His face reddens and I can see his eyes filling up with tears. ‘I was happy with Mummy,’ he sobs. ‘She died and now you are here. All you do is make stupid dresses, you hate Baxter and you sent Rory away.’
Every word of his punctures my heart like tiny arrows. He goes blurry and I gulp back a sob of my own. Before I can control my tears, they stream down my face. It’s all true. He was happy when Vivi was alive, and I’ve come along and made everything bad for him.
Taking out my tissues I try to stem my tears. I want to go home and lose myself in dressmaking. I want to find a medium, contact Vivi on the other side and tell her I’m not cut out to be Felix’s legal guardian. I want to contact Vivi’s rich friends and ask whether they want to adopt him.
Felix has taken out my iPad and is scrolling through it.
Staring down at my hot chocolate I decide to go to the toilet. While I am there I will pray for a miracle.
CHAPTER13
FELIX
‘Hello, Mummy. I haven’t got long as Aunty Emily has gone to the toilet. We’re in a café. Aunty Emily wanted to go see parts of London, but I need her to take me to St Pancras station. It’s part of my plan. Amelie has messaged me to say that she thinks I am cool. Ronnie has messaged me to say he told his older brother about my plan. His brother told Ronnie if he did what I am doing he’d be in so much trouble he would have to hand over his Xbox and all his games to him, and he would take them to his university. Sai has emailed me to say when he thinks about my plan, he gets a belly ache. He says his mum is very scary when she’s angry and she would phone his grandmother in Sri Lanka, who is more frightening. He has wished me good luck and hopes my plan makes me happy again.’ He leans back in his chair and strokes Baxter.
‘If my plan works, it will definitely make me happy again. I know it. Jade, my new friend from the train, said that she would do the same if it was Sidney. He’s her mum’s boyfriend and he sounded cool like Rory. Jade’s mum is going to ask him to marry her on Christmas Day. I asked Jade what will happen if Sidney doesn’t want to marry her mum. She said her mum will cry all the way home. Jade thinks Sidney will say yes as he writes her mum love poems, he sends her flowers every week and he talks about them growing old together. Oh, Jade didn’t take Baxter with her. She refused to hand him over when we got to the station and got told off by her mum.’ He giggles and plants a kiss on the top of Baxter’s head.
‘Before Aunty Emily went to the toilet, I told her I hated her. It’s a horrid thing to say. You would have shouted at me. It was because she wanted to look at my emails. I didn’t want her to see them as I have sent a few of these videos to Amelie. She says some made her cry and she made her mum watch one. Apparently they both cried over dinner about my video after you’d died and her dad got cross with everyone crying.’
He sighs. ‘This new Aunty Emily is never happy. She sits making silly dresses and takes sneaky looks at Rory on Facebook. Aunty Emily also doesn’t love Baxter the way I do.’ Sniffing he wipes his nose on his coat sleeve. ‘I don’t hate Aunty Emily, Mummy. I just miss the old Aunty Emily. She and Rory used to play hide and seek with me when you’d ask them to babysit. Aunty Emily always made me laugh as she’d squeeze herself into your wardrobe and leave her elbow poking out. She was so easy to find. Then we’d go find Rory who was always standing in the shower. Once Aunty Emily turned on the shower when he was hiding and he got wet.’ He giggles.
Resting his elbow on the table he props his chin up and talks into the phone. ‘I love Rory, Mummy. He told me I wasn’t… weird.’ He pauses and flicks his eyes to the café floor. ‘One day I heard you on the phone tell someone I was weird. I heard you. It was after you’d walked into my bedroom and made me jump. I told Rory about it. He said I wasn’t weird and that you didn’t mean it. Anyway, he helped me with my secret. One day I will tell you my secret, but not yet.’ Sitting up he turns around and spots Aunty Emily coming out of the toilet. ‘Must go, bye.’
CHAPTER14
RORY
Beth has arrived early clutching two bottles of Prosecco, a huge bunch of mistletoe and what looks like a small overnight bag. She looks good with her poker-straight blonde hair, her slender legs, a brown leather miniskirt and black velvet knee-high boots. After ogling her from afar in the living room Tom made an early exit. He gave me the thumbs up sign behind Beth’s back.
‘It’s nice to see you again, Rory,’ she says, sipping a glass of Prosecco and heading for the sofa. I’m busy trying to find a phone charger for my dead phone. There was one in my room, but Tom has nicked it.
‘What have you been up to?’ She relaxes on the sofa and unzips one of her boots.
I am on the verge of giving up looking for a charger. At this rate my phone will have to remain out of battery. ‘Normal stuff,’ I reply, sticking my head in the coffee table drawer.
‘How’s the job hunt going?’
I’m reminded of the snotty email from a job recruiter yesterday who clearly couldn’t be arsed to look for a new job for me as it’s Christmas, and tried to pass me off with,‘I’m in back-to-back meetings all day so might not get a chance to check the database. Don’t worry the job market will be buzzing early next year.’
‘Really well,’ I lie, scrabbling around for a charger. ‘Why can’t a man find a phone charger?’ I wail with mock frustration.
She grins and opens her overnight bag. ‘You can use mine.’
I take it from her, and she holds on to my gaze for longer than necessary.
Sitting down beside her I plug the charger into the wall and connect my phone.
‘I’ve been looking forward to this afternoon,’ she says, smoothing out her leather skirt. ‘It was a lovely date we had last week. I really enjoyed that French restaurant.’
A memory of our second date comes rushing back to me. We ate delicious French food and drank a lot of wine. I soon realised Beth likes to talk. I listened to her chat about how she spent last summer travelling around America with her ex-boyfriend. There were photos of her American summer too. She proudly took out her phone and went through an entire Facebook album dedicated to her travels. There were lots of photos of her and her ex-boyfriend. They looked happy together standing by various landmarks with their arms wrapped around each other and laughing at the camera. I sat, stifled many yawns, and wished I was opposite Emily. If we had gone to dinner, she would have played our favourite game of people watching where she comments on their choice of clothes, and I would make up fictional lives for the restaurant customers around us. I can’t remember ever going for dinner with Emily and having a dull evening. After I’d said goodbye to Beth, I went to a club and drank my sorrows away with Tom.
‘On our last date you didn’t say much about your past relationships,’ Beth asks, slipping her hand into mine. ‘I want to knoweverything.’
I let out an inner groan and blow the air out of my cheeks. Do we have to talk about our past relationships? I heard and saw enough of her ex-boyfriend on the second date. Emily and I didn’t talk much on our third date. We went to a nineties roller skating disco, drank a lot and laughed at each other’s terrible dancing on skates.
‘There’s not much to tell.’
She nods. ‘So, how long have you been single?’
