The Time of Our Lives (38 page)

‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she whispers with a wobbly smile. I stand and take the bags from him as he throws his arms round her, squeezing her face tight into his neck.

When eventually he pulls away, it’s with an unmistakable look in his eyes – one that confirms something that probably never occurred to me before now.

He really does love her, God help him.

‘I think I’ve got everything you need,’ he says, pointing to the bag. ‘For the baby, I mean – clothes and nappies and things. And I brought you some stuff –
slippers and some nice smelly stuff and Lucozade and—’

She interrupts him by reaching over and clutching his hand. ‘Thank you for getting here so quickly. I’m sorry you missed it.’

‘I wish I’d been here for you. But nobody could’ve predicted this. And I’m just glad he’s okay.’ He swallows. ‘I can’t wait to see him.’

‘I’ll ask the nurse if we can go now, shall I?’ She grins.

He stiffens in apprehension, before a wide smile breaks across his face.

I’m about to announce that, now Nathan’s here, we’ll leave them to get to know their new little boy while we go back to the hotel to pack. Then Meredith whispers something so
softly that I barely hear it.

‘I love you, Nathan.’

I wonder for a moment if she’s delirious from all the drugs. Then I remember – she hasn’t had any.

Nicola and I bypass the business-class lounge in Barcelona airport, head to a shop where we can spend our last euros on a sandwich, and settle into the cheap seats overlooking
the runway.

I can’t pretend I’m overly enthusiastic about keeping it real by forgoing free Buck’s Fizz and croissants, but that’s not the only reason things suddenly seem less
colourful than on the way here. Everything’s unnaturally quiet without Meredith around, and strangely dull without a handsome, bespectacled stranger in front of whom I’m guaranteed to
show myself up.

As I’m heading for the gate, a text arrives from Meredith:

I grin and hit ‘Reply’:

I hit ‘Send’ at the exact moment that the phone beeps again. My pulse ripples when I register the name that comes with it:

I download the attachment and read the piece, headlined: ‘Peebles poised to announce merger with mystery conglomerate.’

The article teases with our news about the merger with Getreide without giving so much away that it would spoil the formal announcement on 2 September. It talks about how Peebles is
‘believed to be in talks’ and goes on to describe

‘exciting rumours about the creation of a company, the scale of which Europe has never seen before’.

It will, of course, prompt a flurry of phone calls from other media trying to get the scoop on who the company is, but Charles is prepared for that – and confident that a carefully worded
quote or two in a publication as prestigious as
The Economic Times
will help deflect attention from David and remind the stock market that Peebles is a company that’s going places.

Under the circumstances, it couldn’t be more positive.

I am about to forward it to my boss when Nicola points out that the Departures screen is instructing us to go to our boarding gate. My phone beeps again. It’s another message from
Harry:

I swallow back the raw feeling in my throat and compose a text back.

It’s only as I’m hitting ‘Send’ that I realise how much I wish that was possible. I jostle the thought to the very back of my mind and instead force
myself to open my book.

‘
Here is a small fact
. . .’

Florence’s little legs gallop towards me as I emerge into Arrivals at Manchester airport. She flings her arms round my neck and squeezes me like she’s trying to
deflate a set of armbands.

I laugh, taken aback, and close my eyes as I breathe her in: the strawberry shampoo that infuses her hair and biscuity scent of her warm skin. ‘Gosh, I missed you,’ I whisper,
kissing her on the head. ‘So, so much.’ I pull back and look at her. ‘What’s that?’

‘My steposcope. I want to be a doctor.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, I want to do brain operations.’ My eyes widen. ‘Really?’

‘Yes. But I’m going to be a princess doctor. So I can wear pretty dresses and have nice hair and do brain operations at the same time.’

‘I think that sounds like a fantastic idea. You’ll be the most glamorous doctor around – good for you.’ I grin. ‘Perhaps we could get a medical kit for your
birthday.’

She scrunches up her nose. ‘No. I still want the pink hoover.’

You can’t win ’em all I suppose.

I stand up and hold her hand, as Mum walks towards us. I notice the limp immediately. She looks suddenly and dramatically frail: not the powerhouse of a woman I left behind, but a broken
bird.

‘Your dad’s just parking the car,’ she begins. ‘What happened to you?’ Her eyes widen, focusing on the cast on my arm, before switching to my dodgy eye.

‘It’s nothing, worse than it looks. How are you, Mum?’ I step forwards to put my arms around her.

‘Oh, I’m all right,’ she says, stoically.

‘Thank you so much for looking after Florence. I’m incredibly grateful. The bits and bobs I picked up at the duty-free hardly seem sufficient under the circumstances.’ I step
back from her and look her full in the face. ‘You didn’t need to come and meet me. You look as though you should be resting.’

‘That good?’

‘I didn’t mean . . .’

‘I know,’ she smiles softly. ‘Welcome home, sweetheart.’

Dad strides towards us, clutching a parking ticket. ‘Good break?’ he asks before doing a double take, directed at my arm. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Nothing, worse than it looks,’ I say.

‘Well, Florence has been as good as gold,’ Dad continues, ruffling her hair, like he did to me when I was a little girl. ‘Apart from nearly killing herself, obviously.
We’re going to miss her. Can’t we keep her?’ He grins.

‘No! I want to be with Mummy!’ Florence leaps in. I raise my eyebrows and kneel down to give her another squeeze, before she whispers that she has a secret to tell me.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

She cups her hand over my ear and says: ‘I love you, Mummy.’

A second later, she’s tugging at her granddad’s hand to ask if she can have one of his mints and the moment is gone.

‘Where’s Nicola?’ asks Dad.

I glance around before spotting her, about twenty feet away, in the midst of an emotional reunion with Jessica. ‘Will you give me a minute to say goodbye to Nic? I’ll be back in a
sec.’

