Be Careful What You Wish For

by Vivien Brown

  She threw everything down on the coffee table in front of the sofa and kicked off her shoes, before turning on the taps in the bath and walking back to the small kitchen to flick on the kettle, its blue light shining through the see-through window at the side as the water began to bubble. She had eaten a good lunch, a tuna sandwich and a salad, on a bench in St James’s Park, again sharing her crumbs with the birds, and had brought a jumbo sausage roll home in a paper bag, a simple meal which would be quick and easy to warm up later in the microwave. No need to go out again tonight, which suited her just fine. Being alone on the streets of a big, strange, impersonal city after dark was a step she did not yet feel quite ready for.

  While she waited for her bath to fill, she couldn’t resist a quick look at the photos she had taken, flicking between them on the viewer, her trained eye instantly knowing which were worth doing something with and which could be deleted and, most importantly, recognising the two or three she could feel really proud of. There was one of the front of the palace, taken through the black railings of the gate, the camera tilted upwards, capturing the moment a pigeon, wings still outspread, had landed on the famous balcony. Another was of a guardsman yawning, clearly caught completely off guard, words she knew would make a fantastic caption and which she couldn’t help laughing about. And the horse. Oh, how she loved her photo of the horse. Not that it was doing anything especially unusual or earth-shattering. It was just the expression on its face, the ears upright and alert, the eyes somehow worldly and wise. She would try cropping that one and zooming in, to see if she could pick out the different shades of light falling on the fine lines of its hair.

  Before she realised it, the water had almost reached the top of the bath, the surface smothered in big airy soapy bubbles from one of Madi’s potion bottles, and the whole lot was in danger of flowing over onto the floor. She could just imagine what Aaron and his mother in the flat beneath would say had she let that happen, with rivers of steaming bathwater flooding through those terribly thin floors he had talked about.

  She turned off the taps, ran her hands through the water to check the temperature, pulled out the plug to let a few inches of water escape, then added a drop more cold. The kettle had boiled and she made her coffee, put the mug and her book down on the little flat area in the corner of the bath, then stripped off and lowered herself into the deliciously warm and soothing water. Ah, bliss!

  Prue picked up her book and turned to the place where her fluffy pink bookmark protruded between the pages. She hadn’t read since she’d been on the train and it took her a page or two to get back into the story. It was one of those Regency romances, where ladies in long slim dresses chatted to friends in elegant drawing rooms and swooned over handsome heroes. Not everyone’s cup of tea, she knew, but it was easy reading, providing a little escapism, taking her back to a time when young ladies knew very little of the realities of life or love and rarely spent any time alone in male company, when chaperones were the norm and convention was everything. A long way from the sort of novel young Aaron was reading, which she had noticed was one of the later Harry Potters, or the rather serious-looking biography of an aging actor she had never heard of that was still lying next to Madi’s bed. A long way from real twenty-first-century life too.

  She reached the end of Chapter Ten. The hero had just spoken to the master of the house and had been permitted to ask for his daughter’s hand, which he was now doing on bended breeches-covered knee.

  Prue lay back, letting the warm water slosh up over the back of her neck and into her hair, laid the book down again and closed her eyes. Proposals. Not her favourite subject at the moment. And, oh boy, how very different these things were nowadays. She remembered the way Ralph Barton had proposed to her friend Sian, hiding the ring in a little pouch under his dog’s collar as they walked across the fields, and producing it at just the right moment, mid-picnic, the sun streaming down, grass stains on his knees, and a bottle of champagne tucked away in the hamper, surrounded by ice packs, to mark the moment she said yes. Even the dog had been given a sip of bubbly as they celebrated.

  She would never know if that was what had put the idea into her own head. Was it Sian and Ralph planning their wedding, or the newspapers sending her out to photograph an elderly couple, both widowed, who had found each other again and had just got engaged more than sixty years after they had first met as teenagers? Or was it simply the date on the calendar? Of course, that had been the clincher. The 29th of February and its age-old tradition presented a unique opportunity, a reason to be brave that only came around every four years. Waiting for Joe to do it himself, or having to wait another four years for her next chance? Both options had seemed too uncertain, too fraught with potential error, so why wait?

