by Jill Mansell
‘All my friends tell me how sympathetic I am— Hang on, don’t I recognise you? Aren’t you that girl who writes about food?’
The train was crowded. Liza ended up three carriages along, squashed against a huge man in an anorak reeking of wet labrador. The smell was awful but at least he didn’t interrogate her.
She couldn’t cry properly until she reached home. It was over, it was all over.
There were half a dozen messages on her answering machine.
None of them was from Kit.
‘Dulcie, where on earth have you been? It’s eight o’clock!’ wailed Pru, standing in the front doorway like an indignant wife. ‘I thought you were only popping out for a pair of tights.’
Dulcie, struggling to keep a straight face, collapsed on to one of the kitchen chairs.
‘I went to see Rufus, to thank him for yesterday.’
Pru recognised that smirk. Dulcie was looking ridiculously pleased with herself.
‘Don’t tell me, you seduced him. You’ve spent the entire day in bed with Mr Nice-Guy-with-a-beard.’
‘Actually,’ Dulcie adopted a not very convincing casual air, ‘I’ve been working.’
‘At getting the poor chap into bed, you mean.’
‘I mean working in the café. Running it singlehanded, in fact.’
‘Are you hallucinating,’ said Pru, ‘or am I?’
Dulcie could no longer contain herself. She jumped up and grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge.
‘I did, I really did,’ she cried ecstatically. ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me – I can hardly believe it myself – but I was brilliant! I didn’t make any mistakes. Oh, Pru, you should have seen me, I did everything. What’s more,’ Dulcie’s green eyes glittered as she sloshed wine into the glasses,
‘I loved every minute!’
This was hard to believe, but as Dulcie continued to sing her own praises, it became apparent that she meant every word. It wasn’t an elaborate set-up, or an April Fool. Quite by chance, Pru realised, and rather later in life than most people, Dulcie had discovered that work needn’t be awful after all.
‘I don’t know where the day went,’ she gabbled on, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Seriously, the hours just galloped by. One minute Rufus was helping Maris into his car, and the next thing I knew, it was seven o’clock, time to close up! No thanks, better not.’
Here was another first: Dulcie holding her hand over her glass. Startled, Pru said, ‘Sure?’
‘The café opens at seven, for breakfast. I promised Rufus I’d be there by six.’
‘Six?’ squeaked Pru.
‘Mans has broken her arm. She’s going to be out of action for weeks,’ Dulcie explained serenely.
‘I offered to help out.’
‘You mean ... every day?’
‘Only six days a week. They’re shut on Sundays.’
It was a struggle taking it in. Pru couldn’t help wondering if she’d somehow got hold of the wrong end of the stick. ‘Dulcie, are you sure about this?’
Dulcie didn’t reply. Instead, she studied the rim of her almost empty glass for several seconds.
When she finally spoke, the jokiness, the glittering façade, was gone.
‘It’s what I want right now. It’s what I need. Something to stop me thinking about the godawful mess I’ve made of my life.’
Pru experienced a twinge of alarm. This wasn’t like Dulcie at all.
‘Oh no, you haven’t—’
‘Come on, Pru. What else am I going to do with myself? If I go to Brunton I’ll see Liam. If I stay here I’ll only think about him.’ Dulcie’s eyes were sad. This wasn’t the whole truth; she would mainly be thinking about Patrick. Oh, she’d been such an idiot...
‘You know what you need,’ said Pru.
Me too, thought Dulcie. A kick up the bum for being a prize wally.
Aloud, she said, ‘What?’
Pru grinned.
‘An alarm clock.’
Chapter 40
Having the stitches out didn’t hurt a bit.
‘There,’ said the doctor soothingly. Finished at last, he dropped the scissors into a stainless-steel kidney bowl and reached for a mirror. ‘Have a look. Tell me what you think.’
Pru looked at her wild-haired, bandageless reflection in the mirror and promptly burst into tears.
‘I know, I know.’ The doctor patted her on the shoulder. ‘I’ve done a good job, if I say so myself.’
