by Jenni Keer
‘Yeah, sorry. Gut reaction. I had a lot going on,’ she said, as the researcher closed the barn door behind her.
‘How is your sister now?’ he asked, giving her an intense stare with concerned eyes.
‘She went back to York with Craig yesterday. Early days, but he genuinely seems to care about her. She’s been formally charged with drink driving and will have to return for the court case but knows she’s probably looking at a twelve-month ban and a hefty fine. And with that on her record, her employment prospects aren’t great. With God and Craig on her side, she’ll get through it all, but the house seems empty without her. I didn’t think I’d miss her as much as I do, although it’s amazing what a great companion a honey-coloured ball of fluff is. I guess he’s my equivalent of Pam’s photograph, but the company of real people wins every time.’
‘Bet you don’t miss her mess though, Little Miss Spick and Span?’
‘Yes and no. Some things are more important than an ordered cutlery drawer.’ She smiled and there was an awkward pause. ‘Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about the company …’
‘I’m listening,’ Theo said, smoothing the tablecloth down, and hitching up his leg on the chair.
‘I’ve been thinking about all the lonely people I know – Arthur, Lisa, the Mayhew sisters, the elderly residents of Willow Tree House, even Ella when I first got here – of course, that’s changed now,’ she said, avoiding his eyes, and trying not think about how Theo might be helping Ella fill her lonely evenings. She failed. ‘The more I thought about your Modern Design sales, the more our auction layout started to resemble the houses of the elderly people I know. The furniture, the coloured glass and the kitchenalia, and it started me thinking. These were people who would appreciate and remember these objects from their heyday, and would these people be a potential market? Or even a potential source of lots?’
‘And your genius idea is …?’
‘We have an over-sixties preview for some of our special sales, particularly the modern design, which I think we might even be able to make once a month once we get going with the promotion. Just an hour in the afternoon, maybe before we let everyone else in, where they can wander about and look at the items and support the café. Mum could even get some of the more able-bodied residents down here, as long as we keep an eye on the memory-challenged individuals.’ She smiled. ‘We might get some good promotion out of it – local newspaper coverage and carefully monitored social media.’
It was the nostalgia element, something she’d been pushing in all her advertising. Trying to associate Gildersleeve’s with happy memories and halcyon years gone by. The number of times she’d walked around on viewing days and overheard people say, ‘My mum had one just like that,’ or ‘I always wanted one of those when I was little.’
Theo rubbed his unshaven chin and made a hmm sound. ‘Like all your ideas, I think it’s a bit full-on, but you do have a knack of making things work, even if they take some tweaking. You’re too enthusiastic and I’m too laid-back. We make a good team,’ he said, avoiding her eyes for a second. ‘But don’t get hung up on the Twitter fiasco. You were right about pushing our online presence. Johnny and I can see a direct link to our leap in profits and attendance. We might even have to give you a pay rise.’
‘We haven’t got to the good bit yet,’ she said.
‘We haven’t?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘I think Johnny’s café should be themed.’
‘We are NOT going down the Hooters route,’ he warned, totally deadpan.
‘Aww, don’t dismiss it out of hand – Arthur would look fabulous in stockings and suspenders.’ Theo broke out another of his deliciously wonky smiles so she continued. ‘I was actually thinking of a simple Fifties and Sixties mix. I know someone who has a garage full of vintage paraphernalia, including a working milkshake machine. Johnny is right; if we make the café as much of an attraction as the auction house, they’ll benefit each other. Although not everything we sell is old, the majority of our stuff is. Let’s make Gildersleeve’s a place people want to come to for an afternoon out.’
‘A retro café for a retro company with its retro staff.’ He chuckled. ‘Great idea and well done for bouncing back. You’re one amazing woman, Maisie Meadows.’ He was scrutinising her face again, searching for something but she didn’t know what.
Now was the time to be brave, she thought, looking into Theo’s mossy eyes. She had to tell him everything she said about workplace relationships was purely because she was jealous Ella had pipped her to the fuzzy-headed post. Arthur’s words played in her head. How different his story with Essie might have been if one of them had admitted their feelings from the start. Frank and Pam would have met other people and Essie and Arthur would have been together fifty years sooner.
