Looking For Lucy

by Julie Houston

  ‘Allegra, I really think it’s time you were in bed.’ I smiled as Max, Peter and I passed round dishes and offered salad and the deliciously creamy gratin potatoes that, I thanked God, had cooked to perfection.

  ‘My daughters were always tucked up in bed before any guests arrived,’ Hilary Manning said, her accompanying smile not quite reaching her eyes. ‘Youngsters get to hear such things from adult conversation, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, if I had a gorgeous little girl like this, she’d be with me all the time,’ Mel laughed, stroking Allegra’s dark hair. ‘She really is the image of you, Clem, isn’t she? There’s no mistaking whose daughter she is. Anyway, I reckon the French and the Italians have got it right, letting their kids out to restaurants with them and introducing them to wine at an early age.’

  ‘Totally agree with you,’ Izzy and Harriet Westmoreland said simultaneously.

  ‘As long as they’re well behaved and no school in the morning,’ Harriet went on. ‘Teaches them how to be sociable and how to behave in grownup company. Mind you, if they start whining and interrupting conversation, I’m the first to cart them off out of sight.’

  ‘Do let Allegra stay up a bit longer,’ Peter pleaded.

  I was surprised: I’d have thought, particularly as Mrs Cromwell had spoken, Peter would have wanted the children out of the way.

  ‘Just a bit longer then,’ I smiled. ‘But Allegra, get down and let Mel eat now. Do you have children of your own?’ I asked Mel as Allegra slid down and trotted off with George.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ Mel smiled. ‘But I’m stepmother to Penelope from Julian’s first marriage, and I have four nieces who I spoil whenever I can.’

  ‘Well, once you’re up here, next month, you can come and spoil my lot whenever you want,’ Izzy grinned, before rolling her eyes with theatrical delight as she swallowed her first bite of lamb cutlet with its accompanying white bean puree.

  With two courses produced, I felt I could relax. I took a huge glug of the red wine that David had brought and poured, catching his eye as I did so.

  ‘Steady,’ he smiled. ‘What do you think of it?’

  ‘Gosh, that is delicious,’ I smiled back, savouring the taste. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a Sans Soufre from a northern Rhone producer called Thierry Allemand,’ David said.

  ‘He’s been saving it for years,’ Mandy Henderson tutted. ‘Thank goodness it’s finally seen the light of day.’

  David looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Well, I just thought anyone who has been a chef at La Toque Blanche must be going to produce food worthy of it…’

  ‘Hear, hear, David,’ Olly Cromwell smirked, knocking back an almost full glass of the stuff before simultaneously kneading my knee as if it were the bread dough I’d made earlier that day, while holding out his hand to David for a top-up. Olly, looking more than ever like Mr Mainwaring in Dad’s Army, polished his glasses on his napkin before leaning behind me to talk to David on my other side.

  The wine began to reach into every corner of my body and, relaxed, I leaned forward, surveying the guests around the table, listening in to snippets of their conversations:

  ‘… and Rafe Ahern is so full of himself round here. In fact, there’s only one head bigger than his and that’s Birkenhead…’

  ‘… I only asked him how many acres he had. The look he gave me I might as well have asked him how much money he had in the bank…’

  ‘… the cricket? England’s always expecting… No wonder they call her the Mother Country over in Australia…’

  ‘… and Kit is only seventeen and already wanting to go off to all-night parties in Leeds…’

  ‘… so why does everyone call you Mouse, Mel…?’

  ‘… and he said he couldn’t make it as something had come up and I thought, “yes, his cock most likely…”’

  ‘… vvery poorly connected, I believe…’

  ‘… voh so are we… vour internet is forever crashing…’

  ‘… and I was telling my eldest daughter, Libby, that I would just love to see the Terracotta Army and she said, wasn’t that the posh pudding we had last week…?’

  ‘… so, this piece of string goes into a pub and the landlord says, “Out, we don’t serve string in here.” So the string goes out and rubs and rubs at his head and then goes back in and asks for a pint. “Aren’t you that piece of string I refused to serve earlier?” asks the landlord. “No,” says the string, “I’m afraid not…”’

  ‘… I don’t get that…’

  ‘… and do you think I could interest you in joining the Regiment, David…?’

