by Jenni Keer
Lucy’s hand stopped in mid-air and everything in her world ground to a slow stop, including her heart.
‘Excellent. Get in some new blood and shake the company up a bit at the same time,’ she heard Richard Tompkins respond. ‘It’s about time young Lucy moved on.’
Chapter 47
She only had herself to blame, Lucy thought, sitting back at her desk and staring at the screen. She was trying to be someone she wasn’t and even a magical locket couldn’t override that. Who had she been trying to kid with her half-tidied desk and her jumped-up ideas?
It made sense that Sam would be looking to replace her. As far as her new boss was concerned, she’d called the managing director a dick, her The Black Widow and chosen to spend her lunch hour in unsuitable company. She took unauthorised time off work to look after a neighbour, had been caught in the Tardis with Daniel, and had shown an unworkable customer incentive scheme to Richard Tompkins over Sam’s head. Sam was looking for dynamic achievers to shake the company up. Not a disorganised office junior with ridiculous ideas above her pay grade.
But what hurt Lucy most as she digested the news was Sam’s efforts to socialise with her. Had it all been merely a ploy to catch her out somehow? She’d genuinely looked up to her new boss and now felt betrayed and very sorry for herself.
I won’t cry, I won’t cry, she repeated in her head.
She focused on the order she was typing up and concentrated on her work to take her mind off the impending dismissal. She might as well give the job her all while she still had it. And perhaps Adam would present their idea as planned, and continue with the nativity scene. The lovely ladies at the Renborough Knit and Natter were already on board. It was a fun idea and deserved to go ahead, with or without her.
Sam walked through the office a while later and stopped at Lucy’s desk. Aware of her boss’s smart navy blue suit hovering by her side, she couldn’t quite bring herself to turn and face the inevitable music. She typed frantically on the keyboard to indicate that she was super busy and couldn’t possibly be disturbed.
Sam tapped her on the shoulder and leaned forward to speak to her in hushed tones. ‘Can you come and see me in my office tomorrow? About ten o’clock? I need to speak to you about something, but I’m tied up all afternoon downstairs in the conference room.’
‘Ten o’clock. No problem,’ Lucy said, still tapping away and without turning her head.
Sitting in the downstairs staffroom with Derek and the others at lunchtime, Lucy’s face was longer than the A1. Roy attempted to make her break a smile by talking about his drunken weekend escapades, but it fell flat. Eventually, and realising all was not well with their usually chirpy lunchtime companion, they persuaded her to open up.
Derek thumped his hand down on the table and tea slopped over the edges of their Balamory promotional mugs. ‘That’s not right – you’re an asset to the company, love. More lively than Pat, bless her. And harder working than Adam. He wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it danced naked in front of him with “this is what a hard day’s work looks like” stamped on its forehead.’
‘Please don’t say anything. I haven’t even been told officially yet. I’m not supposed to know and I don’t want to get in any more trouble than I already am. I’m going to need a decent reference, after all.’
‘You’ll be fine, lass,’ said Roy. ‘Even though in the last few weeks you’ve not been yourself and gone all posh and bossy like the other one.’ He smiled to indicate he was joking. ‘Wherever you end up, you’ll shine. Don’t think of it as a negative. It could be just the kick up the ar— bottom that you need.’
‘I’ll miss this place.’ Lucy looked up at the calendar, expecting to see Miss July and her unfeasibly perky breasts and spray-on tan but instead saw Renborough Animal Rescue’s cat of the month. She sighed.
‘And this place will miss you,’ Derek said.
‘I’m glad Brenda wasn’t kept in at the weekend,’ Jess said, perched on Lucy’s desk. ‘Although you do realise this could be the start of more frequent falls for her, don’t you?’
Jess had been off sick Monday and Tuesday with a rotten summer cold. Not someone who was often ill, Jess told Lucy it had been brewing since Friday and she’d finally succumbed over the weekend after staying out far too late Saturday night.