The barn was silent. There was no one to invade this moment with clumping boots or flapping clipboards. Theo’s eyes locked on to hers and Maisie felt a nervous lump slide painfully down her throat as she swallowed. Her lips were dry and her head was giddy. Did he feel the same? Sometimes when he seemed to be studying her so intently she thought so. Their bodies swayed a tiny bit closer and she tipped her head slightly to the side, her thudding heart out of control. She saw his tongue moisten his lips and there was no longer any doubt where this was heading. His mouth was millimetres away from hers and she inhaled his spicy aftershave and pine soap. And then she remembered Gareth’s unfaithfulness and pulled away abruptly.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t do this.’ How could she even contemplate going behind Ella’s back when she’d never been anything other than kind to her? She felt ashamed and disloyal. ‘If we were both free it would be different but there are other people’s feelings to consider.’
Theo closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘You’re right. What the hell are we thinking?’
I know what I’m thinking, Maisie thought as she reluctantly turned and began to walk towards the barn door – that I love you and it sucks that someone beat me to it.
Chapter 56
It was a spectacularly busy Friday. The auction house had acquired the estate of an avid militaria collector and had several potentially valuable lots – the showstopper being a pair of early nineteenth-century cast-iron canons. Online bids had given a good indication of the level of interest and several serious collectors had travelled across the country to attend, resulting in a swell of numbers at the salerooms that morning. This was Gildersleeve’s at its best: staff milling around, engaged in conversations with the public, and a bustle and energy that was contagious.
The Wot a Lot! crew were on site – the overenthusiastic director loving every frenetic minute and following Theo around like a lovesick puppy. Maisie may have got Johnny’s leanings wrong but she would stake Nigel’s life there was more to the director’s close personal attention than being a fan of Theo’s extraordinary hair.
The auction got off to a promising start, with the canons going for double the estimate and bringing the atmosphere alive. Maisie was a runner – taking the completed auction sheets from Theo over to the office. It was on her second run that she skipped though the door of the reception to see her long-haired art class teacher, Tristan, kissing Ella behind the desk. They stood facing each other and there was no doubting his arm around her tiny waist was the arm of a romantic relationship.
‘What the …?’
‘Apologies.’ Ella flushed bright red. ‘I know this isn’t appropriate at work. He only popped by to drop off my phone because I’d left it in his car this morning. I’m terribly sorry.’
‘Of course it’s not appropriate,’ Maisie muttered. ‘You’re kissing another man whilst your boyfriend conducts an auction, blissfully unaware of your disloyalty. I can believe you’re doing this to Theo.’ Tristan took a startled step backwards and Ella frowned at Maisie.
‘Tris is my boyfriend.’
‘No, Theo is,’ Maisie said, quite definite in her statement.
‘He really isn’t,’ Ella countered, just
as firmly. ‘Theo’s a kind man and a good friend but not my type.’
‘But you’ve been hanging out together after work. Theo said you are often over at his house.’ Maisie began to feel less certain about her assertion in the face of Ella’s denial. After all, she should know who her boyfriend was.
‘Yes, I’m upholstering a chair for him – my take on the Eighties, inspired by the Rubik’s Cube. It’s been fun. Besides, I’m not the one he wants. Surely you’ve noticed how he looks at you? Everyone else has. Johnny’s been hoping you two would hit it off from the start.’
Hearing his name, Johnny appeared from the back office clutching a bundle of papers.
‘Am I missing out on some delicious gossip?’ he asked. ‘Has this wondrous child finally realised what I have been subtly trying to tell her from the very first day she stepped foot in the Gildersleeve’s premises? That Theodore would indeed be perfect for her and is undoubtedly the Lancelot to her Guinevere?’
‘Hold on one cotton-picking minute, Mister Jonathan Gildersleeve.’ Maisie’s brain was unravelling the conversation. ‘Are you telling me every time you harped on about how adorable Theo was, you were trying to sell him to me?’
