The Vintage Teacup Club (29 page)

‘She says that Dad has forgiven her,’ I said, ‘so I guess she thought I would too. But Dad’s only done that because he’s never stopped loving her. I bet he’s still holding out hope – even after all these years – that they’ll find a way to patch things up.’

‘His decision is his decision,’ said Alison. ‘And yours is yours. You’ve let her know how you feel, and that’s important.’

‘I know,’ Jenny said. ‘And it’s over now.’ There was an emptiness in her eyes.

‘You’ve got a wedding to a wonderful man to look forward to, in just over two weeks’ time.’ Alison said, with a bright smile. ‘What do you say we focus on that instead?’

Jenny nodded without a word, then covered her eyes with her hands, as if trying
to stop herself from crying. Alison moved in closer and put an arm around her.

‘Is there something else going on, Jen?’ Alison asked. Jenny wiped her eyes.

‘I’m just not feeling excited, Ali. About getting married. All I feel is flat.’ Alison stroked her friend’s hair. ‘What I can’t get out of my mind,’ Jenny said, taking a deep breath, ‘is what if Dan and I have children and I do the same thing?’ Her words were slow and considered. ‘What if I can’t settle either? What if, however much I’m in love with him now, I stop loving Dan one day, the same way she stopped loving Dad?’

Jenny turned to look Alison in the eye. ‘She left us, and half of me is made up of her, Ali.’

‘Wherever your genes came from, you’re your own person, Jenny,’ Alison said, ‘and you know yourself better than most. Having doubts before you make this kind of commitment is totally natural.’ She gave Jenny’s arm a squeeze.

A moment later Alison got up and went over to the window, opening the blinds with a snap and letting the light stream in. Jenny winced as the sun hit her.

‘Come on, you’re not a vampire, Jenny. It’s past midday – even Sophie and Holly will be out of their PJs by now.’ Jenny looked down at her pyjama shirt. To top things off it now had a bit of marzipan
from the croissant stuck to it.

‘Get in the shower.’ Alison pointed to the door, ignoring Jenny’s pleading look. ‘I’m going to tidy up a bit in here and then there are some people I want you to meet.’

‘So this was how the school house looked back then,’ Ruby said, showing Jenny a black and white photo of a classroom.

Jenny cast her eye over the picture of the place that was going to be her wedding reception venue, and Alison peeked over her shoulder. Little boys in shorts and girls in pigtails were lined up in front of the large blackboard for their school photo.

‘There’s our Jimmy,’ Ruby said, pushing her reading glasses up her nose and pointing to a boy with freckles in the front row. ‘He’d only just started then and you can tell, can’t you? He was a bit nervous, poor lamb.’

Jenny, Alison, Jamie and the Spencers were sitting at a table in Jamie’s café – or rather the building site that was going to be Jamie’s café. It was still very much a work in progress, with crates, ladders and piles of plaster dust on the floor, but the place was slowly beginning to take shape, with tables and colourful mismatched chairs by the window now, a specials board lying on the counter, and a till ready to be plugged in. On the walk over, Alison had told Jenny about her
morning’s work – helping Jamie clear out Ruby and Derek’s attic and bringing the furniture over in the back of her car.

Jamie had insisted that Ruby and Derek come over and take a look at where their bits and pieces were going to go. Ruby had been delighted at the idea and had gathered up some old photo albums to take with them. ‘There’s all sorts in here,’ she’d said. ‘They might give you some ideas for the décor.’ While Alison was out seeing Jenny, Jamie had sat down to look through the albums with them.

‘You’re having your wedding party at the school house, aren’t you?’ Derek asked, looking up at Jenny and pointing at the photo of little Jimmy’s school days. ‘I am, yes,’ Jenny replied. Alison could tell from her voice that tears still weren’t far from the surface, but she was looking a whole lot better than she had been that morning. She’d put on grey skinny jeans with a white T-shirt and a purple cardigan and blow-dried her hair until Alison had given her the nod that she was looking respectable enough to be seen in public.

‘Ooh, and look at this one of the town hall,’ Ruby said, passing the other women a photo of the place where Jenny and Dan were set to say their vows. The photo was taken from quite far away and the building looked more or less the same as it did now.

