The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker

by Jenni Keer

  ‘So, it’s just a question of who you will get to see to the horses. But I’m sure that stable hand you hired won’t mind some extra hours. He seems like a nice boy.’

  ‘I’ve decided to see the spells through to the end. If it works, George can accompany me to The Big Birthday, and if he behaves in front of my mother I may even keep him on until Christmas,’ Lucy said, winding a strand of orange wool around her needle.

  Jess was staying over again, tired from the software course and looking forward to returning to the office. To be fair, she was contributing to the meals and providing the wine, but as she consumed most of it, that was fair enough. As much as Lucy enjoyed having her friend over, she was starting to feel they were flat sharing in all but name. While she understood Jess’s desire to escape home, if she cut down on the wine, shoes and expensive make-up, the rent money was probably there.

  ‘But you don’t fancy him, right?’

  Lucy’s eyes flicked left before she forced herself to look at her friend again. If Jess had asked her that question the day before, she might have admitted he was growing on her, but his unexplained bluntness outside the office the day before rankled.

  ‘No, I told you, he has an irritating tendency to say what he thinks without a filter, and I can’t see what Brenda sees in him – great lump with his silly glasses. He reminds me of that huge man from Pointless.’

  Jess had her new gel nail kit spread out over the fire-damaged coffee table. She was grumpy because Lucy refused to have her nails painted so was trying a black and white zigzag design on herself. Her left hand was currently stuck under the LED lamp to set the polish. Lucy was busy with Brenda’s birthday present, now Poldark had been finished and posted. It was still a wonder to her how quickly the Etsy shop had taken off. Six of her existing figures had been sold, even though posting Thor had been a bigger wrench than she’d anticipated. Several more enquiries had come in regarding Poldark commissions, but she hadn’t committed to knitting any more as she wanted to get Brenda’s birthday present finished in good time and then start on the toy nativity, assuming Sam went for it.

  ‘Have you got the next spell then?’ Jess asked.

  Lucy slipped the locket out from under her top without taking it off and leaned forward to show her friend.

  ‘Yup. And it’s a corker.’

  Chapter 38

  ‘Take five possessions from the chosen man

  Place at the points of a chalk-drawn pentagram.’

  ‘I remember pentagrams from my white witch days: five-pointed stars. I think each point represented something: air, earth, fire and something or other,’ said Jess.

  ‘Do you think the objects have to relate to the points?’

  Jess shrugged. ‘It doesn’t say, but you could check with Mrs Witchy Knickers. So you’ve got to get your hands on some things from his house then? Good job he gave you the key.’ She removed her hand from under the light and selected the top gel coat. After unscrewing the lid, she began to apply it carefully down the length of each nail. The smell of the polish hung in the air. At least it masked the faint bitter smell that still lingered from the fire.

  ‘I feel uneasy about being in the house when we aren’t supposed to be. And stealing things? It doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘You aren’t stealing; you’re borrowing. Anyway, it’s for his ultimate happiness and a lifetime with the woman of his dreams.’ Contemplating this, Jess perked up a bit. She screwed the cap back on the bottle and replaced her hand under the light to set the polish.

  ‘Not totally convinced that’s me, to be honest. I think he’d prefer someone less knitty, less clumsy and substantially more glamorous. You’re probably more his type.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Jess seemed distracted by her drying nails and bent forward to look at them more closely.

  Sitting back into the chair and casting off the last stitch from her needle, Lucy smiled to herself. ‘A thought has just occurred to me.’

  Jess looked up.

  ‘Perhaps there is a whole gaggle of women who have been following the spells to get their hands on George and one by one, they’ve taken all his possessions. They are sitting on the points of hand-drawn pentagrams in gardens all over Bedfordshire.’

  ‘It’s one explanation, but it does highlight the real issue.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘He hasn’t got much left to borrow.’

  Lucy caught up with George later that week. Having spent the first few weeks trying to avoid him, she now actively looked out for him when she was in the street. She was in luck; he was leaving Brenda’s house as she was heading in. Another kind act that counterbalanced his inexplicable rudeness outside the office. What had he been up to at Tompkins? He was hardly the type to stock up on teddy bears.

