‘You’d better get in that.’
‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’ she said jokingly.
‘If only you knew.’ They pressed their mouths against each other’s, eking out the final moments.
‘Text me to let me know when you’ve got home,’ he told her as she climbed in.
‘I promise.’
He winked and gave her a little salute. The cab pulled off, taking Lizzy away from him.
‘Clapham is it, love?’ the driver asked.
‘Yes please.’ She sat back in the seat.
I miss you already.
Despite having had virtually no sleep all weekend, Lizzy floated into work the next morning. Was there such a thing as cloud ten? Because she definitely felt she’d just rocked up on it.
‘Sweets, you look amazing!’ Bianca exclaimed. ‘Have you been on a spa break?’
‘You could say that,’ Lizzy said smugly, as her text alert went off again. She picked her phone up, expecting another message from Elliot, but it was from Robbie. Lizzy read it and the smile dropped off her face.
I’ve broken up with Hayley. Can I crash on your sofa for a couple of nights?
‘It wasn’t anything I said, was it?’
Robbie looked at his sister. ‘What do you mean?’
‘When I came to stay. All that stuff about Hayley being “The One”.’ Lizzy gave him a rueful grin. ‘I hope I didn’t set the cat amongst the pigeons.’
They were on opposite ends of her couch, their feet tangled up in the middle. The remains of the Thai takeaway Lizzy had got in were on the floor. Unusually for brother and sister, neither had much appetite.
Robbie tucked his hands under his armpits, the way he always did when he was being thoughtful. ‘Not really. I guess you had just articulated what I’d been in denial about. Things started to go really wrong after Hay came back from her spa break. I thought we’d done a pretty good job clearing up, but she went mental about the state the house was in. I mean
really
mental.’
‘Ouch. Drinking her champagne probably didn’t help.’
‘Uh-uh. She started going off on one about our family and said some pretty harsh things …’ Robbie changed the subject diplomatically. ‘I always thought Hayley was a really caring person who liked looking after me, but now I’ve started to realize that she just liked controlling me.’
No shit, Sherlock.
‘How did Hayley react when you told her you were ending it?’
‘At first she cried and cried.’ Her brother looked really upset. ‘Then she got really
cross
, like I’d ruined everything. She kept saying about what people were going to think, and all the Christmas parties we’d been invited to. And our summer holiday to St Lucia in May, she’d booked that months ago. Obviously I said I’d pay for anything so she’s not left out of pocket.’ Robbie sighed. ‘I did think about holding out until May so at least Hayley would have got her holiday, but she would have booked skiing by then. It would have gone on and on.’
‘What are you going to do about the house?’
He rubbed his eyes. ‘I need to get on to a solicitor. I just haven’t been able to face anything like that.’
‘Let me know if I can do anything,’ Lizzy told him. ‘And you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.’
She picked up the wine bottle and refilled their glasses. ‘Are you going to be OK, Robbo?’ she asked. ‘You and Hayley were together a pretty long time.’
‘I think so.’
‘What about Hayley?’
‘Hayley will be all right. In fact,’ he added wryly, ‘I think she’s more upset about having no one to do the Waitrose shop with on a Saturday morning, than she is about losing me.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Lizzy said tactfully.
‘It is. She just wants some bloke who will go along with whatever she says. I’m not knocking her; I was happy to go along with it.’ He plucked at Lizzy’s cushion with the print of the black and white bull dog on it. ‘I’m thirty-two not fifty-two. Turns out I’m not ready for that bad-boy barbecue after all.’
The penny had finally dropped. Lizzy did an inward
Yes!
‘What have Mum and Dad said?’
‘I haven’t told them yet.’ Robbie gave her his big-eyed smile and Lizzy knew what was coming. ‘I was hoping you’d do it for me.’
‘Don’t you think it’s better coming from you?’
‘Please Lizzo, Mum will only go off on one about money and the house.’ Her brother suddenly looked exhausted. ‘I just can’t face her at the moment.’
There were still five weeks to go until the big day but the Spellman house had gone into Christmas lockdown. The kitchen had become a forbidden-food zone.
‘Not those cashew nuts, they’re for Christmas,’ her mother told Lizzy when she went into the cupboard for a snack.
‘A stollen finger?’
‘No, they’re for Lauren’s visit.’
‘At least allow me a cracker.’
