by Jenni Keer
‘My GP is really worried about me,’ she whispered. ‘Says I’ve been working too hard, pushing myself, constantly running around after other people. You mustn’t tell anyone – especially Mum – it would worry her too much.’ Maisie nodded in agreement. Their mother didn’t need anything else to tip her seesawing emotions. ‘I came here to recharge. I was hoping you’d understand …’
‘Oh, honey. Sorry if I haven’t been very supportive. I didn’t know what was going on, but it’s been lovely having you stay and sharing some sister time.’
‘Sister time?’ Lisa sniffed. ‘You hardly do anything outside of work apart from endless cleaning and hanging out with old people. Every time I’ve suggested going for a drink at a pub or hitting the cinema you’ve moaned about how much housework you’ve got to do. In fact, I’ve been so bored I’ve even considered stopping in to see Mum at work, hoping she could make me a cuppa and take my mind off things.’
‘I think you’ll find she’s far too busy to stop and chat about your latest lip balm. Do you have any idea how hectic her job is? Why don’t you go along and offer your services for a couple of hours instead?’
‘Hmm … anyway, the point is I shouldn’t be reduced to hanging with a bunch of pensioners.’ She shuddered. ‘You’re my sister and I’ve come to spend time with you. The muddy floor and dirty laundry will always be in your life. I’m only here for a short while.’
She was right, Maisie realised. The more time she spent with Theo, the more she understood he would never allow other people’s expectations to pressure him into lifestyle choices. Or wardrobe choices, come to that. Perhaps the world wouldn’t stop spinning on its axis if she left the washing-up and went out for a drink with Lisa. It was even more important now that she realised her poor sister was struggling so badly.
‘Oi, watch the nails,’ Lisa huffed as Maisie gave her a squeeze. She dropped her arms. Her big sister didn’t really do affection – even though she was probably the person who needed it the most.
Maisie collapsed into the sofa and tried not to focus on all the things in the room that were out of place.
‘Talking about phone calls and before I forget, you had a call from some woman called June, Jane, or something,’ Lisa said, returning to the nail varnish and sweeping all previous emotions and vulnerability aside. ‘Forgot to mention it. It was about that teapot of yours.’
‘Joanie? When?’ She must have returned from her cruise. Maisie sat up straighter and subconsciously tweaked the cushions.
Lisa shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not your secretary. Last week sometime? But she wasn’t the pervert because I asked.’
‘You asked her if she was a pervert?’ Maisie squeaked.
‘Doh. Of course not. I’m not stupid. I fished around to see if she’d tried your number before. Wasn’t her. Said Bessie had mentioned your visit so was getting in touch.’
‘Essie,’ she corrected and retrieved Joanie’s number from her bag. Fifteen minutes later she had an appointment for afternoon tea at a posh hotel the other side of Bury St Edmunds the following Saturday.
Highbury Hall was a glorious Georgian country house converted into a five-star hotel just off the A14. Nestled in a cluster of tall trees with open fields spread around like the flowing skirts of a fairy princess ballgown, it was an impressive venue. Wondering if she should have dressed up a bit more, Maisie pulled into the sweeping gravel driveway of the hotel. The rows of new Mercedes and Audis, all chamoised to a high gloss, suddenly made her feel self-conscious. She tucked her hair behind her ears and smoothed down the front of her casual cotton dress.
After clip-clopping across an echoey entrance hall to a discreet desk between two imposing Grecian pillars, she was directed to the sumptuous restaurant. There, behind a pristine cream-coloured tablecloth, was an Essie lookalike. There were enough similarities between Irene and Joanie to see they were family, but it was Essie and Joanie who looked like twins: height, body shape, even hairstyle. Joanie, however, was the Essie upgrade; with a pale pink cashmere jumper and tailored Paul Smith trousers compared to Essie’s M&S jeans and soft cotton T-shirt. She put out a bejewelled hand and invited Maisie to take a seat.
