Opening Chapters of Kissing Mr Wrong
Shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists Association "Romantic Novel of the Year"
'The trouble with men is...oh, where do I start?' Lu said, balancing the box of wine glasses on the edge of the table as she cleared a space free of paper napkins and plastic trays of supermarket smoked salmon party nibbles before pushing the box onto the table properly with her left hip.
'Knowing you, you've probably got a list,' Briony said, puffing as she dumped a case of sparkling wine next to the glasses.
'Not a list exactly,' Lu lied, busy taking wine glasses out of the box and lining them up neatly along the table. 'You wouldn't have thought it would be difficult to meet a man without major hang-ups, but it seems impossible. They all have masses of baggage - if it isn't their ex-girlfriends, it's their mothers - or they're controlling or workaholics or alcoholics or -'
'Sexaholics?' Briony began arranging the bottles, but was then distracted by one of the paintings hanging on the gallery walls. She adjusted its position.
'At least there would be fringe benefits,' Lu said, laughing. 'It needs to go a bit up on the left.'
'Like this?' Lu gave her a thumbs-up. 'So, no date for tonight?'
Lu shook her head in response. 'Maybe I'll meet Mr Right tonight,' she said, but not seriously, and began ripping the packaging off the plastic trays ready to lay the smoked salmon parcels out on plates. 'You never know. Maybe even now he's ploughing through his afternoon's work, thinking about going to this fabulous private view and meeting the woman of his dreams.'
Briony was still squinting at the painting to see if it was level. 'What sort of work does Mr Right do?'
'Something serious. A lawyer maybe, or a doctor. Or someone in business.' Lu contemplated the smoked salmon parcels. Circles, she thought, and began to lay an outer ring around a plate. 'A banker perhaps.'
Briony snorted. 'You mean, someone like no one you've ever gone out with before.' She left the painting and peered out of the gallery's front window.
'Exactly,' Lu said, delighted that her friend understood. 'I realised the other day that that's where I've been going wrong. Everybody I've been out with before has been a creative of some sort - artists, writers -'
'Bricklayers?' Briony turned, and raised her eyebrows at Lu.
'Phil was a mistake,' Lu conceded. 'But you know, bricklaying can be quite creative, in its own way.'
Briony laughed. 'I expect bankers and lawyers say the same thing.'
'I shall find out, and report back.' Lu paused from arranging salmon parcels in neat concentric circles. 'I fancy a man in a suit who talks to me about stuff I can't understand, who works regular hours doing something unbelievably important -'
'Well paid?'
Lu waved a salmon parcel in the air. 'Goes without saying. Certainly enough so I can give up flat-fee illustration and do nothing but the best creative work on the most beautiful picture books.'
'And let me guess - he's also devoted, caring, sensitive, understanding, intelligent, listens to you, cherishes you...'
'Of course.'
'An amazing lover?'
'Naturally.'
'Incredibly good-looking?'
Lu put her hands on her hips in mock outrage. 'Are you calling me shallow?' She pouted, then laid both hands on her heart. 'Of course he's devastatingly good-looking and unbelievably attractive, but that isn't why I love him. I love him because he's Mr Right.'
'Ahhh, that's so romantic,' Briony said, coming back from the window and joining Lu. 'And you haven't even met him.'
'I will, just give me time,' Lu said, glancing at her watch. 'Speaking of which, we ought to get a move on or we'll never finish putting out this stuff before people start turning up.'
'I hope they do turn up. It's always a worry, the first exhibition in January. Everybody's exhausted from Christmas, and the weather's always dreadful.' Briony pulled a bottle from the case and started peeling off the gold foil cap. 'Fancy one to get us in the mood?'
Lu grinned at her. 'Oh, go on. It's not every day you celebrate ten years in business.' She got two glasses ready while Briony popped the cork.
'To Briony Vickers and the Bath Originals Art Gallery,' Lu said, raising her glass. 'Ten years on, and still in business - thereby proving miracles do happen.'
'Tell me about it,' Briony said, taking a hefty swig from her glass. 'The miracle will be if I'm here in another ten years.'
'Don't worry, everybody will come, bad weather or not. And no talk about recession,' Lu said firmly, topping up Briony s glass. 'Tonight were celebrating your achievement. And it is an achievement,' she added, hugging Briony's shoulders. 'I think you're amazing to have done all this.'
'It does seem incredible,' Briony agreed.
There was silence for a second as they both looked about the gallery. They had met at art school, Lu doing illustration and Briony fine art. After graduation Briony had tried making a living as an artist for a couple of years until a windfall inheritance gave her the money to invest in a rundown gallery near the centre of Bath. Lu thought how much the gallery had moved on from those first days, from the haphazard exhibitions of friends from college shown on peeling walls, to the sleek (replastered) white walls hung with paintings bearing serious price tags.
The exhibition for the tenth anniversary was a mixed show of work by all the artists Briony represented. As Lu looked round, she could recognise paintings by several friends from art college days, but they were now outnumbered by other more well-known artists, even a couple of Royal Academicians and one of the rare artists to have become a Sir. 'You're becoming part of the establishment,' she said, almost in surprise. 'You're growing up.'
'We are grown up,' Briony said, raising her glass to Lu. 'We're in our thirties.'
'Just,' Lu said, sipping her champagne. She looked across at Briony, at her sleek hair pulled into a chignon, like Betty Boop grown up, the beautifully cut dress that exposed her slim arms but otherwise covered her body in origami folds. It would have been made by some famous designer, Lu guessed, hardly conscious of fingering her own skirt, a cheap one she'd picked up from the market and customized with applique roses. The champagne felt cold against her lips, the glass clammy in her hand. 'You won't get too grown up, will you?' she said.
'Course not,' Briony said, giving Lu's shoulders a squeeze. 'Look at me, drinking champagne in the afternoon when I've got a big private view in a couple of hours. That's hardly grown-up behaviour, is it?'
Lu laughed, and they went back to setting out the food and wine ready for the party, but as the evening progressed she noticed that Briony hardly touched her drink, and her glass stayed at the same level, and what could be more grown up and sensible than that? Her best friend was slipping away from her, and she hadn't noticed until that evening.
She looked around the now full gallery, crammed with people talking and laughing and drinking. Briony needn't have worried about the January weather: people were out in force, and some were even looking at the paintings. Lu could recognise about a third of them, some old friends, some acquaintances, but this evening they seemed different, they seemed... She scanned the crowd, looking for faces she knew. There was Saffron, another illustrator from college, now married to a rich farmer and living outside Bath with two kids and a studio in a converted barn; Stephen, who'd given up art and gone into his uncle's advertising firm, with an expense-account stomach to prove it; Abby, who'd ended up with a chain of fashion shops, a souped-up sports car and a Caribbean suntan in January.
As Lu looked at her contemporaries, she realised it wasn't just Briony who was slipping away; it was all of them. They were settled, with partners and houses and children, and successful career paths. Even the struggling artists weren't struggling any more; if they'd stayed in the business this long, they'd either become successful or were teaching regular hours or had a supportive partner.
I was supposed to be one of the best, Lu thought. The one who was going to go far and do great things and change the world of illustration. Instead, she lived alone in a one-bed apartment doing hand-to-mouth flat-fee commissions for the lower end of the illustration market that hardly covered the bills let alone any extras. She now knew what the hare felt like when he'd been lapped by the tortoise. But at least the hare had known he was entered in the race. Lu hadn't realised there was a race until now, but everyone else seemed to be heading for the winners' enclosure while she was still meandering around the perimeter fence.
An arm snaked around her waist. 'Lunabella, where have you been hiding?' Lu turned to see Jerry, Briony's partner. 'Briony keeps saying she's seen you, but it's never when I'm around.'
'I've been working, not hiding,' Lu said, moving fractionally away from him. In the past Briony had fretted about Jerry's wandering eye, but recently that seemed to have calmed down. Still, she wasn't going to give her any reason for suspicion, however unfriendly it might appear to Jerry.
'What is it now? Kittens in coats? Or talking vegetables?' Jerry laughed, flashing a lot of over-whitened teeth. 'Seriously, Lu, when are you going to get some proper painting done?'
