Читать книгу As Luck Would Have It - Zoe May - Страница 8

Martha, a friend of my mum’s, is manning the drinks table. Unlike Will, she has the good manners not to comment on my attire. Okay, so maybe her eyes linger for a beat on the huge tabby cat and the Cat Cuddles logo but she doesn’t feel the need to say anything. She quickly diverts her gaze back to the bowl of ruby red punch. With painstaking care, she dips a ladle into the bowl and decants the liquid into a plastic cup, before adding two ice cubes, half a strawberry and a slice of lime, and finally handing it to me. I take it from her, thanking her gratefully, before plucking the cherry out of the way and necking it. I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand, before handing her back the empty cup.

‘Can I have seconds? Thanks Martha.’

Martha takes the cup, looking a little taken aback, before dutifully refilling it. A boozy mum in weird cat clothes with a baby sitting in a carrier at her feet probably isn’t the best look, but I’m beyond caring. Martha doesn’t bother with the fruit garnish this time and simply hands me the glass. I thank her and sip hungrily at it, before wandering over to the buffet. The buffet table, with its striped plastic cups and matching paper plates laden with party food is exactly as I remember it from back when the fundraiser first began so many years ago. Even the hall is the same, with the exact same rainbow bunting and streamers.

A few of the older men who I vaguely recognise regard me as I approach. They’re local busybodies that have been active in neighbourhood affairs for years. I think a few of them sit on the board of Chiddingfold Parish Council. They’re always finding something to complain about, from the frequency of the bin collection to the meandering bus routes. One guy, a retired naval officer called Clive who always wears a flat cap even when indoors and has been poking his nose into other people’s business for years, watches me closely as I reach for a bread roll. I pretend to be fascinated by the roll, taking a bite before inspecting the fluffy dough as though it’s the most interesting and engaging thing ever; I really don’t want Clive to speak to me. Once he starts, he doesn’t stop. I last saw him at a Christmas party at the local pub nearly two decades ago and the memory’s still disturbingly fresh. He was wearing the same grey flat cap and bent my 12-year-old ears off about unreasonable parking regulations near my school and blah blah blah. I can feel Clive zoning in on me, so I spear a few olives from a bowl with a toothpick and try to busy myself with the buffet, when I suddenly hear a different male voice over my shoulder.

‘Sorry Natalie, you don’t look like a cat lady,’ Will says, reaching for a cheese and grape stick from a plate on the buffet. He pops the chunks of cheese and grape speared onto the stick into his mouth in one bite.

I ignore him and turn back to the buffet to spear another olive. Will’s hand follows mine to the bowl. His fingers are long and surprisingly well-groomed, his nails and cuticles are incredibly neat and tidy, and his hands look soft and moisturised. Not like the hands of the rough-around-the-edges Will I remember.

‘Okay, maybe you do look a bit like a cat lady, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, is it?’ Will ventures.

‘What?’ I snap, before popping an olive into my mouth and shooting him a look.

‘Well, cat ladies … If you think about it, they’re just animal lovers, aren’t they? And what’s wrong with looking like an animal lover? Cats are lovely animals.’

I turn to look at Will, giving him a deadpan stare as he makes his case for why it’s okay to go around saying how someone you haven’t seen for over a decade looks like a ‘cat lady’. Even though he’s just as annoying as ever, as much as I hate to admit it, he’s still handsome. His young self and his current self are like the difference between a picture with a filter and the original. He’s got a few lines now, his face isn’t quite as smooth and blemish-free as it used to be and his hairline is beginning to recede, but he’s still good-looking. His eyes are as striking as ever and they have a depth to them now that they never had before, even if he’s still chatting total rubbish like he used to back at school. As well as his ability to chat to anyone about anything, he has the same dimples he had all those years ago and the same trademark playful smile.

He smiles at me, waiting for a response, but as usual, Will baffles me. His habit of talking complete crap is strangely beguiling, because even though you know what he’s saying is rubbish, you find yourself engaging with it nonetheless. I consider his statement.

‘Well, while there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being a cat lady, it’s not exactly style goals, is it?’ I comment.

Will smirks. ‘I suppose not. I forgot you were a fashionista these days,’ he remarks.

‘Fashionista?!’ I echo, smirking. ‘Who even says that?’ I reach for another olive. Will copies me, diving his stick back into the bowl. I have to yank my hand out of the way to avoid being impaled.

‘Do you mind? My hand is not buffet food!’ I huff, reaching back towards the bowl and spearing an olive. Before quickly pulling my hand away.

‘Sorry, just a bit hungry,’ Will says as he takes an olive and pops it in his mouth. ‘Mmmm, delicious.’ I ignore him but he keeps talking. ‘Anyway, you are a fashionista. I’ve seen you online, talking about your outfit or the day – hashtag O-O-T-D. And you say things like “style goals.”’

