Even then I didn’t give up. I dragged Mum, still wearing her paper hat, into the kitchen and listed all the ways he’d talked her down, finishing up with: “How can you just sit there, Mum? You’re a strong woman! You’re the boss of…everything!”
I was hoping to stir her up, but it didn’t happen. She listened, wincing a little, but then said, “Ah, he doesn’t really mean it, love. What does it matter? He’s been there for me when it counts, your uncle.”
“Yes, but—”
“He helped me sort out the new lease after your father died, remember? I was in such a state, and Ned stepped in to negotiate. I’ve always been grateful for that.”
“I know he did, but—”
“He got very good terms for us,” she carried on resolutely. “He beat them down. There’s more to Ned than meets the eye. He’s not perfect, of course he’s not, but who is? We’ve all got our funny little habits.”
Personally, I wouldn’t call being a total misogynist a “funny little habit.” But in the end I gave up, because it was Christmas, and who wants to upset their mum at Christmas?
And since then I’ve stopped trying to make the point. For her own reasons, Mum wants to preserve Uncle Ned in her head in the best possible light. She doesn’t want to fall out with him. She’s such a strong woman in so many ways—but this is her total blind spot.
And I know why. It’s because Uncle Ned is family. He’s the only bit of Dad she’s got left. And she values that more than most things.
“How’s the dating going, Ned?” she says now, changing the subject in that easy way of hers. Uncle Ned got divorced recently, for the third time. I have no idea what any woman sees in him, but the world’s a mysterious place.
“Oh, Joanne, these girls.” He shakes his head. “Nice-enough looking, some of them, but they talk so much. I need to take ruddy earplugs with me.”
Yet again, I wonder how he can be Dad’s brother. Dad was old-fashioned in some ways—he believed his role was to be the provider and he didn’t like bad language—but he respected Mum. He respected women.
Mum once told me after a few drinks that Uncle Ned took after my granddad, who could be a “difficult man.” But then she wouldn’t reveal any more. And I never really got to know my granddad before he died. So as far as I’m concerned, Uncle Ned is just one of those unsolvable family mysteries, like “Whatever happened to the key to the shed?”
“You’ll find someone,” says Mum peaceably. “And how’s the fishing going?”
Nooo! Not fishing. When Uncle Ned gets going on fishing, he can last for hours.
“Well,” says Uncle Ned. “I was down at the river the other day— Ah, Jake!” He breaks off as Jake joins the group. “How’s business, m’boy?”
Thank God. Saved from a six-hour anecdote about a trout.
“Pretty good, Uncle Ned.” Jake gives Uncle Ned his flashy smile. “Got a few interesting deals coming my way, as it happens. I’ve been at the Global Finance Conference at Olympia this week; have you ever been to it?”
Of course Uncle Ned hasn’t been to it. He used to work for an insurance company, but he was an office administrator in the Woking branch. I’m not sure he ever made it to head office, let alone any global finance conference. But he’d never admit that.
“Those were the days, m’boy,” he says, as though he were there every year. “Dealmaking and drinking and all the rest of it.” He gives a throaty laugh. “What happens at conference stays at conference, eh, Jake?”
“Amen to that!” says Jake, lifting his glass.
They’re such a couple of phonies. I know Jake only went to that conference because a friend of his had an extra pass.
“We had some times, back at the firm,” says Uncle Ned, blowing out smoke. “The stories I could tell you…” He makes an expansive gesture with his cigarette and knocks a glass off the sideboard, where it was resting. It crashes to the floor, breaking into bits, and he frowns in annoyance. “Damn it,” he adds. “One of you girls had better clear that up.”
One of you girls? I instantly prickle again, but Mum steps in, putting a hand on Nicole’s arm. “Love,” she says. “Would you mind?”
“And the MBA?” says Uncle Ned to Jake. “Going well?”
“Excellent,” says Jake emphatically. “It’ll open so many doors.”
“Nothing like letters after your name,” affirms Uncle Ned.
