Lola's House (Lola Series) (12 page)

‘Can’t
, babe, we’ve had a few projects on simmer for a while and now they’re all coming to the boil at once.’  He looks at me apologetically.  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t get any more calls now so you have my undivided attention.’

Half an hour later we have been seated in the restaurant overlooking the terrace.  A cool breeze is blowing in through the French doors and a pianist is playing soft music in the corner of the room.  The mood is perfect for a romantic evening.  James takes hold of my hand across the candlelit table as our first course is served. 

‘I wanted to come here, away from everything, to focus exclusively on us
, Lola.  I want to put the last twelve months behind us and pick up where we left off.’  He gives me a searching look.  ‘What do you think - could we put it all behind us?’

‘I think tha
t would be nice, James.’  I mean that with all sincerity, I really feel we could move on together.  I am sure he is trying really hard to change and I need to at least give him a chance.  I put my free hand on top of his and smile.

‘That’s what I wanted to hear, Lola.  I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but breaking up with you was the stupidest thing I ever did.  I really hope we can move on and cement our new relationship.
So, I have been thinking quite a lot about where we left off and what would probably have come next for us if we hadn’t broken up.’  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small ring box and places it in my hand.  ‘Will you marry me, Lola?’

To say I
am shocked is an understatement.  I never in my wildest dreams imagined he would propose.  This was way too fast for me and I feel more than a little bit uncomfortable.  I move my eyes away from the little box in my hand back up to his eyes which are smiling, hopefully back at me.  ‘Oh, I didn’t expect this, James.’

‘Well you must have known which way I was heading, Lola.  We love each other and we’ve spent many years together, so why shouldn’t we get married?’
  He is struggling to hide the indignation in his voice.

‘But we broke up for twelve months, James.  I can’t just jump back in where I left off.  I thought we were working on it?’

‘But what better way to work on it, babe, than showing the world our commitment to each other?’ He looks so hopeful, as if this is indeed the only logical step for us.

I look
back down at the box in my hand and place it on the table before me.  I think a lot of James but I haven’t fallen straight back in love with him over the last few weeks.  I can’t see how he has jumped to this conclusion.  It’s too soon.  I look back up at his face and he wears the puppy dog expression again.  Deep inside me I want to say no thanks, you’re going too fast, but then I will hate myself.  So I decide to stall for time.  ‘Can I think about it, James?’

He hesitate
s for a few seconds until he regains his usual composure.  ‘Of course you can, babe.  I don’t want to push you into anything - you’re too special to me.  But you’ll see how much sense it makes.’ 

My eyes flick
back down to the little box on the table.  I haven’t even looked inside yet, which to me is not a good sign.  James sees me eyeing the box and slides it back across the table.  ‘Keep hold of this in the meantime while you think about it, it may just help you make your mind up.’

The atmosphere
feels a little awkward and I can’t imagine how the rest of the evening can possibly play out well, but several glasses of wine do help to relax everything.  When we get back to our room, James immediately pounces and puts his arms around me, holding me close. 

‘Let me help you make your mind up and remind you what the future Mrs. James McCormack can look forward to.’  He
feels his way up my back and slowly unzips my dress and lets it fall to the floor, my blue velvet corset now on full display. 

H
is eyes widen, and his eyebrows shoot up, while he licks his lips in anticipation, he says one word.  ‘Wow.’

Then his hands
are all over me, his lips on my mouth and my neck and my shoulder.  He stops for breath momentarily.  ‘If I’d known you were wearing that underneath your dress I would have bought you back to the room much sooner.’ 

And so, we pick
up where we left off twelve months ago.  Being back with James feels sort of familiar and comfortable, like slipping into a favourite pair of shoes.  When he eventually falls asleep, I lie awake next to him, thinking about the proposal.  Marriage probably would have been the next logical step if we hadn’t broken up instead.  But now, a lot of water has gone under the bridge.  I have changed and I don’t feel the same as I did before.  Although I am more than willing to work on what we have, but I’m not prepared to make any hasty decisions.  And it is nagging at the back of my mind why he feels the need to hurry things along. 

Chapter Twelve

Five boxes were delivered to the shop on Monday morning from a house clearance, which Muriel and I were now sorting through.  So far, we had found a few prize items inside but a lot of it was only fit fo
r the charity shop, so we sort these into a separate pile.  Muriel carefully slits open the third box and pulls out a beautiful nineteen fifties style wedding dress.  It is ivory coloured and three quarter length, with a skirt which fans out over many layers of net.  The bodice and sleeves are made of thick lace which comes down to a point at the wrist.  We both ah’d all over it and Muriel held it up against me. 

‘That would look
so beautiful on you, Lola,’ she says, inspecting the lace carefully.

I flush to the roots of my hair and push her away making a joke out of it.  ‘But it deserves to be worn, Muriel and I’m not getting married.’ 

She hangs the dress on the rack ready for specialist cleaning.  I still haven’t made a decision, and I also haven’t told her any details of the weekend.  I’m not sure why, but it just feels like a guilty secret.  Another guilty secret.  The ring box is burning a hole in the bottom of my handbag, and I still haven’t looked at the ring inside.  I should have been jumping for joy, but instead I feel hemmed in, like I’m going to suffocate.

It was on the tip of my tongue to spill my guilty secret to Muriel, and get her sage opinion, when the shop door burst open, violently clanging the old fashioned bell abo
ve it.  Both Muriel and I look up as the door swings back, and hits the display stand behind it.  It then teeters and topples precariously, before hitting the floor, spreading the contents in all directions, gloves, scarves and purses everywhere.

And there she
stands, looking like misery itself, hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a pair of torn jeans and a baggy jumper with food stains dripped down the front.  Muriel and I both look at each other uncertain what to do.

