New Beginnings

Christie remembered the photos splashed in the press of Ben, Laura and Julia, as well as of an indoor pool that had come straight from a scene out of Footballers’ Wives: colonnaded french windows leading back into the house, white loungers, tropical ferns in large ceramic pots. Julia clearly knew how to enjoy the fruits of her success. Smiling, Christie offered her hand – to find it gripped firmly, as Julia’s clear blue eyes assessed her in an unnerving and not altogether pleasant way.

‘A pleasure to meet you,’ Julia said. ‘I’ve read your Daily News column. Good luck today.’ She gave her another look of appraisal.

‘Thanks.’ Christie, feeling a little uncomfortable, was relieved when, at that moment, the green room door opened and they were called to the studio.

As she stood in the dark, behind the set, she could hear the large audience of students and pensioners filing in. Who else had time to go to a daytime show? Bussed in for the occasion, they found their seats and the buzz subsided as the warm-up man welcomed them. Christie strained to hear what he was saying.

Then someone else caught her attention.

‘Christie, my darling. Hi. I’m Tim, the floor manager.’ A young casually dressed man wearing headphones was at her side. ‘Welcome. Nice to have you. In two minutes, watch Marina and just follow her onto the set and take the second stool on the left, behind the desk. OK, love? Good luck.’ He patted her shoulder in encouragement.

Oh, God, Marina was walking onto the set. They want to like me, Christie repeated to herself, and followed, as confidently as she could, to the sound of applause. Why did I say yes to this? She could feel the heat of the lights on her face and a prickle of perspiration on her back as she went out into the bright lights. She hitched herself onto the stool, which was high enough to make the women sit up straight or fall off, and wondered what to do with her heels: let them hang or tuck them in? She tucked them in and pulled down the sides of her skirt.

‘Look as if you’re enjoying yourself,’ whispered Grace. ’They won’t eat you.’

Switching on a smile as the warm-up guy introduced the team, Christie looked up and out towards the audience where her eyes fell on Mel in the second row, resplendent in a to-be-noticed-by-my-sister neon pink scarf, grinning like a maniac and giving her the thumbs-up. If only Nick could have been there with her. He would have been so proud. She twisted her wedding ring round her finger, then swiftly reminded herself that she had to stop thinking like that. This was her life now.

‘OK. Fifteen seconds, studio. Quiet, please,’ shouted Tim. He continued the countdown to zero, then the show’s title music struck up.

As the cameras began to roll, they were all laughing. It was up to the four of them now. Christie heard a disembodied voice introducing Marina, Grace, Sharon, and then: ‘. . . and please welcome Christie Lynch, the merry widow, to ask her: is there dating after death?’

Oh, God! No! Why had no one briefed her that they weren’t going to be taking the sensitive, dignified approach she had imagined? Because they realised she’d have shied away? Of course. She should have known better than to trust them not to trivialise the subject, but it was too late now. In front of the audience and her co-presenters, she had no choice but to keep smiling and try to think of something to say. Come on, Nick. Give me strength.

Chapter 3

Before she knew where she was, the show was over. Mel had kissed her, said how brilliant she had been and disappeared off for a shoot with John Swannell, her favourite fashion photographer. Christie had climbed down from her stool and was taken to the green room, where she found all her belongings had been brought from the dressing room.

The entire programme team was there, enjoying sandwiches and a glass of wine. While Marina was sharing a joke with Sharon, Julia Keen discreetly engineered a conversation alone with Christie, lowering her voice almost to a whisper, as she said, ‘You were good, darling. Much better than I expected. Now, do you have a good agent?’

Taken aback by Julia’s directness as well as the apparent need for discretion, Christie, suddenly self-conscious, muttered, ‘No. I’ve never really needed one.’

Julia’s eyes seemed to light up from within. ‘I think things are about to change for you. Perhaps we should have a little talk some time. Take my card.’ She extracted one from a small silver holder and slipped it into Christie’s hand. ‘Just call me,’ she said, giving Christie’s arm a little squeeze just above the elbow. Then she turned to join the other women and, within moments, was laughing as if she’d been with them for the length of the joke.

