Chapter 34
It was the middle of December, a glitzy new restaurant had opened on Park Street, and Disa had been keen for them to try it.
She arrived at Fen’s flat in a swirl of faux-fur that exactly matched her ash-blonde hair.
Having admired the kitchen Fen had recently finished redecorating in shades of deep blue and bronze, her attention was caught by the calendar on the wall.
‘What does that say?’ Disa wasn’t wearing her reading glasses. ‘Whose birthday is it tomorrow?’
It was cold outside. Ready to leave, Fen finished winding a cream wool scarf around her neck. ‘Jamie’s.’
‘Is it really? But that isn’t your writing. Who put it on your calendar?’
Fen’s heart gave a squeeze at the memory.
It had been the day after their return from Venice.
Leon had turned up in the morning with a bag of hot breakfast baps, eager to see her again and to explore her flat.
Since it was tiny, it hadn’t taken long at all, but he’d paid appreciative attention to the paintings hung on the walls, the framed photos of Disa and Declan taken in years gone by, and the multicoloured glass chandelier she’d fallen in love with online and had saved up for for months.
In the kitchen, spotting the calendar pinned up next to the window, he’d turned the pages until he reached October.
Reaching for the ballpoint pen nestled in the bottom of an otherwise empty fruit bowl, he scrawled Leon’s birthday with a flourish in the relevant square, then said, ‘Not that you’ll have a chance to forget it. I’ll probably remind you most days.’
‘Now what are you doing?’
He’d flipped over the next two pages. On the square belonging to the thirteenth of December, he wrote Jamie’s birthday. He grinned. ‘We don’t want to forget his, either. He’d go spare if he didn’t get his present from me.’
‘What do you buy the man who has everything?’
‘Exactly. That’s why I always give him the same thing, every year without fail.’
Fen had started to laugh. ‘You do? What is it?’
Back in the present day, Disa interrupted her train of thought. ‘Have you posted the card off already?’
‘What card?’
‘The one for Jamie.’
‘No. I wasn’t planning on sending one.’
‘Sweetheart, you must. Opening cards on your birthday is the best feeling; it lets you know people are thinking of you!’
Needless to say, Disa was a diehard card person. She sent gorgeous, carefully chosen ones and loved receiving them in return. Fen said, ‘He’ll have loads. He doesn’t need one from me. Are we ready to go?’
But it came as no surprise two hours later, after lunch in the restaurant that had more than lived up to its promise, when Disa drifted – in that casual way she had – into one of the shops on Park Street that happened to sell, among other things, quirky cards for every occasion.
‘Now this is a good one,’ she exclaimed, showing it to Fen then whisking it out of reach when she went to take it. ‘No, you know him better than I do, you need to choose one yourself.’
‘Fine.’ Fen gave in with good grace and began to flip through the cards on the racks; she knew only too well that if she didn’t buy one, Disa was quite capable of forging her signature and sending one to Jamie herself.
When Jamie emerged from the shower the next morning and heard the distant metallic snap of the letter box, he wrapped a towel around his hips and headed for the staircase to see what the postman had brought him.
But as he made his way down the stairs, the sight that greeted him stopped him in his tracks. There was an emerald-green envelope on the mat in the narrow hallway. And a single small potato.
Followed moments later by a second potato – clunk – dropping through the letter box and rolling across to the bottom stair. Then a third – clunk – and a – clunk – fourth.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or well up at the sight of them, but he knew he needed to get to the door before the potato-dropper got away.
He pulled it open and there she was, bundled up against the cold in a pale yellow angora beanie hat, an oversized pink sweatshirt and a blue paisley gilet over grey leggings. There was one last potato in her hand.
Startled, she said, ‘You weren’t supposed to come to the door. I thought it was too early for you to be up.’
‘I’m catching the train to London.’
‘Oh, well . . .’
‘No, no, please come in, before I get frostbite.’
‘I don’t want—’
‘Just for two minutes.’ Backing away, Jamie bent to pick up the card and the potatoes. ‘You can’t run away now.’
She followed him up the stairs. ‘Well, happy birthday.’
‘Thanks. Let me put some clothes on . . .’ He dived into his bedroom, speedily swapped the bath towel for shorts and a T-shirt, and re-emerged to find her lining the potatoes up on the glass-topped coffee table in the living room.
‘When I saw them dropping through the letter box, I thought for a split second it was him. Then I knew it had to be you.’
‘He told me about it,’ said Fen.
Jamie smiled. It had begun during their first year at uni, when the girl he’d been seeing had complained that she didn’t know what to get him for his birthday. That evening, Leon had said, ‘Right, serious question. What’s your favourite thing in the world?’
Jamie remembered the moment. He’d been in the shared kitchen, demolishing a plate of sausage and chips and drinking warm Irn-Bru because someone else had made off with his last can of Coke. ‘Apart from sex?’
‘Apart from sex,’ said Leon, ‘because I’m definitely not giving you that for your birthday.’
‘In that case, chips.’ Jamie speared the best one on the plate with his fork and gave it a twirl, admiring its crispy golden exterior. ‘Definitely chips.’
And every year since, Leon had presented him with potatoes, hiding them in his bed, or in the wardrobe, or scattered around the apartment waiting to be found. This morning, knowing there wouldn’t be potatoes lurking in the shower or inside his shoes had been hard to cope with.
‘You don’t know how much this means to me.
Really.’ He wanted to give her a hug, but somewhere along the way, at Fen’s instigation, they’d fallen into a pattern of avoiding physical contact.
‘And a card as well?’ This was something else he hadn’t expected.
Opening the envelope, he saw that it was potato-themed too.
As a smile spread across his face, his phone dinged with a message.
Glancing at it on the table next to her, Fen said, ‘That’s your cab letting you know it’s outside. I need to go.’
He’d missed her so much, didn’t want the fleeting visit to be over. Without giving himself time to think, he said, ‘Let’s go out tonight.’
‘What?’ Fen looked stunned. ‘But it’s your birthday!’
‘All the more reason.’
‘I meant, surely you’re already doing something? You’ll be in London!’
‘It’s a flying visit. Lunchtime meeting, then straight back. Please.’
Another ding on his phone from the waiting taxi driver.
Still mystified, she said, ‘I can’t believe you don’t have any other plans.’
‘Only one. Kev and Annie are back in Bristol with the baby and I’m meeting them at eight o’clock in the bar at the Castle Hotel.
But I could pick you up first, we’ll see them for a couple of drinks and admire the baby, then head off out.
How about that?’ Jamie held his breath; it was the ideal plan.
Fen knew and liked Kev and Annie, who’d both worked with Leon and had been about to become parents when she’d last seen them, at the charity night.
She would love to meet their baby daughter.
Say yes, say yes, please say yes.
BEEEEEP. The cab driver was getting impatient downstairs.
Flustered and already backing in the direction of the door, Fen said, ‘OK, but you really need to get dressed for work now. I’ll tell the driver you’ll be out in two minutes. And I’ll see you tonight.’
Bingo. His birthday had just got a hundred times better.
She said yes.