Chapter eleven
Hey, Harriet! So sorry not to be able to make it tomorrow for your baby shower. Wishing you a smooth and safe delivery! All the best, Beth x
For good measure, I’d sent Allen twenty quid for her collection, and arranged for a special stork-shaped balloon to be delivered to the office first thing.
I sat back on the sofa and pressed send, already luxuriating in the relief of not being at Harriet’s nappy-themed party.
I’d been to enough showers to know the drill: Natasha circling the room with a Colin the Caterpillar, pressing everyone to have a piece, particularly those on diets, cooing about ‘magical memories’ with Harriet and any other mothers, then shooting me an ‘aw, this must be hard for you’ sad face, which I’d have to acknowledge in a way that made me look appreciative of her concern yet not crushed by my own spinsterdom.
No one could object to a prior volunteering commitment, right?
I’d heeded Allen’s warning about the gathering storm, but this wasn’t the best day to go back in.
I’d done some research on Christian and the initiatives he’d led in his previous workplace, but also on my hybrid working options.
Obviously I’d have to return at some point, if only for the meeting where I persuaded them to let me work from home full time.
Allen would support me; we both knew I was more efficient at home than I’d ever been in the office, with all the politics and moods and kitchen dramas.
But, for my own confidence, if nothing else, I needed to get myself back to my old self first.
Motivated by my proactive message to Harriet, I pushed myself off the sofa and went to try on the one office outfit not currently in storage: a slouchy grey trouser suit that had hung off me in a flattering way when I bought it in a fit of extravagance, encouraged by Fraser.
I used to style it with a tight black T-shirt, or – in what he’d called, ‘my Parisian literary agent look’ – with a green silk shirt.
It had made me feel understated but very cool, and somehow it always, always fitted.
Not anymore.
Now the waistband was at least seven centimetres off doing up, and the jacket strained around my upper arms, as if I might burst out of it like a caterpillar, or the Incredible Hulk.
That was a whole new humiliating sensation, tight jacket sleeves.
I had to force myself to look in the mirror, and could only hold my own gaze for a nanosecond before looking away again.
Disgusted, I peeled it off, and pulled my jersey harems back on as quickly as I could. I hated feeling exposed, even when there was only me to see.
That honestly wasn’t what I looked like, surely?
How had I not noticed how bad it had got?
I’d kidded myself that I hadn’t put on that much weight recently but every single item in my (very limited) current wardrobe was either stretchy, elasticated or had the word ‘lounge’ somewhere in its description.
I was slowly expanding to fill my harem pants, avoiding mirrors like a vampire. A fat vampire.
I sat gripping my head in my hands for several minutes, sinking deeper and deeper in a toxic puddle of my own contempt and panic, then sat up.
No. I could still fix this. There was time. Generous, kind, guardian angel Allen had given me a tip-off, and I had to take full advantage of it.
I downloaded yet another fitness app, guesstimated my weight, then calculated that if I increased my steps target by seven thousand per day, and did intermittent fasting between noon and seven, I could lose five kilos in about four weeks.
That should get the trousers to zip up. I could get my hair cut, that always helped, and some highlights.
Enough armour to get me through one meeting, and after that . . .
I wasn’t thinking beyond that.
But I had a plan, so at least I was doing something. Things could look very different in a month’s time. If I started now.
Tomsk was more than happy to support me with some extra lunchtime steps. We went for a long loop around the canal, up through the park (avoiding the coffee cart, which I couldn’t help noticing now did sugared doughnuts), and back home, where I found a pile of books on my doorstep.
I guessed, from the subject matter alone, where they’d come from: there were several creative writing guides, and on the bottom, two novels, The Dancing Heart and The Soul of Discretion by one Elizabeth Buckingham.
Having a clear-out – thought these might aid your inspiration!
said the Post-it note on top. Martine had beautiful handwriting.
I took them as the hint they clearly were and, once I’d despatched my remaining work for the day, settled down to an afternoon’s grappling with Seraphina and Arthur.
Seraphina – I wasn’t even sure that was the right name now – was more a vague collection of descriptions than a real person.
