When I Fall in Love

by Miranda Dickinson

  Aoife’s smile lit up the room. ‘I wouldn’t miss it, Elsie! I have always, always wanted to go there!’

  ‘Excellent. See you two next rehearsal. I’ll text you the dates we agree tonight, OK?’

  Danny and Aoife said their goodbyes and left. Once the door was shut, Elsie grinned at the choir. ‘Right. This is the real reason we’re going to Paris …’

  With the rest of The Sundaes in on the surprise, rehearsals began immediately. Elsie had arranged a schedule of fake rehearsals where Danny and Aoife would be present and real rehearsals where The Sundaes could rehearse the song for Danny’s proposal without them. It was a big commitment but everyone was so amazed by Irene’s generosity and thrilled by the prospect of fulfilling Danny’s wish that they threw themselves into rehearsals with renewed vigour.

  Meanwhile, Elsie began to research the logistics of getting The Sundaes to Paris. Not all of the choir could come: Dee was too young, Kathy was working that weekend and Juliet had already arranged to visit her sister in Vancouver. This meant that Elsie was now looking at a party of eleven for the trip. Focusing on the practicalities helped her to ignore the insistent pull of her heart at each mention of the French capital. She made countless lists, gathered quotes and scoured the web for hotel deals. When she wasn’t planning she was rehearsing or working – but keeping busy was essential to keep her from thinking about the trip.

  A week into rehearsals, almost everything was planned except the transport. Flights for ten people turned out to be prohibitively expensive, so a road and ferry combination seemed the only option. Hiring a minibus was relatively straightforward, but Elsie wasn’t sure who would be nominated as drivers. She didn’t relish the prospect of doing it herself, having never driven on the Continent before, yet it seemed too big an ask to expect anyone else to take on such a responsibility.

  The issue was playing on her mind when she arrived at her father’s house for tea. As they tucked into homemade lentil and chickpea dahl, Jim cast a concerned glance at his daughter.

  ‘I’m worried about you.’

  ‘Dad, don’t worry. I just wish I could finalise all the details for this trip. Everybody else is putting so much work into rehearsals that I feel like I’m letting them down.’

  Jim put his fork down and placed his hand on hers. ‘Stop that, young lady! You’re doing more than enough to make this happen. With no thought for your own feelings, I might add. And don’t give me your “oh Dad” look, I know what Paris means to you. Don’t think for a moment that I’ve missed the significance of you going there. I think it’s one of the most selfless acts I’ve ever seen someone do.’

  ‘I’m just trying not to think about actually going,’ she confessed, feeling the sting of burgeoning tears. ‘What’s important for now is getting everybody there, making sure they have somewhere to sleep and keeping the real reason for our visit a secret from Aoife.’

  ‘How are the plans going?’

  ‘Not too bad. I’ve found a good hotel near Montparnasse station, which puts us in the right place to get to the Eiffel Tower, and I’ve been quoted a great price on group ferry tickets. The only thing left now is to decide who is going to drive the minibus.’

  ‘Do you have a minibus?’

  Elsie smiled. ‘Technically, not yet. But I have had some quotes. I was hoping to book one with a driver but it was just working out too expensive. It’s been a bit of a headache to be honest with you.’

  Jim sat back in his chair. ‘I might know someone, actually.’

  Elsie’s heart flipped. ‘Who?’

  He spread his hands wide like a magician at the end of a trick. ‘Me.’

  It took a few seconds for this to sink in. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. I have a friend who has a vehicle hire business – I’m pretty sure he has a minibus or mini-coach or whatever they’re called these days. When you, Daisy and Guin were little I used to drive over to France a couple of times a year to buy furniture at the flea markets out there, do you remember? Your Grandma Flo used to come and look after you and Uncle Frank and I shared the journey.’

  Elsie blinked. ‘I never realised that was what you were doing. I just thought Grandma Flo was coming to stay for fun.’

  ‘She was,’ Jim chortled. ‘My mother used to encourage Frank and me to go more often because she loved playing mum to you three. She’d be so proud to see what you’re planning now.’ He sniffed. ‘So what do you say, eh? Fancy your old Dad driving you to gay Paree?’