'I expect about the same time as you do,' Lu answered sweetly. Jerry painted big, splashy, untidy nudes in sweet-shop colours, which sold well to men with Porsches and brittle-faced blonde girlfriends. He worked to a formula that was so effective it could probably be used to remove built-up limescale as well, and was easily the most successful financially, if not critically, of the class of '96.
'Miaow,' he said, mimicking a cat's paw.
No more than you, Lu was going to say, but was stopped from descending into bickering by the man Jerry had been talking to.
'Have you got any work in this exhibition?' He was a big man, the sort you could imagine on a rugby field or playing mine host at the bar.
'I'm not a painter. Jerry's just being stupid,' she answered, still annoyed.
'I'm Nick,' he said, smiling and holding out his hand, and she suddenly realised that for all his bulk the man wasn't unattractive, a bit like Gerard Depardieu, though no hint of a French accent. 'How do you know this reprobate?'
'Lu,' she said, taking his. Her hand felt small in his palm. 'I was at art school with Briony, but illustration not painting. I mainly write and illustrate children's picture books.'
'Kittens in coats?' Nick looked at her quizzically, a twinkle in his eyes. No, not unattractive at all.
'Afraid so. Not all the time, of course,' Lu added quickly. 'I mean, I do other things. Other animals. Fairies. Whatever.' She inwardly winced. Why had she said "whatever"? That was what bored teenagers said.
'Which explains why Lu lives in a dinky little one-bed flat and not in a palace,' Jerry butted in like a hyperactive three year old, and Lu felt herself shrivel up inside. 'You ought to go where the money is. Wizards and witches! I know, be the new J.K. Rowling!'
'Shut up, Jerry,' Lu said with a smile she didn't feel. Honestly, she didn't know how Briony put up with him. She was about to ask Nick how he knew Jerry when a woman pushed past her.
'Jerry! What an exciting exhibition! Briony must be so pleased,' she said, large diamond brooch twinkling on an expansive dark navy bosom, as if she'd come dressed as the sky at night. A man trailed in her wake, looking so like a pillar of the community in his charcoal grey pin-striped suit and regimental tie that it was a surprise he wasn't topped with a bit of architrave.
Jerry quickly introduced them as Briony's neighbours, Clive and Fenella, then turned to Lu. 'And Lu writes childrens' books.'
Clive's jowls wobbled. 'Like Harry Potter?'
'No, not at all like Harry Potter,' Lu said, thinking perhaps she ought to get a T-shirt printed with "I am not J.K. Rowling" on it. 'I'm an illustrator really, although I have written a couple of picture books.' It was at least four years since she'd both written and illustrated a picture book, she realised. Four years since she'd believed in what she was doing.
'I've always fancied writing a couple of kiddies' stories. They're not very long so they wouldn't take much time,' Fenella said airily, wafting coral-tipped fingers like parrot claws in Lu's direction. Lu could have stamped on her toes. Just because picture books were short, people always thought they were easy to write. If anything, they were much, much harder because they were so short. 'Clive's written a novel,' Fenella continued, picking a scrap of imaginary lint off his shoulder as if just giving the final dusting to a museum exhibit.
'I think we'll leave these writers together,' Jerry said, turning to Nick. Lu telepathically flashed an SOS towards Jerry, begging him not to leave her with Clive and Fenella, but intuition didn't seem to be his strong point. Instead he put a hand on Nick's shoulder. 'Come on, mate. Time to show me what your wife's been up to. I hear she's gone abstract.'
And with a quick wink at Lu that told her he knew exactly what he was leaving her to, he steered Nick away. Typical Jerry. And typical - you meet an attractive man, and he turns out to be married. Ah well.
'My grandchildren love my little stories,' Fenella continued blithely. 'Tell you what, I'll give you some of my ideas and you could illustrate them. We could split the royalties.'
Lu counted to three, then ten. 'I'm quite busy with my own work at the moment.'
'Have you ever thought about writing a proper book?' Clive said. Lu could imagine him stepping into Prince Philip's shoes quite easily.
'In what way do you mean, a proper book?' But Lu knew full well what he meant.
'For adults of course.' Clive didn't actually put his thumbs in braces and stick his chest out, but it was a near thing. 'Like mine.'
It couldn't have been more of a leading statement if he'd taken it three times round the paddock. Despite herself, Lu felt compelled to ask the question. 'What's it about?'
'It's a thriller about this group of old friends who've all been at university together and are going on a boating trip in the Norfolk Broads. It's about what happens next.'
'And what does happen next?' Lu asked, secretly hoping they all drowned.
His eyes bulged. 'That's about it so far. I've only done the first couple of chapters, no point in wasting time if it's not a bestseller. I'll do the rest when a publisher wants it. I've tried sending it out, but it's a closed shop, everyone knows that. They don't like to think that there are people outside London who have ideas that pop their little bubble. Either that, or it's nothing but nepotism. Some of them don't even have the courtesy to write back. And they don't read it all, you can tell.'
'I think that's dreadful,' Fenella said, diamonds quivering. 'I mean, it's their job, isn't it?'
'Not really,' Lu said, not wanting to get into a discussion about the state of publishing. She took a long slurp of champagne, surreptitiously looking around for an excuse to slip away, but inspiration was lacking. She was going to have to accept she was stuck in the publishing conversation from hell. 'What books do you like reading?'
'Oh, I don't have time for fiction,' Clive said, rocking back on his heels. Lu wondered if she should rethink her fantasies about men in suits. 'I'm far too busy. Besides, I don't really see the point of it.'
Lu thought about asking him why he was trying to write a novel if he didn't see the point of fiction, but she felt she didn't have that much life to spare. 'What about you?' she asked his wife.
'She likes all that slushy romantic stuff,' Clive said with a superior smile.
'I certainly don't,' Fenella said, bristling so much at his statement it could only be true. 'Occasionally I might read something a bit lighter, but I really only like Literature.' She put such emphasis on the word, it could only be capitalised.
Clive looked Lu up and down as if he didn't approve of what he saw. 'So how did you get published?' The emphasis was on the word you, as if he didn't believe her. Did he realise he was being rude?
'My grandfather was a Flopsy Bunny,' Lu said brightly. 'Us Bunnies have been in the business for generations. Of course, it was my great-great-grandfather Old Mr Rabbit who founded the business, along with his nephew Peter. It was a terribly paternalistic company - my great-aunt Cottontail was cut right out of the will. Luckily for me, they're a bit more enlightened nowadays.'
'Sorry to butt in,' and there was Briony, her arm slipping round Lu's shoulders and gently steering her away from a confused-looking Clive. 'I've promised to introduce Lu to a friend so I'm going to drag her away.'
'I have never wanted to see someone more,' Lu said with feeling once they were a safe distance from Clive and Fenella.
'Did I really hear you tell them you were a Flopsy Bunny?' Lu nodded. 'Oh Lu, grow up,' Briony said, laughing.
'Do I have to?' Lu asked. She wasn't sure she wanted to, if it meant becoming like Mr and Mrs Clive.
Briony lowered her voice. 'Listen, I've come across the most gorgeous man for you. Absolutely perfect. Ticks every box. If I wasn't with Jerry...' She took Lu's arm.
'So long as he doesn't want to write a novel, he'll do,' Lu said, following Briony to a corner near one of Jerry's paintings.
'This is Marcus, who plays squash with Jerry, and this is Lu, who I told you about, and I must leave you both to it and go and sell some paintings,' Briony said, disappearing into the crowd.
Lu looked at him. Oh. Oh, oh, oh.
At first sight Marcus ticked a lot of boxes, being tall, dark and yes, handsome. All her romantic clichés had arrived rolled up in one, she thought as she looked up into his chocolate-brown eyes. Her heart was thumping. Could she hear violins in the distance?
'Briony said you play squash with Jerry - I hope you pulverise him.' Amazingly her voice sounded quite normal.
'I grind him to dust,' he said. God, even his voice was wonderful, slow and sexy. And he looked athletic too, with long legs and not much spare flesh on him. It must be all that squash-playing. He was lightly tanned with a golden glow, or maybe it was emanating from him like rays of sunshine. 'Do you play?'
'No, it's far too energetic for me.' Oops, she didn't want to give him the impression she was a couch potato. 'I go to the gym, do Pilates, things like that.'
'I've heard of Pilates.'
