Chapter 23
The fifth of November, and the weather was kind. No rain had fallen in the last fortnight, the air was crisp and cold but not agonisingly so, and excitement was in the air along with the smell of bonfire in the cordoned-off centre of the village green.
People had come from neighbouring villages for miles around to witness the fireworks display that was due to start at seven. Mimi stuffed her hands into the pockets of her red coat and watched the crowds gather around the crackling bonfire as sparks flew up into the star-studded night sky. Marcus and Felix were both busy serving on the stall that had been set up to sell hot dogs and burgers. Extra staff had been laid on in the pub to cope with increased demand. Small children were racing around, shouting with excitement. And down the high street came three familiar figures that caused Mimi’s breath to catch in her throat. Cal, Cora and Otto had arrived.
As they made their way onto the green, Cora said, ‘Dad, I want to show Mimi my new hat!’
Mimi’s heart swelled as Cora ran over to her with Cal and Otto following behind. It expanded further still when Otto jumped up and barked an enthusiastic welcome as if yesterday’s snub had never happened.
Otto, do you like me more than you like Della? One bark for yes, two barks for no . . . come on, you can do it . . .
‘Hi, Mimi, look at my hat,’ Cora said eagerly. ‘D’you like it?’
‘Of course I do, I love it! It’s the best hat I’ve ever seen!’ Mimi gave the pink velvet kitten ears attached to the crown a playful tweak.
Cora beamed. ‘I love it too! Charlotte’s mum bought it for me yesterday. She bought me an orange one and Charlotte a yellow one so we both have the same!’
‘Perfect,’ said Mimi. ‘And did you have a good time at the cinema?’
‘Oh it was great. Charlotte’s mum bought us big drinks and a bucket of popcorn. I ate so much popcorn I thought I was going to be sick, but I wasn’t. Charlotte’s mum is so much fun!’
Cora’s eyes were shining. For a moment Mimi was too afraid of the giveaway emotions in her own eyes to look at Cal. The temptation to tell Cora that she could be fun too was intense. Nor could she bring herself to ask if they’d stayed for a sleepover.
‘Dad, there’s Lauren and Ben over there, can I watch the fireworks with them? Is that OK?’
‘I think I can probably manage on my own,’ said Cal, and Cora was gone, haring across the grass to join her friends.
‘She’s growing up.’ His tone was rueful. ‘Once I used to carry her on my shoulders during firework displays. Then she got older and would hang on to me, squeezing my hand every time a rocket exploded. And now she’d rather watch the display with her friends.’ He smiled and patted his heart.
The next moment, just as Mimi was debating whether to offer to squeeze his hand or climb onto his shoulders, they both heard a male voice behind them say, ‘There he is, that’s him. That’s Mathieson.’
Swinging round, Mimi realised with a jolt that the couple heading directly towards them were Darren May and his wife Lara. Darren, tall and wiry and wearing a khaki waxed jacket over his jeans, wasn’t looking amused. Lara, hurrying along behind him in high heels, was saying, ‘Darren, don’t . . .’
‘I’ve seen the pictures she took of you on her phone,’ Darren announced without preamble. ‘What’s been going on between you and my missus?’
‘Excuse me?’ Cal remained outwardly calm but a muscle was twitching in his jaw. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing’s been going on.’
‘You came over to my house while I wasn’t there. You took a whole load of photos of her and the kids.’
‘Your wife hired me to paint a family portrait. That’s how it’s done,’ said Cal. ‘Seriously, that’s all that happened.’
‘And why did she need to take photos of you, hey? Tell me that.’ Producing a phone in a pink leather case, Darren waved it at him. ‘Bloody loads of them.’
‘Darren, I take photos of everyone, you know I do,’ Lara protested. ‘We were just having fun, it didn’t mean anything. The kids were there the whole time—’
‘Yeah, I bet you had fun,’ said Darren. ‘You know Terry Carter’s wife’s a professional portrait artist, do you?’
‘Well, yes . . .’
‘But instead of getting her to do it, you had to choose this guy instead, even though he’s never sold a painting before in his life.’
