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There are a few orders for chocolate bars that I scribble on a piece of paper, otherwise I’d forget by the time I reach the shop. Nina wants some more fruit from the greengrocers. The bagful she gets through each day is nearly half empty and it’s clearly making her edgy. You don’t want to be caught dangerously low on fruit.
‘I’ll have pears,’ she says. ‘No apples. Maybe plums. Or grapes.’ When I start to tap my foot, she concludes, ‘Just get me what they’ve got.’
As I walk out of the salon, I glance up and there, right across the courtyard, leaning on a wall, is Lewis. I look around. Surely, surely he can’t be waiting for me? Before he sees me, I duck back inside.
‘Cristal.’ I wave the junior towards me. ‘Can you get this order for me from Deli Delights, and pop to the greengrocers for Nina and get her some fruit?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ she says and shuffles off in her vest top, shorts, bare legs and UGG boots. I stifle my inner old biddie and refrain from asking her if she shouldn’t put something warmer on as it’s November and bloody freezing.
Back in the staffroom, I sit down next to Nina.
‘That was quick,’ my friend observes.
‘I didn’t go,’ I tell her. ‘Guess who’s standing outside the salon?’
‘You’re having a laugh,’ she says when I tell her who I’ve just spied.
‘Someone is, but I’m afraid it isn’t me.’
‘Is it definitely Lewis?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Come on.’ She pulls me out into the salon and we sneak behind the reception desk. Crouching down, we peer around the corner of it and into the courtyard.
‘It is him,’ Nina confirms, as if there was some doubt in my mind. ‘Let me go out there and give him what for.’
‘We can’t prove he’s done anything wrong, Nina. He’s just lurking.’
‘We could call the police.’
‘And what would they do?’ I sigh. ‘I’m assuming the phone calls were from him, but I might be wrong. It could just have been a wrong number, or someone playing a prank.’
She tuts at herself. ‘I should never have given him your damn address.’
‘A lesson learned,’ I console. We retreat back to the safety of the staffroom.
‘Janie’s got a stalker,’ she tells the boys.
‘Want us to take him down for you?’ Clinton offers.
For the record, Clinton couldn’t take down Iggle Piggle.
‘You’re OK,’ I assure him. ‘Just get Gerry to have a word with him, Nina.’ I feel as though she bears some responsibility for getting me out of this situation having been the one to drop me in it in the first place. ‘Tell him I’m not available. Tell him I’ve got herpes, AIDS, terminal cancer, no money.’
‘Don’t joke about things like that,’ Nina says.
‘Tell him that I’ve run away with Johnny Depp then.’
‘That’s more like it.’ Nina nods approvingly. ‘Although, knowing you, you’d find some reason to turn the Deppmeister down.’ Then she leans her head against my shoulder and looks up at me. ‘I feel sad that you’ve given up on love, Janie.’
‘I haven’t given up on love,’ I protest.
‘You’re still young,’ she continues. ‘You’re lovely. Don’t close your heart.’
‘I haven’t closed my heart, but neither do I want to open my legs to some arrogant arsehole ten minutes after I meet him for the price of a Diet Coke. That’s not what love is about to me.’
‘I think the era of chivalrous romance is long dead. Perhaps you should change your perception.’
‘I’d rather be on my own than go through that on a regular basis.’ I flick my thumb in the general direction of Lewis Moran.
‘Don’t give up,’ Nina pleads. ‘Please don’t give up.’
‘Are you desperate for me to have a relationship like you and Gerry?’ It’s a low shot and I know it.
Her face darkens and she sits up. ‘I know we’re not love’s young dream,’ she says, ‘but we rub along OK. Most of the time.’
Nina and Gerry don’t ‘rub along OK’. They bicker constantly, and that’s when they’re not throwing crockery at each other. Gerry goes walkabout on a regular basis and then Nina stomps out of the house, threatening never to return.
My friend has spent many a night on my sofa, under my spare duvet, calling Gerry all the names under the sun and vowing never to go back to him – only to have forgotten all about it by the next day. Her husband must know how to say all the right things because after a few empty promises, she always decides to tow the line again and falls into his arms once more. Is that what true love is? Is it really blind? Are you inexplicably drawn to that other person, whatever their faults and flaws? When your head says you should leave, does your heart constantly overrule it?
