think my body has accepted the thing that I’m allergic to isn’t going away, but I’m still popping the antihistamines.’
‘It’s a lesson you must heed, young man. Sometimes you must make sacrifices to get the things in life you need – even if you don’t realise how much you need them until they are a part of your life.’ Brenda tipped her head back and emptied the tumbler, pushing it hopefully towards George for a refill.
While Brenda and George continued to chat, Lucy pulled her bag towards her feet. She turned her body away from his and rummaged inside for the packet of sewing pins. Mumbling odd words to make it seem as if she was participating in the conversation, she slipped a pin from the packet and concealed it in her hand. The linen square was folded in the front pocket, ready for action.
‘Shall I pass the cake?’ Lucy offered, standing up and wiggling the pin so the point protruded slightly from her fingers.
The plan: pass the plate around, pretend to slip and scratch him, apologising for her sharp nails. Run to her bag for a ‘handkerchief’ – et voilà!
The reality: as she turned, the cake slid from the plate and into George’s lap, her fake stumble became real as her feet twisted together and she landed across his knees, on top of the cake, and in his outstretched arms.<
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‘I am so sorry.’ Lucy looked up into his cross-looking deep brown eyes, their crossness magnified by the lenses of his glasses.
‘Hmm. I’ll fetch a brush.’ George helped her stand upright and picked up most of the large lumps of mashed cake to put them back on the plate. He brushed the remaining crumbs from his clothes and onto the tray.
‘What was that gymnastic display in aid of?’ asked Brenda when he’d left the room.
‘The next spell. I totally mucked it up though; blood on a linen square.’
‘Oh yes!’ Her eyes twinkled with excitement. ‘Let me help.’
‘No, really, I can manage…’ George reappeared with a dustpan and brush, which looked small in his massive hands. ‘Oh, George, let me do that.’
‘I insist. Sit down.’ He sounded teachery cross.
As they both bent forward, their heads collided, but George came off worse as Lucy caught his nose with the back of her head. He put his hand to his face as a trickle of blood came from the left nostril.
‘Lucy, the poor man needs a tissue,’ Brenda said, almost smiling.
‘Of course,’ and she dashed for her bag. Despite George putting his hands up to his face, doubtless wondering what damage she could possibly inflict next, she managed to dab his bloody nose with the surprisingly to hand handkerchief.
As he went to the kitchen to look for something cold to stem the bleeding, Lucy stared at her mysterious friend.
‘Did you do that?’
‘Are you implying I could somehow control your collision or get blood to flow from his nose. Ridiculous.’
Lucy stood with her hands on her hips, looking down at her favourite old lady in the whole world, who still had a sparkle of something undefinable shooting across the irises of her eyes. She graced Lucy with a ‘butter wouldn’t melt if my face was on fire’ look.
‘Hmm.’
Chapter 33
Parked between her sister’s BMW and her brother-in-law’s top-of-the-range Mazda, Lucy’s little yellow car looked like the Trotters’ three-wheeled van. Before she’d even lifted her suitcase from the boot, a flash of fuchsia pink came running out of the house and crunched across the freshly raked gravel drive.
‘Auntie Lucy!’ Rosie, her four-year-old niece, was by her feet and out of breath. ‘Can I pull your wheelie case?’
‘It’s a bit heavy, but you can take my special bag in for me,’ and she handed her the floral knitting bag.
‘Oh goody. Can we do more knitting? Alicia at school is very jealous of my Elsa doll and she said she’s going to get her mum to buy her one, but I said she couldn’t because it was made by my auntie and it’s the best and she only makes them for me so she couldn’t have one and then she cried and called me mean, but I didn’t care because I had an Elsa doll and she didn’t.’ She sucked in a hearty breath.
Emily appeared behind her chatty daughter carrying the younger Grace in her arms, who was wriggling to get down and calling, ‘Oo-cy, Oo-cy’ – unable to pronounce her aunt’s name properly.
‘Stuart?’ Lucy asked.
‘Golf course.’
‘Ah.’
‘Grrr more like. Come in. We’ve been baking. Just for you.’
Inside the large family kitchen-diner, with the glorious smell of cake coming from the cream-coloured range cooker, Lucy parked her suitcase by the kitchen door and slid into one of the high-backed oak dining chairs that matched the huge refectory table.
‘Weee did make cakes,’ said Grace, tipping her head to one side and making sure Oo-cy was listening.
‘You didn’t do much of the actual caking,’ said Rosie. ‘Mummy and I did. You just licked out the bowl and then tipped over the bag of flour and Mummy said bugger and then I thought she was going to cry but she didn’t and we had to clean up all your mess.’ She stood with her hands on her hips and her head to one side, as she reprimanded her baby sister.
‘Did too help with cake.’
‘Did not.’
‘Did too.’
‘Girls,’ sighed Emily, ‘let’s not quarrel in front of Auntie Lucy. Why don’t you go upstairs and put on those special princess dresses as we have such an important guest? And then when you come back down the cake will have cooled and we can have a tea party.’