‘Not the nice ones, I’m saving them for Christmas.’ Mrs Spellman was sluicing out the coffee percolator. ‘Have the Jacobs if you must.’
Lizzy looked at the sell-by date. ‘They expired in March!’
‘They need eating up then. No, not that pickle.’ Her mother whipped the jar out of her daughter’s hand. ‘That’s for Boxing Day.’
The stuffed olives were out of bounds, as were the Baileys and the amaretto, when Mrs Spellman discovered Lizzy in the drinks cupboard about to have a pre-dinner snifter. The woman was like a tracker dog. Defeated on her quest for contraband, Lizzy wandered through to her dad’s study to find him doing the
Telegraph
sudoku.
‘Mum’s gone mental. I’m not allowed to eat or drink anything!’
‘Try living with her. She’s banned me using any of the quilted toilet roll until Christmas Eve.’ Her dad shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
‘I’m going to get a drink of squash instead,’ Lizzy said. ‘Do you want one?’
‘Careful.’ Mr Spellman looked up from his sudoku. ‘You’d better make sure your mother’s not saving the tap water for Christmas.’
Lizzy had only rung at lunchtime to say she was popping home for dinner, so she joined her parents for heated-up picky bits in the dining room. Mini samosas jostled for attention with cooked sausages and stuffed vine leaves. There was even a pot of Rowntree’s jelly for afters. No wonder her dad was always complaining he had indigestion.
Lizzy was gazing at the schizophrenic selection in front of her when she realized she was being watched. ‘Is everything all right, Lizard?’ her dad asked.
‘Yes, why shouldn’t it be?’
‘It’s just that we don’t often get a midweek visit from you.’ Mr Spellman hesitated. ‘Is everything all right at work?’
Aside from me fiddling the books and being in danger of being sacked for misconduct?
‘Work’s fine,’ she lied.
Her parents exchanged A Look. ‘If you’ve come home to ask for money, I’m afraid the family finances are a bit stretched at the moment,’ her mother said. ‘What with the new boiler and our Holy Land cruise in March.’
‘I haven’t come home to ask for money.’ Lizzy thought about Karen Jones again and felt a bit sick.
There was another heavy silence. Mrs Spellman’s right eyebrow was hovering expectantly.
‘No, Mum,’ Lizzy sighed. ‘I’m not about to come out.’
‘Then what on earth is it? Because as much as we love you, darling, I know you haven’t come all the way out here just out of the goodness of your heart.’
Lizzy took a deep breath. ‘It’s Robbie.’
Her mother’s hand flew to her throat. ‘Is he in trouble?’
‘Yes. And no, depending on how you look at things. He’s finished with Hayley.’
She waited for her parents’ reaction.
‘When was this?’ her mother cried.
‘Last week.’
‘Last week? Why didn’t he say anything?’ Mrs Spellman’s head was swivelling between her daughter and husband like a meerkat’s. ‘He could have at least waited until after Christmas, I’ve only just wrapped up Hayley’s See by Chloé perfume! Thank heavens I kept the receipt.’
Mr Spellman shot his wife a warning look.
‘What
happened
?’ she fretted. ‘He seemed perfectly happy the last time we spoke; they’d just had the new curtains put up in the living room.’
‘I think that’s part of the problem.’ Lizzy looked to her dad for backup. ‘Rob’s not sure he wants to settle down yet.’
‘He should have thought about that before he bought a house with her! Oh Michael, all that money they’ve wasted on that place. I bet that bitch goes for all of it. That’s your grandad’s inheritance money!’
‘Robbie and Hayley are both adults,’ Mr Spellman said reasonably. ‘I’m sure they can sort this out amicably.’ Even so, he did look a bit worried. ‘Poor old Rob, what a blow.’
‘Why didn’t he tell us himself?’ Lizzy’s mum demanded.
‘He probably didn’t want you to start worrying about the house and money,’ her husband told her.
‘Of
course
I’m going to be worried. It’s what mothers do! I’ve got three grown-up children, two of whom are now single!’ Mrs Spellman slumped back in her chair. ‘People are going to think the fault lies with me and your father, that there’s something wrong with our relationship!’
‘Now hang on—’ Mr Spellman started to say.
Lizzy stepped in before her mum totally went off on one. ‘Mum, you don’t want him to stay with Hayley if he’s unhappy, do you?’
