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People paid good money for decorators to give them that kind of distressed look. Their home’s distress was authentic.
Still, what a huge tick on her Adult To-Do list. She’d got the degree, she had the job and she’d invested in the house with Catherine and Sarah. Soon she’d be working on the relationship.
Sometimes she had to remind herself that there was nothing wrong with her. Just because she wasn’t married or doing the school run each morning didn’t mean she had a tail or anything. Millions of women were in the same boat, with high standards and a low tolerance for wankishness.
She made her way down to the kitchen to flick on the kettle, glancing at the 1950s black Bakelite wall clock as she went. It was after seven. She’d kill for a cup of coffee, but the bags under her eyes were now suitcases and she had to sleep. Herbal tea wasn’t top of her favourites list but it was better than nothing. And she did feel virtuous drinking grass clippings.
She spotted the Bake Off application still in the tea drawer, as unfilled-in as when she’d first printed it off. Not surprising. Sarah was the last person to sing her own praises.
Her eyes darted to the kitchen doorway.
She’d be coming back from Sissy’s on the train now, like she did every Tuesday and Thursday. And often at weekends too.
Rachel stared at the application. The teabags were under it anyway …
She picked up the sheets.
When the kettle finished its furious boil she poured her tea and rummaged in her bag for the thriller she’d been devouring. There were only around fifty pages left and she was pretty sure she knew who’d done it.
Her glance bounced between the book and the application.
She should read her book and drink her tea.
But she did know who’d done it.
Her eyes wandered to the Bake Off questions.
How long has the applicant been baking?
That was easy. Sarah was already great by the time she moved into the old flat. It was her promise of home-made scones that won her Catherine’s vote when they first met.
Her mum had taught her to bake when she was little (the next question). Every year when she got tipsy on her birthday she told them how she’d baked her own Victoria sponge when she turned six. Every year they pretended this was new information.
Glancing again at the doorway, Rachel’s hand found a pen. It seemed to have a mind of its own.
I started baking my own cakes at six, she wrote.
Next question: What did she personally get from baking?
Sarah never really talked about it but it seemed to make her really happy. She usually sang when she baked, and filled the whole kitchen with a homeliness as she worked through her recipes. Rachel said as much on the form, but skipped the part about the singing in case that might be distracting on set.
Next were a load of questions about skills and knowledge. She had to guess at those. Sarah seemed to know how to bake everything, so Rachel just listed the main categories from one of her cookbooks as examples. The judges probably wanted a broad idea anyway.
When she got to the questions about hobbies and ambitions, it started sounding a lot like a dating profile. I like long chocolate eclairs on the beach, enjoying sunset cheesecakes, and I live life to the fullest-fat cream. The questions were handy though, given the conversation she’d have with Sarah when she got in. Two birds, one stone.
She let out a little yelp when the front door opened upstairs.
‘Anybody home yet?’ Sarah called from the living room.
She shoved the application back in the drawer. Somehow it seemed less sneaky to keep it there in relatively plain sight.
‘Been home long?’ Sarah said, throwing her bag on the table. ‘Whatcha doing?’
‘Just finishing my book. I got home a few minutes ago. Have you eaten?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘Let’s order from the Noodle Shop.’
She moved toward the tea drawer to get the noodle menu.
‘Let me do it!’ Rachel cried, launching herself at the drawer to shove the application beneath the menus. ‘You’ve just walked in the door. Go change into something more comfy. You want the Thai noodles, right?’
Sarah stared at her jeans and baggy dark blue fisherman’s jumper. ‘Catherine wants to get me out of my trackies and you want me in them. I wish you’d make up your minds,’ she called over her shoulder.
Rachel’s heart hammered. So much for feeling less sneaky. Still, Sarah would be grateful if she got the chance to have Paul Hollywood compliment her iced buns.
Twenty minutes later, Aziz was at their front door. His parents owned the Noodle Shop.
‘All right?’ he said, handing Rachel the steaming plastic bags.
‘Good, Aziz, thanks. You?’
Something about him looked different but Rachel couldn’t put her finger on it. Was it his hair? Yes, that was it. She could see his hair. ‘No helmet? Where’s your scooter?’
