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He arranged a pained, affronted expression on his face. ‘Are you telling me that I can’t give my own daughter money?’
‘Of course not,’ said Jennifer, retracting hastily. She rubbed suddenly sweaty palms on the thighs of her blue jeans. ‘All I’m asking,’ she said carefully, ‘is to please consider whether it’s in Lucy’s best interests to do so.’
He stood up, his well-built frame towering over her. Muffin never stirred. ‘I think I’m capable of making that judgement call.’
Jennifer tilted her chin up and met his eye, refusing to be intimidated by his height and the size eleven feet planted firmly on her carpet. ‘She’s not going to learn anything about money management if we keep bailing her out every time she gets into trouble.’
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked down at her scathingly. ‘Would you really see her short, Jennifer? Leave her without money for food and bus fares?’
‘Of course I don’t want to see that,’ said Jennifer, choking up with emotion. ‘But I also know that if we don’t stop these handouts she’s never going to learn to stand on her own two feet.’
David, who never listened to criticism of his children, said, ‘Well, I for one am not going to send my daughter back to uni without a penny in her pocket. And I have to say, I’m quite astounded by your attitude, Jennifer. How can you be so mean to your own daughter?’
‘I’m not being mean,’ she responded robustly. ‘I’m trying to be a responsible parent. And you’re doing what you always do, David. Spoiling her.’
He reacted angrily. ‘That is not true,’ he said loudly. ‘My children aren’t spoiled. They appreciate the value of things, they don’t take what they have for granted and they know what’s right and wrong.’
Jennifer considered this, recalling Lucy’s somewhat dubious moral code. Only last week she’d been undercharged in Boots but instead of pointing it out to the assistant at the time, she’d come home crowing about it. ‘I’m not so sure about Lucy. And she’s thoughtless. She gave me dark chocolates for my birthday.’
‘Well, give them to someone else if you don’t like them.’
A deathly silence followed during which they glared at each other. And then Muffin, sensing the charged, negative atmosphere in the room, hauled himself to his feet and padded towards the door. Jennifer turned to watch him go – and let out a little gasp.
Lucy stood in the doorway dressed for outside, wet hair plastering her head and a huge bag slung over her shoulder. Her eyes glinted with angry tears, as yet unshed, and the expression on her long, thin face was furious.
‘Lucy, I … I didn’t see you there,’ said Jennifer feebly, desperately trying to recall exactly what, in her rage, she had said. How much had Lucy heard?
‘I’m ready to go,’ said Lucy coolly, ignoring Jennifer.
David gave Jennifer a sort of triumphant look, pulled his car keys out of his front pocket and said cheerfully, ‘Me too, pet.’
‘Do you mind if I stay the night?’ said Lucy, addressing her father. ‘I don’t want to stay here.’
‘Sure.’
So Lucy was up to her old tricks again – playing one parent off against the other, acting like a petulant teenager. Mind you, her tactics only worked because David played right into her hands.
Jennifer felt that she ought to try to resolve things between them. And so she said, damp patches of perspiration forming under her arms, ‘Lucy, please. Don’t be like this. I thought we could go out for something to eat tonight. And go shopping tomorrow.’
Lucy furrowed her brow and feigned confusion. ‘Why would you want to go out with a, what was it, Dad? A “spoilt brat”? And I can’t go shopping. I don’t have any money. You know that.’
Jennifer sighed. ‘I didn’t say you were a spoilt brat, Lucy. I said you acted like one sometimes. That’s not the same thing.’
Ignoring her, Lucy went on, theatrically, ‘What else was it you said? That I don’t know the difference between right and wrong? That I’m thoughtless?’
‘Lucy, I’m sorry I said those things. I was trying to make a point to your father, that’s all.’ Jennifer looked to David for support but he, finding sudden fascination in a loose thread on the cuff of his shirt, blanked her.
‘I heard what you were trying to do, Mum. You were trying to stop Dad from helping me when I … I …’ Her voice started to crack up and she paused momentarily, sniffed and went on, ‘I don’t even know where my next meal’s coming from. If anyone’s thoughtless, it’s you.’ And with that, partly covering her face with her hand, she burst into tears.
Jennifer bit her lip, her chest tight with anxiety, hard pressed to tell if Lucy’s distress was entirely genuine – or partly a calculated tactic. In any event, it had the desired effect. David went over to her immediately, put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a hug.
‘There, there, now. Don’t cry, darling,’ he cooed, talking to her like she was a toddler who’d just fallen over and scratched her knee, or some such calamity. He kissed the top of her wet head. ‘Maggie’s made lasagne for lunch, your favourite.’
