Page 1 of The Woman Who Said Yes

1

ANDIE

I shouldn’t be here. I should be on my way to the restaurant where Eva and Sam will be waiting. Instead I’m standing in my kitchen, barefooted in my bra and knickers, trying to iron my outfit dry.

You know those articles you read, listing the things you’re too old for at certain points in your life? The ones that warn you against exposing a bit of cleavage or – God forbid – wearing anything sleeveless, which these days seems to be an arrestable crime? Section 67 of the Inappropriate Dressing Act: it is an offence for a woman of 50+ to expose her upper arms with the intent of causing alarm or distress, or the distributing of electronic images thereof. Before he retired from the force, Phil, my ex-husband, was a policeman. As we were together during his training, I grew accustomed to him spouting this kind of legal speak at me. ‘Go on, test me!’ he’d demand.

I know what he’d say, if he could see me now. Ironing a damp outfit dry is one thing I am too old for. It’s not what a fifty-eight-year-old woman should be doing just before setting off for a night out. My clothes should be ready to wear, hanging pristinely in the wardrobe in my little post-divorce flat. I should also have incorporated weight-bearing exercise into my mythical fitness routine, and own pillows of a higher calibre than sad, flat pancakes.

However, this is my favourite skirt and the one I’m determined to wear tonight. I frown at it, stretched over the ironing board, and wonder if it will ever surrender its moisture to the atmosphere. There’s a vicious hissing and billowing of steam as I whack up the dial on the iron to the hottest setting. That should do it. I’m going to boil the water out of it. On a positive note, a side effect of this emergency ironing is that I’m also steaming my face. But is this still viewed as a good thing – to basically shock your pores into opening fully? Or is it as outdated as those knobbly rubber mitts we used to pummel our cellulite with? As if that would make it go away. ‘Andie, look what I’ve done to myself!’ Eva wailed once, flashing her bruised bottom in the stockroom of the shop where we worked. She’d gone way too hard on herself with the Elancyl Mitt.

‘I suggest you put that away,’ thundered our manager, Rita, who’d happened to walk in. I smile at the memory, then snap out of my reverie as my phone rings on the worktop. It’s Jake, my son – the younger of my two adult offspring.

‘Hey, Mum.’

‘Hello, darling.’ The reason I don’t immediately assume that someone is dead or horribly maimed is because Jake is a rare example of a young adult male in that he actively enjoys chatting on the telephone.

‘You okay?’ he asks. ‘You busy?’

‘A bit, yeah, but it’s fine,’ I say, simultaneously gripping both phone and iron. ‘Just getting ready to go out,’ I add. ‘I’m meeting Sam and Eva tonight.’

‘Aw, nice! Usual place?’ Niko’s, he means, just off Tottenham Court Road. We’ve been going there for decades.

‘Yeah, it’s been ages,’ I reply. ‘Eva’s been on a cruise⁠—’

‘Oh yes, you said.’

‘And she met someone.’

‘You mean, like a man?’ Jake exclaims.

‘Yes, like a man!’

‘On the ship, you mean?’

‘Yep, apparently. And she’s seen lots of him since then. She’s been full of it on the group chat.’ That’s why we haven’t managed to get together in the three weeks since she’s been back. As every spare moment has been spent with her new love, tonight has been hotly anticipated.

‘Sounds exciting,’ Jake enthuses.

‘It does!’

‘Wonder how long this one’ll last?’ He chuckles as we both know that Eva’s relationships tend to fizzle after a couple of months. She’s prone to diving into a whirl of passion and larks. But then it’ll hit her: is this what she wants? A man who’s grumpy or jealous when her job as a fashion stylist takes her away on a trip without him? Or who tries to mould or shape her in any way? She’s had her fair share of glamorous losers – I sense that her patience has all but run out – and has never felt the need to ‘settle’. At sixty I can’t imagine that she ever will.

‘Let’s see,’ I say. ‘She sounds happy, though. Says he’s “different”…’

‘Hmm,’ Jake muses. ‘Is that a good thing?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I admit, ‘but I can’t wait to hear all about it…’ I flick my gaze to the wall clock, wondering what possessed me to stay behind to help clear up the vomit explosion at work. We’d had an activity day at head office for parents and pre-schoolers; I work for a charity that supports young families in the East End. ‘Volunteer Coordinator’ is my title. It’s about matching volunteers to families – and doesn’t that suggest neatness and everything in its place? Coordinated = put together with care, like a pleasing outfit. It’s nothing like that. Ours is a tiny charity, and we all muck in and do everything. Coordinating a bucket, mop and fierce disinfectant is why I’m running late tonight.

‘She inherited the money, didn’t she?’ Jake remarks. ‘For the cruise, I mean?’ Having known Eva for all of his twenty-seven years, he is aware of her precarious finances.

‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘From her auntie who stipulated that she had to blow it on something fun and entirely impractical.’

Jake groans. ‘Why don’t I have an auntie like that?’

‘So she can die,’ I tease, ‘and leave you loads of money—’ I break off and look down in dismay. ‘Oh, hell.’

‘What’s wrong?’