An Offer You Can't Refuse

by Jill Mansell

  Just as there was always someone to nag you about money.

  ‘Lola. Tag,’ Blythe prompted, pointing to the sleeve.

  This was the downside of having a mother who went for quantity rather than quality every time. Blythe lived for the sales. Her idea of heaven was rummaging through the bargain rails in charity shops where you could buy a whole new outfit for six pounds fifty.

  ‘Um… forty-five.’ Lola attempted to hide the tag up the coat’s sleeve as her mother approached.

  Too late. Blythe peered at the tag then dropped it as if it had barked at her. ‘Two hundred and forty-five!’ She gazed at Lola and Sally in disbelief. ‘Pounds!’ Just in case they’d thought she meant Turkish lira.

  ‘But Mum, it’s a coat.’

  ‘It’s a secondhand coat.’ Blythe was indignant.

  ‘Vintage,’ said the stallholder.

  ‘If this was in a charity shop you’d be able to buy it for twenty pounds!’

  ‘But this coat isn’t in a charity shop,’ the stallholder patiently explained.

  ‘Not any more it isn’t. I bet that’s where you found it, though. You probably bought it for a tenner and now you’re selling it for silly money! Lola, offer her fifty pounds and not a penny more. Barter with the girl.’

  ‘Mum, sshh, look at the label. If this coat was on sale in Harvey Nichols it would cost thousands.’

  ‘But see how thin it is. You can hardly call it a coat—it won’t even keep you warm!’

  Lola briefly considered pretending to give up, carrying on along the road, and secretly scuttling back this afternoon. But how could she risk leaving such a beautiful thing for even a few minutes? What if someone else came along and snapped it up? It would be like leaving George Clooney on a street corner and expecting him to still be there waiting for you hours later.

  Besides, she was twenty-seven years old, not seven. She looked the stallholder squarely in the eye and said, ‘Two hundred.’

  The stallholder, who knew a pushover when she saw one, shrugged and said, ‘Sorry, I can’t go below two thirty.’ The subtext being: because I know how badly you want this.

  Lola took out her purse and began counting out twenties.

  ‘Lola, you can’t buy it.’

  ‘Mum, I love this coat. It’ll make me happy. And it’s my money, I can spend it how I like.’

  ‘I don’t know where she gets it from,’ Blythe tut-tutted as Lola rolled her eyes at the stallholder. ‘Two hundred and thirty pounds for somebody else’s old cast-off. That’s shocking.’

  At last the transaction was complete and they moved on. Sally, after a week back at work, was relishing her day off and getting along quite niftily now with the help of her walking stick. Blythe stopped at a stall selling patchwork waistcoats and said, these are fun, and they’re only fifteen pounds!’

  ‘They’re horrible,’ said Sally.

  ‘Oh. Are you sure?’ Blythe looked to Lola for a second opinion.

  ‘Really horrible,’ Lola confirmed.

  ‘At least they’re new. Ooh, how about this?’ Excitedly Blythe waved a peacock-blue scarf adorned with silver squiggles. ‘Seven pounds!’

  Lola nodded. What harm could a scarf do? The sooner her mother bought something, the sooner she’d stop going on about the coat. ‘Yes, buy it.’

  ‘No, don’t buy it!’ Sally let out a snort of laughter and waggled her hands in a bid to draw Lola’s attention to something on the scarf.

  ‘Honestly, you two,’ Blythe grumbled. ‘It’s like going shopping with the What Not to Wear ladies. What’s wrong with—’

  ‘My God! Lola!’

  Everyone turned in unison at the sound of the girl’s voice. Next moment Lola found herself having the breath hugged out of her lungs as market-goers swirled around them on the pavement.

  At last Jeannie put her down and Lola said, ‘I don’t believe it. Look at you! You’re so brown.’

  ‘That’s because I’m living in Marbella now! We’re just back for a few days visiting my mum.’ Jeannie’s hair was sunbleached, her skin was the color of a hazelnut and she was wearing faded, hippyish clothes and flip-flops. ‘And you aren’t brown,’ she said cheerfully, ‘so that must mean you live in unsunny Britain.’

  ‘I do. I live right here in Notting Hill. And this is my mum.’ Lola indicated Blythe. ‘And my friend Sally. Mum, this is Jeannie from school.’