Christie stared at her, watching how she stayed for just as long as was necessary before making her excuses. She realised this was her cue to leave too. She said her goodbyes, receiving polite and not unenthusiastic thanks from the producer. She left the building carrying a hand-tied bunch of Heavenly Scent flowers, a Diptyque candle and a card from the regular presenters thanking her. She had pretended not to see the producer hurriedly signing on their behalf when she’d thought no one was looking. The card that Julia Keen had given her was burning a hole in her pocket.

*

Not until Christie sank into the grey-leather back seat of her chauffeur-driven Mercedes and she was watching the black ribbon of the M40 disappear beneath them, did she stop to take stock. Only then did she realise that she had no idea what she’d said at any time over the past hour or so, or if any of it had made sense. Her brief conversation with Julia had taken on the quality of a dream. She dismissed it as an aberration. The woman had only said what she felt she had to. Hadn’t she?

The driver had been asked to drop her off at her mother’s where she’d left her car. There was just time to drop in before she went home to meet the children when they got back from school. The door chimes pealed, and through the dimpled glass, she saw the distorted silhouette of her most ferocious critic coming towards her. The door opened to reveal Maureen, slim, her streaked blonde bob as aspirationally gamine as ever, beady eyes darting this way and that, thin mouth stretched into a smile, a hand on the string of pearls that crowned her heather twinset.

‘Christine! We all watched you, darling. You were surprisingly good, although I wasn’t sure about your lipstick.’ She held the door so Christie could just squeeze through. ‘And the dress. A bit revealing but the colour wasn’t bad.’ She led the way into the sitting room where the only one of the ‘all’ who was left was Ted Brooks, Maureen’s ‘gentleman friend’, whose right hand enveloped a sherry glass. Not the first of the day, if the colour of his cheeks was anything to judge by.

‘Ah, Christie.’ He glowed. ‘Marvellous show.’

‘Thanks, Ted. I was very nervous.’ She waited, not wanting to have to prompt either of them to congratulate her on her contribution.

‘I say, that Sharon is an attractive woman.’ His watery blue eyes misted over, presumably in memory of that spectacular cleavage.

Maureen briskly changed the subject. ‘I didn’t expect you to know so much about alcohol or men, or to broadcast the fact to the entire nation. Are you looking for a new father for the children? It would have been nice if you’d at least told me first.’

‘Oh, Mum, you know I’m not. That was just what they wanted me to talk about so I went along with it. But, anyway, why shouldn’t I if the right person came along?’ She ignored her mother’s raised eyebrow.

‘I’m not sure I liked everything else you talked about.’ Maureen was lemon-lipped as she sat down, smoothing flat her tight catalogue yoga pants as she did so. ‘Flatulence!’ She could hardly say the word.

Ted laughed. ‘Nothing wrong with the occasional farty wallah, Maureen.’

Maureen, pink, continued, ‘Or S-E-X.’

‘Nothing wrong with that either.’

‘Ted, I think that’s enough. It’s only half past three.’ Then she turned back to Christie. ‘Alice and Joan left as soon as it had ended. I didn’t really know what to say to them.’

‘But did you think I was all right?’ Christie could wait no longer, dying to hear that she had been, that her mother was proud of her. As the distance between her and the Tart Talk studio had grown, she had begun to piece together snippets of the show, remembering that, as the audience listened to her and laughed with her, her confidence had grown until she had become as opinionated and outspoken as the others. Being in front of a live audience was a quite different experience from recording her prepared or OB pieces for MarketForce. What was more, she had loved the whole experience of throwing round opinions with like-minded women and, for the first time in a long time, being herself. Not just mum, daughter, sister, widow.

‘Well, yes. But you could do so much better.’

‘For God’s sake, Mum!’ Christie experienced an overwhelming urge to smash one of her mother’s precious collection of Lladro figurines into the immaculate tiled fireplace piled with artificial coal. ‘What’s happened to you? You’ve got so narrow-minded. These are the sort of subjects that should be talked about openly. Mourning, dating, farting and drinking.’

Maureen visibly recoiled.

‘Weird mix, I grant you. But we all do them.’

‘I’m not sure everyone in the village would agree with you, dear.’