'It's very good for your back and your pelvic floor. I mean, I do it for my back,' Lu babbled quickly, hoping he wouldn't think she needed to do work on her pelvic floor. 'I spend most of my day hunched up on a stool over a drawing board so I need to stretch my spine out or I'll end up doubled over.' She pulled herself up straight, settling each vertebra on top of the other as she'd been taught.
'Does the drawing board mean you're an architect?'
Drat, she should have been an architect. It would have been possible: she liked houses and could do technical drawing. The physics would have been a bit of a problem, but... 'No, not an architect, an illustrator. And you?'
'I'm an engineer by training, but nowadays I mainly push paper around for a multinational company.' He sounded offhand, but he was obviously high up within the company, judging by the quality of his clothes. An engineer... Not wearing a suit right now, but she bet he did most of the time; his trousers had that dry-clean-only look and the creases on his shirt were so sharp it was either brand new or professionally laundered. Which was good, because she didn't like the idea of ironing a man's shirts, not even for the man of her dreams. She glanced at his shoes. Not quite right, being too shiny and smart, as if he was trying a bit too hard, but you couldn't have everything, you had to compromise on something. She checked his hands. No sign of a ring, apart from a gold signet ring on his little finger, but that meant nothing. Not every man wore a wedding ring. 'A multinational sounds as if you travel a lot.'
'Sometimes. I've spent time in Hong Kong, Germany and the US.' He was saying normal things with his mouth but his eyes were saying something else, something warm and intense; he could have used them as a microwave the way he was melting her from the inside out.
'Moving around must be difficult for your family.' Did that sound too much like she was fishing for information? Oh well, couldn't be helped.
'If I had a family it might be, but I'm not married.'
Hallelujah. It wasn't just violins playing, but trumpets too.
'And you?' he added.
Double hallelujah. He wouldn't ask if he wasn't interested. 'I'm not married either,' Lu said, as the full angelic choir joined in and cherubs blew horns and the roof opened up and radiant sunshine filled the gallery.
- ooo -
Lu rang the doorbell three times in quick succession, then waited. She could hear Scottie yapping and pictured him scuttling backwards and forwards along the hall as her grandmother slowly came to the door. She quickly checked the garden. Everything looked neat and as it should be; even the crazy-paving path leading to the front door was less of a random arrangement of oddly-shaped leftovers than a carefully ordered plan. One day she would arrive to discover the leaves hadn't been swept away, the deadheading hadn't been done, and the brass letterbox hadn't been buffed up and polished, but that day hadn't yet come, thank heavens.
A few minutes later she heard a muffled voice. 'Lu, is that you?'
'Yes. Were you expecting anyone else to ring the bell three times? Burglars? Your lover?' She said it casually, to amuse herself, knowing Delia would be too busy concentrating on undoing the deadlock and the safety chain to answer, but the word 'lover' seemed to reverberate around the front garden. Would Marcus be her lover? Marcus the Wonderful, the Perfect, who'd asked for her phone number. He'd ring, they'd go out, they'd fall in love, everything would be perfect... Lu shook her head. Life being what it was, he probably wouldn't ring.
The door opened a chink, then widened, and her grandmother peered out. 'It is you.'
'It is indeed,' Lu said, stepping in and embracing her grandmother. Her cheek was as soft as ever, but her shoulders were frail under the sensible navy cardigan layered over a jumper and shirt, and probably a thermal vest underneath. Delia felt the cold.
'You can't be too careful nowadays,' Delia said. 'You could have been anyone. You read about them in the paper, preying on pensioners, coming in for a glass of water and stealing your handbag. It's not safe to go out. Stabbings, muggings, it's dreadful what they do.'
'I think you should stop reading the paper,' Lu said, bending down to pat Scottie. 'You'd be much happier.'
'I want to know what's going on,' Delia said, leading the way to the sitting room. Lu followed, her eyes anxiously scanning her grandmother's back for signs of infirmity. The thought of Delia not being there made her catch her breath with worry. She had always been there when Lu needed her, a refuge from the chaos that followed her mother around. It was a mystery how Delia had managed to have a daughter like Susan, or Pixie as she preferred to be called, the name she had given herself at some point in the sixties - to Delia's horror. It suited her free spirit better, Pixie had once explained to Lu. However, Pixie had displayed similar horror when at secondary school age, Lu refused to answer to Lunabella. Lu might equate to toilets, but it was better than being a loony, especially when you had a loony mum to cope with. Besides, Delia had always called her Lu.
The sitting room was so old-fashioned it could have been used as the set for Miss Marple's house. It was incredibly tidy and well dusted, the opposite of the jumble that Pixie had created in the string of homes they'd lived in while Lu was growing up. Lu suspected that Delia dusted each china ornament jostling for position on the mantelpiece, each photograph frame, even each dried flower head every day. When anyone said to Lu that she was very tidy, in that slightly disapproving way that suggested that she was too tidy, Lu always replied, 'You should see my grandmother's house. I'm not nearly as bad as she is.'
Lu loved Delia's tidiness; it was always a relief not to have to worry about what you might squash when you sat on the sofa, what you might step in when you crossed a room, what might be lurking under the bed when you tried to find your school shoes in the morning. Even now when she came to her grandmother's house she could feel a layer of tension dissolve.
'You sit yourself down there and I'll bring the tea,' Delia said. She'd never been a soft and squidgy currant-bun sort of grandmother, but her angular outline had become more indistinct as the years progressed, blurring as if she were fading out of the picture.
'I'll get it,' Lu said quickly. She went back into the hall and into the kitchen, where, as she'd expected, she found a tray laid with teacups and a pot, all on an immaculately ironed white linen cloth. As she waited for the kettle to come to the boil, she touched the lace edge of the cloth, knowing that it had been hand-crocheted by Delia many years ago. There were little ziggurats of yellow cross-stitching in each corner, the stitches as neat as any machine. Forgotten arts, she thought. Little girls no longer learned to make those immaculate tiny stitches; instead they played computer games along with their brothers.
But they were girlie enough to read Princess Butterfly, she thought, seeing a pad of Princess Butterfly paper perched by the phone. Princess Butterfly had been a series of books Lu had illustrated a few years ago. She touched the illustration lightly, thinking how typical it was of Delia to be supportive and have something Lu had illustrated about the house, even though Princess Butterfly was aimed at four year olds rather than ninety-two year olds. Her lovely, caring grandma.
Don't forget to ask Lu, was written on the top sheet.
Lu poured the boiling water on to the tea bags, thinking that it was a good thing she was there to do things for her grandmother. Little things - changing the times of the central heating when the clocks went back, opening jars that Delia's arthritic fingers could no longer manage, hanging yet another picture on the crowded walls. Mind you, you had to watch Delia - given half a chance she'd be up a ladder trying to change a light bulb or clearing out the guttering. She wanted her independence, of course, but seemed incapable of seeing that if she fell and hurt herself, she could kiss that independence goodbye.
'Ask Lu what?' Lu said, coming back into the sitting room with the tea things.
Delia looked up. 'What was that?'
'On your pad, by the phone. It says, don't forget to ask Lu.'
She expected Delia to ask her to retrieve a box from the attic or explain the meaning of a bank statement, but instead her grandmother patted the sofa. 'I've something to show you, and then something I want you to do for me.'
'Sure,' Lu said, putting the tea things on to the coffee table in front of the sofa and sitting down. 'Tell me what it is you want me to do.'
Delia reached behind her and brought out a cardboard shoebox, which she placed on her knees, her hands resting on the lid as if Lu might snatch it from her. She suddenly looked up. 'Now I don't want you to go telling your mother about this.'
It was so unexpected, Lu almost dropped her tea cup. 'Mum? Why ever not?'
'I'll tell her later, when we know what's what, but I don't want her to know yet. She'll want to do it all with those cards of hers, or go dowsing, and I can't abide all that nonsense.' Delia reached over for Lu's hand. 'It'll be our secret.'
'I won't say anything if you don't want me to,' Lu said. 'I hardly ever get a word in edgeways with Mum anyway.'
'You're a good girl,' Delia said, patting Lu's hand. 'Now, I've been watching that programme where they look up their family history and find out about their ancestors. I expect you've seen it.'
'I know the one you mean. Researchers trace a celebrity's family tree back through the generations and find out about their long-lost relatives, where they came from, that sort of thing. Oh - do you want me to trace our family tree?' Lu frowned. 'I thought you'd got that all written out in the big bible you got from your mother.'