‘We’ll deal with each one as it happens,’ Lucy said. She wasn’t sure if she was executing the best thought-out plan in her life: to take each day at a time, and not to worry too much about what the future held. But as no one could give her answers or timescales, it was the only plan she had.
Because Sam and Richard were still busy in the conference room, no one questioned Jess being upstairs. Adam was also absent, having nipped to the Tardis. Although he had every possible colour of highlighter, about fifteen spare Biros and enough staples to adorn the wall displays of all the primary schools in the county, the Tardis was next to the conference room and Adam didn’t like being out of what he referred to as The Managerial Loop.
Unlike the warehouse lads, Jess was chatting away, oblivious to Lucy’s low spirits.
‘But, despite dashing off to hospital Sunday morning, you got to spend the whole night under the stars, like the locket said?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘It’s finished. That was the last spell.’ She’d been buzzing when she’d found the final words and realised the spells were finished, but it wasn’t important any more. Losing her job had taken precedence.
‘Fantastic,’ said Jess, with a huge smile. Her leg started to bob up and down, as it often did when she was excited. ‘And the words changed?’
‘I’m not in the mood to talk about this right now, Jess.’
‘I know what you mean. The accounts office is in total chaos and the new software is causing us a major headache, not helped by me being off for two days. But did it?’
‘Did it what?’
‘Say any more?’
‘Oh, just take it,’ Lucy said, tugging the locket over her head and passing it to Jess. There was a pause as Jess looked to Lucy for the necessary assistance.
‘For goodness’ sake. Give it here.’ Lucy opened the catch and showed Jess the inscription. With all the drama over Brenda on Sunday, it wasn’t until Monday she’d even thought to check it.
‘When his lips now meet with thine
It seals a love to last all time.’
‘So, do you reckon that means you have to go out and kiss him, or he’ll be so in love with you now that he’ll turn up and kiss you?’
Lucy rested her head in her hands and sighed. ‘Right at this moment, I don’t care.’
She loved her friend but the stupid locket was the last thing she was worried about. Why was Jess so obsessed with the damn thing that she couldn’t see Lucy was desperately unhappy? Well, if Jess hadn’t picked up on her mood, she didn’t feel inclined to spell it out to her.
‘What are you going to do if it hasn’t worked? If you were right, and it was all mumbo jumbo?’ Jess persevered.
‘You’ve changed your tune. You were the biggest advocate of the locket and now you’re implying that it might not be magic after all?’
‘What I mean is, are you going to be terribly disappointed if he doesn’t fall in love with you? Or falls for someone else? I mean, you aren’t really into him, are you? It was just to keep your mum quiet and have someone to take to the Big Birthday.’
‘I don’t understand. Where are you going with this?’
‘I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. You don’t even like the man, do you? He’s a great lump with silly glasses, who you find unpleasant and rude – remember?’
‘No.’ Lucy swallowed. ‘I don’t even like the man.’
It was as if Scratbag knew she’d had the worst day ever. He came towards Lucy as she swung her legs out of the car, rubbing his head around her ankles and nuzzling up to her outstretched hand with his soft, shiny head. George had stopped by that morning to say he
would be away overnight at a conference in London and would she mind feeding the cat, so she suspected Scratbag’s affections were merely a form of cupboard love. She promised she’d be over later and he seemed content with that.
Brenda was hobbling around and still very sore down her left side but was generally buoyant and chatty when Lucy checked in on her. As they passed the living room, Brenda rushed to pull the door closed but Lucy could see the tiny Edwardian writing bureau in the corner was open. Brenda was clearly catching up on correspondence as paper and pens were scattered across the fall of the desk.
‘Wish I’d kept some of the lavender oil now as I don’t want to be fiddling about in the garden cutting chunks of witch hazel off. All I need is to slip with the knife and put myself back in that bloody hospital again,’ Brenda said, referring to the treatment of her bruises. ‘I’m not going to miss this party for the world. And if I have a bit of bruising to live with, so be it.’ She pulled out a kitchen chair for Lucy.