‘Well, fashion is kind of my job, Will,’ I point out, rolling my eyes indulgently, even though I do feel a little embarrassed about how regularly I used to hashtag my outfits of the day. It wasn’t exactly all relevant to work.

‘Even your baby is a fashionista,’ Will remarks, peering closer at Hera, who’s wearing the cutest red patterned dress that I got on sale at Gap Kids the other day. I managed to find a headband in exactly the same red shade from Accessorize to coordinate with it. Red is kind of her colour. Although she also looks great in pink, and yellow, and blue. And green, for that matter. She basically just suits everything. She certainly looks a hell of a lot more stylish than me right now. Upstaged by a one year old!

‘Doesn’t she look cute, though?’ I say.

‘Yeah, she does.’ Will peers at Hera with a soppy, charmed look. ‘She’s very cute.’

I smile proudly at her. She’s starting to fall asleep now, but I can tell she’s trying to stay alert so she doesn’t miss anything. She’s dropping off, blinking a few times, trying not to fall asleep and then dropping off again.

‘She’s sleepy. She’s my little angel,’ I say with a sincerity that surprises me. But it’s true. Hera is my angel. Even though it wasn’t easy having her while being heartbroken over Leroy cheating and then learning how to be a single mum while trying to let go of all the bitterness I felt towards him, I got there in the end. Hera saved me with her lovely cuddles, her cute little smile and her unbridled enthusiasm over the little things, from eating her favourite food (chocolate yoghurt) to playing with Mr Bear.

‘Aww!’ Will reaches for Hera’s cheek and gives it an awkward little stroke. It’s abundantly clear that he doesn’t interact with children very often.

‘Will, you just left a streak of olive juice over Hera’s face,’ I grumble, spotting a greasy smear where his hand has been.

‘Oh sorry,’ Will replies, looking a little embarrassed.

He grabs a napkin from a nearby stack and quickly reaches down to wipe off the streak. Hera blinks up at him, wide-eyed, as he wipes the olive grease away. It’s actually quite cute how flustered he seems to be over having got Hera the slightest bit dirty. Little does he know that some of her favourite hobbies include smearing mud from the garden over her face, giving a new twist to the idea of a mudpack. And if that doesn’t hit the spot, she also likes to grab bottles of shower gel, washing up liquid, bubble bath – whatever’s in reach, really – and just drizzle them over her head.

Will discards the napkin. ‘Sorry about that,’ he repeats.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Hera’s already forgotten all about it and she’s now properly dozing off.

‘So anyway, how do you know about my OOTDs?’ I ask, casting my eye over the vol-au-vents in the buffet.

‘Oh, I know all about your agency. You used to send us press releases all the time. If I recall correctly, the last one was for a vajazzle.’

I avoid his gaze and crunch through a few crisps. They’re sweet chilli and they’re delicious. I try not to look too awkward at the mention of the vajazzle campaign I worked on. Representing a company that specialised in adorning women’s vaginas with glitter wasn’t my finest hour, but they paid well and sometimes money has to come before taste in business.

‘My mum mentioned you were back. I think she heard about it from someone in town. I was wondering if I’d run into you,’ Will comments.

‘Oh right …’ I murmur a little uneasily.

I can’t help wondering what Will’s heard. He must know something about the whole Leroy thing or otherwise he wouldn’t have tactfully not mentioned it. I’ve certainly heard about his divorce. He surprised everyone by settling down in his mid-twenties, marrying an heiress called Elsa Millington-Brown. It came as a bit of a shock to the village, especially since Will seemed to have been playing the field when he was first making a name for himself on the media scene. I’d see articles from time to time on the Daily Mail site with him falling out of nightclubs looking cosy with other minor celebrities. He was pictured quite a few times with a candidate from The Apprentice. Then those articles dried up and all of a sudden, word got around that he’d found love and settled down. Except apparently, the couple split a few years ago – I have no idea why. And I had no idea Will was back in Chiddingfold either. I wish I’d had a heads up that he was in town. My mum is usually a pretty reliable source of village gossip, but she’s probably been too busy with Hera to stay on top of her game. If I’d known Will was back, I might have actually made an effort with my appearance – not because I still fancy him after all these years, but just for my own sense of pride.

‘So, do you still paint?’ Will asks.

I used to paint at school. I used to spend all my time in the art room, and it was my artistic ability that helped me get a scholarship for sixth-form but I haven’t painted for years. Even before I had Hera. I just kind of lost interest in it.

‘No, not really,’ I admit.

‘But you were so into it,’ Will says, sounding almost disappointed.

I shrug.

