The House of New Beginnings

by Lucy Diamond

  ‘We are Rosa’s guests and this is a dinner party; the tenancy agreement doesn’t forbid us either of those things,’ Charlotte had tried pointing out – quite bravely, she felt, given how terrifying she found Angela – but their landlady was having none of it, standing there with her hands on her hips until the last person had left. Of course, Charlotte and Ned, plus Georgie and her friend Amelia, had merely waited on the stairs above, like naughty children up past their bedtime, until Angela had flounced out of the building again, whereupon they’d crept back down to knock on Rosa’s door and offer their condolences. The five of them had gone on to eat everything that was left, including all fifteen of the lime soufflés, whilst slagging off Angela with great vehemence.

  Afterwards Charlotte and Ned had stumbled their way upstairs, Charlotte becoming increasingly apprehensive with every step. ‘Come on in,’ she said, as they reached her flat and she fumbled to open the door. Her heart was starting to accelerate. Here they were, just the two of them, with the whole night at their disposal. Would they have sex? Would she remember what to do? Would he notice her stretchmarks and comment on her lime-soufflé-engorged belly? (Oh, why had she eaten so much, tonight of all nights?) There was just so much to worry about. And what about the morning, too – would she be able to look him in the eye or would he be scurrying away from her as fast as humanly possible?

  But then, before she could go into full panicking meltdown, he had his arms around her and was kissing her, and the questions melted away, her whole body responding to his kiss, as if she was Sleeping Beauty, woken from a long slumber. Oh hello, she thought as they manoeuvred along the hallway together, still kissing, and collapsed together onto her sofa. I remember now. Yes, I remember this.

  With so much worrying beforehand, she had quite overlooked the possibility that she might actually enjoy the experience, seeing it instead as a quagmire of humiliation and dread. What a surprise, then, to find herself throwing off her clothes with keen abandon! How unexpected to discover that lust still ran deep through her, a great forgotten spring of it that rushed up through her body as she peeled off his shirt and ran her fingers along his bare skin. The sensations that had erupted through her, the noises she had made, the tremendous spiralling joy she had felt afterwards, lying in the crook of his arm!

  Charlotte the harlot, she thought to herself now, smiling at the memory as she dumped her bag and kicked off her shoes. Who would have thought it? Who ever would have imagined? She could hardly wait to get her hands on him again, frankly.

  Waiting for the kettle to boil, she leafed through the post she’d picked up. Three pieces today: a Lakeland catalogue (they were probably panicking because she’d eased up on the cleaning products lately), something from her bank, and a thick cream envelope with the address written by hand. She was just ripping the latter open – it seemed to be from a local solicitors’ firm, Tavener, Smith and Lloyd, which meant absolutely nothing to her – when her phone rang, and it was the man himself.

  ‘Hi,’ she said happily, smoothing out the pages of the letter. Maybe she was being head-hunted, she thought distractedly, glancing again at the company logo. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good, yeah. Been feeling magnificently cheerful all day,’ he told her. ‘Can’t think why that could be. Oh yeah. Now I remember. Last night.’

  She laughed. ‘Me too,’ she confessed shyly. ‘I was just thinking about that myself. It was really . . .’ She hesitated, unsure if there was a word big enough to capture all her feelings about the night. Lying with him afterwards staring up at the ceiling, feeling dazed, dazzled, her nerve-endings still quivering. Waking up to feel his heavy arm slung across her, feeling delighted as she smelled his skin, turned her head to see his sleeping face, noticing the faint freckles on his bare shoulder. She had held herself at a distance from closeness for so long, fearing this kind of intimacy with another human being, and now here he was, sleeping in her bed, like some kind of handsome miracle, benevolently hand-delivered by the Goddess of Bereaved Women. What was more, she felt completely thrilled to have him there. ‘. . . Great,’ she said in the end. ‘Really really great.’

  ‘Two “really”s, I like it,’ he teased. ‘How did it go today, by the way? How was the tree-planting?’

  ‘Surprisingly lovely. Actually very comforting.’ She poured boiling water onto the teabag, remembering the peace and contentment she’d felt in her mum’s back garden, the birdsong, the sunshine, the spade beneath her feet. ‘I was wondering about doing something similar for Margot, you know. Now that I’ve broken my tree-planting duck.’