  ‘Wow, Dad, I don’t know what to say. Yes! I’d love you to be our driver.’

  ‘But I have one condition.’

  ‘Name it.’

  A huge grin appeared on Jim’s face. ‘That you let me be part of The Sundaes, just for the trip. To be honest, I’ve been dying to see you at work, but I didn’t want you feeling like your daft old Dad was cramping your style.’

  Jumping up from her chair, she flung her arms round Jim and hugged him as hard as she could. ‘Yes, Dad! The answer is yes!’

  ‘This song is well lame,’ Sasha moaned, as Elsie played through Danny’s choice of song for the big proposal. ‘I can’t believe this is Aoife’s favourite.’

  ‘It’s the one that Danny’s picked,’ Elsie said, weariness beginning to shorten her temper. ‘We don’t have time to debate the merits of it.’

  ‘I think it’s lovely,’ Sheila ventured, instantly incurring a scowl from Sasha. ‘Anyway, this is for Danny, not for you, so you’re just going to have to like it or lump it.’

  The rest of The Sundaes stared in surprise at Sheila’s outburst. In all the time the choir had been together, Sheila had been one of the quietest members, her nerves always getting the better of her whenever she tried to speak. ‘What’s the matter? Why are you all looking at me like that?’

  Woody strode over to her and slung his arm round her shoulders. ‘Well said, girl.’

  Sasha mimed being sick and slunk back into place.

  ‘Thank you. Any other problems I should know about? Anyone? Good, let’s get back to it, then.’ Elsie saw Jim grin at her as she began to play. His introduction into the choir had gone smoothly, Elsie choosing to tell all of The Sundaes that he had joined as a permanent member of the choir. It was easier this way, with less pertinent details for The Sundaes to remember in order to keep Aoife from asking too many questions. As for her father, he was in his element, singing with gusto beside Stan and Graeme, and taking every opportunity to hang out with Woody.

  After the secret rehearsal, Elsie called Danny from home to update him on their progress.

  ‘How’s it going with Aoife?’ she asked.

  ‘Good so far, although I feel dreadful about lying to her. I’m scared she’ll see through my story and think I’m cheating on her or something.’

  ‘Just try to stay calm and remember why you’re doing this, OK? You’re going to ask Aoife to marry you in just over a week’s time – surely that’s worth a few more days sticking to your cover story?’

  ‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I just want it all to be perfect, Els.’

  ‘I know. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it is. I promise.’

  Ending the call, she threw her mobile to the far end of her bed and let the emotion that had building for two weeks finally break over her. The fear of standing on the Eiffel Tower was looming over her, larger than the famous structure itself. Despite her best efforts to keep it at bay, the prospect of it was never far from her mind, hiding in the shadows like an assailant awaiting his victim’s arrival. It brought back all the feelings of helplessness she had encountered during the final weeks of Lucas’ life. Last time she had been losing Lucas; this time she was on the brink of letting his memory go.

  She rolled over on her bed and picked up the framed photograph of him that she had taken on their honeymoon years before. It was her favourite image of Lucas – leaning on the edge of the balcony of their hotel room in Malta, staring out across the Mediterranean Sea, the summer breeze blowing h
is dark hair back from his face and his eyes reflecting the setting sun. This was how she loved to remember him, not how he had been at the end.

  Several of The Sundaes had expressed confusion at Irene’s decision to keep her illness from them, but Elsie completely understood. Having lived with someone facing cancer, she knew how important it had been to Lucas to keep as much of his life as normal as possible. While he was open about his condition with anyone who asked, he had done all he could to maintain a sense of normality in his final months.

  Lucas never really talked much about dying, apart from in jest, although Elsie knew this was his defence mechanism kicking in to avoid being the object of pity. There was only one time that he mentioned it, about four months after his diagnosis.

  They were sitting on a seafront bench, dressed in charity shop clothes, feeding the seagulls – Number 19 on The List:

  19. Dress up as old people and feed seagulls on the prom (shouting at them obligatory).

  The reasoning behind this was that, for as long as Elsie had known him, Lucas had a stock answer when anybody asked him what his life ambition was:

  ‘I want to shout at seagulls when I’m ninety.’