‘Can I go home and wash my hair no*?’ sniffed Pru. It had been the longest two weeks of her life.
He smiled.
‘Only if you really want to.’
Terry Lambert was in his office working his way through a pile of letters that needed signing when his secretary popped her head around the door.
‘Someone to see you, Mr Lambert. A Mrs Kasteliz. She doesn’t have an appointment but she wondered if you might have a few minutes to spare.’
‘That’s fine, Dora.’ Terry Lambert carefully recapped his fountain pen. ‘Please send her in.’
‘Hi,’ said Pru, looking smart in a white cotton shirt tucked into dark-green jeans, and with a red silk scarf around her neck. ‘Thanks for seeing me.’
‘My pleasure. Sit down, Pru.’ Terry held the chair for her. Glancing up, he caught his secretary’s eye. ‘No need to wave your eyebrows at me like that, Dora,’ he remarked easily. ‘Mrs Kasteliz is my cleaning lady.’
Tight-lipped, Dora closed the door behind her.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Terry. ‘They know I’m involved with someone, they just don’t know who. It kills the secretaries to be left in the dark. Now then, you’re looking well. Good holiday?’
‘Actually, that was a fib,’ Pru admitted. ‘I didn’t really go on holiday.’
As a solicitor, Terry Lambert was nothing if not diplomatic. He leaned back in his leather chair and said, ‘I see.’ Pru smiled.
‘Apart from my doctor, you’re the first person to see these.’ He looked faintly alarmed.
‘See what?’
But Pru was scooping her hair up and away from her face. Her grey eyes shone.
‘The stitches came out this morning.’
Terry broke into an enormous grin.
‘They’re great. You look great. Well done.’
‘It’s all thanks to you,’ Pru said happily.
‘Is that why you came here? To show me your ears?’
‘Well, that too.’ Pru let her hair fall back down over her shoulders. Then she took a deep breath.
‘But the other reason is I want a divorce.’
Having been reduced to crossing the days off on his calendar, Eddie had come to the conclusion that this was as bad as being back at boarding school yearning for half-term. Worse, in fact, he thought now as he stood gazing out of his office window. This was like yearning for half-term and, praying that during the course of the holiday you were going to be deftly relieved of your virginity.
It was Saturday. It was — he glanced at his watch — three minutes to ten. Any minute now, if all went according to plan, Pru would rattle up the drive in her ancient Mini. She wouldbe bronzed and relaxed from her holiday. He would tease her about the non-arrival of her postcard. She would make a fuss of Arthur and he, Eddie, would try hard not to wish it was his ears she was fondling.
And at some stage, somehow, he would pluck up enough courage to tell Pru Kasteliz how he felt about her.
Because he had put it off and off and there came a time when you had to brace yourself and force yourself to make some kind of move.
Because if I don’t, thought Eddie, nervously thrusting his hands into the pockets of his brand-new trousers, nobody else is going to do it for me.
As she swung into the cobbled courtyard, Pru had to brake hard to avoid Liam. Dulcie, she thought briefly, would be disappointed with her.
Liam wasn’t. His eyes lit up when he saw Pru.
‘Terrific timing, darling! I have to get my car to the garage, some problem wit
h the gearbox. Be an angel and follow me down, would you? Then you can give me a lift back.’
Pru glanced up automatically at the office window. There was Eddie, with his hands in his pockets, standing there watching them. At the sight of him, in his crumpled blue shirt and habitually loosened tie, something in Pru’s stomach went ping.
‘I can’t. Eddie’s expecting me.’
‘Ah, never mind Eddie. He won’t sack you.’ Grinning, Liam followed the direction of Pru’s gaze. Catching Eddie’s eye he mimed opening the window then yelled up, ‘Okay if I borrow her for a bit?’
Eddie didn’t say it but the schoolboy riposte ran through his mind: ‘A bit of what?’
He watched Pru giving the Mini’s dashboard a vigorous polish with a tissue. She looked beautiful and totally absorbed in her task, as if buffing up the dashboard was more important than anything else in the world.
‘All right,’ Eddie said finally, and with extreme reluctance.
