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My lunch arrives and I eat it morosely. There is definitely something deep within me that doesn’t want to shuffle off this mortal coil without having experienced all-consuming and passionate love. How sad would that be? Is a life worth living that hasn’t climbed those giddy heights? To get to the end of my time and never have come close to the ecstasies that are the stuff of life itself; the pain and the glories that make the world go round? My parents still held hands in their seventies and said that they loved each other every single day. Once my dad had gone, my mum followed him not long after. Life without him, she said, wasn’t worth living. To still feel like that after forty-odd years together has to mean something special, right? That kind of love would work for me too.
While I’m pondering the joys of a lonely life ahead, Cristal pops her head around the door. ‘Mrs Silverton’s here.’
‘I’ll be with her in just two minutes.’ My client is going to some posh function tonight and is having an up-do in honour. I’m thinking a sophisticated chignon – a big step away from her usual, more casual look.
I pop to the loo and wash my hands, studying myself in the mirror. The view isn’t getting better. A terrible vision stares back at me. I’m gaunt, pale, washed-out. What am I going to do with myself? Tears spring to my eyes and I wipe them away with a piece of pink toilet roll. Nina comes in and finds me snivelling.
‘Oh, hun,’ she says and takes me in her arms and gives me a hug. Perhaps that’s the thing I miss most: physical contact. I don’t mean just sex, but hugs, cuddles, the comfort of someone’s arms around you. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘I don’t want to die alone and have never loved,’ I wail.
‘Of course you won’t, you silly thing. Do you think I’d let that happen?’
‘No.’
‘Wipe your eyes,’ she instructs. ‘Brave girl.’ My friend strokes her thumb under my eyes, wiping away traces of mascara tracks. ‘Don’t let one bad experience with that tosser put you off.’
‘No.’ I’m going to give myself hiccoughs if I’m not careful. I try to pull myself together. This is ridiculous. It’s just because I’m tired.
‘Auntie Nina will sort it all out for you,’ she promises. ‘Now, put your best professional face on.’
I nod. Then, before I start crying again or feeling any more sorry for myself, I go out to see Mrs Silverton.
My client is already seated and I plaster a smile onto my face as I approach her. Glancing nervously out of the window, I’m glad to note that Lewis is nowhere to be seen.
‘All ready for your big night?’ I say to Mrs Silverton.
‘Can’t wait,’ she says. ‘I had a Fake Bake tan yesterday and my nails done this morning.’ She shows me her fingers so that I can admire them.
‘Let’s get started then.’
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘before we do, I brought that brochure for you.’
‘Brochure?’
‘For the safari we went on. You said you fancied it.’
Did I? Perhaps I was just making chit-chat, although, admittedly, her photographs did look utterly fabulous.
‘Oh, lovely,’ I say politely. ‘I’ll have a look through that.’
‘Take it home with you,’ she tells me, pushing the brochure in my direction. Safari in Style, it says on the front. ‘I don’t want it back.’
‘Thanks.’ I smile to myself. Mrs Silverton is well-intentioned but does she really think I’m likely to be jetting off to Africa?
Chapter Seventeen
Mid-afternoon, and it’s Clinton’s turn to pop his head around the staffroom door. ‘Man for you at reception, lady,’ he says to me brightly.
My heart sinks. ‘Did he say who he was?’
‘No.’ Clinton gives me a wink. ‘Handsome though.’ Then he disappears back to his client.
Surely it can’t be Lewis Moran given that description? Or perhaps Clinton was being factitious.
Tentatively, I open the staffroom door and risk a peep out. How I wish Nina was here to back me up or send out as my envoy, but she’s popped out to the post office to dispatch a friend’s card in time for her birthday. I’m amazed to see that it’s not Lewis standing there and even more amazed to see my ex-boyfriend, Paul, leaning casually against the desk.
This is a man I haven’t clapped eyes on for months. Months and months. In all the time we’ve been apart, I’ve only bumped into him a handful of times and we’re always genial to each other. I took a step away from our usual circle of friends when we split up, and when I moved to Nashley, I had no reason to see him regularly as I didn’t go near our old haunts. Now it seems strange to see him waiting there as he used to do so often when we were together.
