by Jenni Keer
As Sam walked past, Lucy waved her notebook in the air.
‘Here are the notes I took yesterday.’
‘I don’t want them.’ Sam wrinkled her brow and shook her head dismissively. ‘Put them in your desk or something.’
Great. She wasted my entire day taking notes for nothing, thought Lucy. Oh well, at least she had the meeting with Mr Tompkins to look forward to.
Opening her drawer, Lucy pulled out a blue folder, pushed her handbag under the desk with her foot and slid the chair out again. She was surprised not to experience a ripple of nerves, but he was a kind man and she had nothing to lose.
Richard Tompkins gestured for her to sit and leaned forward over his desk, interlacing his fingers as she briefly pitched her idea. Afterwards, she passed him the blue folder. He flicked through the pages and nodded his head.
‘I like this idea in principle. We save money by not giving customers the final five per cent, but they still get, like you say, something tangible. It might work with the independents but not the bigger chains. I think we should investigate further.’
‘You do?’ She beamed at him.
‘Absolutely. Well done, Lucy.’
Life was good, mused Lucy. Work was going well; she had the respect of her colleagues and was starting to make her mark in the company. There was the distinct possibility of romance bobbing its six-foot-four head over the horizon. Brenda seemed to have accepted her situation and Lucy suspected she had a comfortable care home lined up for when the time finally came. With all the excitement about the imminent eightieth party, Brenda was more sunny and upbeat than she’d been in a while. And although Lucy wouldn’t go so far as to say she was looking forward to her mother’s Big Birthday, she was at least no longer dreading it. If things continued on this trajectory, she was heading for those twinkly stars she had been standing on the ground and admiring for so long.
Sadly, life took one look at the projected graph of Lucy’s happiness and decided to throw in a few random coordinates.
Chapter 43
Not knowing what life had in store, Lucy remained keen to get her man. The pentagram must have worked, because when Lucy finally checked the locket, it revealed the next spell.
‘A night beneath the stars together
Ensures this love will last forever.’
All the spells had been difficult but this one was going to be particularly tricky. How could she persuade George to spend a night in the open air with her? Because she assumed this was what the locket was asking her to do. Perhaps she could lock him out of his house last thing at night? But knowing him, he’d just book a room at an expensive hotel until a locksmith sorted it all. Or could she convince him it was for charity? Something along the lines of a sponsored camp-out? Again, she felt sure he would happily and generously donate to the charity without feeling the need to participate in such an idiotic activity. So how was she going to pull it off? It wasn’t as if she could just ask him. Especially as the last time she’d seen him had not been her finest hour, and he was probably still furious with her. She looked down at the locket. Or was it?
‘You know we were talking about being more spontaneous and living a life outside of work?’ Not giving him a chance to answer, she gabbled on, ‘So I wondered if you’d like to do a bit of camping out beneath the stars on Saturday?’
‘What?’ George stood on his doorstep, towering over her, and doubtless wondering what his bonkers neighbour was going on about now.
‘You know? A couple of deckchairs and study the constellations? Or even grab a sleeping bag, a big Thermos of tea and a couple of packets of dark chocolate digestives and discover our inner Bear Grylls? We don’t need a tent. Just us and the universe above us. It will be fun.’
‘Instead of getting into a proper bed like any sensible person and having a perfectly decent night’s sleep, you mean?’
‘Yes.’ Lucy stood up straighter, tipped her head up, and looked George in the eye. ‘Instead of the sensible option.’
He wriggled under her piercing stare, remembering their previous conversation.
‘No, Lucy. I will not lie on the hard ground, with no adequate protection from the elements, and be food for the mosquitoes, when there is a bed and a decent roof ten paces from us. Total and utter madness.’
Just as she started to slink away, he raised an eyebrow. ‘And anyway, I’d probably wake up to find you’d made off with my sleeping bag…’
Ah, she was rather hoping he’d forgotten about her drunken escapades. Obviously not.
‘I understand from Richard that you have put together a proposal giving cases of wine to customers who are pushing for extra discount?’ Sam stood at Lucy’s desk the following morning, as Lucy tried to gauge her boss’s mood. As usual, Sam was giving nothing away.
‘I thought it might encourage customer loyalty but cost the company less than half the discount in real terms. Some of the independent guys would be tempted, I’m sure.’
‘And you went over my head and straight to Richard? Didn’t you consider discussing it with me first?’
Lucy’s heart sank to her brand-new, heeled court shoes.
‘It wasn’t like that. We were talking in the staff kitchen and it just came up. He asked me to put my ideas down.’
‘Well, I’ve just had a meeting with him and he assumed I knew all about it, because that’s how the office hierarchy works, Lucy. You talk to Adam or me first with any concerns or ideas, and we take them to the top.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Running it by Sam hadn’t even occurred to her, but she could see how it might be seen as going over her head.
‘I don’t like being the last in the loop, Lucy. I’ve spent enough of my working life being on the outside.’ Sam returned to her desk.
An uneasy feeling bubbled. Why did she pretend she wanted to be my friend, thought Lucy, when she clearly doesn’t like me very much?
