Forget Me Not (15 page)

‘Fancy moving to London at my age!’ Dad sighed. I helped him unpack his books and the few paintings he’d kept. Then I saw him open another box and put his wedding photo on a side table. I’d been fourteen when I’d suddenly seen that Mum was pregnant. I’ve never forgotten the shock. Once, years later, when I’d had a couple of drinks, I’d jokingly mentioned it. ‘Well … the wedding
was
a bit quick,’ she’d said with a brittle laugh, and then she’d changed the subject; and I’d felt sorry for her that she should still have felt so self-conscious about it all those years on – as though anyone could have cared less.

Now, as Dad went into the kitchen, I looked at the photo again. I was slightly surprised, now I’d had a baby myself, at how visible her bump was after only two months; but on the other hand Mum was quite curvy and curvy women seem to show their pregnancies earlier than skinny Lizzies like me.

‘Well, if you’re OK, Dad, I’ll be off.’ I gathered up some stray bubble wrap and stuffed it in a bin liner. ‘I told Luisa I’d be back by nine. Plus I’ve got to get my drawings finished for my client meeting on Saturday.’

Dad held up crossed fingers, then blew me a kiss.

The appointment was for 2 p.m. I’d agreed to see the clients on a Saturday because it was such a big commission. Jamie was due to meet me there.

I got up early so that I could go shopping for Milly. She badly needed some new T-shirts, which I usually get at the Hammersmith Marks & Spencer. So after breakfast I put her in her buggy and we got the bus to King Street. By eleven I’d found what I’d wanted and paid; then I went over to the food department and bought a few groceries. And I had just left the shop, pleased with my swift progress, when I suddenly glanced down at the buggy.

‘Oh Milly,’ I wailed. ‘Where’s your shoe?’

‘Shoe gone, Mum!’ Her right one was missing. ‘Iss
gone
,’ she repeated happily, inspecting her little stockinged foot.

‘You must have kicked it off
again
. I do wish you wouldn’t keep doing that, darling,’ I bleated as I did a swift U-turn back into the store. ‘Now we’ll have to find it. Do you remember where you dropped it?’

‘No,’ she shouted. ‘No, no,
no
!’

I began to scan the shop floor for her pink Startrite. This was just what I didn’t need. I had to get home in good time so that I could get everything ready for my appointment. She’d had both shoes on when I’d bought her clothes, so she must have lost it since then.

I retraced our steps through the shop, peering at the carpet, stopping an assistant to ask if anyone had found it. While she went over to Customer Services to check I returned to the food department and asked the cashier who’d served us if anyone had handed in a little pink shoe.

‘Sorry, love,’ she said. ‘No. But you don’t want to lose that,’ she tut-tutted, ‘not with the price of kids’ shoes these days.’

‘Exactly,’ I murmured. ‘Thirty-five pounds.’

I glanced at my watch. It was five to twelve. It would take us half an hour to get home, then I’d have to get my stuff together and drive over to The Boltons, and the traffic was ghastly on Saturday when Chelsea were playing at home. Jamie had already phoned to warn me.

The shop assistant came up to me. ‘Sorry, Madame, but nothing’s been handed in.’

‘Thanks for asking.’ I dug into my handbag and gave her my card. ‘Can I give you my number in case it turns up?’

I ran out, feeling flustered by now, and I was standing on King Street, by Curry’s, trying to flag down a taxi, as I couldn’t afford to waste time getting the bus, when I heard the church clock begin to strike twelve.

Bong … Bong …

All the cabs were taken –
damn
!

Suddenly I heard a shout from behind: ‘Excuse me!’ I turned round. ‘Is this yours?’ A smartly dressed man in his early forties was standing on the pavement holding Milly’s shoe.

‘Yes, it is … thank you!’ I clapped my hand to my chest with relief. ‘It’s my daughter’s.’

‘Milly shoe!’ Milly shouted indignantly, pointing an accusing finger at him. ‘Das Milly shoe, Mum!’

The man handed it to me. ‘I saw you looking for it,’ he added, ‘but you ran out of the shop before I could stop you.’

‘You have no idea how relieved I am. Thanks so much.’ I could have kissed him.

Bong …

‘You’re welcome.’