Jennifer, watching them, was incensed. Couldn’t David see that he was simply fuelling Lucy’s inappropriate behaviour? And yet it broke her heart to see her only daughter standing there in tears, estranged from her. They always seemed to be clashing. Would they never be friends?
‘Come on, Lucy,’ said David, tightening his grip around her shoulders. ‘Let’s take you home.’ And as they turned away, united against her, Lucy threw the briefest of glances over her shoulder. And Jennifer could almost swear her daughter smiled.
Chapter 5
Lunch service was over and Ben was just about to go home for a few hours before coming back for the evening shift when the phone in the office rang. It was Vincent Maguire, an accountant who’d worked for his father for years.
He got straight to the point. ‘Ben, I’ve just heard that Calico Design’s gone into administration.’
Ben sat down. ‘When?’
‘Two days ago.’
If it had been anyone but Vince on the end of the phone, Ben would’ve doubted his word. Ben had talked to Bronagh Kearney, the designer, only last week and everything had been rosy. ‘Voluntary?’
‘No. Creditors forced it. Shame really. They had a big contract for that new chain of nursing homes – McClure and Esler. When they went bust Calico were left high and dry. As soon as the creditors heard, they were onto them like a pack of wolves demanding payment. And of course, they couldn’t cough up. You haven’t paid any money over to them, have you?’
Ben shook his head, then remembered that Vincent could not see him. ‘No, not a penny. Invoice on completion.’
‘That’s a relief.’ Vince lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘The insolvency practitioner’s a good pal of mine – we go way back – and he thinks they’ll go into liquidation. If I was you I’d be looking pronto for someone else to do up that restaurant of yours.’
After he’d put the phone down, Ben sat quietly for a few minutes considering his options. It was bad news, for sure, but they’d been lucky too. At least they wouldn’t lose any money. Not like Calico’s creditors, poor buggers, some of whom themselves would go bust because of Calico’s demise.
It did, however, leave him with the pressing problem of finding another interior designer to replace Calico at short notice. And he knew just the person: Jennifer.
He sat up straight, feet planted firmly on the ground, amazed that fate had landed this chance in his lap. Not only would he see her again, he’d get to spend time with her, get to know her. He tapped his fingers on the table, thinking how he would sell this to his father. Because he would not like Ben using someone he didn’t know. Alan’s intricate network of business contacts, immense and complex, like neural pathways to the brain, connected him to all corners of the province and beyond. Alan would see Jennifer as a risk. He would not like it; but on this, Ben decided, he would prevail, just as he had done with Matt and the commis chef job. Jason had been cross with him for offering the lad the job and he’d only agreed to the appointment as a personal favour for Ben.
This was the silver lining his mother, Diane, used to talk about when they were little and a toy broke or he fell over and skinned an elbow. Of course, he’d since learnt that sometimes bad things happened that were so awful, so wrong, no good could ever come of them. After Ricky, his mother didn’t talk about silver linings any more.
Ben closed his eyes briefly and let out a loud sigh. He mustn’t go there, he mustn’t let his thoughts dwell on Ricky, because it only led to one thing – black depression. He shook his head and picked up the big rectangular board sitting upended in the corner. Calico Design had put it together – a story board, Bronagh had called it. Swatches of fabric and wallpaper were glued haphazardly to it. Paint colour charts, the size and shape of bookmarks, fanned out like playing cards. Photographs torn from brochures and magazines were artfully displayed at angles, so completing the collage. Ben and Alan had agreed on exactly how they wanted the restaurant to look, for once working in rare harmony, and Bronagh had delivered it – in concept at least.
He set the board behind the chair once more and, one quick Google search later, Jennifer’s phone number was at his fingertips.
Jennifer pulled nervously into the car park beside Peggy’s Kitchen, fifteen minutes early. She parked between two cars, facing the front of the old café, and switched off the engine. She slid down in the seat, thankful for the light rain pattering softly on the windscreen, blurring her view and providing her with welcome camouflage. She’d wait a bit. Best not to look too keen – on both a business, and a personal, front.
She’d received the call from Ben a few days ago and her stomach had immediately gone into a spasm, churning like a washing machine. And even now, while she tried to talk sense to herself, she was like a love-struck teenager. Butterflies played tag in her stomach and her heart raced like a train.
‘Catch yourself on, Jennifer,’ she said out loud. ‘Ben Crawford has a girlfriend, remember?’
Her mobile phone vibrated in her jacket pocket. She pulled the phone out and read the text message. It was from Lucy, saying that she would be getting the train home the following night. She finished with ‘Luv L xo’. Was this text an olive branch? She hadn’t seen or spoken to Lucy since last Friday when she’d stormed out of the house with her father – Lucy hadn’t answered her calls or returned her messages. But clearly they were back on texting terms and she was coming home, which had to be a good sign.