‘You were Natalie, the arty girl.’ Will has a wry smile on his face.

‘Ha!’ I laugh. ‘And you were a skater boy, but people change. I doubt you still hang around at the skate park with your arse hanging out of your jeans, while pretending to be into punk even though everyone knew you preferred pop,’ I tease him. ‘I bet you’re not still doing that now – or are you?’ I raise an eyebrow.

‘No, I’m afraid not. Although I can get my arse out if you want me to?’ Will asks with a wink.

‘Oh for God’s sake, I really set myself up for that one.’ I sigh, laughing in spite of myself.

Will watches me as I reach for another handful of crisps and I can feel my cheeks growing hot as a blush creeps into them. I’m trying to focus on the crisps, but all I can currently think about is Will’s arse. And the fact that he’s watching me having these thoughts is like being an insect examined under a microscope. I feel like I’m squirming in a hot beam of light.

You see, I used to really fancy Will. Like really fancy him. I had a crush on him from the very first time I saw him, when he joined the school aged 11 after he and his family moved to Chiddingfold from London. His dad had quit his job as a police officer at the Met Police and wanted a quieter, calmer life. Of course, I didn’t know that detail at the time, but over time, I gathered titbits of information on the grapevine and added them to my mental catalogue of facts about Will Brimble, building up quite a detailed picture of him even though it took us three years to finally speak.

Will’s right, I was the arty girl at school. It was my thing back in those days and I really wanted to be a painter, but everything changed when I went to my new school for sixth-form. I’d enrolled to study artsy subjects – Fine Art, Media Studies and Drama, but we were expected to take four A levels so I opted for Business Studies as I’d heard it was quite easy. Little did I know how much I’d take to it. My tutor spotted an entrepreneurial streak in me and by the time I left college, business had become my thing.

The arty girl Will knew is long gone. Back in those days, I used to spend as much time as possible in the art room. It felt like home with its paint-spattered tables, jars of brushes and pencils and trays of paints. I loved it. But not many other people shared my enthusiasm. I persuaded my art teacher – Mr Reed – to start an after-school art club on Wednesday afternoons, thinking the club was going to be a hit, but I ended up being the only person who went, and Mr Reed said he was going to cancel the club if I continued to be the only attendee. Somehow, Will heard about my plight and the next week, he came along with a few of his friends. He was terrible at art. All of his drawings looked like they were drawn by a toddler and I could tell art wasn’t his forte, but I’ll never forget the wink he gave me when he asked Mr Reed at the end of the session, ‘So I guess you’re not still cancelling the club then?’

He came every week after that and we gradually got to know one another. My infatuation reached epic heights, but I did my best to hide it. Even though Will had saved my art club, I still wasn’t convinced he fancied me. You see, the fact that Will had tried to save my club wasn’t entirely out of character. Will had a reputation for doing things like that. He had this knack for just seeing when someone was in need and helping them out. He made the school a better place. There was one time when this really quiet, earnest girl called Alice started fundraising for a village in Tunisia and no one would donate. Everyone just wanted her to stop hassling them, but then Will started fundraising with her and within days, she’d met her fundraising target. She seemed more confident after that, sort of happier in herself. Then there was the time Will started a petition to ban sports teachers from getting team captains to pick who was going to be on their teams one-by-one out of the class, meaning that one person would always be chosen last. Will petitioned to have the practice banned because he felt it was unnecessarily cruel even though he was the kind of guy who’d be selected as the team captain, or if not, would instantly be chosen first. Nevertheless, he still took issue with the mean approach, which would always leave one kid feeling glum and dejected. Will’s petition garnered hundreds of signatures from pupils and parents alike and from then on, the practice was history. Things like that just fuelled my adoration for him. He was good-looking and had a heart of gold, what more could I want?

Will didn’t just come to Art Club once or twice, he came every week and he and I got really close. It was easier to be my real self around him when I was in the art room, which felt like a second home, than it would probably have been otherwise. I’d no doubt have been completely giddy and over-excited under normal circumstances. But I didn’t have Will to myself. Soon Art Club was the most popular club in school, and I realised I wasn’t the only girl who adored Will. A ton of other girls suddenly discovered a passion for painting the moment they realised where Will was spending his Wednesday afternoons. But Will always sat with me and I began to suspect that I wasn’t just fantasising and that perhaps – perhaps – he might actually fancy me.

But then things got messy, really messy …

‘Hi guys! Ready to get some raffle tickets?’ Rita, Mick’s sister who helps him organise the fundraiser every year, bounds up to me and Will, brandishing a pad of raffle tickets, before she notices Hera who’s now fast asleep and starts gushing over how cute she is.

