I Should Be So Lucky (20 page)

She’d half expected to find Charlotte in the cloakroom, but there was no sign of her there. Viola made her way to the front door of the hotel and looked out, wondering if she was already in the car. It would be just like Charlotte to have gone out already, leaving Viola to
talk
herself into confusion and ignoble eviction from the festive crowd. Charlotte’s car had gone. Not a word had she said, she’d just vanished. Viola checked her phone but there was no message. Thanks, Charlotte, she thought.

‘Your champagne. Not a bad little number either.’ Daniel was waiting exactly where she’d left him and handed her the glass, along with a mushroom vol-au-vent. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit nervy, to be honest.’

‘Thanks. Um … it seems my friend has left me in the lurch and
gone
.’

He eyed the crush of guests. ‘Did you want to mingle for a while, as she’s not here?’

‘Er … not particularly. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I don’t actually know anyone.’

‘Me neither,’ he admitted. ‘The trick is to bluff it out till they summon the troops for photos and then bolt. I’ll give you a lift, don’t worry about your friend buggering off.’

‘So …’ The fascinator woman lurched up to them. ‘Enjoying the party?’

‘Er … yes. It’s, er … lovely. And they look very happy.’

‘Well, of course they do. They’ve waited long enough for this. Well, you’ll know that, obviously.’

‘Absolutely. But then with marriage, it’s not something to rush into, is it?’ Daniel laughed.

Fascinator woman’s smile faded. ‘Rush?
Rush?
After
what they’ve been through? Afghanistan? The
leg
?’

‘Absolutely. The leg,’ Daniel concurred, though faltering slightly and looking unsurprisingly puzzled. But fascinator’s voice had cut right through the rest of the room and most people were now staring at Daniel and Viola. ‘Are you
gatecrashers
?’ she demanded.

‘No, not at all,’ Viola lied fervently. Her phone dinged through the silence and she fumbled in her bag to fish it out. Why did it always go to the far corner, especially when you were searching one-handed while holding a glass? The phone tumbled to the floor but no damage was done as it landed on something soft. Ever polite, Daniel bent to retrieve it and handed Viola her phone with one hand and the black lacy knickers that had broken its fall with the other. Fascinator woman grabbed them from Viola’s hand and waved them in the air at the watching crowd. ‘Blimey,’ she laughed. ‘Were you planning to gatecrash the honeymoon suite too?’ The guests cheered and whistled and Viola backed towards the door.

‘That’s right, you two, time to go,’ fascinator woman then hissed, shoving the knickers down the front of Viola’s dress and grabbing her glass from her. ‘You can bugger off.’

‘Well, that’s a first. I’ve never been evicted from a wedding before.’ Daniel was giggling like a boy fifty years younger than he actually was as the two of them whirled out of the hotel by the side door. ‘Have you?’

‘No!’ Viola couldn’t help laughing too. ‘And it’s not as if I wanted to go in the first place. But hey, I suppose it is quite funny really, isn’t it? They probably thought we were a pair of habitual drunks, hanging out for the free booze.’ Once safely out on the pavement, she checked the message on her phone. ‘Home emergency. So sorry to abandon,’ it said. Somehow Viola wasn’t too amazed. Had Charlotte had
any
intention of joining them for the do?

‘Oh terrific!’ she said. ‘No Charlotte. No surprise. Oh well.’ It was going to be quite a trek home and her shoes weren’t getting any more comfortable.

‘I’ll be happy to drive you home, as I said. After all, being chucked out was completely my fault so don’t even think of refusing,’ Daniel urged her.

‘No, really, I’ve already had use of your handkerchief and you’ve looked after me at the party as well. Honestly, I’m sure there’ll be a bus stop just somewhere near.’ A breeze had got up while they’d been in the hotel. She held her skirt down firmly, bunching it into folds so it couldn’t escape and blow up to expose her naked nether regions. It was like being back at her nursery school when she hadn’t quite made it to the loo and the school nurse, having had a run on the spare-clothing cupboard, made her spend the rest of the day knickerless. One of the boys had spent every possible minute finding excuses to be down on the floor, trying to look up her skirt. It was the first time it had occurred
to
her there were aspects to her body that might be in some way a bit
rude
.

Daniel grinned. ‘I think you might be more comfortable in my car,’ he teased.

