Natalie. Rachel felt a wrench inside, remembering the miserable expression on her face when she’d handed over the test. It’s just one test, she told herself. It’s really early days. It might be nothing. I might have got it wrong.
‘Megan, are you registered at the surgery?’ she asked. ‘Who’s your doctor?’
‘Dr Carthy.’ Megan didn’t react to the sudden change of topic. ‘I’m trying to get on with Dr Harper, obviously.’
‘Is Dr Carthy . . . nice?’
Oh, shut up, Rachel, she thought crossly. Nice? Unlikely to shout at single women who manage to get pregnant on a one-night stand like a stupid teenager, do you mean?
‘Er, yes? Quite old-fashioned, though. There are some female doctors there – Dr Powell is very friendly, Dot fitted her up with a sweet old Cavalier King Charles spaniel a few years ago.’ She smiled hopefully, then her face clouded over. ‘You’re not ill, are you?’
‘No, no. Just . . . just thought I should get registered.’
‘Good,’ said Megan. ‘Cup of tea? I was about to put the kettle on. Freda’s left all sorts of notes to work through – and lots of juicy gossip from the café. She thinks Ted might finally agree to retire this year! Can you believe it? She reckons she’ll be able to prise his hands off the fryer now Dr Carthy’s got him on statins. I reckon we should find her a dog.’
Rachel felt a sudden need to be on her own, in complete silence, where she wouldn’t have to pretend everything was the same. There was too much going on in her head to fake an interest in Ted Shackley’s cholesterol levels.
‘Megan, listen, I hate to leave you with Freda’s notes, but I really need to get cracking with the sorting out,’ she said, with an apologetic shrug. ‘Orders from my mum – an hour a day of junk-sifting, until it’s done.’
‘No problem,’ said Megan. She carried on stirring the scrambled eggs. ‘Give me a shout when you want a cup of tea.’
Rachel made her way upstairs, and stood for a moment on the landing, looking into the big mirror that hung over the stairs, wondering when Dot’s face had changed from the one looking back at her to the white-haired dowager in the photographs.
She knew she should really tackle the spare rooms, all of which were full of heavy Victorian furniture from her grandparents’ old house, according to Val – they’d need to go to the sale room, once she’d emptied them of whatever was inside. But instead she felt drawn to Dot’s room, and that lovely wardrobe of clothes and secrets. She wanted to see the glorious evidence of her aunt’s single life, before she let the routine of Four Oaks swallow her up.
There were two wardrobes in Dot’s bedroom. The one nearest the bed was filled with simple tweedy skirts and the basic, hard-wearing clothes she’d worn to tramp the dog-walking loop each day. Rachel shifted the hangers back and forth, checking there were no mysterious boxes stashed at the back. Bar an unworn pair of Marks & Spencer Footglove gold sandals with the receipt still inside, it was exactly the collection of heathery separates a middle-aged dog lover would own.
But the other wardrobe – that was a different life altogether. Rachel’s skin tingled as she trailed her hands across the hangers, trying to feel the occasions and memories clinging to the clothes. Shimmering satin gleamed out from between fur-tipped wool coats, bright slashes of bold orange and burnished cerise that only a woman with dark eyes and a long, lean frame could carry off.
Rachel laid each hanger over the bedstead until the frame was thick with clothes, each one a night out, or an office party in. There were wool suits with A-line skirts and cropped jackets that made Rachel suspect that Dot’s job in the City hadn’t been as menial as Val seemed to think. She let her fingers creep into pockets and into bright crocodile-skin handbags, and pulled out fragments of Dot’s swinging London world – bus tickets and taxi receipts into Soho, a dry-cleaning bill for three dinner jackets, a shopping list including champagne and eggs, headache tablets and dance cards, one from a New Year’s Ball at the Dorchester in 1969.
Every dance was full, but ‘Felix’ featured in every other slot.
Were these the secrets Dot meant in her letter? she wondered. The secret, independent life that Val had never bothered to ask about? Had she, in fact, made some money of her own, and then retired to look after her dogs – maybe that was what had broken her and Felix up, her ambition?
