Hubble Bubble (23 page)

Then came the body blow.

A
grandmother.

Okay, it was very selfish, but just how
old
did that make her sound? However much she might think she was still twenty-two inside her head, and youthful in her outlook, her dress and well, everything – there was surely nothing more guaranteed to kill an embryo romance with a gorgeous younger man stone-dead than being called
‘Gran’?

Sitting by Otto and Boris’s roaring log fire that evening, hugging Doll and Brett and trying to take it all in, she’d realised she’d simply have to enjoy Joel’s company. She’d have to make the most of his friendship, but there could be no more silly thoughts of reciprocal love. Her feet, which minutes earlier had been walking on air all the way from the village green to The Faery Glen, had been dragged back to the ground with a resounding thump.

Not that Mitzi’s feet, or any of the rest of her, had stayed grounded for very long. Once the news of the baby and the Christmas Eve marriage had started to spread round Hazy Hassocks, she felt as though she’d been caught up in Dorothy’s Kansas whirlwind.

With only six weeks in which to organise the wedding – very small, Doll and Brett had insisted, with the reception in The Faery Glen – and the BBC’s festive activities, not to mention becoming a party purveyor of Granny’s Goodies, Mitzi was more confused than ever.

For umpteen years when she’d been Mr Dickinson’s right-hand woman in the bank, she’d managed to organise meetings and appointments and conferences and travel arrangements and holidays and seminars and a zillion other things. She’d kept Mr Dickinson’s three diaries running smoothly. There’d never been a double booking, or a missed appointment, or a clash of any sort. It had all run
seamlessly. She’d been efficient. Unruffled, calm and efficient.

What on earth had happened? Only a couple of months later and left to organise her own life, she’d gone completely to pot.

Oh, well, back to the real world, she thought – which at that moment was being alone with Joel in the darkened body of Hazy Hassocks’s cold and cheerless village hall with a tinny version of ‘Aquarius’ now rattling through the lone speaker.

The first was lovely; the second was not so…

‘I am sorry about this,’ Mitzi said quietly. ‘I’d really been looking forward to going into Winterbrook tonight and having a meal at Lorenzo’s. My head’s like a sieve recently. I’d forgotten all about the Baby Boomers auditions – and there was no way I could get out of it.’

‘No problem,’ Joel said. ‘We’ll go to Lorenzo’s next time. And we can always get a takeaway later. I know you’re up to your eyes in organising all the wedding stuff.’

Mitzi nodded. ‘How’s Doll coping at work?’

‘Amazingly. Me and Viv and Tammy and Mr Johnson are frantic on her behalf, trying to get her to slow down and put her feet up. And she just laughs and says she isn’t anywhere near that stage, and that both the wedding and the birth will be a breeze.’

‘I know she’s intending to work until the minute she goes into labour,’ Mitzi hissed. ‘And she probably will.’

The record player had moved on to ‘Ain’t Got No Grass’.

Joel grinned. ‘She keeps telling us all to chill.’

‘She’s always been that way,’ Mitzi said, bravely chewing at a sandwich. ‘Cool, calm and collected. God knows what would happen if Lu was in that position. World War Three at least. And please have another sandwich. Go on, Lav and Lob made them specially.’

‘Oh, well, in that case I suppose I ought to steel myself …’ Joel helped himself from the depths of the silver wrappings.

Trilby Man, strutting in the hall’s only illumination on the stage, peered crossly down at them. ‘Can we have some ’ush in the auditorium, please! You’re supposed to be writing this down for me, Mitzi, not nattering. We’ve reached a delicate point in casting – and you two rattling tinfoil and chatting and laughing like damn fool teenagers is putting us off!’

Mitzi and Joel exchanged glances and tried not to giggle again.

Of course, Mitzi thought giddily, Trilby Man was, for once, exactly right. She still felt just like a teenager in love. Madness, of course, and never destined for a happy ending, but blissful all the same.

She’d been more excited than she could ever remember when Joel had suggested the dinner date at Lorenzo’s. And more disappointed than she’d like to admit when she’d realised it clashed with the casting auditions for
Hair
.

Of course there was no contest.

She tried not to look at the stage as the
Hair
LP skittered on to ‘Sodomy’.

At least Joel had readily agreed to accompany her to the village hall. He’d said he’d been looking forward to spending an evening with her and while Lorenzo’s may have been more pleasant, the village hall would suit him fine.

It was the sort of statement that made her fall in love with him even more, damn it.

