‘I do, that’s it.’
‘But your mum is not here any more, and nothing can bring her back. And he deserves a little happiness himself, do you not think? Would you rather he cried and was miserable for the rest of his life or would you like to see him smile again? It does not mean that he will ever forget his lovely wife. He has you to remind him of her every day.’
‘He said that,’ said Jade, wiping her eye surreptitiously.
‘You only ever have one mum. Tracey is not trying to replace her. She knows what you are going through. She was a young girl herself once, you know.’
‘It was different then.’
Sophie laughed. ‘No, not at all. There was still ’ormones and exams and puberty and all that stuff to go through. And then throw in your heart being broken in the cruellest way possible. She has been through that pain.’
Jade shrugged and Sophie noticed the swallow in her long delicate throat. She changed the subject, lightened the tone.
‘So, do you have your bag and jewellery?’
‘Yeah, got all that.’
‘I like your shoes.’
‘They’re cheap ones from Whitby market. And illegal. No one is going to believe they are real Louboutins.’
‘They are very good copies,’ said Sophie, though they weren’t. ‘And why would they not believe you?’
‘Are you kidding? Because I’ve got them on, that’s why.’
‘But you should walk in them as if they are. That is how a lot of impoverished grand people convince you they are wearing Chanel and diamonds, because they believe it. They are full of swagger.’
‘Get out of here.’ Jade laughed.
‘It’s true,’ Sophie smiled at her. ‘Confidence works like magic.’
‘Yeah, maybe for some people. I shouldn’t have bought them. Even if they fool other people, they don’t fool me.’
‘What size are you?’
‘Five and a half.’
That was too much of a coincidence to be ignored.
‘Wait ’ere.’
Sophie dashed out of the back door, over the fence, into Seaspray, opened her suitcase and returned with the real McCoys.
‘I ’ave only worn them once. They’re size six but they pinch and you can get those inners to make them fit smaller feet if you need them,’ she said. Jade couldn’t speak, her jaw was hanging somewhere down by her knees. ‘Would you like them?’ Sophie asked her.
Jade’s hands came out to take them, reverently, as if they were about to cradle a Fabergé egg.
‘These are real, aren’t they?’
‘Yes they are.’
Hopefully Jade was in too much shock to ask why a French woman relying on the kindness of the church for a roof over her head was giving her a pair of seven-hundred-pound shoes.
‘Oh my God,’ she said.
‘Someone gave them to me. What do I need with them?’ Sophie said by way of explanation.
Jade slipped off the fakes and put on the real ones. They were a little loose, but nothing a heel insert wouldn’t sort out.
‘Oh my God,’ she said again. ‘I feel like Cinderella.’
‘Yes, well, don’t lose one on your way ’ome,’ warned Sophie.
‘Sod Cinderella, I’m going to feel like Beyoncé.’ Jade did an excited shimmy.
‘Jade, please, stand still. You do not want an edge that is not even.’ And Sophie carried on pinning the hem.
After a minute’s silence, Jade asked her,
‘Is your mum still around?’
‘Yes, she is,’ replied Sophie.
‘You close?’
‘No.’
‘My mum was lovely. Really kind,’ said Jade. Sophie wasn’t looking at her, but she could feel the heat of the smile in her voice.
‘Lots of good memories for you then?’
‘Loads. When I was little we were always making things out of clay and paper together, sticking things, glitter, glue, all that messy stuff . . . and baking. We once made Marmite and banana biscuits just because we wanted to know what they tasted like.’
‘Not good, ah?’
‘Surprisingly, not as bad as you might think.’
Alice Calladine would have gone through the roof if Sophie had put glue and glitter anywhere near a table surface. She couldn’t recall one instance of her mother ever doing anything like that with her. Children were meant to be seen and not heard.
‘I could always talk to my mum. About anything. I miss that,’ Jade went on.
Sophie had never felt able to take a problem to her mother. Hence why she was sporting a black bob, pretending to be French and living off the charity of others in a bedsit by the sea.