‘We shall have high tea – on me, naturally. Well, my son-in-law actually. The hotel belongs to him.’ She gestured for Maisie to take a seat and smiled.
Wow, Joanie had climbed several rungs higher than her sisters in her journey through life and she could quite understand how her path had diverged from Irene’s. With her career hopes so cruelly dashed, it was easy to understand the burning resentment that exuded from the jealous Irene.
‘Esther mentioned you knew Meredith?’ the elegant older lady asked, settling herself back into the burgundy upholstered dining chair and catching a passing waiter’s eye with a half-nod. Within moments a white bone china service arrived, complete with a three-tier cake stand, overflowing with dainty mouth-watering treats; from uniform triangular crustless sandwiches and perfectly baked vol-au-vents, to fancy cakes and pastries, and on the top tier small glasses of sorbet and individual mini trifles. The smoked salmon aroma made Maisie’s nervous tummy grizzle in anticipation. A waiter offered the ladies a selection of loose-leaf teas and they settled for a simple English Breakfast, which he dutifully poured before silently retreating – and then reappearing periodically throughout their conversation to top both ladies up.
‘Which means apart from Phyllis and poor darling Cynthia, you’ve met us all now. What do you think? Peculiar lot, aren’t we?’ Joanie raised the delicate cup to her lips, peering over the top to assess Maisie’s reaction.
‘As I explained on the phone, I knew Meredith many years ago but it’s been interesting to meet more of her sisters.’
‘Interesting? Now there’s a polite and evasive answer, if ever I heard one. Irene is certainly interesting.’ She smiled to herself. ‘I’m sure she wasted no time telling you that I was an unmarried mother?’
Maisie looked down at her hands. ‘She mentioned it briefly but we talked about many things.’
Joanie gave a disbelieving huff. ‘How she crowed when she realised I was pregnant – guessing before I was even certain myself. I felt sorry for her really. She had a certain reputation and was teased for it. So when it was quiet little Joanie who messed up, she enjoyed her moment and I don’t blame her. Of course, it frustrated her no end that I never told anyone who the father was – even the father himself. I just slipped into the background and got on with it. I was very good at that.’
‘Because he was married?’ asked Maisie, Irene gleefully having told her that much.
Joanie looked thoughtful, sizing up the young woman before her with narrowed eyes and taking her time to respond. For a moment, Maisie thought she’d offended the elegant older lady, but Joanie carefully placed her cup back on its saucer and smiled across the table.
‘I’m going to tell you something now that is not common knowledge. When I told everyone all those years ago that the father was married, it was a fabrication – a story I came up with to avoid awkward questions, but it wasn’t true. Even my mother finally let it drop because I told her he was a professional man with a career and a young family to think of. In a strange way, it pleased her to think her granddaughter was possibly the daughter of a high-ranking politician or an investment banker – whereas in reality he was no such thing. Just an ordinary guy, a sweet man, with no ties, and most definitely not married.’
‘I don’t understand.’ For Joanie to launch straight into something so personal seemed odd to Maisie. After all, she was nothing to her.
‘The sad truth was the gentleman concerned was utterly and totally in love with someone else – someone I knew. I was a temporary stopgap. Sometimes though I wonder …’ She shrugged, and let the sentence trail off. ‘You can be happy without necessarily being in love. And maybe he would have learned to love me. But there. I made the decision and I stood by it, throwing all my energy into bringing up my little girl.’ Her eyes scanned the room. ‘I’
m hoping she’ll join us presently. I’d like you to meet her.’ Joanie’s eyes returned to the table and she sighed. ‘Funny thing was he never did get the girl and by the time I realised it wasn’t going to happen for them and thought about approaching him with the truth, he’d found a different kind of happiness with another woman. I couldn’t do it to her.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ As fascinating as Joanie’s life story was, Maisie thought as she selected a couple of sandwiches from the bottom tier, she was here to discuss the tea set.
