Cloudy with a Chance of Love Read online

  Finally, Sam unearthed her lip gloss and we walked to the exit. The floor was slippery with spilt beer and shed sequins.

  ‘Lucky you, going on a date with him,’ she said. ‘I quite liked him.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yeah! He’s so cute. He’s sweet! Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Yes, he is sweet.’ Suddenly I wasn’t completely sure about him again. I wasn’t sure about his joke. Was it a joke, or did he mean it? Was he that kind of guy? ‘He asked me to go home with him.’

  ‘Really? Cor, I would have done!’

  ‘I know you would done! It burns about a thousand calories doesn’t it?’

  ‘Ha, yes, especially if I go on top!’ She was grinning, highly sloshed. I put my arm round her to steady her.

  ‘Ha, ha.’

  ‘You didn’t want to then?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t! I’d only just met the guy. Then he said it was a joke.’

  ‘Well, it probably was. Go out with him, Daryl! What have you got to lose?’

  Only my dignity, my sanity, everything. Possibly my knickers.

  ‘Nothing, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, there you are then.’

  Yes, there you are. I’d think about it properly once I’d got home and got the bloody Spanx off.

  I dropped Sam off then drove home. It was late, almost midnight. I was very quiet as I locked the car and made my way up the drive. Will’s kitchen light was on. I could see a shadow, moving about in there. Suddenly, he appeared at the window, looking all handsome and a bit dishevelled, in a white shirt. He smiled and did a half-wave; I smiled and did a half-wave back.

  See you tomorrow, I said in my head. Then remembered I had the date with Ben now, too. How was I going to fit everything in? I solved it, easily: Will was coming at half five; I could make the date with Ben later on, say nine. I could fit everything in. And I hope you meant what you said when you told me you were good at decorating, I added silently, to Will, as I got my keys out of my bag and let myself in the house, because I really don’t have a clue.

  Chapter Eight

  Tuesday

  My radio alarm went off at seven. This morning I would have been woken by a jaunty Rick Astley number, but I was already awake, as Freya had rung me at six.

  ‘Mum!’ she’d said, all chirpy.

  ‘Freya? It’s really early, darling.’

  ‘Sorry!’

  Freya is almost the exact opposite of me. She’s very organised, has her life super-structured and is always up at the crack of dawn so she can start getting on with things. She was like that when she lived at home and she’s still that way now, living with a bunch of her former Smith’s Economics students at that house in Merton, and working at her first job, as an investment analyst (I know!), in a big company in Hammersmith. She got a first, as I knew she would (Economics! Where did she get that from?) and was doing brilliantly.

  My girl. She’s always been a driven, very motivated spirit. On her first ever day at nursery she’d run in without a backwards glance and it was the same at school. She never wanted me to meet her at the gate; she wanted to walk to the car. She resisted hugs and kisses; she was always too busy. I knew she wouldn’t want to move into my new house with me – my hope that she’d be one of those offspring that stay at home until they’re forty, eating their parents out of house and home and refusing to pick their feet up for the hoover, came to nothing. She’s far too independent. But I had a bedroom here for her whenever she wanted it. Even if it was currently covered in Handy Manny wallpaper.

  She’d looked after me for the last year – mopping up tears, making sure I was okay, doing things for me – but now it was my turn to mother her again. Starting with supporting her at her graduation on Friday.

  ‘I was going to ring you today,’ I said. ‘About the graduation.’

  ‘That’s why I’m phoning you, actually, Mum. I need to tell you something.’

  ‘Uh-oh, that sounds ominous. What is it?’

  ‘Gabby’s coming.’

  I sat up, violently, knocking my head on the headboard. Ouch.

  ‘What? She can’t be! It’s only two tickets per family!’

  ‘I know, but Dad sold the uni registrar’s house for him, didn’t he? So he called him and wangled another ticket.’

  I groaned. ‘I don’t believe this! You have to tell him she can’t come!

  ‘I’ve tried, Mum, but you know what Dad is like. He said it’s his decision and she’s coming. That’s that.’

  Thank you very much Jeff, I wailed internally. So he was still attempting to twist the knife. I was all right now, I really was. But this would be very, very tough. I hadn’t seen Gabby since that morning, a year ago.