So instead of the fat-candled and garlicky-herby-red-wine ambience of Lorenzo’s, here she was on a plastic chair in the freezing mustiness of the hall, with an A4 notepad, her laptop, various post-it notes, scraps of paper, backs of envelopes, a million scribbled mnemonics, and of course, Joel, trying to juggle everything.

‘Pass the foodie things to me,’ Joel hissed, one eye on the stage and Trilby Man and a selection of the Baby Boomers who were being cast as The Tribe. ‘No, not any more of those bloody sandwiches – who on earth mashes sardine paste with piccalilli? No, I mean the list of the
recipes from your Gran’s book and the prices. Thanks. Okay – so I’ll type them up on the laptop while you sort out the wedding stuff and take notes for Mr Hitler-in-a-Hat up there.’

‘Silence!’ Trilby Man roared at them, as several of the less able BBC-ers and the Dansette wobbled through ‘Hare Krishna’. ‘We have artistes working up here!’

Mitzi stared very hard at the floor.

‘Your shoulders are shaking,’ Joel whispered. ‘He’ll notice.’

Mitzi bit her lips very hard and sniffed back hysterical tears. There was something unnerving about a dozen pensioners wearing hats and scarves and zip-up bootees and very tightly buttoned coats pretending to be youthful free spirits. And it could only get worse.

Lav and Lob, hippie bandannas tied rakishly round their cycle helmets, had made so much fuss about being left out that they’d been co-opted in as extras in The Tribe on the understanding that they wouldn’t have to sing any of the songs with rude words.

‘Lovely! Lovely!’ Trilby Man clapped. ‘That’s The Tribe sorted, then! Mitzi – ’ave you got all the names down, duck?’

Mitzi nodded.

‘Right. Good. So that’s the lot. Now the main roles – make sure you gets ’em all in order … Ronnie will be Berger, Christopher is Woof, and Sid and Philip will share being Claude because of the strenuous nature of the role. Beryl is Crissy, Doreen is Dionne, and Bernard can be Sheila because of his falsetto and wig. Oh, and hopefully Frank will be okay as Hud once he gets the all-clear re his blood pressure because of hanging upside down from that there pole in Act I …’

Trilby Man’s voice droned on. The Dansette was stuck on ‘Ain’t Got No …’ Mitzi scribbled. It became more and more obvious that this was going to be a disaster of epic proportions.

Joel, diligently tapping away one fingered on the laptop was trying hard not to laugh. ‘I think I’ve nearly finished your list – you’ll have to check the spellings on some of these things, though. But what on earth are Green Gowns? And Dreaming Creams? And who wants Dragon’s Blood in their pudding?’

‘God knows,’ Mitzi started to gather together her pieces of paper. ‘But someone might – it’s supposed to be a love potion according to Granny Westward, so I just threw it in … Thanks for doing that. I’ll print out several copies when I get home and we’ll see what happens … Right – I’m more than ready for a drink.’ She groaned as the Dansette hit ‘Good Morning Starshine’. ‘Let’s get out of here before Trilby Man starts putting them through the song-and-dance bit and I really disgrace myself. You do fancy a pint at The Faery Glen, don’t you? Okay, last one out of here buys the first round.’

Joel beat her to the door by a millisecond.

‘Of course I’m delighted, darling,’ Lance held Doll’s hands in his across the scrubbed-pine table in his maisonette. ‘Couldn’t be more pleased. A grandpa! I still can’t believe it … And are you feeling okay? I remember how ghastly Mitzi was with both you and Lulu.’

‘Hopefully I haven’t inherited her morning-sickness genes, then. No, honestly I’m absolutely fine,’ Doll grinned. ‘It’s very early days, of course, but you know me – strong as the proverbial herd of oxen.’

‘Long may it last, love. And do you and Brett want a boy or a girl? Thought of names yet? And this wedding – I am going to give you away, aren’t I?’

Doll laughed. ‘Of course you are. It’s only going to be a very small do, though. Church wedding at four o’clock on Christmas Eve then straight into The Faery Glen. And we don’t mind if the baby’s a boy or a girl – but one thing we are sure about, it’ll have a very ordinary name. Jane or Ann or Susan or John or James – it will not suffer like I have!’ She
looked round the very clean kitchen. ‘Where’s Jennifer? Have you told her that she’ll be a step-grandmother at the tender age of thirty-two?’

‘She didn’t take it too well. Had to go off to the nail bar for restorative treatment. She’ll be sorry to have missed you tonight – she’s at her evening class at the moment.’

‘Jennifer? Goodness, is she attempting to improve her conversational English?’

