Summer Daydreams (28 page)

Olly kissed Petal gently. ‘It’s late. You should be asleep, young lady.’

‘I’m trying,’ she replied. ‘But it’s not that easy, Daddy.’ Tucking her myriad toys around her, he said, ‘Well, I’m going to work now, so you be a good girl for Jenny. Don’t play up.’ He got her ‘whatever’ face in return for that. The minute he turned his back, she’d be up. That and the Pope being Catholic were two certainties in life.

Back in the living room, Jen was watching television. Her feet were up on the sofa. There was a glass of wine in front of her on the coffee table and she was watching some costume drama. She looked very at home.

When he closed the door to Petal’s bedroom, she looked up at him and smiled. It was a very cosy routine that they’d fitted into. Jen was easy company. A bit like Petal in a way. So long as she was warm, fed and watered and there was a modicum of entertainment to amuse her, she wanted for little else. It was nice having her around. She made no demands on him. Didn’t criticise his every move, question his every motive and he was quite worried that he felt like that.

‘I’d better be off,’ he said. It was so tempting to phone in sick – something he never did – and spend the night at home instead. That was all he wanted. A cosy home, someone to share it with. Instead his wife was off in Paris trying to make her fortune, turning their lives upside down, when really it had been quite pleasant as it was before.

Jenny pulled a little face. ‘Gonna miss you,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ They’d fallen into a simple, domestic routine of bathing Petal and putting her to bed together, then Jenny would rustle them up some dinner. He’d expected not to see much of her due to her shifts at Live and Let Fry, but she’d taken the whole week off as holiday so that she could be around for them both. It was very touching. Surprisingly, he found out that they had a lot in common. They liked the same food, the same films, the same comedians. The only thing Jen didn’t share was his love of all things sixties, but he was trying to educate her and she seemed to be a willing pupil. In fact, they’d laughed a lot across the dinner table and hadn’t talked about handbags or business once. He couldn’t remember the last time he and Nell had done that.

Olly sighed inwardly. Tonight, he’d rather have his own eyeballs grated than go and stand for eight hours making pizzas. He might insist to Nell that he was happy in his work, but it wasn’t all true. He liked the people. The pay was reasonable. But no one in their right mind could truly say that they’d found satisfaction in doing something so crushingly boring for the rest of their lives.

Picking up his coat, he shrugged it on and then bent forward to peck Jen on the cheek. As he did, she turned her head away from the television and their lips met. He tried to pull back, but Jen took hold of the lapel of his jacket and held him firm. Her lips were warm and soft against his, full, inviting. The temptation to stay there and enjoy the sensation was over-whelming. The tip of her tongue slipped into his mouth and found his. It frightened him to think that he could easily stay here, throw off his coat, throw off his clothes, throw caution to the wind and make love to Jen. It would be so easy, so very easy.

Only the thought of Petal just down the hall prevented him from doing so. The thought of Petal. Not Nell. He pulled away.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen.’ The smile on Jen’s face said that she, however, did.

‘Got to go,’ Olly said. His knees, his hands, his heart were shaky. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

Jen’s smile didn’t fade. ‘See you tomorrow, Olly.’ She blew him a kiss as he scurried out of the door.

He couldn’t concentrate at work. After ten years with Nell and not a moment of unfaithfulness, not even a thought of it, he’d kissed another woman.

Tonight the line was churning out mushroom and pepperoni pizzas. Virtually the whole process was automated and it just took a handful of them to supervise the making of thousands of frozen pizzas. His role was to sit on a stool next to the conveyor belt and just re-sort any of the toppings that hadn’t landed quite accurately on the pizza. A tiny human cog in a great, big, unstoppable machine. Already he knew he’d let several go by without even noticing them, as he was lost in a world of his own.

