Summer Daydreams (12 page)
‘Do you like it?’ I ask, eager and nervous in equal measures.
‘Wow,’ she says. I don’t think her voice says ‘wow’ though, it says something else. Something that I can’t identify. ‘It’s very interesting.’
Interesting
? Why is she making that sound like a bad thing?
‘Amazing.’ She purses her lips. ‘I had no idea that this is what you wanted to do.’
‘Neither did I until recently.’ I’m trying not to bob about from foot to foot.
She stares at me. ‘Yet you never said anything?’
‘No.’ That stops me bobbing. She
is
put out. Does she see me as a rival now? Did she like it better when I was just a hard up customer drooling at the altar of her bags? I wouldn’t exactly call Betty a bosom friend, but I thought that we were more than acquaintances and had enough of a connection for her to be pleased for me. ‘This place has been an inspiration to me,’ I say. ‘It’s the hours I’ve spent in here that finally made me realise what I want to do with my life.’
‘Really?’ Her stare turns to my bag again. She hates it, I can tell.
‘I’d love you to stock them.’ I’m too excited to look at what’s on offer today, but I know that my bags would sit perfectly among them. ‘Perhaps just have the one, this one, to see how it goes.’
Betty looks shell-shocked. ‘Let me give it some thought, Nell,’ she says. ‘Leave it with me.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Right. I’ll do that.’
‘Call in again next week and we’ll sort something out.’ I’m here on almost a daily basis. Was that a warning to stay away?
‘See you next week then,’ I say and slink out.
I stand on the street, stunned. What now? I was absolutely sure that Betty would go mad for my bags. I hate to admit that I had a window display in mind. A great one that she’d keep for weeks and weeks to be admired and drooled over by the good folk of Hitchin. She knows me. She knows that I work in a chippy, that I have a small child dependent on me. Why would she not want to help me if she could, give me a leg up?
I wander aimlessly, trying to get my head round her reaction. The market’s on today and it’s bustling with life as usual.
Some of the stall holders have been here for as long as I can remember and feel like old friends. The vintage stall that I love is here too and I flick through the racks of once-loved clothes, but I’m not really paying attention to the feel of the fabrics, the cut of the dresses as I normally do. Today my head is elsewhere. If I can’t afford a website yet and Betty isn’t going to stock the handbags for me, where can I possibly sell them?
There’s nothing in the house for tea and we need to eat quickly as I’m due back at Live and Let Fry before long, so I pick up three fresh homemade pasties from the stall adequately named, Mr Pasty. Then, as I’m shoving my purchase into my bag, it dawns on me. I could have a stall here too. If I can get one on Saturday, Olly could have Petal during the day and I can ask Jenny or Constance if they would swap the lunchtime stint with me. It’s an idea. I haven’t a clue how much it costs to get a market stall or what you have to do, but pretty soon I will.
Take that, Betty. I may just have hit upon another way to get my handbags out there!
A week later and I have a market stall. My first day is this coming Saturday and, frankly, I’m bricking it. I told Olly before he went off to bed, but his response to my momentous decision was somewhat muted. He may have just been too tired to get excited. Or maybe he’s just heard one too many momentous decisions from me recently. But I feel like I have no choice. I have to do something and it’s a relatively modest outlay to display my goods and it will, hopefully, bring in some money for me to reinvest in the business.
Surrounded by handbags on my lounge floor, I’m thinking of calling Tod to tell him – hoping that he will be more enthusiastic and raise my flagging spirits – when the phone rings. ‘Petal, can you pick that up please.’ I’m up to my eyeballs in glue guns and sparkles. ‘Answer nicely.’
‘Hello, this is Mummy’s phone,’ she says politely. ‘She is busy and she is still in her pyjamas.’
Quickly, I snatch the phone from her. ‘Hello?’
‘Pyjamas, hey?’ Tod says with a laugh.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell him. ‘My daughter is a receptionist of variable reliability.’
‘She sounds delightful.’
‘She is absolutely delightful. When she wants to be.’ Then, to distract him, ‘I was just thinking of you.’
‘Same here.’
My awestruck heart does a little lurch. ‘You were?’
The sound of his laughter again.
‘I have some news.’
‘I’d love to hear it but I can’t talk now, Nell. This has to be a quick call. I’m just going into a meeting. I do, however, have a proposition for you.’
I’m infinitely open to propositions from Tod Urban, I think.
‘I have a reception to go to tonight at Buckingham Palace and my date has let me down. Fancy it?’
‘B… B… Buckingham Palace, did you say?’
‘It’s a promotion for The Prince’s Trust. It would be a great way to meet some influential people, which certainly wouldn’t hurt if we were to apply to them for some funding for you. What do you say?’
‘Tonight?’
‘I can pick you up about five.’
That would give me just an hour to get home from my shift at Live and Let Fry and change into my glad rags. I’d also need to find someone to cover my evening shift, which would mean that I’d struggle for a babysitter for Petal as Olly has his punk disco gig tonight. Oh, God. Oh, God. What to do?
‘You can tell me your news on the way down in the car,’ Tod continues. ‘I have to fly. Are you up for it?’
Buckingham Palace! How can I possibly turn it down?
‘Er—’
‘I need an answer now, Nell.’
‘Yes,’ I blurt out. ‘Of course, yes.’
‘Great. See you at five.’ He hangs up.
Now I’m in a flat spin. I instantly phone Constance who, of course, agrees to cover my shift, but that puts my chief babysitter out of action. My second call, Jenny, is also working. So I then phone every friend I’ve ever had to see if they would come round and look after Petal when Olly goes off to his gig. They are all busy with other things. It seems that I do not put enough into the babysitting circle to warrant taking anything out. Now what?
