Chapter Ten
As the summer passed by, Alex and Lucy moved from a couple in the early stages of dating to boyfriend and girlfriend; a real couple in a real relationship. Lucy had to stop and pinch herself at times. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening to her, and what was more, that she had bagged herself a gorgeous, eligible lawyer, not someone like Jack with the myriad of complications and baggage that would have come with him. And Alex was a proper catch! Even more surprising to Lucy, and to Lettie and Simon, whose eyebrows seemed permanently wedged up somewhere near their hairline these days, Alex was totally smitten with Lucy. He was the one who had done the majority of the pursuing, he was the one who had asked her out, chased her and brought up the conversation of their exclusivity. He had fallen hook, line and sinker for Lucy and she just couldn’t believe her luck. In fact, she had almost been wary at first, thinking that his keenness was a bit strange, but eventually she had accepted it. As unbelievable as it might seem to her, this insanely attractive, available man had chosen her, of all the girls that he could have picked, and she accepted that, relaxing into their relationship as though she had never been apart from him. They formed new routines and traditions, found new places together, and built up a steady stream of memories and shared experiences, the building blocks of a long-lasting partnership. Lucy felt so lucky to be in a relationship that she never questioned it if things felt as though they were running less than smoothly. She put up with any vices: the snoring, the rather short temper, Alex’s tendency to see the world as a glass half empty rather than her glass half full approach to life. She was determined to focus only on the positives and to embrace the relationship in full. She knew that hard work was the key to success and she was prepared to do anything to make this new relationship work, to make it last the distance.
Even better, now that she was taken, Jack had begun to accept the fact that she was in a relationship and had toned down his behaviour towards her accordingly. He still flirted with her, and he made it perfectly clear that the offer of dinner or a drink was there if she wanted it, but that was all. She had made it clear that she was not interested and as her feelings for Alex had developed, her interest in Jack had finally begun to wane. She was relieved. Being attracted to a married man was the last thing she needed. She refused to be the kind of woman who broke up a family.
In August Lucy introduced Alex to her grandmother, Annie. Ginny’s mother had been brought up in Monmouthshire, near Wales, but she had adopted the mantle of a Londoner in her twenties, having moved to the capital with her husband. Nowadays, she wouldn’t live anywhere outside Chelsea, the erstwhile bohemian centre of the city. She lived in a tiny artist’s studio, flowers blooming everywhere and paintings lining the walls from top to bottom. Alex and Lucy picked her up from the studio; they were going to the Chelsea Physic Garden and had decided to collect Annie en route. Lucy was glad that she had managed to persuade Alex to come. At the last minute he had said that he wasn’t sure he felt up to it, that he quite fancied a quiet night in by himself. Lucy had known how much Annie was looking forward to meeting him and had used all her powers of persuasion to get him to change his mind.
‘Granny, I’d like to introduce you to Alex,’ said Lucy.
‘Very pleased to meet you, my dear,’ said Annie, offering him her hand as she eyed him up and down. She had very high standards when it came to potential suitors for her granddaughter and Lucy could see she was sizing him up.
‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ said Alex as they waited for Annie to lock the house before setting off towards the river.
‘Have you ever been to the Physic Garden before?’ asked Annie. ‘I’m a member there and I’ve been going for years. It’s quite charming!’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Alex. ‘But I’m very much looking forward to seeing it this evening.’ Lucy was grateful that now that he had decided to come he was on his best behaviour. He wasn’t withdrawn or sullen and this was a huge relief to Lucy. She knew her grandmother would have picked up on it instantly.
‘Do you go there often?’ asked Lucy. ‘It’s been a while since I heard you mention it.’
‘Well I used to go with my friend Delilah, but since she moved into the nursing home I haven’t been going nearly so often. I’m so glad you are coming with me today.’
They walked slowly, arm in arm, through the streets of Chelsea. Annie made polite conversation with Alex, enquiring after his family and asking him about work. Inside the Physic Garden, a little walled garden tucked behind the Thames, Annie took great pleasure in sharing her expertise with Lucy and Alex as they wandered around the flower beds.
