‘But you’re my friend.’ Sophie coughed to disguise the choke of emotion.
Anna gave her arm an affectionate pat. ‘Yes, and you are mine. Though Dave’s my friend too. How would he feel if he knew about this?’
‘I can’t help my dreams. And even if I told Dave that I fancy Hudson, he wouldn’t be bothered because who’s going to fancy me.’
‘You’re gorgeous.’
‘So’s Hudson. He’s perfect, isn’t he?’
‘I’m not keen and he definitely doesn’t like me. Yesterday he did a coffee run and I swear he missed me out on purpose. And then he didn’t tell me the risk review meeting was cancelled …’
‘It’s just you. Even the witches like him,’ said Sophie. Silvie and Janey were renowned for their bitchy comments and therefore known as the Witches of East Wing.
‘I heard he brought in Marks and Spencer’s biscuits. They’re easily bought that pair.’
They walked up the path to the main park gates and the bus stop and Anna noted the multitude of dog roses in bloom, as they passed. She let out a giant yawn.
‘Don’t,’ said Sophie following suit.
‘Sorry, someone kept me awake playing with his balls half the night.’
‘Tell me about it. Dave’s the same,’ said Sophie and they both burst out laughing.
After a good natter to Sophie on the bus Anna was feeling optimistic, but the sight of Roberta at her desk diluted her cheerfulness somewhat.
‘Morning, Roberta,’ she said as she approached.
‘Are you a feminist, Anna?’
Anna sensed a trick question but could only answer honestly. ‘Ye-es,’ she said cautiously.
‘You don’t sound very sure?’
‘I believe in people being treated as individuals regardless of gender.’
Roberta’s nodding indicated she approved of this response. ‘Apparently someone has complained that the central heating is set at a sexist temperature.’
Anna blinked slowly. ‘And what temperature would that be exactly?’
‘Cold enough for things to be noticed through material,’ said Roberta, her demeanour and voice mimicking a schoolteacher.
‘Nipples,’ mouthed Karl behind her back and Anna had to concentrate hard not to smirk.
‘I see. I guess it can be a bit chilly but I wouldn’t have called it sexist,’ said Anna, hoping that would suffice.
‘Okay. If you’re sure it’s not an issue,’ said Roberta. ‘Ladies don’t start fights, but they can finish them,’ she added, with a tip of her head. Anna was squinting with the pressure of trying to work out what the hell she meant. ‘It’s a quote,’ explained Roberta.
‘Right.’ Anna had no idea which feminist icon would have said that but thankfully Roberta was about to enlighten her.
Roberta leaned in close. ‘Marie.’ Anna was still looking blank. ‘From The Aristocats.’
‘Of course,’ said Anna, trying hard to ignore Karl’s huge grin.
It was another quiet night in for Anna as, now Maurice’s period of confinement had ended, she found she was often on her own once it got dark. He was a proper night owl and the living room window was working well as his exit route. It was too small for a human to fit through, and meant she didn’t need to get a cat flap fitted until it started to get colder. She flicked through the telly channels again but decided there was still nothing worth watching so she switched it off. She may as well go to bed and read. She had settled into life without Liam but it didn’t mean she had got used to being on her own.
Anna picked up her mobile phone and jumped slightly as it sprang into life. She was a little embarrassed about how pleased she was to get a message, whoever it was from. She looked at the screen in anticipation. It was a number she didn’t recognise, so she flicked to the text expecting to see some random marketing message but she was wrong.
It read: Can’t wait to get down and dirty with you tomorrow. Looking forward to catching up over lunch too. C.
Anna stared at the message; clearly it was a wrong number. She crafted what she hoped was a suitable reply: Hi, C. Thanks for the offer but I think you’ve got the wrong number.
Anna was sitting huddled over the phone waiting for a reply. She’d had wrong phone calls before but never a text. It was quite funny really – she wondered how much the other person would cringe when they realised their mistake. After five minutes she felt ridiculous for sitting with her phone in her hand, waiting for a reply from a wrong number. Why would they respond? They’d resend the message to the right person and be a little more careful when texting next time. Then the familiar little beeps came and she hurriedly opened the message: How embarrassing. I’m so sorry, please forgive me. I hope I’ve not offended you. C.