Rachel could imagine Val turning her head away when Dot tried to tell her what she’d been up to, who she’d met. Her own sister Amelia did it to her. ‘Oh, I couldn’t keep up with that sort of life,’ she’d sniffed at Christmas, when Rachel had started to tell them about the last big launch she’d organised, as if Rachel’s manic success was something to be ashamed of. It had irritated and stung Rachel in equal parts, not that she’d given Amelia the satisfaction of seeing either.
Once the hangers were all removed, and the rail was left bare like a winter tree, Rachel could see a mountain of shoeboxes stacked behind, some with price labels still stuck on, in pounds, shillings and pence.
‘You were a woman after my own heart, Dot,’ she sighed, and began to lift them out. Dot had long, narrow feet, and though Rachel tried to squeeze her own toes inside a square-toed turquoise pump with a patent bubble on the toe, Dot was at least a size smaller. She sat back against the bed, disappointed. The clothes fitted – she was wearing a Courrèges bronze-and-cream blazer – but it was the shoes she’d have loved to have walked in.
They were all in such immaculate condition that Rachel didn’t know whether to eBay them or offer them to a museum. Some had obviously never left their tissue wrappings. She put the turquoise pump back and began opening the other boxes, until the carpet was covered in heels, flats, pumps and boots. Several had the handwritten receipts inside, others had notes – one pair of beautiful oyster satin stilettos had a card in them. Rachel took it out and her heart skipped: it was Felix’s business card, with his St James office numbers. She turned it over, and on the back was a note in fountain pen – For Cinderella! X
She sighed. The shoes were perfect, too perfect for the average man to pick. It was the sort of fabulous gift Oliver would have sent; he always knew exactly what she liked, how she looked best. But obviously Felix didn’t care whether Dot towered over him or not.
Rachel reached the final box with a sense of sadness, but as she pulled it out, she realised it was much heavier than the others, and her curiosity prickled with excitement. She lifted the lid and saw that it was full of letters, and on the top was an old-fashioned manila envelope, with no address.
Love letters! How romantic, she thought. Email had ruined that. You couldn’t sigh over an email, even if you printed it out. But what was in the bigger envelope? She unclipped the metal wings at the back and a jewellery box slipped out.
Cartier. Rachel swallowed, holding her breath as she prised it open, wondering what on earth Dot had done to have a stash of Crown Jewels amongst the dog biscuits.
But inside there was no necklace. There was an envelope, a folded piece of document paper, and a Cartier card, with ‘for my wife’ in the same flowing handwriting as on Felix’s own business card.
Rachel’s heart stopped. Dot had been his wife? She and Felix had been married?
She unfolded the document carefully, oblivious to the darkness falling in the room. It seemed to be a marriage licence of some sort, or at least the application form for an emergency register office ceremony between Felix Anthony Carlisle Henderson and Dorothy May Mossop. It was dated 3 September 1972.
It obviously hadn’t taken place. There were no signatures anywhere. But the intention was quite clear: Felix had wanted to sweep Dot off her feet properly.
Rachel tried to place the date in her family photograph album. Amelia was born in February 1972 – this maybe wasn’t too long after the family christening, with the big fall-out.
The last thing in the jewellery case was a letter, addressed to Dorothy on the front. Rachel fumbled over the thick writing paper, pale duck-egg blue and engraved with a London
address. It read:
Darling D, please know that I understand. It’s a lot to ask, and I realise that your response is out of love for me, rather than yourself. As always.
But if you change your mind, there’s still time. There will always be time, because I’ll always be waiting, and hoping.
Will you keep the necklace? It’s precious, but really nothing compared with what I’ve lost today.
All my love,
F.
Rachel sat in the darkness and felt a tear drop onto her bare arm. She wasn’t sure whether she was crying for Dot, or for herself.
20
Since Toffee had crashed into her life, Zoe had really started noticing the number of clients who brought their handbag dogs into the salon. One of them even bought the same expensive highlight shampoo for her Shih Tzu as she did for herself.
Zoe surreptitiously massaged her aching feet as one of the juniors ushered her last client, Mrs Naylor, out of the door with her Jack Russell tied to her shopping trolley. Marion, the owner, had reluctantly admitted that so long as the dogs were ‘small enough, quiet enough and clean enough’, she’d turn a blind eye.