‘I saw some of his work on Facebook and I liked it.’
‘Funny how he just happened to be a good-looking bloke though, isn’t it?’ said Darren. ‘I wonder if you’d’ve been quite so keen if he’d been some ugly old grandad.’
‘But it’s OK for you to go to that physio at the club,’ Lara shot back. ‘Not the ancient bald guy, oh no. You always have to end up being looked after by Helga, don’t you? I wonder why that is?’
Mimi’s eyes widened. Whoa, it’s all coming out now . . .
‘I get looked after by Helga because she doesn’t hurt as much as Tom and she doesn’t tell bloody awful jokes.’ Darren swung round and addressed Cal once more. ‘Just give it to me straight, tell me the truth. Are you shagging my wife or aren’t you?’
‘No he isn’t,’ said Lara, visibly mortified.
‘I’m really not,’ Cal told him, ‘and I never have.’
‘So why’s she spent the whole day talking about how fantastic you are?’ Darren was still on the attack. ‘Because I’m telling you now, she hasn’t stopped. It’s been Cal this and Cal that all afternoon, like a teenager with a crush—’
‘I’m here, I’m here,’ panted a voice as the sky suddenly exploded with colour and light and the crowd gathered for the firework display sent up a collective Ooh! of delight. Turning, Mimi saw Della with her daughter, hurrying across the grass towards them, waving her arms to attract their attention.
What on earth . . .?
Then again, the most surreal aspect of all was the fact that one of the most successful Premiership footballers in the country was currently standing on Goosebrook village green but everyone else was too entranced by the fireworks to even realise he was here.
Cal was looking surprised to see Della too. As she reached them, he said, ‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s all gone wrong,’ Lara cut in, clutching Della’s arm. ‘He still doesn’t believe me.’
‘OK, let me get my breath back a minute. Cal, where’s Cora?’
‘Over by the swings, watching the display.’
‘Darling, you go and join her.’ Della gently pushed Charlotte in the direction of the playground area to the left of the bonfire. As soon as Charlotte had run off, she put her hands on her hips and fixed her gaze on Darren May.
‘Right, listen to me. Lara isn’t having an affair with Cal.’
‘You’re her friend, so you would say that.’ Darren shook his head. ‘You should have heard her today. I’m not making it up.’
‘I know you aren’t, and I’m sorry,’ said Della. ‘It was my idea and I thought it was a good one. Turns out it wasn’t.’
‘What was your idea?’ Cal was clearly baffled by whatever was going on.
‘OK, Lara was worried about Darren, she thought there was a chance he could be getting involved with whatshername, the Swedish physio with the huge boobs. So I told her she should make him realise what he stood to lose if he played away, let him think the same thing could happen to him . . . because if Lara did go off with someone else, Darren would be devastated.’
‘Hang on.’ Darren pointed an accusing finger at Della. ‘Who says you aren’t the backup plan? What if you and Lara came up with this idea so that if I ever twigged what was going on, you could trot out this whole story to put me off the scent?’
Exasperated, Cal said, ‘Nothing has been going on.’ He turned to Della as yet another explosion of rockets lit up the night sky overhead. ‘Are you telling me you put those pictures of my work on Instagram so Lara could pretend to like them?’
‘No . . .’
‘But you told her she should commission me to do the portrait not because my work was good but because of the way I looked?’
It made sense, it made perfect sense. Enthralled, Mimi held her breath and watched as the colours of the bursts of fireworks were reflected in Cal’s eyes. This was excellent news; if anything was guaranteed to ensure that absolutely nothing ever happened between Cal and Della, it was this.
‘No, no, that’s not true.’ Vigorously Lara shook her head. ‘I saw your work when Della posted it on Instagram and fell in love with it straight away. And that was before I even knew what you looked like.’
‘So you got a nice surprise when you found out.’ Darren clearly remained unconvinced. ‘I still don’t—’
‘OK, stop.’ Della raised a manicured hand and said firmly, ‘It’s your wedding anniversary and you’ve so much to be grateful for. You have two beautiful babies and a wife who loves you to bits and who isn’t having an affair with a good-looking artist.’
