‘Shows how wrong you can be about a lad then, doesn’t it?’
‘Mmmm. Maybe we’re learning far too much about one another tonight.’
‘We’ll never do that,’ Joel stroked her fingers.
Mitzi, feeling the lust stirring and the tingle starting, snatched her hand away, scattering a sparkling dust of sequins across the table, and quickly picked up her fork again. ‘Go on then – tell me what you did to your wife and your brother.’
‘Well, having access to my brother’s house while they
were whooping it up for three weeks in Florida – he forgot to take my key back – I, er, broke eggs under the floorboards nearest to the radiators in their bedroom and sewed prawns into the hems on all their curtains. Oh, and I put kippers in their airing cupboard too and left plates of really niffy cat food all over the place then I turned the central heating up full bore and—’
Mitzi giggled. ‘And you called me vindictive! What happened?’
‘Oh, they spent a fortune on having the place fumigated for months. Never really got rid of the pong. They had to sell the house eventually but it took for ever and they lost a lot of money on the deal. I reckon they knew it was me, but as they’d caused a lot of trouble within the family by getting together, they never actually pointed the finger.’
‘Here’s to sweet revenge, then,’ Mitzi smiled, raising her glass to him. ‘And let’s hope it’s a one-off for both of us. Oh, damn …’
‘Mitzi!’ Troy undulated across the restaurant followed by a besotted-looking Tyler. ‘How gorgeous you look! That purple top looks wonderful with your hair! You are one sexy lady!’
He’d kissed her passionately before she could move.
‘Hey,’ Joel laughed. ‘Lay off my woman.’
Troy, looking slightly sheepish, let Mitzi go and kissed Joel instead.
Lorenzo’s was riveted.
‘’ere!’ Fredo, Lorenzo’s third-generation owner, maîtred’, chef, meeter and greeter, wine buff and chucker-out, trundled through the designer decor. ‘Nuff of that! Bugger off! I’m as liberal as the next man, but you can’t force your attentions on people like that. Not in ’ere, you can’t.’
Troy, looking appalled, muttered profuse and garbled apologies. Tyler giggled. Fredo, who looked more like a bouncer than someone who could cook up the most delicate dishes and embellish things with fairy wisps of spun sugar,
grabbed both of them by the shoulder and ushered them towards the door.
‘Goodnight, Mitzi!’ Troy called cheerily as Fredo ejected him into the fog. ‘Lovely to see you!’
Tyler, close behind, was still trying to hold his hand.
Fredo, making sure they’d skipped off into the pea-souper, held the door open as Lu and Shay came in. Mitzi gave a little groan.
‘Let’s order our zabagliones quickly,’ she muttered. ‘Much as I love Lu and Shay, I really don’t want to share the rest of this evening with them.’
‘Neither do I. But then they probably don’t want to spend it with us either.’
Lu and Shay, looking very animated, rushed towards them.
‘Hi, Mum. Hello, Joel. What a coincidence,’ Lulu beamed. ‘Are you celebrating as well?’
Lu, Mitzi thought, looked as though she was lit up from inside. It was lovely to see her so happy. And looking very pretty despite the Patagonian refugee ensemble. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled, and the damp fog had teased all the braids into little higgledy-piggledy corkscrews.
‘Not celebrating as such, no,’ Joel said, having given the ice cream order to their waiter. ‘More experimenting. Or at least, Mitzi was. I’m just an interested observer.’
Shay laughed. ‘Seems to be the male role when you’re involved with the Blessings women, doesn’t it? Like being caught up in some sort of surreal whirlwind.’
Over the zabagliones and in spite of the waiter’s attempts to show Lulu and Shay to their table, Lu told them about being sort of engaged, becoming an RSPCA inspector, and about Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, while Mitzi recounted the story of the Mistletoe Kisses.
There was much jollity and laughter and hugging and congratulations all round.
‘But if you don’t mind,’ Shay said when things had
quietened down a bit, ‘we’d really like to celebrate by ourselves this evening. We won’t be making the engagement official until we can afford to do something about it, and we certainly don’t want to steal Doll and Brett’s thunder. So, as we’ve got loads to talk about, I hope you won’t be offended if we don’t share your table?’
‘Not at all!’
‘No, of course. We completely understand.’
‘Ah, how sweet,’ Mitzi said mistily, as Lu and Shay, totally engrossed in each other, were shown to their table in a silvery sparkling alcove. ‘I couldn’t be more pleased. She really deserves some happiness and he’s a fantastic man. He’ll be so good for her.’
