Chapter Thirty-Six
Hattie took a few breaths and then checked the train time that Leonie had given her. After she’d picked up Xander tomorrow morning, she’d want to give him some attention as well as explain the situation, so she’d have to get as much as she could done now.
Although he had asked her to do it, Hattie still felt as if she was intruding on Luke’s privacy as she faced his desk in the corner of the sitting room.
Of course she didn’t have to feminise it, but she did think it had to be tidier.
As dealing with it seemed like too big a task, she went into the garage and found some boxes.
No woman she knew would be prepared to share the dining table with a power drill and Luke had two of them on his.
As Hattie knew he travelled with an entire tool kit she wondered why he felt the need for so many. She put them both in the box.
She got into her work. She put music on and cleared and cleaned until she’d removed almost all traces of building equipment.
It was amazing how much of it was scattered through the house.
She made sure she left lots of traces of Luke himself, but when she was done there wasn’t a table drill or router in sight.
She found a large jug which did well as a vase when she’d found enough greenery, plus a few flowers, to fill it. But the house still looked bare. She needed props. She rang Rose.
‘You’re not going to tell me you’ve put an offer in on that house!’ said Rose, not giving Hattie time to say hello.
‘No! Something far nicer!’ Hattie explained what was going on.
‘OMG!’ said Rose. ‘I’d be over in a shot if we weren’t going to friends for dinner. But I’ll bring over all the throws and cushions and bits and pieces you could possibly want tomorrow, early. I’m driving tonight so I won’t drink and will be up with the actual lark!’
The two friends disconnected shortly afterwards and Hattie realised how joyful it was to have a happy conversation with her friend. Recently their discussions had been so serious.
Having collapsed on to the sofa to call her friend, Hattie realised that she was hungry.
She’d done enough for the evening, she decided, and, heaving herself out of the sofa (which definitely needed more cushions – and not just for the aesthetic), she made her way to the kitchen.
She found bread in the freezer, some cheese which looked quite new and made toast. A quick hunt through the cupboards and she found a bottle of Lea and Perrins; Luke had inadvertently provided her favourite meal.
Rose was on the doorstep at eight o’clock. ‘I know it’s early, but I didn’t know what time you had to pick up Xander and I’ve got a lot on. Friday is always super busy at the shop. The car is full of props. Come and help me in with them.’
‘You are the best friend anyone could ever have, Rose!’
But when Hattie saw everything piled into the back of Rose’s car, she said, ‘You haven’t gone too over the top, have you? I’m not sure Luke is ready for a chandelier in the kitchen, although I love the idea myself.’
Rose laughed. ‘That’s not for you! It’s almost all soft furnishings and of course I kept Luke firmly in mind when I made my selection.
Some of the cushions I want back first thing on Monday morning; they belong on my sofa.
’ She made a face. ‘And I brought you loads of chunky candles. They always look nice.’
Hattie took hold of the oversized shopping bags Rose extracted from the boot of her car and handed to her. ‘You didn’t need to sacrifice your own things for this, Rose!’
‘I thought it best if we had lots of choice.’ Rose hung another couple of bags over her arm and closed the boot of her car. ‘Come on, get the kettle on. We haven’t got all day! Where are you planning to cook for them?’
Hattie did have to keep Rose a bit in check. While Hattie really liked Rose’s ample, exuberant attitude to interior decoration, she had to remind her it was Luke’s house and although for the duration of the weekend it was her house too, it couldn’t be too over the top.
‘Luke’s a minimalist,’ she explained, handing Rose a cup of coffee.
‘But we all know it’s the woman who sets the style really, isn’t it?’
Hattie nodded. ‘But it’s not my house in real life. I don’t want him to think I’ve actually moved in.’
‘You know he’d be fine with it.’
As there wasn’t time to start an argument, Hattie didn’t comment. She just tucked in the throw that Rose had flung over the sofa.
By the time they finished, the house looked homely but stylish, comfortable but not so feminine that Hattie couldn’t imagine Luke living there.
Throws and cushions covered the two sofas.
A glass vase, full of the flowers that Hattie had put in a jug plus a few more, now graced the coffee table.
There were extra utensils in an old pottery storage jar in the kitchen.
(Hattie liked this so much she resolved to buy it when she had a house of her own to put it in.) Some wicker baskets hung from the beams in the boot room and a mirror hung over the washbasin in the downstairs cloakroom.
