‘OK.’ Rochelle was grudging. ‘But we’ll have after-dinner mints between courses, as amuse bouche.’ She beckoned the barman with a slow smile. ‘We’re ready to go through.’
‘I’ll show you to your table.’ The barman looked relieved to be getting rid of them.
The dining area was impressively done out. Polished black marble gleamed against ruby red carpet and snowy white tablecloths. Benefitting from enthusiastic promo in the local press aimed at those who loved to be first to try somewhere new, it was also impressively full. The barman passed them and the remains of their wine to a waiter, who, as Rochelle explained their liking for large pink pinot and Angie chimed in with the wine/dress co-ordination factor, seated them towards the back of the room, next to a long table of partying women under a golden foil banner saying 50 Today!
Around them, heads turned as the waiter pulled out chairs and flourished napkins. ‘I’m Darren, and it must be my lucky night because I’ll be looking after you.’ His uniform included a long white apron secured by an incongruous tartan cummerbund to go with the tartan bow tie. His gaze snagged on Liza and he paused to let her register his appreciation. ‘Good evening.’ He had the golden skin and bottomless dark eyes of a Mediterranean ancestry.
Liza felt the old Liza flicker inside her; pre-Adam Liza, hanging out with Rochelle and Angie and flirting with hot men. She smiled. ‘How good?’
His voice dropped. ‘Getting better by the moment.’ Producing menus from the oversized front pocket of his apron, he began, ‘Here are your menus, ladies—’
Angie beamed at him. ‘We’ve chosen. We’re doing desserts.’
He paused.
‘Dessert for starter, dessert for main course and dessert for dessert,’ explained Rochelle, raising her voice over a burst of laughter from the fiftieth birthday party. ‘And we’re ready to order.’
Darren produced a pad. ‘Fabulous idea! Can’t think why more people don’t do it.’ And, when Liza only ordered two desserts to the others’ three, ‘A lightweight! You really don’t need to watch your figure, you know.’
Liza let her smile tell him that, actually, she did know. But she appreciated the validation. Yes … she was beginning to get in the swing of the evening.
The first desserts arrived quickly and Liza picked and stole from the others to cries of, ‘Hey! Get your own!’, until her own ‘main’ dessert, chocolate melt in the middle, complete with chocolate sauce and chocolate ice cream, arrived on white porcelain in Darren’s lean brown hands. ‘Mm.’ She dug into moist sponge and set free a river of melted chocolate. ‘Mm-mm.’
Darren paused in whisking past to dip his head close to Liza’s and, under cover of the noisy birthday bash, murmured, ‘Very When Harry Met Sally.’
Liza laughed and watched him hurry away, letting herself notice the width of his shoulders and the neatness of his behind. An inch of pinot blush had somehow appeared in her glass in front of her. It was tempting. A couple of mouthfuls surely wouldn’t hurt—
But as she picked up the glass, cool between her fingers, the hubbub from the fiftieth birthday party table died. It was almost as if her ears had popped.
And Rochelle and Angie stopped eating, spoons poised, staring at a spot above Liza’s head.
‘What?’ Like a child left alone with bedroom monsters, Liza didn’t want to turn and look.
‘Hello, Liza.’
Her glass clunked down.
The voice was syrupy with meaning. ‘Looks like you’re having your usual good time – drinking. Flirting with waiters.’
Somehow, Liza forced herself to face the monster: a tall woman with corned-beef cheeks and a hair colour at least two shades too dark for her skin. ‘Ursula,’ she managed, dry mouthed under Ursula’s flinty stare. ‘How are you?’
Ursula smiled tightly. ‘Oh. You know. Managing.’
Behind, the entire fiftieth birthday party, of which Ursula was, presumably, a part, craned closer. Liza’s heart flopped like a fish as she wondered frantically whether she should ask about Adam.
At her silence, Ursula began to back away. ‘Have a lovely time. I know you know how to party.’
She returned to her own table. The conversation in the room picked up to replace the buzzing in Liza’s ears. Boiling with mortification, repelled, now, at the mere thought of the delicate pink fizz in front of her, she poured iced water from the jug in the centre of the table, the lip chattering against the glass.