'No, not the family tree.' Delia reached into the box and took out a photograph in an ornate mahogany frame. She stroked it gently, then handed it to Lu.
'I want you to find him,' Delia said.
Lu took the photograph. The picture was faded round the edges, but the eyes of the young man in uniform were clear as he looked steadily towards the camera. The vaguely painted backcloth landscape and pot plant on a stand gave it an Edwardian feel. Who was he? She looked at Delia, trying to read her face. A former boyfriend? Except they didn't call them boyfriends in those days. A sweetheart, maybe. But Gran's courting days must have been in the thirties and forties, and this chap looked older. First World War, perhaps? He'd have to be at least a hundred, if not more.
Lu cleared her throat. 'Um, Gran, I don't like to say this, but won't he be dead by now?'
Delia clicked her tongue as if Lu was stupid. 'I know that, but you can track down dead people, can't you? I want you to find him on that Internet. You're always saying it's wonderful and can find anything. Well, I want you to find him.'
Lu looked at the photograph again. 'It's funny, but the person he reminds me of is Mum. Don't know why.' Maybe it was the way their heads were tilted, or the shape of the eyes. There was something about Delia's stillness that sharpened her senses. 'Who is he?'
'His name is Jack Havergal,' Delia said. She cleared her throat. 'I think he's my father.'
Lu couldn't have been more surprised if Scottie had suddenly announced he was the winner of The X Factor. She looked around the room, thinking that she'd see the tables rocking and the ornaments quivering in the wake of the earthquake, but everything was still. Even Scottie, instead of launching into a pop ballad, was flat out on the old rag rug in front of the gas fire.
'Your father?' Lu blinked. 'But your father was Percy.'
'I grew up believing that.' Delia lay back against the sofa cushions. 'He was a lovely man, my dad, he wouldn't have hurt a fly, so I'm sure it was all my mother's idea. She had some funny notions in her head, she did. Ever so proper. Looking back, I reckon she didn't like the idea I was...' Delia sighed. 'Well, there's no nice way to say it. I'm illegitimate, that's all there is to it.'
'What?' Lu couldn't believe what she was hearing. Scottie, disturbed by her virtual shriek, sat up and barked. 'So Maud and this man...?' Lu looked at the photograph in amazement and some awe - she'd seen photographs of her great-grandmother looking completely impenetrable, like the elderly Queen Victoria.
'Certainly not. Whatever gave you that idea? Scottie, hush now, there's a good boy,' Delia soothed, as the dog danced and yapped at them. 'Really, Lu, you should know better.'
Lu wasn't sure if she should know better than to disturb Scottie by raising her voice, or to suspect Great-grandmother Maud of an illicit liaison. Probably both, knowing Delia, who, while generally loving, had a sideline in old-fashioned disapproval, especially when it looked as if Lu was picking up bad habits from Pixie.
Scottie soothed and back on the rag rug, ears cocked for any further excitement, Delia continued. 'When I say I was illegitimate, I mean I was born illegitimate. My real parents were Jack Havergal - this photograph is a portrait of him - and Anne Morgan. When I was four years old, Percy and Maud adopted me.'
'So do you remember your real parents?' Lu said, sitting forwards. 'And how long have you known? Have you only just discovered this? Oh Gran, it must have been an awful shock - are you all right?'
'Yes, yes, dear, don't fret and fuss me. I've known for years that I was adopted, ever since I was married. My parents - I still think of them as that - decided it was right I should know when I got married, and that my future husband should know. Though what I'd have done if it'd put your grandfather off I don't know.' Delia looked quite cross.
'But it didn't put him off,' Lu said, glancing across to the photograph of her grandfather in pride of place on the mantelpiece.
'Certainly not. Your grandad was the salt of the earth, he was. Said it made no odds, he wanted to marry me wherever I'd come from.'
'That's so romantic,' Lu said, wondering if Marcus would ever say anything like that to her. She could just see him now, going down on one knee and looking up at her with his brown eyes - they were brown, weren't they? Yes, brown eyes, dark brown hair. She dragged her imagination away from this delightful vision. 'So if you were only adopted when you were four, you must remember your real parents.' She hesitated, suddenly wondering if poor Delia had started life in an orphanage or even the workhouse. Did they still have workhouses in the early twentieth century or had they gone by then?
'It's a strange thing,' Delia said, 'but I can't remember anyone else other than my mother when I was small. And I'm sure I can remember things from when I was two or three, but they're always at my parents' house. Nothing from anywhere else. I did ask my mother, but she didn't want to talk about it - I think if she'd had her way, nothing would have been said in the first place. It was my dad who thought I should know. I think she didn't want to be reminded that I hadn't started life in a respectable way. She was always very strict when I was growing up, very keen that I should stay nice until I married. Still, that's all water under the bridge now.'
'So why do you think this man's your real father?' Lu examined the photograph again, looking for similarities between his face and her own. 'And what about your real mother?'
Delia took a deep breath. 'When my mother died, I found all sorts of papers. Rubbish, a lot of it, but the adoption papers were there, so that's how I knew my birth parents' names.' She patted the cardboard box. 'There were also letters between Percy and a man - Jack Havergal. They're all dated to the time of the Great War, so I think my father and Jack met then. And I already knew Jack's name, because my dad had this photograph and he told me that the man in the photograph, Jack Havergal, had saved his life. So that's how I know this photo is Jack.'
'What about your real mother?' Lu said softly. 'Didn't your parents tell you anything about her?'
Delia shook her head. 'I know this sounds strange to your generation, you're always busy talking about everything, but my parents didn't say much, and I didn't like to ask. I could see my mother found it upsetting and, well, people didn't talk about things like that in those days. We let sleeping dogs carry on sleeping.' Delia looked affectionately at the snoring Scottie, little paws twitching as he terrorised dream rabbits. 'Apart from the name, I know nothing about my birth mother. When we married, your grandad and I, we did a bit of looking, but it wasn't like now, there wasn't this Internet and we couldn't find anything. We had to give up.'
'Isn't there an agency that keeps all the records?'
'There is now, but not back in them days. People adopted children by private arrangement, they didn't make a fuss out of it. Girls had babies out of wedlock, and thought it better to pretend it hadn't happened. It's easier now - you can get in touch if you want, but not then. People didn't think children would want to know.'
Lu nodded. 'But you would. I can see you'd want to know. So what can I do?'
'I've seen it on the telly,' Delia said. 'They look it all up on the web thing, the one you're always saying I should do. But, my love, I can't do it.' She turned her palms towards Lu, the gnarled and arthritic fingers bent together. 'I tried, down at the library, the lady was ever so nice, but I can't do the typing and I can't move that mouse, my hands just won't do it. I'm ninety-two and I'm an old dog. I can't be learning new tricks.'
Lu grimaced, thinking of how she'd tried to encourage her grandmother to become a Silver Surfer. Stupid of her not to realise that Delia would have difficulties with her arthritic hands. 'I'm sure it's not as easy as it looks on the telly, but I'll do what I can.' She looked up as something else struck her. 'Why do you want to know now?'
Delia looked shifty. 'It's on the telly.'
'Gran...' Lu looked sternly at her grandmother. 'Why now?'
- ooo -
'It turns out its her teeth,' Lu said, sipping her mojito. 'She's got to have her wisdom teeth out, and she's terrified of having a general anaesthetic. Of course, she's ninety-two, so it is more dangerous but, just imagine, she's never had one before.' The bar was busy; they had to sit close to hear what the other was saying, but Lu didn't mind. The closer the better as far as she was concerned.
Marcus nodded. 'I've not had many. My appendix, and I broke my arm playing polo and it set badly so I had to have it broken and reset under a general, but that's about it.'
Lu tucked away the knowledge that he'd played polo. Of course he had; he had probably been to Argentina and played chukkas on the pampas. 'Anyway, I've got to find out about my real great-grandparents. It looks so easy when you see it on television: you go to the right site, and there's all the information, and Bob's your uncle. Or Jack's your great-grandfather.'
'So there isn't the information?' Marcus ate a salted almond, licking his lips to get the salt off. For a second Lu wondered what he'd do if she leaned forward and kissed the salt away. She quickly started talking instead.