‘Of course they wouldn’t. They’re stuck in the dark ages.’

‘Will you be on again?’ Ted asked, his eyes slightly unfocused as he lay back in the neat chintz-upholstered sofa that, like him, had seen better days.

‘Oh, Ted! I think Christine’s destined for higher things, don’t you?’

‘You’re impossible, Mum. I came round hoping you’d have enjoyed the show – or that at least you’d say you had. And I’ve no idea whether I’ll be asked on again. Probably not, if they felt the same about my lipstick as you did!’ Christie stood up and crossed the room, dodging the occasional tables with their coasters and empty teacups, the only reminders of the disapproving audience of Alice and Joan.

‘Now, Christine. Please don’t show off in front of Ted.’ Maureen’s reprimand turned to alarm as she realised Christie was making for the door. ‘Where are you going? Have you had anything to eat?’

Her mother always grabbed any opportunity to press food on her visitors. That was her raison d’être, and didn’t Ted know it, Christie thought, glancing at the checked waistcoat that pulled across his rotund stomach – currently filled with Maureen’s ‘tiffin’, as former ex-pat Ted liked to call it – then feeling ashamed of her lack of charity. They made each other happy in their own way and that was what mattered.

‘Home. And I’m not hungry, thanks. I’ve got to get there before Fred and Libby get back from school. I’ll let myself out. ’Bye.’

As she climbed into her car, Christie was fuming. However hard she tried to please Maureen, she never quite managed to reach the high standards expected of her, the elder child. But a word or two of encouragement wasn’t asking much, was it? That was something her father had never failed to give either her or Mel. Maureen had always been harder to please. She must realise that being asked to appear on Tart Talk was a positive step forward from writing for the Daily News, a paper with a dwindling circulation and a new slash-and-burn editor. But Maureen’s horizons had been limited by living in the sticks. Christie shuddered as she foresaw the same thing happening to her. Like mother, like daughter? Not if she could help it. She retuned the car radio to Radio 1.

As she turned into her driveway, singing loudly to the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Ruby’ she stopped the car and looked at her home: a proper double-fronted house, its bricks a warm red in the spring sunshine, its windows glinting, especially the large ox-eye above the front door that let light flood onto the landing upstairs. She remembered the day they’d arrived, when she had felt so angry with Nick for not being alive to help her with the move, the fuse boxes, the over-excited children and the bloody DVD player. That night, after Libby and Fred had gone to bed, she had opened a bottle of wine, poured the first glass and sobbed. The next day, she had woken up, ignored the booze-induced headache and unpacked the silver frame with her favourite photo of Nick. In it, he stood squinting slightly into the sun, with the campo of Siena behind him. With the children to help, she had chosen to put him in pride of place on a side table in the sitting room where they would see him every day.

As she parked, she made a mental note to re-pot last year’s pansies and geraniums that were straggly and half dead by the front door. Letting herself in, she dumped her bag on the hall chair and marched into the long kitchen. This was the one room on which she had splashed the money she’d had left over from buying the house, knowing it would be the heart of the home where the three of them would spend most time together. She’d had the grimy old kitchen units replaced with neat off-white cupboards, oak worktops, a heavy porcelain sink. The chimney-breast had been taken out to make space for the second-hand Aga, something Christie had always lusted after, its blue echoed in the check curtains. In the centre, an island provided an extra work area, with a two-ring gas hob for emergencies.

At the opposite end of the room a battered old sofa sat under an old school clock, but it was the long oak refectory table she had bought at auction that dominated. This was where everything and anything got done, be it eating, drinking, homework, painting, making things, chatting or good old family arguing. The windows and french windows on the long wall opposite the Aga gave onto the well-stocked if increasingly disordered garden. Whenever she came into the kitchen, looked at the kids’ pictures framed on the walls, heard the thrum of the Aga and the hum of the large fridge (second-hand again), Christie always experienced a frisson of pleasure. This was home, and Nick would have loved it.

