Love, Lies and Lemon Cake

  Love, Lies

  and

  Lemon Cake

  By Jayne Bartholomew

  Copyright@2014 Jayne Bartholomew

  All Rights Reserved

  August

  Three hours ago Mark had been living a life that many only dream of. He was a corporate high flier on a promotion fast-track; he lived in a flat with three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views across London and was engaged to a fiancée who had gone from swimwear model to very nearly The Next Big Thing. His parents frequently told him how proud they were and he’d been the envy of his friends. Life, for Mark, had been as close to perfect as possible.

  Now, Mark sat on one of the floating bars just down from the Embankment nursing a bottle of beer, watching the River Thames flow by and letting himself be gently rocked by the water. The sun shone down from a cloudless sky, caressing his taut shoulders. He raised his face towards the warmth and closed his eyes.

  Two hours ago he’d been called into his boss’s office and made redundant with immediate effect. There had been no warning and as he’d listened to the Personnel manager explain why, as he hadn’t been with the company for a whole two years, he wasn’t entitled to a pay-out, Mark felt the life he knew slowly seep away through the soles of his custom-made shoes.

  He hadn’t been angry when it happened, just numb, and even now he hadn’t quite got his head around this new situation. Mark had simply packed up his personal effects, while a member of security hovered discreetly nearby to make sure he didn’t cause trouble, and thanked his ex-boss for the one-month severance pay. Somewhere in his subconscious he was aware that positions at his level were few and far between in the current job market and a reputation as someone who couldn’t handle himself in a crisis would not be helpful.

  The water lapped the side of the boat as the tide began to turn. Mark tried to remember when the last time was that he’d been to the beach when the tide was all the way out. Probably over ten years ago when he’d been at university; where did the time go?

  One hour ago, a box of miscellaneous stationery by one hand, beer in the other, his career behind him and an uncertain future ahead, Mark had sent a text to Tamara asking to see her. He needed comfort and reassurance but as soon as he’d pressed “send” he realised he’d made a mistake.

  Early on in their relationship his beautiful fiancée had made it very clear that she was looking for an alpha male as she had enough problems of her own without picking up after someone else. Adaptable and falling deeply in lust, he’d quickly morphed into what he thought she wanted. She said she wanted honesty; he realised she needed constant reassurance. She had explained at length that she wanted to be seen as one of the people; however, for Mark, realisation that her maintenance level requirement was somewhere higher than the Empire State Building came slowly but when it did he was already in too far to do anything about it.

  From his bench Mark could see her arriving and he quickly moved his empty beer bottle onto another table; Tamara considered beer to be rather lower class and common. Her long legs gracefully swung out of a cab as she emerged like Aphrodite on a good hair day, and he watched appreciatively as she took her time, moving with a grace that came from practice and tuition. Today, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and large round sunglasses, she appeared to be channelling Audrey Hepburn. A small dog on a leash jumped out of the car and stood shivering with uncertainty on the pavement.

  Tamara swept up the gangplank, dragging the Chihuahua in her wake, and came over to him; he stood up and surveyed his bride-to-be. The sunglasses were so big he couldn’t see her expression clearly; was she upset he’d sent that text? She’d recently been for her Botox appointment so it was hard to tell with any great accuracy what she was thinking. He leaned in for a kiss and she presented him with a cheek.

  “The lip fillers aren’t settled yet. Do you think they look OK? Not too much? I was really worried about trout-pout but the doctor promised me he wouldn’t put too much in. Do you think he put in enough though?” She opened her bag and withdrew an elegant mirror.

  “You look beautiful.”

  She gave him a tight, but full lipped, smile. “Champagne please.”

  “Of course.” On the way to the bar he glanced back at her petting the dog. She was almost a supermodel and whoever heard of one of those dating an unemployed sponger? Forget about dating, they were engaged for Christ’s sake and he was supposed to be the strong male breadwinner. Admittedly, considering how much Tamara got paid for even tweeting about outfits she’d worn he was never going to be the main earner, but a man had pride.

  Mark ordered a bottle of the best, most expensive champagne available and checked his phone for messages while the ice bucket was being prepared. One of his friends from school had gone into labour that morning and Mark was itching to become a godfather. No message yet; he put the phone back in his pocket. When he’d broached the idea of a family his fiancée told him that she would not be risking stretch marks on her stomach to give birth to something that would then crack her nipples through breast-feeding and vomit on her shoulder shortly afterwards. At first he thought she was joking but now he knew her better he reckoned that as it was, even the little dog was probably only a leg cock away from the rescue centre.

  He hadn’t planned on proposing to Tamara so quickly, largely from fear of rejection, largely, but he’d taken her to Paris for the weekend last month and had been swept away by the romance and cheesiness of a proposal on top of the Eiffel Tower. Tamara had seemed as surprised by his bended knee as he was; he sometimes wondered if that was why she’d said yes so quickly.

