Wish Upon a Star (37 page)

When Claire walked into Knitting Kitting on Monday morning, to her surprise, there was a customer. At least she thought at first that he was a customer, though an unlikely one. For one thing he was a man. For another, he was very well dressed in a business suit and actually rather good-looking—what Imogen might call ‘dishy’. He was very fair with eyelashes, eyebrows and hair almost the same light color as his skin. That made the blue of his eyes even more startling when he turned them on her.

Claire had a smile ready but didn’t have a chance to greet him. ‘Ah. Here she is. I think I need to speak to you,’ he said. Claire smiled at him inquiringly. To her surprise he didn’t smile back. Actually, his lips compressed into a narrow white line. ‘Are you the one who’s done this?’ he asked and held out one of her flyers. Claire nodded. Perhaps he wanted to enroll his wife in a class. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know people don’t like trash tied to their private property? And that you don’t advertise a business the way you do a church fête?’

‘Now Nigel,’ Mrs. Venables began.

‘Don’t “now Nigel” me. This is irresponsible behavior. And it’s illegal. Full stop.’

Claire had put signs up all over but didn’t know it was illegal or wrong. Could he be from the police department? Certainly not in that suit. More likely an angry neighbor. But she had been careful to space out the notices. Could somebody be annoyed over one page of paper tied to a lamp post? ‘I don’t think…’ she began.

‘You certainly don’t. And do you read? You posted all over the “No Hoardings” signs.’ Claire had seen signs saying that. She’d thought they were about some law against saving up food or something. She had tied up flyers right over them.

‘I’m sorry…’ she began, but he gave her no time for apologies.

‘And whose idea was this? Who asked you to interfere?’

Claire was completely chagrinned, then relieved when Mrs. Venables came out from behind the counter. ‘Nigel, stop that right now. You may be a barrister but Claire is not on trial. She asked me if she could do it and I agreed.’

Clearly this pale and angry man wasn’t threatening to Mrs. Venables. The old woman put her arm around Claire’s shoulder. ‘She was helping me. I asked her to. You have no right to blame her. And I certainly don’t approve of your tone of voice.’ Claire felt Mrs. Venables’s arm tighten. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. Permit me to introduce you to my son. Claire Bilsop, this is my son Nigel. He’s a good boy but sometimes he’s overprotective. Please excuse him.’

‘Mother, I…’

‘Nigel, don’t raise your voice.’

To her surprise, Claire felt tears rising, blurring her sight. How humiliating. She didn’t want to wipe at her eyes but she certainly didn’t want this arrogant man to see her cry.

‘I didn’t raise my voice. I was simply taken off-guard. I had to respond to half a dozen phone calls.’

‘Were they complaints?’ Mrs. Venables asked.

Nigel Venables turned his head, walked to the window and looked out onto the street. ‘No. Not exactly. But you must understand that homeowners don’t want commercial establishments to post notices…’

Claire, so excited about her list of possible class attendees, now felt ashamed of them. And why had people called Mrs. Venables’s son? His number wasn’t listed.

‘Were they inquiries about the class, Nigel?’

He looked back at them. ‘I suppose so. And I felt a proper fool knowing nothing about it. The point is, Mother, this idea is ridiculous. It’s going to come a cropper.’

Claire hated to appear pathetic, but even worse was to appear ridiculous. Her idea, which had sounded so practical and effective, something she’d been so proud of, was ridiculous? But people had called, not only Toby but this detestable Nigel. Her heart lifted a little. And some were people who wanted to register? How had they gotten Nigel Venables’s number? Why hadn’t they called Toby’s?

Nigel crumpled one of the flyers and tossed it onto the window seat. ‘Since I bought this property the neighborhood has been watching to see if I plan to develop it. I don’t need any extra attention.’ He looked back at Claire. ‘You can’t treat people’s private properties as if they were billboards. This isn’t the United States, you know. Next you’ll be handing out freebie subs at tube stations.’

‘Nigel, that will be quite enough.’ Mrs. Venables turned to Claire. ‘I’m sorry, he’s not at his best right now.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Claire’s idea is a good one. Shake hands with her, Nigel, and behave properly.’

Reluctantly, Nigel extended his hand which was long, very pale and surprisingly warm. But he made the handshake brief and hardly looked at her. Then he sighed, letting both of his hands drop helplessly to his side. ‘You’re quite impossible,’ he told his mother. ‘If you need help, why didn’t you tell me? You know how I feel. This place is altogether too much for you to manage.’

