Probably the Best Kiss in the World
PERNILLE HUGHES

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperImpulse

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Copyright © Pernille Hughes 2019

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Pernille Hughes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008307721

Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008307714

Version: 2019-04-03

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

To the naysayers.

In

Your

Face!

Chapter 1

This was decidedly crap.

Regardless of what the photographer insisted, Jen’s nose was very precise and if it smelt like cow crap, she’d gamble plenty on it being cow crap. He’d said the photo-shoot location wouldn’t be too muddy, hence her now crap-covered and immobile trainers. She evil-eyed his wellies. Git. So much for client-care. Any uncontrolled movement and she’d risk face-planting into the boggy mire he’d insisted was the only position from which to get the angle he needed. Pretentious inflexible git. Ankle-deep in the stink, she was fairly stuck and now Ava, one of her bosses, had turned up, wanting a word. Jen took a quick look at the ListIT app on her beloved iPhone: there were so many shots left to get and the light wouldn’t last much longer. Not that Ava would think or care about that.

Eight white-haired walking-booted men and women stood on the drier ground with their walking poles, looking thoughtfully into the middle-distance as if they were intrepid explorers, not in fact the Westhampton Rambling Society who were being paid with M&S vouchers for a marketing shoot. Ava coughed loudly in an unsubtle chivvy and Jen resigned herself to risking the journey.

It was hard work; a trial of strength, balance and swear words, as more than once she nearly toppled in her expedition to the shiny white Porsche Cayenne. Door open but sitting safely in the car, Ava was keen not to get her white jeans or pristine Hunters besmirched, her huge sunglasses pushed back to harness her long blonde-to-scarlet ombré locks. Ava and her sister-slash-business partner Zara rather fancied themselves as the Olsen twins of the organic sanitary-supplies world.

“Darling, far be it from us to question your choices,” Here we go thought Jen; questioning choices was their modus operandi, “but shouldn’t we be using more … aspirational models.”

“Aspirational? They’re ramblers, Ava, and we’re using them to promote incontinence pads.”

“Yes darling, of course, but they could still be a little more, well, let’s be blunt about it, attractive. Our customers won’t aspire to be them.” Oh Lord. Jen did not have time for this.

“Ava, nobody aspires to wear inco pads, organic or otherwise. The point here is to show ordinary people, so our customers can see incontinence affects normal people, and equally, normal people – not just the posh ones – can wear organic pads. That was the brief you approved, remember? I don’t think people believe celebrities experience incontinence, and we want people to believe our ads. We’re all about the honesty, aren’t we?” Jen ignored the grimace on Ava’s face. She’d seen it so many times she considered it a tic and best not acknowledged. Being marketing manager at Well, Honestly! for seven years had taught her plenty about tact and restraint.

A splat of something hit the inside of the rear passenger window and slid down the glass. A small chubby hand tried to wipe it away, spreading possibly yogurt, further across the pane. Ava’s head ducked towards the interior of the car.

“Are you behaving, Ferdinand? Remember what Mummy said; bad behaviour equals no iPad, no iPhone and no laptop.”

Turning back to Jen, Ava pursed her lips. “We’d best be off. These three are getting excited and Keane needs picking up from his Junior Krav Maga. Then it’s two hours to Glasto. Thank goodness Rupes has gone ahead to sort the yurt.” Jen knew Ava’s husband Rupert always went a day early under the guise of “prep” time, involving several of his mates and various herbal substances. Jen’s sister Lydia had seen it first-hand. Or else he was simply hiding from his four demon spawn. “So, if you’re really sure about the models?”

“I am,” Jen insisted, keen to get back to the shoot and hopefully home to dry socks this side of darkness. Ava still wasn’t looking convinced, but a wail from inside the car distracted her.

“Leave Ferdinand alone, Beckham. He doesn’t want you filming down his pants. Rooney, sweetie, no Lego up nosey.” Turning back to Jen, she started to sit back down in the driving seat. “I’ve left some things on your desk, darling. Just a few bits I didn’t get to finish up. Perhaps you’ll handle them on Monday?” Ava always took the Monday after Glasto off to “reflect”. “Think of the quiet you’ll have, just you and Aiden, with me out and Zara still in the Seychelles. Heaven.” Jen chose not to flag Aiden the Intern’s mouth-breathing was plenty loud enough to be disturbing. She was more dreading what the “few bits” might be. Ava’s ability to deflect work was tantamount to a Teflon coating, and past experience said there’d be far more than a day’s work there. Moreover, Jen had never once been able to pass anything back to Ava on her return. The only upside was she’d know it was done properly and wouldn’t come back to bite her on the bum. It might take longer, but at least she was in control, and as far as Jen was concerned control was the only way to dodge life’s curveballs.

“We’ll be off then, darling,” Ava said, giving the ramblers a last look and slight shake of her head. “Enjoy your weekend.” Slamming the door, she wheel-spun away, leaving Jen mud-sprayed from head to toe and wondering if this was really what she’d studied all those years for.

Having smeared the slurry from her eyes Jen trudged over to the photographer and updated her shot-list with a sigh. She’d be a while yet, but it was almost the weekend and that meant time away from the inco pads and time with her real passion. She could tuck herself away in the safe confines of her outbuilding and concentrate on the thing that brought her joy.

Some women loved to bake, some to knit, Jen Attison loved to brew.

*

The opening expletive caused Jen to spill beer all over her hand. She mumbled one of her own under her breath. The following litany of filth carried across the small courtyard from the open kitchen door to the outbuilding. It wasn’t quite the sound of summer as she imagined it. Being a Friday night, the town was bouncing, the pubs and wine bars full with locals and the weekend tourists, all making the most of the balmy evening; sitting out where possible, or moving down onto the beach. The seasonal warmth brought the joy out in them, their chatter and laughter filling the air, the distant echo of fun snaking down the warren-like alleyways and over the garden walls of the houses in the old town. Jen could clearly hear it from the comfortable seclusion of her small stone outbuilding; the singing, the Oi, Oi’s and the banter.

Jen looked at her phone. Eleven. She’d been expecting to pick Lydia up at midnight from the station. She had an alarm set. Yet here she was, spouting loud angry vocabulary that would make a fishwife blush and no doubt there would be more, so Jen braced herself.

“For fuck sake. Come out, you shitpin!” There was a silence from outside, as Jen waited, calmly finishing tapping the beer from the conditioning tank into the brown bottle she was holding. “Jen? Can you help me? Please?”

Jen sighed as she capped the bottle and placed it in line with the others she’d already filled since getting home. Slipping down from her stool, she looked out into the courtyard to see her sister, still swearing while crossly attempting to extract her ankle-strapped high heel from between two cobbles.

“Easy, tiger. The kids next door don’t need to know those words,” Jen said, crossing the distance.

“Where do you think I learnt them?” They both knew this wasn’t true. Lydia had merrily collected a ripe vocabulary as a child when visiting Jen at uni, sponging up the vernacular of the rugby team who Jen had bizarrely acquired as a fan club. A secret home-brew kit in your fresher dorm room and indiscreet dorm mates will do that for a girl. Proud of the words they were teaching Lydia, the rugby lads had virtually made the thirteen-year-old their mascot. Nine years on, her word choices reminded Jen daily of that lost circle of friends.

A firm yank released the heel, allowing Lydia to teeter the rest of the way to the outbuilding where the comforting scent of malt, hops, yeast and beer enveloped them. The outbuilding wasn’t tiny, spanning the breadth of the rear-yard wall, but given all of Jen’s paraphernalia, it felt cosy and snug nonetheless. With the help of an old kitchen she’d salvaged off Freegle, and the addition of a small mash tun and two fermentation tanks which she’d bought from eBay and struggled to fetch home because large metal vats did not fit in a vintage Ford Capri, Jen had transformed the space into her own mini-micro-brewery.

“Why are you back so early? You said the midnight train. And why didn’t you call me to collect you?” As usual, Lydia’s refusal to stick to agreements irked her. But that was little sisters for you, a law unto themselves. Sometimes – most times – Jen suspected Lydia did it just to wind her up. Leaving the door open for some fresh air and pulling the hair-elastic off her wrist, Jen dragged her unruly hair up in a ponytail. Given the warmth out, the outbuilding could get pretty toasty and her hair was due a cut – as her BookIT app would remind her any day now; Jen always made her next appointment as she finished the last. Same with the dentist, waxer, window cleaner, optician, chimney sweep, boiler servicer and financial adviser. She was organised like that.

“I’m twenty-two Jen, I can get home by myself. You don’t need to collect me.” Lydia perched herself up on the worktop opposite Jen’s bottling. The two of them were clearly sisters; same heart-shaped face, brown eyes and chestnut hair, though Lydia wore hers shorter and had far fewer frown lines, while Jen was hoping their freckles disguised hers.

A battalion of capped bottles sat neatly on the counter top, products of a one-woman production line of Jen tapping the new IPA from the conditioner into the brown glass bottles and sealing the caps on with the new capper Lydia had bought her for Christmas. She’d worn out the one her dad had first taught her to use, in the days when she had to stand on a kitchen chair to help him with his home-brew. It now sat on her shelf next to his photo. She owed all of this to him. Her fine sense of smell had come from him, along with her taste for beer – she’d been sneaking sips since primary school. His hobby had grown to become hers, even after she’d left home for uni. By then the hobby had become a passion, as she experimented with recipes and flavours. Gradually, it had formed her career plan. The brewing industry was a siren’s call to her.

“We agreed I’d collect you,” Jen said, sitting down to start her labels. This batch was destined for the County Show. She generally sold her beers at a few farmers’ markets, the money coming in handy for restocking supplies and raw ingredients for the next brew, but the County Show was a bigger deal. She’d reserved a stall and was hoping to shift the mass of boxes currently stockpiled in their lounge, but more importantly there was the brewing competition to be won. The last two years’ first prize rosettes hung above her head on the shelf. Jen wasn’t a particularly competitive person, but admittedly she loved the validation the rosette gave her. She could brew, and brew well. She had an excellent understanding of flavours – this wasn’t vainglory, the judges had said so – and in lieu of not having the career she’d dreamed of, it was wildly pleasing to have her skills recognised.

Jen pulled out several sheets of adhesive labels. Her friend Alice had designed them, simply stating Attison’s in beautiful cursive. The remaining space allowed Jen to neatly handwrite in the beer’s name and tapping date. Handwriting them rather than printing them added to the beer’s handmade touch, extending Jen’s notion of artistic creativity. Neat handwriting when annoyed however, was a bitch.

“No, we didn’t,” sighed Lydia, hoiking her skirt up her left thigh, undoing the Velcro above her knee before grabbing both sides and pushing her lower leg off. Placing the prosthetic beside her, damaged shoe still in situ, she began to massage the stump through its polyurethane sock. “You agreed with yourself. I didn’t get a say. As always. Can I have a beer?”

“On the shelf behind you,” Jen said, not looking up from her labels. This was a regular argument. Jen liked to collect Lydia when she got home from London, whether it was from work or from a date. She liked knowing she was safe. She didn’t want Lydia being jostled on the street or her leg getting avoidably chaffed. She didn’t see why Lydia couldn’t have trained at a local firm, but instead she’d insisted on applying to the graduate schemes at the accountancy globals in London. She’d stormed the interview process, which hadn’t surprised Jen one bit, because Lydia, swearing aside, was both quick and engaging. So while the location wasn’t Jen’s preference, it made her ridiculously proud of what her sister had achieved, when at one point it had looked as if there would be no future at all, and Jen allowed herself the commendation of not having made a total hash of bringing teen-Lydia up by herself.

“Need a hand?” Lydia asked, selecting a Golden Ale from the odds and ends shelf by her shoulder and uncapping it on the wall-mounted opener. “I’ve got two of those.”

Jen hated it when Lydia made those jokes, but didn’t say. Lydia got to deal with it however she wanted.

“It’s fine. But thanks.” The many rows of bottles in front of her said she had a couple of hours’ writing and sticking. Still, she’d been spared the trip to the station. She took a second to strike it off ListIT and cancel the alarm.

“Come on, Jen. I can write the labels.”

“Really, it’s all good,” Jen said, keeping a firm grip on the pen and sheets. “I’ve got everything under control.”

Having been through this before too, Lydia gave up, mouthed “Control Freak” at Jen’s back then leaned back to take a slug of the beer while her sister worked on.

“Got anything planned for the weekend?” Jen asked, finishing another sticker, peeling it off and sticking it neatly on the bottle. Each label would be perfectly aligned. Meticulous was technically correct, anal would have been Lydia’s word of choice.

“Hmm,” Lydia murmured, as she swallowed her mouthful. “Just popping out somewhere.” Jen bit her tongue to stop herself from pursuing it. She knew when Lydia was being deliberately vague.

“How was tonight’s date?” She moved swiftly down the labels. She might be a perfectionist, but she was an efficient one.

“Shite.”

Jen paused briefly then carried on, knowing it was better to let Lydia vent at her own pace. Lydia spun the bottle cap on the counter like a spinning top, before successfully lobbing and landing it in the corner bin.

“Are all bankers wankers, do you think? This one was so far up his own arse I’m surprised he could walk.”

“How’d you find him?” Jen hoped Lydia was laying off Tinder. Lydia’s dating calendar was busy enough as it was, but if not being used simply for casual hook-ups, Tinder seemed to Jen like people were fighting a “marriage material” tick-list from the off. Not that she’d say so to Lydia, but she worried that a missing limb might not count favourably in such a judgemental framework.

“Bloody Callie from work set me up with him. Said they went to sixth form together and he was a hoot. Uni obviously nixed that. He kept talking about his ex and even sent her a text at one point. And Callie had clearly told him about the leg as he was trying not to study it. Epic fail.”

