‘There’s not much milk,’ he warned her. ‘Madam’s just about finished the last pint, with that cereal she had when we got in last night.’
‘Oh . . . damn.’ Bridget sipped at her tea and willed her brain to get going. She had an early meeting at school, about the nativity play. It got more and more complicated every year, with the trendy variations these new teaching students liked to put in, hence having to go in at half-term. Christmas would be here before they knew it; November always seemed to speed by once the play rehearsals started.
This’ll be my last nativity, she thought, suddenly, and wasn’t sure which emotion won out: the sadness or the thrill of freedom on the horizon. By the time Lauren’s wedding came round in June, she’d be right about to retire.
Lauren’s wedding triggered less welcome thoughts. The credit-card bills. Another round had arrived yesterday and if she hadn’t whipped them out of Frank’s sight, he’d probably have opened them – and probably had some kind of cardiac arrest. Just the other day, Frank had ‘guessed’ that a wedding cake, a really fancy one, mind, might cost, what, fifty quid? No idea. Absolutely no idea.
You’re starting to sound like Lauren and Irene, Bridget thought, and her mind slid back to the overdraft. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help it; it was like having a hole in a tooth that you couldn’t stop poking at. They were dangerously close to their limit on that too now, thanks to that camcorder.
Bridget’s skin felt chilled beneath the duvet as she chided herself again for not reading small print properly. Her, of all people! That’s why those cards were 0% interest to begin with, obviously; they made up for it once they did start charging you. Still, she’d got the timing right; it was just what she’d spent up until now – Bridget tried not to think how much that actually was – and then it’d all be paid off in one fell swoop. That savings account had at least eight grand in it, which should clear the worst of the credit cards and even make a little dent in the overdraft as well, and she still had her eternity ring to sell, if need be . . .
‘Ooh!’ she exclaimed, as Frank’s freezing toes came back into contact with hers. ‘You’ve got feet like ice!’
‘But warm hands. Give us a cuddle.’
Frank was a good man, thought Bridget, as the familiar arms closed around her waist, as they had done virtually every morning since she was twenty two-years old. There’s no price you can put on love like his.
She put her tea down on the bedside table, and turned to curl into him, breathing in the morning smell of his warm body and clean cotton pyjamas. He’d even bothered to brush his teeth on the way back to bed.
Then, just as he began to pull her closer into his hairy chest, greying like a grizzly bear, she thought of the debts in their name, and felt ashamed. They’d never had secrets. Not her and Frank.
I’ll sort it out this week, she thought. Get it out of the way and done. And I’ll tell Lauren she’ll have to start choosing between things, instead of having both, plus a spare.
Deep down she knew that’d be easier said than done, and the stiffness in her body gave her away.
‘Bridge?’ said Frank, hurt. ‘No time for a cuddle?’
‘I’ve got to get up,’ she said, throwing back the duvet. ‘Christmas play meeting.’
In her old bed next door, Lauren stared happily at the ceiling, imagining how she was going to decorate her new house. Every little thing about it was going to be so new, and fresh, with no one else’s old Blu-tack on the walls, or grime in the shower grouting, and, according to the brochure Dr Carthy had passed on, you could specify right down to your carpets and wall colours and everything, before you even moved in.
White with accents of turquoise and silver, decided Lauren, picturing herself swishing through the house in a red checked apron, carrying plates of cupcakes to Chris in the living room.
Where he’d be sprawled across the floor with Kian, playing some nasty shoot-’em-up. Lauren’s fantasy screeched to a halt.
That’s not going to happen, she reminded herself. That is the whole point of doing this.
Lovely Dad to the rescue. Like always.
Lauren decided she’d do a special display dance with him at the reception, as a thank you.
Then her alarm went off, and she leaped out of bed before her mum could get to the bathroom but, to her surprise, the door was already locked and the shower was running.
Katie was lying awake before her 7 a.m. alarm too, half listening to the rain lashing down against the window. She hadn’t slept all night, apart from one weary half-hour when her sore eyes had shut from sheer exhaustion. She’d woken too soon with a start, as if someone had shaken her, and for a blissful moment, she couldn’t remember why she was so upset. Then it all came back in painful flashes, and she wanted to be asleep again.
