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‘Chloe’s going to be an actress,’ says Andrea, stroking her daughter’s hair proudly. ‘Aren’t you, darling?’
Chloe squirms away. ‘Yeah.’ She glances at me. ‘I’m playing the lead in the school play just now. And Mum and I are going to start a drama group in the community centre. We’ll be putting on our first show at Christmas time.’
‘Really? That sounds great fun,’ I say, gathering up my things, hoping she’s not going to ask me to become a member. I’d rather eat my own toenails than stand up on stage in the spotlight being stared at.
‘You can join if you like,’ says Chloe.
I grin at her. ‘Thanks but I think I’d be a bit wooden to be honest. I’m far more comfortable this side of the camera.’
Andrea gives me the list of wedding photos they’d like. As I leave, she and Chloe are discussing the merits of Cinderella over Snow White and the Seven Dwarves for their Christmas show.
‘But where would we get all those little people?’ frets Andrea, clearly going down the heigh-ho, heigh-ho route.
‘I hope you’re not being politically incorrect there, Mother,’ comments Chloe.
‘What on earth do you mean? You know I’m not into politics. I didn’t even vote at the last election …’
Back home, the next hour is spent at my computer screen, editing photos and waiting for Rose’s album to arrive. She’s been on the phone three times this week to double-check she’ll have it by tomorrow.
The pressure is huge. I feel like a sumo wrestler is taking a nap on my head. A little knot of anxiety has been sitting in my stomach since yesterday afternoon.
Apart from the thought of having to deal with a horrendously upset client if I don’t deliver – and getting paid late, which frankly would be disastrous – I really don’t want Rose to be disappointed. I always feel honoured when a bride trusts me with her special day, and I’ll do anything necessary to make sure I don’t let her down.
When the doorbell rings, I rush to answer it. It’s the postman with an album-sized parcel and I can’t decide whether to throw my arms around his neck or weep with relief.
I check through the album, holding my breath anxiously, hoping nothing has gone wrong. But, thankfully, it looks fantastic, so I parcel it up to send off to Rose.
The phone goes just as I’m about to dash out of the door. I hesitate for a moment, then pick it up. It’s a business call – an enquiry from a girl called Bethany, whose friend’s wedding I photographed last year. She’s phoning to ask about my prices and whether I’d be available to shoot her wedding. Being newly engaged, she’s brimming over with excitement about her forthcoming nuptials, even though it’s still almost a year off.
Hopeful of securing a new client, I don’t want to cut her off in mid-stream, so I chat for a while.
Her happiness is infectious. That’s one of the nicest things about my job.
Okay, the brides can sometimes get very stressed as their Big Day looms. And the grooms can be a bit stern about shelling out the cash. But mostly, I’m dealing with people who are at an incredibly joyful stage in their lives. And in spite of my own marked lack of bliss on that front, I still love to talk weddings.
Bethany and her groom are flying to Italy for the ceremony but they’re having a church blessing on their return, and they would like me to take the photographs. We have an excited discussion about the venue in Italy and how marvellously romantic it will be to sip cocktails with her wedding guests on the rooftop terrace as the sun goes down over the Bay of Naples. I can’t help sighing inwardly at the thought of such a glorious setting. I haven’t been abroad on holiday in years. But maybe one day …
I get a shock when I look at my watch.
Bugger! I’ve got precisely eighteen minutes to get to the post office in the village – a five-minute walk away – before it shuts. I’d take the car except it packed up again yesterday and it’s at the garage being fixed. (I’m bracing myself for the damage – of the financial kind.)
I used to have a lovely new Toyota Corolla but having failed – despite my best efforts – to keep up the payments after Sienna left, I was forced to give it back to the lease company. I bought this old Fiesta at a car auction for a few hundred pounds. But sadly, it’s far from reliable.
I apologise to Bethany, grab the album and flee from the house, slamming the door behind me so that the whole house shakes.
And then, just as I’m thinking I’m finally home free, a big white van draws up and a guy shouts through the window, ‘We’re here to collect the piano?’
My heart sinks. For a number of reasons that I don’t particularly want to examine.
