The Chocolate Lovers’ Wedding (28 page)

‘You seem a bit quiet, Gorgeous,’ Crush says. ‘Are the noodles not to Madam’s liking?’
‘It’s not that. They’re lovely. No one else could create something so tasty from such meagre ingredients.’
He gives me a sideways glance. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
I eat my noodles with feigned gusto.
‘Sure you didn’t eat too much chocolate or cake?’
‘No. Well. Maybe. Yes.’
He laughs.
‘In my defence, we have some excellent summer chocolates and cocktail cupcakes just in. I’ve put a couple in the fridge for you to sample later.’
‘This is why I love you. How many other women come with free chocolate and cake?’ He smiles at me. ‘Everything else OK?’
‘I don’t know.’ I try a light-hearted shrug, but my heart is too weighed down to give it the levity I strive for. ‘There’s so much going on at the moment, I feel as if I can’t keep up with it all.’
‘You said you had a nice time with your girls. You haven’t had a proper catch up in ages.’
‘We did. We always have a great time together.’ I put down my fork. ‘But there are so many changes in our lives, I can’t help but worry. Most of them are good. Yet it’s still a lot to get my head round.’
‘Tell all,’ he says.
‘Well . . . ’ I fiddle with my food some more. ‘Nadia is going to live with her new man in the Lake District.’
‘That’s going to be tough on you all. I know how much you love Nadia.’
‘We’re distraught. But pleased, too.’ Those two emotions are quite difficult to hold in one head.
‘It has to be a good move for her, doesn’t it? It’s a fantastic part of the world and I confess that I’m quite envious.’
‘Part of me is, too. It’s so fabulous up there and it would be lovely to escape London, but I’m tied to Chocolate Heaven now.’
‘Are you?’ Crush asks. ‘In my view, you could walk away at any time. You don’t owe Marcus anything and now he’s scuttling off to Dubai you don’t have to bend to his every whim.’
I’d like to argue the point that I don’t bend to Marcus’s whims, but I probably do. ‘Autumn’s agreed to come and work at Chocolate Heaven, which is fantastic. She’s going to start straight away, but part time so she can carry on helping Nadia with childcare until she goes to Cumbria.’
‘Seems fair enough,’ Crush says.
‘When I last spoke to Marcus, he said he’d consider Autumn buying into the business. She still has a large sum of money from her parents and they’re getting on much better now, so she’s keen to use it. I chatted about it to her today and she was really enthusiastic.’ That would prise another couple of fingers of Marcus’s grip from me. ‘I might be able to get a slice of it too, further down the line.’
‘If that’s what you want. But surely it would be mega-bucks? It’s in a great location, no doubt, but it might always be out of our league.’
‘What if I do the course to become a chocolatier?’
‘I’m all for that,’ he says. ‘I’ll support you in any way I can. It also gives us more options. In the future, we might be able to set up our own place and it would be a lot easier to do that out of London. Don’t you fancy your own little shop or café somewhere ridiculously picturesque?’
I do. In fact, I can just imagine it. ‘Is it really something you’d consider?’
‘I can’t see myself being at Targa for the rest of my career; I’d be burned out by the time I’m forty-five. Besides, there are redundancies on the horizon.’
‘You didn’t say.’
‘It’s nothing new, Gorgeous. There are
always
redundancies on the horizon. It’s just that, this time, the spotlight is turning on my department.’
‘Are you worried?’
‘It depends,’ he says. ‘If they give me a big enough payout, it could be a blessing in disguise. When we have a family, we might want to have a different lifestyle. Would we really want to bring up children in the middle of London? If we have a lump sum, we could do something radical.’
‘Wow. That’s even more to think about. It’s all so unsettling.’
‘It will sort itself out. Fretting about it won’t help. And you won’t lose touch with the girls whatever happens. Things change. We’re growing up, settling down, coming into a new phase of our lives. Nothing stays the same.’
‘But
we
will, won’t we?’ I reach out and grab his hand.
‘No. We’ll change, too. We’ll have good times, bad times. Ups and downs. We’ll stay together through it all, though. That’s what matters.’
I abandon my noodles and go to sit on his lap, winding my arms round his neck. ‘You are very wise.’
‘We can even spend the rest of the evening looking at endless wedding stuff on Pinterest if that will take your mind off things.’
‘Even the wedding is stressing me out,’ I admit. ‘I was all raring to go, but inspiration has deserted me. Chantal’s was so lovely and I don’t want to spoil her day by replicating it. Now I don’t know what to do.’
‘We don’t have to rush it,’ Crush says.
‘I really, really want to get married.’ I lay my head on his shoulder. ‘But something doesn’t feel right.’
‘Let’s wait.’
‘I’m scared that if we postpone it, I’ll do something stupid and it will never happen.’
Crush laughs. ‘The odds on you doing something stupid are very high, but I’ll still be here. I’m going nowhere, Ms Lucy Lombard.’
‘And I so want Chantal to be there.’ My voice catches on a sob. ‘What if she doesn’t make it through this? Cancer is such an awful thing.’ We’ve talked about it in a jolly, bolstering manner and I know that we’re all trying to stay upbeat for her. But what if the chemo doesn’t work? What if she’s one of the more bleak statistics?
‘You need to be there for her,’ Crush says. ‘We don’t have to rush it all at once. We can get married any old time. Support Chantal while she goes through her chemo, then sort out your chocolatier’s course when you can give it your full attention. After that, when we know what my job situation is, we can think about buying into Chocolate Heaven or doing our own thing. Then, when we’ve got lots of time to plan something fabulous and it all feels right, we should do it.’
A feeling of relief floods over me. That’s what I love most about Crush. He makes everything sound so easy. ‘You’re quite the most logical and adorable person there is.’
‘A result of far too many team-building courses at Targa.’ He smiles smugly. ‘I knew they’d come in useful one day.’
‘I’ll phone and cancel the register office.’
‘Let me sort it out,’ Crush says. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate.’
‘You are so very wonderful. As a reward for your utter wonderfulness, I think we should now focus on some team-building of our own.’ I turn so that I straddle him and, when I kiss him, my cares go out of the window. At least for a short time.

