The House of New Beginnings

by Lucy Diamond

  ‘Seventy is nothing these days, darling,’ Margot went on reprovingly now. ‘You can still be a strong, proud man at seventy. A good lover, too. And I should know!’

  Meg, who was never normally backward about coming forward, actually blushed. ‘Yeah,’ she said, chastened. ‘Of course. I just meant—’

  Margot’s lips twitched. ‘I am joking with you,’ she confessed. ‘Ahh – see! I might be an ancient old lady about to die but I can still joke!’

  ‘Margot,’ chided Charlotte fondly as Meg visibly blanched. Charlotte had curled her hair in soft waves that fell about her smiling face and looked positively radiant, Rosa thought. Being in love obviously suited her. ‘Please don’t talk about dying. You should see all the men she has lined up around Brighton,’ she added to the others. ‘Including this one,’ she said, twinkling at Ned beside her. ‘Although he’s off-limits to you now, Margot, thank you very much.’

  Margot looked delighted. ‘But I saw him first!’ she cried.

  Rosa smiled to herself as she left for the kitchen. ‘I’ll be right back with the main courses,’ she called.

  ‘I’ll help,’ Catherine said, sliding out from her chair and following.

  In the kitchen, everything was just about ready to be served. She had given the menu a Mediterranean theme, with a roasted vegetable and goat’s cheese tart for the vegetarians, and herbed lamb cutlets for the meat-eaters, as well as three different salads. ‘This all looks amazing,’ Catherine said, piling plates into the dishwasher as Rosa cut the tart. ‘It’s going really well, isn’t it? Well, from where I’m sitting, it is. Are you pleased? You must be! Everyone’s raving about the food. And I love how most of us have never met and we’re all just chatting away like old mates. Meg’s face when Margot put her in her place just now! I’ve never seen her look so meek!’

  Rosa laughed. ‘I know! Margot’s fab, isn’t she? It’s great to have her here. It’s great to have all of you here.’ She felt a rush of affection for the woman beside her, thinking about all the different kitchens they’d been in together over the years – through hangover breakfasts, and endless rounds of revision toast in the student days, countless drunken parties with dodgy punch and neighbours banging on the wall, all the way to hen parties, girly weekends away, diets, binges, New Year’s Eve celebrations, her godchildren’s birthdays . . . and now here they were together again, in a new kitchen, Rosa’s kitchen. It felt like a turning point, having the seal of approval from someone who really mattered.

  Catherine hesitated as if she was about to say something and glanced across at Rosa, before seeming to think better of it, and picking up a couple of salad dishes. ‘Shall I take these through for people to help themselves?’

  ‘Yes, please. The more informal the better, I think. Thanks.’

  Breathe, breathe, breathe, she reminded herself, sliding generous wedges of tart onto four plates, before Catherine bore them away for the vegetarians. Hosting her guests so far was like organizing a military operation – what with all the shopping and cooking and room-preparations to be worked out, the chairs and tables she’d had to borrow from her neighbours, the linen tablecloths she’d begged from the hotel. If she was going to do this seriously, she’d have to think about maybe asking Natalya to help her waitress another time, she thought, loading her arms up with serving plates heaped high with the fragrant lamb and setting them down at either end of the table. ‘Help yourselves. I’ll just grab some bread and butter, and a jug of tap water. Anyone ready for more wine? Okay, I’ll get that as well. Now, please . . . dig in!’

  By the end of the evening, Rosa was feeling stupendously happy. She was also stupendously drunk. The food had been a great success, with barely a crumb left of the vast white chocolate and berry cheesecake she’d made, and everyone had lingered pleasantly over coffee and final glasses of wine. Alexa had produced a bottle of ouzo from a recent holiday in Greece, which finished off several of the guests, with Margot, Charlotte, Ned and Viv all making rather stumbling exits for bed at around eleven o’clock. Next out of the door was Jo, who looked shattered. ‘Just another half an hour, Bea, and then your dad’s going to send you home too,’ she warned.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Bea replied in a not-very-convincing way.

  ‘I think we should have a toast,’ Catherine said, raising a mug of coffee in one hand and the ouzo bottle in the other. ‘To our fabulous hostess with the mostest, a great cook and an even better friend. To Rosa!’