  I realised I was actually very tired. I could see through the glass doors leading into the snug that Allegra was supine, half asleep, her pyjama-d legs over one arm of the chair she appeared to have made her own, her dark plaits hanging over the other and mingling with George’s black curls below, until it was impossible to say where one started and the other ended. I knew I should stir myself, get her to bed and then go organise the pudding and cheese.

  Peter appeared to be fully engrossed in conversation with both Mandy Henderson and Mrs Cromwell but, obviously realising I was looking across the table at him, glanced up and smiled at me. He did have a rather handsome face, I thought tipsily. I’d never been attracted to fair-haired men—had always gone for the dark haired and dark eyed type, preferably with an emergence of dark stubble on their jaw—but Peter, blond-haired, clean-shaven and pink cheeked was growing on me. Or was it simply the rose-coloured wine having its effect?

  ‘I need to get Allegra to bed,’ I mouthed across at him. ‘Give me ten minutes and then I’ll sort pudding.’

  Looking rather flustered, Peter suddenly shot out of his seat, telling me to stay where I was. Assuming he was going to bring in the cheese board to which I’d already added the lovely French cheeses Julian had donated earlier—Mandy Henderson and Mel had just had a conversation about enjoying the cheese board before pudding as is the mode in France—I began to clear the plates.

  When Peter reappeared a few minutes later, he was carrying a tray of full champagne flutes rather than the cheese board I was expecting. Looking somewhat ill at ease, he stood at the head of the table and, with the help of Max and Allegra—who was now very much awake—passed his guests a glass each. As Peter cleared his throat and asked for their attention, I glanced across at Olly Cromwell. Surely he should be making the speech to promote Peter to Musketeer and not Peter himself.

  Peter cleared his throat again, and his rather prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down reminding me of the first time I’d seen him eating the scalding treacle sponge in The Black Swan.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to raise your glass to Clementine, our wonderful and talented cook.’

  ‘To Clementine.’ Glasses were raised, their contents drunk and then returned to the snowy linen tablecloth.

  ‘As many of you know,’ Peter went on, ‘I have known Clementine for quite a while now. I have come to think a lot of her and of her beautiful daughter, Allegra…’ He paused and smiled at Allegra who giggled self-consciously before hiding her face in my shoulder. ‘In fact, erm…’ Peter cleared his throat and reached for his water, taking a sip with shaking hands. His Adam’s apple bobbed and he replaced his water glass with his champagne glass. ‘I’d like you all to know how much they have both come to mean to me and… and… erm… and…’

  And what?

  ‘… and Max, and hope that you will join with me in hoping… praying…’ More Adam’s apple bobbing… ‘that she, Clementine, I mean… erm… will…’

  Will what?

  ‘… erm… will make me the happiest man in the… in the… erm… in …

  The world?

  ‘… the world, by agreeing to become my… my… er…

  Cook?

  ‘… my, erm…’

  What?

  ‘… my wife.’

  Fuck!

  There was a stunned silence from those a
round the table as all eyes turned from Peter to me. All I could think of were those dreadful radio, or worse, TV programmes, usually on Valentine’s Day, when some pillock corners his intended in front of zillions of listeners and proposes. I’d always yelled at the radio, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t do it! You don’t have to accept just because you’re on national radio.’ I looked across at Max who, standing by his father’s side, appeared to be holding his breath; at Izzy whose mouth was one big ‘O’ of shock; at David Henderson whose face was impassive and across to Peter himself who stood, red-faced and hopeful.

  Finally, I looked down at Allegra. One of the ribbons on her plaits had come undone, she had a smudge of chocolate on her right cheek and her huge brown eyes were holding mine with such hope I had to smile. Or cry.

  ‘Well then,’ I said, and it was as if someone else, not me, was speaking. ‘Well then, thank you, Peter and yes, that would be lovely. Pudding anyone?’

