Tuesdays at the Teacup Club Read online

  ‘Sorry, Zoe …’ I said, turning to face her again. Why did she always manage to rumble me like this? ‘I’ve finished the stationery order, so I was just …’ My sentence trailed off when I realised she had a wry smile on her face.

  ‘Oh chill out, Jenny,’ she said dismissively, standing back up to her full height. ‘I’m only teasing.’ She smoothed an untidy strand of her shiny hair back into place. ‘God knows you give enough of your life to this place. Focus on marrying whoever this man is who’s been keeping you sane.’

  And breathe. It was a good mood day.

  Zoe was the advertising manager, and her look was hard-edged, all Pulp Fiction hair and tailored trouser suits that gave her a terrifying sleek silhouette. She was notorious for her steely front while keeping the ad sales guys in line and the unpredictable, fierce temper that could leave even the MD trembling. But sometimes, like today, I caught a hint of something more human about her.

  The pressure had been on at our magazine, Sussex Living, to start generating more cash through advertising – the lifeblood of the regional glossy – and with another sales target approaching most of us were tiptoeing past the advertising department – and especially around Zoe. Somehow, to date I’d dodged the bullets. As an office manager I wasn’t closely involved in ad sales, and I certainly wasn’t a threat. I also had a little ammunition of my own: a while back Zoe had drunkenly confessed to me about sleeping with Ryan, the nineteen-year-old post boy, after a night out. I’d never dream of using it against her, but she didn’t know that. I noticed that he still gave her a wink when dropping off her letters in the morning and more than once I’d seen her shrink behind her computer screen. Although Ryan had proven his initiative by speeding around the office in a swivel chair – halving his delivery time – he was still just the teenage postboy and shagging him wasn’t something you’d really want to shout about.

  ‘Tangfastic?’ I reached for the bag on my desk and offered it up to Zoe. She peered into the bag and pulled out a sugar-frosted ring and some cherries.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, chewing, her heavily lined eyes squinting a little at the sourness. ‘I’d forgotten how good these are.’

  I pushed my chair back and straightened out my red skirt. ‘I think it’s time for a tea. Fancy one?’

  ‘Why not,’ Zoe replied, reaching past me to retrieve a couple of sugary cola bottles before sitting down at her desk and turning her back.

  As I waited for the kettle to boil, I unfolded the little list I’d drafted over breakfast that morning while Dan was in the shower.

  Dan and Jenny Get Hitched – eleven weeks to go!

  • Invite ideas – show them to Chris

  • Grandma Jilly – don’t want a repeat of cousin Rosie’s wedding. Get someone (Dad?) to be on booze-diluting duty?

  • White lace basque for wedding night. Too Playboy? Am marrying Dan, not Hef, after all. Ask Chloe

  • Wedding favours??

  The kettle clicked off and I filled two mugs. That reminded me, at least I was starting to make headway with one of the most important things: the teacups.

  Despite the shaky start, my weekend bargain hunt had actually worked out quite well. After asking the stallholder to put a hold on the teaset, Maggie the willowy redhead, Alison the retro-styled brunette, and yours truly had ducked into the refreshments tent. With 99 Flakes in hand, we’d talked through our plans for the crockery. I told them about my wedding in August, the vintage tea party theme, and my plans to collect enough teacups for all the guests to drink out of.

  Alison had loved the idea; Maggie nodded along positively too, but a wedding reception at the old school house can’t have seemed much cop compared to the lavish do at Darlington Hall she was arranging flowers for. Alison wanted the set for a different reason – to make the gorgeous teacup candles I’d seen for sale in the boutiques in town. It was Maggie who came up with a solution to our predicament. It was a very English agreement; we’d buy the forget-me-not teaset together, and take it in turns to use it.

  I’d have the teaset for my wedding first, then Maggie would use the cups for her Alice in Wonderland garden. She’d then pass the tea things on to Alison, who’d keep the cups to turn into candles. All in all, it wasn’t a bad compromise. And it was more than just that – we decided we would join forces, scouring charity shops and auction sites, to find more teacups that we could all use. An hour later, a little untidier for ice-cream drips, we were handing over a tenner each to the stall owner with smiles on our faces and each other’s phone numbers noted down. Alison had offered to store our finds in her studio, and we arranged to meet for lunch at hers next Saturday to catch up.

