A Year of New Adventures

by Maddie Please

  ‘I’m sure they will be along soon.’

  ‘You have a Dead Man’s Dinner,’ Godfrey said. ‘If that’s any consolation.’

  He picked up the paper plate and prodded the roll that was hermetically sealed in several layers of cling film.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ Uncle Peter said. ‘Somehow I can’t quite fancy that.’

  We heard the sound of some sort of argument further down the corridor. The grumble of the stout nurse and unmistakeably the more strident and challenging tones of my mother.

  ‘I’ve brought my brother some home-made soup. I’d be grateful if you would direct me to his room … No, I’m not interested in knowing the visiting hours … Well I will be in and out in a flash … I was speaking to my cousin the Chairman of the Local Health Authority about this only last week …’

  Peter looked up at me and rolled his eyes. ‘Guess who?’ he said.

  Mum came sweeping triumphantly into the room and up to Uncle Peter’s bedside, a thermos flask in one hand.

  ‘Hello, you old fool,’ she said, tears in her eyes. ‘What have you been up to now?’

  *

  Instead of having two weeks in hospital followed by a month’s bed rest as Godfrey’s father had done when he had his appendix out, Uncle Peter was home the following afternoon. He made the most of being officially an invalid, requesting Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream and my home-made tomato and basil soup for his dinner. Then the following day he had scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast, smoked salmon sandwiches for lunch, and asked for chicken casserole and lemon meringue pie for his evening meal.

  Godfrey voiced his suspicions that Peter might be pushing his luck and the following day resolutely ignored the tinkling of the little bell Peter had found. Within a couple of days, life was pretty much back to normal except Mum popped in again as she always used to, their feud forgotten. It was only then I remembered Fee Gillespie and her mysterious message. The package, the car, nothing had happened.

  By then I was looking forward to the return of Kitty Ford-Wilson for another weekend while Jeff took their children to visit his mother in nearby Upper Slaughter. As before Kitty’s luggage arrived before she did but this time their daughters were in the car too.

  Jane (after Austen) and Bridget (after Jones) seemed delightful girls, nothing like the delinquent fiends Kitty had described. They accepted a glass of orange squash, a slice of cake, and half an hour in the garden where they made the acquaintance of next door’s cat, safe in the knowledge that their mother was over an hour away thanks to their phone tracking app.

  ‘Mummy’s nearly finished her book edits,’ Jane said, coming up for air after a long pull at her drink. ‘She says another sweep through and she’ll be done. Then we can go on holiday.’

  ‘What’s this book called?’ I said.

  ‘It’s called Dressing Up Dolly,’ said Bridget. ‘It’s all about fashion and how no one can find decent clothes these days.’

  ‘Sounds about right,’ I said.

  Jeff finished his coffee and checked his phone. ‘Come on, girls, Mummy’s just past Andoversford. We’d better go.’

  They finished their drinks, thanked me politely, and got back into the car without any cajoling. Mummy must be absolutely terrifying.

  ‘Where are you going on holiday?’ I asked as Jeff shook my hand and thanked me profusely.

  ‘Florida. Disneyland – Kitty loves it.’

  ‘Really?’ That seemed unlikely.

  ‘Oh gosh yes, we went there on our honeymoon. We go back once a year if at all possible.’

  I tried to imagine Kitty on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and failed.

  ‘Well have fun,’ I said. ‘I’ll look after her.’

  ‘Oh I know – she was saying to Oliver the other day, she really—’

  ‘Oliver?’ I felt like jamming my arm in the car window to stop him from driving off. ‘Oliver Forest?’

  ‘Yes, he phoned up. He’s been in Boston for a few days, but he’s supposed to—’

  ‘Daddy,’ Bridget shouted from the back seat, ‘Mummy’s only fifteen minutes away.’

  ‘We must be going,’ Jeff said with a jaunty wave.

  Bang on cue, Kitty arrived fifteen minutes later, the Maserati roaring its return to the rest of the town.

  ‘Kitty,’ I said, holding out a hand to welcome her.

  She swept me into an unexpected hug.