‘I wanted to warn you, I suppose. You see, it all hinged around that damned ugly crockery of Gamma’s. She told Mother time and time again to keep it all together, and it’s only as I’ve got older and looked back at the paths my sisters and I took, I realised not one of us was particularly lucky in life.’
Watching this gracefully, immaculately turned-out lady select a shiny, mint-green macaroon, her manicured fingers dotted with gemstones, she decided Joanie’s definition of lucky differed somewhat from hers. Joanie noticed Maisie’s expression.
‘Ah, you are looking at my material wealth and wanting to chastise me for being spoiled and ungrateful?’ Maisie stared intently at her tea plate. ‘The truth is, my dear, I would trade this all in an instant to have had someone by my side this last fifty years. My daughter became my life – my focus. And for twenty years she was my everything. A bright girl who despite her unfortunate beginnings, studied hard and became a success. She married a property tycoon – lovely fellow, if somewhat up his own backside – and she has paid me back tenfold for all the sacrifices I made over the years. I am very close to her but it’s not the same. I’ve lived a terribly lonely life. You can give all your love to a child and for those first formative years it’s returned in equal measure. But as they get older, you are a less significant part of their life – and that’s how it should be. Meanwhile, you get into bed every night alone. No one to help you make life decisions or laugh with through the good times …’
Maisie was still feeling lost. ‘But what does all this have to do with Verity’s tea set?’ she asked.
‘Because all the disasters that befell the carefree, optimistic young Mayhew sisters; Meredith’s fiancé dumping her two days before her wedding, Cynthia’s illness being diagnosed, Irene’s career-destroying motorcycle accident, Essie’s inability to conceive, my unplanned pregnancy, and Phyllis meeting that abusive husband of hers – it all happened in 1969.’
Maisie looked blank, her eyebrows dropping together as she tried to work out why this year was so significant.
‘The year Gamma died and Mother split up the tea set.’
Chapter 34
Joanie had the jug and sugar bowl with her, neatly wrapped in silver tissue paper and in a Fortnum and Mason’s bag, handing it to Maisie after her shock announcement. But then Maisie had known Verity’s set was in the restaurant the moment she’d walked through the door.
‘I insist you take them, and can only hope I’m not passing on something that will cause you or your family any misfortunes in turn. Perhaps bringing them together will undo some of the damage.’
Maisie was sceptical. Even if she did successfully reunite it, nothing could bring three sisters back from the dead, make Irene’s lungs magically healthy again, or give Essie the much-longed-for child.
‘Please let me give you something for them,’ Maisie offered, always feeling guilty when she acquired more of the set.
‘Nonsense, child. Money is one thing I have plenty of. And my daughter, Clare, feels no attachment to them. She’s more than happy for me to pass them over.’
For all her wealth, there was something about Joanie that betrayed the emotional poverty of her life. Her eyes didn’t sparkle like Essie’s or even study you as acutely as Irene’s. They were lost eyes – lonely eyes. Perhaps that’s why she wore all the jewellery, Maisie thought, to add the sparkle she knew she was missing.
‘Ah, talk of the devil.’ Maisie followed Joanie’s eyes and saw an equally elegant middle-aged lady saunter towards their table. After brief introductions, Clare pulled up a chair and the omniscient waiter appeared with extra crockery.
Joanie introduced the two ladies.
‘Do excuse me briefly, my dears. I need to powder my nose,’ and she dabbed delicately at the corner of her mouth with the linen napkin and then slipped away from the table.
Casting a cursory glance at the Fortnum and Mason’s bag, Clare selected some of the dinky sandwiches and then looked across at Maisie.
‘Mum always thought that set was trouble,’ she said. ‘She pretends not to be superstitious but secretly I think she feels splitting it did something wafty and mysterious to the universe. Load of old tosh but I’ll be pleased to see it go.’
If she was totally honest, Maisie wasn’t sure where she stood regarding Verity’s set. In her heart, she knew gathering a few old cups and saucers together couldn’t possibly determine someone’s actions, but all the Mayhew sisters had been troubled by their grandmother’s warning words.
