Welcome to My World (6 page)

Viv’s expression softened and she patted Harri’s hand. ‘Oh, my darling girl, I only worry because I want you to be happy. It’s what your mum would have wanted too . . .’

It was time to change the subject, as Harri was feeling decidedly queasy. ‘So – I sent the letter.’

‘Which one?’

‘To
Juste Moi
. About Alex.’

Viv’s eyes lit up. ‘And?’

‘I haven’t heard anything yet.’

‘Does Alex know?’

Hmm, interesting question. Alex knew that Harri was going to help him find somebody – he just didn’t know
how
she was planning to do it. ‘I’ll tell him if they choose to feature him.’

‘Excellent,’ said Viv, rubbing her hands together like a silver-tressed, Laura Ashley-attired, fifty-something Bond villain. All that was missing was the large white Persian cat . . . ‘Then our plan is officially in action.’

‘Well, yes,
if
they accept him, that is,’ Harri warned.

‘
Of course
they’ll accept him! He’s gorgeous – way out of their usual league. I mean, you should see some of the sorry excuses for manhood they dredge up most months!’

‘Let’s just wait and see if they put our sorry excuse for manhood in their column, eh?’

Alex was back to his usual chirpy self when Harri arrived at Wātea that afternoon – an amazing feat considering it was ‘Mad Mothers’ Wednesday’, when the local young mums’ group descended on the café. Harri picked her way carefully through the minefield of baby buggies to the counter, where Alex was filling measuring jugs with warm water and carefully balancing feeding bottles inside.

‘Do me a favour, pass these to the table behind you, would you? Lady with the screaming baby.’

This description didn’t exactly narrow it down, as almost every woman at the large table appeared to be wrestling a noisy bundle of animosity. In desperation, Harri held the measuring jugs aloft one by one.

‘Purple stripe?’

‘Over here.’

‘Tommee Tippee?’

‘That’s mine, thanks.’

‘Mothercare?’

‘Which one?’

‘Er – pink bunny and yellow teddy bear.’

‘Bunny’s mine and teddy over there.’

Alex looked appreciative when she turned back to him. ‘You’re a natural, mate. Are you sure you don’t want to change your career and work for me?’

‘What, and leave my exciting jet-set lifestyle at SLIT? No chance!’

Alex returned to the espresso machine, grabbed a coffee arm and banged out the spent grounds. Filling it afresh from the coffee dispenser and tamping it down, he reattached the arm and set a mug underneath to catch the thick brown liquid as it dripped lazily from the machine. No matter how many times Harri watched him do this it never failed to fascinate her. There’s something incredibly powerful about watching someone work, Harri always found: Stella swiftly typing a letter without looking at the keyboard once; Viv cooking; Auntie Rosemary assembling a bouquet of flowers in one hand as she floated around her shop; even her completely barmy Grandpa Jim building some Heath-Robinsonish contraption in the small workshop at the bottom of his garden in Devon.

Alex poured milk into the long-handled steel milkpan and turned a handle on the machine to release steam into its base. It was such an evocative sound – bubbly, crunchy and metallic all at once. Once frothed, he let the pan stand for a while, before bumping the base smartly on the wooden worktop and pouring its contents into the mug, holding the froth back with a spoon and then scooping out snowy blobs onto the top of the cappuccino.

‘There you go. I think you’ve earned that today,’ he smiled, dusting the top with chocolate powder as he pushed the mug towards her.

‘Thanks. So how’s Mad Mothers’ Wednesday going?’

‘
Mad
. I swear there’s more of them in here each week. I think they’re cloning themselves. Honestly, it looked like a scene from
Ben Hur: The Early Years
in here earlier – all those chariots parked up everywhere. Some of the old dears couldn’t even get in through the door. I’ve been a bit sharp with them, to be honest.’

‘Ah. Not much chance of you scoring a date with a single mum anytime soon then?’

‘Yeah. I think I might’ve burned my bridges on that one.’

Harri feigned disappointment. ‘Oh, well, Plan B it is then.’ Amusement lit Alex’s eyes. ‘Excellent, maestro. So, what’s the plan then?’