  Like most men in his position, he was aware that wedding preparations were happening somewhere in the background and that his sole role appeared to be to turn up sober, say his lines and pay vast amounts of money for things he couldn’t see the point of. Mark watched Tamara, the dog forgotten, chatting on her phone and guessed that she would be talking to Tarquin, her favourite photographer, who was helping with the wedding planning. Like most of Tamara’s fashion-involved male friends, Tarquin was no threat for her affections. He might drool over her Christian Louboutin slingbacks but her body was strictly Mark’s domain.

  With eleven months to go until the wedding day, all Mark knew was that it was going to be in Las Vegas. When he’d made the venue suggestion he’d been keen for a no-frills, drive-through wedding package with hotel and bachelor party in one place and had been thrilled when Tamara had appeared to agree. Looking back he was amazed that he’d ever been so naive. The last time he’d heard her discuss Vegas with Tarquin was to ask if she could hire the Grand Canyon for the reception.

  Still, he realised that when you’re involved with a celebrity, a wedding is more than just a ceremony. He supposed Tamara would be selling the photos to a magazine and her status would go up because of all the interviews she was being scheduled for. Mark had never seen her happier and he really didn’t want to have to ask her to scale back because he was temporarily without a job.

  The barman expertly opened the champagne bottle with a discreet hiss, draped a crisp white napkin over the ice bucket and Mark, somewhat reluctantly, passed over his credit card. He had some money in savings and there was the severance pay to look forward to. Perhaps if he made some cut-backs in his own life while he was looking for another job Tamara would never even need to know?

  As he turned, Tamara came off the phone and gave him a little wave of excitement.

  “Darling, great news!” She picked up the dog and gave it a cuddle. “We can get private jets for all the guests from New York to Vegas. Isn’t that wonderful!”

  From another table a champagne bottle was popped open and the cork flew out over the water.

  “All of t
he guests? Isn’t that a bit extravagant, Tammy?”

  “Well you can’t expect them to fly with other people, can you? What if their suitcases get lost? Can you imagine?” Tamara put the dog down and realised it was moulting. Fine cream hairs stood out on the dark dress, which she started to pick off, individually.

  “No, I suppose not. But do you think that perhaps…” He was distracted by his pocket vibrating.

  Tamara looked up. “Are you an honorary uncle yet?”

  “Hmm, maybe.” He took out his phone and scrolled through the options. “It’s a text. How exciting!”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Not for me thank you very much. No, I think adoption from somewhere needy and high profile. Are you okay?”

  The colour slowly drained from his face and he passed the phone to Tamara so she could read the screen. “It’s from Hilary, Laura’s mother”

  “Laura has just gone into surgery. Problems with the delivery. Please pray for her.”

  Kate was driving through the picturesque suburbs of Rome when she heard her phone signal a message had been received. She pulled over immediately and rifled through the bag’s contents trying to find it. When she eventually located the phone she sat staring at the words, trying to think of all the implications, for what seemed like an eternity.

  The little cherry-red Clio that was currently Kate’s chosen mode of transport was hot and smelled strongly of acrylic paint mixed with undertones of the fresh fruit and vegetables she loved picking up from the local market. The stifling heat drew out beads of perspiration on her forehead and her long blonde hair was pulled back in a futile attempt to keep cool. Most of the locals had already left the city for the cooler coastline and now the city was host to dazed tourists and intolerable temperatures. But that, of course, was why she had chosen Rome in the first place.

  “Bugger.”

  She felt a powerful wave of homesickness and desperately too far away from her best friend. Laura had understood why she wouldn’t be there for the birth but when they last spoke on the phone she hadn’t been able to completely hide her disappointment that Kate wouldn’t be visiting her in hospital either.

  Laura had been her best friend since school and neither had kept even the smallest secret from the other. Laura had always been there for Kate emotionally and, more recently, financially; while Kate was the sister Laura had craved since childhood. She suddenly felt as though she was on the other side of the world to where she was supposed to be. She needed to be back in her home village and make herself useful, even if the only thing she could do was fetch coffee.

  Getting out of the car she made a quick call to a contact who worked in travel to find out when the next available plane was. Even if she swallowed the ridiculously high cost because of peak tourist season she would have to wait a week. Kate began to pace along the pavement. A week was too long. She had to do something and working on her patience wasn’t even an option.

  Kate nibbled a fingernail and tried to get back into the car while touching as little of the red hot plastic trim as possible. It had been bought cheaply and the roof was crisscrossed with duct tape to keep out the intermittent rain. The sides of the Clio were peppered with what she called “supermarket” dents where the previous owner had clipped a curb here and the side of her own garage there. It was coming up to one hundred and sixty thousand miles on the clock and the brakes had started to squeak four months ago.

  And she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this car would be driving her to England.

  She would miss Rome. Kate had really enjoyed the vibrant culture, beautiful scenery and during times of calm had even considered putting down permanent roots there. Inevitably though, something had happened to jolt her into reality and she put aside those daydreams. Roots were for people with less history than she had, stability was a fantasy and it was best to just keep moving rather than dwell on the life she yearned for but couldn’t have.

