CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After Maddy’s call, I immediately phoned Penny and told her I was fine to babysit Will, after all, the following evening.
‘It’s not a virus, so you won’t catch anything, and I’m feeling a whole lot better already.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s great. I hadn’t actually got round to contacting Martin to postpone the date. So I guess it’s on for tomorrow night, then.’
‘You don’t sound entirely sure about it.’
‘Oh, you know. It’s always a worry, wondering if they’re as “normal” as they seem to be from their profile.’
She seemed genuinely worried so I rushed to reassure her. ‘I think you’ll be all right, Penny. There can’t be that many weird psychopaths on dating sites,’ I joked.
She didn’t laugh. She just grunted. ‘You’d be surprised,’ she muttered bluntly.
I was about to ask her what she meant when she sighed and said, ‘I suppose the problem for me is that Tom and I were so perfect together, back in the day. It was like magic when we met – love at first sight for both of us – so he was always going to be a hard act to follow.’
‘What happened? With you and Tom, I mean?’ I asked softly. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’
There was a pause at the other end. ‘The sad thing is I don’t really know, Katja.
We just kind of grew apart. My dad wasn’t well so I was spending a lot of time helping Mum look after him, which meant travelling to Wales and back most weekends.
So Tom and Will were left to their own devices, and they started doing exciting things at weekends, just the two of them.
And I started worrying that Will had a stronger bond with Tom than with me.
’ She sighed. ‘To be honest, my head was totally scrambled at the time because I was losing my lovely dad to dementia. It was all just a horrible, horrible mess. The worst time of my life. It put a strain on my relationship with Tom and we never got back what we had before.’
‘But you like each other, don’t you?’ I’d seen the pair of them together once when Tom called at the café to collect Will for the weekend. ‘You still make each other laugh.’
‘We do.’ She paused. ‘But things were said back then that can’t be unsaid, you know? We reached our sell-by date and I just can’t see it working between us now – however much Will might want Tom to move back in with us.’
She sounded so sad, talking about it. But I knew what she meant about sell-by dates. Looking back, Richard and I had definitely reached our sell-by date, although towards the end of our time together, I was doing a jolly good job of convincing myself that we were fine.
It was only when I joined Richard in New York and discovered he was already involved with someone else that all the little clues I’d missed – signposting that he was losing interest in me – began to become blindingly obvious . . .
*****
As I got ready for work the next morning, I thought about Penny and Tom, and how sad it was that their relationship, which had started out so strong, had crumbled in the end.
They’d had Will together, though.
That was one very good thing that had come out of their love for each other.
Was Caleb coming to the realisation that we’d reached our sell-by date? Is that why it felt to me as if we were drifting away from one another?
I shrugged on my winter coat, pulled on my favourite old boots and trudged out into the snow.
The day was piercingly cold but with a clear blue sky overhead, and as I reached the high street, my eye caught the poster in the village store window, advertising the Jingle Bell Forest. My mind was suddenly flooded with images of Caleb and me walking hand in hand through the snow and the pine trees, cosying up together as we drank hot chocolate beneath a Christmas tree that winked and sparkled with colourful lights . . .
The thought of this cheered me up a little as I walked across the snowy village green.
Caleb had typed it into his diary and said the date was set in stone, and he’d joked that nothing would tempt him to change it.
Hopefully, a romantic visit to that gorgeous enchanted forest on the Saturday before Christmas would bring us close again. It was only a few weeks away now.
Arriving at the café, I stamped my feet outside and removed my boots on the doormat just inside, changing into my flats for the busy day ahead.
With Christmas fast approaching, there was an air of excitement in the café these days .
. . shoppers snatching a quick coffee . .
. people meeting up with old friends they didn’t see from one end of the year to the next .
. . and customers treating themselves to the gloriously festive hot drinks on offer – including this year’s star turn, Black Forest hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and cherries.
As I said hello to Ellie behind the counter and made my way through the back, I was breathing in the scent of cinnamon and ginger from the deliciously festive Stollen bites Maddy must have been making on her early shift.
It smelled as if they’d just been baked – and sure enough, when I entered the kitchen, there was Maddy bringing a tray of the goodies out of the oven.
Maisie was also there, carefully transferring the bakes from another tray onto a cooling rack with tongs.
‘Smells much too tempting in here,’ I remarked with a smile. ‘No wonder you’ve offered to help, Maisie.’
She grinned at me. Then she looked at Maddy. ‘Can I?’ She held up one of the warm Stollen bites on her tongs.
‘Go on, then. You can be this morning’s tester.’
‘Is that a real job?’
‘Well, if it isn’t, it definitely should be,’ said Maddy, and we all chuckled. ‘Careful, though. They’re hot,’ she added, sweeping the cake onto a tea plate for Maisie. ‘So how’s the boyfriend? Fergie, isn’t it?’
Maisie nodded a little cagily.
‘I expect you’re on the phone to him all the time when you’re not at school.
’ She beamed at me. ‘Ah, I remember it well! Me and Eric Dodsworth. He was my first real love. Obviously, I didn’t have a mobile in those days when I was Maisie’s age.
But there was always the landline. We’d talk about absolutely nothing for hours on end. Well, unless Dad caught me, of course.’
I laughed and Maisie said, ‘We don’t have a landline now. And the phone hardly works in the house. It’s such a rubbish signal.’
‘Shame. So do you have to stand outside to talk to Fergie in the freezing cold?’
‘Yup.’
‘Oh, dear. So much for romance,’ said Maddy.
Maisie, who’d been looking a little embarrassed listening to Maddy go on about boyfriends, smiled with relief when Ellie came in. She popped the rest of the Stollen into her mouth and munched swiftly.
