The Year of Taking Chances (23 page)

After the alarming experience of searching through her parents’ photos and finding the one that had freaked her out so badly, a whole week went by when Caitlin worked
savagely, day after day, painting and decorating like a woman possessed.
Just don’t think about it
, she kept telling herself.
Forget you ever saw that stupid photo.
What photo?
Exactly.

While she was not thinking about the photo she stripped all the wallpaper from the living room and painted it a soft, pearlescent dove-grey, with white gloss around the skirting boards and
cornicing.
She cleaned up the floorboards and slapped on two coats of golden varnish.
She polished the windows with vinegar, until light poured into the house and her muscles ached.

She did not go back in the dining room, or anywhere near the photo albums, in all this time.
The whole thing was a silly misunderstanding, she told herself.
She’d got it wrong as usual,
leapt to ridiculous conclusions – there was absolutely nothing sinister about that photograph of her and her mum.

A special day!
Jane had written on the back.
No, it wasn’t.
It was just an ordinary day in their lives.
It
was
.

At the end of the week the living room looked completely different: spacious, minimalist and serene, more art gallery than lounge.
It was hard to imagine her and her parents ever sitting
companionably in there together, playing Scrabble or watching
Doctor Who
.
Good,
she thought blackly, before she could stop herself.
If only it was as easy to paint over your
worries.

Later, after a hot bath and a large glass of wine, she gave herself a brisk talking-to.
She was stir crazy, that was all, from being cooped up in the house for so long.
Switching on her laptop,
she reconnected with the rest of the world for the first time in days and saw that an email from Saffron had arrived more than a week ago:

Caitlin felt instantly cheered to be somebody’s secret weapon.
And more work, too!
Proper, paid, interesting work with .
.
.
whoa, yes, another stonking budget, she saw, opening the
client’s brief.
She’d enjoyed the design jobs she’d had previously in her career – bits and bobs for the university and small businesses back in Cambridge – but this
felt like the jackpot, the big time.

She hesitated, reliving that awkward moment in her kitchen as Harry broke the news.
Oh, right.
A baby.
Instant recalibration of expectations to ZERO.
She should have known: he was far too sexy
and handsome for an oddbod like her.

She sent the email and rubbed her eyes, feeling wrung out.
She’d spent too much time on her own recently; it wasn’t good for anyone.
It was all very well receiving and sending
friendly emails, but she needed to get out of the house and speak to another human being for a change, before full-blown cabin fever set in.
The thought perked her up.
Yes, she would like that.
Maybe she could catch up with Gemma again soon, for a chat.

On impulse she picked up her phone, snapped a photo of the empty, revamped living room and texted it to her new friend.
Look what I’ve been doing!
she typed.
How are things with
you guys?
Hope all well, let’s meet up soon.

Message sent, she put down the phone, shut her eyes and breathed deeply.
Tomorrow, she decided.
Tomorrow she’d dredge up the courage to start delving into her mum’s paperwork, in the
hope that she’d find the answers that lay behind that strange, unsettling photograph.

Right now she was going to get completely trolleyed on this bottle of wine, though.
So there.

She was woken from a deep sleep the next morning by the phone ringing.
The curtains were edged with pink-gold daylight and she was surprised to see it was almost nine
o’clock.
Her head pulsed with a beating hangover and her mouth felt as dry as a Gobi sandstorm.
Urgh.
Go away, daylight.
Go away, phone.

‘Cait, it’s me, Gem,’ came her friend’s voice when she answered.
‘Oh my God.
You won’t
believe
what happened to me last night.’

‘What?
Are you okay?’
Caitlin opened one eye a crack and then shut it again.
Blaaarggh.
She was never drinking again.
Seriously: never.

Gemma giggled, a glorious, gleeful sound.
‘Get this: I’ve just sold a dress to Bunty bloody Halsom – you know, that awful old bag off the telly.
Three hundred and fifty quid
she’s going to pay me, Cait.
Three hundred and fifty big ones!’

Caitlin wondered for a second if her friend was on drugs.
What was she on about?
‘Bunty Halsom?
I might be doing her website,’ she said, befuddled.
‘I don’t understand
what you mean, though.
What dress?’

