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CHAPTER ONE
‘FRAN—I’m at my wit’s end! She seems to be having some kind of mid-life crisis!’
‘But she’s only twenty-six,’ said Fran.
‘Exactly!’
The memory of that phone call still burned in Fran’s ears. A dramatic phone call, from a woman not given to dramatization.
‘Just go and see her, would you, Fran?’ Rosie’s mother had pleaded. ‘Something has happened to upset her and I can’t get any sense out of her. But I suppose you girls don’t tell your mothers anything.’
‘So you’ve no idea what’s wrong?’ Fran had probed, thinking that it was rather flattering to be called a girl at the ripe old age of twenty-six!
‘I think it has to do with some man—’
‘Oh,’ said Fran drily. ‘The usual story.’
‘And that life isn’t worth living any more.’
‘She said what?’ That had been the statement which had brought Fran up short and had her booking the next London-bound flight out of Dublin. Not that she believed for a minute that Rosie would do anything stupid—but she was normally such a happy-go-lucky person. For her mother to be this worried, things must be bad.
Now she could see for herself that they were worse than bad.
She had found Rosie curled up like a baby on the sofa of one very cold flat. And the conversation had gone round and round in a loop, consisting of Rosie saying, ‘Oh, Fran. Fran! Fran!’ Followed by a renewed bout of shuddering tears.
‘Ssssh, now. It’s all right.’ Fran squeezed her friend’s shoulder tightly as the tears came thick and fast. ‘Why don’t you take a deep breath, calm down and tell me what’s wrong.’
Rosie made a sound like a cat who was trying to swallow a mouse in one. ‘C-c-can’t!’ she shuddered.
‘Off the top of my head, I’d say it’s a man?’ said Fran, thinking that it might be wise not to mention the worried phone call. Not just yet.
Rosie nodded.
‘So tell me about him.’
‘He’s…. he’s…oh!’
‘He’s what?’ prompted Fran softly.
‘He’s a bastard—and I still love him!’
Fran nodded. So. As she had thought. The usual story. She’d heard women pour the same sorry tale out countless times before and the more cruel the man, the more they seemed to love him. She wondered if some women were so lacking in self-esteem that they chose someone who would walk all over them. But she wouldn’t have put Rosie in that category. ‘Oh, I see.’
‘No, you don’t, Fran!’ Rosie shook her head in frustration. ‘You say you do but you don’t! How could anyone see? You just sit there with that seen-it-all-before look on your face—’
‘I’ve never seen you like this before,’ Fran disagreed immediately. ‘And I’ve known you most of your life! And before you insult me much more, Rosie Nichols— I might just remind you that I’ve flown over at top speed from Dublin, in answer to an urgent request from your mother that I find out exactly what’s wrong with you.’
‘My mother asked you to come?’
‘She wasn’t interfering, if that’s what you’re thinking. She was just worried, and wanted me to see how you were.’
Rosie looked at her defiantly. ‘So now you know.’
Fran shook her head. ‘Oh, no,’ she corrected grimly. ‘I haven’t even started yet! All I know is that I walk into your flat which looks as though a major war has broken out—to find you sitting in a pathetic heap looking gaunt and tear-stained—sobbing bitterly about some mystery man whose name you can’t bring yourself to utter—’