It was the first time in many years that Nadia had been to her parents’ house. She’d tried to convince herself that a telephone call would suffice, perhaps a letter, or even a message sent through Anita but, in the end, she’d decided to do the right thing and say goodbye to her parents in person.

Now that she was standing outside the door, she wished that she had written a letter instead. The house seemed somehow to look smaller, scruffier than when she was last here. They lived in a quiet street of semi-detached houses, but it was all looking a bit more run-down now, including her parents’ house. The wheelie bin was in the garden and the grass was overgrown. There were a few bricks missing from the top of the boundary wall and the windows looked grubby, as if they hadn’t been washed in a long time. Her father wasn’t getting any younger and clearly the jobs he used to take such a pride in weren’t now being done. Her heart squeezed with sadness.

If it was up to her, she’d be round here regularly making sure these things were done. It would take a couple of hours every week to get it back up to scratch. She felt cross with her sister. Obviously, Anita didn’t notice and, even if she had, she wondered if her no-good brother-in-law would care enough to give them a helping hand. As a family, you had responsibilities. But then she wondered whether she had taken her own family responsibilities seriously enough. Should she have tried harder, especially in the early days, to build the bridges between them?

It was too late to think about that now. This was tough. She might not see her parents for a long time or, if anything happened to them, ever again. She could just turn away and avoid the conflict. It sounded very tempting, but she’d come this far and so she steeled herself to knock.

A few moments later, her mother opened the door. She hadn’t dared to turn up unannounced, so she’d left a message on their answerphone to say that she would drop by.

