Cindy worked some saliva into her mouth. How could her parents have lied to her? How could they have let her spend her whole life thinking she’d killed the only boy she’d ever loved?
To protect her? To protect themselves? Was moving away, starting afresh, to somewhere where no-one knew they had a tear-away punk teenage daughter who’d run wild and caused an accident, for her – or for them?
Who had they been protecting? Her or themselves?
Mack sighed. ‘I never said anything to anyone about you sitting on my lap – there was no point – it was my fault. I was the driver. It was an accident. And then you’d left Benfield and no-one knew where you’d gone – and eventually we all got on with our lives.’
Except her, Cindy thought. Because of her parents’ foolishly misguided ideas about the best way to handle things, she’d carried the burden of killing Mack for her entire adult life.
‘My parents must have been mad… I’ll never forgive them…’
‘Yes, you will – because they’re your parents,’ Mack said softly as the waitress removed their untouched starters. ‘They might have handled it all wrong, but think about it – wouldn’t you do anything to protect your daughter?’
‘Yes! No! Well, nothing as awful as that.’ Cindy closed her eyes, putting herself in her mother’s shoes for a moment. Would she? No – she could never break Polly’s heart by telling her her beloved Josh was dead when he wasn’t. ‘No – I wouldn’t. I’ve always been honest with Polly and Dylan – well,’ she stopped and smiled. ‘Well, apart from all this of course, but – ‘
‘And will you tell your kids now?’
‘Yes. All of it. Polly keeps nagging me to learn to drive – she doesn’t know I’ve passed my test – I’ll tell them everything.’
‘And about me?’
Cindy smiled. ‘Of course about you. That’ll be easy – but my conversation with my parents won’t be.’
‘Being charitable, they were probably desperate with shame and embarrassment. They were always painfully prim about things, weren’t they? They must have seen it as an ideal opportunity to get right away and start again,’ Mack grinned and speared a chip. ‘They’ll probably be as upset as you – when they know you know the truth.’
Cindy nodded. Maybe. But what happened in the future between her and her parents could wait. It would probably be painful and definitely be angry – and hopefully they’d still be friends at the end of it. But if they weren’t, well, so be it. She was grown-up now. She’d ruined half her life because of their huge however-well-intentioned lie, and she had no intention of ruining the rest.
The waitress returned, looking relieved that they’d managed to eat their main courses. They passed on puddings and Mack asked for the bill.
‘So,’ Mack leaned back in his chair, ‘what happens next?’
‘Short-term or long-term?’
‘Both I suppose. Well, okay, right now I’ll drop you off at Ivy’s so you and Tess can have a proper gossip because – unfortunately - I’m already booked by my parents for the rest of the day. They’re coming down from Scotland – and we don’t get together as often as we should. And tomorrow – well, obviously we’ll be together for the demolition – and then…’
Cindy looked down at the table. ‘Let’s just get tomorrow out of the way, shall we? One step at a time?’
Mack grinned. ‘Now I know you’ve grown up. You were never that sensible when you were young.’
‘Ah, sense,’ Cindy sighed. ‘It comes with spreading waistlines, gas bills, and being shocked by the younger generation.’
‘We could teach them a thing or two,’ Mack chuckled. ‘Cindy… No, never mind – we’ll talk about it all tomorrow – but give me your mobile number, please. I’m not losing you again…’
For the first time in years, Cindy had slept properly. Her dreams had all been happy ones – about Mack, of course – but when she woke, this time there were no tears on her pillow. And Mack had phoned her – twice. And after chatting for ages, they’d arranged to meet at Bluebell Walk the following morning.
Deciding not to ring her parents the previous evening and start the inevitable show-down, she’d spent hours on the phone to Polly telling her everything.
‘Wow, Mum!’ Polly had breathed once she’d recovered from the shock of Cindy’s misspent youth and being furious with her grandparents on her mother’s behalf. ‘How cool is that? How romantic! Brill – and it’s sooo reassuring to know that you were young and wild, too – and a punk! I always thought you’d been born old. Go for it, Mum! Me and Dylan can’t wait to meet him.’
And Cindy had said that she hoped Mack would want to meet them, too, but it might all end tomorrow.