Harri looked around her like a shady informant in a thirties gangster flick, leaned closer to Alex and tapped her nose. ‘Can’t reveal my sources yet. Suffice to say that your name has been circulated in the right – er – circles. We should know more very soon. Until then, there are things only I know that you can’t know until it’s the right time for you to
know
, understand?’

Alex held his hands up. ‘Crystal clear. Are you sure you’re capable of the mission, though?’

‘You doubt a woman of my obvious covert skills?’ Harri feigned astonishment. ‘I am a woman of infinite capabilities, I’ll have you know. I am a woman on a mission.’

‘With an unusual flair for dairy-related nasal adornment.’ Alex reached out to wipe a large glob of milk froth from Harri’s nose as they both descended into helpless giggles.

‘He
is
going to kill you when he finds out,’ Stella frowned, picking up a strange garment, allegedly masquerading as a T-shirt. ‘Which way is this supposed to go?’

‘I have no idea,’ replied Harri. ‘I think that’s the arm-hole.’

‘Oh, right,’ replied Stella absent-mindedly, adding the unusual creation to the pile of clothes slung over her arm as the next offering captured her attention.

It was Saturday morning and, with Rob away again, Harri had found Stella’s invitation to accompany her to the large out of town shopping centre appealing. And it had been fun, until Stella appeared to get stuck in TKMaxx. Harri loved shopping, but compared with her best friend, she was a mere amateur. When Stella was on a retail mission, nothing short of an act of God could move her from her path. Two hours after they first entered the store – and no closer to making a purchase – Stella and Harri made a slow advance along the narrow gap between the seemingly endless rails of clothes.

‘You won’t be able to take all those in with you, you know.’

‘I’ll leave some with the girl and keep swapping them,’ Stella breezed, adding another two garments to the pile on her arm, ‘and besides, you’re coming in with me so you can bring some in.’

And so Harri dutifully followed her best friend into the cramped changing room cubicle,
oohing
and
aahhing
in all the right places in the hope that it might encourage a decision. While she waited, she consoled herself with the thought of the large caramel macchiato waiting for her when they were finally released from the store’s clutches.
Only thirty-nine garments to go and then it’s all mine
. . .

‘Are you listening?’ Stella barked, as the glorious daydream dissolved like a sugar lump in hot espresso, snapping Harri back to reality. ‘I
said
, what do you think?’

It was the third pair of jeans Stella had eased her perfect figure into and Harri honestly couldn’t tell the difference. ‘How much are those again?’

Stella let out an exasperated sigh. ‘I
told
you, fifty-two pounds. I
knew
you weren’t listening.’

‘Sorry, hon. They’re nice, but I like the first pair the most.’

‘Really? You don’t think they make my bum look big?’

‘You don’t
have
a bum, Stella.’

‘Yes, I do. That’s why it’s a no-carb week this week.’

‘You’re crazy. You look great, hon. And those jeans – any of them – make you look great. But do you really need any more jeans? You’ve got about fifteen pairs at home.’

‘That’s a complete exaggeration, Harri! It’s only nine, and anyway these are Fornarina.’

It was going to be a long day, Harri groaned inwardly, as Stella rotated slowly, scrutinising every inch of her reflection from every conceivable angle. Harri closed her eyes and imagined herself alighting from a packed
vaporetto
water taxi into the buzzing throng of a Venetian quayside, then wandering through the streets, finding a pavement café and slowly sipping rich espresso as colourful waves of people washed past her . . .

‘So when do you think you’ll hear from
Juste Moi
?’

Daydream shattered, Harri shuddered. ‘I don’t know. Probably a few months or something. If they accept him, that is.’

‘Of course they’ll accept him,’ Stella insisted, echoing Viv’s words from earlier in the week. ‘He is a gorgeous man. Irritating as hell, but gorgeous. You wait and see.’

Harri didn’t have to wait long.

The buzz from the fluorescent strip light above the cubicle seems to be getting louder as the rain on the skylight intensifies. The only other sound is the thumping of Harri’s heart, loud in her ears. It’s slowed a little since her flight into the ladies’, wow,
thirty minutes
ago. She wonders if the survivors of the Stone Yardley Armageddon are still in the hall; or maybe Viv has moved the remnant on, like a brisk police officer shooing onlookers away from a crime scene –
OK, people, step away now, nothing to see here . . .

