As a child, FIONA HARPER was constantly teased for two things: having her nose in a book and living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least she’s found a career that puts her runaway imagination to use!

Fiona loves dancing, so clear the floor if you’re ever at a party with her, and her current creative craze (one of a long list!) is jewellery making. She loves good books, good films and good food, especially anything cinnamon-flavoured, and she can always find room in her diet for chocolate or champagne!

Fiona loves to hear from readers and you can contact her through fiona@fionaharper.com or find her on her Facebook page (Fiona Harper Romance Author) or tweet her! (@FiHarperAuthor)

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Chapter One: Nobody’s Sweetheart

Chapter Two: Just One Girl

Chapter Three: Never Look Back

Chapter Four: I Can Do Without You

Chapter Five: Anything You Can Do

Chapter Six: Ain’t We Got Fun?

Chapter Seven: There’s Good Blues Tonight

Chapter Eight: Teacher’s Pet

Chapter Nine: By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Chapter Ten: Ready, Willing and Able

Chapter Eleven: Send Me No Flowers

Chapter Twelve: I’ll See You In My Dreams

Chapter Thirteen: A Wonderful Guy

Chapter Fourteen: That Touch of Mink

Chapter Fifteen: Three at a Table for Two

Chapter Sixteen: There Once Was a Man

Chapter Seventeen: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Chapter Eighteen: A Woman’s Touch

Chapter Nineteen: You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me

Chapter Twenty: Everybody Loves a Lover

Chapter Twenty-One: Let’s Take an Old-Fashioned Walk

Chapter Twenty-Two: I’m Beginning to See the Light

Chapter Twenty-Three: Young At Heart

Chapter Twenty-Four: I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

Chapter Twenty-Six: Julie

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Cuddle Up a Little Closer

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Won’t You Dance With Me, Papa?

Chapter Twenty-Nine: What Does A Woman Do?

Chapter Thirty: Between Friends

Chapter Thirty-One: The Party’s Over

Chapter Thirty-Two: It’s Better to Conceal Than Reveal

Chapter Thirty-Three: I Love the Way You Say Goodnight

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Thrill of It All

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Chapter Thirty-Six: I’m Not At All In Love

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Love Me or Leave Me

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Quiet Night of Quiet Stars

Chapter Thirty-Nine: You Should Have Told Me

Chapter Forty: Do Not Disturb

Chapter Forty-One: I Didn’t Slip, I Wasn’t Pushed, I Fell

Chapter Forty-Two: I’ve Only Myself to Blame

Chapter Forty-Three: Foolishly Yours

Chapter Forty-Four: My Kinda Love

Chapter Forty-Five: The Game of Broken Hearts

Chapter Forty-Six: (Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such As I

Chapter Forty-Seven: Softly, As I Leave You

Chapter Forty-Eight: It’s Magic

Chapter Forty-Nine: Sentimental Journey

Chapter Fifty: I Don’t Want to Be Kissed By Anyone But You

Chapter Fifty-One: Hooray for Hollywood

Chapter Fifty-Two: He’ll Have to Cross the Atlantic

Chapter Fifty-Three: Que Sera, Sera

Endpages

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’d like to thank everyone at Mills & Boon, especially Anna Baggaley, my very patient editor, and the lovely Victoria Oundjian, especially as it took quite some time to help this author see the wood of this book through the trees of her wayward imagination. I also want to say a huge thank you to all of M&B’s marketing and promotion team, for their enthusiasm and hard work from day one.

Big thanks to my amazing agent Lizzy Kremer and also to Harriet Moore at David Higham Associates, for her calm encouragement in the midst of a deadline panic and her insightful suggestions.

My family definitely deserve my gratitude, especially my husband, Andy, who patiently listens to me warble on about difficult plot matters so I can get things straight in my head, even though he hardly ever knows who these people I’m talking about are, and to my lovely daughters, Sian and Rose, who cheer me on all the way, and who didn’t moan (much) when I hogged the TV for months, watching every film of Doris’s I could get my hands on.

Thanks to all my Facebook friends who helped me with football-related stuff. Sorry, those scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, but at least you have educated this football dunce a little.

Lastly, and most importantly, I want to thank Doris Day, for her captivating and charismatic performances that have charmed generations and continue to bring us joy and happiness, but also for her strength of character and resilience. The true story of the woman behind the Hollywood icon was the inspiration for this book.

Chapter One
Nobody’s Sweetheart

When Claire Bixby was nine, she decided that one day she’d like to live in Hollywood, because she wanted to be in movies. Not that she wanted to be an actress. Far from it. No, Claire wanted to actually be in the movies, to live there, a place where the sun always shone, everything was Technicolor bright and families lived happily ever after together. There would be no more shouting, no more crying. No hearing the front door slam, one parent leaving never to return – even if she’d discovered she could breathe out more easily after he’d left.

However, as all little girls do, Claire grew up, and she came to understand that nothing was what it seemed in Hollywood. The houses weren’t real. The outsides were just false fronts and the insides built on a sound stage, made up of plywood flats that could be wheeled around depending on where the camera needed to go. And while the sun might shine pretty regularly in California, she suspected that once the actors took off their make-up, they probably went home and shouted at the dog, or discovered their wife was cheating on them with her plastic surgeon, or maybe just went back to their mansion to sit there with the curtains drawn, wondering why their fabulous lives weren’t really that fabulous and if even one of the hangers-on who buzzed around them knew what their real name was.

So by the time Claire had turned thirty-four, she’d never once visited Hollywood, preferring to keep it a dim and distant bubble of fantasy she wasn’t quite yet ready to pop. As a travel agent, however, she did plan trips to Tinseltown for others, which was why on one sunny and rather muggy May morning, she hopped off the number fifty-six bus, thinking not only about the work of the day ahead but smiling slightly at the memory of her childhood naïvety.

She’d slowly been growing her business over the last two years and recently she’d taken the plunge and hired proper office space. It was only a couple of miles from where she lived in Highbury, North London. She’d moved into the premises two months ago, but she still loved turning the corner into an alley that led into a forgotten gem of a courtyard. Whilst most of the surrounding area had been levelled by the Blitz and had been reimagined into vast modern estates by some of Britain’s top architects during the sixties and seventies, a few narrow streets had survived and tiny pockets of nineteenth-century buildings nestled amongst the landscape of grey concrete and geometrical shapes.

Evidence of the old workshops and shopfronts still remained in Old Carter’s Yard. A couple of units were boarded up, yet to be renovated, but the others were filled with small businesses, many of which were wedding-related. It had started with a proposal-planning agency, of all things, and had grown from there. Now there was a bakery that did the most amazing five-tiered creations, a photographer’s studio, a stationer’s and even a wedding accessories shop, which did everything from garters and stockings to waterproof mascara for the big day and plastic tiaras for rowdy hen nights.

Claire walked across the cobbles carefully in her heels and smiled to herself as she saw the sign above the window. Far, Far Away. She still thought it was a great name for a travel agent’s, especially for one that specialised in romantic getaways, even though that hadn’t been part of the plan when she’d left her job as an advertising executive at Webster & Templeton and had set up an office in her living room.

She gave the window display the once-over before turning the key in the lock. The old-fashioned bay window of what had once been a fishmonger’s was now backed with a collage of elegant and romantic destinations: Paris, Venice, the Orient Express. A deserted Caribbean beach with a startling turquoise sea. A picture of a couple silhouetted by the sunset on the verge of what promised to be a meaningful kiss.

Knowing that brides-to-be were drawn to anything that hinted of weddings like a kleptomaniac to something shiny, Claire had draped white tulle around the window and had added a bouquet of silk flowers and a couple of wedding invitations. She’d then tossed a handful of rose petal confetti across everything, so it looked as if had been blown in by a soft wind. And at the bottom of the window in gold lettering it said, After the perfect wedding, the perfect honeymoon … Her post-wedding bookings had doubled since she’d opened up shop here.

She unlocked the door and stepped inside. Like many buildings in the Victorian courtyard, her shop stayed fairly cool in summer, but London was in the grip of a heatwave and this was the stickiest May on record for more than two decades. It had only been a short walk from the bus stop, but the back of her neck was already damp under her blonde bob and she could feel her tailored red shift dress sticking to her skin. Before she headed for her desk, she propped the door open to encourage fresh air to flow into the space.

She’d only just sat down in her office chair when she heard a rap on the glass of the open door. She looked up to find one of her fellow ‘wedding ghetto’ traders leaning against the jamb.

‘Hey,’ Peggy said, smiling. Today she was in all her vintage glory. Her platinum blonde hair was curled to resemble Marilyn Monroe’s and she wore a fitted pale pink dress covered with small white polka dots. The look was finished off with matching pink stilettos with spotty bows at the toes.

Claire had been friends with Peggy even before she’d rented the office in Old Carter’s Yard. It was through Peggy, who worked two doors down at Hopes & Dreams as a proposal planner, that Claire had discovered the shop space had been available to rent.

Claire smiled back. ‘Hi. Need help with a proposal?’

Peggy nodded and came and sat down in the chair opposite Claire. ‘Nicole asked me to pop down. We have a client who wants to pop the question – sunset at the top of the Eiffel Tower. That bit we can manage, but we’d like you to handle the first-class Eurostar tickets, and give us suggestions of half a dozen romantic hotels in Paris. He hasn’t got a five-star budget, but he’d like it if his fiancée-to-be didn’t guess that.’