'No, just the opposite. There's too much. I've tried typing things into Google and you just get millions of sites coming back at you.' Family history was a booming industry, if the entries on Google were anything to go by. Books and societies and people wanting information on long-lost relatives all jostled across her screen. Defeated by the deluge, Lu had thought she'd try a bit of First World War research, and discovered that there were millions of people out there with sites to visit and books to buy. She had only the haziest ideas about the war in the first place, which didn't help. It had coagulated into her mind as four years of fighting in trenches, with a few poets scooting around talking about foreign fields, and posters of Kitchener saying Your Country Needs You.
She gave the mojito a cautious sip. The barman had stuffed it full of ice and mint and she didn't want to risk making a horrible dreggy sucking noise with her straw. 'I'm sure once I get started it'll be easier, but it's hard to know where to begin. A lot of the sites you have to pay to subscribe to, and I don't know if it's worth it. I don't suppose you've done any family history research?' She looked up at Marcus hopefully, but he shook his head.
'Afraid not. My family history is, as far as I know, straightforward. There are a couple of distant cousins who've done some research and they've sent my parents copies of the family tree. I'm not going to be any use to you.'
Don't say that, I can think of lots of uses for you, Lu thought, lowering her eyes in case he could read her thoughts. 'What about the First World War - do you know anything about that?'
But again Marcus shook his head. Still, it would be quite unreasonable to expect him to be an expert in precisely everything she wanted to know, when he was absolutely perfect in every other way.
'Science all the way for me, that or making things.' Marcus spread out his hands as if ready to make something. He had very practical hands, Lu thought, tanned and strong, with neat fingernails. She hated men who had long fingernails, but his were just right'
'Do you make things now, for your company?' She knew engineering had a wide application, but in her head it meant building bridges spanning vast gushing rivers, a bit like in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
'I could do, if I had to.' He explained that his company manufactured precision technical equipment using lasers.
'Like the baddie in Goldfinger?' Lu put on a fake German accent. ' "I don't expect you to talk, Mr Bond. I expect you to die." '
Marcus laughed. 'Right sort of kit, but on a slightly smaller scale. Most of our equipment would fit into the palm of your hand.' He explained how his company's laser equipment was used for machinery all over the world, for pattern-cutting and engine-tooling and surgical equipment and...
Fascinating, Lu thought, gazing into his eyes as he talked. He was so knowledgeable, so articulate, so passionate. So...perfect. Not that she could understand much of what he was saying; phrases like electrode deposition, vacuum bonding, the Czochralski method, athermal birefringent filters flew around her head like exotic humming birds. She took a long sip of her mojito and made an equally long slurping sound.
'I'm sorry,' Marcus said. 'I must be boring you.'
'Not at all,' Lu said honestly, putting down her glass in case of further oral embarrassment. 'I don't think you could.'
Marcus gave her a sideways look, as if he wasn't a hundred per cent sure she wasn't joking. 'Anyway, it's your turn. Tell me about what you do. You said at the exhibition that you're an illustrator. What are you working on at the moment?'
'Vegetables. To be precise, some peas in a pod called...' she gave a little drum roll on the bar top with her forefingers, 'the Sugarsnaps!'
Marcus looked uncertain. 'Is that what you like illustrating?'
'It's got its charms,' Lu said. 'It's quite interesting working out how to draw them, given that peas are round, and identical, and don't came with any foliage you can use for legs or arms. Bit like doing a crossword puzzle or sudoku. And they're having lots of adventures with other vegetables, which is fun to draw. But really, it's not a question of what I like doing, I'm a freelance illustrator; I take the work I'm offered, and if that's vegetables, then I draw vegetables.' It wasn't what she'd trained for, she felt like saying, it wasn't what she'd dreamed of. But that would have been way too heavy for a first date. 'At least it's not animals dressed up and doing human things. Or fairies. A couple of years ago I did a series on a princess fairy, and I have to say, I'm fairied out for the moment. Anyway, I think the bottom's dropped out of the fairy market,' she added.
'That sounds vaguely obscene.' Marcus sipped his drink with a raised eyebrow, suave as James Bond - no embarrassing slurping noises for him.
'You should hear some of the conversations us illustrators have. I had one the other day about pigs - how do you draw the rear view of a pig complete with tail but without showing its bottom, if you're not going anthropomorphic and allowing trousers.' What was she doing talking about pigs' bottoms to Marcus? It wasn't exactly a come-hither line. At least, she hoped it wasn't. 'People have no idea of the complexities of the job.'
'So you don't do anything like Jerry?'
'No, it's a quite different discipline.' Lu felt in safer waters. 'Though I like to think that if I decided to be an artist, I'd find it easier than Jerry would find it being an illustrator.'
Marcus smiled at that. 'Perhaps I should ask him what he thinks.'
'Noooo, it would be embarrassing,' Lu said, wincing. She wondered whether she should order another round of drinks, which might prompt Marcus into suggesting they went out for dinner. The barman was busy down the other end of the bar, which was filling up even more. It was getting harder to hear what Marcus was saying. She decided against another drink here. 'Did you have a chance to look round the exhibition? It was very crowded, I'm amazed anyone could see any of the art. Pity, because there was some really good work there.'
'I bought something, actually.' Marcus swirled the ice round in his glass nonchalantly.
'Really?' Lu leaned forward, although if she got much nearer she'd be sitting on his lap. 'What?'
'I should make you guess, but... I bought one of Jerry's.'
'Right.' Lu had to admit it sent him down a bit in her estimation. At least he bought art, which was more than most. 'Was it the one with the...' She stopped, embarrassed.
'Nipples that look like lumps of bubblegum? Yeah.'
'That was what I was going to say.' Lu knew exactly which one it was. You could hardly miss it: the paint was heavily applied in great vibrant blobs and the pose was explicit. She looked up at him, suddenly less certain. 'Do you buy much art?'
'When I can. I can't paint or draw to save my life, so I'm in awe of those who can.' Marcus gave her a teasing sideways glance. 'Perhaps I should buy something of yours.'
Lu smiled back at him, uncertainties evaporated, her skin tingling with anticipation. 'I don't sell my illustrations.'
Marcus leaned towards her. She could smell his aftershave, fresh and lemony. 'You might make an exception.' His voice was enticing. Lu shook her head.
'Never,' she said, her eyes on his.
'A challenge for me, then. I like a challenge.' To her surprise, instead of following up with something wonderfully seductive and flirty, he withdrew slightly, fiddling with his cufflinks. 'Pity I won't be able to take it up in the near future.'
'Oh?'
'I'm going away next week. To Minneapolis.'
'On business?'
'Yes - I wouldn't be there for any other reason. It's not exactly Barbados.'
She should have known Marcus went to Barbados on holiday, Lu thought. First class, most likely. He could probably waterski. He drank from the minibar and never smuggled the rolls from breakfast up to his room for lunch. 'So how long are you in Minneapolis for?'
Marcus gave a rueful smile. 'For ever, perhaps.'
So it turned out the gods weren't smiling on her after all'
- ooo -
'There's good news, and bad news,' Lu said as she plonked herself down the next day in the seat opposite Briony at the cafe around the corner from the gallery. Briony ate there so often she'd nicknamed it her second office, her first office being a damp cubbyhole down in the basement under the gallery. Lu thought she probably did more work in her car than either of her offices.
Briony looked up from the stack of papers she'd been making notes from and pushed them to one side. 'Oooh, let's have the good news first.'
'Marcus rang.' Lu quickly ordered a cappuccino and a piece of carrot cake from the waitress. No point in being on a diet now.
'And?'
'And we went out for a drink, and he's absolutely wonderful, just what I was looking for. He's really interesting, knows lots of scientific stuff that I don't even understand what the words mean let alone the sentences, and he has the most gorgeous eyes.' Lu sighed and rested her chin on the heel of her hand. 'In fact he's perfect in every way.'
'I knew he would be.' Briony squealed with delight. 'I'll have to pump Jerry for information - I wonder when he's next playing squash with him.'
Squash meant quick reactions, Lu thought. Lovely legs. Adrenalin... testosterone... Mind you, that would also have been true for Jerry, and she didn't fancy him one little bit. 'Jerry will never play squash with Marcus again. That's the bad news.' Lu sat back in her chair. 'He's going to Minneapolis.'
Briony frowned. 'Where's that?'
