You And Me, Always(28)

       
           



       

‘No, I'd just sneak you in through the back door.'

What? Disappointed, Lily said, ‘Oh, right.'

‘Kidding,' said Eddie. ‘Of course you'd be on the red carpet. But I'm warning you now, people will want to know who you are.'

‘That's OK. It's not as if they'll be interested once they find out I'm a  nobody. God, thanks so much for inviting me, though. What time does it  start and finish, so I can book my train tickets?'

‘Hey, no need, I'll send a car to pick you up around three, if that's  OK, and book you into a hotel for the night. Do you have to be at work  the next day?'

Lily pictured the works diary, pinned up in the office. ‘Yes, I do. I'd need to be back by ten, ten thirty.'

‘Fine, we'll arrange that, then. And I'll see you tomorrow afternoon. What are you going to do with your hair?'

What was she going to do with her hair? Her hand, moving instinctively  to her head, encountered a sticky clump of old spider's web from where  they'd explored the dusty attic of Weaver's Cottage. ‘I'll probably wash  it,' she said.

He laughed. ‘Are you going to enjoy yourself at the premiere?'

‘Are you serious? Of course I am!'

‘In that case,' Eddie's tone was genial, ‘I promise I will too.'





Chapter 23



Casually dropping the news into conversation in front of Dan was, needless to say, the best bit of all.

They'd already booked a table at the Star that evening, so that Declan  could meet Patsy, Sean and Will. Then Dan had ended up tagging along too   –  well, limping along  –  what with him being incapable of preparing his  own food, and the weather had been warm enough for them all to eat  outside in the pub garden beneath the trees strung with silver fairy  lights and hanging jars of citronella candles.

Watching them, Lily glowed with happiness at the way the group had so  effortlessly expanded to include Declan. Everyone liked him and he in  turn was getting on with each of them. As darkness fell and the stars  came out, stories and memories continued to be swapped. Dan, refilling  their glasses with wine, said, ‘When I was five or six, I remember  Lily's mum explaining to me how a pulley system worked. She threw a rope  over one of the low branches of the ash tree in our garden to show me,  then she went into the house and I tied the rope around Lily's waist and  tried to haul her up into the tree.'

‘Except you let go and dropped me and I landed splat on the ground,'  Lily protested amidst collective laughter at the memory. ‘All my  growing-up years, you kept coming up with brilliant new ways to torture  me and I never had the chance to get my own back because I was always  two years younger than you.'

Dan clapped his good hand to his chest in disbelief. ‘Are you kidding  me, are you actually serious? You were always getting your own back on  me! What about the time I fell asleep on the sofa before my first date  with Cara Mason and you drew giant eyelashes on my face with felt pen?'

Oh yes, that had been brilliant. ‘You couldn't have been that excited  about the date if you could fall asleep two hours beforehand. Plus,'  Lily reminded him, ‘it's not my fault you woke up and went out to meet  her without even bothering to look in a mirror first.'

‘Why would I look in a mirror?' He mimed confusion. ‘I'm not a girl.'

Patsy joined in, giving him a nudge. ‘And there was the time I was too  busy to cut your hair so Lily offered to do it instead. Remember that?'

Dan shuddered. ‘How could I forget? She actually made me believe she could do it.'

Lily grinned. ‘That was to pay you back for telling everyone on the school bus that I was wearing my first ever bra.'

‘What?' Dan did a double-take. ‘Hang on, that was when you were twelve. The hair-cutting thing happened a whole year later.'

‘And do you remember how long all the boys made fun of me by twanging  the back strap of my bra? They carried on doing it for months,' said  Lily. ‘Anyway, I got my revenge in the end, and it was worth the wait.'

‘What about the time we went on that school trip to the water park?'  Dan's dark eyes glinted in the reflected candlelight as he shook his  head sorrowfully at her. ‘I still don't know how you managed it but I  know it was you who swapped my swimming trunks for a bikini.'

‘I have no idea why you'd think that was me.' A decade on from that  triumphant occasion, Lily gave him an innocent smile. It had actually  involved creeping into his house the night before and replacing the  trunks in his sports bag with the old-fashioned pink bikini she'd bought  for fifty pence from a charity shop.                       
       
