The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Is it done?’ asked Tracey.

  ‘All done.’ Sophie twirled it around and Tracey’s face broke into a grin of delight.

  ‘Have you got a plastic cover or something to put over it?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘I’ll go and look in Ells’ wardrobe. He’s bound to have a suit cover or something.’

  She returned with one a few minutes later and Sophie slipped it over the top of Jade’s gown, ready for transporting down the hill. It had been intensive work making it in such a short time, but worth it. Jade would out-Cinderella the girl with the red London dress. Especially with her genuine Louboutins on.

  Tracey opened up her arms and gave Sophie a very squashy squeeze. ‘I’m not a hugger normally but on this occasion I think this says everything that is presently clogging up my throat and unable to come out.’

  ‘It was a pleasure, really. I’m rather proud of it, I have to say.’

  Tracey then flopped onto the sofa as if she were a marionette and someone had just cut her strings. She drank her coffee as if it were celebratory champagne.

  ‘Jade was talking about you yesterday,’ said Sophie, sitting down also. ‘She does like you, you know. She feels disloyal letting you in, I think.’

  ‘I’d never try and take the place of Jenny. She was a lovely woman.’

  ‘I think she knows that deep down. But putting it into practice is another matter.’

  ‘I’ll make sure I tread extra carefully.’ Tracey looked down into her cup and fell silent. When she raised her head again she was wearing a smile that looked sad rather than happy.

  ‘I hope everything works out for you when you go back, Pom. Will you be able to forgive John? I couldn’t, I’ll be honest.’

  ‘I have no idea is my answer,’ replied Sophie. She didn’t say that she had to go back because she didn’t know how to go forward. ‘I’ll give it my best shot. Love can’t just die, can it?’

  ‘Mine did for Barry,’ said Tracey. ‘I thought I’d love him for ever, but then for ever ended.’

  ‘You’re a strong woman. Much stronger than I could be.’

  ‘I don’t think I am,’ countered Tracey. ‘I didn’t exactly have a plan of action when I walked out of my marriage. Other than not staying in it.’

  ‘You were incredibly brave.’

  ‘Maybe, but I was also crapping myself. You can be brave and frightened, you know.’

  Sophie hadn’t thought about those two qualities coexisting. But you needed to be extra brave to go through with something when you were scared. Tracey had more guts than she thought she had. More than Sophie would ever have.

  ‘Could I ask you a favour, Tracey? Would you show me the rest of the downstairs of the almshouse before I leave?’

  ‘’Course,’ said Tracey. ‘The keys are in the kitchen here, hang on.’ She got up and returned moments later. ‘Want to look now?’

  ‘Well, after I’ve tidied up all the bits of material and put the machine away.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. The least I can do is the tidying up,’ said Tracey. ‘Come on, but don’t expect to wow much.’

  They walked out of the front door and a small red car zoomed past them. Arms annoyed and akimbo, Tracey watched it drive on down the hill.

  ‘That thing nearly ran me over when I came up here,’ she said, calling out ‘Knobhead’ after it. Then she turned to Sophie. ‘I bet you don’t hear language like that in your world.’

  ‘Are you joking?’ she replied. ‘There’s more name-calling in the world of politics than you could ever dream of here. It’s all smiles to the face and daggers in the back.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to swap you then,’ said Tracey.

  In the almshouse, Tracey unlocked the first door and pushed it hard, then had to put her shoulder to it as it was too comfortable in the jamb and didn’t want to part company with it.

  ‘Welcome to the kitchen,’ she said, when it eventually gave.

  ‘Wow,’ said Sophie, following her in.

  ‘Wow? Are you looking at the same thing I am?’ said Tracey, with a hoot of disbelief.

  The kitchen was long with two enormous picture windows letting in a view of the newly cleared-up garden. Dust motes danced in the air as if playing to an audience.

  ‘Why is it so warm in here?’ asked Tracey. ‘The pub isn’t this warm when the heating’s on full blast.’ She rested her hand on the cast iron radiator, but it was cold to the touch.