But, in spite of this apparent truce, Jennifer was troubled by her daughter – or, more accurately, by her conflicting emotions towards her. A mother was supposed to love, wholly, fully, unconditionally. And Jennifer did love her daughter. But Lucy had a knack of arousing a whole raft of other, not so benign, emotions. Feelings Jennifer could hardly bring herself to acknowledge – irritation, intolerance, dislike, anger even. She blushed, ashamed to own them in herself. She reminded herself sternly that it was Lucy’s behaviour that sometimes induced these sentiments – not Lucy herself. She’d been telling herself this ever since Lucy, aged seven, had a temper tantrum on Christmas morning because she didn’t get a particular, expensive doll that she coveted. But Lucy was twenty now – an adult capable, in theory anyway, of marriage, motherhood, emigration, relocation, complete independence. Jennifer fretted that the behaviours she observed were, like the foundation stones of a building, an integral part of Lucy’s character now.
And there was something else too – a vague uneasiness that, when it came to Lucy, everything wasn’t quite as it ought to be. It was more intuition than a concrete thought, for when she tried to pin it down, it bobbed away like a Halloween apple in a barrel of water.
But she had no wish to spend another weekend locking horns with Lucy. She would put last Friday night out of her mind and try and make a fresh start. She keyed a short, warm reply to Lucy and slipped the phone back in her pocket.
Then she played with the zip on her brown leather jacket, wondering briefly if her choice of casual chic – dark jeans, a crisp white shirt, and cowboy boots – was flattering. Then she tried to convince herself that she didn’t care what Ben thought of her, except in a professional capacity.
Switching to designer mode, she flicked on the windscreen wipers and stared at the unprepossessing building opposite. It was single storey, of indeterminate age, with a steeply pitched slate roof. It might have been a workshop once. The harled, pebbly exterior was grey and streaked with water stains from a leak in the guttering and a yellow skip rested on the tarmaced forecourt. One of the front windows was boarded up and a huge, plastic-shiny sign announcing ‘Peggy’s Kitchen’ in yellow and red hung right across the width of the shopfront. But there were plus points too – the façade was symmetrical and nicely proportioned. And the ugly glass door with metal bars on it was unusually tall and wide, and centrally positioned.
It would be relatively easy to transform the outside with a lick of paint, a tasteful sign, the right lighting, new windows and a handsome new door framed by a pair of potted trees. A sprinkling of her magic really could, like fairy dust, transform an ugly duckling into a swan. She glanced at her watch one more time and panicked. Time to go. Quickly, she flipped the visor down and looked at her reflection in the small vanity mirror. She adjusted her hair in an attempt to hide the lines round her eyes, rummaged in her bag for some gloss and touched up her lips. At last, satisfied, she collected her bag and clipboard, and got out of the car.
Ben stood at a wallpaper table in the middle of the room, wearing fashionable black-rimmed rectangular glasses. He was peering at blueprints, his palms flat on the surface of the table. When she entered he looked up and smiled broadly, revealing the little gap between his two creamy-white front teeth, a flaw that ought to have made him less attractive. But the tiny imperfection only softened his appeal, making him more approachable, almost vulnerable. And, like Jeff Goldblum, he looked sexier with the glasses than without. Too busy staring at him, Jennifer only just remembered to return his smile. And then she looked around.
The large open space was dimly lit by two forlorn, bare light bulbs hanging from the rafters. The interior was more or less a bare shell, the walls holed and marked where fittings had been removed along with the flooring, revealing a cold concrete floor covered in carpet adhesive. In one corner lay a stack of steel appliances – sinks and metal cabinets, she thought – wrapped up in layers of clear plastic.
Ben came over and shook her hand. Then he peeled off the glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose where the nose pads had left small, brown indentations on his pale skin. ‘Sorry about the state of the place.’ In spite of the damp chill that permeated Jennifer’s bones, he was casually dressed in a frayed lumberjack-style shirt over an old t-shirt, and loose-fitting jeans. It wasn’t what she’d expected from the rather suave way he’d been dressed in the restaurant, but then that had been a uniform of sorts. She liked him better this way. And she liked the fact that he wasn’t precious about his appearance. He sported a day’s dark stubble and his hair was messed up and dusty too. ‘And sorry about asking you to meet me here so late in the day. I thought it’d be best if the contractors were out of the way.’
