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.
All thoughts of the bright yellow eyes and narrow vulpine face vanished from Lucy’s mind as Adam presented her with the usual list of crises before her bottom hit her swivelly chair at Tompkins Toy Wholesaler the following morning. There was a product recall for My Pretty Princess vanity cases, as the mermaid blue eyeshadow had caused an allergic reaction in a couple of isolated incidents. Three packs of the Hear Me Growl Tyrannosaurus Rex had been dropped off to an independent toy shop, instead of the three pallets they’d ordered. And fifty-six Water Fun Super Soakers had been delivered to the wrong branch of TopToys.
Lucy subconsciously fed each of the polished agate stones on her bracelet through her fingers like rosary beads. She so desperately wanted to make her mark at work, but life kept jabbing twigs in the wheels of her bicycle and sending her flying over the handlebars.
‘Come on, Lucy, we can do better than this,’ Adam said, resting an overly familiar hand on her shoulder. ‘I need you to be one of Adam’s Little Angels. Drill down and see if you can’t get these problems sorted by ten. You ladies are always so good at dealing with these pesky hiccups. Must say though, I’m surprised you let that dinosaur order slip through. Tut, tut.’
‘Sorry,’ mumbled Lucy. ‘I’ll get straight on it.’ She was fairly certain that she’d put through the T-Rex order as pallets but she also knew the guy who picked for that delivery route was in the middle of a vicious divorce and it wouldn’t be the first mistake he’d made in the last few weeks.
‘Appreciated and all that. I’m so rushed off my feet at the moment, otherwise I would happily help you out, but I’m sure you understand the pressures I’m under. You can’t have an office of worker bees without a queen.’
There was a titter from the other side of the partition.
‘It’s an analogy, Pat.’ Adam gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘You know we don’t do queer jokes in this office. I’m fully aware that we need to promote a politically correct and professional work environment. I read the memo.’ He rolled his eyes at Lucy. ‘And we don’t do fat jokes out of respect for you, Pat, so let’s leave the gays alone. Eh? Right, I must crack on. Time and tide…’ Adam walked over to his immaculate, empty desk and began colour-coding his paper clips.
In contrast, Lucy’s desk was a jumble of Post-it Notes, stacks of brochures from manufacturers and scruffy notebooks that she used to record every order she took. It looked a complete dog’s breakfast, dinner and tea, but Lucy could usually locate the things she needed. Eventually.
She stared absent-mindedly at the floor – a random jumble of carpet tiles in primary colours, as if to remind the staff they worked in an industry geared towards children. The internal line flashed on her phone.
‘Don’t let him make you feel like any of those problems are your fault or your responsibility,’ whispered Pat. ‘It’s obviously another warehouse cock-up. Let them take the flak.’
Pat sat at the desk opposite Lucy, but the partition, painted in what Adam referred to as a Motivational Yellow, meant unless they stood up they might as well have been in separate offices. A large lady who kept her tightly permed auburn head down and barely raised her voice above a whisper, Pat had only ever spoken about three sentences to Lucy’s face, yet conspiratorially contacted her via the internal line on a regular basis.
‘It’s not a problem,’ said Lucy. ‘Hopefully I can smooth things over with the customers. I’ll tackle TopToys first.’
Surveying her muddle of a desk, and accidentally sending a nodding fluorescent orange alien