  9

  SARAH

  Poppy Rabbitt kicked her foot impatiently against the broken netting of the netball-court door while simultaneously making a futile attempt to pull down her too-small pleated gym skirt over her school regulation navy knickers. Thank God she had only one more term to go before she could leave this dump of a school and move on to the local sixth-form college. Despite her father’s insistent ranting that she continue at the girls-only private school to do A levels, she knew it was all hot air on his part and he would be more than relieved at not having to fork out the fees for the next two years. Even with the reduced fees he’d negotiated with Mrs Appleby, the current headmistress, in return for his ecclesiastical presence on the governing body, as well as his taking of assembly every Friday morning, the termly bill hung over the Reverend Roger Rabbitt like a bad smell.

  Where the hell was her mother? All the other girls had been picked up in over-the-top, four-wheel-drive monsters by young mothers with hair as long, blonde and shiny as that of their sixteen-year-old daughters. Polly scowled crossly and looked at her phone once more. Serve her mother right if she was propositioned by that sleazy old gardener who made no attempt to avert his rheumy-eyed gaze from the girls’ bouncing chests as he regularly mowed the grass perilously near the goal end of court.

  Why hadn’t Kit Westmoreland texted her like he’d promised after she’d shared her bottle of Co-op vodka with him at Tamsin’s cousin’s party in Leeds last weekend? Poppy had noticed him as soon as he’d walked into the room—well, you couldn’t miss him really, he was so gorgeous. Dark blond hair and the most wonderful brown eyes she’d ever seen. She’d always gone for dark hair and blue eyes in the past, but the contrasting combination of blond hair and dark eyes plus the rugby physique, obvious under Kit Westmoreland’s black T-shirt, had totally turned her head. Literally. Unfortunately, other heads, including bloody Gabbie Ferrier’s, queen bee of the lower sixth, had also swivelled when Kit and his rugby mates had walked en masse into the kitchen looking for booze. All the other girls, particularly those who, like Poppy herself, had come along with Tamsin from school and knew of Gabbie and her gang’s reputation, stood back while the older girls, like so many exotically attired birds of prey moved in, taking first pickings, before leaving what was left to the lesser mortals in the fifth form.

  Poppy scowled again. Bad enough standing here, freezing her tush off in this ridiculous games kit while waiting for her mother who was never on time, but knowing that Kit Westmoreland had chatted her up—and yes, snogged her long and hard too—just to drink her vodka was humiliation indeed. And it was bloody Easter, which meant her father would be in a foul mood for the next few days as he grappled with his sermon for the big day on Sunday. He’d been like a bear with a sore head ever since last Sunday’s morning service when, after a telling off from the archbishop and in an ensuing effort to bolster his ever-decreasing flock, he’d purposely opened his arms to the inmates of all the rest homes in the locality. He’d ushered them in, helping with wheelchairs and walking sticks and generally acting so out of character, that the usual steadfast if dwindling congregation had wondered if he’d taken to drink. Unfortunately his sermon, urging the younger and fitter members of his brethren to help and visit the elderly at the end of their years, had rendered the older ones to turn in bewilderment and the younger members to giggle when, with a flourish he’d pressed his CD button and, to the introductory notes of Gerry and the Pacemakers’ ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, had smiled beatifically at his ancient guests and said gently, ‘You’ll never walk again.’

  ‘… Darling, I’m here. Yoo-hoo, Poppy, over here, sweetheart.’

  Why in God’s name was her mother so loud and—what was the word she’d used in creative writing that very morning that had sent old Ma Draper into spasms of delight? Effusive. That was it. Effusive. She was so bloody effusive. And what on earth had she done to the car this time? The ancient lime-green Ford Focus—Kermit to all that knew it—that should have been put out to pasture years ago was trailing what sounded like a cacophony of tin cans in its wake.

  ‘Oh hell, Poppy, your father will kill me,’ Sarah Rabbitt sighed through the open window as Poppy tried, but failed, to open the car’s front passenger door. ‘Give it a good pull. That’s it. I’ve just mounted another sodding bollard. Can you believe it?’

  Poppy could. Bollard-mounting appeared to be her mother’s raison d’être lately: this had to be the third one this year.