Friday evening, as she was leaving Brenda’s house, Lucy was accosted by George on the pavement outside. Before he got the chance to speak, Lucy started to gabble an apology.
‘The other night, when you found me in your house—’
‘There’s no need to revisit that. Everyone’s allowed to overdo it occasionally. Perhaps I need to embrace my wild side more often than I do. I was wrong to blow up. And by way of an apology, and in an attempt to inject some much-needed spontaneity into my life, I was thinking about your totally ridiculous and utterly madcap idea from the other day and I thought why not?’
Lucy scrunched up her face and frowned, petting Scratbag’s black, furry head as he leaped onto the wall next to her.
‘The all night under the stars thing?’ he clarified.
This was a shock. She’d been racking her brains to come up with a plan to lure George under the night sky and had even briefly considering drugging him, she was getting that desperate. And now here he stood, agreeing to it voluntarily.
‘I’m trying to be more sociable, but I still say it as I see it, I’m afraid, so I was typically blunt when you suggested it the other day. It was so out of the blue. And quite frankly more outrageous than a Marvel super villain’s plans for world domination. And then I mulled it over. The more I get to know you, the more I have to reassess my definition of normal. You’re really odd—’
‘Thanks.’
‘But I’m learning that odd isn’t a bad thing. Perhaps I need to be more odd.’
‘Believe me, you already qualify.’
The much-sought-after and orgasm-inducing smile that he only broke out to coincide with the appearance of Halley’s Comet and every fourth blue moon appeared from nowhere and Lucy had to grab the wall to stop her giddy legs collapsing.
‘I like having you as a friend. You’re like the sister I never had. I suppose I was old-fashioned and thought males and females couldn’t be just friends, with no hidden agenda, but I think with you I can.’
Lucy hid her inward sigh and broke out what she hoped was an equally orgasm-inducing smile. And then
adjusted it slightly, feeling orgasm-inducing wasn’t terribly appropriate from a sister substitute.
‘So, sleeping bags and flasks tomorrow at nine o’clock then?’ she rallied.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But not in your grotty back garden. Come to mine. I’m going to drive us somewhere rather more picturesque.’
Filling Jess in on the next stage of the spell, Lucy nursed a small gin and tonic in the garden of The King’s Arms. It was a refreshingly cool Friday evening after a long, sticky week.
‘For Pete’s sake, that’s not playing fair.’ And Jess pulled her mouth into a tight line. ‘A night under the stars? How are you supposed to pull that off?’
‘It’s my worry, not yours, but I’m sorted. I asked him outright and he said yes.’
Jess looked impressed. ‘Wow. You really are rocking this confidence thing. So he just agreed? No questions asked?’
Lucy nodded, not wanting to admit he’d shot her down the first time.
‘Can I join in? It’ll be fun.’
‘If we were hanging out in my back garden, I would have said yes. But he’s taking me somewhere and it’s a surprise.’ She tried not to look too excited. After all, Jess didn’t need to know she was warming up to him until she had something more positive to report.
Jess’s shoulders dropped and she turned the stem of her wine glass around slowly in her fingers. ‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘What time?’
‘Why all the questions? You nagged me to get a grip with the locket and now that I’m behind it, you don’t seem to trust me.’
Chapter 44
George swung the Audi into a narrow unmade road and after a few hundred metres the car came to a halt. They stopped in front of a metal barrier that prevented them from continuing their journey, but there were far worse places to be stuck, Lucy decided. Beside them were pretty splashes of scarlet field poppies on the low bank that edged a wheat field. It was still a pale green, waiting for the summer sun to ripen it to a deep golden colour before harvest. A dry, dusty smell drifted in through her open window and a slight breeze rippled through the fine hairs along the back of her arm.
The drive had taken twenty minutes, with Lucy chattering away and George making the occasional terse comment, but often smiling at her as he did so. She knew he thought she was silly and ditzy, but she liked being with him. Even if this locket thing failed to have him jumping her bones or getting down on bended knee, it had enabled her to form a friendship with him that she was starting to treasure.
‘Where are we?’ she asked.
‘Somewhere I used to come with my dad when I was little. Stay here. I won’t be a moment.’
Wriggling in his seat to retrieve something from his pocket, he opened the car door and walked to the barrier. There was a large padlock holding the barrier arm down, but Lucy saw the glint of something shiny in his hand and realised he had the key. He heaved the metal arm up, hung the padlock temporarily on the loop and came back to the car. The process was repeated in reverse after they’d driven through, and he returned to the driver’s seat, but didn’t pull off immediately.
‘I thought someone else was coming, but it looks like they’ve turned off. It’s usually only members that come down the track this far. Bit of a dead end. Right, let’s go.’
The sandy track had occasional potholes and large, loose stones across it, and was very bumpy going.
‘Members? So are we at some kind of club? It’s not a pagan cult, is it? You’re not taking me to some isolated spot as a sacrifice to the Neighbourhood Watch God you were so worried about when everyone plied you with cakes? Because if it’s a virgin sacrifice you’re after, you may have to rethink.’
‘I’ll use you as a cult offering another time. Tonight, my little suspicious friend, we are at a private members’ fishing lake.’
‘You fish?’