‘I know, dear. I should stay home and dust the Staffordshire. But you see, I don’t like to dust.’ She turned to Claire. ‘Come and sit over here at the pattern table. I’ll make you both a cup of tea.’

‘Oh, fine! Let us make you extra work. Why not cook us dinner?’

‘I’d be delighted to,’ said Mrs. Venables, already filling a kettle. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come to dinner sometime next week, Claire?’

‘Mother, you’re getting into one of your moods and…’

‘I? In one of my moods? I can’t imagine what would ruffle my normal calm, except perhaps for an over protective son descending like an enraged headmistress and scolding his mother as well as an innocent stranger.’ Mrs. Venables turned off the tap. ‘Do you want a biscuit as well? I have your favorite macaroons.’

Nigel put a long hand over his eyes and Claire almost felt sorry for him. He seemed calmer now, resigned almost, and not nearly as frightening. He leaned against the counter, took a deep breath and made quite a production of exhaling. ‘Can we discuss this whole idea? I take it it was Miss Bilsop’s?’

‘Well, don’t be so sure. You underestimate your mother,’ Mrs. Venables said.

‘It was my idea,’ Claire admitted. ‘But I asked permission. I just thought it might increase business…’

‘Just what my mother doesn’t need, increased business! Which means increased work. Which means increased blood pressure. Don’t you know…’

‘Nigel, I don’t want to have to be sharp with you but I am going to insist you drop this subject and change your tone of voice,’ his mother interjected. ‘Claire isn’t interested in my medical reports. Is this what they teach you at the Inns of Court? Now, tell us how many phone calls you have had about the class.’

‘Well, about five,’ he admitted, ‘but there’s probably another three on the ansaphone.’

‘And they all objected to a bit of paper tied with wool to a lamp post?’

Nigel sat on the corner of the pattern table. ‘No. Some did, but some inquired about the class. They said they didn’t get an answer at that phone number. So they rang my number on the shop sign.’

Claire wondered if Toby had taken the phone off the hook. Had she imposed on him too much?

Mrs. Venables filled the teapot and brought it to the table. Then she took out a tin of homemade cookies—they looked far too moist and good for Claire to think of them as biscuits—and put them on a plate. ‘Claire, my dear, how many signs did you hang?’

‘Almost fifty.’

‘Fifty!’ Nigel repeated.

‘Well, then. Two or three complaints over fifty signs. That’s one in twenty-five. My goodness, with the number of cranks in London I would think that’s a low percentage.’ She poured out the three cups of tea. ‘Claire did it with my permission and didn’t mean any harm. A couple of complaints aren’t going to ruin your property empire. Now, apologize to Claire nicely and we can move on.’

Nigel cleared his throat, but before he said anything Claire spoke up. ‘I’m sure it’s all my fault. I didn’t realize what the signs meant or that the fence posts were private property. I won’t do it again.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Nigel said. ‘My mother doesn’t need to advertise the shop as if it were a side show. And she certainly doesn’t need the income. Let’s just forget about it, shall we? No harm done.’

‘Exactly what I was trying to say,’ Mrs. Venables told him serenely. She handed the plate of macaroons to Claire, who took one but felt that the lump in her throat would make it impossible for her to choke it down. Nigel felt no such difficulty and took three, making short work of them. ‘He’s loved them since he was a little boy,’ Mrs. Venables confided. ‘I used to send them to him at school.’

Nigel bit into yet another macaroon. He turned to Claire. ‘Bilsop?’ he asked. ‘Where are your people from?’

It reminded her of Im. Did everyone in this country want to place you in some hierarchy? She wasn’t second-cousins to the Queen. ‘I don’t have any people,’ Claire said. She stood up. ‘I’m afraid I have to go,’ she told Mrs. Venables. ‘I’m going to be late for work.’ That, of course, wasn’t true.

‘I understand,’ Mrs. Venables said, and it looked as if she did.

Claire left the shop and trudged the two streets home. Things had been going so well. She should have known that meant too well. Being cornered and scolded as if she were a child or an opportunist was deeply disturbing. But she hadn’t pushed Mrs. Venables into anything, she told herself. It was just that detestable Nigel who made her feel so guilty. Now, she would be too embarrassed ever to go back to the shop again. Claire felt tears spring to her eyes once more, but this time she didn’t have to hold them back.