Rochelle slipped a consoling arm around her. ‘Ignore the witchy old bitch,’ she hissed. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘Don’t think she’d agree.’ Liza tried to laugh but the evening had been poisoned. Butterflies were aflutter in her stomach, and even they felt sick. Jerkily, she pushed away her plate, fumbled for her purse and dragged out a couple of notes to throw on the table. She couldn’t look at her friends, knew she’d read sympathy beneath the meticulous make-up, mingled with exasperation that Liza had let Ursula get to her. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.
‘Oh Liza—!’
Hurrying back to the car along damp pavements, she selected Cleo on her phone. When her sister answered, she made her voice as light as marshmallow. ‘Hi! Just had a brainwave – I’m not tired and you and Justin are so sleep deprived you’re like sleepwalkers. I’ll look after Gus for a couple of hours while you have an early night, because it’s my Saturday off, tomorrow.’
‘Sleep would be bliss,’ Cleo acknowledged, slowly.
‘I’ve got your spare key.’ Liza checked for traffic and crossed a side street. ‘So you could even leave a bottle of milk in the fridge and go straight to bed and get a head start. I’ll let myself in and be there when Gus wakes.’
But, half an hour later, when Liza turned the key quietly and crept into Cleo’s house in Port Road, she found Cleo curled up on the sofa in her silent house, waiting like a parent for a child who’d missed curfew. She uncurled, climbing to her feet as Liza tiptoed in. Her dark hair was messy and her eyes were weary, but she smiled. ‘I’ve sent Justin up to bed and I’ll bring Gus down here to you in his Moses basket when I go up. What’s the matter?’
Liza opened her mouth to chirp, ‘Nothing!’ But the word lodged, quivering, in her throat.
Cleo opened her arms and dragged her in. ‘What?’
‘I saw Ursula—’ She gulped.
Cleo pulled her down onto the huge sofa, nestling her cheek against Liza’s hair. It felt warm and safe. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It really, really wasn’t your fault. It was horrible, but you’ve got to let it go. We all want the old Liza back. This new Liza you’re pretending to be, who never has a drink or goes out with a man, she’s a stranger.’
Liza let herself cling, comforted by knowing she could say anything, anything, to Cleo, who would never fail in her big-sisterly duties. ‘I’m still me,’ she protested, swallowing so hard it hurt, ‘but I just can’t bear to be the pre-Adam clubbing and drinking Liza. That was then.’ She nestled her head more comfortably into the hollow of Cleo’s shoulder, being careful where she put her weight out of respect for a breastfeeding mum. ‘You wouldn’t believe what happened at the centre. Nicolas tried to get me out.’ She reeled off the whole sorry story.
Cleo’s arms tightened. ‘Is this how you distract yourself from the Adam situation? Worry about your business going down the drain, instead?’
Liza managed a laugh. ‘It’s not a planned strategy. But I’ve got to find a way of changing my life.’ She stopped. Slowly, she pulled away, until she could see into her sister’s face, struck by an idea so clear and fine and obvious that she couldn’t believe it hadn’t come to her before. ‘We could try and get Nicolas out,’ she whispered. ‘Wow, Cleo, why didn’t I think of it? I’ll talk to Fenella and Imogen. But it’s a no-brainer! If Nicolas can’t keep the centre going, we’ll take over the lease – then we can bring in whatever business we want and he won’t be draining it like a vampire.’
Cleo seemed to be having no trouble keeping her excitement under control. ‘Soun
ds like a workable solution. If you think you can pull it off.’
Liza tried not to feel hurt. ‘I won’t be “pulling it off”. I’ll be executing a well-thought-out business plan.’
‘Sorry!’ Cleo grinned. ‘If you say you can do it, you can do it. And it’s easier than sorting out your heart, pesky thing.’ She sighed, scooping Liza back into the safe haven of her hug. ‘Lize, you don’t even seem to meet a man you fancy any more. It’s as if you’ve given up.’
‘I haven’t! I’ve just met a man who asked me out, and I liked him.’
Cleo’s voice suddenly rang with pleasure. ‘Great! So you’re seeing him?’
‘Well, no,’ Liza owned. ‘He’s the one I said the bullshit thing to, when Nicolas overheard, the one who looked into investing in the centre but decided against it. I did meet him for a quick meal at The Three Fishes but it was just because he wanted to interrogate me about The Stables. It’s not the beginning of something.’ She refused to indulge herself in speculation about what it would be like if it was. Too dangerous. Too scary. Too tempting.
