‘But you will be soon?’ said Caroline.
She was perched on a stool at the champagne bar in St Pancras, looking impossibly stylish in a cream linen dress with ruby-red bag and heels that perfectly matched her lipstick.
I felt sallow and crumpled. The make-up I’d blearily applied on the early train this morning had long gone and my own linen – in the form of a pair of wide-legged blue trousers – looked as if someone had been chewing it.
As Caroline crossed one smooth golden leg over another and grasped the ice-filled bucket, I was glad that at least I was afforded limb cover. Epilation was high on my to-do list.
I’d tried to protest that I was feeling too tired, looking too tatty and rendered incapable of intelligent speech after a sixteen-hour stint getting the plans ready and a morning team meeting that had lasted all day, but Caroline had still ordered a full bottle.
‘It will perk you up,’ she’d said. She was now filling my glass. ‘You said you’ve nothing on tonight.’
‘Tilly’s coming.’
‘I bet she goes straight to the pub.’
I took a mouthful of the deliciously cold bubbles. Caroline was right. I could feel my spirits lifting already. ‘Probably.’
‘So tomorrow’s the night.’ Caroline was back on the subject of David. ‘I suppose that’s sensible. Get him into bed and sort it out one way or another.’
‘I can’t just–’
‘Of course you can. Get your hair done–’
‘And my legs waxed–’
‘Obviously. Oh, and try this.’ Caroline pulled a tiny pot out of her glossy bag. ‘It is fabulous.’ She unscrewed the lid and held out a pale pink cream for me to see. ‘Smells divine but wait till you put it on your face.’ She produced a small gold mirror too and handed both to me. ‘GG Glow mousse. Just about to be launched. Reacts with your skin’s ph to provide the perfect individual colour and coverage just for you.’
She tilted her face on one side for my inspection. ‘I’ve got it on but it will look different on you.’ I surveyed Caroline’s flawless complexion and sighed.
‘I’m sure it will.’
Actually, I had to admit, the fluffy potion was nothing short of miraculous. By the time I’d smoothed it over my nose and cheeks and Caroline had whipped out a palette of eye colour, which she expertly dabbed into my sockets, I looked quite restored. ‘Now this,’ she instructed, thrusting a huge mascara wand at me and ignoring the curious looks of the businessmen behind us. ‘Two coats.’
She dropped all the make-up, including the bit-too-shocking pink lipstick I was now sporting, into my bag. ‘I’ve got shedloads of it, darling. You look amazing!’ She topped up our glasses again. ‘He won’t be able to resist you.’
I peered into the mirror again and admitted I had scrubbed up quite well.
‘Text him on the train, while you’re feeling gorgeous,’ she urged. ‘Start razzing him up.’ She fished a miniature phial of perfume from her bottomless clutch and dabbed some on my wrists. ‘This is new too. Isn’t it heavenly?’
By the time I’d hugged her goodbye and made my way to the Northstone train I was feeling mildly glamorous and pleasantly sloshed and dreaming David might appear in my carriage, also smelling heavenly, and be so bowled over by my make-over he immediately suggested a romantic dinner (I was quite hungry now too) before whisking me home to his no-doubt super-cool house and massive, crisp-sheeted and firm-mattressed bed in his thrillingly masculine sleeping chamber.
Somewhere during this reverie I did start dreaming – somewhat bizarrely – of Malcolm bringing me poached eggs in bed because there was no milk to scramble them with – and woke up abruptly with my neck bent sideways, to find the train at a standstill somewhere between stations and my mobile ringing.
I looked around hastily, afraid I’d been snoring, but the carriage was empty save a young man with a rucksack who was also asleep.
I looked at the time and the darkening foliage on the steep banks outside the window, and concluded I must be just outside the town. I felt exhausted, my earlier buoyancy gone. Tilly hadn’t left a message but I imagined she was calling to tell me she was out with Ben and Gabriel. Perhaps, I thought hopefully, Oliver would go too, or he and Sam would already be in bed.
If the train didn’t move soon, everyone would be.
Ten minutes later there was an announcement from a weary-sounding bloke apologising for signal problems and the train rumbled forwards and crawled into Northstone.
The young man opened his eyes and stumbled onto the platform. As I followed, I saw a group of people getting out of the end carriage. I heard someone call out goodnight. Then they separated out and two of them, walking close together, began to come towards me.
I jumped back on the train.
A uniformed figure was coming down the row towards me, eyebrows raised. ‘You all right there?’