‘He’s a lucky bloke, too. Lu’s gorgeous, despite the dippiness, with a huge heart. They’ll be great together.’ Joel licked both sides of his spoon. ‘So? Both your daughters happily settled before the end of the year, your witchy powers more than adequately endorsed, your Baby Boomers all occupied, Tarnia Snepps almost a bosom buddy … what’s next on the Mitzi Blessing agenda?’
His eyes were dark across the table. The myriad lights twinkled on the diamond ear-stud.
Mitzi dragged her gaze from his and looked across Lorenzo’s again to where Lu and Shay were alternately toasting each other in Asti and kissing. The atmosphere was sultry, the darkness illuminated only by the silver sparkles and the flames of a hundred candles, scented with herbs and red wine, highly charged with lust.
She scooped up the last of her ice cream and finished her solitary glass of Chianti. ‘Shall we go home?’
First into work as usual, Doll switched on the waiting-room lights and scooped up the post from the mat. The previous day’s fog had melted away, leaving Hazy Hassocks draped in a grey icy dampness. She loved it. It meant the hot flushes were far more bearable.
She left the post on Viv’s desk, checked the answer-phone for urgent overnight molar-agony messages – there weren’t any – and headed for the usual morning ritual of cloakroom to tidy her hair, kitchen to prepare coffee for everyone, and then into the surgery to set it up ready for the first appointment.
She turned on the surgery lights and screamed.
There was a body in the chair.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Joel sat upright, cracking his skull on the overhead drill gantry. ‘Shit!’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Doll gawped at him. Her heart was still beating a tattoo and an imminent hot flush had been instantly quelled by a wave of icy terror. ‘You scared me to death! You look awful. Have you been there all night?’
‘Yeah.’ Squinting in the harsh fluorescent strip lights, Joel eased his feet to the floor and groaned. ‘Don’t ask.’
‘Get real. Of course I’m going to ask. I thought you and Mum were going out last night?’
‘We were. We did,’ Joel winced as he ran his fingers
through the spikes of his cropped hair. ‘We went to Lorenzo’s. We had some great food and a great time and I had more than my fair share of Chianti – and please, please can I have some anti-inflammatories and a bucket of coffee?’
‘Go and use the cloakroom first,’ Doll advised. ‘Stick your head in a basin of cold water. You look truly dreadful. Then I’ll make you some nice strong coffee and sort out the pain relief and you can tell me all about it. We’ve got ages before anyone else comes in. And it’s only Mrs Dobbs and her Duane for matching root canals first. They won’t mind waiting.’
‘I’m not telling you anything.’
‘Oh-yes-you-are.’
Half an hour later, after Joel had regaled her with his version of the whole sorry story, Doll was more confused than ever. True, he had a killer hangover and so might have muddled the facts, but even so.
She’d have to go and see her mother. Mitzi must have had her reasons for behaving the way she had. But what on earth had gone wrong? They were so right for one another. Absolutely perfect. This was just awful.
Joel’s account of the evening’s events simply didn’t make sense. Leaving out the débâcle of the ending of the relationship with Mitzi, where on earth had Shay and Lulu being engaged come into it last night? And Lulu actually getting a job – no, a career – and adopting
three
puppies? And as for the bit about a table load of all-bloke bank managers kissing and groping – well, it was all plainly ridiculous. ‘I think you’re still roaring drunk,’ Doll said. ‘And everything you’ve just told me is an alcohol-induced nightmare. It’ll all become clear later, I’m sure.’
‘It’s crystal clear to me now,’ Joel muttered, downing his third mug of black coffee and doing his tunic top up wrong. ‘Crystal. Christ – how long does it take for this pain relief to kick in?’
‘Twenty minutes. Shall I usher Mrs Dobbs in now? We
really ought to get her local going. Are you up to it?’
Joel nodded and flinched again.
‘Best not let Mrs D or her Duane see your hands shaking when you’re armed with the syringe,’ Doll advised. ‘And you’ve got your mask on upside down. Look, I’ll go to Mum’s at lunchtime on the pretext of talking about wedding stuff. I’ll try really hard to be discreet and find out why she did what she did. Are you sure you didn’t—’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ Joel said sharply. ‘And please don’t cross-question your mother. She made her feelings absolutely clear last night. To quote the celeb pages, your mother and I are no longer an item. Right – wheel in Mrs Dobbs. No, Doll, I mean it. It’s over. Not that it ever really got started. Just as well, really. Go on then – let’s get to work.’
