How Was It For You?

by Carmen Reid

  Magenta had phoned, just weeks before the arrival of Davina, with news of her own.

  ‘I’m going to get a baby too!’ she had shrieked down the line.‘But he comes with a brother and sister already attached! Isn’t this amazing! It’s a three for one deal. Instant family!’

  Many months into the laborious adoption process, Magenta and Mick had been granted more children than they’d ever dared to hope for. So now, Magenta was at the farm, visiting the Linden Lee baby and proudly showing off her own new arrivals. Pamela was delighted to see her, because here was someone who knew, who really knew what this was like.

  ‘I’m loving every second of it,’ Magenta had confided.‘Every second . . . cooking teeny little meals, washing mini clothes, going to the park, even being woken up three times a night. I love it, I’m never going back to my job and I swore I would . . . but no way.’

  ‘I’m obsessed with her,’ Pamela confessed.‘With everything . . . I love her tiny little nappies and her car seat and her babygros and just saying “I’m off with the baby . . .” “I’m going to check on the baby”.’

  ‘Oh, yes, watching them sleep . . . I would pay to do that, you know,’ Magenta added.‘Watch the children sleep.’

  ‘She’s just so sweet,’ Pamela sighed.

  ‘You are both demented!’ Alex reminded them and they were happy to nod in agreement.

  ‘We are going to get the full tour after lunch, aren’t we?’ Magenta asked now.

  ‘Yup,’ Dave confirmed.‘As soon as Eeny wakes up.’ He brushed the tip of his nose against the silky baby head asleep on his chest.

  ‘I can take her,’ Pamela offered.‘You can go round the fields with them and I’ll meet you at the shop.’

  ‘No,’ Alex swooped down and scooped the baby up, rearranging her without any protest against her own chest.‘She’s coming to Aunty Alex now, she’s had enough of her two soppy parents.’

  Pamela and Dave’s eyes met over the table, just for a shared, smiling moment. It was true: they would have to watch, they were in danger of becoming the most loving, most spoiling parents on the planet. Alex would have to keep them right.

  ‘The tour, then,’ Dave offered when all the plates were scraped clean, every last strawberry and smudge of cream gone.‘Are we all set?’

  ‘Can we do the shop first? Please?’ Magenta wanted to know.‘I’m just not sure how much interest I have in fields full of manure.’

  Pamela couldn’t help but recognize her old self in that remark. She now found fields full of manure endlessly fascinating, totally absorbing . . . but she directed the little party in the direction of the renovated barn.

  Somehow throughout the postnatal haze, she, Dave and Alex had kept the idea for the shop moving forward, all three of them working like demons to bring it to fruition.

  The barn had been re-roofed, whitewashed inside and scrubbed out. They’d set up rows and rows of shelves, tables and display baskets. Alex had found them an old cashier’s desk and till. Now, the day before the big opening, there were hand-painted road signs to guide visitors and all the treasures which the shop was going to sell alongside the farm’s vegetables and strawberries had been priced and set out.

  Such treasures Alex and Pamela had sourced! Alex had done every antique stall, secondhand shop and car boot sale for miles around and Pamela had, both online and by word of mouth, tapped into Norfolk’s craft-y mainline. She was now inundated with the amazing, the charming and the simply quirky. Everything had to be eco-friendly, recycled, home-made, in some way ethical . . . that was Dave’s proviso.

  So now they had a barn full of crocheted baby blankets, patchwork throws, rustic earthenware, hand-painted ceramics, home-glazed tiles, knitted dollies, rag rugs, antique vases, handbags, shawls . . . there was too much to display. Pamela was going to sell stuff through Sadie’s boutique as well and Alex was already thinking about a second shop of her own in London called . . .‘Finisterre’s’ of course, they loved that!

  They had decorated the place inside and out with flowers in tubs, pots and hanging baskets; they’d staked out a car park, taken out adverts, Alex had even stood in the high street handing out flyers.

  ‘Wow! Where did you get that incredible painting?’ was the first thing Magenta asked as she stepped into the barn.‘I want one of those.’