‘I thought you said after five?’
He shrugs and climbs out with his mate. ‘Sorry, love, we need to take it now.’
Oh God, all I need now is for the gate to stick …
‘Can you get the gate open?’ I call.
They walk through without a problem and look at me like I’m mad.
Thanking God for small mercies, I dive back in the house, moving bits of furniture I think might impede their progress with my ancient upright piano. Having shown them where it is, I find myself retreating to the kitchen so I don’t have to watch it go. I’m annoyed at myself for feeling so emotional about it. I haven’t even touched the damn thing for well over a year.
I lean back against the sink, arms tightly folded, listening to their huffing and puffing as they heft the piano about, and wincing as it bashes against the doorway on the way through to the hall.
I remember the day it arrived and how my sister was pink-cheeked with excitement, anticipating my reaction. A wave of nausea washes over me. Resolutely, I push the image away.
And then finally, finally, it’s gone and the men are carting it off to the van.
And then, of course, I can’t get out myself with the parcel because the gate is wedged shut. I try to wrench it open but it’s obviously determined to sabotage my day.
Aaargh! Bloody thing! Must get it fixed.
Honestly, the whole bloody house is falling down around my ears.
I’ve got seven minutes before the post office shuts.
I yank the gate one more time, feeling the panic rise.
Oh, to hell with it.
It’s a fairly high fence and as I clamber over, it catches me in an awkward place.
I yelp in outrage.
Then I howl again as, safely over, my right shoulder whacks into someone racing past the house. The impact jolts the album parcel out of my arms and I watch in dismay as it skids along the grimy pavement and lands in the gutter in an oily puddle.
Breathlessly, I turn, wondering what just happened – and find myself staring up into a pair of icy blue eyes beneath drawn- together beetle brows.
The man they belong to is tall and dressed in running gear.
He must have been pounding the pavement at a fair old rate because his chest is still heaving beneath the white Aertex top and his dark hair is slick with perspiration. (But not in a Ron way. This man’s sweat is the impressive, vigorous exercise sort.)
‘Gosh, sorry,’ I blurt out, trying not to look at his lean, muscled legs in the black running shorts.
‘You all right?’ he demands, still breathing strongly, hands on hips, as – somewhat unsettlingly – he stares at my nether regions.
I glance down.
I’m still grasping onto my crotch, casualty of the mean picket fence.
I laugh, a bit hysterically if I’m honest, and fold my arms. ‘Fine, thanks. Just – er – scaling the fence. Always good to keep active.’ I nod at his running shorts, hoping to indicate a common interest.
‘Active?’ His grin is incredulous and I feel myself blush. ‘I think you might need a bit more practice.’ He indicates the fence. ‘Unless you want to go around actively maiming pedestrians.’
He rotates his right foot, a little gingerly, then tries putting his weight on it.
Oh, shit! He’s obviously injured.
‘Did I do that?’ I wince. ‘Sorry.’
He dismisses this with a little shake of his head. Then he bends to retrieve my parcel and I swear I hardly notice his bum and his long, beautifully flexed thighs.
He hands me the brown bundle, which is now a water-logged, soggy mess. ‘Hope it’s nothing too important?’ His expression softens into a smile.
I smile back as a surprising feeling trickles through me, making my eyes widen in a ‘hey, I remember that sensation’ sort of a way. (It’s been a couple of years, at least.)
I’m vaguely aware I should be upset about the album, but what comes out of my mouth is, ‘God, no. It’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
‘That’s a relief.’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ I swallow hard, imagining how horrified Rose would be if she could see her album now.
‘Nice piano.’ He nods as the men slam the back doors of the van and climb in, preparing to move off. ‘Are you selling it?’
‘Yes. Do you want to buy it?’
He frowns at me. ‘No.’
I give myself a swift kick in the shins. Metaphorically speaking. Do you want to buy it? Chrissakes, where did that come from? No wonder he’s looking at me like I’m one leg short of a baby grand. Apart from anything else, I’ve already sold the bloody thing. It’s currently bouncing on its merry way to a Mrs Turner in Easthaven.