  ‘Thank you so much!’ she said. She reached into the back of the car and brought out an extravagant bouquet. ‘These are for you.’

  ‘How absolutely lovely! Why?’ I said, more than a little confused.

  ‘Your plot idea. The book practically wrote itself. It just poured out. My editor wept with laughter. I told her what you’d said; she wants you to come to the launch.’

  What idea was that then?

  ‘Did it? That’s incredible,’ I said.

  ‘OK there are some edits to be done and I need to cut a couple of scenes and add one about going to the doctor when she gets a STI, but apart from that …’ Kitty finished with a jaunty thumbs-up sign.

  ‘Sorry but remind me, what did I say?’

  ‘Dressing Up Dolly: the many faces of the modern woman. A main character trying to be thin, voluptuous, androgynous, feminine, all at the same time. I can’t remember the exact words, but anyway it set me going. I just know this one is going to be great. Women having to be all things to all men and never, ever being able to find the right outfit. It’s such a laugh; I’ve been chuckling away. Especially the scene where she gets a tattoo.’

  A tattoo.

  I should get a tattoo.

  Yes, that would be a real adventure. If I was brave enough?

  Had that been on my list of things to do? It had been ages since I had thought about it, I couldn’t remember. When I had Kitty settled I went to check. Yes it had been, point 8. A small tattoo I could hide from my mother.

  I re-read the list and was quite surprised to see how many things I had achieved. I had even sent Matt packing when the old me would have been seduced by his return. I still hadn’t got the money back that he owed me, but it was a start. I’d done loads of things, I was in a better place. Little by little my life had changed after all.

  *

  Kitty was a new woman this time round. She was a delight, ate everything, never once complained about her weight or her size, and worked for nearly all of the weekend until Sunday afternoon when she came downstairs, triumphant.

  ‘I’ve only bloody finished!’ she said, waving a bottle aloft. ‘I thought I might – I brought this specially. Let’s crack it over the bows of my new book!’

  So we did.

  We sat in the kitchen knocking back prohibitively expensive champagne, eating cheese straws, and discussing her forthcoming holiday.

  ‘Of course Jeff proposed at Disneyland Paris so it holds a special place in my heart. I’d just been on Space Mountain and I’d thrown up over his trainers. You wouldn’t think it was a romantic moment but it was. Hmm. That was fifteen years ago.’

  She looked a bit wistful for a few minutes and then came to so she could top up our glasses.

  ‘You should go,’ she said. ‘It’s enormous fun. Not the Paris one obviously. The French are hopeless at customer service and pretending to be jolly whereas the Americans – well it comes naturally. They can’t help themselves. And, of course, the weather helps in Florida. Disneyland is marvellous but let’s be honest it’s so much better in the sun.’

  ‘I’m thinking of getting a tattoo,’ I blurted out.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It would be a new experience?’ I said, suddenly not quite so sure of myself.

  ‘So would banging yourself on the head with a brick but it doesn’t mean you should do it,’ Kitty said. ‘I don’t suppose I could have one of your cream teas before I go?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Jeff’s coming to get my stuff tomorrow,’ Kitty said. ‘What would you have tattooed and where?’
/>   ‘I don’t know and somewhere hidden. There’s a tattoo place in town. I might go there tomorrow.’

  Kitty sighed. ‘So why do it if you need to keep it hidden?’

  ‘Just as a statement. Someone once challenged me to do unexpected things. Getting a tattoo would be great.’

  Maybe it would after all?

  ‘You’re crazy – imagine what it would look like when you’re seventy. How old are you?’

  ‘Nearly thirty.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Kitty snorted. ‘That’s forty years of yo-yo dieting and skin sag you have to look forward to. You’d start off with a unicorn and end up with a manatee. Anyway, it’s a very immature thing to do. Now let’s open another bottle. I feel like getting smashed.’

  ‘And that’s not immature?’

  Kitty winked at me. ‘You don’t need to get laser surgery to remove a hangover.’

  *

  She left the following day and the first thing I did was go along the back streets near the bookmaker to look for the tattoo parlour I’d heard about.