‘Chrissie?’
I say, I’ve never seen her look so unkempt and out of control.

‘You really need to move that stand,’ she sa
ys, and then her face crumples up as she bursts into tears.

Muriel and I spr
ing into action.  We grab hold of her, arms around her shoulders, moving her into the shop.  She is inconsolable, snot and tears everywhere.  We sit her down and hand her wads of tissues.  Muriel goes off to make tea with a slug of medicinal brandy, and I try to get some sense out of her between sobbing fits.  ‘What on earth is wrong, Chrissie, I’ve never seen you like this?’

Chrissie wipe
s at her eyes with the backs of her hands, and stuffs the tissues into her nostrils to stop the flow of snot coming from her nose.  ‘The weekend was a total disaster, it’s all gone wrong,’ she blurts out, in between sobs.

‘Why what happened?’  I pass her another tissue as Muriel c
omes back with the tea.

She
blows her nose noisily on the new tissue.  ‘He spent the evening watching football.’

Muriel and I exchange confused glances over the top of Chrissie
’s head.  ‘Well, that’s not the end of the world is it?’

‘I’d planned a whole seduction thing, sexy lingerie and body oil, and he wasn’t even slightly interested.  It’s like he’s gone off me completely,
’ she sniffs.

‘Maybe he was tired,
’ I say helpfully.

‘Or stressed,’ add
s Muriel.

‘He’d eaten loads at dinner, and when I tried to get him interested he just pushed me off and said he was too full to move.’ She
looks around for more tissues and finding none she uses her sleeve instead.

Muriel
thinks for a moment.  ‘Perhaps you should have let him rest it off before you...well you know.’

‘It was four hours later,
Muriel.  He had sat through a whole football match with all the boring talking stuff at the beginning and the end.’

‘Oh.’  I didn’t really know what to say.

‘He’s never done that before, I mean yes he likes his footie but he’s never turned down sex for it.’  She looks at me helplessly. 

‘Did you wait until the footie had finished?’  Muriel ask
s, hopefully.

‘Yes, I waited and waited and then waited some more.  I was wearing the sexiest little red lacy bra and the smallest g-string you ever saw
.  I made my move on him and he just pushed me off.’  She cries again, using the soggy ball of tissues to wipe at her eyes.  ‘I got so frustrated in the end I lost my temper with him and we had a huge row.  And now he says he doesn’t think he wants to get married ever.  He says we’re okay as we are.  How can we be okay when he would rather watch football than let me seduce him?’

Muriel raise
s her eyebrows at me over Chrissie’s head.  ‘Perhaps he’s just not ready to get married, Chrissie?’

‘But I am ready.  What’s the point in us being together if we don’t get married?’

I hand the tea to Chrissie and she takes a big noisy slurp from the mug.  ‘But does it matter if you love him and you live together anyway?’

‘Of course it
matters, I want him to commit himself to me.  It’s what you do when you love someone.’  She pushes the tea back into my hand and looks around her.  ‘Are there no bloody tissues in this place?’

‘I’m not sure anyone cares about that these days, Chrissie.  He probably feels he’s already committed to you.’  Muriel reache
s into the tissue box but finds it empty, I nod towards my handbag behind the counter, and hold Chrissie’s hand to re-assure her. 

‘But he does love you, everyone can see that. You’ve got
a whole life together already what with the flat and a joint bank account, you’re as good as married now.’ I gingerly take the soggy tissue from her and throw it in the bin.

‘So why can’t he just marry me then?’  She ha
s run out of places to wipe her nose having already used her sleeves and the backs of her hands.  ‘I feel like I’m wasting my time and it’s all pointless.’

I look over
to Muriel for the tissues, she is still delving around in my handbag trying to find them.  ‘I think you need to sit down together and talk it through when you’re both calm.  Tell him how you feel.’

Chrissie sigh
s in between sobs and takes another gulp of tea.  I look up at Muriel and my eyes nearly pop out of my head as she has the ring box open in her hands, her face lit up like a Christmas tree.  She is just about to speak when I shake my head at her. She quietly closes the ring box and slips it back into my handbag, then pulls out the tissues and passes them to Chrissie, who dissolves into another fit of tears.  I wrap my arms around her and hug her tightly, stroking her hair.  ‘Don’t worry, it can all be sorted out, you’ll see.’

While Muriel deals with the upended display stand, I drive Chrissie home.  She has calmed down considerably, so I run her a bath and leave her soaking under a mountain of bubbles.  When I get back to the shop, Sandip is reversing out of a space so I drive straight into it and give him a wave as he disappears out onto the main road.

The shop
is back to normal inside, no sign of the emotional breakdown from earlier.  Muriel has moved the stand from the back of the door to the other side of the shop.  She is busy serving a customer at the front of the shop, so I make myself busy with the kettle.  She joins me just as I am putting the milk back in the fridge.

Referring to the customer she ha
s just served, I say. ‘She had a few bags, what did she buy?’

‘Never mind that, why is Chrissie breaking her heart because her boyfriend won’t marry her
, and yet you have an enormous square cut diamond engagement ring in your bag you have conveniently forgotten to mention?’  She stands with her hands on her considerable hips.

‘Oh that
,’ I say, waving my hand dismissively.  ‘It’s nothing.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ she sa
ys, standing in front of me, blocking my exit.  ‘Confession time, Lola.’

My shoulders slump
as I deflate.  ‘James proposed on Saturday night.’

Her eyes
are as big as saucers and she clutches at her throat.  ‘Oh my goodness.  What did you say?’

‘I told him I wanted to think about it,’ I sa
y, blowing on the surface of my tea and watching the ripples.