‘Rubbish!’ Polly had snorted with the certainty of youth. ‘You loved each other once, neither of you has got anyone else, and face it Mum, at your age you can’t afford to waste time playing hard to get, can you?’
And they’d giggled together and Cindy had smiled herself to sleep.
The crowds behind the barricades in Bluebell Walk on that glorious spring morning were far more festive than Cindy had expected. She recognised so many of the faces from her past; everyone was hugging and shaking hands, and Ivy just smiled at her, knowing…
Heidi was there, with Tess and Simon and their family, looking impossibly glamorous, and she and Cindy had sniffled happily.
And then there was Mack.
‘My parents are catching up with the Doyles – they’ve suggested we go and have lunch later – all of us, including Ivy…’ He stopped and stared at her. ‘I didn’t sleep last night.’
‘I slept like a log,’ Cindy giggled, then added, ‘for the first time in years…’
The Benfield Brass Band struck up “This Old House”, the council bigwigs marched past the massive machinery, their hard hats looking incongruous with their natty suits; the demolition crew all looked astounded at the bunting and the balloons.
‘Cindy,’ Mack leaned down and his mouth was very close to her ear, ‘when this is over…’
She turned her head.
‘… ten, nine, eight…’ the crowd chanted.
Cindy’s heart thundered.
‘When we leave Benfield and go back to our other lives…’
His beautiful eyes looked deep into hers. The years melted away. The crowds and the noise simply dissolved. It was just Cindy and Mack again.
‘… seven, six, five…’
Cindy saw the diggers move forward like synchronised dinosaurs, heard the roars, had a fleeting feeling of sorrow that her childhood home would soon be a pile of rubble.
Mack found her hands and held them tight. ‘Our back-to-backs will soon be gone. But please say that we…’
‘… four, three, two…’
Cindy smiled at him, seventeen again. ‘Yes.’
‘… and one!’
There was a mighty cheer as the bulldozers powered their way in; an ear-splitting crash as the first house rocked and swayed and eventually collapsed in a cloud of dust.
‘We came back to see the end of our childhood,’ Mack said, ‘but now we just have to look forward. And we’ve got so much to look forward to, haven’t we?’
Cindy nodded as the wrecking balls aimed themselves at the terraced roofs. ‘Everything. I dreaded this – but now…’
Bluebell Walk began to disappear in a deafening rumble and a pea-souper of dust. The crowd cheered more loudly.
It was over. It was just beginning.
Mack pulled her into his arms, on the corner of Bluebell Walk, as he had so many times before. ‘And we’re back together again?’
‘We are,’ she smiled at him.
Then she stood on tiptoe, and as her old house crashed to the ground, Mack kissed her.
THE MISTLETOE BALL
One Monday morning in early December, the email mocked me.
Sender: Sir Barnaby Ruscombe. Subject: The Mistletoe Ball.
In the eleven months I’d worked in Ruscombe’s accounts department, I’d hea
rd a lot about the Mistletoe Ball: a lavish Christmas thank-you for Ruscombes survival in today’s uncertain economic climate.
The Mistletoe Ball had been a tradition since Cecil Ruscombe had started the engineering firm in his garden shed at the turn of the nineteenth century. The Mistletoe Ball was loved by everyone in Ruscombes.
I wouldn’t be going.
I opened the email because I had to. It would need an RSVP and, whatever my other faults, I do have good manners.
Sir Barnaby and Lady Ruscombe and the Board have the greatest pleasure in requesting your company at the Mistletoe Ball on December 20th at Hickory House… Dress code: black tie for the gentlemen, long and glamorous for the ladies…
I started to compose a polite refusal.
‘What are you wearing, Josie?’ Fi grinned from her desk. ‘I’m buying a new frock – and matching shoes… This will be your first Mistletoe Ball, won’t it? Hickory House is fabulous – Sir Barnaby’s so cool – inviting everyone in the company to his home… Bet you can’t wait.’
I sketched a smile and continued composing my negative reply.
‘I might,’ Fi continued, ‘even go for a facial. What about you?’
‘Oh,’ I shrugged, ‘I don’t think I can make it…’
‘What?’ Fi squeaked. ‘Everyone goes. Everyone. You have to be dead not to go!’