  ‘Oh that,’ Pamela said casually, slipping her arm round her husband’s waist, trying to hide the smile as she looked up at the huge, wild, orange-yellow-red-green-sludgy-corn-coloured-chunky-crunchy abstract creation which filled the whole wall behind the till.‘We did that.’

  ‘How many people do you think will come tomorrow?’ Dave asked her in bed that night, slightly nervous at the scale of this venture.

  ‘God knows. It’s Saturday, first berries of the season, we’re offering food, shopping . . . free wine . . . Maybe hundreds – thousands! Who knows?’ Pamela couldn’t keep the smile from her face.‘You’d better pick a lot of stuff. Get out there at six, maybe even five. And Eeny’s told me she wants to go out with you . . .’

  ‘No way!’ from Dave.‘I have work to do.’

  Work?! Tomorrow he would step out into the pale pink morning and head for the sloping field filled with tiny red strawberries no bigger than your thumbnail but which exploded like bombs of sweetness in your mouth. Work?! No. This was life. This was really living.

  ‘Do you really think we can turn the town green?’ he asked his wife.

  ‘Of course I do . . . I have every faith in you,’ she replied, moving over to lie right next to him, sliding her hand round his neck, thinking how good he looked now that his hair was longer, that little bit wilder, his face already tanned from being outside so much.‘Think of Dexter Hunter,’ she added, kissing him on the mouth.

  Mr Hunter had been fined (‘not nearly enough’, according to Dave) for dumping waste without a permit and polluting the watercourse. His recent application for a waste licence had been refused.

  ‘Anything can happen eventually . . .’ Pamela told her husband, a little dreamily.‘That’s what makes life so interesting.’

  She was just about to tell him how extraordinary her trip to town had been that morning. She and Alex attracting all kinds of glances in their first outfits of the summer: Pamela’s jiggling breastfeeding cleavage bouncing behind the pram, Alex fag in hand, vest top, Capri pants and wedgy cork sandals which showed off toes varnished in a variety of colours.

  Pamela had seen them coming from 400 metres away, although they hadn’t seen her. In the past, she might have ducked into a shop, crossed the road, or done whatever she could to avoid the confrontation, but now she took deep breaths, carried on walking purposefully and linked arms with Alex to brace herself.

  ‘Hello, hello there,’ she’d sung out because Lachlan and Rosie, too preoccupied with the gang of three wandering along beside them, still hadn’t seen her.

  ‘How are you all doing? This is my friend Alex and my baby, Davina. She’s awake at the moment, I think,’ she’d carried on, smiling at Rosie, looking at Lachlan, amazed at how calm she was now that it was here, the moment she’d so dreaded.

  Rosie had called her children together, then leaned down into the pram. The sight had taken her breath away. Such a small baby, how did she always forget how small they were? And so different from all hers, with its doll-like delicate face, pale blue eyes and dark shock of hair.

  This wasn’t Lachlan’s child. She could lay all her doubts to rest: she was absolutely certain of it.

  ‘She’s so small,’ Rosie said.‘Gorgeous.’

  ‘But big for a preemie. She was a whole month early but she’s four weeks now and really coming on.’ Out so smoothly came the script she and Dave had agreed. Had told everyone apart from the very small circle who knew.

  Pamela had wondered if Rosie and Lachlan had ever asked themselves the question on hearing about her pregnancy. And now she was giving them the get-out clause.

  ‘She’s very special,’ Pamela had added.‘We spent se
ven years trying, it drove me just about insane . . . she’s an IVF baby.’

  In Rosie’s face she could see the beginning of an understanding. A woman crazy with wanting a baby, out of her mind on prescription hormones, maybe wouldn’t seem such a big love rival now. And could definitely be blamed. Pamela hoped Rosie hadn’t been too hard on Lachlan.

  In Lachlan’s face, she couldn’t read anything at all. Whatever had been there that had so fascinated her, had now gone, totally disappeared. Probably all the baby-bonding hormones in her system, but still, the relief!

  ‘Ingrid said you’re opening a farm shop,’ Lachlan had ventured.

  ‘Yes, from tomorrow, every day. You’ll have to come along. We’ll be open all summer, maybe longer if it goes well.’

