The Perfect Match (10 page)

‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly,’ said Alice, touched but embarrassed by Bella’s praise. Bella must be about the same age as Michael’s daughters but she couldn’t be more different.

‘Lucy was looking for some roses. She and Phillip – her husband – have just moved into a new house and there’s nothing much in the garden,’ said Michael.

‘I think I can manage to choose a few rose bushes without help, thanks, Dad,’ said Lucy, who turned out to be the crosser-looking one.

It was a shame, thought Alice, she’d be so pretty if only she didn’t look so bad-tempered.

‘So, remind me,’ said Hannah, ‘how did you and Dad meet each other? I don’t think you told us, Dad.’ She shot her father an accusing look.

‘No, you didn’t say anything about meeting a woman called Alice,’ said Lucy.

‘We met on a train,’ said Alice. ‘We don’t know each other very well.’ She looked carefully and saw a flicker of relief cross the faces of Michael’s daughters.

‘No, but we have met up since, and I’d love for us to get together again soon,’ said Michael, either not noticing or ignoring his daughters’ chilliness.

‘Well, I’m doing lunch for a friend of Bella’s – it’s for her eighty-fifth birthday,’ said Alice. ‘Perhaps—’ She stopped herself. She had been about to invite Michael to lunch, but had realised it would look as if she was inviting the daughters too. But she couldn’t leave them out, really. She made a decision. She’d invite them all and trust that only Michael would accept. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come along? Although you’re probably busy.’ She looked at Michael, hoping he would guess she only really wanted to invite him. The daughters knew there would be a very old lady present as a chaperone, so they shouldn’t feel too protective.

‘Are we invited?’ said Lucy, looking at her sister. ‘And can I bring Phillip?’

‘Darling,’ said Michael. ‘We can’t impose—’

Alice forced a hospitable smile. ‘Of course you can!’ she said. ‘That’s the joy of Sunday lunch, it will always stretch to a few more.’ She looked at Hannah. ‘Have you got a partner you’d like to bring?’ She’d lumbered herself with one grumpy young woman and her husband; she might as well go the whole hog.

‘Well, yes, I have got a partner, but I don’t want to bring him. He’s away anyhow.’ Hannah gave everyone the clear impression that her partner would die before he’d have lunch with a load of strangers.

Alice swallowed, determined to look utterly relaxed at the prospect of having six people she hardly knew to lunch. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It’ll be delightful. Michael, you’ve got my address. We’ll see you all tomorrow? At about one? Now I must pay for this lot.’

Bella followed Alice as she walked to the car, pushing her trolley full of plants. Alice seemed perfectly calm but Bella wasn’t so sure she really was.

‘Is this OK, Alice? It’s turned into a party!’ Bella asked when they’d loaded the back of the car with plants and Bella had got rid of the trolley.

Alice turned to her god-daughter. ‘It should be fine, darling. Have you got the meat?’

Bella shook her head. ‘I rang to ask if the butcher could save me a leg of lamb. I’d better go and see how big it is. If it’s on the small side I’ll get two.’

They drove home and Bella left Alice to take her plants into the garden before setting off for the butcher. She was wondering how Alice could ever get to Michael past his Rottweiler daughters, who were not even willing for their father to have lunch with a potential woman-friend without them being there. Although, she conceded, there was an age difference. She might feel the same if it was her father. However, she was sure if the woman was like Alice she’d stop worrying pretty quickly.

The butcher also sold a variety of organic local products – cream, meringues, soft fruit, and Bella added these to the items on the counter while her second leg of lamb was being brought through from the back. Alice was usually a very relaxed hostess who provided wonderful meals without apparently doing anything except open the oven and produce golden-brown offerings that smelt delicious. Bella had a feeling it would all be a lot harder work tomorrow.

‘IT’LL BE FINE!’
said Bella as she and Alice ate toast together at half past eight the following morning. ‘You do amazing roasts. Michael will instantly want to marry you.’

Alice rested her head on her hand. ‘Don’t say that! Those girls will think I’m trying to snare him.’

‘I was only joking – and don’t bother about them. They practically invited themselves, after all. They probably just wanted a free lunch.’

Alice looked up, trying to smile. ‘No such thing.’

Bella, still determinedly upbeat and supportive, said, ‘Not for us, anyway! Maybe we should charge them. I wonder what you’d pay for a really nice Sunday lunch in a pub . . .’

