I messaged Aunty Bev.
I hear you are coming to Harp Brook – the snow is bad, take care x.
She responded almost immediately with:
Looking forward to seeing you and Dad. Ignore your mother and my sisters on WhatsApp. I can’t believe they have asked ME to come and sort you out – ha ha!
I placed my phone back on the bedside table and stared out across the bedroom. The events from yesterday pinged into my head one by one and before I knew it my mind was flooded with thoughts about whether Ben would be another Sam and break my heart; whether Maddie was happy in her marriage to Frank; what had gone on between Frank and this Vanessa woman who I’d yet to meet; whether Layla would get herself back on her feet; would I get the nativity scenery finished later; and whether Mrs Hall was okay.
Overwhelmed, I lay back down and wished Olivia was still alive. She’d been a calming influence in chaotic times. We’d stay up late talking, sharing piles of buttered toast and in the morning my world would not have felt so scary.
I grabbed her pink notebook and began reading the next chapter in her guide to surviving the loss of a wonderful friend.
It was titled,Make your friend proud.
I read how Olivia had been encouraged to start writing romance books by her friend, Sophie.
I started writing in secret. I don’t know why I hid my new hobby from my friends, but I did.
One day I plucked up the courage to show Sophie my entry for a short story competition in a women’s magazine. I thought she would laugh at what I had written but she loved it. She couldn’t believe I had written it during my lunch break at work.
My entry was a funny story about a woman who found herself falling in love with a male time traveller who kept whisking her away in his time machine for hot dates.
Things didn’t go to plan as his love for her made him miscalculate the timing of their dates and they ended up having a not-so-romantic picnic in an air raid shelter during the middle of the Second World War, losing each other at the Woodstock music and art festival in 1969 and realising… quite quickly… that 1665 was not the best time to go sightseeing around historical London, especially when there was a plague outbreak.
I came 2nd in the competition and with encouragement from Sophie I began writing short romance stories. Sophie willed me on to write something longer like a book, but I didn’t have the confidence.
When Sophie died, I put writing on hold. Grief took hold of me and sitting by a typewriter was the last thing I wanted to do.
However, it was Sophie’s boyfriend, Ben. He said, ‘Make Sophie proud and become a novelist.’
Making Sophie proud was the best I ever did. Writing and self-publishing my romance novels gave me a purpose in life and so much enjoyment. You would not believe how the act of writing books has transformed my life. I know that Sophie would be proud of my Amazon author page. Each book has been dedicated to her.
I couldn’t take my eyes off his wordsHe said, ‘Make Sophie proud.’ That had been such a thoughtful thing to do. Ben must have known how much Sophie believed in Olivia, how happy Sophie would have been knowing Olivia was writing novels and he must have known how much Olivia loved writing. My heart performed a series of flips. I thought about what Layla had told me about Ben seeing multiple women as well as Denise and my heart stopped flipping and sunk.
At the end of the chapter, Olivia asked her reader to think about what they would do to make someone, who they had lost, proud. My stomach began to gurgle and I sat up in bed. What could I do to make Olivia proud? The answer came to me in seconds – food. Olivia would not want me to carry on creating complicated spreadsheets, writing dull project updates, and trying to save over-budget projects which were always doomed to fail. She’d been telling me for two years to change my life and do something with food. Maybe it was time to return to catering?
Mum’s face appeared in my head. She wouldn’t be happy, and I would get nothing but hassle and nagging for not doing what she called a ‘proper job.’
As I hauled myself out of bed, I found myself questioning my life decision years ago to shut my catering business to please my mother. What had my years of working as a project manager for an IT firm brought me? A rented flat filled with buckets of water, tall office buildings outside my window which made me feel like they were edging closer and imprisoning me, a redundancy package, and a lot of painful memories.
In contrast my mother was now living the life she’d always dreamed of – basking in a luxury villa in Tenerife with Gary. No one in the family had dared question where Mum and Gary got the money to live in such luxury with four bedrooms and their own pool. Mum had been living in Tenerife for years after getting a job as a holiday rep out there. That was where she’d met Gary, an expat like her, who ran a small tour company and kept bumping into her on airport drop-offs.
Before her luxury villa, Mum had owned a small apartment in a complex with a shared pool. I have always assumed one of them had a win on the lottery or Gary’s love of casinos paid off.
Aunty Bev arrived after lunch in her battered old Fiesta. Grandpa and I stood waving as she pulled up. I had Humphrey on a tight lead as I’d learnt too many painful lessons with him.
Aunty Bev’s long brown hair was in giant pink curlers, and she was wearing one false eyelash. ‘The other fell off on the M25,’ she chuckled, as she hugged us both.
Her travel outfit consisted of a fancy leopard print coat, skintight cerise leather leggings and gold boots. She dragged the world’s biggest suitcase plus an array of plastic bags from her car. ‘Did your mum tell you about me coming for Christmas?’
I let out a silent groan. Aunty Bev was staying for Christmas as well? Why had my mother done this to me? All my plans for a quiet and relaxing Christmas were well and truly gone. I loved Aunty Bev, but she gravitated towards chaos, wild parties, and trouble.
Grandpa leaned in close as Aunty Bev locked up her car and whispered, ‘Trouble is here.’
I nodded and he shook his head with a grin. ‘Let’s go large.’
‘All the problem relatives have been sent here to Harp Brook,’ said Aunty Bev, dragging her belongings after her. ‘Janice had a plan to keep us all here.’
