Wonder Women (27 page)

‘But Bob would never approve. I understand.' Fraser smiled.

‘No, no, I was only going to say that I really do have to get back.' Holly smiled weakly. ‘Look …' She stood awkwardly,
not sure what to say. In the end, she held out her hand to him. ‘Thanks. I'm sorry you got to see me in a great puddle, and I'm sorry we didn't get to talk about anything but my awful situation, but thank you. Telling you really helped.'

‘It's a pleasure,' he said, squeezing her hand briefly. He took out his phone. ‘What's your mobile number?'

She rattled it off. He typed it into his phone and then hit dial. Her phone rang in her bag and he cut off the call. ‘Now I have your number and you have mine. Please use it, Holly, I mean it.' Then he looked at her … really looked, deep into her eyes, and she knew for sure that his intentions were more than friendly. She was pretty sure he wanted to kiss her, but she was glad, in her fragile state, that he didn't. Instead, he walked her back to the shop, gave her a friendly one-armed squeeze around the shoulders and was gone.

Holly came back into the shop just as two mums with two kids each left, carrying Jungletown bags. The shop floor was temporarily empty of customers. Jo was sitting behind the till and Mel was giving everything a quick tidy. They both looked up as she came in. She knew her face was blotchy and devoid of make-up.

‘Holls, have you been … crying?' asked Jo. ‘What did that guy do?'

‘It wasn't him. He was great. Look, you two, can we sit down for a minute? I've got something to tell you.'

Having gone through the whole thing with Fraser, it was a lot easier telling the girls. When they were sympathetic, she managed not to cry. She answered all their questions without falling apart.

‘Listen, Jo, I haven't been around a lot in the last week
or so, and I can't promise how much I'll be around in the next while. This isn't a predictable situation. I know we're running things on a shoestring as it is, so …'

‘Let's not talk about work right now,' said Jo soothingly. ‘You need to focus on your mum. We'll find a way to work around it.'

‘Are you sure? I mean … what about placing orders? And making the clothes?'

‘Do what you can from home, and we'll see how we go.'

‘Thank you so much. You're amazing.'

‘No, I'm not. I know what it's like. My grandpa died of cancer and my grandma spent years looking after him and the house and their business. I know how hard it can be.'

‘My dad died of cancer too,' said Mel quietly. ‘It puts a hell of a strain on the family.'

‘Wow,' said Holly. ‘I didn't realise …'

‘Pretty much everyone's going to encounter it at some point in their lives,' said Jo. ‘So let us help you, in any way we can, okay? Now, do you need to get back?'

‘I'm okay for a bit. She was doing pretty well this morning, and Miranda's going to pop in later.' Holly stood up abruptly. ‘Now, let's look at stock levels. What's selling? What's not? And what do we need to get in?'

The afternoon's work left Holly feeling energised and capable, and she carried that feeling all the way back to Ealing with her on the bus. She burst through the door, calling a cheerful hello, and the intense quiet and indeterminate medical smell hit her like a wall. She stood in the hallway for a second, trying to find the courage that she'd built up through the day. ‘Mum?' she called out.

‘In here, dear,' said Judith's voice faintly. She was in the kitchen. Holly was surprised. She'd have thought Judith would be settled upstairs in her bed by now.

She went through and found Judith sitting at the kitchen table.

‘Where's Miranda?'

‘She had to get the children home for bath- and bedtime. She made a lovely stew though. Do have some.' Judith indicated a saucepan on the hob.

‘Have you had any? Can I serve some for you?'

‘I had a little. I'm not very hungry, dear.'

There was a plate beside the sink, with a tiny portion on it, which as far as Holly could see had not been touched.

‘Oh, Mum, you haven't eaten anything.'

‘I just can't face it, Holly dear. I'm fine, really.'

Holly found she was ravenous. She served up a plateful of the stew, which was fragrant with thyme and full of vegetables and big chunks of tender beef. Miranda had left a French stick, and she broke a piece off to mop up the gravy. She sat down opposite Judith and began to wolf down her food.

‘It's such a nice stew,' Judith observed. ‘It's good to see someone enjoy it.'