  Dan had laughed when I’d first mooted the tea party theme. ‘I always thought weddings were supposed to be about getting drunk?’ he’d said, only half-serious, his warm brown eyes crinkling at the edges. But once I’d put together the scrapbook to show him what I had in mind he seemed to warm to the concept. Though perhaps that was because I was blocking the screen when he was in the middle of playing Grand Theft Auto. Eventually he put the controller down and pulled me on to the sofa for a hug. ‘Jen,’ he’d said, holding me close. (He was wearing that old Rolling Stones T-shirt – the one I could have sworn I’d chucked out.) ‘I couldn’t care less what people are drinking, or eating, or wearing. This is going to be the most important day of my life because I get to marry you. That’s what makes it the big one for me.’ He’d then pinned me down and covered me in playful kisses in a way that was both rough and tender, his stubble leaving patches that felt pleasantly raw – it was a bit like being mauled by a koala. Once I’d stopped laughing I held him close to calm him down again, and also because I loved taking in the smell of him, even in that old T-shirt – it said home to me in a way no other smell could. He was a little chunkier now than when we’d met, but it suited him. I kissed him on the mouth and pulled him close.

  Dan had made me smile every day since we first got together at uni. We’d both lived on campus back then and he and his friends used to play football on the grass in front of my flat in halls when I was writing essays. One July day, when the ball hit the window above my desk particularly hard, he’d come close to the glass, mouthed ‘sorry’, and smiled. As our eyes met my heart was thudding in my chest. I couldn’t focus at all on what I was writing for the rest of the afternoon. When his friends started getting their stuff together to go, he came back over to my window, gave me a wink, and stuck a piece of paper to the pane: ‘Dan’ it said, and then he’d written his phone number. After a few ciders at the union bar with my flatmate the following evening, I’d got up the courage to call him. And the rest? Well, the two of us have been hard to separate ever since.

  That night, as I got into bed beside him, placing the engagement ring we’d scoured Brighton’s South Lanes to find on the night table, I thought: men don’t always get it, do they? I mean yes, Dan wanted me to be his wife, but did he really get the importance of beautiful events, memories to treasure in forty years’ time? I wanted a perfect picture on my shelf to remember the perfect day. The details were part of creating that.

  I thought of the empty mantelpiece at Dad’s. As a little girl I used to pick flowers from the garden and put them in a little vase to fill the space where Mum and Dad’s wedding photo used to be. Dad said he wasn’t bitter about Mum leaving us, and my brother Chris had found his own way of coping. Me, I’d started putting the flowers there. I was six when she left, but over time my flower-loving heart hardened. It had toughened a little more each time I walked past other mothers waiting at the school gates; or when I’d had to summon up all my courage to buy tampons on my own that first time, my cheeks red hot. I had tried to understand Mum’s reasons, but I never really managed – leaving just isn’t something mothers are meant to do.

  Anyway, I had my own life now, and mine and Dan’s wedding day was going to be just right. I’d make those photo-frame memories, even if I had to organise some of the things that mattered to me on my own.


  ‘Hey, dreamer,’ said Chloe, nudging me out of my thoughts and back to the reality of the office. ‘Enough in that kettle for one more?’

  ‘Hello!’ I said, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘For you, chief bridesmaid, anything,’ I laughed, getting another mug out of the cupboard.

  Seeing Chloe, even for an instant, was enough to light up the magazine office. When she’d come in on work experience two years ago, with a glint in her eye and brown ringlets springing in all directions, we’d become friends almost immediately. She’d been so enthusiastic about the work, taking on even mundane tasks with gusto. The long commute from her village to Charlesworth didn’t seem to bother her, even though she was getting paid nothing but expenses for the privilege. To look at her bright eyes after the MD finally offered her a paid role you’d have thought she was coming to work at Vogue. Perhaps inevitably, the scales had fallen from her eyes a little since then.

