Chapter 17

Time trundled on. I stopped waiting for the phone to ring – indeed, the few times it did ring, it was usually one of the children making tactful enquiries about my state of mind, Socrates having told anyone who would listen that I was showing alarming signs of going off my head. I also made plans to visit Finn and Marta for Christmas, and I worked away at my book. By the time November came round I had achieved some sort of equilibrium. And that, of course, is when I bumped into Albert again.

I was walking up from the city centre, head down against the sleety wind and muffled to the eyeballs, when I cannoned into someone coming round a corner and found myself looking up into the face that I knew and loved so well.

‘Albert!’

‘Johanna!’

‘Albert!’

This might have gone on for some time if someone else hadn’t shouldered me out of the way. Albert grasped my arm to steady me and the familiar shock ran through me. I would swear it ran through him too because his grip tightened and I thought for one glorious moment that he was going to pull me into his arms. Instead he cleared his throat and said, ‘You’re looking well, Johanna.’

‘No I’m not, and neither are you.’

‘Well, the last few months have been very hard on me.’

‘For me too, Albert – for me too.’ Suddenly I was overcome with fury. ‘Why haven’t you phoned or emailed?’

‘The last time I rang, you put the phone down on me,’ said Albert. ‘And then Sidney said you were in London.’

Sidney? Sidney? I thought wildly, until I realised he was talking about Sticky Wicket.

‘I ran into him in b&q,’ said Albert.

I’d forgotten their mutual interest in diy Really, it was amazing how well the men in my life got on with each other – he’d be going to antiques fairs with Archie next.

‘And then I ran into your ex-husband Socrates,’ Albert continued. ‘He was surprisingly friendly – he told me that you were back together again.’ How like Socrates, I thought, to do his best to ensure that if he didn’t get what he wanted, then neither would anybody else. ‘So there didn’t seem any point in trying to get in touch …’

‘Oh Albert, what a fool you are!’ I said sadly, but I got no further because at that moment there was a call of ‘Daddy! We’re over here.’ And looking across the road, I saw three women. Norah and Rosie I recognised at once; the third, who was swathed in a dark green cloak, could only have been Carmel. Even from a distance I could see her likeness to Norah and – honesty unfortunately impels me to admit – her beauty, but any possible doubt as to her identity was removed by the hunted expression that had instantly appeared on Albert’s face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I’ll have to go. It’s wedding business: we’re meeting Kevin’s parents for lunch …’

‘Don’t worry,’ I replied. ‘I wouldn’t dream of detaining you a moment longer. Goodbye, Albert.’ And blinded by sleet and tears I pushed past him and blundered on up the street.



Archie took one look at me when I came through the door and hurried off to make a mug of coffee, into which he poured a slug of brandy. As I sobbed out the story of my encounter, he murmured sympathetically; then he very sweetly insisted on driving me home.

‘I’m so sorry it’s my bridge club party tonight,’ he said. ‘I’d have taken you out to dinner otherwise. Tomorrow, perhaps?’

I patted his hand. ‘What a kind man you are, Archie. But I’m feeling better already, I promise – it must be the brandy. And I’ve got any number of things planned to do this weekend, so don’t you worry about me.’

In truth, I had nothing planned for the weekend, and very little to look forward to in the run-up to Christmas, apart from the annual Good Intentions party. Dolores had screeched to a halt outside Archibald’s Antiques that very morning, and lowered the window to issue her invitation.

‘Christmas party for all the volunteers: first Sunday in December, my house at seven o’clock. Make sure you come! Yes, I know it’s a bus stop’ – this to a red-coated traffic warden who had suddenly appeared – ‘but this is a vital message I’m passing on, and there isn’t a bus in sight. Anyway, why aren’t you doing something about that van that’s blocking the traffic down the road, instead of picking on pensioners?’

She zoomed off as he turned to look for the offending van, and by the time he had concluded that it was no longer there – or, indeed, had quite possibly never been there in the first place – Dolores had disappeared around the corner.

We looked at each other and shrugged. Then he sighed rather theatrically before continuing on his thankless round, while I let myself into the shop to make a note of the party in my otherwise sadly empty diary.



My diary might have been empty but at least there were several emails waiting for me when I got home, including one from Frederika, and one from Seamus, who apologised for not being in touch but wanted to know if it was okay if he didn’t pay me the last £50 he owed me until after Christmas. Seamus, in true student fashion, was always paying off debts in instalments to those of his relatives foolish enough to lend him any money in the first place. I dealt with his email first.


Then I turned to Freddy, who was in her usual good form.

But I wasn’t fine. I passed a restless night, due possibly to nightmares brought on by Sybilla’s choice of crime fiction, and when I woke, the rain was teeming down and I’d run out of coffee. The day went on from there: I shopped for food and found I’d left my purse at home; I forced myself to go for a walk along the shore and tripped over an uneven patch of pathway, ripping my trousers and cutting my knee. Not one of the friends I would normally have cajoled into accompanying me to the cinema or a pub was free – Rita was away on business and even Sticky Wicket was out – and I simply didn’t have the heart to work on the story of my travels. By the time I had finished my solitary dinner in front of the television, I felt that things could hardly get worse – and so, in desperation, I switched on my computer, and did what I had vowed I would not do …