Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café

by Milly Johnson

  ‘No, older. The black and white years.’

  ‘Okay, okay . . . erm, Loretta Young . . . Betty Grable, Greta Garbo, Sophia Loren, Greer Garson . . . Jean Harlow . . . Marilyn Monroe.’

  He looked over his shoulder and grinned at her, before switching his attention back to the machine. ‘You kept the greatest till last.’

  Connie felt a flush of heat rush to her cheeks.

  ‘I’ve had a brainwave,’ he said. ‘I’ve been working on a range and I needed a name for it, then I heard the doorbell and thought, That must be Marilyn and it came to me in a flash, the concept, packaging, everything: Goddess. Each flavour named after a glamorous movie star. I just wanted to make sure there were enough names to go with.’ He ripped off a square of kitchen roll from the holder on the wall and wiped his hands on it as he turned around to face her, his eyes shining with enthusiasm.

  ‘That’s a smashing idea,’ said Connie. ‘Betty Grable was my mum’s favourite. That’s why she gave me Elizabeth as a middle name. “Connie,” she said, “I’ve given you the middle name of the woman with the best pins in the world in the hope that you’ll have them too.” It didn’t work though.’ She laughed. ‘I was actually born on the same day that Betty Grable died.’

  ‘It must be a sign,’ Brandon grinned. ‘I can’t tell you how thrilled I am. My head has just produced a year’s worth of ideas in two minutes, thanks to you. Okay, here’s a question: I know you don’t eat chocolates, but if you had to choose a flavour for Marilyn Monroe, what would it be?’

  Connie tilted her head in thought. Her aunt Marilyn made the most fabulous homemade summer pudding, crammed with tart berries which she offset with a huge spoonful of sugar-crusted clotted cream.

  ‘Summer pudding,’ she said without hesitation.

  ‘Oh yes, very good. Summer pudding it is then,’ nodded Brandon, his mouth spreading into a mischievous smile. ‘But you have to be the taste-tester for it because it has to be irresistible.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Connie, unbuttoning her coat and dropping her eyes from his because they were just too brown and warm to hold for too long.

  *

  As Connie cleaned upstairs, she found herself humming ‘Betty Grable’ by Neil Sedaka. Her mum really had given her the middle name ‘Elizabeth’ in her honour. She smiled at the thought that she had inspired Brandon. It had been a long time since anyone had made her feel useful.

  The flavour drifting from the kitchen had changed to a heady rich vanilla. When she carried the vacuum cleaner downstairs, it was like walking into a giant ice-cream.

  Brandon was still in an extremely good mood.

  ‘Throw me some more names, Marilyn. You’re my good luck charm.’

  Connie reeled off a list. ‘Hedy Lamarr, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly. Brigitte Bardot, Rita Hayworth . . .’

  ‘Not so fast, I can’t write them all down. You’ve been thinking about these, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, as I was busy upstairs,’ said Connie.

  Brandon stopped writing for a moment. ‘That reminds me, Marilyn. If I wanted to book you for some extra time on Friday, do I have to ring your boss or can I arrange it directly with you?’

  ‘You can just tell me and I’ll let them know in the office,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve had some curtains made and they’re arriving tomorrow. Any chance you could sort them out for me if I leave you a list of what goes where? I’m not useless, I could do it myself but there are a lot of them and I haven’t really got the time, nor the patience. Plus you’d do it so much better.’

  Connie thought for a moment. She had no cleaning jobs on Friday, so yes, she could do that.

  ‘Brilliant. I’m going to a chocolate-tasting conference and driving back Friday morning,’ Brandon said with a grin. ‘It’s a hard life.’

  ‘Oh, it must be,’ Connie smiled. The smell of vanilla was intoxicatingly beautiful. She could have happily drowned in it. ‘The house smells gorgeous today.’

  ‘The best vanilla pods are from India. I’ve just had a consignment delivered,’ said Brandon. ‘They’re so soft and lush, not like those dried-up sticks you buy in supermarkets.’

  ‘Not as good as that vanilla essence my mum used to buy from the Co-op, I bet,’ Connie half-laughed, half-grimaced. ‘When I was at primary school we once made truffles for pensioners. Our uniform was light green and when my mum picked me up from school, she said that I had so much chocolate on my clothes, she thought I was in camouflage gear.’

