Chapter 6
6
TWO MONTHS LATER – 12 JULY
Lucie lay back on the sun lounger in her dad’s garden trying to relax and enjoy the warmth of this beautiful morning. She closed her eyes and took a slow breath in and out.
It was the start of her ‘compassionate leave’ absence from work, which would allow her several weeks of fully paid absence, followed by as much unpaid leave as she needed.
‘Take your time,’ her manager had insisted. ‘We’ll miss you, of course, but don’t come back until you are ready.’
Thinking ahead to when her father would be gone was awful, so she tried not to do much of that. Next week, her brother and his family were arriving from Australia and the move to the hospice would be coming soon. Her dad, ever practical, had already made all the funeral arrangements, right down to the choice of sandwiches, and had even organised a survey of the house and chosen the estate agent.
‘All you and Ritchie will need to do post-D-Day is pack the place up, call the lawyer and liaise with the estate agent. A hassle, I know, but it will keep you busy and stop you dwelling on what’s been and gone,’ her father had told her in his usual upbeat tone.
It was strange, but the frailer he grew, the more cheerful he seemed to become. Lucie was beginning to wonder if this wasn’t something to do with the drugs he was on. He’d always been an energetic optimist, but now, his happiness was on an even higher plane, edging towards euphoria.
She glanced over to the sun lounger set at a little distance from hers, where her dad, almost skeletally thin now, was determinedly puzzling his way through the daily crossword.
‘Eight letters, “m” blank, blank, “r”, ceremony to join two together in wedded bliss,’ he said, but there was a crafty edge to these words.
‘Dad!’ she complained gently. ‘That is not in the crossword! If you want to bring up the fact that Miles’s marriage is this weekend, you can just say so, but I’ve got no comment.’
‘Are you regretting your decision yet?’ he asked.
‘No! I want to be here with you, enjoying this gorgeous weather and the daily crossword challenge.’
‘I have no idea why,’ he said. ‘Not when you could be in the south of France with your family… drinking, dancing…’
‘Laughing at Miles’s hair plugs and Jacasta’s over-the-top gown,’ she added sourly.
This made her father laugh.
‘Really, he’s been mucking about with his hair?’ he asked.
‘From the photo Zoe showed me, his hair and his teeth look suspiciously different. But if you’ve got a young wife who’s an “influencer”’ – Lucie couldn’t resist a snort – ‘then you’ve got to keep up.’
‘What in the heck is an “influencer”?’ her dad asked. ‘One of those social media types that flogs their wares to their “followers”, I suppose.’
‘You’ve got it – apparently clothes and cookware are her areas of expertise.’ Lucie tried to sound casual about it, but in truth, she had spent more hours than she would care to admit following the gilded, carefully ‘curated’ online presence of beautiful Jacasta Fletcher. Yes, she was following #Jacastasweddingstory on Instagram and had snooped about the wedding website.
Honestly, she’d always known Miles was vain, but she didn’t know how he could stand this level of scrutiny on his every move – those endless photos of the ‘happy couple’ strewn all over Jacasta’s feeds tagged #mygorgeousfiancé #bridetobe #myeternallove #abouttobeyourwife. It was nauseating.
‘Zoe is very excited about going,’ her dad added.
‘Yes, well, Zoe loves her daddy. So much easier to love someone who didn’t completely rip you off.’ She heard exactly how bitter that sounded, but once in a while, she had to let the darkness out.
Her father turned his head to look at her. ‘Do you think that’s what happened?’ he asked.
‘Well… I thought I’d divorced a nearly bankrupt man. I left with hardly anything. I left with his debt on my credit card, which I’m still paying off, by the way. But here he is, just two years later, having some big, lavish, south of France wedding. Is that not a bit suspicious?’ she fired back.
‘Did he fold up all the companies?’ her dad asked.
‘Well, according to Miles’s lawyer,’ Lucie began, because that was how she’d managed to weasel out this nugget of information, ‘there may have been one commercial property, registered overseas, that he managed to hang on to, so maybe it?—’
‘Has turned around,’ her father said, finishing the thought.
‘And if that’s the case, then don’t you think I should be entitled to a share of it?’
Her father let out a sigh. ‘Hard to say, my darling. The important thing is not to stoke up your bitterness about it all. Keep moving forward, keep looking forward. You will be very comfortable once I’ve popped my clogs. You can make big plans… or just sit around and enjoy life for a change… like I am trying to.’
He brought the paper up to his face again.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to bring all that up.’
‘No time to be bitter, keep moving forwards,’ he told her again. ‘There’s a lot of life left to live – for you, anyway.’
‘Dad…’ she warned.
‘Sorry. Right… Unworldly, eight letters, ends in “nt”.’