  Wooden doors were hanging off the kitchen units and the dark red walls and ceiling added nothing by way of charm, but the scrubbed oak floorboards were beautiful.

  ‘There’s a massive pantry there,’ said Tracey pointing to the corner. ‘People were taking them out of their houses and now they’re putting them back in. Dining room next, follow me.’

  Sophie tried to imagine the kitchen painted in light colours: pale lemon maybe. A dresser, like the one in Elliott’s kitchen, covered in photos and knick-knacks; souvenirs from holidays, postcards from friends. She pictured a table in the middle of the room, a bright green Aga with an old-fashioned whistling kettle sitting on top of it. A cat basket with a large, fat, sleeping black tom, or a white cat like Deaf Jeff. Or both, curled up like Yin and Yang.

  She trailed after Tracey into the next room, separated from the kitchen by two oak pocket doors that slid into the wall. Sophie’s eye was immediately drawn to the magnificent plaster ceiling rose. A door with a stained glass panel led out to the side garden. Both women stood still for a few moments to admire it.

  ‘I’d forgotten about that. Pretty isn’t it? About the only thing that is in here. Come on, next is the study. Get ready for your eyes to be assaulted.’

  Tracey went in first and opened the thick, dark curtains to let in the light. The study was at the front of the house and had the same deep bay window as the bedsit. The décor was dodgy: the ceiling and two walls were painted snot-green and the other two very dark brown. It was like standing inside a giant chocolate-lime sweet. Quite a lot of floorboards had been removed, leaving gaping holes. Not a room to traverse safely in the dark.

  ‘One of our temporary residents was under the illusion there was treasure hidden in the house. Bad trip I think,’ sighed Tracey. ‘He broke in here and caused quite a bit of damage but found nothing except a few dead mice and some dodgy wiring. Sadly not everyone respects a free shelter.’

  ‘But it didn’t stop you offering it to me, did it?’ replied Sophie.

  ‘The house is a bit of a white elephant now to be honest. Fancy buying it from us?’

  Sophie chuckled. ‘Don’t tempt me. I could use it as a secret bolthole and escape here for two weeks out of every four.’ Split her life: be the dutiful wife for half of it and Pom No-Surname for the other. Recharge her batteries by running on the beach, sewing to her heart’s content and eating lasagne at the vicarage. A dual existence to keep Sophie Mayhew sane and able to cope with the spotlight.

  ‘So there you have it. Seaspray. Needs a lot of work from someone who loves it enough,’ said Tracey.

  I love it enough, thought Sophie.

  They stood looking out of the window, beyond the sand and the sea to the horizon and then that small red car caught their attention flying past on the road again.

  ‘Someone’s lost,’ Tracey said. ‘A little lost in Little Loste.’

  Ironic, thought Sophie, as here in Little Loste, she’d found herself.

  Chapter 42

  There was something Sophie needed to do though before she left. That afternoon, she rang for a taxi to drop her off on the High Street in Slattercove and headed straight for the toyshop. The large blue teddy bear that had previously stood in the window had gone and recently so, by the look of it, as the place he had occupied had not been filled and this was the sort of shop she imagined would pride itself on an immaculate front display.

  A delightful tinkle of bells above the door heralded Sophie’s admittance and she walked into yesteryear. The quaint exterior of the shop perfectly matched the inside
with its floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving and old-fashioned counter, complete with a massive ornate silver cash register.

  ‘I’ll be with you shortly,’ called the shop assistant, tending to a female customer who was holding the big teddy bear at arm’s length and studying it. He wasn’t wearing his guard’s uniform. Clearly the customer wasn’t interested in buying that also.

  ‘It’s okay, you can serve someone else whilst I think about it,’ the customer said.

  ‘Thank you. I’d like the sit-on train that you have in the window. And do you have the train guard’s outfit as well. Small boy size?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘Yes to both. I’ll get you ones out of the back. All fresh and boxed.’

  ‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?’ Sophie said to the bear-holding customer. ‘Looks like someone’s going to be a lucky boy or girl.’