Anna wondered if C might actually be a girl, because how many men would bother to respond? She suspected not very many. But seeing as they’d been nice enough to reply, she sent them another text: Not a problem, I’m pretty resilient. Enjoy your date tomorrow.
A response came straight back this time: Pretty and resilient is an interesting combination. Tomorrow not as exciting as it sounds. Helping a friend clean their patio. C.
It was a comedy text to a friend, a clever play on words, not a sexy text to a lover as she’d first thought. She was intrigued as to who this mystery texter was. Though she was keen to text straight back, she calmed herself down and went and put the kettle on and did a little bit of analysis. She really did need to get out more if this was the most excitement she’d had in her life since they’d added Peanut KitKats to the vending machine at work. Anna still didn’t know if the mystery texter was a man or a woman – or worse still, a teenager. Loads of kids had mobiles these days. She gave a little shiver; that was a creepy thought.
Part of her mind had already wandered off in the opposite direction and conjured up a tall handsome stranger, sitting in a large glass-fronted office laughing at the text exchange. He had no wedding ring and bore a striking resemblance to Ryan Gosling – well, it was her fantasy after all.
Anna was cupping her tea and thinking about whether she should reply when another much longer text appeared: Hi Tim, just did something funny – texted wrong number and got cute messages back. Worried it’s a big hairy bloke! See you at 10 tomorrow, mate. Text me postcode for your new place. I don’t know my way around Selly Oak. Did you get the festival tickets? C.
It was as if he’d read her mind, as she could now safely assume he was male and clearly not ancient if he was going to a festival. And he’d called her cute – well, he’d called her texts cute. And he was most likely local if he was going to Selly Oak tomorrow. This was getting interesting. She had to reply to this message, because surely it would be rude not to. After all, she had to inform ‘C’ that Tim wouldn’t have received his text …
Hi, C. Sorry, you got the wrong number again. Nice to text with you though, and enjoy the patio cleaning. A. There. That was okay – informative, and not too forward.
By the time she’d brushed her teeth there was another message: Dear A. Once again, soooo sorry. I am clearly a sausage-fingered idiot. Apologies! I’ll let you know how the patio cleaning goes. C :-)
Anna placed her phone on the bedside table and turned off the light. She quickly drifted off to sleep with the tiniest of smiles on her lips, a large cat on her feet, and just the faintest glimmer of something in her heart.
Chapter Seven
Anna had a spring in her step the following morning as she picked up her things and went in search of the room for her first meeting of the day. At least she wouldn’t be alone with Hudson; she was able to handle him better if other people were involved. Maybe she needed them there to help her keep her annoyance levels in check. She knew she sometimes overreacted but it was only because she was passionate about getting it right. She found the room and checked it was the right one because it was really small. She knew there were loads of people on the invite list. Her smugness blossomed at the thought of Hudson having to apologise to ever
yone for the tiny room as they all tried to cram inside. She was going to enjoy this meeting. She picked her spot on the far side of the table so she could see his reaction when he came in, and settled herself down.
She was making some notes when Hudson arrived. ‘Hey, Anna. How’s your day going?’
Why did Americans ask that? Nobody did in this country. At best you’d ask someone at the end of the day, but never earlier – and who was interested anyway?
‘Great thanks.’ About to get a whole lot better when everyone sees your room cock-up, she thought. ‘How about yours?’
‘Swell, thanks. Right, let’s get started.’
Anna did a double take as Hudson started tapping on the large telephone in the middle of the table. Anna scrabbled through the meeting notes. It was a bloody conference call; she hadn’t spotted that. If she’d realised, she could have dialled in from her desk. Now she was stuck in a broom cupboard with Hudson for the next hour, but her resolute Britishness meant that she wasn’t going to leave. She’d have to stick it out. ‘Hudson and Anna,’ said Hudson, when the system prompted him for his name. As he was opening the call there was a rush of everyone’s name and Anna didn’t have time to tick everyone off the invite list.
‘Hey, everyone, thanks for joining us this morning. Is Todd on the call?’