Alice smiled obligingly. ‘I hope Jane Langley won’t mind all the extra people. This was supposed to be her special birthday lunch.’

‘She’ll be delighted, I’m sure.’ Actually, Bella wasn’t sure the two glossy young women who’d invited themselves were going to be Jane’s companions of choice, but Michael was delightful.

‘I’d better go and wrap Jane’s present and then I’ll be your right-hand woman.’

When the present was wrapped, Bella went round with the hoover, checked the flowers and generally tidied, waiting to be summoned to the kitchen for chopping and peeling duties. As she worked she thought about Michael. Alice had said that his daughters were in their twenties. Would that put Alice off, having to deal with young women? She had always been great when Bella was a child – she just treated children in the same way she treated adults, and Bella had loved that. And when Bella had gone to her in a state, after having had to leave her parents’ house needing comfort and a home, Alice had been a haven of wisdom and supportiveness. It was always going to be a temporary arrangement, but somehow she’d never felt the need to move on.

But would the daughters see how nice Alice was? And was Michael remotely serious? She would hate it if Alice fell for him and he didn’t feel the same. Given her reaction to seeing him unexpectedly at the garden centre, Bella thought Alice probably cared a bit more than she’d like people to know.

Alice was just debating with Bella about the need for a third pudding and whether two sorts of potatoes was overkill when Bella’s phone went. She pulled it out of her pocket. ‘It’s Jane,’ she said to Alice. ‘I hope she’s not going to cancel when you’ve gone to all this trouble. Hello!’

‘Bella? I’m just ringing to say that Dominic is here. He’ll run me over so you don’t have to pick me up.’

Even hearing his name was a shock. ‘Oh well, if he doesn’t mind.’

There was an awkward pause. ‘Can I be terribly rude?’ Jane went on. ‘Can I invite him to lunch?’ Bella’s mouth went dry and she couldn’t answer. ‘Do say no if it’s not convenient, but I’d feel bad leaving him here to fend for himself . . .’

‘But does he want to come? It’s just that I don’t think I’m his favourite person. Beans on toast at yours might be more to his liking.’

It was Jane’s turn to hesitate. ‘Well, to be honest, I was aware that you and Dominic seemed a bit awkward when we had drinks but when I mentioned I was coming here’ – Bella could hear her embarrassment – ‘he asked if he could tag along. I was a bit surprised, but when I questioned him he insisted.’ She paused. ‘Maybe he’s heard how good Alice’s Sunday lunches are?’

Surely, not even Nevil, who’d experienced a few of them, would have added ‘and her godmother does great roasts’ into the conversation when he’d told Dominic about their unofficial engagement? Bella couldn’t work out how this might have happened. But as they were bound to run into each other sooner or later, it might as well be sooner. And maybe it would be easier if it happened at Alice’s, and she was expecting it.

‘Well – I’m sure that would be fine.’

‘Thank you so much! And the thing with a joint is there’s always enough for one more.’

‘So they say,’ said Bella, and as she’d bought the lamb, she knew that it was true.

‘I must say having you here to help is making me feel so much calmer,’ said Alice as Bella went into the kitchen with her news. She slammed something back into the oven. ‘It wouldn’t do for two of us to be panicking. I need you to talk me out of making another pudding. I do have some lovely raspberries left over from the trifle, I could easily knock up a raspberry and chocolate—’ She stopped. ‘Oh. Something bad happened?’

‘Yes!’ Bella had intended to sound relaxed about adding an extra guest – extra to the other extras – to Alice’s lunch party but her voice betrayed her feelings. ‘Well, I expect it’s OK really. Dominic is coming too.’

‘Dominic?
The
Dominic?’

‘That’s the one.’

Alice didn’t speak for a few moments. ‘Well, I must confess I’m longing to get a look at him.’ She laughed. ‘And you know what? I think it’s time for a gin and tonic.’ She went to the fridge and got out a couple of cans of tonic and some ice cubes. ‘I was taught how to make these by an ex-boyfriend.’ She poured gin over the ice cubes. ‘He said it’s called gin and tonic, not tonic and gin so that has to be the largest ingredient. Mine aren’t quite as strong as his were.’

Bella frowned. ‘Do you think it’s a good idea to get drunk before all these people come for Sunday lunch?’

‘Essential, darling. Now find the lemons.’