“Drink choice?” Jen asked. Both sisters believed you could tell a lot from what men chose to drink. They’d worked out a fairly efficient shorthand over the span of Lydia’s many many dates.

“Lager. Kronegaard. Unimaginative wanker.” Jen hmm’ed in agreement. Danish brewing giant Kronegaard wasn’t the worst of the global beers out there, in Jen’s book, but his failure to recognise there was more to beer than mass-produced lager would forever be a black-mark against the guy. Their dad and his love of craft beer had seen to that.

“Ah well, better to know now,” Jen soothed. The thought of Lydia being hurt pained her.

“Definitely,” Lydia agreed. “He was rubbish in bed too. Hence the earlier train.”

So, that label wouldn’t be going on a bottle, the jog in the writing being enormous.

“You slept with him?” Jen asked, trying for calm, but getting more of a squeak.

“Well, I hoped to salvage something from the evening, but no. Crap all round. Not that we slept, but considering it was a speed shag, it was fairly catatonic.”

Jen took a long breath through her nose, reminding herself Lydia was an adult and entitled to place her body where she pleased, with whom she pleased. But it was hard. She felt somewhere along the parenting process she might have slipped.

“Speaking of dullards,” Lydia went on, “where’s the Bobster? Didn’t feel like helping you out here?”

“Robert’s on a golf weekend. I’m seeing him Sunday night. As always,” she said pointedly. This too was a broken record conversation. Lydia was having a dig. Jen and Robert had a long-standing but simple arrangement of dating on Sundays and Wednesdays. It suited them both, it fitted with his sporting commitments and she could work late or brew undisturbed. The fixed nature of the date-nights gave clear structure to their week. Perfect.

There was a long pause before Lydia gave flight to her thoughts. “Jen? Have you ever thought you might not be living life to the full? That you might be missing out?”

Jen paused, looking around her, at her bottles, the tanks, the sacks of hops and malt. She saw her tightly-run micro-empire, tucked secretly away in the back streets of the bustling town, safely away from randomness, and she initially couldn’t think what Lydia might mean. Then her Parenting mode kicked in and it dawned on her Lydia must be referring to herself.

“Lyds, lovely,” she said, putting her fountain pen down and giving her sister her full attention as she always tried to do when it came to “growing up” conversations, “is this a FOMO thing?” Lydia looked confused for a second, then opened her mouth to speak, but Jen beat her to it. “Honestly Lyds, as you get older you’ll see most events are overrated and actually happiness is easily reached if you keep your expectations simple and realistic. Just look at me.” Jen gave her a big smile and a pat on the leg for good measure, hoping her sister was reassured. Lydia exhaled abruptly, shook her head and roughly reattached the prosthetic before alighting from the worktop. Maybe not so reassured. She’d have to give Lydia’s fear of missing out issues more attention.

Still holding her beer Lydia muttered something that might have been Sleep well, but could also have been Bloody hell and stormed back to the house. With a sigh, Jen went back to her labels, enjoying the return of serenity. She’d deal with Lydia tomorrow. For now she’d savour the peace and simplicity of the life she’d constructed for herself. FOMO indeed. Sure, she’d made some sacrifices – a career in incontinence pads instead of brewing, for example- but needs must and there was no point crying over that. All things considered, Jen had everything Just So now and exactly where she needed them to be for a straightforward, no-surprises, quite-happy-thank-you-very-much life. Lydia couldn’t possibly be thinking of her – Jen’s life was solid. Where should she be missing out?

Chapter 2

Being a lawyer, Robert was fairly straight-laced (or “uptight” as Lydia would say), but now and again he did something quirky. Jen had first noticed this years ago in his office, as he sombrely went over the details of her parents’ wills, formally assigning Lydia’s guardianship to her. Still shell-shocked and grieving, her eyes had wandered to his pink and orange striped socks. They were a marked contrast to the sobriety of his tailored dark suit and the uber-traditional (Lydia would say “cliché”) polished leather and wood of his office decor. Jen regularly wheeled the socks out as a positive example when Lydia was on one of her “Robert is boring” attacks.

That Sunday evening, as Jen walked towards the beach, she suspected there might be a spot of quirk in the air. They normally met around seven at a local bar or at the golf club if he’d just played, but tonight he’d texted her to meet him at the family beach hut. Westhampton’s beach wasn’t one of those wild windswept moody backdrops with sand and marram grass, nor a bouncing surfers’ paradise a la Cornwall. This was a proper town beach with large uncomfortable shingle, candy-coloured beach huts and ice cream stands, but thankfully no pier chocked full with arcade machines. There were no features of particular natural beauty, and nothing really to write home about, which was why Westhampton had never quite made it onto the list of popular Victorian bathing resorts. But it was home – so Jen loved it, and as the flashier neighbouring towns were getting expensive, more and more tourists seemed to be coming. She smiled to see them this evening, as she walked briskly along the promenade, hands in the pockets of her khaki shirt dress. The lure of quirk had pushed her to make a change from her usual blouse and tailored trousers, but the pockets were non-negotiable.

“Anyone home?” Jen asked, stepping onto the small deck area. The small port-holed door was open, but she couldn’t see Robert. The Thwaites beach hut was bang in the middle of the single row, the paintwork pristine in its pale blue nautical palette. Robert’s mother insisted on it being repainted every spring. Jen suspected this was more to keep up appearances and one-upmanship over the neighbours than down to any weathering necessity.

“Hello Gorgeous.” Robert appeared holding a blanket which he unfurled with a flourish onto the wooden boards at her feet, before giving her a brisk kiss on the cheek. “Exactly on time, as always.” That was one of the many reasons they got on: mutual appreciation of punctuality. He disappeared back into the hut, and reappeared with an ice bucket complete with champagne bottle and flutes, along with a picnic basket. A picnic was definitely not what she’d been expecting. It seemed rather, well, rustic, for Robert – he was more of a croque-monsieur chap than a sandwich guy. Not that it was a problem, Jen certainly wasn’t above sitting on the floor, it just wasn’t what she was used to with Robert. He was definitely making a particular effort this evening, only at what she wasn’t quite sure.

“Take a seat,” he said and laughed at his joke, then popped the cork on the bottle. The cork ricocheted off the peak of the roof to clock Jen on the head. Unaware, he reached for the flutes and poured them each a glass. There followed a moment of awkwardness as he attempted to fold himself down onto the deck without use of his hands, in spite of Jen reaching up to help. “To us,” he said in toast, brushing the worst of the spillage from his striped shirt.

“To us,” she agreed, discretely giving her head a soothing rub, and taking a sip. The champagne was delicious. She couldn’t see the label, but he wouldn’t have skimped. Robert took a week off every year for wine tasting in France, so he had his standards. As he delved about in the basket, laying out a fine spread for them, Jen looked about her. The sun was low but it was still comfortably warm and there were plenty of people about on the shingle. The air was rich with scents: the salt of the sea, the smoke aroma from a distant barbecue and the fragrant notes from the champagne. Her thoughts started to meander as to how she could emulate it all in a beer. It was all rather lovely and dare she say it, romantic. Overt romance wasn’t normally their thing. They were both far too practical and realistic for that – another of the things that had them well suited by Jen’s estimation – but for all of that, he’d put together a sweet little scene for them. She was glad she’d worn a dress now.

She asked him about his golf and he talked her through the first eighteen holes while she ate her Quiche Lorraine, Scotch egg and numerous other picnic standards. The napkins told her the local deli had catered, which was fine by her as Robert wasn’t known for his cooking. In fact, both Ava and Zara teased their brother mercilessly on his ineptness in the kitchen. Jen pushed the thought of Ava and Zara aside. It was still the weekend, and for now she would concentrate on Robert and staunchly overlook the fact she dated her bosses’ brother. There were days when she wished he’d never pushed her CV their way, but then she’d been desperate for a job and Westhampton was hardly the marketing capital of the world.

“What did you get up to then?” he asked, brushing a crumb off her chin and sliding his hand into hers. They’d both relaxed back against the wall of the beach hut. Having known each other for many years, sitting together peacefully was something they did quite well.

“Tapping. And labelling. The boxes are ready for the County Show. And I brewed two new beers, which are now safely in the tanks.”

“Right oh,” he murmured, pulling the picnic basket towards him with his spare hand and perusing the contents, “Lydia help you out?”

“No, she was gone most of the weekend. Not sure where, just said she was popping out with mates. She offered though.” She didn’t mean it as a hint, but he didn’t take it as one either, as he was busy setting up the desserts.

Two ramekins of something with a brown sugar topping sat on the blanket and he fished out a small kitchen blowtorch. He looked quite excited to be holding it. “I saw them do this on Saturday Breakfast.” He must have seen Jen’s look of concern as he released her hand and stroked her cheek. “Don’t worry, Jen. Fire-handling comes with the Y chromosome.”

Minutes later, the flames were quickly doused with a bottle of Evian, but the blanket was a goner.

“Never mind,” he insisted, unfazed and more intent on pressing the alleged Crème Brȗlée into her hands, “Mumsie will be pleased with the shopping excuse.”

Jen looked at her dessert. It wasn’t fully burnt, there was still a small patch she could breach to access the custard. The intense way that he was nodding her on, eager for her to tuck in, suggested perhaps he’d made this part himself. She swallowed her gulp quite admirably.

Credit where credit was due, the patch she stabbed made exactly the right cracking sound, much to his delight. Robert didn’t seem overly concerned with trying his own dessert though, which was worrying, but he’d made such an effort and appeared so keen, that she couldn’t do anything else but delve out a substantial spoonful and put it in her mouth.

She knew instantly she’d made a mistake. There was something big and hard in there, definitely not smooth and creamy. She looked about, not sure what to do; spitting was not a seemly option. Finally, she looked at him distressed and what was that in his eyes? Mischief? It certainly looked like it. Slowly, carefully, trying to appear as ladylike as possible while desperate to gob it out, she extracted the object from her mouth.

In her hand lay a ring.

Even without the half-saliva half-custard coating it was easily the ugliest ring she’d ever laid eyes on. Large and bulky, the square cut stone was held in an oblong setting. Beyond the murky gem, the filigree ivy detailing was the only thing to set the ring apart from a knuckle-duster. Staring at it, it took Jen a moment to realise Robert was on one knee in front of her, grinning proudly at his dessert wheeze.

“Jennifer Attison, will you be my wife?” His eyes and smile widened even further at her shock. “Surprised?”

“Well, yes,” she stammered. It was a surprise. A great big astounding surprise given they’d never talked about the future and in Jen’s head their two dates a week routine had worked perfectly for the last six years, so why would he be looking to change it?

Jen’s brain couldn’t keep up, as his expression now changed from amused to ecstatic. He jumped to his feet, raised his hands in the air and channelling Tom Cruise on Oprah’s sofa, shouted to everyone on the beach “She said Yes!!”

Wait, what? Jen looked around, panicked. That wasn’t what she’d meant. He grabbed her hands and dragged her to her feet, before clamping his hands to her face and kissing her. She could hear onlookers clapping, and the noise made a disturbing duet with the alarm bells in her head.

“This ring was my great-grandmother’s, on Mumsie’s side,” he explained, plucking it off her palm as she stared shell-shocked at him, “apparently, it hasn’t seen daylight since the undertakers took it off her finger and handed it to my granny.” Jen fought the urge to paw her tongue clean, as he slipped it easily onto her ring finger. Very easily. “Oh. It’s too big.”

Great-granny must have had salamis for fingers, the ring would have fallen freely off Jen’s thumb.

“Oh dear,” she said, the relief nearly felling her, “what a shame.”

“Don’t be upset, Jen, I’ll have it resized.”

Jen’s feigned joy was Oscar-worthy.

“I’m glad you love it though. Mumsie will be too.”

“It … It’s remarkable.”

“Certainly is,” he said wistfully gazing at it. “I’m the first boy in the family for generations, hence it’s mine to give.”

He kissed her again and Jen began to realise how happy this was making him, how overjoyed he was she’d accepted his proposal. She couldn’t help but be deeply flattered. Robert was a catch by anyone’s standards; sensible, solvent and career savvy. His height and broad golf-toned shoulders gave him gravitas in a room; other women looked his way when they were out together. And he had a kind face. She’d always thought that.

They’d first met when she was thirteen and her mother had dragged her along to a dress fitting for Robert’s mother. Marooned in the hallway, listening to Mrs Thwaites’ loud voice through the walls, Jen had at first been shy when the eighteen-year-old Robert had stopped to greet her, dressed in muddy rugby kit. He was on route to the shower, but he’d taken the time to chat and ease her awkwardness. After that she’d seen him at various times in her dad’s mechanic’s workshop when his father had brought the Jag in for tyres or tinkering and she’d been there doing homework after school. The private school boys of Westhampton didn’t normally mix with the state school girls, but that didn’t seem to be the case with Robert. He’d always made a point of saying hello and her dad had remarked he was a “decent lad”. It hadn’t surprised her at all that her parents had chosen him as their lawyer when he qualified.

So when he’d first asked her out, a respectable time after her parents’ affairs had been settled, it had been easy to accept because it was like going out with a friend. What you saw was what you got with Robert and that was important to Jen.

And he knew her. He knew all she’d been through. Taking his lawyerly duties seriously, he’d pitched up at the hospital as soon as he’d heard. He’d seen her at her worst, grieving for her parents, devastated over Lydia’s injuries, wracked with guilt as she’d agreed to the amputation. He’d borne the brunt of her anguish when Lydia was screaming from waking up to a missing leg. He’d taken Jen’s guilt-ridden tongue-lashing head on, never once holding it against her. He’d been there for all of it and he’d still been attracted to her. It amazed her.

