‘OK, don’t make me feel any worse about that. But I could do with a friend right now… Please come up to the room with me. Just for a short while.’
She let out a breath and nodded. She was never going to say no anyway – how could she when he’d laid his soul bare, confided in her just how much he needed her support?
‘I’ll come up but only for ten minutes and then you need to talk things through properly, mother to son, and that means family only.’
‘I know. But this is the hardest bit – just seeing her again for the first time. So thank you.’
As they walked across to the entrance, Dodie felt his hand brush against hers. She closed her eyes, his touch doing things to her she shouldn’t be thinking of right now. At that moment, she realised they would never be friends, not for her, not in the way he’d talked about, because other feelings would get in the way. For now, she would do her best to be there for him, but afterwards there would need to be distance if there wasn’t to be anything else. He was screwed up already, that much was certain, she’d only just split from Ryan, and a complicated relationship probably wasn’t what either of them needed right now.
Julia had given Ed the room number and nobody at the hotel reception seemed concerned at the two people just walking through to the lifts. They travelled up to the third floor in silence, Dodie shooting an encouraging smile whenever he looked up from the plush red carpet of the lift interior. She could only imagine what it would be like to face this situation with her own parents but, with all that he’d been through before, she guessed he was finding it tough. Her biggest worry was only ever her gran’s latest nutty scheme. For Ed and Julia there would be a lot of soul-searching, recriminations, guilt, apologies, recalibrating of their relationship, and that would take patience and time. But from what Dodie knew of both Julia and Ed now, she felt sure they would get there. The main thing was they both wanted to make things good between them again. That had to count for something.
Trevor answered Ed’s knock on the door of their suite, momentarily thrown by the sight of Dodie standing alongside him, but then giving her a stiff smile before turning to Ed and offering his hand.
‘Good to see you,’ he said warmly. ‘Your mum’s so happy you’ve decided to come.’
Dodie hovered awkwardly at the doorway as Trevor beckoned Ed in.
‘I should let you all get on,’ she said, backing away into the corridor. ‘I just came to give Ed a lift…’
Ed turned back. ‘Just say hello to Mum. You promised me ten minutes.’
Before she could reply, Julia appeared from a side room. With an exclamation of joy she grabbed Ed and pulled him into a hug.
‘My boy!’ she cried. ‘I’ve missed you so much!’
She began to weep, her head buried in his shoulder, and Dodie wiped away a sudden tear of her own as she saw Ed bow his head, arms wrapped around Julia’s delicate frame, his own eyes misted.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for everything.’
Julia looked up at him. ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re here now, that’s all I want. You’ve no idea how much I’ve worried about you.’
‘I didn’t mean for that to happen,’ he sniffed, dragging a thumb beneath his eyes. ‘I thought you’d be better off without me. I know it was wrong and I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you.’
Dodie glanced at Trevor as she fished in her handbag for a tissue, and even he seemed moved by the scene, staring very deliberately at the window as if trying to hold his own tears at bay. On the way up, Dodie had wondered whether she ought to be here to witness such an intense and private moment, but now she felt that it was just so beautiful, so life-affirming, that she would simply be grateful to carry the memory of it to her grave. They had a long way to go, but they had love, and there was no better starting point than that.
Ed turned, his arm around Julia’s shoulder, and smiled at Dodie. ‘Mum, Dodie… I think you two have already met.’
‘Yes.’ Julia laughed through her tears. ‘Yes, we have met.’
‘In the weirdest plot twist ever,’ Dodie added.
‘The more I think about it, the more amazing it is to me,’ Julia agreed. ‘Of all the places Ed could have wound up he’s here, where the story began with my birth mother, living in the same street she lived in—’
‘The same house,’ Ed cut in.
‘Yes,’ Julia smiled. ‘The same house. And then Dodie found the letter and met you. You found me again, without even meaning to. It makes me wonder… It’s as if my mother’s up there, finally reunited with my dad, and she looked down on the mess we were in and wanted to put everything right, to make up for the years she never knew us. And so she sent you to live in that street, and she made the letter end up in the hands of someone who would care about it, and she helped bring us all together.’