  ‘Hello, Trouble,’ George said, eyes serious and face dark.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ They both put their hands up to the gate at the same time, and for a moment they touched. George removed his hand first.

  ‘Come on, Lucy. Telling Karen where I lived?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve only met your ex-wife once, and that was outside your house, so it wasn’t me.’

  ‘You don’t seriously expect me to believe that; she’s been dating your boss for months.’

  Adam was dating Karen? Was that his big secret? Although Adam was growing on her, she wouldn’t have pegged him as Karen’s type. But then, it took all sorts.

  ‘However, as it turns out, her tracking me down wasn’t as awful as I’d feared, so I forgive you.’

  How very gracious of him to forgive her for a crime she hadn’t committed. She was about to make a sarcastic remark, but he stopped her in her tracks with an unexpected compliment.

  ‘Besides, I can’t stay cross with you for long. You’re my favourite…correction, second favourite neighbour.’

  ‘Right,’ Lucy said. ‘I have four bottles of white I’m investigating as part of this idea I put forward to Mr Tompkins. I’ve outlined the proposal, but I want to check they aren’t totally undrinkable first. You know a bit about wine, well, more than I do at any rate, so we are going to do a taste test.’

  Jess sat at Lucy’s kitchen table with her head resting on her hands, amused by the market research they were about to conduct. It was Saturday and Lucy had offered another sleepover, as the research would not be ideal combined with driving. Jess didn’t need asking twice.

  ‘Go you! I never thought I’d see you work your way through four bottles.’

  ‘We aren’t going to drink all four,’ Lucy gasped.

  ‘We aren’t?’ Jess stuck out her bottom lip.

  ‘No. We are going to have a small glass of each and I’ll note down if they are any good.’

  ‘Shall I get out the measuring jug and we can limit ourselves to 50ml of each?’ said Jess.

  ‘Great idea… Oh, you were being sarcastic.’

  ‘I preferred the first one – the Pinot,’ said Jess as they took their first sip of wine number three.

  ‘Okay, I’ll jot that… Oh dear, where did I put the notebook. Oops.’ The notebook and the assortment of knitting magazines and junk mail that were piled neatly at the end of the table slipped to the floor as Lucy spun around faster than her brain could process. She bent forward without her bottom leaving the seat. Her hair swished about the floor like a delicate golden mop as she swayed her head from side to side. ‘Oo, I say. The blood has rushed to my head and made me feel quite peculiar.’

  ‘Not sure that’s the rush of blood, love.’ Jess laughed. She bent over to help her butter-fingered friend collect the papers.

  ‘Right.’ Lucy slammed the notebook back on to the kitchen table with a little too much force. ‘Where were we? Need to double-check this one and we can finish off with number four.’ She picked up her glass and tipped the remaining wine into her mouth. ‘Next!’ she said, like a regular at a bar.

  Jess opened the remaining Chardonnay and poured two generous measures.

&nbs
p; ‘Chin-chin,’ said Jess, raising her glass.

  Lucy stuck out her chin and wiggled it around. ‘Bottoms up,’ said Lucy, in response.

  Jess stood in the middle of the kitchen, flicked up her pleated, cotton skirt and bent forward to reveal her polka dot cotton pants.

  ‘Tits out,’ Jess shouted, now fully into the swing of the toasts. There was the barest flicker of a pause and then both girls stood up to face each other and flashed their bras. The girls collapsed back into their chairs in hysterics as though this was the funniest thing ever. For Jess, who had never seen Lucy even wear a low-cut top, never mind flash, it possibly was. ‘What’s the verdict on the wines then, Luce?’

  ‘Erm, it’s a bit fuzzy. Give me a sec.’ Lucy waved the notebook about in front of her in an attempt to focus on the page.

  ‘Oh, pass it here,’ and Jess took it from her. ‘Lucy! For wine number one you’ve put eight out of ten; number two you’ve described as B minus; three is two stars, and four you’ve written “top hole”. How on earth can we compare them with that random scoring system? And who says top hole? Honestly.’