  ‘To Rosa!’ the others chorused, clinking glasses. ‘Yeah!’ added Georgie, who looked about as drunk as Rosa felt by now. Cheerful-drunk, thankfully, Rosa thought, catching her eye. Which was way better than maudlin just-got-dumped drunk, obviously.

  ‘Thanks for being here and letting me practise on you,’ she laughed, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Are you kidding me? Like we’d have stayed away when you finally got over yourself and invited us,’ Meg huffed, but in a twinkly-eyed, only-joking sort of way.

  ‘How come you guys haven’t seen each other for so long?’ Gareth asked. He was a bit pissed as well; his words were sliding into each other like novice ice skaters, and his features looked as if their edges had blurred. Maybe that was just Rosa’s own beer-goggles, though. ‘I mean – London, Brighton, it’s not that far. Have you all been insanely busy or something?’

  ‘Dad! Personal!’ Bea pointed out, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Well . . .’ Alexa glanced at Rosa then shrugged. ‘Shit happens, right?’

  ‘And we are insanely busy,’ Catherine added, which was true. ‘Or just busily insane, I’m not sure which.’

  ‘It’s not like we fell out or anything,’ Meg put in.

  They were all being so lovely and diplomatic, covering for Rosa, but the truth felt too big to keep back any longer. ‘It was me,’ she admitted. ‘Just your typical midlife crisis kind of thing, you know, abandoning perfectly good job, running away to the seaside, going silent on best mates. I vant to be alone. Bosh.’ She pulled a face, attempting to make a joke of it but then her voice went and shook at the last, completely giving away her real feelings. ‘So . . . yeah.’

  ‘But here we all are now, and you’re over the worst,’ said Catherine, who had three children under the age of five and was highly skilled at smoothing over emotional crises.

  ‘Right,’ said Gareth, looking a bit awkward. He was trying to give Rosa a searching look but she pretended she hadn’t noticed and busied herself pouring more drinks for everyone. ‘Well . . . good.’

  Georgie knocked back her third glass of ouzo and winced. ‘Is this anything to do with the love-life thing you mentioned the other day?’ she asked, then cringed at her own bluntness. ‘Sorry. You don’t have to say. That was way too nosey a question. That was definitely the ouzo talking. What’s in this stuff?’

  ‘It says here, it’s fifty-five per cent proof,’ Bea said, peering at the label, then took the cap off the bottle and sniffed the contents. ‘Bloody hell, proof of what? That you have to be mad to drink it?’

  ‘Basically, yes,’ Catherine told her, pulling a face as she took a sip.

  Rosa twisted her glass around between her fingers. Then the next sentence fell out of her before she could stop it. ‘His wife’s having another baby, you know,’ she said, and Catherine spluttered her drink everywhere.

  ‘No!’

  ‘The tosser,’ Meg snarled.

  ‘How do you know?’ Alexa asked, her dark hair swinging as she leaned forward. ‘Has he been in touch?’ Then she glanced at Catherine and a look was exchanged. ‘Did you—’

  ‘No,’ Catherine said quickly and put a finger to her lips but not before Rosa had seen it.

  Oh great. Now what? Did she even want to know why her friends had just looked at each other like that? Probably not. Definitely not. The room was swinging around her; she felt volatile, wild, all her emotions worryingly close to the surface. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Georgie, Bea and Gareth, as she realized too late that they were all sitting there, with not a clue wha
t this was about. ‘Just my tragic love life. Let’s not go there. Moving on!’

  ‘So how do you know she’s pregnant?’ Catherine said, ignoring Rosa’s last words. ‘Have you seen him again?’

  ‘No! Of course I haven’t seen him, I hate him,’ Rosa replied. Then she sighed, knowing that her friends weren’t about to let this one lie. ‘I’ve been Facebook-stalking his wife,’ she muttered. ‘And tracking him down too. Turns out he never even worked in Amsterdam, can you believe. He’s the marketing manager at some big tech firm in Old Street. Ha!’

  ‘Um . . . Maybe this is our cue to leave,’ Gareth said tactfully. ‘Come on, Bea.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Georgie, pushing her chair back. ‘It’s been such a good evening but if I drink any more of that ouzo I’ll probably do something terrible like ring my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Aargh. Maybe I should leave my phone here actually.’