Florence slips her hand in mine again and skips along with me, crunching Polos noisily.

‘Hello, Titch!’ Jessica grins at her when we reach them. ‘And Imogen. You look . . . what happened to you?’

I can see I’m going to have to get used to this. ‘I thought it was a shame not to put my medical insurance to good use.’

‘It’s been an eventful holiday, there’s no doubt,’ Nicola says with a smile. Then she looks up and freezes.

As I follow her gaze I realise what’s caught her attention.

Nicola’s parents are walking cautiously towards us, her mum two steps ahead, her dad following obligingly behind.

They’re wearing the same tentative expressions, their faces etched with emotion and a clear understanding that not being here today – at their daughter’s request –
wasn’t an option. And not because she forced them into it, or blackmailed or cajoled them. But because they love her, and she needs them to be on her side.

When Nic’s mum is in front of her daughter, they stand silently for a moment or two. Then she smiles. ‘Nicola. Do you still need that lift? And Jessica, too. It’s nice to meet
you. Perhaps you could both pop home for a cup of tea?’

Nicola’s jaw drops. Jess struggles to hide her incredulity.

If Nic’s parents notice, they don’t let on. ‘I’m Marion,’ Nicola’s mum continues, holding out her hand.

Jess shakes it enthusiastically as her face breaks into a beaming smile. ‘It’s LOVELY to meet you,’ she replies, before abandoning her hand and sweeping her into a hug
instead.

I knew Stacey would deliver on the homemade cake she promised, but I hadn’t quite anticipated the scale that would be involved: the mountain of sponge and icing waiting
on my desk when I arrive back at work would cater for a modest wedding party. Next to it is a scrawled note: ‘The size of cake is directly proportional to the amount of shit you’ve had
to put up with this week! In a meeting until 11 but will catch up afterwards. S xx’

Apart from that, the only notable thing about my first morning back at work is how little has changed, on the surface, since the last time I was at my desk, overlooking the comings and goings of
Southampton Street.

A glance at my inbox reveals that it contains 342 unopened emails, and so many exclamation marks that looking at the screen makes me feel like I’m being shouted at.

Over the course of the next twenty-five minutes, I discover that if I sit still enough, sipping coffee and gazing with a lobotomised expression out of the window, I can muster up a curious if
entirely improper sense of calm. Everything is so peaceful in fact, that you could be forgiven for thinking that I’d hallucinated the last week, although frankly I doubt I could imagine
anything so fantastical even if I’d eaten four bowls of magic mushroom soup, garnished with a generous swirl of LSD.

The silence is, however, deceptive. Outside my office, up a marble staircase, past a machine selling some of Peebles’s best-loved confectionary and through a set of austere rosewood doors,
sit the men and women who hold the future of the company, my boss, and me, in their hands: our board members.

They are discussing the lot: the scandal, the publicity and the aftermath. To my alarm, I appear to have become known as ‘David’s right-hand woman’ in the last eight days, a
soubriquet that now makes my blood curdle, but from which it’s hard to distance myself without putting the kybosh on my employment prospects in the event that he clings on to his job.
Besides, given that my name was on all that bad publicity, there’s no doubt that my own future here is inextricably linked to David’s. In short, I might be sitting here, but my job, yet
again, is on the line. It’s little wonder I’m savouring the superficial peace.

As I’m thinking all this, I hear David storming up towards the door of my office, before it bursts open. I’d recognise his rampaging footsteps anywhere. In those few seconds, I know
it could go either way.

This fact has less of an effect on my anxiety levels than I’d imagined, a phenomenon I can only attribute to the fact that this week has inoculated me against stress.

‘IMOGEN!’

The door is closed and David is striding towards me. I can tell in the moment just before he leaps around the desk that his job is safe, at least for now. He might have sweat marks under his
armpits, but this is a man with relief written so vividly over his face it’s as if the firing squad have put down their weapons and invited him in for a couple of Martinis.

‘Imogen . . . come here!’ he shouts, opening his arms wide and apparently expecting me to leap into them like a loyal puppy, albeit one who’s been kicked in the arse several
times over the last week.

When I don’t move, he bends down and hugs me anyway, nearly smothering me with his weight. I resist the temptation to add ‘inappropriate physical contact’ to the list of
misdemeanours he’s committed and, instead, as he stands up, push myself away in my chair with the intention of precipitating my detachment from him.

In the event, the chair castors propel me further than I’d imagined, and I end up speeding off like a Dodgem as David stumbles and comes very close to ending up with his face plastered on
the carpet.

‘Sorry,’ I mutter, with rather less conviction than he seems to be expecting.

He frowns, straightens and brushes himself down as he takes in my expression. And I can tell that it’s only now, for the very first time, that it’s occurred to him that I’m a
little pissed off.

He looks torn between indignation and fear.

‘Don’t worry, Imogen,’ he says, and heads to the chair on the other side of my desk.

I suddenly feel safer with him there. Safer, and a little bit dangerous.

‘Imogen, our jobs are saved!’ he declares, grinning as he opens his arms wide, as if launching into a number in
Jesus Christ Superstar
.

‘That’s very good news, David.’

‘It is, isn’t it? I got a rollocking, of course. I expected nothing less. But it’s nothing I haven’t had before.’ I raise an eyebrow as David continues, oblivious.
‘Barely a week went by without me getting a couple of sharp slaps on the backside with a ruler when I was at school. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that this time. And, even better, the
police have dropped the indecent-exposure charge against me – it should never have been brought, given how discreet I was with the in-flight blanket. So that means I’ve only got drunk
and disorderly to deal with, which carries a maximum sentence of a fine. It means I won’t be able to get the conservatory replaced until next year, but I can live with that.’