  Absent-mindedly turning her wine glass around in her hands, Lucy drained it but caught the foot of the glass on the tabletop as she put it back down. Wine slopped over the edge, but Lucy didn’t notice. ‘Let’s do it. Let’s do it right now.’

  ‘Do what?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Nick his stuff. Well, technically borrow it for a day or two.’

  Lucy scraped her chair across the floor and wobbled to her feet. She reached out for the nearest bottle, poured herself a glassful and downed the contents, then looked across at Jess.

  ‘C’mon, slowcoach. Watcha waiting for?’

  ‘So how is this gonna work?’ Lucy grabbed her friend’s arm as they stumbled along the pavement towards George’s house. The she hiccupped. ‘We haven’t gotta plaaaan.’

  Lancaster Road was deserted, so Jess motioned Lucy to follow her through George’s side gate.

  ‘Worry not, young Jedi, for I know the ways of the masters.’

  ‘Smashing.’ Lucy promptly fell over a low-growing lavender bush and disappeared from view. She stumbled to her feet moments later with a dead twig fascinator elegantly protruding from the side of her head.

  ‘Although—’ Jess put her hands on her hips ‘—it involved you keeping him talking at the front door while I crept in the back and shoved a few personal items up my top. We may have to consider a role reversal as I’m clearly better placed to engage him in intelligent and coherent conversation.’

  ‘But we didn’t bring the key.’

  Jess swung George’s key ring from her index finger. ‘The real question is whether you can sneak in the back and pocket a couple of things without crashing and banging about like a drunk. I’ll head out the front as I have a plan to lure him out of the house, but be quick.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ and she nodded the nod of an earnest child for an unnecessarily long time and rested a finger on her lips. ‘Mum’s the word.’

  Jess dangled the key and Lucy put out her hand. As Jess released it, Lucy swayed and the key fell straight to the ground.

  ‘Oops,’ she said.

  After several jabs at the keyhole, Lucy slipped through George’s back door. Her foot caught the high threshold on the way in and it was nearly ‘slipping through’ the literal sense.

  ‘Let me guess: more sugar for the homeless, disabled orphans?’ She heard George and Jess talking as the utility door was half open and George wasn’t exactly a quiet speaker. ‘Or have you come with another bottle of that foreign Mirto stuff? Or whatever it was called. Wait, I’ve got it, you’re going to attack me again?’ The last bit of the conversation didn’t quite make sense in Lucy’s muddly, blurry head, but she was focusing all her efforts on being silent.

  ‘I’ve got a slow puncture. I drove over to see Lucy, but I think she’s out because I can’t get an answer, so I wondered if you had a pump I could borrow to get to a garage safely?’

  There was a further muffled interchange and then the front door slammed shut.

  Excellent thinking. Right. So now all she had to do was… What did she have to do? She couldn’t quite remember… Oh, that looked fun; George had a novelty tin opener in the shape of a pig near some tins of posh cat food. She spun the snout around a couple of times and then remembered she needed to focus.

  Five things – that was it. She was here to borrow some of his personal possessions to place on a penta-thingy. Casting her slightly unfocused eyes about, she saw some folded laundry near the tumble dryer. She took a sock from the top of the pile and stuffed it down the waistband of her jeans. Everywhere else in this room was tidy and bare, apart from cat-related items and a packet of washing tablets, which she didn’t think were personal enough to make the spell work, because it was now vitally important to her that it did.

  Tiptoeing down the hall, she grabbed a posh ballpoint pen as she passed the side table, then she opened the living-room door. Scratbag jumped up immediately and began to make an inadequate meowing sound.

  ‘Shhh.’ She put her fingers to her lips and tried to persuade him to be a willing accomplice in her subterfuge.

  ‘Where, oh where, are this man’s personal belongings?’ she asked the cat.

