by Jill Mansell
“You’re ready! Amazing.”
He was used to being kept waiting, of course, by glamorous women incapable of leaving the house until their three-hour beauty routines were complete. Janey, who had showered, changed, and done her face in less than thirty minutes because she hadn’t been able to close the shop before five thirty, felt intimidated already.
But it wasn’t a proper date, she reminded herself for the tenth time in as many minutes, so it really didn’t matter. All she had to do was relax, stop feeling nervous, and enjoy the evening for its own sake.
“Well, I hate to say it,” she said, as Guy opened the passenger door for her, “but aren’t we going to be horribly early? What time does the play start?”
“Ah.” He smiled. “I have a favor to ask.”
Oh, that disarming smile. Like magic, Janey’s butterflies disappeared. The prospect of seeing Guy again might have been nerve-racking, but she’d forgotten how good he was at putting her at her ease. Now, miraculously, her anxieties melted away.
“A favor?” She gave him a deadpan look. “Don’t tell me. You want me to pay for the tickets.”
“Much worse than that.” Guy grinned. “Some friends of mine are having a party, and I promised I’d drop in on them. We’d just stay for an hour or so, then go on to the theater for eight.” He paused and gave her a swift, sidelong glance. “Would that be OK with you, or is it a complete pain?”
It wasn’t what she’d expected, that was for sure. Pulling a face, Janey said, “Parties aren’t exactly my favorite thing at the moment. Look, why don’t I wait here? You could go on to the party on your own, see your friends, and meet me at the theater later.”
“Don’t be such a wimp.” Guy was already putting the car briskly into gear. “It isn’t that kind of party, anyway. Mimi and Jack are extremely nice people. You’ll love them.”
He hadn’t been asking her whether she’d like to go with him, Janey realized. He’d been telling her.
“Won’t they mind when you turn up with me in tow?” she protested.
“Mind?” He laughed. “They’ll be thrilled to bits. They’re expecting me to bring Serena.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Mimi and Jack Margason lived in a splendid old rectory on the outskirts of Truro. Mimi, welcoming them at the door, gave Guy an immense hug and did a delighted double take when she saw Janey.
“My darling man! Come along now. Make my day and tell me you’ve dumped Dreary Deirdre for good.”
Guy, turning to grin at Janey, said, “Told you they didn’t like her.”
“Serena? Ghastly girl,” Mimi declared, planting a big kiss on his cheek. “As skinny as a string bean, and about as interesting to talk to. Or is that an insult to string beans?”
Having steeled herself for the worst—because with a name like Mimi the very least one could expect was glamour, glitz, drop-dead chic, and probably a French accent to boot—this Mimi came as a marvelous surprise to Janey. It wasn’t hard to understand either, why Mimi considered Serena dreary and thin. At a conservative estimate, she had to weigh all of two hundred pounds herself. Her long, extremely yellow hair was piled up and loosely secured with blue velvet bows, two pens, and a chopstick. A billowing pink-and-silver blouse was worn over a long violet skirt. Mimi’s round, laughing face was dominated by a wide mouth, many chins, and a great deal of haphazardly applied violet eye shadow. Her age wasn’t easy to gauge, but she was probably in her late fifties. She was also wearing the largest, most elaborate silver earrings Janey had ever seen in her life.
“This is Janey,” said Guy, performing the introductions. “And she’s just a friend, so spare her the in-depth cross-examination because it won’t get you anywhere. Janey, this is Mimi Margason, my very own Beryl Cooke character come to life. She’s also the nosiest woman in England, so hang on to your secrets…”
“Oh, don’t be so boring.” With a chuckle, Mimi ushered them into the house. “But since you’re the first guests to arrive, it’s lovely to see you anyway. Now come through to the kitchen—oops, mind those wellies—and let Jack get you a drink. If he offers you the elderflower champagne,” she murmured furtively, “for Pete’s sake, smack your lips and look appreciative. It might taste like old pea pods, but it’s his pride and joy.”