After an hour or two in the haven of her new home, Claire felt in better spirits and decided to do something positive. She had found a garden center in Chelsea and thought she’d ask permission to take the Patel girls to it. When she left for work—even earlier than usual—the sun was breaking through the flat silver clouds. There was a smell of soot mixed with earth, and that indefinable odor of new growth that heralded the spring. Of course, early flowers were already blooming, but this scent marked the season as truly begun. It would be lovely to make a garden.

She had just reached the corner when she recognized the man approaching her as Nigel Venables.

‘Miss Bilsop.’

Claire waited, carefully keeping her expression neutral—he was the last person she wanted to see but, in her new, positive mood, she was determined not to let him upset her again.

‘I must apologize for my outburst,’ Nigel said. ‘Can I take you for a cup of coffee?’

Caught completely off guard and temporarily robbed of the powers of speech, Claire just found herself nodding.

‘There’s a decent café just up the road; it’s very kind of you to come.’

‘Well,’ Claire said, recovering. ‘I haven’t much time.’

‘We won’t take long.’

Claire tried to match her strides to Nigel’s long ones but couldn’t, and had to take an undignified skip every three or four steps, just to keep up. When she was beside him she snuck a glance at his face, pointed resolutely toward the café. This confirmed her first impression; that he was nice-looking, having Mrs. Venables’s aristocratic features which, Claire had to admit, looked better on a man.

She was expecting peace-making but, once in the café, he was just as arrogant as he had been earlier. He seated her and fetched them coffees and then he began to question her. ‘What brought you to London?’ he asked.

A man, Claire was tempted to say. That would shock him. Instead she told him she had decided to come on a whim.

‘Doesn’t your family worry about you?’

Claire sensed that he was trying to ‘place her’ the way Imogen did. What was it with these English and their odd strata of class distinctions? ‘My father died about five years ago and my mother…’ Claire paused, ‘…is about to remarry.’ That was pushing the truth, but Claire certainly didn’t feel like explaining the sordid Jerry.

‘I’m sorry. My father died when I was a boy,’ Nigel said, softening just a little. ‘Were you and your father close?’

‘Yes. I miss him very much.’

‘What did he do?’

There it was again, that need to place her. ‘About what?’ she asked. She looked at her watch. ‘I really have to go,’ she said. ‘Thank you for the coffee.’ Which she hadn’t touched. Before he could say anything more, she turned and walked out the door. He hadn’t wanted to apologize. He wanted to pump her; to make sure she wasn’t some wandering grifter or con artist! He wanted to make sure she was ‘the right sort’, and Claire was sick of it.

On Friday afternoon, when the Patel girls were out of school, and with their mother’s permission, Claire took them to the garden center where they selected dozens of flowering plants, some ground cover, and ten square feet of sod, which Claire learned they called ‘turf’. She arranged to have it all delivered and spent the rest of the afternoon working with the girls on the ground behind the shop. She’d purchased a hoe with her own money, but said nothing about it to Mrs. Patel who looked on, expressionless.

Once all the rubble had been cleared away, the space was not as bad as it had, at first, appeared. There was a concrete walk (or ‘path’ as the girls called it) that made a U-shape across the back and two sides of the area but the center was clear. The delivery arrived and, first of all, Claire added some peat moss and topsoil which she and the girls worked into the cindery soil. After that it didn’t take long to put in borders of plants, with the little piece of grass in the center. The girls were good helpers, and though they couldn’t manage to dig deep they did take the plants carefully out of their plastic containers and sink them into the prepared earth. ‘This is just like
Ground Force
!’ Safta exclaimed, and told Claire all about the ‘telly’ program. In less than four hours the little space had been transformed and, though there was no outdoor spigot or hose, Claire and the girls managed to water everything using buckets and pitchers.

When Mrs. Patel took a break the girls, so excited that they had to hold their hands over their mouths to keep from shouting, pushed her into the garden from behind. Claire was left to cover the counter and waited to hear exclamations of pleasure.

But there were none. Five, and then ten minutes went by, and still nothing was heard from the back of the shop. Maudie came in with her boys, had a chat and Claire was finishing up her few purchases, carefully placing them in a sack when Mrs. Patel, her head lowered, came walking toward the front of the shop. She didn’t approach the counter until Maudie had left. Claire had Maudie’s money ready. But it was only when Mrs. Patel raised her head and looked straight at Claire that she knew this was very important. Mrs. Patel’s dark eyes were wet with tears. ‘How did you do that?’ she asked. ‘How did you manage it? It is quite marvelous.’