‘Got nicked yesterday,’ he mumbled, hunching further into his winter coat.
‘Oh no! Your parents aren’t making you deliver on foot?’
‘Nah, we’re not doing deliveries till we get the insurance money to replace it.’
‘Well thanks for making an exception for us.’
‘No problem, you’re our best customers. See you later.’
Poor Noodle Shop family, thought Rachel. As if the people in their neighbourhood didn’t have enough trouble making ends meet.
‘Aziz’s scooter got nicked,’ Rachel told Sarah as she unpacked their order.
‘That’s shite! It’s probably halfway to Africa by now.’
‘It didn’t run away, Sarah. It was stolen.’
‘I know. They’re selling them in Africa.’
‘Are you sure that’s not bicycles?’
‘Maybe.’ Sarah shifted her container of noodles aside to make room for her sketch pad. ‘What do you think of this? I’m pitching it at the ideas meeting tomorrow.’
Rachel pulled the pad closer.
She loved Sarah’s sketches. No wonder her cards were consistently bestsellers. Her company was very lucky to have her.
She’d done some preliminary colouring in on the pen-and-ink sketch. Two figures stood hand-in-hand beneath an arch of summer flowers.
‘What’s the theme?’ Rachel asked.
The man in the sketch was balding, with a big tummy beneath his suit.
‘It’s an Asian lady marrying an English man,’ she said, scooping up some noodles with her chopsticks.
The lithe young woman smiled adoringly at her paunchy groom.
‘Seriously?’
‘Harry’s always looking for ways to expand the wedding cards. I know everybody thinks she’s a mail-order bride but sometimes they must really be in love. Don’t they deserve a nice card too?’
Sarah was such a romantic at heart. Maybe it was the cause of her success as a wedding card designer. Or a consequence. Either way, it worked for her.
‘Well, good luck in the meeting,’ said Rachel through a mouthful of steaming noodles. ‘It is quite romantic. Speaking of which, I talked to James today. He’s joining RecycLove with me.’
Sarah peered at Rachel from beneath her blonde fringe. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay with James dating right under your nose?’
‘Womankind is welcome to him! We are absolutely just friends. So now you have to join with me,’ she continued. ‘And don’t say you’ll think about it. I know that means you won’t do it. We’ll do it together.’
Sarah sighed, closing her sketchbook. ‘Rachel, I don’t even know where to start with the profile.’
Rachel thought about the Bake Off application. ‘But I do. I’ll help you. It’s probably just some questions about your hobbies and stuff. Please say you will. All you have to do is ask Sebastian. If James said yes, then a horndog like Sebastian definitely will, just to get access to all the women. Please say you will. Please? What’s there to lose?’
Sarah ticked off on her fingers. ‘My dignity, my self-esteem, hours out of my life, just off the top of my head.’
‘At least try, Sarah. If you hate it you can always quit. Nothing ventured, nothing gained … Shall I text Catherine and tell her we’ll do it together?’
Rachel reached for her phone.
‘I’m texting. If you want me to stop, say so. No? Okay. Texting.’
Sarah squirmed, but didn’t move to stop her.
‘Texting. Texting. Sent. RecycLove, here we come.’
Chapter Six
Sarah
Everyone in the conference room stared between Sarah and her sketch pad.
Her boss was doing that thing with his throat when he got embarrassed.
As if he had anything to be embarrassed about. He wasn’t the one being gawped at like he’d drawn willies on the wall.
‘Help me see where you’re going with this, Sarah,’ he said.
But I’ve literally drawn you a picture, she wanted to shout. Why didn’t people ever seem to know what she was talking about?
Instead she said, ‘It’s simple. Lots of English men and Asian women get married. This card would be for them.’
‘You mean mail-order brides?’ Harry asked.
Someone sniggered. It was Maria-Therese. That woman spent more time in Harry’s back pocket than his own wallet did.
‘No, Harry, not mail-order brides! Don’t be insulting. It’s for Asian women and English men who are in love.’
‘I think that might be a little too niche for us, Sarah,’ he said.
This time she caught Maria-Therese roll her beady little eyes. She could never look at her colleague’s twitchy needle nose and pinched lips in her thin, washed-out face without thinking of bubonic-infected rodents.