‘Come in.’ Her mother stood to one side. No embrace. No smile.
She followed her through to the living room. ‘Nadia’s here.’
Nadia had to blink twice. It was as if she was transported straight back to her childhood. Time had stood still there. The house still smelled exactly the same as she remembered – an ever-present layering of the spices her mother used for cooking. They had the same carpet, the same curtains, the same awful paintings on the wall. The only thing that had changed was that her father had bought an enormous, new television which took up most of one wall. He liked watching WWF wrestling – to the exclusion of anything else – and clearly wanted it large in his living room. Her father had retired now and Nadia was glad of that. He’d sold all the jewellery shops a couple of years ago when the threat of armed raids became too much.
‘Hello, Dad.’
‘Nadia.’ At least her father stood up to greet her and turned off the television – an honour reserved only for the most welcome guests – but she still felt like a stranger in a home that she’d once loved so much. ‘Sit, sit,’ he said.
Nadia perched on the edge of the sofa. Was her mother the only person on the planet who still had crocheted arm covers to protect their upholstery?
Her father waved in the direction of the kitchen and said to her mother, ‘Why not make us all some tea?’
‘Not for me,’ Nadia said. ‘I won’t be staying long.’ She was sure his face fell a little. Perhaps he’d thought that this was to be another attempt at reconciliation, that she’d somehow forgotten they’d all but closed the door on their relationship last time they met. ‘I just came to tell you some news.’
Her mother, instead of scuttling towards the kitchen, sat back down in her armchair, too. Nadia remembered a time when her mother would have presented tea – in the best cups – and a selection of biscuits before their guest’s bottom had touched the sofa cushions. But not today.
There was no need for small talk and no way of dressing this up, so she decided just to head straight in. The sooner this was over with, the better. ‘I’m leaving London,’ she said. ‘Very soon.’ When neither of them replied, she carried on. ‘I’ve met a lovely man and I’m moving to the Lake District to be with him.’
‘That’s a big step,’ her father said. ‘Are you sure it’s the right thing to do?’
‘I believe so.’
Her mother tutted. ‘Another man. Anita told us. She says that you hardly know him.’
She turned to her mother. ‘Didn’t you once want to marry me to a man who I hadn’t met at all? Isn’t that why you cut me out of your lives? Because I preferred one of my own choosing?’
‘Look how well that turned out.’
She ignored the jibe and continued, ‘James is lovely and kind. More importantly, he wants to welcome me and Lewis into his family and I’m tired of doing everything alone. I’m going to take this chance.’
‘He’ll send you back when he’s had enough of you.’ Her mother again.
‘He’s asked me to marry him,’ she said. ‘And I’ve said yes. It would be nice if you could be happy for me.’
‘You will do what you want to do. You always have.’
Nadia pushed down the surge of temper that threatened and said calmly, ‘I haven’t come to argue about whether or not you agree with the choices I make in my life. Some have been good, some bad. The same goes for everyone. Including you.’ There was little else that she could say. It would have been lovely if she could have brought James here to introduce him to them. Then they might see why she’d fallen in love with him, why she was turning her life upside down for him. ‘I should be going now. I still have a lot of packing to do before the removal men arrive.’ She stood up. ‘Anyway, all I really came to do was to say goodbye.’
Her father looked shocked. ‘I think we should have that cup of tea after all.’
Nadia held up a hand. ‘Not for me, thanks.’ She headed for the door. ‘I’m not going to be back very often. But we’ve gone a long time without seeing each other, so I’m sure it won’t be difficult. And you have Anita.’
They hadn’t once sent Lewis a birthday card and she wondered whether they would start to do it now, when he was at the other end of the country. It was clear that her mother considered Nadia a daughter in name only. That made her incredibly sad.
Her father stood and hugged her tightly. His eyes were brimming with tears.
‘My door will always be open to you,’ Nadia said. ‘It always has been. I’d welcome you with open arms in my new home.’
‘Thank you, daughter,’ her father said. ‘I hope you will be happy. Please call us and let us know how you are.’
‘I will.’
But her mother kissed her cheeks coolly and offered no words of comfort or good wishes.
So be it.
She looked at them both – now older and more frail – and wondered how much she’d really keep in touch with them once she’d moved. It was up to her to try, and she’d do that for Lewis’s sake. When she was back outside on the pavement and the door closed behind her, she took a shuddering breath. It was done.
In some ways they’d made it easier for her to leave. If they’d have broken down and begged her to stay, would she still have had the resolve to go?