Ruby smiled. ‘Look at it closely,’ she said. Alison and Jenny squinted to make out the figures
on the steps; they were children, but this wasn’t a formal school photo. They were carrying satchels and something else that neither of them could quite make out.

‘See their gas masks?’ Ruby said. ‘That’s where the evacuees arrived, this lot were straight off the train.’

‘I wasn’t around then of course,’ Derek chimed in, ‘but Charlesworth had quite a few, didn’t it, Ruby?’

‘Yes,’ Ruby said, casting her mind back. ‘They came in from London and the local families around here put them up. It was a bit of a change for our little old town, I’ll tell you. But a lot of the families enjoyed it. I heard there was even a romance, a girl from London who grew up and married a boy from here,’ she said.

‘How sweet,’ Alison said, before picking up one of the photo albums and turning the page. ‘Those adverts on the wall are great,’ she said, pulling out a photo of children playing near the high street. Bold signs for cleaning products and Brillo pads were painted onto the brick. ‘Maybe we could do something similar in here,’ her eyes drifted out to the empty back yard.

Derek and Jamie had started talking about the café’s electrics, and they got up, leaving the women at the table. They walked over to the light sockets where wires were still loose, and as Derek leaned in closer to inspect one, Alison could hear him offering Jamie
some words of advice.

Ruby turned to Jenny then, ‘Are you looking forward to it, dear, getting married?’

Jenny’s eyes started to water again as she nodded.

‘There’s nothing wrong with being nervous, you know,’ she said, with a kind look. ‘It’s a very big step. Alison knows that too, don’t you?’

Alison smiled, adding, ‘Yep, I do, and on the good days it’ll seem like the best decision you ever made.’

‘I know Dan’s the right person,’ Jenny said, ‘but how can I be sure that I’m up to it? That I’m strong enough to stick with marriage?’

She looked over at Ruby. Between them were the photos that marked out the decades Ruby and her husband Derek had spent together, smiling children’s faces, candles on birthday cakes, sandcastles by the sea.

‘Well dear, I was excited about marrying Derek, but gosh, I had those doubts too,’ Ruby said. ‘You know what the trick has always been for us?’ she went on. Jenny and Alison’s full attention was on her. ‘Shepherd’s Pie on Tuesday.’

Jenny tilted her head, unsure.

‘And I’ll bring him the paper every morning. You see there’s no good looking at your whole life and trying to guess how it’ll be,’ she said, ‘because it doesn’t work like that. But Derek’ll make me tea each afternoon, and I always know that’s coming. And since the children left home, we go ballroom dancing together every Saturday, play Scrabble with friends on Monday night, and we watch our soap together on a Sunday
afternoon. From our first days as a married couple, it’s always been like that, our routines, taking a moment here and there to do something for one another.’

Jenny and Alison listened intently as Ruby continued.

‘As you get older you see that what you thought were little things, why, they were really the big
things all along.’

‘Voila!’ Maggie said as she put our coffees and some lemon drizzle cake down on the plastic table. We were back in the car boot sale’s refreshment tent, sitting on plastic gardening chairs, surrounded by older ladies in bright dresses chatting to one another. We’d decided to leave the stall-browsing till a bit later today.

‘Ali told me you’re feeling a bit better now?’ Maggie said, taking a seat and giving me a kind look. ‘Christ, I really can’t believe your mum just turned up out of the blue like that! Certainly made for a pretty dramatic end to the hen do.’

‘Drama would seem to be her forte,’ I said. ‘But I think she’s finally got the message now. And you know what, apart from her turning up I enjoyed
every minute of the hen, and the good bits are what I’ll remember. So thanks for coming, you two.’

‘It was a giggle, wasn’t it?’ Maggie said. She picked up a forkful of cake and a mischievous smile crept onto her face. ‘And this reminds me,’ she went on, ‘something happened to me last week.’

‘Did he call?’ I asked, my heart sinking. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Maggie go through a drawn-out break up, with the kind of toing and froing Jon had put Chloe through.

Maggie smiled, not giving anything away.

‘I hope he’s planning on making it up to you,’ Alison said. ‘What did he say? Must have been quite an apology.’

‘Dylan …?’ Maggie laughed and shook her head. ‘I mean yes, he did call, various times actually. But I never picked up, and now I’ve blocked his number. He’s probably back in the States by now, and good riddance.’