           



       

Coral said, ‘Unless it was to pay Dan back for that rumour he spread about you having a big crush on Moggy Blake.'

‘Oh, Moggy.' Lily groaned at the memory of the boy who'd smelled of cat  wee and followed girls around miaowing at them. The idea that she could  secretly be lusting after him had been mortifying at the time.

‘You know you loved him really,' said Dan.

Lily threw a French fry across the table at him. ‘You were a nightmare. You still are.'

Dan picked the French fry off the front of his shirt and ate it. ‘So  you're the one who hid my bicycle up a tree, yet I'm the nightmare.'

‘You two are like a double act,' said Declan. ‘Seriously, you're Tom and Jerry.'

Everyone burst out laughing. ‘That's what Mum used to call us,' Lily explained. ‘All the time.'

‘I was Tom,' said Dan. ‘She was Jerry. Mainly on account of her enormous ears.'

‘I was Jerry because I was smaller,' Lily retorted, ‘and because I didn't have fleas.'

‘Don't worry,' said Patsy. ‘They're always like this. They love each other really.'

‘In the non-physical sense,' said Lily. ‘I'm not that stupid.'

‘Lily prefers film stars these days.' Dan's tone was playful. ‘If  they're thousands of miles away and give her a quick call, that pretty  much makes her day.'

Lily suppressed a yelp of triumph, because she'd known he wouldn't be  able to resist mentioning Eddie and making fun of her silly crush on  him. It had almost killed her not mentioning it earlier, but now that  Dan had done the honours, she could go ahead. And again, totally worth  the wait.

Savouring the moment and taking a sip of ice-cold wine, she gave Dan the  benefit of the insouciant smile she'd practised earlier in front of the  mirror. ‘Actually, he's been in touch again.'

Ha, and this time she hadn't blurted it out like a small child incapable of keeping a secret for more than two minutes.

Oh yes, being insouciant was definitely the way to go.

‘He has? Did he send you another text?' Dan's eyes were bright with  mischief. ‘Was it definitely from him, or did he get his assistant to do  it?'

So smug. So, so smug. Lily idly tipped her wine glass this way and that,  then said casually, ‘Oh no, it was definitely his voice on the phone.  He's flying back to the UK this evening. The reason he called was to  invite me to London tomorrow night.'

Ha. Ha! Fifteen love to me.

Dan had been lounging back on his chair. Now his shoulders stiffened. ‘Oh? To do what?'

‘He asked me to go along with him to the premiere of Catcher. In Leicester Square.' Thirty love.

‘So exciting,' Coral exclaimed. ‘Have you decided yet what you're going to wear?'

‘Either the yellow dress with the beading, or the red one.' It wasn't as if she had many to choose from.

‘Oh, the red is lovely,' said Patsy. ‘That's my favourite.'

‘Mine too, but we'll be on the red carpet. It might make me  …  you know,' Lily gestured down at herself, ‘a bit invisible.'

‘Catcher's set in the future,' said Dan. ‘You don't like films set in the future.'

‘That doesn't matter,' Coral told him. ‘It's a premiere! There'll be all sorts going on!'

‘How will you get home afterwards?' Dan put his drink down on the table.

‘He's booked a hotel.' Forty love. ‘And a car to get me there and back.' Unable to resist it, Lily added, ‘Well, a limo.'

‘Of course he has.' Gone was Dan's air of mischief; in the dim light and  with his narrowed dark eyes and shadowed cheekbones, he now resembled  Mr Darcy being all disapproving and taut-jawed.

Fantastic. Game, set and match.

‘I can't wait,' said Lily. ‘It's going to be amazing.'

‘Just don't-' Dan stopped himself in his tracks and exhaled.

‘Just don't forget to have fun?' Lily beamed triumphantly at him. ‘Don't worry, I won't!'



Dan and Patsy had departed, as had Sean and Will. With just the three of  them left, they'd headed next door to Goldstone House. Declan had been  finishing his coffee when Lily brought downstairs the box containing all  the birthday letters from her mother.