The Lost Ticket, page 9
“Auntie Libs, I’m hungry,” Hector said. “Did you bring me any food?”
“Sorry. I didn’t think we’d be this long. I’m sure we can find something round here.”
She pulled out her phone to search for a health food shop, but Hector was pointing up at the gigantic yellow “M” illuminated on the billboard above their heads.
“Can I have a McDonald’s?”
“Come on, buddy, you know Mummy doesn’t like us eating fast food.”
“No fast food?” Dylan scrunched up his nose. “What, never?”
“My sister has very strict rules on healthy living.”
“But Mummy’s not here.”
“Hex . . .”
“I won’t tell her you let me have one, I swear. Please, Auntie Libby, pleeeease . . .”
She looked at the boy’s pleading face. “All right, just this once.”
“Yes!” Hector leaped up in the air. “Are you coming too, Dylan?”
Libby opened her mouth to say he wasn’t, but Dylan was already nodding at Hector. The three of them walked down to McDonald’s, where Libby ordered a Happy Meal for Hector and a Chicken McNuggets meal for herself. Dylan bought a coffee, and they found a table upstairs looking out over the bustling traffic on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Hector stuffed chips into his mouth, moaning with pleasure. “This is amazing plunk food, isn’t it?” he said to Dylan.
“Careful or you’ll make yourself sick, mate.”
“But it’s sooo good.”
“My sister’s going to kill me,” Libby said, but she couldn’t help smiling at Hector’s delighted face.
“Surely she won’t mind him having it once?” Dylan said.
“Oh, believe me, she will. But it’s fine; I feel it’s my duty as the wayward auntie to occasionally break the rules.”
“I imagine you’re a pretty cool aunt.”
Libby almost choked on a chip. She glanced at Dylan, but he was looking out the window.
“I’m not sure my sister thinks so,” she said, “especially now we’re living under the same roof.”
“Tell me about it,” Dylan said darkly. Libby waited for him to elaborate, but he took a sip of coffee. “So, what do you do for a living, then, when you’re not illegally feeding junk food to small children?”
Libby ate a bite of a nugget to give herself time to prepare an answer. Somehow saying I run the business side of my partner’s gardening firm, but at the moment he’s weighing up whether he wants to be with me, so I’m currently unemployed seemed overly complicated.
“I’m taking a temporary career break,” she said, feeling pleased with her concise answer.
“Libby sells tacky gardens to people with more money than sense,” Hector said to Dylan. “That’s what my mummy says.”
“Does she, now?” Libby said. “What else does Mummy say about my work?”
“That you never should have given up doctoring school. She and Granny talk about it sometimes, and Granny gets all red in the face and cross.”
Libby felt as if she’d been stung. Dylan must have sensed it, because he turned to Hector.
“Did you get a toy with your meal?”
Hector started showing him some small plastic thing, and Libby slumped back in her seat. Did her family really still talk about her dropping out of medical school all these years later? It had been a huge drama at the time, full of anger and recriminations. Never mind that Libby had never wanted to study medicine in the first place and hated every minute of the two and a half years she’d done. In her parents’ eyes, it had been a personal rejection, a repudiation of everything they’d ever dreamed of for their daughter. But still, Libby had assumed that those wounds had healed over the past decade, that her family now realized that quitting a degree she hated was ultimately in Libby’s best interest. Apparently not.
“Are you okay?”
She looked up to see Dylan watching her.
“Yeah, fine. Come on, Hex, we’d better head home.”
They finished their meals and left the restaurant, walking back toward Piccadilly Circus.
“This is my stop. I’m heading in the other direction,” Dylan said as they reached the bottom of Regent Street.
“Can’t you come back with us?” Hector said. “I want to hear your loud music.”
“Not today. I’m afraid I’ve got to get to another client.”
Libby nodded good-bye. Dylan had been less hostile than she’d expected today, and weirdly great with Hector, but she was still glad they didn’t have to ride all the way back together.
“Bye, Dylan!” Hector said as Libby took his hand and led him across the road.
“Libby!”
She heard her name being shouted as she reached the far pavement, and turned back to see Dylan watching her through the traffic.
“Same time, same place on Friday?”
Before Libby could answer, an 88 drew up at the stop and Dylan disappeared from view.
CHAPTER
13
PEGGY
David came to see me on Sunday.
It’s been a while since he’s visited. Not that I blame him, of course. He’s been under so much pressure with work, and you know how Emma keeps him on such a tight rein; it’s remarkable she let him out the house. Honestly, I know I shouldn’t speak ill of my own daughter-in-law, but I don’t know how he’s put up with her all these years, I really don’t. I was a bit worried he was going to bring her too, but thankfully he called on Friday to say she had a cold and couldn’t come.