‘But how . . .?’
‘How do I know that for sure? I’ll tell you, shall I? It’s because I’m the one seeing Cal.’
It was a mic-drop moment, punctuated by a series of explosions in the sky like the rat-tat-tat of gunfire. The world turned electric blue, red, violet and gold, and the assembled crowd went, ‘Ooooooh!’
Della had reached for Cal’s hand and was giving him a little smile. The word currently going through Mimi’s mind was more of a nooooo.
‘It’s fine, it’s time people knew anyway,’ Della announced. ‘It’s not as if we were planning to keep it a secret forever.’
The sensation in Mimi’s chest was similar to when you got squeezed too enthusiastically by someone who didn’t know their own strength. At the same time she knew she had to look merely surprised by the announcement and hopefully delighted for the happy couple.
‘I suppose not.’ As he said it, Cal glanced across at Mimi and her heart skipped a beat, because how had she not known? He exhaled and his breath hung visible in the still air. By way of explanation he added, ‘It’s just the girls . . . they don’t know.’
‘But it’s been over six weeks now.’ Della’s tone was confident. ‘It’s time we told them. And it’s not as if they’re going to be upset about it, are they? Charlotte thinks you’re great and Cora adores me! You wait, they’re going to be so happy when they find out. They’ll be thrilled.’ To seal the deal, she planted a kiss on Cal’s mouth, then turned to bestow a dazzling grin upon the rest of them. ‘Almost as thrilled as I am. From now on we won’t have to hide how we feel about each other. Plus, we’ll be able to have a lot more sleepovers!’
Darren and Lara had listened in silence to Della’s announcement. Now, Darren turned to his wife and blurted out, ‘I swear on the kids’ lives I’d never do anything to hurt you. Nothing’s ever happened between me and Helga, but if she bothers you I’ll never go to her again.’ He held Lara’s face between his hands. ‘I love you so much. You don’t have to worry about losing me because that’s never going to happen.’
‘Oh Darren, I’m so sorry I tried to make you jealous. I was just so scared, I didn’t know what to do.’ Lara’s voice cracked with emotion. ‘I love you too, more than anything else in the world.’
Mimi, stuck between the two couples, felt like more of a gooseberry than she’d imagined possible. Awkwardly, above the sound of the firework display building towards its noisy finale, she said, ‘Well, glad everything’s been sorted out.’ She flashed a bright smile at Della and Cal. ‘Congratulations! And now I’m going to go and find Lois . . .’
‘Thanks,’ said Della. ‘Bye.’
Otto, who’d been happily watching the fireworks, thumped his tail against the ground and said, ‘Woof!’
‘Bye, Otto!’ Mimi said.
But Otto was once more engrossed in the fireworks.
‘Aah.’ Della gave her a sympathetic look. ‘That’s such a shame. He always does it for me.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Marcus. ‘I just don’t know. None of this makes any sense to me.’
Mimi’s teeth were chattering and her fingers and toes were numb, but she felt obliged to stay outside with him and carry on peering into the depths of the car’s engine in the vain hope that it might suddenly spring into life.
The temperature had plummeted since yesterday evening’s firework display; overnight a heavy frost had fallen, casting a thick layer of white over the village. Well, over the entire country, which was why when Mimi had called the car rescue service, they’d warned her that all their operatives were out on calls and it would be a good couple of hours before anyone could get out to Goosebrook.
Likewise, the mechanics at the local garage had already been inundated with requests for help and were currently occupied dealing with a van that had skidded into a ditch on the main Cirencester road.
Marcus, the brilliant accountant, shook his head. ‘Numbers make perfect sense to me. Car engines make no sense at all.’ He waggled a couple of oily leads. ‘Are these spark plugs? Do they look like spark plugs to you? Bloody hell, of all the times for this to happen.’