Holly wondered if her mum was having a go at her unladylike eating, but when she looked up, Judith was smiling with genuine pleasure.

‘How was it at work?'

‘Good. I got a lot done, and Jo says she's happy for me to work mainly from home … for the moment.'

‘That's very kind of her. Is that possible?'

‘Mostly. It should be okay.'

‘Well, if you do need to go in, of course you must. I'll be fine, really.'

Holly nodded, but didn't respond. Judith had got significantly weaker over the past few weeks, and there was no reason to think that the deterioration would slow down or stop. Very soon, she wouldn't be fine at all.

‘So, how was your day, Mum?' said Holly, mopping up the last of the stew gravy and licking her fingers.

‘Oh, lovely, dear. Miranda made such a fuss of me, and the children are angels, but … well …'

‘Were they noisy? Did they wear you out?'

‘No, no, not at all. Miranda does talk rather a lot though, doesn't she?'

Holly smiled. ‘I think she does sometimes, especially when she's upset or worried.'

‘Sometimes it's nice to have a bit of quiet,' said Judith. ‘So when they left, I thought I'd just sit down here and do my nails, but …' She faltered. She held up one of her slim hands, and Holly could see that it was shaking. ‘Silly really,' said Judith.

‘Would you like me to do your nails, Mum?'

‘Would you, dear? I got Miranda to bring my manicure set down, but I forgot to ask her to bring the nail polish. I can probably manage the trimming and filing, but I just don't think I can paint them.'

‘Let me do the whole thing,' said Holly, jumping up. She put her plate in the sink and washed her hands. ‘I love giving manicures.'

She got a big bowl from the cupboard and filled it with
warm water. She put it on the table and instructed Judith to soak her hands in it. She ran upstairs and collected soap, lotion, nail-polish remover and various other beauty supplies from her room. She went into Judith's room, where her bottles of polish were lined up on a little shelf on the dressing table. There were seven or eight, and they were all almost identical shades of pearly pink. Holly smiled. She had never seen her mum wear any other colour. She chose one at random, then nipped back to her own room and grabbed a few bottles of polish from there too.

Back downstairs, she gently washed and then dried Judith's soft hands and then cleaned off the old nail polish. As she massaged cuticle oil into her mum's hands, she was struck by how beautiful they still were. Judith had fine bones, and she had always taken good care of her skin. Her nails were naturally well shaped, if now a little long. Her ill health meant that the skin was dry and her cuticles were a little ragged, but Holly could fix that. She worked in silence, gently massaging and stroking.

Judith sighed. ‘Oh that's lovely. You could have been a beautician, dear.'

Holly smiled. She leaned over her mum's hands and began tidying her cuticles. Then she carefully filed each nail into a neat oval.

‘Right. Now to paint,' she said, and she lined up the bottles of nail polish. ‘I bought one of your pink polishes down, but I thought you might fancy a change.' From her own collection she had brought a pillar-box red, a sparkly lilac and an elegant opaque taupe.

‘Oh, I don't know, dear, probably the pink,' said Judith.

‘Come on, Mum, try something different! It won't kill you.'

Was there a way to grab words out of the air and stuff them back into your mouth and unsay them? Holly would have given anything to be able to do it. ‘God, Mum! I'm so sorry.'

‘About what, dear?' Judith looked up, her clear blue eyes innocently enquiring. And then what Holly had said dawned on her, and astonishingly, she laughed. For Judith, it was quite a big laugh, more than her usual polite titter, though not quite a belly laugh.

‘You know, you're quite right. It won't kill me. Now, let's see … I'm not quite ready for the red, I don't think. And the lilac is a bit … well, Martha might like it, but it's not really me. But what about this one? What would you call this? Beige? Fawn? Mink?'

‘Mink, maybe,' said Holly quietly. ‘Or maybe taupe?'

‘Taupe indeed. Let's have that one.'

The silence which before had seemed companionable, now seemed a bit awkward. Holly cast about for something to talk about.

‘Oh my goodness, Mum, guess what? Remember the doctor who bashed me on the head with the boomerang on Christmas Day?'

‘How could I forget?'

‘He came into the shop today.'

‘Really? By accident?'

‘No, he knew I worked there. I gave him my card.'