  ‘I missed the turning to Mr Davison’s house—I was trying to deliver some parish leaflets your father forgot to give him last Sunday—but knew all I had to do was a U-turn at the next street to get back on to the main road. So… are you hungry, darling? I think there’s half a Kit Kat in here somewhere… I indicated, turned right to go round the bollocking bollard and hit something. I honestly couldn’t think what it was; I knew I couldn’t have hit the bollard like I did last time because it was there, intact to my right…’ Sarah paused and said vaguely, ‘Try the glove compartment, darling, I think there’s the remains of a Mars Bar in there if you can’t find the Kit Kat… but the car wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t go back or forwards. I realised I was rocking on something, a bit like being on a see-saw…’ Sarah smiled across at her younger daughter as Poppy finally extracted the remaining finger of a Twix from the car’s console and proceeded to denude it of its wrapping. ‘… And then this very nice young man roars up on his bike and says, “Someone’s nicked the other bollard, love. You’re stuck on its plinth…”.’

  Poppy took a surreptitious glance at her phone. Still nothing from Kit Westmoreland. Five days now and not a word.

  ‘… So I said, “what shall I do? I can’t sit here like an extra from the bloody Italian Job”.’ Sarah giggled, crashing the Focus’s ancient gearbox as she slowed down for the lights ahead. ‘Anyway, luckily for me, there was a minibus full of rugby players just arriving back at the boys’ grammar school on Arthurs Avenue and they came over and bodily lifted me off the plinth. How kind was that? No damage done at all to the car.’

  ‘No damage?’ Poppy looked up from her phone and across at Sarah. ‘Mum, half your exhaust pipe is trailing behind us. We’ll probably set on fire soon with all the sparks it’s creating.’

  ‘Oh, I can soon tie that back up with a piece of string once we get home. Your father will never know. And don’t you go telling him, either.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so frightened of him,’ Poppy said dismissively. ‘Kermit’s your car and Dad’s supposed to be a man of God. Turning the other cheek and all that when you prang the car yet again.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so silly, darling.’ For a split-second Sarah wavered, before smiling brightly. ‘What a thing to say; frightened of your father, you daft thing. Oh, look, Jenny’s arrived. I didn’t think she was leaving Birmingham until this evening.’ Sarah jumped out of the car, oblivious to the recalcitrant exhaust pipe now lying prostrate in full view of the rectory windows, bounded up the steps to the huge oak front door and went to find her elder daughter.

&nb
sp; Poppy wasn’t listening. She was too busy texting, hitting wrong keys in her excitement to tell Tamsin that Kit Westmoreland had just left a message asking to meet up with her in Leeds the following weekend.

  *

  The enthusiasm Sarah had shown for Jennifer’s arrival was largely for Poppy’s benefit, and as she crossed the rectory hall noticing, where usually she didn’t, that the heavy oak chest of drawers was long overdue for a good dusting, Sarah’s heart sank even further as she realised Rosemary was also in attendance. The strident tones of the Rev Roger’s large, raw-boned harridan of a sister who had, down the years, delighted in terrifying myriad girls in her role as head of games at some large comprehensive in Liverpool, could be heard holding forth from behind the closed doors of Roger’s inner sanctum. Rosemary, it appeared, had arrived a day earlier than expected for the Easter break and, in typical egotistical Rosemary fashion, had failed to inform them of her unexpected and, from Sarah’s point of view, not overly welcome arrival.

  Rosemary was not, Sarah imagined, the sort of games mistress on whom adolescent girls developed a crush. She was far more likely to be on a par with the virago of Sarah’s own school days who had kept a precise note in a green record book of the girls’ menstrual cycles. Any girl pleading ‘time of the month, Miss Dennison,’ in the hope of being excused the humiliating ritual of the communal shower and its accompanying cheap pink soap was met with a finger down the register and a raised eyebrow. But then, Sarah supposed as she hovered, picking dead leaves from the drooping spider plant—anything to put off going into the sitting room for a couple more minutes—nowadays, what with student rights and all young girls’ use of Tampax from day one of menstruation, as opposed to the horror of creaking sanitary towels and a garter belt, that excuse was out of the window anyway.