Sweet Temptation Read online

  ‘I really should start doing some exercise,’ I said, feeling guilty about my decidedly inactive lifestyle. ‘I can’t afford gym fees, though – not on my salary.’

  ‘I know, they’re extortionate, aren’t they,’ Maddie said. ‘I only got the membership because … well, my mum basically pushed me into it.’

  A sadness came over her face like a veil dropping, and I put an arm around her without thinking.

  ‘Still,’ Maddie said bracingly. ‘You can just go to the classes there without being a member.’ Her eyes brightened. ‘Hey – we should go together. Solidarity against the skinnies and all that. There are loads of beginner classes where you don’t have to be an athlete to join in … what do you think?’

  What did I think? I had a flashback to PE lessons at school, the misery of cold rainy hockey fields with grey culottes chafing against my red-raw legs, missing catches in netball, pretending to have my period to get out of swimming …

  ‘Um …’ I said, trying to think of an excuse. ‘I’m not sure my boss would approve. She keeps saying what a bad advert I am for the salon. If she saw me red-faced and dripping with sweat, she’d probably sack me on the spot.’

  Lauren was hesitant too. ‘Maybe …’ she said unconvincingly to Maddie. Then she turned to me, looking indignant. ‘That boss of yours sounds a right bitch, Jess. Surely it’s none of her business what you do in your spare time.’

  My face felt hot. Lauren was right, but I knew I’d never have the bottle to say as much to Louisa. ‘She’s just got it in for me,’ I mumbled. Aaargh. I wished I’d never mentioned Louisa. I was coming across as a total victim. Luckily a more positive thought struck me.

  ‘Actually, I was thinking about trying salsa dancing,’ I said quickly. ‘But I’m not sure I’ve got the guts to do it on my own – and I doubt I’ll be able to persuade my fiancé to come along. I don’t suppose either of you fancy it, do you?’ My heart thumped as the words came out and I braced myself for them rejecting the idea. Why would they want to go dancing with me?

  Lauren looked interested, though. ‘How funny – I was thinking about salsa dancing too. One of my former clients is a salsa teacher and—’

  ‘It’s not Francesca, is it?’ I blurted out, then felt like an idiot. There had to be hundreds of salsa teachers in a city like Birmingham.

  But her eyes had widened in surprise. ‘Yes!’ she replied. ‘I went to her wedding on Saturday – I introduced her and her husband through my dating agency. Why, are you friends with her?’

  I smiled. ‘No, not friends. She’s one of my clients too. I did her nails for the wedding,’ I said. Lauren looked blank, so I added, ‘I’m a beautician.’

  Lauren laughed. ‘Small world!’ she said.

  ‘I’m starting to think you know everyone,’ Maddie added, smiling.

  ‘How was the wedding?’ I asked Lauren eagerly, leaning forward on my seat. ‘She was so nervous about it the first time I met her, but then when she came in on Friday, she seemed really excited and happy.’

  ‘Oh, she was,’ Lauren said. ‘It was a great wedding – and that’s coming from a diehard cynic like me. Her nails looked fab too, by the way – you did a good job, Jess.’

  I blushed again. I was like a traffic light tonight. ‘Cheers,’ I said.

  ‘Is that what you do, then?’ Maddie asked Lauren. ‘Lonely hearts and all that?’

  Lauren nodded and wrinkled her nose. ‘I’ve been feeling kind of blah about it, to be honest,’ she admitted. ‘I’m a divorcee and was starting to think I was in the wrong job – too bitter to work in the lovey-dovey romance business. But this wedding was just … lovely, and Francesca made this little speech thanking me, and …’ She laughed, looking faintly embarrassed. ‘Well, it kind of restored my faith in lurve. And now I feel really upbeat about work again and want to give the agency a big push, throw everything into it.’ She smiled at me, looking excited. ‘Hey, and now I’ve found out you’re a beautician, Jess, I’m thinking I could bring some of my ladies along to your salon for a pre-date pampering session … what do you reckon?’

  My ears pricked up at once. ‘What a great idea – I’m sure we could do some kind of promotion together,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to my manager about it.’ Anything to get into Louisa’s good books for a change.

