by Wendy Holden
Nor was there any comparison between Joey’s neighbourhood and her own, she discovered, when they eventually emerged for a walk. The shops at the end of Gardiner Road were strictly utilitarian. There was a branch of Bargain Booze and the First Light Convenience Store, so called because of its opening hours. The windows of both shops were covered in iron mesh. At the end of Joey’s street was Arcadia Walk.
In some areas of London, Arcadia Walk would be a ghastly irony. But here it more than lived up to its name. It was a succession of pretty, pastel-coloured shops selling elaborate cupcakes and high-end clutter such as toile de jouy lamps, patchwork cushions and leather pig footstools.
There was an old-fashioned ironmonger selling smart tools for smart gardening; Nell counted five different sizes and species of shovel. The newsagent stocked only the middle-class papers but all the glossy magazines. There was a traditional sweet shop (established 2005) called Just William’s where bulls’ eyes and pineapple chunks were poured out of glass jars on to weighing scales and sold in white paper bags with serrated edges. It had, Joey told Nell, featured in several Boden catalogue shoots.
Nell nodded; she knew just the ones. More than that, she had worked on some of them. She was enchanted but slightly disconcerted. She had always known that catalogues peddled dreams, but here the dreams were real. Arcadia Walk was perfect, just as Joey’s road and flat were perfect. Most of all, he was perfect. It was as if, having been heavy, hopeless and slow, life had suddenly speeded up and acquired a bright shine. Everything was just as wonderful as it looked.
CHAPTER 10
‘Marry me,’ Joey repeated, as, yet again, they lay panting and tangled in the duvet. Every time she tried to get out, he pulled her back. She did not resist. There was a lot of lost time to make up for.
At first Nell had thought the proposal was a joke. At the third time of asking, she realised he meant it. ‘Because – what are we waiting for?’ Joey asked, nuzzling into her neck.
What indeed? Nell thought, wriggling pleasurably. Joey was like a champagne cocktail on an empty stomach. Having thought that nothing would ever happen, she now felt anything was possible.
And yet she could not quite bring herself to say yes. She had spent nearly thirty years considering things through carefully. She couldn’t break the habit of a lifetime.
But Joey had clearly made up his mind. He took her hand and looked deep into her eyes. ‘I want to make my commitment to you absolute. I want to be your husband.’
The flattering declaration knocked her steady head off course and sent it spinning with joy.
‘We’d live here together at mine, of course,’ Joey went on, throwing an arm out to include the gracious room.
Nell looked about her longingly, taking in the lovely details. ‘But what about my flat?’ Gardiner Road already seemed in a universe far, far away, an unimaginably dreary one.
‘I’ll sell it for you. I’m an estate agent, aren’t I? I’ll make it my business to get you an even better price than I got for that upstairs one.’
Everything was so easy to Joey, Nell thought. He had a way of cutting through complication and getting straight to the point. Perhaps things really were that simple.
‘Say yes!’ he pleaded. ‘It’s obvious we should be together. You are, quite simply, the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met in my life. And you seem to like me . . .’
‘Oh, I do, I do.’
‘So carpe diem. Seize the day,’ Joey said, reaching over and seizing Nell instead.
Afterwards he returned to the subject. ‘So – what do you say? What are we waiting for?’
Nell bit her lip. She just wasn’t the impetuous type. It was useless pretending that she was. She tried to explain, but Joey clearly didn’t understand. ‘Perhaps I’d better go,’ she said, and was heartbroken when he didn’t try to stop her.
The following afternoon she sat in the Gardiner Road back bedroom, heart thumping in the heavy silence. Life here seemed even duller than before. Had it all been a dream? Joey hadn’t been in touch at all; no calls, no texts, nothing. She felt a sense of rising panic.
She was working on Rosey Posey, a catalogue of stackable floral cake tins and rose-festooned ironing board covers. But it was hard to concentrate. Joey’s offer was pingponging about in her mind. Perhaps she should accept it. He was right, she should seize the day.
In her agitation, Nell had started to pace about and now something outside the window caught her eye. There was a stranger in the scruffy back garden she shared with the upstairs flat. A woman, about her age but much shorter. She had a wild purplish bob and red lipstick. She wore calf-length Dr Marten boots and floaty layered skirts in shades of cinnamon and plum. She was digging with a garden fork, her face screwed up with the effort.
Nell was impressed. Her new neighbour, who presumably this was, had clearly decided the garden needed some work. Well, good for her. She must have arrived over the weekend, when Nell was at Joey’s.
Come to think of it, there had been something big and strange parked outside the front of the house when Nell had arrived back. She had been too preoccupied to take in what, exactly.
She went into the sitting room. A large red Land Rover stood right in front of the projecting bay window. It blocked off most of the available light. Presumably it belonged to the woman in the garden. If she stayed here, Nell realised, this would be her view.
She went back into the bedroom, but the woman in the garden was gone. Nell was about to sit down at her desk again when she heard knocking on her door.
The woman with purple hair stood on her threshold. She was peeling off her gardening gloves.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ she said with a wide and radiant smile. ‘I’m Rachel. I’ve just moved in upstairs.’