‘But none of it would have been possible if not for Dodie,’ Ed added. ‘Most people would have thrown that letter away.’
Julia walked to Dodie, arms outstretched, and Dodie knew that her last bastion of control would disappear. In Julia’s embrace, she began to cry, and Julia began to cry again too, and when she looked around Ed was wiping his eyes and Trevor was like a statue, staring at the window as if he was Superman trying to laser it.
‘Thank you,’ Julia said, kissing Dodie’s cheek. ‘Thank you so much for everything.’
‘I didn’t do anything apart from be curious,’ Dodie excused. ‘There’s no need to thank me. I’m just glad to see you together again.’ Wiping her eyes, she made a show of checking her watch. ‘God, I really should go and get the shop open again,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure you have lots to discuss. You’ll be OK to get back from here?’ she asked, looking at Ed.
‘We can run him wherever he needs to be,’ Trevor said. ‘Don’t you worry about anything – you’ve done enough.’
‘Right then.’ Dodie turned to Julia. ‘It was wonderful to meet you, and I hope you find your family. That is, if you want to.’
‘Thank you,’ Julia said.
Dodie looked uncertainly at Ed. ‘I guess I’ll see you around?’
‘You can count on it,’ he said. Dodie smiled stiffly, still not sure that was such a good idea. But dealing with it would wait.
Trevor followed her to the door. ‘Thank you, lass,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You’re an angel, one of a kind.’
With a short nod, Dodie hurried from the room before she started to cry again.
Chapter Seventeen
What looked like a mother and her teenage daughter were staring up at the closed sign as Dodie arrived back at Forget-Me-Not Vintage. As they turned to walk away, Dodie called them back.
‘Sorry… Just about to open now if you wanted to come in!’ she panted, racing over with her keys.
They retraced their steps as she opened the door with a tight smile, switching the sign to open before letting them in and flicking the lights on as the door closed with a clatter behind them. As the customers perused the rails, Dodie set about opening the till, switching on the radio and generally making the shop welcoming again. Puffy-eyed and red-nosed, standing behind the counter was the last thing she needed, but there was nobody else to do it and she’d lost enough business for one day. The only thing to do now was put the morning’s events firmly out of her mind and get back to making a living.
‘Can I try this on?’ the girl asked, holding up a corduroy pinafore dress.
‘Of course… changing room is just there behind that curtain. Shout if you need anything.’
The girl disappeared into the cubicle while her mother stood in front of the curtain like a sentry guarding a queen. Dodie turned her attention to wiping a duster over the counter and came across the copy of the Echo she’d stashed there that morning. Had it really only been that day she’d seen Sally’s coverage of Julia’s story for the first time? Was it really only that morning that Ed had raced in with his earth-shattering revelation? It felt like a lot longer, and even though it was only just lunchtime, Dodie
was exhausted. She opened the pages and read the story again. They’d all been shocked by the coincidence, but the more she thought about it, the more she felt Julia might have been on to something when she’d said Margaret herself could have had a hand in it. Crazy, of course, to think that such a thing could have been influenced by a dead woman, but there was no denying that the likelihood of them all meeting in the way they had was infinitesimal in the scheme of things. Ed had got himself to Wessex Road in the first instance, of course, but the rest had all just fallen into place. It seemed fated, as if some higher power was at work. If so, the bigger question wasn’t how, but why? Gran would have had an opinion on it, no doubt, and she’d be fascinated to hear the story. Dodie made a mental note to call her later, wish her a merry Christmas and tell her all about it. She also decided that perhaps she ought to come clean about Ryan. He wasn’t coming back and there was no point in keeping it to herself any longer.
As she continued to read, and her gaze went to the photo of Julia, her thoughts wandered. What was happening at the hotel now? Were they still getting along? Were they coming to a new understanding about their relationship and how the world worked? Every question fired up a new one, like a chain of burning fuses. She wanted to phone Ed to find out but resisted the temptation. They were probably still deep in conversation and perhaps it was better to leave things alone for now. They’d tell her eventually – at least she hoped someone would.