‘Bitchy …’ Lance tried to look stern and failed. ‘It’s a ten-week course on skin buffing and something else she’ll need to climb the beauty therapy ladder. Could it be colonic irrigation?’

‘Possibly. Probably. Almost definitely.’

They smiled at one another. Doll really wished that the family hadn’t been fractured. That her parents could have shared this wonderful news together. Still, it was something that Mitzi and Lance were now on such friendly terms. She’d probably never let either of them know that it was their divorce which had made her doubt for so long whether marriage to Brett was a good move. If Lance and Mitzi had remained together then they’d have probably tied the knot years earlier – baby or no baby.

Lance broke the silence. ‘And what about your Mum? How’s she bearing up about the Granny news?’

‘Thrilled to bits, of course. She’s threatening to learn how to knit.’

‘I somehow can’t see Mitzi with lots of wool and two-pointy things. She’d have someone’s eye out. She’s never been practical.’

‘She’s getting there,’ Doll said defensively. ‘She’s learned a lot since you’ve not been around. Look how well she tackled decorating the whole house. And she does the gardening and can change plugs and mend fuses and—’

‘Okay, okay. Point taken. Is she at home tonight? I might go round and commiserate with her. After all – grandparents – us! We’re far too young. No, sweetheart, I’m kidding – but I’d like to see her, and Lulu, and raise a glass or two.’

Doll ran a forefinger round the rim of her glass of orange juice. ‘It’d be a waste of time tonight. There’s no one in. Lu’s out on one of her animal rescue missions and – um – Mum’s … well, she’s out with someone else actually. At the village hall. They’re sorting out the Christmas show.’

Lance stopped grinning. ‘Oh – right. You mean – out with
someone?
As in a date? Do I know him?’

Doll shrugged. ‘Not sure. Joel Earnshaw? Our new dentist? She’s – um – well, they’ve been – um – getting to know one another and, er …’

Lance poured more wine into his glass. ‘Oh, I see. Well, of course it’s no business of mine if she wants to see someone else, is it?’

Much as Doll adored her father, she felt a rapid surge of anger. ‘No it bloody well isn’t! You left her ten years ago! You cheated on her, decamped with Jennifer – someone only slightly older than me and Lu – and you divorced Mum to bloody marry her, Dad! Your choice! Don’t you dare criticise Mum for finding someone else after all this time.’

‘I’m not … But has she? Found someone else? Is it serious with this Joe?’

‘Joel – and yes, well, he’d like it to be.’ Doll challenged her father with her eyes. ‘He talks about nothing else but her at work. And they’ve got lots in common – including both being betrayed by someone they trusted implicitly. He’s a great bloke and she deserves to be happy. So don’t you dare spoil it. Okay?’

Lance downed his wine in one go and poured another. ‘Well, I guess it was bound to happen one day. I just – well – you know—’

‘Yes, only too well. You should never have had the affair with Jennifer. Never have left Mum. Still, you did, and however much you might miss and need Mum, you’ve just got to live with it.’

The silence ticked away in the spotless kitchen. Doll hoped her father wasn’t going to cry. She’d been devastated
when they’d divorced, but now even she could see that there was no chance of a reunion – and Joel would be simply perfect for Mitzi, if only she could see it too.

She finished her orange juice. Time to change the subject.

‘By the way, Mum’s going to be doing the catering for the wedding.’

‘Christ!’ Lance looked horrified. ‘She can’t! That’s even worse than knitting. Whatever you say about her new-found skills, she’ll never cope with fiddly formal stuff like vol-au-vents and petit-fours and things on sticks.’

‘She says she’s cooking up a traditional festive feast from Granny Westward’s book.’ Doll bit her lip. ‘A combination of old-time Christmas and wedding fare.’

‘Blimey,’ Lance blinked. ‘So we’ll all be naked and chanting by six o’clock and calling on the various pagan gods of winter as we skip round the tables. You’d best ask Otto and Boris to have a few sandwiches on standby.’

Doll pulled a face. ‘You’re as bad as Lu! She thinks everything in that recipe book is magic. She reckons it was some sort of Sahmain apple love spell that got Mum and Joel together – not to mention her and Shay. Oh, and of course, the Wishes Come True Pie is totally responsible for my pregnancy and wedding. Complete crap. How many times have I got to say—’

‘Say what you like,’ Lance frowned. ‘I know what happened with those Powers of Persuasion Puddings and Flo Spraggs. Never been so scared in my life! No, you ought to keep your mother well away from any of that magical cookery stuff if you and Brett want a smooth wedding.’