‘But we’re supposed to be thinking of niche markets. Isn’t that what you keep telling us in these meetings?’
‘Not quite that niche,’ he said. ‘Who’s next?’
The problem with Harry was that he had no vision. They’d already covered all the usual ethnic combinations, plus gay marriage and their non-standard body type range (which was Sarah’s idea).
She didn’t mind illustrating traditional boy-meets-girl cards but they were getting killed by companies like MoonPig. At the rate they were going, she’d be sketching tourists for a fiver in Trafalgar Square by this time next year.
Harry’s meetings only took an hour but they always felt like they sucked about a week from Sarah’s soul. Despite all the evidence – the growth in online cards and all the high-street shops closing down – Harry refused to adapt. He’d only make little tweaks here and there to his family’s business. That was like reupholstering the seats on your horse-drawn cart when everyone else was working at Ford.
Sarah didn’t know which she hated more – getting bollocked for not bringing an idea to the meeting each week, or getting bollocked when she did.
She hurried toward the lifts, stuffing her sketch pads back into her bag. She didn’t have a desk there. None of them did. Harry called it ‘flexible working’, but he was just too skint to pay for office space. Working from home suited Sarah anyway, with Sissy to think about.
She was waiting as usual just outside the front door when Sarah got there, beneath the big sign that welcomed everyone to Whispering Sands. What a misnomer. Nobody whispered in the care home and the only sand within thirty miles was in the car park, left over from when they gritted it last winter.
‘You’re—’
‘I’m not late,’ Sarah said. ‘Are you ready to go?’
‘I was ready at two thirty,’ said Sissy, holding her wrist two inches from Sarah’s face.
‘Your watch is fast.’
‘No, you’re slow.’
‘Whatever. Let’s go. Button your coat.’ The November days were closing in. ‘We can pick up some flowers for Mum on the way.’
She was only in the next town but travelling back there always gave Sarah pangs, like that sinking-in-the-stomach feeling when you think about an ex that you really liked.
She pushed the feelings aside as they got to the florist near their mum’s.
‘Do you like any of these bouquets?’ she asked Sissy, who was sniffing the flowers in each of the two dozen buckets by the desk.
‘These smell nicest,’ she said, pointing to the long-stem red roses.
‘Yeah, well for three quid a stem, they should. What about one of these?’ She pointed to the £10 bunches.
Carefully, Sissy inspected each bouquet. It would take her a while to decide.
Sissy never let Sarah rush her. Her scrupulous attention to detail meant that even the most mundane task took her about a million years. Plus, she liked to touch everything she saw, which made clothes shopping with her an exercise in patience.
‘How’s everything going with your boyfriend?’ Sarah asked as Sissy sniffed a purple and yellow bouquet.
‘Good.’ Sniff.
‘Still holding hands?’
‘Sometimes.’ She glanced over. ‘And kissing.’
‘Oh, kissing? Is that nice?’
‘Yep.’ Sniff sniff. ‘This one smells nice.’
‘Anything besides kissing?’
She thought for a minute. ‘He gave me his jelly.’
‘Nothing more? No hugging or … sex?’
Sissy rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be gross. We’re not supposed to do that.’
‘I’m just checking.’
‘Don’t worry.’
Of course she worried.
‘I brought a drawing for Mum,’ Sissy said as Sarah paid the florist for the bouquet she finally chose.
‘Can I see it?’
Carefully, she unfolded the pink sheet.
‘Nice one,’ Sarah said. ‘You’re really talented.’
Sissy had covered the whole page with tiny squares, then coloured each one in to create a paper mosaic. It was a zoo scene with elephants, giraffes, lions and monkeys.
‘I really like the way you’ve done the sky. Is there a storm coming?’ Sarah pointed to the roiling dark clouds in one corner.
Sissy nodded. ‘It’s going to rain.’
They walked around the corner from the florist’s shop.
‘Here we are. Ready to visit Mum?’
Sissy took Sarah’s hand and they walked together through the cemetery gates.
As Sarah dropped her sister off she tried not to mind that Sissy never looked even the littlest bit sad to leave her. She might at least wave wistfully every once in a while instead of just returning to her friends without as much as a backwards glance.
