The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker: The most heart-warming book you’ll read this year. Jenni Keer
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manufacturer and asking for a translation. We can add them to the units we have in the warehouse and those still out with our retailers. Hopefully, consumers will contact the manufacturer direct when they realise.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sure it’s straightforward if you have the time to focus on it properly, but I have other, more pressing matters to deal with. She’s got me running around like a squirrel on speed. So much for not interfering.’
Lucy walked over to the general manager’s desk and waited for her to end the call, before apologising for her unauthorised time off work.
‘You should have contacted us as soon as you became aware of the problem. My biggest issue is we didn’t hear from you until nearly ten o’clock.’ Sam was multitasking, even as she answered Lucy she scribbled notes in her jotter. ‘Although I’m still not convinced helping out a neighbour justifies a two-day absence.’
‘Sorry. She wasn’t well and went for a wander in her nightie, taking a packed lunch of cream crackers and toothpaste to her dead husband—’
‘I don’t want to hear your excuse, although I must say it’s more creative than some I’ve heard.’ Sam didn’t look up. ‘I want you to be at your desk by nine or ring in to notify us promptly that you will be delayed.’
‘I tried to ring several—’
‘The personal apology is appreciated, and Adam has backed you one hundred per cent, so let’s move on. Has Adam filled you in on the science sets crisis?’ Lucy nodded. ‘Could you get straight on it please? He’s been fiddling about all morning and I haven’t seen much progress.’
Lucy slumped into her chair and switched on her computer. Poor Adam was obviously stressed. It must be hard running the sales office, especially when his staff let him down. She’d stay late to make up for it.
‘Thanks for your support,’ she said to Adam later as their paths crossed on the stairs. She was heading downstairs to the photocopier; he was returning with a box of ballpoint pens.
‘Yeah, well, it’s a one-off, so keep it up your jumper. I don’t want people thinking I’ve gone soft.’
‘And you’re sure that’s what the words said when she first gave it to you?’ asked Jess, a few days later.
Lucy had finally confided in her about the locket as they both stood in the staff kitchen doing the tea round for their various departments. Lucy had no choice. Adam decided it was a job for the new girl and a year on Lucy hadn’t questioned it. Jess volunteered in accounts because she knew Lucy was lumbered with the task on a daily basis.
Disconcerted by the possibility the words in the locket had changed, Lucy was searching for a rational explanation. Jess, who had to ask Lucy to pop the catch because her long nails made it impossible to press the fiddly button, had the locket in her hands and was inspecting it closely, much like Lucy had when she’d discovered the candle spell.
‘It’s difficult to be sure, as the letters are so small, but I assumed Brenda was telling me what they said, to save me squinting. But thinking back, I’m almost certain the first word started with a flouncy old-fashioned “D”.’
‘You’ve told me often enough that your old lady friend is a bit odd, how her whole house seems alive and she heals people with funny old lotions and potions. I thought we’d decided she’s some sort of white witch.’
Perhaps Jess, who devoured TV shows like Merlin, Angel and Once Upon a Time, wasn’t the best person to turn to for logical explanations.
‘No, it’s ridiculous,’ Lucy said, as much to convince herself as Jess, and refusing to be drawn on what exactly Brenda was or wasn’t. ‘Unless I had a midnight visit from a particularly generous cat burglar who happened to have an almost identical locket in his pocket, I must have imagined it.’ Lucy didn’t know why she’d involved Jess – whose eyes were baby-seal-wide and was now holding the locket reverently in both hands, like she was delivering myrrh to the baby Jesus. She placed it carefully back on the central table.
‘Let’s do the spell thingy anyway? It will be fun – like that time we made a love potion for the new boy at school.’
‘That wasn’t fun; he was sick all over my school bag and we got a detention. Plus, I’m not sure we made or administered the potion. I was an innocent bystander – one who had to buy a new school bag.’
‘Oh come on, writing a name on a candle and letting it burn out is simple enough,’ Jess persevered. ‘Lots of old charms and spells use candles. They light the way and dispel the forces of darkness. The ancient Egyptians used them, and just about anyone involved in any hocus-pocus has jumped on the bandwagon. Churches buy them by the barrow-load. Very symbolic.’
Lucy remembered Jess’s passing white witch phase well. Jess did lots of activities in phases. There was the gym phase (she had a massive crush on one of the personal trainers), the knitting phase (in solidarity with her friend – but she was all fingers, thumbs and bad language) and currently the beauty therapy phase (self-taught via YouTube and a bit random). No explanation for that had been forthcoming but Lucy suspected it was a combination of trying to win over Dashing Daniel from work and her plans to earn some extra money on the side giving facials, manicures and a bit of intimate waxing.
‘And even though I haven’t met this George of yours—’
‘He’s not my George.’
‘—this George your dotty neighbour’s got earmarked for you, I think I should give him the once-over. If he’s got potential, we’re definitely doing this candle malarkey, because even if he was your type, you’d live next to him for twenty years and never have the guts to ask for so much as a cup of sugar.’
‘That’s not fair. I’ve already been in his house. And practically seen him topless. I even got a flash of nipple.’
Jess spat out her mouthful of Diet Coke and wiped her dribbly chin with her free hand. She didn’t drink tea or coffee, which made her volunteering to do the tea round seem even more magnanimous.
‘You’re one secretive bunny, Miss Baker. This bloke has been in your neighbourhood for a whole fortnight and you’ve only told me about him today as an aside to your locket conundrum. You do know best friends are supposed to text each other this stuff on an hourly basis, right?’
‘You know I’m not that sort of person, and anyway, seeing him topless was a by-product of Brenda getting caught in the rain. Nothing happened.’
‘Nothing? You’ve seen his nipples! I think you may have missed out great chunks of this tale – the juicy chunks. Come on girlfriend. Spill.’
So Lucy went back to the beginning and told Jess about the allergy-inducing cat. And the wandering neighbour. And the nipples.
‘Right, I’m coming home with you tonight, so I can suss out this George for myself.’
‘You can’t just invite yourself over. I might have plans.’
‘Yeah, right. The only plans you’ll have are to watch non-stop Craft and Create on TV with your gang of knitted friends, as you run up a quick Aran sweater with your size twelves.’
‘Number fives,’ muttered Lucy.
‘I’m so jealous of all this,’ Jess said, abandoning a hastily collected overnight bag in the middle of the hall and curling up on the sofa next to Thor. ‘There’s no one watching you, clocking when you go out or come back in. I couldn’t bring a bloke back to our flat. Mum would either embarrass me or start flirting with him. But it’s what I need, Luce. Someone to whisk me away from it all. Preferably a bit of a looker, not short of a bob or two and with his own place.’
‘I don’t