Ash’s mouth twitched but he turned to me without acknowledging her comment. ‘What about you? Have you done one?’
‘No and I’ve not been tempted before. Although there’s a guy at work’—Dave, who’d set up the charity team—‘and he does the one in Hyde Park in Leeds. But he’s a proper runner. Runs to work every day. Five miles. Has an extensive wardrobe of Lycra and does marathons in places like Athens and Boston for his holidays. They do not sound like fun holidays to me.’ I shuddered.
As far as I was concerned, I was not a proper runner. Jogging around the park each day on my own was a means to an end, to make me fitter and healthier, so that I’d be stronger when I got back to work, and signing up for Dave’s team had been my attempt at keeping a channel open with work. Despite that, I was starting to enjoy my daily run; it gave my day a format and was good thinking time. Just this morning I’d been planning the colours for the kitchen. I fancied something really sophisticated and stylish. Dark and pale grey walls and black slate floors. Why hadn’t I been able to focus on this sort of thing before? I knew the answer straight away. I’d let work take up far too much headspace.
‘Claire.’ Hilda was waving a hand in front of my face.
‘Sorry, I was thinking.’
‘You see,’ crowed Hilda to Ash. ‘Claire thinks it’s a good idea.’
‘Why don’t we have a think about it over the weekend and talk next week?’ suggested Ash.
I shot him a grateful smile and he gave me shy smile over the top of Hilda’s cloud of white hair.
‘Excellent,’ said Hilda. ‘We’ll reconvene on Monday.’
Chapter Twelve
‘I want a princess bed like this.’ Ava grabbed a fistful of the diaphanous fabric swathed around the head of the little wooden bed. ‘It’s so pretty. And please, please, please can I have some fairy lights too and the pink elephant. I’ll be ever so good.’
I laughed at the sight of her hopeful parted lips which had fallen into an ‘O’ of wonderment as she gazed at the room set in Ikea, which had overdosed on pink and white and pretty things. The centre piece, a white-framed bed, was curtained by gauzy drapes and dressed with a bubble-gum pink duvet set and a pile of cushions and soft toys. Even the more reserved Poppy was touching the fairy lights and chains of pink and mauve butterflies with a tentative hand.
‘It’s a bit babyish,’ said Poppy dubiously. Ava’s eyes widened with hurt indignation, but before the pet lip began to protrude, Hilda said, ‘But perfect for a princess though,’ a sage twinkle in her eye as she dropped a quick curtesy. ‘I can see you sleeping in this bed, Princess Ava.’ Then she added to Poppy, ‘But I can see that a young lady like you will want something more sophisticated.’
I grinned gratefully at her diplomacy.
Despite Poppy’s disparagement, with a change of duvet and colour scheme, this bed and furniture would move with the times. As far as Ava was concerned, the net above the bed and the fairy lights were the clinchers, so they were added to the list of things we had to hunt down in the marketplace part of the store.
Poppy was less easy to please. Her eyes kept straying to the price tags of everything and she didn’t seem to want to commit whole heartedly to anything. Luckily, Ava was being entertained by Hilda and they were busy conducting a thorough inspection of all the available styles of fairy lights in the different room sets and discussing their merits in great detail.
‘What about this one?’ I asked for the fifth time putting my hand on the end of a more grown-up, simple pine bed.
‘Yes, that’s fine.’
I was about to write down the code for the bed when something stopped me. I didn’t want it to be just fine. I wanted Poppy to love her new bedroom and everything in it. Alice might not care about material things and sometimes I felt she revelled in her altruistic saintliness – it was all very commendable – but she didn’t half go on about it as if she were saving the planet single handed. But at this age, sometimes things mattered and rubbed away like a deep burr. One memory that had always stuck with me, from probably when I was about Poppy’s age, was how I’d hankered for a particular duvet cover and been so disappointed when my mum had chosen a different one, a sensible plain one in navy blue. Alice had thrown a major tantrum and had been allowed to have a Little Mermaid set instead, that two weeks later she had hated.
Poppy liked things to be just so. I could relate to that. She reminded me of myself at the same age.
No, fine would not do.
Turning away from the pine bed, I started another circuit of the area, this time not saying anything, just watching Poppy. She didn’t give much away but when I saw her hand rest on an old-fashioned white metal-framed bed, I knew that was the bed she wanted. A cross between an old nursery bed and a pretty day bed, it was feminine but also grown-up and immediately I knew it would suit her perfectly.
‘I think that one’s very nice,’ I said.
‘It is but… it’s quite expensive. I don’t want you to spend a lot of money. It’s only for a week.’
‘Yes, but I need to put furniture in those bedrooms and I haven’t been able to choose any before. It’s lovely that you’re helping me. And wouldn’t it be nice to know you have your own room somewhere else? You and Ava could come and stay if Mummy’s going out or something.’
Suddenly I hoped that Alice would let me babysit more often and that perhaps the girls could come and stay occasionally, either together or individually. Poppy needed some space of her own instead of always being the older sister. I’d really enjoyed getting to know my nieces a little better over the last few days. Two distinct personalities had emerged, real people in their own right, instead of being someone else’s children. My nieces. I felt a tiny butterfly flutter in my chest at the thought. They were mine now.
‘I’d like that,’ she said shyly. ‘Are you sure this isn’t too much money?’ She bit her lip, worry gnawing lines into her brow. ‘I do like this one.’
‘I promise it’s not too much money, if that’s the one you’d like.’
‘I’d love it, Auntie Claire,’ she breathed, the dreamy smile on her face making my heart do a funny little forward-roll.
By the time we came out of the marketplace, we’d had to commandeer a second trolley and both were like teetering, rainbow-coloured leaning Towers of Pisa of stuff. Colourful patterned cushions topped rugs, duvets, bedding sets, pillows and three sets of brightly coloured towels, dusky pink for Ava, pale blue for Poppy and lime green for Hilda. There were also scented candles, bedside lamps, and four boxes of fairy lights – after Poppy had succumbed and so had I, Hilda decided that she wanted a set too. Hilda had also decided to buy herself a five-foot palm tree and a magnifying mirror to help her pluck the grey hairs from her lady beard. The man next to her when she’d announced this had looked as if he’d swallowed his tongue.
Getting that lot through the checkout was a logistical nightmare and I was very grateful that Hilda supervised Ava, leaving the far more helpful and sensible Poppy to assist me. Thank goodness Hilda had come too; I’d never have managed. And it would never have occurred to me to ask anyone to come along and help, which now seemed rather silly.