Jen looked up at him properly and the panic began to subside. She’d been surprised, that was all. No wonder she panicked – heaven knew she’d had enough surprises for a lifetime. Why should this not be a good idea? He knew her, really knew her and he wanted her. They worked well as a couple, their routine was testament to that. They were clearly compatible, she reasoned; they’d never argued over anything. How could this be anything but the most sensible, comfortable and right marriage ever? What more could a marriage need than what they already had? And she had as close as she could ever get to having her dad’s approval.

“And I’m delighted to accept it,” she finally said with a genuine smile, careful to keep her eyes on his face and off the god-awful ring.

“I knew you would be,” he said, wrapping her in his arms and pulling them both back down onto the bare deck, the smouldering blanket having been flung onto the shingle. Once they’d rearranged themselves from their unbalanced heap, they returned to sitting against the beach hut wall, hands entwined, the setting sun casting a warm glow on their faces – it almost felt like a blessing, only slightly marred by the skinny-dipping stag party and the smell of burnt wool.

“I’ve got more exciting news,” Robert blurted, his exuberance now at unprecedented levels, “I made partner!”

Was it her, or did he look even more thrilled than before? She decided excitement must be cumulative. Partnership on top of an accepted proposal would make anyone ecstatic.

“That’s wonderful, Robert!” She was over the moon for him, he’d worked so hard for it, played all that golf for it too. It was madly pleasing to see someone’s drive come to fruition. That was more they had in common; drive, ambition and a sound work ethic.

“Old Solesworth’s decided to cut back his hours at last, and losing all those matches has finally payed off.” Jen leaned across to kiss him on the cheek. It reminded her to buy him a new aftershave, the bergamot notes in this one were too strong, not just for him, but any sentient being.

“I couldn’t be happier for you. You completely deserve it. Solesworth & Thwaites. Sounds good.”

“And this is just the beginning, Jen. Now with the extra cash our plans can become reality.” He let his head drop back onto the woodwork, relieved.

“Plans?” she asked. She wasn’t aware they had any. He’d once mentioned the Highlands for a long weekend, but that had gone by the wayside when a friend had scored tickets to the Rugby World Cup. Perhaps he meant they should make some plans now. Her fingers twitched towards her phone in her pocket, instinctively wanting to start a new list. This was going to be a major project. And somewhere in her head, the idea of a wedding beer had started to germinate, a one-time brew only their guests would ever try, and maybe she’d give them each a bottle home instead of those sugared almond favour things. Perhaps she would base it on the scents from this evening and tell its story on the rear label …

“Jen? Jen, you’re miles away.”

“Sorry.” She shook her head, primarily to clear her head, but also in befuddlement at herself. Thirty minutes ago a wedding was the furthest thing on her mind, now she was concocting favours. “Plans. Yes. You had a plan.”

“I’m sure it’s our plan, Jen,” he smiled, pulling the back of her hand to his lips. “You and me. Me and you. Our life together.” He said it like some wistful song. The champagne had gone to his head.

“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “Tell me the plan.”

“Surely you know all this? It’s obvious; I make partner, we get married, set up home, have a family and live together happily ever after.” His face was beaming. Jen hadn’t seen him so chuffed since England had last won the cricket. Curiously though, she could feel the edges of her mouth cranking up towards her ears, because he was nodding as he spoke and her reflex was to nod along, reluctant to spoil his moment.

“Wow,” she said, “you’ve got it all planned out.” Considering she was a planning fiend, Jen couldn’t work out why it didn’t sit better with her. It was hardly a revolutionary plan – he wasn’t suggesting they should run away and become freedom fighters. Only, she hadn’t had any part in this, and she felt firmly on the back foot.

Robert cocked his head at her, at last sensing her discomfit.

“I surprised you good and proper, didn’t I?” he acknowledged with a grin. “I’m not sure why though, Jen, we’ve been together for years.”

“But you haven’t even suggested living together.”

“I’m rather thinking that’ll be part of the engagement deal.” He gave her a wink and waggled his eyebrows, which looked so funny she almost snorted champagne out of her nose. Well, if that was the plan, he’d have to move in at hers, given the ties the house had to her parents. And there was Lydia to keep an eye on. Not to mention his apartment was in a weird area of town and the shared hallway always smelled dubious. “Which bit is bothering you, Jen? Is it the family bit?” He turned to properly face her. “Look, you’ve pretty much been Lydia’s parent these last years, so I know you’ll be a great mother, but I appreciate you might feel you’ve been-there-done-that already. So I wasn’t thinking of a team – to be honest they can be bloody expensive little buggers by the looks of it. Two would do me. A boy and a girl. After school fees that should still leave money for decent holidays and a weekend pad somewhere.” Finally he drew a breath. “Sounds perfect, right?”

It did. Or rather, it would, to many. And Jen felt it should to her, (though she didn’t see the need for school fees) – after all, what was not to like? It had comfort and dependable written all over it. But something was niggling.

“Am I working in this scenario?” she asked.

“Oh, is that the issue?” he said with a relieved laugh. “No, of course not. The pay rise should cover you looking after the kids. And remember, when you sell your house, and I sell the flat, that’s going to cover a vast proportion of the new place. If we buy something dated, you can spend the next few years doing it up as the pups come along. The rent on the Arches won’t hurt either.” He’d factored in the two commercial units under the railway bridge her parents had ploughed all their savings into. One had been her dad’s workshop, now rented out to his then partner, the other was leased to a business run by two of Jen’s friends. But that money was what had funded Lydia through uni, and Jen wanted it safe-guarded to cover the future prosthetic legs Lydia would need.

“But what if I want to keep on working?”

“Really? I thought all girls want to be ladies-who-lunch?”

“No. I like working,” Jen said, calming a little. He’d just been mistaken or programmed by his parents. Of course he wouldn’t mind her carrying on with her job.

“Inco pads? Really?”

“No,” she winced, “not inco pads per se, but I like going to work, doing things with my day, making my own money.”

“But Jen, when you have the kids, you’ll still be working. God, Jen, give me some credit. I’m not some dinosaur who thinks looking after kids is the easy option. You’ll still be working: it’ll just be from home, and for our family. As for the money, I’m sure we can work something out, so you feel you’re getting a wage, even if it does just go into the family pot. We can do that. And don’t worry about projects, Mumsie already has a list of charity events she wants your help with.” She could see from the furrow in his brow he was bemused by her questions. “Jen, you shouldn’t worry about this. This is where we’ve always been heading.”

“And … and what about my beer?” Jen, asked quietly.

Robert now looked totally confused. “What about your beer?”

“I … well, I had thought … What I really wanted to do is, maybe someday, try to build it up to be a business.” There. She’d said it. Jen had the oddest conflicting sensation; relief from having mentioned her plan to him, but also something tantamount to having a public wardrobe malfunction.

“The beer?” He thought he had misunderstood her. She nodded. “But Jen, that’s just your hobby. Your childhood hobby. I rather assumed you’d grow out of that. And honestly, you wouldn’t want our family home constantly smelling of beer.” She took a surreptitious sniff of her hair. She was pretty sure her shower had eradicated any beer smell.

“You like beer," she said, unable to conceal the hurt. Back in the day, when he’d played rugby rather than just watching it, he’d consumed plenty.

“True. But in a pub, darling. Not in a home. Not around kids.”

With that he planted a kiss on her forehead, stood up and toed all the paraphernalia from their picnic inside the door. “I’ll sort all that tomorrow. Come on Nearly-Mrs Thwaites, let’s tell Lydia our good news.” He stopped, looked at her and barked a laugh. “You still look stunned, darling – imagine how she’s going to take it.”

Jen already had an inkling.

Chapter 3

“What the actual fuck??” Lydia had waited a full ten seconds for Robert to reach the end of their path before she slammed the front door and let rip at Jen. “You’ve agreed to what?”

“To … um … be his wife?” Jen didn’t know why she sounded so wobbly. She was the adult here. Well okay, Lydia did technically qualify as an adult, but Jen held seniority and wouldn’t be cowed by a junior. She drew herself up. “You know Lydia, Congratulations is the more customary response.”

Lydia stopped and stared at her sister goggle-eyed. She was looking a bit peaky, Jen thought, even before Robert had dropped the marriage bomb on her which was approximately four minutes after they got in the door. He hadn’t been able to contain it longer than that. Really, the more Jen thought about it, his excitement about the whole thing was utterly endearing.

Lydia stormed into the lounge, fully expecting Jen to follow her, which she did, as much to check Lydia’s crutches didn’t snag on the rug. Whenever she’d roll the rug away to avoid exactly that scenario, Lydia always found it and brought it back out again. While she preferred being prosthetic free around the house to give her stump a break from the sweat and any chafing, Lydia was adamant she didn’t want things changed to accommodate the crutches. Jen considered this to be asking for trouble.

Normally Lydia would take up residence on the larger of the two worn blue sofas, spreading out and massaging her scar as she watched TV. Tonight though, she nodded brusquely for Jen to take a seat, while she propped herself against the wall, crutches hanging from her forearms as she crossed them angrily in front of her. With the sticks angled askew, the overall effect was a pretty hostile.

Lydia took a deep huffy breath and composed herself. “Jen, I love you and I want you to be happy, honestly I do, but this is an epic mistake. I’m sure Robert’s a good enough guy, but Jen, really? He’s SO dull. You deserve someone who can bring excitement to your life. God, you deserve someone who can just bring you back to life full stop.”

Jen was instantly offended. “My life is just fine, thank you.” She had everything she needed. Plus Robert had just offered her a whole lot more. “And Robert’s not dull, for your information. Aside from all the legal stories he has, he has a healthy, busy social life. He’s sporty, he runs every day. He plays his golf, he’s on the club committee. There’s cricket too. He takes me out. How is that dull? Just because those things aren’t your cup of tea, Lydia, doesn’t mean you can condemn them as boring and somehow beneath me.” Lydia made a face. Ha! Jen knew she’d scored a point.

But Lydia wasn’t stopped so easily. “But apart from your regimented date nights, none of Robert’s activities include you.”

“Why should they? It’s good if couples have their own interests. Mum wasn’t interested in Dad’s motorbike meets, was she?” Lydia faltered for a second, but rallied quickly.

“They did lots of other things together. Raising us, obviously, but they also enjoyed each other’s company; they went walking, they sat for hours on the sofa together just chatting. Remember that time he lost a bet to her and had to see a film of her choice every fortnight for a year? He saw every chick-flick going. They did fun stuff just to be together. They went dancing, Jen. Can you remember how unconvinced he was, but he tried it and they had a hoot.” Tears were forming in Lydia’s eyes. Jen’s own eyes were beginning to sting at the memories. Their parents had been eccentric, in Jen’s opinion. Lydia took another breath and went on, “When did you and Robert last have a hoot? Ever have a hoot? I’ve never seen it. I don’t think you’re compatible, Jen. I honestly don’t. Not the real you.”

Well, Jen had no idea what that was supposed to mean. She was the real her. Who else would she be? This was feeling like an attack now and she wasn’t going to take it. “Robert and I are totally compatible. We have the same values and outlook on things. We want the same kind of life. It might not be as adventurous as some, but adventure isn’t for everyone. Some people, like he and I, enjoy simplicity, creature comforts and a straightforward life. And there is nothing wrong with that Lydia. You should stop judging things by your standards.”

Lydia banged the heel of her palm against her forehead with a frustrated Aargh. Closing her eyes she took a moment to recompose herself and regroup her argument.

“Mum once said to me that ‘sex and laughter are the heart and lungs of a marriage’, Jen. Did she ever say that to you? I’d overhead the two of them going at it and had complained about it being gross for old people. She’d pilfered it out of one of her novels I think, but it meant something to her. ‘Communication’, she said too, ‘is the air a marriage breathes’.” As Lydia spoke their mother’s words, Jen couldn’t help but think how much she looked like her, with the same big eyes and light freckles. Granted, they both took after her, but Lydia’s expressions were closer to their mother’s where Jen was more a daddy’s girl in mannerisms. It made her ache. “And I look at you and Robert,” Lydia continued, “and I can’t see the laughter and I wonder about your communication, because it always sounds like small talk or business conversation to me. God knows about the sex.”

“There is nothing wrong with my sex life, thank you Lydia,” Jen growled, getting het up now. “I’ve stayed at Robert’s most Wednesday and Sunday nights since you were eighteen, so you can back right off there.” Just because Lydia was busier with her body, it didn’t lessen what she and Robert had.

“Let me ask you this then, Jen. Where is he now?” Lydia’s expression was rather smug. Jen felt she was walking into some trap.

“He went home, Lydia.” There was no mystery there. He’d said I’ll be off then; early one tomorrow. Goodnight ladies. And then he’d kissed her and whispered Sleep well Nearly-Mrs Thwaites.

“Precisely!” Lydia was triumphant, but Jen was mystified. “He got engaged tonight, Jen. To you. Why aren’t you upstairs ravishing each other, swinging off the rafters in celebration?”

“He has an early start tomorrow!” Jen’s voice had raised now in exasperation. Lydia clearly had little concept of professional behaviour. And besides, on date nights they always stayed at his out of consideration to Lydia and the fact that Jen’s bed had been her parents’ bed.

“He shouldn’t care!” Lydia shouted right back. There was a sudden banging on the wall from the adjacent house. Considering how deaf the oldies next door insisted they were, they had no problem complaining when the sisters’ bickering interrupted their telly viewing. “I’m not talking about your shared values and mutual respect, Jen, I’m talking about the fact he shouldn’t be able to keep his hands off you. There’s no spark between you, Jen.”

