Nadine hits his arm. ‘No, you didn’t. You had no idea.’ They continue arguing as though Ward and I aren’t in the room.
‘Let’s crack on,’ Ward says the following day as Nadine enters the boardroom with a tray of coffee and biscuits. ‘Uley Lodge.’
‘Exchanged,’ Lucie says. ‘No hitches.’
We all clap. ‘Where’s the champers?’ asks Graham. I catch Ward’s eye and he smiles at me in a way that suggests the sooner he can get this meeting out of the way, the sooner he can shut the door and we can have a minute to ourselves.
I gaze at him, thinking how lovely it is to be in a relationship. Ward can’t sleep over at my place yet during the week or the weekends when Isla is at home. I need to introduce him to her slowly, but they did meet, finally, last weekend. To begin with Isla was shy. She didn’t want to chat and stuck close to my side, while Ward was careful not to be too demonstrative towards me. He was there to pay lots of attention to her, to make Isla feel comfortable. By the end of the afternoon Isla was showing Ward her bedroom, her photographs, her paintings and drawings and the certificate she’d been awarded in America for her courage, framed and hanging over her desk. We cooked bangers and mash for supper, and Isla showed off her apron and chef’s hat as she made cupcakes. Ward even did the washing up, but not before having had a tea towel play fight with Isla when she said she didn’t want to do it. I remembered Granny’s words of wisdom all those years ago,‘A man who washes up is a goodie’.Ward was clearly a hit, Isla asking if he was going to spend Christmas Day with us, now only six weeks away, the adverts already played to death on television.
Outside work, Ward is remarkably relaxed. He puts it down to the relief of making a decision about his marriage. ‘I knew it was over, too much damage had been done,’ Ward had told me the weekend we’d returned from Cornwall, when Isla was staying with Dan and Fiona. We were lying in bed on Sunday morning, Ward stroking my arm that rested across his chest. ‘But I didn’t want to give up. I could still hear my father’s voice saying I mustn’t quit, that quitting was for losers. But I don’t want to listen to that voice anymore, Jan. All I’m doing is making a choice not to stay in a marriage that was makingbothof us unhappy. I met Marina when she was in her late thirties. She was a make-up artist,successful, worked on many films and television shows. She wanted a child and I wanted one too. She was beautiful; my friends were crazy with jealousy. I got swept along in this madness. We were engaged within weeks and trying for a child, Marina saying it could take some time. She became pregnant almost immediately. When we lost our baby… well, she wanted to try for another one straightaway, but I… I wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready either; she was trying to fix our problem, our sadness overnight. When I said I needed time she looked elsewhere. I know I became distant. I hid my feelings from her. She felt alone and so did I. She needed comfort. I don’t blame her.’ I’d wrapped my arm more tightly around him. ‘Anyway, all this led me to you,’ he’d said. ‘Wonderful you.’
We’d spent the rest of the morning in bed. Ward had cooked us scrambled eggs, warning me that that’s about all he can cook. We went for a pub lunch and took Spud for a walk along the river, spending hours sharing stories about our past, knowing with certainty that we were one another’s future.
Surely, any moment, someone will wake me up and tell me that it’s a dream?
‘January,’ Ward says, waking me up with a start.
‘Dearest,’ Graham adds.
I scrunch my piece of paper into a ball and throw it at him.
‘It’s so nice to have some gossip at last,’ Graham continues.
‘Actually I have some news,’ says Lucie, thankfully nipping that conversation in the bud. ‘Jim and I—’
‘You’re not?’ Graham interrupts.
‘Oh my God!’ I gasp. ‘Are you?’
Lucie nods.
We all cheer as if we’ve just won a multi-billion pitch. Nadine joins us, Spud scuttling into the room too to get in on the action. ‘Where’s the ring?’ she asks, grabbing her hand.
‘We’re choosing one this weekend.’
‘How did he propose?’ asks Nadine, wanting all the gossip.
‘In Asda,’ says Lucie, ‘we were in the frozen veg aisle. He said he wanted to do it when I least expected it.’
‘Well he certainly did that! This is marvellous, love is in the air!’ proclaims Graham. ‘Surely we can have some champers now?’
30
When Nadine transfers a call to me from Bella, first thing Monday morning, immediately I sense something’s wrong. Bella rarely calls me at work and never at this time of day. ‘It’s your grandad,’ she says, breathlessly, before even saying hello. ‘He’s had a stroke. He’s in hospital. You need to get here as soon as you can.’ She gives me the details of the ward. ‘I’ll call Lucas too. Just jump in a car, Jan. He’s confused. He’s been calling out for you all.’
An hour and a half later I’m in Ward’s car, Isla sitting in the back. Ward had contacted her school to let them know we were picking her up. I was determined that Isla should have the chance to see him too. Ward’s driving fast, his foot pressed hard down.
This is when I wish with all my heart Cornwall wasn’t so far away from London, but Ward gets me to the hospital in record time, brakes screeching as he parks the car right outside the entrance, behind an ambulance.
‘Go!’ he demands, unlocking the doors. ‘I’ll find you. Go!’
Isla and I stagger down the corridor, me dragging her by the hand, trying to run as fast as we can to get to Grandad’s ward. We take a lift, frowning when the doors reopen to let in an elderly couple, one of them pushing the other in a wheelchair. The carer reverses the chair into the lift at a snail’s pace. ‘Here, let me give you a hand,’ I say, and gratefully they accept before I press the up arrow.
‘Come on, come on,’ I mutter, waiting for the doors to shut.
As we run down another set of corridors, Isla trips over a shoelace that’s come undone.
Finally, on Grandad’s ward I rush to the reception desk. A nurse is talking on the phone while a fair-haired doctor in a white coat fills out paperwork. She looks up.
