At my end of the market, I am not trying to cram in a wedding every weekend; I select only the most prominent or most interesting clients. However, that can mean several in a single month if that is the way they fall and that was what I had now.
After the debacle of the Howard-Box wedding last weekend, we needed to focus on the next event. In exactly eight days’ time, on Friday next week, we were all travelling to Raven Island off the south coast of Kent. In Raven’s Bluff, the palatial folly built there, we were to be witness to the marriage of Anton Harker, a popular TV host, and Geoffrey Banks, a soap opera star. They had money and fame which made them a great catch for Philips’ Wedding Plans.
Justin joined me and we started to plot the detail of how we would meet the groom and groom’s needs. There was much to plan but where any other day I would be completely focused on what I was doing, today I found myself distracted by thoughts of Derek Bleakwith and John Ramsey.
It was only when Mindy returned with the coffee and I took a few moments to think about what I needed to do over the weekend, that I remembered something that made my heart skip a beat in fright.
The Cat and the Dog
The fact that I had a date tonight was scary enough; I haven’t been on a date since my husband, Archie, died a little more than three years ago and, to be honest, I don’t think nights out with your spouse really count. In which case, I hadn’t been out on a date in over three decades.
There was a certain terror that went with meeting Vince Slater for dinner and I knew what it was that scared me. It wasn’t that he had shown interest in me right from the moment we met, or that I was going on this date because I found myself tricked into agreeing to it – Patricia Fisher had a lot to answer for – but more that Vince awakened in me a sense of hope.
At fifty-five, I was consciously refusing to acknowledge that I was throwing myself into my work because I just didn’t have that much else going on in my life. I didn’t need a man. At least I didn’t want to need a man and fervently believed I could live the rest of my life alone. However, I also believed Archie would be sad to know I had so little waiting for me at home each night.
So Vince showed up with his heroic actions, saving my life while getting injured and being ever so brave about it. He had a pirate’s smile, one which any woman could tell was bad news but liked to look at anyway. He was also handsome, strong, and courageous. He looked after himself, had his own money … the list of positive attributes was probably quite a long one if I got to think about it. However, and this is a pretty big however, I wasn’t looking for a relationship. The idea that I might one day share my bed with another man quite frankly terrified me.
Nevertheless, I was going out for dinner with him tonight. It was just dinner. I would drive and maybe have one glass of red wine. He was paying, and I picked an expensive restaurant that most people cannot get into but … well, I have a book of contacts and the ability to leverage a relationship when required. Not that I was doing anything the restaurant owner was unhappy with, I like to think all my professional relationships are mutually beneficial. I recommend those businesses whose attributes and standards are most aligned with my own. In so doing I ensure my customers will talk about every element of their interaction with me in a positive tone.
Mindy had a date tonight as well, though at nineteen her dates were a wholly different beast to mine. She left the boutique just a few minutes after five which was quite late enough. I stayed on another twenty minutes to finish up the notes from the Bleakwith meeting. Sitting at my desk in the pool of light thrown by the antique lamps I vastly preferred to the overhead strip lighting, I thought some more about what happened to Derek.
What had I actually seen today? Looking back at the images in my head, John Ramsey was either a good actor or he really hadn’t pushed Derek over the balcony. I heard him when he spoke and saw his face – he looked innocent to me. Yet the chief inspector had him arrested on the spot; the testimony of the victim’s wife sufficient to convince him of John’s guilt.
Coming back to the here and now with a jolt, I realised ten minutes had passed while I stared at the inside of my own head. It was Buster who disturbed my train of thought as he got up to inform me his stomach was rumbling. Had he not done so, I might have sat there for hours.
Amber, my pedigree ragdoll cat, was at home and would also want dinner. It was time to go.
My house is a cottage on the other side of the River Medway. The ancient bridge spanning the wide swathe of dirty brown water is often clogged when I leave the boutique, but not so today, and I made the journey in just under fifteen minutes.
Just outside of Strood which sits on the hill on the far side of the Medway valley, the small village of Twydhurst has a pub and a corner shop with a post office inside and very little of anything else unless you count the church. I have lived there for twelve years, ever since
