Page 68 of The Only Way Is Up

To his credit he’d upheld their agreement and kept a respectful distance since their chat, even though their paths had regularly crossed during the cooking classes. Christian would have texted her all manner of filth by now, and she had to remind herself that he and Tom were very different people; that was definitely a good thing.

Daisy finished putting on her makeup and sat back on the bed to stroke Hank. She was sorry he was going home tomorrow; he’d been such unexpectedly lovely company. Looking after a dog gave her structure to her day and a reason to get out of bed on chilly mornings. Last weekend they’d had a dump of heavy snow and walking through the grounds had entirely blown Hank’s mind. In places, it was deep enough to cover his furry head, so Daisy had taken him into the fenced-off area where the netball courts were so he could zoom about in circles and roll in the snow until he looked like a tiny polar bear. She’d been so tempted to message Tom so he could bring Henry down to play, but in the end decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of them being seen together. If he could wait, so could she. Every so often she worried he’d given up on her, but then she’d catch him looking and feel the heat in his stare from the other side of the room.

She glanced at her new watch, a fortieth-birthday present from Stella. It was a delicate platinum and diamond bracelet with a rectangular watch face that felt too expensive to wear to the Shipton Arms, but was also beautiful to leave behind. Ruby had given her a photo of the two of them from their skiing trip, a selfie of them smiling in the hot tub, clutching their mugs of peppermint tea, which made her grin every time she looked at it. Justin had made the frame for it out of wood from the school estate, and it now stood in pride of place on the mantlepiece above the fireplace.

Katie and Roger had made her a book, which had arrived earlier in the week, wrapped in tissue paper. It was a beautifully bound photographic journey of her twenty-five years in television, including messages of love and birthday wishes from her friends and the co-presenters she’d worked with over the course of her career. Flicking through the pages had brought a full bag of mixed emotions – a small part of her missed all the parties and dinners and awards shows, but a much bigger part of her felt relieved to be away from it. Like she’d unzipped a dress that was too tight and could finally breathe, but also knew that at some point she was going to have to zip the bastard thing up again, and it was going to feel tighter than ever before.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

‘Will says we’ve had over a million views. Whatever that means,’ said Stella, handing a silver balloon to Ruby, who tied the neck and attached it to a string with several others. She then passed the whole bunch to Tom. ‘He says we’ve gone viral, which is apparently a good thing.’

Tom laughed at her expression and climbed onto a chair to tie the balloons to a wooden beam in the function room of the Shipton Arms, which was more like a fancy conservatory clamped onto the side of the pub.

‘It’s only three weeks since I was last here,’ huffed Ruby moodily. ‘Loads has happened since then. I’ve got the school play in a couple of weeks so I can hardly ever get home.’

‘It’s definitely all been going on,’ said Tom, thinking about all the things that definitely hadn’t been going on, mostly involving Ruby’s mother. ‘Is that a million views per video, or all together?’ he asked.

‘All together, I think,’ Stella shrugged helplessly as if to say ‘what do I know?’ ‘You’d have to ask Will. He’s the master.’

‘How did the cooking classes go?’ asked Ruby, starting on the next bunch of balloons. There were four bunches in total, one in each corner of the room. Stella had brought some fortieth-birthday bunting to string between them and Ruby wasn’t sure how Daisy would react. She’d said she didn’t want a fuss.

‘They were SUCH fun.’ Stella all but bounced. ‘Your mother has written a wonderful book and the students had a great time. Daisy got lots of feedback and the videos Will took were smashing.’

‘It’s my book too,’ grumbled Ruby. ‘I hate being stuck at school when all the exciting stuff is happening here.’

Tom gave her a sympathetic look, having already listened to Ruby tell him about her weekend and evening commitments in the school play. From what Tom had gathered, it was a modern version of Shakespeare set in space, called A Moonsummer Night’s Dream. Tom was no expert on Shakespeare but it sounded terrible.

‘I know, sweetheart,’ said Stella. ‘When the royalties start rolling in, it will feel a lot more like your book.’

‘But I’m missing out on all the fun,’ sulked Ruby. ‘The book’s not even out until October. You and Justin will be megastars by then.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Stella preened. ‘Will says it’s early days, and we have to keep doing more videos. I expect we’ll run out of things to talk about eventually.’

‘I’m sure you’ll find something, Granny,’ replied Ruby affectionately. ‘Shall we do the bunting?’

‘Can you and Tom do that?’ Stella scanned the room. ‘I need to do the place settings.’ She fished a sheet of paper out of her giant handbag.

‘Why do we need place settings?’ Ruby frowned. ‘There are only five of us.’

‘Ah,’ said Stella, shuffling awkwardly. ‘Well, that didn’t feel much like a party, so I’ve invited a few of your mother’s friends from the village.’

Uh oh. Tom watched as Ruby marched up to her grandmother, hands on her hips. Her eyes narrowed in a very Daisy-like way as Stella tried to avoid her piercing gaze. ‘Granny, what have you done?’

Tom busied himself unravelling fortieth-birthday bunting as Ruby expressed relief that there were only twelve guests rather than the entire village. Ruby could understand why she might invite Tom, Will, Justin and Melanie, but she was less clear on Gerald, Marcus and Miriam.

‘We couldn’t invite Melanie and Will and not invite Gerald. It would be rude,’ scolded Stella.

‘Fine, whatever,’ Ruby waved her hand dismissively. ‘But why Marcus?’

‘Your mother’s been playing a lot of tennis with him. Doubles, you know, with Melanie and Justin. I think they’ve become friends. He’s also a bit younger and I thought he might be a bit more fun than us old farts.’

Ouch, thought Tom. Ruby grinned at him mischievously.

‘And Miriam?’ she asked. ‘Why the vicar?’

Stella pursed her lips and glanced in Tom’s direction for help. ‘Because she’s a very nice woman, and to be honest I don’t think she gets many party invitations.’

Ruby laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, Granny, why didn’t you invite the cleaning lady while you were at it?’