  ‘How’s your day going, Chlo?’ I asked as I filled her cup.

  Her wide, mascaraed eyes met mine – a flash of barely concealed irritation there. ‘Slow start today … Gary’s got me working out a spreadsheet of his expenses that is taking an age. He said he needs it, but I feel like he’s just monopolising my time; he knows how much I want to be writing features. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I guess so,’ I said. But I didn’t understand her frustration, not really. The truth was I liked spreadsheets. There was nothing better, I thought, than creating order from chaos – the only big project I wanted was my wedding. It made me feel happy knowing everyone in the office had the resources they needed, and reliable, efficient admin systems. Of course I knew that most of the junior staff couldn’t wait to get stuck in to feature writing, or build up their skills in design and page layout; but for me the joy of letting someone know that their stack of neon-coloured Post-Its had arrived was sometimes enough.

  I did my best to put myself in Chloe’s shoes: she was smart, dedicated, aimed high and anyone could see she’d be more than capable of overtaking Gary given half a chance. ‘Chloe, you’ll get there – I reckon he’s just testing you, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yep, you’re probably right,’ she replied. ‘But enough about me, Jen,’ she waved her hand, changing the subject, ‘I’m just in a Monday mood, you know how it is, brilliant weekend and then reality bites. Cheer me up – how’s Dan? How’s the wedding planning going?’

  It was pathetic really but just the mention of Dan was enough to make me smile. Chloe had always been surprisingly tolerant of my soppiness. ‘Dan’s great – we spent most of the weekend at home, mainly deciding on the table plan.’

  To be honest Dan had done a lot of this on the sofa with his eyes closed – but his company had still meant something and, well, I was motivated enough for the two of us. He was putting in so many hours at the travel agency at the moment, plus there was his commute, and when it got to the weekend he just needed to crash. That Sunday I’d happily stuck Post-It notes labelled with people’s names on to paper plates and then shuffled them around until exes were separated and embarrassing relatives were out of harm’s way. The invites hadn’t even gone out yet, but with the family politics we both had going on I was getting an early start; I was not going to leave anything to chance. Dan opened a sleepy eye, nodded and smiled his appreciation at the end result.

  Dan had been working so hard because, as we found out pretty quickly, sugared almonds cost cold hard cash. Even with our salaries combined the wedding we wanted was going to be a stretch, but he knew how important it all was to me and he was going all out to do overtime and boost our funds.

  I stirred a heaped teaspoon of sugar into Chloe’s tea and as I passed it to her saw she was smiling.

  ‘It’s great to see you so happy, J,’ she said, taking the mug. ‘You deserve this, you know. And I know your wedding’s going to be spectacular.’ She pulled me into a warm hug.

  As we separated she spotted my to-do list on the counter. ‘White lace basque?’ she exclaimed, then saw her name and looked up, brow furrowed.

  ‘Hold on, am I the official wedding-night underwear adviser?’ I watched as a smile spread across her face. ‘Brilliant! You know I have to say I hate white lace, Jen, far too Bunny Girl … but you, Mrs Yates-to-be, are going to look fantastic in this retro corset I spotted online …’

  Chapter 3

  Alison

  Alison Lovell frowned in concentration as she mixed wax for the candles she was making – trying to ignore the fluffy grey muzzle pressing against her side and letting out little whines in an attempt to distract her. George, the family’s wolfhound, nudged his scruffy head under her arm until she finally shooed him away, readjusting the pencil that tied her wavy dark hair up. Newspaper covered every surface in the studio and Joni Mitchell sang out from her wax-spattered stereo.

  Alison had just mixed a golden yellow wax when soft-skinned arms hooped around her waist from behind and she jumped as her daughter Holly gave her a squeeze. She turned to see a grin on Holly’s freckled face, her messy brown curls clipped back with sparkly hairclips.

  ‘Woah, you gave me a fright, sweetheart,’ Alison said, smiling. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Holly said, with a shrug. ‘Bye, Mum.’

