Surprise Me (Page 22)

‘Tilda, thank you!’

‘Oh, it’s no trouble. It’s quite fun, secret packages arriving like this …’ She hesitates, then adds, ‘Very nice of Dan to order you a cashmere jumper out of the blue. Is it in honour of anything?’

‘Er …’ I’m not sure how to reply. I haven’t told anyone else about our little project. But maybe I’ll confide in Tilda. ‘Kind of,’ I say at last. ‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

I’m not expecting to hear any more from Tilda that day, but two hours later, as I’m in the middle of typing out a newsletter, she rings again.

‘They’re here!’

‘What are here?’ I say, confused.

‘Your cardigans! Dan changed the order, they biked them over and took the jumper back. It’s a good delivery service, I must say.’

‘Wow. Well, what do you think?’

‘Gorgeous,’ says Tilda emphatically. ‘My only issue is, which size? I can’t tell. And so I was wondering, why don’t you pop over quickly and try them on?’

Try them on? I stare uncertainly at the phone. Choosing my own surprise present was one thing. But is trying it on going too far?

‘Shouldn’t I keep some of the mystery?’ I say.

‘Mystery?’ Tilda sounds scoffing. ‘There is no mystery! Try them on, choose the one that fits, job done. Otherwise, I’m bound to pick the wrong one and it’ll be a great big hassle.’

She sounds so matter-of-fact, I’m convinced.

‘OK.’ I glance at my watch. ‘It’s time for lunch, anyway. I’m on my way.’

As I arrive at Tilda’s house I can hear thumping noises coming from upstairs. Tilda opens the front door, scoops me in for a hug, then yells, ‘What are you doing?’ over her shoulder.

A moment later, Toby appears on the stairs. He’s in an old white T-shirt and black jeans and is holding a hammer.

‘Hello, Sylvie, how are you?’ he says politely. Then he turns to Tilda, before I have time to reply. ‘What do you mean, “What am I doing?” You know what I’m doing. We discussed it.’

I can see Tilda breathing in and out again, slowly.

‘I mean,’ she says, ‘why are you making so much noise?’

‘I’m putting up speakers,’ says Toby, as though it’s obvious.

‘But why is it taking so long?’

‘Mum, have you ever put up speakers?’ Toby sounds irritated. ‘No. So. This is how long it takes. This is what it sounds like. Bye, Sylvie, nice to see you,’ he adds, in his polite-Toby manner, and I can’t help smiling. He turns and marches back upstairs and Tilda glowers after him.

‘Don’t damage the wall!’ she calls. ‘That’s all I ask. Don’t damage the wall.’

‘I’m not going to damage the wall,’ Toby shouts back, as though highly offended. ‘Why would I damage the wall?’

There’s the sound of a door shutting, and Tilda clutches her head. ‘Oh God, Sylvie. He has no idea what he’s doing, he’s got some set of power tools from somewhere …’

‘Don’t worry,’ I say soothingly. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

‘Yes.’ Tilda seems unconvinced. ‘Yes, maybe. Anyway.’ She focuses on me as though for the first time. ‘Cardigans.’

‘Cardigans!’ I echo with a tweak of glee. I follow Tilda into her office, which is yellow-painted and lined with books and has French windows into the garden. She reaches below her desk and pulls out a flat, expensive-looking box.

‘They’re perfect,’ she says, as I’m taking off the lid. ‘The only issue is the fit.’

I pull the cardigans out and sigh with pleasure. The colour is beautiful and the cashmere is super-soft. How Dan could ever have chosen that vile—

Anyway. Not the point.

An almighty, whining drilling comes from upstairs and Tilda jumps. ‘What’s he doing now?’ She gazes upwards as though in despair.

‘It’ll be fine!’ I say reassuringly. ‘He’ll just be putting brackets up, or something.’

I try on the size ten, and then the size twelve and then the size ten again, admiring myself in Tilda’s full-length mirror.

‘Stunning.’ Tilda eyes me curiously. ‘But you still haven’t told me what it’s for. Not birthday, not Christmas, not your wedding anniversary, I don’t think?’

‘Oh.’ I pause in my preening. I don’t mind telling Tilda, I suppose, even though this is quite a private thing. ‘Well, the truth is, Dan and I have decided to plan some little surprises for each other.’

‘Really?’ Tilda’s curious gaze doesn’t waver. ‘Why?’

I won’t go into the whole 68-more-years-of-marriage thing, I decide. It might sound a bit weird.

‘Because … why not?’ I prevaricate. ‘To keep our marriage alive. Spice things up. Because it’s fun.’

‘Fun?’ Tilda looks aghast. ‘Surprises aren’t fun.’

‘Yes they are!’ I can’t help laughing at her expression.

‘I understand “keep your marriage alive”. That I understand. But surprises, no.’ She shakes her head emphatically. ‘Surprises have a bad habit of going wrong.’

‘They do not!’ I retort, feeling nettled. ‘Everyone loves surprises.’

‘Life throws enough curve balls at you. Why add to them? This won’t end well,’ she adds darkly, and I feel a flinch of annoyance.

‘How can it not end well? Look, just because you don’t happen to like surprises—’

‘You’re right.’ She nods. ‘I don’t like surprises. In my experience you plan one surprise and end up with a totally different one. When I was twenty-eight, my boyfriend – Luca, his name was, Italian – he threw me a surprise party. But the big surprise was that he ended up snogging my cousin.’

‘Oh,’ I say feebly.

‘While everyone was singing happy birthday.’

‘Oh God.’

‘They didn’t stay together or anything. Shagged a couple of times, maybe.’

‘Right.’ I pull a face. ‘That’s really—’

‘And we’d been happy until then,’ she continues relentlessly. ‘We’d had three great years together. If he hadn’t thrown me that surprise party, maybe I’d have married Luca instead of Adam and my life wouldn’t have been the clusterfuck it has been. He moved back to Italy, it turned out. I stalked him on Facebook. Tuscany, Sylvie. I think you need the ten,’ she adds without taking breath. ‘Fits you much better across the shoulders.’

‘Right.’ I’m trying to take in everything she’s saying, all at once. Tilda is a brilliant multitasker, but sometimes her conversation multitasks a bit too much. ‘If you hadn’t married Adam, you wouldn’t have Gabriella and Toby,’ I point out. I’m about to elaborate on this, when there’s a thundering down the stairs. The door of Tilda’s office bursts open, and Toby surveys her with an accusing look. He has a large piece of plaster in his hair, a light dusting of plaster over his beard and an electric power drill in his hand.

‘These walls are crap,’ he pronounces resentfully. ‘They’re shoddy. How much did you pay for this house?’