The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker: The most heart-warming book you’ll read this year. Jenni Keer
‘It’s always lovely to see you, but you could have rung first. I might have had company or been out somewhere.’
Her mother laughed at the joke Lucy didn’t know she’d made.
‘I’ll have a coffee please if you’re offering, but only if you’ve got the decent ground coffee in. Your father has driven out this way to collect an oily engine part from some eBay person for that damn BMW of his, and I said I’d come along for the ride so I could tell you about my simply marvellous plan for September.’
Lucy gave her mother a blank look, the significance of September momentarily eluding her.
‘My Big Birthday,’ her mother prompted.
‘Oh.’ An uneasy feeling began to ripple across Lucy’s body. ‘I thought you’d decided to go for something low-key?’
‘I know I said I didn’t want to advertise the fact I’m turning fifty, but after that poor woman across the road dropped down dead with an undiagnosed brain tumour at fifty-nine, it started me thinking. Life is precious and I want to celebrate that. Plus, it will be a wonderful excuse for a party. I rarely get the opportunity to dress up these days. You know what your father’s like with social occasions. And it’s not like I’m going to be buying another wedding outfit any time soon.’
Lucy felt a bubbling panic rise in her chest. ‘I’m hardly an old maid.’ She had enough insecurities without the announcement of a forthcoming event where they could be bandied about by her less than subtle mother, in front of an intimate gathering of close family and friends. This was not a simply marvellous plan; this was a total and utter catastrophe.
‘Emily was married for two years and expecting her first child by the time she was your age.’
Deliberately not responding, Lucy walked towards the kitchen to hunt for the packet of Colombian ground coffee she kept in especially for these visits. Not a coffee drinker herself, except in emergencies, she’d never quite got around to mentioning it to her mother.
‘I’m not saying motherhood is for everyone, but perhaps that’s where your strength lies. Perhaps you are a homemaker rather than a breadwinner?’
Again, Lucy didn’t comment. Even though she loved Emily dearly, she wasn’t in the mood for a soliloquy about the virtues and achievements of her big sister. They had always been close, despite a five-year age gap and sixty miles between them, but her sister’s high-flying career and two adorable daughters were the bright orange carrot her mother periodically waved in front of her, even though Lucy wasn’t sure carrots were her thing.
As Lucy swung open the kitchen door, a black head poked out from under the cluttered table.
‘Oh darling, not a cat. They bring in dead things.’ Her mother scrunched up her face. ‘Mind you, anything left on this table wouldn’t be discovered for weeks.’ She moved a pile of knitting patterns to the side and put her Jasper Conran handbag down.
‘I’m only looking after it until I can get in touch with the rescue centre in the morning.’
‘You mean it’s a stray? Lucy! It will be riddled with fleas and goodness knows what. You really don’t think these things through. Sometimes I despair of you.’
Yanking the cafetière from the back of the cupboard, Lucy nearly knocked over several precariously balanced mugs in the process. As she began making the coffee, her shoulders slumped and her mother was perceptive enough to notice.
‘Oh sweetheart, I know it seems I am constantly scolding you, but it’s only because I care. You’ve got this lovely cosy flat now, and the little job at the toy shop, or whatever it is. You’re right, you’re still young. I love both my girls so much and you know how much I… Eurgh, it’s coming towards me. Make it go away.’
Lucy plunged the cafetière with too much force and the coffee gurgled in the glass jug. Okay, so perhaps she wasn’t a successful regional manager living in a chocolate-box house, deep in the Hertfordshire countryside, but she enjoyed her job at Tompkins Toy Wholesaler and felt at home in her cluttered little flat.
She poured two strong coffees and persuaded her mother to decamp to the living room, closing the door on the malnourished cat.
‘You’ve knitted some more of those dolls. Very, erm…accomplished. Perhaps you should pass them on to the girls to play with,’ her mother said, referring to her granddaughters, ‘because you’re running out of seating in here.’ She piled the knitted figures up on one end of the sofa and sat down.
‘They aren’t toys, they—’
‘Boy dolls too, I see. How very modern.’
Lucy let out a tiny but audible sigh. ‘So, this party then?’ She steered the conversation away from her knitting and back to the party in order to gauge the extent of the inevitable horror that was a large social function.
‘Yes, Emily thinks it’s a simply marvellous idea. I thought it would be a splendid opportunity to gather all the family. Uncle Ted can fly over from Ireland, and all the cousins could come. Then there’s family friends, the bridge club, your father’s work colleagues at the bank…’
‘Exactly how big is this party going to be?’ Lucy’s eyes were dinner plates, never mind saucers, and her voice came out in a squeak.
‘That’s the exciting bit. I’ve booked Mortlake Hall for the entire weekend. I’ve got that money from Aunt Freda and I thought: why not, Sandra? One in the eye for Stuart’s snotty mother.’ Stuart was Lucy’s brother-in-law and, as far as her mother was concerned, he was the sprinkles on the six-foot-high, frosted cupcake of her eldest daughter’s many achievements. Lucy felt like a stale digestive biscuit in comparison. ‘And I was thinking you could keep your father amused while I undertake the socialising he so loathes. The pair of you can mope together in the corner.’
‘I might have a boyfriend by then. Stranger things have happened.’ For a fleeting moment Lucy reconsidered her new neighbour, purely to get her mother off her back, but then dismissed the idea and took a tentative sip of the bitter coffee. Although boyfriend acquisition was top of her mother’s agenda for Lucy’s life, it wasn’t high on hers. Of course, she hoped to be part of a fulfilling romantic relationship one day, but her immediate dreams were more small-scale: doing well in her job and conquering her debilitating lack of confidence – although she suspected both were linked.
‘Oh, do you think you could?’ Her mother smiled in delight and leaned forward to put her hands up to her daughter’s cheeks. ‘It would make the seating on the top table so much easier. And it would stop that uncle of your father’s continually hinting that boys aren’t your thing.’ She sat up straight and clapped her hands together. ‘It would be simply marvellous if you could manage to find someone. I’ve always said you have the potential. And I’ve often thought how ironic it is Emily got the dark hair when it’s the blondes, like you and me, who are supposed to have all the fun. Smarten yourself up a bit and get out there instead of playing the wilting wallflower. If only there was someone suitable who wouldn’t mind.’ She raised a hand to her mouth and tapped her top lip. ‘I’ll have a word with Emily…’
As Lucy waved her parents’ car into the distance an hour later, she had a vision of her mother introducing her to everyone at the Big Birthday as her twenty-five-year-old spinster daughter who had a little job in a toy shop and spent her spare time knitting dolls.
Returning to the hallway, Lucy heard scratching from the kitchen. The cat was clawing at the back door and she realised there was nowhere for it to do its catty business. She wondered whether she could improvise with a seed tray and some garden soil, but as she opened the back door to investigate the contents of the rickety shed, the cat made a dash for freedom and was through her legs before she could stop it. Momentarily stunned by the speed of its escape, she froze on the back step. But the night-black cat had vanished completely into the cat-black night.