  It had been a long-standing joke between him and Elsie – one that gained a heavy irony following his diagnosis. Number 19 was all about helping him to fulfil his professed life ambition. So, they had visited several charity shops to create the perfect old people’s outfits. Lucas wore a flat cap, white and green checked shirt, sports jacket (complete with suede-effect elbow patches), tan shoes and baggy grey trousers three sizes too big for him, while Elsie was a picture in a pale blue silk turban hat, abstract-patterned polyester dress, knitted cardigan and the kind of thick-soled beige sandals Grandma Flo used to call ‘slippers with straps’. All of which made the conversation even more of an unlikely bolt from the blue when it came.

  ‘I don’t think this is it,’ he said, suddenly.

  Elsie had turned to face him. ‘Should we have done the facepaint wrinkles? I knew we should have gone the whole hog …’

  ‘No.’ His dark brown eyes had been fixed on the far horizon, a translucent wash of somewhere else over them. ‘I mean this – life. I don’t think it ends here. Do you?’

  Blindsided, Elsie had stammered to reply. ‘Well, I haven’t – I mean I don’t … Let’s not talk about this now.’

  ‘At some point we should, don’t you think?’ He closed his eyes. ‘Don’t answer that, I’m sorry.’

  Heart contracting, Elsie reached for his hand. ‘Tell me what you’re feeling, Lucas.’

  ‘I think about it, you know? I try not to but it’s sort of inevitable.’ Opening his eyes, he made a startling confession. ‘I saw a priest yesterday.’

  If Lucas had admitted to being an alien life form, Elsie couldn’t have been more surprised at that moment. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. I went to see Mum and stopped in the village pub on the way home. Father Andrew was in there and – surprisingly – we got chatting. He’s a sound guy. Didn’t judge me, didn’t try to drum up Sunday business, he just listened. Turns out he lost his daughter last year to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, so we had more in common than I was expecting. You’d have laughed, Els. Me and a priest talking afterlifes in The Queen’s Arms over a pint of IPA.’

  ‘That’s a mental picture I’m having trouble processing.’

  ‘Just a little gift from me to you, baby. It was cool, though, and it made me think a lot. The thing is, I can’t imagine everything just stops – at the end, I mean. I’m not sure what’s next, but I think there must be something else. Strange to think I’m going to find out soon …’

  ‘Lucas, please …’

  ‘Let me say this and I won’t mention it again, I promise. Here it is: I’m not scared of it. I don’t want to lose you and it’s far too early to be bowing out, but I can’t stop it happening. I just need you to know that I think I’m reconciling myself to it. And I’m not afraid.’ He grabbed a handful of seed from the crumpled white paper bag in his lap and threw it at a gaggle of competitive gulls flapping by the bench. ‘Have you not eaten half your bodyweight of this stuff already?’ He grinned at Elsie and she sensed the subject had been closed. ‘Ungrateful little blighters. Think we should start shouting at them yet?’

  Had Irene felt the same way? Elsie wondered now. The thought of the lovely old lady carefully planning other people’s futures knowing she would never see the outcome was heartbreaking. Looking at her husband’s sun-kissed face in the photograph she held, Elsie made a silent promise. Lucas had been unafraid: now it was her turn.

  The next day, Elsie found herself in charge of Sundae & Cher. Cher, after being surprised with a dinner reservation at one of Brighton’s hottest restaurants by Jake, had arranged an ‘emergency hair appointment’, taking the afternoon off to prepare herself for her special night. The café was moderately busy, mostly with regular customers, so Cher’s absence posed no particular problems for Elsie. She took the opportunity to make up a batch of gingerbread and vanilla swirl cookies, which she would later ice with cream cheese frosting and decorate with jelly shapes for the children who often came in with their parents after school and at weekends. This was one of the aspects of her job that she loved the most – batch-baking trays of biscuits and cakes to be sold alongside the ice creams. It made her remember Saturday afternoons with Jim, up to her little elbows in flour with more of the cake mixture on the kitchen worktops than in the bowl as her father revelled in the sight of his youngest daughter’s first forays into baking.