While Rita fawns over Hera, I suddenly remember the prize. I’d got so distracted by all the commotion with Hera being sick, the cat jumper, Will and the buffet that I completely forgot that the reason I agreed to come along to this thing in the first place (apart from being a good person and raising money for charity, of course) was for the chance of winning a holiday. My mum was right, I do need a holiday. If anything was ever going to reinforce that fact, it would be standing here with a wet boob in a Cat Cuddle’s jumper emitting the faint odour of sick.

‘So, erm, is there really a holiday up for grabs, Rita?’ I ask breezily.

‘There is indeed!’ Rita replies, turning her attention away from Hera. ‘Mick really pulled out all the stops this year. His niece, Hannah, got a job at a travel agency and she managed to sort it. Best prize we’ve ever had. An all-inclusive romantic four night stay in a luxury five-star hotel in Marrakech! It has a swimming pool, a spa, the works. Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?’ Rita’s eyes have lit up.

‘It sounds amazing!’ I enthuse. ‘Five-star? Really?’

‘Oh yeah, five-star. It’s top notch. The best,’ Rita insists, before glancing down at her pad of raffle tickets. She could be exaggerating to get me and Will to splurge on the raffle, but somehow, I get the feeling that this prize might really be a diamond in the rough. A five-star holiday amid a plethora of hampers, kitchen utensils and Debenham’s gift cards.

I rummage in my handbag for my wallet. ‘Okay, I’ll have five tickets please, Rita. No, ten!’

‘Feeling lucky, are we?’ Rita jokes. ‘It’s two quid a ticket, so that’ll be twenty pounds, please.’

Twenty pounds? This event really has moved on since I was 12, when raffle tickets cost 50p. I pull my wallet out of my bag. It’s a quirky one I found at an independent boutique in London with a Fendi-style monster print all over it. Will raises an eyebrow at the bold print as I pull out a twenty-pound note.

‘Interesting …’ he comments as I hand Rita the money. He’s clearly having difficulty getting his head around the new me. The businesswoman me who pays attention to trends rather than the head-in-the-clouds arty girl I used to be.

Ignoring him, I hand the money to Rita, who places it in a money belt around her hips, before tearing off a few strips and handing me the tickets.

‘Thanks Rita!’ I reply. ‘Fingers crossed!’

‘Good luck, love,’ Rita says, with a warm smile.

Rita turns around, looking for her next target, before clocking Clive. She waves over at him and turns to head his way when Will suddenly taps her on the shoulder.

‘Rita, wait. I want some.’

‘I already sold you one earlier,’ Rita points out.

‘Yeah, but I only got one. I didn’t realise people were buying multiple tickets,’ Will comments, sounding a little petulant.

‘It is for charity,’ I mutter under my breath.

Will laughs. ‘Oh sure, Natalie, charity is what’s on your mind right now!’ he jokes, and it’s as though he can see into my brain and is witnessing the picture in my head of me lounging on a deck chair by a gorgeous pool, the sun making my straw hat cast shadows over my face, a novel open on my lap and a cocktail in my hand.

‘How many tickets would you like, Will, love?’ Rita asks, ignoring mine and Will’s bickering.

‘Twenty,’ Will says.

‘Twenty?!’ Rita and I both echo in unison.

‘Yeah, it’s for charity,’ Will reminds me, with a smirk. I roll my eyes as he reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a battered old wallet. He flips it open and hands Rita two twenty-pound notes.

She takes the money and gives him his tickets, which he folds into his wallet while smiling smugly.

‘I’ll have some more please,’ I tell Rita, before she has a chance to walk away.

‘What? How many more?’ she asks, looking a little taken aback.

I peer into my wallet. I have a crumpled fiver, two one-pound coins, a fifty pence piece and a couple of twenty pence and ten pence pieces. I quickly add it up: £8!

‘Four please,’ I say, fishing all the money out and depositing it into Rita’s hand. She takes it, counts it and slips the coins and notes into her money belt, before handing me four more tickets. I place them in my bag, feeling warm and fuzzy with excitement. At least I think it’s the excitement and not just the punch I’ve had to drink.

She glances over her shoulder at Clive who is looking over. He waves and looks hungrily at Rita’s pad of tickets, clearly keen to get involved.

‘Good luck you two!’ Rita says, before heading over to Clive.

‘Thanks Rita,’ I call after her.

I pat my handbag, feeling pleased with all my tickets.

‘Why are you smiling?’ Will asks, eyeing me. ‘You only have fourteen tickets. I have twenty-one.’

‘You’re such a dick,’ I tut. ‘Anyway, I don’t care if you have twenty-one tickets to my fourteen, I’m feeling lucky. I’m going to win. I can just feel it.’ I cross my fingers, praying I’m right.

‘Ha!’ Will scoffs. ‘Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?’