I probably should have told a white lie and invented a prior engagement. But I didn’t. I told the truth.
It wasn’t that I was anti-social, but I knew my limitations. I’m happiest bowling on a Saturday night or cheering on our local football team. These things I can cope with. They didn’t involve being – well – girlie.
A formal function, with umpteen courses of food and wall-to-wall elegance, held more pitfalls than I’d ever want to consider. Way out of my comfort zone, I knew I’d commit a million social faux pas in front of Sir Barnaby and the Board.
No, all things and my future employment prospects considered, it was far safer not to go.
‘You can’t mean it?’ Fi was wide-eyed. ‘You really won’t be going?’
I shook my head. Grand balls in sumptuous surroundings were okay for ultra-feminine girls like Fi, but for me it held all the allure of taking part in one of those wrestle-underwater-with-pythons-while-eating-worms reality television shows.
‘I mean it. I’m a tom-boy. I’m clumsy and messy. I’m congenitally scruffy and biggish and darkish – and the best compliment I’ve ever had in my life was that I’m rather like a Labrador puppy…’
Fi giggled. ‘And you’ve got a great sense of humour – and you’re lovely and I really want you to go, Josie. We’ll have such fun… And there’ll be loads of spare men. You never know who you might meet…’
‘Honestly, I’m hopeless at posh functions. I’ve got four brothers – which means I’m fine with football and cars, but rubbish at anything feminine. When I’m supposed to behave like a lady I just get nervous… I’ll spill things, I can’t dance, I get confused over all those knives and forks, I babble, I blush a lot…’
‘For goodness sake,’ Fi interrupted. ‘You don’t need an A star in etiquette. No-one gives a jot if you don’t know what steps to do to a foxtrot or whether you should use just a spoon for your pudding… Oh, please, Josie – say you’ll come.’
‘No, sorry.’
‘I’ll do your hair – and your make up – and I’ll even come shopping with you to find a dress and – ‘
‘No…’ I grinned across the office. ‘No, no, no…’
The word was beginning to lack a bit of conviction. The Mistletoe Ball would be lovely… And even if I simply wasn’t geared to ball gowns and sophistication, I was secretly longing to see Sir Barnaby’s minor stately home – and among thousands of Ruscombe employees, no-one would notice me, would they?
And maybe I could pin my hair up, and maybe there was something suitably festive lurking in the back of my mum’s wardrobe from the days before she discovered the delights of trousers and thick socks?
And maybe, just maybe, I might meet the man of my dreams…
Before I talked myself out of it, I deleted my email refusal and replaced it with a thank you acceptance. Then I pressed “send”.
The die was cast.
‘Okay,’ I smiled at Fi. ‘You win – but if I’m a walking disaster area you’ll only have yourself to blame…’
I eventually found The Dress in a charity shop the week before the ball.
By this time, I was actually looking forward to the Mistletoe Ball. No-one at Ruscombes was talking about anything else and the excitement was infectious.
A cutting north-easterly wind howled down the High Street as I pushed my way into the charity shop’s warmth.
I was the sole customer.
Mavis, behind the counter, knew me well. I was a regular, always buying outsize sweaters and rugby shirts to go with my jeans. She raised her eyebrows as I headed towards the rack of dresses.
‘It’s a special occasion,’ I said. ‘I need to be a girl… Ooops… Sorry.’
I’d cannoned into a rail of anoraks and raincoats, sending them crashing to the floor. Blushing, I knelt down, trying to scrabble everything back on to its hangers.
‘Don’t worry, Josie,’ Mavis bent down to help me, ‘it was due for a sort out in the new year anyway…’
The swathe of purple velvet sort of leapt out at me. Well, to be honest, as I stood up it became entangled round my ankles, making me stumble again.
‘Whoops-a-daisy,’ Mavis panted as she disentangled me. ‘We’ve had that dress in here for ages – goodness knows how it got mixed up with the coats. Still,’ she held the glowing length of purple at arm’s length, ‘there’s not much call for this sort of thing round here.’
I looked at the long purple dress billowing over Mavis’s arm and fell in love.