They carry on talking about qualifications and opportunities, but I’m not listening. I’m watching Nicole clear up the glass. She’s hopeless. She’s got a broom but she’s pushing it aimlessly at the bits of glass, spreading them around the floor, staring at her phone. Can’t she look at what she’s doing? She’s sweeping shards all over the place. This is glass. Someone could get hurt.
My fingers are drumming in that way they do. My feet have started pacing: forward-across-back, forward-across-back. I can’t stand it any longer.
“I’ll do it,” I say in a sudden gasp, and grab the broom from her. “We’ll need to wrap this glass up in paper.” I reach for an empty breadbasket and start picking up fragments with my fingertips.
“Oh, Fixie, you are brilliant,” says Nicole vaguely. “You always know how to do things.”
I was going to ask her to find some old newspaper, but she’s already started tapping at her phone, so I carry on with my task. I’m craning my head to spot the shards of glinting glass on the wood-effect floor and wrapping them in an old Radio Times, when I hear Tim’s voice booming above me, “Ryan’s back?”
I hadn’t realized Tim had arrived at the party, so I stand up and say, “Hi, Tim!” But Tim doesn’t seem to hear. He stares at me with his bullet eyes, his dark hair plastered across his forehead, then says, “So are you two an item again? You and Ryan?”
Trust bloody Tim to put me on the spot in front of everyone.
“No!” I say brightly. “I mean, not no, like, it’s totally unthinkable, but…”
“So you’re thinking about it?” supplies Tim.
“No!” I almost squeak.
“Yes, you are,” contradicts Nicole, looking up from her phone. “You were talking about it with Mum.”
Thanks a lot, Nicole, I think viciously. What I could really do with is for the conversation to move on, but Tim persists:
“How long were you two together for?”
“No time.” I try to laugh it off. “Ten days. Nothing. And I mean, he lives in L.A., so…”
“Yeah.” Tim nods slowly. “I mean, L.A. It’s a different standard, isn’t it? The women, I mean. They do things. To their lips, their boobs…plus they don’t age,” he adds, warming to his topic. “You’re a whole year older than when you last saw Ryan. In L.A. years, that’s what? A decade?”
“So I’m an old crone now?” I say. I’m trying to find this funny, but Tim has this way of pursuing a subject relentlessly, like a terrier, not noticing that you’re bleeding from the neck. Normally Hannah steps in tactfully, but I can’t see her. Where is she?
Then, as though in answer to my question, the doorbell rings and Hannah’s voice comes from the hall: “I’ll get it!” There’s a pause, then her voice comes again, like a clarion: “Oh wow, Ryan! Welcome back!”
I can feel eyes all around the room bouncing toward me with curiosity. In horror, I suddenly realize how I look, standing here with a broom in my hand and no chance to refresh my lip gloss even, and oh my God, here he is.
He’s in the doorway. His tan, sun-bleached wavy hair, and cool frayed T-shirt are like nothing else in this room. As he walks up to me, a hush falls over the party. As for me, I can’t even breathe. I’m desperately thinking: Stay cool, Fixie; do NOT get any hopes up….
But, God, he’s beautiful. He glows.
“Hi, Fixie,” he says, his California-blue eyes locking on to mine, a lazy smile slowly spreading. “I’ve missed yo
u.”
As everyone watches in silence, he unclips my hair with a sexy gesture, letting it fall around my shoulders.
“No, don’t!” I want to cry out, but it’s too late. As my hair drops down, half curled, half straight, Ryan blinks at it, startled—and no wonder. I can see my reflection in the mirror, and I look totally weird.
My face flames, and behind me someone stifles a snort of laughter. Great. I’ve been waiting a whole year to see Ryan and this is how I greet him. With freaky hair.
But before I can even draw breath to explain, Ryan lifts both hands to cup my face. He looks at me for a few silent seconds, then kisses me, hard. As though he doesn’t care about the hair; as though he isn’t interested in anyone else. Through a kind of humming in my ears, I hear Nicole exclaim, “Oh!” and Tim saying, “Bloody hell!”