‘Right,’ I mumble, feeling escape is my best bet. ‘Got to pet to the ghost office.’
‘Sorry?’ His brows knit in further confusion.
‘Post office!’ I yelp. ‘Got to get to the post office.’
Bloody hell, what’s wrong with me?
Cheeks well alight by this time, I raise my hand and march off with the soggy parcel under my arm, painfully aware I’ve left him bemused. Probably wondering what sort of a halfwit climbs over the fence instead of using the gate like most normal people.
It’s only when I’ve turned the corner at the bottom of the street that it occurs to me I can’t possibly send the album off in this wrecked brown paper packaging.
But I can’t just do a U-turn. What if Runner Man is still watching? What if I have to cheerfully explain that I actually hadn’t noticed the shagging dirty marks and the wodge of something revolting that’s completely obscuring the address?
I sidle back to the corner and, feeling like a total fruit loop who’s been allowed out for the day, peer furtively along the street, clutching my damp parcel.
Phew! The coast is clear.
He must have run the other way.
‘I’d use the gate next time,’ says a voice behind me, making me jump.
Runner Man speeds past me with a cool, backwards wave, and slows to cross the road.
He half-turns his head and grins. ‘A fence can get caught in all sorts of tricky places.’
TWO (#u8e9ed7bc-89ce-59da-b6c9-7cad0abacc9b)
It’s almost March.
Every day this week, the residents of Willows Edge have awoken to blue skies and a silvery frost on the trees at the edge of the village green and on the roof of the cricket pavilion.
But as I walk the familiar route to the little row of shops that borders the green, I can see signs that spring is on its way. Little clumps of crocuses, in brilliant shades of violet and egg yolk yellow, are bravely defying the cold snap, and the daffodils are beginning to push through.
As a child growing up in the idyllically pretty village of Willows Edge, I took my surroundings completely for granted.
I wasn’t especially interested in the way the houses in the village centre were ranged so picturesquely around the village green and how the row of stylish and colourfully painted shops lured customers in with their tempting window displays. People came in from neighbouring villages to shop for their weekend croissants and Danish pastries at the family-owned bakery; to sip hot chocolate in the welcoming warmth of Rosa’s coffee shop; eat their ploughman’s at The Bunch of Grapes, just off the main street; and to wander into the pretty church with its ancient bell tower and low porch, set back from the green and shaded by willow trees.
The greengrocer’s on the main street was forced to close when people started shopping at the new express supermarket, but apart from that, the village has managed to retain all its charm.
It wasn’t until I moved away, first to college then to London for work, that I started looking at Willows Edge in a new light and realising how special it actually was.
This afternoon, my destination is the florist’s.
The shop owner, appropriately named Daisy, greets me with a cheerful smile.
Daisy is about my age with long dark hair in a ponytail and her one-year-old, Luke, almost permanently welded to her hip. Like the bakery, the florist’s is a family-owned business and Daisy recently took over the reins.
‘Hi Katy. How’s things? Are you doing Ron and Andrea’s wedding?’
‘I am indeed.’ I smile at her. ‘Three weeks on Saturday. You?’
Daisy has a crack of dawn start on wedding days, driving up to the London flower markets to buy her blooms dewy-fresh.
She nods and hoists Luke higher on her hip. ‘It’s going to be a wedding with a difference by all accounts.’
Luke gurgles and holds out a pudgy fist towards me.
‘It certainly is, Lukie,’ I say in a sing-song voice, bending towards him and tickling his cheek.
He biffs me smartly on the nose. It takes me by surprise and makes my eyes water.
‘Celebrity-style, I hear,’ says Daisy, after gently reprimanding Luke. ‘Are you going in fancy dress?’
I grin. ‘No, thank goodness. I’ll be blending into the background, as usual.’
‘Well, what can I do you for today?’ She places Luke in his bouncy chair and clips him in.
I glance around at the floral displays, breathing in the heady mix of scents and wondering how much a small bunch of freesias will cost. I hate having to skimp when it comes to my best friend’s birthday, but I know Mallory understands. In fact, she’d tell me off if I spent too much on her.