  ‘No stopping you now,’ he agreed. ‘Good idea. Something elegant and beautiful, she’d have liked that. A stately willow, maybe. Or one of those gorgeous poplars you get lining the roadsides in France.’

  ‘Yeah. Although God knows where I’d put it,’ she replied, suddenly realizing the practical limitations of her idea. Imagining too the wrath of Angela if she put an enormous tree in the tiny courtyard garden at the back of the house. ‘Maybe I’ll have to settle for a sunflower in a pot for the time being.’ Her eye fell back on the letter just then and she blinked, experiencing a déjà vu moment, seeing Margot’s name there in print. What? Maybe this wasn’t a head-hunting letter after all.

  ‘Hello? Are you still there?’

  ‘Hi. Yeah. I just . . .’ But her concentration was fragmenting, her eye caught by words on the page.

  Executors of the will . . .

  Margot Favager . . .

  My duty to inform you . . .

  ‘Sorry, Ned,’ she said, realizing he was speaking in her ear. ‘I was just distracted by . . . Oh my God.’

  ‘What? Is everything all right?’

  My client made a bequest to you . . .

  ‘Bloody hell. Whoa.’

  ‘What?’

  Charlotte blinked a few times and read the words again. And the numbers. Oh, Margot, she thought, tears pricking her eyes. You didn’t! Seriously? ‘Sorry.’ She did her best to pull herself together. ‘It’s . . . It’s something amazing actually. I’ve just found out . . .’ She hesitated, feeling rude for admitting to reading a letter at the same time as being mid-conversation on the phone.

  ‘What? God, will you just tell me?’

  ‘Margot left me some money.’ There was a lump in her throat, so big it was hard to get the words out past it. ‘I’ve just this minute found out. She left me some money to . . . to “spend unwisely”, apparently.’ A little involuntary noise came from her, seeing the words there in print, and she couldn’t be sure whether it was a sob or a laugh. ‘It’s what I always said to her,’ she went on in explanation, ‘that I’d spend the money she gave me wisely, and I could tell she thought that was very boringly sensible of me . . .’ She made the noise again. A laugh, she told herself. A laugh, with a hint of sob.

  ‘What an amazing thing to do,’ Ned said and she could hear that he was smiling. ‘Money to spend unwisely – that’s pure Margot.’

  ‘Isn’t it just? Love her.’ Charlotte kept looking again and again at the figure she’d been left – ten thousand pounds. She couldn’t quite believe it. Already her mind was whirling with ‘unwise’ ways to spend the money – on the holiday of a lifetime, a shopping spree in all Margot’s favourite shops, a huge glorious piece of art, maybe even a pair of roller boots, just for fun . . . Oh, Margot, she thought again, with a surge of feelings. This fabulous woman, even in death, was opening new doors to Charlotte and pushing her through them. If only she could thank her in person, one last time!

  She forced herself to put the letter down and switch her attention back to Ned. ‘How are you, anyway? What have you been up to?’

  ‘Well, that’s why I called. Because aside from thinking about you pretty much every other second of the day . . .’

  Warmth spread through her. ‘Only every other second?’ she teased. ‘Rude.’

  ‘I was trying to play it cool, but okay, yes, I admit it, every single second,’ he replied. ‘Miraculously I’ve b
een thinking about something else too, though. I’ve had an idea, actually, and wondered what you thought.’

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘Well,’ he began. ‘It’s like this . . .’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘Oh wow,’ said Amelia, laughing as she scrolled down the screen. ‘She is totally going to love this. Yes!’

  ‘Do you think so?’ asked Georgie, pleased. ‘I know it’s all a bit rough at the moment, but—’

  ‘I totally think so! Mate, she is going to be so chuffed. It’s excellent!’ Amelia elbowed her. ‘Hey. Do you think you could do one for me, too? Please?’