A wave of relief came over me, and I saw Alison’s tense expression soften too.

‘What then?’ I asked. I was on the edge of the plastic gardening chair by now.

‘Someone else,’ Maggie said, leaving the words dangling.

‘
Who?
’ Alison and I demanded in unison. A twenty-year age gap made no difference to our levels
of girlish excitement.

‘Well …’ Maggie started. ‘It’s ridiculous. And reckless. And far, far too soon. Going absolutely nowhere …’ she said.

‘Who?’ Alison repeated.

‘But I’m enjoying myself,’ Maggie said, ‘and there’s no way I’m getting close enough to get hurt this time, so while I panicked a bit at first, now I just think what have I got to lose?’ She caught Alison’s inquisitive glare again, and conceded at last. ‘He’s handsome, creative … often pretty muddy – and a fair bit younger than me,’ she confessed, her cheeks glowing.

I racked my brain, who else was on Maddie’s radar? She’d been so wrapped up in Dylan I couldn’t think of any other men she’d mentioned.

‘Do you remember me talking about Owen?’ Maggie said, after what seemed like an eternity. ‘The landscape gardener, the one on the Darlington Hall wedding?’

‘Yes,’ I answered, confused. ‘The arrogant one, who you despise, and who is making your working life a misery?’

‘Yes, him,’ she answered. ‘So it turns out we don’t hate each other that much after all. In fact we nearly got caught not-hating-each-other-that-much in the woods behind Darlington Hall last week.’ She smiled, blushing. ‘We got a bit, ahem,
carried away
, plotting out a fairy-light trail for Lucy and Jack’s guests, when the gardener came
by.’

‘Maggie, that’s outrageous!’ Alison said, clapping her hands together. ‘Bravo.’

‘Good for you, you deserve it,’ I said. ‘So how old is he?’

‘Thirty-one,’ Maggie said, ‘but I actually think he’s more mature than me. In fact, I’ve realised I’m really not that grown up after all.’ Maggie certainly looked as if years had drifted away from her face. ‘He’s relaxed with who he is, and it makes me feel like I can be the same, really be myself when I’m with him,’ she said.

Maggie took a sip of coffee and settled her cup back down. ‘I mean, granted, it was massively romantic being back with Dylan, and dreaming the dream that we could undo everything that went wrong. But all the while I had doubts. There was so much riding on things working out; we knew we had to do a better job – but then when we ended up making even more of a pig’s ear of it, I realised it didn’t matter at all.’ Maggie smiled. ‘I couldn’t care less what other people think, because life is full of mistakes and learning, isn’t it? I forgot that for a while. And this – this thing with Owen is going nowhere, it’s a bit of fun and we both know that. But the
chemistry
is something else. I feel so young.’

‘Ooh, it sounds dreamy,’ Alison said, giving her a wink. ‘What I wouldn’t give to be there again,’ she said, wistfully, then laughed. ‘I’m happy for you, Maggie. And actually, you know what, I’d be more jealous, but since Pete got his new job I almost feel
like we’re in a new relationship ourselves. There are days when I can’t wait for him to get home so I can drag him upstairs before the girls get back from their after-school clubs.’

‘Ali, that’s great,’ I said, meaning it. ‘If I’d known a budgeting spreadsheet would make such a difference to your sex life I’d have sent you one weeks ago.’

Alison and Maggie laughed. Then a thought popped into my head. ‘But Ali, hold on, back to Owen; wasn’t part of the issue with him that he was refusing to cooperate over the
It Girl
deal? Did you have to give in on that?’ Maggie was hard-headed when it came to Bluebelle and I couldn’t believe her priorities would switch so quickly; this really was a golden opportunity for her.

‘We found a way,’ Maggie said, with a wink. ‘It’s astonishing what you can get a man to agree to when you’re in the bath.’ Alison feigned a gasp and then laughed. ‘But, seriously,’ Maggie continued, ‘he does still feel strongly about it, and I can see his point now, so we’ve reached a compromise. He’s agreed to work on the wedding even with the magazine exclusive going ahead, provided that I allow him to look into my proposed flower sources and find fairtrade, environmentally sound alternatives, so that his brand isn’t associated with anything he doesn’t agree with.’