The kitchen was vast, rose-scented, and hugely untidy. Mimi had evidently raided the garden that day; upon the twelve-foot-long windowsill stood three enormous, unmatched vases. The poor roses themselves, jammed in willy-nilly irrespective of size and color, looked like far too many strangers squashed uncomfortably together in an elevator.
“I know!” said Mimi cheerfully, having intercepted Janey’s glance in their direction. “I can’t organize flowers to save my life. Poor Jack spends all his spare time in the garden, pruning and chivying them along, and then I have to do that to them. Ruined in ten minutes flat.”
“They aren’t ruined.” Moving closer, Janey admired the blooms, which had evidently been tended with devotion. “They’re beautiful. All they need is a bit of…sorting out.”
“I suppose I’m just not the sorting-out type.” With an unrepentant shrug, Mimi indicated the rest of the chaotic kitchen where, at the far end, the two men were already deep in conversation. She elaborated, “We love this house, but let’s face it—we’re never going to be featured in House & Garden. Now come along, let’s find you that drink and then we can get down to some serious gossip. I can give you all the dirt on dreadful Deirdre.”
“Actually,” said Janey, “I did meet her a few times. I already know how dreadful she is.”
Mimi’s eyes gleamed. “In that case, you can tell me how you got yourself involved with gorgeous Guy.”
“Oh dear, this is going to come as such a disappointment to you.” Janey gave her an apologetic smile. “But I’m afraid we really aren’t involved.”
Mimi, however, was not easily swayed. “You mean it’s early days yet and you don’t want to say too much about it,” she stage-whispered with the smug air of one who knows better.
“I mean there’s nothing to say too much about.” Janey, beginning to realize that the more she protested, the more convinced Mimi would become that something delightfully illicit was going on, decided that this was a problem only Guy could sort out. Glancing once more at the poor, half-suffocated roses on the windowsill, she said suddenly, “Look, why don’t you find me a nice sharp knife—?”
“Help!” Mimi burst out laughing. “Who are you thinking of using it on—me for asking too many questions? Or Guy, just to prove you aren’t madly in love with him?”
Janey grinned. “Your flowers. Let me do something to them before the rest of your guests arrive. And if you could lay your hands on some old newspapers and a couple more vases…”
“Amazing.” Having rummaged in a drawer, Mimi handed her a well-used Sabatier boning knife. Eagerly, she grabbed the bowls of roses and lined them up in front of Janey. “The lengths some people will go to in order to get out of sampling my husband’s beloved elderflower champagne. I say,” she added admiringly as Janey set to work with the knife, “you really know what you’re doing, don’t you!”
With deft fingers, Janey separated a dozen or so deep, creamy yellow Casanovas from a tangle of coppery-pink Albertines, trimmed their stems, and stripped them of their waterlogged lower leaves. “Plenty of practice,” she said with a brief smile. “I’m a florist.”
“How marvelous,” Mimi cried. “At last, a girlfriend of Guy’s who can actually do something besides flick her hair about and pose for a stupid camera.”
“Except I’m not a girlfriend of Guy’s,” Janey patiently reminded her.
“Of course you aren’t, darling.” Mimi, her silver earrings tinkling like sleigh bells, shook her head and gurgled with laughter. “But just think of the advantages if the two of you should decide to get married! Guy could take the photographs, you’d organize
the flowers. How much more DIY can a bride and groom get?”
“Goodness.” Janey kept a straight face. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. We could get my brother the bishop to perform the ceremony, my sister, Maxine, could play ‘Here Comes the Bride’ on her harmonica, and Josh and Ella could stab all the sausages onto little sticks…”
Jack Margason, having evidently decided that in the immediate-impact stakes he couldn’t even begin to compete with his wife, wore a pale-gray shirt and oatmeal trousers that exactly matched his pale-gray hair and oatmeal skin. Tall and thin, with liquid, light-brown eyes, an apologetic smile, and a very long, perfectly straight nose, he reminded Janey of an Afghan hound.