  ‘We will. Well . . . congratulations, on the baby – on the shop,’ and there was a warmth to Rosie’s smile which had made Pamela think that maybe if she lived here long enough, she would be Rosie’s friend. Because given enough time, everything can heal . . . She suddenly had a mental picture of them leaving the Hacienda together, in raincoats and headscarves, pushing matching tartan grocery trolleys.

  ‘Was that him?’ Alex had whispered into her ear after they’d said their goodbyes and moved on down the pavement.

  Pamela gave the tiniest of nods, to which Alex responded: ‘Dish of the day . . . and did you see his gorgeous children. What a breeder!’

  ‘Will you tell Eeny one day?’ Alex had wondered.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ was the honest reply.‘That’s Dave’s call.’

  When the day finally arrived, it was not as hard as Rosie had expected.

  ‘Bye, bye!’ Manda even waved, safe in Ingrid’s arms, desperate to go play with dogs, see the cows, try to climb trees with her big brothers and Ingrid’s Kitty and Jake.

  ‘They’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine,’ Ingrid assured her, kissing her on both cheeks, in her Swedish kind of way: ‘I’ve got all the meals in the freezer, we’ve got the beds out upstairs and a full plan of activities. For goodness sake –’ she unhooked Rosie’s arm from round her waist – ‘it’s only two nights. Go away! Enjoy yourselves. Phone as often as you like. But have fun, because I will when you return the favour.’

  So finally, after another round of goodbye kisses, Rosie, girlishly pretty in a light blue summer dress, climbed up into the passenger’s seat of the Isuzu and shut the door.

  Lachlan didn’t start up the engine straight away. He took a long look at her first and asked if she was OK.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine . . . I’ll be fine,’ Rosie told him.

  ‘There’s something for you in the glove box,’ he said.

  She popped the button to find a can of ready-mixed gin and tonic in there along with a plastic glass.

  ‘I thought it might help,’ he explained.

  She laughed at him and brought the glass out, seeing a small bundle of tissue paper inside it.

  She picked it out and was about to scrunch it into the ashtray, when she felt something hard inside.

  ‘Is this . . .?’

  ‘Open it,’ he instructed, turning the key in the ignition and sliding the car into gear.

  She unfolded the paper to find a pair of diamond and pearl stud earrings. Written in felt-tip pen inside the paper were the words: ‘I love you, Mrs Murray.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I didn’t think . . . I haven’t got you . . .’

  ‘Tenth wedding anniversaries are pearl, apparently,’ he said, words coming out awkwardly.‘But you’re my diamond always, Rosie.’

  He was learning, despite what his mother had told him, that love means constantly having to say you’re sorry.

  Rosie grinned at him, kissed him on the cheek and the Isuzu pulled off with a terrible, rattling, clanking commotion in its wake.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ he asked.‘Sounds like the exhaust’s gone.’

  She began to laugh.‘Keep going, it’s fine. I’ll show you later.’

  So, they carried on out of Ingrid and Harry’s farm road and on to the two-day country house holiday – arranged entirely by Lachlan – with ten tin cans tied to the back bumper beneath a large handwritten note Rosie had taped on, bearing the words:

  STILL MARRIED (JUST)

  THE END

  About the Author

  Carmen Reid is a writer, journalist and mother. How Was It For You? is her third novel; her previous two, Did The Earth Move? and Three In A Bed, were both bestsellers.

  Carmen’s books have been translated into several languages and are due to be published in the US from 2005. She is a contributor to the Scottish Girls About Town collection of short stories and writes regularly for a range of newspapers and magazines.

  After more than a decade spent working in London as a news reporter, Carmen now lives in Glasgow with her husband and two young children. Visit the author’s website at www.carmenreid.com

  Also by Carmen Reid

  THREE IN A BED

  DID THE EARTH MOVE?

  and published by Corgi Books

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

  A Random House Group Company

  www.transworldbooks.co.uk

  HOW WAS IT FOR YOU?

  A CORGI BOOK: 9780552155830

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781409085324

  First publication in Great Britain

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Corgi edition published 2004

  Copyright © Carmen Reid 2004

  The right of Carmen Reid to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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