But thoughts as to what this word could be were interrupted for them both by the trill of Lucie’s phone. She picked it up and looked at the screen.
‘It’s Zoe,’ she said before she answered. ‘Hello, darling, how are you doing?’
‘Mum, have you seen the news?’ Zoe blurted out, sounding totally upset.
‘No, what’s the matter?’
‘It’s the trains! Eurostar has just announced a three-day strike, starting tomorrow!’
It took a few moments for Lucie to piece it together – Eurostar, the Channel Tunnel, the train to France… Miles’s bloody wedding.
‘Oh, Zoe, were you going by train? I thought you would be flying.’
‘The train was going to be fine,’ she replied. ‘I thought it would be much more comfortable, easy access to the loo – but a three-day strike!’
‘Oh hell. Can you get a flight?’
‘No! I’ve been trying for two hours solid. Everything is booked. The only option is a car ferry crossing tomorrow night. So I’ve booked that, but…’
Again, it took Lucie a few moments to join the dots – Zoe didn’t have a car, and maybe Rafi didn’t have a car either.
‘Can you hire a car?’ she asked her daughter.
‘Yes, of course I could hire a car! But it’s a bloody long drive for a woman who can’t get comfortable, needs to wee every hour, and takes a regular daily nap,’ her daughter snapped back.
‘So can Rafi drive?’ Lucie asked.
She heard the long and angry sigh. ‘There are two problems with that’ – she heard her daughter’s angry tone – ‘one, Rafi can’t drive, and two, Rafi isn’t coming.’
‘Oh… but why not?’
‘Couldn’t get the time off work, apparently.’
Lucie knew her daughter well enough to hear the underlying fury in those words. Now was not the time to launch into any kind of motherly ‘are you sure he’s really committed’ line of questioning.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Lucie asked, genuinely not knowing what the solution was here. Maybe her seven and a half months pregnant daughter would have to stay at home and join in with the lavish, influencer-themed celebrations on Zoom, like in the Covid days.
‘Oh my God!’ Zoe stormed. ‘Is that all you can say? What am I going to do? I thought, Mum, I thought you’d at least offer…’
‘Offer what?’ Lucie asked, totally caught off guard.
‘To drive me!’ Zoe’s voice had now moved into a high-pitched mix of fury and upset.
‘Drive you?’ Lucie repeated, completely astonished. ‘All the way to Perpignan… when Dad is so ill and to My Ex-husband’s Wedding ?’
‘It’s Dad’s wedding!’ Zoe exclaimed. ‘And I have to go. I absolutely have to be there!’
‘No, you don’t!’ Lucie’s voice was raised too now. Really, what planet was her daughter on? How could Lucie leave her dad? And drive to Perpignan in what exactly? Her ancient old Nissan? All the way down there? Good grief, that journey couldn’t even be done in one day. They’d have to make an overnight stop… No, no, no, it was out of the question.
‘My car would struggle to make it to Dover,’ Lucie added, ‘let alone the south of bloody France. You’ll have to think of something else.’
To her surprise, Zoe hung up.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Lucie exclaimed, looking at her phone in dismay.
‘Oh dear me,’ came her dad’s calm and unruffled response.
Lucie suspected the hurt, the surprise and the dismay was written all over her face, but nonetheless, her dad was now smiling at her. Yes, that euphoric ‘all is right with the world’ smile was growing wider and wider, as if he’d just had the most wonderful idea.
‘Well, my dear, this is fate playing its hand,’ he began. ‘This is meant to be!’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she snapped.
‘From what I could gather, Zoe can’t get to the wedding without a car and a driver. So, if you agree to be the driver, dear Lucie, well then, I have the car!’ He looked completely delighted at the idea.
‘Oh no, Dad,’ Lucie said straightaway, ‘I am not driving Zoe to France and I am absolutely not driving Zoe to France in your enormous Jag.’
In Lucie’s opinion, the swanky Jaguar XJS, bought as her father’s retirement present to himself, was a ridiculous car. It had cost a fortune to buy. It cost a further fortune to run and maintain, but if her father wanted to swan about in this showy monster on the fifty or so miles he drove every month, well, that was his business.
‘But the old girl hasn’t had a proper adventure for years,’ her dad added.
‘I hope you’re referring to the car.’
‘Of course…’ He laughed. ‘But that’s exactly what she needs – the open road, the wind in her hair, the bright sunshine on her face…’
‘Still talking about the car?’
‘Well, maybe you and the car,’ he admitted. ‘Look, if I could go on this one last glorious journey with the Jag, I bloody well would. So, why don’t you do it for me?’ With a wink, he added, ‘Call it my dying wish.’
‘Dad, that is emotional blackmail and completely unfair!’ she protested.
