Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
T he night of the Halloween Ball is finally here. The whole village is alive with anticipation. The café has been closed for the day, because Laura and Cherie were sorting out the food for the party, along with Max’s daughter, Sophie, who has come home from uni for the event.
A lot of young people have migrated back to Budbury for the weekend, and they bring a different energy with them.
Ranging in ages from late teens through to mid-twenties, it strikes me how happy they all seem to be back with their grown-ups.
I suppose if I’d had a mum like Laura or a dad like Cal, I’d want to spend time with them too.
I know it’s not been plain sailing, that there has been loss and pain, but the overwhelming feeling is one of warmth and contentment.
If I’d been lucky enough to have children, I’d be delighted that they were still interested in leaving their big city lives in places like London, Liverpool, Manchester and Cardiff just to come back to this tiny little place in the middle of nowhere.
Even Sally is impressed, and says she hopes Lucy and Libby feel the same once they fly the nest.
I wish they were here tonight, now I come to think of it.
Libby would start off shy, but eventually she’d love it here, with all these friendly and delightfully eccentric people.
Edie just might be her spirit animal. Lucy would immediately latch on to Max’s kids or hang out with Zoe’s Martha or Laura’s older ones and have an absolute blast. Hopefully there will be a similar vibe if they come down at Christmas.
I am putting the finishing touches to my make-up and doing a final inspection of my outfit.
I’m in my bedroom, which doesn’t have a full-length mirror, but I’m making do.
Sally has, predictably enough, commandeered the one bathroom in the house, as she has since she arrived.
Tonight I don’t mind, because I can hear her singing in there.
She sounds more upbeat than she has in days, as she merrily slaughters Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’.
Ollie has called her a few more times, admittedly once to ask her where she keeps the iron, but he’s sounded slightly more concerned each time.
Perhaps it’s finally sinking in with him that this might not be something he can ignore and hope it goes away.
I bloody well hope so, at least, for all of our sakes.
I’m running a brush through my hair– or actually my wig– when she walks into the room.
‘What do you think?’ she asks, spinning around in a little circle. ‘Still got the magic?’
‘If by “magic” you mean an impressive cleavage, then yes, you look just as good as a slutty nurse as you did years ago!’
That’s not one hundred per cent true– she is slightly thicker around the waist, and her face bears the passage of time as you’d expect– but she does look terrific.
Blood, hopefully fake, is spattered all over her chest and stomach, and she’s wearing fishnets and high heels, just like real nurses do.
She nods and punches the air in victory, before looking me up and down.
She lets out a small whistle, and says: ‘Wow. That looks… strangely hot on you.’
‘You think? It’s not a bit too much?’
‘It’s Halloween! No such thing as too much! You already have the lovely pale skin, and your red lippie is gorgeous. Just let me do a bit more eyeliner for you…’
She brings up a picture on her phone, and looks from it to me, nodding. Sally was always better at girl stuff than I was, so I put myself in her hands as she works. It’s actually kind of nice. Maybe we’ll bond.
‘There. That’s better. The dress suits you, but you should really get a push-up bra.’
Right. Well, maybe we won’t bond after all. I actually did get a push-up bra, but I’m not going to embarrass myself by admitting that to her.
She finishes fussing with me, then insists we have a photo shoot.
Some are of us together, and some are very much shots of her boobs that I know she’ll be making sure she posts on her family group chat to make Ollie jealous.
It’s only just after six, and we’ve arranged to go to the pub for a drink first. There is a coach to take us from the village and back, but I’ve volunteered to be our designated driver for the night.
Aidan’s place is a little more remote, and at the very least I owe him a lift. Possibly for the rest of his life.
There’s a knock on the door, and I feel a little flutter in my belly.
I glance at myself again, and in the space of three seconds flat I decide that I look awful, then that I look great, then that I look like an idiot.
What was I thinking? I should have gone for Laura’s ghost sheet idea.
Sally notices my expression, and grins at me.
‘You look eminently fuckable,’ she says, making me laugh. ‘Are you nervous? You seem nervous. Aidan is going to flip, don’t worry!’