Claire smiled. ‘I know some great little boutique hotels on the Left Bank, where you get a bit more pizazz for your euro. What sort of timescale are we looking at?’

‘Their anniversary is on the fourteenth of July. He’d like to do it then.’

‘No problem.’ Claire opened her browser and clicked through a couple of hotel websites. ‘I’ll have preliminary details to you by the beginning of next week.’

Peggy clapped her hands together and grinned. ‘You’re a star! And I’m so glad you took this office over. It’s so much more fun coming down for a visit than sending off a boring old email.’

‘I’m glad too.’ Carving a name for herself in the travel business had been hard. She needed a niche, she’d realised, and thanks to Peggy and Hopes & Dreams she’d found one. Six months after she’d started doing bookings for them she’d moved from general travel planning to concentrating on romantic trips of all kinds – proposals, honeymoons, special anniversaries.

She’d even planned a couple of holidays to help couples conceive. Okay, well, she didn’t actually help them conceive – that was up to them and God – but giving them some much-needed time together where they could relax and let nature take its course, that she could manage.

‘How about a Frappuccino?’ Peggy asked, nodding towards Sweet Nothings, the organic café and bakery just at the entrance to the yard.

Claire frowned. ‘It’s only ten past nine and you’re having a break? I thought you were supposed to be just “popping down”.’

Peggy’s smile didn’t fade one iota. ‘I’m still working,’ she said sweetly. ‘We’ll discuss the Paris trip while we slurp.’

Claire shook her head gently and considered Peggy’s temping offer. When she arrived for work in the mornings, she usually dived straight in and didn’t surface again until her stomach started to rumble, but this morning her throat was dry and a fine bead of sweat was tickling its way down between her shoulder blades. ‘Oh, go on then,’ she muttered.

Peggy sprung up from the chair, grinning harder. Then she held out her hand. It took Claire a couple of moments before she worked out what was going on. Rolling her eyes, she fumbled through her purse then dropped a ten pound note into Peggy’s hand. ‘I want change!’ she yelled after the polka-dotted figure that practically skipped out of the shop.

There can’t have been much of a queue in Sweet Nothings, she thought, because less than a minute later she sensed a presence in the doorway, hardly enough time to blend the ice, let alone dowse it in ice-cold milk and espresso. ‘I need to talk to you about the film club meeting tonight,’ she said, still looking at her computer screen. ‘How do you feel about being our new treasurer?’

A dark silhouette strode into the shop. ‘You know I’d do anything for you,’ a smooth, deep voice said.

Claire’s head snapped up.

‘Treasurer of what?’ Doug Martin asked.

Claire shook her head. ‘Nothing you’d be interested in,’ she said, laughing. She saw enough of Mr Martin as it was. ‘Sorry, I thought you were someone else.’

He took a couple of steps into the office. ‘A boyfriend kind of someone else?’

Claire fought hard to keep her denial unspoken. She pasted on her best professional smile. ‘How can I help you, Mr Martin?’

He smiled at her indulgently. ‘Doug. I thought we agreed you were going to call me Doug.’

They had. And it did feel rather old-fashioned to be talking to a customer that way. He was a nice enough man, maybe a little closer to forty than she was, with an unthreatening, slightly boyish face.

‘Okay, Doug … What can I help you with?’

He didn’t have a chance to answer, because Peggy swept back in the door, a giant Frappuccino in each hand. She took one look at Doug and stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh, sorry … Didn’t realise you had company.’

Claire shot her a ‘save me’ look. Peggy just trotted over to the desk, popped Claire’s drink down two inches to the left of a coaster and whispered so Doug couldn’t hear. ‘Not a chance. Both you and I could do with a few more Y chromosomes in our lives.’

Claire’s brow lowered. You have him then, she mouthed.

Peggy gave her a dazzling smile and headed for the door. ‘I couldn’t possibly poach a client, but you never know …’ She blew a kiss at Doug, who received it gratefully. ‘If things go well, he might be knocking on my door soon anyway.’

Claire resisted the urge to throw the fountain pen sitting on her desk at Peggy and impale her to the doorpost with it. She did not need more Y chromosomes in her life. She’d only recently got free of one man and she wasn’t about to fill his space either quickly or indiscriminately.

And, as harmless as Doug was, he just didn’t float her boat. ‘So …’ she said, turning her attention back to him, hoping he hadn’t heard their muttered conversation. ‘Where do you want to go this time?’

Doug dropped into the chair Peggy had recently vacated and looked intently at her. ‘I think an island in the South Pacific.’

Claire looked over her shoulder at the world map that sat behind her desk. ‘Any bit of the South Pacific in particular? It’s a pretty big place, and there are thousands of islands.’

When she turned back, Doug looked deep into her eyes. ‘Somewhere secluded … romantic.’

‘Uh-uh.’ Claire nodded, but her eyes narrowed. She had a funny feeling she knew where this was going. She winced as she asked the crucial question. ‘How many travellers?’

He leaned even further forward and gave her a meaningful look. ‘I’d like it to be two. How about adding a wedding on a secluded white sandy beach beneath the palm trees?’

‘Doug,’ Claire said wearily ‘we’ve been through this before.’

He shrugged and shifted his weight so he was sitting firmly back in the chair. ‘You can’t blame a man in love for being hopeful, can you?’

Claire sighed. She’d like to, but the truth was she needed to build a customer base with more Dougs. Well, not exactly like him. She could do without the shameless flirting and the twice-weekly proposals, but she needed more repeat customers who kept coming back because she’d done such a good job the last time they couldn’t imagine booking a holiday without her. It was happening, but slowly.

‘No,’ she said, finally answering his question. ‘But I’ve told you before that I don’t love you, Doug. I hardly even know you.’ No matter how many hours he spent emailing or phoning each month. The downside of having a brand-new shiny office was that he now had the opportunity to moon over her in person.

‘Well, you could always make time to try to get to know me, ‘Doug said. He brightened. ‘I know … Let’s forget the wedding and just do the honeymoon!’

Claire couldn’t help but laugh. There was something about Doug’s irrepressible optimism, at least, that was attractive. ‘Now, do you really want me to book this trip for you, or are you just wasting my time?’

His face fell and he sighed. ‘I really want you to book me the trip. Mother says the Cook Islands are on her bucket list and since her time in this mortal realm is coming to a close, I’d better take her there before the year is out.’

Claire smothered a smile. From what she’d gleaned about Doug’s mother, she suspected the old lady would outlive them all. ‘The Cook Islands … Now we’re getting somewhere.’ She stood up, walked over to a rack full of brochures, pulled one out and flicked to a page that showed the kind of luxury resort Doug’s mother would appreciate, then handed it to him as she sat down again. ‘What you need is to find a nice girl who likes to travel.’

And doesn’t mind a twenty stone chaperone with a blue rinse, she added silently.

Doug, to his credit, was already bouncing back from her refusal. ‘But you’re a nice girl. And you must like to travel, otherwise why become a travel agent?’

Well, he’d hit the nail on the head there, and there were more than a few destinations on her own bucket list that were still unticked.

‘I do like to travel. And I will … But I’ve been very busy getting the new premises up and running and all my time and energy has gone into that.’ And money, she added silently, but he didn’t need to know that, did he?

Anyway, she didn’t like to travel alone – not that she was about to take Doug up on his offer to be his Girl Friday on a deserted tropical island. She wasn’t that desperate. But the last time she’d been away was that horrible trip to Prague with Philip, the last-ditch attempt to do something romantic as their marriage had been falling apart. For some reason, hearing the rumble of case wheels in the pre-dawn quiet just didn’t seem as thrilling any more.

And she wasn’t about to fill the space he’d left behind just because she wanted someone to talk to on a long plane journey. She was enjoying her freedom too much. A few years of staying put in London was a small price to pay for being able to do what she wanted, to fly as high as she could, without those little comments, sharp and penetrating as sniper’s bullets, bringing her smashing back down to earth again.

‘Well, if you won’t come to Rarotonga with me, how about an evening out in the West End?’

Claire blinked and refocused on Doug. She sighed. ‘We’ve talked about dating too.’

‘Oh, it’s not a date,’ he said with a surprisingly straight face. Only the glitter in his eyes gave him away. ‘It’s a party.’

Claire opened her mouth to ask what the difference was, but he barrelled on.

‘Jayce Rider, the guy who took over the Hamilton Hotel and turned its fortunes around is a friend of mine. He likes to throw parties for people in the travel industry and he’s planning one a week tomorrow. I thought you might like to come with me. For purely business reasons, of course.’

She hesitated. Actually, she’d been looking to develop relationships with a couple of high-end London hotels, hoping to be able to give her treasured clients a little bit of luxury at a discount. The Hamilton would be perfect.

She kept her expression neutral as she looked at Doug. ‘I’ll think about it.’

He grinned back at her, reminding her of a puppy who’d been scolded only moments before, but was now wagging its tail, transgression already half forgotten. ‘I’ll pick you up at eight,’ he said, as he rose from his chair and saluted her farewell.

Claire half stood in her chair as he disappeared out of the door. ‘There’ll be ground rules!’ she yelled after him. He didn’t shout anything back, so she wasn’t sure he’d heard her, but, even if he had, she suspected he might find a way to circumvent them.

She let her bottom bump back down into her office chair and then slumped face first onto her desk. The morning was already so clammy that her cheek instantly stuck to the polished surface.

Was that what Doug’s little visit had been all about?