The kitchen looked even emptier now. All the shelves on the tall dresser were completely bare and the floor had been swept.
‘George took the bottles and jars to the recycling centre for me today before he left for his work whatsit, and even ran the broom over the floor,’ Brenda said, following her eyes.
‘On a work day?’
‘Yes, we had a late breakfast together. He turned up with a couple of bacon baps, saw the bottles stacked up and said he could easily pop past the bottle bank on his way to the conference. He stayed for about half an hour. We had a lovely time, apart from when he accidentally put one of the boxes on top of his spectacles. He said a few inappropriate words, nothing I’ve not said myself in times of great stress, but they were totally justified. They’re his only pair, so I hope he gets on okay today. He told me he’d taken next week off, as he needs a break, and that he was going to take his mum away for a couple of days.’
‘But he won’t miss your party, will he?’ Lucy felt disappointed at the thought he might not be there. Despite the tension at the end of their camp-out, she was certain there was a connection and was hopeful the locket was about to perform its final magic and bring them together.
‘George promised to be there, don’t worry. He returns tomorrow afternoon and is heading straight back to work. Certainly not a shirker, that one. Is that why I picked up a muddying of your auras when you walked in then? You were worried about him missing the party?’
‘No, the muddy auras are because my boss is about to let me go.’ The rising lump in her throat was audible but she swallowed it back down.
‘Oh, Lucy.’ Brenda slipped into a chair on the opposite side of the kitchen table and concern crossed her face. ‘Are you certain?’
‘They’ve been interviewing for my job today.’
‘Oh, my darling. At least you have George. I’m certain he is yours now. Sometimes I can pick up things clearer than others. Where are you with the spells? Have you done the three hairs under the bed yet?’
From her dementia research, Lucy knew it was kinder not to continually correct sufferers, so she simply said, ‘The spells are finished. Just the final kiss to go, I think.’
‘How did I miss the last couple of spells? Oh, never mind. So, tomorrow it is then? You can ambush him when he returns from work.’
Or hijack him before he even makes it home, decided Lucy.
Not that she was suddenly keen or anything.
Back in her flat, putting the final touches to Brenda’s birthday present (never had she eaten so much Camembert, and all to get her hands on the boxes), Lucy became aware of the locket as she worked. It no longer felt warm to her, instead it felt cold and hard and heartless. She leaned forward to reach for the scissors from her knitting bag and it swung in front of her face, taunting her. As she sat back up, it slapped abruptly against her chest.
Stupid locket. It had given her this magical self-assurance that just wasn’t her. All the new-found confidence had done was get her into trouble at work. By raising her head above the parapet, she had put herself in the firing line, quite literally, although Sam would probably phrase it differently to soften the blow. Now she had to drag her sorry backside into work tomorrow and sit in front of her traitorous boss while she was told, no doubt very politely, that they were going to let her go.
She walked over to the fireplace and knelt down in front of her large basket of wool, but the end of one of her needles tangled in the chain of the locket. She looked down crossly at it, as if it was totally to blame for her approaching unemployment, and wrestled it free without realising she had inadvertently loosened one of the links. The chain of the locket caught on her sleeve as she rummaged about in the basket, the weak link parted and the locket slid into her lap. A few minutes later, as she stood up to return to the sofa with her wool, it fell into the gap between the rug and the hearth, and nestled there quietly, waiting to be found.
Barely five minutes later, the phone rang. It was her mother.
‘Is Emily with you?’ Her mother sounded anxious and flustered.
‘No, I haven’t seen her since my visit. Why, what’s happened?’ Lucy panicked. ‘Please don’t say something has happened to the baby.’
‘We don’t know.’ Her mother’s voice was unusually fragile.
‘How can you not know?’
‘Because Emily has gone missing.’
Chapter 48
Emily had dropped the girls off to preschool and nursery that morning, then sent Stuart a text telling him she was going off radar and he would have to leave work early to pick them up from the childminder. She hadn’t answered her calls or made contact with him for the remainder of the day. By five o’clock, having duly collected his daughters, Stuart was frantic and started to call people, asking if they knew where she was. Shortly afterwards, another message came through to say she was fine but needed a bit of space and would be in touch.