A car was coming down the high street behind them. Mimi experienced a rush of adrenalin when she turned and saw that it was Cal and Cora, then hoped her nose wasn’t unattractively red with cold before remembering that both reactions were now irrelevant anyway.
Cal drew to a halt and buzzed down the driver’s window. ‘Problem?’
No, no problem, we’re just admiring the engine.
‘Car won’t start,’ Marcus sighed, ‘but it’s not the battery, so that means we don’t have a clue. And the rescue people can’t get here for ages and Mimi has a plane to catch, so I guess you could call it a problem.’ He held up one of the black leads and said, ‘Any idea if this is a spark plug?’
‘Plugs plug into things,’ Cora announced, scrambling out of the passenger seat. ‘So that definitely isn’t a plug, is it?’
For a moment Mimi thought Cora was getting out of the car in order to inspect the engine and fix the fault, but no such luck. Instead, she raced off down the pavement and vanished into the shop.
‘Well I just need to drop Cora off at school.’ Cal addressed Mimi. ‘If you want to jump in, I can give you a lift to the airport.’
Which was a kind offer but not really ideal under the circumstances, seeing as last night she’d tossed and turned for hours, tortured by thoughts of Cal and Della together. Opening her mouth to say thanks but no thanks, Mimi was beaten to it by Marcus, who practically hugged him. ‘Are you sure? Cal, you’re a lifesaver, that would be amazing. Thank you so much.’
‘Look,’ said Mimi as they left Goosebrook, ‘you don’t have to do this. I can get a later flight.’
Cora, who was cramming a bottle of fruit juice and a packet of cheese biscuits into her lunchbox along with her sandwiches, said, ‘Marcus told us you’d already tried that but this evening’s flight was full.’
‘Well, yes it is, but I could have flown tomorrow.’
‘Marcus said CJ needed you back there today,’ Cal pointed out.
Honestly, all she’d done was nip back inside the cottage for a quick wee.
‘OK, you’re right. Thanks.’ Mimi twisted round to Cora. ‘And how did you enjoy the fireworks last night?’
‘They were good.’ Lunchbox sorted to her satisfaction, Cora finished zipping up her school rucksack. ‘Did you know Dad’s got a girlfriend?’
Here we go . . .
‘Really?’ She glanced at Cal’s face in profile, noticing that the tip of his ear had turned pink.
‘Yes, and it’s Charlotte’s mum. They told us last night.’
‘Wow,’ said Mimi. ‘And how do you feel about that? Are you happy?’
Cora shrugged. ‘It’s cool. She buys me loads of things. And she’s fun too. I like her.’
‘Well that’s great.’ Mimi smiled as warmly as she knew how.
‘She said we can have lots more sleepovers now.’
I’ll bet she did.
Mimi valiantly carried on smiling. ‘Fantastic!’
Once Cora had been dropped off at the school gates, Cal headed for the motorway that would take them to Bristol. Mimi had by now been smiling so much her cheeks ached.
‘So, Cora approves. That must be a relief.’
Cal kept his attention on the road ahead. ‘It is. I had planned on keeping things quiet for a while longer, but . . . well, last night happened and there was no going back. Plus, Della felt it was time we went public anyway.’
‘You did well to keep it under wraps for as long as you have.’ Did she want to know or didn’t she? Forcing herself to sound cheerful, Mimi asked the question she would ask any friend under those circumstances. ‘So how did you two get together?’
No sexual details, please . . .
Cal said, ‘Remember when we paid a visit to the Carters in Tetbury? And Marion Carter wanted us to build a summer house in her sister’s garden but there was no direct access?’ He waited for her to nod before continuing; as if she was likely to have forgotten it. ‘Well, I paid a visit to the neighbour behind the sister’s house who’d agreed to let us go through her garden . . . and it turned out to be Della.’
Of course it did.
‘Amazing!’ Mimi feigned delight, because what else could she do? Wailing Oh no! and bursting into tears wouldn’t go down well at all.
‘I know! What were the chances? So we took down the dividing fence and started work in the client’s garden. And the weather was fantastic in early September, so Della was there spending a lot of time outside too. She also kept us supplied with cold drinks and snacks. It was brilliant.’