Zoe thought about Toffee’s slow obedience progress, and went back to the appointments book with a wry sigh. It’d be nice to bring Toffee to work, but it could be years before he could be trusted in a room with so many Velcro rollers.
‘You got a walk-in while you were finishing Mrs Naylor,’ said Hannah the receptionist. She was juggling two phones, while changing the CDs in the player, and still didn’t look flustered. ‘I’ve put them in the spare seat – looks like a quick one. Is that alright? Everyone else has gone off on their break, or they’re sneaking off early.’
‘That’s fine.’ Zoe swigged back the Red Bull she’d left behind the desk and headed back into the brightly lit ‘consultation area’ of the salon.
‘So, what’s it going to be today?’ she said, checking in her bag for her comb. She could tell from the back of the head that it was a bloke – she liked blokes at lunchtimes, because they never over-ran or talked much, leaving her free to plan the evening meal and sort out chores.
‘An apology?’
Zoe nearly jumped out of her seat when she checked in the mirror and saw the face looking back at her.
Bill didn’t look quite as sexy as usual with a black nylon cape around his shoulders but it made his dark eyes stand out even more. They were very contrite. ‘And then a quick lunch?’
Zoe fiddled with her scissors to disguise her nerves. ‘I try to work through lunch. I’ve got clients until two.’
‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘Me. Twice. I booked in for something very complicated.’ He tried a smile. ‘It’s going to take me about fifty-five minutes to explain, and you five minutes to cut my hair.’ He ran a hand through the dark curls. ‘Which is four minutes more than I normally spend on it.’
She tried not to meet his eyes in the mirror.
‘Where’s Lulu?’ she asked instead. ‘I hope you’re not abandoning your dog responsibilities to get your hair cut.’ She didn’t add that he hardly needed a cut – last time she’d seen him, his hair had looked freshly done.
‘No, no. Lauren’s walking her. There’s a queue to walk her most days.’ Bill paused. ‘It’s just me that has a vested interest in going to the park. If I’d known you normally work through lunch then I wouldn’t have been spending a whole hour circling the place. She’s sick of it, to be honest. Prefers the shops.’
Zoe couldn’t stop herself looking up, and as their eyes met, she felt a pang of regret mixed with longing. He was gorgeous, and obviously wanted to explain, but she couldn’t just push away the things he’d said about kids – and the things she hadn’t said about her own. It didn’t do either of them any favours.
‘So, just a trim?’ she said, in a businesslike fashion. ‘Or a restyle?’
Bill hesitated, hoping she was just joking around, then when he saw she wasn’t, he said, ‘I’m in your hands, Zoe.’
‘Great,’ she said, and her voice wobbled.
Manda the trainee appeared to do the backwash but Zoe waved her away. She wanted to do it herself – she rarely washed hair any more but when she did, Zoe used the shampoo time to let her brain work out the cut while her hands went through the familiar lather-rinse-repeat routine. Today, though, it was the chance to touch Bill in a way she probably wouldn’t ever get to again.
She settled him in the chair, smiling to herself at his awkwardness at being settled between two old lady regulars who persisted on discussing their latest medical symptoms, then lathered up the shampoo, massaging the bubbles into his scalp with her fingertips. As she rinsed his hair clean with warm water, she admired his neat ears and the thickness of his dark hair, enjoying the private intimacy while the salon bustled around them.
She knew he was enjoying it too, from the way his tense shoulders relaxed and his head sank into the backrest. Zoe was the best in the salon when it came to the conditioning head massage and she spent even longer than normal raking and pressing his scalp, watching the tension melt from Bill’s face.
It was such a shame, she thought. If only I’d said something. Or if only I’d said something better. Something more noble than ‘I’m a mum with responsibilities.’
She dried off his hair and when his face emerged from the towel, surrounded by day-old-chick spikes, Bill’s expression was earnest.
‘I have to explain,’ he said, ‘and you’re not going to stop me.’
Zoe said nothing but began combing.
‘The thing is,’ said Bill into the mirror, ‘Nat and Johnny are trying to have a baby and they’d just had some bad news. Apparently it’s going to be a bit harder than they thought.’