‘I get jealous of other girls who still have their mums. I can’t help it.’ Jade’s voice cracked.
‘Oh, chérie, just because someone has a mum, it does not mean they have the special relationship you had with yours. You were very lucky to have a woman who loved you so much. Not everyone who has a child gives them time and affection.’
‘Why bother having them, then?’ asked Jade. It was a question that Sophie couldn’t answer.
Sophie didn’t want to leave Little Loste, but that wonderful peace inside her was dissipating. The call of duty was beginning to crank up its volume. As soon as Jade’s dress was finished, there was nothing to keep her here. Then again there was everything to keep her here and that’s why she had to go.
She had lost track of time when there was a soft knock on the door and Elliott walked in with a coffee and a plate of hot buttered toast that scented the whole room and made her stomach keen in response. She couldn’t even remember eating anything that day.
‘I thought you might fancy a midnight snack,’ he said.
‘Midnight? Goodness, is that the time? I’m making a habit of this.’
‘Well, it’s eight minutes past if we’re going to be pedantic. Would you prefer to eat it here by yourself or in the kitchen with me?’
‘I don’t want to get butter all over this dress,’ she said, nicely avoiding the real truth that she would rather have shared the supper with him.
Sophie stood up and her bones cracked with stiffness as she stretched. She dropped into the chair at the kitchen table, only then realising how tired she was.
‘It’s decaf,’ said Elliott, watching her rub her eyes. ‘You look worn out.’
‘I could do with a rest, my eyes are sore.’ And running now, too; she hoped he wouldn’t think she was crying.
He passed her a square box of Thomas the Tank Engine tissues and she pulled a couple out.
‘Is the toast making you emotional?’ he asked with faux seriousness.
‘That’s it in a nutshell. Dear me.’ She couldn’t remember if she had put any mascara on. If she had, she must look like Kung-Fu Panda by now. She crunched into a buttery triangle, chewed, swallowed. ‘Why does midnight toast always taste so good?’
‘Our dad made the best toast,’ said Elliott. ‘I have no idea what he did with it – and we couldn’t afford the expensive stuff so it was always margarine – but for some reason, when Dad made toast, it was perfect. Golden, just brown enough, buttered right up to the edge. I even ate the crusts and I hated crusts. I didn’t want curly hair.’
‘And you got your wish.’
His hair wasn’t curly but it was thick and dark and starting to go grey at the front in a romantic Mallen streak.
‘I’ll have finished the dress by lunchtime tomorrow latest. You’ll be able to have your office back,’ said Sophie, wiping a drop of butter from her lip.
His notepad was at the end of the table and she wondered if the doodle of her name was still inside it.
‘I don’t mind working at the kitchen table,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to rush it for me.’
‘A friend rang me and said that she’d heard my father wasn’t very well. I’m not sure if it’s true or not but it’s made me realise that I need to go back to Cherlgrove sooner rather than later.’
Elliot
t sat back in the chair, folded his arms, tilted his head.
‘Is that what you want to do?’
‘It’s what I have to do.’
He asked the question again, with emphasis. ‘Is that what you want to do?’
Sophie lifted her shoulders, dropped them heavily. It sounded pathetic to say that she had been so used to doing what was expected of her that what she wanted was way down at the bottom of her priorities.
‘What is your heart telling you to do, Pom?’
‘Go home,’ replied Sophie. She didn’t tell him that the reason it was screaming at her to leave was because it didn’t want to.
She thought she heard his breath snag in his throat, before he spoke again.
‘Then you must. Do you have a date in mind?’
‘The weekend, I think,’ she said, forcing a lightness into her tone that she didn’t feel. She bit into the second slice of toast and thought that toast would never again taste so good anywhere else made by anyone else. ‘I’m so glad I came here though. Being in Little Loste has given me so much to think about. Probably too much.’
‘In what way?’
