Chapter Fourteen
After her call with Edmund, Imogen wanted to talk to someone who loved her in spite of her mistakes.
‘Why is your hair brown?’ was the first thing she said when Nikki answered the WhatsApp video call. Nikki’s locks were always a beautiful, coppery red.
Nikki yanked at her hair and the copper returned, pinned tightly to her scalp. ‘It’s a wig. I’ve got an audition for a Nineteen Forties stage drama, so I’m making sure I look the part.’
‘Oh Nik, that’s brilliant! When’s the audition?’
‘Next Friday. They want all their ducks in a row before Christmas, so they can start rehearsals straight after. What’s that green thing you’re wearing? How’s your hideaway? I’ve been thinking about you.’
‘It’s … great,’ she said, which completely failed to convey everything she thought about Dexter and her Felix-wrangling, Sophie and the wedding, the cosy, quiet village adorned with mistletoe, the silvery sea, or how the thought of all those things had kept her going through the razorslice of her conversation with Edmund.
‘That was a wistful little “great”,’ Nikki said, and Imogen realized she’d underestimated her friend. ‘Are you going to tell me where you are? I promise I will take your secret to my grave.’
‘I don’t want to put you in a difficult position.’
‘You wouldn’t be. Edmund doesn’t have time for me, and nor does your mum.
’ Nikki rolled over so she was on her stomach, her framed Moulin Rouge poster visible above her.
‘Tell me where you are, and then tell me all about it. Stop me repeating the same three lines of dialogue over and over. I’m sending myself mad. ’
‘OK.’ Imogen needed someone outside Mistingham to talk to, so she told her friend everything, starting with Lucy and Artichoke rescuing her with Dexter’s help, and ending with Felix’s escape.
She explained about Birdie’s green coat, how she’d adopted it, but left out the promise she and Dexter had made, and her call with Edmund.
She still felt raw – bruised – from it. It was over between them, but she wasn’t convinced he’d accepted it, and she wanted to talk about positive things with Nikki.
Her friend must have picked up on that, because she said, ‘Tell me more about Dexter.’
Imogen froze. ‘Why Dexter particularly?’
Nikki rolled her eyes. ‘Because he rescued you, and because every time you say his name it’s like you’re puffing your chest up, like your heart swells when you think of him and you need more room in there.’
‘I still, technically, have a fiancé,’ Imogen said, even though she didn’t.
She’d only just spoken to him, and she wasn’t ready to face what that decision inevitably led to.
She and Edmund were over, so she could end her countryside crisis, go home and start the process of moving out of their flat – it was his before it was theirs – and rebuilding her life. She couldn’t face that yet.
‘Do you really though?’ Nikki gave her a sceptical look. ‘How long are you staying?’
‘At least until after Sophie and Harry’s wedding, and then I don’t think there’s any point in coming back until after Christmas.’
‘You want to have a Christmas like in The Holiday, don’t you? The cottages and the snow and the wintry romance of it all.’
‘The weather’s meant to be awful.’
Nikki tutted. ‘If I hear one more thing about how magical a white Christmas will be after all these years, I will scream. Don’t people realize how fucked the roads will get? If it’s as bad as they’re saying, nobody will be where they want to be for the big day.’
‘They can just hunker down sooner. And I’ll get to see what the beach looks like covered in snow. Snowy beaches are strange, don’t you think? They’re never how you imagine them.’
‘You’ve imploded your life – for the better, let me add, so you’re completely clear on how I feel about it – and you’re worrying about snowy beaches?’
Imogen laughed, feeling lighter now she was talking to her friend. ‘Maybe Mistingham really is having that big an effect on me.’ She made it sound flippant, because she didn’t want Nikki to realize how true a statement that was.
‘Sophie says you’re doing a speech at their wedding,’ Lucy announced on Sunday morning, the moment she and Imogen were settled at Birdie’s kitchen table, piles of mistletoe surrounding them.
There was still a lot left after their village drop-offs, and Birdie had instructed Harry and Sophie to store it in a cold, dark place to preserve it for the wedding. That had ended up being Birdie’s shed.
Half an hour ago, Imogen had been standing next to a pile of green leaves and white berries, determinedly not looking at the ceiling to see how many spiders’ webs there were, wondering how they were going to move it all to the kitchen.
She was also wondering if Birdie had meant it when she said they could work there, amongst her precious herbs and spices, covering the place with Christmas foliage.
But Lucy was full of energy, grabbing fistfuls and running along the cobbled pathways in the garden, through the herb and vegetable beds, depositing it in the kitchen then racing back.
She had turned it into a game, as if she was taking Artichoke’s place while the puppy was banished, her eyes bright from exercise and fresh air.
Now the shed was empty and the kitchen was full, and they were tying sprigs together with frosty blue ribbon, the mistletoe itself free of spray-paint, ready to adorn the manor for the wedding on Saturday.
The evening before she’d spent hours helping Sophie make notebooks – her wedding design was A5, with pastel-coloured, textured card covers and a ribbon binding, the most elegant of wedding favours – and now she was back to mistletoe.
Imogen had never done so much crafting in her life.
‘How do you know I’m doing a speech?’ she asked Lucy.
She had been under the impression that Sophie wanted it to be a surprise for Harry.
‘I heard Dad talking to Sophie,’ Lucy said, as she gathered bunches of foliage in her small hand, ribbon in the other.
‘Here. You hold, I’ll tie.’ Imogen wrapped the ribbon gently around the stems, Lucy keeping her fingers in place until the last minute, when the ribbon cinched tight.