  A vague-looking chap who introduced himself as Kev showed me some examples of his work. Terrifying photographs of bulldogs playing snooker across someone’s back, American eagles, Marilyn Monroe in a bathing suit on someone’s bicep, a classic heart with Mum inked across it.

  ‘Something small,’ I said. ‘Something I could cover up.’

  So my mother doesn’t see it.

  ‘So your mother doesn’t see it?’ Kev said, taking a long drag at an e-cigarette and puffing out rose-scented smoke.

  An e-cigarette? Perhaps I should try one of those? No perhaps not.

  I smiled weakly.

  We agreed I would have a small one on the back of my right shoulder and after checking the spelling three times and getting me to sign an agreement that I wouldn’t sue him, he set to work.

  It blooming well hurt. Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t. Like a lot of tiny needles rattling away on my back. Which of course is exactly what was happening.

  Kev kept up a long rambling stream of stories about the evils of Brexit and tattoos he had seen that had gone wrong – maybe not the best thing to entertain me with. A favourite was someone who came to him last year wanting him to correct Nowlige is Power on one thigh and No Ragrets on the other.

  Anyway, just as I was about to get to the end of my pain threshold and ask him to stop, the doorbell tinkled and someone shouted through the modesty curtain Kev had pulled across.

  ‘I’m looking for Billie Summers; is she here?’

  ‘Police after you?’ Kev said mildly. ‘I can tell him to piss off if you like?’

  ‘Absolutely not! Yes, I’m here.’

  I stood up and pulled on my T-shirt before I peered out through the curtains.

  There was a man standing there, vaguely familiar.

  ‘Who wants to know?’ I said, rather bolshie.

  I think an hour in Kev’s company was wearing off on me.

  The man’s face cleared when he saw me.

  ‘Ah, Miss Summers, I came to collect you a few days ago, and you weren’t at home. Are you available now?’

  ‘What for?’ I said.

  Kev came to stand next to me, wiping some ink off his hands. ‘Bailiff? Want me to see him off?’ he said narrowing his eyes.

  ‘No, I think I know him.’

  ‘Henry,’ the man said, ‘Oliver’s driver. He told me to give you this. He said you would understand.’

  He handed over a copy of The Girl from Damascus and I opened the title page.

  Please forgive me? Oliver.

  I felt a prickle of excitement up the back of my neck.

  ‘Oh God yes! Of course!’

  That’s right, Billie: play hard to get.

  ‘Ready?’ Henry said. ‘We’ll only be a few hours.’

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ Kev warned. ‘I’ve only done a bit of the outline. I haven’t even started inking in and you’ve paid for the whole thing.’

  ‘I’ll come back,’ I said.

  I knew I wouldn’t. That was fifty quid wasted. How do people afford these huge tattoos? Like those massive roses on Cheryl Cole’s bottom? They must cost thousands.

  Kev patched me up with a dressing, gave me a couple of paracetamol and some after care advice. Then I collected my bag and coat and followed Henry out of the shop. His car – silver and shiny with darkened windows – was waiting. He helped me in to the back.

  Henry was courtesy itself with the same cashmere rug, bottles of water, and apparently an utter lack of curiosity. It was just like last time. He didn’t ask any questions apart from was I warm enough and then he closed the partition between us and the car powered on towards the M40 and the motorway. He drove me to Terminal 5 of course, the same terminal as last time, and this time he held the door open for me.

  ‘I think you are just in time, Miss,’ he said.

  ‘In time for what?’

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t even smile.

  I went into the terminal building and waited to see what would happen. It was like being a secret agent. I didn’t have my passport so there was no way I could be drugged and whisked off anywhere. I looked around at all the people who were going somewhere with their suitcases and bags. Above me the arrivals and departure boards flickered and changed. Planes going to Greece and France and Rio and ah yes to Boston.

  ‘Hello, Billie.’

  A familiar voice just behind me. I turned and he was there.

  Oliver Forest was there, looking at me.

  We just stood and stared at each other for a moment. And then somehow I was in his arms and he was holding me very tight. We were getting in everyone’s way, causing travellers to dodge around us, some of them muttering at us irritably.