  ‘Bye darling, have a good day,’ Alison said, giving her a kiss on the head. She heard her elder daughter Sophie shouting out from the hallway, ‘Come on, Dad, you’re taking ages!’

  ‘Bye Sophie,’ Alison shouted out. The front door slammed, her goodbye unanswered. She did not miss the school run. This was usually the last distraction before the day was all hers: a quiet, productive, peaceful Tuesday. She loved her two daughters to bits, but work could never really get going until they were out of the house.

  Alison had put on a linen apron to protect the 1950s floral dress she’d put on that morning. Impractical, yes, but it suited her, flattered her curves, and she couldn’t resist wearing it now spring had finally sprung after what had felt like an endless winter. Ten identical blue teacups stood near the edge of her table ready to be filled with wax; by next week they would be sold as candles in the upmarket boutiques on Charlesworth High Street. She took a ladle over to the first cup and carefully filled it, then moved on to the second one. The golden yellow wax contrasted nicely with the blue – but something wasn’t quite right. She looked up at the mood board next to her studio window – colour swatches with delicate lilacs and bronzes, intricate embroidered lace, 1940s wedding photos and newspaper clippings giving a visual reminder of the brand identity she wanted to capture in her work. She added to it whenever she found a new scrap and looking at it always lightened her mornings. Not a teenager on there – just the beautiful things that had always inspired her. But the problem remained – something about the new cups didn’t quite fit.

  George, spotting a coal tit on the windowsill, leapt up from the rug where he’d been feeling sorry for himself and launched himself towards the open window by Alison’s worktop. The bird made a good getaway but the table, just a section of wood balanced on books and paint cans, wobbled and shifted – Alison reached out to stop anything sliding off, her heart racing as she pictured the teacups crashing down, but broad-based and sturdy, they hadn’t even flinched. In the garden, the blossom on her cherry tree quivered from the coal tit’s hasty exit. She’d picked out the cups from an online homeware shop. Totting up prices and calculating the profit margin had put her out of her comfort zone – the figures had made her head spin – but she knew they were cheap and clicked ‘buy’ on twenty items before her head took over. Since last Christmas, when Pete lost his job in communications for the NHS, things had changed; with only one of them working now she had to be practical where the business was concerned.

  But this morning she couldn’t see past the fact that these plain teacups weren’t delicate or pretty enough. They’d withstand an earthquake. She glanced from their cheerful matt blue back to her mood board – what she needed were fragile, soft tones that conjured u
p a different era, when people would make do and mend and a precious set of china would be cared for and cherished. What could be more indulgent than enjoying a bath surrounded by her upcycled teacups – candles with history? The car boot sale teaset she had fallen for was The One, no question – the fact Jenny and Maggie had felt the same only confirmed it. Jenny’s glowing face, the look of love at first sight as she touched the cups, had made her smile in recognition. Nothing else would compare – but it wasn’t hers to use yet. As they’d agreed, Alison would keep looking for similar cups and if she was going to fill the new order she’d received that morning, she’d better find something soon.

  Alison knew that there had to be more genuine vintage cups that would delight her customers without breaking the bank, and Charlesworth’s charity shops were the natural place to start her search. Sophie and Holly would be at school all day, if Sophie didn’t get sent home for winding up her teachers again, that was; and Pete, well …

  Pete was a trouper. He was dropping the girls off now and wouldn’t be back till at least midday, with his arms full of Sainsbury’s bags, a half-smile on his face, trying to dodge a rogue baguette threatening to poke him in the eye. With his dark eyebrows, untameable brown hair and gangly limbs, Pete was one of those grown-ups who’d never really stopped looking like a guitar-strumming teenager. He still played with his band when they got a local gig, and when he did, Alison caught a glimpse of the eighteen-year-old boy she’d first met. That day Pete had had sun-bleached stubble and tanned skin, just back from interrailing around Europe, and Maggie was wearing a T-shirt and cut-off shorts, sitting out with her friends on the green, enjoying her first summer after O levels. He’d brought his guitar over as dusk drew in and, smiling and half-drunk, played U2’s ‘With or Without You’.