Chapter 43
Bristol
The house was ready. By seven o’clock this evening, it would be filled with friends, family and new neighbours.
Fen, upstairs in the master bedroom, gazed out of the window.
In the garden below, the lawn had been freshly mown, the pergola was awash with honeysuckle and the trees had been garlanded with solar lights that would cast a golden glow over the party once darkness had fallen.
Miraculously, this was their home now. They’d completed on the sale a week ago and moved in last Friday.
Their first viewing had taken place back in March, on a blustery grey day in driving rain, and they had fallen in love with the place regardless, the upside to the rain being that the next time they visited in bright spring sunshine, they’d loved it fifty times more.
There had been a couple of hold-ups along the way, when the buying chain had wobbled and almost collapsed, but everyone involved had held their nerve and battled on through.
And this was it, as Jamie had announced on Friday when he’d insisted on carrying her over the threshold.
They’d found the house of their dreams and were going to live in it together for the rest of their lives.
‘We’ll throw a housewarming party next week,’ he’d told her, ‘to celebrate never having to do this again.’
Fen watched now as his car pulled onto the driveway and came to a halt.
An unstoppable smile spread across her face as he climbed out.
Watching him from a distance was still one of her favourite things to do and never failed to give her a thrill.
A year ago, on that unforgettable night in Venice, they had begun their relationship in a dizzy whirl of love and sex and the certainty that they were meant to be together, but at the same time she had mentally braced herself for the possibility that it would end in failure, the feelings might peter out or they could gradually realise they weren’t destined to be a couple after all.
But despite her hidden fears, that hadn’t happened.
Instead, the love, the friendship and the delight in each other’s company had seemed to grow on an exponential scale.
Every day, the idea of not being together for ever seemed more impossible.
Plus, just look at him, he was perfect. OK, apart from when he tried to make scrambled eggs. He was rubbish at that.
The next moment, Jamie glanced up and saw her watching him. He broke into a grin and Fen’s stomach did a swallow-dive of desire, because the last year had been the best year of her life and they still had so much more to look forward to.
Starting with tonight’s party.
Thirty seconds later, she heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to see him appear in the bedroom doorway. Back from his meeting, he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off, revealing that tanned, toned torso.
‘Everything ready?’
Fen went towards him. ‘Pretty much. The drinks have been delivered. The caterers are setting up in the kitchen. It’s all under control down there.’
His eyes sparked with amusement as she ran her fingers over his chest. ‘Down where?’
‘I meant the kitchen. But now you’re giving me ideas.’
‘Do you know how much I like it when you have ideas?’ Lifting her effortlessly, he carried her across the room.
Fen kissed him on the mouth and didn’t release her hold on him as he slowly lowered her onto the king-sized bed. So it seemed she had something else to look forward to before the party started . . .
By eight o’clock, the house and garden had filled up and the party was well under way.
‘Look at you, and look at all of this.’ Disa, glamorous in cobalt-blue silk, slipped her arm through Fen’s and gestured around her at the happy gathering.
‘We started all this when we booked that cruise.’ Turning to Jamie, she added, ‘And we chose that week despite you being on the ship, not because of it.’
Jamie said cheerfully, ‘As Fen often likes to remind me.’
‘If we’d gone a week later,’ Fen told him, ‘I might have met someone even better. He could be out there somewhere now, single and miserable, wondering why he hasn’t found the love of his life yet.’
‘Don’t bother going looking for him.’ Jamie shook his head at her. ‘You’re stuck with me now.’
‘Same as this one’s stuck with me.’ Disa patted Marcus’s arm.
‘Make that three of them,’ Molly announced, joining in the conversation with Andy at her side.
‘He might try to escape, but I’m not letting it happen.
By the way, Kayla says we need to have a video call in a bit so she doesn’t miss out on seeing us all.
And she’ll have Merlin on her lap so we can admire him and tell him what a handsome boy he is. ’
‘We’ll do that,’ Fen promised. If Kayla hadn’t entered that competition on the radio and won a Venetian cruise, she most certainly would never have met Angelo, nor married him and become Kayla Sartori, nor currently be days away from giving birth to their longed-for first child.
It just went to show, when you looked back at the people they’d met and the friends they’d made during that magical week away, you could never predict the twists and turns life might take.
As she looked around her at the hundred-strong gathering, she could see guests greeting old friends and introducing them to other friends, new connections being made.
Through the open French doors leading out into the garden, she spotted Molly’s mum, Yvette, chatting away to one of their new neighbours.
Over to their left, one of Jamie’s old rugby player friends was deep in conversation with Leon’s parents.
And there, at the very furthest end of the garden, were Hattie and Guy. Goodness knows what they were discussing, but whatever it was, given Guy’s visible double-take, he’d definitely been caught by surprise . . .
‘What?’ Guy frowned, taken aback.
‘It’s been exactly a year since that day in the supermarket when you got down on one knee in front of all those people and proposed to me.’
