Made in Heaven (23 page)

‘Delivery here for a Lydia Quentin and one for Mrs R. Gratrix … same address. Is that right?'

Joss decided not to make the bewildered youth from the florist even more bewildered. She said, ‘Yes, both here, thanks.'

‘Lucky ladies,' said the young man. ‘Lovely, these are.'

‘If you could just put them on that table … That's great.'

‘Bye, then.'

He'd gone, and Joss stared at what he'd delivered. Lydia had an enormous, hand-tied bouquet of roses. No card. Obviously they were from Gray, who was the only person in the world who called her Lydia, and he must also have feared Bob seeing anything he wrote, however enigmatic. They had decided to break off all contact, hadn't they? He'd been surprisingly good about not getting in touch with her, and there were times when she longed for him to break his word, send her a text message … something. Now, here they were, these glorious bronze flowers … two dozen of them. He still thinks of me, she told herself. He loves me. She didn't know whether she felt like weeping or hugging herself for joy. Did she have a vase that would do them justice? I wish they'd last for ever, she thought, and she resolved to keep a few as they faded. Sometimes, she liked
roses even better when they were like papery ghosts of themselves. She turned to the potted plant addressed to Mrs Gratrix. It was hydrangea of a particularly attention-seeking blue, and Joss knew at once where it would look best: in the crescent-shaped flowerbed to the left of the front door. There was a card stuck among the blossoms:
To Joss, with many congratulations on your shortlisting from Maureen and Graham Ashton
. She smiled. She imagined Gray thinking how clever he'd been, covering his tracks, getting Maureen in on it too. Well, two could play at that game.

Joss put the hydrangea on a big saucer and placed it on the window-sill in the kitchen. She arranged the roses in her best and biggest vase, and decided to leave them on the hall table where they seemed to light up the space around them. She kept four to go in her study, putting them into a clear glass carafe that had once held wine but which she'd kept because she liked its shape.

Once she was upstairs in the study, she put it on her desk. She wanted the roses close to her, close enough to touch. Then she opened a drawer and took out her collection of postcards. She chose one of Fairford Hall, a pen-and-ink drawing of the house. She'd bought them two years ago, on the first day of the course, and kept them for very special occasions. Gray would understand what this image meant and why she had chosen it. She addressed the envelope to Dr and Mrs Graham Ashton. On the back of the card she wrote:

He would read that, and know that his flowers had reached her.

Isis looked into the dressing-table mirror, and wished she'd brought her face-painting kit on holiday. It was nearly a month since school had broken up but they'd only come here, to have their proper holiday, this week. This wasn't so much a hotel room as a kind of flat called a suite. There was a lounge, and a bedroom for Mum and Adrian and on the other side of the lounge, a much smaller bedroom for her. There was also a white and blue bathroom, with very sparkly tiles all over the walls and lots of little bottles of shampoo and body lotion in a basket near the washbasin.

It would have been cool to dress up as a princess but there wasn't that much to get dressed up in. Pyjamas weren't royal. Isis sighed. She shouldn't moan though, not when she was on holiday. This was a great hotel and she was lucky. Not many people had two holidays. Next week Dad was taking her to the Lake District. He'd promised they could go and visit Otto, her very own owl, who lived in a special bird sanctuary. Last year, when she turned seven, one of Dad's presents had been a certificate saying that she was now sponsoring a barn owl. There was a book about the sanctuary and a photo of Otto, who was beautiful. He had a notice on his cage now which said:
Otto is sponsored by Isis Ford
and she felt proud about that. She was longing to see him. Dad was going to take a photo of the two of them together.

Meanwhile, though, she was at the seaside with Mum and Adrian. There wouldn't be any bombs at the seaside, Isis was sure. Mum had said that even in London they were safe now and the police had caught a lot of the bad men, but there were times when she still felt worried and she tried not to go on the Underground too often. Adrian hadn't wanted to come on this holiday, Isis could tell. He'd grumbled all the way up to Scarborough in the car, and whenever she'd asked for anything, like a tissue or a fruit gum, he'd frowned. And he made a huge fuss when she wanted to play one of her story CDs.

‘Won't music do, Isis?' he'd said and Mum had been on his side.