‘It smells so good in here.’ Ellie smiled at her step-daughter. ‘Right, Maisie, shall we go? You don’t want to be late for school.’
Maisie shrugged. ‘Lessons are winding down for Christmas now. I probably won’t learn anything much.’
‘Good one,’ laughed Maddy.
‘The Christmas term was always my favourite when I was little,’ I said dreamily. ‘So many exciting things happening.’
‘Exactly.’ Ellie grinned. ‘So whether you learn anything or not, it’s school for you, young lady.’ She turned to me. ‘Katja, can you man the counter while I’m away?’
‘Of course.’
‘Glad you’re feeling better today, Maddy.’
‘You were ill yesterday?’ I looked at Maddy innocently, knowing full well that she was because we’d already decided the chutney was to blame!
‘Er, yes. A bit of stomach trouble.’ She grimaced at me as Ellie headed out into the café with Maisie shrugging on her coat.
‘Ellie definitely doesn’t look as if she’s been struck down with chutney food poisoning,’ Maddy whispered, looking puzzled. ‘Has she mentioned anything like that to you?’
I shook my head. ‘She seems flushed with health and fleeing around as she always does.’
‘Maybe she’s got a cast-iron constitution. With kids around, I guess you become immune to stuff.’
‘I suppose so.’ I looked at her doubtfully.
She shrugged. ‘Who knows? All I do know is that I’m not feeling like I’m going to throw up today which is bloody marvellous!’
I nodded in agreement and went out to the café. Ellie was hunting for her bag and I spotted it on a shelf behind the counter and held it up. ‘It’s here.’
‘Great. Right, let’s get going, Maisie.’
‘Your chutney seemed to go down well the other day,’ I said quickly.
She turned at the door and smiled. ‘It did, didn’t it? I was so unbelievably chuffed that you all liked it.’ She screwed her nose up. ‘It’s not to everyone’s taste, but each to their own, I suppose.’
I looked at her in surprise. ‘You don’t like chutney?’
She made a face. ‘Ugh, no. Can’t stand the stuff myself. Neither can Zak or Maisie.’ She grinned. ‘We’re a family of chutney-haters. Aren’t we, Maisie?’
‘Oh, right.’ I stared at her, processing this, as I followed them to the door.
So that was why she hadn’t gone down with what we’d all had.
Ellie hadn’t even eaten any of the stuff!
‘Car keys!’ She was dashing back inside.
‘The snow’s great, isn’t it?’ I said to Maisie, joining her at the door while her mum went dashing around searching for her elusive keys. ‘It makes everything look so pretty.’
Maisie shrugged. ‘It’s okay. If it snows any more, we probably won’t be able to go outside at break time.’ She grimaced. ‘Health and safety.’
‘Yes, of course.’ I paused. ‘Maisie, do you know a boy called Lewis at your school?’
She made a face. ‘Yes. He’s in my class, worse luck. Why?’
‘I saw him bullying Will and I didn’t like it.’
She nodded. ‘Fergie always sticks up for Will when Lewis Hatcher is being nasty to him.’
‘And Fergie’s your boyfriend?’
‘I suppose so.’ Maisie gave a careless shrug and looked away, while blushing to the roots of her hair, which was a bit of a giveaway.
‘Well, it sounds like Fergie is a hero, confronting the bullies.’
‘Yes, but I’ve told him not to say anything when Lewis’s gang are all there. I mean, that would just be crazy.’
‘True. So this Lewis Hatcher bullies Will regularly, does he?’
She nodded. ‘He laughs at Will and makes him go red in front of the rest of the class, and he does things like pull his chair away just before he sits down . . . that kind of thing.’
‘That’s horrible,’ I murmured.
‘Will’s a good singer. Mrs Hunter really rates him.
But Lewis told Will that if he auditioned for the main part in the Christmas show to replace Ryan then he’d be in serious trouble,’ said Maisie darkly.
‘He said he was getting the star part, and he probably will because he’s one of Mrs Hunter’s favourites. Mrs Hunter is the music teacher.’
‘Was Will thinking of auditioning, then?’
She shook her head. ‘Too shy.’
Maisie was kicking snow, moulding it into a mound with her foot.
‘Lewis thinks he’s really cool because he’s good-looking and he has lots of girls after him, and the boys all do what he wants because they’re desperate to be in his gang.
’ She looked up. ‘Except for Fergie. He won’t take any of Lewis’s ego-trip nonsense. ’
‘Well, good for him. I very much like the sound of Fergie.’
‘Fergie’s got a rubbish voice.’ She shrugged matter-of-factly. ‘Otherwise, he said he’d audition so he could beat Lewis to the main part.’
I chuckled. ‘That would teach him a lesson.’
‘Honestly, he’s such a creep. He’s always so well-behaved and helpful in Mrs Hunter’s class so she thinks he’s this mature, well-rounded teenager.
’ She gave a derisive snort. ‘Honestly, he gives off such major BDE but really he’s just a mega di –.
’ Her eyes widened dramatically and she broke off with a guilty grimace.
‘BDE?’
‘It’s a bit rude.’
‘You can tell me.’
She glanced back to make sure her mum wasn’t there. ‘Big dick energy?’ she whispered. ‘All the kids say it. Not just me.’
I nodded, trying to suppress a smile. ‘So this Lewis gives off major – er, BDE? – but really he’s just a . . . something beginning with “d”?’
Maisie nodded, clearly wondering if I would dare to say it.
I looked up at the sky for inspiration. ‘Got it! He’s a devil.’
We exchanged a mischievous look. Maisie was far too clever to be taken in by that one.
We both started to laugh . . .