‘Has it? Phew, I thought you were about to tell me I’d forgotten your birthday. Which is in October,’ he quickly added. ‘The fourteenth. See? I still remember.’
He never had forgotten her birthday. Hattie said, ‘That supermarket thing was so embarrassing.’
‘I know. I said I was sorry.’
‘A whole year since the last time you asked me to marry you.’
Guy nodded. ‘You told me never to ask you again.’
‘And I meant it.’
‘Which is why I haven’t.’
‘I know. And I appreciate that. Guy?’
‘What?’
‘Will you marry me?’
He did another double-take. ‘Sorry?’
‘Oh dear. Bit awkward,’ said Hattie. ‘Does that mean no?’
‘It means did you really just say that?’
‘I did. But don’t expect me to go down on one knee in front of everyone, because it’s not happening.’ She shook her head.
‘Say it again,’ said Guy.
‘It’s not happening.’
‘Not that. The asking bit.’
Hattie smiled. ‘Why, so you can turn me down and get your own back?’
‘No. I want to see your face when you ask me.’
‘Fine. Guy Franklyn McAllister, will you marry me?’
‘I’d love to.’
‘Good. That’s settled then.’
‘You wanted to be the one doing the asking, didn’t you?’
‘Maybe, but I also just needed to be sure. And now I am.’ Hattie stepped forward, checked that no one else was watching and planted a quick kiss on his mouth.
Fifteen years on from their first marriage, Guy had proven himself to be more mature and far better husband material than before. All he’d needed was time to grow up.
Guy said, ‘Thank you,’ and returned her kiss with an equally brief one of his own.
A young lad chasing after a toy helicopter screwed up his face in disgust as he hurtled past them. ‘Eurgh, old people kissing. So gross.’
When the boy had raced back up the garden with his helicopter, Guy gave her a proper kiss and said with a smile, ‘So wrong.’
It was one in the morning by the time the last few guests finally departed. When only Disa and Marcus were left, Disa signalled to him with a nod and a smile, and he headed outside, returning two minutes later with a parcel they’d evidently been keeping in the car.
‘Little housewarming present for you both,’ she said.
Fen took the large, flat package, wrapped in silver paper. ‘You didn’t need to do this.’ She gave it a little shake. ‘Is it chocolates?’
‘No, but I hope you’ll like it anyway.’ Disa linked her arm through Marcus’s and watched as Fen and Jamie tore off the wrapping and the cardboard packaging beneath. ‘And I need to explain why I never showed it to you before.’
Jamie lifted the last of the packaging away, and Fen, lost for words, reached out to touch the simply framed photograph, enlarged to A2 size.
It had been taken in Venice two years ago; she could tell from what they were wearing that the scene had been captured, presumably by Disa, on the second night of their cruise.
There’d been a whole group of newly acquainted guests socialising up on deck after dinner that evening.
In the centre of the picture were Jamie, herself and Leon laughing together at something one of them had just said. Her heart gave a squeeze of love.
‘I was showing Marcus a load of photos on my phone last week and this one came up,’ Disa explained, ‘but it didn’t look like that then.
Everyone was too far away, and there were a couple of other people spoiling it – one was completely blurred and another looked as if he had two heads.
It was such a shame. Then Marcus took my phone and started working some kind of magic. ’
‘Your grandmother didn’t realise photos could be edited like that.’ Marcus gave Disa an affectionate look. ‘All I had to do was expand the photo, lighten it up and delete the unwanted guests.’
‘Black magic!’ exclaimed Disa. ‘If only you could do that to annoying people in real life!’
‘It’s called technology,’ he told her with a smile. ‘It only took a minute, and there you were, the three of you, looking as if you’d known each other for years.’
Disa said, ‘I showed it to Hilary and Greville on my phone earlier. Hilary had a little weep and asked if she could have a copy. I said I’d get one blown up and framed for her too.’
Fen nodded, still moved beyond words, because Marcus had taken a messy, overcrowded photo and made it flawless, drawing you in and making you want to be there.
Yet again, her grandmother had inadvertently created a bit of magic of her own.
And yes, of course it had been Disa who had hand-delivered the letters Leon had written to her and Jamie.
She’d admitted it as soon as they’d returned from that second eventful trip to Venice.
‘Leon asked me to visit him when he knew he didn’t have much time left.
We had a long chat about the two of you,’ she had told them both.
‘I didn’t read what he’d written, but I had a pretty good idea.
And he trusted me to do the right thing.
If it was obvious a year later that for one reason or another it wouldn’t work out, you would never have seen them. ’
Remembering those words now, Fen glanced at Jamie and a shiver ran down her spine. It didn’t bear thinking about.
But luckily, there was no need to. She looked again at the framed photograph. ‘It’s beautiful. And I know exactly where we can hang it.’ Pointing to a space on the living room wall next to the fireplace, she said, ‘There, where everyone can see it as soon as they come through the door.’
‘The three of you, looking so happy together,’ said Disa. ‘And you all loved each other so much.’ Slipping an arm around Fen, she added, ‘You just didn’t know it yet.’