‘Er – yes, sorry. I thought I’d dropped something.’ I made a show of examining the empty seats. The ticket collector leant down and looked under the table. ‘Can’t see anything, love. But we get all sorts left. At least one iPad a week. You’d think they’d look after one of those, wouldn’t you? More money than sense. My two are the same …’
I did some nodding and thanking and a bit more pointless checking and when I couldn’t find any reason to stay another moment, stepped cautiously back onto the platform. It was empty, apart from a girl wheeling a bicycle towards the exit.
I breathed a sigh of relief. It couldn’t have been David. Just someone tall who looked like him.
I tried to analyse my panic. It wasn’t just because the reflection in the train window had told me the make-up was well past its best – or that my hair was flattened one side from where I’d been slumped in the corner.
The thought of sending him a bold, encouraging text now the champagne had worn off, seemed far too brazen for a Friday night. Even a conversation on the platform, with others about, would feel awkward. But I’d be seeing him tomorrow …
As I walked up the path to my house, hugging this thought, I saw the curtains were half-drawn. A figure I didn’t immediately recognise crossed in front of the light in the middle. It didn’t look like either of the boys. And was too stocky to be Gabriel. The front door opened as soon as I put my key in the lock. ‘I phoned you!’ said Tilly. ‘I was worried when you were so late.’
‘Drink with Caroline.’ I kissed her before she stepped back and I saw who else was in the room. ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I said, gracelessly. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Mum!’ Tilly shot me a furious look ‘You said it was fine!’
‘Hello,’ said Rob, getting up from the chair. ‘You look nice.’
‘I didn’t take that bit in,’ I told Tilly crossly, as I kicked off my shoes, reeling at the shock of my ex dishing out his second compliment in as many months, bringing the grand total to more than he’d managed in twenty years.
‘Dad’s helping me take my stuff back. I knew you weren’t listening,’ she said, martyred. ‘Too busy with Oliver.’ She shot her father a knowing look.
‘Don’t start that, Tilly,’ I said sharply. ‘We were right in the middle of a conversation that was important.’
‘Is everything all right?’ Rob asked weightily.
‘Yes fine. Where are the boys and Sam?’
‘Oliver and Ben have gone to the pub, and Sam’s upstairs skyping her mum. I was going, but Gabriel’s got to work late so I thought I’d keep Dad company till you got back.’ Tilly made it sound as though she were doing me a favour.
‘I’m going to get changed. Perhaps, Tilly,’ I said tightly, ‘you could bring me up a jasmine tea?’
‘What exactly are you playing at?’ I exploded, when she arrived in my bedroom proffering a cup and a defiant expression. ‘He’s got a bloody overnight bag in the hall. Where exactly is he going to sleep?’
‘In my bed in the conservatory,’ she said, as if it were obvious. ‘I can sleep with you, can’t I? It’s only for one night. I did tell you he was going to drive me back tomorrow.’
‘I’m quite sure you didn’t tell me you wanted him to stay here first.’ I glowered at her. ‘Why couldn’t he come in the morning?’
‘Fiona’s being stressy. She’s all wound up about the move. So I just thought–’ Tilly gave an exaggerated shrug, as if there were nothing odd in the arrangement.
I frowned. ‘And how does she feel about him staying with his ex-wife?’
‘I think she’s glad to get him out of the way so she can carry on with her labelling.’ Tilly raised innocent brows, ‘You’re no threat are you, after all this time?’
‘No, of course not but–’
‘Fiona can be a pain in the arse but she’s still really attractive and she’s got a fantastic body.’
The implications were clear. I glanced at my reflection in the full-length mirror as I started to pull the clothes from my ordinary, slightly squidgy body to put on some pyjama bottoms. Knowing Rob, he’d not told her anyway. He’d probably fabricated some visiting client or business club knees-up. I knew his techniques of old.
‘Anyway,’ Tilly was now lying on her stomach across my bed. ‘There’s no need to be so nasty. Dad’s being helpful. He’s doing a shift on the surveillance screen till Ben gets back. We couldn’t get the alert sound to work on the iPad, though. I think it’s all right on Jinni’s computer …’
‘What?’
Having decided my brain cells had imploded from lack of nutrition, Tilly made cheesy Marmite toast while she filled me in on the day’s events and Rob provided pompous interjections to explain the technology.
