City Girl in Training

by Liz Fielding

  I’d promised myself while I’d been travelling up in the lift that next time I met my new next-door neighbour I’d be dressed tidily, with my hair and my mouth under control. I didn’t expect him to be impressed, but hoped he’d realise I wasn’t the complete idiot he’d—with good reason—thought me.

  Heck, even I thought I was an idiot. And I knew better.

  But if Sophie didn’t hurry up, I’d still be standing in the hall when he reached the top floor.

  It wasn’t an appealing prospect and I hitched up my suitcase and rang the bell again. The door was instantly flung open by a girl in a bathrobe and a bad mood.

  Oh, good start.

  Having gravely offended the next door neighbour, I’d now got my new flatmate out of the shower.

  And if I hadn’t already known just how bad I looked—the lift had mirrored walls—her expression would have left me in no doubt.

  ‘You must be Philly Gresham,’ she said, with a heaven-help-us sigh. ‘I’m Sophie Harrington. You’d better come in.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I stepped into the hall, still clinging to my suitcase and unwilling to put it down. The floor was pale polished hardwood and I didn’t want to make a mess. ‘I’ve had a bit of an accident,’ I said, unnecessarily. But I felt someone had to fill that huge, unwelcoming silence. ‘The zip broke.’

  Sophie’s older sister, Kate, appeared behind her and, taking one look at me, said, ‘Good grief, did you swim here?’ Then, kinder, she said, ‘I’ll show you your room. You can dump that and have a hot shower while Sophie makes a pot of tea. You look as if you could do with a cup.’

  That had to be the understatement of the year.

  Sophie didn’t look as if making a pot of tea had been part of her immediate plans, but after another sigh—just to reinforce the message—she flounced off.

  ‘Take no notice of my little sister,’ Kate said as she led the way. ‘She had other plans for your room. She’ll get over it.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said politely, imagining a study, or a work-room.

  ‘There’s a stunning new man at work. He’s just moved down from Aberdeen and he’s looking for somewhere to live. She’d planned to seduce him with low-rent accommodation.’ She glanced back at me, her expression solemn, but her eyes danced with humour. ‘A mistake, don’t you think? Suppose he moved in and then brought home a succession of equally stunning girls?’

  ‘Nothing but trouble,’ I agreed, with equal solemnity.

  We exchanged a look that suggested that, two years older than Sophie, we were both too old, too wise to ever do anything that stupid and I decided that, while the jury was out on Sophie, I was going to like Kate.

  ‘I was quite relieved when Aunt Cora phoned and asked if we could put you up, to be honest. Sophie threw a tantrum but she knows that when Aunt Cora commands…’ She obviously thought I knew what she was talking about.

  ‘Aunt Cora?’

  ‘My mother’s sister. This is her flat. A small part of the spoils of a very lucrative divorce settlement. Happily she prefers to live in France so we get to house-sit.’

  ‘At a price.’

  ‘We just pay the expenses, which admittedly are not low…’ Then, ‘Oh, you mean you.’ And she laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it. Sophie’ll come round.’ She stopped. ‘This is your room.’

  And she opened a door to the kind of bedroom I’d only ever seen in lifestyle articles in the Sunday supplements. A blond wood floor, taupe walls, a low double bed with real blankets and the bed-linen was just that. Linen. It was spare, stylish and, in comparison with my single-bedded room at home with its floral wallpaper, shelves full of favourite childhood books and menagerie of stuffed animals—very grown up.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I said. Still unwilling to put down my suitcase and spoil the perfection.

  ‘It looks too much like a department store-room setting for my taste. It needs living in.’ She glanced at me, standing practically to attention, afraid to touch anything, and grinned. ‘Relax, Philly. Don’t be afraid to muss it up and make yourself at home.’ She crossed the room and threw open another door. ‘You’ve got an en suite shower. And this,’ she said, ignoring the reality of my ruined suitcase, ‘is a walk-in wardrobe.’