With thundering feet and excited chatter, the girls rushed from the room to transform themselves into magical and glamorous grown-ups.
‘Tea?’ Emily offered.
‘Let me make it. You look exhausted.’ Lucy was worried by her sister’s pale face and inability to look her in the eye. ‘Did you really have a bag of flour all over the floor?’
Emily nodded and then shrugged.
‘You wouldn’t know. This kitchen looks immaculate.’ Lucy reached a tentative hand across to her sister’s arm.
‘It looked like a scene from The Snowman half an hour ago.’ And with that Emily burst into tears, which only subsided five minutes later as the thunder of visiting princess feet was heard returning.
‘So we’re hoping, all being well, Ems can get back to work by February. The nursery takes from three months. It’s the same one we used for the girls. You can’t afford to be out of the game for too long or your colleagues start to undermine you.’
The girls had long since gone to bed and Stuart was nursing a cut-glass brandy balloon, swirling the dark liquid around the glass and inhaling the pungent aroma, but only occasionally taking a sip. He was sitting on the sofa next to his wife, the other arm draped casually around her shoulder.
‘The thing of it is, we couldn’t afford the mortgage on this place without the two incomes. I think we both agree we don’t want to sacrifice the standard of living we’ve become accustomed to, and we all know you have to work hard in order to play hard.’
Stuart had indeed spent his life working hard. He was older than Emily by almost seven years and was a salaried partner with a small firm of solicitors just outside London. He came from money and consequently knew all the right people in all the right places. Lucy had no doubt he would end up as an equity partner eventually – his family connections alone made him an invaluable asset to the firm.
Emily, Lucy realised, hadn’t contributed much to the conversation. She looked tired and had her head on Stuart’s shoulder, her eyes flickering as she fought to keep them open.
‘Are you ready for bed, button?’ asked Stuart.
‘Mmm,’ mumbled Emily.
‘Off you go then, sweetheart. Lucy and I can amuse ourselves.’
Emily stuck out her belly and heaved herself out of the sofa. Even though there was no sign of a baby bump yet, her body was clearly changing.
‘Oh, how I love that woman,’ he said as she left the room. ‘She’s so amazingly capable. Lesser women would have fallen at the first hurdle.’
Horses can go down at any point in the race, thought Lucy. And it can often mean the end of their racing career when they do.
Chapter 34
Waking the next morning in the tastefully coordinated spare room, all shades of white and accent colours, Lucy was temporarily at peace with the world. The tweetings of busy birds, the clean, crisp air that circulated the room and the pleasing lack of traffic noise through the open window reminded her that she was a country girl at heart.
She pulled the pale blue sheet up to her cheeks and inhaled the scent of the expensive laundry powder. Closing her eyes, she retreated back to the bizarre yet comforting dream of her in a Julie Andrews-style Alpine dress, running down a lush, green hill, towards George. He was standing uncomfortably at the bottom in enormous lederhosen made from curtain fabric and holding a goat. Once she realised she was muddling Captain von Trapp with Peter the goatherd, she opened her eyes again and focused on reality. And then a part of her wondered what she would have done with George if she’d made it to the bottom of the hill.
The room had been redecorated since her last visit, even though it had seemed perfect to her before. The small pine bookcase that stood under the window contained the
sort of books that Lucy felt she should have read, and Emily wanted people to think she had read, but neither of them ever would: A Brief History of Time, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Lord of the Rings. She wondered where her sister kept the Regency romances and light-hearted romcoms – probably tucked away in a wardrobe where their mother wouldn’t stumble across them. A cream upholstered Chippendale-style chair stood in the corner, which Lucy could see no purpose to. And a pale oak Victorian chest of drawers was to the right of the door, with nothing but an antique gilded vanity mirror standing on top. Lucy knew all the Heathcote & Ivory lined drawers were empty because she’d checked.
As she lay in the crisp, ironed, high thread count cotton sheets and stretched out her toes, she listened to the noises of bustling family life drift up the stairs: the non-stop chatter of little girls, a boiling kettle and the hum of a television playing away to itself.
There was a rumble of feet on the staircase and then Grace burst through the door.
‘Oo-cy, help?’
Lucy shuffled to her elbows and peered over to her youngest niece. She was holding a Princess Belle doll that appeared to have her opulent golden ball gown stuck halfway over her head.
‘Of course. Jump up here next to me and I’ll see what I can do.’
Grace snuggled up next to her aunt, daring to poke her toes under the white duvet cover and then looking up at Lucy with wide eyes.
‘Snuggle in then,’ and Lucy lifted the edge so she could wiggle in further.
Managing to dress Belle in a more satisfactory manner, the pair were happily chatting in the bed when the door was pushed open slowly and Rosie’s head peered into the room; at first cautiously, and then with a flash of horror across her eyes.
‘NOOOOOO…’ she wailed. ‘Mummy said I could wake Auntie Lucy. She said it was my job and only I could do it because I was her biggest girl and it wasn’t a job for baby sisters because they aren’t old enough and I would do the bestest job with my tray,’ and she threw herself down on the cream carpet and began sobbing uncontrollably.