'Minnesota.' She could sense that Briony was about to ask where that was, and got in first. 'North USA, to the left of the Great Lakes. The starting point of the Mississippi, land of ten thousand lakes. Home once of the Chippewa and Dakota Indians, about to be home to Marcus.'
Briony looked doubtful. 'Might be a nice place to visit...'
'I'm not sure it's my sort of place - I Googled it, and the first site that came up was one for rogue taxidermists. They stuff roadkill.' She supposed that at least it was a form of creative recycling and a bit whacky, but then there was whacky in a good way, and whacky in a bad way. 'Anyway, it's hardly likely that we're going to see each other again. You wouldn't just happen to be passing by, or be able to pop out for a quick drink.'
'There's always email.'
'Come on, it's not as if we've been together for a while. We've only just met. You can't build a passionate, earth-shattering relationship on the basis of a couple of mojitos and some emails.' The waitress placed Lu's coffee and cake in front of her and she murmured a thank you before picking up the fork and spearing a corner of carrot cake.
'No, but you could keep things going until he gets back. How long is he going for?'
'That's the point. He might never come back. He's got a wonderful opportunity to go out there and build his own division blah blah blah. It's just too depressing. I meet someone who has real potential, and they're going away practically the next day. I really thought he could be Mr Right, just the timing's wrong.'
'Mr Right at the wrong time is Mr Wrong.' Briony sipped her espresso, dark as her hair and clothes. The only colour on her was her scarlet lipstick.
Lu slumped in her seat. Nothing was going well; every direction she tried came to a dead end. No wonder she needed carrot cake. 'I am so fed up with this. All I want is a nice normal relationship with a nice normal man, one who doesn't have vast quantities of baggage. You'd have thought it wouldn't be too much to ask.'
'But they've all got baggage. Everyone has, even you.'
'Not me. I've no ties, own place, own car, own career - not that that's brilliant at the moment, but at least it exists - no dodgy exes lurking round the corner, nothing.'
'No dodgy exes? You've got more exes than I've had hot dinners.'
'I haven't.'
'Come off it. You're always falling for men, and they're all wonderful at first and then they turn out to be wrong in some way. What about Bill? Or Alec? Or what was that one called? The one you dumped because he was too needy? Dan, that was it.'
'He was needy,' Lu protested, realising she'd eaten a huge slab of carrot cake in record time.
'He was normal. Maybe a bit OTT, but most women would have loved it. Blimey, if Jerry did half that stuff - no, correction, ten per cent - I'd be thrilled.'
'It was quite nice,' Lu said, thinking back to the regular supply of flowers, the attentive phone calls, the cute texts. 'But it got too much. Anyway, how is Jerry? Did he sell well? I know Marcus bought one of his.'
'The gallery did pretty well. I was a bit nervous, what with the state of the financial markets, but I think people have decided to invest in art. After all, if you're only getting pennies in interest, you might as well take a punt on something you can enjoy on the wall. All of Jerry's work sold; I was worried that his market would have dried up, but it seemed to be fine.'
'Trust Jerry.'
Briony laughed. 'I know it's not to your taste, but it is a lot of people's.'
'And the man himself? He seemed on good form at the party.'
'Oh, Jerry's always on good form. Life's one big party to him.' There was a bitter edge to Briony's voice.
'Is everything all right?'
Briony twiddled her pen in her fingers. 'Same old stuff: I complain because he's peering down girls' cleavages; he says he's just having fun and enjoying himself; I feel like a miserable old prune. I know he doesn't mean anything by it, but it's so obvious. And he's always got some model in his studio without her clothes on. He says nudes sell, and I know they do, I just wish he'd do something like landscapes.'
'But you're not really suspicious, are you?'
'No. Yes.' Briony doodled a scribble on the cover of her notebook. 'I know a lot of it is simply in my head, but then you think, no smoke without fire.'
'To be fair, he's always been a bit like that.'
'I know, but you'd have thought he'd have changed by now, settled down. I want us to sell our flats and buy somewhere together, but he says it's a bad time to sell and we should wait. I know it's a bad time to sell, but is that really any reason to our lives on hold? Who knows how long the recession is going to last? So we have a row and he stomps off, and then we make up and it's as if none of it's happened. I just don't feel we're going anywhere, apart from in circles.' Briony looked at her hands, silver rings on most fingers. 'Sometimes I think I might be better breaking up and moving on, finding someone who does want to settle down with me.'
Lu didn't know what to say. On the one hand, Jerry was not her favourite person; on the other, Briony had been through this cycle so many times before. The next time she saw her, Jerry might have suddenly become Mr Wonderful again. 'It's tricky...' she started to say.
'I know, if you were me, you'd have dumped Jerry years ago. But most of the time it's so good together. It's only that last ten per cent, and it's not even that. We all have to make compromises somewhere along the line.'
Lu didn't say anything. She didn't intend to compromise, not ever. When she met Mr Right, that would be it. She didn't want to waste her time on Mr Wrongs. Oh Marcus, why do you have to go to Minneapolis?
Lu's phone rang. She checked it, then let it fall back in her bag.
'Not answering?'
Lu shook her head. 'My agent. It'll either be to tick me off for being behind with my deadline or to offer me more work that I don't want to do.'
'How very glam to be offered work you don't want to do.'
'Hardly.' Lu slurped her cappuccino, not caring if she made noises or got a foam moustache. 'I don't know, I had such high ideals when I left college about what I was going to do. It was only going to be top-end picture books.'
'And that's what you did.'
'So how come I'm here, doing flat-fee work about vegetables? Sometimes I feel like a machine. They give me the brief, they wind me up, I churn the work out by a set time to a set fee. Half the time they give me the brief late, so I end up delivering the work late, but that's somehow my fault, so they're pissed off and my agent gives me an ear-bashing about being reliable and professional.'
'You sound pissed off too.'
Lu spooned the last dregs of cappuccino out. 'I don't know. Sometimes I can remember how I used to feel about illustration, how it was the most important thing in the world to me, but to be honest, that seems a long time ago. The creativity has gone out of it; it feels like the books are designed by committees.'
'You could go back to individual top-end picture books rather than this flat-fee series work. You did that once.'
'Somehow I seem to have slipped out of that market and I can't get back into it. My agent doesn't appear to be able to get me the commissions.'
'What about writing your own again?' Briony checked her watch, and started to gather her papers up.
'But that would mean turning work down - paying work. I'd have to develop a book with no guarantee it would get published, and the illustration market is tricky at the moment.' Lu rummaged in her bag for her purse. 'It's a Catch 22: I need money to live off so I can't afford to turn work down, but because I'm fully booked with flat-fee work I'm not free to even have a crack at the sort of jobs I'd like to do. When I started this series, I thought it was really cute, but now I could murder the person who wrote them.'
'I always thought cute was king in the illustration business.'
'It is, it is.' Lu put down the money to pay her bill, thinking she was going to have to give up having coffee and cake with Briony quite so often at this rate. 'I know it sells, but I wish I could do something a bit more meaty.'
'Like what? Farmyard animals?'
Briony looked so pleased with her joke that Lu laughed as she stood up. 'I didn't mean to come and dump all this on you.'
'No problem.' Briony got up too. 'It makes a change from artists whingeing about the gallery's commission.'
Lu looked around the cafe, the walls hung with art for sale. Many of them had red dots beside them. 'You were better than any of the stuff here. Don't you miss it?'
'Never.' Briony looked at the art. 'And while it's nice of you to say so, I don't think I was that good to start out with. Plus I never had the drive that some people had, regardless of talent. I mean, look at Jerry. He works hard at his painting, yes, but he also has one eye on the market all the time and he networks furiously. I can think of other people in our year - Maria, for instance - who were really, really talented, but they didn't have any of the other skills you need to make a career of it. By the way, someone at the party told me Maria had got four kids under five. Imagine!'
Lu pulled on her coat and wrapped her scarf twice round her neck. 'Yuck. As far as I'm concerned, my biological clock can tick until it's blue in the face and I still won't want them.'
'Not even with Mr Right?' Briony slipped on her coat, a square kimono sort of affair in what looked like posh blanket material. It radiated I Own An Art Gallery.
Lu shook her head, thinking that her own coat must radiate I'm Seriously Broke. 'Not even with him. Speaking of children, I know what I wanted to ask you - do you know anything about tracing your family history?'
