The Love Shack (34 page)

Me:
I can’t speak Japanese.

Mum:
Why not? I bought you a CD last Christmas.

Or . . .

Mum:
Diana! Do you remember Daniel? You must! He peed in your paddling pool once.

Or . . .

Mum:
Elaine! How’s Penelope? You must meet Daniel.

Me:
Mum, we’ve met.

Mum:
No, I don’t think so.

Me:
Um . . . we have, Mum.

Mum:
No, you’re mistaken.

Elaine:
He’s not, Belinda.

Mum
(remembering): Of course! You caught him and Penelope at it on her sixteenth birthday, didn’t you? It could’ve been worse, darling. At least they confined themselves to the shed.

At ten o’clock, the moment arrives that my mother has been waiting for – her whole bloody life.

It’s
Dirty Dancing
time.

Okay, I won’t deny it. I kind of like dancing. And while I’m no Gene Kelly, I can bust a few moves better than the average straight bloke.

Still, we haven’t exactly practised our moves relentlessly, or been in hard training for months. Though we did hit the lake a couple of weekends ago trying to emulate that scene where the hero (whatever his name is) lifts the girl (whatever her name is) above his head.

I spent most of the experience being hurled backwards with Gemma’s crotch in my face – about as much of a turn-on as you’d expect when accompanied by pond water being flushed down my throat and out of my nose.

Gemma, having been mildly anxious about this dance earlier today, has relaxed after hitting the cocktail trolley. Unfortunately, she seems to have relaxed so much that she has also relinquished use of most of her motor skills. ‘C’mere loverrrr boyyy,’ she drawls down my ear, grabbing me by the tie. ‘We’re on.’

She drags me to the centre of the hall, gesturing to Sadie, who starts prodding at buttons on my mother’s sound system, which was purchased in the mid-1990s and has a similar number of controls to an armoured personnel carrier. Eventually, Showaddywaddy are cut off in their prime. Everyone groans.

But when the opening bars of our song begin, they are recognised instantly and universally. The entire room stops and looks.

Gemma is in her swingy dress and she has never looked more gorgeous, nor more cross-eyed. Her head lolls from side to side, as she takes Bobby’s instructions – to keep her neck loose – with spectacular literalism.

But she’s always had more natural rhythm than me, so can get away with the added, gin-fuelled enthusiasm, while I opt for my usual policy: to do my bit, try not to drop her and hope that her twirly bits are distracting enough to get us by.

I’m quietly astounded that the first part of the dance goes okay. People are impressed with our co-ordination, and too polite to notice when she mutters, ‘SHIT! I’ve got the wrong shoes on!’

Then it reaches the finale, the bit that was always a triumph of optimism over ability. Bobby had suggested we come up with a Plan B – a safe twirl that we could put into place if one of us was feeling nervous.

And while I’m not the nervous kind, I am currently sweating like a sex pest before a CRB check.

It’s not that I’m not capable of holding her – it’s that Gemma can barely see straight and I’m seriously concerned that if she attempts this lift, she’ll fly directly into my hands and propel both of us into the downstairs loo.

So, as we’re swinging our hips, I give her the wink, the gesture that’s supposed to launch Plan B. But she just spins round, oblivious, with an elated grin on her face. I wink again. She fails to notice. ‘Gemma, Plan B,’ I hiss, but she’s off improvising, lapping up the crowd.

‘Gemma – PLAN B,’ I repeat.

She spins round and looks appalled. ‘No bloody way!’

‘Yes –
way
.’

Her feet start tiptoeing backwards, preparing for her run-up, as it strikes me that I have no idea whether we’re going for Plan A, B or bloody Z.

All I know is that my girlfriend is racing towards me as if she’s been fired out of a cannon, and I have nowhere to go. So I hold my arms out, ready to do the full lift, only for her to collide into my chest, clearly expecting the twirl.

She is not impressed. ‘That was rubbish.’

‘I know,’ I concede.

‘Well, do something.’

‘Something?’

‘Anything.’

She throws open her arms and I oblige by bending down and picking her up to throw her over my shoulder. I am not in the best position to judge the resulting effect, but this is the only thing we’ve got that will save us from this dance turning into Gemma’s worst, unspectacular flop.