There was a very long pause where they could hear breathing, general office background noise and the odd cough. ‘Okay, no Todd, let’s—’
‘Yes. Hi, Hudson. I’m here,’ said Todd, rather belatedly. Hudson and Anna both looked skywards.
‘Great. Thanks, Todd. Can I ask everyone to go on mute to cut out the background noise?’ There was a series of clicks and the phone went eerily quiet.
‘Raj, please can you give us an update on the finance meeting you attended?’ asked Hudson. He looked over at Anna who was jotting notes. She paused and they waited for Raj to speak. Nothing. Total silence. Anna checked the names she had managed to tick off: Raj was ticked off. He was definitely on the call. She shrugged at Hudson. He unmuted their end and started to speak. ‘Raj, are you okay to give us an—’
‘Sorry, I must have been on mute,’ said Raj, followed by an embarrassed chortle. Raj proceeded to run through far too much detail about the very dull finance meeting he’d attended, which had no consequences for their project at all. When Raj finally stopped talking Hudson thanked him and moved on. ‘Carol, Programme Office update please.’ Hudson muted their phone and leaned back.
A loud bark came from the phone making them both laugh nervously. ‘Buster! Quiet. Mummy’s on a conference call,’ said Carol, who was working from home. ‘Hi, everyone, yes. We’ve set up the filing system on the shared drive …’ But Buster was determined to be heard and continued to bark all the way through her update. The only pause was when ‘Todd has left the meeting’ was announced by the automated call system and closely followed by ‘Todd has joined the meeting.’
‘You okay, Todd?’ asked Hudson.
‘My phone keeps cutting out. I don’t know what …’
‘Todd has left the meeting.’
‘Does anyone have any questions or anything they’d like to add?’ asked Hudson.
A jumble of voices all spoke at once, followed by a round of apologies and lots of people politely repeating, ‘No, after you.’ When everyone did exactly the same again Hudson stepped in. ‘Okay. Steve, you had a question?’
‘Yeah, hi, Hudson. The workshop next week, is lunch provided?’
Anna slapped her forehead with her palm and Hudson spontaneously laughed at her. ‘I’m not sure Steve, but I’ll check and get back to you.’
‘Who else had a question?’
There was a long pause. ‘Hi, Hudson, it’s Paul. It’s okay, I was going to ask about lunch too.’
‘Okay, any questions that weren’t about lunch?’ asked Hudson and was met with a bark from Buster. ‘Okay, if there’s nothing else. We’ll catch up again on Wednesday. Thanks, everyone. Bye.’
A series of disembodied voices said bye in quick succession.
‘Todd has joined the meeting.’
Hudson hit the end-call button and let out a sigh as he slumped back in his seat. ‘Sometimes, things are a lot harder than they need to be,’ he said and Anna had to agree.
‘Night night, Mummy,’ said Arlo, looking perfectly angelic. Sophie’s heart melted with love for her first born. He was a monster sometimes but she loved every inch of him more than she could ever explain.
‘Night night, darling.’ She kissed the top of his head and reversed from the room. She’d almost made it to the door when he spoke and her heart sank. All she wanted was to sit down and put her feet up. She’d had a crappy day at work as she’d managed to forget to go to a meeting and send out the wrong documents twice.
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes,’ she said, being as patient as she could be when she’d been on the go for fifteen hours, her back ached like she’d been carrying cement around all day and her feet were feeling puffy.
‘I’m looking forward to animal day tomorrow. Night night.’
Sophie froze. ‘Animal day? What’s that?’ It couldn’t be World Book Day – they’d done that a few weeks ago.
‘I need a costume of my favourite endangered animal. Can I be a dinosaur? They’re endangered aren’t they?’
‘Costume? Animal?’ said Sophie, struggling to form a sentence.
Arlo giggled. ‘Mummy, you’re funny. Costume. Animal,’ he mimicked. His expression changed to deadly serious. ‘It has to be better than Willoughby Newell’s. He’s coming as a turtle.’
‘You get some sleep. Mummy will sort it out.’