I’ll bet it was. Mimi was only too readily able to envisage Della, tall and blonde and deeply tanned, wearing a minuscule bikini that showed off the results of her daily workouts in the gym. She imagined Della stretched out on a sunlounger, her skin gleaming with bronzing oil, then emerging from the kitchen carrying a tray of drinks clinking with ice cubes, enjoying the attention and the gratitude of Cal and his team of visibly impressed workers.
‘Then on the last evening, after the job was finished, she invited me to stay for something to eat,’ Cal went on. ‘She said she’d enjoyed seeing me every day and would miss having me around now that it was over. And I suppose that was when I realised . . . well, quite how much she liked me.’
Had he honestly needed it to be spelled out to him? Talk about a hopeless case. Mimi pictured Della in a strappy summer dress, wearing full make-up and with every inch of her golden body primed and ready for seduction.
‘How did you know for sure?’ Because she was a masochist and had to ask.
Cal shrugged. ‘She told me.’
Simple as that. Was she jealous? Mimi exhaled; of course she was jealous, wildly so. But at least no one else was aware of it.
Thank goodness.
‘And it all went from there,’ she marvelled, as if nothing could be more perfect. ‘That’s brilliant! I’m impressed you managed to keep it a secret.’
He nodded. ‘I had to. We needed to make sure it wasn’t going to cause any problems for the girls. I knew Cora and Della got on well together, but it’s still tricky, figuring out what’s going to work. If I were seeing someone Cora wasn’t keen on . . . well, there’s no way I could do that to her. Then again, if it was someone Cora absolutely adored, I had to be really sure the relationship wasn’t just going to be a flash in the pan. Because imagine raising her hopes then dashing them again, letting her think she’s on her way to getting a stepmum . . . until the next thing you know, it’s all over.’ He paused in order to concentrate on overtaking a couple of lorries. ‘I did give it a lot of thought, you know.’
‘Of course you did. You have to.’ Mimi was now feeling sick at the idea of Della becoming Cora’s stepmother. Images of the wedding taking place in Goosebrook’s fourteenth-century church filled her relentlessly overactive imagination. Della, looking stunning in a column of ivory silk, standing on the steps of the church with Cal in a beautiful dark suit and their respective daughters, the beaming bridesmaids in purple because that was their favourite colour . . . Oh God . . .
‘And I know Cora and Charlotte are good friends,’ Cal went on, ‘but Charlotte isn’t her best friend. I couldn’t do that to her; it would be too traumatic if Della and I ever broke up.’
‘Plus, her number one best friend is Lauren,’ Mimi pointed out, ‘and I can’t really see you and Lauren’s mum getting together.’
Cal grinned, because Lauren’s mother was a cheerful farmer’s wife in her early fifties with frizzy hair, more than the usual number of teeth, and six other children besides Lauren. Endlessly hard-working, she was seldom seen wearing anything other than muck-splattered wellies and a brown boiler suit. He said, ‘She’s fantastic, but how would I cope if she turned me down flat?’
At that moment his phone went ding, to indicate the arrival of a message. The phone lay face down in the well between their seats.
‘Can you take a look and see who it is?’ said Cal. ‘Just in case there’s a problem at work that needs sorting out.’
It wasn’t a problem at work. Reaching for the phone and turning it over, Mimi said, ‘It’s from Della.’
Cal said, ‘OK, don’t worry,’ but by then it was too late. Without even meaning to, Mimi’s thumb had brushed against the glass and the photo of Della had already filled the screen. Della, wearing a low-cut translucent black lace bra so that her beautiful pillowy breasts were shown off to their best advantage. Her lipstick was crimson, her hair sexily dishevelled, and the message beneath the photo said: Missing you! Here’s a little reminder of what you can look forward to tonight!!! Followed by a row of hearts, lipstick kisses and shooting stars.
‘God, I’m so sorry.’ Mimi let out a yelp of panic and threw the phone back into the well. ‘I didn’t mean to do that!’