He was coming for lunch, so I went shopping to get all his favorites in. I decided to do lamb chops with mashed potatoes (creamy, the way he likes them), followed by sherry trifle. It’s a while since I’ve made a trifle and I had to go to three different shops to try to find those sponge fingers; nobody seems to sell them anymore. I was going to use tinned fruit, like I always have for us, but then I remembered that last time I made it Emma made a comment, so I bought fresh fruit instead. Cost me a bleedin’ fortune, but you know me, only the best for my boy.
I tidied the flat from top to bottom—not that it was dirty in the first place, but I wanted to make sure it was spotless. I even dusted the old pictures, which, between you and me, I usually skip over. It was strange looking at mine up close again. I walk past them every day but never pay them any attention when there are much better ones in the flat. But today I did stop and look at them while I cleaned, and honestly, Percy, they weren’t half bad. Some of the portraits I did in the bus series were pretty decent, and there’s that one, The Dreamer, which wouldn’t have looked totally out of place in the corner of some small art gallery somewhere.
And I know you’ll say “I told you so,” because to be fair, love, you always did say I had talent; I could just never see it myself. I suppose that’s partly my dad’s fault; when you’ve grown up with someone telling you you’re wasting your time, it’s hard to see past that. But also, I think perhaps it was easier for me to think I wasn’t any good, so it made the decision to give up a little less painful. Because if I’d truly believed I was talented, that I could have achieved things in my life, then it would have been so much harder to walk away from it all when I had to. Does that make sense?
Besides, it’s not like I had a choice. Once I was pregnant with David, there was no way I could have carried on chasing silly dreams of being an artist. It’s different nowadays: women have all sorts of careers while having children—just look at our Maisie—but you have to remember what it was like back then. Anyway, I loved being a mum, as you know better than anyone. And I love being a grandmother and great-grandmother too, even if they are on the other side of the world.
Which reminds me: did I tell you that David said Maisie and the kids might come back for Christmas? I immediately started getting excited, thinking about what presents to get the boys—it’s two years since I’ve seen them, so I have no idea what they’re into these days—and then David told me off for getting carried away and said it might not happen. Still, I thought I might pop down to Argos next week and have a little look at their catalog. I know it’s seven months early, but there’s no harm doing a bit of research, is there?
Anyway, it was lovely to see David yesterday. He told me all his news. Apparently, he was up for some promotion at work, but they passed him over for someone half his age, which seems crazy to me. He said he might retire in a few years’ time, but Emma isn’t keen. And he gave me a gorgeous scarf for my birthday. It’s very similar to the one he got me last year, but I love it and you can never have too many scarves. I put it straight in the drawer with the others, to keep it safe.
David didn’t stay for lunch in the end. He said he’d love to, but he had to get back because they had friends coming over for dinner. So it looks like I’m going to be eating sherry trifle on my own for a while.
CHAPTER
14
On Friday evening, Rebecca and Tom went out for dinner, leaving Libby to babysit Hector. She ordered herself an Indian takeaway and collapsed in front of the TV while she waited for it to arrive. It had been a busy day: she and Dylan had started at Piccadilly Circus, where they’d finished with Hector on Wednesday, then put up posters from Leicester Square, along Haymarket to Trafalgar Square, then down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament. As they worked, they chatted about books, music, and films, and while they had quite different tastes, Libby was surprised that Dylan didn’t mock her choices as she’d expected him to. He even promised to watch Titanic after Libby spent ten minutes giving an impassioned speech about why it was so good. They parted ways under Big Ben, Libby to head back north and Dylan to go to his next job south. And as they said good-bye, Dylan gave Libby his number and said he’d see her at the usual bus stop on Monday morning. Libby was bewildered as to why, but there was no doubt it was much quicker with Dylan’s help. And whilst he was a bit unpredictable, she’d enjoyed his easy chat.
The takeaway arrived, and Libby carried it through to the kitchen and served it on a plate. As she was loading up her first forkful, savoring the delicious smell after weeks of steamed fish and vegetables, she saw her phone screen light up. For a second Libby wondered if it was someone messaging about Frank’s girl, but when she picked up the phone, her heart leaped.
Simon.
It was exactly four weeks since that awful dinner, and two weeks since the phone call where he’d asked her to go back to work. What could he want now, at eight o’clock on a Friday night? Libby took a deep breath before she answered.
“Hi, Libs. How are you?” His voice sounded thin and edgy.
“Simon.”
“You okay?”
“Fine, thanks. You?”
“Yeah, okay, okay.”
He’s not okay, Libby realized, and that gave her a flush of triumph. Good, let him suffer like he’d made her suffer.
“How’s things with the family? Hex okay?”
“Simon, I’m eating dinner. What do you want?”
“Oh.” She could hear his confusion at her sharp tone. “Well, I need to tell you something.”
This is it, Libby thought with a lurch. This is the moment he either asks me to move back or says he wants to break up for good.
“What is it?”
“Well, the thing is . . . I wanted to tell you before you heard it from anyone else . . .”
“Tell me what?”
She heard Simon inhale at the other end of the phone line.
“What, Simon?”
“Ivemetsomeoneelse.”
The words came tumbling out so fast that it took Libby a moment to decipher what he’d said.