Cleo shrugged. ‘OK, forget about beginning anything. Just for the emotional exercise, tell me why you like him.’
Liza groaned. ‘You’re using your training techniques to make me think positively, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Is he attractive?’
‘Awesome,’ Liza answered, honestly. ‘He’s a streaky dirty blond, with spooky light grey eyes and dark lashes. Heartbreaking smile. Single. He’s Miranda Sheldrake’s cousin.’
‘Oh, Miranda told me he was staying with her.’ She paused. ‘He’s got a medical condition, hasn’t he?’
Unexpectedly, Liza found herself being defensive. ‘It’s just a kind of extreme sleeping. It doesn’t affect who he is and he pretty much dares anyone to think that’s all there is to him.’
‘And you like that confidence?’
‘It’s deadly. And he looks at women as if he appreciates them.’ Probably better not to tell Cleo about the shelf-full-of-melons thing. She knew that that hadn’t been the real Dominic Christy.
‘And he asked you out?’
‘Yes.’ The series of questions suddenly made her feel like a participant in a Top Tips for Effective Active Listening workshop. Most of the time, she didn’t even acknowledge her attraction to Dominic to herself; spilling her heart to Cleo would not only make it dangerously real but provide Cleo with ammunition in her Liza Must Get Over It mission. She clammed up.
After a silence, Cleo gave in gracefully over the questions and offered an opinion. ‘I think that would do you loads of good. Loads. Why not tell him you’ll go?’
‘It’s probably too late. I might never see him again.’ Liza tried to see herself chatting over lamb and asparagus. Or with Dominic in a car, at the end of the evening. She sighed, heart shifting as much at the unsettling prospect of entwining her life with a man’s again as at the imagined pleasure of the warmth, the proximity, his smile and the intensity of his gaze. ‘Relationships all go messy. What if he likes me more than I like him? Or I like him more than he likes me? What if it all gets deep and complicated? What if we hurt each other?’
Cleo didn’t answer.
‘What if he brings out the worst in me?’ Liza prompted, for sisterly devil’s advocacy.
But Cleo remained silent, and when Liza sat up to look, she saw her eyelids had closed and her face slackened in sleep. Grinning, Liza nudged her. ‘Go to bed, Cleo. You’re shattered. I’ll come up with you and get Gus.’
Cleo blinked awake. ‘Sorry! What were you saying?’
‘That you need to get to bed. No, I don’t need a drink or a quilt or anything. Nor am I going to have Gus in the spare room so that you can still hear him cry. We’ll be fine down here and you can get some sleep before you have a nervous breakdown. Go to bed!’ Dragging her sister from the depths of the sofa’s embrace, Liza hustled her up to her bedroom door and shoved her in, receiving in exchange her tiny nephew in a basket with a blue-and-purple striped lining. As if transporting a million fragile eggs, she glided with the sleeping baby back down the stairs, slowing where the staircase wound round, so as not to wake him with sudden changes of directions.
Gently, gently, she floated the basket onto the floor of the sitting room. Gus slept on.
Liza turned away to fetch a pillow – and Gus made a thin, distant noise. She froze. The distant noise swelled like an air raid siren, stronger, higher, louder, until there was no room left in the air for anything but the wail of baby.
Hastily, Liza closed the door to the hall then scooped Gus from under his blankets, soothing him as he squirmed against her and tried to force angry fists into his tiny, screwed-up face. A crying baby held no terrors for a cool, hands-on auntie like Liza, though. ‘Noisy Gus,’ she crooned, heading through the kitchen door to the fridge, as he rooted and squalled in despair that no one would ever feed him again. ‘Hungry, hungry Gus-Gus. Your mum needs sleep, so you’re stuck with me, kid.’ The information did little to soothe Gus’s anxiety and she extricated the chill bottle from the fridge with her free hand and dropped it into the bottle warmer, joggling him against her shoulder. ‘I know, you’re not used to waiting, but you’re on the bottle tonight, mate.’ She propped her behind against the kitchen units and settled Gus in the crook of her left arm, catching one flailing foot and easing off its drunken blue sock to cup the warm, soft baby skin. ‘Chill, babes, your belly will soon be full.’ Gently, slowly, she began tiny circles with her thumb tip, just level with Gus’s perfect baby metatarsal notch, following the curve where his heel met the waist of his foot.