  ‘Well, I can’t sit with them, I just can’t! You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘I would never expect you to sit with them, Mum, don’t worry.’

  ‘Okay, good. Oh, god, Freya, it’s going to be awful.’ Then I wished I hadn’t said that; her days of supporting me and all my anguish were supposed to be over. I was being a terrible, needy mother again.

  ‘Mum, it’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll just have to ignore them.’

  I pulled myself together. Made my voice nice and steady. ‘You’re right. Yes, darling I’ll be fine. I’ll be absolutely fine.’ That’s better. Stiff upper lip and all that; I could do this. For Freya. I could look that bitch in the eye and be strong. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Oh god.

  Oh god. It was going to be bloody awful.

  ‘So, Mum, why were you going to call me about graduation?’

  ‘For the times,’ I said, my mind still whirring. Gabby. Gabby was going to be there.

  ‘Service at seven. Graduation dinner at Caspar’s restaurant at nine.’

  ‘Okay, darling.’

  Seven o’clock. I was dreading the appointed hour already.

  ‘Hey, what were you up to last night?’ she chirped.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You were out!’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I tracked you. On the iPhone.’ Oh yes. Freya and I had both got iPhones. They had GPS and you could track people. For ‘fun’, Freya had said. It was really quite clever. I wished I’d had it a year ago; I could have tracked Jeff.

  ‘So you know exactly where I was, then.’

  ‘Yes, The Old Brewery, Wimbledon Village. What were you doing there and who were you with?’

  ‘All right, Herr Commandant,’ I said. I might as well tell her. She might be impressed. ‘Speed dating night. With Sam.’

  I could tell she was choking on her third cup of coffee. ‘Speed dating? Wasn’t that a noughties thing?’

  ‘They still do it,’ I said. ‘It’s very hip.’ Hip? What on earth was I saying? I was more hip replacement than hip, or at least heading that way. ‘They’ve evolved it. You now have to mime and stare into strangers’ eyes for three hours.’

  ‘Really? It sounds horrific!’ said Freya, but I could tell she was delighted. ‘I can’t believe you went speed dating. You!’ She was laughing. ‘Oh well done, Mum! That’s fab!’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I was waking up now, despite myself. The heating came on and things began to rumble in the airing cupboard. My tummy began to rumble, too.

  ‘So. Wow. How did it go? Did you meet anyone or was it just a load of middle-aged losers?’

  ‘I’m middle-aged, Freya.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Sorry. I don’t see you like you that.’

  ‘Thank you. Me neither.’ I hated that expression, ‘middle-aged’, although it was more than true. I doubted I’d live to ninety – not with the amount of chocolate I ate. ‘And actually, I got myself a date.’

  ‘Oh wow, well done you! Who with?’

  ‘A middle–aged landscape gardener called Ben, not that I see him as that, either. He’s really nice. Quite good looking. I didn’t actually meet him at the tables, as they call it. I met him at the end. During the disco.’
<
br />   ‘Congrats, Mum, I’m impressed. Landscape gardeners are so cool. Where are you going?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. He’s phoning me today. We’re going out tonight.’ Landscape gardeners were cool, weren’t they? All that working outdoors, the creative nature of the job, being good with their hands… I started to feel quite excited about it. I remembered Ben’s face – nice, cute, friendly and, above all, interested in me.

  ‘What are you going to wear?’ I could hear her slurping her coffee. I could visualise her Minions slippers.

  ‘God knows!’

  ‘Send me a photo later, so I can critique you.’

  ‘If I must…’

  ‘Right. I’m going to have to go, Mum. I want to do some prep before work. Busy day.’

  ‘Okay darling.’

  I had a busy day, too. Work, a spot of decorating, then a date. I was already feeling quite embarrassed about the fact I had to tell Will I had a date later in the evening. I could put him off, maybe. I could perhaps tell him I couldn’t make the decorating thing now… No, I couldn’t. He’d been so kind to offer, it would be terribly rude.

  ‘Let me know how it goes tonight.’

  ‘Will do.’ Oh dear, it was another failure in the whole ‘reversing our roles back to normal’ plan. I was going to keep my daughter updated about a date; I was still Edina to her Saffy, it seemed. ‘Oh, and don’t tell anyone else about it. By that I mean Grandma.’

  I really didn’t want my mother knowing. I’d never hear the end of it.

