‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Hmm.’ He winds his arms round my thighs. ‘I think such genius calls for a celebration.’
The look in his eyes says that he doesn’t mean Pot Noodle for two.
He slides off the sofa and pulls me to the floor with him. We lie down amid my fabric and trimmings and sparkles. Olly finds a tiny feather from somewhere in the heap of the mess and starts to tickle my face and neck with it. Then he moves lower and lower and lower.
‘If we make love here,’ I warn him as my breath quickens, ‘you might get a needle in your bottom.’
‘I’ll risk it,’ Olly says. He kneels above me and peels off his God Save The Queen T-shirt.
Despite our advancing years, his body is still taut; his six-pack – honed through years of karate practice – is still in place even though he has zero time to exercise any more. Mine, in contrast, shows the signs of childbirth and too many chocolate bars.
‘God, you’re beautiful,’ Olly says.
As he leans in to kiss me, I’m so glad that he never notices my flaws. Then, just as I’m reaching for the buckle of his belt, the living room door flies open.
‘I’d like milk,’ Petal announces. ‘I’d like it now.’ Then remembering that nothing is forthcoming in this house without the ‘p’ word she adds as an afterthought, ‘Please.’
Olly groans before we both dissolve into fits of laughter.
‘I don’t know what’s funny about that,’ our daughter complains. ‘You forgot to give it to me before I went to bed, Mummy.’
‘I did not, Petal. Don’t tell fibs or your nose will drop off.’ My child looks terminally unconcerned that this tragedy might befall her. ‘But if you go straight back to bed, you can have a tiny bit.’
‘And a biscuit?’
‘No. No biscuit. Or your teeth will fall out.’
Not bovvered about that either.
Olly hauls himself from the floor. ‘I’ll get it.’
Petal slides her hand into Olly’s. ‘I love you, Daddy,’ she smoothes and I can hear his heart turning to mush.
I wonder if Petal is so determined to remain a cosseted only child that she hides behind doors all the time, just waiting for us to get down to it before she pounces. I don’t suppose that we’re the only celibate couple, but it certainly feels like it sometimes.
Passion thwarted once more, I turn my attention back to my handbags. Before this night is out, if I’m not going to get any hot sex, then I’m determined to have bags to sell!
Chapter 21
The next morning, I swing through the doors of Live and Let Fry for my shift, feeling as if I’m walking on air.
‘I come bearing gifts,’ I tell Phil, Constance and Jenny.
After they’ve all hugged me to death, I hold out my new Nell McNamara handbags complete with pink-and-white candy-stripe protective dust covers.
Jenny and Constance take them and pull out the bags inside.
‘Oh, wow.’ Jen’s eyes are out on stalks. ‘You seriously didn’t make these?’
‘I seriously did.’
‘Nell, they’re fantastic.’
Phil, as he so often does these days, looks a bit teary. ‘Fish and chips.’ He examines the handbag that Constance is holding. ‘That’s funny.’
‘I didn’t think that you’d want one for yourself.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It might suit me.’ He takes Jen’s bag and models it. ‘Aren’t man-bags all the rage?’
‘Thanks for being my inspiration.’ I mean that sincerely.
Phil returns the bag to Jen. ‘Well done, girl,’ he says to me. ‘Well done.’
‘I’ve got to sell some yet, Phil. Tell me well done this time next year if I’ve made it.’ I turn to Jen and Constance. ‘In the meantime, ladies, you are my walking billboards. I want you to wear these as much as possible.’
‘We can keep them?’ they chorus.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Thanks, Nell,’ Jen says. ‘You’re a star.’
The door opens and our first customer of the day comes in.
‘I hate to bring you all back to reality,’ Phil says, ‘but aprons on.’
With some muttering, the girls reluctantly slide their handbags back into their protective covers and we all don our aprons and prepare for the lunchtime rush.
Four hours of dishing out fish and chips and I’m done. The apron is stripped off again and I dash out as quickly as I can as I have a meeting with Tod Urban. I can’t wait to show him my finished product.
