A Little Love (17 page)

Welcome home, Captain! I just wanted to tell you that I have never ever ever been as happy as I am right this very moment and it’s cos I’ve got you! B xxx

Pru held the note to her chest and cried. These tears felt different; the sadness was tinged with joy. Bobby had been happy! She left the house happier than she had ever been and that was a wonderful thing. Pru crept down to Milly’s room and placed the note on her pillow, so she would find it that evening.

Late next morning Pru was sitting at her dressing table, applying her blush and spritzing her perfume. Her phone beeped and shuddered against the wooden surface. It was Christopher, a text:
Meet me in the park!

Chores and work deadlines flew out of her head. She knew which park and she knew where. Slipping on her pumps, she poked her head into the kitchen. ‘Just popping out, Mills, back in a bit.’ She didn’t wait for a response.

Pru walked as quickly as she could without running, navigating round the amblers and smiling at those ensconced in deckchairs, enjoying this little slice of countryside in the middle of the city. She slowed when she got near, so she wouldn’t appear breathless or too flustered. In her hand was a Plum Patisserie carryout bag, with two large almond croissants nestling in the bottom, individually wrapped in PP monogrammed waxed paper.

Her heart somersaulted when she saw him; she wondered if it always would. Being in close proximity gave her faith that everything would work out. How could it not when there was this strength of feeling? She just hoped it was mutual.

He stood on their blue bridge, dressed in a navy suit and a white shirt, leaning over, staring down into the water with a Styrofoam cup in his hand. Pru gazed beyond him, across the lake, taking in the view towards Buckingham Palace framed by trees. He looked like he was in a painting.

‘There she is.’

She loved the way this sounded as though he had been waiting for her, not just today, but for ever. He handed her a similar cup. She took it and stood next to him. ‘Thank you. I brought these –
croissants aux amandes
.’

Balancing her coffee on the edge of the bridge, she opened the waxed paper to reveal the plump golden pastries scattered with dark toasted almonds and topped with a syrupy blanket.

‘Oh my, they look delicious. Are you trying to make me fat?’ He patted his generous stomach.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

Christopher held the sweet flaky crescent up to his mouth and bit down, savouring the crunch of the almonds and licking his lips free of the powdery confectioner’s sugar that spilled over his tie.

‘This is heaven! Did you make them?’ He winked.

‘No, I didn’t, but I can.’

‘Really? What’s the secret of something that tastes this good?’

Are you testing me?
‘I think it lies in the
crème d’amandes
, because let’s face it, a good croissant is just a good croissant without the right enhancement. But for me the trick is getting the filling and almond syrup just right. I add salt to the almond mix and finely grind the nuts before adding generous amounts of butter and then the eggs; then I blend it again until it’s creamy. And for the syrup…’ She checked behind Christopher’s back and then over her own shoulder to make sure no one was listening. ‘I pop in a tot of dark rum.’

‘You clever old stick!’

‘Well, you don’t get to be Chief Whip without a bit of knowhow.’ This time she winked at him.

‘How did you learn how to bake?’

‘Well…’ Pru swallowed her bite of almond croissant and took a deep breath, concentrating on her words. This wasn’t the time or place for too much information. ‘Life in Kenway Road was in many ways one of the happiest times I’d ever known. I loved the freedom of being out from under my mum’s roof and my nan’s disapproving eye. And Trudy’s kitchen was a real cook’s kitchen, full of fancy equipment. We were amazed that we had found somewhere where we could bake every day.’

Pru still remembered every inch of that kitchen. The cupboards were of the palest blue and the dappled glass fronts allowed glimpses of blue china, dainty teacups and fancy teapots. French blue and white bistro curtains hung on brass rails halfway up the sash windows and a square table covered with a matching cloth sat in the middle of the room. There was a rack full of knives, and china buckets full of spoons, measurers and pastry crimpers. Large copper pans hung from hooks on the ceiling. A small, open-fronted dresser was crammed with platters and china mixing bowls and a large Kenwood Chef took pride of place on the deep, white Formica worktop.

‘Poor old Trudy was our guinea pig. She’d be trying to watch her weight and we’d present her with plates piled high with French toast, homemade baguettes cut into thin rounds and smothered with butter and jam, or tiny éclairs with piped double cream and slivers of glossy chocolate sitting on top.’