Jinni, forgetting I’d be in London, had come over early this morning in an excitable state to report she’d definitely seen someone skulking around her wheelie bins in the early hours of the morning when she went to the loo but had frightened the figure off by throwing open her front door, shrieking and hurling a dustpan at it.
Ben, after recovering from being awake before nine, had seized upon this as an opportunity to delay his revision and had spent the rest of the day setting up the CCTV from the box David had left. Some sort of wireless webcam was now installed above her front door with infra-red light so it could capture images even in the dark, with a second beam homing in on our driveway, and was sending pictures to her computer and to his iPad.
Ben had also been on hand to pass things while her electrician installed a powerful security light outside her back door and had his business card in case I wanted one.
Jinni claimed the person who had run away was the right height and build to be David (Tilly, loyally, doubted this) but if not, had almost certainly been paid by him, but she was determined to capture the culprit whoever it was. An alarm would sound at her end when anyone broke the beam trained on her front gravel, and she then intended to utilise the broom handle she was keeping just inside the front door, along with an aerosol spray, to beat him into submission.
‘I really don’t think that’s wise,’
I said. ‘She should phone the police.’
‘When Ben gets back he’s going to have another go at making the alarm come through here. It’s supposed to make a noise and send an email when it detects something. He thinks it might work on your laptop. Then we can leave it on loud and if things get hairy we’ll be able to phone the police too!’
‘Is this completely necessary?’ I asked wearily, my visions of a long, stress-free night of catching up on my sleep, shattered not only by the prospect of my daughter shifting about beside me but an ear-splitting beep going off every time a fox decided to nip across Jinni’s garden.
Tilly rolled her eyes. ‘Ben said you were the one who wanted it set up! He and Gabe were going to do it, but it’s sorted now.’ She frowned. ‘I’ve not heard back from him. Ben said he had to go to a fashion show?’
I yawned. ‘Yes, Malcolm is keeping him to the grindstone.’
I was now on the sofa with my second cup of tea. Rob was settled in the chair with a red wine, grating on my nerves with regular bulletins from the screen of the iPad, on which I could only see some wavy things that looked like bits of plant. ‘Why don’t you tell us when something has happened, not when it hasn’t?’ I said waspishly, earning another glare from my daughter.
I was just announcing I was going to bed, to see if I could get in an hour before Tilly came clumping up to join me, when the front door burst open and my sons spilled into the room, clutching take-aways.
‘Mumsie!’ Ben cried jubilantly. ‘You’re back!’
‘And you’re pissed,’ said Tilly.
Ben grinned at her, kissed me and went over to hug his father. ‘We’ve had a pint or two, haven’t we, bruv?’ he said, looking at Oliver, who also seemed pretty relaxed.
‘Sam okay?’ he asked Tilly. His sister nodded. ‘She said to tell you she was going to read …’
‘So,’ Ben was perched on the arm of Rob’s chair, eating a chip. ‘I’ve got to get this email alert set up …’
‘Couldn’t you do it in the morning?’ I asked. ‘And perhaps get a plate?’ He was now hauling a kebab out of the box, scattering shreds of lettuce onto the carpet.
‘We’ve got to be ready,’ Ben said loudly. ‘Ollie and I are going to get him, aren’t we, bruv?’
I sighed and got up. ‘I doubt anyone will come back tonight if Jinni was throwing things at them last time. And if you do see anything, you call 999. You don’t want to be arrested yourselves for causing an affray. Suppose he–’
Oliver walked past me to the kitchen. ‘Don’t worry, Mum. It’s all cool.’
Rob straightened up and pointed to himself in a gesture that conveyed he was there and would be supervising proceedings, so after making a small gesture back – in the direction of his wine glass – I gave up.
‘I’ll leave you to make sure your father’s got all he needs,’ I said, with sweet menace, to Tilly, still seething at the prospect of her kicking me half the night.
‘If one of us blocks off his exit,’ I heard Ben say, ‘the other one can jump him.’
‘Suppose he climbs over the back?’ Even Oliver was joining in now.
I shook my head as I climbed the stairs. Perhaps I’d been wrong to foist my Enid Blytons on them. As if to confirm it, I heard the word ‘dog’. Then the low murmur of Rob’s voice and Tilly laughing.
My legs ached with tiredness as I burrowed under the duvet, having put a pillow around my ears. It had been after midnight by the time I’d checked everything for the meeting, and I’d been up before six.
I yawned deeply and rubbed my eyes. I still had Caroline’s mascara on.