‘Nell.’ They shook hands. Nell was struck by the woman’s eyes. They were a startling china-doll blue, fringed with long lashes. There was something piercing and determined about them.
‘I just came to see if I could borrow some tea.’
‘Tea?’ Nell hesitated. Did she have tea? She had only been away a weekend, but she could hardly remember what she had in her flat now, or where. ‘I might have some Earl Grey.’
‘Great. I’m desperate for a cuppa. Been digging for hours. I thought there was no one in downstairs but then I saw you just now, heading out of the room.’
Nell remembered her manners. She would benefit from an overhauled garden too. ‘Come in.’ She looked doubtfully at Rachel’s mud-clogged Dr Martens.
‘I should have picked some tea up earlier.’ Rachel dropped to one knee to unlace her dirty boots. ‘I meant to, but I was taking Juno to her new school and everything else went clean out of my head. Juno’s my daughter,’ she added.
So a child had moved in too, or a teenager. A family, in other words. Three people would find it cramped upstairs, Nell thought.
She showed Rachel into the sitting room and went to switch the kettle on. She came back to find her neighbour yawning hugely. ‘Sorry,’ Rachel grinned. ‘I’ve only got to sit down at the moment and I drop off. I get up at five, you see.’
‘Five?’ Nell gasped.
‘To study.’
‘You’re a student?’
‘Only at that time. At seven Juno gets up and then I work during the day. Normally, I mean. I’m having the day off today, because of Juno starting her new school. I wanted to go and meet the teachers, settle her in and all that.’
‘Where do you work?’ Nell asked. The purple hair suggested arts administration.
The answer was a surprise. ‘In an insurance office.’
‘Is it an insurance qualification you’re studying for?’
Her new neighbour laughed and explained she was reading for a law degree. Her aim, she added, was to be a barrister.
The kettle clicked off in the kitchen
and Nell hurried through. After hunting about for a tray, a plate, biscuits, she returned to find Rachel studying her bookshelves. She pulled out a volume, turned and grinned.
‘I love this book.’ Rachel waved All Smiles.
The tray shook in Nell’s hand. It was the same copy she had taken to Paddington Station for the ill-fated blind date.
‘Awful what happened to Dylan Eliot, isn’t it?’ Rachel was saying.
‘What happened?’ Nell wasn’t sure she cared all that much. Dylan Eliot hadn’t done a great deal for her recently.
‘Almost died in a house fire.’
‘How awful!’ Nell had not expected a disaster of this magnitude. The poor man!
‘His book was destroyed, his new one. It was on his computer.’
‘What a nightmare!’ Nell felt guilty about the blame she had heaped on All Smiles. What had occurred at the Apples and Pears was hardly its author’s fault.
‘Didn’t you know?’ Rachel was clearly surprised. ‘It just happened, this weekend. He’s in hospital. It’s been in all the papers.’
‘I didn’t really read the papers this weekend.’ She had had better things to do. Hurriedly, Nell poured the tea and handed a mug to Rachel.
‘So what is it that you do?’ Rachel reached for a chocolate chip cookie.
She laughed once Nell explained. ‘So you’re the reason I have a pair of snakeskin Birkenstocks I never wear. They looked great in Driftwood and awful on me. But I’ve never got round to sending them back.’
Nell hurriedly pointed out that Driftwood was not one of her contracts and was anyway notorious in catalogue copywriting circles for promising infinitely more than it could ever deliver. The images of elfin women in floating linens drifting like dryads through misty tree trunks sat ill with the fact that its actual customers were middle-aged commuters who needed clothes that still looked good after an hour on Southeastern trains.
‘Enjoy it?’ Rachel queried.
‘Well, I enjoyed it more when I ran my PR business,’ Nell confessed. ‘But that went under in the recession. I’d like to start it up again, but . . .’ She hesitated. She hadn’t given Phoenix a thought for days, she realised.
‘Can’t you?’
‘Well, I’d like to . . .’ Even to her own ears Nell sounded half-hearted. And yet only a few days ago she had been determined to relaunch.
‘Then you should,’ Rachel said firmly. ‘What’s stopping you?’
Nell shrugged. ‘I’ll get it together eventually.’
‘Oh God,’ Rachel exclaimed suddenly. ‘I’m so sorry!’ She was looking at the window.
‘What’s the matter?’ Nell asked, glad of the change of subject.
‘The Baron! Out there!’
Nell looked. There was no sign of what the description suggested: an aristocratic gentleman in a topper, monocle and opera cloak. All that was visible in the window was the rusty side of the Land Rover. ‘I can’t see him.’
Rachel was laughing. ‘The Baron’s what Charlie called the Land Rover,’ she explained. ‘The Red Baron. Because it’s red.’
Charlie, presumably, was Rachel’s husband. Or partner.
‘It’s in the way, blocking your light. I’ll move it. I didn’t realise.’
‘Is it difficult to drive?’ Nell asked. The vehicle looked enormous and Rachel was pint-sized. Could she even see over the wheel?
‘It’s a bit of a truck. But I could never get rid of it. The Baron was Charlie’s pride and joy.’
Why did she refer to him in the past tense? Nell wondered. ‘He doesn’t live with you?’
