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Megan, who had always enjoyed going out, and had always seen it as a cure-all for depression, wondered what her friend would say if she were to pick the option of staying in, yet again, with only her thoughts for company. She would probably, Megan thought, throw the microwave meal at her unresponsive head.
After a couple of days of sisterly-style sympathy, Charlotte had adopted the sergeant-major approach to the situation, with lots of bracing advice on moving forward and stirring suggestions on how that might be accomplished. To date Megan had steadfastly ignored them all, because she wanted to enjoy her misery, but now, seeing Alessandro in grainy black-and-white print, laughing, with a drink in one hand and the other hand round the waist of a brunette with legs to her armpits, she decided that it was time to dust herself down and at least make an effort to get on with her life.
‘Anywhere,’ she said, ‘where there are no teenagers. The last thing I need is to feel old as well as miserable.’
‘A qualified yes,’ Charlotte said, rubbing her hands together in triumph, ‘is better than no yes at all. We’ll start with your hair….’
It was a form of being managed, and over the next few days, as a particularly hectic week of fractious children eased towards the weekend, Megan was surprisingly relieved to be taken in hand. She spent Saturday morning at the hairdressers, where Charlotte kept a watchful eye on what was being done to her hair like an anxious mother taking her only child for its first haircut. Then they went shopping, where she was made to try on clothes that she would have worn seven years previously but which had gradually morphed into more sensible outfits in keeping with her lifestyle.
‘I’m not saying that you need to look like mutton dressed as lamb,’ Charlotte assured her, ‘but you’re not exactly old, so anything in a dark colour, baggy, high-necked or mid-calf is out.’
‘I can’t afford all of this,’ Megan protested half-heartedly.
‘It’s therapy,’ Charlotte informed her, ‘of the retail kind, and all therapy comes at a price. Believe me, Megan, the cost of a hairdo and an outfit is a whole lot cheaper than a couple of hours with a shrink….’
But not even an evening of clubbing—or three evenings of clubbing, for that matter—could relieve the dull ache inside her that seemed to be never-ending. Not that she confessed any of that to Charlotte, because her friend’s efforts were valiant, and if they weren’t entirely successful then it wasn’t her fault.
When half-term began looming on the horizon, the week without demanding children that she usually anticipated so eagerly took on the aspect of a nightmare. Enforced leisure time which she didn’t want.
Not that there weren’t some avenues for enjoyment which she could usefully explore.
As an exercise for meeting guys—which was the foundation of much of Charlotte’s strenuous efforts in getting her out of the house—the socialising scene hadn’t been a total waste of time. True, the men she had met—friends of friends—hadn’t come close to having the sort of dynamic and immediate effect on her nervous system as Alessandro had. But that, she assured herself, was a good thing. Remember the motto, she told herself, about frying pans, fires and jumping!
Which was why, in the space of a couple of weeks, she had actually gone out twice with her ‘Pick of the Day’, so to speak—a lawyer called Stuart, who was a rising star in his firm. He was a tall, good-looking man, with an easy smile and a quiet, affable manner that didn’t threaten her nervous system. They had been out once for a meal, which had been fun, and once to the cinema, to see one of those chick flicks which she would have had to have dragged Alessandro to see, kicking and screaming. Megan saw that as a very good omen. A man who would voluntarily sit through a weepie must have a core of sensitivity, and a sensitive man wasn’t going to be a heartbreaker.
The Friday before half-term, during which she had decided to get away from London for a few days and clear her head in the Lake District, staying at a B&B she had stayed at years before, on her journey down to London, Stuart phoned to ask her out again. Megan had no hesitation in accepting his invitation. She had already packed her overnight case, which was waiting by the door for her to grab when she left in the morning, and having some fun with a guy who thought she was bright and funny would be just the right start for a relaxing week away from London.
She pulled one of her more glamorous outfits from the batch which she had so optimistically bought when she had been seeing Alessandro, which she had flung into a bin bag and stuffed at the back of her wardrobe the second she’d walked out on him. It was a pale blue dress which was designed to be worn with other soft, falling layers above and underneath, all belted at the waist. At the time it had seemed a good investment, because layers could be added or subtracted according to the weather. Back then, she had been thinking summer. What a joke that now seemed! They hadn’t even managed to leap into spring!