  ‘Okay, I promise,’ trilled Freya. ‘Oh, it’s so exciting! Byeee!’

  It was a little bit exciting, wasn’t it? I placed my phone back on the floor and tried to get back to sleep. Tiny bubbles of nerves started to churn inside me. About Gabby being at the graduation – damn! And about my date tonight. My first man since Jeff. The possible beginning of something. Fun, romance… I suddenly thought about Sam’s love forecast again. Was Ben my ninety-nine percent chance? The thought of falling in love still absolutely terrified me; I didn’t want to be in love again – no way. Look what had happened! Look how it had ended up! No, I didn’t want love, but maybe it would be good to have a (risk-free) man in my life again. Maybe Ben was my ninety-nine percent chance of that.

  Chapter Nine

  Scattered showers will sweep across the region this morning, buffeted by strong winds from the east, before bringing an uncertain picture for this afternoon and tonight – windy weather with the chance of rain and perhaps some blustery, isolated episodes of hail…

  I’d just done one bulletin and was at my desk, writing my next. The office was crazy busy this morning. People were dashing around, carrying things here and there, a news package had gone AWOL, causing all sorts of chaos and there were seven people in reception, including an up-and-coming pop star and a man dressed as a dog, waited to be interviewed at various junctures. The door to Studio One kept being opened and the sound of Queen was currently wafting through to the office. ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’. Oh, indeed.

  I was feeling… weird. Extremely excited and nervous about the date tonight. Incredibly nervous and absolutely terrified about the graduation on Friday. I was doing a lot of finger waggling, pen twiddling and foot tapping. I do that a lot when I’m working, anyway, but I suspected I may have looked like I was auditioning for a one-man band. Peony passed my desk, looking all fresh and gorgeous and unruffled. I wished I was still thirty-something with it all ahead of me. Forty-something just seemed to mean lots of complications and baggage and sagging faces. Everything was just harder (not firmer, obviously, harder).

  ‘Time to grab a quick coffee?’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  I laid down my twiddling pen, reprieved my fingers and my foot and followed her into the kitchen. Sam was in there; we all grinned at the sight of each other.

  ‘So, tell me all about it,’ said Peony.

  ‘It was a very funny night,’ said Sam. ‘Fancy dress which we didn’t know about –’

  ‘– Because Sam doesn’t know how to read…’

  ‘… A bunch of interesting, if not exactly attractive men.’

  ‘Terrible!’ I groaned.

  ‘And Daryl has a date. Tonight.’

  ‘If he calls me. He might not call me.’

  ‘Of course he’ll call you,’ said Sam.

  ‘Hang on, you said the men were unattractive,’ said Peony, looking perplexed. ‘You’re going on a date with an unattractive man?’

  ‘Ben wasn’t unattractive. Ben was really attractive, wasn’t he, Daryl?’ Sam teased.

  ‘Ben is quite good looking,’ I conceded, with a grin. ‘I met him at the end of the night.’

  ‘And are you nervous about it? This date tonight, with Ben? You look a bit nervous,’ said Peony. ‘I saw your foot going like the clappers. You’d make a great machinist.’

  ‘Ha. I am a bit nervous. Well, I’m nervous about a couple of things, actually.’

  ‘Like?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Gabby’s coming to Freya’s graduation.’

  ‘No!’ They both looked horrified.

  ‘Yep. Jeff used his contacts to get another ticket.’

  ‘What a bastard.’

  ‘What a bastard.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘What can I do? Suck it up. Go. Feel wretched.’

  ‘Oh no, Daryl,’ sympathised Peony. ‘You poor thing.’

  ‘Yep,’ I moaned. ‘And it’s not just the ceremony. I’ve got to go for dinner at Caspar’s afterwards with the buggers, too.’

  ‘Oh, the horror,’ sympathised Peony. ‘Shame we can’t come too, as your backup.’

  ‘Yes, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?’ I said. ‘If only. We could go in as a posse and sort that cow out.’ I shrugged. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to brave it out.’

  ‘Well, you’re one of the bravest people I know,’ said Sam determinedly. ‘So you’ll be fine. Chin up, chest forward, bottom out.

  ‘Ha. The last two will be easy.’

  ‘Show them you don’t care,’ added Peony. ‘We’ll be thinking of you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It means a lot to have people thinking of me. Especially you two.’