  It didn’t take a theoretical physicist to work out that I didn’t need a walk-in anything. A small cupboard would accommodate my limited wardrobe with space left over. But what with a uniform for work and overalls for the garage—neither of which was needed in London—I was rather short of clothes. My priority had been saving up for a deposit on a home of my own so that when Don eventually realised that there was more to life than old cars there’d be nothing to stop us. I was going to assuage my misery by blowing some of it on some serious working clothes. If I wasn’t going to have a personal life for the next six months, I might as well do my career some good.

  ‘Do you want to give me your jacket? I’ll hang it up to dry.’

  It occurred to me that people who lived in this kind of apartment block couldn’t hang out their washing on a line in the back garden. ‘Is there a launderette nearby? Some of my…um…clothes got a bit muddy.’

  ‘Possibly, but why go out in the rain when we’ve got everything you need right here? Washer, dryer and the finest steam iron a divorce settlement can buy.’

  A dryer? I quashed the thought that my mother wouldn’t approve and grinned. ‘Thanks, Kate.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said. ‘Now I’d better go and make sure that my sulky little sister isn’t lacing your tea with something unpleasant. Don’t stand on ceremony. A bathrobe is as formal as it gets around here at this time on a Friday.’ And she grinned. ‘Just follow the sound of Sophie’s teeth gnashing when you’re ready.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  It’s dark and raining. Your room-mates have gone out and you’re on your own in a strange flat. As you turn on the cooker to prepare some absolutely vital comfort food you blow the fuses. Do you:

  a. remember that there’s a pub on the corner? You can get something to eat there and find a bloke who knows how to fix a fuse. Excellent.

  b. go next door for help? The guy who lives there never leaves the house in daylight, but, hey, it’s dark, so that’s not a problem.

  c. ring the emergency services and cry?

  d. keep a torch and spare fuse wire by the fuse-box? You fix the fuse yourself.

  e. just cry?

  ‘FEELING better?’

  Kate was on her own in the kitchen and waved in the direction of the teapot, indicating that I should help myself.

  ‘Much,’ I said, although I felt a little self-conscious in my aged bathrobe, with my hair wrapped in one of the thick soft towels that had been left for me. I’d never shared a flat with girls my own age before but I had friends who were quick to tell me that it was a minefield.

  Rows over who’d taken the last of the milk, or bread. Rows over telephone bills. And worst of all, rows over men. At least that wouldn’t be a problem. I had enough trouble holding my own man’s attention against the incomparable glamour of a carburettor, let alone attracting any attention from any of theirs.

  Kate seemed friendly enough but I didn’t want her to think I was freeloading. ‘I need to go shopping, stock up on the essentials, if you’ll point me in the direction of the nearest supermarket,’ I said as I filled a cup.

  ‘Don’t worry tonight. So long as you don’t eat Sophie’s cottage cheese you’ll be fine.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said, with feeling, and we both grinned.

  ‘Do you know anyone in London, Philly?’

  I shook my head. Then said, ‘Well…’ Kate waited. ‘I met the man who lives next door. We hailed the same taxi and since we were going in the same direction it seemed logical to share. Not that I knew he lived next door then, of course.’

  Kate looked surprised. Actually it did seem pretty unlikely, but it wasn’t the coincidence that bothered her. ‘You got into a taxi with a man you didn’t know?’

  I was still feeling
a little bit wobbly about that myself.

  ‘It was raining. And he was prepared to let me take it. He was really, very…um…’ On the point of saying kind, I was assailed by a vivid recollection of impatience barely held in check behind fathoms-deep sea-green eyes. Of his heel grinding my attack alarm in the pavement. Of his sharp ‘wait here’. And my mouth dried on ‘kind’.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Actually, I owe him an apology.’ I swallowed. ‘And probably a new umbrella.’ Kate’s brows quirked upwards. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘Then it’s one that’ll have to keep. I’ve got a date with a totally gorgeous barrister. I’d have cancelled when I realised you would be arriving today, but I have long-term plans for this one and I’m not risking him out alone on Friday night.’ And she grinned as she pushed herself off her stool. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not leaving you on your own with Sophie. She’s going to a party. I would have asked her to take you but, in her present mood, I couldn’t positively guarantee you’d have a good time.’