‘Do you know this garden was founded in the seventeenth century?’ asked Annie. ‘It was used by apothecaries to study the medicinal qualities of plants, hence the name.’
‘How fascinating!’ said Alex as they looked at the plants, carefully labelled with the ailments that they were used to treat. Despite his earlier reluctance to join them, he seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself. She hoped that he was glad that he had made the effort to come and she wondered where his earlier reluctance may have stemmed from. Could it have been nerves? Or worse, disinterest? She hoped he was just genuinely tired and had fancied a night in.
After walking through the gardens, they sipped glasses of gin and tonic at a table outside the restaurant. If Lucy wasn’t mistaken, she felt a slight chill emanating from her grandmother towards Alex. She wished she would be a tiny bit less suspicious of the male sex. Despite the bouts of moodiness, the odd impatient reaction or bad-tempered moment, Alex was mostly faultless. Her grandmother should be thrilled that he had taken a shine to Lucy and welcome him with open arms. Lucy felt sure that he would win her over by the end of the evening and was relieved to detect a gentle thawing in Annie’s manner by the time they deposited her safely back at home.
A couple of weeks later, Tor telephoned Lucy with the happiest news in the world; she and Will were expecting a baby. The IVF had finally worked, and although they were going to wait until three months had passed to share their news, she couldn’t help but tell Lucy. Tor was over the moon with excitement and Lucy was thrilled for her friend. She compared her reaction to the news now that she had Alex (and her own hope of a happy ending) to how she would have felt a few months ago, in the depths of being single. She knew that whilst being happy for her friend she would have felt deeply envious of her pregnancy. She would have despaired about her chances of a similar turn of events, knowing that before she could even think about getting pregnant, she had to find a man. Now that she was safely happy with Alex she felt much more content. She knew that if things were to carry on developing at this fast pace, she would probably find herself in a similar position sooner rather than later. They had talked about the future and Alex, though not exactly jumping at the bit to settle down, had seemed to want similar things to her.
The weekend after receiving Tor’s happy news, they spent a long weekend down in Cornwall with her family. Lucy took Alex to all her favourite places from her childhood, grateful for the blissfully hot weather to really show her home county off at its best. Ginny, Lucy’s scatter-brained but charming mother, had been a massive fan of Alex. Always an incredibly generous hostess, she had pulled out all the stops, cooking yummy roasts, baking freshly made scones for cream teas and huge fry ups every morning for breakfast. Alex got on well with Lucy’s father, Gus, an academic who had spent many years working at the local University. They discussed the nearby Roman ruins that Gus was researching with interest.
There were several occasions during the course of the weekend when Lucy found Alex to be somewhat withdrawn, where he seemed to retreat inside himself and get lost in his thoughts. She tried her best to lift him out of these reclusive spells, suggesting all sorts of activities to raise his spirits. She felt as if it were her duty to make him happy, to use her sunny personality to bring him out of his shell when he felt low. Lucy relished the opportunity to act as a ray of sunshine in his life, knowing how lucky she was that she never really felt down, as so many others did, and enjoying being able to help him through the days when he didn’t feel quite as bright as usual. She loved the idea of being there for him, of serving a purpose within the relationship. Together Alex and Lucy paddled in the icy sea, walked along the treacherous coastal paths with her parent’s excitable spaniel Tiggy, surfed in the sunset and munched on vinegary fish and chips wrapped in newspaper with the sand between their toes. Despite Alex’s bouts of the blues it was one of the happiest weekends of Lucy’s life. Every time she looked at Alex, her heart burst with pride at his dazzling good looks. He looked like he belonged in a Levi’s advert with his chiselled torso and perfect hair. She noticed other women’s reaction to him and could sense their envy as they watched him with her, but he only had eyes for Lucy.
After Cornwall they plunged back into their daily office life, spending as much time together as possible, evenings and weekends devoted to the hedonistic pleasures of fine wine, gourmet food and adventures exploring London.