One thing’s for certain: Alex won’t be there. Not after
that look
. Harri feels a stab of icy pain at the memory.
He hates me. I’ve lost my best friend
. In all the time she’s known him, she’s never seen him so hurt, so angry. And every last atom of it directed straight at her. No, Alex will be long gone by now. If only she’d listened to her conscience when the letter arrived from
Juste Moi
. . .

‘What’s that?’ asked Tom, peering over Harri’s shoulder as she read the letter. It was lunchtime and Harri had finally plucked up courage to open the envelope with the
Juste Moi
frank that Freddie Mills, the friendly postman, had handed to her that morning.

‘Looks like an exciting one,’ Freddie had remarked, tapping the top of the envelope with a nicotine-hued forefinger. ‘London postmark, that. One of them fancy magazines, I reckon – they’re all there, you know. Any publication worth its salt is based in London.’

To Freddie Mills, a year and a half from retirement and the undisputed pub quiz champion at the Star and Highwayman – the small cosy pub at the far end of Stone Yardley – anything hailing from England’s great capital was worthy of note and due reverence. In all his sixty-three years, Freddie had only ever made the journey to London once: an away match of the Stone Yardley Darts Club on which his brother had managed to blag him a seat.

A non-player, Freddie managed to convince Big Bruce McKendrick, much-feared team coach and owner of Long and Winding Road Motorcycles, of his suitability with a near-textbook explanation of the finer points of the game. The team enjoyed an afternoon’s sightseeing and arrived at the match venue in Fulham, only to lose magnificently – but at least Freddie was able to revel in the delights of the city he had dreamed about since childhood.

Unusually for a Wednesday at Sun Lovers International Travel, business had been brisk. Tom, Harri and new girl, Nusrin, barely had time to pause for breath between each new customer, exchanging incredulous glances as they passed one another carrying brochures or escorting customers to their desks. The reason for this unexpected influx of custom remained a mystery until the late entrance of SLIT’s owner, George Duffield, just before midday.

‘Ah, the unmistakable power of advertising,’ he boomed, his thick Wolverhampton accent bouncing off the shabby travel-poster-covered walls. ‘It’s amazing what a little bit of local advertising can do for a reputable business like SLIT, you know. Best twenty-five quid I’ve spent this year.’

His mystified staff rewarded his enthusiasm with a selection of blank expressions.

‘You
paid
people to come into the shop?’ Tom ventured. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Thomas. A successful local business like SLIT doesn’t need to resort to bribery – and I resent the very implication, actually. No, I placed two hundred and fifty offer leaflets in the
Edgevale Gazette
yesterday. Twenty per cent off any booking made this week.’

‘You put leaflets in the free paper?’ Nusrin asked.

‘The very same,’ George grinned, his shiny, red head blushing with pleasure. ‘Genius, eh?’

‘I didn’t think anyone read the
Gazette
,’ Harri said. ‘Mine goes straight into the recycling box.’

‘Well,
apparently
there are people in Stone Yardley who don’t follow your woeful example, Harriet,’ retorted George, sailing into his office. ‘I think the hustle and bustle of this travel agency speaks for itself, don’t you?’

As he shut the door, Tom chuckled. ‘Shame nobody actually booked anything today then, isn’t it?’

‘Apart from the Wilkinsons booking their annual coach trip to Rhyl,’ Nusrin replied.

‘But we’ve done a brisk trade in brochures,’ Harri smiled.

Half an hour later, the impressive flow of browsing customers had all but vanished, allowing Harri, Tom and Nusrin to grab a well-earned lunch break. Nusrin had seized the opportunity to vacate the premises, ever-present mobile in hand and packet of cigarettes hastily shoved in her coat pocket, leaving Tom and Harri to eat their lunch in relative peace. And for Harri finally to read the letter. Trying to read its contents, Tom nodded knowingly. ‘Top secret communications, eh?’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said, folding the letter defensively to hide its contents from her prying colleague.

‘Not judging by your face it isn’t.’