Had he used her guilt at saying no to an all-expenses paid honeymoon to manoeuvre her into saying yes to the party? Which she hadn’t actually done, she reminded herself, even though it felt as if she had.

She peeled her face off the desk and sat up, then stared at her computer screen, thinking she ought to book the whole blooming trip anyway – two tickets, first class but non-refundable, and twin rooms all the way so he had to share with his Gorgon of a mother. Hah! The cancellation fees alone would make him think twice before he pulled another stunt like that on her, before he started messing with her head—

She inhaled sharply.

Claire, you’re being paranoid.

Not every man she met was out to use her as a pawn in his twisted little games. She had to remember that.

She scrubbed her face with her hands and stared out through the open door across the courtyard to Sweet Nothings, and suddenly remembered her Frappuccino perched on the edge of the desk. Half the ice had melted and one side of the swirl of cream had sunk into the liquid, making it look like a rapidly fading iceberg. She took a sip anyway. It was warmer than she would have liked, but at least she wasn’t in danger of brain freeze.

After a couple of slurps of the cool liquid she began to feel a bit more normal again. She laughed softly at herself.

Stupid woman. Of course Doug wasn’t manipulating her. Everything he felt and thought was instantly written all over his face. He didn’t have it in him to scheme and push and lie. Doug Martin had that going for him at least.

The gravity of this revelation hit her. Her eyes opened wide as she reached the bottom of the Frappuccino and it made a loud vacuum-like sound. That meant Doug had one up on almost every other man who’d played a significant role in her life, which made him a much better prospect than she’d given him credit for.

Yikes. That was a seriously sad state of affairs.

She laughed again and shook herself as she aimed the empty Frappuccino cup towards the bin and scored a mental point for getting it in first time. She stood up and reached for her purse. Maybe she should go and get herself a fresh one. If she was starting to consider Doug Martin as prime boyfriend material, the heat of this sticky May morning was definitely getting to her.

Chapter Two
Just One Girl

The Doris Day Film Club met on Tuesday evenings in the upper room of The Glass Bottom Boat, a shabby little pub on the fringes of Highbury and Islington that had, as yet, escaped the clutches of developers who wanted to transform it into yet another fashionable and minimalist wine bar. Some of the other pubs in the area were cool and grungy, the kind with bare plaster and sanded floorboards that had live music and open mike nights. The Glass Bottom Boat was just plain grungy.

There was no air conditioning in the upper room, just walls covered with red flock wallpaper, a carpet guaranteed to make one’s eyes hurt and rickety tables and chairs that had been stained with dark varnish in an effort to make them look ‘rustic’ instead of just old and broken. The only way to get more air into the room was to wedge the two large windows open as wide as they could go, which wasn’t far, seeing as they were almost glued shut with four decades’ worth of paint and half the sash ropes were missing.

It was a small space, only needing twenty people to fill it to the rafters, so on this muggy evening, the eight members of the Doris Day Film Club fitted in quite comfortably.

The room’s saving grace, and the only reason the club continued to meet here month after month, was the massive, state-of-the-art 52-inch flat-screen TV that almost filled one wall. The landlord had installed it when the last World Cup had been on, and had intended to play sports on it twenty-four-seven, but on Tuesday nights it belonged to the Doris Day Film Club and them alone.

On the table nearest the window was Bev, dressed in a pastel blouse and beige slacks. She was giving a younger woman the highlights of her last visit to the chiropodist. Candy, a yummy mummy in her late thirties, was suitably grossed out but trying to hide it, while simultaneously studying her own stiletto-encased feet under the table and wondering if bunions were looming perilously close in her future too.

On the table next door were Kitty and Grace, two vintage fashion queens in their early twenties, who thought anything retro was cooler than cool and never left their houses without their eyeliner wings and crimson lipstick. Kitty was flirting with George, bless him, the lone male of their intimate little society. Everyone had assumed he was gay at first, but it turned out he was just a sweet old bachelor who’d fallen in love with Doris at the age of eleven when his mother had bribed him with a quarter of gobstoppers to accompany her to the flicks to watch Move Over, Darling. He’d never been able to find a woman to match Doris after that, so he’d never tried, didn’t think it would be fair to his bride to always play second fiddle to such perfection. Of course, he didn’t mind it when a pretty young thing like Kitty gave him a bit of attention, even though it made him blush furiously.

Finally, gathered round a square table that had one of its legs propped up by a folded beer mat, were two of the three-strong committee. Claire sat in the central chair and stared at the gossiping group with vague dismay. It was getting harder and harder to start on time nowadays. Quite a few unlikely friendships were budding. Never in her life had she been in more need of a loudhailer.

‘Ladies!’ she began.

‘And George …’ Maggs, her vice-president, sitting beside her, interjected.

‘Ladies and George!’ Claire said, just that little bit louder.

The din continued. Claire sighed.

Maggs tutted beside her. Two years ago they hadn’t had this kind of problem, but two years ago she, Maggs and Claire’s grandmother Laurie had been the only members of the club. Now it was a victim of its own success.

Claire had never actually volunteered for the position of president; she’d kind of inherited the role after her grandmother had died. Gran had started a Doris Day Appreciation Society back in 1951 and had roped her best friend, Margaret – always known as Maggs – into being the second member.

The society had been hugely popular in the fifties and sixties, filled with members who’d been drawn to the independent and charismatic woman they’d seen on the cinema screen, but numbers had dwindled in the seventies, when Doris had stopped making films and it became less than cool to have a squeaky clean image.

Maggs had insisted that Claire take up the mantle of president when the position had become vacant. In honour of her grandmother, she’d said. Claire had been flattered at the time, but now she suspected Maggs preferred the vice-president’s role, because she got to boss people around without actually doing very much.

Claire hadn’t really minded. Watching Doris Day films with her grandmother had been the happiest moments of her childhood, afternoons when she’d escaped the tense atmosphere of home, when she hadn’t had to watch what she said and did or be careful that she wasn’t too noisy. Gran had never minded if she wanted to sing or skip around the flat or laugh out loud.

Thinking of noise brought her back to the decibel level of the current moment. That, and the fact that Maggs jabbed her in the ribs with a bony elbow. She was one of those wiry old ladies, the sort whose strength belied their tiny frames. ‘I used to be able to do a wolf whistle that could stop traffic three streets away,’ she said, looking from noisy club member to noisy club member. ‘It hasn’t been the same since I got my false teeth, but I could always give it a go?’ She raised her eyebrows and began to lift two fingers towards her mouth.

‘Not a good idea,’ Claire said wearily. ‘If they shot out and hit someone, we could be sued, and funds are low enough in the kitty as it is.’

‘Might be worth it, just to get some peace and quiet,’ Maggs muttered, surveying their unruly members with disdain. She turned her focus to the empty chair on the other side of Claire. ‘Talking of money … Where’s our new treasurer, anyway?’

‘She’ll be here any second.’

Right on cue, the door flew open and Peggy burst in, wearing the same pink dress she’d had on earlier, so tight it only just allowed her to trot in her five-inch heels.

‘You’re late,’ Maggs said, switching her laser-beam stare from Claire to Peggy.

Peggy just grinned at her. ‘That’s because my first job as treasurer was to negotiate next year’s rent for the room with the landlord. Not only is the price staying the same, but he’s agreed to throw in a round of cocktails each meeting too.’

Claire’s eyes widened. She was about to ask just how Peggy had managed that – Bruce, the landlord, had never been anything but surly with her – but then she got a prime view of Peggy’s rear end as she bent over to put her vintage handbag on the floor and pull out her notebook, and she had a sneaking suspicion just how their new treasurer had accomplished it.

Maggs nodded sagely. ‘I knew there was something I liked about that girl. I’ve always been partial to the odd gin sling.’ As if to prove the point, she pulled a hip flask from her handbag and added more ‘va-va-voom’ to the already generous gin and tonic in front of her.

Claire decided not to remind the older lady just how vocal she’d been when Claire had suggested Peggy for the post of treasurer. She’d called Peggy a ‘slip of a thing’ and had campaigned long and hard for Bev, who she’d strong-armed into coming from her Pilates class, to take the job, even though Bev had said flatly that she didn’t want to do it.

Maggs leaned across Claire and held out her hand. ‘Can I borrow one of those for a second?’ she asked Peggy, nodding at her shoes with the polka-dot bows. Peggy opened her mouth to ask why, but Maggs waggled her fingers impatiently. In the end, Peggy just sighed and handed one exquisite shoe over.

Maggs took it by the toe and rapped the heel on the table three times so loudly that the whole room fell silent. ‘There you go,’ she said to Claire, and handed Peggy back her shoe.

All eyes turned to Claire. She stood up. For just a split second nothing came out of her mouth.

It was stupid. She should be over this by now, not only because she’d been leading these meetings for almost a year, but because her previous job had required her to give numerous presentations. However, while she was good with people, fabulous one-to-one, there was always this jab of panic every time she got up to talk to a group. It hadn’t worn off in the slightest over the years. There was something about this intense moment of silence, when every eye was trained on her, that made her feel like an insect on a microscope slide. Her throat always went dry and her fingers tingled.

She breathed in through her nose and cleared her throat.