  ‘Oh, stay,’ Rosa said. ‘Don’t feel you need to go on my behalf. We’re going to change the subject from the torrid melodrama of my life now anyway. Aren’t we? And I’m going to get us a jug of iced water in an attempt to dilute that ouzo.’

  She’d risen from her chair, but Meg held up her hand – stop – like a police officer directing traffic. ‘Hold your horses, lady. We’ll change the subject and drink our iced water just as soon as we see that Facebook page,’ she said, eyebrow raised. ‘Go on. Give. You might as well.’

  ‘We can all add poisonous comments underneath to the smug cow,’ Alexa said.

  ‘No!’ Rosa cried. She had become oddly protective of poor gullible Ann-Marie, if that didn’t sound too mad. ‘It’s not her fault her husband is a pig.’ Grimacing, she briefly explained the situation to Gareth, Bea and Georgie who gave a full and rousing condemnation of Max’s – David’s – actions. ‘I just need to forget him and leave him to his happy joyous blessed family,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘Not that happy,’ Catherine muttered.

  ‘Cath saw him with another woman,’ Alexa blurted out. ‘What?’ she added when Catherine made a hissing noise beside her. ‘Look, she might as well know, just in case she’s harbouring any mad ideas about getting back with the toerag.’

  ‘I’m not!’ Rosa cried. ‘Really? You saw him, Cath?’

  Catherine sighed. ‘Yes. I saw him. But I was going to break it to you sensitively,’ she said, glaring at Alexa. ‘Like, maybe when you weren’t steaming drunk and with new friends? Like, just the two of us with, say, a massive punch-bag to hand?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Rosa said dully. ‘Whatever. I don’t care.’

  ‘It’s not fine,’ said Gareth. ‘And if you ask me, he needs sorting out.’

  Bea scoffed. ‘What, you’re going to go round and duff him up, are you?’ she asked. ‘This is a bit different to threatening a school bully, Dad.’

  ‘I know but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘It just winds me up, how people can be so vile to each other. And then get off scot free.’ He got to his feet and hauled his daughter up too. ‘Right, young lady, we really had better go otherwise Jo’s not going to be happy with either of us.’ He hesitated, pulling on his jacket. ‘Thanks, Rosa, I had a lovely evening. And . . . well, if you ever want to go in for a satisfying act of revenge to get your ex back . . .’ He tapped his nose. ‘You’ve got my number. Count me in.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There were crumbs under Charlotte’s toaster. A splodge of something brown and unidentifiable in the vegetable drawer of the fridge. She had run clean out of fabric conditioner and there was dust – yes, really, dust – on the black domed top of her beaming Henry Hoover. Standards, you could say, were slipping – and you’d be right. You would also be right in saying, however, that Charlotte couldn’t have cared less.

  She was happy, she had realized. She had remembered how it felt! A joyful little drumbeat in her blood, the giddy rush she experienced when a text or call came in from Ned, the way she woke up in the morning and felt glad. Glad! She had caught herself humming in the aisles of Waitrose the other day as she picked up various bits of food, adding a punnet of scarlet strawberries, some fancy grapefruit shower gel and a bunch of freesias just for the hell of it. Actually humming, out loud, in public!

  It was as if she kept looking at herself and marvelling how far she’d come. There was no way she’d have been able to survive Rosa’s dinner parties this time last year, for example: she had been too unhappy to eat, too inward-looking to chat, and too exhausted to even consider putting on a nice dress and some make-up and doing her hair. And yet she’d managed exactly that each time, all of it, and had thoroughly enjoyed herself into the bargain – getting to know her neighbours Rosa, Georgie, Bea and of course Jo, now, with whom she’d had a proper long conversation at last, and who seemed the coolest, sparkliest person.

  Even work seemed okay these days. One of the solicitors in her team, Jacqui, who had golden hair and cat-green eyes had admired Charlotte’s necklace one day over coffee, and they’d got chatting, and ended up having lunch together a few times since then. Another colleague, Shelley, had invited Charlotte out for her birthday drinks and it had been really fun, and she’d got to know lots of people in a shyly tipsy sort of way. There was talk of an office summer party and Charlotte found herself offering to help out . . . Charlotte was just saying yes to everything, in fact, these days. It was as if she were a daisy, opening her petals and offering them up to the sunshine. Hello, world. I’m back. I’m up for it.