  She was mixing up a batch of cream cheese frosting when the brass bell above the door rang out. To her surprise, Torin approached the counter.

  ‘Now, before you say anything about me not being allowed in here again, let me defend my actions.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I happened to be passing and I thought it would be entirely wrong of me to do so without saying hello, if you had seen me pass by your window.’

  Elsie wiped her hands on her apron. ‘I suppose it would have been. If I’d seen you passing by.’

  ‘You didn’t see me?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Elsie indicated the bowl she had been mixing. ‘My attention was taken by this.’

  ‘Ah. Then my being here is a bit awkward, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’

  He flashed a broad smile at her. ‘OK, cards on the table – I wanted to see how you were after your meeting at my law firm. I’ve been debating whether or not to visit and today I ran out of reasons not to. So, how are you?’

  Still a little stunned by his sudden arrival, Elsie shrugged. ‘Good. Thanks for asking. Would you like a drink while you’re here?’

  He brightened. ‘I would. Pot of tea would be great. And one of those chocolate and hazelnut pastry twists if it’s not too much trouble.’ He watched Elsie as she filled a small teapot with hot water from the coffee machine. ‘I take it Cher recovered from her run-in with the choirmistress?’

  ‘She did.’ Elsie placed a teacup and the teapot on the counter in front of him and filled a small jug with milk. ‘But she was really upset. I think Jeannette was a little too tactile with Jake.’ She placed a pastry twist on a plate and handed it over.

  ‘She was a little. Nothing more tragic than watching a desperate woman fling herself at a man who clearly isn’t interested.’

  ‘Do you think Jake wasn’t interested? I mean, those things that Jeannette said about him, they weren’t true, were they?’

  Torin stirred his tea. ‘Of course not. It was just the ramblings of a desperate single woman.’ Seeing Elsie’s concern for her friend, his green eyes softened. ‘Jake’s a good guy. I have a lot of time for him. He might have had a bit of a reputation for being one for the ladies in the past, but he seems to really care about Cher.’

  ‘Honestly? You know him better than I do, Torin. If you thought for a moment there was anything true in what Jeannette said to Cher, you’d tell me?’

  ‘Of course.’ He poured his cup o
f tea. ‘And how’s the other thing going?’

  ‘Oh. Fine.’

  ‘You decided what to do about it?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going ahead as requested. Thank you for your help that day, by the way, it meant a lot.’

  He smiled. ‘I’m glad I could help. Like I said, if there’s ever anything I can advise on …’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘So he just turned up, no warning or anything?’ Daisy asked, her eyeballs on the verge of leaving her head altogether.

  ‘Yes. He came in, asked about me and Cher, had a cup of tea and left.’

  Guin stuck her head through the bead curtain in Jim’s kitchen. ‘What are you two whispering about?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Elsie began, but Daisy was too interested in the conversation not to include their middle sister.

  ‘Torin Stewart turned up at Elsie’s work today,’ she said.

  Guin gave a delighted whoop and hurried into the kitchen. ‘Ha! Gossip! Tell me!’

  Elsie sighed. ‘There really isn’t much to tell. He came in to ask how I was, which was a bit of a shock, but nice of him, I suppose.’

  ‘Nice? You’re using the words “Torin” and “nice” in the same sentence? May I remind you this is the man you hated so much that you almost had me giving birth on the verge of the A27 because you didn’t want us to get in his car?’

  ‘I’m not saying I like the guy, but he has helped me twice in the last month.’

  ‘The fact of which he is bound to parade triumphantly in front of you for months to come,’ Daisy added.

  Hearing their sister’s sudden harsh critique of Torin made Elsie and Guin stare at her.

  ‘I thought you said you liked him when you met him?’ Guin asked.

  Daisy raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, I did, but I’ve had time to think about it since then and now I think he’s a bit too self-congratulatory for my liking.’

  ‘He wasn’t that obnoxious this time,’ Elsie offered, surprised to hear herself defending the man.