There was a call from the changing cubicle.
‘Mum… can you ask if she has this in a bigger size?’
Dodie tried to resist rolling her eyes. If she’d had a pound for every time she’d had to explain that a stock consisting entirely of vintage clothes meant that it was highly likely there would be just one of everything, and that it was kind of the point of shopping there, she could close the shop for a week and take off to Barbados. OK, maybe not Barbados, but possibly Weymouth.
‘Sorry, there’s just that one,’ she replied, smiling at the girl’s mother. ‘But I think there’s something quite similar in a slightly bigger size on the rail…’ Wandering over, she pulled out another pinafore dress – this one in a heavy wool with a pinstripe design – and handed it to her. ‘Not exactly the same but worth a try? It’s a similar cut and it would look lovely with opaque tights.’
The woman nodded gratefully and passed it through a gap in the curtains to her daughter.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Dodie said, going back to the counter to continue her dusting. It wasn’t until the girl and her mother were standing before her holding the bigger dress that she realised she’d been staring out of the window for at least ten minutes.
‘We’ll take this one,’ the mother said, laying it on the counter while she fished in her handbag for her purse.
‘It’s very cute, this one,’ Dodie said, folding it into a carrier bag after making a note in her book of the item number. ‘And you can always keep checking to see if something more like the first one arrives in – I get lots of stock all the time.’
‘You have a cool shop,’ the girl said. ‘My friends would love it here.’
Dodie smiled. ‘Please don’t be shy about bringing them in. I’m always happy to let you mooch as often and as long as you want and I won’t stand over you; I don’t believe in the hard sell.’
‘Oh, I hate that,’ the mother agreed as she opened her purse. ‘The first thing I do in a shop like that is walk right out again. We’re perfectly capable of calling for your attention if we need it and hovering over us just makes us feel like shoplifters or something.’
‘I don’t like it either, which is why I don’t do it,’ Dodie said, handing the carrier bag to the girl.
‘Thanks.’
‘Thank you!’ Dodie smiled. ‘I hope to see you again.’
The girl’s mother took her change. ‘Merry Christmas!’
‘And you too,’ Dodie said, waving them from the store. Checking her watch, she noted that she’d completely missed lunch. Not that she was all that hungry.
Deciding it was a sensible idea to continue working through lunch because she’d been closed for a good part of that morning, Dodie made herself a quick cup of tea and pulled out her stock ledgers. But her thoughts kept returning to families and the strange events of the past few weeks, and then it suddenly struck her that today she ought to have been at a wedding. Gran’s brief and doomed match to Bernard whatever-his-name-was should have seen them tying the knot today. If it had ever been a thing at all, and with Gran there was no way of knowing. In many ways her gran was a complete loon and she drove Dodie mad, but there was no doubting how her heart swelled with love for the family nutjob. A life without Gran in it, a childhood bereft of her eccentric, bohemian sense of fun, her warm laughter, her kind words and even kinder deeds… it was unimaginable. And yet, though Ed had his adopted grandmother, he’d missed out on what Dodie took for granted – knowing where he came from and loving the people who made him. She wondered whether it felt different for him, whether he saw his adopted family in the same way. Did it change you? Or did he cling onto the knowledge that the people who had really made him were the ones who’d brought him up, determined not to forget or forsake them?
She shook herself, endeavouring to concentrate on her books. Gran wasn’t getting married today and at least that was one less thing to worry about.