  ‘No,’ I said. Relieved. The thought of going to a party, being forced into the company of a roomful of strangers, with or without Sophie, was not appealing.

  And when, an hour or so later, Sophie drifted into the kitchen on high, high heels, ethereal in silvery chiffon, a fairy dusting of glitter across her shoulders, her white-blonde hair a mass of tiny waves, the relief intensified.

  If I’d walked into a room alongside her fragile beauty, I’d have looked not just like a mouse, but a well-fed country mouse.

  ‘Will you be all right on your own?’ Kate asked, following her, equally stunning in the kind of simple black dress that didn’t come from any store that had a branch in Maybridge High Street. ‘There’s a pile of videos if there’s nothing on television you fancy and a list of fast-food outlets that deliver by the phone.’ And she grinned. ‘We don’t cook if we can help it.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, trying not to dwell on the fact that, for the first time in as long as I could remember on a Friday night, Don would not be bounding up to my front door ready to fall in with whatever I’d planned for the evening. Even if it did involve sitting through a chick-flick. I tried not to picture him down the pub with his car-crazy mates—no doubt encouraged by his miraculously restored mother not to ‘sit at home and brood’. Instead I gestured ironically in the direction of the washing machine where my knickers were going through the rinse cycle. ‘I’ve got plenty to do.’

  Kate laughed. ‘Whatever turns you on,’ she said as the bell rang from the front entrance.

  ‘Come on, Kate, that’ll be the taxi,’ Sophie said, with a pitying glance in my direction before she went to let the driver know they were on their way.

  But Kate hesitated, turned back, the slightest frown creasing her lovely forehead. ‘Was it Gorgeous George or Wee Willy?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Did you share a taxi with George or Willy?’

  On the point of explaining that we hadn’t actually exchanged names, I realised how lame that sounded. On the other hand, while neither name seemed to suit my unfortunate Galahad, no one in their right mind would have referred to him as Wee Willy…

  ‘Gorgeous George?’ I repeated. A question, rather than an answer.

  ‘Tall, dark—’

  ‘That’s the one,’ I said.

  ‘And very, very gay.’

  ‘Gay?’

  She gave me an old-fashioned look that suggested I might be even more of a hick than I looked. ‘You didn’t realise?’

  Gay? He was gay?

  No, I hadn’t realised. I’d been too busy falling into his hypnotic green eyes…

  I pulled myself together, managed a shrug. ‘I wasn’t paying that much attention,’ I said. ‘And he was more interested in chasing his umbrella. In fact I should make sure he found it. Which side does he live on?’

  Not that I intended to do more than put my apology—along with an offer to pay for repairs or a replacement—in writing and slip it beneath his door. He would undoubtedly take the hint and respond in kind. After that, if we ever passed in the hall, neither of us would have to do more than nod, which would be a relief all round, I told myself.

  ‘Out of the door, turn right. End of the hall. Number seventy-two.’ Then she grinned and said, ‘Don’t wait up.’

  ‘Gorgeous George?’ I repeated as the door banged shut behind Kate and Sophie. Trying to get my head round the idea. Trying to work out quite why my heart was sinking like a stone.

  Clearly it had nothing to do with the man who lived next door. It had to be because I was alone on a Friday night in a city where I had no friends. My parents were thirty thousand feet above terra firma in another time zone and the man in my life, if he wasn’t cosied up with his beloved car, was down the pub having a good time without me.

  So I did what I always did when I felt down. I opened the fridge.

  What I needed—and urgently—was food. But Sophie could relax; her cottage cheese was safe from me. I wanted comfort food.

  A bacon and egg sandwich. Or sausages. Something warm, and satisfying and packed with heart-clogging cholesterol. If it was clogged, it wouldn’t feel so empty.

  But no such luck. The fridge was a fat-free zone.