A blue enamel jug had been filled with dried lavender.
Rose had even gone to the trouble of digging out a couple of her own jackets to hang there too.
The house looked as if a couple lived in it.
Hattie was pleased and she hoped Luke would be too.
In the end, she left Luke’s desk almost exactly as it was.
She just put all the papers in piles and squared them off.
He should be able to find everything but it looked fairly neat.
But as she finished the job, her eye was caught by a business card that had escaped the neatening process.
She went to tuck it out of sight when she saw the name.
It was April, the local estate agent she had introduced to Luke at her birthday party.
On the back of the card was a handwritten note.
‘I called by but missed you! I’ll try again. ’ Then the initial A followed by an X.
Hattie rammed it into the papers and went to find her car keys. Although she tried to focus on Xander and how much she was looking forward to seeing him, that little X niggled at her all the way to the station.
‘Why do we have to pretend you and Luke are an item? Why aren’t you an item?’ said Xander.
She had received a surprisingly strong hug from the boy when he had emerged from the station with his luggage, one she had gladly returned. But once they’d put his things in the car, he was all business.
‘We have to pretend because his friends are coming for the weekend and they think we’re a couple because we went to a dinner dance together. These people keep trying to find dates for him. If they think he’s already in a relationship, they’ll stop.’
‘And?’
‘And what?
‘Why aren’t you and Luke an item?’
‘We’re friends, Xander. That works fine.’
‘I’d be OK with it if you did get together.’
This took Hattie aback rather. ‘Glad to hear it, Xan, but don’t worry, it won’t be an issue.’
‘Mum was really awkward asking me about Tom. But honestly, she’s so much less stressy now she’s got him. And he doesn’t try and be my dad, so it’s cool.’ He turned to look at her. ‘Luke’s cool, you know.’
‘That’s very good hear to hear,’ said Hattie. ‘Now, I want to swing by Mary’s house. There’s a garden full of herbs and I need some. They’ll bring my salad to life this evening.’
‘Would that be scrumping, Hattie?’ said Xander.
‘I’m surprised you know that concept, and I suppose it would be. Although “scrumping for mint” doesn’t sound quite like “scrumping for apples”, does it?’
‘I think you’ll find it’s the principle of the thing,’ said her nephew.
It was a bit disconcerting to see an estate agent’s sign in the front garden of Mary’s house. It wasn’t a local agent, or Hattie could have called to find out what was going on with it without Clive knowing.
‘I’ll park a little way away from the house,’ she said, pulling off the road. ‘I’ll show you what to pick. I’ll get the rosemary and thyme as it’s harder to pick without scissors.’
‘Have you got scissors?’ asked Xander.
‘I have my trusty Swiss Army knife,’ said Hattie.
When Hattie and Xander had liberated enough herbs to keep her going for a few days they went back to the car.
‘So, you’d like me to drop you off at Luke’s and I’ll go shopping on my own? I do have a very long list.’
‘That would be good, if you don’t mind. I’m a bit tired.’
‘Fair enough but don’t untidy anything, will you? I’ve tidied and gussied up the house for these people. I don’t want to do it again.’
‘I’ll just lie on the sofa and watch YouTube.’
Only briefly did Hattie wonder what her sister would think about this plan.
Hattie had made her list carefully and it included a few labour-saving items on it.
Ready-chopped sofrito, pre-made cheese sauce and fresh pasta slices were among them.
For pudding she planned to make Mary’s classic trifle recipe which didn’t faff about with jelly and took about ten minutes to assemble.
She was prepared to provide a very nice meal for Luke’s friends but she wasn’t prepared to spend a lifetime doing it.
She was soon home and cooking. She had added a nice heavy frying pan to her purchases that she intended to keep for herself; she deducted it from Luke’s grocery bill.
The lasagne was all ready to go into the oven and Hattie had started on the trifle when Xander came in, obviously hungry. He looked at the trifle ingredients. ‘I’m not sure I’ll like that,’ he said.
Hattie sighed. ‘OK. I suppose it’s nice to offer a choice of pudding. I’ll try to think of something else. Only it can’t be difficult and we have to remember Luke’s cupboards aren’t terribly well stocked.’
Hattie had bought flour in case she hadn’t been able to get ready-made cheese sauce and had lots of butter.