  ‘My son. It’s his fourth birthday today,’ replied the woman, then the volume dropped from her voice. ‘I know he’ll love it, but if I appear to be tempted and then suddenly change my mind, I bet they drop the price. Especially as it’s the last one.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ replied Sophie, surprised that the woman was a bargainer. She had a henna CND hand tattoo and little beads in her choppy ash-lilac hair. She looked more like the type who would have supported the survival of small independent shops and not tried to hack at their profits. But then Sophie more than anyone knew that appearances could be deceptive.

  The shop assistant reappeared carrying the train and the costume, both in boxes.

  ‘That train’s heavier than it looks,’ she said, explaining her huffing and puffing. ‘Big solid toy this one. We’ve sold it for years and years.’

  ‘How old is your little boy?’ asked bear-woman.

  Sophie opened her mouth to reply that it wasn’t her little boy, but what came out was ‘Four. And mad about trains.’ She was caught up in her lie because it was too easy, too tempting to be a mum, in a queue with another mum, talking about their children. For a short snatch of time.

  ‘Perfect present then,’ said the woman.

  ‘It’s a lovely age, isn’t it?’ Sophie went on. ‘You can have little conversations with them at four.’ She thought of Luke in his train-rich bedroom leaning forward to inform her that Scary Edwin Page was not real.

  The woman nodded in agreement. ‘Yes it is. Birthday present?’

  ‘No . . .’ A goodbye present. An ‘I will miss you so much’ present. An ‘I have to leave you before you break my heart’ present. ‘. . . just a whim.’

  ‘My girl was train mad when she was little,’ said the assistant. ‘Wasn’t interested in dolls, but trains – oh my. They tried to stop her liking them at school, they said it was weird for a lass. I had a right set-to with a male teacher about it. She drives a tube train in London now and she loves it. I’ve always wanted to bump into that dreadful man and tell him that.’

  ‘Good for her,’ said Sophie.

  ‘He nearly ruined my girl’s dream. Luckily for her she was made of strong stuff.’ The assistant shook her head with annoyance. ‘No one should take your dreams away. Having a toy shop was mine. I suppose I could have aimed higher, but I never wanted anything else as much. I was never interested in travelling or writing a book or being famous. My dream fits me fine. No law that says they have to be massive, is there? Want me to gift wrap this for you, love?’

  ‘No, but I’ll take a gift tag if you have one, please.’

  She had a vision of Luke spilling into the almshouse and seeing the train in front of the fireplace. She could imagine his dear face frozen in a shock of delight. She wished she could be there to see it in person.

  ‘I hope your little boy likes his teddy,’ Sophie smiled at the woman on her way out.

  ‘He will,’ came the reply.

  *

  As she stood waiting for a taxi back to Little Loste, Sophie’s mind idled on the lady in the toy shop and what she had said about dreams. Her own was so small that she would have been laughed at, ridiculed for it in school. Girls at St Bathsheba’s, Calladines and Mayhews did not serve the general public in shops. She’d had to pretend that her aspirations were as lofty as those of her academic peers: to marry a rich/powerful/titled man, drive an Aston Martin/Porsche, live in a grand house, have a holiday apartment in Monaco/Rome; and not that she wanted to sew dresses and sell them in her own shop. So her dream had remained packed tightly in her heart like an unopened parcel tucked under a Christmas tree, becoming dustier and harder to get to with every year that passed. My dream fits me fine. No law that says they have to be massive, is there? was what the lady in the toyshop had said. The smiling, happylooking lady.

  *

  Tracey took the dress over to Jade before she opened up the pub that evening.

  ‘Ta-da,’ she said, nervously, placing it across her outstretched, waiting hands.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Jade and rushed upstairs with it, leaving Tracey loitering in the hallway. Should she stay or go? She didn’t usually hang around when Steve wasn’t in because there was a less welcoming vibe. She was about to go home when Jade called down the stairs.

  ‘Want to see it on?’

  ‘I’d love to.’ Tracey padded upstairs. Jade was on the landing, looking like a billion dollars.

  ‘My hair will be up and I’ve got an arm bangle but what do you think?’