  ‘And I bet we could feature you on the show at some point too, Lauren,’ Maddie put in. ‘Valentine’s Day would be the obvious tie-in, but we could definitely do a puff piece about your agency in the meantime – maybe even get this Francesca on to tell us her side of the story …’

  Lauren looked absolutely thrilled, her green eyes sparkling and a huge smile splitting her face. ‘You two are brilliant,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much! I’m starting to feel really grateful to FatBusters – not only have I lost a few pounds, but I’ve met you two as well. That’s pretty good going, I’d say.’ She raised her glass in the air. ‘Cheers, girls – to fatbusting and friendship!’

  We all smiled at one another and clinked our glasses together. ‘To fatbusting and friendship,’ we chorused.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bittersweet

  Maddie

  August got steadily worse. Mum started the cycle of chemotherapy, which left her very tired. I watched her like a hawk for deterioration and noticed that she was forgetting things more and more – if I told her something, she wouldn’t be able to remember it the day after, and I found myself getting frustrated and depressed by it. She was also suffering some unpleasant side effects – the inside of her mouth was sore, and she had to take steroids to combat the nausea and diarrhoea. By now, she was also in a lot of pain, so Gerald and I decided she would be better off in a hospice with round-the-clock care while she was suffering.

  I took Emma and Ben to see her as often as I could, and tried to keep her spirits up. But when it was just the two of us, she confessed to me how scared she was of dying. She kept agonizing over and over again about what it would feel like, how frightening, how painful. She also kept crying about how sorry she was to leave me, how angry she was with herself for being ill like this. It just broke my heart, but I knew it was important to let her talk; I wanted her to feel that she could say anything she wanted to me and I would always listen. I had leaned on her so many times in the past, and she’d been the strong one. Now it was my turn to be strong for her, to try to comfort her, and hold her hand while she poured out her fears.

  Then, one morning, at the beginning of September, on a warm, clear, yellow-leafed day, the phone call came. She had died in her sleep, just stopped breathing. Her body had given up, ceased to work. She had gone.

  ‘No, no,’ I cried down the phone. ‘Not yet. Not yet!’

  It was so soon, so sudden. Just six weeks earlier she’d seemed as right as rain, bossing me about, sorting my life out, my best friend and closest ally. And now … now she was gone. I felt as if my heart had been torn out of me. I could hardly breathe, with the pain.

  I don’t know how I got through the next few days. I was numb to everything, everyone. I couldn’t sleep, I could barely string a sentence together, I wasn’t functioning at all. The only thing going through my head was that she’d died, that I’d never see her again, never talk to her … the thoughts kept running around my mind in a loop I couldn’t escape from. I felt terribly guilty that I hadn’t spotted that something was wrong with her before; angry with myself for not paying enough attention. What if we’d caught the cancer sooner? She could have lived for years if she’d had an earlier diagnosis.

  The grief was overwhelming. It literally engulfed me, completely took me over. How could I carry on with life as normal without her?

  ‘Mummy, I’m so sad that you’re sad,’ Emma said to me one day, her small hand tentative on my back.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ I choked, putting my arms around her. Sorry that I’m flaking out on you just before you start the ordeal of secondary school. Sorry that I can’t stop crying and want to spend the rest of my life in bed.
r />   I took her hands in mine, trying to pull myself together and say something reassuring. But as I did so, I noticed her hands. I hadn’t looked at them properly for ages and something tightened in me as I did. ‘You’ve got Granny’s hands,’ I said, blinking through the tears. ‘Oh, Ems … your hands are just like Granny’s – look at your lovely long fingers, so shapely, just like hers …’ And then I was kissing her hands, raising them up to my lips, and hugging her again, laughing and crying at the same time.

  I saw her everywhere, after that. Mum, I mean. Ben’s wide mouth was just like hers – why hadn’t I noticed it before? The way he’d set it in a moue if displeased, the way he’d laugh so heartily – that was her. I even saw her in my own face in the mirror at times – a tilt of my head, the generous fleshy lobes of my ears – and it made me think of her with a pang. Why hadn’t I noticed these things before? Why hadn’t I paid attention to the links between us, the traits that passed through the generations? Or was I deluding myself now, was I clutching at straws, trying to comfort myself that a part of her was still with me, hadn’t completely vanished?