Jen didn’t know what to say to that, not without over-sharing; her and Robert’s nights together could be frisky enough. They had a selection of positions. She tried to curb the conversation.

“You’re wrong about that. We are compatible outdoors and in. We aren’t boring. You make it sound like the two are one-in-the-same and they’re not. The whole ‘sparks’ thing is a nonsense, like relationships are somehow lesser if people aren’t pawing all over each other in public. Ever considered that sparks and fire are generally – actually universally – considered dangerous?” There, thought Jen, bet she hadn’t thought of that.

Lydia shook her head.

“You’re right Jen, compatible doesn’t need to mean boring, but you’re wrong about relationships not needing sparks. Something has to ignite it. And here’s the thing you’ve lost sight of; not all fires are bad. Fire’s been used for some pretty good stuff through the ages. Warmth for a start. I don’t see a lot of that with you and Robert.” Lydia was shaking her head now, sad. “You used to be fun, Jen. I get why you lost it, but I thought if you met the right person you’d get it back. Robert doesn’t do that for you.”

Enough! Jen’s temper was piqued. She was not being pitied by her little sister. She’d just been proposed to. She was supposed to be revelling blissfully in it like a pig in poo, but here was Lydia peeing all over it, instead. Suddenly Jen worked out why.

“This is about you, isn’t it? You think you’ll be left all alone.”

“What?” Jen was sure she was right, but had to admit Lydia was good at looking shocked at the suggestion. It didn’t stop her though.

“You might think I’m not fun, but this is what growing up looks like, Lydia. You’ll see that over the next few years. There’s work and responsibilities and all the frivolous stuff falls away and that’s natural. And all the silly dreams we have need to be shelved in the cool light of day. That’s reality. Life moves on. It’s called being an adult.” She knew it would wind Lydia up, but it was true, so she ignored the way her sister’s eyes suddenly hardened and her face grew puce. “Mum and Dad knew Robert and they liked him. Dad said he was a ‘decent guy’, Lydia, and that speaks volumes in my opinion. Robert is an open book; no hidden shockers there and that does it for me. That is the spark for me, if you really need one. And the rest of the family isn’t totally mad, they are just effusive,” Lydia had taken a pop at the sisters, hadn’t she? Jen was sure she had. “Me marrying into it won’t cut you out. You’ll be part of it. Robert knows that.” Jen took a softer tone, understanding this must be a big deal and a shock for Lydia. “My home will always be your home, Lyds. I’m not leaving you alone.”

Lydia’s jaw flapped up and down a couple of times, but she couldn’t verbalise her feelings. Instead she gripped her crutches back in place and stormed out of the lounge door. Jen had never heard her negotiate the stairs so fast, but the slamming of the bedroom door on the other hand was an all too familiar sound. Lydia hadn’t believed her. She’d have to spend some more time convincing her, but for now she knew it was best to let her calm the hell down.

Flopping exhausted back on the sofa, Jen dug out her phone from her dress pocket and started to browse Appstore for a useful tool. A wedding was going to need its own app. She found one she thought best suited to her needs, ChAPPel, and installed it. She loved watching the little dial completing as another tool was uploaded onto the device that kept her life organised and controllable. Each was a little cog of orderliness slotting into place in her life, shoring up her defences.

Opening it, she found herself staring at the screen in front of her. Normally her fingers would race across the keys to spill all her ideas for a project immediately. Jen definitely considered herself an ideas person. That she got them actioned was purely down to her being conscientious and no one else being around to do the jobs. But right now, she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to list.

The low TV buzz from next door went silent. It was late and she’d been up early. Of course she couldn’t think of anything to list, she was knackered. She closed the app. She could look at this in the morning. Who knew what gems of inspiration would come to her in her sleep? That happened all the time. Several of Well, Honestly!’s marketing campaigns had evolved during the night. They were always the best ones.

Jen locked up and scaled the stairs. Lydia’s door was firmly shut. She hesitated for a moment, but turned for her own bedroom, the room her parents had slept in. It had taken her ages to move in there. Sleeping in a bunk again after her uni room hadn’t been ideal, but she’d wanted to be around Lydia, for when the phantom limb pains came during the night. But now, lying spread-eagled across the double bed, Jen considered the space between them a blessing. She gazed at the ceiling, as her parents must once have done, and reminded herself they too must have found parenting and adulting hard at times. Lydia might not always like her decisions, but then Jen probably hadn’t always liked theirs either when she’d been growing up. And she’d turned out all right, hadn’t she?

Pulling her mother’s green patchwork quilt to her chin, she reassured herself Lydia would come round eventually. But perhaps her argument with Lydia had been a good thing on another level. It had focused her thoughts. Life did move on, people did grow up, they adapted their dreams. The more she thought about it, looked at things in the context of their life, of Lydia’s care and her own future, Robert’s proposal was a gift. Being his wife and making a home for them all would fill her time she was sure, because she’d give it everything. So of course, something had to give – that was the way change worked. And the beer she made, which as Robert said, was a hobby, would fall by the wayside. But that was okay, Jen told herself as her eyes lolled shut; not everything in life was forever. She’d experienced enough to know that. She could adapt and adjust. Surely her happiness didn’t depend on beer …?

Plucky amputee Lydia Attison (22), raised £2,000 for children’s prosthetics last Sunday morning, when throwing herself out of a plane. Poor Lydia lost both her parents and her left leg at the age of 14, in a horrific crash on Westhampton High Street when a run-away lorry smashed into them. Now, back on her feet and raring to go, Lydia was on the first plane up and first to jump out. Camera-shy Lydia said it had been “a rush”. Her skydiving instructor, Glen Harris (26), to whom she was strapped for the tandem jump, was happy to tell the Echo, “She’s a natural; fearless and a fast learner. I’m hoping we can hook up for another jump sometime,” he said, giving her a cheeky wink.

-Neil Finch, Staff Reporter, Westhampton Echo, Page 6

Chapter 4

“OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!! Sister!”

Jen wanted to crawl under the desk and disappear as Ava scuttled across the office in her skinny jeans and wedges.

“Robert’s told you then?” Jen asked, turning around in her office chair to face her future sister-in-law, who might have been grinning from ear to ear, had Botox allowed. Oh good grief, she’d also had one side of her head done in cornrows.

“Darling, we knew,” Ava said with a giggle. “Mumsie rang Sunday morning to say he’d asked for the ring. Took her a while to find the thing. It was hidden in the depths of her knicker drawer. Anyhoo, we’re all delighted.” Ava pulled Jen up from her seat and crammed her into a hug. Over Ava’s shoulder, she saw Aiden the intern watching them with a rather heated expression. Jesus God, it was just two women hugging, not lesbian office porn. She had her reservations about Rupert’s eighteen-year-old godson, which was why she generally set him tasks that kept him away from her. Today she’d given him a stack of the local newspapers she’d been ignoring, to scrapbook the ads Well, Honestly! had placed in recent months.

“How was the festival?” Jen asked, wanting to move the conversation, and Ava, off her. She still hadn’t quite got her head around her newly-fiancéed status. Monday had flown by as she’d been immersed in Ava’s mountainous workload. Robert had sent a goodnight text, but that was it and not out of the ordinary. All in all, Jen wasn’t experiencing much difference, with the exception of Lydia giving her the cold shoulder, but they’d been through that enough times. So really, Jen suspected her initial panic and Lydia’s concern was a gross overreaction.

“Glasto was fabulous. Aiden darling, two teas pronto per favore.” Ava sat on the edge of Jen’s desk, but didn’t give her ex-workload a glance. Jen had most of it sorted and piled neatly for filing. “The bands were amaaazing as always, and the kids just loved it. It’s so good to see how they thrive when we sleep under canvas and get back to nature.” Jen wasn’t sure glampy yurts counted as camping. Nor did she think hot showers, porter services and spa facilities constituted getting back to nature.

A thought suddenly hit Ava and Jen worried she was having a seizure, but no. “Oh. My. God. I nearly forgot. Something mind-blowing happened at the festival. I was coming out of a laughter workshop in the Healing field and there was this woman making these things. Actually making them with her own hands. They’re the next Best Thing. For the company I mean. I’m soooo excited.”

“Really?” Whatever it was, it had to be astounding, as Ava was flapping her hands like little birds’ wings.

“Yah, totally. I FaceTimed Zara immedo. She sends her love and congratulations by the way. Says not to bother with the Seychelles for your honeymoon, the hotels still let children in. Which made me laugh as Zaz adores having my babies over. Isn’t that funny? Must be other people’s children she despises. Anyhoo, the thing.”

“The thing,” Jen encouraged. She wanted to know what it was that had Ava so excited, but also she wanted her off her desk as she had tonnes to do. There was an advertorial deadline for Saga magazine to hit and she wanted to get a call in to the National Trust for a flyer in their next mailing.

“So, you know Zaz and I have been talking about expanding the company? Growing the range?”

Jen bit her tongue. She was the one always pointing out the entire business plan was based on one product type. Pads and pants counted as one. It seemed like an all-eggs-in-one-basket approach to business. And okay, on a purely selfish note, more products would give her options when it came to telling people what she did for a living. People always asked what specifically she marketed.

“Well obviously, given our niche strategy and our dedication to the ethical values of the products, it’s been a bit tricky, but this thing just nails it. And once I’d spoken to Zaz, who was totes on board, like ‘duh, no brainer,’ I marched right back to the Healing field and signed the woman up as a supplier on the spot. I had to send Rupes off to all the cash machines with all our cards to get a decent wad for exclusivity too. I don’t mind her selling them at festivals once she’s fulfilled our orders, but there’s no way I’m having any of our competitors getting hold of them.”

Bloody hell. If she’d managed to get Rupert to haul his bum from the yurt and his mates then Ava must have been on a mission. Plus this almost deranged excitement Jen was witnessing was the tail-end of the hurricane. Aiden appeared with the teas, dodging Ava’s flinging arms.

“Well come on then, what is it?” Jen prompted. Hating surprises as she did, the build-up was not fully appreciated, but she had to admit she was intrigued as to what this thing was that had blown Ava’s already blown mind, and Jen was about to be landed with.

Ava looked behind them, lest anyone should be eavesdropping. The office had only the one door and any spies would have been noticed. She then swept a look between Jen and Aiden who was still hovering.

“Crocheted tampons,” she whispered dramatically.

The ensuing silence was deafening; exactly the affect Ava had been wanting as she nodded them through it. “Precisely,” she said, acknowledging their stunned state. “That’s what I thought.” She closed her eyes and shook her head at the momentous memory. “One hundred per cent organic cotton, filled with bamboo, hand-made and machine washable. Available in non-bleached ecru for the die-hards, but otherwise in pristine white. We’ll have to research how the bleaches are disposed of. But they tick all the boxes; organic, a national product and what’s more they’re even artisan. She doesn’t make her children help her either. I checked.” Ava’s beaming face could have kept ships from rocks.

Jen had no idea what to say. Crocheted tampons. Her brain didn’t know where to start. She opened her mouth a couple of times but had to keep shutting it as the right words, office-appropriate words, wouldn’t form.

“I know, right?” Ava was still nodding. “Rupes said I was a business wizard, a Biz Wiz, and Zara opened a bottle of Bolly right there on screen.”

“Do you think there’s a big market, Ava?” Jen managed tentatively.

“Well not yet, silly, nobody knows about them, unless they’ve been hoiking around Glasto, but once you start getting the word out there Jen, you betcha. All those women who use the mooncups but find it uncomfy having a rubber thingy up their ninny? They’ll love it and they’ll still avoid the years of expense, waste and eco-destruction of disposable tampons. All they need is a small stock, a waterproof pouch with two compartments – you know, one in one out – and they’re good to go until the menopause. Like I said, Jen, No Brainer.”

Jen wanted to call Lydia and howl. She’d feel better hearing Lydia mercilessly take the piss. But Lydia still wasn’t talking to her. This though, this might just be the thing to thaw Lydia out. This would tickle her no end. She already thought Ava and Zara were bonkers, this would send her over the edge. Well, if there was silver lining to be had from the crocheted tampon issue, then that might be it.

“How about, Ava,” Jen started carefully, “how about I run a few focus groups first? Say three for example, across various age groups and see how women feel about it.”

“Not just women, Jen,” Ava raised an eyebrow at her, “men can use tampons too. Gay men use them all the time. You need to widen your reading. Organic is important to men too.”

“Right,” Jen said, ignoring Aiden’s look of confusion. He could Google it. “I’d do a group for them too.” She couldn’t wait to do a focus group covering anal sex aftercare. That might just be the highlight of her career to date. Her eyes flitted to the clock and calculated how soon until home-time. She needed a drink. She needed to cocoon herself away in the non-bonkers safety of her brewery, la-la-la-ing to herself and casting all of this out of her mind.

“No need, darling. I appreciate your conscientiousness – one of the many, many things we love about you – but the extra work’s not needed given the response the things got at the festival. I saw it with my own eyes and both Zaz and I know in our hearts this is the right thing.”

Jen had been here before. Once the sisters “knew something in their hearts”, it was effectively an executive order. The vital-but-unused flotation tank in the meeting-slash-inspiration room was testament to that.

“And that’s not all, Jen” Ava said, suddenly looking terribly serious and moving to sit opposite Jen in the nearest chair. “I said I’d wait until Zaz got back for this conversation, but given the engagement thing and our need to act fast on the tampons, I can’t see the benefit of waiting.” This sounded ominous. Even more ominous, Jen adjusted, the great tampon reveal had set a new bar.