She got out of bed, unable to lie still, even though it was barely six o’clock. By the time Lauren was hammering on the bathroom door, reminding Bridget not to take all the hot water, Katie was on her way to the one place she knew would stop her mind going round and round: the office.
Outside Angelica’s bedroom window, early-morning ducks cruised silently by on the river while she slept on, unconscious beneath her satin eye mask. She never woke before ten in the old days: all those years spent dancing into the small hours, and training her brain to be most alive after eleven at night. The sleeping pills helped now, but while they gave her aching body some rest, they didn’t stop her dreams.
Angelica was dreaming now, of the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool, the drum-beating heart of British ballroom, where rococo banks of arched gold boxes overlooked the sprung floor, a patterned masterpiece of glowing wood. It was a dream she had at least once a month, more often since she’d opened her mother’s albums. The ballroom was massive, high ceilinged and imperious, with room for hundreds of couples beneath the crystal chandeliers, but there were only five: her competitors, already standing there, frozen in the opening pose. It was the final dance. They were waiting for her and Tony.
Angelica was standing just off the dancefloor, her hands nervously smoothing down the sequins on her foxtrot dress. She never lost a competition in this one, a glittery creation of thousands of hand-sewn sequins and red feathers that floated like powderpuffs around her calves when she paused, mid-step, as if she had all the time in the world. That was their ballroom trademark, she and Tony. They could stop, and it was as though the whole room stopped with them, holding their breath until they carried on.
Angelica’s ebony hair was slicked back in an exotic bun stuffed with unexotic hairgrips, and her feet were flexing, ready for action, in her gold shoes. She was poised on the edge, all her concentration and fear built up to a peak and if she didn’t start the routine soon, it would tip over, and be lost in the nerves that were always so close behind. When Angelica was dancing she never felt the nerves, but if she stopped, they swamped her.
Where was Tony? He’d been right by her side a moment ago. She turned and searched the crowd for that familiar foxy face with its teasing, flashing eyes, and eyebrows that checked her steps without words, but saw only blank faces, expectant faces, hostile faces.
‘And the final competitors dancing the Foxtrot, Angelica Andrews and Tony Canero!’ called the announcer.
Tony wasn’t there.
Husky drumbeats sounded, the introduction to ‘Night and Day’ – the ones that were meant to accompany their shimmy out to the spotlight. The singer waited at the microphone, her sympathetic eyes joining everyone else’s, boring into Angelica’s mind until she felt pierced, like a pincushion.
Where was Tony?
‘Angelica Andrews and Tony Canero!’ This time more impatient.
Hot dream fear crawled through her, and she was rooted to the spot as the band launched into the introduction to ‘Night and Day’, as their spotlight moved round the floor without them inside it.
This was the foxtrot! Her favourite song! The lyrics, brimming with passion and addiction, were all about them – their
night and day existence.
Where was Tony?
Her eyes skittered round the room, the scary blank faces, the gold fittings, the red velvet swags, the strangers, the spotlight moving on without her. And then, as she always did, she saw her father, sitting with the stuffed-shirt judges on the centre table.
‘He’s not coming,’ he said, in his flat Midlands tone. ‘You’re not good enough for him.’
Then Angelica woke up, slick with sweat, and as the rain pummelled the windows, she counted her breaths until they were back to normal.
22
The autumn rain carried on lashing the windscreen as Katie drove to work, unable to stop imagining the scene in Jo’s Zafira.
Ross hadn’t taken her birthday presents. They were still hidden in the wardrobe. Hannah would be upset, she thought. She’d think Mummy had forgotten, when in fact Mummy hadn’t forgotten, Mummy had got her a really nice present, the thing she really wanted even though Daddy hadn’t . . .
Stop, she told herself. There’s nothing you can do now. Worry about work instead for one day – there’s enough of it.