‘Would I have driven a heavily pregnant you to the south of France if you absolutely had to go?’ he asked, fixing his clear blue eyes onto hers.
She swallowed. And felt the prickle as tears formed in her own eyes.
Her dad, who had always, always been there for her. Who was still there for her. What would she do without him? Dear God, it was just cruel.
‘I don’t want you to… leave us,’ she heard herself say in a low voice. ‘I keep thinking that it can’t happen if I’m here with you.’
He smiled. ‘Look, I promise, I am not going to die this weekend.’ He slapped his thigh vigorously. ‘Plenty of life left in this stringy old bean. Now, I want you to go. I want you to take my beautiful car and drive your daughter to the wedding. Don’t go to the thing if you don’t want to. Book a hotel, drink wine, eat cheese, swim in the sea, and when it’s all over, drive her safely back home again. I will still be here. I promise. Ritchie and his family arrive on Thursday and I’m not missing that!’
When her expression still hadn’t changed, he threw in, ‘I’ll pay the petrol because she’s a thirsty old girl, and your hotel, my treat. So, you have no reason to say no, Lucie. None. Plus, it will be good for you and Zoe to spend some time together. You’ll have time to talk. Time to find out all about this Rafi. Reconnect with your girl and put your worries to rest before the baby arrives.’
Lucie was sitting straight up on the lounger now and her arms were folded.
Her overriding feeling was that she didn’t want to go, but still, she had to admit, some of what her dad had said was true. It wouldn’t be easy having a fourteen-hour conversation with Zoe, or however long this journey was going to take. It really would not be easy. And it might do them good… or they might fall out forever – that was a definite risk.
But still, she didn’t want to go.
She didn’t want to be anywhere near bloody Miles and his bloody wedding.
Her phone burst into life again and although she expected it to be Zoe, when she looked at the caller ID, she was very surprised to see the name of Miles’s sister, Melissa.
Melissa?
They hadn’t spoken since well before the divorce. And Lucie hadn’t liked Melissa all that much to begin with. All that fussing over her three girls and her, quite frankly, weird and totally indulged little boy, Deva. Deva had allergies and couldn’t eat x, y and z. Deva had asthma and needed a room with fresh air and no carpeting. Deva turned out to be neurodiverse, so was allowed to wear headphones and trainers and jogging bottoms to every family event. Maybe he’d wear them to the wedding.
He would be a teenager now, of course, or maybe older. As her father had pointed out, they’d never seen much of Melissa’s family, Zoe’s cousins.
‘Hello, Melissa, it’s Lucie,’ she said, answering the call.
‘Oh, Lucie, thank goodness I still have your number,’ Melissa gushed. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine. How about you?’
‘We’re all well… very well, thanks. I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch…’
‘Yes… well…’
Awkward pause.
‘So…’ Melissa went on. ‘It’s about Miles’s wedding.’
‘Oh, right… well, it may come as a surprise, but I won’t be going to this one,’ Lucie said, wondering what on earth Melissa could possibly be calling her about, two years since she’d ceased to be Miles’s wife.
‘No, of course. I understand. Yes…’ Melissa hesitated. ‘It’s just, um, I don’t have a number for Zoe and I was wondering how she was planning to travel, because Deva, he’s in London now. And he was going to go on the Eurostar. Why he didn’t book a plane, I’ve no idea. Oh good grief…’ she exclaimed, voice rising. ‘This is such a mess!’
‘And the Eurostar has just announced a three-day strike.’ Lucie was catching on – Deva was now in the same situation as Zoe.
‘Exactly. What a disaster!’ Melissa continued. ‘And Deva gets so completely stressed when there’s an unexpected change of plan. We’re all flying from Glasgow. I’ve tried to get him booked onto a flight from London, or a flight from Glasgow, but there’s absolutely nothing. So then I thought about Zoe. How is she travelling?’
‘She was booked onto the train too,’ Lucie began with a strange sinking feeling. ‘But she’s managed to get a ferry crossing for a car tomorrow evening.’
‘Oh?’
Lucie heard the little note of hope in Melissa’s voice. And the sinking feeling grew.
Then she looked up at her father, who was smiling and raising his hands. ‘The fates have intervened,’ he said.
‘So…’ Lucie took a breath. ‘I’m going to drive Zoe all the way there,’ she heard herself say, though she could hardly believe it. Then, even more unbelievably, she added: ‘Deva is very welcome to join us.’
‘Oh! Oh, my goodness, that’s amazing!’ Melissa sounded almost tearful. ‘Thank you, thank you so much! This is so kind of you. We’ll chip in for some of the cost, of course. But thank you, Lucie. Deva will be so relieved.’
Lucie could hardly believe it. What on earth was she signing up to now?
Bloody Miles and his bloody wedding !