  Then I opened the dairy drawer and hit the jackpot. Either Sophie had a secret vice, or Kate was a girl after my own heart.

  There was a pack of expensive, unsalted butter—the kind that tasted like cream spread on bread—and a great big wedge of farmhouse Cheddar cheese from a shop near Covent Garden that I’d read about in the food section of the Sunday paper. I broke a piece off to taste. And drooled.

  I passed on the butter. I didn’t need butter. Cheese on toast would do very nicely.

  It wouldn’t be a hardship to take a trip to Covent Garden in the morning and replace it. I could buy my own supply at the same time and take a look around. Cheered at the idea, I turned on the grill and put the bread to toast on one side. Then I hunted through the cupboards until I found some chilli powder.

  Excellent.

  It was past its sell-by date—well, Kate had said they didn’t cook. From the state of the cupboards, she did not exaggerate. But I wasn’t going to get food poisoning from geriatric spice. I’d just have to use more.

  I turned back to the stove to check the toast, but the grill hadn’t come on and, realising that the cooker was turned off at the main switch, I reached across the worktop and flipped it down.

  Several things happened at once.

  There was a blue flash, a loud bang and everything went dark. Then I screamed.

  It was nothing really over the top as screams went.

  It was loud, but nowhere near the ear-rending decibels expected of the heroine in a low-budget horror movie. I was startled—knee-tremblingly, heart-poundingly startled. Not scared witless.

  It was also pointless since there was no one around to respond with sympathy for my plight.

  I was on my own. Totally on my own. For the first time in my life, there wasn’t a soul I could call on for help. I stood there in total darkness, gripping the work surface as if my life depended on it, while my heart gradually slowed to its normal pace and I made a very determined effort not to feel sorry for myself.

  I’d blown a fuse. It wasn’t the end of the world.

  It just felt like it.

  Beyond the windows, on the far side of the river, the lights of London twinkled back at me, mockingly. They knew I was out of my depth.

  Back home all I’d have to do was pick up the phone and call Don. Not that I’d need him to mend the fuse, but his presence would have been a comfort. And how often did I have the perfect excuse to have him alone with me in a totally empty house? A dark empty house.

  His mother might suspect me of planning to take unfair advantage of her precious son, but she wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. Not in an emergency. Not without showing her true colours. And she was too clever for that.

  But I wasn’t in Maybridge an
d Don didn’t live next door.

  Next door lived a man who’d seen my underwear. Which was more than Don had managed in the best part of thirteen years.

  That it was plain, serviceable, ordinary underwear should have made it marginally less embarrassing, but somehow the fact that he knew I wore boring knickers only made things worse.

  Why, I had no idea. He was gay. He wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in my underwear, except perhaps aesthetically.

  Why was I even thinking about him?

  I didn’t need anybody. I could mend a fuse. All I had to do was find the fuse box.

  The cloak cupboard by the door was the most likely place and, keeping hold of the work surfaces, I edged around the kitchen until I found the door. Then, feeling my way along the wall, I set off in what I hoped was the direction of the front door.

  It would have been easier if there had been some light. At home we kept candles and matches under the kitchen sink for ‘emergencies’. I might have teased my mother about her obsession with ‘emergencies’, but, while I wasn’t about to admit that I really, really wanted her right now, in the thick blackness of the windowless hall I’d have warmly welcomed a little of her forward planning.

  What I got was a shin-height table and the expensive sound of breaking porcelain as I flailed wildly to save myself from falling.

  It had to be expensive. Everything about this flat was expensive, from its location to its smallest fitting. I was lucky to be living here, even temporarily, I knew—my mother had told me so. At that precise moment I didn’t feel lucky. I felt like screaming again.

  I didn’t. Instead I rubbed my painful shins and considered my options.

  I could pack and leave before Sophie and Kate got home.

  I could hide the broken crocks—along with the evidence of my attempts at cooking—in my suitcase, go to bed and act surprised in the morning when nothing worked.

  I could cry.