She smiled at the small group of women – and George – in front of her, nursing their Diet Cokes and their warm white wines. ‘Hi, everyone. Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Doris Day Film Club. First, an order of business before we get going with tonight’s film: we’ve had a suggestion … Instead of running film night once a month as usual, we’ll meet weekly and have a Doris Day Film festival over the summer: twelve weeks, taking us from now right through to the end of July. Would all those in favour please raise—’

She was cut off as someone gave the slightly temperamental door behind her a shove then barrelled into the room, almost sending her flying. The whole group turned to look at the newcomer. Their visitor, a young woman, stared back at them with undisguised terror.

‘Is this the Dor—’ Her gaze darted from face to face. She paled as she spotted the red lips and eyelashes of the vintage crew and started to back away. ‘Um … Never mind. I think I’m … um … in the wrong place.’

She attempted to reverse, but hadn’t counted on the fact she’d moved a little bit sideways as she’d fallen into the room and she ended up backing into the wall and hitting her head on a wall light, almost dislodging its tasselled orange shade.

‘No, you’re in the right place,’ Claire said softly. ‘This is the Doris Day Film Club.’ She indicated an empty chair next to Kitty, the nearest of the vintage girls. ‘Please join us.’

The girl remained frozen. Claire realised she was younger than she’d first thought, maybe only in her late teens. She wore a football shirt and shapeless jeans with battered trainers on her feet. There wasn’t a lick of make-up on her face and her thin dark hair was parted severely down the middle and hung lank down either side of her face.

‘We’d love to have you.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m Claire, the president of the club, but that doesn’t mean much except I do the boring stuff and get custody of the library of films we watch each meeting.’

The girl looked at her hand as if it were a live cobra about to strike. Panicked, she glanced at the door, but Claire had stepped forward when she’d starting talking to her and was now blocking her escape route.

Eventually, the girl’s shoulders slumped. ‘I’m Abby,’ she said, so quietly that Claire hardly heard her above the noise of the drinkers who’d spilled out onto the street below the open windows, eager to escape the cloying heat of the pub’s dark interior.

Kitty straightened her spine and twisted to stare at Abby as she bypassed the empty seat next to her and scuttled round the back of the tables and chairs to find a spot in the corner tucked away behind Bev and Candy.

‘Hang on, I know you, don’t I?’ she said.

Abby didn’t answer, just dropped into the chair, hunched over and folded her arms tight.

Claire looked between the two of them. A couple of the others were scowling, thinking Abby a bit rude, but it hadn’t been disdain Claire had seen on Abby’s face. It had been fear. Strange, because Kitty was a friendly, open-hearted girl of twenty-three, whose passion for all things vintage was unrivalled, her only flaw a tendency to open her mouth and let whatever entered her head spill out of it.

Despite the snub, Kitty grinned at their new member. Abby, however, didn’t see it, as her eyes were fixed steadily on the beer mat on the table in front of her.

‘Abby Preston, that’s right. You used to go to St Joseph’s, same as me. My younger brother Gus was on the football team with you. He was always moaning that you got to play centre midfield instead of him. He was well miffed that you were the best on the team!’

Abby looked up. Her long straight hair had partially fallen over her face and she didn’t brush it out of the way. ‘Really?’

Kitty nodded. ‘Really.’

Abby looked down again at the table, but Claire noticed that she now wore the barest of smiles.

‘Well, it’s lovely to have you with us for the evening, Abby,’ Claire said, as she took her seat, ‘and don’t worry, if it’s not your cup of tea, you don’t have to come back next time.’

Much to everyone’s surprise, Abby shot to her feet again, sending her chair skittering backwards into the wall. ‘But that’s just it! I do have to come back next week!’

Claire gave a slightly nervous laugh. ‘No … honestly. We won’t make you stay!’

Abby shook her head. ‘It’s not you I’m worried about,’ she explained, with a wobble in her voice. ‘It’s my mum. She’s blackmailing me.’

‘Blackmailing?’ Claire repeated quietly.

Abby nodded, her jaw tight. ‘She says she gave birth to and raised a little girl and that she’s tired of me going around looking like a football hooligan and that it’s high time I learned to be a bit more ladylike.’

‘I see,’ Claire said slowly, not really sure she did.

‘My mum says exactly the opposite,’ Kitty said brightly. ‘She keeps asking when I’m going to stop showing her up by dressing up like a pantomime dame!’

There was a murmur of sympathetic laughter from around the room.

‘My mother was always going on about the fact my slip was showing,’ the old lady sitting next to Abby said. ‘She said I was the untidiest child she’d ever seen.’

Claire watched Abby take in Bev’s spotless pink blouse, the crease in her nylon trousers and her perfectly permed hair. Bev smiled back at her. ‘Mothers and daughters,’ she said. ‘Some things never change.’

Claire frowned. ‘The demanding parent thing I get, believe me. But what I don’t get is why it has anything to do with us … the Doris Day Film Club?’

Abby sighed. ‘She often pops in downstairs for a drink and she’s seen you all going through the pub looking …’ she broke off to glanced around the room ‘… well, looking like girls, and last week she came home with a flyer for your meetings and stuck it to the front of the fridge with a magnet. She says it’s this or a spa weekend.’ Abby paused for a moment to let a shudder ripple up her spine. ‘And since neither of us have got the money for one of those, here I am.’

Claire shook her head, but she was smiling at the same time. ‘I’m sure she’s not going to actually—’

‘Oh yes she is!’ Abby blurted out. ‘She’s hired the whole pub out for her fortieth birthday party in six weeks’ time, and she says she’s getting desperate. No way am I allowed to show her up in front of her friends.’

‘Stand up to her,’ Peggy said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘She can’t force you, can she?’

Abby looked quite fierce. ‘Actually, she can. She bought tickets to the Arsenal–Man United game for me when I was broke. I’m saving up to pay her back, but now she’s holding them hostage. If I don’t turn up at her party in a dress with …’ she didn’t elaborate, twirling of her fingers near her head ‘… hair and … m-make up, she says she’s going to flog them on eBay.’ And then she sat down on her chair with a thump, looking more miserable than ever.

Bev, who had six grandchildren and was always hoping for more to mother, leaned backwards and patted Abby’s hand in a matter-of-fact way. ‘Don’t you worry,’ she told her. ‘If there are two things this lot aren’t short of, it’s advice – whether you want it or not – and fashion sense.’

‘I’m not sure any amount of fashion advice is going to help me,’ Abby said mournfully, ‘but thank you.’

Bev nodded. ‘Don’t you get het up about that right now. You got here for the meeting, just like your mother asked. We’ll start worrying about the rest of it next time. All you need to do now is sit back and enjoy the film. You can do that, can’t you?’

Abby gave her a weak smile and nodded.

‘That’s sorted then,’ said Bev, and turned back around to face the front of the room.

Claire took her cue. ‘Right … we might as well get on and watch tonight’s film. I was going to go for Tea for Two, but now I’m wondering if we should go for one that will give Abby some good fashion ideas.’ She opened a large zip-up case that held her entire collection of Doris Day DVDs in sleeves and flicked through it. ‘Any suggestions?’

‘The Pajama Game!’ said Kitty loudly. ‘It’s based on the fashion industry, after all.’

Maggs snorted at the young woman. ‘Don’t be daft. It’s hardly as if Abby needs a nightie for her mother’s party, and Doris spends a lot of the rest of the film in factory work clothes.’

Kitty pouted. ‘It was just a suggestion.’

‘What about Do Not Disturb?’ Candy said. ‘I remember how that dress she wore to the party at the hotel took my breath away the first time I saw it.’

‘Oh, my, yes!’ Kitty said, almost jumping out of her seat, sulk forgotten. ‘All those sequins! And do you remember …? The lining of the coat matched!’

‘Maybe …’ Claire said as she continued to thumb through her collection, frowning slightly. For some reason she wasn’t sure that this floor-length dress in orange sequins was going to be Abby’s thing.

‘I know,’ Peggy said firmly beside her. ‘Pillow Talk.’

There was a general buzz of agreement. Claire looked up. Almost everyone was nodding – except for Abby, who was looking at them all as if they were talking a foreign language.

‘Pillow Talk it is,’ Claire said, smiling as she slid it from its sleeve. ‘Great choice, Peggy. Jean Louis created the whole wardrobe for that film. It shows Doris in some of the most spectacular creations of her career – smart, simple, elegant. In other words, perfect.’

She dimmed the lights and a reverent hush fell over the room.

The opening credits rolled and a sense of both peace and nostalgia swept over Claire as the jaunty little title song played and an anonymous pyjama-clad couple threw pillows back and forth at each other from their respective beds. She let out a long breath.

It had been a long day, and she hadn’t realised she’d need this moment to switch off and unwind until it had come upon her. Now, for a glorious ninety minutes, she could sit back, relax, and lose herself in a world where wrongs were always righted, love always triumphed and even the most scheming scoundrel could be redeemed.

Chapter Three
Never Look Back

When the film finished, Claire turned the lights back on and the members of the Doris Day Film Club started to gather their belongings together. Claire noticed Kitty and Grace turn to Abby, expectant looks on their faces.

‘Did you like the film?’ Grace asked. Of the two, she was definitely less talkative, preferring to emulate some of the screen goddesses of old and maintain an air of mystery. She was tall, with a long neck, aristocratic features and vibrant red hair. Her eyes were always slightly hooded, and Claire was never quite sure whether it was in an effort to look sexy or because she thought feigning boredom was cool. She and the shoot first, think later Kitty were certainly an interesting pair.

Abby looked from one to the other, as if she was surprised girls like that would start up a conversation with her, and then a slow, shy smile spread across her lips. She nodded. Kitty and Grace gave each other a knowing look.