  Kate made a quick detour to her studio flat and wasted no time in flinging her belongings into black dustbin bags before hurling those that didn’t contain anything breakable out of the window to her waiting car. At this time of day most people were out at work and she’d deliberately chosen to live on a street that was seldom used. No one except her landlady would see her leave or mark her departure, which was good. If she’d stayed long enough to be missed then she had learned nothing over the past few years.

  Her rent was paid in advance so there was no problem there and she put a polite note under the door of her landlady’s apartment to let her know she wouldn’t be back and thanked her for past kindnesses. She wrote that she didn’t expect her deposit to be returned and left no forwarding address.

  As the Clio pointed itself towards England, and the tarmac of an open road was before her, she felt her soul soar with the familiar lift of freedom and adventure. Her troubles were firmly in the rear view mirror and the road less travelled was an open invitation. Maybe she could settle a few unresolved matters when she got home, that was certainly something to think about over however many hundred miles she would be driving. The thought made her smile and she pressed her foot to the accelerator a little more, urging the car to go just a bit faster.

  The day after Kate left her little flat a man arrived asking after her. He had an accent, perhaps American, and said he knew her from a work placement and would very much like to make contact with her again. The landlady told him she had left in a hurry but had no other information. In turn the man had neither appeared surprised or disappointed, just smiled and wished her a good day.

  James got the text as he was putting some finishing touches to the Year Six timetable. The school holidays seemed to go by faster with each passing year and there was so much to do before the beginning of the new term. Next September would see the start of a Saturday club for anyone wanting a bit of extra tuition or help and he could already guess which mothers would be signing their children up for it. If he was very lucky he might attract at least a couple of the children deemed in need, lured by the promise of a bacon sandwich that could very well be the only home-cooked meal they saw that week. He wished that teaching could be purely about education but that was an unrealistic whim considering the dregs of humanity that passed themselves off as parents and insisted on churning out kids as if it was a competitive sport.

  He often thought that parenthood should only be given to those that passed a test, not just scraped through the practical.

  So, how to stretch the school budget to provide services attractive enough to entice parents likely to have bright children, or at least ones with tutors who would excel enough to improve his ranking among the other schools in the area? Then how could he drag up the grades of those without the same parental nudging and possibly even a medically diagnosed reason for lower grades? Decisions, decisions.

  James settled on riding lessons for each year group. The dragon mums would love the chance to see their little ones in jodhpurs and a riding hat while the quieter children could be taken to one side and given more personal attention. That was the nice thing about horses, he thought, in general there were no surprises. You went with a carrot and the horse ate it. Go with an apple and leave knowing you’d made a friend for life. If only working out the new academic timetable was as easy.

  From his office, with the door open, he had a clear view down the main corridor and if he let his mind wander he could almost see himself, Laura, Kate and Mark running down it, eight years old again with the whole world at their feet and a bright future waiting for them.

  He re-read the message. The news was not a surprise, Laura had struggled to get pregnant and doctors had diagnosed a tilted uterus and fibroids among other health issues. Not that he’d been intrusive enough to ask what the problem was, but a few tequila slammers late at night over a barbeque and the whole thing came spilling out. As was often the case she fell pregnant after giving up and putting her name down for adoption. James was well aware that having a biological child wouldn’t put her off t
he idea of adoption as she’d always wanted a large family.

  He took a few steps down the corridor, pausing for a moment before replying to the text with something light-hearted and optimistic. James tried to go back to the timetable but the timings made no sense now and he quickly put his paperwork into a folder, packed everything away in a filing cabinet and headed out towards flowers and something baby related for when Laura was up to receiving visitors.

  As he drove off he waved at the care-taker who was watering the plants, and wondered if a baby would change the group much. Everyone had been so busy recently it must have been years since the four of them had met to talk and put the world to rights. Sometimes he felt as though everyone was moving forward with their lives while he was exactly where he’d started from, albeit on the other side of the desk.

  In the vicarage of Lower Hupswallop, Penny sat at the kitchen table reading a magazine, while her third cup of tea that morning slowly went cold. She absently dropped a teaspoon of sugar into the cup and turned over a page.

  Around her lay the debris from preparing breakfast for her and her husband, the Reverend Edward Potter, and the charred remains of a half-hearted but failed attempt to bake ginger biscuits. The headline in front of her promised to make any woman irresistible by bedtime. Penny raised an eyebrow and read on, biting deeply into a leftover piece of toast, thick with home-made blackberry jam.

  From the corner of the kitchen the sounds of a washing machine on the spin cycle did little to distract Penny from her reading. The rhythmic thud, thud, thud came to an abrupt stop as she popped in the last mouthful of toast and in the sudden silence she waited nervously for the machine to start up again. The washing machine had been donated by one of Edward’s parishioners when they moved into the area four years ago and it had looked pretty old even then. She wondered how much a new one would cost.