‘You’ve got to be mad!’ Doll sighed in exasperation across Mitzi’s cluttered kitchen table. ‘He’s gorgeous! He’s mad about you! You’re mad about him!’
‘Stop right there. Far too many mads. I don’t know what he’s told you, but we’re not children. We don’t need intervention from our best friend in the playground. Look, love, I made a mistake. It just wasn’t meant to be.’
‘Cobblers!’ Doll snorted through her cup-a-soup, making little orange wavelets lap the sides of the Winnie the Pooh mug. ‘Of course it was meant to be. He’s hungover, miserable and as angry as a wet hen, and look at the state of you! When have you ever, apart from being ill, still been in your dressing gown at lunchtime?’
Mitzi sighed. She hadn’t slept. And not sleeping at fifty-five really took its toll the next morning. It wasn’t like being a teenager where the skin just snapped back into place after a sleepless night. And her head ached and her eyes were gritty and she felt grubby and achy. The sadness was a hard, immovable lump under her ribs. She felt truly awful and knew she looked it, not to mention puffy and grey and jowly.
‘I’m not going into details,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Yes it is,’ Doll gurgled through the remains of the soup. ‘You’re my mum and he’s my employer and my friend. And I like – no, I love you both. Love, mother! Love. Don’t you remember the L word?’
Mitzi laughed bitterly. ‘Only too well. Which is the problem.’
‘Oh, please! Listen to yourself! You’re not going to tell me that because Dad dumped you for Jennifer the Harpy a whole decade ago you’ll never fall in love again? That he was your one and only?’
Mitzi shook her head. She couldn’t tell Doll what had happened the night before. Couldn’t. ‘Let’s just leave it. Your wedding is only a couple of weeks away, Lu’s just got unofficially engaged – surely that’s enough romance for any family to be going on with?’
‘No, it bloody isn’t. You’ve lived your life through us for years. You’ve been ace. You’ve been the best mother in the whole world. Me and Lulu are grown up and sorted. Now it’s your turn to have some fun. Some happiness. Some love.’
‘I’ve got loads of love. I’ve got—’
‘Don’t you dare do that “friends and family and Richard and Judy” routine! Don’t you dare! You know exactly what I mean.’
Mitzi sighed. She knew. ‘Don’t get so agitated, love. I had my reasons. Good reasons. And now we should be talking about the last few things for the wedding …’
‘Sod the wedding!’
Mitzi smiled ruefully. ‘You really should calm down. Your blood pressure will go through the roof.’
‘My blood pressure is fine. I’m fine. The baby’s fine. Brett’s fine. The wedding is planned down to the last infinite detail. We don’t need to discuss the wedding any more. We need to discuss why you and Joel are no longer together.’
‘No we don’t. And we won’t.’
‘Damn me, you’re never usually this adamant,’ Doll sighed, depositing her mug in the dishwasher and gathering her bag and coat together. ‘I blame the Baby Boomers Liberation Movement. And you’re really not going to tell me what went wrong last night, are you?’
‘No. And don’t try and worm it out of Lu, either. She knows nothing about it.’
‘Par for the course. Miss Self-Obsessed is hardly likely to notice, is she? Now if you and Joel had four legs and a pair of waggy tails …’
Mitzi laughed. It sounded raw and scratchy. ‘Please just let it go, Doll, love. I know it’ll be awkward for you working with Joel, but for both our sakes, please don’t subject him to the third degree.’
‘Can’t promise anything,’ Doll said loftily. ‘I’ll just have to see what happens.’
Watching Doll sail down the dripping path and into her car, Mitzi sighed. She really wanted to go to bed, to retire to the bejewelled apricot opulence of her room, pull the duvet over her head, sleep for a week and wake up to forget that the embarrassment of last night had ever happened.
But she couldn’t.
They’d driven home from Lorenzo’s, slowly because of the fog, laughing and talking, with Jimi Hendrix at his most sultry in the background. The evening had been simply wonderful. Perfect. The tingle was still very much there. Just looking at Joel in the cosy cocoon of the car’s dark interior had made Mitzi’s stomach turn liquid with lust.
This happy state had lasted until well after they’d got into the house and lit lamps and poured wine and fed Richard and Judy. Joel had much admired the living room’s Christmas decorations – all old family favourites brought out year after year and awash with memories, none of this trendy colour-co-ordinated designer stuff – and flicked through her CD collection and put a Stones compilation on.