And she wasn’t going to get away with it after all, she realized. He had brought her a drink.
“You deserve one,” he told her, “for doing justice to my poor, beloved roses. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
Janey, putting the finishing touches to the final arrangement of blush-pink Fritz Nobis and creamy Pascali, tweaked a couple of glossy leaves into position in order to hide the chipped rim of the terracotta bowl in which they stood. Stepping back, she smiled and accepted the glass he offered her. It was the infamous elderflower champagne, and it definitely had character. Manfully, she swallowed it.
“Go on, then,” said Guy, having given her a ghost of a wink. “What’s the old bag been saying about me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” The taste of old pea pods clung to Janey’s teeth. “She’s been far too busy. Organizing the honeymoon.”
“The brazen hussy; she’s already married.”
“Not her honeymoon.” Janey had been so entertained by Mimi’s endless suppositions and fantasies that it hadn’t even occurred to her to be embarrassed. “Ours.”
“Really?” Guy’s eyebrows shot up. “Where are we going? Somewhere nice, I hope?”
Evidently finding nothing strange in the idea that less than a week after Serena’s departure Guy should have found himself a new future wife, Jack glanced with regret at the half-empty glass in his hand.
“What a shame. I only have three bottles of elderflower left. But if you think you might be interested, Guy, I could let you have three cases of last year’s damson and crab apple. That would certainly make the wedding party go with a swing.”
• • •
By seven thirty the house was overflowing with guests, an eclectic mixture of smart, arty, and downright Bohemian types, complete with children and dogs for added informality. Janey, proudly introduced by Mimi as “a whiz with flowers,” almost had to forcibly restrain her from adding, “She’s Guy’s new girlfriend, but I’m not allowed to tell you because it’s all terribly hush-hush.”
What struck Janey about the assortment of guests was their friendliness. Mimi and Jack clearly had no time for the kind of people who might turn up their noses at terrible wine or gaze askance at a messy home.
Two or three of them she even knew slightly, through the shop, while others, on hearing about it, bombarded her with questions. There was always someone desperate to learn how a wilting yucca could be sprung back to life, exactly how to go about preserving beech leaves with glycerine, when and how to trim a bonsai…
She was in the middle of demonstrating the method of putting together a pot-et-fleur arrangement to the glamorous wife of a pig farmer when Guy reappeared at her side.
“I’m thinking of setting up evening classes,” Janey told him with a grin.
“It looks to me as if you’ve already started.” He showed her his watch. “Eight o’clock. Definitely evening.”
“Eight o’clock already?” The play started at eight thirty; he had come to tell her it was time to leave. Janey, feeling like a six-year-old at a birthday party, looked crestfallen.
“We shouldn’t be late,” said Guy. “Apart from anything else, I can’t stand being glared at when I’m trying to squeeze past all the people already in their seats.”
“This play,” she said in neutral tones. “Is it…good?”
“Oh, terrific. Riveting. Unmissable.”
“And these tickets. Expensive?”
“Cost an absolute fortune.”
“Do we have to go?”
Guy shook his head. “We don’t have to.”
Feeling guilty, she said, “Do you want to?”
He smiled. “Of course I don’t. I hate the bloody theater.”
• • •
The party was proving to be a great success. An enormous game of charades was interrupted at nine o’clock by the arrival of a caterer’s van bringing Chinese food for sixty. At ten o’clock, everyone was ushered out into the garden for the firework display.
“I haven’t had a chance to ask you yet how you’ve been getting on.” Guy led Janey toward a wooden bench from which they could view the proceedings in comfort. When she shivered in the chilly September night air, he removed his green sweater and draped it across her shoulders.
Janey breathed in the scent of aftershave emanating from the soft folds of wool. It was a curiously intimate sensation, wearing an item of clothing still warm from someone else’s body. Glad of the darkness, she said, “You mean meeting your friends tonight?”
“I mean sorting yourself out and getting Parry-Brent out of your system.”
