‘I know, I know. I’m sorry. I just miss you, that’s all.’ They had finally managed to agree to phone each other on Saturday morning before Luca started work. There wasn’t time to speak in the weekday mornings; she just got up and went straight to the Tube, and the evenings had been a complete write-off.
‘How was your first week? Tell me everything.’ She talked him through it day by day. It felt good to be able to share it all with him, even though he couldn’t possibly understand exactly what it was like. He was so interested, and asked so many questions, she could tell he was trying his best to get an accurate idea of what she was going through. On Sunday her mum called to find out how it was all going. Luckily she called in the early evening when Libby was still awake.
‘Hi Mum, how are you?’
‘All is well with me, my darling; I had a lovely day with Uncle Tony and Aunty Sue yesterday. We went around a National Trust house and walked through the gardens. How was your first week at work?’ Libby ran her through the details, excluding anything to do with morning sickness.
‘My goodness it does sound awfully complicated! I don’t know how you manage!’
‘I’ve honestly got no idea what I’m doing half the time. I feel like a fish out of water. It’s so confusing, there is just so much to learn.’
‘Have you had to use much Italian yet?’
‘Yes I’ve been reading through Italian documents, speaking to the Italian office and sitting in meetings with Italian clients. It’s just as well my Italian has improved so much. It wouldn’t have been anywhere near good enough before.’
‘Hopefully it’ll give you an advantage over the other trainees.’
‘It does give me priority to work on the Italian cases.’
‘That’s great! I suppose it’s all about making yourself indispensable to the firm.’
‘Exactly. Anyway, enough of all that, what other news is there?’ asked Libby. ‘Any exciting village gossip to fill me in on?’
‘Well, I don’t know about that darling. Oh! Guess who telephoned me yesterday…’
‘Helen?’
‘Yes!’
‘Wow, that is a turn-up for the books.’
‘I know. The third phone call in at least as many months.’
‘So how is she?’
‘She seems OK, I think. Not much news, but she seems to be plodding along well at work. I don’t think she has much of a social life to speak of. I didn’t really question her too heavily, just chattered away about trivia really.’
‘Well, I think it’s definitely a good sign that she called.’
‘Fingers crossed things are starting to look up for her.’
Libby hoped so too. She needed her to be in the best possible frame of mind when she told her about the baby.
By week nine the morning sickness began to fade just the tiniest bit. For the first time she agreed to go out for drinks with Tammy and Sam on the Friday after work. She pretended she had dinner plans so that she wouldn’t have to stay too late.
‘What’ll you have?’ asked Tammy, leaning over the bar to get the barman’s attention.
‘Rosé please,’ said Sam.
‘I’ll just have a lime and soda please,’ said Libby.
‘Are you not much of a drinker?’ asked Sam.
‘No, not really,’ lied Libby. ‘Never really have been…’ she trailed off. The good thing about meeting new people now was that they wouldn’t know she was not being entirely honest in this respect.
Tammy passed them their drinks and they went and sat down at a round table near the window. The bar was jostling with city slickers, all desperate to down several pints or a few glasses of wine as a reward for making it through another busy week. It was chaotic and noisy. Normally Libby would have loved the buzzing atmosphere, but today she plastered on a brave face and sipped her lime and soda, taking the opportunity to get to know her colleagues outside work.
‘So how are you both finding it?’ Libby asked. ‘I’m so glad we’ve got a chance to talk away from prying ears.’