  Brandon laughed. ‘Did the pensioners enjoy them?’

  ‘I don’t think they were fit for human consumption,’ smiled Connie. ‘The hygiene standards were sadly lacking. It’s hard to stop young confectioners licking their fingers when they’re creating, even that awful cheap cooking chocolate which we used.’

  ‘You’d be surprised at the different grades of chocolate,’ said Brandon. ‘A lot of firms use cheaper palm oil instead of cocoa butter these days but I don’t. You will never achieve the same gloss and snap by compromising.’

  ‘It sounds like a science,’ said Connie.

  ‘It is a science,’ replied Brandon with no joke in his tone now. ‘And you can throw in hard politics and a lot of environmental concerns as well. It’s a very serious business.’ He clicked his fingers, having just remembered something. ‘Talking of serious business, I’ve been screening my calls so I didn’t get trapped in a conversation with Helena and by not answering, I think I’ve very much annoyed her. I had to eventually pick up and got a proper earful for not being available.’

  Connie winced. ‘All the more reason for distancing yourself. She thinks you are still her property. She should be talking to her husband about her matrimonial problems, not her ex. That’s straying into the danger zone.’

  ‘Which is what I told her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She cried. Helena was always very good at backing off and coming in at another angle.’

  ‘Women can be very manipulative,’ nodded Connie. As she knew only too well. She could have given Helena lessons in manipulation at present.

  ‘Luckily I have been very busy since last week, in fact, this has been the only day I’ve actually worked in the house.’

  Then I’m very lucky to have seen you, thought Connie, then batted that thought away. She didn’t like that on Tuesday nights she was starting to get rather giddy about the prospect of Wednesday afternoons.

  ‘Which has been a blessing as Helena is her own boss, so she could call round at any time,’ he went on.

  ‘Oh, what does she do?’ That information had been in the Yorkshire Willy Wonka article, but she couldn’t admit that she knew. He’d think, quite rightly, that she’d been spying on him.

  ‘She’s a physiotherapist,’ he said. ‘She has her own treatment centre. She’s done very well for herself. Dominic is an investment banker. She’s much better off financially with him than she ever was with me.’

  ‘Money isn’t everything,’ said Connie.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had any until recently and I’m too busy to spend it. Would you like to try a pineapple and coconut liqueur bite?’

  He smiled because he already knew the answer.

  ‘Thanks, but no,’ she said.

  ‘I will convince you to like chocolate again one day, Marilyn,’ grinned Brandon. ‘I shall make something you won’t be able to resist.’

  Connie didn’t argue but she very much doubted even the lovely Brandon Locke could persuade her to eat chocolate without thinking about a marriage that was flavoured with twenty-four years’ worth of deception.

  Chapter 66

  ‘Con, have you seen my white Ralph Lauren shirt?’ Jimmy shouted impatiently after he had searched his wardrobe and the dirty washing basket. ‘I need it for tonight.’

  It was the annual Mop and Bucket Award ceremony in Leeds and, though Jimmy wasn’t nominated for one himself, he enjoyed going to it every year. He had never taken Connie with him. Connie wouldn’t have enjoye
d that sort of posh do anyway, he convinced himself. It would be much better next year when he could take Ivanka and enjoy the jealous stares of his peers that he had a young, tall blonde stunner on his arm.

  ‘Where the bloody hell is it?’ he growled.

  ‘No idea, I’ll have a look for it,’ Connie replied.

  ‘Oh bollocks. I need it.’

  ‘I’ll give you a ring when I find it and you can pick it up on the way.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning on coming back here though,’ he sulked. ‘I was going to drive straight to Leeds from work. I’m giving Pookie Barnes a lift. I can’t understand it, I could have sworn it was hanging up in the wardrobe.’

  ‘You’ve got other white shirts, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but I wanted to wear that one. It’s my favourite. I feel good in it.’

  Jimmy had always been very particular over his clothes. He could justify spending two hundred pounds on a shirt because he said that the better the shirt, the better he felt and so the better impression he made and the easier business flowed. The most expensive item in Connie’s wardrobe was her swing coat which had been forty pounds in the winter sale. But that was going to change. She had dropped one and a half dress sizes since Lent had begun and decided that as soon as she was a size fourteen, she would drive to Meadowhall and go mad in House of Fraser.