‘She must have loved it! I know I would have.’ Chris laughed.

‘She did.’ She turned to Christopher. ‘We’d always dreamed of owning our very own bakery, which we knew we’d name Plum Patisserie. We studied and practised our skills during the day, paying every penny we earned to Monsieur Gilbert at his École de Patisserie in Knightsbridge. Oh, Chris, it was another world. I was like a fish out of water, sitting there among all the debs.’

Pru wondered, briefly, if those horse-faced debs might have been the sort Christopher socialised with. During their breaks, the girls would gather in cliques and recline on the padded, water-silk-covered benches along the walls of the parlour outside Monsieur Gilbert’s classroom. Ornate china pot stands holding unruly aspidistra stood between them. A hum of conversation – which tended to be about boys, frocks and parties, rather than roux and pastries – would echo off the black and white tiled floor and domed ceiling. She and Milly would always stand slightly apart from the cliques, discussing that day’s lesson. Later, top to toe in bed, wiggling their toes inside their long nighties and with Milly’s giant sketchbook between them, they would try out designs for the entwined Ps that would become their logo. Together they’d chant the French terms they had learned –
le façonnage
,
le pétrissage
,
nougatine
,
pâte à choux
– almost like a spell, until the unfamiliar words became part of their vocabulary.

‘That must have taken an enormous amount of dedication.’

‘Well, if you want something that badly, Chris, you work hard for it, don’t you? And you don’t let the obstacles block you, you find a way around them.’

‘I guess you do.’ He turned to look at her full in the eyes. ‘You seem a bit different today – perkier, more like the Pru I met at Mountfield, standing on her own, talking to herself.’

‘I am a bit perkier actually. I found a note that Bobby had written William. It said that she was the happiest she had ever been and I take great comfort from that.’

Chris squeezed her hand. ‘You are right to, that’s wonderful. And how is your houseguest?’

Pru’s face fell. ‘I don’t think her and Mills are ever going to be bosom buddies. It makes for a horrible environment, all the squabbling and hiding in darkened rooms. I don’t want to sound insensitive, Chris, but I wish just for a day we could lift the blanket of misery and let joy sweep over the place, like a good breeze in a musty room. The atmosphere is quite depressing.’

‘I remember, after Ginny died, feeling exhausted by the grieving process. It was relentless. I wanted to sleep all the time. I understand the thing about hiding away in a darkened room; I did a lot of that too.’

‘When did it stop? Did it stop? Please tell me it did!’ She sipped her coffee. Black, no sugar – he had remembered.

He laughed. ‘Yes, it did, eventually. I can’t remember why or when exactly, but one day I woke up and she wasn’t the first thing I thought about. I felt instantly guilty of course, but then quite relieved, as if I’d reached a milestone. That day my mourning went from fifth gear into fourth and then slowly it was third, second and before I knew it, I was back in neutral.’

‘It’s good that we can talk about her, isn’t it? I’m sorry about what I said at the funeral – it just bothered me and that’s ridiculous, because we are friends and she was your wife.’

‘Yes, she was and will always be a huge part of my life, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t move on, with friendships or whatever.’

Yes, ‘or whatever’ sounds good.
‘It’s good that we can talk about anything.’ She gave an involuntary shiver.

The two of them sat quietly, one imagining the pain of closing the door on a happy future, the other remembering the pain of losing a wife.

Christopher looked at his watch. ‘Same time tomorrow?’

‘Is this a ruse to get more
croissants aux amandes
?’

‘No! Of course not.’ He held his hand to his chest, offended. ‘But if you had any of those éclairs you mentioned earlier going spare, the ones with the glossy chocolate on top, I would be happy to sample them.’

‘Oh, so you are doing me a favour, like market research?’

He chortled as he trotted off the bridge, away from her, and shouted back over his shoulder, ‘Exactly! Market research.’

That night, Pru pulled the blind on the café and locked the bakery, then trod the stairs and tiptoed along the corridor, nervous as ever of what she might find in the flat above hers. From the sitting room came the low hum of the television. She padded along the carpet, bent her head round the door and was met with a sight that warmed her heart. Meg was in her pyjamas, slumped on the sofa with her feet up on a stool, a cushion behind her head and an empty plate beside her on the floor. She was watching an episode of
Friends
. Pru didn’t hear the joke, but Meg suddenly laughed out loud, and gulped as it turned immediately into a sob.