Katie found a pile of thick folders on her desk when she arrived, her feet soaked in her court shoes, and, for once, she was glad of the mountain of paperwork. There’d be absolutely no chance to think about anything other than planning permission and Compulsory Purchase Orders until lunchtime at the earliest.
She hung up her wet coat, put down her coffee, and laid her mobile in her in-tray, turned to silent, where she could see it. Just in case Ross rang with some emergency. Then she opened her first file.
After three hours’ solid reading, Katie knew most of the town centre land had belonged to local landowners, the Memorial Hall-building Cartwright family, whose line ended with Lady Eliza’s three daughters. Little Ada died of flu, and Clementine and Felicity never married. The smart family villa became part of the hospital while most of the land was sold off to pay death duties, some to the council for the housing development and some to a consortium for the shops. Katie knew that when the flats were thrown up in 1954, they’d been the first council housing locally to have fitted kitchens but there had been well-disguised mumblings about the state of the foundations. When she opened the tenth file, her heart stopped in her chest.
The Memorial Hall was right on the edge of the proposed development site, and a Post-it note in Nick Felix’s handwriting had been slapped carelessly on top. He’d scrawled: ‘in recorded disrepair – roof decayed, unsafe heating’. Which was as near to flattening it as if he’d gone round with a bulldozer and driven through the porch with its dusty aspidistras.
An unconscious breath whistled out of her. Could they do that? Surely it was listed. Those stained-glass windows alone were rare enough in Longhampton to warrant protection, and as a subscription building, erected in the memory of Longhampton’s war dead, it had historic importance, surely? It was beautiful!
Katie flicked through the file: there was still so much paperwork – the deeds, notes about ownership, notes about what that area would be used for in the regeneration, but nothing about listed status. The land for the hall had been a personal gift from Lady Cartwright to the Memorial Hall Building Committee, and that was it.
She sat back in her chair and picked up her mug, barely registering how cold the coffee now was. Katie was the last person to get sentimental about buildings, but something about the casual way Nick had just condemned the hall outraged her. He clearly hadn’t been there. He couldn’t have seen the hand-painted friezes, or that incredible old glitterball – and he definitely couldn’t have seen the way it went from simple community hall to a time-machine on the social nights, when those enthusiastic jivers and quicksteppers in all their once-a-week finery transformed the place back to whatever glory it had had in 1955. People loved that place. It wasn’t as if it was some manky old prefab scout hut. Even the clanky, freezing loos with that hard toilet paper were like a trip to another age.
Her chest ached as the dancing class flashed in front of her eyes: images of Ross sliding expertly into the steps while she stumbled, of Angelica making her feel hopeless, and of Jo cha-cha-cha-ing, so happily, with her curls bouncing, before Greg ruined everything for her. Katie pushed it all away, and made herself look at the hard facts in front of her.
The developers were planning to build houses around that area. New first-time buyer flats, neat 2-bed units, with rock-solid foundations this time. Shops would be one thing, but houses? How could she, in all fairness, claim a memorial hall that maybe two hundred people used, was more important than council housing? It just wasn’t.
But if they preserved the hall, and built around it, she argued, pressing her fingers to her temples, trying to think professionally, it would be right in the middle of a community again. With some upgrading, it could be an arts centre or a performance space – weren’t the Community Arts Committee always going on about how few venues the council made available?
The phone rang and she jumped in her skin, grabbing the receiver and hoping for the first time ever that it was a personal call.
It wasn’t. It was Eddie. ‘Just checking you got those files from Nick?’
‘Yes. Yes, I did.’
‘Still all right for tomorrow? Because,’ Eddie coughed his irritating phlegmy cough, ‘I thought I should check, before the meeting . . . There aren’t going to be any wrinkles on that town centre site?’
‘Eddie, I can’t tell that yet.’ Katie felt the weight return to her shoulders. ‘I mean, I’ve got some queries, but it’s only meant to be a preliminary meeting, isn’t it?’
‘Well, technically, yes, the main meeting’s Friday next. That’s the one all the do-gooders’ll be at, but this is the real inner circle one, if you like. What I mean is . . .’ Katie recognised that tone. It was Eddie’s ‘don’t make any problems’ tone. ‘We really want to get this green lit early-doors so the deal can go ahead for this quarter, don’t we?’