  ‘You’re living again,’ her mum had said down the phone. She sounded a bit choked up actually; either that or her hay-fever was giving her grief. ‘That’s what it is – you’ve come out through the other side and you’re living again. Rescued by love!’

  Rescued by love? Charlotte had rolled her eyes at such a melodramatic response. ‘I rescued myself,’ she pointed out. ‘And it’s not “love” anyway, yet, I barely know him. We’ve only had three dates and one coffee on the beach.’ Then, because she knew what an old romantic her mum was – and because it was true, moreover – she added, ‘But he does make me happy.’

  ‘He makes you happy,’ her mum repeated with great satisfaction. ‘Oh, darling, I’m so pleased. I’m so so pleased for you.’

  ‘Me too,’ Charlotte said. ‘And actually – if this doesn’t sound too mad – I make myself happy too nowadays. My life, the things in it, new friends . . . it’s all sort of come together in one big lovely package. I can’t explain it, but it’s like the black clouds have moved on. Not that I’m ever going to forget Kate of course –’

  ‘No, of course you won’t. But it’s learning to live alongside that grief, isn’t it? It’s not letting it shadow everything else in your world.’

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly it, Mum.’ There was a lump in her throat. Losing Kate had cast a shadow, she realized: a massive shadow over everything, so dark that she couldn’t see a way through it for a while. And although she was certain she’d always feel a tug inside at the sight of a new baby, probably for the rest of her life, that shadow had lifted, enabling daylight to come edging back in. Her days seemed fuller, she was sleeping better at night, she had stopped crying in the toilets at work for no reason. As for her cleaning schedule, that had all but been forgotten. Best of all, she hadn’t pored tearfully over her Kate shoebox for at least two weeks.

  ‘I really owe Margot one,’ she said to Ned, a few days later. For all her talk of having rescued herself and creeping out from under the shadow, she would never forget quite how instrumental Margot had been as a catalyst for change. Margot, who’d questioned her so beadily, who’d listened to her, who’d made her feel human again, who’d reminded her that there were good things in life still to be enjoyed.

  ‘Margot?’ Ned repeated, turning on the burglar alarm inside the café and shutting the door behind them. He closed up at six o’clock each day, just as she was finishing work, and she’d come down to meet him a couple of times, ships passing in the night, a snatched kiss and hello, and perhaps a quick walk along the prom with hi
m, as he headed back to pick up the girls from his sister’s. Tonight she’d been invited back to have tea with them all – ‘Hope you like fish fingers and pasta pesto,’ he’d said, and she wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking or not. Perhaps she was making too much of it, being silly, but it felt like a big deal to be allowed into the family’s tea-time, admitted into the inner circle. She was flattered, excited and also racked with nerves. Was it shameless of her that she’d stuffed some jelly babies into her bag in a shallow attempt to win over those delicious little barefoot girls?

  ‘Yeah. Not just for introducing the two of us – for the second time, I mean,’ Charlotte added, a slight blush tingeing her cheeks. (She would probably never be able to think of their first fateful encounter without dying a little inside.) ‘But because she’s become . . . well, sort of a role model for me, I guess. Inspirational. I’ve never met a woman like her – who genuinely doesn’t give a damn what others think, who is so charming and naughty and mischievous.’

  ‘Who’s such a terrible old flirt . . .’ Ned said, pulling down the rattling metal shutters at the front of the café. ‘She’s not been in lately, actually. In fact . . .’ He stooped down to click the padlock in place. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen her all week. She is all right, isn’t she?’

  The question slid under Charlotte’s skin where it sat uneasily for a few seconds. ‘Um . . . I think so,’ she replied but now the doubts were starting to prickle. Margot had seemed so much her old self at Rosa’s dinner party the week before that – to Charlotte’s shame – she’d all but put the older woman out of her mind, in her own new zeal for living. She was due to pop round on Friday for their weekly chat as usual but, all of a sudden, Charlotte got the strong feeling she should go there sooner. Nothing specific she could put her finger on, just a sensation of urgency. Hurry. Go.