  Opening cupboard after cupboard, she looked for items small enough to secrete about her person. She picked up a gold tiepin from the mantelpiece and found a leather bookmark lying about, which she stuffed in her back pocket. By now, she’d lost count and it was like a real-life version of Buckaroo.

  She poked her head around the edge of his black and white brocade curtains to see Jess leaning casually across her bonnet and George bent down by the nearside front tyre. He was too close to her friend’s bare, bronzed and very shiny legs for Lucy’s liking and there seemed to be an awful lot of giggling going on. On Jess’s part at least.

  Lucy hurried into the kitchen and grabbed some things that were small enough to stuff down her bra. Deciding, if she was quick, she still had time to pop in the downstairs cloakroom, she found a toothbrush, a small pot of hair gel and some nail clippers in the white mirrored wall cabinet.

  As she turned back towards the utility, the front door swung open and two pairs of eyes stared in her direction.

  ‘What the blazes…?’ said a startled George.

  Chapter 39

  Lucy stood, frozen to the spot, every item of clothing bulging with the contraband items. Her face flushed puce.

  ‘Luce, what a surprise to see you here. I thought you were out,’ Jess said, but it wasn’t an Oscar-winning performance.

  All Lucy could do was hiccup.

  ‘What exactly are you doing in my house?’ George asked. ‘And is that my toothbrush sticking out of your top?’

  ‘Erm…’ She reached out for the bannister knob to steady herself. Everything felt even more wobbly – must be all the rushing about. The blood in her body was coursing around faster than a greyhound on a dog track. The shock of being discovered in such an embarrassing position made her heart pound so hard it nearly exploded inside her. Things went rather dark, really fuzzy, and then the carpet came up to meet her.

  Smack in the face.

  Opening an eye and then quickly closing it again, Lucy felt her feet swaying about with nothing solid to rest them on. She felt nauseous, like the motion sickness she experienced as a child if she tried to read in a moving car. She could feel herself being cradled and something solid around her back and under her knees.

  ‘Honestly, dump her on the sofa. I can take it from here. Let me move Ed Sheeran over.’

  Lucy rolled onto the sofa but kept her eyes closed – she felt less spinny that way – and tried to focus on the voices around her.

  ‘She stinks of alcohol. She told me she didn’t drink. And what the bloody hell was she doing in my house?’

  ‘I’ve absolutely no idea but I’m sure there is a—’

  ‘Yeah. Perfectly rational explanation. Is that one of my socks sticking ou
t of her trousers?’

  ‘Erm, possibly.’

  Lucy risked a peek and put her hand out to George, who was still within grabbing distance. She wanted to apologise, to explain and, if she was honest, she was quite up for a feel of those impressive biceps that had held her so firmly and so safely.

  ‘It is my sock.’ George bent over her slumped body and reached for the sock, pulling it from her waistband like a magician removing a silk scarf from a sleeve.

  Not used to the general lack of control that accompanied alcohol consumption, and the tempting freedoms that were part of the heady package, Lucy threw her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

  ‘You are absolutely gorgeous, George Aberdour. Especially with those big, old silly glasses on. They do it for me, even if you are a very rude and abrupt man a lot of the time.’

  For the briefest of moments he was within millimetres of her mouth. She could smell his aftershave again; she remembered it from when he’d tumbled on her during the fire. His warm breath was playing with her hair and her small hands gripped his muscular arm. Then suddenly he jerked himself out of her hold.

  ‘I suggest you sober her up and drink plenty of water so you don’t wake with a nasty hangover. I’ve got very little tolerance for drunks. Excuse me.’

  After a moment, the front door closed and Lucy tried to wriggle upright. Jess walked back into the room having seen George out.

  ‘I said that whole you’re gorgeous thing out loud, didn’t I? I didn’t mean it – I’d probably fancy Adam if he walked in right now – but it sort of just spilled out.’

  ‘You’ll have to play the “I was so wasted I can’t remember a thing” card.’

  ‘But I will remember it. I’m mortified.’ The shock of the moment sobered her up. She put her hands to her cheeks and let them drag slowly down her face, so she looked like a cross between Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ and a remorseful panda.