‘He died,’ Rachel said simply. ‘I’m a widow.’
Nell thought of Rachel’s Dr Martens. Her purple hair. Her relative youth. ‘A widow?’
‘We come in all shapes and sizes and ages, we relicts. We don’t wear black veils any more.’
Nell’s face was burning. ‘I’m so sorry.’ What had happened to Charlie? It would obviously be insensitive to ask.
‘It was cancer,’ Rachel said. She smiled at Nell. ‘It’s OK. I can talk about him. In fact, I quite like to.’
‘He must have been very young,’ Nell ventured.
‘He was.’ Rachel’s dark eyebrows shot up ruefully. ‘He might have survived if they’d caught it earlier, but there was a mess-up – I won’t go into details, it’s too tedious. Point was, by the time it got straightened out the tumours were everywhere.’
‘How awful.’ What else could she say? It was awful.
Rachel shrugged. ‘They gave me compensation. That’s how I managed to buy this flat. But,’ she added, with a sigh, ‘it doesn’t compensate for Juno growing up without a father and me soldiering on without a husband.’
Nell sensed that her neighbour had decided to open up, to seize this chance to talk, as if she didn’t often have one. She felt flattered to be the chosen confidante.
Rachel drained her mug. ‘I have to second-guess what Charlie would have wanted. And he’s missing all the milestones, like the new school today.’
‘It must be lonely,’ Nell offered, sympathetically. Lonely was something she knew a bit about, after all.
‘It can be,’ Rachel admitted. ‘But I just have to get on with it.’
Nell drew in a breath. Getting on with it. She knew how that felt too.
Poor Rachel, alone upstairs with her daughter. It occurred to Nell now that if she turned down Joey’s offer she would be alone too. But without a child. Probably with no hope of ever having one. The thought was the final push she needed.
Rachel was on her feet. ‘I’d better go. Time to get Juno from school.’ She raised a pair of crossed fingers. ‘Hopefully it’s gone well.’
‘I’m sure it will have,’ Nell said comfortingly.
She was rewarded with one of Rachel’s warm smiles. ‘Thanks for the tea. I’ll return the favour soon.’
Nell saw her out, rather regretting she wouldn’t be staying in Gardiner Road after all. It might have been nice to get to know Rachel better.
CHAPTER 11
Dylan opened his eyes. As ever, with the first glimpse of the hospital strip light, he experienced miserable disappointment. His eyes dropped to his bandaged arms, then across to the tubes and screens and drips and monitors. He was still here. It really had all happened.
He shifted slightly up the pillows, and a passing nurse, the fat, friendly one he liked, noticed his movement and came over. ‘And how are we this morning, Mr Eliot?’
A good question, Dylan thought. How were we? Conscious, at least, which we hadn’t always been. Dylan had been in hospital for several weeks before he’d even known he still existed; waking one morning to find himself plastered in bandages and immobilised on a bed with tubes emerging from every orifice.
He had been helicoptered from the burning cottage. The alarm had been raised by the farmer and the air ambulance had arrived just in time.
‘Otherwise I’d not only have died, but saved everyone the trouble of a cremation,’ Dylan quipped to Mr Davie, the consultant in charge of him.
‘You could put it like that.’
He’d been found unconscious in the kitchen, having managed somehow, possibly by rolling on the floor, to put out the flames on his clothes. But smoke inhalation had almost finished its deadly work.
The consultant had described how tubes had been inserted to pump oxygen down his damaged throat. There had been the matter of keeping his fluids up. And then, as Dylan had come round, there had been pain.
It had been of a level he had never previously suspected existed. Morphine had helped, but not dulled it entirely. It grumbled all day beneath his bandages and screamed when, every eight hours, he was put in the tub to have his dressings changed. He’d known, of course, that the skin was the largest organ in the body. But it had never
really behaved like an organ before. He’d come to think of it as a protective shell, not the exposed, vulnerable and delicate thing it actually was.
Dylan had always been squeamish. He hadn’t even seen his injuries, tightly closing his eyes when his dressings were changed. But the nurses’ occasional sharp breath told him that what they were looking at wasn’t pretty. Still, at least the prognosis was good. He should – eventually – make a full recovery.
Incredibly, there were jokes about burns units. Mr Davie had told him quite a good one. He’d wanted to repeat it to his parents but could see they thought his condition no laughing matter.
His mother and father assumed the fire was an awful accident. The idea that it was deliberate did not seem to have crossed their minds and Dylan had tried to stop it crossing his. The possibility that Beatrice had been responsible was too awful to contemplate.
He had not contemplated it at first, in fact. He had not contemplated anything. His mind had mostly been a blank. Shock, the consultant explained, and to be expected. But gradually, as the doors had opened in his memory, one of them had yielded up another door. The open door of the burning cottage.
Dylan had studied the remembered image, surprised. How could this have happened? Delighted though he’d been to finish his novel, in a hurry though he was to get down to the cove and surf, he would never have left his home unlocked. And then there was the companion image, of the fiery hollow in the centre of the blaze. And in that, the cloven hooves of Beatrice’s surf boots. Curling and melting in the heat.