  ‘Oh, the Jeannie you went off with to Majorca! How lovely to meet you at last,’ Blythe exclaimed. ‘And what a coincidence—fancy bumping into you like this!’

  As things had turned out, Lola hadn’t ended up spending more than a few days with Jeannie. Shortly after her arrival in Alcudia, Jeannie had hooked up with a boy called Brad who was moving on to work in a restaurant on a surfer’s beach in Lanzarote. Jeannie had gone with him the following week and that had been the last she and Lola had seen of each other. Lola, aware that her mother and Alex would have been worried sick if they’d known she was out there on her own, had discreetly glossed over that snippet in her postcards home.

  ‘Such a coincidence!’ echoed Jeannie. ‘I was just looking at Sarah’s jacket, admiring it from a distance, then I saw who she was talking to and I was just, like, ohmigod!’ She ran her fingers over the sleeve of Sally’s caramel leather jacket and said appreciatively, ‘It’s even better close up.’

  ‘Sally,’ said Sally.

  ‘Huh? My name’s Jeannie.’

  ‘I know. You just called me Sarah. I’m Sally, Sally Tennant.’

  ‘Oops, sorry! Brain like a sieve, me!’ Jeannie tapped the side of her head, then stopped and began wagging her index finger in a thoughtful way. ‘Although not always. Hang on a minute, wasn’t Tennant the name of that boyfriend of yours?’

  The index finger was now pointing questioningly at Lola.

  ‘Doug Tennant.’ Sally gave a yelp of excitement. ‘That’s right, he’s my brother!’

  Lola experienced a sensation of impending doom, like an express train roaring out of a tunnel towards—

  ‘You’re kidding!’ Her eyes and mouth widening in delight, Jeannie looked from Sally to Lola. ‘So you and Doug got back together? My God, I don’t believe it! That’s so romantic! What happened about the money? Did his witch of a mother make you pay it all back?’

  Lola’s first instinct was to clap her hands over her ears and sing loudly, ‘Lalala.’ Her second was to clap her hands over her mother’s ears and go, ‘Lalala.’ But it was too late; Blythe was frowning, looking as bemused as if everyone had suddenly started babbling away in Dutch.

  ‘Oops, sorry!’ Jeannie smacked her forehead and turned back to Sally. ‘I just called your mother a witch!’

  ‘What money?’ said Blythe.

  ‘Dougie and I didn’t get back together,’ Lola blurted out. ‘Sally’s my next-door neighbor.’

  ‘Oh crikey, I’m getting everything wrong here, aren’t I?’ Jeannie shook her head dizzily and burst out laughing. ‘Well, except for the bit about your mum being a witch. You have to admit, that was a pretty beastly thing she did. I mean, that’s messing with people’s lives, isn’t it?’

  ‘Excuse me.’ The bored stallholder nodded at the scarf being twisted in Blythe’s hands. ‘Are you going to be buying that or what?’

  ‘So did Doug ever find out about the money?’ Jeannie said avidly.

  Blythe carried on twisting the scarf. ‘What money?’

  Lola closed her eyes and breathed deeply; when she’d gone out to Alcudia she’d made a point of explaining to Jeannie that her mother didn’t know about the money thing. How, how could Jeannie forget something as important as that, yet remember a detail as small and irrelevant as Dougie’s surname?

  ‘Yes, Doug found out.’ Sally, attempting to ride to the rescue, said hastily, ‘But that’s all in the past,
everyone’s moved on, it’s—’

  ‘Oh, don’t try and change the subject, I’ve always wanted to know what you spent all that money on. God, I wish someone would’ve given me ten grand to dump any of the loser boyfriends I’ve hooked up with over the years.’ Apologetically, Jeannie touched Sally’s arm. ‘Not that your brother was a loser. I met him a couple of times before they broke up and he was totally fit.’

  He still is. Desperate to get away—although it was too late now, the cat was out of the bag—Lola grabbed the blue and silver squiggly scarf from Blythe. ‘Mum, are you going to buy this?’

  ‘No she isn’t,’ Sally repeated, earning herself a glare from the stallholder.

  ‘Why not?’ Lola gave the scarf a flap to try and get the creases out. ‘It’s pretty!’

  Useful too. She could strangle blabbermouth Jeannie with it.