‘I used to. More often than not, I played with the tub of maggots, racing them across the ground, while my dad untangled my line. But it wasn’t about the fishing – it was about being with him in this beautiful and isolated place.’
‘I can see that appealing to you.’
‘Absolutely. In fact, with my social skills, it is exactly the sort of after-hours hotspot I should be frequenting. The fish don’t seem to mind my poor manners and taciturn nature. Maybe I’ll take it up again.’
They followed the track down a slight hill and Lucy could see a body of water to her right, the light from the low sun glinting off the surface. Dark silhouettes of bushes and trees lined the bank and some impressive bulrushes stood in groups like oversized kofta kebabs. The water followed them down the track, travelling companionably beside them as they made their way to their destination.
‘That’s a river, not a lake,’ Lucy said.
‘It doesn’t lead anywhere and the water is stagnant. Lakes don’t always come in convenient circle shapes, you know,’ he said. ‘There’s some truly magnificent fish in there. Pike as big as a man’s leg. There are also deer, foxes, often a swooping barn owl illuminated by the moon, and otters about – although the latter are unwelcomed by the syndicate.’
Lucy looked at him.
‘They decimate the fish population.’
They drove in silence a while longer and then he pulled into a rough parking area by a large shed.
George got out and opened the boot, gathering up their sleeping bags, roll mats and rucksacks with his massive arms. Lucy followed mutely. He pressed his key fob and the indicators flashed as the car beeped and locked itself.
‘Boathouse,’ George said, indicating to the shed. ‘But we aren’t taking out a punt at this time of night. One reckless step at a time for me.’
They walked past an area near the bank that had obviously been cleared for fishing because Lucy noticed a wooden platform protruding into the dark water. There was a squawk as George took hearty man strides into the undergrowth and disturbed a bird, and then a plop as it jumped into the water.
He found a secluded spot, sheltered at one side by a lopsided willow, where the trunk grew over the water as if the tree was peering from the bank to look at its own reflection. George swept some dead twigs and large stones to the side with his foot and spread out the roll mats, placing the sleeping bags and rucksacks on top.
They smiled at each other and George gestured to the closest mat. As Lucy knelt down and leaned forward to spread out her sleeping bag, the locket swung out from her top, nearly smacking her in the face.
‘What’s in the locket?’ he asked, noticing it catch the light.
Lucy’s heart started a slow thud. She could hardly show him.
‘Just an old photo,’ she muttered.
‘I’ve noticed you wearing it before. Family heirloom?’
‘Brenda gave it to me.’
‘She’s obviously fond of you, but then you’re so good to her. Not many people would give up their time to look after an old lady who wasn’t even related to them.’ He sat down and dragged his rucksack across the dusty ground towards his feet.
‘But she’s not just any old lady.’
‘I know,’ he said, tucking his enormous feet under his knees. ‘Odd, slightly scary but endearing. Like you, in fact.’
‘I’m not scary. Or odd.’
‘Most of our encounters result in me suffering some kind of life-threatening injury. And you do knit. And give dead things make-overs.’
‘Point taken,’ Lucy said, quite liking the endearing bit and settling down opposite George.
‘So how long will you manage until she needs proper care?’ he asked.
‘The doctor said she was in the early stages. I’m sure we’ll cope for the next few months with no problem. The condition often plateaus for a period and then there is a sudden deterioration. Maybe with medication she’ll even see a short-term improvement. Mind you, getting her to take any medication won’t be straightforward.’
‘And then what?’
‘I don’t know.’ She cast he
r eyes around, looking for a distraction. For want of something to do, she pulled at a long stem of grass and wound it around her finger. ‘But she’s assured me that part is all taken care of. I think she has somewhere in mind – a place she will be happy when she needs more care. She seems at peace with it all and relatively cheerful at the moment, what with the birthday party to look forward to. But I don’t want to think about what the future holds right now. We’re managing. I can work it around my job and it’s not like I have a massively demanding social life. And all the neighbours, including you, Mr Aberdour—’ she gave a shy smile ‘—are so kind and helpful. We’ll muddle through.’
‘Yes, it’s one of the lovely things I’ve noticed about Lancaster Road; everyone cares without being in your face. There’s a sense of community without it being imposed upon you. That student lad from the flat above yours took in a parcel for me the other day, and Chloe’s dad offered me a spare ticket to the football for nothing – not my bag, but a kind thought.’ There was a pause. ‘So what happens if you get a boyfriend?’ George didn’t look at her as he asked this but copied her by pulling up a piece of grass and fiddling with it.
‘He’ll either adapt or be out on his ear,’ she said, surprised at his line of questioning. She hoped she sounded like the sort of girl who had lots of offers but could quite happily move on to one of the many suitors waiting in the wings if a boyfriend proved difficult. George looked up to hear her answer. Their eyes locked and the silence was louder than it should have been. Her heart somersaulted and stood up for a wobbly finish.
‘You are a very giving person, Lucy Baker. And an interesting one.’
He leaned towards her, placing a hand next to her outstretched leg. His body tilted and he came closer.
He’s going to kiss me, she thought. Oh. My. God. The locket has worked.