Sophie ate quickly to clear her mouth before answering. Hardly sophisticated. Hardly what Sophie Mayhew would do.
‘It’s made me realise all the things I don’t have that I need.’
‘Like a beach?’
She smiled. ‘I wish I could fit it in my suitcase. I need to trace the people I’ve lost contact with, find some friends I can trust.’ Love. She had been shown more affection in the two and a half weeks she’d been here than she had in years. From croissants and pickles on her doorstep, to a shopkeeper who insisted on giving her breadcakes, a woman who gave her a roof and a flask of soup, a man who helped her tidy the garden, a little boy who needed a kiss goodnight, a vicar who loved to cook and smelled of cedarwood and set her heart in a strange, skittish rhythm. She needed to relocate the love in her marriage because it had become a casualty of work, of John’s ambition.
‘You know, you have an extraordinary gift that I’m not even sure you’re aware of, Pom,’ said Elliott. He answered her quizzical look. ‘People find you incredibly easy to talk to. I could hear you with Jade through the door; I don’t think she’s opened up like that about her mum before. And Tracey, she’s always been quite guarded about her feelings. And as for Roger, I don’t think he’s ever spoken above a dozen words to me.’
‘Yeah, right.’ She found that hard to believe. She’d always thought people found her aloof, cold, unapproachable.
‘And me, too. You’ve taught me something very important in the short time you’ve been here.’
‘Never give your house key to a woman using your study as a sewing room, because she’ll eat all your Jaffa Cakes?’
‘That my heart is ready to love again.’
She hadn’t been expecting that. She felt her mouth drop open. He smiled at her reaction.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not about to leap across the room and throw myself on you . . . but what happened with Joy scarred me, irreparably I thought, and I was quite sad about that. But you . . . ’ His eyes were full of something that kept hers locked to them. She felt magnetised, held in the grip of something powerful and then he switched it off, broke contact, shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Thank you for waking up my heart, Pom.’
She smiled, tentatively, giving him no clue of the tornado of feelings swirling inside her in response to his words. ‘I’m glad if I did that for you.’
He gave a very weighty sigh, a little laugh, muttered something she couldn’t quite catch but it sounded like, ‘Oh boy, did you.’
She dragged them back to the normal, the everyday, before she leapt across the room and threw herself on him. ‘Is it okay if I carry on sewing a little longer, Elliott? Say no if you want me out of the house.’
‘You carry on as long as you like,’ he said. ‘You have a key.’
‘It’s kind of you to trust me. I could have run off with all your valuables.’
‘Take the valuables, leave the Jaffa Cakes. Luke and I cannot survive without those. Goodnight, Pom. And thank you.’
‘Goodnight, Elliott.’
She had turned a light on inside him. She wondered if she’d ever had that effect on her husband.
She let herself out an hour and a half later, wended her way down the garden and struggled over the fence, because she was truly worn out. She walked into the quiet of Seaspray’s hallway and just for a second imagined it as it was in its heyday. Light from the massive moon had filtered through the fanlight above the door and given the reception area a temporary monochrome makeover; much of the disrepair was smoothed out by the low, silvery hue. She thought of Kitty Henshaw living here by herself and surmised that she wouldn’t have felt lonely, despite the size of the place. She would ask Tracey to show her the downstairs rooms before she left, so she could think of them when she was back in Park Court, when she lay in bed unable to sleep and let her mind return to this other place, this other time.
Sophie pushed open the door to the bedsit. She didn’t want to draw the curtains tonight, she wanted to drift off looking at that lovely big moon hanging like a bauble over the sea. Wearily she stripped off and climbed into bed, closed her eyes, listened to the silence. No creaks or cracks tonight as the house settled.
‘If you’re there, Kitty, and have any words of advice for me, please let me know before I go,’ called Sophie. But there was no reply.
Chapter 41
She was awoken by her phone going off. Elise. She snatched it up and answered it.
‘I’ve been investigating subtly, as you asked, and as you know I am not very good at subtle. What a total waste of energy subtle is,’ Elise said with an impatient note in her voice.