‘I was hardly coveting him for myself. My tastes are decidedly more … breast-orientated. I rather thought that had been satisfactorily established – admittedly somewhat late in the day.’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘And you wondered why I thought you were a couple. Always telling me what impressive thighs he had and how intense his eyes were.’
‘Ah, yes, I do see your point and it was terribly naughty of me to presume to match-make. Planting seeds in your mind and cultivating the delicate plants pushing their way through the soil. I so wanted darling Theodore to be happy and you seemed the perfect person to help with that. Deep in my very bosom, I know I’m right. You need to dump that oversized boyfriend of yours and look a bit closer to home, dah-ling. Poor fellow has been in torment, watching you with another man.’
‘But I don’t have a boyfriend.’ What was going on? It was like some ridiculous Shakespearean comedy. ‘Where did you get that idea from?’
‘The tall chap who simply can’t keep his hands off you. We’ve all seen you flirting in the salerooms, you can’t deny it, my dear.’
Ella nodded in agreement. ‘Theo’s been totally wretched.’
‘Oliver? My brother-in-law? Who still ruffles my hair like I’m a child? Seriously?’ She allowed her mouth to drop open to drive home her point.
They both nodded and Maisie shook her head to allow muddled thoughts to settle into a more logical order. How had she and Theo managed to get everything so catastrophically wrong?
‘But I’m in love with Theo.’ Saying the words aloud made her realise how true they were. These few months at the auction house her feelings had been sneaking up behind her and waiting for her to turn around and recognise them. No wonder they’d both pulled back earlier in the week – each thought the other was in a relationship. If she wasn’t so full of colliding emotions, she would have burst out laughing.
‘Then for all that is righteous and holy, go and tell him that, dear child. Do it. Do it now.’ Johnny’s face was positively beaming. ‘There is no time to lose in matters of the heart.’
‘Do I hear six hundred?’
Maisie burst through the barn door and waved frantically at Theo, standing behind the oak lectern and looking totally ravishable in a floral open-necked shirt and tatty knee-length shorts.
‘An astonishingly keen bidder has entered the room, so it’s six hundred with you, madam,’ and he gestured in Maisie’s direction, gave a cheeky smile to camera one and the camera fell a little bit more in love with him too.
‘No. No. I’m not bidding. Unless your heart is up for auction? In which case I’ll sell everything I own.’ There was nothing like a bold and ill-thought-out statement to really get your heart racing. The fact it was being filmed for national TV wasn’t helping.
The room became eerily quiet. That gentle hum of conversation that usually accompanied the auctions dropped away to nothing. Theo stared at the bouncing blonde in front of him, his eyes almost wider than his head.
‘I’m mid-auction. Can this wait?’
‘Not really …’ She shuffled from foot to foot and an awkward silence followed. ‘I think we should deal with this now.’
‘Hear, hear.’ Arthur stepped forward. ‘You go, girl. Tell him how you feel. Do it for me and my lost opportunities.’ His voice was cracking and tears swelled in his crinkly eyes. He was alongside her now and Maisie reached for his thin hand, clasping the old man’s bony fingers, and gaining some Dutch courage from her friend.
Theo locked eyes with Maisie, above the heads of the assembled crowd. The Wot a Lot! director whispered into his headset mic and began frantically directing cameramen to focus on Maisie as the scene unfolded.
What can only have been a few seconds stretched between them like decades. Maisie sucked in a long breath and laid her soul bare, Arthur’s last-minute squeeze giving her all the courage she needed.
‘I really like you,’ she said. ‘As in like so much I’m almost certainly in love with you.’
Theo blinked once, still staring at her face.
‘Oliver?’ There was no visible emotion in that question. She was rather disappointed. He was supposed to reply: ‘I love you too.’.
There was a cough from somewhere at the front. ‘Shhh …’ the director whispered.
‘Brother-in-law and lifelong friend. Not boyfriend. Ever. I thought I’d said?’
‘Nope – at no point was he ever introduced as your brother-in-law.’