Reading back through what I’d written, I realised that in the course of seven scenes her hair changed colour from chestnut to wheat-blond back to chestnut, and was sometimes bouncy ringlets, sometimes smooth like draped silk, and she sighed too much.
Like, constantly, as if she had breathing difficulties.
Arthur, her beloved, was much more consistently defined with his characterful face, straight, dark eyebrows and thatch of blond hair; usually he was dressed in riding boots and tight breeches.
I could have described Arthur Hammond all day long, but sadly my mental block was preventing me from making him do something.
I’d eventually finished the tearful farewell at the fireplace (which was quite well described, if I said so myself; I’d cried, anyway) but after that I had a yawning blank until the big reunion.
I flipped listlessly through Martine’s books, in search of the magic spell that might help my plot come to life.
The books were helpful in the sense of telling me how to write something, but not – as Seraphina continued to just kind of stand there in the library while the seasons changed behind her on the mantelpiece – what to write.
I knew there was a painful parting; I knew there was an emotional reunion.
But I couldn’t work out what came in between.
I stared at my screen. Seraphina felt as if . . . What? What did Seraphina feel?
Nothing came to me.
I dangled my hand over the edge of the sofa, where Tomsk was snoring throatily, worn out by squirrels and smells.
I scratched his head. Maybe I should give Seraphina a dog?
What sort of dog would she own? Inspired, I made a shortlist of four possible breeds, then got stuck – as usual – on the thorny question of names.
I reached for the pile of books, and picked up Martine’s novel. Reading often stoked my brain into action, and The Dancing Heart promised to be a real page-turner, going by the glowing reviews on the back (albeit from people I’d never heard of).
Love is a luxury for a young woman like Bernadette Machin, who dreams of a world far away from the hard graft of farming life . . .
Or maybe not. I turned to the author biography in the front.
There was a soft-focus photo of Martine – or Elizabeth Buckingham – looking pleased with herself in a red polo neck, her chin propped coquettishly on one hand.
The accompanying personal details were so deliberately vague it made her seem as if she was in a witness protection programme.
I wondered why she’d chosen to call herself Elizabeth Buckingham, when Martine Henderson was a perfectly good name for a romantic author. Privacy, I supposed.
Opening the book at a random page – it felt as if I was the first person to open it at all – I found myself in the middle of a torrid love scene between Bernadette and someone called Lord Heatherington; despite their close embrace they were managing to have quite a wordy conversation, mainly about estate management.
Knowing how much of my own experiences I poured into my writing, I could understand why Fraser and his siblings had delegated Perry to read it for them, and it was almost a relief when Tomsk sprang to his feet, barked, and then two seconds later there was a knock at the front door.
Was it so unreasonable that I’d assume the bouquet of spring flowers was for me? Especially given that the delivery man knocked on my door, shoved them into my hands and rushed off without speaking.
Fraser was the only person who’d ever given me flowers, and though I barely acknowledged it to myself, whenever I saw a florist’s van nearby I secretly crossed my fingers, even now.
So when I opened the card and saw the words love from fraser printed by the florist, my heart did a massive cartoon ba-doom in my chest, and a big stupid smile spread across my face.
Had Jackie told him I was staying – and why?
Had Martine? Maybe this was his way of saying, Sorry you’re having a bad time, glad we’re able to help?
‘Oh my God, Tomsk!’ I said, because I needed to tell someone. ‘Look at these!’
He swept his tail from side to side, and I turned over the card, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. ‘Look, it says—’
MARTINE HENDERSON, 13 COLERIDGE DRIVE, LONGHAMPTON
‘Oh.’ The excitement drained out of me, leaving behind a chilly dampness, tinged with self-loathing. What was I thinking? Ugh. This was what happened when you spent too much time imagining romantic situations.
I went round to the front door, so as not to startle Martine with a knock at the back, and rang the doorbell.
When there was no answer after a couple of minutes, then several minutes, I crouched and peered through the brass letterbox. I could see four black bin bags in the hall, and some crates of books.
‘Martine?’ I called. No response.