  Oliver bent his head down to kiss me. I honestly thought I was going to cry.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s you,’ I said at last.

  He held me tight again, and laughed, the sound rumbling through his chest and into my head.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know if you would.’

  ‘Of course I would,’ I said.

  ‘I hoped … it was short notice. After what I said …’

  ‘I know. Is it? What are you doing here? Short notice for what?’

  ‘I’ve flown overnight from Boston to see you. But I’m going back in’ – he looked at his watch – ‘just over an hour. I’ve waited as long as I could but I have to go back.’

  ‘Are you?’ My stomach did a plunge. ‘Do you mean you’ve flown over just to see me?’

  Why would anyone do that?

  ‘Yes, I couldn’t do this over the phone or by email. And I wasn’t going to risk that ex-boyfriend of yours steaming in. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘I think I need one,’ I said.

  He took my hand and steered me to a private lounge, which was gorgeous and comfortable and apart from everything else, nearly empty. He brought back some champagne and we sat at a table overlooking the runway. In front of us a continual stream of planes were taking off for far-flung destinations but I didn’t care. I just wanted to sit there with him, with his thigh touching mine. I wanted to sit there looking into his beautiful blue eyes and seeing such wonderful kindness and desire reflected there.

  ‘Thank you for everything,’ I said. ‘Especially the books. Uncle Peter was thrilled. And then he had appendicitis and everything was going wrong.’

  ‘And now?’

  I looked at him and he smiled.

  I didn’t want to sit here being polite. I wanted him. I wanted to put my arms around him and feel his body next to me. To know the touch of his skin against mine again.

  He reached over and put his hand over mine. It felt right and wonderful. I had the awful feeling that when he went I was going to miss him in a way that crying and a bottle of wine a night would not alleviate.

  ‘I’m sorry, Billie.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For rushing off. For being an idiot. Were
you doing something important when Henry found you?’

  ‘I was getting a tattoo,’ I said.

  Oliver shook with laughter. ‘Well I wasn’t expecting that! Why?’

  ‘It was a new experience. You told me I needed to do things that were different and adventurous.’

  ‘Where and what? Anywhere I can see without both of us being arrested?’

  I pulled the neck of my T-shirt down and moved the dressing a bit.

  ‘Can you see? On my shoulder?’

  Oliver looked puzzled. ‘Why have you had the word Carp drawn on your shoulder? Do you like fish? Is this a particular passion I need to know about?’

  I blushed. ‘When I go home I’ve got to go back and let Kev finish it. It’s supposed to be ‘Carpe Diem’ but when Henry came into the shop to find me I just rushed off.’

  Oliver laughed and hugged me. ‘You’re crazy. I’ve never known anyone like you. So special.’

  I looked up at his wonderful face and tried to force the image of him onto my brain. I didn’t want to forget this moment. Perhaps if he thought I was special …

  ‘Anyway, go on,’ I said.

  Now it’s not like me to let someone else do all the talking but he’d been travelling all night so it seemed only fair.

  ‘I’ve been fighting it for a very long time. Fighting the way I felt. You’re the first person in a long time who …’

  He paused.

  What?

  … has been rude to me?

  … has given me a migraine?

  … has seen me naked?

  ‘What?’

  ‘… has made me want to go on. Has made me laugh.’

  I grinned. ‘Did I? I’m a bit of a clown – I know I am.’

  Oliver shook his head. ‘No, it’s more than that, Billie. When I met you I was a mess. I couldn’t think straight; I couldn’t write. I can admit it now; I had writer’s block. Remember how dismissive I was about that in the retreat? I was really at my lowest ebb that week. I know I was being impossible. I knew I was being rude and stupid, but I didn’t care. I was sick of everything.

  ‘And then suddenly you were there. Not taking any nonsense, making such a racket, being so kind, so beautiful, being so damned funny. I’d never had such well-aired cheese in my life. Did you see the dedication? And for some reason the book that had been keeping me awake for months took a new direction because of you, because of what you said. Do you remember?