Page 70 of The Only Way Is Up

Angela shrugged and smiled conspiratorially. ‘The reason you’re sweating over that birthday card.’ She gave him a wink and closed the office door behind her.

Tom stood in silence for a moment, then returned to his chair. He took a deep breath and wrote ‘To Daisy, with best wishes on your 40th birthday.’ He signed it ‘Tom’ without a kiss, in case anyone at the party read it. He had a thousand kisses stored up for her, but they could all wait just a few more weeks.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Once Daisy had got past the initial surprise of unexpected guests at her birthday dinner, she decided she was rather enjoying herself. The function room at the Shipton Arms was hardly the VIP area at Mahiki, but honestly, what did it matter? So much about the past few months had been new and unconventional. The heavy damask curtains that covered the patio doors at the front of the room had been drawn, making the space feel cosy and ensuring people outside the pub couldn’t gawp in. Her family was here. Her daughter and her mother. Simon and Archie. And then there was the man who gave her butterflies in her stomach like a teenager with a crush, and that definitely wasn’t her ex-husband. Whichever way Daisy looked at it, she’d had worse birthdays.

Seeing Tom’s name next to hers on the table placement had given her a guilty frisson of anticipation. She should have moved him really, put him down the other end of the table where she wouldn’t be able to feel the heat of him, but she had to admit she was kind of looking forward to spending a legitimate couple of hours in his company. His birthday card had made her smile, and she wondered how long he’d laboured over the message to make it that bland and innocuous.

Stella tapped her champagne glass with a dinner knife to invite everyone to take their seats, which Daisy thought was a rather grandiose gesture for such a low-key assembly. But she took her place anyway, in the middle of the table on the side nearest the wall. Tom slid in next to her and smiled, trying to avoid eye contact as his cheeks flushed pink. Daisy wondered if it was the warmth of the room or the champagne, or maybe he felt the same way she did about being so close to each other for the first time in weeks.

He looked adorable in his charcoal grey cashmere sweater over one of his many check shirts; it looked kitten-soft and cosy. She resisted the urge to stroke him and looked over at Gerald, who was sipping red wine and inspecting the label on the bottle with an expression of appreciation, then periodically glancing across the table at his wife. She and Melanie had played a lot of tennis and had several lunches together over recent weeks, so Daisy was fully up to speed on the restructure and renegotiation of their marriage. Gerald had finally realised Melanie’s worth and so far everything was going well between them.

Things were better between Gerald and Will too, particularly after Will had shown enough business acumen to ask for a ten per cent share of Stella and Justin’s YouTube earnings. Apparently, Gerald’s solicitor had drafted up a simple contract which Stella and Justin had been happy to sign, so Will’s interests were protected for now. Gerald and Melanie had discussed buying him a second-hand car for his eighteenth birthday next month, but right now there was a good chance Will would be buying his own, and an even better chance it would be considerably more glamorous than Gerald’s Mondeo.

Melanie was on Daisy’s side of the table, happily sandwiched between Simon and Tom. At fifty, Simon was the older of the two men, with an enviable head of salt-and-pepper hair that made him look rather distinguished and dashing. Tom wasn’t as groomed or well-dressed, but he was definitely more effortlessly good-looking. It was hard for Daisy not to think about where things might lead for her and Tom, once the dust had settled around Christian and the Vultures had moved on to pastures new. In two weeks, she would head back to London and the quiet announcement about her and Christian’s relationship would be made. Then later next month she and Tom would be free to spend time together. It felt closer this side of the new year, and the flutter of anticipation in her stomach seemed almost permanent these days.

Melanie looked ten years younger, her hair cut in a shorter, more elegant style and wearing a green wrap dress that flattered her figure and complemented her pale colouring. She and Daisy had gone shopping in Oxford, booking a personal shopper at John Lewis so they could try on outfits without Daisy having to stop for endless selfies. Then Daisy had taken her to Soho Farmhouse for a surprise fortieth-birthday treat for them both, booking them in for a facial and a manicure, then a cut and colour in the hair salon. It had been a lovely day, with Melanie bringing Daisy up to speed on the online IT training she’d already started, and the extra courses she was planning to do at the local college after Easter. The rectory was now on the market and they’d already looked at a lovely house in a village a few miles away, but Melanie had thought that the garden was a little small, particularly if they were planning to entertain in the summer or maybe get a dog. Melanie’s life now seemed like it was full of possibility, and Daisy couldn’t be happier for her.

Archie was on Gerald’s right, regaling him with tales of the landscaping commission in New Hampshire over Christmas. Apparently the owner was a distant Kennedy cousin, with a husband who worked in timber and spent most of his time deforesting Brazil. Daisy caught Simon’s eye and smiled, glad to see her ex-husband so settled and happy. Now perhaps fate might deal her the same; God knows she’d waited long enough.

Miriam was on Gerald’s left, currently listening to Will explain how YouTube worked and doing a sterling job of looking fascinated. Presumably they gave classes in attentiveness at theological college; it felt like an important quality for a vicar.

‘—they’ve got well over a million views now,’ Will enthused, ‘and over a hundred thousand subscribers on their YouTube channel.’

‘Goodness,’ exclaimed Miriam, clearly having no idea of what that meant. ‘Who are all these people watching cooking shows on the internet?’

‘There are loads of students,’ replied Will. ‘You can tell from the comments. They think Justella’s really funny. Apparently they explain things really well. One comment said it was like being shown how to cook by your grandparents.’

‘We had an email from This Morning yesterday,’ added Stella. ‘They want us to go on and cook something.’

‘Are you going to do it?’ asked Ruby, looking from her grandmother to Justin.

Justin shrugged. ‘Not sure. Our agent is looking into it. She looks after lots of influencers. That annoying woman who bangs on about cleaning – what’s her name?—’

‘That’s what we are now,’ interrupted Stella. ‘Influencers—’

‘Who thought of Justella?’ asked Ruby. ‘It’s genius.’

‘Will did,’ Daisy smiled. ‘Your granny still isn’t sure about it.’

‘It’s distinctive,’ Will proclaimed with the confidence of a seventeen-year-old boy who’d been in the social media game for two solid weeks. ‘Justin and Stella sounds boring, but Justella sounds cool. It’s a . . . what’s the word?’

‘A portmanteau?’ suggested Tom.

‘Exactly. One of those. Like Kimye.’

‘Or Jedward,’ added Melanie from the other end of the table.

‘I have no idea what any of you are talking about,’ said Stella, folding her arms and looking sulky when everyone burst out laughing.

‘How’s your starter?’ Daisy asked Justin.

He moodily poked a lump of potato with his spoon, visibly salivating over Daisy’s dish of pan-fried scallops with pancetta.

‘Fucking awful,’ he said. ‘Leek and potato soup needs blending and seasoning, and this miserable bowl of fucking sadness has neither. I tried beating it with a whisk to break up the vegetables, but in the end I didn’t have the energy to push it all through a sieve as well.’

Daisy gave him her best sympathy face while trying not to laugh. ‘What else did you bring?’