‘What did you like best about it?’ Kitty asked, grabbing Abby’s arm.

Abby’s eyes widened, then she thought for a moment. ‘I liked her … Jan. I mean, Doris. She seemed nice.’

‘That’s why we love Doris too,’ Kitty said, while Grace just flicked her hair back over her shoulder. ‘There’s something so warm and approachable about her, even while she’s looking glamorous in all those epic clothes and—’

‘She’s sexy too,’ Grace added in her husky voice.

‘Yes,’ Kitty said, ‘but she’s sexy without being in-your-face about it.’ She shot a look at Grace as she said that. ‘And then there’s the whole “perpetual virgin” thing … I think it’s kind of romantic … I think I’d like to be thought of that way – sexy but unobtainable.’

‘I don’t think anyone’s going to mistake you for a perpetual virgin!’

Kitty pinned her with a fierce look. ‘Well, that’s better than being like you! If a man ever does get into those knickers of yours, he’s going to find they’ve frozen solid!’

Grace just flicked her hair again and turned away.

Kitty leaned in closer to Abby and took on a confidential tone. ‘Okay, I had some insecurity issues a while ago, and maybe I tried to solve them by seeking male attention—’ she glanced towards the blank screen of the television ‘—but watching these films has made me think that maybe I’d like a bit of old-fashioned respect.’

Abby nodded, looking uncomfortable at Kitty’s massive overshare.

Grace’s perfect mask of calm showed signs of cracking. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Kitty, while keeping her eyes fixed on the garish wallpaper. ‘I’ve been trying to develop some of that Bacall-like rapier wit and sometimes it runs away with me.’

Kitty rolled her eyes but her expression softened. ‘Forgiven. Anyway, we’re drifting from the point … What we’re trying to do is tell Abby that Doris is all about the fun and the romance—’

‘And the fashion,’ Grace added seriously.

Claire was sliding the DVD of Pillow Talk back into her storage case. She’d been listening to the conversation. ‘Actually, Doris ended up hating the image people, and the media, had of her. Her real life wasn’t like that at all,’ she said.

Kitty and Grace looked at her, their expressions slightly blank. Abby looked at the floor.

‘We all love her because she’s bright and perky and happy on screen, you’re right,’ Claire continued, ‘but she had a lot of tragedy in her life. The real Doris Day is a lot more complex than people think.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Kitty said, nodding absent-mindedly, and then she grinned, ‘but the clothes! Did you see the clothes, Abby? Which ones were your favourites?’

And with that, Kitty inked arms with Abby and steered her towards the door. Grace wafted along behind them. Poor Abby looked stuck halfway between awe and terror. Who knew if she was going to come again next meeting – which would be next week, rather than next month, as the membership had unanimously embraced the idea of a Doris Day film festival. Claire supposed it depended on how desperate she was for those Arsenal tickets.

She looked up at Maggs, who was hovering near the committee table, and gave a heavy sigh. ‘They don’t get it, do they? Those girls? They don’t know the truth about Doris. All they can see is the pastel colours, the dazzling smile, the voice of an angel …’

They didn’t know what Claire knew – the one reason she’d really started to love Doris Day in her own right, not because her grandmother had – that Doris was tough. She was a survivor. Claire wanted to be just like her.

‘It’ll come,’ Maggs said, strangely reasonably for her. ‘After all, you didn’t get it at first.’

Claire nodded. She hoped Maggs was right. It was one of the reasons she’d wanted to keep the club running after Gran’s death. Gran had known the truth too, drawn strength from it. Her life hadn’t been easy either.

There wasn’t much clearing up to be done after club meetings. Usually, there’d be a bit of chit-chat after the film, then people would drift off one by one until it was just her, left to give the place a quick once-over before she turned out the light and shut the door, but tonight Maggs was hovering.

Claire straightened the lampshade that Abby had bumped into. Maggs didn’t seem to be making any moves to leave, so Claire glanced over her shoulder at her, just in time to see Maggs finish taking a quick nip from her hip flask and hide it back in her handbag.

Claire frowned, but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she asked, ‘George not giving you a lift this evening?’

Maggs shook her head. ‘I told him to go on without me.’

Claire stopped fussing with the shade, which would just not consent to stay horizontal. ‘Oh? Are things okay between you two?’

Maggs shrugged.

Claire turned to look at her. She’d thought Maggs and George might have been developing a little ‘thing’. Maybe she’d been wrong, but she hadn’t failed to notice the way that at some club meetings, as the film rolled, George wouldn’t be watching Doris on the fifty-two inch screen all the time. Sometimes he’d be watching Maggs.

It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, even though Maggs had scoffed at the suggestion. Claire knew how lonely she’d been after Sid had died. They’d been married for thirty-eight years, after all. It had to leave a horrible hole.

She put a hand on Maggs’s bony shoulder. Maggs, her full height at five feet and one inch, looked up at Claire, her expression guarded, eyes searching. ‘I just don’t know,’ she said quietly, revealing more than she ever had on the subject before. ‘He’s a sweet man, but he’s not …’ She looked away.

He’s not Sid, Claire finished for her silently. She got that.

‘Well, I’ll give you a lift back if you want,’ Claire said and continued to bustle around while really doing nothing. It was better if she pretended she hadn’t seen that mistiness in Maggs’s eyes.

When Claire had been a child she’d always thought of her grandmother’s best friend as ‘that funny lady’, but as she’d grown into an adult, she’d come to appreciate the other woman’s dry humour, her mastery of the snappy comeback. They’d found a new kind of closeness since her grandmother’s death, bound together by her absence in a much stronger way than they had been by her presence.

Maggs sniffed and gave Claire a faux-offended look. ‘I’m not too old and frail to get the two-seven-one, you know. Those louts who like to ride on the top deck don’t scare me!’

Claire turned to have one last go at the lampshade, mainly to make sure Maggs didn’t see her smiling at that comment. If anything, those ‘louts’ were more likely to be cowed by Maggs than the other way round. ‘I know that,’ she said, turning back, ‘but my car has air conditioning and I can give you door-to-door service.’

Maggs adjusted the light cardigan she’d slung over her shoulder. ‘I suppose I can keep you company, if you want. There’s something I need to talk to you about, anyway.’

‘Club business?’ Claire asked absent-mindedly as she flicked off the lights and they both exited onto the landing.

‘Not exactly,’ Maggs muttered as she followed behind.

*

Given the fact she had something to say, Maggs was very quiet on the drive home. She didn’t speak until they were almost there. ‘I had a letter from your father,’ she announced suddenly, staring straight ahead, looking for all the world as if she’d just told Claire she had a hairdressing appointment in the morning.

Claire didn’t decide to brake hard – she just did – causing both her and Maggs to fly forward until their seat belts engaged, digging into their chests then flinging them back into their seats again. She turned to stare at Maggs, only half aware her fingers were making dents in the steering wheel.

‘What …? I mean, how …?’ She shook her head, kept on shaking it. ‘How did he know your address?’

Maggs shrugged and glanced at her. Now that Claire was looking at her more carefully, she could see that Maggs wasn’t as blasé about the whole thing as she’d first thought. There was a tension around her mouth, as if someone had pulled a drawstring round it, crinkling its edges.

‘To be honest, I have no idea, but he wrote to me anyway.’

Claire realised that her little Fiat was blocking the narrow Victorian street, lined with parked cars on both sides. It was only a matter of time before some other motorist started honking their horn or swearing at her. She slid the car into gear and eased away slowly. ‘What did he want?’

‘To see you.’

The urge to brake hard again was strong, but Claire managed to beat it. Instead, she concentrated on indicating left and turning into Maggs’s road. ‘Why now?’ she whispered, more to herself than her passenger.

Maggs sighed. ‘He didn’t say.’

Claire’s brows lowered and pinched the skin at the top of her nose. Of course he hadn’t said. Her father had never felt the need to explain anything he did, had only saw fit to issue orders. She stewed on that thought as she performed a perfect parallel park outside Maggs’s house.

‘But reading between the lines,’ Maggs continued as the car came to a halt, ‘I’d say he’s ill.’

Claire realised she was squeezing the life out of her steering wheel again and deliberately peeled her fingers from its warm surface. ‘I don’t care,’ she said. She could feel Maggs looking at her, and Maggs kept looking until Claire gave in and twisted her head to stare back at her. ‘I don’t.’

‘He’s your father,’ Maggs said simply.

She nodded. She knew that.

‘If anyone knows the pain of not taking an opportunity to make things right while you can, it’s me.’

Claire sighed. There was a difference. Maggs had had a silly quarrel with Sid the day before he’d died and the following morning she’d been monosyllabic with him at breakfast. He’d told her she was being childish then went out to fetch a pint of milk from the corner shop. She’d never seen him again. Not until she’d had to identify his body. Heart attack. No one had seen it coming, not even Sid, who’d declared himself as fit as an ox until the day his body had so unceremoniously contradicted him.

‘It’s not the same,’ Claire mumbled. She hadn’t seen her father since she was eleven. But she’d never been sad she hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye properly; she’d been glad. Glad he’d never come back. Glad she didn’t have to go and spend weekends and half the school holidays with him. Glad her mother slowly stopped being the quiet, shrunken woman he’d turned her into.

Maggs made a noise of grudging agreement, then she delved into her ever-present patent black leather handbag and pulled out a crumpled envelope and held it out to her.

Claire stared at it. She didn’t even want to touch it.