The clock told her she had half an hour before the kids were dropped by the school bus at the end of the drive: half an hour in which to put the kettle on for a cup of tea before getting supper on the go. Still infuriated by the way Maureen had managed to pour cold water on her mood and her achievement, she began to sort out the recyclable rubbish for collection. To hell with it! With a savage pleasure, she hurled the lot into one bag and dumped it outside the back door, delighting in the knowledge of how outraged Maureen would be if she found out. Going back inside, she sneaked a packet of blue Silk Cut from the glasses cupboard on the wall above the worktop, pulled one out and put it between her lips. Flicking the gas lighter for the hob, she lit it and took a drag. She opened the french windows and blew the smoke into the warm spring air. Loathing but relishing every last puff, her head swam as she pictured her mother’s disgusted face. Tough shit. This is the new Christie Lynch: fearless, hard-working and top mum.

Expecting food, Mrs Harbord and Mrs Shrager, her two speckled Sussex chickens, ran to greet her. She had given in to the children’s pleas and bought them as Easter presents. They watched her for a second, their busy button eyes reminding her of Maureen’s. Disappointed when no grub was forthcoming, they walked very precisely over to the flowerbed, looking as if they were wearing new shoes and didn’t want to get chewing gum stuck to the soles. They wiggled down into a dust bath, sending up a small cloud of dirt as they fussed and flurried their feathers. Leaving them to it, Christie stepped outside. Her garden had been tended lovingly by the previous owner but now Mother Nature had woven a natural magic all of her own.

As she wandered, she went through the pros and cons of work. Should she stay with the paper she’d come to hate? The list of pros was pitifully short. She liked the deputy features editor. That wasn’t enough. Her days of investigating and exposing dodgy businessmen were long gone. The paper had been moving downmarket in a bid to increase its circulation and it was becoming clear that Christie’s style and character were no longer such a close fit. As a result, the commissions were becoming less frequent as the younger freelancers were given the jobs.

In some respects, that had come as a relief. After all there were only so many bread-makers, bicycles and dishwashers a woman could compare without going round the bend. Her last two budget assignments had been fish slices and cat food. She sighed. There must be more to life. Occasionally she got thrown the odd family piece, such as when she, Libby and Fred had trialled a low-cost holiday weekend in Llandudno (never the Maldives, of course) or a celebrity-oriented feature that no one else wanted, but her heart was never in them. They certainly didn’t give her anything like the adrenalin high she had felt that morning on Tart Talk. They paid the bills but had no impact on the bank loan Nick had left her. Moreover, she still missed the headiness of the early days of MarketForce when she had worked in a more investigative arena and was able to exercise her brain. When she attempted to move into writing more meaty opinion pieces that would demand research, suggesting as possible topics the anonymity of rape victims or the future of inner-city children excluded from school, she had been told firmly that the News was no longer the paper for that sort of thing. She stopped to pull out a rogue sycamore seedling. Yes, the cons were far outweighing the pros.

If Nick were here, he’d say she had to follow her heart – but he wasn’t. And because he wasn’t, she had to earn some cash from somewhere so she could sort out her finances and begin to lavish much-needed attention on the house. Besides which, she knew she couldn’t/shouldn’t let life pass her by. What had happened to the girl who used to make Nick rock with laughter? It was definitely time to give her career a kick-start. If she could do that, everything might change. She thought of Julia’s card in her pocket, took it out and read the details: ‘White Management: Britain’s Number One Talent Agency’. An agent of that calibre wouldn’t give out her cards on a mere whim, surely.

She turned it over in her fingers and reached for her mobile. How strange that Fate should have led her to Julia just when she needed her, exactly as it had led her to that first chance encounter with Nick. Perhaps this was a sign. From him?

‘Oh, God! I hate weddings.’ Christie looked up at the stoic lines of the Victorian church, which sat on a grassy island in Ealing, surrounded by large, graceful Edwardian houses. Overhead, there was enough blue to ‘make a pair of cat’s pyjamas’, as her mother was fond of saying, but the wind had got up, chasing white clouds across the sky. Christie was forced to hold on to her wide-brimmed hat as she progressed with the other guests through the churchyard and into St Stephen’s.

As she stepped into the church, the organist was playing something she knew well but couldn’t identify. Church music’s a little like lift music, she thought, immediately familiar but impossible to name. She caught a whiff of incense, lavender and beeswax, none of them quite overwhelmed by the scent of the lilies that decorated the aisle and pew ends.