‘It would have been a disaster if I’d lost it,’ I said as I strapped it back on. ‘Especially as they’re new. We’d only just got them – last week, actually,’ I gabbled away, disconcerted by the fact that I found him immensely attractive. ‘They’re a bit big, so she must have pushed it off. Anyway.’ I straightened up and smiled. ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem. Delighted to help.’ I saw him glance at my left hand. There was a momentary silence. And I was just about to say a polite goodbye when I heard him say, ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to have a cup of coffee, would you?’ I looked at him, astounded. He’d met me less than a minute before. ‘There’s a nice café over there, next to the theatre, and I feel like a cappuccino and just wondered … if you could do with one too …’

‘Oh … I don’t think so,’ I stuttered, embarrassed, but at the same time, yes, flattered. ‘You see we’ve got to get going because … well …’ I didn’t have to explain. I didn’t know the guy.

‘Daddy!’ Milly suddenly yelled.

‘No, darling, it isn’t your daddy,’ I said patiently. ‘It’s a total stranger.’

‘Iss my
dad
!’ she insisted. And now I saw that she was pointing at Curry’s. I turned and looked. In the window were several flat-screen TVs, the biggest of which was tuned to
News
24. There was Xan, looking devastating, doing a piece to camera somewhere by an ancient temple – it looked like Angkor Wat.

‘Daddy!’ Milly screamed again. ‘
Dad-dy!
’ She began crying.

Bong … My heart sank.

‘Yes, sweetie.’

Bong …

‘Want
Daddy
!’

‘I know you do, darling.’ I suddenly saw a taxi and flung out my arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to the man. ‘It’s very kind of you, but we’ve got to go now.’

Bong …

‘I understand,’ he said, as the cab drew up. He held the door open for me, while I rolled Milly’s buggy in. ‘Goodbye,’ he said regretfully.

‘’Bye,’ I smiled out of the open window. ‘And thanks.’

As the taxi drove away, I remembered that I’d seen the man in the food department. He
had
seemed to notice me as we’d walked past, but I was so distracted, and so unused to male interest, that I’d barely registered it. Anyway, I thought as the taxi turned right, he was very attractive, he had nice manners and he’d paid me a compliment, which was rare enough, God knew. But my priority now was to get home.

‘Give Milly chicken and pasta please,’ I barked at Luisa as I charged into the house fifteen minutes later. ‘There are some fillets in here,’ I shoved the carrier bag at her. ‘And she’ll have peas with it.’

‘No. I gib her paella,’ Luisa said, as she unstrapped Milly. ‘Milly lob paella.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Paella. But no prawns. And no garlic – she reeked of it for days last time.’

Luisa looked at me blankly. I grabbed the Spanish dictionary I’d recently bought and which was already dismayingly well thumbed. Garlic: Ajo. How did you pronounce it? ‘No …
ajo
.’ I shook my head and wagged my forefinger.

‘Ah.
Acccchhho. Sí
,’ she nodded enthusiastically. ‘Just chilli.’

‘No – no chilli,’ I shouted as I raced upstairs. ‘She doesn’t like it.’

‘Want chilli!’ I heard Milly shout.

I put on a pair of smart trousers, a silk shirt and suede jacket, then ran a brush through my hair. I grabbed my briefcase and into it put the drawings I’d done of the site. Then I kissed Milly goodbye and jumped in the car.

The traffic was dreadful and I needed most of the hour I’d allowed to get there. I drew up at five to two. Jamie’s pick-up truck was already parked outside number 63 – like all the houses in the exclusive Boltons it was the size of a supermarket, stucco-fronted and white.

‘Hi, boss,’ Jamie called out indolently as I parked by the church.

‘I’m
not
your boss,’ I corrected him as he jumped down from his truck. ‘I’m not even, officially, your business partner although we work together so much. I’m … your …’

‘Haughty Culturalist,’ he suggested as I locked my car door. ‘I thought you were stuck up when I first met you, but then you started to grow on me and now I think you’re really quite nice.’

‘Thank you. But, as I say, I’m not your boss, and you’re … I don’t know what you are exactly.’

‘I’m the bloke who makes the earth move for you.’

‘Ha! Anyway, you’re looking smart.’ I glanced at his navy jacket.

‘This is my best cricketing blazer. Thea insisted. She’s keen for us to get this too. Not that her job isn’t going great guns – I hardly ever see her.’

‘Has she been away again?’ I asked as we opened the gate.

‘Yeah,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘She’s been to Rome, New York, Monaco – you name it – and she’s off again tomorrow, to Cape Town for a tennis tournament.’ Poor Jamie, I thought. No wonder they still hadn’t had kids. ‘Anyway,’ he went on as we went up the steps, ‘how’s Princess Milly?’

‘She’s fine – except that this morning she kicked off her shoe in Marks & Sparks – and I’d given up all hope of finding it when this rather attractive man came up to me holding it.’