“This is a big step for the company and we’re going to require everyone’s efforts. Particularly yours, Jen and we’d like to show you we value you.” Ava sat up straight and took a deep dramatic breath for her proclamation. “Zara and I have agreed we want you to become a partner in the company alongside the expansion.” Ava grabbed both of Jen’s hands, presumably believing Jen needed support in light of this joyous bombshell. “We want you to share in the success, because you deserve it, because you’ll be family and because it simply makes sense.”

Jen experienced new levels of gobsmackedness, causing her to sway slightly.

“I know, darling,” Ava squeezed her hands kindly, “you don’t have to thank us, you’ve earned it. It’s not everyone we’d allow to buy in, but we know an asset when we see it. You should be very proud of yourself.”

Wait, what? Buy in?!

Chapter 5

Jen’s finely-tuned nose was almost exploding with all the scents. Re:Love, Alice and Max’s florist-cum-salvage shop was a riot of blooms and a joyful assault on her senses. Jen often dropped in after work for a chat, today however it was an emergency. The shop was situated at the end of The Arches, adjacent to the arch Jen’s dad had worked in. Alice and her girlfriend Max had made the most of the exposed brick walls and concrete floor with Max showcasing select pieces around the shop – fireplaces, old furniture and some up-cycled items – while Alice’s flowers brought a sea of colour to the space.

“They’ll let you buy in?” Alice asked, incredulous. “I don’t know why I’m surprised, the pair of them are nutters.” She sat on the front desk, legs swinging as she chomped on a stack of chocolate digestives. She wore her staple of a homemade tea-dress, bobby socks and saddle shoes, which she only ever changed up by adding a cardy and Doc Martens with opaque tights in the winter. Other than the fabrics, Alice’s sole variables were her bright lipsticks and her hair styles, which ranged widely from a fully-spherical afro, to two Bjork sprouts when it was hot. Opposite, Jen was taking the opportunity to lie down along the length of an old church pew.

“I know,” Jen groaned, unsure how she had managed to get to this stage in her life. Four days ago she was happily tapping her beer, minding her own business and here she was being press-ganged into being part of someone else’s. And she hadn’t told Alice about the engagement yet. It didn’t quite seem like the right time, not when she’d come storming in, mouthing off about Ava’s offer-slash-decree. It felt like one of those double-edged honours dictators bestowed on people which invariably lead to a difficult demise. “It’s bad enough with the inco pads, but crocheted tampons? I keep asking myself if this is what I got a degree for?”

“I’m guessing you didn’t,” Alice agreed. She’d always been a good ear for Jen, but normally for Jen letting off steam about Lydia’s teenage antics. As the eldest of four girls Alice understood. “And good of them to decide how you want to spend your savings.”

“Which is ridiculous, because there are none. The house is paid for, sure, and there’s this place, but the rents are supposed to fund Lydia’s future prosthetics, not to mention a pension for her.” Jen felt her pulse beginning to race. This was the stuff of her 4 a.m. worries.

“Lydia’s got her head screwed on. She’ll be fine in her job, and she’ll get her own pension.”

“But what if she doesn’t?” Jen whispered, “what if the leg holds her back? People can be so mean and judgey and dismissive.”

“Jen? Stop. There isn’t much to hold Lyds back. Trust me. You’re too close to see it, but she’ll go a long way.” Jen wished she could be so sure. Alice didn’t see the worst days, when things became too much and Lydia retreated to her bed. Her tenacity was impressive, but she was still only human, not a superhero. Not that Lydia remembered this either sometimes; she would make all sorts of mad decisions if Jen didn’t keep a rein on her. She’d even mentioned skydiving some months ago, but Jen had put the kibosh on that. Some things were way too dangerous. “Besides, missy,” Alice fixed her with a beady eye, “haven’t you got something of your own to be worrying about?”

Jen sighed. “The bloody tampons. Ugh. No pun intended.”

“Gross,” Alice said with a grimace. “But no, something of a more personal nature that should have been the thing you came to tell me about, maybe yesterday?”

Jen looked at her blankly, until Alice picked up a posy from the counter and waved it at her.

Oh.

“How do you know about that?”

“That? Your impending nuptials? Because Robert paid for a skywriter and told the whole town.” Alice looked at her po-faced.

“What?! Really?” She hadn’t seen it. Oh crap.

“No, don’t be ridiculous,” guffawed Alice. “Could you see Robert doing that?” Fair point. “Lyds texted me Sunday night, ranting. Believes you’re making a mahoosive mistake.”

“She may have shared that sentiment with me. I think she’s worried about me leaving her.”

“Yeah, no.” Alice seemed sure of this, but then she didn’t live with Lydia. “She’s definitely convinced there’s someone better suited out there for you.”

“She’s been watching too many rom-coms, Alice,” Jen said with a sigh. “She’s a sucker for those.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Sorry,” said Jen, “I forgot you’re an enabler.” Alice and Lydia regularly saw the chick-flicks together because Jen refused. “They’re fun – fluffy fun – but they aren’t real, Alice. Life doesn’t work like that. They give people unrealistic ideas. Either the set-up is ridiculous, or when the characters do get together, the relationship will never sustain itself. All film romance is idealistic and improbable.”

“You really think that?” Alice looked appalled, her current digestive frozen halfway to her face.

“Sure,” said Jen, looking back to the ceiling, totally clear on this. “It’s a life partnership. You have to think rationally and long term, you have to make compromises and be practical, and I don’t think meeting on the Titanic or during an impossible mission is a sound basis for that. Those intense scenarios make people overlook the realities and the enormous flashing warning signs that their relationship is doomed.”

Jen stopped to look back at Alice, who was still looking at her aghast.

“That’s your honest belief?” Her tone was a blend of dismay and moral outrage.

“Deffo,” Jen said, nodding along with her own argument. “I mean, I like a good Mills & Boon now and again – who doesn’t? – but you know it’s as much fantasy as Game of Thrones or Star Wars. I just think, because they’re set in real life, people confuse fantasy with reality.”

“Jen!” Alice was fuming. “I should wash your mouth out with soap. This is a haven of romance and dreams. Shame on you. I’m going to fill this space with old romance novels to ward off your bad vibes.” Alice was small but she was feisty and right now Jen was aware she’d riled her, but she stuck to her guns.

“Doesn’t make it less true.” Jen’s mind was set.

“But what does that say about you and Robert then? Why are you apparently engaged?” Alice thought she’d nailed the flaw in Jen’s argument here, but Jen was ready for her.

“Because we’re going to be a sound partnership. That’s what Lydia can’t get her head around. We’re very compatible, like a good business partnership. I’ve known him since my teens and we’ve had a steady six years to see that we meander along at the same pace in the same direction, which in business is a good plan. Lydia seems to think that’s wrong, that we should be bouncing off each other with mad sparks flying. Where’s the harmony in that? Equally, basing a lifetime on someone you met for a mad moment, be it in a pub, on holiday or in a high-octane, life or death scenario, well that’s a madness. Lydia just isn’t old enough to see it.”

“Lydia is twenty-two, Jen, you forget that sometimes.”

“Lyds is a special case, Alice. The leg makes it different.” People didn’t always get this, but Jen knew better.

“Only in your eyes.”

“Well, I know her best. That’s my job.” Jen’s voice had become harder. She bristled when she perceived anyone criticising her parenting. She’d done okay, all things considered.

Alice knew to back off. “Well, coming back to your surprise wedding, Lydia thinks we need to stage an intervention.”

Jen pulled herself up to sitting, so Alice could see she was clearly of sound mind.

“I do not need intervening.”

Alice gave her a long hard stare. “If you say so.” Jen didn’t get the feeling Alice was convinced. That was rom-com fans for you. “Not everyone’s like Danny, Jen,” Alice said, gently.

Danny. There was the most humiliating event of Jen’s life to date and one which generally lived under a universally accepted seal of Don’t Go There. She, Alice and Max had taken a week’s holiday to Ibiza right after her finals, where she’d fallen for fellow traveller Danny, who’d immediately whisked her off her feet, straight from the transfer bus. They’d even had a meet-cute where she’d mistakenly tried to walk off with his matching suitcase, until he twirled a pair of her knickers at her. He came from her uni town and obviously this had been a cosmic sign to forgo all sightseeing and live in his bed for the week. He was a DJ, booked solid around the Balearic clubs for the following week apparently, he’d even waved his Facebook page past her, giving her a quick glimpse of him at various decks, sweaty in the strobe lights, fans’ hands stretching for him in the edges of the numerous grainy shots.

He said he’d never felt this way about anyone before and lulled by the warmth and the sun and the sex, she’d believed him. And yet, once home, her texts and WhatsApps went unanswered. She’d tried to call him, but the number went nowhere. She took a closer look at the Facebook page, a pretty poor marketing job if she was being professionally critical, but also fake when she took a closer squiz at the DJs who, with the benefit of daylight, weren’t quite the same man in each pic. Only then did it dawn on her she’d been duped. The realisation that he’d tapped a false number into her phone was a breath-taking blow.

“You weren’t to know, Jen. We all thought he was for real,” Alice said, seeing Jen running through it all. But Jen was less lenient with herself, because she’d been a clichéd idiot, falling for a holiday fling and believing his invented persona. She was one of those girls who fell for a “shark trainer” only to find out he was a call centre operative from Croydon.

That blow had only been the starter course however. On top of feeling so foolish at the time, all hell had then come at her. While the news of a job in a brewery had briefly buoyed her, the loss of her family had taken her far, far deeper into the pit of grief shortly after. She might have properly dealt with the feelings of being ghosted, had she not had ghosts of her own and saving a sister to contend with. She remembered the humiliation and hurt later, but by then pain was a relative thing and instead it steeled her against getting carried away ever again. Some people just didn’t turn out to be who you thought they were. It wasn’t a mistake she’d make again.

Alice tactfully changed the subject. “How’s your list coming then?” she asked.

“What list?”

“Ha! Don’t give me that, Attison,” Alice’s eyes narrowed at Jen’s deceitful attempt.

“There’s no way you haven’t started a project list for this. What’s the app called?”

Dammit they knew her too well.

“ChAPPel,” she mumbled, faintly annoyed at being so predictable.

“Show me.” Alice did a karate kid “come hither” hand gesture.

“It’s a surprise,” Jen said, her blush adding a useful, if fake, bashfulness to her bride’s plans.

“Hmmm.” Alice let her off. “There’s your get-out with the sister-in-laws. Tell them you can’t buy in as you’re throwing all your savings at this wedding.” Ooh now there was an idea. “And don’t worry, you can put ‘mates rates’ next to my name for the flowers on your app list there.”

Jen made a grand show of gratefully doing exactly that, keeping the screen close to her chest – supposedly to keep her “surprises” to herself, but really so Alice couldn’t see there wasn’t a single other item listed.

Chapter 6

Jen’s front door swung open before she got the key in the lock. Lydia stood with one pot of Ben & Jerry’s and two spoons and Jen knew an olive branch when she saw one. She plucked one of the spoons out of Lydia’s hand and followed her into the lounge where they performed a perfectly synchronised slump onto the sofa.

Jen dug into the ice cream and savoured her spoonful with her eyes shut. “I hate it when we argue,” she said, quietly.

“Me too.” She had no doubt Lydia was sitting in exactly the same pose. Ice cream had been used to process many things; grief, phantom pains, exam stress and now … well Jen couldn’t quite name this, other than simply disagreement. “I just want you to be happy, Jen.”

“Me too, Lyds. We simply disagree about what that looks like, currently. But that’s okay. I appreciate your concern, and I’ll just have to show you over time that it’s unfounded.”

Lydia didn’t reply to that, but the sisters continued taking it in turns to snaffle a spoonful of the ice cream until the pot was forensically scraped.

“Can’t beat an ice cream dinner,” Lydia said, holding up her spoon which Jen clinked in agreement. Cooking was the last thing Jen felt like facing this evening. An evening curled up, watching TV-tat with Lydia sounded divine.

“Beer?” Lydia asked. Her mood appeared to require one. Jen doubted beer on ice cream was a particularly balanced diet, but it had never stopped them before. Jen moved to go, but Lydia hauled herself up and went to the kitchen, returning with two glasses of Barley Wine. It was a rich pudding of a beer, a perfect fruity toffee-ish chaser to their main course.

“Brewtiful,” Lydia stated after the first sip, and an appreciative groan.

“Kegcellent,” Jen countered with an equally bad pun. Beer puns were another thing their Dad had nurtured and neither sister ever tired of them, no matter how bad they got.

“Hope you’ve got the next batches planned,” Lydia said nodding towards the County Show-bound boxes which flanked the telly like some bizarre mantel. “When that lot sells, there’s hardly any left. The odds and ends shelf is fairly depleted.” Jen had made Lydia responsible for stock auditing as soon as she was old enough to drink, with weekly reporting.

“Mmm,” Jen managed, non-committal. She had a Mild and a Stout going, but after those, well …

“What’s it to be next? My vote goes for a session beer and Charlie said he’d buy a crate next time you did that one.” Charlie, her dad’s old business partner was consistently happy to buy a crate of everything she made next. While she’d waved to him as she left Re:Love earlier, she knew Lydia often stopped in at the Arches to chat to the sixty-year-old.

“How is he?” Jen asked as Lydia started to surf through the channels, bypassing anything involving hospitals, blood, gore or death, finally settling on a wedding-disaster-themed candid camera show. What a comedian. Jen wasn’t rising to that, so ignored it. She was keen to maintain the current truce and besides, the beer in her hand had her ruminating.

“His back’s playing up again, and he’s on about retiring. As if we haven’t heard that before.” Jen mmmm’ed in agreement. “So which beer shall I promise him?” Lydia prompted.

“I um … I haven’t exactly got the next ones planned.”