The last weekend of August was the bank holiday and Alex had asked Lucy to stay with him at his parents’ house in Gloucestershire. He warned her that Sarah, Nat, Isabel and Nick were going to be there with their children so it was going to be quite full on. Lucy couldn’t wait to see how the Hayes family interacted en masse. She had met both Sarah and Nat and Isabel and Nick before separately at various dinners in London, but she hadn’t met Lillian and Michael yet. She was intrigued to see from whom Alex had inherited his looks, as well as certain elements of his personality.
As soon as they arrived they were swept into a cacophony of screaming children, toys, dogs and general chaos; a happy tide that set the scene for the rest of the bank holiday weekend. Lillian was an extremely beautiful older woman, very elegant and refined, the opposite to Ginny’s homely, happy-go-lucky appearance. It was clear to Lucy that Alex had inherited his brains from his ex-financier mother. His father Michael, slightly volatile, slightly full of himself with a naughty twinkle in his eye, had clearly passed on his ‘smooth’ character to his son. Lucy surmised that Alex’s sensitive side and his tendency towards occasional bouts of withdrawn behaviour were also from his father. It was a trait that, if she was honest with herself, she would rather he didn’t have, that sort of gloomy edge which gave her the feeling that, no matter how many goals he achieved or how much he got out of life, he would always be left feeling unsatisfied. Instead of focusing on the negative though, she acknowledged that no one was perfect and counted her blessings, listing all the wonderful things about him until the less than perfect parts faded into insignificance.
Lucy was incredibly popular with Phoebe, Archie and Nathalie, Alex’s nephew and nieces. They adored her and spent the whole weekend bouncing on her lap, hanging off her sleeves and dragging her along wherever they wanted to go. They went on some lovely blustery walks, wrapped up warm because of the late summer chill. Michael gave them some exquisite wines to sample from his collection; Lucy was impressed to find out how he had turned a hobby into a career by setting up his own local wine merchants. Lillian cooked them some pretty tasty meals, though they would fail miserably in comparison to Ginny’s culinary talents. Lucy felt perfectly at ease with his family, she slotted in comfortably as though she had been around for years. It seemed that Alex and Lucy had crossed all the hurdles they needed to cross to ensure their compatibility with each other. Lucy couldn’t stop thinking about what the future might have in store for them. She hoped beyond hope that they would settle down together, get married and have a family.
As the summer drew to a close and the September evenings started drawing in, they fell back into their by-now familiar routines of London life. One Thursday evening, they decided to go up the road to Alex’s local pub, ‘The King’s Head,’ for supper. Alex scooped up a pile of unopened letters that had been gathering by the front door on his way out. As they ordered their food, a chicken pie and mash for Lucy and sticky ribs for Alex, he opened his post. He took a sip of his pint of ale and frowned. ‘Oh, bugger.’ he said. ‘I knew I should have sorted through all of this weeks ago, I just don’t seem to have had time for any personal admin lately...’
‘What’s up?’ asked Lucy.
‘It’s a letter from the estate agents. The flat’s lease is coming to an end in December, and I am not being given the option to renew,’ Alex said.
‘Oh no!’ Lucy said. ‘That’s annoying.’
Alex sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hand, pushing his thick brown hair away from his face. ‘Things are building up at work with this big case I’ve been roped in on, it’s going to be pretty bad timing to start looking for somewhere else to live.’ He hadn’t been in the best frame of mind recently. This was the last thing he needed.
‘Yeah, it’s not a great time, is it?’ Lucy said, an idea slowly forming in her mind. Part of her wasn’t sure they were ready for the next step in their relationship, but another part of her thought why the hell not? They weren’t exactly spring chickens anymore and she had a house that she owned. ‘Why don’t you just move into mine?’ she asked casually, taking a sip of her glass of Chardonnay.
Alex’s face paled slightly, he seemed lost in his thoughts for a moment or two. Then he said, ‘Well, it does make sense, I suppose.’
Not exactly the ecstatic response she had been hoping for but not an outright refusal either, she thought, hopefully.