Briony shook her head. 'Nothing. Why?'
'You know my gran? She's got to have her wisdom teeth out and, while it's a pretty routine op, because of her age and everything, she's really worried about it. I think she thinks she's going to die.' Lu shivered involuntarily at the thought and Briony wrinkled her nose sympathetically. 'Anyway, she's asked me to do a bit of research into our family history and, in particular, this photograph she's got of a First World War soldier. And I haven't a clue where to start.'
'Can't you look it up online?'
'In theory, yes, but it's hard to know where to start. There must be about twenty zillion sites on the First World War - which one do you go for? It's the sort of thing that if you know what you're looking for it's really easy, but if you don't know anything about it, you're stuck.'
Briony looked thoughtful. 'Actually, I might be able to help, or at least I know someone who could. Nick Jones. He was at the party. Not obviously attractive but quite sexy. Looks a bit like Gerard Depardieu.'
Lu nodded. 'I know who you mean. I met him briefly with Jerry.' She had a hazy picture of the man, before he was eclipsed by the wonders of Marcus.
'He's something to do with war, ex-soldiers, I'm not sure what exactly. I don't think he's a historian, but he seems a really nice guy, so I'm sure he'll help if he can. Look, I've got his number somewhere here...' Briony put all her papers back down on the cafe table and started to flick through the numbers on her mobile.
'Brilliant. Anything is better than floundering around the Internet for hours. How do you know him?'
'His wife is one of my artists - does abstract landscapes, sells well. I had thought there was some problem with them because I hadn't seen him about for ages - not that Morwenna said anything because she's very private, keeps it all professional - but I assume it's all fine; anyway, they seemed very amicable at the private view. Look, here's the number - do you want me to call him now?'
Lu blinked. 'Um, yes, why not?'
Briony rang the number and after a few rings, someone answered. They exchanged pleasantries about the exhibition, then Briony said, 'I'm after a favour for a friend. Lu Edwards - I think you met her briefly at the party. Long brown hair, a bit hippyish.' Lu frowned at Briony. A bit hippyish? Just because she didn't wear black all the time like Briony.
'Yes, that's right, an illustrator.' Briony nodded at Lu and did a thumbs-up. Lu was cheered by this proof that she was memorable, even though hippyish. 'She needs some help tracking down a First World War soldier, and I thought of you. She's right here - shall I pass you over?' Briony handed the phone to Lu.
'Hi. Um. Sorry to bother you.'
'No bother. Briony says you need some help tracking down a soldier?'
Lu explained the situation, and how she was finding it difficult.
'It's not too bad when you know your way around the sites.' He spoke slowly, his voice reassuring. 'I'd be happy to help get you started.'
'Thank you so much, that'd be great.' They arranged to meet at a local pub the next evening, then Lu hung up and handed the phone back to Briony. 'He seems nice.'
'Attractive too,' Briony said as they walked to the exit, Lu's face suddenly feeling brittle as the cold air hit it after the warmth of the cafe.
'Not my type. Too broad. Too married. Anyway, I'm after him for his knowledge, not his body.' Outside on the pavement, Lu gave Briony a hug. 'Thanks for helping - and cheer up. You're always having ups and downs with Jerry; perhaps you're just having another down right now.'
Briony hugged Lu back. 'Expect you're right. Good luck with Nick.'
- ooo -
Lu got to the pub the following day earlier than she'd expected. Inside it was dark but welcoming. They'd taken a tired pub, badly modernised in the seventies, and ripped out the old interior, revealing the original features such as the fireplace and oak floors. They'd made a snug area in the darkest corner, with over-scaled flock wallpaper in purple and black. It should have looked wrong, but here it worked, although it did make the corner very dark. Lu looked around hoping to see Nick, but she couldn't spot him. She felt a frisson of fear, a bit like on a first date - what if she didn't recognise him at all? Perhaps the pub was filled with men who looked like a dark-haired Gerard Depardieu. On the other hand, looking around, perhaps not.
She got herself a drink from the bar and chose a table, settling down with her back to the wall so she could see the main entrance without it looking as if she was staring anxiously. She got out her sketchpad, more to give herself something to do, then she noticed the couple two tables down. The man had the most enormous nose. It was huge. Humongous. Quickly she sketched the outline as best she could. He was staring morosely at his plate, as if he'd asked for steak and been served salad - rabbit food, he probably called it, she thought as she started cross-hatching round his cheeks. And his eyebrows - like prawns stuck on to his brow ridges. There, off they went like firecrackers, shooting sparks from his eyes, his hair like wire wool, tight as a terrier's, and then down and round to the ears, mottled red like old meat on the butcher's counter, and then -
'Lu. Hello.'
Lu looked up, reluctantly focusing on the shape in front of her. Oh, yes, Nick. She gave herself a mental shake. Yes - Nick. 'I'm sorry,' she said, closing her sketchpad. 'I was miles away.'
Nick raised his eyebrows - no prawns there. 'Remind me never to ask you to draw me.'
'What? Oh no, this is nothing, I always carry it with me.' Lu slipped the pad into her bag. 'Thanks so much for meeting me.'
'No problem.' He sat down next to her. 'You said on the phone you needed to track down a First World War soldier.'
'Yes, but let me get you a drink first.'
Lu went to the bar and ordered a pint of bitter. Nick was and wasn't what she'd expected. Her memory of him had been hazy, a big guy, not as tall as Marcus but broad, his demeanour relaxed and pleasant. He was still all these things, but shaggy might have been a better description, although he wasn't unkempt in any way. Maybe his hair was a bit too long and needed a decent cut, maybe his shirt looked as if it was about to become untucked. For a second she saw him as a little boy, the sort with scabby knees and socks concertina'd round the ankles and a Swiss Army penknife in his pocket, the sort that was always busy doing something, the sort that was fun to draw.
She paid for his pint then carried it back carefully. Nick took a long drink, as if he needed it.
'Hard day?'
He nodded. 'I've not been doing this job for long, so I'm still on the learning curve.'
'I don't know what it is you do - Briony just said it was something to do with war.'
'Not exactly. I work for a charity that helps former members of the armed forces, whether it's helping them to adjust to civilian life, or deal with disabilities or pensions or any other issues.'
'So, nothing to do with the history of the First World War then.'
'Not directly, but I know my way around.' Nick sipped his pint again. 'I was brought in to run a project linked with the centenary of the First World War in five years' time, so although my background is in marketing and fund-raising rather than military history, I'm starting to learn about it. Now. What did you want to know?'
'My grandmother's given me a photograph of a soldier; I'm guessing he's in First World War uniform. She thinks he might be her father and she wants me to find him, but I don't know where to start.' Lu had scanned the photograph into her computer and printed off a copy, not wanting to lug the heavy photograph frame around with her. She handed the copy to Nick'
'Do you know his name? His regiment?'
'I've got his name, but I don't know anything else. He looks terribly young,' she added.
'Some of them signed up at fifteen, fourteen even,' Nick said, shaking his head. 'Poor lads, they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. Though it has to be said, most of them were a lot older. The Army paid well, much more than most ordinary men could earn.' He bent his head to look at the photograph more closely. 'It's a bit blurry, but with a magnifying glass we'd be able to work out his rank and regiment from the buttons and insignia, and then it will be a lot easier. Do you know if he was a regular soldier or just enlisted?'
Lu shook her head. 'I don't know.'
'And did he die in the war?'
'I know nothing at all about him beyond his name and the fact that my grandmother believes he's her father. Which would make him my great-grandfather.' Lu peered at the photograph in Nick's hands, hoping to feel some connection. But he remained just a man in uniform. 'Would it make a difference if he had died?'
'It's much easier to look up soldiers who died while serving in the Army.' He leaned forward. 'The Internet makes it easy.'
'That's what everyone keeps telling me, but it isn't!'
Nick laughed. 'No, really, it is.'
If you know where to look, Lu thought as Nick pulled out his iPhone and flipped it open. He pressed the keypad a couple of times, waited for Internet access, then tapped in a site. 'Right. What was his name?'
'Jack Havergal,' Lu said, peering over his arm at the screen, trying to see what he was doing. In the dimly lit pub interior, the screen glowed in his hand.