We’re meeting this time in a coffee shop and when I push, breathless through the door, he’s already waiting. As always, he looks cool, calm and collected as he sips his cappuccino. I plonk myself down in the seat opposite him.
‘Sorry, I’m late,’ I puff. ‘The entire population of Hitchin wanted fish and chips today.’ It took us ages to clean up afterwards and I could hardly just walk out and leave the others to it.
‘You look tired,’ he notes.
‘Late night too.’ I was cross-eyed from sticking diamanté sparkles on by two in the morning. Now I could actually put my head down on this table and fall fast asleep.
‘Let me get you something,’ Tod says and he lifts his tall, lean frame out of the bucket chair.
‘Tea,’ I say. ‘Just tea will be fine.’ What I could really do with is a double espresso, but I’m thinking it would just make me jittery and hyper. Cake would be good too. But Tod isn’t the kind of guy that you want to stuff your face in front of.
While he queues at the counter, I try to gather my thoughts and get out the Fish & Chips handbag that I’ve brought to show him.
Tod hands over my tea when he comes back and I show him the bag.
‘Impressive,’ is his verdict as he turns it back and forth, examining every detail. ‘You’ve done a good job.’
‘Thanks.’ I feel ridiculously pleased when I get praise from Tod. ‘I thought I’d take it into Betty the Bag Lady this afternoon to see if she’s interested in stocking them.’
‘Great idea. I’ve found you a fantastic web designer for when you’re ready to get that up and running. I’m sure you’ll love his style and he’s not too expensive.’
Always good to know.
Then Tod looks serious. ‘Some bad news though. I’ve drawn a blank on the grants. Cutbacks, I’m afraid. You know how it is. Everyone has used up their funding for this year.’
‘Oh.’ What am I going to make stock with? How can I get a website up and running? I’ve spent all night making handbags. Now what am I going to do with them?
‘It’s not dead in the water,’ he assures me. ‘There is money to be had. But it’s not worth applying again until next year.’
That’s months and months away.
‘This is business,’ Tod tells me sagely as he sees my disappointment. ‘You have to be prepared to take the knocks, Nell.’
‘Yes, yes. Of course.’ But my heart sinks nevertheless.
‘I’ll see you again soon.’ He finishes his coffee and so I glug down my tea. ‘Chin up. Rome wasn’t built in a day.’
But I just want to make handbags, I think, not build Rome.
Chapter 22
I’m in Betty’s and, once again, I pull out my new design. I feel like giving it a fanfare. A bit of ta-da! After all the years of rocking up in here like the poor relation, now I’m coming in here as a business colleague!
Betty looks at me. I thought she’d be grinning, perhaps even jumping up and down. But no. The expression on her face is puzzled, slightly put out even. She examines my handbag as if it’s an unexploded bomb.
‘Do you like it?’ I ask, eager and nervous in equal measures.
‘Wow,’ she says. I don’t think her voice says ‘wow’ though, it says something else. Something that I can’t identify. ‘It’s very interesting.’
Interesting? Why is she making that sound like a bad thing?
‘Amazing.’ She purses her lips. ‘I had no idea that this is what you
wanted to do.’
‘Neither did I until recently.’ I’m trying not to bob about from foot to foot.
She stares at me. ‘Yet you never said anything?’
‘No.’ That stops me bobbing. She is put out. Does she see me as a rival now? Did she like it better when I was just a hard up customer drooling at the altar of her bags? I wouldn’t exactly call Betty a bosom friend, but I thought that we were more than acquaintances and had enough of a connection for her to be pleased for me. ‘This place has been an inspiration to me,’ I say. ‘It’s the hours I’ve spent in here that finally made me realise what I want to do with my life.’
‘Really?’ Her stare turns to my bag again. She hates it, I can tell.
‘I’d love you to stock them.’ I’m too excited to look at what’s on offer today, but I know that my bags would sit perfectly among them. ‘Perhaps just have the one, this one, to see how it goes.’