  Jimmy lifted up his small case and his suit protector and passed his wife going down the stairs.

  ‘Okay, well, I’ll take a substitute but I’ll come back for it if you find it. I’m out all morning at the bank, so, if it turns up, ring the office and leave a message for me, will you?’

  ‘Have a good day and enjoy yourself tonight if I don’t see you.’

  She waved him off and then went upstairs to the carrier bag under the bed which contained a pressed, pristine Ralph Lauren shirt.

  *

  ‘What’s this pencilled in the diary?’ Della tapped her finger on the page. ‘Meeting with Roy Frog on Monday?’

  ‘It’s a meeting with Roy Frog on Monday,’ Ivanka replied dryly.

  Della pressed down on the annoyance rising within her; it was becoming harder and harder to appear equable.

  ‘Jimmy doesn’t want to meet with Roy Frog yet. He wants to keep him waiting.’

  ‘It’s madness,’ said Ivanka. ‘So I have arranged conference with Roy myself.’

  Well, you’d better arrange to unconference him, Ivanka, Della was about to say, but stopped herself. This could be the breakthrough she was waiting for. A plan dropped into her head as beautifully and completely as if a god had dropped it from the sky. It was a risk, but the deadline was nearly up and this was the time for risks.

  ‘Yes, maybe you’re right.’

  Ivanka turned back to her screen wearing an ultra-smug smile.

  Della could have kissed Ivanka for her interference, if that wouldn’t have been too ironic.

  *

  Della read the text in the toilet on her secret phone: WILL BE IN OFFICE IN 10 MINS. WANTED TO SEE 2ND MRS DIAMOND FOR MYSELF.

  She’d felt the phone vibrate in her bag a good five minutes ago when the message came through, so Connie’s arrival was imminent. Della felt slightly apprehensive and hoped Connie wouldn’t give herself away. And strangely, too, she felt protective towards her. She didn’t want the sight of the pouty, leggy and much younger blonde to hurt her.

  Two minutes later there was a knock on the door and, without waiting to be answered, it opened and there stood Connie. Della had expected her to be dressed up to the nines wearing power-red lipstick, but she’d gone for the opposite effect: one of those awful big dresses, this time in drab grey, under an equally massive dowdy coat, flat shoes, light-flesh coloured tights and no make-up. Why has she dressed like that? was Della’s overriding thought.

  ‘Excuse me, who are you?’ said Ivanka, rising to her feet.

  ‘This is Jimmy’s wife,’ said Della, with carefully acted coldness. ‘Mrs Diamond. We haven’t seen you in here for a long time, are you well?’ Her manner towards Connie was polite, but chilly. An onlooker would have picked up immediately that there was no love lost between the two women.

  ‘I’m fine thank you, Della.’ Connie turned to Ivanka. She stretched out her hand towards her and said, ‘How do you do. So nice to meet you at last.’ She had been prepared to pretend to be nervous, but found she really was. Ivanka was tall and pretty and young and sleeping with her husband. Connie hadn’t anticipated that she might want to scream and claw at Ivanka’s face with her nails, but she did. She wanted to see the girl for whom Jimmy had bought a ritzy car when he’d said that he couldn’t afford to buy one for his own daughter. She had to put a face to the name of the woman who was hoping to fill her marital shoes, because she had strong black moments of doubt that her plan was probably going to fail and she needed to find some strength to overcome them if she was to carry on.

  Ivanka reached over and they performed a stiff handshake.

  ‘I’m afraid Jimmy isn’t here,’ said Della.

  ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ said Connie, aware that Ivanka’s eyes were glued on her, analysing her clothes, her face, her body. ‘I’m dropping this shirt off for him, if you could let him know. He couldn’t find it this morning.’ She smiled and licked her lips nervously. ‘Do . . . do you happen to know who . . . who he’s going with this evening?’

  ‘Pookie Barnes,’ said Della. Ah, she suspected now where Connie was going with this.

  ‘A . . . anyone else?’

  ‘I imagine there will be the usual crowd. I don’t have a list of names, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Ah. Oh well. I expect he’ll tell me all about it when he gets back,’ she gushed. ‘Don’t you ever go to these functions, Della?’