She smiled, trying not to shiver in the cold, wishing that she’d worn a warmer coat. She followed him over to the table situated under one of the light bulbs, a temporary focal point in the room, and wrapped the edges of her jacket across her chest. ‘I see they’ve been busy. I remember the booths and red leatherette benches that used to line the walls. Peggy’s had a sort of retro fifties feel to it. Along with a smoke haze you could cut with a knife. This was in the days before the smoking ban of course.’
He rubbed his chin with his hand and smiled. ‘You frequented it then?’ he said, the corners of his eyes crinkled up in a smile. ‘You don’t look like the sort of woman to don biking leathers and smoke thirty a day.’
Laughing, she relaxed. ‘I’m not. I was only in it a couple of times to pick up Matt – he had a brief fascination with bikes when he was fifteen and used to hang out here. I used to worry about him rubbing shoulders with those hard men. Luckily he discovered girls shortly after that.’ She laughed and then paused, annoyed with herself for raising the subject of Matt. It would only serve to remind Ben how old she was.
She set her things on the table and said, looking skywards at the old exposed rafters and the nicotine-stained ceiling, ‘I always thought the vaulted ceiling was the best thing about this place.’
‘Me too. According to the architect, there used to be a second floor.’
‘Interesting.’ She glanced at the blueprint Ben had been studying when she came in, and said, ‘Can I have a closer look?’
‘Of course.’
She went and stood next to him, liking the way he was taller than her but not so tall, like David and Matt, that she felt like some sort of midget. She leaned in, their heads only a hand’s width apart, aware of the heat of his body and the faint odour of a woody, masculine scent.
‘These are the architect’s plans,’ he said and he moved his elegant hand, long-fingered like a musician’s and ropey with veins, across the page. ‘The main thing we’re doing internally is putting in a wall between the kitchen here,’ said Ben, pointing to a line on the plan, ‘and the dining area here. That’s what the joiner’s working on just now. And we’re extending the kitchen into these old storerooms in the back. The toilets are in the right place – they just need to be completely refurbished of course.’ The nail on his index finger was short and gently rounded, the moon a pale, pinkish-white like the inside of a shell. ‘And I’m thinking of a reception desk and a small waiting area where people can have a drink and look at the menus.’
She nodded slowly, trying to take all this in, noticing that was the first time he’d used the pronoun ‘I’ when talking about the project. He looked at her and some uncertainty crept into his voice. ‘I’ve something to show you. Two things actually. And I hope you don’t take this the wrong way.’
‘Okay,’ she said cautiously, slipping both hands into the back pockets of her jeans, her fingers stiffening in the cold.
He lifted up a large rectangular board that had been lying against the legs of the table and turned it around. It was a professional mood board for a lavish interior in gold, green and deep purple. There were photographs of crystal chandeliers, close-ups of gilded chairs and silver candlesticks, distressed gilt mirrors, swatches of velvet and brocade, and expensive flocked wallpapers and deep-pile carpet. He rested the board on the table, supporting it with his left hand. ‘Bronagh at Calico did this and it’s pretty much spot on in terms of the brief. We wanted a luxurious, tactile design that’s timeless and opulent, but warm and welcoming as well.’
Jennifer folded her arms and considered it all for some moments. ‘It’s going to have the wow factor, that’s for sure,’ she said at last.
‘And this,’ he said, pulling a sheet out from under the plans on the table, ‘is her floor plan.’ He paused to give her a few moments to look at it. ‘Well,’ he said, at last, pressing the knuckle of his left hand to his mouth. ‘What do you think?’
She nodded. ‘It really does look good. All of it.’ And then, realising what his hesitation was all about, she volunteered, ‘Look, I’ve not done this before, Ben. I mean, been called in to finish off someone else’s project, but there’s no sense in throwing the baby out with the bath water, is there? And let’s face it, we’re up against it in terms of time.’
‘I’m so relieved to hear you say that,’ he said, laying the board down on the table, and smiling with relief. ‘I was worried you’d want to start from scratch.’
She hid her disappointment that she would not have the opportunity to come up with an original design, the most creative part of the job. But what was the point of insisting on it when Ben clearly liked the Calico design and she did too? She would enjoy the challenge of taking the basic concept through to completion on time, and, best of all, she would get to spend a little time with Ben. ‘You understand that I won’t be able to replicate this exactly. I may have to use different materials depending on what my suppliers have in stock and on delivery times. I might not be able to source chairs exactly the same as those, for example.’ She pointed at a photograph. ‘But overall, I’m confident I can deliver the high-end look you’re after, on schedule and within budget.’
‘I think we have a deal then,’ he beamed and she smiled back, the cogs in her brain already working out whether her regular sewers and tradesmen were all available. ‘I have some ideas for the exterior too,’ she added and went on to outline her thoughts.