‘Mum feels she failed me – not giving me a father – and somehow blames the tea set,’ Clare continued. ‘Maybe it was easier than admitting she’d messed up. I want to say that you don’t miss what you never had but I sometimes wish she’d be honest about who he was. All she’ll say is he was a kind man, a man who never let his tough childhood keep him down. But ask her any details, like a name or a profession, and she clams up. It’s weird to think he might still be out there, walking around, and that I could pass him in the street and not know. I love my mother so much but there is a part of me that is angry with her for not telling the poor man he’d fathered a child – not letting him make the decision whether to be part of my life or not.’
‘I guess she has her reasons,’ Maisie said, knowing from her conversation with Joanie that they were unselfish ones, but equally, looking across the table, her heart went out to this fatherless woman. Maisie simply couldn’t imagine life without her dad, for all his faults.
‘If you did ever find out who he was, what then?’ she asked.
Clare looked into the middle distance and considered Maisie’s question.
‘I guess I’d start with the fifty years of hugs we’ve both missed out on,’ she said.
Back in her silent house, Maisie placed the newly acquired milk jug and sugar bowl on the shelf with the rest of the set. It had been a wonderful afternoon and every time she encountered a Mayhew she felt she’d made another friend. In spite of her prickly nature, or maybe even because of it, Irene had stolen the top spot in Maisie’s heart, but she knew Essie and Joanie would also be part of her life from now on.
Maisie stood back to admire her display, thinking about Meredith and her sisters, as her brain began to link the tea set to the return of her own family. Zoe’s text message had been sent the day she bought the first three cups, even though they hadn’t been able to Skype until the following day; her parents had overridden twenty years of animosity when Essie’s cups had been given to her; and Lisa had turned up the day she’d visited the grabbing grandson. Did this mean Ben was about to make a dramatic return to the UK? Was she about to have her Christmas Day wish after all?
Returning to the living room, she poked a raw carrot stick through the bars of Nigel’s cage, as something out the front window caught her eye. Nigel was delighted and managed to stuff it into his ever-expanding cheeks lengthways. If she’d given him two, he’d resemble a catamaran.
She looked across at the long bay window and a figure strode past. A tall man, possibly in his thirties, with fair straggly hair and a familiar jawline. Her heart thudded so violently it physically jolted her forward.
It was Ben. And he was back.
The doorbell buzzed and Maisie raced down the hall to throw wide the front door and embrace her brother.
‘Ben! How did …?’ Her words died in her mouth because the man standing before her was a total stranger. She was so desperate for Ben to come home, for Verity’s stupid tea set to
have the power to do something she couldn’t do by herself, she was seeing what she wanted to see. Ben was still in Croatia and there would be no family reunion until the tour was complete, when the logistics of gathering them all again would be difficult. Her parents’ truce was fragile and Lisa would undoubtedly return to York long before Ben returned.
‘Good afternoon,’ the man said, and nervously adjusted his tie. She could see now that although he was similar in build and colouring to her brother, his face shape was different and his eyes were a dark chocolate brown. All the Meadows family members had blue eyes – her dad’s being the bluest and most hypnotic of them all.
‘Yes?’ Perhaps he was a Jehovah’s Witness – all smartly dressed in a suit and beaming at her like he was her best pal.
‘I’ve recently moved in a few houses down and I’ve got a wiring issue. I wondered if you had a number for a local electrician?’
‘Of course. Come in and I’ll fetch you an old parish magazine.’
He ran a shaky hand through his mousey hair and stepped inside. Maisie disappeared into the living room, expecting the stranger to wait by the door, but he followed her down the hall.
‘Erm, my sister is down from York and crashing for a few nights,’ she said, to explain the state of the room. He wasn’t supposed to be in here and she was dreadfully embarrassed by the chaos but the young man didn’t seem fazed. ‘She’s rather … disorganised.’
‘What’s a bit of mess between family? It must be fun having her stay – like a student sleepover? Bet you’re getting up to all sorts of sistery things together?’