Thank goodness that Nell was coming back tomorrow, and then Jenny’s services could be dispensed with. But what happened when his wife was off on her next business jaunt? What could he say? Could he really tell Nell that they shouldn’t use Jen again? Not because she wasn’t brilliant with Petal, but because he couldn’t be trusted to be alone with her. Who would they get to come in and help then? Jen had been bloody marvellous – up until the unfortunate kissing incident – they couldn’t have asked for someone more willing or helpful. Petal thought the sun shone out of her. He was pretty impressed himself, he had to admit. There was a gentle, easy-going domesticity to her that he hadn’t noticed until she’d moved in. Until then, she’d just been Nell’s slightly loud, borderline annoying, single friend. Nothing more. But there was a lot more to her than that. She was thoughtful, caring, easily pleased. She’d make someone a great wife. Olly wondered now whether there was an ulterior motive behind her willingness to take on him and Petal, seemingly out of the goodness of her heart. Perhaps Jen had seen herself slipping quietly into Nell’s shoes. But maybe that was being unkind. Maybe this had all been done without thinking what was in it for her, and the kiss was just the heat of the moment, an overstepping of the mark. Who knows? He had always thought that he understood Nell, women in general. Now he realised that he really didn’t have a clue.

The pizzas continued to slide by him on the conveyor belt.

Mindlessly, he fiddled with the mushrooms, the pepperoni, reorganising, rearranging. He could do this job in his sleep now. Other people counted sheep – he only needed to think about the regular hum of the conveyor belt, the soporific action of the pizzas sliding by and he’d be off in dreamland. Though sometimes in his dreams, he did find himself hand-decorating pizzas.

What was Nell doing now? he wondered. Was she having a fabulous, carefree time in Paris? Was she thinking of him and of Petal and what she’d left behind? Did they feature in her thoughts at all? Or was she glad to break away from the drudgery of the domestic routine? He knew that she was with Tod and that always rankled. Perhaps his wife would be better off with someone like that. Someone who was powerful, ambitious, driven. Someone who didn’t work in a pizza factory.

‘Meyers!’ His supervisor’s voice barking at him, snapped him out of his reverie. ‘Is this your idea of a joke?’

Olly looked up as his red-faced supervisor slapped down a tray of pizzas on the stainless steel surface with a certain amount of venom.

‘Every single one you’ve done tonight has been like this. Get your coat and don’t come back. There are plenty of people who can do this job better than you. The whole run will have to be scrapped.’

When he got over his shock and looked at what was making his boss froth at the mouth, he saw that every pizza was bearing two pepperoni eyes and a sad, downturned mushroom mouth.

Chapter 54

I could cry with relief when I walk up to my shop, my flat. I’ve never been so happy to come back from anywhere. You can keep Paris as far as I’m concerned. For me there’s no place quite like home. All I want is for Olly to take me in his arms and to see my darling daughter. I feel like lying on the floor and kissing the pavement. Which I probably would do if it wasn’t raining and the pavement wasn’t very wet.

Instead, I haul my wheelie case through the shop door, which chimes my arrival. In the workshop, I can see Olly sitting at the desk tapping away at the computer. At his feet, Petal is sitting on the floor with crayons and a pad. He looks up as I come in and his face lights up. My heart literally soars.

Petal looks up too. ‘It’s Mummy!’ she shouts and abandons her drawing and runs through the shop to greet me. I pick her up and whirl her round, then I squeeze her to me as tightly as I can.

‘Too tight, Mummy,’ she gasps. ‘Too tight!’

I laugh and lower her to the floor again. ‘Are you better?’

I ask. Petal certainly looks a lot better than when I last saw her.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘And I didn’t pick my spots.’

She could have picked them all – and probably has – and I wouldn’t care. I’m just glad to see that she’s well again.

Then, without speaking Olly and I fall into each other’s arms. He kisses me deeply.

‘Oooer,’ Petal says and goes all silly and giggly. She dances round us singing, ‘Mummy and Daddy are in love. Mummy and Daddy are in love.’

When I feel dizzy and need to come up for air, I pull away. Olly strokes my hair. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘I’m glad to be home,’ I tell him earnestly. ‘So glad.’