“Really?” Lydia looked at her in surprise. Jen normally had the next beers chalked up as soon as one was fermenting, both for shopping purposes and to evolve the recipes in her head. In fairness, she had the beginnings of a Golden Ale formulating, but since her discussion with Robert, the impetus had rather lapsed. It dampened her mood and she took another swig of the beer for comfort.

She stared at the TV screen, as the grainy home video showed a reader in a church reciting bible verses, just before fainting and landing face first on the stone floor, with a sickening slap and copious canned laughter. She’d heard the same passages at every wedding she’d ever been to and always wondered who these Corinthians St Paul was writing to were. Each time she determined to investigate when she got home, but then promptly forgot during the reception drinking. But here it was again, and she found she almost knew it; the “love is patient, love is kind” bit and then the next bit about putting away “childish things” when growing up. A creeping recognition drew over her; she was about to be a married woman and the brewing, much as she loved it, was a childish thing.

“Jen? Hey Space Cadet, you’ve zoned out.”

“What? Sorry. Yes. The beer. Right,” she said with a shake. “I’m going to start trapping it down, Lyds. Bring it to an end.” Jen kept her eyes fixed on the telly, but saw Lydia’s jaw drop from the corner of her eye.

“You’re doing what?”

“It’s time. Time to move on. I’ll have a wedding to plan and a new life to build.”

“But it’s what you do, Jen.” Lydia’s voice, rather than the explosion Jen had been expecting, was raspy and confused.

“There’s all sorts of things I can do. There’s other creative outlets out there. I could bake for example.”

“Pff,” Lydia scoffed. “Cupcakes? Do me a favour. You’re more badass than that. You love your beer, Jen.” Now Lydia was getting het up, but so was Jen.

“And I’ll find something else to love instead.”

Lydia drew a sharp breath to blast her, but suddenly, remarkably, let it go. The silence between them was both hostile and awkward. Jen, not wanting another fight, took the initiative and diverted the subject back away from the beer.

“Look, you might not be up for this, knowing how you feel about the entire wedding thing, but I’d hoped you’d be my Best-woman and maybe give me away. Alice and Max could be lady-ushers, because there’s no way Max will wear a frock, but Alice and her sewing machine will make them match somehow …” Jen saw she was beginning to ramble in her panic about Lydia’s response. What if she said no? “… so anyways that is what I was hoping.”

“You want me to give you away?” Lydia’s expression wasn’t giving anything away itself, but when she said it like that, Jen instantly knew it sounded bad.

“Yeah, so no, not dispense with me. What I meant was, I was hoping you’ll walk me up the aisle as part of Team Jen, and head of my girl squad. You won’t ever be able to give me away, we’re like this.” Jen twisted her index and middle fingers together in front of Lydia’s face, and then poked them up Lydia’s nose to punctuate her point.

“Girl squad?”

“Head. Of.” Jen confirmed.

“All right.” Lydia took a mouthful of beer and went back to watching four hammered grannies dancing to YMCA at a reception, the deal apparently done.

“You will?” This had been much easier than Jen had expected. She’d foreseen a diatribe about principles and Lydia not taking part in an event she didn’t support.

Apparently that was not the case.

“Not that I for one second believe in this marriage,” Lydia stated clearly, “but I will always be your wingman Jen, so if leading you to the pit of doom is something you want, then who am I to deny you?” Cow.

“Well, thanks for that, I think.” Jen would take what she could get.

“Of course, it means I’m in charge of the hen-do.” On cue, the footage switched to a group of women, dressed in clashing and outdated bridesmaid dresses and paint-balling masks, shooting the hell out of each other in a muddy forest.

“Oh God, no. I don’t want anything.” Jen couldn’t think of anything worse than being paraded along the promenade in a Learner-plated veil pinned with condoms. There was a conveyor belt of those every weekend in town and she was too old and too sensible for it.

“Um, sorry. Not your business,” Lydia lorded grandly. “My domain.” Jen sighed. This was not a battle to have now. Not when she already had a bomb to drop into the mix.

“Yes well, on that note,” Jen pulled out a sheet of folded paper from her pocket and handed it to Lydia. Unfolding it Lydia’s eyes scanned the memo Ava had pinged Jen, neatly listing dates convivial to her and Zara’s diaries for the hen-do. Jen braced herself for the fireworks.

“Oh. That’s handy. Thanks,” Lydia said, refolding the paper into her own pocket. Weird. Lydia really was becoming harder and harder to read.

Saying no more, Lydia turned up the sound on the wedding disasters, just as a gust of wind lifted a bride’s entire meringue skirt and a big comic-book X, complete with klaxon, was superimposed to cover her lack of knickers. Oh, how the surrounding groomsmen laughed! As did Lydia.

Well, two could play at that game. Jen dug out her phone and opened ChAPPel. She added Bridesmaids to the top of the list above Flowers, typing Lydia as confirmed and Alice and Max as additions below. Lydia tried to sneak a look, but Jen pulled the phone closer. Her sister could stew.

Looking at the app and its meagre contents, Jen expected the ideas to start sparking. Nothing came. She considered taking a step back and using her mind-mapping app to see if a spider diagram jogged anything. Taking glimpses at the clips on the TV screen, there were many weddingy things she knew she didn’t want. Balloon arches could do one, for a start, and those sugared almond favours could go too – you never knew which of them represented fertility, and not everyone might want that one. She did list Favours though and then Jen experienced a small spark of joy; there was the thing she’d thought of already; her wedding favour beer. And suddenly her fingers were racing as she listed ideas for what she wanted in it and how best to brew it. She might even name it Wedding Beerlls. Her dad would have approved. Finally, she thought, looking at her app with a smile, she was off. Looking up, she saw Lydia sneaking a peek at the screen, and wearing a smug smile Jen couldn’t quite fathom.

*

In hindsight, Jen should have investigated the sound from the office entrance, but engrossed in her incontinence data, she’d assumed it was just Aiden returning. He forgot something every evening, and given it was Friday it made sense he’d return for it. Eager not to get into conversation with him, she didn’t even turn around to check. So the black fabric bag over her head did come as a proper surprise, and she did scream in a way befitting a kidnapping.

The giggling took the edge off somewhat, but she still didn’t know what the bloody hell was going on.

“Shhh,” soothed Alice’s not-remotely disguised voice. “Chillax. You’re being abducted.” Yes, yes she’d gathered that bit. She just didn’t know why.

She heard the computer being shut down before she was manhandled to the door, where she had to talk them through setting the alarm. This was not her usual standard of “locking up” protocol.

Thankfully they took the hood off her when they’d set off in the van – it had been rather air-starved under there. Getting her in had been interesting, given the too-many cooks scenario, but they’d only banged her head off the door frame once, so she considered that a win. Alice and Max owned a Mazda Bongo campervan, which doubled both as Alice’s delivery van and their weekend love-nest. They’d had it sprayed hot-pink with Re:Love written down the side, which was always an ice-breaker for them on campsites, though they now avoided lay-bys at night after a close call with some inquisitive doggers.

Lydia sat next to Jen in the passenger seating, with a self-satisfied smirk. Alice was hanging over the back of her seat, also wearing Smug, and Max was driving, looking very serious, but then the milk-bottle lenses of her round glasses always made her look comically studious and her buzz-cut afro hair left no room for frivolity.

“Right, you loons, where are we going?” Jen sighed, resigned.

“Hen-do. Weekend away. Hurrah,” Alice sang.

“Nooo,” groaned Jen. “I didn’t want a hen-do.” She thought Lydia had let go of the idea. She hadn’t mentioned it at all in the ten days since it had been broached.

Lydia leaned towards her and reminded her with a touch of menace, “My domain.”

Oh crap.

“But what about the shop?” Jen asked, weakly. “Maxine, tell these two children this is mad behaviour.”

“Alice’s mum’s covering the flowers, my dad’s got the salvage,” Max said, though even her calm Mauritian lilt was unable to relax Jen, “Alice is thinking the two of them might get it on. Wouldn’t that be lovely?” Jeez, there was that rom-com thinking again. What was the matter with everyone?

“We’re going somewhere you’ve always wanted to go,” teased Lydia, bursting to tell.

“You’re taking me to a CAMRA event?” Lydia had always said No to the Real Ale association dos. Too many beardies. She was surprised Alice and Max were up for it as well. The only events they attended were swing dance related.

“Nope, even better than that.” Lydia sounded exceptionally pleased with herself.

“Think further afield,” Alice chimed in, “we’re going on a plane.”

“A plane? Wait, what?” Jen hadn’t packed anything.

With an evil smile Lydia extended her pointy finger at four cabin bags in the corner. Argh, no. They’d packed for her. Jen was very meticulous about her packing. She had various pre-devised packing lists for trips on her laptop, neatly divided by location, season and duration, but they didn’t work if she didn’t actually get to pack.

“Relax, Jen,” Lydia said, knowing full well Jen hated surprises, yet blatantly appearing not to care, “We’re taking you to Copenhagen. We’ve packed your bag, we’ve got your passport, you don’t need to think about a thing. We’re totally in control of this.”

OH. GOD.

Chapter 7

In Jen’s experience hen parties normally stuck together for activities and yet the next morning Lydia, Alice and Max were keen for Jen to enjoy the Kronegaard museum alone. Apparently they weren’t as excited about experiencing over a century’s worth of global brewing dynasty as Jen was. The museum had for years been firmly top of her “Copenhagen Trip” list, a list Lydia had inexplicably never asked to see in spite of planning this hen-do.

“We’ll disturb your homage,” they insisted and suggested meeting up again two hours later. Jen suggested four, allowing for travel time, in accordance with her VisitCopenhagen app. The others immediately and unanimously agreed. Jen suspected their hangovers were pushing them away from the more cultural pursuits. There had been some lively bars just over the bridge from the hotel Lydia had booked for them; a converted boat moored in the harbour that ran through the city. They might have visited one too many. Not that Jen was going to let a seething hangover stop her. She knocked some paracetamol back with Berocca and ventured out while the others psyched themselves for their shopping with more sleep. Scarfing down a kanelsnegl cinnamon swirl as she beelined through the streets, Jen considered how ridiculous this hen-do was. But then, if it helped Lydia come to terms with things …

The red-brick brewery building was everything Jen had hoped for. Its location on the wharf was impressive, and while actual beer production had expanded out to the suburbs now, there were still parts of the business running from the majestic old buildings, along with the museum. It was exactly as she’d imagined a nineteenth-century factory to look, but without the smog-billowing chimneys. The cobbles remained, as did the grand wooden gates with their carved Kronegaard crown emblem at the entrance. Walking through them caused her to pause and run a hand across them with a lament for something beyond her reach. She shook off the thoughts, keen for nothing to spoil this, and took a brisk look around to check no one had seen her wobble. Apparently not, and thankfully nobody was batting an eyelid at her attire either. Lydia had packed her a weekend bag of charity shop wonders, including the purple sequined Converse knock-offs on her feet. They garishly complemented the yellow peasant blouse and elastic-waisted orange gypsy skirt. Her office clothes had mysteriously vanished during the night. Copenhageners, who had designer styling nailed and exclusively wore black and grey, were clearly used to all sorts from visitors.

As she followed the course of the displays with the Chinese tourists and the English stag parties, the story of Kronegaard unfolded, from way back in the 1800s when Henrik Krone started brewing in his home and then expanded to his outbuilding. Jen couldn’t help but feel a link with this man. He’d then started selling to the inn at the end of his street and within fifty years was the biggest exporter of lager on the planet. Hello global domination. And here was the thing that surprised her: disparaging as she might – regularly – be about Kronegaard beer being unexciting blandness for the masses, once, way back, Henrik had been a craftsman. He’d developed a beer people liked and would buy, he’d been a hobbyist like her.

Jen emerged, having sampled more than she perhaps should have, utterly swept up the story; the humble beginnings, and the drama of the choices that had to be made, the holding onto standards and the compromising of principles. Surely there had to be a TV mini-series there? It had all the ingredients. Not that the family had done badly, not by a long shot. They were the next step to royalty now, and certainly well entrenched in those circles; regular private dinner guests at the palace as friends, not just as captains of industry at the state bashes. The family had become celebrities and icons of how a sound work-ethic could get you places. Jen was sure she detected PR spin in the museum boards, but that was marketing, wasn’t it?

“All beered out?” Lydia asked as she met them for a late lunch. The restaurant was very old and purported to serve the best smørrebrød open sandwiches in the city. Jen’s was a roast beef on rye bread extravaganza, loaded with yellow remoulade, pickled cucumber and crunchy onions. (Lydia had had a eureka moment at that – “They’re crunions, Jen,” she’d hooted, passing Jen a second schnapps – or snaps as the Danes called it – from the waitress, ready to be downed in one, “you can call the crocheted tampons Crampons!” Jen had ignored her, unwilling to let work taint her weekend of joy.)

“It was culture, Lyds. And yes thanks. It was unbeerlievable.” Lydia gave her a flick for that one. “You should have come. You could smell centuries of hops and malt.”

Initially on reaching the others, sitting at the pavement table, Jen had resumed her slightly braced stance. She’d expected them to crack open the nightmare hen accessories any second, but nothing had happened – not even willy-straws in their drinks. In fact, her mad clothes aside, the four of them were having a lovely time, chatting and continuing their normal banter. No one mentioned the wedding (which was turning out to be the norm as nothing had happened on that front in the last week, given both she and Robert had been madly busy.) The general consensus was also that it was a bloody good thing Ava and Zara hadn’t been able to make this trip either. Lydia was still stubbornly insisting she’d already booked the tickets by the time Jen had given her the dates memo and Jen conveniently chose not to call bullshit. In the interest of not hurting feelings, by which Jen meant not raising two she-devils, they all readily agreed to keep this trip secret.