Isis sighed and said, ‘I'm going to sleep. You two can play whatever you like.'

They'd put something on, opera. Mum liked that best. Adrian didn't, you could tell, but he couldn't say anything because he'd already made one fuss and asked for music. Isis hadn't really gone to sleep. She'd listened to them. It wasn't a proper row, what they were saying, but they sounded cross.

‘I don't see why we couldn't go to the South of France or Spain or somewhere abroad,' Adrian said.

‘Because we're going abroad for our honeymoon.' That was Mum.

‘Not till next year, though. We could've taken a cheap flight. Isis could've gone to your mum's. We could have got in a bit of practice for our honeymoon.'

Mum had laughed at that. ‘We need to economize, though, don't we? There's the wedding … '

‘Well, this is taking economy a bit far, don't you think? What on earth are we going to do in Scarborough in August? It's sure to rain. There'll be crowds of people everywhere. And Isis'll need entertaining, won't she?'

Isis, pretending to be asleep, thought, I don't need entertaining. I'm eight.

Mum said, ‘Oh, stop grumbling, Adrian! We'll have a great time. It's a wonderful hotel.'

‘Let's hope they have a good babysitting service. At least we can have our evenings to ourselves.'

Mum and Adrian were downstairs right now, having dinner in the room with the chandeliers. She'd had her supper earlier: a pizza from Room Service. Mum said she didn't need the babysitter, because they weren't going out and Isis could come and find them if she needed to, and it wasn't late, and when they'd finished eating they would come straight upstairs. They all had to get up early tomorrow morning to go home.

Adrian's cufflinks were on the dressing-table. They were really pretty. If I put them through the button-holes of my pyjama top, Isis thought, they'd look like jewels. Yes, that was good, but she needed something else. She looked round and caught sight of a silk scarf lying over the back of the chair. Adrian had given it to Mum last Christmas, and it was gorgeous: a lovely, dark red. She picked it up and wound it round her head like a turban, tying the ends in a knot at the nape of her neck, with the fringes hanging down. Cool! She paraded in front of the mirror for a while, did a bit of a dance and looked at the way the light from the lamp on the dressing-table made the cufflink-jewels glitter like stars.

‘Isis? What are you doing?'

Adrian was standing in the doorway of the room, glaring at her.

‘Nothing. I was just … I was dressing up.'

‘Right. Well … I think it's probably time you were in bed, isn't it?'

Isis knew he was really, really cross, and trying not to show it. He'd gone white and he was smiling, but it wasn't a friendly smile. ‘Are you cross because I'm dressing up?' she asked.

‘No, no, that's okay,' he said, and he didn't mean it, you could tell. He frowned. ‘But I think you should take
all the dressing-up stuff off now and put it away, right? Make sure you put it back exactly where it was before, yes?'

Isis nodded. ‘I've finished now. I will. I'll put everything back.'

‘I'll wait, then. Till you've done it.'

Isis could feel him watching her as she put the cufflinks back on the dressing-table and laid the scarf over the chairback, looking, just as it had before she'd picked it up. She heard him let out his breath as soon as everything was back to what it was before. ‘There you are,' she said.

‘That's fine. I'm going downstairs again now, then. I just came to see you were okay. You get into bed. We won't be long. Good night!'

He was trying to be jolly. Isis squeezed out a smile, even though she didn't feel smiley.

When he'd gone, she got into bed and looked at the ceiling. Sometimes she wished that Mum didn't love Adrian so much, and then she wouldn't want to marry him and then there'd be just the two of them, and Em, and Dad visiting. But if there was no wedding, she wouldn't be a bridesmaid, and she really, really wanted to wear a pretty dress and a headdress and carry a basket with flowers in it. And Mum had said that Gemma could be a bridesmaid, too, so she'd be upset as well if there was no wedding. Isis turned on to her side and stared at the wall. She wondered what would happen if she told Mum about Adrian being cross with her and not admitting it. He'd say he wasn't cross and she'd probably believe him. And maybe Mum would say she shouldn't have dressed up in Adrian's things without asking. Isis hid her face in the pillow. Adrian hadn't been very good at hiding his crossness. He doesn't really like me very much, she told herself. He keeps telling Mum he's fond of me, but it's not true. You could always tell if someone really, really liked
you, and Isis knew that Adrian didn't. She could feel it.