‘And?’ asked Sophie, dreading what her probing might have unearthed.
‘Firstly Edward is no longer working for John. He quit his position with immediate effect on Sunday.’
‘Really?’
‘Apparently he’s been running his own estate agency. He didn’t want egg on his face so he didn’t announce anything until it was up and running and doing rather well, if what Gerald says is true.’
‘That’s some welcome news,’ said Sophie, shocked to the core – in a good way. ‘I’m glad for him.’
‘And . . .’ Elise paused and Sophie read not so much good news into that. ‘Gerald went to the Old Lions golf dinner last night and your father wasn’t in attendance.’
Sophie frowned. Her father always went to the Old Lions monthly dinners. That was beyond odd, and worrying.
‘I was furious because I specifically asked Gerald to dig deep. I told him that I was worried because I hadn’t heard from you in over three weeks and I suspected something odd was going on and then tagged on that he should ask John about his father-in-law as well in case the two were connected, but he didn’t get the chance, got hijacked by the bloody treasurer.’
‘Well, thank you anyway, Elise,’ said Sophie.
‘On the positive front, if there had been any bad news then there would have been some gossip circulating at the Old Lions dinner, surely?’
Her father never missed those dinners, though.
‘I’ll be home by the weekend.’
‘Oh, wonderful,’ said Elise, with true delight in her voice.
‘I want you to promise me. . .’ Sophie began, hardly able to believe that she was about to ask this, ‘. . . that if I really do disappear, if you hear that I have gone into hospital for my own good, you must go to the newspapers because I’ll have been dragged there kicking and screaming, Elise. You must promise.’
‘I absolutely swear on Monty’s life that I will.’
A sigh of relief escaped through Sophie’s lips. She would trust Elise to do that for her.
‘Thank you.’
‘We shall have lunch at your earliest convenience and you can tell me all about where you’ve been. Oh, and – guess what – I had a very contrite phone call from Dena, t
rying to make a joke of what she told me at lunch last week about her indiscretion with person or persons unknown. I imagine she is in a state of high alert and vowing never to drink alcohol again.’ Then she laughed at Dena’s misfortune. That circle took much entertainment from the mortification of others.
As much as Sophie did enjoy Elise’s company, the thought of slipping seamlessly back into her old life and listening to a full report on who had been bitching about her this week didn’t excite her one bit. The prospect was as bad as the last night of the school holidays before she had to return to St Bathsheba’s, when her heart had sat as heavy as a rock within her chest.
She didn’t go for a run that morning; she needed to get the last tweaks on the dress done, then a gentle press and it would be completed. And she’d had an idea about a calling-card embellishment, two tiny pom-poms to hang from the ties at the back of the collar. That’s what she’d put on her dresses. If she ever made another.
There was no one at the vicarage when she got there but it didn’t feel empty. Like the almshouse, it was warm and solid – a house that embraced its visitors, made them welcome. There was an oak clock on the wall that tocked a slow beat, adding to the calm. She fancied that everyone who had ever lived here must have been happy, and had left a little of that happiness behind. Give or take Joy Bellringer.
Tracey arrived just as Sophie was pressing the lovely green gown.
‘Hi,’ she greeted Sophie nervously. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Five minutes and then all that needs to be done is for you to deliver it.’
‘Did she like it when she saw it last night? Steve said that when she got home, she told him it was nice. Nice! But I don’t know what he meant by nice. Or if that was his word or her word or—’
‘She really liked it,’ said Sophie, interrupting her panicked waffling. ‘Massive brownie points.’
Tracey gave a strange hybrid of a hiccup and a sob. ‘Never again will I lie. Never. Not in my whole life. I’ll make us a coffee whilst you finish off.’ She slipped away quickly as though worried she would make Sophie lose concentration enough to burn a big hole through the dress. By the time she had returned with two mugs, Sophie was putting it on a hanger.
The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew Page 28