Pru crept forward and gave a little cough. Meg looked up and closed her eyes as her grief poured from her. There was no sign of neutral here; not yet. Pru sat down on the edge of the sofa and placed her arms around Meg, who collapsed forward into her lap.

Pru stroked her hair and patted her back. ‘Don’t cry, love. Come on, it’s okay.’ Her voice was soft and soothing, the voice she had used to lull Bobby back to sleep in the early hours and the voice Meg had dreamed of as she watched the floral curtains of a dozen foster homes shifting in the night breeze of a dozen temporary bedrooms.

Finally, Meg’s sobs turned to words. ‘I wonder when he would have told me. Would he have actually married Bobby and left me on my own? Or worse still, had the baby with me and then married her, seeing both of us behind the other’s back? What would have happened at Christmas, birthdays? Can you imagine, nipping off to see her when my back was turned and then coming home to play happy families? I feel so stupid. Angry and stupid! I should of known that someone like me doesn’t get to play happy families!’

‘You have a right to be angry, but you’re not stupid, love. He deceived you – he deceived you both, he lied to us all, and he was very convincing.’

‘I need a bit of sorting out, Pru. I haven’t got anyone else.’

‘Don’t you worry, love.’ She stroked Meg’s hair away from her forehead. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

Once Meg had finally fallen into a deep sleep on the sofa, Pru tucked a soft blanket under her chin and returned downstairs. She lay in bed and watched the hands of the clock slowly turn. It was impossible trying to sleep with so much whirring in her head. She got up to make a cup of tea.

As Pru headed back to her bedroom with her mug of Earl Grey between her palms, Milly called out. ‘Can’t sleep?’ Her voice came from the sitting room, where she sat in the dark.

Pru laughed as she rubbed her eyelids, which felt as though they were full of grit. ‘No.’ She took a sip of tea and sat down in her chair opposite.

‘Did you see the note I found?’

Milly nodded.

‘I thought it was wonderful; it made me so happy to know she was happy! Because that’s all I ever wanted for her, all
we
ever wanted for her.’

‘I keep thinking I can hear her…’ Milly held her cousin’s gaze through the gloom, not commenting on the note.

Pru stared right back, suddenly tired at the prospect of another weighted conversation with Milly. All she wanted was to go back to bed.

Milly took her silence as a cue to continue. ‘You know how she used to call out, “I’m just nipping out!” Or “I’m making a cup of tea”, like we needed a running commentary on her life.’

Pru smiled weakly. She could hear that voice clearly inside her head. ‘I was saying something similar to Alfie earlier.’

‘I haven’t been able to go into her room and I have this thought that the longer I don’t go into it, the more likely I am to find her there, all warm and crumpled from sleep, but if I do go in and the room is empty, it means she is really gone. I guess her note is a reminder that she’s not there.’ Milly buried her face in her hands.

Pru leant forward in her chair. ‘It’s okay, Mills.’

‘I just keep wondering what Bobby would think about you letting that girl come here.’

‘Oh God, Milly!’ Pru was weary of the topic. ‘What would you have me do, throw her out? She’s got nowhere else to go and she is having a baby!’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘That
is
the point!’ Pru shouted.

‘No, Pru! The point is you always think you know best. You make a decision and you go for it, without ever listening to anyone else, without listening to me.’

‘Yes, and that’s how we’ve made it as far as we have, because I did just that. If we’d waited for you to act, we’d still be planning things in your bloody sketchbook!’

‘Is that right? What gave you the right to plan my life? What gave you the right to take me along with you?’ Milly was sitting forward in her chair now, her face contorted.

‘Take you along with me?’ Pru felt physically winded. ‘We were a team – we are a team!’

‘Are we, Pru? Really? Or am I a silent partner that knows her place? I feel like I’ve never had choices, I just did what you said, always, even when we were kids. Christ, one minute I’m getting a smack across the knuckles from Nan and the next I’m meeting Crying Micky in a dark alley to hand over cash. All because I went along with what you said, always!’