Truly, Madly, Deeply

Miranda Dickinson

MIRANDA DICKINSON is the author of five Sunday Times Bestselling novels, two of which have been international bestsellers in four countries. She is published in six languages and to this date has sold over half a million books worldwide. She is also the founder of the New Rose Short Story prize. She has been nominated for two RNA awards –the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year award 2010 for Fairytale of New York and the RONA for contemporary novel of the year in 2012 for It Started With a Kiss. Her fifth novel, Take A Look At Me Now, is available now, published by Avon (HarperCollins).

Miranda publishes regular vlogs at her website: www.miranda-dickinson.com and blog: coffeeandroses.blogspot.com. You can follow Miranda on twitter @wurdsmyth and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MirandaDickinsonAuthor.

Love On Wheels

I love my job.

It’s not glamorous or particularly well paid, nor is it anywhere near what my careers advisor had in mind for me when I left school, but it offers magic that few people looking in would see. The van I drive and company sweatshirt I wear may be emblazoned with sunnyside meals on wheels, but my job is so much more than that. I might deliver affordable, nutritionally balanced ready meals to elderly customers, but what I receive in return is priceless. For I am a collector of stories, a sharer of nostalgia, a confidant of dreams.

Not that my boss –who, awkwardly, also happens to be my mum –understands this. She would much rather I limit my conversation with customers to ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’, or maybe ‘See you next week’, if it’s a quiet day on my round.

‘We don’t pay you to be their friend, Emily, we pay you to deliver their food,’ she lectured one morning, clearly imagining herself to be the female incarnation of Lord Alan Sugar. ‘If they want company I’m sure their families can oblige.’

‘Mum, have you ever met the customers on my round?’ I protested, knowing full well that she hadn’t and that my argument was futile. ‘I’m the only other person some of them see all day.’

Mum cast a disapproving eye over my dyed hair –this week a fetching shade of blue. ‘What a treat for them! The point is we are not a charity or a befriending service. First and foremost, we are a business. Now, I need you to read this time and motion study Trevor’s written. And act upon it.’

As she passed me the sheet of paper, I inwardly groaned. Trevor. Repulsive, fifty-something boyfriend of my mother and the kind of man so boring even paint drying would mock him. Since Mum had met him at a business breakfast six months ago, he had fast become the balding, beige-faced bane of my life. What Trevor Mitchell didn’t know about health and safety, workplace law and mindless business jargon simply wasn’t worth knowing. In fact, he seemed to think it was his God-given right to comment on anything and everything, regardless of how much he actually knew about it. And, judging by his latest intrusion, Trev was on top form.

I cast my eyes over his calculations, unimaginatively typed in Comic Sans font –the childishness of which only served to make the whole document more insulting. Well, he could shove this exactly where all his other advice could be deposited. I knew that effectiveness in my job couldn’t be measured by miles covered per hour or minimum amount of time spent with each customer. It was in how I could share a conversation, spend a little time with someone lonely and maybe make a difference to their day. Unfortunately for me, Trevor saw our lovely elderly clients as nothing more than aged donkeys on a conveyor belt, good only for parting with their pension and having food chucked at them.

‘Trevor says you’ve been spending too long with each client,’ Mum continued, oblivious to my disdain. ‘By his calculations it should take no more than seven-point-five minutes to make a delivery. Now, there’s a new gentleman on your round today, so Trevor says you should begin the new timings on this one.’

I rolled my eyes and this time she couldn’t ignore it. ‘Oh well, if Trev says…’

Mum gave me a stare that could freeze the Sahara. ‘His name is Trevor, Emily, and I’ll thank you not to disrespect him. That man could well be your next stepfather.’

On that cheery note I left, glad for the peaceful sanity of my company van when I climbed into it. I wasn’t surprised by boring Trev’s intervention, but it still annoyed me.

‘Idiot!’ I grumbled aloud, pulling out of the gravel car park by the small industrial unit Sunnyside Meals on Wheels called home, to turn left onto the busy coast road. ‘Well, it shows how much you know, Trevor Mitchell! Our customers are more than ticks on your ridiculously timed list. And, I’m sorry, but who actually says “seven-point-five minutes” anyway?’

My indignation brought a wry smile to my face, not least because if boring Trev could see me ranting to myself in the van he’d probably accuse me of wasting company oxygen.

I glanced across at the small clipboard attached with a suction pad to the windscreen. Mrs Clements was first today –and straight away proof that Mum’s boyfriend was completely wrong.