  Tracey’s eyes were blurred. She thought that it should be Jenny Darlow standing here staring open-mouthed with wonder at her beautiful daughter, not her, and she was so sorry for Jade that it wasn’t.

  ‘I think you look perfect,’ she said, with a voice that was stripped of volume by emotion.

  ‘You did such a great job, thanks,’ said Jade, swishing the skirt from side to side, like Belle from Beauty and the Beast on the dancefloor.

  ‘Jade, I’ve got something to tell you . . .’ said Tracey, unable to stop herself. ‘I didn’t make it, Pom did. I started to and I made a total arse of it and—’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

  There was a pin-drop silence, then Jade shattered it with a laugh.

  ‘What?’ Tracey’s eyebrows shot up her head.

  ‘Well it was obvious. Doesn’t matter. You promised you’d sort the dress out and here it is. So thanks.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ She felt as shocked as if she’d just been tasered. ‘I’m sorry. I really wanted to do it myself.’

  ‘I know that. Are you going with Dad to watch us all arrive? Sarah’s mum’s hired a pink stretch limo for us.’

  Tracey gulped. ‘I’d really like to.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Jade disappeared into her bedroom to take off the dress and Tracey attempted to push a flurry of tears back into her eyes. Tears that were happy and warm and were pouring out of a grateful heart. All she’d wished for was that the dress would change things between them and her little dream, it appeared, had come true.

  Chapter 43

  Elliott Bellringer looked down at the page in his notebook. What a ridiculous teenage thing to doodle a woman’s name – how old was he? The thing is, he didn’t feel any of his thirty-six years at the moment because his heart was skipping around in his chest like baby Bambi in the forest and he had no desire to try and stop it because it was the most alive he had felt in years.

  Pom would be gone soon and that was probably for the best, given that he was experiencing a riot of emotion which was both wonderful and awful at the same time because he would miss her so very much. A few shared coffees and conversations, that’s all it had taken to make him realise that it was okay to want something for himself. Something outside the job, outside the duties of being a big brother and a father. He’d closed off a part of himself after Joy had left. Like the almshouse: locked it up apart from the main functioning aspect. Then she had walked in and made him see the potential in himself to live fully, to love fully.

  Sometimes people gravitated towards you for a small but important time before moving on, but they left something of themse
lves behind, like a gift. If his life had not entwined with Joy’s he would not have had Luke; if he had never met Sophie Mayhew, he might never have realised how deeply he could feel for another woman. John F. Mayhew was a lucky man and Elliott would pray that he quickly came to realise that, if he didn’t already.

  The front door bell rang. He wasn’t expecting anyone but he was a vicar and surprise visitors were par for the course. He opened the door with a ready smile of welcome, but on this occasion he could not hold it up because there, holding a giant blue teddy bear, was his wife.

  Chapter 44

  Sophie put the presents down in front of the fireplace. She had written on the gift tag: ‘To Luke, with love from Pom xxx’. She wondered if he would remember her in time. He would have memories of a woman who didn’t exist – the French Pom, who was really the English Sophie Mayhew. He would never realise how fond she had grown of him or what an effect his lips pressed against her cheek in a goodnight kiss could have on her aching heart.

  She had a sandwich for supper before starting to pack a few things in readiness. She sat at the table and read an old newspaper whilst she ate. Ironically, the middle pages were taken up with the story of four women who had all decided to ‘Reach for the Stars’, as the article header described it. Rosemary, aged fifty-seven, had gone to university after a life of caring for her disabled parents and bringing up seven children and was now a criminal psychologist. Rachel, aged sixty-two, had been a nurse until she retired – and then opened up a burlesque dancing school. Katrina, aged forty-one, had changed from being a barrister to owning a garden centre. Jamaica, aged twenty-nine, had been a drug-using tearaway, written off by teachers, and now ran the Alice in Wonderland Tea Rooms in Doncaster, which looked magical. They’d all reached for their varying-sized stars and the beaming smiles on their faces said everything the words had missed out. She turned over, to a less interesting article about the rising sea levels; read half of it before getting up for a glass of water. When she returned to the table, she found that the newspaper was once again on the ‘Reach for the Stars’ page.