This was the third wedding she had been to in almost as many months. She had reached an age when all the girls she knew were getting married – except her, as her mother liked to point out with a sharp little glint. ‘Darling Christine. You’ll never meet a man unless you try harder. You career women will learn eventually that old age without a man is just . . . old age.’

Christie smiled as she accepted an order of service from a young boy swamped in his hired tailcoat, and went to find a seat. She spotted her sister about halfway down the aisle, sitting at the end of an almost full pew – Mel turned and called Christie’s name, the single ostrich plume bouncing wildly in her hair as she waved. A flamboyant fashion-design student, she was everything that her shy, neutral-coloured sister was not.

‘Christie, I’ve saved a seat for you.’ She turned to the rest of the pew, encouraging them to shuffle along to make more room. ‘Can you squish up? Sorry, what’s your name?’ she asked the slightly reserved man sitting on her left.

‘Nick. Nick Lynch.’

Mel gave him a wide smile. ‘Nick! Let me introduce my gorgeous, very single big sister. If you’re on your own, please chat her up and make me happy. If you’re not on your own, then point her towards someone who is. It’ll make my day! And our mother’s, too, because she thinks Christie’s destined for spinsterhood.’ She stopped for a second to give Christie an encouraging grin. ‘Don’t look like that, Chris! I’m only trying to help.’

Embarrassed, Christie smiled an apology at the amused-looking Nick before squeezing into the space that had been made for her. She was hoping Mel would shut up, but her sister was on a roll and there was no stopping her. Now her attention had turned from Christie to the groom, who was standing at his seat in front of the altar, talking to the best man, then turning towards the church door, expectant and nervous.

‘I wish I could help him too,’ Mel confided in a whisper. ‘I wonder if he knows what he’s letting himself in for. I was at the hen do and there was no stone unturned . . . if you know what I mean! Here she comes. The blushing bride – with plenty to blush about.’

A shaft of sunlight suddenly lit the arched doorway and in stepped the bride on the arm of her proud father.

‘Bet she’s got no knickers on under that dress,’ Mel whispered. ‘It’s her trademark.’

Nick caught Christie’s eye over the trembling ostrich feather. He was smiling.

‘Mel! Sssh.’ Christie stifled the urge to gag her sister and burst out laughing.

‘Another good man bites the dust,’ Mel insisted. ‘That’s all I’m saying.’

And with that the organ went into a hosanna of tumbling chords. The groom turned for his first glimpse of his bride, and as their eyes locked, he blushed rather sweetly. She, on the other hand, was grinning like a Cheshire cat. She continued her journey down the aisle, and their mutual gaze never wavered until they were duly joined in holy matrimony.

The reception in a nearby hotel was long and dull. The photos had taken for ever and the food as long again to make an appearance. Christie’s feet were aching. She sat in a quiet corner of the ballroom and looked at her watch. When would be the right moment to slip away without being rude? She hoped she could make her excuses before the disco hell began. She spotted Mel and beckoned her over. ‘Mel, I’ve got to go in a minute. I have to make an early start on a piece I’m writing for the News. It has to be in on Monday and—’

‘Oh, please stay a bit longer, you party pooper. You know Mum’ll grill me tomorrow. “Who did Christine talk to?” “Did she dance with anyone nice?” “What are we going to do with her?” ’ Mel impersonated her mother’s elocuted voice perfectly. Christie giggled but still kissed her sister goodbye and, with promises of phone calls and a takeaway during the week, slipped into the gathering gloom of the car park.

As she fumbled for her keys, she dropped her new handbag, spilling its contents onto the tarmac. Crouching to pick them up, she was aware of another person bending to help her. She turned and looked straight into the eyes of the man she had met in the church: Nick Lynch.

‘Hello, again. Your sister tried to introduce us before the service and I completely failed to chat you up. I’m Nick.’

‘Thank God you didn’t. I’d have been mortified. I’m so sorry.’ She picked up her purse and her keys, while he grabbed her makeup bag. ‘I’m Christie. Please ignore Mel. She’s quite mad and the doctors don’t often allow her out, but you know how lax security can be!’