I’ve delivered meals to Mrs Clements since my first day on this job, eight years ago, and she is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. When she was only seventeen years old she made the biggest decision of her life: to move to Canada to look after her nephew and brother-in-law after her older sister’s untimely death. She had been a promising student and dreamed of being a teacher but she left it all to go to another country and live the life her sister had left behind. Eventually, she married her brother-in-law and adopted her nephew as her stepson, only returning to England after her husband’s death in the mid-1970s. Mrs Clements was the first Sunnyside customer to share her memories with me and since then I have always taken time to listen when someone on my rounds wants to tell me about their past.

So yes, maybe I did take longer than the other two drivers to complete my deliveries but how else would I have learned about Mr Cooke earning his Distinguished Service Order medal by saving four of his Army comrades under intense enemy fire; or when Mrs Trellawney met the Queen; or about Miss Atkinson’s secret dream to be a champion ballroom dancer?

None of this mattered to my mother and boring Trev, of course. But that wasn’t important: it mattered to me.

Mrs Clements met me at the door already armed with a time-battered photograph album and the sound of the kettle boiling from the tiny kitchen of her retirement bungalow.

‘Oh good, you’re here, Emily. Come in, come in!’

I swung the box I was carrying into her hallway and closed the door behind me. ‘You’re chirpy today, Mrs C.’

‘That I am,’ she replied, leading the way down the hallway to her kitchen. She shuffled along in her favourite nylon skirt, polyester jumper and tartan bobble slippers and I imagined the static she created could be hooked up to the national grid to power her house. She made a pot of tea while I unpacked her week’s worth of meals, knowing her kitchen cupboards better than I did my own. It’s true what they say about trades-people: at the end of my working day the last thing I ever want to do is to cook a meal. If Mum knew how many takeaways and ready meals I consume each week, I’d be excommunicated for certain.

When her cupboards were filled and the teas were made, she ushered me through to the tropical heat of her living room. She sat in her favourite chair as I allowed her too-squashy sofa to attempt to eat me alive.

‘I found these at the weekend,’ she said, turning over the yellowing photo album pages with her blue-veined fingers until she found what she was looking for. ‘There –look at this.’

She swung the album to face me and prodded at a photograph. It was a black and white image of an opulent-looking hall filled with a huge crowd of couples, each one solemnly face to face in stiff ballroom holds.

‘This is The Rialto Ballroom in Truro,’ she chuckled. ‘It’s long gone, of course. But believe it or not, this was the happening night spot when I was young.’

‘When was this picture taken?’

‘July 1951. Two months before I left for Canada.’ Her smile carried the wistfulness of many years. ‘I used to dance there twice a week: Wednesday nights when they taught old-time ballroom to a hall full of girls and, of course, Saturday nights when you got to practice with the real thing.’ She winked at me. ‘Saturdays were when the magic happened.’

I looked at the girls with their almost identical dresses and the men looking awkward in ill-fitting suits. ‘So who danced with you?’

She flushed slightly, a wicked glint in her watery blue eyes. ‘Anyone who’d have me.’

‘Mrs C! You little scoundrel!’

‘We-ell, I was young, we’d not long come out of the war and suddenly a lot of young chaps were back on the scene. It would’ve been rude not to indulge.’ She tapped the side of her nose with her finger. ‘But it was only dancing, mind. None of that heavy petting nonsense you see young kids doing today.’

I took a sip of tea and felt the high caffeine content clunk against my teeth. ‘I’m sure you were the perfect picture of virtue.’

She nodded. ‘I was back then. It was only when I came home after Alfie died that I gave proper hanky-panky a go. Couldn’t believe what I’d missed out on…’

I was still reeling from the revelation of Mrs Clements’ late-flowering libido as I drove to my next customer. The warm September sun bathed the villages and fields whizzing past my window in a beautiful light, and I thanked heaven that I was lucky enough to work in such a breathtaking part of the world. After ten miles, the road rose steeply as I approached one of my favourite views: a sudden expanse of Cornish coastline appearing on my left; jagged cliffs falling away from the lush green above, with the wide sweep of perfect blue ocean beyond.

Inevitably, the scene brought bittersweet memories as Isaac’s face flashed into my mind. My Isaac. Until last summer the one and only love of my life. When we were together we would park not far from the road here and stride across the thick, waving grass down to the cliff path, while Django –our over-excitable Jack Russell –bounced around our feet.