Lucy felt shell-shocked, and as if she had somehow let her sister down, even though she’d been contacting her every day since returning from her weekend stay.
‘I said I’d ring you and a few other family members, but this is most unlike her. I can’t think what’s happened. She is such a capable woman and this whole episode is totally out of character. Stuart tried her best friend and then me, and we both believe the only other person she would turn to if she had problems is you. You’ve always been so close,’ said Lucy’s mother.
Yes, she’d picked up signs that all was not heady blossom and flowering shrubs in her sister’s garden of life, but the shoulder she offered hadn’t been taken, so she assumed Emily was just low and exhausted from the pregnancy.
‘I can promise you she’s not here, but I’ll contact you immediately if she gets in touch.’
Twenty minutes later, Lucy opened the front door to her pale, puffy-eyed but surprisingly calm sister.
‘I can’t do it any more.’
Emily was sitting on Lucy’s sofa, hugging Wolverine to her chest as if he was a favourite teddy and she was a three-year-old girl.
‘Something inside snapped. I dropped Rosie and Gracie off, and was walking back to the car thinking of all the things I had to organise for the girls and the jobs that needed doing about the house. Work were expecting me in for nine and I suddenly could see the future stretching before me, where the most precious things in the world to me, my girls, were occasional visitors as I negotiated this chaotic, rush hour of a road alone. I slumped into the car and thought how much easier Stu has it. He gets up, eats the breakfast I’ve made him, puts on the shirt I’ve ironed, goes to work without having to worry there might be a call from the nursery or the preschool to say a vomiting child needs collecting, then he comes home, eats the food I’ve prepared, reads the girls a story and goes to bed. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a bad man, but he is simply that – a man. He doesn’t think about the endless meals that have to be cooked, how the dirty washing magically reappears clean, ironed and back in his wardrobe. He doesn’t juggle the complicated
lives of two small children with doctor’s appointments and the application of head lice treatments. I know that we have a cleaner, but trust me, if it wasn’t for her, I would have gone under much sooner.’ She was on her soapbox, but telltale tears were building.
‘You know he loves you more than anything?’
‘Yes, but he’s the one piling on the pressure. He constantly reminds me how hard we need to work to afford our large house, big cars and fancy holidays abroad. But what if that’s not what I want? What if all I want is to be there when my girls get home from school and to be able to give them my time? Not the latest Boden summer dress or expensive toys?’
‘Oh, sweetheart.’
Lucy leaned forward to embrace her sister and reassure her everything would be okay.
‘You know you’ve got to call home? They’re beyond frantic,’ she said as she squeezed Emily tight.
‘I know. But I needed to escape for a while and think about my next move without someone asking for projected sales figures, or a child begging me to wipe their bottom. And a mean part of me wanted Stu to see what it’s like – juggling five hundred and twenty-three balls in the air while someone casually tosses you a flaming baton to see if you can catch it between your butt cheeks.’
Stuart took the news surprisingly well, largely relieved his wife was safe and well. Sandra was less understanding. Lucy sat next to Emily as she made the call and heard her mother’s voice drift out from the phone.
‘But why? You have everything.’ Lucy could almost picture her wringing her hands.
‘I can’t live this life any more, Mother. I can’t be all things to all people. I can’t have a demanding career and a young family and do a good job of both. I know there are people out there who can, and I take off my hat, coat and shoes to them, but I’m not one of them. Not any more.’
‘I thought it was what you wanted?’
Lucy put a consoling hand on her sister’s knee and Emily gripped it for dear life.
‘No, Mother, it was what you wanted. I was living the life you so badly wanted for yourself. Don’t get me wrong, in no way am I blaming you. I’m a big girl and I have made my own decisions. Well, here is another decision I’ve made. At lunchtime today I handed in my notice.’