‘So he came to see you?'

‘Yes,' said Holly. ‘Yes, I think he did.'

‘And is he …?'

‘Single? Yes.'

‘Well then,' said Judith. ‘That's very nice, dear.'

‘Nothing's going to happen,' Holly said defensively. ‘It's really not the right time. I have enough to deal with right now, and it's too soon after Damon, and …' She stopped talking, and instead concentrated on painting perfect strokes of the polish on to Judith's nails.

‘Well, you must do what you think is best, dear,' said Judith. ‘Only …'

‘Only what?' said Holly, expecting a lecture about how nice doctors don't come along every day and how she wasn't getting any younger.

But instead Judith just said, ‘The heart does what it does. You can't always decide who you fall in love with, or when.'

And before Holly could ask her what she meant, Judith said brightly, ‘My, that colour is very smart, isn't it? I shall look like that Kirstie Allsopp off the television.'

Jo

He was so familiar, Jo thought. The man was browsing through the racks of clothing, picking up items and looking at the labels. She had seen him before, but she couldn't put her finger on where or when. He was a most unlikely visitor to the shop: he was dressed in an expensive suit and shoes, impeccably groomed and without a small child. She assumed he was a wealthy local, passing en route to the station. Maybe she had just seen him in the coffee shop or on the street. But no. She was sure, at some point, she had been introduced to him. She was alone in the shop, so she couldn't ask one of the others if they recognised him. Mel would be taking over at lunchtime for the afternoon shift, and Holly had rung to say her mum wasn't doing too well, so she would be working from home for the whole week. She was almost tempted to sneak a picture of him with her phone to send to Mel, Holly and Lee to ask who he was. It was really bugging her. But then he took a pair of T-shirts off the shelf. They were the same size, one in blue and one in red. He
brought them to the counter. Something about the T-shirts clicked a switch in Jo's head. Why would you buy the same shirt in the same size in two different colours? Either you loved it so much you wanted your child to wear the same cartoon shirt day in and day out, or you had twins. Twins. He was the father of twins. He was Louise Holmes-Harper's brother-in-law, the one with the awfully behaved twins with the posh names. Jago and something. From the depths of her memory, she dragged up a name and prayed it was correct. ‘Richard?' she said, as she took the T-shirts from him.

He looked astonished. ‘Yes.'

‘You're Louise's brother-in-law. It took me a while; I've been watching you since you came in, trying to work out where I knew you from.'

‘Very impressive. You must have quite a memory for faces.'

‘I do. But it also meant so much to me that Louise came to the launch and brought her family with her. She was such a support to me. To be honest, I couldn't have started this shop without her.'

‘Louise is an amazing woman,' said Richard.

‘So, if you don't mind my asking, what brings you to this part of the world? If I remember correctly, you live down south, near Louise.'

‘That's right. Surrey,' he said. Jo busied herself with putting the clothes through the till and packing them in a bag. Richard handed over his credit card. He didn't answer her question though, just waited for her to finish. She felt a little uncomfortable. He wasn't rude or abrupt, just quiet, and he seemed to be watching her rather closely. Oh no, she thought. He wasn't one of those predatory posh men,
was he? Maybe he'd come back to the shop alone so he could make a move on her. Because she was tall, blonde and striking, Jo had always had plenty of approaches from men. She was used to graciously declining, but a pass from Louise's brother-in-law would be embarrassing to say the least. She gave him her best cool, professional smile. ‘Is there anything else?' she said briskly.

‘There is, as a matter of fact,' he said. Uh-oh, here it comes, thought Jo, but she couldn't have been more wrong. ‘I'm interested in what you've created here. This shop. Extremely interested. I think it has a future. I think there is capacity to expand the concept, way beyond what you have here. But you're going to need help. I'd like to meet with you to discuss it. Can we have lunch at my club? How about, say, Friday?'

Jo couldn't come up with the words to reply. She just stared at him, her mouth slightly open. He interpreted her surprise as hesitation, and handed her his business card. ‘Ring my secretary and set it up. If Friday doesn't work for you, she can tell you which other slots I have free.' He smiled, picked up the bag with the T-shirts and left.