‘Actually, a lift would be very welcome. Thanks. And those were just spares, by the way.’ Another lie. In the back of her mind she could hear her mother going completely ballistic: not only was Viola getting into a car with an unknown man, but he was one who knew she had no knickers on.

‘Of course they were,’ he agreed diplomatically as they arrived at a little black convertible Mercedes and he opened the passenger door. She climbed in rather gingerly and told him her address.

‘You didn’t know those people any more than I did, did you?’ she asked Daniel as the car sped away. ‘So, you know, kind of what were you doing there? Were you there to hear Abigail singing too? That’s my excuse – Charlotte dragged me along because Abi is a friend of hers. Bloody Charlotte.’

Daniel didn’t reply for a moment, negotiating a tricky roundabout. ‘Well … OK, I’ll come clean. This might sound odd but it was just something I read about in a magazine. Weddings can be rather a good way to meet people.’ He looked at her quickly, grey eyes sparkling. ‘Women. Ladies. You know …’

‘What, like, to
pick someone up
? Is that what you mean?
Really?
’ How bizarre. She’d heard it all now.

‘Er … in a way. And why not? I’m single right now and I don’t particularly want to stay that way. I don’t much fancy Internet dating, and everyone in those newspaper ads lies. All that “slim, attractive, GSOH, likes country walks and theatre” and so on. They all turn out to have been to a musical as part of a coach party in 1976, drag a smelly Labrador round the local rec every day and have the figure of a steamed pudding. I don’t want to hang around in bars and I’m not going to meet anyone new and interesting at the golf club, so …’

They were at the traffic lights now. He turned to look at her, his expression rather unhappy. ‘You think I’m a sad old git, don’t you?’

She did, slightly, though not so much sad as a bit desperate. She couldn’t help it.

‘No, of course not.’

‘It’s the celebratory atmosphere, obviously. At the do after, people can get very lively, if you know what I mean.’

‘Well, yes. Everyone expects a good time at a wedding. Don’t you find it tricky, with seating plans and so on?’

‘Not really – you just check out the lie of the land, plump for those that are more a casual effort than a formal do. And please don’t think I just do it to get … well, get … er, sex,’ he said. ‘No, it’s not that. Well, not entirely, I mean that would be a welcome bonus. No, people really open up and talk at these things, so if I meet someone interesting who I can take out for dinner,
or
see a few times, maybe see how it goes, so much the better. It’s a huge improvement on something like going for the evening in a bar where everything’s a bit contrived. And of course I do like cake.’ He laughed. She felt flustered now as they approached Naomi’s house. Was he going to want to see her again? How did you deal with that asking-out thing? She could barely remember. Daniel was, she reckoned, far too old for her. He went such a long way back that he would know all about early Stones music and Bob Dylan in the years before he went electric. He was ideal for someone bang in the middle between her mother and her sister. If she were actually to be with someone ever again, she’d prefer a man whose formative years included the Lemonheads and the Cure.

‘I’d love to invite you out for supper sometime, but I think two things.’ Was he reading her thoughts? ‘The first is that you’d be sure to say no, and the second is that, sadly, you’re a bit young for me, to be honest.’ Daniel turned and smiled at her as he pulled up outside the house. Unreasonably, she couldn’t help feeling slightly deflated at this. ‘Though I do so admire a woman who takes her underwear off even
before
the first date,’ he added, laughing.

Viola laughed too. ‘Well, it was that or have them fall off.’

‘Which could be open to misplaced misinterpretation of a certain eagerness,’ he said. He was looking at her in
a
slightly questioning way. Was he having second thoughts about not inviting her out? She half hoped he was. He had turned a potentially miserable day into a completely fun adventure, and you didn’t get many who could do that.

‘Thanks so much for the lift,’ she said, surprised that he sprang out of the car, whizzed round and opened her door for her.

‘My pleasure.’ He smiled. ‘I do hope the bride and groom will forgive us. I’m sure they will – I got the impression they quite enjoyed it.’ For one tricky moment she thought he was going to kiss her but instead he simply patted her arm like an awkward uncle, got back in the Mercedes and drove away. She felt quite sad about this, as if she were waving goodbye to a good friend she’d never see again, rather than the casual acquaintance of an afternoon. Mad, she thought, opening the gate and catching sight of something she hadn’t noticed before: a huge clump of dark-leaved nasturtiums nestling by the gatepost and spilling out across the gravel.