  Joe was not a planner. He was a ditherer, the sort who drifted through life without long-term plans, but that didn’t mean he would be averse to someone else doing the planning for him, did it? He would be surprised, maybe a bit shocked, but she had hoped he would be secretly pleased too. Pleased to know how much she wanted to be with him, for them to make a future together. They might even be able to arrange a double wedding with Sian and Ralph, the four of them back doing everything together again, just as they always had when they were kids. It might help to mend the rift between the brothers that had kept them at arm’s length ever since their dad had ploughed so much money into the vets’. A vision of herself as peacemaker, of the two brides swathed in white lace, and the foolish romantic notion of happy-ever-afters had driven her on.

  How stupid she had been. How naïve. You couldn’t make someone love you just because you wanted it so badly. You couldn’t get down on one knee in the middle of the village pub, accidentally flashing your knickers because your new bought-specially-for-the-occasion dress is too short, and ask a question like that in front of all your friends and neighbours and embarrass someone into saying yes. The look on his face had said it all. He was more than shocked. He was appalled. And the only person left feeling embarrassed was her.

  Joe had not come after her when she ran outside. Only Sian had done that, wrapping her arms around her in the car park, muttering words that Prue had not really taken in. Words about fish in the sea, and his loss, and heartless bastard, all merged together in the fog of hurt that had settled over her, and had still not fully lifted.

  Prue sighed and slowly lowered herself deeper into the water, bending her knees and dipping her head back so her whole face went under. She breathed out, a steady stream of tiny air bubbles breaking the surface, until her lungs were empty and she had no choice but to bob back up again. Wash him away, Prue, she told herself. What did they sing in that old film? Wash that man right out of your hair. She slicked her wet curls back over her scalp and sat up, reached for her now almost cold coffee and drank it in one big gulp.

  ‘Don’t do it, Adeline,’ she said, staring at the cover of her book. ‘Don’t say yes. Men aren’t worth the hassle. You’ll be better off on your own.’

  Chapter 8

  MADI

  Madi had been living in Shelling for four days when she finally forced herself to check her emails and social media pages. Much as she was relishing being alone, she did have to keep her future in mind, and her future revolved, just as her past and present always had, around her work. There could be news from her agent, offers of a part in a play, maybe even some messages from fans. Those were few and far between these days, but they never failed to lift her spirits.

  There were none of those waiting for her when she logged on that Thursday afternoon. A couple of junk ads offering her the sort of products only a mastectomy patient might need leapt out at her. How did they know these things? Sometimes it felt as if Big Brother really was watching her, or more likely watching everybody, these days. Even at home sometimes she got the shuddery feeling that someone else was there. A fleeting shadow on the wall, an unexpected creak of the floorboards, a tiny flutter of a curtain when the windows were all closed. Of course, it was just her i
magination. There was nobody there. Nothing to be scared of. Her home was her castle, her sanctuary, and always had been. Jeremy had made sure of that. She was just feeling jumpy lately. It was what came of living by herself, and getting older, she supposed, her memory playing its silly cruel little tricks, the cancer forcing her to face the biggest fear she had ever had to face, and the restless nights and crippling tiredness that resulted from all that. And with her son nowhere in sight, it all made her suddenly aware of her own vulnerability and how alone she was in the world.

  But the world itself went on without her. There was news of Sally Wendover, her biggest rival and one-time nemesis, landing the role of the nurse in a new production of Romeo and Juliet, which had Madi grinding her teeth together in a mixture of frustration and barely suppressed jealousy. That could have been her, if the bloody cancer hadn’t intervened. Sally had beaten her to the lead role of Juliet too, more than forty years ago when Madi had been too distracted elsewhere to fight for it, and she had never quite forgotten or forgiven her for that.