“What happens in ‘hagen, stays in ‘hagen,” Lydia tried with a smutty wink, but the others were adamant it didn’t work as well as Vegas. Jen prayed there wouldn’t be any strip clubs involved later. And that was another thing; she had no idea what the plan for later was and that never sat well with her. The others didn’t appear as concerned by this as she did. Thankfully their Copenhagen Card travel passes came with an app, and she started paging madly through the screens, the snaps now making her feel slightly light-headed.

“Put the app away, Attison,” Max growled, “we’re in Lydia’s capable hands.”

“What? Really?” Jen couldn’t hide her dismay. There were things she wanted to see and only two days in which to see them. She’d cobbled together an emergency list on her phone during the flight, but she had a full Copenhagen plan on her laptop at home. Other people did that, didn’t they, devising fantasy trip itineraries? Sort of mood-boarding, but in words and lists.

Lydia disregarded the dismay. “My hands are very capable, Jen,” she insisted, slurring slightly. Clearly beer and snaps in the sunshine was having its effect. “I can give you a list of guys who can vouch for that.”

“Sometimes, Lydia, you say things I’d instantly like to unhear. That was one of them.” The bill being paid, Jen figured it was time to move on. “What’s next?” At her best in a proactive role, Jen concluded if she couldn’t be the one deciding what they saw, at least she could take a role in making sure they got there.

“Seriously, where are we going?” Jen asked again, after thirty minutes of seemingly aimless wandering through the streets. Her own itinerary, had Lydia only asked her for it, had everything for a weekend break broken down hour by hour. There was a glass-topped boat tour around the canals, trips up spiralling church towers, dinner in Tivoli Gardens which had inspired Walt Disney to start his theme parks.

“Somewhere.” Lydia was being annoyingly obtuse in answering her questions.

“I’m sure we just passed the Round Tower. That was on my list.” Jen waved her phone at Lydia. “No stairs all the way up, just a winding ramp, so the king could stay on his horse to the observatory at the top.”

“Lazy arse,” Alice said, still walking, “we’re not encouraging that sort of thing.”

Jen threw a small hissy-fit insisting she had “Bridal rights”, until the others relented.

Never had the seventeenth century tower been scaled so quickly, nor the view of the city’s rooftops, towers and entwined-dragon-tail’ed spires admired so briefly. To be fair, the height wasn’t conducive to the amount of booze in her belly. Hoofing back down, getting dizzy with the perpetual turn, the others acknowledged the lack of stairs as a boon. Alice reckoned all olde worlde towers show be retro-fitted with no stairs. The snaps was definitely having its moment.

Back on the street, Jen was keen to know the next port of call. “Is it something on my list?” she asked, brandishing the screen in Max’s face. Max would give her a sensible answer.

“Relax, Jen. You’ll see.” Well, how was that helpful?

At the next corner Alice and Max ducked into a grocers while Jen sat with Lydia on a bench in the shade.

“Leg all right?”

“S’fine,” Lydia answered, head thrown back, eyes closed, enjoying the sun on her face.

“We can stop more often if you need to.” Lydia had her everyday leg on – a micro-prosthetic; a far more robotic looking piece of kit, its shiny metal pylon connecting the socket and foot. While she wore her cosmesis – her “fake leg” cosmetic prosthesis – on dates and if wearing skirts to the office, Lydia rarely hid her prosthesis and today was wearing shorts.

“Jen? Stop fussing. I’m fine. Try doing what I’m doing, it’s lovely.” Jen looked at her sister. As far as she could see she wasn’t doing anything. She took a look at her watch. It was nearly five. Touristy things would be closing soon and here they were dawdling. Jen really hoped they weren’t just killing time before Tivoli Gardens opened. The mid-city park and funfair was the thing Lydia seemed most fired up about and while Jen was keen to eat in one of the many restaurants there, she drew a line at the fairground rides. Rollercoasters were beyond her comfort zone. That kind of control relinquishing was impossible. Even for kicks. She wondered if she’d played her “Bridal rights” card too early. With this hen-do being Lydia’s “domain”, she doubted she had any rights of veto.

For want of anything else to do, Jen scrolled through the pictures she’d taken at the Kronegaard museum, especially those of the main building. They made her feel slightly melancholy. She’d once been about start work in a place like that, to be part of that industry. It felt a world away and a lifetime ago. The feeling made her lean back and close her eyes just like her sister.

“Wake up, you lazers,” Alice commanded, giving Jen a light kick to the foot, “hurry up or we’ll be late.” She and Max stood in front of them with two bulging carrier bags. Seriously, thought Jen, this group behaved unlike any tourists she’d experienced before. They weren’t bothered with guidebooks or visiting the obvious sights. They were NOT doing it properly.

Surveying the little GoBoat in front of them, Jen wasn’t convinced. It was like a blue plastic bath toy, except grown-up sized, with a solar-cell motor and a picnic table bang in the middle. She’d seen groups pootling along the canals in these, all having a cheery time with their food and drinks in the sunshine. Seeing other people in them was one thing, actually venturing out in one herself was another thing entirely.

Thankfully, Max was up for driving it. She’d once spent a school trip on a narrow-boat and could at least steer the thing. Meanwhile, Alice and Lydia gleefully unloaded the bags, and suddenly their table was adorned with snacks and beers. Trying a bottle of Mikkeller, Jen was touched they’d sought out local indie beers. They knew her so well, and all of a sudden she realised the joy of a hen-do. It was time away with the women most precious to you, who knew you best and who had your happiness at heart. She swallowed the lump in her throat and whacked her sunglasses over her eyes so the others would be none the wiser.

Their boat was launched from the jetty by a baby-faced attendant and they commenced their route into the canals. Begrudgingly, Jen conceded this was a fine way to see the city, puttering along between the old buildings with beers in hand, hooting and faking echoes as they passed under low bridges. Crossing the harbour got a bit choppy, but they’d necked a couple of bottles by then, so nobody panicked. Instead they cheerily waved at the tourists in the glass-topped tour boats, at the cyclists on the bike bridge and at the commuters on the yellow water buses. And there was singing. Any song they could remember with a water theme was mauled by their astonishing lack of musical talent. Jen couldn’t remember the last time she’d sung. School perhaps. Dreadful as it might be on the ears, she wondered if it wasn’t actually rather good for the soul.

Following the map, Max steered them into the calmer waters of the Christianshavn canal where tall colourfully-painted houses lined the streets on either side and boats of all kinds, from small yachts to hydrangea-laden houseboats, were moored.

“They modelled this part of the city on Amsterdam, you know,” Jen said, dreamily. The warmth of the day and the beer had sloughed the efficiency off Jen’s sightseeing needs. She was feeling quite idle now and more surprisingly, she was rather enjoying it.

“Who’s they?” asked Alice, who was leaning into Max, face to the sun.

“The King. Christian, I think, or Frederik.” She’d seen this on a BBC4 documentary. All Danish kings were alternately called one or the other since the 1500’s, which had struck her as rather tidy. “Duh,” she slapped herself on the forehead, “must have been a Christian, he named it after himself.” But annoyingly she couldn’t remember which one had established this gorgeous part of the city and in her tipsiness, it suddenly seemed imperative to know. She dug out her phone and started swiping to locate her Copenhagen app.

“Put the phone away, Jen,” Lydia murmured, “we can look it up when we get home. Just enjoy it.” She was laid back along the side of the boat, sun bathing. Her prosthetic lay discarded at her side, the socket liner next to it, leaving her scarred skin free to the warm air. She seemed in a state of bliss.

“Won’t take a second,” Jen insisted.

“Seriously, Jen. It’ll keep.” Without opening her eyes, Lydia tried to swat the phone aside but misjudged both her aim and velocity.

The phone flew from Jen’s hand into the canal.

Heads from the surrounding homes and boats turned towards the ensuing squawking. Jen was instantly hanging over the side trying to reach the phone which currently floated on the surface but was beginning to take in water and start its descent into the murky depths. Jen saw her whole life descending before her.

“Nooooooooooo.”

Max thankfully cut the engine, but they were drifting nonetheless, necessitating Jen to stretch further than was comfortable as she willed her fingertips longer. This could not be happening.

Suddenly a small net appeared in her field of vision, deftly scooping the phone up. Thank god. Jen’s eyes followed the attached stick up to the deck of a long black barge moored to the quayside. On the deck, her eyes met with a pair of bare feet, travelled up the blond-haired legs to baggy navy cargo shorts, via the bare torso, to, wow, back to the torso because ripped, and then reluctantly further on to the face.

“Well, hello,” Jen heard Lydia say in a salacious tone entirely inappropriate to the urgency of the moment. “Hottie alert.”

He was clearly a Scandi; straw blond hair, blue eyes and very tall from what Jen could see from her contorted position. There wasn’t time to consider what he made of them … of her. She needed to rescue the phone. Who knew how much water had got in? She stretched for it, but they’d drifted further, and even as he scampered to the end of his boat and hung off it himself, they couldn’t reach. Lydia held onto Jen as she leaned herself out beyond what felt logistically possible or sensible.

“I can meet you further along the quay,” he called. And Jen was about to say yes, that was a marvellous idea, when Max decided to restart the engine. The jolt sent Jen’s momentum forwards, and surprised, Lydia didn’t have a firm enough grip on Jen’s hips. Aided by the high nylon content of her skirt on the smooth plastic, Jen sailed headlong into the water like a liner descending the slipway on her maiden voyage.

Coughing and spluttering Jen surfaced and took a moment to gain her bearings between the barge and her GoBoat – which seemed to be moving away in the opposite direction.

“I don’t know how to reverse, Jen!” Max shouted. Looking around, Jen saw the canal was too narrow for Max to simply circle the boat. A horn blared from behind her as a tour boat made its approach. The man on the barge shouted for her to grab the net. She didn’t need telling twice and she felt herself being pulled towards him. Once she’d grabbed onto the barge, the net was pulled up and a hand grasped hers before she was yanked up to lie like a flapping fish on the hot deck.

The first thing she checked, as her cheek dripped on the tarred felting, was that her phone was safely aboard. Turning her head then to the canal, she saw the GoBoat, with the three other girls watching them. They weren’t looking particularly worried. More amused, in fact.

“Keep her!” Lydia called from the back of the disappearing boat. “She’s staying at the boat hotel.” Looking up, Jen saw him nod, clearly understanding where she meant. “Jen! We’ll be in Tivoli if you want to join us for the rides. Don’t worry, it’s on the itinerary!”

Jen stared aghast as it dawned on her that along with taking the mick, they really weren’t stopping. It appeared, primarily by the enormous grin on Lydia’s face, that her hens were abandoning her, sopping wet in bad clothing, in the hands of a topless stranger. That was NOT normal hen-do practice either.

The chill of a breeze hit the back of her thighs at approximately the same moment she registered the sodden orange fabric Lydia was waving at her. Apparently, Lydia had made a final grab for her, and hung onto her skirt.

Ah bugger.

Chapter 8

She wasn’t sure she could style this out.

“Yes, so, hello,” she mumbled, shuffling around to sit on her bottom, obscuring her knickers and unpeeling the wet peasant blouse from her skin. Bloody, bloody Lydia.

“Hello,” he replied. His voice had a highly amused tone to it. “Your friends seem to have left you …”

Jen looked back at the canal. The boat had turned a corner and gone. “Those women are not my friends. Those women are dead to me,” Jen said deadpan, “especially the one I live with and who calls herself my sister.” It made him smile and she didn’t feel so pathetic.

No longer flailing in the water or on the deck, she took a proper look at him. Aside from the blondness, his face was an impressive construction of planes and angles, and he had that fine layer of stubble, more style than laziness. His shortish hair was rebelling, but against what, she had no idea, and the complete package was what she’d class as Exquisite. However, it was his eyes which had her fixed. They were a soft cornflower blue and calmly focused on her. Which brought her consciousness back to her own face, which she was sure looked bleeding awful. She gave her cheeks a quick swipe in the hope of clearing any running mascara. Alice Cooper wasn’t a look she was going for.

He looked her up and down, but with concern as opposed to a leer. “Would you like some dry clothes?” Yes, so he had just suggested she get her kit off, but it hadn’t felt untoward, more like common sense. He grabbed a folded fleece blanket from a garden chair perched on the deck and handed it to her. “I think I can find a t-shirt and some shorts.” He nodded towards a set of glass doors, which Jen supposed to be the galley and wrapping the blanket around her middle, followed as he led the way. He stopped abruptly, causing her almost to walk into him as he turned.

“I’m Yakob,” he said. There was the merest hint of an accent, but really only just.

“I’m Jen.”

“It’s great to meet you, Jen,” he said with a smile. It was a friendly smile; he had nice teeth, with one slightly crooked incisor which she particularly liked. Jen was quite happy with flawed perfection. Especially in lieu of those eyes. Being a realist, Jen knew she’d be scouring Well, Honestly!’s Pantone reference book until she found its match. She had plans for that blue. “It was nice of you to drop in.”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “That’s very funny, Yakob.” He laughed lightly, as he moved on again towards the galley, picking up her phone as they passed. A small piddle of water poured from it, and Jen tried not to sob.

Apparently she’d just walked into a magazine spread. Think designer apartment, minimalist, white walled, but with the smooth curves of the ship’s hull to soften the starkness. The floor was covered in a pale wood and all the soft furnishings were in various greys, right down to the soft wool blanket hanging over the side of the wooden-framed sofa. Aside from a black cast iron wood-burner, every piece of furniture was modern, but it worked with the old walls. Jen knew she shouldn’t be surprised: she’d been seeing it all day around the city – modern and vintage design blended together with ease to give the city a guise of being comfortable in its own skin. Here, in his home, it appeared obscenely smart while still being unspeakably cosy. And it all looked so infuriatingly effortless.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Makes my place look like a charity shop.” Years of curation by two floundering girls, desperate to hang on to every scrap their parents had ever touched, had rendered their home a showcase of shabby chic, with numerous projects they’d started but not quite finished. This place made her embarrassed about it. She so needed to sort it out when she got home.