Betty looks shell-shocked. ‘Let me give it some thought, Nell,’ she says. ‘Leave it with me.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Right. I’ll do that.’
‘Call in again next week and we’ll sort something out.’ I’m here on almost a daily basis. Was that a warning to stay away?
‘See you next week then,’ I say and slink out.
I stand on the street, stunned. What now? I was absolutely sure that Betty would go mad for my bags. I hate to admit that I had a window display in mind. A great one that she’d keep for weeks and weeks to be admired and drooled over by the good folk of Hitchin. She knows me. She knows that I work in a chippy, that I have a small child dependent on me. Why would she not want to help me if she could, give me a leg up?
I wander aimlessly, trying to get my head round her reaction. The market’s on today and it’s bustling with life as usual.
Some of the stall holders have been here for as long as I can remember and feel like old friends. The vintage stall that I love is here too and I flick through the racks of once-loved clothes, but I’m not really paying attention to the feel of the fabrics, the cut of the dresses as I normally do. Today my head is elsewhere. If I can’t afford a website yet and Betty isn’t going to stock the handbags for me, where can I possibly sell them?
There’s nothing in the house for tea and we need to eat quickly as I’m due back at Live and Let Fry before long, so I pick up three fresh homemade pasties from the stall adequately named, Mr Pasty. Then, as I’m shoving my purchase into my bag, it dawns on me. I could have a stall here too. If I can get one on Saturday, Olly could have Petal during the day and I can ask Jenny or Constance if they would swap the lunchtime stint with me. It’s an idea. I haven’t a clue how much it costs to get a market stall or what you have to do, but pretty soon I will.
Take that, Betty. I may just have hit upon another way to get my handbags out there!
Chapter 23
A week later and I have a market stall. My first day is this coming Saturday and, frankly, I’m bricking it. I told Olly before he went off to bed, but his response to my momentous decision was somewhat muted. He may have just been too tired to get excited. Or maybe he’s just heard one too many momentous decisions from me recently. But I feel like I have no choice. I have to do something and it’s a relatively modest outlay to display my goods and it will, hopefully, bring in some money for me to reinvest in the business.
Surrounded by handbags on my lounge floor, I’m thinking of calling Tod to tell him – hoping that he will be more enthusiastic and raise my flagging spirits – when the phone rings. ‘Petal, can you pick that up please.’ I’m up to my eyeballs in glue guns and sparkles. ‘Answer nicely.’
‘Hello, this is Mummy’s phone,’ she says politely. ‘She is busy and she is still in her pyjamas.’
Quickly, I snatch the phone from her. ‘Hello?’
‘Pyjamas, hey?’ Tod says with a laugh.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell him. ‘My daughter is a receptionist of variable reliability.’
‘She sounds delightful.’
‘She is absolutely delightful. When she wants to be.’ Then, to distract him, ‘I was just thinking of you.’
‘Same here.’
My awestruck heart does a little lurch. ‘You were?’
The sound of his laughter again.
‘I have some news.’
‘I’d love to hear it but I can’t talk now, Nell. This has to be a quick call. I’m just going into a meeting. I do, however, have a proposition for you.’
I’m infinitely open to propositions from Tod Urban, I think.
‘I have a reception to go to tonight at Buckingham Palace and my date has let me down. Fancy it?’
‘B… B… Buckingham Palace, did you say?’
‘It’s a promotion for The Prince’s Trust. It would be a great way to meet some influential people, which certainly wouldn’t hurt if we were to apply to them for some funding for you. What do you say?’
‘Tonight?’
‘I can pick you up about five.’
That would give me just an hour to get home from my shift at Live and Let Fry and change into my glad rags. I’d also need to find someone to cover my evening shift, which would mean that I’d struggle for a babysitter for Petal as Olly has his punk disco gig tonight. Oh, God. Oh, God. What to do?
‘You can tell me your news on the way down in the car,’ Tod continues. ‘I have to fly. Are you up for it?’
Buckingham Palace! How can I possibly turn it down?
‘Er—’
‘I need an answer now, Nell.’