When she refused to respond, Maggs folded the envelope in two and tucked it into Claire’s handbag, which was nestled in the passenger footwell. ‘Never say never,’ she said quietly before she kissed Claire on the cheek, then reached for the door handle. ‘Because never is a very long time,’ she added, as she gently unclipped her seatbelt and got out of the car.

Claire tried to look cheerful, but it felt wrong, as if her smile was sitting wonky on her face. She waved her farewell and, when Maggs had disappeared inside, she put the car in gear and drove away.

Chapter Four
I Can Do Without You

Claire slid her key into the bottom lock of her front door, only half aware of what she was doing. An image of her father, stern and disapproving as he sat in his favourite armchair, would not be dislodged from her head. She hated that it was lingering in her brain like a squatter almost as much as she’d hated being summoned to see him all those years ago.

Her mother had always kept a nice house, had taken pains to make it feel welcoming and homey. They’d had yellow walls in the hallway and lounge, so it would always feel like the sun was shining even when it wasn’t, her mother had said. But Claire couldn’t picture that when she remembered standing there, frozen with fear, outside the living room door.

Her memories were bleached, making the light weak and pale blue, like the morning after a snowfall. Even now the thought of that cold light made her shiver.

The longer she’d stood there hesitating, the more the image of her father behind the door had grown in her mind, large and imposing, like one of those statues of Lenin she’d seen in a history book, until he and his stupid armchair had filled the room.

Eventually, she’d pushed the door open with her fingertips, secretly hoping it would stick, but it had always swung open; he’d been fastidious about DIY. Getting the walk and the expression on her face just right had been of the utmost importance. Too bright and bouncy and he’d think she was being flippant. Too dour and slow and he’d say she looked guilty.

She closed her eyes and shook her head as she dealt with the top lock. He wasn’t there any more. Not in that house where she’d grown up. Certainly not in her life. He really shouldn’t still be here, deep inside her skull. A rush of warmth tingled from her fingers up to her face. She was angry with him for making her think of him when she’d erased him from her consciousness so completely. Angry with him for contacting her. For pretending for even the tiniest millisecond that he cared.

Anyway, festering about the past was not the way she’d chosen to live her life. She’d learned that much from Doris Day at least.

She pushed her glossy black front door open and moved to step inside, but it bounced back and smashed her in the face.

Ow.

She frowned, rubbed her nose and tried again, this time keeping her distance. Once again the door sprang back towards her. Seriously? Had there been that much junk mail since this morning that it was blocking her progress into the hallway?

It was possible. She only owned the upstairs of the Victorian terraced house. She and the downstairs owner shared this front door and the decent-sized hallway. Her neighbour didn’t know the meaning of unsubscribing from a mailing list, and because he really just used this flat as a crash pad, she was always having to hoover up his unwanted mail and shove it in the recycling. What did ‘Mr Dominic Arden’ want with five different subscriptions to geeky-looking magazines about cameras and microphones for anyway? Surely nobody could be that sad?

And then there were the takeaway leaflets. Not just the ones that came through the door if you wanted them or not. He was such a good customer when he was here, obviously, that every greasy kebab or curry shop in the whole of north London had put him on their mailing list and sent him regular vouchers and leaflets about special deals.

She took a deep breath to steady herself and gave the door one final hefty shove. Whatever it was that had been blocking the door moved, but it felt a whole lot sturdier than a wodge of glossy leaflets advertising fifteen per cent off home delivery Chinese.

Frowning, she stepped into the hallway. She’d have to clear up whatever it was, otherwise she’d just have to fight her way through it again in the morning. She reached for the light switch beside the door, cheering herself up by imagining shoving all the junk mail through his letterbox from that day forward, letting him deal with the recycling Everest when he finally returned home.

Her fingers, however, never made it to the switch, because no sooner had she got one foot inside the door she tripped over something. Something hard and metal and rubbery at the same time. She came crashing down on her knees, her hands shooting out in front of her to stop her face hitting the black and white tiled floor.

She stayed there on all fours, shaking slightly and trying to make sense of the usually ordered universe of her hallway. Slowly, she reached out to the right and felt for whatever it was that had caused all the trouble. She found thin metal rod and then a sturdier strut, and by the time her fingers had gripped the blocky rubber tread of a wheel she’d got the whole thing worked out.

It was a flipping bike! His flipping bike. Mr Downstairs. Mr Come And Go As I Please, Not Minding Anyone Else Arden. Claire hauled herself to her feet and, without moving them for fear of being felled again, leaned towards the wall and switched on the light.

The bulb promptly exploded.

Of course it did.

The hall was plunged into darkness once again, but for a flickering moment she’d glimpsed the hulking bike lying across the hall floor, sprawled across a heap of brightly coloured leaflets and polythene-wrapped magazines. She would have kicked the stupid thing if she hadn’t been scared she’d tangle her toes up in the spokes and injure herself further.

Carefully, she felt around for the frame of the bike and then lifted it to stand against the wall, where it had undoubtedly started off the evening. However, her neighbour had thoughtlessly parked it too close to the front door, not caring that she wouldn’t be able to enter, and then had gone off to bed or God knows where without a care in the world. It was totally and utterly typical of him.

Honestly, she didn’t know how her grandmother had put up with him for so long! Claire had inherited both flat and bothersome neighbour after Gran’s death and even though she’d lived here for a year now, he’d probably only been in residence for a couple of weeks of that time – a few days here, a few days there – but she was already hoping he’d just up sticks and move abroad for good one day and stay permanently out of her hair.

Thankfully, she knew this hallway like the back of her hand and, with the help of the dim glow of a street light across the road, she made it to her flat door without further incident. Once inside, she exhaled and slumped back against the closed door. For a moment, she just concentrated on breathing.

There was no point in getting all het up about things she couldn’t change, was there? Que sera, sera and all that. She doubted her Neanderthal of a neighbour was ever going to amend his behaviour. What she needed to do was take a leaf out of Doris’s book and smile in the face of adversity, have a ‘thumbs-up’ attitude rather than a ‘thumbs-down’ one. After all, Doris had had a lot more tragedy in her life than an inconsiderate downstairs neighbour. According to her autobiography, the men in her life had done far worse to her than that.

First, she’d mentioned the musician husband who’d beat her and even once threatened to kill her and their unborn child, then her sadness at the failure of her second marriage after only eight months. She’d adored him, but he hadn’t been able to handle her growing fame. Then, according to Doris, husband number three had kept an iron grip on her career, becoming more of a father figure than a life partner. After his death, it transpired his lawyer had embezzled more than twenty million dollars from Doris – almost the entire fortune she’d spend her career building – and had left her half a million dollars in debt. Years later, she’d still never been sure if her husband been totally duped by the lawyer or if he’d had some hand in the shady dealings. Marriage number four hadn’t ended that happily either.

In the light of that, Claire could surely endure a mountain bike and a ton of junk mail!

She breathed out again and let her shoulders relax. There. That was better. Maybe she’d even find it funny in the morning.

Whatever will be, will be. Whatever had happened, had happened. She couldn’t change it, so she might was well ignore it, move on …

But her knees complained as she started to walk down the hallway towards the living room. She looked down to discover red marks on both of them and a tiny cut on her right leg, where she must have sprawled into the upended mountain bike. That horrible warm, itchy sensation that had come over her on the doorstep when she’d been thinking of her father returned, but she attempted to bat it away like a pesky fly.

She decided to watch TV for a bit before heading to bed, her system still too pumped full of adrenalin for her to drop off yet. She collapsed onto the sofa and reached for the remote, but as she flicked through the TV channels, she found herself staring round the room more than paying attention to the screen. The itchy sensation wouldn’t leave. She had the horrible sense that bothersome insect of a feeling had landed and was laying eggs, that it would just keep growing and breeding no matter what she did.

Ugh. She shuddered and attempted to distract herself by looking around the room.

While she’d moved her furniture in, she’d also kept some of her grandmother’s stuff, including a glazed bookcase and a bureau with a roll-top that stuck. The floral wallpaper was the one she remembered from her childhood, so old it had gone out of fashion and come back in again, but it matched Claire’s modern retro-inspired sofa and armchair perfectly.

She sighed.

God, she missed her gran. Her nose stung and a tear appeared at the corners of both eyes. She kept staring at the large cream peonies on the wall, watching them blur in and out of their pale sage background until the moisture evaporated and the urge to give in and just sob abated. She realised she’d stopped on some show with loud-mouthed people arguing over the contents of abandoned storage lockers and shook her head. Gran would have hated this programme. No class. No class at all.

With that thought in her mind, she aimed the remote squarely at the screen and turned the TV off, then rose and hauled herself to bed. Suddenly, she felt very, very tired.

*

Claire tossed and turned all night, partly because of the heat, despite the fact large sash windows in her bedroom were open both top and bottom, and partly because every time she woke, she realised she’d been having a conversation with her downstairs neighbour in her sleep, letting him know just how inconsiderate and selfish she found him.

She really wasn’t doing very well at this live-and-let-live, whatever-will-be stuff, was she? It was stupid that something so trivial was affecting her this way, but ever since Maggs had mentioned her father’s letter earlier that evening she’d felt as if everything was topsy-turvy.

It didn’t help that in her dream conversations her neighbour hadn’t had a face. On the rare occasions he’d returned from wherever he’d been overseas he seemed to live a nocturnal existence. She’d heard doors slam, been woken by his music at unearthly hours, had to haul his bin back from the path after bin day, because he’d already left and someone would probably nick it if it stayed there too long, but she’d never once laid eyes on him.