“Don’t worry. He’s well and truly out.” She gave him a rueful smile. “A little public humiliation works like a charm.”
“It didn’t exactly make him look good either,” Guy reminded her. “A scene like that won’t improve his street cred.”
“I suppose not.” Janey thought about it for a moment. “Well, good.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“Not at all. He’s doing his own flowers from now on…or sweet-talking some other gullible female into doing them for him.” She fidgeted with the sleeves of the sweater, twisting them around her cold hands. “But that’s enough about my failed relationship. How about you? Does it feel strange not having Serena around anymore?”
“Ah.” Guy sounded amused. “You mean it’s time to talk about my failed relationship.”
Janey laughed. “Well, it seems only fair. And it’s so encouraging, knowing I’m not the only one who makes mistakes.”
Maxine had told her, of course, about Guy’s return from Holland and the subsequent departure—amid a flurry of Louis Vuitton suitcases—of Serena and all her worldly goods. There had been no question of either forgiveness or reconciliation; such overwhelming lack of concern for the safety of his children was unforgivable.
“What can I say?” He shrugged to indicate his own misjudgment. “I’ve spent the last three years getting myself involved with unsuitable women, and Serena turned out to be the icing on the cake. She was beautiful, and she didn’t try to suck up to Josh and Ella. Somehow I’d gotten it into my head that it was how my wife would have behaved if I’d already had children in tow when I first met her. Véronique would never have used them in order to get to me. She’d have taken her time getting to know them and allowed them to make up their own minds about her in return. When I met Serena, she said much the same thing, and it struck a chord. I was impressed by her honesty.” Pausing for a second, Guy added ruefully, “I even managed to persuade myself that at last I’d found someone whom Véronique would approve of.”
The first fireworks were being set off, exploding against the night sky in a dazzle of color and light, each rocket climbing higher than the last. The children squealed with delight. After watching them for a few moments, Guy spoke again. “A couple of years ago, I took the kids to a bonfire-night party,” he said in a low voice, “and Ella asked me if her mother could see the fireworks from heaven. The thing is, nobody ever teaches you the answers to questions like that.”
Janey was no longer cold, but she shivered anyway. Brushing a leaf from her black trousers, she tucked her feet up on the
bench and hugged her knees.
“Now you’ve really made me feel ashamed of myself. The only person I have to look after is me. If I make a pig’s ear of things, at least I’m the only one who has to suffer the consequences. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it must be for you, always having the children to consider as well.”
“Hmm,” said Guy. “The trouble is, it doesn’t stop you making the mistakes. You just feel a hell of a lot guiltier afterward and hope to God your kids don’t say ‘I told you so.’”
In an attempt to cheer him up, Janey said, “Oh well. You’re bound to meet the right girl sooner or later. Who knows? By this time next year, you could be married and living happily ever after with someone who adores children…”
“You’re beginning to sound like Mimi.” With mock severity he demanded, “Have you been reading her books?”
“Mimi writes books?” Janey was instantly diverted by this piece of news. “What kind?”
“The kind where you end up married and living happily ever after with someone who adores children,” said Guy drily. “She sat me down and forced me to read an entire chapter once. Real fingers-down-the-throat stuff it was too. I told her they ought to be sold with detachable sick bags.”
“That’s because you’re a man,” she explained in comforting tones. “Women love that kind of thing because the men in the books are so much nicer than any in real life. We call it escapism.”
“The trouble with Mimi is she’s written so many she’s started believing them,” he protested. “You wouldn’t believe the problems I had with her when she heard about Maxine coming to work for me. She was practically uncontrollable. Pretty-nanny-meets-widowed-father, it seems, is one of her all-time favorite plots.”
It was one of Maxine’s too, thought Janey with secret amusement. But the opportunity to tease him was too good to pass up. “These things do happen,” she said mildly. “Who knows how your feelings might change?”
“Oh please.” He heaved a great sigh of despair. “Not you as well. Maxine? Never. Not in a million years!”
