I Should Be So Lucky Page 20

  ‘This is the point where we should … um … make a decision,’ he said, looking serious.

  ‘Is it?’ She thought she knew what he meant. Her decision had already been made.

  ‘Yes. Are we to stay in here or shall we take this tea and sit on that lovely squashy sofa?’

  ‘Well – we could …’

  There wasn’t time for the rest of the answer because Greg moved close, put his arms round her and kissed her. And God, it felt good.

  ‘Sofa?’ he murmured when they stopped to breathe.

  She’d been too close to choosing a third option of ‘bed’. That close, she realized, to rushing towards potentially wrecking a good friendship by taking her old if-it-can-go-wrong-why-don’t-I-let-it route. A whirl of common sense somehow made its way into her exhausted brain and she nodded.

  ‘Sofa.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE STORM PAINTING halfway up the stairs would be one that Naomi would definitely keep, when it came down to the last few of them. That and the big nude portrait of her that had so horrified Kate and Miles when they’d been young teenagers. ‘Mum, you actually posed like that?’ Kate had been wide-eyed with shock, adding, ‘Gross!’ Miles had said nothing, just blushed and tried not to look. Back then, she’d told them – as a tease – that she intended to hang it in the sitting room, big, brazen, rude and bold over the fireplace, and they’d been so gratifyingly horrified that she’d very nearly done just that. ‘You are disappointingly bourgeois,’ she’d told them, which had given them a bit of a surprise. It wasn’t a word that usually featured in her Lancashire vocabulary. Viola had asked what it meant and Naomi had told her not to worry about it, it was something she’d never be. And of course she wouldn’t really have hung it there. Never mind her children’s embarrassment and the blushing, speculative glances from their visiting pals, she didn’t want her own friends making comments and doing a lot of wondering either, especially Monica, who’d ask no end of questions. In the end it had stayed forever out of public view up in her bedroom, where the only visitors for the past few years had been the window cleaner and the man who steam-cleaned the carpets. If they saw any resemblance between the voluptuous, sofa-sprawled floozy with the generous mass of auburn curls and the brisk, brick-shaped matron with a penchant for purple and a collection of gory novels, they were discreet enough not to comment.

  She would call David the dealer sometime in the next few days, let him know that one more rare Stonebridge was about to come on the market. In spite of the recession it would fetch a top price, because she’d been as careful with the selling as Oliver had trusted her to be, and his pictures had a still highly desirable value of rarity. When it came to the art market, he’d told her, slow release would be the trick. Like the tablets he’d been prescribed for the pain.

  They were all coming for a celebratory supper at Bell Cottage now Viola had had a few days to make sure everything was working and she and Rachel had settled in. It had to be today, as Rachel would be off to Ireland with Marco the next morning. Marco, James, Kate and Rob (hmm – that would be fun, not), Miles (but not Serena – it was her reiki night), and Naomi would all be there. She would have family round first, friends later, Viola had decided, as she was feeling ridiculously nervy about putting together a meal for people again after so long. At her mother’s flat, cooking had been reduced to the bare essentials, and she sometimes felt guilty that the most labour-intensive home-cooked food Rachel had had over the past year had been a simple roast chicken. Her excuse had been that the flat’s kitchen had been basic, to put it kindly, and she’d simply got out of the catering habit. The best meals they’d had there had been courtesy of Naomi and her skill with a tasty Lancashire hotpot and sumptuous shepherd’s pie.

  Today, Viola was going to remind her ever-doubting family that she could not only live perfectly capably without constant backup, but could actually get by more than well enough in the food-and-foraging department. From now on, she resolved to make a real effort and do the efficient working-woman thing – filling the freezer with home-cooked pasta sauces and casseroles and fishcakes, so Rachel would be able to come home to real food instead of pizzas and ready meals. For one thing, without the rental income, that kind of instant food would be out of their price range. ‘Move over, Nigella,’ she murmured as she parked the Polo at the supermarket, switched off the Woman’s Hour chirpy discussion on Whatever Happened to Herpes and took her enormous shopping list out of her bag.