“She’s called Olivia,” Simon continued. “We met running.”
Libby realized she was still holding her forkful of curry, and she put it down with a clatter. Another woman. Running. She thought of the Instagram photos of Simon, his eyes glowing as he looked at whoever had been taking the shots. Of course. How could she have been so stupid?
“I’m sorry to tell you like this over the phone,” Simon continued. “But we’re going to the Lamb tomorrow and people are bound to see us and—well—I didn’t want word getting back to you from someone else.”
Libby and Simon used to go sometimes to the Lamb on a Saturday—his family had been drinking there for years and they knew most of the regulars. If Simon was taking this woman there, it meant they were meeting his parents, which meant things were getting serious.
“How long have you been seeing her, Simon?”
“What? Oh, not long. It’s nothing serious, Libs; it’s very casual.”
But she could hear it in his voice. It was the same one he used when he’d double booked a gardening job and tried to pretend it wasn’t his fault, or when Libby had caught him watching porn and he’d claimed it came on by accident.
There were so many things Libby wanted to say right now, angry, hurtful words she wanted to scream at Simon. But instead she took a deep breath and hung up the phone.
* * *
• • •
WHEN Rebecca and Tom got home later, they found Libby sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, an uneaten curry in front of her.
“What on earth are you doing?” Rebecca said as she switched on the kitchen lights.
Libby looked around her as if waking from a daze. She had no idea what time it was or how long she’d been sitting there. All she knew was that she’d wanted to cry, but no tears had come.
“What’s happened?” Rebecca said.
“Simon called.” Libby’s voice was a croak.
“Did he tell you about his girlfriend?”
“What?” Libby looked up at her sister. “How did you know about her?”
“Mum called me earlier. Simon’s mum rang her this afternoon to tell her they were meeting Simon’s new girlfriend, as a courtesy or something.”
Libby blinked. “Mum knew Simon was seeing someone else, and she didn’t tell me?”
“Well, I imagine she wanted to let Simon tell you himself.”
“When did you find out?”
“Oh, I don’t know, sometime earlier. Why are you interrogating me? I’m not the one who left you for another woman.”
“I’m going to bed,” Libby said, standing up so quickly, she felt dizzy.
“Before you go, one quick thing.” Rebecca sat down and waited until Libby had dropped into her seat again. “I wanted to tell you some good news.”
“Good news?”
“Well, it’s not good news per se. Rosalita’s mum has apparently had some complications from her surgery, nothing critical but she’s going to be bedbound for the next eight weeks, so Rosalita won’t be back until August.”
“How is that good news?”
“Well, it means you can stay here until then. I know how stressed you must be right now, so I wanted to reassure you that you’ve got somewhere to stay for a bit longer.”
“Right.” Libby knew she should make an effort to sound vaguely grateful, but a huge wave of exhaustion had suddenly crashed over her. “Thanks, Bex. I’m going to bed.”
CHAPTER
15
Libby had arranged to meet Frank for a walk on Hampstead Heath the following morning. She considered canceling it and staying in bed, but she didn’t want to let Frank down, and besides, some fresh air would probably do her good. They’d agreed to meet at the café by the bandstand, and when Libby arrived she saw Frank sitting at one of the tables outside, drinking from a takeaway cup.
“Hi, Frank.”
He startled at the sound of his name, spilling some coffee.
“Oh, sorry to make you jump.”
Frank looked up at her, his brow furrowed. “Clara?”
“No, it’s me, Libby.”
“Libby?”
“Yes, from the bus. Remember, I’m helping you look for your girl on the 88.”
“Oh, yes, Libby.” Frank smiled, but his forehead was creased. “Sorry, forgive me. I woke up with a terrible headache this morning, so I’m a little out of sorts.”
“Would you like to cancel our walk? We can go another time if you’d prefer.”
“No, a walk is just what I need.” Frank picked up his satchel and pushed himself up from the table. He wobbled a little as he stood, and Libby stepped forward and took his arm. “I’m fine,” he said, but he didn’t shake her off.
“Which way shall we go?”
“Have you ever been up Parliament Hill?” he asked, and Libby shook her head. “In that case, let’s go this way.”
He led her out of the café and toward a wide path that climbed slowly toward some trees. Frank’s steps were slow and careful, but Libby didn’t mind taking their time.
“So, how have your first few poster outings been?” Frank said. “I was out on the 88 on Thursday and saw a couple of them around Oxford Street.”
“They’ve gone okay,” Libby said. “It was a bit slow to start with, but I think I’ve got the hang of it now. The key is to use electrical tape; I think that stops them being pulled down so quickly.”
“And Dylan’s carried on helping you, I hear?”
“He has.”
Libby could sense Frank waiting for more, but she moved the conversation on by telling him about her spreadsheet and color-coded map. After about twenty minutes, they reached the brow of the hill, both of them out of breath from the climb. Libby started to move toward the first bench, but Frank steered her to one a little farther along.