He stands back and looks at me, hands framing my face.

‘What on earth happened to your eye?’

Ah. I’d forgotten about my nice, big, black-and-blue shiner.

‘Did you walk into a door?’

I look sheepish. ‘I got into a fight,’ I explain.

‘A fight?’ Olly might well look surprised.

‘Yeah.’ I risk a smile. ‘But you should have seen her.’

‘I can’t wait to hear about this.’

‘Let’s shut the shop for an hour,’ I say. ‘Go out and have some lunch together. Just the three of us.’

‘If you’re sure.’ Olly knows that lunchtime is the busiest hour of the day in the shop.

‘Let’s do it. I’m in dire need of coffee.’

‘You look exhausted, Nell,’

‘I’m utterly jaded,’ I confess. At this moment, I’m not sure how my legs are actually supporting me. It would be lovely just to lie down on the floor and sleep for a week. ‘You won’t believe what has happened while I’ve been away.’

‘Then I’ll buy you coffee while you tell me.’ I kiss him again. ‘Sounds like a deal to me.’

We lock up the shop together and, arm in arm, stroll in the sunshine down to Halsey’s Deli and Tearoom in the Market Place, our favourite lunch haunt whenever we have a few quid to spare.

The shop has been here in one form or another since Queen Victoria was on the throne and is one of the most popular spots in town. The food here is unbelievably delicious. It’s tiny inside so, while we wait in line for a table to become vacant, Petal ogles the glorious homemade meringues in an array of pastel shades that are piled high in the window. While she’s distracted, I take the opportunity to tell Olly all about my rather public altercation with
Monsieur
Yves Simoneaux and
Madame
Marie Monique.

‘They stole my designs,’ I explain.

‘When? How?’

‘Yves lifted them when he came to see me at the shop and there they were, bold as brass, parading them on the catwalk. I wanted to kill them both.’ In fact, I have to admit that I gave it a good go. I sigh before I continue. ‘I never thought that anyone would stoop so low. It’s really shaken my confidence.’ Olly looks stunned. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to stop them from producing more?’

‘I threatened them with legal action,’ said with another weary sigh. Don’t they say that sighing is the same as crying but without the tears? It certainly feels like that. ‘But, in reality, I couldn’t afford to do that.
We
can’t afford to do it. I just hope me whacking her round the head with the offending handbag is enough to make them think twice.’ I don’t tell him about the bit where Yves came to my room and made an attempt to seduce me – by fair means or maybe by foul. ‘It will be all over the trade magazines, so her reputation will be sullied and I can only hope the coverage does me some good.’ If it has anything to do with me I’ll make sure that both of their names are dragged through the mud. Perhaps that will have to be revenge enough. ‘Maybe that will be enough to stop them doing it again. Whatever happens, I’m certainly going to keep a close watch on both Marie Monique and
Monsieur
Simoneaux from now on.’

At that point, we’re at the front of the queue. All the tables are cheek-by-jowl in the small café area and we’re shoehorned in at the back corner. The walls are cheerfully bright with local artworks. This is Petal’s favourite eatery and she realises what a rare treat it is to come here, so she always behaves impeccably. Olly knows what to order for us without even asking. He and Petal always have the fish finger sandwiches and I never fail to be lured by the special cheese on toast, which is much lauded locally. I also get my long-overdue caffeine hit.

‘So the trip wasn’t as successful as you hoped?’ he asks.

‘I just wanted to be at home all the time,’ I confess. ‘The shows were good. Very interesting. But the competition out there is terrifying. Maybe you were right. I should have done this on a small scale. Stuck to my market stall. I don’t know if I’m cut out for the harsh reality of business.’

Olly puts his hand over mine. ‘You’re doing great,’ he says.

‘This is just a small setback. Next time you’ll be wiser, savvier.’

‘I don’t know if I want there to be a “next time”,’ I admit.