  ‘No,’ said Della.

  ‘Oh. Well, it’s been nice seeing you again. Has Jimmy told you he’s going to be a granddad? Jane is pregnant. Jimmy as a granddad? Can you imagine?’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Della, aware that Ivanka was now watching her as well. Analysing her exchange with Connie. The girl didn’t miss a trick.

  ‘Well, goodbye then. Nice to meet you, Ivanka.’

  ‘Likewise,’ replied Ivanka, competing with Della for frostiness.

  Connie seemed to shuffle out like a woman much older than her years. When the door shut behind her, she knew that Ivanka would be sneering and she was right.

  ‘That is Jimmy’s wife?’ asked Ivanka. ‘My God, no wonder . . .’ She stopped herself, but Della was straight on it.

  ‘No wonder what?’

  ‘No wonder that . . . Jimmy spends so much time in the office. She’s a dog.’

  ‘Ivanka.’ Della forced herself to cough. ‘Excuse me. That’s not very nice,’ but she made sure that Ivanka saw she was trying to cover up a smile of amusement.

  ‘What was she wearing? My God, it was awful. Like a circus tent.’

  Ivanka was laughing hard now. She’d wondered what Jimmy’s wife would look like in the flesh and now she knew. She’d been jealous of Connie until a few moments ago but that had all disappeared now. And she had picked up immediately that Della didn’t like her either. And was she imagining things, or could Connie have thought that there was something going on between Della and Jimmy? Ha – if she only knew. Well, she would, very shortly.

  Della’s voice cut into her thoughts. ‘Would you put the kettle on for me, Ivanka. My throat is absolutely killing me. I hope I’m not coming down with something.’

  Ivanka swaggered into the kitchen singing ‘Who let the dogs out’ under her breath.

  Oh but what sort of dog do you think she is, dear, thought Della, knowing that neither Jimmy nor Ivanka had any idea they were soon to be savaged by a Pitbull.

  Chapter 67

  Jimmy sat staring at the carrier bag on his desk with the pristine white shirt in it. Connie’s purpose in bringing it over may have been to see Ivanka, but she would never have guessed the impact it would have on her husband. For the first time in years, the sight
of that shirt forced him to think with his brain instead of his dick and he didn’t like that because thinking with his dick was easier. His dick had no conscience or interest in the consequences of his actions, but his brain tethered him to emotions and responsibilities.

  He knew that Connie must love him very much. He really had been a shit husband, and yet she had stuck by him and twenty-four years on she was still putting herself out for him. He pictured her scouring the whole house for that shirt then giving it a wash to freshen it, pressing it to his exacting standards and then racing over so he had it for the evening. Then he tried to imagine Ivanka doing the same and he couldn’t.

  He’d never seen a prettier woman than Connie at seventeen, with her curves, her soft dove-grey eyes and her hair like sunshine. She made Ivanka look like King Kong by comparison. He’d thought with his dick back then as well, too busy enjoying the here and now and presuming things would always be as good and uncomplicated. But Time was evil, it liked to alter things, stretch and distort, strengthen, weaken, destroy at its whim. His affair with Ivanka would recalibrate as soon as he left Connie, because doing it behind Connie’s back was what kept it illegal and exciting. His wife’s love for and trust in him kept real life at the door but it was waiting to rush in and engulf him when she had gone. Pookie’s mistress was up the duff and he was panicking because she wanted to keep the baby. What if Ivanka wanted kids? They hadn’t talked about it because that was brain stuff, not dick stuff. Being married to Connie, oddly, he was as free as he was ever going to be – he could come and go as he pleased, do what he wanted behind her back, but once he was Ivanka’s she would screw him to a track and ride with him to make sure he stayed on it. He’d had three dreams in the past week alone about being suffocated.

  He could hear Della coughing in the main office. The sound of anyone coughing always annoyed him.

  ‘For God’s sake, Del, get a glass of water,’ he called through the door.

  ‘I’ve already got one. I think I’m coming down with something,’ she said. ‘My throat is on fire.’

  Jimmy came out of his office and over to her. ‘Isn’t she back yet?’ He thumbed towards Ivanka’s desk.