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Rupert, who’s seven years younger than Mallory, was entranced by her style and her laid-back attitude to life, and they quickly became a couple, much to the delighted approval of his mum and sister.
In a relatively short space of time, Mallory has almost become one of the family. She meets Serafina and Arabella for coffee, and they’ve treated her to a few totally indulgent spa weekends, from which Mallory always returns happy and glowing. I’m really pleased for her. I can’t help thinking the lustre to her complexion is less to do with creams and potions, and far more a result of feeling she belongs.
After a lifetime of playing second fiddle to her own parents’ wanderlust, I can totally understand this. I just sometimes wonder if maybe the lure of being part of a ‘proper family’ isn’t colouring her judgement slightly. But she’s clearly very happy with her new fiancé, so I should probably stop worrying …
Rupert gives Mallory a lingering kiss, while I try not to look, and he teasingly refuses to tell her where he’s taking her for her birthday dinner.
They’re so sweet together, I’d probably throw up if she wasn’t my best friend.
‘Right. Toodle-oo, ladies!’ Rupert blows kisses at both of us and disappears off to check out some art studio in a local crafts complex he’s thinking of renting. And Mallory and I kick off our shoes and settle in for a gossip.
It’s getting dark by the time I leave.
On the drive home, I reflect on how amazing it is that Mallory and I met only a little over eighteen months ago. I honestly feel like I’ve known her for years.
We met when I was shooting a wedding at the Greshingham, a five-star country house hotel just a few miles from Willows Edge.
It was a bad time for me.
Sienna had buggered off to Paris a few months earlier, leaving me completely in the lurch. I was doing my best to keep the business going on my own while trying to cope with the aftermath of our traumatic fallout.
I knew I would have to employ someone to help me at the weddings, but my head was all over the place. I was finding it hard enough to get through the days, never mind trying to focus on finding an assistant I knew I could trust.
The wedding that day at the Greshingham was proving a challenge, to say the least. The wedding party were in fine spirits – quite literally. (The groom’s Uncle Bob was breathing a particularly fine whisky spirit all over me from pretty much the word go, joking around in a harmless but distracting way.)
Trying to corral a group of ‘well-refreshed’ guests onto the lawn for the photos, I began to feel a new appreciation for sheepdogs. I’d get ninety per cent of them there, then a small group would break away and start wandering back to the bar. My voice was hoarse from cajoling.
At one point, I thought grimly: Come back, Sienna, all is forgiven!
Except it wasn’t, of course.
And it never would be.
I was close to tears by the time the outdoor photos were done and I’d scuttled into a dark corner of the bar to take stock.
I sat there, trying to check down my list, terrified I might have missed something vital.
But there was a woman with a loud, plummy voice on the next table who kept barging into my thoughts, messing everything up. She was all, ‘Oh, totally, darling!’ and ‘I say, how absolutely awful for you!’
It seemed I couldn’t get peace anywhere.
Then, the crowning glory, Uncle Bob found my hiding place and plonked himself and his whisky breath down right beside me.
I had an urge to run off screaming.
But I took a deep breath and did my best to be polite and smile, turning down his repeated offers of a drink on the grounds that I was working.
At some point, I made accidental eye contact with Plummy Voice over Uncle Bob’s shoulder. She pointed at my half-cut companion and made a revolted expression.
Bob tried to swing round to see who I was grinning at and nearly fell off his chair.
I bashed my forehead to mime how fed up I was and she burst out laughing then turned to murmur something to the woman beside her.
Bob, meanwhile, had shuffled his chair so close, he was practically sitting on my knee.
‘Show me how it works,’ he slurred, making a stab at picking up my camera and knocking over his whisky glass instead.
As he apologised earnestly and attempted to mop my list with his sleeve, someone said, ‘I say, darling, you didn’t tell me you were the official photographer at this shindig!’
I glanced up in surprise. Plummy Voice was smiling down at me.
‘Could I have a word?’ she asked cheerfully.
I blinked. ‘Er … yes, of course.’
Giving Uncle Bob the benefit of her smile, she leaned down and pressed his shoulder, murmuring sweetly, ‘So sorry to drag her away from you but it’s really very important. I’m fresh out of tampons, you see.’
Even Uncle Bob, in his alcohol-soaked haze, knew when it was time to make a sharpish exit.
Plummy Voice sat down and we watched him stagger off, narrowly missing cannoning into a large-breasted woman in an even larger wedding hat.
My rescuer’s name was Mallory and I felt bad about my earlier grumpiness. I thanked her for frightening Bob away and giggled when she said the tampon emergency was just a ruse. We hit it off immediately, swapping stories about men who wouldn’t take no for an answer and she told me about the ‘frightful chap’ she’d been unable to escape in a bar one time, until she mentioned she had to get back to her five children who were at home, being baby-sat by her lesbian lover.
‘Worked like a charm. He was orf like a shot,’ she grinned, flicking back her amazing, strawberry blonde hair.
Mallory was proof to me that you should never judge someone by their voice. Because while she might sound posher than the Queen, she was actually far more Sarah Millican by nature, with her earthy humour and slightly irreverent take on life.
I warmed to her no-nonsense approach to life and her ability to make a joke out of everything, even the bad stuff. We swapped business cards and I dashed off for the next round of photos, feeling so much more cheerful and energised than before.
I wasn’t expecting her to phone, but she did, a few days later.
She said if I needed an assistant, she was available. ‘No pressure, darling. Obviously. But you’d be a first class chump to turn me down.’
I had a feeling she was probably right. So we arranged to meet at Rosa’s coffee shop to discuss it, and we haven’t stopped talking since.