‘She was in The Partridge last night with that Saffron, who was here for New Year, remember?
Anyway.
She liked my dress and I said I’d made it, and then Saffron started blagging that
I had all these celebrity clients, like Nigella – can you believe?
I didn’t know what to say, but before I knew what was happening, she’d talked Bunty into buying one
herself!’

‘Oh my God.’
It took Caitlin a moment to digest all of this, then she laughed, forgetting her hangover for a moment.
‘That’s hilarious.
Brilliant!’

‘I know.
It’s the best news I’ve had all year.
Anyway, the only thing is, then I started blagging it a bit, too.
God knows what got into me, but I only went and told her I had
my own studio!
But I can’t let her come here and see where I really work – I mean, if she steps a single foot in our dumpy old house, I’ll be rumbled in a second.
She was already
kind of suspicious about me working in the pub, but I just about got away with that one.
So I’m ringing because I saw that photo you texted me – of your shamazing new living room
– and had a little light-bulb moment .
.
.
’

‘Bring her here,’ Caitlin said, reading her friend’s mind.
She suddenly felt wide awake; Gemma’s excitement was contagious.
‘Yes – do it.
We could totally
make this look like Fashion Empire HQ, if you bring along your sewing machine and a rail of clothes.’

You could almost hear the smile on Gemma’s face as she replied.
‘Are you sure?
That would be fantastic.
Thank you!
I can’t let an opportunity like this slip through my fingers,
I just can’t.’

Absolutely not.’
Caitlin was perking up by the second, her mind already busily transforming the space downstairs into Gemma’s design studio.
Good – a distraction.
Just what she
needed.
‘Come over whenever you want,’ she said, swinging her legs out of bed.
‘This is going to be fun.’

Thankfully her hangover wasn’t the sort to stick around doggedly, and after a hot shower and a kick-ass mug of coffee, Caitlin felt almost human.
It was just as well,
because two minutes later Gemma was there ringing the doorbell.
Somehow or other she’d crammed all manner of equipment into the back of the family car – a folding trestle table, her
sewing machine, a huge sketch pad and easel, a laptop, a tailor’s dummy and a rail of beautiful clothes she’d made.

Gemma had so much nervous energy crackling from her, she didn’t seem to know what to do with herself.
She hugged Caitlin, exclaimed over how gorgeous the living room looked, then actually
bounced up and down on the floorboards, clapping her hands.
‘This is perfect!’
she cried.

Caitlin took the lead, suggesting that they create an office ‘area’ at one end of the room, with the laptop and phone perched on an old card table.
They also set up a ‘design
area’, with the tailor’s dummy wearing a teal-coloured satin cocktail dress, alongside a rail of other outfits, and Caitlin ran up to her mum’s bedroom to unhook Jane’s
full-length mirror and bring it downstairs.
They unfolded the trestle table and positioned the sewing machine on top of it, then Gemma hunted through her pile of fabrics for a Liberty-print square
that she draped over the card table, just to add some prettiness.
The final touch consisted of the jars of buttons, cotton reels, zips and beads that she arranged artfully along the
mantelpiece.

‘It looks like a shop,’ she said afterwards, standing back and gazing around.
‘A really beautiful shop.
The kind of shop I could actually live in.’

‘It looks gorgeous,’ Caitlin agreed, putting a wooden chair at each of the tables.
‘So now what do we do?’

‘We wait for her to call,’ said Gemma.
‘And hope that she hasn’t already rumbled me.’
Her face fell at the thought.
‘All it will take is a few clicks online
for her to discover that I’m a complete fraud .
.
.
’

‘
Courage, mon amie
,’ Caitlin told her, sitting down at the laptop.
‘Tell you what: if you make some more coffee, I’ll get cracking on a temporary website.
What
shall we call you?’

‘What do you mean?
Oh – my company?’

‘Yes, Gemma: your highly successful, celebrity-dressing company.
I can do a quick holding page for a site, just in case she decides to check you out.
Any ideas for a brand name?’

Gemma looked blank.
‘Um .
.
.
’