  The email from Prue was short and to the point. Did she want to have her post sent on? It wasn’t something she had thought about, but you never knew. It was still possible, even in this digitally prominent day and age that a career opportunity might turn up in an old-fashioned letter. And, of course, it would be Mother’s Day soon, while she was still here in Norfolk, so there might – just might – be a card.

  She sent a quick reply, promising a post exchange once a week at least, and added a word or two of reassurance about Flo, who had jumped up onto her lap as she typed and had fallen asleep there, preventing Madi from doing anything much for the next hour at least. She switched everything back off and leant forward, carefully, to pick up one of Prue’s many magazines. It was one of those lifestyle ones, with celebrities she had never heard of plastered across the cover. Not a real actress amongst them, just unknown faces from this so-called reality TV that the young ones seemed to enjoy. It was a page or two before the end, in the odds and sods section, otherwise known as minor showbiz news, that she spotted a tiny picture of Sally Wendover, clutching a bouquet in one hand and a man’s arm in the other. The bloody woman got everywhere.

  She threw the magazine down without reading any more of it. She ran her hand over her head. Was her hair growing yet? Did it feel any longer, any thicker, any softer than it had the day before, or the day before that? She liked to think so. At this rate, by the time she went back to London, she might be on the way to looking half decent again and could start thinking about abandoning the wig, in favour of a fashionably short pixie cut. Then she would give that Sally a run for her money, and no mistake.

  The knock at the door made her jump and sent Flo skittering off her lap and towards her cat flap, which she shot through as if the devil himself was after her. Madi stood up and reached for her wig, positioning it squarely on her head and checking in the small wall mirror before opening the door to reveal the imposing figure of Prue’s mother smiling back at her.

  ‘Mrs Harris …’

  ‘Oh, it’s Faith, please. I’m sorry to disturb you, Madi, but I’ve been worrying about you stuck here all by yourself. You haven’t popped down for that cup of tea, and I thought you might just be a bit … well, shy, I suppose. It’s my day off from work and I’m at a bit of a loose end. Are you busy now?’

  She wasn’t, of course, but admitting to that would mean she had no excuse to refuse. ‘Well, I was about to take a walk. Get some air in my lungs while the sun’s still shining.’

  ‘I could come with you!’

  Madi took one look at the little woman’s eager expression and gave in. She nodded. ‘Okay. Why not? Just let me get my coat and scarf.’

  Faith Harris waited patiently on the step. At least she wasn’t one of those people who barged their way in, whether invited or not. Madi pulled on her coat and wrapped a thin headscarf around her head as usual, then grabbed her door keys.

  Faith nodded towards Prue’s car, standing idle on the drive. ‘Battery’ll go flat,’ she muttered, shaking her head. ‘She should have left me the key, so I could start it up or move it. Sorry it’s stopping you from parking.’

  ‘No problem. Mine seems fine where it is, in the road.’

  ‘True enough. It’s not as if we get much traffic going by.’

  Madi closed the door and, without discussing any sort of route, they both seemed to turn naturally to the left, walking side by side in the direction of the church and the pub. The bells were ringing again, not especially tunefully, as they had been on the afternoon she’d arrived.

  ‘That’ll be young Donny,’ Faith said, raising her eyebrows. ‘He’s not very good, is he? That’s why he practises so often I assume, in the hope of getting better.’ She laughed. ‘It could take a while.’

  Madi laughed too. ‘Everyone has to start somewhere, I suppose, no matter what it is they’re trying to master. How old is he? This Donny?’

  ‘Thirteen, I think. Or fourteen. He comes out of school and his mum’s not back from work yet, and there’s time to kill before his tea. Same for a lot of the kids around here. It’s not as if we have much to entertain them. No cinema or bowling alley or anything like that. They get bored, and probably not overly keen to get stuck into their homework!’

  ‘No youth club?’

  ‘There used to be, until the man who ran it moved away. It died a death after that. There’s football practice once a week though, for those who are interested, and the school has a chess club on a Tuesday, but the other days young Donny’s up there in the tower, regular as clockwork. After the service on a Sunday too sometimes. He does try hard, poor lad.’