The afternoon dragged. Dodie watched the street outside the window as people hurried to and fro with gift bags or arms full of food and drink. It was still trying and failing to snow and Dodie, ever a white Christmas enthusiast, hoped for just that tomorrow, despite the weather reports saying otherwise. Even a sprinkling would do, though if it could wait until she’d done her charity dip in the morning and was back in warm clothes that would be perfect. Part of her wished she could be out on the streets now, soaking up the atmosphere, maybe stopping for a mulled wine at the markets to take off the chill, bags of carefully chosen gifts hanging at her sides. Time for Christmas gift shopping had been a luxury. She’d managed it all at the last minute and not with the consideration she wished she could have given it. An amber-inlaid pendant for Isla that she now wouldn’t be able to give her until she got home, a beautiful dress brooch shaped like a sunburst that had come into her shop for Gran, along with a hamper of tea, biscuits and preserves from Waitrose. For her mum, new driving gloves and some of her favourite perfume and various bits and pieces for other family members that represented more money than she could probably afford.
There had been a grand total of five customers that afternoon and only three had resulted in sales. Dodie was philosophical about it – she’d been ready for a quiet day in the knowledge that everyone would be getting ready for Christmas and vintage clothes shopping was really the sort of thing you did for yourself. She was looking forward to a quiet night on her own – Christmas carols on the radio, maybe a walk into town to see what was going on, tracking Nick down to wish him a happy Christmas… As the clock eventually crawled around to five, Dodie switched off the radio, ready to shut up shop. But then she spun around at the sound of the doorbell tinkling. She opened her mouth to tell them she was closing, but then stopped. From behind an enormous bouquet of red and gold seasonal flowers peeked Ed.
‘Mum asked me to bring these,’ he said. ‘And of course, they’re from me too,’ he added quickly.
‘That’s so thoughtful!’ Dodie hurried across to take them from him, burying her nose into their rich scent. ‘They’re gorgeous! I can’t remember the last time I got a bunch of flowers this enormous and beautiful.’
Ed shrugged, almost apologetically. ‘I’m glad you like them. It’s not much but we wanted to say thank you… Properly, you know?’
‘You’ve already thanked me a million times and I hardly did anything but be nosey,’ she laughed. ‘But I love them. I’ll be locking up in a minute… Do you have time to stay for a while?’
‘Why not? I’ve got nowhere else to be right now.’
Dodie walked back to the coun
ter with the bouquet. ‘You’re not going back to the hotel to see your mum before she leaves for home?’
‘She’s tired and I think it will do her and Trevor good to talk about everything without me there. They’ve decided they’re not travelling back now until after Christmas, and she wants me to go home to Blackpool with them when they do, but I can see on his face that he’s not so keen and he’s just trying to make her happy. We’re seeing eye to eye at the moment, me and Trevor, but I don’t think he trusts me not to hurt her again just yet. I sort of understand that and I’m glad he’s looking out for her, although I suppose other people would see it as weird that I agree with him. I was a pain in the arse, though, and I’d probably have done the same if things had been the other way around. It’s something they need to sort out and I should let them talk freely about it.’
‘That’s all very fine and noble but what do you want to do?’ Dodie laid the flowers carefully down before she took her keys from a drawer under the counter and went to lock the shop door. ‘You need to think about that too, or you run the risk of ruining what you’ve built again. There’s nothing like a little resentment to kill a relationship, and if you go home just to please her and it’s not what you really want that might happen.’
‘Honestly?’ Ed scratched his head. ‘I don’t know. It depends…’
Dodie turned to him. ‘On what?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that yet either.’
‘You’re being very cryptic.’
‘I know… sorry about that. It’s just…’ He took a deep breath, plunging his hands into his pockets. ‘I should go, let you get on. I’ve taken up enough of your time today. In fact, I’ve taken up enough of your time full stop; you must be sick of the sight of me.’
‘Of course not,’ she said, and she wanted to ask him to stay, but she couldn’t find the words. Perhaps their moment had been and gone and it was already too late. Perhaps she’d damaged his fragile heart beyond repair when she’d spurned him at the beach that time. Maybe second chances weren’t a thing he gave readily. He’d called her his friend and perhaps that was all she was now. She forced a smile. ‘You know you’re welcome any time you want to talk. Don’t think you have to endure everything alone.’
A Very Vintage Christmas: A Heartwarming Christmas Romance (An Unforgettable Christmas Book 1) Page 23
