The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker: The most heart-warming book you’ll read this year. Jenni Keer
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is so woolly and welcoming. It’s full of colour and knick-knacks and it doesn’t smell of takeaways or stale smoke. Because, seriously, if the gin doesn’t get my mum, the fags will.’
Lucy started the meal, leaving the chilli to simmer, and returning to her friend in the living room. She picked up her knitting and chatted away without once looking down to see what her fingers were doing. Jess was impressed with the half-knitted Poldark and pushed Lucy to consider setting up a website, as she’d done many times before.
‘I’ve told you people would pay good money for them. I bet I’m not the only one who would buy a knitted sex god. Got to be better than an inferior flesh one. They don’t answer you back or make you sleep in the wet patch, but you still get a cuddle. Think about a Facebook page, at least.’
‘I don’t think they’re good enough, but thanks for the vote of support.’ Lucy added Poldark’s second nipple, double-checking it was level with the first.
‘So when does the monosyllabic giant return home from work?’ Jess said, leaping up to peep around the living-room curtains. She’d clearly been expecting George to be conveniently striding around his front garden, possibly topless, when they arrived so that she could suss him out.
‘It varies.’
‘What does he even do?’
‘I think he makes boxes. Brenda said he’d mentioned E.G.A. Packaging to her. It’s that huge factory on the industrial estate near the old airfield.’
‘Oh, well…’ Jess almost sounded disappointed. ‘He’ll do nicely for you. You can sit and knit bed socks while he tells you all about the benefits of cardboard over bubble wrap.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Jess, with her limited attention span, came away from the window. ‘Let’s eat. It must be nearly ready because I can smell delicious aromas drifting down the hall and garlic always makes me salivate. We can crack open the cheeky little bottle of red that accidentally fell in my overnight bag on the way here.’
The girls ate a spicy beef chilli together; Jess appreciatively hoovered up every last morsel while Lucy pushed forkfuls around her plate like a croupier moving the chips on a roulette table. Jess being there made her nervous. She generally admired her friend’s enthusiasm and energy except when it was being directed at some aspect of her own life. She hadn’t forgotten the enforced make-over last month. Horrible, horrible experience. A blob of mascara and a smattering of face powder usually sufficed.
‘So are you going to do the spell?’ Jess asked
‘To be honest, I’m not sure I want Mr Aberdour launching himself at me.’ Lucy curled her top lip. Although, and she would never admit this to Jess who would happily add two and two and make sixty-seven, she was intrigued by this solitary man. There’d been no visitors since he moved in, and he came across as brutally abrupt – but she was certain he’d picked up on her distress when Brenda had gone for her wander. His fleeting touch of concern had given her goose bumps.
‘At the moment, honey, I don’t think you are even the tiniest green dot on the edge of his radar, so doing one simple spell won’t do any harm. And if you think it’s all mumbo jumbo, what does it matter? Let’s pop in on the old dear next door and get the low-down. It’s about time I was properly introduced to your other bestie.’
There was much more colour in Brenda’s cheeks, thought Lucy, looking across at her friend. The antibiotics were doing their job and Dr Hopgood was happy with her progress. The community admissions avoidance team meant well but were simply not needed. It was almost as if the wandering incident had never taken place.
The girls sat together on Brenda’s pale green, squishy sofa, Jess having tried Lucy’s favourite chair but quickly hopping out and moving next to Lucy after being jabbed by an arm. They were sipping overly sweet blackberry and apple gin from Seventies sherry glasses; each decorated with a different-coloured geometric design. Brenda insisted it was late enough in the evening to have a little stiffener and the girls were happy to indulge her, especially Jess who was disappointed the bottle of wine she’d brought over was nearly gone and Lucy didn’t keep any in. Didn’t she know sleepovers were supposed to involve excessive amounts of alcohol and a cathartic session of truth or dare?
‘So how long have you known Lucy?’ Brenda asked. ‘I forget.’
‘Yonks, since we sat next to each other in year seven French,’ said Jess.
‘The clincher was you thumping that girl for tripping me up in the maths corridor.’ Lucy smiled, remembering how Jess stood up to the girls who teased Lucy because she was quiet, how she was kind to the nerdy kids, and how she spoke to boys as though they were ordinary human beings and not scary aliens from another planet.
‘Surely you girls would rather be catching up on gossip and giggling about dishy movie stars? Much more fun than sitting with a daft old lady,’ said Brenda, leaning over to top Jess up.
‘Nonsense, Mrs P,’ said Jess. ‘We see each other at work every day, and besides, I need your help. I want Lucy to take the locket seriously.’
‘You didn’t say it was a secret,’ Lucy gushed, glad she had at least brought the locket with her, having left it abandoned in a wooden bowl on the mantelpiece pretty much since Brenda had given it to her.
‘It’s not, my dear. But not everyone believes.’
‘Lucy doesn’t,’ said Jess flatly.
‘I didn’t say that exactly. I’m not sure I need a locket to make someone like me, that’s all.’
‘Quite right too,’ said Brenda. ‘But in Lucy’s case, I felt the locket calling to me.’
‘Wow. So you really are a spiritual person? Can you contact the dead and all that? I was a white witch once, you know.’
Brenda smiled at Jess who had shuffled so far forward to the edge of the sofa, her bottom was barely gripping the edge.
‘Interestingly, I was told later in life that my mother was a white witch, but I never really knew her. She was killed in a bombing raid in 1940. I was tucked safely in Aldwych tube station with my aunt and she was supposed to join us.’ There was a pause. ‘She never did.’
‘Bloody hell. What happened?’ Jess asked. Lucy knew the story – she had heard it a few times over the last two years, but she was conscious it was a painful subject for Brenda.
‘She was helping an elderly neighbour. The house collapsed on them both.’
No one said anything for a moment. By now even Jess was aware how difficult this was for Brenda, who had gathering tears.
Brenda rummaged up her sleeve and fished out a folded cotton handkerchief to gently blot her eyes. ‘I was only a child, but I remember her smile, and her kindness.’
‘So did she, like, pass on the locket and tell you its history and all its mystical properties?’ Jess asked, trying to move away from the memories she had unwittingly unleashed.
‘The locket was nothing to do with her. It was given to me by someone I met when I was a lovesick young groupie, trailing around after The Yellow Crows. It’s how I got my Jim. And he was the love of my life.’
‘Yellow Crows – like the Sixties band?’ she squealed.
‘The very same. Jim was the drummer.’
Jess’s eyes expanded faster than inflating balloons. ‘You married a pop star?’
‘They were more rock than pop, but yes, and I have so many fond memories of our years together.’ Brenda’s eyes were brighter now that the subject had changed to a happier topic – her life with Jim.
In fact, Brenda had crammed most of her escapades into one decade. Falling in love with the drummer of The Yellow Crows, and finally accepting that they would not be blessed with children; Jim and Brenda had spent several