And we
do
get a cheer from the crowd. I decide to make the most of it, so spin her round. And round. And round. I do realise I could be accused of a lack of diversity in this routine, but when something’s going well, what’s the point in stopping?

The
point
becomes apparent when I get to approximately the sixth spin and things start to fall apart, or rather off, beginning with Gemma’s footwear.

Her high heel flies off her foot and hurtles across the room in the direction of the buffet table. I lower her to the ground, just in time to see the shoe land, with an unceremonious
splat
, right in the middle of my mother’s Scotch Egg Trifle.

The room erupts in applause. And I couldn’t think of a better finale if I’d planned it.

Chapter 53

Gemma

Despite entertaining the crowd (for all the wrong reasons) I am mildly mortified by the crescendo to our dnace, not at all reassured by those who subsequently thanked me for relieving them of their duty to sample Belinda’s trifle.

‘You’re worrying too much,’ Dan tells me, as we make a token effort to start cleaning up after the guests have gone.

‘If you say so.’

He leans in and grabs me, sweeping me into a Mills & Boon cover clinch. ‘Marry me, Gemma,’ he declares theatrically. ‘With your sparkly eyes and precision aim with a high heel, I can’t spend a moment longer without you as my wife.’

And I can’t help but laugh. ‘You do realise I hate you sometimes.’

I loved the party tonight. Not just for the champagne and the dancing and because I’ve always loved a good do. But because, for one night, it made me forget about the turmoil that’s been going on in my head. It made me forget about Alex – and focus solely on how much I love Dan.

But after the fireworks have faded, I can feel that clarity slipping away from me again.

I reach out to squeeze Dan’s hand, when there’s a bang from the direction of the pool room. He frowns. ‘I thought all the guests had gone?’

‘So did I. And your mum was quite emphatic about locking that up for the party while there was so much glass around.’

Dan puts down his bin bag and goes to investigate, while I follow. He has his hand on the door as a whoop echoes through the corridor, followed by a series of splashes. ‘Oh my God!’

‘What is it?’

As I turn the corner, he doesn’t need to respond. There are two champagne bottles by the side of the pool. A pile of clothes. And Belinda and James, both in their birthday suits, getting it on in the Jacuzzi.

Dan looks as if someone’s poured acid in his eyes.

The following morning when I wake up, Dan is fast asleep, snoozing in that way he does sometimes, with his lips slightly parted, blowing out a thin strip of air. I check my phone and see that a message arrived last night.

You’ve gone all quiet on me lately, Gems. Everything okay? xxxxxx

I get heart palpitations as I close it down and look at Dan. Then I slip out of bed, pull on my dressing gown and tiptoe downstairs, making my way through dropped canapés and party poppers.

I put the kettle on and stand at the kitchen window, staring out with dry, confused eyes.

When I’ve made some tea, I head outside to breathe some fresh air into my lungs. I wander across the drive and onto the lawn, dewy grass between my bare toes. It’s when I reach the lake that I see her.

Grandma is sitting on a rock, her feet dangling into the water beneath her long, flowing skirt. I walk over and cough.

‘Hello, Gemma,’ she smiles, shuffling up to make a space next to her.

‘You didn’t fancy a lie-in after last night?’ I ask.

‘I haven’t been able to sleep past seven o’clock since I turned sixty, unlike the rest of them.’ She gestures to the house. ‘Talk about not knowing how to hold their booze. Oh, thank you for my present, by the way. Very thoughtful.’

‘It was Dan’s choice. Well, actually – it wasn’t really his choice. At least, not his first choice.’ The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

‘Oh?’

‘Oh, nothing. We’d bought something else at first. But it wasn’t suitable. At least, Dan didn’t think so. Although he was in two minds about whether to take it back then.’

She looks puzzled, then says lightly, ‘You’ve got to tell me what I’m missing out on!’

‘It . . . it was a wetsuit.’

She opens her mouth to speak, then closes it.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘Nothing. I love the bracelet, it’s beautiful. Very kind. Lovely.’

‘Then what?’

‘It just makes me a little sad that I’m no longer up to a wetsuit.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t that,’ I say awkwardly. ‘It’s not that you’re not up to it . . .’