They agreed that lunch would now have to take place in the dining room and Bella set the table before rushing into the garden with a pair of secateurs. She just needed a few sprigs of something to gussy up the flowers in the dining room, and she really wanted some fresh air. If only she could stay out there until lunch was over and everyone had gone home. The prospect of Dominic and Michael’s overprotective daughters was not inviting. But she owed it to Jane and Alice to do her bit with a sunny smile.

Not long after this, the kitchen full of the smells of roasting lamb, garlic and rosemary, Alice and Bella heard the crunch of gravel and looked out of the window.

‘Nice car!’ said Bella, hiding her relief it wasn’t Dominic and Jane. ‘Is it Michael’s?’

‘Yes,’ said Alice peering out of the window beside her. ‘And there are those terrifying young women and one of their – which one?’

‘Lucy,’ said Bella.

‘And Lucy’s City boy husband.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s all going to be fine,’ said Bella, giving her godmother an affectionate squeeze.

‘You’ll be just as jittery when Dominic and Jane turn up,’ said Alice.

They just had time to share an agonised look and a reluctant chuckle before the doorbell rang.

‘Do come in, everyone,’ said Alice. ‘Michael, how nice to see you.’

‘We’re rather a crowd, I’m afraid,’ he said, putting a bottle into her hand.

‘That’s all right,’ said Alice. ‘You’re not the only ones coming.’ She smiled at the young man who followed the others into the house.

‘This is Phillip,’ said Michael. ‘Lucy’s husband.’

Phillip kissed Alice’s cheek. ‘Hi.’ He had a deep, well-bred voice and a lot of confidence: the air of someone who knew he had loads of charm and was prepared to be generous with it.

‘This is Bella,’ said Alice, and Phillip kissed her cheek too.

‘Come on through to the sitting room. It’s a shame it’s not warm enough to sit in the garden but we can look at it. It might warm up later.’ Alice shooed everyone down the hall.

‘Sounds like a lot of fun,’ Bella overheard Lucy mutter, which made her wonder why on earth they had come if they didn’t want to be there.

The sitting room did look lovely, thought Bella. It was a large, well-proportioned room with French windows opening on to the garden. The furniture was comfortable and stylish, although none of it matched. The room had never been designed, it had just developed organically and the effect was charming.

As Bella watched the group finding places to sit on the sofas, she thought again it would have been a lot less stressful if it had just been her, Alice and Jane there to enjoy it.

‘Right, drinks,’ said Alice. ‘Who wants what? Gin and tonic? Wine? Sherry?’ She and Bella had loaded a tray with enough different drinks to open either a small cocktail lounge or a juice bar.

‘Who drinks sherry?’ asked Hannah, unable to hide her disdain.

‘Quite a lot of people actually,’ said Phillip. ‘It’s getting quite popular with the younger crowd. Although it is served chilled, usually.’

Bella smiled at Phillip. He was probably just showing off his greater knowledge to his sister-in-law, but she was grateful anyway.

‘You could have ice in the sherry, and Alice’s G and Ts are amazing,’ said Bella. ‘If you’re not driving, that is.’

Just then a kitchen timer buzzed in Alice’s pocket and Bella spotted a look of panic cross her face for a second.

‘You go and see to that,’ said Bella. ‘I’ll carry on here. What would you like, Lucy?’

Before Lucy had a chance to answer the front-door bell went again.

‘I’ll do drinks,’ said Michael, ‘they’re well within my skill set – unless you’d rather I got the door?’

Bella would have loved to let him get the door, but she knew it was her responsibility. ‘Drinks would be brilliant. Thank you!’

No wonder Alice likes him, Bella thought as she went down the hall. She opened the door and there was Jane, in her best silk dress and pearls, and behind her was Dominic, giving off, Bella felt, a lethal combination of sex and power. But while he wasn’t looking exactly friendly, he wasn’t looking hostile either. It was a start. If only her legs hadn’t just turned to jelly. She pulled herself together and greeted her friend.

‘Happy birthday, Jane. Do come in.’

‘I hope you didn’t mind me inviting Dominic,’ Jane said a little hesitantly.

‘It’s fine, as I said on the phone.’ Bella kissed her. ‘Alice would have been horrified to think he’d been left at home, hungry.’

‘I wouldn’t have been hungry, but it would have been bread and cheese,’ said Dominic, and to Bella’s surprise he smiled properly.

‘Come in, both of you,’ said Bella, after a second of eye contact with Dominic that sent her heart racing.

She herded them into the sitting room and then realised she’d have to do the introductions. She made an instant decision not to describe Michael, but just give his name.