Sarah knew she should be happy that Sissy was so independent but the truth was, she wanted Sissy to need her as much as she needed Sissy. Instead she was such a typical teenager.
As Sarah got on the train back to London she called Robin.
‘All right?’ he said when he answered.
‘All right,’ said Sarah. ‘I just dropped Sissy off. We went to the cemetery. You should see the picture that she did for Mum. It was really ace.’
Kelly at the home was trying to get some funding to start running an art class since several of the residents loved drawing and painting. None of them were as good as Sissy though.
‘She’s got a boyfriend,’ Sarah told him. ‘She says they’ve been kissing.’
‘Jesus, that’s not good,’ he said. ‘They should be keeping a closer eye on her.’
‘Kelly says it’s normal and that we need to be ready for this new phase.’
‘Kelly wouldn’t say that if Sissy was her sister. She shouldn’t be letting guys kiss her. Should I talk to her?’
‘Oh I’m begging you, please don’t!’ Sarah knew how that’d go. When she was in sixth form, Robin had decided to tell her about sex. For some reason he thought it’d go down better if he used all the official words.
Her face still burned thinking about him talking about vaginas.
‘We need to let Kelly do the job she’s trained for,’ she said. ‘Please don’t talk to Sissy about it. If you spook her she’ll never tell us anything.’
‘I wish Mum was here,’ he said. ‘She’d know how to handle it.’
‘Me too,’ Sarah murmured.
* * *
Their mum could do anything, and Sarah didn’t believe that only because she was her child. She had the usual parenting skills – rooting out the monsters from under the bed and kissing away hurts – but Sarah hadn’t realised the half of it till she was older.
There hadn’t been much spare cash left over from her mum’s secretarial job after the rent was paid, but Sarah had never noticed that they were pretty poor. They weren’t exactly the sort to splash out in restaurants anyway and why would they want to, with their mum’s cooking?
She turned her hobby into a part-time job, to go with her full-time job, when Sarah and Robin were little. She made delicious beef stews, lasagnes and shepherd’s pies in bulk for their neighbours, cooking as easily for fourteen as she did for four. And when Sissy was born the few quid she charged per meal were a lifesaver. She had to quit her job then, and their carer’s and disability benefits didn’t stretch very far.
Their rented terraced house had one of those kitchen extensions off the back that opened on to a long, narrow garden. The appliances and work surfaces spread across the back half of the big room, with overstuffed sofas and the TV beneath skylights at the front. They pretty much lived in those two rooms, till first Robin and then Sarah went away to London.
Maybe if they’d still been at home when their mum got ill, they’d have noticed how run-down she was getting.
At first she wouldn’t go to her GP. ‘It’s nothing,’ she’d said. ‘Stop worrying and have some more cake.’
But she wasn’t eating her own food. That wasn’t like her.
Then she got a nosebleed one night when Robin and Sarah were home for dinner. After ten minutes it still wouldn’t stop.
‘Mum, do you get these often?’ Robin asked gently as he passed her another wad of toilet roll and made her keep her head tipped back.
‘I’ve had a few,’ she said through the tissue. ‘But it’s no big deal.’
Robin caught Sarah’s eye. I’m sorry, his look said, but watching your mother bleed is a big deal. ‘I’m making you an appointment with the GP tomorrow, Mum.’
This time she didn’t fight them, or dismiss the suggestion. Something was obviously wrong. The evidence was right there, dripping down her face.
But Sarah didn’t expect cancer. Maybe a sinus infection or haemophilia at a stretch, but not cancer.
She should have been more worried, but she clearly remembered not being that worried. She went whole days without thinking about her mum and her nosebleeds. Partly it was because she’d downplayed everything (another of her Parenting 101 skills) and partly it was because Sarah was caught up in her own life. Still pretty new at her job, she was excited about living in London. And she was more concerned with catching the last Tube home than her mother’s health.
She should have been bone-freezingly terrified for her.
The GP sent her off for blood tests and when they came back showing that her white blood cells were going haywire, it finally hit Sarah. This was no sinus infection or pollen allergy.