  ‘Coffee?’ offered Sam, and she switched the kettle on. ‘At least you’ve got your date tonight to help you take your mind off Friday,’ she added, getting the mugs and the coffee down. ‘What are you going to wear…?’

  ‘I haven’t thought yet,’ I said. ‘Something from my usual repertoire…’

  ‘You’ll look stunning,’ said Peony. ‘You always do.’

  ‘Stunning is requiring more and more effort these days,’ I noted, ‘but I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Where are you even going?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I bet he doesn’t call me.’

  ‘He’ll call you!’ chanted Sam and Peony, in unison.

  I wasn’t sure. What if he didn’t call me?

  The phone on my desk rang. It was quarter past eleven.

  ‘Hey, poppet, I’ve sold the commode!’

  Mum. I keep telling her not to ring me at work, but she always does. Pretty much every day.

  ‘Ah, well done, Mum.’ She’d been trying to get rid of that revolting thing for ages. I say revolting, she says steeped in history (steeped in something, I thought). Whatever, I doubted the horrible relic had seen the wrong side of 1972.

  Mum buys and sells antiquities – what Jeff used to call ‘toot.’ Antique furniture, china, bits and bobs. She stores them for a while in her garage, then sells them on. Mostly via eBay, but she is hardly the global phenomenon’s greatest ambassador. Her packaging is shocking. She spends more time issuing refunds for broken Royal Albert than she does listing the stuff in the first place. I reckon her profit margin is about five percent but it keeps her busy and makes her happy. She loves it.

  ‘So how are you, Daryl?’

  ‘I’m all right, Mum. Ticking along.’

  ‘Have
you met anybody yet?’

  ‘No, Mum.’ She was exasperating but ever hopeful. She’d been asking me if I’d met anybody since the day Jeff moved out. Mum believes in moving on super quickly. She did, after my dad did a bunk (leaving us for ‘that woman’ and then having the ‘bloody cheek’ to die six months later…). Life is short, she always says, you just have to get on with it.

  ‘No Adonis on the horizon?’

  ‘No.’ I wasn’t telling her about Ben. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Rehearsing.’

  Mum and her sister, Auntie Margaret, are both really, really good at playing the piano. Like, excellent. Mum has one in her house, Auntie Margaret has one in hers, and when they get on a piano together they are a force to be reckoned with, especially when Auntie Margaret starts singing, too, with her fine, wavering voice reminiscent of old ragtime theatre. They love to perform; they’re permanently showcasing their talent. Family do’s, quiz nights, random restaurants they’re having dinner in… if there’s a piano in the room, they’ll be on it, eventually. And they have quite a repertoire. My mum’s a real East Ender who was born within the sound of Bow Bells. She loves acts like Chas and Dave, and all the old music hall songs. Auntie Margaret does, too. They also – for contrast – love a bit of Barbra Streisand. Many a sedate night in a restaurant has been turned into a raucous round-the- piano singalong as the sisters take to the piano and diners have – reluctantly at first, often – gradually joined them for a bit of foot-stomping, some ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ and some ‘Woman in Love’. Oh, they are a right pair, and recently they’ve become semi-professional. People are actually paying them to perform. Last month they played at the opening of a new pub in Mile End.

  ‘Freya told me you went speed dating last night,’ she said. Ah. Hence all the loaded questions, not that she wouldn’t have asked them anyway. So, Freya couldn’t keep her mouth shut about that, then. I shook my head and kneed my desk drawer shut with a thump. They’re terrible, those two. Always in cahoots, always cutting out the middle man and tittle-tattling about me. Freya is organised and independent, but she can also be a right gossip. I prayed she hadn’t told Mum about my date. ‘She texted me, this morning, from work. Auntie Margaret’s here, so she knows all about it. Oh, she was quite surprised, as was I!’ Oh god, Auntie Margaret knew about the speed dating. The jungle drums would be beating as far as Bromley-by-Bow. Please god let her not know about Ben. ‘She’s still here now. We’re just putting sugar on our lettuce and having a nice winter salad.’ Sugar on lettuce, vinegar on a roast dinner, raucous laughter. That was those two. Never a dull moment or a dry eye – tears of laughter were constantly being wiped away with packets of tissues.