I had dealt with a lot of my feelings for Isaac Pemberthy since he’d unceremoniously dumped Django and me, but somehow this single memory refused to budge. Even my dog had something of Isaac he couldn’t let go of. He refused to be parted from one of Isaac’s old socks even though it was now more chewed hole than knitted acrylic. At least Django understood. Maybe that was why I loved spending time on my rounds rather than with my friends, who still saw Isaac occasionally. Maybe I was as lonely as some of Sunnyside’s customers…

Mr Arbuthnot was in a bit of a hurry when I arrived with his delivery, so I quickly unpacked his meals and said goodbye, accepting an old Roses tin full of stodgy homemade flapjacks as his apology for not being able to chat longer. It’s so sweet when my customers make me something, which many of them do. And I’ll always eat it, even if it means I subsequently keep Gaviscon in business for the next few days. Placing the tin carefully on the passenger seat of the van, I set off again.

Mrs Wilson was next. A formidable former headmistress whose husband Eric was apparently so terrified of being in the same room as her that he almost always hid in his shed. Today, he appeared just long enough to pass a lightning-fast comment about the pleasant weather before scurrying back to the safety of the blue larch-lap hut at the bottom of the garden.

‘Always under my feet,’ Mrs Wilson tutted, at which I had to pretend to cough so that she wouldn’t see my smile. ‘Now, how’s your love life, young lady?’

Being quizzed by Mrs Wilson was a little like facing an Eastex-suited firing squad, so I felt compelled to answer. ‘Still quiet, I’m afraid.’

‘I have somebody in mind for you,’ she barked, and the appearance of what I have learned is her version of a smile flashed across her face. ‘My daughter’s boy. Lawyer. Sensible. Probably good-looking. Thoughts?’

‘I’ll certainly bear him in mind,’ I replied, not wanting to hurt her feelings but terrified by the thought of Mrs Wilson as a grandmother-in-law. ‘But I’m not sure I’m ready yet.’

‘Nonsense!’ She stirred her tea with military precision. ‘There’s no such thing as being ready when it comes to courtship. When Eric told me we were getting married I wept myself to sleep for weeks. But he was right. And here we are.’

Eric Wilson told his wife they were getting married? Today was certainly the day for revelations. The thought of the timid, pale-faced old man doing his best Rhett Butler impression amused me all the way to the next address on my list.

The address belonged to a Mr Timothy Gardner –a name I wasn’t familiar with. Smiling to myself as I parked beside a small, whitewashed fisherman’s cottage at the head of a tiny fishing village, I set the stopwatch on my mobile phone.

Seven-point-five minutes with the new customer. We’ll see about that, Trev.

I knocked several times before the door opened, revealing a tall, slender-limbed man with stunning blue eyes and a dramatic sweep of white hair forming an impressive quiff. He was dressed in a faded granddad shirt over corduroy trousers with bare feet, and immediately stood out from my other customers because I found it impossible to guess his age.

‘Good afternoon,’ I said. ‘I’m Emily from Sunnyside Meals on Wheels?’

He pushed his reading glasses up onto the top of his head and jutted out his hand in a hurried handshake.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ he said, a blush creeping across his tanned face. ‘I must confess this is the first time I’ve done this. Since my hip trouble I’ve been finding it difficult to get out. Can’t drive, you see. Doctor’s orders. I’ve only just moved back to the area after living in the States for thirty years, so I’m still finding my feet in the village. And those online delivery things scare me to death…Oh.’ His eyes fell on the heavy box in my hands as I waited politely on the doorstep and he quickly invited me inside. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry, do come in.’

His walk was stilted and painful, leaning heavily on a polished mahogany walking cane in his left hand as he made slow progress towards the kitchen at the rear of the cottage. I followed at a respectful distance, not wanting to pressure him or draw attention to his snail-like pace.

The kitchen was bright and airy: teal painted bespoke units, a Belfast sink and a large Aga-style stove nestled around a central island illuminated by halogen spotlights embedded into the low ceiling. I could imagine Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall cooking with uncontrolled glee in a room like this and Mr Gardner appeared quite at home in it. He opened a large cupboard door, which concealed a full-height fridge.

‘If you could pop the meals in here, that would be wonderful.’

‘No problem.’ I opened the box and began to stock his fridge with Sunnyside’s finest meal selection, noticing that he had opted for the ‘deluxe’ menu. Not many of our customers could afford this top-of-the-range option. In fact, only Mrs Clements had ever ordered it before, and that was after she won a couple of hundred pounds from a bet on the Grand National last year. No wonder Mum and Trev were keen for me to impress our new customer.

Closing the fridge door, I turned back to Mr Gardner and smiled. ‘You’re all stocked for the week, Mr Gardner.’