Finishing off a handbag, I add extra diamantés so that it will be ultra sparkly and ready for me to take to
the palace
tonight. No matter how many times I say that in my head, I can’t convince myself that I’m actually going there. I race upstairs and fling open my wardrobe to see if I have any suitable outfits for palace-type events.
Petal plods in behind me and promptly goes to the wardrobe to help herself to my shoes.
‘Mummy is going to Buckingham Palace tonight,’ I tell her as I bounce round the room giving full reign to my excitement.
Her raised eyebrow indicates a modicum of interest. She clacks about in my heels.
‘Will you meet the Queen?’
‘I don’t think so, but I might meet a Prince.’
‘Will you kiss him?’
‘I do hope not.’ Has she
seen
Prince Charles?
My daughter looks disappointed by this turn of events and wonder exactly what I’d have to do to impress her.
I pull out a vintage Audrey Hepburn-esque dress – black, sleeveless, full twirly skirt – and I can’t even think when it last came out of the wardrobe. I hold it up against me and pose. The perfect accompaniment for a Fish & Chips handbag.
‘Nice, Mummy. Can I come to the Palace too?’
That brings me down to earth with a bump. I sit down on the bed and pull my daughter into my arms and kiss her hair. ‘No, sweet pea,’ I say. ‘It’s just for grown-ups.’
‘
Everything’s
for grown-ups,’ Petal complains.
‘Before you and I know it, you will be a grown-up too.’
‘I hope you’re not telling me a fib,’ she warns, ‘or your nose will drop off.’
‘I’m not,’ I promise. ‘One minute you’ll be a little girl and the next you’ll be a big lady with a life of your own.’
‘So what will Daddy and me do while you’re with the Prince?’
‘I don’t know, sweet pea.’ But I’ll have to sort something out pretty soon.
‘Of course, I’m pleased for you,’ Olly shouts.
I’m fresh out of the shower and in the bedroom getting ready for my posh night out. ‘You don’t seem it,’ I shout back.
Rubbing the towel over me briskly, I squirt myself liberally with Chanel No 5 – a very welcome Christmas present from my dear Dad every year, which I usually manage to eke out to last me the full twelve months. I’m hoping it will hide any residual chip aroma. I want to make a big impression tonight and I don’t want to do it with a lingering scent of haddock.
‘It would just have been handy to have had more notice.’
‘That’s the way the cookie crumbles,’ I point out. ‘The reception is tonight. Tod asked me to go this morning. What am I supposed to do?’
‘More importantly, Nell, what am I supposed to do?’ He lowers his voice, but the anger is still there. ‘What am I going to do with Petal?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I tried everyone I could think of. No one was free to babysit.’
‘Then maybe you should have said no to
Tod
.’ He uses the whiny voice he does whenever he says Tod.
‘Tod’ – no whining – ‘told me it was very important for me to be there. I happen to agree. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’
The straighteners get a cursory tug through my hair before I twist it up into a chignon. I add a big black bow to the back. I can’t ever remember seeing Olly so cross with me before and I don’t understand what the issue is. I
have
to do this. Does he not see that?
‘Phone in sick,’ I say. ‘It’s the only thing to do.’
‘How can I?’ Olly asks. ‘I’m hanging on there by a thread after being late the other week. I don’t want to lose this gig and I can’t let other people down at the last minute. It may not be the O2 arena, but a lot of people turn up on punk night.’
‘This is
Buckingham Palace
, Olly. The Prince’s Trust. If I get some funding from them, maybe you won’t have to spend your evenings doing punk discos. Ever think of that?’
‘I don’t think punk and disco go in the same sentence, Nell,’ he retorts before he continues with his rant. ‘You just can’t dump everything at the drop of a hat. Not when you have a family to consider.’
‘It’s the first time I’ve ever had to do this. Don’t give me a hard time about it.’ Goodness only knows I feel bad enough already. But this is business. Can you see entrepreneur Karren Brady or Ultimo bra lady, Michelle Mone, turning down an invitation to the Palace? But then I bet they both have nannies to fall back on and that their husbands don’t have to do two-bit discos for the princely sum of fifty quid a night.
I pull on my dress and turn to offer the zip to Olly. He zips me up, but rather crisply. Slipping on black velvet gloves that were my mum’s and black patent kitten heels at the same time, I check myself in the mirror.
Suddenly, Olly is still. All the fight goes out of him. ‘You look sensational,’ he says softly.
‘Thanks.’ Now I feel ashamed for shouting. For the first time in my life I’m torn between duty and ambition.
A car pulls up outside the house and I hear the hoot of a horn. This is more than likely my ride.
‘Go on,’ Olly says. ‘Have a wonderful time.’
Perhaps it’s also due to the fact that I’m driving off into the night with a rather fabulous man to a rather fabulous do. I’m sure I’d feel put out if the boot was on the other foot.
‘What about Petal?’
‘I’ll sort something out,’ he says. ‘Don’t you worry. Just go and knock them dead for the team.’
‘I’ll try to.’ I go and kiss him. ‘This
is
all for us, you know.’
‘Sometimes I have to remind myself of that,’ he says.
Petal comes in, the cartoon-on-television babysitter clearly having finished its shift. ‘Were you shouting at Daddy?’
Ah. I’d hoped the noise of the telly might cover that. ‘No,’ I tell her. I flash a glance at Olly. ‘We were just having a grown-up talk.’