At four-fifteen she let out a growl of frustration, threw back the sheet and got out of bed. There was only one way she knew to deal with this kind of thing. She needed to do something concrete, something to get these words out of her head.

It had been so hot that she’d been sleeping naked, so she pulled on her white shortie PJs with the large red hearts on them – a Christmas gift from Gran two years ago. It had been a joke between them, seeing as they resembled the ones Doris wore at the end of The Pajama Game – and stumbled into the kitchen. She grabbed the reporter’s notebook and biro she often used for her shopping lists and started to scribble.

Halfway down the page she stopped. It looked terrible. The sort of thing a lazy school child would scrawl as a forgery explaining that the family pet had digested their homework. It carried just as much weight and looked just as convincing.

She stood up and put the kettle on, deciding a nice strong cup of tea might help bring her to her senses, then reached into the dresser she’d found in a local junk shop for her good writing paper and rummaged in her pen pot for her fountain pen.

Yes, she had writing paper. The proper kind. It was the colour of clotted cream with ridges that felt nice if you ran your fingertips over the surface. Gran had always stressed the importance of a good ‘thank you’ letter, especially after birthdays and Christmas, and Claire had found it was one convention in this day of emails, status updates and Tweets that she didn’t want to let go of.

She made her tea and then sat down again, her eyes feeling slightly less gritty and her hand slightly more steady. She decided to use the scribbled note as a starting point and began to both copy and edit as her indigo ink swept across the page.

When she was finished, she folded it neatly into three and pushed it into an envelope with a tissue lining. It was a thing of beauty, and it seemed a travesty to be using stationery like this on a philistine like Mr Arden, but she hoped it would help her get her point across. She meant business, and this letter certainly screamed it loud and clear. She was tired of letting men ride roughshod over her and, while this might not be much, it was a symbol of something bigger. It was a start.

She licked the envelope, pressed the flap closed and then stood up. No time like the present, she thought, as she nipped out of her flat, padded carefully down the stairs, now illuminated with greyish pre-dawn light, and carefully and noiselessly lifted her neighbour’s letterbox.

She paused just at the moment she prepared to let the envelope drop onto the varnished floorboards inside. Slowly, she eased the letter back out of the slot, and then, still gripping it lightly, she turned her head and looked at the sprawl of junk mail cluttering up her hallway.

If she posted it, it would probably just get buried under everything else. Better to put it somewhere he was bound to find it. Her eyes came to rest on the culprit of her sore knees, resting innocently against the wall.

Hmm. He’d used his bike yesterday, and even if he didn’t use it again before he left, he’d still probably pick it up and put it back inside his flat. She walked over and placed the letter strategically on the saddle, then stepped back and surveyed her handiwork. There. That should do.

However, as she turned to creep back up the stairs, she had one last flash of inspiration …

Quickly, and before she could talk herself out of it, she grabbed the bike and rolled it forwards so the front wheel was just sticking a centimetre or two past the edge of her neighbour’s front door. There. He wouldn’t be able to miss it now – just like she hadn’t been able to miss the stupid contraption last night.

She grinned naughtily as she tiptoed back up the stairs, thinking to herself that it was just as well Doris was still going strong in her nineties. Even though Miss Day was known to have a keen sense of fun, Claire wasn’t sure she’d have been proud of what she’d just done if she’d been peering down from heaven.

Chapter Five
Anything You Can Do

Dominic’s body clock was so screwed up he’d bypassed the sleepy stage of tiredness and now just felt a bit drunk. Reality swam in and out of focus when he opened his eyes. For a moment, he thought he was in yet another hostel or airport, but he soon realised the reason he didn’t recognise his own bedroom ceiling was two-fold—firstly, he stayed here so infrequently he’d forgotten what it looked like and, secondly, somehow he’d turned himself around in the night, and now he was lying with one foot on his pillow and his head in the opposite corner of the bed, one arm dangling towards the floor.

Food.

That was the thought that entered his head, a primal and desperate signal sent direct from his abdomen to his brain, but the rest of him was so exhausted he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to eat or throw up. Be that as it may, he still managed to flip himself off the bed and stumble into his kitchen.

Inspecting the fridge might be a risky manoeuvre. He’d gone straight out for a ‘welcome home’ drink with his mate Pete as soon as he’d dropped his rucksack inside his front door and hadn’t checked the contents yet. He couldn’t quite recall if he’d remembered to empty it before he’d left back in February.

To be honest, he was happy to leave that riddle unanswered for now.

He turned his attention to the cupboards. There wasn’t much tempting there, either. Packets of rice and pasta. A tin of kidney beans that he had no memory of buying – especially since he hated the things. Some Cup-a-Soups that were well past their expiration date.

His stomach growled and clenched.

Great.

It had finally made up its mind what it wanted: anything, basically. As long as it arrived within the next thirty seconds. He was just giving the can of kidney beans some serious thought when he spotted something brightly coloured lurking in the back of the cupboard. Before his brain even registered what it was, his hand delved in and retrieved it.

He laughed a little manically as he saw it and thought to himself, still smiling, that he was definitely still sleep loopy. Why else would the sight of a multipack of miniature cereal boxes be quite so funny?

He started tearing at the cellophane, which was a pretty stupid idea, he discovered, because as he battled with one end of the package, a box of Coco Pops fell out the other.

Ah, he’d already started them. He remembered now. This had been the joke gift Pete had given him on his birthday, quipping that Dominic couldn’t even commit to something as big as a whole box of cereal.

He abandoned the boxes still imprisoned in the cellophane for the one that had escaped. He ripped open the top and poured the contents into a bowl and ate it with a spoon that was technically too large for his mouth. He didn’t care. It was just the first thing that his fingers had landed on when he’d raided the cutlery drainer on the sink.

He turned and sat on the table, legs swinging, as he munched his way through the first couple of mouthfuls. Once he’d shoved the third in, he realised that, as nice as they were, Coco Pops were a tad dry on their own. He glanced hesitantly at the fridge. Any milk he’d left in there had probably been growing bacteria for so long it had now evolved into an organism the size of a small Yeti.

And then he remembered …

The old bird upstairs had her milk delivered. Had done for years.

He checked the clock. Six-forty. If he timed it right, he could ‘borrow’ a pint, then go out and buy a replacement before she came down to fetch it in. He wasn’t usually given to such petty thievery, but he was desperate. She was a nice old lady, with a great sense of humour and a twinkle in her eye. He was sure she’d understand.

He dropped his cereal bowl on the table with a clang, sending a shower of tiny chocolate pellets across the surface, and headed out of the kitchen. He was just salivating at the thought of all that ice-cold milk making his cereal pop when he opened his flat door, stepped outside and immediately found himself face down on the hall floor, something sharp digging into his arm.

He discovered it was a brake lever.

What the …?

He lay there for a moment, wondering if he was still dreaming, but the insistent throbbing in his bicep where the brake lever had poked him made that unlikely. Slowly, he picked himself up and dusted himself off. He could have sworn he hadn’t left the bike there last night. However, severe jet lag and a couple of beers could mean he was wrong about that. He probably shouldn’t have cycled home.

It was then he noticed the crisp white envelope lying on the floor. It was addressed to Mr D. Arden. He kept an eye on it while he righted his bike and leaned it against the wall, then picked the pristine letter up and went to snaffle the milk from the front step.

Thankfully, some things never changed. There was a pint waiting for him, still cold enough to be beaded with condensation. He picked it up, keeping the letter in his other hand, and made a mental note to go out to the shops as soon as he’d finished breakfast. He knew a plastic carton wasn’t going to fool her, but he’d leave a note, explaining …

Once back inside, he dumped a generous amount of milk on his Coco Pops then sat down on one of the kitchen chairs to read the letter.

Dear Mr Arden, it started. He snorted. That made him sound like his father. People hardly ever called him that. Most just used his last name, no pleasantries. Sometimes people used his Christian name, but a lot of his friends just called him Nic, mostly because he’d made it clear if they ever tried to shorten it to ‘Dom’ he’d flatten them. Whatever this letter contained, he guessed it wasn’t going to be good news.

He read on …

It has come to my attention that you are in residence again.

He snorted again, smiling as he continued to shove Coco Pops in his face. In residence? That didn’t just make him sound like his father; now he sounded like the Queen!

As a consequence, I think we should establish some ground rules that allow us to cohabit harmoniously.

Ah, the old bird upstairs. Once upon a time they’d got on fairly well, but maybe she was getting extra crabby in her old age. He stopped both reading and chewing to look at his kitchen ceiling. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen her for quite a while. How long had it been? One year? Two? One time he’d come back she’d been so quiet he thought she might have gone into a home.

He’d thought they’d had quite a good arrangement going. Most of the time she had the house to herself and when he was ‘in residence’ she was deaf enough that she hadn’t minded his loud music or the fact his body clock was so messed up that sometimes he clattered about in the middle of the night and slept all day. Mainly, they’d just stayed out of each other’s hair. It seemed that was about to change.

He carried on reading, Coco Pops forgotten, with a growing sense of apprehension.

Firstly, I think we can all agree that the communal hallway is not a bicycle shed.

His eyebrows rose and he let out of huff of surprised laughter. His upstairs neighbour was starting to remind him of Mrs McClure, his old headmistress, who had also had a lot to say about him and bike sheds – but it hadn’t been about leaving his bike there, that was for sure.