‘I am doing a reading.’ She put the bundle on the ‘done’ pile, which was much smaller than the ‘to-do’ pile.
‘It’s Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, which is a classic, but it’s a classic because it’s beautiful.
It’s all about love, and how real it is. ’
Lucy picked up another bunch, her gaze fixed on her fingers.
Imogen refilled Lucy’s glass from the jug of homemade lemonade Birdie kept in the fridge.
Still, the girl stayed quiet, and Imogen thought how, now they’d done the giddy, racing part of their task, she was less sure of herself without Artichoke, as if the puppy let her be her wildest, truest self; as if she could match the dog’s chaotic, charming spirit.
‘Are you looking forward to Sophie and Harry’s wedding?’ Imogen asked tentatively.
‘Dad says there’s going to be dancing and tiny sausages on sticks, and all the dogs are going to be part of the wedding party, whatever that means, and I’m going to have a nice dress and some flowers in my hair.’
‘All those things are really great, especially the cocktail sausages and your dress. And you like Sophie and Harry, don’t you?’ She could sense there was something Lucy wasn’t saying, and it wasn’t her place to probe, not really, but she didn’t want to ignore it if Lucy wanted to talk.
‘They’re the best.’ Lucy looked up. ‘Harry pretends to be grumpy, but he’s not really, and Sophie is who I want to be when I grow up.’
‘Me too,’ Imogen said quietly, because Sophie was kind and had her shit together.
A laugh burbled out of Lucy. ‘You are grown up. You’re old.’
‘I don’t feel grown up all the time.’ Imogen grinned, the girl’s laughter infectious. ‘And I’m not that old.’
‘My mum got to thirty.’ Lucy said it like it was a badge of honour, and Imogen’s heart fractured.
‘I’m sorry about your mum. Your dad told me a little bit about her.’
‘He said that she will always be beautiful,’ Lucy went on.
‘That she won’t get old or get grey hairs, and that’s really sad because everyone should get all the different bits of life, even the really hard ones when your joints ache, but whenever we think of her, we can remember how beautiful she was – inside and out. ’
Imogen rubbed a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t cry at another family’s grief, but she felt every bit of tenderness in those words, the way Lucy spoke them with confidence, as if Dexter had said them to her a million times.
‘I bet she was,’ she managed. Then, remembering how the conversation had started, she added, ‘Is it going to be sad going to Sophie and Harry’s wedding without your mum there? ’
Lucy shrugged and sipped her lemonade. ‘I think Dad’s going to be sad.’
‘Oh.’ Imogen swallowed. ‘Why?’
‘Because he’s lonely. He has me and Artichoke, and all his friends in the village, but he doesn’t have Mum any more, and I think he’d like the hugs again, like Sophie and Harry have, and Fiona and Ermin. He doesn’t have anyone to hug except me.’
Imogen nodded slowly. ‘Hugs are important. And how would you feel, if he had someone who he could hug? Someone for him like Harry has Sophie?’
‘I wouldn’t mind. He works really hard at the bakery, and then he works really hard looking after me. My friend Amber’s mum says everyone should have things that are just for them. So Dad should, too.’
Imogen sipped her drink. She felt like she’d walked into a minefield, and the slightest wrong step would result in a detonation.
‘He might, a bit further down the line. He might meet someone and feel like he wants to get to know them. But you’ll always be his priority, Lucy.
You’re his daughter.’ Lucy unspooled more of the frosty blue ribbon.
‘Do you think he’ll be lonely at the wedding? It’s all about love, isn’t it?’
‘It is. But mostly Sophie and Harry’s love, and the love between them and their friends. All the people who are celebrating with them.’
‘And you, doing your reading.’
‘And me. I was really pleased to be asked, because I don’t know anyone here that well.’
‘You know me. And Dad. And Birdie.’
‘I’m getting to know you and your dad. And Birdie again too, really. We hadn’t spoken properly for a long time before I came here because our family is complicated.’
‘But at the wedding,’ Lucy said, tightening her ribbon into a bow without any mistletoe inside, ‘can you look after Dad for me?’
Imogen sucked in a breath, both at the question and how grown up it was.
‘I’ve got to be a flower girl with Artichoke, and that’s an important job, so I’m going to be really busy. Dad will be on his own, so could you look after him while I can’t?’
‘I mean … I think that I might …’ She stopped herself.
Her reading was short, and wouldn’t take her away from the congregation for long.
Her concern was more that she could picture Dexter’s butterscotch eyes whenever she closed hers, and his kind smile, and she couldn’t forget what Nikki had said, about her heart swelling whenever she spoke about him.
She wasn’t sure where her feelings were taking her, and that scared her.
But she could hardly deny a ten-year-old a request that, to her, was very straightforward; a girl who was still grieving her mum and worried about her dad.
Imogen would just have to put her own feelings aside, and she was generally good at looking after other people, making sure they were OK.
‘Of course I’ll look after your dad,’ she said.
‘Now, we’d better crack on, or the only place on Saturday that won’t have any mistletoe will be Sophie and Harry’s wedding, and considering he accidentally ordered an entire truck-load and we gave the rest of it away, I don’t think that’ll be the best outcome. ’
Lucy giggled, her sheen of seriousness lifting now she didn’t need to worry about her dad anymore. ‘If there’s no mistletoe, how will Sophie and Harry kiss at the end?’
‘How indeed?’ Imogen said, and she and Lucy shared a smile.