‘Well,’ Callie said awkwardly, ‘I suppose…’
‘We’re going to need a lot of food for the engagement party,’ Brodie said quickly. ‘Sandwiches, pastries, savoury snacks… It would be marvellous if Blighty’s could supply those.’
Barry nodded. ‘Come and see us as soon as you’re ready. We’ll talk terms.’
‘Iwon’t charge you for the cake,’ Shona said primly. ‘It’s a gift from us to you.’
The Wilsons scowled and Shona gave them a sweet smile and sat back down.
‘Right,’ Brodie said. ‘I think that’s everything. Formal invitations will be posted through every letterbox on the estate, and we hope to see as many of you at The Quicken Tree as possible. Thank you all for coming. Now, we’d better get out of here before tonight’s showing ofThe Wicked Ladybegins – unless you’re staying to watch it, of course.’
There was a lot of chatter as those who weren’t staying for the film filed out of the cinema into the cool air of a late March evening that was already quite dark.
‘Clocks go forward on Sunday,’ Brooke remarked to no one in particular. ‘An hour less in bed.’
Danny frowned. ‘Why do you remember things like that? What difference does it make to us? It’s not as if we have to be up for work or anything like that, is it?’
Brooke bit her lip, refusing to take the bait. She knew Danny had enjoyed his work in the IT department of a big pharmaceutical company back in the day, and that he still missed the buzz of getting ready for work each morning, heading into town to mix with his colleagues and do all the things a young man of twenty-nine should be doing.
Whereas she… She had to admit she’d never particularly liked her job as a receptionist at the same company and had only stayed because she got to see Danny every day.
Well, there was no point in going over all that again. She got to see Danny every daynow,and look how that was working out for them. She might as well have gone on to wherever it was most of the dead went to, rather than linger here with someone who didn’t even seem to notice her most of the time. It was just like being alive again in that respect.
She looked down as an arm slipped through hers and Polly beamed at her.
‘A party,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Just what we need! Do you think they’ll play The Andrews Sisters? I love a bit of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”.’
‘Who knows? Maybe you can request a song,’ Brooke suggested smiling. She really didn’t care what music they played.
As long as it wasn’t bloody Bananarama.
3
‘I don’t really see the problem,’ Dawn said, digging a fork into her macaroni cheese with extra pulled pork. ‘And I should hope that you’d at least listen to Rory and find out why he’s suddenly so keen to leave Borehamwood. Or maybe I’m being naive.’
We were sitting in the little cafe we’d frequented for years, eating pasta and drinking wine, and mulling over my sudden and unexpected fear that I was about to be uprooted from my nice, cosy little life and transported to who knows where.
‘But Rory likes Borehamwood as much as I do,’ I mused. ‘It’s got everything we need. And I love our little house. I wonder if it’s travelling into central London that’s getting to him? Although it’s only once a week so I don’t see why.’
‘I do,’ Dawn said with a shudder. ‘I don’t know how you stand it to be honest. Trekking off to Oxford Street every day, facing a train journey then the bus. All the hustle and bustle. The noise. The traffic. The fumes. Then doing it all over again on the way back home, day in, day out. Ugh!’
She glanced out of the window at the stream of cars and vans going by and shook her head. ‘Horrible.’
‘But you love London!’ I protested. ‘It was you who wanted us to meet up here today!’
‘I lovevisitingLondon,’ she corrected me. ‘It’s great to come here three or four times a year, get my fix, then go home to my lovely house and breathe the fresh air again. I couldn’t standlivinghere.’
‘You didn’t always think like that,’ I muttered. Back in the day, Dawn and I had shared a flat in Barking with another girl, which frankly had been a bit of a dump. It hadn’t really mattered, though, as we were hardly ever in. Life back then had been about socialising and building our careers. Fresh out of university and eager to make our mark on the world, London life had seemed so exciting with endless possibilities.
Even after we’d gone our separate ways Dawn and I stayed in London – she in Southwark and I in Camden. But when Dawn got pregnant, she and her husband had a change of heart.
‘I’m thirty-three now,’ she’d pointed out. ‘London’s great when you’re in your twenties, but I don’t want to raise a family in a city. We’re moving back to Surrey to be closer to my family. Don’t worry – I’ll still be able to visit regularly. Our coffee shop chats won’t stop.’
But naturally, they’d grown fewer and further apart as Dawn and her husband concentrated on raising their two children and building a new life in the small town in which they’d settled. By then I’d moved to Borehamwood, to the house I still lived in, and I thought Dawn was crazy to move out to the sticks.
I’d married Rory the year after she left London, and he’d moved in with me straight after the wedding. We’d agreed we didn’t want children, and London life suited us. Rory had a great job working as deputy director of software development for a company within the education and research sector.
If anyone had asked me what that meant I wouldn’t have had a clue how to explain it. It was way too technical for me. All I knew was he mostly worked from home but had a lot of responsibility and earned a shedload of money. More than I did anyway, although now I was lead buyer at Rochester’s my income had gone up substantially, too. I’d come a long way from those flat sharing days in Barking.