‘Yes,’ I blurt out. ‘Of course, yes.’
‘Great. See you at five.’ He hangs up.
Now I’m in a flat spin. I instantly phone Constance who, of course, agrees to cover my shift, but that puts my chief babysitter out of action. My second call, Jenny, is also working. So I then phone every friend I’ve ever had to see if they would come round and look after Petal when Olly goes off to his gig. They are all busy with other things. It seems that I do not put enough into the babysitting circle to warrant taking anything out. Now what?
Finishing off a handbag, I add extra diamantés so that it will be ultra sparkly and ready for me to take to the palace tonight. No matter how many times I say that in my head, I can’t convince myself that I’m actually going there. I race upstairs and fling open my wardrobe to see if I have any suitable outfits for palace-type events.
Petal plods in behind me and promptly goes to the wardrobe to help herself to my shoes.
‘Mummy is going to Buckingham Palace tonight,’ I tell her as I bounce round the room giving full reign to my excitement.
Her raised eyebrow indicates a modicum of interest. She clacks about in my heels.
‘Will you meet the Queen?’
‘I don’t think so, but I might meet a Prince.’
‘Will you kiss him?’
‘I do hope not.’ Has she seen Prince Charles?
My daughter looks disappointed by this turn of events and wonder exactly what I’d have to do to impress her.
I pull out a vintage Audrey Hepburn-esque dress – black, sleeveless, full twirly skirt – and I can’t even think when it last came out of the wardrobe. I hold it up against me and pose. The perfect accompaniment for a Fish & Chips handbag.
‘Nice, Mummy. Can I come to the Palace too?’
That brings me down to earth with a bump. I sit down on the bed and pull my daughter into my arms and kiss her hair. ‘No, sweet pea,’ I say. ‘It’s just for grown-ups.’
‘Everything’s for grown-ups,’ Petal complains.
‘Before you and I know it, you will be a grown-up too.’
‘I hope you’re not telling me a fib,’ she warns, ‘or your nose will drop off.’
‘I’m not,’ I promise. ‘One minute you’ll be a little girl and the next you’ll be a big lady with a life of your own.’
‘So what will Daddy and me do while you’re with the Prince?’
‘I don’t know, sweet pea.’ But I’ll have to sort s
omething out pretty soon.
Chapter 24
‘Of course, I’m pleased for you,’ Olly shouts.
I’m fresh out of the shower and in the bedroom getting ready for my posh night out. ‘You don’t seem it,’ I shout back.
Rubbing the towel over me briskly, I squirt myself liberally with Chanel No 5 – a very welcome Christmas present from my dear Dad every year, which I usually manage to eke out to last me the full twelve months. I’m hoping it will hide any residual chip aroma. I want to make a big impression tonight and I don’t want to do it with a lingering scent of haddock.
‘It would just have been handy to have had more notice.’
‘That’s the way the cookie crumbles,’ I point out. ‘The reception is tonight. Tod asked me to go this morning. What am I supposed to do?’
‘More importantly, Nell, what am I supposed to do?’ He lowers his voice, but the anger is still there. ‘What am I going to do with Petal?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I tried everyone I could think of. No one was free to babysit.’
‘Then maybe you should have said no to Tod.’ He uses the whiny voice he does whenever he says Tod.
‘Tod’ – no whining – ‘told me it was very important for me to be there. I happen to agree. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’
The straighteners get a cursory tug through my hair before I twist it up into a chignon. I add a big black bow to the back. I can’t ever remember seeing Olly so cross with me before and I don’t understand what the issue is. I have to do this. Does he not see that?
‘Phone in sick,’ I say. ‘It’s the only thing to do.’
‘How can I?’ Olly asks. ‘I’m hanging on there by a thread after being late the other week. I don’t want to lose this gig and I can’t let other people down at the last minute. It may not be the O2 arena, but a lot of people turn up on punk night.’
‘This is Buckingham Palace, Olly. The Prince’s Trust. If I get some funding from them, maybe you won’t have to spend your evenings doing punk discos. Ever think of that?’