Just before they came away to Scarborough, he'd found her reading one of her Malory Towers books. ‘Not Harry Potter?' he asked her. ‘Thought all kids liked nothing but Harry Potter.'

‘I like lots of books,' Isis said. ‘I like … '

‘I'm sure you do,' he said, interrupting her. Isis turned away. Adrian kept on talking to her. ‘That's a bit old-fashioned, isn't it? Enid Blyton. I read those when I was a boy. Some of them, anyway, but Malory Towers was too soppy.'

‘This used to be Mum's book,' said Isis. It was rude of him, she thought, to call Malory Towers soppy. How did he know anyway, if he'd never read one? ‘It's about a boarding school.'

‘Would you like to go to boarding school, Isis?'

‘People don't really go to boarding school,' she said. ‘It's just in books.'

‘Not at all,' Adrian said. ‘Lots of people do go to boarding school. I did when I was a boy. So did my brother. How would you like to go to a school like that?'

Isis thought about this for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, I like it here with Mum.'

Adrian had snorted and turned his attention to the newspaper. When Mum came in and asked how they were, he said, ‘Fine. We were chatting about boarding schools.'

He hadn't told her that he'd asked Isis if she wanted to go.

I bet he'd like to send me away, she thought. But it's not up to him because Dad's the one who decides about stuff like that. And Mum. She wondered whether she should tell Mum what Adrian had said about boarding school and then thought she'd better not. Perhaps he was sort of joking. It was hard to tell with him sometimes.
Maybe he'll like me better when they're married, when he gets to know me more. I'll be so good, he'll have to. It'll be okay.

Isis tried to think about something that didn't make her feel gloomy. Otto, she thought. I'll think about seeing Otto. I won't think about Adrian.

‘What the hell's the matter with you, Graham? It's only a bloody book when all's said and done. Anyone would think it's the Crown Jewels!'

‘I ordered it!' He was shouting at her. He was red in the face with fury. ‘My name's on the packet. Doesn't take a genius to know not to open it.'

‘
WHY NOT
?' Maureen was screaming now. ‘It's a book. Why shouldn't I open it? Since when do people order private stuff on Amazon, for God's sake? I've got a book on order too, and that's why I opened your stupid package. I wasn't looking at the name. Grow up! Anyway, now that I've seen what it is, the fuss you're making is even more ridiculous. It's Joss's book. I'm about to become related to the bloody woman. Why shouldn't I have a look at it? Not that I will again. It's totally boring and you're more than welcome to it.'

‘Don't throw it!'

Too late. Maureen had taken the offending volume and hurled it at her husband. It caught him on the side of the head and he picked it up from the floor.

‘I'm the one who orders from Amazon in this house. Not you,' he said.

‘How dare you say that? Why not me? I've got just as much right to order books as you have. Can't imagine why you did order it, as a matter of fact.'

For a moment, Graham seemed confused. Maureen
felt a rush of triumph. He hasn't got an answer, she thought.

‘I'm interested in the Madrigal Prize. I write poetry, remember?' he said, sounding a little less furious. She hadn't seen him so put out for years. He muttered something about waiting for it for ages. And now, she could see he was about to make a fuss. Okay, the cover was bent back a bit, but that wasn't the end of the world, was it? She sighed. ‘I'll let you open the next Amazon packet. All right? It'll be for me and you can open it.'

He didn't bother to answer and went up the stairs to his study. Maureen wished he was still within kicking distance. He was beginning to drive her mad. He was taking no interest whatsoever in the wedding. Whenever she brought up the subject, he either changed it or wandered off somewhere. He was doing very long hours at work and all she was good for, it seemed, was to put the meals on the table and provide sex when he needed it, which wasn't as often as she'd have liked. It was lucky she had other things on her mind. The dress. The food. She was in email contact with various catering firms and wrote to Zannah quite often with her thoughts on wedding-related matters. To be fair to her prospective daughter-in-law, her replies were always prompt but she didn't go in for long, chatty, enjoyable emails. She was always to the point: not a good communicator. Never mind, Maureen told herself. Some people just are like that when they're on the computer. They think they have to write in a kind of telegram-type style: as short as possible. Boring.