Page 37

Another pause lingered, and though the frown line was gone, Evan continued to look at her with unwavering intensity.

‘Do you want my truthful answer as to what I think you should do right now?’ he said.

‘Yes, yes, I do.’

Evan nodded. ‘Alright, then. In my opinion, you should do nothing. It doesn’t matter right now. One day, two days, or three weeks isn’t gonna make any difference. You’ve been living in that house for what, six months? A couple more days or a week, it’s not gonna make any difference. But if you rush into things, if you get cross with him or your mum, you’ll regret it.’ He looked at her so intently down the phone, it was almost as if Holly could hear the cogs turning in his mind. ‘Just think things through carefully, okay? Although, in terms of grand gestures, my Vespa seems pretty tame now, right? I knew I should have gone with a cottage.’

‘That isn’t funny,’ Holly said, fighting the urge to smile.

‘It’s a little bit funny.’

Holly shook her head again, though this time it was in laughter, as opposed to disbelief.

‘I wish you were sharing my bed again tonight,’ she said after a pause. ‘It feels really empty in here without you.’

‘Well, it’s only two weeks to the wedding, and I’ll see you then.’

The terror Holly was feeling about Giles and the landlord suddenly felt rather insignificant as she remembered the rest of the previous evening.

‘Yes, well, about the wedding…’

32

Holly awoke to the sound of Hope babbling in her cot. It was, without doubt, Holly’s favourite sound to wake to. A cross between singing, gurgling and talking. The nonsensical noises were more tuneful to Holly than any dawn chorus or personalised alarm clock could ever be.

She’d not had a great night’s sleep. After telling Evan about the mess Jamie and Fin were in with the wedding, and with the whole Giles situation still weighing heavily on her mind, she had found it difficult to switch off. Even now, it was hard to believe she had slept at all, considering how exhausted she felt.

There was a time, when Hope was smaller, that Holly could have simply scooped her out of her cot, carried her back into bed with her, and got an extra hour’s rest that way. But those days were gone. Besides, the last thing Holly wanted to do was waste a beautiful sunny day with her daughter.

As much as Holly loved working in the shop, some days there was nothing better than a full twenty-four hours with Hope, knowing that Ben or her mother weren’t going to pick her up, or want her at a certain place at a certain time, so the two of them could spend the day exactly as Holly chose. That didn’t mean thedays were always easy, but not having Hope with her all the time made her more grateful than ever for days like this.

As was almost always the case on a Hope and Holly day, Holly started the morning with one of her most favourite activities. Baking.

‘You want to sift the flour, Hope?’ Holly said as she tipped flour over a bowl and shook the fine metal sieve beneath. ‘If you don’t, you’re going to get lumps in your breakfast muffins. And we don’t want that, do we?’

Hope wasn’t paying as much attention as Holly would have liked to this cookery lesson. Instead, she was chewing on bits of banana in between sticking her fingers in the mixing bowl. Still, Holly hoped that by cooking regularly in front of Hope, she might gain a passion for the hobby, just like Holly had done. Childhood memories of her mother and her baking together, decorating cakes and biscuits for school bake sales floated into Holly’s mind, but she quickly pushed them aside. She didn’t want to think about her mum right now. She was still too angry at her.

Unfortunately, the fates had other ideas, and as Holly cracked the first egg into the mixture, her phone rang.

Holly took several deep breaths in while staring at her mother’s name on the screen. Holly had known from the moment she had woken up that she wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. But this was the first time her parents had been abroad since Holly could remember and they were bound to be nervous. It was only fair that she checked in on how they were doing.

‘Holly! Look, look at the Atomium!’ It was her dad holding the phone – at least, that’s what Holly assumed, given it was his voice shouting at her energetically – although the camera was pointing directly at a silver globe in the sky. ‘Isn’t it magnificent? We got the Metro service here this morning. Can you believe that? Your mother and I, getting an early morning Metro in aforeign country? And we got coffee too. In takeaway cups. Very nice it was too, although your mother said hers was a bit strong.’

The anger Holly was feeling at the sight of the phone call ebbed away. Even she had to smile at her father’s enthusiasm.

‘So how’s it all going?’ she asked, relieved that she felt the response was going to be a positive one.

‘Oh, it’s wonderful, Holly. Marvellous. We are going around here this morning, and then this afternoon, we’re going back to the city centre and doing a tour of some of the chocolate places. Then we’ve booked in on a chocolate-making course.’

‘A chocolate-making course?’

‘Yes, it sounded like fun. And your mother said she’s always wanted to try it.’

‘Well, that sounds great. I’m glad you’re having a good time.’

‘Oh, we are love. You never know, maybe I’ll be able to bring a couple of skills back to the shop. I’m sure the customers would appreciate some handmade delicacies.’

Holly was tempted to remind her father that they had a full range of handmade chocolates from both Belgium and the UK available already, but she didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm. Besides, the longer he was on the phone, the more likely it was that Wendy would come and start talking to her.