Guilty Pleasures

For all my good intentions about devoting the next few hours to my job, I couldn’t resist phoning Josie. She picked up first ring.

‘It’s killing me, all this rest,’ she told me. ‘Bored out of my skull I am, and I’ll swear my back’s worse without all the stretching and bending I was doing in the shop and at fairs. And quiet! It’s so quiet round here. If you hear I’ve been dragged off kicking and screaming by the men in white coats – except they wear green dungarees, these days, don’t they? – then you’ll know why. Make sure you never let dear old Griff retire, won’t you? I’d hate him to come to this. I can’t even ask you to come down for a cuppa because I know you’re always busy – have you fixed that crack in Elspeth’s plate yet, by the way?’

‘It’s on my list. Towards the top,’ I promised her. ‘And I’ll drop in for a cuppa and some of your cake when I take it back to her. But I want you to do something for me. No one else can, Josie, because no one else was there. That time you saw me and I didn’t wave. Remember? I want you to jot down exactly where it was and what I was wearing. And if you can recall anything about the young man I was with, that would be a bonus, too.’

‘Absolutely not. The thing is, you’re not the first person who says they saw me and I didn’t acknowledge them,’ I said, not quite accurately, but never mind. ‘I’m just wondering if I’ve got a double. Well, not exactly a double. More a relative. And if I have, then I’d love to meet her.’

‘Yes, you could do with some company your own age,’ she said, surprising me. ‘I mean, you and Griff were made for each other, but you need boyfriends and girlfriends too. That handsome man who fell head over heels with you, he was old enough to be your father,’ she added with a sigh, though I wasn’t sure why.

‘Boyfriends might take me away from Griff,’ I said. ‘And he’s done so much for me, it’d have to be someone really, really special to take me away from him.’

‘I know that, lovey. But a few mates to giggle over new nail varnish with – that’d be lovely, wouldn’t it, now? So I’ll keep my eyes open for this other you. But I’ll be a bit discreet, if you know what I mean.’

‘In that case I’ll pop Elspeth’s plate right on top of my waiting list. So make sure you’ve made some cake.’ Apart from anything else, a spot of baking might fill some of those suddenly empty hours for her.

I was so jumpy I could hardly have attached mud to velvet. I’d changed twice, and I’d spilt tea down the outfit I really wanted to wear. And I was so cross with myself that I’d snapped at Mrs Walker almost unnecessarily. I’d apologized afterwards and actually asked to see the photos of her and her fiancé Paul Banner at a ballroom-dancing weekend they’d spent at a nice hotel in Devon. So we parted friends again when she drove off back to Bossingham. I locked up as carefully as I always did and made sure all the security cameras responded to my cheery waves.

By six thirty, I’d watered the tubs and hanging baskets and was thinking about cleaning the van. In my nicest sandals, for heaven’s sake. Maybe if I went and changed and got thoroughly soaked, he’d phone then.

What about supper? I’d sort of assumed we might all have supper together, once the business of the snuffbox had been dealt with, so I’d put off cooking anything. Of course I could eat two full meals without turning a hair, but I didn’t want to do that too often, or those fifties dresses with their neat waists wouldn’t fasten any more and I’d have to sell them again. Not a good thought.

‘Just to let you know Morris has been and gone. There was a bad RTA on the A26, so he got held up. Anyway, he doesn’t recognize the snuffbox either, not as such, but he was certainly excited and he’s taken it away for safe keeping. I thought you’d be OK with that.’

‘Don’t see why. Your property after all. Hang on.’ There was a murmur her end. Was it Robin? Combining work with pleasure? With my solitary omelette almost forgotten, I had a tiny and very irritating pang, but not of hunger.

At ten o’clock, it was time to take my advice to Josie. I set to and baked. I couldn’t eat the mound of scones I produced, but, as I told Griff in a nice long gossipy phone call, at least there’d be plenty of his favourites in the freezer when he got back.

It’s hard to make a couple of days spent literally watching paint dry sound exciting. But in its own way it was satisfying, and eventually I was able to phone Josie and tell her I’d be ready to return her friend Elspeth’s plate the next morning. I’d come back via Tenterden to catch up with Griff in person, too.

Elspeth lived in a very ordinary modern house not far from Josie’s equally ordinary modern house on the outskirts of Hastings, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when she declared she’d walk round to Josie’s with me.

‘She needs a bit of company, doesn’t she?’ she confided, looking for an umbrella though the sky was vividly blue. We strolled, very slowly, arm in arm, to be greeted with huge hugs and squawks of delight. For an instant I wondered what I was doing eating cake with two old ladies, however kind and generous they were, in a cluttered and airless little room, when I could have been down on the sea front, walking as fast as I could and letting the wind take my hair. Or running along hand in hand with . . .

But the cakes were brilliant, and the least I could do was pay attention to Josie and conscientiously jot down everything she could recall about the other me.

We were having lunch in the garden room – nothing as vulgar as a conservatory for Aidan, but then, it would have been a sin to tack anything like that on to his perfect Georgian house. Aidan’s idea of entertaining was to buy the best Waitrose could offer. But Griff, despite his bruises, was rarely happier than when he was cooking, and the perfect flan was definitely home-made, full of double cream too, if I knew Griff. But he was looking so much perkier, I didn’t tell him off.

‘Exactly. All she could remember was that she looked like me, only with a harder face. And the bloke looked shifty. I think she was inventing details – if you can call them that – just to please me. But at least I’ve shortened the waiting list, and she paid in cash. And I saw the sea in the distance, all blue and sparkly. And now I’m here with you. So although I’ve not made the best use of my time, I haven’t wasted it. And this is a perfect lunch.’

‘I’m amazed you managed to eat any of it after dear Josie’s cakes. What a good job we only have fruit salad for dessert,’ he said wistfully.

‘It doesn’t always happen when people embark on new relationships, I fear. Maybe I should cancel this London trip and come and keep an eye on you.’

But when I got back home it was very quiet, and Tim and I had to have a long conversation involving tissues before I settled down to tackle a really tricky bit of gilding on a Crown Derby vase.

One thing I really did not expect the following morning, horribly early, when I’d no more than thought about getting up and having a shower, was a phone call from Robin. All he said was he could do with some advice, and maybe we could meet for lunch at the Halfway House – a pub that just happened to be halfway between Bredeham and Bossingham.

‘I’m sorry. I’ve absolutely got to finish an urgent job today, so . . . Look,’ I relented, ‘if you could make it over to Bredeham, I’ve got plenty of food here. Would that do?’

But it would never do to agonize over his love life when I was trying to be stoical about my lack of one, so, after a hasty shower and a piece of toast, I went to my workroom, where a particularly delicate piece of Chelsea waited for me. It was actually a good job he’d phoned so early – it was still shy of seven thirty. It meant I could get a really good run at the piece. In fact, I was so engrossed that I didn’t hear the doorbell ring. When the noise finally penetrated my skull, I almost dropped my paintbrush.

But it wasn’t Robin I peered at through the peephole in the door. It was an old guy I’d never seen before. Not this close, at least.