Mallory likes to try and sort out my life.
Sometimes I listen, sometimes I just laugh. She doesn’t seem to mind either way.
And she’s a great wedding assistant …
THREE (#u8e9ed7bc-89ce-59da-b6c9-7cad0abacc9b)
When I arrive home and slide my key into the lock, I hear the muffled sound of the phone ringing.
My heart lurches. Few people call me on the landline these days.
Dominic does, though.
It must be him.
For a second, I’m caught in limbo, heart slamming against my ribs.
I could just let it ring. Hurry back to the car and drive round to the safety of Mallory’s house …
But if I run away, I’ll just be playing into the hands of a bully.
Taking a breath, I push the door open.
The jolly ringtone is deafeningly loud now, slicing through the darkness.
I close the door softly behind me and stand in the shadows of the hallway, holding my breath, wating for it to stop.
Perhaps this time he will hang up without leaving one of his messages.
‘Katy, love? Are you there?’
For a stunned second, I can’t take it in.
Then I run through to the living room and dive on the phone.
‘Mum? Is that you?’
She laughs. ‘Of course it’s me. Sorry, were you busy, love?’
‘No. No.’ Blissful relief courses through me, and a laugh bursts out. ‘It’s just so great to hear your voice.’
There’s a brief silence.
‘But I only saw you last week,’ she murmurs. ‘Are you all right, Katy?’
I flop down on the sofa. ‘I’m fine, Mum. Honestly. Everything’s great.’
‘Are you sure?’ Her sharpness takes me by surprise. I thought I’d been doing a pretty good job of shielding her from the mess that is currently my life.
‘It’s just you looked so exhausted when you were over last Tuesday,’ she says. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m worried about you. Did you know you nearly nodded off when I was telling you about Venus’s demonic entity fright.’
I lean my head back, aware of my heart rate gradually subsiding. ‘Venus? Demonic entity fright?’ It does ring a vague bell from last time. I think I just switched off, it was so preposterous.
‘Yes, Venus. You know. That nice but slightly batty woman who’s started coming to yoga?’
I nod, still feeling weirdly spacey.
Ah yes, the yoga class.
It’s been a bit of a turning point for Mum.
In the time since Dad died – coming up for three years now – she’s really been through the mill. For a long time, she refused to even consider selling the family home, even though it was clear she couldn’t go on paying the huge mortgage herself. Then about a year ago, I took her for a drive to Clandon House, an old country estate that had been modernised into apartments. And incredibly, she loved it.
Since she rented her two-bed flat there and moved in last March, she’s actually started to get back some of her joy in life, which is a huge relief for me.
Two of her new neighbours, Grace and Annabeth, have become good friends, which seems to have really perked her up. And they’ve introduced her to yoga, which she loves.
Last Tuesday, when I was at Mum’s for afternoon tea, they were all talking about someone called Venus. They kept referring to her as ‘the new girl in class’, which made me smile, bearing in mind their average age must be about sixty.
‘Katy? Are you still there?’
‘Yes. Sorry, Mum. Go on.’
‘Forgotten what I was saying now.’
‘Venus. And her – um – demonic entity experience?’
‘Ah yes. Nice woman but decidedly odd. Claimed she was just minding her own business, shopping for kitchen roll and kippers, when this huge force entered her and she felt she was being possessed by Satan. I mean, really. Have you ever!’
‘It does sound a bit unlikely, Mum.’
‘You’re not wrong there, love. But anyway, when I was telling you about it on Tuesday there, you were actually drifting off. You know, you really are working much too hard these days.’
‘Mum, when it’s your own business, you have to work all the hours.’
Not that she needs reminding of this. She was, after all, married for thirty-six years to a serial entrepreneur. Dad, bless him, was forever pursuing one business idea or another, with varying degrees of success.
Mum sighs. ‘I know, love. But it must be so difficult having to do absolutely everything yourself. Now that your sister …’
My grip on the phone tightens.
Mum trails off, knowing she’s straying into forbidden territory.
‘You’re very precious to me, Katy.’ There’s a break in her voice. And her unspoken subtext hangs in the air: Especially now that your sister is living so far away.
Tears prick my eyes and, for once, I don’t dash them away.
It’s so hard for her, I know. She must miss Sienna terribly, and the last thing I want is her worrying about me, too.
Mum thinks I work silly hours because it’s my business and I love the work, which is partly true. But she knows nothing about the stomach-churning fear that dominates my life; the debts that hang over me and routinely keep me from sleeping properly at night; and why working seven days a week is something I just have to do, because then at least I’m in with a chance of keeping my head above water. A chance to avoid the thing I most dread – losing the business and having my little house repossessed.
I open my mouth to try and reassure her again that I’m perfectly all right, but nothing comes out.
There are times in life when nothing but a hug from your mum will do.
And for a second, I find myself wishing desperately that Mum were here. Sitting on the sofa next to me, absently playing with the lump of rose quartz on the chain round her neck and delving in her homemade raffia bag for the little bottle of foul-smelling anti-stress tincture that Annabeth gave her to ‘balance her system’. I don’t know if she uses it, but it goes everywhere with her. (It smells like something died in her handbag, which makes her slightly embarrassing to go shopping with.)
I stand up, as Mum talks on, and walk through to the small conservatory, which is bathed in an eerie semi-light from the full moon.
I know it’s a mark of how concerned she is that she bravely brought up a forbidden subject and risked me hanging up on her. I just wish she could understand that the days of Sienna and I being as close as sisters could be have gone forever.
I do not need Sienna’s help. We may have worked together for the first six months, but I’ve managed to keep the business afloat all by myself since Sienna left, almost two years ago.
