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‘It’s not the same though, is it?’
‘No. It’s not likely to eat you in a zoo.’
‘It’ll be different.’
‘It’ll be boring. Why don’t you swap it for a beach holiday, then I’d come? We could have some laughs.’
‘I’ve booked it now,’ I remind her. ‘Besides, I don’t want a beach holiday. I did that for years with Paul and never really enjoyed it. You should be pleased for me that I’m trying something different.’
‘This is about getting away from Leery Lewis too, isn’t it?’
I sigh and stir my cappuccino. ‘Partly,’ I admit. ‘He came to my house again last night, Nina, banging the door down, shouting through the letterbox. Then he was ringing and ringing me.’
‘Oh God,’ my friend says. ‘No wonder you turned your phone off. What a prat. Let me send Gerry round to kneecap him. He won’t bother you again then.’
‘I just thought if I went away for a week, by the time I came back he’d have realised I’m not interested and will have moved on.’ And Paul will be married and will have also moved on.
‘So? If I can’t talk you out of it, where exactly are you going on this harebrained jaunt? Tell Auntie Nina all.’
‘I’m going to the Maasai Mara.’
‘My geography isn’t all it might be,’ Nina says. ‘Where the fuck’s that?’
‘Kenya,’ I tell her. ‘‘I’ve booked a Premier Adventure!’
‘That sounds expensive.’
I shrug in agreement. ‘It wasn’t cheap.’
‘And what does a Premier Adventure get you when it’s at home?’
‘I’m booked into a luxury camp.’
‘A tent!?’ Her look of horror returns with a vengeance. ‘With lions running loose?’
Now it’s my turn to look horrified. ‘I don’t think they’re going to be running loose around the camp.’
‘Don’t you?’ she says. ‘I’d have checked the small print.’ Then, ‘Who’s going to look after Archie?’
‘I’m sure Mike will do it. If not, he’ll have to go into a cattery.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Nina says. ‘That cat could chew through iron bars. Either way, he’s not going to be happy.’
She’s right. Archibald the Aggressive will definitely make his displeasure felt but, me, I’m looking forward to it already.
Chapter Twenty
It’s bonfire night and I’ve agreed to go with Mike to a fireworks party at one of the neighbour’s houses just down the lane. A few rockets have ripped across the sky already and Archie, like the majority of cats, is terrified of them. By now he’d normally have flattened himself into impossible proportions and crawled under the sofa in the lounge, which has a gap of about two inches, where he’d stay until the noise had died down. Currently, he’s sufficiently distracted not to have retreated. I’ve baked a tray of chocolate brownies which are cooling on a rack, ready to be popped into my biscuit tin to take with us. Archie is sitting beneath them trying to decide whether cats might like to eat them and how many.
‘Don’t you dare,’ I chide and he gives me a catty mouthful in return.
My trip is fast approaching – just one week to go – and I’ve yet to tell Mike or ask him whether he’ll be available for Archibald-sitting. He’s been working away this week and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him. I’ve started to put a few bits and pieces together, ready to go in my case. I’ve ordered money from the bank and my visa arrived back from the Kenyan embassy just this morning. Excitement and panic are rising steadily in tandem. Mrs Silverton is stoked that I’m following in her footsteps and has been giving me lots of useful tips.
While I’m pulling on my warm furry boots, Mike knocks at the door. Even though I’m sure it’s his ‘special’ knock, I check the spyhole first. Lewis’s pursuit of me hasn’t abated, despite Gerry having had words with him, apparently. Seems as if he can’t control his friend as much as he controls his wife. Nina says that if it carries on after I come back from Kenya then I should think about going to the police. But why would they care? Lewis is an annoyance, but I don’t think he’s harmful. He calls me several times a day, but I never answer the phone to him. Every couple of nights he’ll turn up at my door, sometimes he leaves chocolates, once a pink teddy with an I HEART YOU embroidered on its chest, other times he might leave a note begging for a date. Occasionally, I see him lurking in the courtyard outside the salon, but he never comes in. Does that warrant enough to go to the police? If he starts putting dog poo through my letterbox or sending abusive texts requesting to see me in my underwear or something, then I might reconsider, but I’m still just hoping he will get tired of chasing someone who simply isn’t interested and will find some other unsuspecting and less choosy female to love him.