At last we draw apart. I’m aware that the whole room is watching us, and I muster every fiber in my body to address him nonchalantly.
“Welcome back, Ryan. So how long is it for this time? A day?”
Ryan surveys me silently for a moment, his mouth twitching as though with some little joke. Then he says, “Actually, I’m back.”
“I can see that.” I match his light, bantering tone.
“No, I’m back.” His eyes flick around the room again, aware of our audience. “I’m done with L.A. Finished with it. Back for good.”
He’s—what?
I stare at him, blood thundering through my head. My brain can’t quite process his words. Or believe them. For good? He’s back here for good? Desperately I try to find a cool, witty reply, but my mouth won’t work properly.
“I’d better get you a drink, then,” I manage at last, and Ryan’s eyes crinkle as though he knows exactly how stunned I am.
“Yeah,” he says, and kisses my hand. “You better had.”
I head to the drinks table, trying to gather myself. I never dreamed he’d come back to the UK for good. I never even contemplated it.
And as I grab a beer out of the ice bucket, a giddy joy starts to infuse me. Miracles don’t come true; I know they don’t. But just this once—this magical one-off time—one did.
Six
The party goes on, as it does every year. I know I should be helping Mum with the profiteroles. I know I should be clearing plates. But for once in my life I’m thinking: Let Nicole do it. Let Jake do it. Let anyone else do it. Because Ryan wants to talk to me, and that sweeps everything else away.
We’re alone in the tiny back room overlooking the garden. It’s stuffed with furniture that we moved out of the sitting room for the party—we’re sitting on the floor awkwardly between two sofas—but I don’t think either of us cares. We’re transfixed, in our own private bubble. Ryan has been talking for about an hour and I’ve been listening in a state of shock, because he’s not saying anything I expected.
Every other time Ryan has come home, all we’ve heard about L.A. is the glamour. The excitement. The celebrities. But now he’s telling me real stuff. Painful stuff. He doesn’t look like old Ryan; he looks battered. World-weary. Kind of like he’s had it.
And the more he talks, the more I realize what he’s telling me is: He has had it. He’s done with L.A. I have no idea how he can have sunk so quickly from “My best friend is Tom Cruise” to this place, but the way he’s talking now, he never wants to see L.A. again.
“Everyone there is two-faced,” he keeps saying. “Every single bastard.”
I haven’t quite followed his tale of woe—there are two people in it called Aaron, which doesn’t help—but what I’ve picked up is that he went into business with a couple of guys, but nobody did what they’d promised to, and now he’s out of money.
“You burn through the stuff,” he says bleakly. “Everyone wants to discuss work over Japanese food or on a boat. The one-upmanship. It’s insane.”
“But when you say, ‘out of money,’ ” I venture, tentatively, “you don’t mean…”
“I’m out, Fixie.” He spreads his hands. “Broke. Nowhere to live, even.”
“Shit,” I breathe out.
There’s a nasty feeling in my stomach. How can Ryan Chalker be broke? I’m remembering him and Jake, aged seventeen, riding around in that convertible. He had money. He had it. How can you just lose it all?
“So, what will you…where…”
“I’m staying with Jake right now. Your brother’s great. But then…” He shakes his head and his blond waves glimmer in the evening sun. “It’s hard. When you had a dream and you tried your utmost best and it didn’t work out.”
“I know,” I say fervently. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Hearing all this is bringing back painful stabbings in my heart. I’m remembering my pile of dark-green aprons under the bed. I’m remembering the drenching mortification of failure.
“I’ve had exactly the same experience,” I say, staring at the carpet. “You know I started that catering business? I did a load of work for this married couple called the Smithsons. They had a PR agency and they threw all these dinners for their clients, but they never paid me, and suddenly I was in debt and it was…” I try to compose myself. “I’d bought top-class organic filet steak, and I’d paid my staff, and they’d eaten it all, but I never got any money out of them….”