Within minutes Sophie was rifling through Arlo’s school bag. At the bottom was a screwed-up piece of paper smeared in mud and some unidentifiable sticky substance. She unfolded it and speed-read the letter. ‘Argh!’ Arlo was right. He needed to wear a costume to school, a costume that represented one of the many endangered animals on the planet as part of Climate Change and World Awareness Week. How could schools do this to parents? Where was she meant to get an endangered animal costume that was better than Willoughby sodding Newell’s turtle at this short notice?
Dave’s face peered around the living room door. ‘You all right?’
‘Arlo needs to go to school as an animal tomorrow.’ The fight was fast ebbing from Sophie as her body gave way to exhaustion and fatigue.
‘How about a monkey? He goes as that every day,’ said Dave, with a big grin. Sophie wanted to slap him.
‘It’s serious, Dave. He needs an outfit and it’s …’ she checked her watch ‘… a quarter to nine at night.’
‘Ah, don’t worry about it. I bet most of them won’t have a costume. He’ll be fine without one.’
‘He can’t be the odd one out!’ Sophie was outraged. Pictures of poor Arlo dressed in his school uniform danced through her mind, alongside ones of all his friends and Willoughby Newell sporting the best endangered species outfits money could buy. ‘You could help more, Dave.’
‘Okay. What did he wear for Halloween? Could he wear it again?’
‘He was a zombie pirate.’
Dave pulled a face. ‘Sorry. Dunno then.’ And he disappeared back to watch the television. Sophie sat on the stairs, clutching the school note, and felt like crying.
The next morning Sophie came flying into the office; her wild hair matched her eyes and the buttons on her cardigan were done up out of sync. ‘You okay?’ asked Anna, already knowing the answer.
‘No. I have been up half the night sewing.’
Anna did the thing where you open your mouth to speak but your brain is going ‘Nope, I’ve got nothing of any use in this situation.’ ‘Sewing?’ said Anna.
‘Yes, sewing. I made a polar bear costume out of an old sheet, a cardboard box and a weird furry scarf thing Kraken gave me for Christmas, which I’m sure was something she was regifting.’
‘You are such a good mum. Any photos?’ asked Anna.
Sophie fumbled with her phone and passed it to Anna. Anna studied the picture of a white mass with drawn-on claws in black Sharpie and a conical-shaped head with yogurt pots for ears. It did resemble an animal of some kind but she would have struggled to identify it as a polar bear. More like a ghostly aardvark. ‘It’s amazing,’ she said, in what she hoped was an encouraging voice.
‘I thought so,’ said Sophie, her voice changing into something akin to Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist. ‘It’s not rubbish, is it?’
‘Nooooo,’ said Anna, shaking her head firmly.
‘What’s this?’ asked Hudson, popping up at Anna’s shoulder. He started to laugh and Anna gave him a Paddington Bear stare. He turned his laugh into a cough. ‘Wow, that is the scariest Ku Klux Klan member I’ve ever seen. His hat’s slipped a bit.’
Anna failed to stifle a splutter of a laugh. ‘It’s a polar bear.’ Hudson almost pushed his face into Sophie’s phone for a second look.
‘Arlo refused to wear it. He said it was the worst polar bear in the world and it deserved to be endangered.’ Sophie looked glum.
‘Kids can be harsh critics,’ said Hudson.
‘Dave agreed with him.’
Anna feared for Dave’s safety. ‘And where is Dave now?’
‘He merrily trotted off to work leaving me with a completely naked Arlo who refused to wear anything unless it was an endangered species. I was tempted to tell him to go as he was because his life expectancy was diminishing with every second.’
‘Here, have my coffee. It’s decaf,’ said Anna, passing it to Sophie.
‘Thanks.’ She didn’t look like she meant it.
Anna hardly dared to ask how it all ended but she had to know. ‘So, what happened?’
‘He’s gone to school dressed as the Pink Panther. It’s the costume he wore for World Book Day last year. It’s too small. I had to slit the legs and arms so he looks like he’s had an Incredible Hulk moment.’
‘As long as he’s happy,’ said Anna, trying to ignore Hudson who was still chuckling behind her.
A Walk in Wildflower Park Page 6