Her mum had lived two days past her six-month prognosis. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and by the time she’d gone to the GP it had already travelled to her spine. Her last weeks were horrible, painful and undignified, yet her only concern had been for them, her children. When Sarah had promised her she’d look after Sissy no matter what else happened, Sarah saw the relief in her expression. They’d already talked about what should happen if the worst came to the worst.
Sarah had wanted to come live in the house with Sissy.
‘No you will not,’ her mum had said with nearly her usual strength. ‘You can give her all the love in the world, but she’s only a child and you can’t take that responsibility. I’ve cared for her for thirteen years, every minute of every day and night. Believe me when I tell you it’s a twenty-four-hour job and you haven’t had the experience or training to do it. She’ll need someone qualified to look after her.’
‘I could learn!’ Sarah said.
‘I know you want to, love, but we have to think about what’s best for Sissy too. Promise me, Sarah. I mean it. I’ve got to know that she’ll be safe and looked after. There are good facilities that can do that. We’ll have to find one.’
Sarah had hated the idea of her little sister moving out of her home but her mum had been adamant.
‘It’s not just a matter of making sure she’s fed and clean and happy,’ her mum had said. ‘There are medical issues. What if you didn’t spot an infection in time? It wouldn’t be your fault, you wouldn’t know, but have you thought about that? Or have you thought about what you’d do if you came back here? You can’t leave Sissy alone in the house all day to work. Would you give up your job and your life to stay with her? Then I’d have to worry about you both while I’m up there knocking on the pearly gates.’
‘Don’t talk like that, Mum.’
‘Why, do you think I’m heading south instead?’ She’d pointed to the floor, mustering a laugh. ‘Promise me, Sarah.’
She’d had no choice. Every time she had brought it up, her mum panicked at the thought that Sissy wouldn’t get the care she needed. So they had a lot of really uncomfortable meetings with social services. Each time, Sarah had felt like she and Robin were plotting behind Sissy’s back. She knew her mother was right, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Thankfully, Sissy was pretty healthy. They had to watch for the infections but she didn’t have the heart defects that many Down’s syndrome kids did. And so far there was no sign of leukaemia either. Not that Mum’s was hereditary, at least as far as they knew, but Sissy was at a higher risk with her condition. There was so much that doctors didn’t know yet about Down’s, but what they did know was depressing. Sissy had a one in fifty chance of developing leukaemia by the age of five. Sarah was sure their mum had known this. Not that she’d have worried them with such a potentially deadly fact.
But Sissy was beating the odds (screw you, Fate! thought Sarah).
Each birthday that they celebrated put more distance between her and the disease. She could still get it, but every time she blew out her birthday candles, the odds swung further in her favour.
Chapter Seven
Catherine
‘But, Georgina,’ Catherine tried again, glancing at the time, ‘I’m just suggesting that you might have better luck if you were a little less …’
Picky?
Petty?
Unrealistic, spoilt or exasperating?
‘… less restrictive in your requirements,’ she finally said. They’d been on the phone for nearly ten minutes, going round and round. She’d never refunded a client’s fee before but she was nearly ready to cut a cheque for this woman.
It was only supposed to be a routine checking-in call. They had them weekly with their Love Match clients, but this had turned into Georgina’s bitch session about the quality of the men she’d been set up with.
It was setting Catherine’s teeth on edge.
No, hang on, that wasn’t really fair, she reminded herself. Yes, Georgina was a pain in the arse, but what was really making her cross was knowing that Richard and Magda were lying in wait to ruin her night straight after the call.
‘Are you saying there’s something wrong with my approach?’ Georgina demanded. ‘Because I’ve never had any complaints before.’
No, thought Catherine. And you’ve not had that many dates either.
‘But everyone can benefit from an outside perspective,’ she said instead of what she was thinking. ‘That’s my job, after all. In fact …’
She knew she’d regret her next words but she also knew that Georgina would never get anywhere in her current state. ‘In fact, we do offer another service here that may interest you. It’s an advisory relationship.’
‘But you already advise me.’
Catherine heard the snarky ditto marks around the word advise. She took a deep breath. Calm professionalism, that’s what she needed to get through this call.
‘Well, I do guide you towards suitable men, yes. But this is more about working together to overcome any barriers that may be stopping you from finding what you’re looking for.’