  ‘It’s obscene.’ Jeannie pointed to the silver squiggles, which Lola hadn’t realized were scrawled words. ‘Rude Spanish word. Rude Spanish word.’

  Sally helpfully pointed out another squiggle. ‘Very, very rude Spanish word.’

  God, it was too. Lola hurriedly put down the scarf.

  ‘That’s disgusting.’ Rounding on the hapless stallholder, Blythe said, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, selling something like that.’

  ‘I don’t speak Spanish.’ The man shook his head in protest. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Nobody was listening to him, nobody cared. Blythe had already swung round and pointed an accusing finger at Lola. Her expression intent and her voice scarily controlled, she said, ‘But he shouldn’t be as ashamed of himself as you.’

  ***

  ‘I can’t believe this.’ Blythe’s cup of coffee sat in front of her untouched. She shook her head and gazed across the tiny café table at Lola. ‘I can’t believe you did something like that. In God’s name, why?’

  Lola felt sick with shame. She’d never imagined her mother would find out about the money. She wished she still had Sally here to be on her side.

  ‘Well?’ Blythe demanded.

  ‘I’ve told you. Because Dougie’s mother hated me and Dougie was moving up to Scotland. We were so young, what were the chances of us staying together? I mean, realistically?’ Lola’s coffee cup rattled as she tried to lift it from the saucer. Her whole life, she’d loved earning praise from her mother, making her happy and proud of everything she did. Blythe’s approval was all that mattered and until today she’d known she’d always had it, unconditionally.

  Until an hour ago. The coffee tasted bitter and she’d tipped in too much sugar. What were the chances of bumping into Jeannie and the whole sorry story spilling out like that?

  ‘And the money,’ said Blythe. ‘The ten thousand pounds. What happened to it?’

  Lola shifted in her seat. She wasn’t completely stupid, she did have a plausible lie put by in case of absolute emergencies.

  And now appeared to be the time to drag it out.

  ‘OK, it wasn’t ten thousand pounds. It was twelve and a half.’ May as well get as many of the facts correct as possible. ‘And I used most of it to buy a Jeep so I could get around the island.’

  ‘A Jeep? Dear God! But you hadn’t even passed your test!’

  ‘I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you. It’s also why I couldn’t get it taxed and insured.’ Her palms growing damp, Lola forced herself to carry on with the lie she’d concocted years ago and hoarded for so long. ‘Which is why, when it was stolen a week later, I couldn’t do anything about it. I’d spent the money on a Jeep then, boom, it was all gone. I was back to square one.’

  ‘No you weren’t.’ Blythe was shaking her head again. ‘At square one you had Dougie. Oh Lola, what were you thinking of? I thought we’d brought you up better than that. Relationships are more important than money! Look at Alex and me, we were happy whether we had it or not. If you love someone, money’s irrelevant. You sold your chance of happiness with Dougie for a… a Jeep! That’s a terrible thing to do.’

  ‘I know. I know that now.’ Lola was perilously close to tears, but she wasn’t going to cry. She forced herself to gaze around the crowded, steamy café, listen to Dexy’s Midnight Runners playing on the radio, concentrate on the jaunty music.

  ‘It’s like that coat today. It cost far too much but you just didn’t care, you had to have it.’

  ‘OK, Mum, can we stop now, please?’

  But Blythe hadn’t finished yet.

  ‘And you know what? If you were capable of doing that to Dougie, you don’t deserve him. How could you be so stupid? I feel like phoning that boy up and apologizing to him myself, I really do.’

  Oh God. Her mother’s disappointment in her was too much to bear. Telling herself not to cry hadn’t worked. Tears rolled down Lola’s cheeks as she clenched her fingers and blurted out, ‘I was seventeen, I was stupid, and I did a terrible, terrible thing. I don’t blame you for hating me,’ she shook her head in despair, ‘because I know it was wrong. And I’ll regret it f-for the r-rest of my l-l-life.’

  Blinded and sniffing helplessly, she fumbled in her pocket for a tissue. None there. The next moment she felt her mother’s arms go around her and a paper napkin being pushed into her hand.

  ‘Oh sweetheart, of course I don’t hate you. You’re impetuous and you don’t always think things through, but you’re my daughter and I love you more than anything in the world. There, shh, don’t cry.’ Blythe rocked her, just as she’d always done as a child. ‘You made a mistake and you’ve learned your lesson. And you’ll never do anything like it again, that’s the important thing.’ Pulling away, she smiled and tenderly wiped rivulets of mascara from Lola’s wet face with her finger. ‘My God, the antics you’ve got up to over the years. Just you wait, one of these days you’ll have children of your own and then you’ll know how it feels when they do things that shock you.’