‘Tim, please. Mr Gardner makes me sound like my father and he’s been dead over twenty years. Look, I don’t suppose you have time for a cuppa? I’ve not long boiled the kettle and it’d be lovely to share it with someone.’

I thought about the stopwatch on my mobile monitoring the precious Sunnyside seconds being wasted in the name of good manners. Sod it. Mum and Trev weren’t to know whether I was delayed by illegal conversations or backed-up traffic caused by a farm tractor.

‘That sounds wonderful.’

He appeared both genuinely shocked and delighted at once. ‘Great. That’s great!’

We sat on stools at the wide kitchen island and I thanked him as he passed me tea in an Emma Bridgewater mug. ‘How long have you been in St Merryn?’ I asked.

‘Four months. My son brokered the deal for me while I was still in California selling my house and wrapping up the business. I sold it for a song,’ he grinned and I found myself grinning back.

My mobile phone began to ring and I glanced at the screen: Trevor Mitchell calling.

Honestly, the nerve of the man! Barely six months with my mum and suddenly he was muscling in on her business. Well, until the odious busybody was paying my wages, he could stick his opinions right up his…

‘So what made you decide to return?’ I asked Tim, even more determined now to smash boring Trev’s seven-point-five minute target.

‘Nostalgia, I suppose. I’m a Cornishman: it was inevitable Kernow would call me back eventually. And I wanted to be close to Ethan, my son. I’ve always loved St Merryn and thanks to the success of my business sale I can finally afford to live here.’

My phone buzzed angrily: New message from Trevor Mitchell.

I ignored it. ‘Well, you have a lovely home.’ Remembering my job, I added, ‘Let me know if there are any changes you’d like to make for next week’s menu. Here’s my number.’

He accepted my business card. ‘Thank you. Hey, I don’t suppose you know anywhere that does old-time ballroom dancing around here, do you? Call it nostalgia but I was remembering my misspent youth today and suddenly had a hankering for a dance. I know The Rialto Ballroom in Truro closed years ago.’

I stared at him, amused. ‘It’s funny you should mention that. One of my other clients showed me a photo of The Rialto this morning.’

‘Well I never. Do you know when it was taken?’

I thought back to my conversation with Mrs C. ‘1951. July, I think.’

His smile vanished. ‘Really? How –strange…’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘Look, I don’t know if this breaks any confidentiality rules but is there any way your customer would lend it to me? Just to have a look?’

I hesitated. ‘I’m not really sure…’ It was Mrs C’s personal memory she had shared with me and I didn’t think I could promise something that wasn’t mine to offer.

‘I’d be really interested to see it again. The time it was taken –Well, it’s uncanny. There’s a reason I loved that place: a very good reason…’

He looked so sad all of a sudden that I felt I had to say something as I rose to leave. ‘Look, I can’t promise anything. But I’ll ask.’

‘That would be wonderful, thank you!’

I thought about the odd coincidence all the way back to Sunnyside HQ. My job has always surprised me but this was something new. Mr Gardner had appeared so startled when I mentioned the date of the photo and that made me wonder if perhaps he had been there at the same time as Mrs C. Would he have seen her there? Or been one of the many young men she had enjoyed dancing with before Canada called her away?

Boring Trev and Mum were waiting with uniform disgust for me as I walked back into the unit. It irked me that Trev was even here, but more that Mum allowed his interference.

‘Mum, Trevor, how lovely to see you!’ I chirped, enjoying the flush of fury this invoked in my not-so-welcoming committee.

‘Cut the attitude,’ Trev snapped, making even Mum stare at him in surprise. ‘You had your orders for the new client and you deliberately disobeyed them.’

‘Excuse me?’ Even for Mum’s horrible boyfriend, this was a step too far. Angrily, I whipped the now crumpled sheet of paper out from my back pocket and brandished it. ‘You mean this? I think you’ll find, Trevor, that this is a suggestion, not an order. It’s a suggestion because you don’t actually work here or employ me, therefore I’m not obliged to obey it whatsoever.’ I turned to Mum. ‘And I would have hoped, Mum, that you would have just a little more faith in your daughter. For your information, I was investing time in our new client in order to ensure he received the best service from Sunnyside and kept ordering from us. I happen to think that’s more important than impressing your boyfriend.’

Mum looked from me to her fuming other half and back. ‘Well, I…I think it’s good to protect our client list…but really the time on your round is quite a bit longer than the other drivers…not that I think you’re doing a bad job, obviously.’