  ‘And his mum?’

  ‘Gloria. Works at the estate agency along the way there. Well, she owns it actually. Her and her husband Jim. He does all the viewings and the legal stuff and she takes care of the admin, making appointments, typing up the details of the properties. My Prue usually takes the photos for them. She knows how to bring out the best in a place, especially with the interiors, getting the light right and all that. To be honest, I’m not sure how they’ve stayed in business in a little place like this. It’s not like people move in or out of the village that often, and there’s a lot of competition from the bigger agencies in town, and then there’s the internet …’

  Madi let her talk. It was certainly something she seemed good at. Village gossip was not high on Madi’s list of interests, but it did help to know a little about the place and the people in it, now that she was living here. Who to make friends with, who to avoid. She felt almost sorry for Donny, with nothing to do except ring the bells, and pretty badly at that. And for his parents, struggling to keep a business afloat in the back of beyond. It couldn’t be easy trying to keep yourself entertained or to make any sort of living in a quiet little place like Shelling. She hadn’t seen the whole village yet, except on a map, but she was fairly sure she’d be able to walk the entire outskirts in no more than ten minutes. She doubted there were more than fifty houses, fifty families, at most. Stay long enough and she would probably know them all by name, just as they all no doubt did. It wasn’t surprising they knew each other’s personal business too. It must be hard to keep secrets when you lived so closely with your neighbours. But then, she lived just as closely with her own neighbours back at Belle Vue Court and could honestly say she knew very little about any of them. Nor did she particularly want to. She smiled to herself at the irony. How different London was to this tiny country community where even a strange car passing through would probably be noticed and commented upon. She wondered what they made of her, what the rumour mill was saying about her and her reasons for turning up out of the blue like that.

  ‘So, Madi,’ Faith said, changing the subject abruptly. ‘What is it that you do?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘For a job, I mean. Unless you’re retired, of course, but you don’t look old enough.’

  God, the woman was blunt. ‘Thank you. I’m sixty-two so I am pretty
much old enough, I suppose, technically, but I’m not in the sort of industry that has a retirement age as such. We tend to go on until we drop.’

  ‘Oh? Which industry is that then? Because you look like a teacher to me. Maybe a headmistress. Am I close?’

  Madi laughed. ‘What is this? Twenty questions? Animal, vegetable or mineral?’

  Faith looked confused for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, am I being overly inquisitive?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Madi lied. ‘But, no, I’m not a teacher, head or otherwise. I’m an actress.’

  ‘Oh.’ Faith’s arms began to flap wildly, and her voice shot up an octave. ‘Oh! How exciting. Have you been in anything? Well, of course you have. Silly me. What I mean is … well, have you been in anything I might have seen? Heard of? You know, anything famous?’

  ‘Is Shakespeare famous enough for you?’

  Faith giggled. ‘Well, I might not know a lot about the theatre but even I’ve heard of him! Do tell me everything …’

  ‘Everything?’ The two women reached the turning that led up to the church and the vets’ but walked on past it and headed towards the shops. Madi did her best to suppress a grin. ‘About Shakespeare?’

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean. About you. Your career. Stage or TV? Who have you met, and who have you acted with? Are you terribly well known? But then you probably use a stage name, don’t you? Not Madi at all.’ She grabbed Madi’s arm as if some sort of magic stardust was going to rub off. ‘Oh, we’ve never had an actress in Shelling before. The most famous resident we’ve ever had was a novelist – or so she said – who lived just a couple of doors along from me for a few months, but nobody had ever actually heard of her. Her books weren’t even in the library. The proper library in town, I mean, of course, not our little cupboard affair in the hall! Oh, Madi, do tell all …’

  Madi had only just begun to present a very potted history of her career so far when they reached the village shop and Patty Martin came bustling out onto the pavement, almost as if she had been waiting for them to appear.