Chapter 20

The third wall was trickier and took an hour and a half. The phone rang as she was slathering paste on the final length of wallpaper.

“Lara? It’s Don Temple. The job’s yours if you want it.”

“Really? That’s great!” She flushed with pleasure; this was turning into a proper good-news day.

“I called your last employer. He said you were a good girl. Full of praise.” Don paused, then said, “Shall I tell you what the clincher was?”

“Go on.” Lara thought she probably knew.

“The bit about you knowing first aid.”

Bingo.

“I guessed. Our postman in Keswick had a heart attack last year while he was at work in the sorting office. He’s fine now, but he told me how scared he was being on his own in case it ever happened again.”

“Same here.” Don sounded relieved. “That’s exactly how I feel. If the shop’s empty and I don’t have time to call for help… or if someone’s there but they don’t know what to do… you know what the traffic’s like in Bath, an ambulance might get stuck… I mean, I know the chances are it won’t happen again, but it’s the thought that it could…” Hopefully he added, “Have you ever done any real-life CPR?”

It might make him feel better but it wouldn’t be right to lie. Lara said, “Not real-life, but the course tutor gave me top marks when I did it on the plastic dummy.”

“That’s good to hear.” Don sounded as if he were smiling. “Let’s hope you never do need to try it in real life. Now, when can you start work?”

He suggested Tuesday. They agreed on Wednesday and Lara hung up hoping he wouldn’t have another heart attack on the Tuesday while she was on her way to Bristol to meet Jo.

Then she celebrated by finishing off the task in hand, including the fiddly bits involving light switches and wall sockets. Et voilà, one bedroom papered in midnight blue and ivory freckled with silver. Ivory carpet. Silver and cream duvet cover and pillows. Not so much a bedroom, more a boudoir. Although it was unlikely that any man would be clapping eyes on it in the foreseeable future.

Satisfied with her handiwork, Lara stood back to admire the end result. If it was going to be a man-free zone, she might even go mad and get some silver sequined cushions.

The front door opened downstairs and she heard Gigi call out, “Mum, where are you?”

“Up here. Come and look at this!”

Lara leaned proudly against the door frame, waiting for Gigi to join her and be suitably effusive. Then she turned and saw that the footsteps on the stairs belonged to Flynn.

Ach, a man! In her designated man-free zone!

“Sorry.” He saw the look on her face. “I gave Gigi a lift home. She’s just gone to the downstairs loo. She told me to come on up.”

More to the point, a man who had the power to make her heart race one minute and completely infuriate her the next.

“So this is the end result. You’ve done a good job.” Flynn surveyed her bedroom and gave a nod of approval. “Better than it was before, anyway.”

“Before?”

“Gigi showed me over the house yesterday, while you were out.”

See? Just like that, he could both pay a compliment and be annoying in three seconds flat. Even if it had largely been Gigi’s fault. When she’d left the house yesterday afternoon to buy wallpaper, her bed hadn’t been made and a build-up of clothes in need of washing and sorting out had been strewn across the floor. Her manky hair-dye towel, the one that looked dirty but wasn’t dirty, had been chucked over the back of the chair. Flynn must have viewed the scene with a shudder of revulsion…

Oh well, too bad. She wasn’t going to make a point of defending herself. They both heard the sound of the downstairs loo being flushed and the taps running, then Gigi was galloping up the staircase to join them.

“You’ve done the whole room! Cool!” She admired the bedroom and said cheerily, “Looks a bit better now. Where’d you hide all the clothes?”

“Nowhere. They’ve all been sorted out.”

Gigi nudged Flynn. “I bet I know what she’s done.”

“I’ve put them away,” said Lara. But it was too late; Gigi had already reached the fitted wardrobe and was flinging open the doors.

It was like lava exploding out of a volcano. Gigi had to jump back to avoid being buried.

“See what I have to put up with?” She raised her eyebrows at Flynn. “The wicked lies my mother tells.”

Which, under the circumstances, wasn’t what you’d call diplomatic.

“I just stuffed everything in there to get it out of the way.” Lara felt her face overheat. “So I could put the pasting table up and get the wallpapering done. Tonight I’ll sort through the whole lot properly.”

“Yes, Mum, of course you will.” Gigi mimed her nose extending, Pinocchio-style. “Because you’re the tidiest person ever.”

Out of the corner of her eye Lara could see the manky hair-dye towel flaunting itself on top of the clothes mountain. Seriously, how much more humiliation could she be expected to endure in one day?

“Shall we go downstairs? Or do you want to stay here and help me with this lot?”

“Do you want us to help?” said Flynn.

“No, I do not!”

“Then we’ll go downstairs. If you’re hungry, we’re planning to pick up some Mexican food.”

And bring it back, presumably. Like he lived here. Having earlier been afraid that Flynn was planning to ease back on his newfound relationship with Gigi, Lara now found herself fretting that he was becoming too full-on. Because what if it got Gigi’s hopes up and then the novelty began to wear off?

“I’m fine. I’m busy. You two carry on.”