He felt like a prisoner whose parole has been revoked at the last minute. Or maybe a schoolboy who has just been told that half-term’s been postponed.
Dammit, he was ready to tell Pru how he felt about her now...
‘Great. Just dropping the car off at Pargeter’s. Won’t be two ticks.’ Liam gave him a cheerful thumbs-up before turning back to Pru. ‘Meet me down there, okay?’
‘Okay.’
Standing at his window, Eddie wondered what he was saying to her. Now that Liam was no longer shouting, he couldn’t hear a thing.
He watched Liam pause, studying Pru in silence for a second.
‘There’s something different about you,’ Liam told Pru. He frowned. ‘Can’t think what it is.’
That was the thing about Liam, she thought, he was never going to win Mastermind.
‘New lipstick, probably,’ said Pru.
Eddie, up in his office, thought agitatedly, Just stop yakking and get on with it. The sooner you’re out of here, the sooner you’ll be back.
Pargeter’s, the ultra-smart garage catering for cars like Liam’s, was on the other side of Bath.
Predictably, by the time Pru pulled up on the forecourt, Liam was already leaning against the front desk, heavily engaged in chatting up the glossy blonde receptionist.
‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ Pru observed drily when he leapt – several minutes later – into the Mini’s passenger seat.
‘You didn’t see what she was hiding under that desk.’ Liam mimed a hugely bulging stomach.
‘Seven months gone, no less.’ He pulled a face. ‘One way and another, I’ve suffered enough baby talk to last a lifetime.’
Pru concentrated on doing a U-turn against the prevailing flow of traffic. She wondered if he’d ask her how Dulcie was.
It seemed not.
‘Damn,’ said Liam. ‘Take the next right.’
When Pru glanced across, she saw him examining the front of his white Nike sweatshirt.
‘Oil,’ he sighed. ‘Bloody garage, filthy place. You don’t mind, do you, darling?’ he added with a beguiling smile. ‘My flat’s only half a mile from here. Won’t take me two minutes to change.’
Pru shrugged, indicated right and changed down into second gear. But Liam was still looking at her.
‘Of course!’ he exclaimed, so suddenly that Pru almost did an emergency stop.
‘Of course what?’
‘You. Your ears! The last time I saw you, they were wrapped in five miles of bandage ...’
‘Left or right here?’
‘Left.’ He grinned at her, shaking his head in mock disbelief. ‘And you weren’t even going to tell me. Are you happy with them?’
‘Very happy,’ said Pru.
‘I knew you looked different.’ Liam sounded pleased with himself, but puzzled. ‘So why aren’t you showing them off?’
‘I don’t need to.’ Pru was wearing her hair in its customary heavy bob. She knew she looked different. She also knew the only reason she looked different was because she felt different.
‘You look great, really great.’ Liam was still grinning broadly. ‘Okay, we’re here, pull in behind the Scimitar.’
‘Don’t be ages,’ Pru warned him, but before she could flip open the glove compartment and get out her latest paperback, Liam’s warm fingers had closed around her wrist.
‘Come up with me. I’ll show you my flat.’
What was wrong with etchings? wondered Pru. ‘It’s okay, I’m fine here.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Masterfully, he took the keys from the ignition. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a present for you.’
A present? Was this a joke?
‘What kind of a present?’ Pru looked suspicious. Liam winked.
‘Just a little something to celebrate you getting your new ears.’
‘I was invited out to Kuwait last year, to play in a pro-am tournament,’ Liam explained over his shoulder as he rummaged through the chest of drawers in his bedroom. ‘Everyone taking part was given a memento by the sheikh. Solid-gold razors for the blokes, earrings for the girls. Ah
— here they are.’
Pru, leaning against the door frame, said, ‘So what was there, some kind of misunderstanding? I mean, you don’t look like a girl.’
‘My mixed doubles partner,’ Liam explained, ‘was a very hairy lesbian. She had her heart set on a razor. On the last night she got me drunk, challenged me to a camel race and won.’ He shrugged and held the leather box out to Pru. ‘That was it. I was left with the earrings.’