  The store was full of exhausted-looking women with superactive school-holiday children in tow. Every aisle contained at least one infant having a tantrum, another child crying and a third racing round, arms stretched out for maximum crashing-into potential while they whooped fantasy-animal noises. Any sensible woman would have shuddered and been glad her child was past this stage, but Viola was surprised to find she was feeling a bit envious. It hadn’t really hit her before, but now she couldn’t help a piece of important knowledge burrowing into her brain uninvited: she wasn’t likely to be needing the babycare aisle at the supermarket ever again. She shook her head sharply for a second, almost consciously trying to dislodge and evict the thought, but it wouldn’t go away and it brought with it a little seed of regret. Rachel wouldn’t have the support and love of a brother or sister when she was older.

  Suppose something terrible happened (and how easily Viola had seen vibrant life wiped out in an instant), and Rachel hadn’t a sister to turn to, as she had Kate? But, she reminded herself, Rachel had cousins closer to her in age than a sibling could now be, an aunt and an uncle on her mother’s side of the family, both of them fond of her. And best of all she had her father and James, and her lovely aunt Gemma. All would be well. There were plenty of only children in the world and they got by absolutely fine. And where had this thought come from, anyway? It wasn’t as if she was planning on having another relationship, let alone another baby. Kissing Greg had felt wonderful – she’d forgotten how blissfully her body could respond to a much-wanted touch – but he had done the sensible thing and left soon after. ‘Bloody reluctantly’, as he’d put it, with a final delicious doorstep snog.

  Viola pushed the heavily loaded trolley along the pet-food aisle and wondered again about a cat. Whether to get a kitten or a rescued adult? The stripy one on the Whiskas packaging was very cute, but it must have been the woman pushing the trolley ahead of her who made her think a big lazy ginger one would be a good choice. It was the woman’s hair, wild and red and curly … and not unlike Mickey Fabian’s. Viola hung back, reluctant to go nearer in case Mickey (and one glance at that pointy profile told her it was her) recognized her and gave her a verbal going-over for causing Greg to get arrested. What did he mean by all that ‘Auntie Mickey’ stuff? She still didn’t know. Even the other night he’d been pretty slippery about explaining the set-up. ‘Family connection’ could cover just about anything, but then his vagueness fitted in with the ‘blank pages’ that he seemed to prefer.

  She liked him a lot, so far. But she really didn’t feel she could say she knew him, because he wasn’t letting her in, exactly. For now, she slid her trolley a discreet few yards behind Mickey, having a sneaky look to see what she was buying. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, maybe a cosy selection of ready meals for two? She was startled when her phone rang, and she turned the trolley as sharply as a London taxi driver and whizzed off towards the laundry products, fumbling in her bag for the phone as she went.

  ‘I’m so sorry, sweetie. Polly fell off a swing and the nanny texted me in a panic. I had to go. Did you get home all right?’

  Viola didn’t bother to wonder why it had taken Charlotte so long to call, to come up with an apology and an explanation for abandoning her at a wedding she’d never wanted, or been invited, to go to in the first place. Charlotte was a to-do list sort of woman; she’d have only just worked her way down as far as ‘Call Viola’, well below buying Polly’s next-term uniform and having her roots done. That was fine, really. With Charlotte you kn
ew what you were getting, so you knew what not to expect.

  ‘So was Polly OK? Any damage?’ Viola remembered the child squealing in a wake-the-dead kind of way once at Charlotte’s, just over a tiny nettle sting.

  ‘Cut her head open, screamed the place down, but she was all glued back together in A & E. Heads do bleed, don’t they? And her dress was ruined – Nadja put it to soak in hot water instead of cold, silly girl. So tell me – did that lovely man ask you out? Are you going? Have you already, actually?’

  ‘He was rather lovely, wasn’t he? While I was still waiting for you – without a clue you’d buggered right off out of there – we got busted for gatecrashing and then he drove me home. But no, I’m not seeing him again. And, Charlotte …’

  ‘Sweetie, I know what you’re going to say, and no – I absolutely didn’t know him, had never met him before that day. Honestly. Well … all right, I’d met him just the once, briefly, at another of Abigail’s … er … engagements. But it was not a set-up. I truly promise. Shame you’re not seeing him again, though. Was it the age thing? I mean, older men, you know, they’re well worth considering. So long as they still have teeth and a functioning bank account.’