  ‘Too right I will,’ she said, beaming at her best friend. ‘You bet.’ Oh, it had been so wonderful having Amelia to stay. They’d been shopping all day Saturday looking for wedding presents for Jade and her fiancé – well, in theory anyway, although to be fair they’d spent most of the time buying themselves new tops each in a North Laine boutique, before stuffing their faces with an enormous brunch. Then Amelia had insisted on visiting the pier and going on all the rides. ‘I’m on holiday, humour me,’ she’d said, as she forced Georgie to queue up for the roller coaster again. Saturday night, they’d ventured out in search of cocktails and ended up in some Seventies disco club where they had drunk all sorts of lurid concoctions and laughed themselves stupid, making up ridiculous dance moves together like they were seventeen again. It had been so much fun that, for a short while, she’d almost forgotten everything that had happened with Simon. Almost.

  ‘It’s great here,’ Amelia had slurred, as they tottered back home, arm in arm, through the city streets once they’d finally called it a night. ‘I can see why you like it so much. I’m dead jealous, you actually living here.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s brilliant,’ Georgie agreed, then hesitated. ‘Although without Simon, I’m not sure if—’

  Up went Amelia’s hand, shooting imperiously into the air. ‘We’re not talking about him, remember? He who shall not be named.’

  Georgie lurched against a street sign, wobbling on her clonky heels. ‘I thought that was Voldemort?’

  ‘Him neither. They’re both banned. And that’s that!’

  On Sunday, Georgie had woken early, and the moment her eyes opened, a genius idea had popped up in her brain like a slice of toast – the perfect thing for Jade’s wedding present. Yes! Sure, she’d bought her a pretty lampshade yesterday, in a ‘that would do’ sort of attitude, in lieu of finding anything better, but the lampshade, while nice to look at, was not the sort of present that would blow any bride and groom away. It was not something Jade would snatch up from the living room if the house happened to be burning down, put it like that.

  Her mind must have been working away at the problem the whole time she was deep in cocktail-induced slumber overnight, neatly presenting her with the solution – ta-dah! – as soon as she was vaguely conscious. And so, while Amelia slept on, pink eye-mask lopsided across her flushed face, Georgie tiptoed out of the bedroom and got to work. Opening up a desktop publishing program, she’d created a mock-up of The Jade and Sam Gazette, styled like a newspaper, with a big photo of the happy couple in the centre, and various headlines about them running down a sidebar. It wasn’t a million miles away from the little newspapers she’d created as a child – The Hemlington Road Gazette and The Stonefield Times – she thought, smiling as she typed.

  Wedding of the Year – Read All About It!

  Ilkley Road Disco – Where the Romance Began!

  Meet Molly – the Couple’s Beloved Border Terrier!

  ‘Oh, it’s such an ace idea,’ Amelia said, looking at the laptop screen again now, eye make-up still smudgy around her lashes. ‘And Jade will love it. Genius! So will you make a print and frame it, or use the image for a card, or poster . . . ? Do you know, I’d quite like to commission some to have on the tables at our reception when we get hitched,’ she went on eagerly, without waiting for an answer. ‘Give everyone a bit of a laugh, wouldn’t it, while they wait for their starters? Would you do some for me? I’d pay you, obviously.’

  ‘You don’t have to pay me, you nutter, of course I’ll do them for you,’ Georgie said. ‘But yeah, I was thinking a framed print would be a nice present for Jade and Sam.’ Her head was racing with ideas, suddenly. Mugs. Calendars. Coasters. There was probably scope for a whole range of this sort of wedding souvenir merchandise, now that she thought about it, feeling excited. Maybe this could be a new business venture for her!

  ‘Cheers, doll,’ Amelia said, then groaned. ‘In the meantime, you don’t have any Nurofen, do you? Last night is catching up on me all of a sudden. Did we really start a conga with all those disco divas?’

  It was as the two of them were hugging goodbye at the train station later that afternoon that the second genius idea came to Georgie. This time it was about Simon. It had been over three weeks since he’d left Brighton and she still hadn’t heard a word from him. Her texts to him had started off apologetic and grovelling, before becoming terse and then downright nasty, until she’d had to delete his number to stop her sending any more on impulse. Amelia hadn’t had anything new to report about his doings either, no glimpses about the village, no overheard gossip in the pub, nothing. It was as if there was this wall of silence between them, getting taller and wider by the day. As if they’d never been a couple at all.