  The funeral was pretty tough going. There’d been a piece in the Post about her death, with a lovely obituary and details of the service. I knew she was well loved in the city – she’d turned on the Christmas lights and opened supermarkets in her hey-day as well as appearing at all sorts of charity dinners and what-have-you over the years – but I’d never expected the hundreds of people who came along to the crematorium to pay their last respects. It choked me to see the enormous crowd of fellow actors, friends, neighbours and fans. Emma and Ben were there with Paul and me, but they were both pale and tearful, clinging to my side, and it was all I could do to keep my arms around them. I half wondered if my dad would rock up for the show too, but if he did, I didn’t recognize him. It had been almost thirty years since I’d last seen him, after all. I didn’t even know if he was alive.

  Gerald, who seemed to have shrunk in the last month, gave a speech and read ‘Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep’, which got us all going, and then it was my turn. I really wanted to deliver a eulogy, but I felt so emotional I wasn’t sure I could even walk to the front of the room, let alone get out all the things I wanted to say about her.

  ‘My mum was a wonderful person,’ I began, my voice breaking on the word ‘mum’. It seemed to stick in my throat and I had to take a second to compose myself before going on. ‘She lit up the room with her smile, she made everyone laugh with her stories, and she was fantastic on stage. She loved performing, she loved entertaining, she was sociable and fun, gregarious and big-hearted. Away from the spotlight and the parties, she was also incredibly kind. She brought me up single-handed and I can honestly say she was there whenever I needed her.’ Tears brimmed in my eyes, and I swallowed. This was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. ‘I miss her so much already. I miss being able to pop round for a chat, I miss hearing her laugh, I even miss the way she was always trying to sort my life out.’ A sob escaped and I held my body clenched for a moment, fearful that I was about to lose control. Come on, Maddie, I told myself. Just the reading to get through, then you can let go.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Her first role on stage was right here in Birmingham at the Rep, as Miranda in The Tempest, a play she loved,’ I said. ‘And now I’d like to read a short piece from that play.’

  Another deep breath. I wanted to do her justice, make her proud, especially when there were so many actors in the room.

  ‘Our revels now are ended …’ I began, my voice wobbling precariously. I almost made it through without breaking down, but when I got to, ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep’, I was incoherent with sobs. Paul came up and stood beside me, his hand on my back, and I just about managed to thank everyone for coming before totally losing it.

  She’d wanted to be cremated, and much as I hated the idea of her being buried and her beautiful face rotting away underground, I couldn’t watch as the curtains closed around the coffin and the first notes of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ started up.

  ‘Will we ever see Granny again?’ Ben asked, his hand creeping into mine as we made our way out.

  ‘No, darling,’ I said, squeezing his fingers. ‘We won’t.’

  The following Saturday, we drove out with Gerald to the Lickey Hills Country Park and climbed to the top of Beacon Hill. Mum had always loved it up there, gazing out at the city – you could see for miles on a clear day. It held loads of memories for me too – sledging down the hill as a child on snowy days, walks through the woodland, stopping for ice cream at the cafe … My eyes leaked tears again as the images rushed into my head.

  I took the pot of ashes from my bag and carefully unscrewed the lid. ‘Who wants a bit of her, then?’ I asked.

  Ben and Emma were wide-eyed as they peered in at the ashes. ‘What do we do with it?’ Ben asked uncertainly.

  ‘This,’ I said, and scooped out a handful of the powdery dust. I threw it into the air and watched as it was carried away by the wind. ‘Goodbye, Mum,’ I said under my breath.

  ‘May I?’ Gerald said, eyes moist. He reached into the pot for a handful, then let the wind blow the ashes from his palm. ‘Farewell, beautiful Anna, rest in peace,’ he said throatily, gazing heavenwards.

  Emma didn’t look at all sure about it but took some of the ashes and sprinkled them into the air. ‘Bye-bye, Granny,’ I heard her whisper. ‘I really loved you. I miss you.’