  ‘Hmm. Actually, Charlotte, that isn’t what I was going to ask.’ Viola had her, bang to rights. She couldn’t mind, not really – Daniel had been quite a find and she’d have liked to see him again on a friends-only level. Just as every other man would be in her life from now on. That way there could be no more disasters.

  ‘You know, you could do worse than Internet dating, Vee.’ Charlotte clearly wasn’t going to let Viola escape into permanent singledom without a fight.

  ‘You do love a project, don’t you?’ Viola laughed. ‘I’m not looking for anyone! I’m going to concentrate on living in my own house again, being a good, supportive mum to Rachel and see if I can persuade Med and Gib to give me more hours’ work per week. I shall also get myself a cat.’

  ‘A cat? Oh but, darling.’

  ‘Yes, a cat. It’s all right, it’ll be just the one, not a mad-woman houseful of them, Charlotte. Also, what I was going to say was, how about next week for the book group at mine? Not to talk about a book; I know we agreed to take a break until September. I just thought more of a moving-back-in gathering? I’m a bit out of catering practice but I’ll see if I can remember how to make a cake.’

  ‘Ah, book club. Now, Lisa has been Internet dating,’ Charlotte persisted, blithely ignoring Viola’s invitation. ‘She’s got one of them taking her to Paris later this week, so, yes, if we meet up the week after, she can tell us all about it. It would suit you, the Internet thing. You can be anyone you want, keep yourself as private as you need to. In fact, I’m going to call her right now, get her to give you the website details …’

  Viola had lost sight of Mickey, so never did find out whether she was cramming her trolley with ready meals for two. She finished her shopping, paid at the checkout and idly skimmed the newspaper headlines on the rack on her way out. The front page of one tabloid had a photo of teenagers partying with bottles and cans on a Cornwall beach, with a disapproving headline about Ya Ya Yobs who were apparently pretty much nightly trashing the small seaside village they’d taken over, and upsetting the residents and the young-family holidaymakers. It was the kind of story that turned up in the press every other year, whenever more than five teenagers with beers gathered after dark on a beach. And there among the revellers was Benedict Peabody’s cheery face. He was wearing a dinner jacket over a wetsuit, had his arm draped round a curvy bikini-clad girl with the usual teen mane of tumbling golden hair, and was grinning and waving a champagne bottle at the camera. Viola wasn’t remotely surprised to see him in the shot but decided that, no, she wouldn’t turn to page five for the Full Story. It was all too predictable.

  At last, outside in the humid sunshine, Viola found her car and started unpacking bags into the Polo’s boot. Reaching back to grab a twelve-pack of loo rolls, she felt her pulse rate rocket as she recognized a Fabian Nursery van parked about forty metres away. Mickey’s, she told herself. Greg was probably miles away, delivering huge painted polystyrene toadstools to a hyper-expensive children’s party venue, or a hundred yellow standard roses to a fashion shoot. That he hadn’t called her didn’t matter at all. It had only been a casual snog, not a lifetime commitment. So, no, it really didn’t matter. Much.

  She lingered a bit after the shopping was all loaded. Mickey appeared, and she saw her approach the van, but it was the boot of the blue Peugeot next to it that she unlocked. Then the van door opened and Viola half hid behind her own car as Greg climbed out, carefully carrying a small baby, holding it safe and close against his chest. She watched as with his free hand he helped Mickey load her shopping, then he kissed the top of the child’s head and placed it tenderly in a car seat in the back of the Peugeot, hugged Mickey, kissed her briefly and climbed back into the van. Mickey then watched him drive away, waving and smiling, still looking decidedly fond.