Despite my best efforts, my voice is wobbling. I don’t often talk about the Smithsons, because it makes me feel like such a fool. Even worse, it makes me feel ashamed, because I didn’t listen to Mum. She knows about small businesses, she knows the risks, and she tried to warn me. She tried to ask me practical questions about invoicing and cash flow. But I so desperately wanted everything to be great that I glossed over the answers.
I’ll never make that mistake again. I’ll never gloss; I’ll never cross my fingers and hope; I’ll never do business based on sweet talk and promises and handshakes. If anything good came out of the whole thing, it’s that I learned. I became more savvy.
“There were other issues too.” I exhale. “It was a bad financial climate. I pitched too high-end. It was harder to crack the market than I realized. But the Smithsons didn’t help.”
“Didn’t you sue?” says Ryan, looking interested. “Could you get some money out of them now?”
I shake my head. “They went bankrupt.”
It was like the last toxic ace up their sleeve. After they’d ignored all my invoices, all my emails, even my visits in person to their office, they filed for bankruptcy. I’m in a list of creditors on a computer somewhere. And I couldn’t afford to carry on. I couldn’t get any more credit and I definitely wasn’t turning to Mum again. Farr’s Food was over.
That’s when I made the decision to channel all my energies into the shop instead. Because I do love it and it’s our family legacy and it plays to my strengths. I even sometimes use my chef training when I advise customers on cooking products. And if I ever think wistfully about my catering dreams, then I remind myself: I had my chance.
“No one understands except people who have been through it,” I say. “No one.”
“Exactly.” Ryan’s eyes burn intently into mine. “They don’t get it. Fixie, you’re like the only person who understands properly.”
My heart swoops inside—I’m the only person who understands Ryan?—but somehow I manage not to melt.
“I broke up with my girlfriend,” he adds abruptly. “You find out about people.” He rubs his face, as though trying to rid himself of memories. “I tried so hard. I wanted to talk it through….But girls like that, they’re shallow. It’s not about who you are as a person; it’s about what can you do for them? How much can you spend on them? How can you help their career? As soon as she realized I was in trouble”—he clicks his fingers—“it was over.”
“She sounds awful!” I say hotly, and he shoots me a grateful half smile.
“So…what now?”
I ask. “What are you going to do?”
“God knows. But it’s got to be something different, you know?” says Ryan emphatically. “No more fucking smoke and mirrors. Real people. Real work. Roll up my sleeves and get on with it.”
“You could do anything!” I say. “The experience you’ve had…it’s amazing!”
Ryan shrugs. “Well, I know my shit, let’s say that.”
“So you just have to choose what to do,” I offer encouragingly. “Find a new line of work. I mean, I suppose you might need to go down a few rungs on the ladder to begin with….”
“Of course.” Ryan smiles wryly. “I can’t expect to go in at CEO level.” He gazes into the distance for a few moments, then adds in a low voice, “If I’ve learned one thing from all this, Fixie, it’s how to be humble.”
I feel yet another huge wash of affection for him. He’s the same as me. Chastened and pounded by experience…but not beaten. Never beaten.
“Good for you,” I say in heartfelt tones. “It’s really brave, to start again. I know exactly how you feel.”
I sip my drink, trying to think of career options for Ryan and surreptitiously checking out his pumped-up shoulders. If he looked good last year, he looks phenomenal this year. His arms are huge and muscled. His skin is smooth. He looks like an advert for healthy L.A. living.
“So what next?” I venture. “And is there anything I can do to help?”
“Just talking to you helps.” Ryan raises his blue eyes to mine, and my stomach squeezes a little. “I guess my next move is, contact some headhunters.”
“Headhunters!” I seize on the word. “Of course. Oh my God, they’ll love you. I mean, you’ve dealt with huge Hollywood companies. You could do anything! They’d be lucky to have you!”
“Oh, Fixie.” Ryan surveys me, his eyes crinkling up in a wry smile. “You make a guy feel good, you know that?”
“Well,” I say breathlessly. “It’s just what I think.”