Pru laughed.
‘I can’t imagine why you haven’t given them to someone else.’
Liam opened the box. The earrings, pink-gold studded with diamonds, were each the shape of a stylised letter P.
‘My tennis partner’s name,’ he said simply, ‘was Paula.’
Pru stood in front of the bathroom mirror admiring her reflection. She had tucked her hair behind her ears. When she turned her head from side to side the earrings caught the light, glittering like ... well, like diamonds.
‘This is really kind of you.’
‘My pleasure.’ Liam moved up behind her, his breath warm on the back of her neck. Gently, he lifted Pru’s dark glossy hair further away from her ears and examined the still-reddened but scalpel-fine scars.
‘Your surgeon did a good job,’ he told her. ‘If you didn’t know, you’d never know.’
His mouth was inches from her neck. Now it was moving closer. Pru, watching in the mirror, held her breath and told herself she was imagining things. Liam couldn’t possibly be about to do what it looked as if he was about to do.
She let out a squeak as his warm tongue flickered against her neck.
Chapter 41
‘Liam—!’
‘You know, you really are an incredibly attractive woman.’ He murmured the words as if confiding a tremendous secret, then dropped a kiss on to her shoulder. ‘Dulcie’s told me all about you and that miserable husband of yours. You know, all you need is someone to give you a confidence boost.’
Pru smothered a giggle.
‘You mean—?’
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Liam hastily, ‘nothing serious, nothing long-term. Just, you know, a bit of fun.’
‘You mean you?’
His dark-blue eyes met Pru’s astonished grey ones in the mirror. He gave her his most irresistible smile.
‘I mean exactly that. Aren’t I the perfect man for the job? Come on, sweetheart, how about it? To celebrate the new you?’
Pru tried hard to imagine doing it with Liam. He was blond and blue-eyed, deeply tanned and quite extraordinarily handsome. He had wall-to-wall muscles. He was superfit. And she had heard a thousand times from Dulcie how fabulous he was in bed.
Physically, he was indeed the perfect man for the job.
Pru sighed. What a shame he had to be Liam. Anyone else with those attributes wouldn’t have stood a chance of escape.
‘Oh dear,’ Liam murmured, teasing her. ‘Big sigh. Decisions, decisio
ns.’
His arms were sliding around her waist. Carefully, Pru extricated herself.’No thanks, Liam.’
He looked perplexed.
‘Are you sure?’
She unclipped the earrings and held them out to him. ‘I’m sure.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘You’d better have these back,’ said Pru.
Liam started to laugh.
‘Keep them! I don’t bribe women to sleep with me. I was only trying to do you a favour.’ Still smiling, he clipped the earrings back on to Pru’s ear lobes.
‘Ouch.’ She winced as his fingers slipped. The left one pinched like a crab claw.
‘Sorry. There, that’s better. Like I said, you’re an attractive girl. All you need is that extra boost of confidence.’
I think you just gave me that when I turned you down, thought Pru, returning his smile. Good old Liam, you couldn’t hate him. What you saw was what you got. He’d certainly never pretended to be anything other than what he was – the ultimate good-time boy.
Aloud she said, ‘Thanks.’
They had been gone for almost an hour. Quite unable to concentrate on work, Eddie was pacing his office like a caged leopard when he heard the familiar sound of Pru’s decrepit Mini rattling into the courtyard. In less than a second he was at the window, his hands pressed against the cold glass.
Liam was wearing a different sweatshirt, a yellow one.
He and Pru were laughing together about something.
Now Liam was leaning across, pushing his fingers through Pru’s dark hair.
Eddie’s stomach executed a violent double somersault. What was going on? Why was Liam stroking Pru’s left ear in that uncharacteristically tender fashion?
More to the point, thought Eddie frantically, why the bloody hell is she letting him?
* * *
‘Do you know,’ said Liam, ‘I’ve never been turned down before.’
‘Oh dear.’ Pru looked sorrowful. ‘Have I blotted your copybook?’
He grinned. ‘Bloody right. Do me a favour, will you? Keep it to yourself.’