Scissors poised and an anxious look on her face, the stylist said, ‘Do you like it?’
‘I love it,’ she said, putting a hand to her bare neck. ‘I think I should have had it done like this years ago.’ At the advice of the nurse on the chemo ward, she’d had her thick locks cut and was now sporting a very short and sharp pixie cut. There wasn’t much left of it at all.
‘I did try to persuade you,’ he said.
‘I was always very fond of my hair as it was.’ Now it hardly seemed to matter. As long as they got all of the cancer, she could cope without her hair. That didn’t mean, though, that it wasn’t worth trying to save. ‘Apparently, I have more chance of keeping my hair if I cut it short and try using a cold cap before treatment.’
‘Sounds horrendous.’
It did. You were hooked up to a refrigeration unit which chilled your scalp down to minus five degrees for an hour before treatment and an hour afterwards, which extended the time you spent on the chemo ward. ‘I’ll let you know soon enough,’ she said. It wasn’t guaranteed that she’d get on with the cold cap and her hair might thin or fall out anyway. But she was prepared to give it a shot. She’d been warned that it would only help with the hair on her head: her eyelashes, eyebrows and body hair would probably still disappear.
‘Well, as a bonus, you now look ten years younger.’
Laughing, she said, ‘I can work with that.’
‘I’m just relieved that you like it!’ Her stylist grinned.
In a couple of months she could be rocking a headscarf over a smooth dome. If that happened, she wondered how long it would be before it reappeared – they’d said three to six months, which didn’t seem too bad. It would save her a fortune in hairdressing, if nothing else.
‘Time for another coffee?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I’ll text Jacob and see where he’s got to.’
But before she could, Jacob swung through the door of the salon and came to where she was just taking off the gown and brushing herself down. ‘That,’ he said, ‘looks absolutely fantastic.’
She gave him a twirl.
‘Sexy,’ he said with an approving glance.
‘I’ll settle my bill and then we’d better get a move on.’ The next appointment wasn’t quite so appealing. She was about to have her first chemotherapy session. It seemed like a daunting prospect. The nurse had taken time to explain it all thoroughly to her but still, in her head, she didn’t really know what to expect.
She’d already had a PICC line fitted in her arm through which the chemo drugs would be administered. It was covered with a bandage and was annoyingly itchy.
They wouldn’t let her pay anything for the haircut; everyone in the salon wished her good luck and her stylist gave her a card and a teddy from them all. It was all she could do not to cry. When you were ill, you certainly found out who cared for you.
Back in the car, Jacob chatted away as they pushed through the traffic. It was clear that he was trying to distract her but, in truth, she wasn’t really listening. The windscreen washers were clacking away, swishing away the rain from a heavy summer downpour. Autumn was looking after Lana this morning, taking her and Flo to some indoor play centre which sounded like hell on earth. She wished her daughter was here so that she could give her a squeeze and smell the milky scent of her skin.
Lucy called, which brought her back to the present. She had already spoken to Nadia, who was busy packing for her move. Gosh, how she was going to miss her friend when she was so far away in the Lake District, but she couldn’t begrudge her this fresh start. She was so lucky to have found love again.
‘Just phoning to wish you luck,’ Lucy said. ‘Call me as soon as you’re out. I want to know how it went. Tell Jacob I can take the next session if you want me to.’
‘Thanks, sweetheart,’ Chantal said. ‘If I’m feeling up to it, I might pop in later.’
‘There’s a big piece of cake with your name on it when you do. Love you.’
‘Love you, too.’ She hung up and Jacob grabbed her hand.
‘Nearly there,’ he said. ‘Are you feeling OK?’
She nodded, pushing down the nausea. ‘Not too bad. I just want to get it started now.’