Gus’s face became a couple of shades less puce. The end of his world seemed less nigh.
When the warmer bleeped, she carried him to the sofa, settling comfortably in the corner before she let him latch onto the bottle with mouth and both hands like a milk monster. Once he’d established that the synthetic teat was a reasonable food source in place of the human version, Gus heaved a big sigh. And … relaxed.
Liza gazed down at the miracle of humanity as she worked on his other foot, the miniature features that blossomed and changed every time she saw him. The gossamer hair. The satin skin. The huge eyes, already dark, like Cleo’s, staring back at her. The perfect fingers that searched out one of hers and held on, as if he already knew and loved her.
By the time the bottle was empty Gus’s eyes had shut, his mouth, hands, whole body, loosened with sleep. She turned him gently onto her shoulder until he burped mightily, then replaced his socks and laid him on his back in the basket, tucking the blankets around him, holding his heels whilst he settled.
Feeling virtuous and cocooned in intimacy with the sleeping baby, she heaped up the sofa cushions, wriggled out of her boots, and dragged her coat and the sofa throw over herself to nap until Gus woke again. Cleo had left only one bottle, so Liza would have to wake her for the next feed.
But, for a few hours, everyone could sleep.
Chapter Eight
She awoke, stiff and cold, to Gus’s siren impression. Daylight edged the curtains and Cleo’s boyfriend, Justin, stood grinning down at where she was curled tightly on the sofa, his baby son once more writhing in the throes of starvation. ‘You’re an absolute star, Liza. Cleo and I got eight hours’ sleep. Did Gus only wake once?’
She yawned and stretched. Sleeping in her clothes made her feel like something discarded too long at the bottom of the laundry basket. ‘Yup. I got your babe trained, Daddy.’
‘Not kidding. You know where the kettle is if you want coffee. I’m taking Gus up to Cleo. I think he’s ready for breakfast.’
Blearily, Liza hauled herself up. ‘Where’s Shona?’
Justin’s sharp features creased into an even wider grin. ‘Watching cartoons in our bed. She hates being left out of a Saturday morning cuddlefest.’ His eyes were bright. ‘By the way, we’re finally getting married. Soon. Registry office and village hall.’
Liza clicked properly awake, aghast. ‘Cleo didn’t tell me!�
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He laughed. ‘She couldn’t. I’m only telling you as a trial run for telling her. I’m tired of putting it off because we need to spend money on the house and Cleo’s on maternity leave. It’ll have to be cheap and cheerful.’ Then he was gone, Gus’s diminishing wail marking father and son’s progress up the stairs.
Liza stared after them, trying to envisage how Cleo would take her wedding being thrust on her like that. Concluded she would probably take it in her stride, because nothing about Cleo and Justin’s relationship had been orthodox.
Yawning, she considered the coffee situation. She might as well wander home as drink down here, alone, Liza-no-mates. She tried not to feel miffed that Shona hadn’t run down to fling herself on Liza with the million degrees of excitement she usually reserved for her favoured auntie, but … a cuddlefest is a cuddlefest. Liza imagined the whole family squeezed into Cleo and Justin’s bed, the warmth and morning smells, the sinking pillows and the fighting over the quilt, Gus making sucky baby noises while Shona – and probably Justin – laughed at Sponge Bob Square Pants on the TV.
She sighed, yanked on her boots and let herself quietly out of the house.
It was her weekend off and as she progressed through laundry, Saturday shopping and Sunday coffee at Rochelle’s flat, her mind worked on her amazing idea of taking over the treatment centre. Excitement puckered the back of her neck. A hurdle was, obviously, Nicolas, who might not wish to relinquish his tenancy. On the other hand, if he was near to going under he might be glad of armbands and a rubber ring. Nicolas presently took care of all the admin. But Liza, Imogen and Fenella could do that between them. They already managed their own businesses; how much more work could there be? Her mind cannoned around like a marble in a tin.
And she forgot to brood about Friday night and Ursula. Or Adam. Mainly.
All three therapists had elected to make Monday an afternoon/evening day, so the centre would shut at nine. Liza grabbed Fenella and Imogen in between clients and invited them for tea and biccies at her place after work. In her meal break, she wrote a list of discussion subjects.
Dream a Little Dream Page 7