'That sounds like an unusual name which will make it more straight-forward if he's there. Let's see...' Nick typed in the name, pressed enter. 'Yes, there he is. Private Jack Havergal, Somerset Light Infantry, died first of July 1916. Thiepval Memorial.' He showed the screen to Lu.
'Is that it? You've just found him.' She stared at him in disbelief. 'How did you do it?'
'Like I said, the Internet makes it easy.' His eyes twinkled at her. 'If he'd been Jack Smith, we'd have been searching for ever.'
Lu thought of all the time she'd spent getting frustrated sitting in front of her computer. 'I can't believe you just did it. You're a genius.' She shuffled nearer to him, peering over his shoulder at his iPhone, trying to see the details of Jack Havergal, her great-grandfather. She was surprised at how excited she felt. Somehow the man in the photograph had just become real. 'What else can you tell me? Where was he born? What did he do?' She looked up at Nick expectantly, but he shook his head.
'This site just deals with soldiers who died. I know you can search the births, deaths and marriage registers online, but I'm not sure of the sites; you'd have to do a bit more research for that. Then you can send off for his birth certificate, marriage certificate, whatever you need, and that should tell you some more. That's all family history and it's not my field. What I can tell you is that he was probably a volunteer in the infantry and died at the Somme on the most beautiful summer morning.' His voice had an edge to it and Lu looked at him with surprise'
'How do you know that?'
'The date. July 1st 1916. First day of the Battle of the Somme.'
Lu knew the Somme was one of the major battles of the First World War, but she'd thought the war was all about mud and rain, not beautiful summer days. 'Sorry,' she said. 'I didn't do history at school.'
'Do you want a potted history?' Lu nodded, with a shamefaced smile. Nick took a deep breath. 'Right. The war started in 1914, and at the beginning there was a lot of direct fighting, actual battles, but neither side could establish victory. So there was a stalemate. By 1916 the enemy had been stuck in their trenches for a year, and it was becoming clear that something extra was going to be needed to get them out. So the British and French came up with a plan. They decided to focus all their attention on a section of the Western Front and throw everything at it. If they could break through the enemy defences, there was a good chance the whole line would collapse and the war would be won.'
Something stirred at the back of Lu's brain. 'Is that the Big Push?'
Nick nodded. 'They shelled the Western Front for five days in the area around the River Somme, then on the first of July they sent wave after wave of soldiers over the top into no-man's-land to attack the enemy trenches. That first day...'
'Was it bad?'
'It was the worst single day of the whole war. Sixty thousand casualties, of whom a third died. I'd guess your man was one of them. He probably died fairly early on in the morning.'
Sixty thousand. Lu couldn't begin to imagine that many. That was like nearly the whole population of Bath being gathered together and wounded or killed on one single day. Impossible to imagine. 'How do you know he'd have died in the morning?'
'That's when they went over the top.' Nick examined his hands, fingers spread out. 'Did you notice on the entry that it gave his cemetery as Thiepval? That's where the Lutyens memorial is. On it are carved the names of seventy-two thousand soldiers who have no known grave. They could only bury men who they could retrieve from the trenches or from no-man's-land, and they could only do that if the fighting had stopped. So at the Somme, they were only able to start burying the dead in early 1917, six months after the worst day. There's not much left of a man by that point.'
Lu couldn't take it in. Yes, she'd known that lots of men had died, but the numbers seemed so vast, so impersonal. But now she had a stake in it: the man who was her great-grandfather. She touched his face. It was so young-looking, the steady eyes, the serious expression. 'How can I find out more about what he did in the war? Or where he was from and what he did. I want to know everything about him.'
Nick shifted in his seat as if coming back from somewhere far away. 'The war I can help with. You now know his regiment, the Somerset Light Infantry, so you can order his war record and find out where the regiment went, what they were involved with and so on. It's not really my area, but I'm sure I can help you - I can certainly put you in touch with people who are experts.'
'You sound pretty expert to me.'
Nick shook his head, and Lu thought he'd got a very appealing smile. 'Not at all. Since I started this job, I've been reading up on it. There's a lot of interesting material out there; you can see why it becomes a bit of an obsession.'
'What exactly are you doing? You said you'd got a project.'
'We want to raise awareness, so hopefully we're going to plant a line of poppies along the line of the Western Front as it was on the first of July. Four hundred and fifty miles or thereabouts. It's a mad idea.'
'Was it yours?'
"Fraid so.'
Four hundred and fifty miles of scarlet poppies. Lu could see them now, bobbing in the breeze. Perhaps you'd be able to see them from outer space, like the Great Wall of China, a ribbon of scarlet like a scar across the earth. 'Wow. It'll be like a great landscape installation; it'll make Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy look tiny in comparison.' She looked at Nick with fresh eyes. He must have an incredible imagination to come up with such an original idea. The scarlet line of poppies would really bring home the scale of the war. 'Was the front really four hundred and fifty miles long?'
'From the sea coast of northern France right down to the border in Alsace.'
'I'd no idea it was so long. Four hundred and fifty miles.' And made out of poppies. That would be something unforgettable. 'That's going to be amazing.'
'If it happens,' Nick said cheerfully. 'There's so much politics behind the scenes. That whole area of France was devastated, villages destroyed, the countryside turned into a wasteland. A lot of people in France would rather forget, and move on. And perhaps they're right.'
'But you don't think so.'
Nick looked at his hands again. 'So many men died,' he said simply. 'They need remembering, both for themselves and for the future. Perhaps if more politicians remembered, they wouldn't be so quick to go to war.'
'I hope you succeed.'
'Thanks. I hope you find your soldier.'
It felt like time to go. Lu stood up and held out her hand. 'Thank you so much for all your help.'
'No problem.' He stood too, shaking her hand. 'Let me know how you get on. I'd be interested.'
'Okay. I'll do that. Good luck with your poppy project. It sounds fascinating.'
'Thanks.' He let her hand go. 'Would you like me to do a bit of research on your soldier? Making no promises, but I could probably find out some more about him.'
Lu smiled broadly. 'That would be great.' It wasn't so much that she wanted someone else to do all the work, but she could see that finding out about one soldier among so many would be like searching for the proverbial needle - let alone finding Anne Morgan, her great-grandmother. It would be much easier if someone else was looking alongside her, particularly someone who had specialist knowledge. 'You've been so helpful I don't like to ask, but do you know how you'd go about tracking down a woman who lived around that time? I've got hardly any information on her, just a name.'
Nick dug around in his pockets. 'I can suggest a couple of websites to look at...' Lu handed him a piece of paper from her sketchpad and a pen. He wrinkled his brow as if thinking, then wrote down a couple of web addresses and handed the paper back. 'There's quite a lot of detective work involved in these searches.'
'Just call me Sherlock,' Lu said.
Nick gave her a considered look. 'Perhaps I will.' To her surprise, he bent and kissed her cheek. 'Good to meet you again. I was rather annoyed with Jerry for whisking me away, to be honest.'
'He took you off to look at your wife's work, I think.' She emphasised the word 'wife' slightly. She didn't want him getting any ideas.
'My ex-wife.'
Ex-wife? Perhaps she did want him getting ideas. 'Briony didn't say
'She probably doesn't know. Morwenna doesn't like to mix professional and personal, and we tried to keep our dirty linen as private as possible. Neither of us wanted to slag the other off in public.' He looked across the pub as if in embarrassment at talking about something personal, then turned back to Lu. 'Nor in private, to be honest. We're still friends, as much as it's possible to be in the circumstances.'
Lu didn't know what to say. She could see the hurt in his eyes. 'I'm sorry. I'm always blundering in.'
'Not your fault. I should have said something to Jerry, but it didn't seem the right place or time. Besides, he was busy being the successful artist and trying to get me to buy one of his paintings.'
Lu liked the slightly caustic edge to his voice. 'And did you?'
'Heavens, no. I can't afford his stuff,' Nick said, before lowering his voice. 'To be honest, I don't like his work very much. It's a bit flashy for my taste. But don't tell him I said that.'
'I won't.' She leaned closer to him. 'I don't like his work much either.'
'A secret we share.'
They smiled and said goodbye, and Lu watched Nick as he left the pub. At the door he turned and raised his hand, a fleeting gesture of farewell. Lu raised her hand too. What a nice man he was. She hoped she would meet him again.
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