‘You really don’t have to tell me this,’ Zoe interrupted, blushing. ‘It’s none of my business.’
‘But you deserve an explanation. In fact, Nat wanted me to explain, since I put you in such an embarrassing situation. All of us, for that matter.’ He pulled a scared face, and Zoe got a brief flash of exactly how much Natalie had told him to apologise. ‘I really didn’t handle it very well, and I’m sorry.’
Zoe started sectioning Bill’s hair, weighing up the first cut. She didn’t want to take any of it off, but she couldn’t not cut it, now he’d made the appointment. ‘It’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinions. Kids aren’t for everyone.’
‘Look, that came out all wrong too. I would love to have kids, one day. They’re great. But in my stupid, tactless bloke way, I just wanted to say something to stop Johnny looking like someone had burned his house down.’ He gazed at her, appealing for forgiveness. ‘He didn’t give me the full story until we got home. I mean, I’d never have said what I did if I’d known that . . . well, how hard it’s going to be for them.’ Bill paused. ‘And obviously if I’d known about your children, then I wouldn’t have said it either.’
It was Zoe’s turn to look embarrassed. ‘Well, that’s my fault. I should have mentioned it right from the start.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
She made the first crisp slice across the edge of the curls, trying to put her incoherent thoughts into words. ‘Because I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. I’m not very experienced in single-mum dating etiquette.’ Zoe caught herself. ‘I mean, not dating, that’s just it, I wasn’t sure whether we were, you know . . .’
‘Having a date?’
‘Well, yes. I didn’t want to make it into something if you were just walking your dog. With me.’
They looked at each other in the mirror, and Zoe’s heart flipped over at the way Bill’s eyes met hers, as if there was no one else in the salon.
‘Well, for the record, I’ve never dated a single mum, either,’ said Bill. ‘But I didn’t meet a single mum. I met you.’
Zoe didn’t know what to say.
‘Shall we agree that we were?’ suggested Bill. ‘Having a date, I mean?’
Zoe’s hands wobbled, and she moved the scissors away from his hair, to be o
n the safe side.
‘If it makes you feel any better,’ Bill went on, ‘men aren’t exactly encouraged to discuss their family plans either. I assumed, because you were single, and you seemed happy with your puppy, that . . .’ He trailed off, and Zoe realised he was as flustered as she was about what to say next.
She thought of Megan, telling her to take control of the situation with her attitude. Calm authority worked on both Toffee and her, when she found him covered in something he shouldn’t be. Zoe took a deep breath. It was time to move on with her life. Time to move into the unknown.
‘I’ve been divorced from Spencer and Leo’s dad, David, for nearly a year now,’ she said. ‘He has them alternate weekends, and holidays. I love the boys to bits, wouldn’t be without them, but sometimes it’s nice to have an hour to myself.’ She paused. ‘I felt like I was just being me, when we first met. I wasn’t sure who you thought I was.’
‘Well, I’m Bill, I have no children, no significant exes and some people, by which I mean Natalie, feel that’s even worse than being divorced at my age. Which is thirty-four. I also have a breadmaker, but I’ve only used it twice.’
‘Good,’ said Zoe. ‘I have an ice-cream maker and a chocolate fountain.’
‘Brilliant. So, now we’ve got that out of the way, can we talk about that Indian meal? I think Rachel’s babysitting offer still stands. I mean, for Toffee.’ He hesitated, as if reality was creeping in. ‘I guess it’s a bit more complicated, with the children. I don’t want to, you know, make things difficult.’
Zoe tried not to look at Bill’s face. Was he asking because he felt he had to now? Doubt crept around the edges of her buzzy mood, and she reminded herself he was right: her first responsibility was to look after her sons, not set up dates with sexy doctors.
‘Maybe we should stick to dog walking,’ she said, more breezily than she felt. ‘It’s not really fair on the boys. David drags his new woman into the picture constantly and I don’t honestly think the boys are as happy with it as he thinks they are.’ She sighed. ‘Spencer’s already pushing me harder and harder. He knows he can get away with murder because I feel so bad about what’s going on.’