‘I’m not nervous,’ I lie, trying to convince myself. Truthfully, I feel jittery for no good reason. Aidan is not actually my boyfriend and I don’t need to impress him. So why am I staring at myself in the mirror, wondering what he’s going to think?
Sally trots down the stairs, and I hear her exclaim when she sees him. ‘Oh my god! Aidan, you look divine. You two are going to be the hottest couple at the Halloween Ball!’
She sounds like a teenager, and I wonder how much of Lucy and Libby has rubbed off on her. It makes me laugh though, and I take a deep breath and run my hands over my waist and hips to smooth down the dress. I suppose I’d better go and face the full horror of the night ahead.
As I appear at the top of the stairs, he is right there at the bottom, gazing up at me.
I falter and grab hold of the handrail to steady myself.
He looks so damn fine I almost lose my breath.
It might just be a costume, but he wears the double-breasted pin-striped suit like a god.
His dark hair is slicked back, and even the stupid fake moustache somehow looks good on him.
All of that is pretty delicious, but it’s the way he’s looking at me that is really sending my pulse racing.
He is watching my every step as I descend, his eyes on mine, the heart-melting smile on his lips.
When Aidan looks at me like this, so direct and so intense, I lose my grasp on reality.
He has a way of making me feel like we’re the only two people in the entire world.
He holds out his hand for mine to grasp as I reach the final step, and lifts it to his lips. I hear Sally sigh a little as he kisses my fingers and says: ‘My darling Morticia. Stunning, as always.’
‘Gomez,’ I say, nodding at him. ‘Looking pretty snazzy yourself.’
We stand there for a few moments, holding hands and smiling at each other. Or maybe it’s longer than that, because Sally says: ‘Earth to the Addams family! Earth to the Addams family! Are we going to the pub or are you two just going to gaze into each other’s eyes all night? It’s disgusting!’
I laugh and the three of us head across the road. The weather has been kind today, cold and sunny, but by this time of the evening all traces of the sun have disappeared. We’re left with an inky blue sky, a scattering of stars, and the mildest of breezes.
We only stay in the pub for half an hour, because we’re under strict instructions from Edie not to be ‘fashionably late’.
‘At my age, I like to start early and be in bed before midnight, dear,’ she told me. ‘It’s not so much that I’ll turn into a pumpkin, more that I might fall asleep in public and that dreadful Becca would take pictures of me drooling and post them on Instagran.’
‘Instagram?’ I asked.
‘No, it’s a special one for old crones…’
Nobody likes to disappoint Edie, so before too long I shepherd my already slightly tipsy sister into my car and drive us up to Briarwood.
I suspect she’s gone full teenager tonight and been on the vodkas before we even left the house.
‘Pre-drinks’, as Lucy always call it when she meets up with friends before a party.
Briarwood is the perfect place for a Halloween Ball, full of brooding Gothic charm, perched high on its hill and surrounded by mysterious woodland.
Tonight, somebody has set up a spectacular light show, probably one of the tech geniuses that call Briarwood home.
Huge red and green projections are flickering over the building, casting glowing images of pumpkins, cats and witch’s cauldrons.
Every window is lit up with pulsating red strobes, and the place looks spectacular in the darkness.
‘Wow,’ says Sally as she clambers out of the car, ‘I wonder if someone’s sitting in a space station telling NASA about this?’
We walk through into the lobby and are greeted by an unnerving number of Minions.
There are dozens of them, bouncing around the hallway in a blur of yellow, taking coats and handing out glasses of sparkling red liquid.
I’m guessing that they’re the residents, and this is confirmed when I see Finn, the manager, dressed as Gru.
Or as much as he can be, considering that he’s a handsome blond dude.
One of the Minions shows us through to a side room that is packed with food and drink.
I’ve seen some of it in its research stages, and the café ladies have really outdone themselves.
The whole buffet is Halloween themed, from the jelly with eyeballs in it to the sandwiches cut into the shape of gravestones.
There’s a spectacular black and red layer cake decorated with marzipan spiders, and a mummy made entirely out of cheese.
It almost looks too good to eat, but I spot a group of kids sitting under the tables already tucking into loaded plates.