  Well, he’d been right in one way: you couldn’t get more of a ‘family connection’ than being a co-parent with someone. How much she’d believed, or wanted to believe, that Mickey really wasn’t a partner after all. He’d said she wasn’t, and Viola had been wary. Maybe at last she was learning not to be so gullible. After Rhys, how else could she be other than wary? But this tender little scene was quite an ouch. It shouldn’t have been one, because she had no claim on him other than that he had been very sweet to her. Like a friend. A sexy, tempting one who kissed like a dream. She didn’t want it to be an ouch at all, but it just was. It meant she couldn’t see him again now – even if he did call – because if she did, well, the kind of all-round trouble and pain it could lead to would be unbearable. Her phone rang as she was stuffing the last of the bags into the Polo’s boot.

  ‘Help!’ It wasn’t really a surprise that it was book-group Lisa. ‘I’ve done a stupid thing!’

  ‘Haven’t we all,’ Viola said, feeling horribly low, slamming the car boot hard. For a terrible second she thought she’d locked the car keys inside with the shopping, because that was exactly the sort of thing that would happen, but in a rare piece of good fortune they were safe in her bag. ‘So tell me yours.’ She had no intention of telling hers – there were just too damn many of them.

  ‘I have this Internet date, for Thursday, it’s Paris. Right? I know you know because Charlotte’s just called and told me she told you. And I was so excited. But it’s a weird thing, this dating site. All in the interests of safety, which is mad as we’re all grown-ups, aren’t we, it’s supposed to be a foursome. And I’m supposed to provide the other girl! I don’t suppose … I know you’ve said … and I know Charlotte’s also said …’

  ‘I’ll come,’ Viola told her immediately.

  ‘You will? I promise I won’t let you fall off the top of the Eiffel Tower or anything. It’ll all be really safe.’

  ‘Yep. I’ve said I’ll go to everything I’m invited to and I’m … well, I’m free on Thursday. Rachel is away on holiday with her dad. Just text me some times and stuff.’

  ‘Great! Eurostar, St Pancras. 7.30 a.m. Oh, fabioso! It’s only a day trip, just for lunch, not an overnight, but it’ll be mega fun.’

  Well, it might or it might not, Viola thought. But it had to be better than letting herself brood about a completely impossible someone she absolutely shouldn’t have grown to like rather a lot.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘EH, YOU’VE GOT it looking nice in here. It were always a pretty house, this.’ Naomi roamed the downstairs areas of Bell Cottage, sniffing the fresh-paint air which mingled with the scent of Viola’s lasagne that bubbled away in the oven. She tweaked at the sunflowers in their vase on the front window ledge.

  ‘You’ll want to move these flowers when it gets dark,’ Naomi said, giving Viola a look. Viola let it go. She didn’t need to be told to close the shutters once the sun went down. During the day, she liked to leave them folded right back so she could enjoy the sigh
t of the roses around the windows, but when darkness came she didn’t plan to be alone in the house wondering if the sender of the cards had got together with the crazy people who’d left all the memorial flowers, so they could lurk by the gate and stare in through her lighted windows, putting curses on her.

  ‘Here, have a shot of fizz, Mum,’ she said, handing Naomi a glass of celebratory champagne. ‘I’ll see if I can weasel Rachel out of her room. Or … why don’t you go up and find her? She’ll want to show you her new colour scheme – try not to point out that it looks a bit grey though, she loves it like that. I’ll go and get on with the salad before Kate takes over and starts cutting tomatoes into fancy shapes.’

  ‘You mean I should get a look at the room while she’s still got it tidy.’ Naomi laughed. ‘You were just the same at her age.’

  ‘But we’ve been back here for a few days now, so there’s no way it’ll be tidy. Also, she’s been packing for Ireland so she’ll have scattered stuff everywhere. Marco and James are joining us for supper and taking her straight off with them after, so they can leave early tomorrow.’ She had a moment of worry about Rachel. They were travelling to Ireland by ferry. She didn’t want to come over all fussy-mother but she wanted to make sure Rachel knew to stay away from the boat’s rails, not to lean over too far. Not to … oh … not to do anything on this trip which would lead to death, damage, disaster, anything even remotely unlucky, just in case it was all in the genes.

  ‘It’s good she gets on with her dad so well,’ Naomi said.

  ‘Well, of course she does. Marco’s a top dad and James loves her too. And people generally do, don’t they? Get on with their dads?’