Still their eyes were fixed on each other until Maisie finally blinked.
‘Wish you had though.’ He shrugged. ‘Kinda been in purgatory for the last month. I’ve had Foreigner on repeat and watched Casablanca SEVEN times.’
‘Huh,’ she snorted. ‘Yet you let me think you were dating Ella …’ He needed to know he did not have the monopoly on self-pity.
‘Ella? Are you totally mad? She’s a friend. I even admitted to your sister my heart was taken …’ There was a pause as he replayed events. ‘Ah, yeah. I see where the confusion arose.’
‘Don’t be a tease, Theo, old boy,’ Arthur piped up. ‘She’s put her heart on the line. Tell her how you feel.’ Theo’s eyes flicked briefly to Arthur’s face and then back to hers.
‘I thought it was bloody obvious – I’ve been gradually falling for you since the day you launched yourself at me like a woman possessed. But you had this “just friends” thing going on, telling me what a bad idea workplace relationships were and thinking I was gay …’ The director looked up at Theo, his shoulders lifting in anticipation. ‘But it’s been you all the way.’ The director shrugged in resignation. ‘So, hey, yeah, I’m up for it if you are. As long as you promise you won’t make me buy matching dinner plates?’
‘Up for it’ was possibly as good as she was going to get from Mr Horizontal. The swelling in her chest made her feel light-headed and giddy – like she was a slowly rising Chinese lantern drifting up to the heavens, fuelled by love. She nodded.
‘In that case – sold!’ he shouted, as he banged the gavel down with gusto.
His asymmetric grin reached both ears and he hopped down from the rostrum and parkoured over the cabinets, striding over to her and taking her head in his hands. One more lingering look – just to make sure – and then he swooped in on her mouth. Maisie was immediately lost in a buzz of chemical reactions that set her body on fire, as her heart joined her knees on the floor beneath her feet.
There was a ripple of applause and Arthur stepped back to mop his streaming tears with a freshly laundered cotton hanky. Essie and he might not have quite that energy any more but Maisie suspected the passion was the same.
Theo pulled back to look into her eyes once more.
‘I can add you to my eclectic collection – things that hold great emotional significance, things I simply lo
ve and must have,’ he said. ‘I don’t care that you don’t match anyone else in my life. In fact, I think I prefer it that way.’
‘And yet you’re my slop bowl,’ she mumbled, smiling at Theo’s totally bemused expression. ‘Completing my set.’ Who said family had to be related to you?
‘And that’s a wrap,’ came a voice from the front as Theo and Maisie’s lips collided once more and the camera panned out on their happy ending.
Chapter 57
Two weeks later, on a hot and sticky August day, Maisie organised an afternoon tea party for her friends, with the expectation that it would be a more successful and less explosive gathering than her ill-fated family meal. It would be different this time – this wouldn’t be people forced together by a well-meaning if misguided woman, desperately seeking to unite something that had never worked as a whole in the first place. These were people who had gravitated to her, and her to them, through choice. Today, she would celebrate that at least one of her quests had been successful – reuniting Verity’s tea set.
Waiting for her guests to arrive, Maisie picked up the envelope containing the jagged pieces of broken cup, still sitting on the worktop since the day of Lisa’s accident. Theo was right. How stupid to think a tea set could influence real-life events. It was unusual and quirky and had unleashed all sorts of weird feelings in her because she’d associated it with a troubled time in her childhood. Meredith’s misguided conviction that it was in some way special had fuelled the imagination of a small child and nearly twenty years later, that of a desperate woman. Maisie loved it and would always keep it, but the notion that reuniting it had somehow brought her family together was ridiculous. It was a series of extraordinary coincidences, and when she looked back now, she recognised her actions were the catalyst – not the teapot.
She’d nudged Zoe and Oliver into a decision they’d been hurtling towards anyway, made Ben feel suitably guilty about not coming home, and engineered the bridges that made her mum more amenable to overtures from her dad. And it was her friendship with Lisa, however one-sided, that enabled her troubled sister to take refuge with her when life got difficult.