  Ben plunged his hand in next and twirled around and around, sending the ashes flying out in all directions. ‘Goodbye, Granny, I hope you’re bossing Jesus around,’ he shouted.

  Paul looked horrified, but the idea made me laugh. I set the pot down on the ground, then took more of the ashes and ran across the top of the hill, throwing them wildly above my head. ‘Thank you, Mum,’ I called into the wind. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  I put off going round to Mum’s house for a few days. Emma was starting big school – I really had to stop calling it that – and I felt almost as keenly anxious about this as she did. Work had given me two weeks’ compassionate leave and sent a lovely card, which made me cry, and I had so far managed to fill my time with all the pre-term faff – buying new PE kit and uniform, sewing on about a million name tags, queuing for ages to get both kids new shoes in Clarks, and locating book bags, water bottles and lunch boxes after six weeks of not needing them.

  However, when I returned from the school run on Monday morning, the house felt empty and silent, and I was suddenly consumed by the urge to go to Mum’s just in case I could still breathe in the scent of her anywhere. I drove round and let myself in calmly enough, but when it came to actually being in her hall, surrounded by all her things, with the terrible knowledge that she’d never be there again, I fell to my knees on the floor and wailed like a child.

  There was her coat rack before me, and my eyes fell on the gorgeous Chanel coat with the four front pockets she’d adored, and I wept even more. She’d never wear it again now. And there was her fuchsia Hobbs jacket with the beautiful lining, the cream-coloured belted mac she loved from good old Marks & Spencer, oh, and the hats, too, of course – the black beret I’d always teased her about, the chunky blue woollen one she wore for gardening …

  I got to my feet and pressed myself against the coats, gathering them into my arms, sobbing as I caught the unmistakable smell of her perfume, Rive Gauche. Oh God. How was I ever going to be able to sort through her belongings, bag up things for the charity shop, box up the most precious items to keep, clear the house and sell it … It seemed absolutely unthinkable. I wanted to leave everything just as it was, to preserve the building like a museum and keep it as my refuge, a place to come and mourn her, feel close to her.

  I went upstairs to her bedroom and buried myself in her bedclothes, curling up there as I had done many evenings as a teenager if I couldn’t sleep or had something on my mind. This time, though, she wouldn’t come and comfort me or
cuddle me to sleep. This time, it was just me under the covers, clutching her pillows and crying as if my heart was for ever broken.

  Once again, the gym was a place of comfort. I had missed a few sessions, feeling too strung out and light-headed to do very much more than survive each day, and Mike had been quick to get on the phone.

  ‘Come on, Maddie, put those trainers on again, girl,’ he said. ‘We can take it nice and easy if you’re a bit fragile. I promise you’ll feel so much better afterwards …’

  Mike was a hard person to say no to, I was discovering – he was very persuasive and knew which buttons to push with me. Which was why I found myself back in my gym kit, feeling bleary-eyed and lethargic, as I turned up for a session that afternoon.

  He took one look at me and gave me a hug. ‘I was so sorry to hear the news, Maddie,’ he said, his muscular arms tight around me.

  It gave me a jolt for a second, that hug. A peculiar feeling rushed through me as we stood there near the weights rack. Another man was holding me and it felt nice. Comforting. Safe. Also kind of … interesting …

  I stepped out of his embrace, suddenly embarrassed. It had probably been like hugging a hot air balloon for him, I told myself. I was surprised he’d even been able to get his arms around my bulk. ‘Thanks,’ I said, not looking him in the eye. Then I was ashamed of myself. Ashamed that my thoughts had strayed from our usual gym manager-and-client relationship to a man-and-woman relationship. Stupid cow, I chastised myself. I was emotionally exhausted from grief and lack of sleep, and I was starting to think mad things.

  ‘So,’ he went on, looking slightly awkward himself now and shuffling one of his battered trainers around. I wondered if he felt he’d overstepped a line. ‘I was thinking we could try going for a brisk walk today instead of the usual routine. Get out in the fresh air and stride around the park together for a change. What do you reckon?’