He’d walked into a room while she stood gobsmacked in the centre of the lounge area. Considering it was a boat, the space was still bright and airy owing to the full length of the ceiling being bisected by one long strip of glass, showing the early evening blue sky above along with glimpses of the tallest buildings on the canal side.

“That’s amazing,” Jen breathed.

“I wanted to have a feature window along the end wall,” he explained from the room beyond, “so I could look out at the canal, but then the tourist boats would also be looking in. So we did this instead. It’s very pretty at night too with the lights from the houses. I have blinds if I don’t want them to see in.” Jen’s mind wandered to what Yakob might be doing at night that he didn’t want the neighbours seeing. She felt some heat rise in her face. Dear God, what was the matter with her? She wasn’t normally prone to inappropriate thoughts like this.

Blushing and flustered, she hustled to the pristine white and chrome kitchen. It was smart and functional rather than an ostentatious showpiece. A narrow window in the wall gave her a view up onto the quay and cobbles. The whole space had her enchanted and amazed, not least because he was a bloke and this place was immaculate. “We? That explains the tidiness. You’re married?” She thought it was a fair question, then checked herself with another blush – she was an uninvited guest and a complete stranger at that, it was none of her business.

“Ha! No. No wife, no husband, no children,” he insisted, walking back out. She did her very best to keep her eyes on his face, not on his abs, but some things in life are tough. “I meant the architect and me. It’s tidy because I’m not here very often. I’ve left you a towel and some clothes. You can use the shower in there. The canal water isn’t the cleanest.”

The thought of a shower was highly appealing – until she realised she was going to be naked in a stranger’s home. She tried to suppress her eye goggle: the Scandies were so much more relaxed about their bodies and she didn’t want to come across as a prude.

“Great, thanks,” she managed, trying to sound as if she de-kitted in people’s houseboats all the time.

He handed her his phone. “Text your sister, let her know you’re safe.” Jen looked at her own phone, a small skirt of water surrounding it on the counter top. She appreciated his tact at this difficult time.

“Am I safe?” she asked, looking at him. Man, those eyes. She’d meant it to be jokey, but realised it came out slightly flirty and Jen did not generally deal in flirty.

A slow smile spread across Yakob’s face making her suddenly scuttle off into the bedroom, to send her short, but not remotely sweet thoughts to Lydia and to take that shower – in this case a cold one.

He wasn’t in the main room when she came out, damp clothes in hand. He’d found her a pair of drawstring shorts and a Kronegaard promotional t-shirt to wear, it’s huge logo now emblazoned right across her chest along with an image of the iconic green bottle uncapped and spraying foamy beer from the top. While advertising their wares was the last thing she wanted to do, requesting alternative clothing seemed rude and she already wasn’t feeling on her strongest footing.

Creaking from outside told her he’d headed back out on deck. Following him, she saw a drying rack was optimistically primed in the setting sunlight and at the end of the deck, feet dangling off the side above the water sat her host, a cooler box and a bottle opener at his side. He looked back and sent her a beaming smile. It completely took her mind off wearing his clothes. She’d kept her underwear, having hung them off the open porthole handle as she’d showered. Thank god for the minimal fabric in underwear. For once she didn’t curse the extortionate pennies to fabric ratio.

“Hello again,” she said, registering with a little dismay that he’d pulled on a short sleeved shirt in her absence.

“Hello again.” There was that smile as he looked her over, assessing her as she wore his clothes. She was just going to have to accept he was amused by her. Shuffling aside he made space for Jen to join him in his twilight sun spot. She noted that he hadn’t done the buttons on his shirt. Well, it was a warm evening, so totally understandable and Jen approved.

“Beer?” he asked, taking his phone back as she offered it to him.

“Love one,” she replied, following his nod to the cooler. There was a range of bottles inside, all Kronegaard she noticed, but then she supposed it was their home territory, so she could make allowances. She picked one in a brown bottle to match his. It wasn’t one she’d seen before. The only Kronegaard beers she knew came in their famous green bottles.

She settled into her spot next to him and at first sat in awkward silence. He didn’t appear to feel awkward however. He seemed completely relaxed, simply enjoying the setting sun and calm of the ending day. Gradually, she tried to follow his lead on the relaxation as they sank the first of their beers. A couple of kayakers paddled past them and a few more GoBoats, the passing picnic tables increasingly stocked with evening drinks. Finally, ready to talk again, she pointed to a Tupperware box at his side which he’d regularly move to be directly in the receding sunlight.

“What’s that?”

“Your phone,” he said. “I’ve switched it off, removed the SIM and put all of it in rice to draw out the water. Keeping it warm helps too. In a couple of days, you might get lucky and have it working again.”

“Really?” She’d been trying to hold onto her grief until she was back in her hotel room, her panic locked away in her head until then. “Does that work?”

“Did for me when I dropped mine in a toilet. Worth a try.”

Delighted there was a plan afoot she held up her bottle to clink it with him.

“Skaal,” he said. It sounded like Skorl, and she returned it to the best of her ability, which made him smile again. He obviously found her entertaining, and not generally having that role when in company, Jen didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“So Jen, is this your first time in Copenhagen?”

“It is,” she said with a nod, “it’s been on my wish list for years, but you know, ‘life gets in the way’.”

“And other than the underside of a GoBoat, what have you seen?”

“Well, I did have a to-see list on my …” she barely managed to point at the Tupperware box, feeling a lump beginning to form in her throat but reining it in so as not to completely overreach her prat quota for the day by crying in front of him, “however, as you’ve seen, my travel-mates are a rather unruly bunch and do not respect lists and planning.” His chuckle was somewhat disconcerting. Clearly he thought she was being funny and actually she wasn’t, not about the value of planning. Robert would have been nodding with her. Perhaps Danes were different. She gave him the benefit of the doubt. “I had a detailed plan on my laptop, but … well, I had to cobble together a replacement on the plane.” She reeled off the points of interest she could remember, which was all of them, probably mangling the pronunciation of some.

“That is very … comprehensive,” he said. She couldn’t quite work out whether he was impressed or amused.

“Well, if you only have a couple of days, you need to be efficient,” Jen said seriously. Some people – Lydia, Alice and Max for example – apparently didn’t get that.

“And what about free time?” he asked. His eyes had a twinkle to them.

She didn’t know what he meant. “The whole weekend is free time. It’s … well it’s the weekend.” That was the same in Danish, surely? “Weekend” was one of those universal words, wasn’t it?

“Yes,” he said, “but I do not hear any time allocated to simply walking through the streets, along the canals, looking and breathing.” He gave a light wave to their surroundings.

Jen could only blink at him. It made him laugh. “I am teasing you, Jen.” She released a slightly unnerved laugh. Other than Lydia, no one ever teased her. “It is a good list of things to do,” he said placating her, “but perhaps you should not walk too fast between the sights. You might miss some lovely things; the buildings, the hidden courtyards, quirky fountains, the balconies.”

Well yes, that did make sense, she thought, scanning the canal in front of them and the quaysides. There was lots to see when you took a moment to look. Tall hollyhocks in the cobbled doorways, carved wooden double doors, bicycles meandering along everywhere. Perhaps, she should assign some meandering time in her numerous trip lists at home. She was pretty sure though that breathing would come naturally.

“But most importantly,” she continued, keen to move him on from the teasing and regain her footing, “I managed to see the Kronegaard museum this morning.”

He gave her an odd look. “Kronegaard? Really?” He pronounced it the Danish way, krorn-gorr, rolling the kr.

“Oh yes. I’ve always wanted to go. The guide book said it would take two hours, but I took three. It was wonderful. Have you been?”

“I have,” he replied, his eyebrows slightly raised.

“Are you from Copenhagen?” she asked.

“Born and bred.” It struck her as a British phrase, but then from what she’d experienced so far all the Danes’ English was excellent. “And what did you think of the museum?”

And then she was off; waxing lyrical about how inspiring it had been and how the corporate story had changed her perception, not of the brand per se, but of the business choices. She gushed about Henrik, his hard work and his legacy. Mouth going ten to the dozen, her eyes kept flicking to his face, noting how his expression kept changing as she shared her opinions.

“You’ve been lots of times, haven’t you?” she said.

“How could you tell?”

“Your face. While I described it all, your face was this mix of pride and concentration. Pride at the bits I liked and concentration at the bits I didn’t. It was interesting to watch. You could have got all defensive at the criticism.”

He shrugged. “It’s good to hear what visitors think. I guess when you come from a small city, in a very small country, you do feel a huge sense of pride in a success story. And the criticism? Well, there is nothing to learn by getting angry.”

“I think you Copenhageners have lots to be proud of,” she said, nodding out at the current view.

“Do you recognise the barge?” he asked. “It’s one of the old Kronegaard delivery barges, it took beer across the city’s canals, or brought in the raw supplies.” He looked up at Jen, his eyes dancing. “Once it would have reeked of beer. In some spaces I can still smell the hops.”

“Really? I saw pictures of them in the museum, I just hadn’t made the connection.”

“So are you a Kronegaard fan?” he asked. He did a very good job of making his interest appear genuine. Lord knew she was rarely faced with any when she talked to her friends about her passion for beer. They were happy just to drink it.

“Ha! No.” Was it wrong to enjoy the surprise on his face? It clearly wasn’t the answer he was expecting after her gushing about the museum. Jen took another swig of her beer. “From what I saw today, I like the Krone family, their tenacity, their vision, I’m just not a fan of what the brand has become. It’s just another conglomerate, chomping its way through smaller brewers and plundering the market for the biggest share. There’s no heart in that. It’s nothing personal against the family, although before today I figured it was all corporate-owned now. One of the boards in the museum said the family are still major shareholders.”

His expression had turned somewhat more concentrated. She liked that look too.

“It’s a huge family, many of them have jobs there.”

“Well, what’s family for, if they can’t land you a job?” she said, blithely.

“No, they all have to be fully qualified in some field before they are let in,” he said, before adding, “from what I understand.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, leaning back on her elbow.

“It’s an established family, Jen, you can’t run a business like that, or uphold the standards and credibility in society like they have, without enforcing some tough rules.” His voice was slightly tight and it made her look up at him. “I know someone who works there.” Fair enough.

“So, the boat?” she prompted him, eager to get him back to his barge story, because she liked the way he talked about it. As she’d hoped his face lit up again as he recounted how he’d got a tip-off the brewery was clearing out an old dock property and a couple of barges were due to be scrapped.

“I fell in love with this one and over three years spent weekends working on her, finally finding a suitable mooring spot and moving in.”

“Wait a minute, you mean you did all this? Yourself?”

“Well, no,” he said, which sounded more likely. “The hull repairs needed a boat builder, but the water-proofing and the building and the decorating, that was me. And some friends helped, though some were more useful than others. Some I’d make sit in the floor with a beer and a guitar, so they kept their hands off any tools.”

“You’re obviously very creative,” she said. She was still blown away by the interior.

“Ha! I don’t know about that.” He stroked his hand fondly on the deck as he spoke. “It was a labour of love, though. I’ve had my happiest times here.”

“Oh Lord, it’s some secret shag-pad, isn’t it?” Jen asked, the beer and the encroaching night curbing her filters. He laughed.

“Secret yes, shag-pad no. I just travel a lot and I’m not in Copenhagen so often. I wanted somewhere special to come to.”

“Oh right.”

“And I haven’t got an ex-wife hidden in the suburbs with numerous children, if that is what you’re thinking. This is it. This is me.” He held his hands out from his sides, palms up. Jen was touched by the gesture which was both humble and offering at the same time. And for some reason she was pleased about the no wife thing.

His phone dinged. Glancing at it, he barked a laugh and showed it to her. Lydia had replied to her stroppy text. The message read Wish you were beer! It took a moment for Jen to clock it was a selfie. Lydia’s mouth was open in a scream, and yet her eyes weren’t filled with terror. Her hair was also standing upright. It made no sense, until Jen saw that the background was the ground.

“Oh dear God,” she gasped. Lydia was taking selfies upside down on very high fairground rides. Just the thought made her stomach turn. A second message dinged in to ask whether Jen was joining them in Tivoli. Jen shuddered.

“Would you like to stay for dinner, Jen?” Yakob laughed. “I was planning to get sushi delivered.”

In her head it was a no brainer. Staying here, calmly enjoying the evening on a beer barge was a million times more appealing than dodging hellish rides with her traitorous sister. Normally, she’d have reluctantly gone to keep an eye on Lydia, but considering they’d ditched her, she figured Alice and Max could have the pleasure. However, there was a nagging in her conscience that perhaps newly engaged women shouldn’t be having dinner with strange men. She questioned whether Robert would see it as a necessary part of thanking a good Samaritan. Possibly an old, wizened Samaritan, but not this buff one next to her.

Jen weighed it up. Technically, staying a bit longer, having some food could be classed as part of getting over her canal shock. He was still Samaritan-ing her and such kindness shouldn’t be snubbed, in her book. It wasn’t like it was a date, which would be a complete no-no. And of course her clothes were still drying, so it made sense to stay until she could take them with her. That was just practical.

She took a moment of looking him square in the face before she gave her answer. “Sounds great,” she said. It was what Lydia would have wanted her to do, and Lydia was in charge this weekend after all, not her.

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