‘There is now,’ I said scrabbling for my purse. ‘It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for…’
Waiting outside Ruscombes in a freezing north-easter with Fi and the rest for the coach that was to whisk us off to the ball, I sincerely hoped Hickory House would have central heating. We’d all admired one another’s festive finery under our winter coats, and I was delighted that Fi – looking like a slender mermaid in shimmery blue - had persuaded me to change my mind.
The purple velvet dress could have been made for me. I’d practiced walking in it, making pretend curtsies, feeling like a Real Woman as the velvet swirled seductively round my ankles. My mum had unearthed some silver earrings and a matching evening bag and had helped me put my hair up with a purple barrette, and even my brothers had been impressed by my change from ugly duckling to glittering swan.
‘Whoo!’ Fi had whistled. ‘You look amazing, Josie! Whatever happened to the scruffy ladette? And are you wearing heels?’
Actually, I could count the number of times I’d worn heels on the fingers of one hand and still have some left over. The heels had been even more of a challenge than the dress.
‘I’ve been practising and I can walk in a straight line for nearly three minutes without falling over,’ I laughed. ‘And as I’ll be sitting down for the entire evening, that’s all I’ll need… Oh, here’s the coach at last. Thank goodness – I’m freezing…’
To be honest, my first sight of Hickory House was something of a disappointment. I’d expected Sir Barnaby to live in a proper stately home with a moat and a drawbridge and possibly peacocks. Hickory House was what I thought the architectural experts would call Art Deco and looked a bit like a wedding cake.
However, inside it was gorgeously twinkling with masses of tiny bulbs and cleverly designed towering evergreen arrangements designer-draped in sparkling silver.
The whole place was abuzz. There were hundreds of Ruscombes employees: undulating girls in jewel-bright dresses and handsome men in tuxedos - milling around, laughing and talking.
‘Glad you came now?’ Fi squeezed my arm.
I nodded, for once speechless. I really was. I�
��d never been anywhere like this in my entire life and, thanks to the flowing purple frock, I even felt as though I fitted in. It was a revelation.
‘Look at that staircase!’ I gasped. ‘How Rhett and Scarlett is that? It’s sort of spiralling and suspended in mid air! It goes up and up for ever and –‘
‘And I’d advise that you don’t try galloping up it in your heels,’ Fi giggled, steering me towards the dining room, ‘because you’ll probably tumble from top to bottom and ruin the new elegant image… Right, let’s do the meeting and greeting and then see who we’re next to for dinner…’
The greeting line-up of a jovial Sir Barnaby and the other Ruscombes directors, was a mercifully quick hand-shake before we all moved on towards the silver decorated dining room.
‘Oh!’ Fi squinted at the seating plan over the shoulders of a crowd of similarly-occupied people. ‘They’ve split us all up! I’m on table 15 – and you’re on table 18…’
‘Is there anyone we know on my table?’ My newly-found confidence suddenly faltered. ‘I’m useless at chatting to new people…’
‘Er…’ Fi squinted, ‘nope – but as we’re also on the hunt for your Mr Right, you’re between Gary Dawson from Transport and Drew Flanagan from Engineering. Two chances there for you, Josie…’
‘No, look - there’s a Marie Dawson beside Gary – and a Lindy Smith on the other side of Drew, so they’re obviously attached, so please don’t start planning on your bridesmaid’s dress yet… See you after the meal, then…’
Feeling suddenly lonely and a little scared, I watched Fi shimmy away, then took a deep breath and found table 18.
Gary Dawson was stocky and dark, Drew Flanagan was slim with streaky blond hair. Oh yes, and as it happens, Drew Flanagan was also absolutely gorgeous. I suddenly felt very envious of the lovely Lindy Smith on his far side.
Both Gary and Drew smiled as we all introduced ourselves. They tried to make polite conversation through the courses, but as I was terrified of sending mange tout skittering across the table or dropping baby sweetcorn into my wine glass, I answered in monosyllables. Eventually, I just concentrated on eating the right thing with the right implement, leaving Gary talking to his wife, and Drew chatting to Lindy who kept leaning towards him and touching his hand at every opportunity.
Happy Ever After Page 13