‘Of course not.’ Mrs Spellman sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. ‘It’s just that life is one big game to your brother. He bowls through everything without thinking about the consequences.’ She looked a bit cross. ‘I can’t believe he got you to tell us he’d split up with Hayley, he’s bloody useless.’
‘He is useless,’ Lizzy agreed. ‘But if you come down all heavy-handed you’ll only drive him away.’
They sat there in silence for a few moments while her parents digested the news.
‘You may as well eat up, you two,’ her mother told Lizzy and her dad. ‘Before the picky bits get cold.’
‘I might try and give Rob a quick call first.’ Mr Spellman got up and left the table.
‘Robbie will be OK,’ Lizzy told her mum. ‘He always falls on his feet.’
‘I just want you all to be settled and happy.’ She shot Lizzy a look. ‘You never stop worrying about your children, you know. Not even when they’ve grown up and left home.’
Lizzy wisely kept her mouth shut. Announcing that she’d started seeing someone who’d been jilted by his fiancée would just about finish her mother off.
‘So where’s your brother now?’
They were in a tiny restaurant off a cobbled backstreet in Soho. It was impossibly romantic: low ceilings and flickering candlelight and feel-good British grub. Elliot was certainly pulling them out of the bag.
‘He’s staying with a mate for a while, until he and Hayley sort the house out. I think her dad is going to buy Rob out.’ Lizzy gazed out of the window at a billboard poster opposite advertising a club night. ‘I hope it doesn’t drag on for months.’
Elliot refilled their glasses. ‘These things take as long as they take.’
‘How poetic. Did they teach you that at Cambridge?’
Their waiter came over. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, lovely.’ Lizzy smiled. ‘Couldn’t be better.’
He went away again and left them in peace.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Lizzy said. ‘You have to be honest.’
‘That sounds ominous. No, I wasn’t called Ellie in a previous life.’
‘Well, that’s my first question answered.’ Lizzy folded up her napkin and put it on the table. ‘When was the first time, you know, that you felt something? For me, I mean. Was it in the Chinese restaurant?’
‘Earlier,’ he said simply. ‘Obviously we had, er, our run-in over email but when I saw you at the art gallery I sort of fancied you then. Your comment about everyone having their heads up their arses made me smile. I thought to myself:
Here’s a girl who’s got something about her.
’
‘You were still with Amber then,’ Lizzy said pointedly.
Elliot went red. ‘Of course I wouldn’t have acted on anything. Amber and I were already in trouble … not that I’m trying to make excuses …’ He blinked. ‘Perhaps we should move on.’
‘Perhaps we should,’ Lizzy said dryly. She studied Elliot’s face in the candlelight. ‘But you were so
horrible
to me back then. And when we stayed at your mum’s! Bin Laden would have received a warmer welcome.’
‘I behaved appallingly,’ he admitted. ‘I was upset about Amber and angry at myself about the way things had turned out, and then you rocked up out of the blue at the Hall. It totally threw me. I was so embarrassed for you to see me in such a mess, and the house and everything …’
‘You’re telling me. I’m surprised you didn’t chase us off with a shotgun.’
‘That’s because everyone kept bringing Amber up and I didn’t want to talk about it! You all just saw me as this sad charity case, and I couldn’t stand it. I thought the best thing to do was keep out of the way. After you came to talk to me and I’d bitten your head off I sat there for hours plucking up the courage to come and say sorry, but then I heard you all getting drunk in the kitchen. It was probably a good thing,’ he added. ‘Every time I opened my mouth the wrong thing seemed to come out.’ There was a wry smile. ‘In fact, pretty much everything I said to you back then made me want to bang my head against the wall afterwards.’
Would you believe it?
All the time Elliot had been acting like a giant arse towards Lizzy, he was now saying was because he’d had feelings for her. Men were so weird. It was like the boy in the playground who pulled the girl’s pigtails and made her cry because he secretly fancied her.
‘When you tweeted about breaking down nearby I thought it must be fate,’ he admitted.
‘Fate?’ Lizzy feigned shock. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in all that stupid stuff.’
Elliot grinned boyishly. ‘Yeah, well, maybe I do now.’
A warm glow spread through Lizzy that had nothing to do with the sticky toffee pudding they’d just shared for dessert.
London had turned into a winter wonderland, a shiny, happy place of jollity and goodwill. Leicester Square was unrecognizable as Lizzy and Elliot walked through the Christmas fairground that had been put up there.