“Oh, I can’t believe I forgot to ask,” Gigi exclaimed. “How’d the interview go?”

“Great. I got the job. Start on Wednesday.”

“My clever mum. I knew you’d get it. And Dad already told you he was taking me on too. So that’s both of us celebrating today.” Gigi beamed at them. “With burritos and chimichangas, yay!”

Flynn finally left at ten o’clock. When it was just the two of them once more, Lara said, “You shouldn’t have done that thing earlier.” Several Mexican beers had loosened her tongue; she felt compelled to say it.

“Done what thing?” Gigi was busy licking guacamole off her fingers.

“The wardrobe thing. Opening the doors and showing him where I’d hidden the mess.”

Unable to leave food alone when it was in front of her, Gigi reached for another quesadilla and dipped it in sour cream. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I don’t really mind. It’s just a bit… you know…”

“Just a bit interesting that it obviously does bother you quite a lot? Because you want to create a good impression and you don’t want him thinking you live in squalor?”

“Excuse me!” Lara gestured around the living room. “Does this look like squalor to you? I do not live in squalor.”

“OK, I know. I’m just saying.” Her tone playful, Gigi said, “It’s interesting, that’s all. You keep telling me he doesn’t mean anything to you…”

“And he doesn’t. I suppose I just want him to think I’m a good mother. Being untidy can be… embarrassing.” Lara was struggling to make herself understood. “I’d hate him to be secretly thinking, God, did she bring my daughter up in chaos? Did she send her off to school in rags? Because I didn’t.”

“Oh, Mum, he doesn’t think that! I’m sorry!”

“He criticized me before, though, that’s the thing. He said stuff he had no right to say and he shouldn’t have said it.” Lara had been secretly lacerated by Flynn’s comments about Gigi wishing she’d had a father while she was growing up. “I did what I thought was right and he should accept that. He’s probably telling everyone I did it to punish him and they’re all going to think I’m a complete cow… anyway, never mind.”

“Do you quite like him, though?” Gigi looked interested. “I mean, apart from that, do you fancy him?”

Lara was firm. “No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“No.” She would carry on saying it for as long as it took.

“Why not? You did once.”

“And do you remember how much you used to love your Spiderman pajamas? When you were five? You wore them every day,” Lara reminded her. “To the shops, to the park, to every party you were invited to. You made us call you Spidey.”

“That’s different. I was five.”

Lara shook her head. “It’s not different at all. You changed your mind about those pajamas, same as you did about Westlife and SpaghettiOs and Barbie.” She paused. “I was sixteen then.”

“And you’re ancient now,” Gigi said helpfully.

“Yes, I am ancient. And grumpy and persnickety. And guess what?” said Lara. “I’m allowed to change my mind too.”

***

In bed and unable to sleep a couple of hours later, Lara gazed up at the ceiling and prayed this was a situation she could remain on top of. It was necessary to keep concentrating on the ceiling because every time she closed her eyes all she saw was Flynn. Would her life have been easier if she’d never known him? Sometimes she wondered if it was Flynn who’d succeeded in spoiling her for other men. Of course, there had been boyfriends since then… but none had ever come close to making her feel the way he had. They’d all seemed like second-best. She hadn’t wanted it to be that way but it wasn’t something you could consciously control. Saying no to Gigi earlier, insisting the interest in Flynn was no longer there, had been a lie. Alongside the annoyance, the anger, and the frustration she felt toward him, there was an inescapable physical draw. The chemistry still existed. On her side at least. Who knew if Flynn was feeling it too? He hadn’t said anything, was playing his cards pretty close to his chest. Either way, whether the attraction was mutual or not, nothing was ever going to happen.

Lara gazed up at the faint crack in the ceiling to the left of the window. She had already made that executive decision and whatever happened she’d be sticking to it. Because there was too much to potentially lose now. This wasn’t about her; it wasn’t about what she may or may not want to happen in the future. Her number-one priority was her daughter. Gigi was the important one. Even if, ironically, she seemed quite taken by the idea of her parents getting back together…

The prospect of that happening was like closing your eyes, throwing a bunch of flaming torches over your shoulder, and wondering if any of them might be about to land in the fireworks box.

Because that was how risky the potential situation would be. The thing about relationships was never knowing in advance how they might end up. And the unknowable answer to that question was what made any kind of involvement impossible. Some people lived together happily ever after. Some broke up and managed to remain friends… or at least friendly enough not to let it ruin their lives.

And then there were those who experienced the horror of the kind of breakup that caused fury and havoc and vengeance and retribution and was impossible for either partner to forgive.

Lara had seen it happen to people she knew. Previously loving couples were capable of descending into insult-trading, vicious name-calling, and boiling no-holds-barred hatred. Years could pass and still they would be incapable of breathing the same air, even exchanging a couple of simple pleasantries in public. The bitterness intensified and once-happy families remained torn apart.

Which was why she was never going to risk that happening to Flynn and herself.

If the only way to prevent it was by making sure they didn’t get involved in the first place… well, for Gigi’s sake, that was what she’d do.