‘I think I must have bored you rigid with the story of my life, Lilian. I shouldn’t—’
‘If you’re trying to say that you shouldn’t have got absolutely buggered on booze and poured out your heart to me, then save your breath,’ said Lilian firmly. ‘I could tell by your increasingly bad spelling that whatever you were drinking was taking effect but that stupid cheesecake site brought us together for a reason, my dear, and I have absolutely no doubt fate played a hand in it.’ Her voice softened and a smile spread across her lips. ‘I sensed a troubled soul that night and I very much think that you needed to say what you did because you’d kept it trapped inside you for far too long. Not good for you at all – trust me, I know this. What a vile family you have, dear. No wonder you have so much difficulty negotiating life. They’ve imprinted a faulty map in you. Totally understandable why you keep losing your way. I have the same map imprinted on me too. We have more in common than you could know.’
The afternoon tea arrived cutting off further apologies from Marnie, and what a feast. Three tiers of sandwiches, pastries and miniature cakes with a smaller fourth tier at the top, bearing a selection of cute cheesecake squares.
‘Tuck in, dear,’ said Lilian, stuffing in an egg mayo triangle and making exaggerated sounds not unlike those uttered when Harry met Sally. Marnie was less impressed. She detected cheap mayo and margarine not butter, and not spread to the edges either which was a cardinal sin in her book.
‘I do hope you’ll come to Wychwell for the May Day Fair in a fortnight,’ said Lilian. ‘Not as popular as it used to be when I was a girl, but we do still honour the long-held tradition. We desperately need some new blood in the village. The last fresh young May Queen was ninety-two and died a week after she was crowned.’
Marnie half-choked on her ham and mustard. She shouldn’t have laughed, she really hadn’t meant to.
‘Anyway, I want to know all about Mr Fox,’ Lilian went on, reaching for a cheese and pickle. ‘Do you have a photo of him that I can see?’
‘Oh, I never thought to bring one,’ lied Marnie. The truth was, she didn’t have any. The first time she’d taken out her phone to snatch a selfie of them, Justin had covered his face as if he were an A-lister with no make-up on and she was the paparazzi. He wasn’t photogenic, he’d excused. It doesn’t matter, it’s for my eyes only, Marnie had replied but he’d insisted no. He couldn’t afford to take any chances of it getting into the wrong hands. He’d meant the hands of Suranna, his wife, of course. Marnie had been cross at his presumption that she’d plaster it all over Facebook if they had a row. What sort of person did he think she was? But she hadn’t wanted to cause a fuss, so she relented.
So, no, she didn’t have a photo of him. Neither could she ring him on his mobile, she had to wait until he rang her. Nor could they venture out in public like normal couples or stay the night in a hotel. Not yet anyway. Not until his uncoupling was completed. Marnie felt her jaw tightening with agitation. Best to change the subject, she thought, and steer clear of Justin-talk.
‘I found Wychwell on the internet. It looks beautiful,’ she said.
‘Oh it is,’ Lilian agreed with an energetic nod as she reached for a cheesecake square. ‘It’s tired though, so awfully tired. I’ve not given it my best. I resented it for so many . . . good GRIEF what a disgusting taste.’ Her features scrunched up and her tongue waggled in her mouth like a Maori doing a Haka.
Marnie followed suit, picking a square from the top plate to see what Lilian meant. Bland, rubbery, with a soggy, too-thin base. If there was one thing she was an expert on, it was cheesecake.
‘My, that is a let-down,’ she said. ‘Gelatine overload and too much cream to cheese ratio. What do you think, Lilian?’
‘I haven’t a bloody clue,’ returned Lilian. ‘I couldn’t make a cake if my life depended upon it. I only ever go on those silly forums to cause havoc. I’m a bored old lady who can’t sleep and I ache everywhere. Playing devil’s advocate is one of the few pleasures I have left.’
Marnie stared at her soundlessly, then she threw her head back and laughed. ‘Really, oh my, Lilian, you are brilliant.’
Lilian smiled. ‘I’m awfully sorry if you thought you’d found a fellow patissier but trust me, the world of baking is much safer with me outside it than within.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ said Marnie, thinking that it really didn’t. She was having a lovely time with Lilian although she did look much older than her sixty-six years of age. But for all her bodily wear and tear, her mind seemed as sharp as a box of needles. Lilian halted a passing waitress in her tracks and demanded, with politeness, that the bill reflect the uneatable cheesecake offering. She had a beautiful voice, thought Marnie. Her speech was crowded with rounded vowels and that secret extra ingredient that distinguished her from people such as Gabrielle, who could never have achieved that intrinsic tone, not even with a million elocution lessons. The magic voice equivalent of the contents of Mrs McMaid’s tin.
The waitress nodded. ‘Mrs Abercrombie buys them in but the woman that makes them isn’t very good.’ Then her hand shot up to her mouth. ‘Oh ’eck. I shouldn’t have said that . . . I meant they’re made in-house but the cheesecake woman isn’t very good.’
The knowledge couldn’t be undone though and that nugget of info stored itself in Marnie’s memory for another time.
‘Then you should tell Mrs Abercrombie to find someone else. Especially at the prices she charges,’ snapped Lilian, not accepting the excuse. As the waitress scuttled off, Lilian whispered to Marnie, ‘Tasted worse than something I’d make.’
‘Surely not.’
‘Believe me – that bad. Anyway, moving on, did you visit your sister for her birthday?’
Blimey, thought Marnie, she has the memory of an elephant. Did she really tell Lilian it was her sister’s birthday as well? What else? It might be easier to make a list of everything she hadn’t told her.
‘No,’ said Marnie. ‘We don’t do family birthdays really. Apart from sending a card . . .’
‘Yours to them arrives on time, not so the other way around.’ She answered Marnie’s wide-eyed look seconds later. ‘You didn’t tell me that, I guessed.’ She tipped the teapot over Marnie’s cup and then her own, sharing the last of its contents.
‘We are a dysfunctional family par excellence.’ Marnie smiled sadly. ‘We—’
‘My dear girl,’ Lilian butted in. ‘Unless you have the Dearman name, you have no real concept of dysfunction. Although I do have to say that your sibling makes my younger sister appear a saint by comparison, and that’s quite an achievement. Rachel ran off with our uncle who managed to kill them both in a glider.’
‘Oh no, that’s awful,’ said Marnie.
‘Rachel was a psychopath,’ sniffed Lilian. ‘Totally devoid of feeling. I didn’t shed a tear over the thought of her being dead, though I shed gallons when she was alive. I remain convinced she murdered our nanny—’ she broke off, waved her hand and shook her head. ‘I can’t talk about her. She’s spoiling my mood. Let’s talk about you; you said you didn’t know why your mother ever had children.’