We, thought Katie? Who exactly is the we here?
Eddie had some interesting connections when it came to golfing partners. Katie didn’t think she’d be surprised at all if it turned out that he had something to do with the developers buying the land off the council. Properly hidden, of course.
‘If I run into anything I’ll bring it up as soon as I can,’ she said. After all these years, she’d got pretty adept at covering her back, at the same time as being totally non-committal. The trouble was, so had everyone else.
‘That’s my girl,’ said Eddie. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this for you.’ And he hung up.
Katie narrowed her eyes at the phone, and dialled Ross’s mobile number again, so she could say hello to the kids.
It was turned off. And Jo wasn’t answering hers.
Outside the Abbey building society, with the money transferred and the mortgage set up, Lauren flung her arms round her father, and nearly knocked him over with the force of her gratitude.
‘Thanks, Dad!’ she said, her blue eyes sparkling just like they had on Christmas mornings when she’d been surrounded with parcels bigger than she was. ‘You are so the best dad ever!’
‘Don’t forget your mum,’ Frank reminded her, taking the umbrella so she didn’t have anyone’s eye out with it, waving it around like that. ‘It’s her money too, you know.’
‘I know! Course I’m grateful to Mum too. I’m grateful to both of you – I’m dead lucky.’
But Frank could tell Lauren was already thinking about curtains and carpets – and he couldn’t blame her. It was a bit of a thrill, getting your foot on the ladder. He remembered how he and Bridget had felt, moving into their own first little flat, when they weren’t that much older than Lauren was now.
Twenty-two. It had seemed very old then. Now, of course, Frank thought twenty-two sounded barely out of nappies.
They’d set off walking back to the surgery, so Lauren wouldn’t run over her lunchbreak, when she paused and looked at him. ‘Mum does know, doesn’t she? I mean, you have had
a chance to talk to her about this?’
‘Sort of,’ hedged Frank. ‘I told her this morning that you and Chris had the chance to get on this scheme and she thought it was a great idea. A good investment, she said. And I know she wouldn’t like the idea of Irene putting up the whole deposit.’
If Frank was being honest, he hadn’t said much more than that. Bridget had been in a mad rush about her Christmas play meeting, and he wasn’t sure she’d been listening anyway. But it wasn’t like he couldn’t make financial decisions on his own. She had enough on her plate as it was.
‘Your mother and I don’t need each other’s permission to do things!’ he said, and realised he was only half joking. Retirement had put him in the totally new position of being the one without somewhere to go during the day, and it didn’t sit easily.
‘Oh, I don’t mean that – I mean I don’t want her thinking I’m moving out in a rush because I don’t like living at home,’ Lauren went on, widening her eyes. ‘I don’t want her getting upset, and taking it personally. Should I get her some chocs or something?’
‘She won’t think that. It’s been lovely having you back, but your mother and I quite enjoy each other’s company, you know. Anyway,’ he said, squeezing Lauren’s arm, ‘it’s only fair to let your old dad sort out the boring stuff for you, what with your mum rushed off her feet with bridesmaids’ dresses and what-have-you. Eh?’
Lauren stopped, and gave him a hug. ‘Aw! Don’t feel left out!’ she said. ‘You’re my dance coach!’ She paused. ‘Come to think of it, maybe that’s what Chris needs. Mum as his dance coach. I don’t think he likes Baxter much, not since he made those remarks about men with earrings. Do you think she would?’
‘I’ll have a word,’ said Frank.
Maybe it was delaying tactics to avoid going back to work, but Katie found herself heading towards the library on her way back from the deli at lunchtime.
Longhampton’s Local History section wasn’t large, but she called up whatever documents they had about the Memorial Hall. There was, it turned out, a whole archive box. And under the harsh yellow strip light, the faded documents and crinkled old silver-plate photographs started to tell a more colourful story to Katie, as gradually, letter by letter, the Memorial Hall sprang to human life in her imagination.