‘Don’t worry, I know Dan was just trying to do the right thing.’ She leans into me and whispers conspiratorially, ‘But I’d have
loved
it, all the same.’

I look into her milky blue eyes and, for a small moment, I can see her as a young woman again. There’s no doubt about it, Flossie Blackwood has sucked out everything life has to give. I hope I can look back, aged eighty, and say the same.

I stand up and brush the grass off my pyjama bottoms. ‘Flossie, will you wait here a minute?’

‘I’m not going anywhere, lovely,’ she replies.

I run back to the bedroom as fast as it’s possible to do with a head that feels as though someone’s put a pneumatic drill in my ear. ‘Wake up, Dan,’ I say, shaking him by the shoulders. ‘We need to do something.’

He lets out a little groan and smiles. ‘I know it’s been a while since you got your leg over, Gemma, but it’s not that urgent, is it?’

‘Not
that
. It’s Flossie. You need to dig out that wetsuit.’

Grandma turns round to look at us, squinting in the sunlight, as we march towards her. ‘What are you two up to?’ she asks as Dan produces the wetsuit from behind his back.

‘We just thought we’d bring you your other present,’ he says.

Her eyes widen as she holds out her hands, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she smiles, her eyes glinting. ‘Thank you, Danny.’

‘I wasn’t sure it was a good idea,’ he says, sitting down next to her and giving her a kiss.

‘I love it,’ she replies. ‘Thank you, both of you.’ She looks up. ‘In fact, I’m going to go and put it on. Fancy a dip, Danny?’

He grins. ‘Why not? That’ll clear the hangover, eh?’

He helps her up. ‘Just a thought,’ she says, an impish expression on her face. ‘This is a
lovely
wetsuit. It seems wasted in our little lake . . .’

As we leave for the hour-long drive to Bala Lake, Flossie is in such a good mood that she’s close to singing ‘I do like to be beside the seaside!’ all the way there. The car is alive with laughter, even if there’s also a flicker of anxiety on Dan’s face.

When we arrive at the lake, we pull into a little car park next to the shore. The sun is hot enough to make the ground shimmer, and the only way to stop sweat bubbling on your brow is to open the door the second the engine stops. Dan helps Flossie out, before she carefully slips off the skirt over her wetsuit and I help her with her swimming cap, while Dan strips down to his trunks.

‘This is where Grandma used to bring me with Grandad when I was a little boy,’ he tells me.

‘You were a lot smaller then,’ she replies. ‘I used to hold your hand and you’d go splashing in, dragging the two of us in until we fell flat into the water. You were a scamp.’

I can tell that Dan isn’t worried any longer. He simply nods at his grandma as she clasps his hand and says, ‘Come on then. What’s stopping you?’

And although they don’t run, there’s a real spring in her step as they edge into the water, splashing and laughing just like they did all those years ago.

Chapter 54

Gemma

Today is the day we exchange contracts with the vendors of Pebble Cottage. Which means that, although we won’t get the keys for at least another two weeks, as soon as the ‘exchange’ happens, the house is irreversibly destined to be ours – and our moving-in date is set in stone.

I feel breathless every time I think about it. And not in a good way.

For the first time ever, I am starting to admit to myself that I am not 100 per cent certain that any of this is what I want. Not when Alex made me feel how he did in Dimitri’s. Not when my stomach continues to flip over every time another text lands, as it does this morning.

I miss hearing from you, Gems. A lot. I haven’t won the company raffle this time, but I seriously need to see you. You and I have some things to talk about: will you meet me for a drink on Friday? x

The exchange of contracts could happen at any time between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. today. And, I can’t deny it, the thought of it is making me feel mildly sick. As the hands on the office clock amble slowly round, I am entirely unable to focus on work. I check my phone every minute, then twice a minute. Then I set myself a rule that I can only check it every five minutes, which fails almost instantaneously.

Annabel the solicitor has said she’ll call me as soon as the exchange has happened, yet I start wondering if she’s forgotten about us. Or fallen ill. Or gone shoe shopping at lunchtime and stumbled across a particularly diverting sale in Kurt Geiger.

By 3 p.m., my internal pressure cooker is reaching the volcanic setting. I pick up the phone again and call the solicitor.