The masses of flowers were a rich deep bronze shade, the kind of colour you want to stroke in case it really is warm, like soft fabric. Self-seeded from up the road, she told herself firmly. Not newly appeared from nowhere
at all
. And of course she hadn’t noticed them before – you didn’t spot every road-level plant in the neighbourhood and, after all, they weren’t exactly
inside
the
garden
. But all the same … her heart did a few extra skippity beats. Equally mad, she concluded. Plants just
do turn up
. It didn’t have to mean that someone you are rather liking, someone who is almost certainly
very unavailable and must not even be thought of
, had nipped along and planted them. After all, why would they?

SEVENTEEN

NAOMI CARRIED THE
basket of courgettes and baby leeks up from the vegetable patch at the far end of the garden. Old Joe from next door wouldn’t be thrilled that she liked to harvest the crops he’d planted for her when they were still quite small and at their maximum tastiness, but if he wanted to carry on having shared use of that big patch at the end, that was the deal. In return, she didn’t go near his planet-sized cabbages or the marrow he was cultivating for the local produce show. She remembered her old father, all those years ago, growing giant vegetables for competitions, and how nothing he’d bring home for the family to eat ever tasted anything but woody and a bit stale. Joe probably preferred the taste of over-mature veg, going by the expression on his face when he caught her snapping young, tender pea pods off and eating them raw. Maybe it was a man thing; something Viola and Kate would
dismiss
as willy-waving. She sympathized with both viewpoints, but when it came down to it, you couldn’t beat flavour over size. In leeks, anyway.

As she walked back up the path she had a good look at the roses. The ones Oliver had planted against the fence for her when she’d first come to the house were at their best just now. He’d smile about that, she thought, the fact that his gift was at maximum splendour just at the anniversary of his passing. She would take some to the cemetery on the day, as she did every year. Not that she believed anyone’s spirit would choose to hang about in a place of ultimate loss and sadness, but because, in a macabre, literal sense, it was the closest she could get to the physical presence of him. She didn’t think too much about the reality of what was down in the ground, but she knew full well that there would be splintered wood, a worm-chewed corpse, a gape-grinning skull. All the same, a few times a year, it cheered her own soul to sit on the cold granite grave, weed out the stubborn dandelions that grew between the cracks and remember the many past good times.

Thank goodness for mobile phones. Would she dare call Greg if she had to phone the nursery office? All the same, Viola’s heart was beating much faster than usual as she clicked on his number in her phone. From just that one brief meeting at the nursery, she knew that
Mickey
– who was
not
his wife, so that was something – was one scary woman. She’d be willing to bet that if Greg had left his phone on a desk in his chaotic office, Mickey might be the one who picked up this call. She could just imagine her barking ‘And who IS this?’ at her in a cross-at-being-interrupted sort of way. Viola knew that although her call was all innocence, she’d fluff and bluster and manage to make herself look like the worst kind of desperately pursuing woman. Luckily she got Greg.

‘Nasturtiums?’ Viola decided a blunt one-word accusation should do it. She had to know.

‘Bless you!’

‘No, you eejit – the great mass of nasturtiums by the gate. When did those go in?’ Oh Lordy, suppose it wasn’t him after all. Suppose Old Joe next door had left them, maybe as a love token for Naomi. She almost switched the phone off.

‘Last night, just after 1 a.m. And honestly, Viola, how come it’s taken you more than half the day to see them? Don’t you take
any
notice of the abundance of nature around you? Another time I’ll dig in a row of great tall runner beans right across your gateway so you can’t miss them.’

‘Sorry – I’ve been, er … out. Just got back.’

‘Out having fun?’

‘Out, yes, but not that much fun really, since you ask. I went to a wedding.’

‘Oh, right. Well, I can see weddings might not be everyone’s idea of fun.’

‘Not this one. But, hey, I love the flowers. You do realize you’re completely barking mad, don’t you?’

‘Am I? Yes, probably. But it’s peaceful, harmless mad. I’m glad you like them. I was going to say, if you’re not keen on nasturtiums – and not everyone is, they’re martyrs to blackfly – just rip up the flowers and scatter them in a salad. Delicious and peppery. I’d wash the blackfly off first, though.’