‘Ah …’ Jamie raised his left eyebrow. ‘You’ve been snogging frogs again, haven’t you?’ He often teased me about that. ‘So was his name Prince Charming?’

‘No …’ I was flustered. I pressed the big brass bell. ‘I have no idea what it was.’

‘And did he invite you to the ball?’

‘Sadly not – but funnily enough, he did ask me to have a cappuccino with him.’

‘What’s so funny about that? You’re a nice-looking sheila.’

‘Thanks. And you’re a handsome Bruce.’

‘Anyway, I hope you accepted,’ Jamie added as he straightened his tie.

‘Of course I didn’t,’ I said stiffly.

‘Why not? Was he clutching an axe?’

‘Not that I could see.’

‘Was he hideous?’

‘Far from it.’

‘Then, in my opinion, you should have said yes.’

‘My criteria are slightly more stringent than that,’ I said, although, for a fleeting moment I wished I had accepted – I’d found the man very attractive; but I then dismissed my regrets to concentrate on the matter in hand. I calmed myself with a couple of deep breaths.

‘I hope we get this,’ I whispered.

‘So what’s it to be?’ he whispered back. ‘“Contemporary Architectural”? “Lush and Wild”? or “Timeless Elegance”?’

‘“Timeless Elegance”,’ I replied. ‘It would be a great one for the portfolio – switch off your phone, will you,’ I said as I turned off my own. ‘Not that we’re short of work.’

‘That’s true.’

I thought of how quickly the business had grown. We’d achieved this by being flexible. No job was too big or too small. The commissions we had done ranged from doing a few window boxes, to putting in some trellising, or laying a patio, to building a whole new garden from scratch. I got a lift from my career that distracted me from my sadness and even if I’d had a broken night with Milly I’d still wake up full of enthusiasm for the day ahead.

Suddenly the gleaming red front door was pulled back. There was Gill Edwards, slim and wiry, head to toe in casual Gucci, and standing a little way behind her in the vast hall, her husband, Martin, a big bear of a man, in brick-coloured corduroys and a blue chequered shirt. I’d heard of the Edwards’ when I worked in the City – they were both known to be very tough. She was a stockbroker for Cazenove and he, at fifty, a few years her senior, was a vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs.

‘Anna.’ She smiled. ‘Come in.’

‘This is Jamie Clark of Olympian Landscapes,’ I said. ‘He builds all my gardens, so I thought he ought to come with me today, if that’s OK.’

‘It’s absolutely fine.’ She shook his hand. ‘Hi …’

‘These designs are lovely,’ Gill said a few minutes later as she pored over my drawings in the huge yellow drawing room. I passed her the computer-generated image of what the garden would look like with all the perspectives drawn in.

‘And this is the mood board.’ I handed it to her husband.

‘Mood board?’ he repeated.

‘It’s a collage of photos of the proposed architectural structures, water features and decorative elements to give you a feel of the design – as well as the planting scheme.’

‘We don’t want too much planting,’ Gill interjected. ‘We both have very busy working lives – plus we spend most weekends in the country.’

‘I’ve borne that in mind,’ I said, wondering why anyone would spend such a fortune on their London house, only to flee from it every Friday.

We went outside, shivering a little in the early spring sunlight. For such an enormous house the garden wasn’t that big – about twenty metres. It had a scrubby-looking lawn and some raised flowerbeds full of mature shrubs that were so overgrown as to give it a claustrophobic feel. Around the perimeter were some York flagstones, with a thin scattering of gravel between them, and, in the centre, some scraggly-looking box hedges – the remnants of what had once been a miniature knot garden. The whole thing was on a slight slope.

‘The last people had been here fifteen years,’ Gill explained. ‘They’d done little to it latterly, as you can see. But as we said when you came before, we’d like the garden to be an extension of the house, largely for summer entertaining.’

I talked them through the design. The garden would be levelled and new steps built. There would be a square lawn in the centre, surrounded on three sides by clipped box balls of different sizes, to add a degree of formality. At the back would be the main focal point, a long black granite water trough with a keyhole spout. The area round the lawn would be paved with Portuguese limestone, with raised flowerbeds and huge black granite planters. The plants would be mostly low-maintenance perennials such as lavender,
Euphorbia
, peonies and
Acanthus
, supported by a number of hardy climbers and shrubs. Along the left-hand side would be a seating area, screened by four pleached limes. This part would contain a large, modern
chimenea
, flanked by two specially commissioned teak box benches in which the cushions could be stowed. There would be an irrigation system and, set into the limestone, discreet uplighting to add drama at night.