‘Jennifer, that sounds fantastic,’ he enthused, when she’d finished. ‘What’s the next stage then?’
Thinking of all that had to be done in little over two months, she said, ‘Well, are you in a rush to get home?’
‘No,’ he said and there was a pause. The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly and his full lips, crimson-red against his pale skin, remained sealed. His right eyebrow, thick and black, rose just a millimetre. ‘Are you?’
She blushed, embarrassed that he was flirting with her, horrified that he thought she’d been doing the same with him. ‘It’s just that I could do with taking some measurements of my own,’ she added hastily, searching in her pockets for a tape-measure. ‘In addition to the Calico plans.’
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said, a little crestfallen, and looked at the drawings on the table.
Why hadn’t she given him a little encouragement instead of the cold shoulder? Foremost, because of Rebecca. But also, she was so out of practice, she’d forgotten how to respond to a bit of innocent flirtation. She got out a measuring tape and a hard-backed Moleskine notebook and looked at the row of windows facing out onto the car park. The views would never form part of this room’s charm – her job was to disguise them, to draw the eye to other, more appealing, features. And, like a plain girl made beautiful with artifice, the ambience of the restaurant, vaulted ceiling excepted, would be entirely manufactured.
She lifted up the clipboard and pen and took a step forward and the notebook slid to the floor.
‘Let me get it,’ said Ben and he picked up the notebook and pressed it into her hand. Their fingers touched – and a bolt of electricity shot through Jennifer.
‘Your hand’s cold,’ he said, his voice low and husky.
She trembled, opened her mouth to speak and the door suddenly burst open.
Chapter 6
When Ben saw Alan Crawford in the doorway, gilt buttons on his overcoat glinting like ceremonial medals, his heart sank. Abruptly, he let go of the notebook and took a step away from Jennifer.
Outside the rain continued to fall, harder now, framing his father with a curtain of silver grey, like the scales on the underside of the mackerel Ben and Ricky used to catch off Bangor pier. He wasn’t a big man, only five eleven in his socks, yet his presence filled the room like the overpowering smell of forced spring hyacinths. And when he spoke it was as if he used up all the air, leaving none for Ben.
‘Bloody awful night out there,’ he boomed, running a hand over his bald head, glazed with rain. He glanced at Jennifer and flashed his showman’s white denture smile, his cheeks pulled tight on either side like the string of a bow. As a boy on the family’s dirt-poor hill farm near Cullybackey, he’d had only a rag and chimney soot with which to brush his teeth. This early neglect resulted in the loss of his teeth to gum disease at the age of forty-one, exactly twenty years ago. Determined his young sons wouldn’t suffer the same fate, he’d stood over them with a stopwatch every night while they brushed for the requisite two minutes.
But the smile, in spite of its dazzling brilliance, did not reach Alan’s grey eyes. They flicked over Jennifer like a duster, sizing her up as if she were an enemy. Ben felt his hackles rise. What the hell was he doing here? ‘Well, who’s this then?’ he asked, striding over to Ben. The scent of the expensive aftershave he ordered specially from London wafted before him, an arresting combination of citrusy vanilla and balsamic vinegar. He came to a halt, rolled back on the heels of his handmade English leather shoes and stared pointedly at Jennifer.
Ben made the introductions. Alan, hands clasped behind his back, said with a slightly menacing air, ‘Jennifer Murray Interior Design. A one-woman band, then?’
Jennifer looked uncertainly at Ben and then back to his father. Ben cringed with embarrassment. ‘Not exactly. I don’t have any permanent employees but I have forged very close relationships with local craftspeople who work for me on a contract basis. Curtain-makers, decorators and so on,’ she said without hesitation, unnerved, but not cowed it seemed, by Alan’s intimidating presence.
‘And have you done a restaurant before?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly, without breaking eye contact. ‘Several. I can show you my portfolio.’ Ben loved her self-confidence. He wished some of it would rub off on him.
Alan looked at her doubtfully. ‘And you understand –’ he paused and looked around, ‘what we – what Ben wants? Because it is his project, after all.’
‘Perfectly. And I believe I can deliver.’
‘Hmm,’ said Alan rudely and, shifting his gaze slowly to Ben, he effectively dismissed her. ‘Let’s have a look at these plans then,’ he said, unbuttoning the coat to reveal a black silk shirt pulled tight across his barrel chest.
‘It sounds as if you two need to talk,’ said Jennifer helpfully. ‘Shall I come back and take these measurements another time?’
‘No,’ said Ben.
‘Yes,’ said Alan at exactly the same time and locked eyes with his son.