  Chapter 49

  Sally, who still didn’t have the faintest idea what she’d done to upset Gabe, was getting more and more frustrated.

  ‘The omelette pan’s missing. You were using it yesterday. What have you done with it?’ He was crashing around the kitchen, banging cupboard doors open and shut, as exasperated as if she’d deliberately tipped the contents of the bin all over the floor.

  Which Sally was quite tempted to do, what with all the fuss he was making.

  ‘I washed it up, dried it, and put it away.’ Biting her tongue, she opened the final cupboard door and took out the omelette pan. ‘There, panic over.’

  Gabe looked irritated. ‘It’s never been kept in that cupboard.’

  Every time she felt bad at having lost the letter that had arrived for him—and not mentioning it—Gabe said something to make her feel less guilty. Like now. Evenly Sally said, ‘Gabe, up until a couple of weeks ago, I’d have left the omelette pan on the stove or dumped in the sink and I wouldn’t have got this much grief about it. Why are you being like this?’

  Didn’t he realize that she might sound in control but inside she was finding his attitude deeply upsetting?

  ‘Sorry.’ Gabe didn’t sound remotely sorry. ‘Will you be coming straight home from work?’

  ‘No, I won’t. So don’t worry, I won’t be here to put the wrong cup on the wrong saucer.’

  He switched on the gas ring, ignoring the jibe. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Having dinner with Roger and Emily.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dr Willis and his wife.’

  Gabe said sarcastically, ‘Again?’

  He never used to be sarcastic.

  ‘Yes, again,’ Sally mimicked him.

  ‘Why?’

  Why indeed? She hadn’t the foggiest. But Roger had said they had something they wanted to tell her so she’d agreed. ‘I don’t know.’ Pointedly Sally said, ‘Maybe they enjoy
my company.’

  Gabe exhaled heavily and began breaking eggs into a bowl. Sally picked up her keys and limped out of the kitchen.

  They’d always got on so well together. How had it come to this?

  ***

  ‘Ten o’clock, love, with Dr Burton.’

  Sally dragged her attention back to the elderly woman on the other side of the counter, checked the lists on the computer screen and said, ‘That’s fine, Betty, take a seat.’

  ‘You all right this morning, love? Looking a bit peaky.’

  Sally forced a smile; it was always a joy to know you looked as rubbish as you felt.

  ‘I’m OK, Betty. Just a bit… tired.’ Tired of being criticized, tired of hearing she looked peaky, tired of being nagged at because she’d put the omelette pan away in the wrong sodding cupboard.

  ‘Oh hello, Maureen, didn’t see you there.’ Betty beamed at Maureen, sitting over by the magazines with her knitting.

  ‘How’re you doing, Betty? I’m not so bad myself. Feet still playing up but I’m trying some new tablets, so fingers crossed. And our Lauren’s expecting again, that’s cheered us all up.’

  ‘Ooh, lovely. What d’you think of Sally over there, then? Reckon she’s looking a bit peaky, do you?’

  Oh, for crying out loud.

  ‘Probably too many late nights,’ said Maureen, peering over the top of her glasses at Sally perched on a stool on the other side of the reception desk. She winked saucily. ‘Got yourself a new boyfriend, love? Burning the candle at both ends? Too much canoodling and what-have-you, that’s my guess. Am I right, hmm?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Betty. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of morning sickness.’

  Oh, for crying out loud…

  Across the waiting room the old regulars, Maureen and Betty, were chuckling away. Half a dozen other patients were all watching expectantly too, waiting for her to come out with some chirpy reply.

  To her absolute horror Sally realized that she was actually physically about to start crying out loud. Her vision blurred with tears and her throat tightened from the inside. Attempting to duck down out of sight behind the computer screen, she almost toppled off her stool. Her walking stick was out of reach, propped up against the filing cabinet. If it hadn’t been for her leg she would’ve made a dash for the bathroom but she was too clumsy and too slow. Even Maureen with her gammy feet and Betty with her lumbago were faster, peering over the counter and clucking with concern.