  Well, bugger that, Georgie thought, waving as her friend went through the ticket barriers. The time had come to make a stand, to say her piece, to tear down that horrible wall of silence. And if Simon wouldn’t take her calls or reply to her texts, then she had to try a new tack.

  The whole time she’d been putting together her Jade and Sam Gazette that morning, there had been a voice inside Georgie: a sad, plaintive voice that kept wishing she could do something this lovely for her own relationship. And so she was going to. It would be her final gesture, one last attempt to salvage things and apologize before she admitted defeat and gave up on him forever.

  ‘I do still really love him, that’s the problem,’ she had slurred to Amelia on Saturday night as they sat eating jammy toast in the kitchen, post-clubbing.

  ‘I know you do, darling,’ Amelia had sighed, butter shining on her chin. ‘And I bet he still loves you too. You know what blokes are like. They can’t admit when they’ve made a mistake. I reckon he feels terrible.’

  Georgie had no idea how Simon felt, though; he could be doing anything for all she knew. He could have got this job in Harrogate, he could have fallen in love with someone else, he could have decided to pack everything in for a new life abroad in Hong Kong – and, for all Amelia’s reassurances, Georgie might very well be the last thing on his mind right now. So it was high time she reminded him, basically. To show him that her new passion for journalism didn’t have to mean relationship destruction all the time. Maybe, just maybe, it could be an olive branch too.

  The Dukes Square Bugle, she typed into her template screen once she was back at the flat, then pursed her lips and frowned. Was that okay? Would he care any more about what was going on down here in Brighton? He hadn’t exactly given any indications that he might be missing the place, after all.

  The Georgie and Simon Herald! she typed instead but even as she was pressing the keys, she was already shaking her head, knowing that that was also wrong; it was too hopeful and presumptuous a name when she wasn’t even sure that there was a valid ‘Georgie and Simon’ thing left in the first place. Backspacing through the letters again, she racked her brain, trying to come up with the right words, the hook that this whole gesture represented. Finally it came to her and she typed one single word in the title area: Sorry.

  The hours ticked by, interspersed by a chatty phone call from her mum, a text from Amelia saying that she was back home and thanking Georgie for a brilliant weekend, plus a quick plate of scrambled eggs on toast when she realized she hadn’t eaten for five hours and her stomach was tying itself in knots. ‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s wo
rth doing properly,’ her mum had always been fond of saying, and Georgie was determined to do this, her apology, as properly as she was able. That was why, for her cover photo, she’d put on a pale blue top Simon had always liked, washed her hair and blow-dried it so that it fell loose and wavy about her shoulders, and taken about a hundred sad-face selfies, before settling on one in which she still looked quite pretty, yet also repentant. If you looked closely – which she hoped he would – you could see the bed in the background, and she hoped he’d notice it and remember happier times spent beneath those very covers. (Yes, all right, so perhaps it wasn’t the subtlest of subliminal messages but sometimes a bloke needed a shove in the right direction, okay?)

  As for the headlines for her Sorry magazine, she’d thought long and hard about those too. Upbeat was the key here, she decided: upbeat, positive, funny. I miss you, but not in a desperate, cringey way, was what she wanted to say. Sorry, and hey, if you want to try again, I would like that as well. She was not going to beg or boil bunnies, she was just going to put it out there, her heart and her hopes, in one big writerly act of love. And hell, if he ignored that too, then so be it. At least she would have tried.

  Girl Misses Boy – I Screwed Up! she admits

  Tenants’ Shock at Dinner Disaster – Landlady from Hell Goes on Rampage

  My Speed Dating Pain – Exclusive True Story

  Plus! Ten Reasons Why You Should Give Georgie Another Chance

  At the bottom of the front cover, she had typed in small letters: Sorry magazine is brought to you in association with Apologetic Girlfriend Limited.

  That was just the start of it, of course. She didn’t stop there. With her mum’s words about ‘doing something properly’ still ringing in her ears, once completing the cover, she went on to create a number of pages inside the magazine: all the articles she’d listed in her mini headlines, plus lots of photos of the two of them, from back when they were school sweethearts in blazers, to the more recent snaps of them laughing and gurning on the Palace Pier. She even drew quite a bad cartoon of a new Knock Knock joke she’d thought of. (Eyebrow who? Eye-browt you flowers to say I’m sorry.)