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‘Then tonight is your lucky night.’
We go and stand by the blaze so that we can feel the warmth on our faces. The cold is already trying to nip at our fingers and toes. ‘You know, Janie, next time this bloke turns up you should give me a call. I’ll be straight round and have a word.’
‘I don’t want to involve you in my troubles, Mike. You do more than enough for me already. Besides, I did have some holiday to use up too.’ At this point I could tell him about Paul getting married and the baby, but what purpose would that serve other than to make me look like a sad old spinster who no one wants.
‘I would have come with you.’
The thought never crossed my mind to ask Mike to accompany me. If I’m honest, the first thing that occurred to me was, would he look after Archie? Is that bad? I wouldn’t like to think that I was taking Mike for granted. ‘I didn’t even think about it.’
‘Did you book it online? I could try to get on the trip tonight. If you’d like that, of course.’
‘It would be fab,’ I say. Having Mike by my side would be a great comfort and we get along so well. ‘I’m going next week. Why not come too?’
‘Damn,’ he says and he gives a little frown that’s incongruous with his colourful hat. ‘So soon?’
I nod.
‘I’m away at a conference for work during that week. There’s no way that I can miss it, not now I’m going to be the boss. Any other time wouldn’t have been a problem.’
His face looks troubled in the firelight and, strangely, it’s nice to have him concerned about me going off to an unknown country all by myself.
‘Is there any possibility that you could change it? I could go any other time between now and Christmas.’
I shake my head. ‘We’re mad busy over the next few months. My boss has really only let me go because she couldn’t do anything else.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Mike says. ‘A damn shame.’
It is, I think. I would rather have liked him to come along on holiday with me – and not only because his camera skills are a lot better than mine.
Someone starts to light the fireworks and a shower of silver sparks lights up the hydrangea bushes and the maple trees. Mike rubs his hands together. ‘Looks like I’m going to be required to do man things.’
‘You go and do that,’ I say. ‘I’m going to try to make a serious dent in this mulled wine. It’s going down rather well.’
‘Save some for me,’ he instructs and then he’s off, joining the other men in making explosions. Why is it that boys never grow up?
Then I watch the display over the Codling-Bentham’s garden, lighting up the rolling Buckinghamshire countryside, oohing and aahing along with everyone else. And all thoughts of Africa go right out of my mind.
Chapter Twenty-One
Now I’m stressing. I’ve got so much still to do and any minute now, any second now, I’ve got to leave for the airport. Mike is already here and waiting to drive me down there. Currently, he’s throwing anything manky out of the fridge for me. I’ve had to sit on the lid to get my suitcase closed and I have no idea what’s in there.
‘Aren’t you going to need these?’ Nina asks, holding up my GHD hair straighteners.
‘I don’t think there’s any electricity, Nina.’
She looks at me disbelievingly. ‘How are you going to do your hair?’
‘Perhaps the lions won’t mind if I go au naturel for the week, eh?’
‘I still don’t know why you can’t go to Ibiza,’ she mutters under her breath. ‘Well, if you’re not going to need these . . .’ She tosses my straighteners aside. ‘Then you’ll definitely need these.’
Nina throws a couple of packets of condoms down on the bed and shrieks with laughter. Just then Mike walks in and I feel a fire start in my face.
‘She needs to have a brilliant holiday, Mike, doesn’t she?’
I hurriedly pick up the condoms and then don’t know what to do with them.
‘With lots of booze and rampant sex,’ my friend adds.
Mike looks alarmed. ‘Not too much rampant sex.’
His face says that he’d rather I didn’t have any rampant sex at all and, to be honest, I agree with him.
‘There will be no rampant sex, Nina,’ I say sternly as I secrete the condoms in my bedside drawer. ‘It’s not going to be that kind of holiday.’
‘Is there any other kind of holiday?’
‘I’m going to learn about a different culture and look at some lovely wildlife – I hope. That’s all I want.’