Secondly, each of us should be responsible for our own post and the disposal thereof. I’m sure the Amazon rainforest will benefit greatly if you could cut down on your magazine subscriptions and remove yourself from quite so many takeaway food mailing lists.

He picked up his spoon and shovelled another helping of cereal in, frowning. Okay, this had been mildly amusing to start with, but where did this interfering old busybody get off telling him how to run his life?

Lastly, I should remind you that it is your duty to maintain any lights on the ground floor, just as it is mine to replace those on the top landing. It seems the light bulb in the hallway blew last night so I’d be very glad if you could replace it promptly and before you go away again, to prevent any further accidents from happening.

Yours sincerely,

Claire Bixby

Dominic stared at the letter. He wasn’t feeling quite as cheerful as he had when he’d picked it up. He chewed and his frown lines deepened further. Claire? He thought her name had been Laura or Lottie or something like that, although he’d always erred on the safe side and called her Mrs Bixby. He shook his head and threw the now chocolate milk-splattered letter down on the table. But then that generation were keen on abandoning their given names for nicknames. Look at his grandparents … They’d been christened Mavis and Reg, but everyone had called them Teddy and Bob.

He sighed. Normally, he’d have blown this off, because he’d have been away and the snotty letter thousands of miles behind him in less than a week’s time. However, the shoulder he’d busted a couple of years ago working in South America had been bothering him. And if it bothered him too much, then he couldn’t carry his kit, and that just wasn’t thinkable, especially now he was branching out, mixing his freelance camera operator work with making films of his own.

Stupid doctor had told him he needed to rest it, to let it finish its healing process without having to deal with the rigours of supporting a broadcast-size camera for hours on end, travelling in jeeps that would have laughed at the idea of suspension and sleeping in hammocks or on the ground.

He’d had the offer to work on a historical documentary for the BBC in China, about a plucky single lady from London by the name of Gladys Aylward, who’d travelled to China to be a missionary at the turn of the twentieth century. Not only had she ended up adopting over a hundred orphans, but she’d marched them over mountains and the Yellow River to escape the invading Japanese army.

Aside from the fact he was interested in the story, the job would put plenty of money in the coffers for his next directorial project, and would also provide some useful contacts. However, he needed to be fully fit by mid-July or they were going to have to go with someone else. He had some physio sessions lined up and an appointment with the specialist at the end of June, so he couldn’t say yay or nay until then.

All in all, it meant just one thing. He was grounded. For now at least.

Which also meant he was going to have to play nice with the old lady upstairs. He blew out a breath of frustration. Whoop-de-do. Less than twenty-four hours back in dear old London and he was already having so much fun.

He threw his empty cereal bowl in the sink and headed out to the hallway to collect his bike and stash it back in his spare room. And while he was at it, he really ought to write a note – a not too sarcastic note, if he could manage it – and explain about the milk. That was really going to put him in her good books, wasn’t it?

She had a point, he supposed. She probably wasn’t too steady on her feet any more, and the last thing he wanted was to be responsible for a broken hip because she’d tripped over his bike. He had left it in a pretty stupid place, hadn’t he? So stupid that he’d managed to fall foul of it himself. He shook his head and laughed softly as he lifted it up and manhandled it into his flat. It was only as he was resting it against the wall of his spare room-slash-office that he started to think about exactly just how stupidly the bike had been positioned …

He swore. Quite violently. And he didn’t care if the old bat could hear him!

The bike had been left partially covering his door, hadn’t it? Now he was properly awake, he could remember where he’d left it quite clearly, and it certainly hadn’t been where he’d found it this morning. The old witch! There was no way he could have parked the bike blocking his own front door, no matter how tired he was.

He wasn’t sure whether to have her arrested for assault or admire her for pranking him like that.

Looking at the desk full of unread Video Monthly and HD Camera Pro magazines, he walked over and rummaged for a bit of paper – any bit of paper – and a pen. He was going to write the sweet little old lady upstairs a note all right, but it certainly wasn’t going to be an apology for stealing her milk!

Chapter Six
Ain’t We Got Fun?

Claire woke with a start and immediately flipped herself over to look at her alarm clock. Sunlight was streaming through her thin floral curtains. Her heart was racing and she pressed a palm against her chest to calm it.

It was okay. It was still only just past seven. She wasn’t late for work. She yawned and collapsed back down into the mattress.

She’d crawled back into bed not long after delivering her note to her neighbour, thinking she might as well be comfortable as she whiled the hours away until she needed to get up, but she must have dropped off to sleep almost immediately. Hmm. It seemed she’d been right – her plan of getting all of those churning thoughts out of her head and onto paper had worked. She actually felt quite refreshed. Even that image of her father in his armchair was receding, getting fuzzier and less insistent.

She stared at the ceiling, her mind drifting, and it inevitably flowed until she was thinking of the letter. She replayed what she’d written inside her head, listening to herself as she read it aloud. After a moment, she pushed herself halfway to sitting, rubbed a hand over her face then through her hair. She’d thought the wording had sounded formal and firm last night. Now, in the mellow sunshine of a May morning, it seemed a little … well … snotty.

It would have been a better idea to just write the stupid thing so she could get some rest, but leave it on her kitchen counter instead of delivering it straight away. She smiled to herself. That was the beauty of actual pen and paper as opposed to electronic forms of communication. It wasn’t permanent, irrevocable, until it was in the hands of its intended recipient. With email that took a split second, but she’d bet her letter was still sitting on the bicycle saddle downstairs. She really didn’t think Dominic Arden was much of a morning person.

Maybe she should just go down and fetch it, have a little read … She could always seal it up in a new envelope if she still thought it was fine, although it did seem a bit of a waste to use two such fine bits of stationery on one such unappreciative man.

She flicked the switch of the kettle on as she passed by the kitchen and headed for her front door. Quietly, still in her love-heart PJs, she crept down the stairs and headed for the bike.

Ah.

Too late.

Damn that man’s nocturnal wanderings. Not only was her lovely envelope gone, but the bike had disappeared too. He’d definitely found it.

Oh, well. The tone might have been a bit sharp, but she stood by what she’d said. She stared at his front door. There was no movement behind the glazed top panels, no sound from inside. She let out a breath of relief. The confrontation would come eventually, but she was kind of glad it wasn’t about to happen right now.

Before heading back upstairs, she turned and crossed the hall to open the front door, but when she stared down at where her glass bottle of milk should have been all she found was a plastic two-pinter with a scruffy note taped to it.

Huh? Since when had the milkman been buying his supplies at Tesco? And why was he sending her notes? She paid her bill online these days.

Frowning, she ripped the note off then hooked the plastic carton over a finger and used her free hand to unfold the piece of paper as she trudged back upstairs.

When Claire was halfway up, she stopped.

Of all the …

Dear Ms Bixby, it started. Thank you so much for your very informative note.

Claire’s stomach dropped. The tone matched that of her letter perfectly, and she’d been right – it did sound snotty.

I’m sure we can all agree … it continued. Claire swallowed and started walking up the stairs to her flat again.

It was written perfectly reasonably and neatly – surprisingly neatly, actually, given that Mr Arden seemed such a pig the rest of the time – but somehow the words oozed sarcasm. Was that how her note had come across? She really hadn’t intended it to. She closed her front door, deposited the milk on her kitchen counter and carried on reading, picking up at the beginning of the paragraph again.

I’m sure we can all agree that you probably don’t need to have your nose quite so far into my business. What I do with my post and what I eat really is no concern of yours.

I will, however, concede that I shouldn’t have left my bike parked where it was last night, but I must admit I (wrongly) assumed that you would be safely indoors and watching Countdown with your cocoa by the time I came home, so I didn’t think it would be a problem. I apologise for that.

Claire bristled. This man didn’t even know her! How dare he start making assumptions about her like that, as if she was a hopeless spinster who had nothing better to do with her life? The fact that some nights she really was home quite early, often curled up watching trashy TV while she did travel research on her laptop was neither here nor there.

He might have hit the nail on the head – accidentally, of course; she couldn’t believe he had a perceptive bone in his body – but he didn’t have to make her sound like a dried-up old prune. She’d get around to dating and romance sometime soon; it wasn’t totally off the agenda, just not anything she was planning for in the immediate future. Besides, there was more to life than men, that was for sure. She didn’t need one to make her complete, as her mother had. If she did find someone she thought she could spend her life with it would be an enrichment, not a necessity.

She shook her head and returned to reading the letter.

So I apologise for leaving my bike in the hallway and for any inconvenience it might have caused you. I will try to keep it in my flat as much as possible. I have to say that I didn’t appreciate the little prank you pulled. I honestly thought you’d be above something like that.

Claire felt a blush creep up her neck. He was right. She was better than that. Most of the time. And there was she, just thinking he didn’t know anything about her. How odd. Maybe he wasn’t quite as much of a pig as she’d thought.

She sighed and shook her head. She didn’t know what had come over her last night. She’d just been so … so … after Maggs had given her the letter from her father. Just thinking about it caused that itchy warm feeling come back, tingling in her fingertips, swirling in her head. She clapped a lid on it and tried to ignore it as she went back to reading the letter.

I have to admit to ‘borrowing’ your milk this morning. However, I replaced it immediately and I shan’t be repeating this act of felony.

I have already dealt with the light bulb in the hallway, so that should cause no further problem. However, if you have any future concerns relating to our shared space, feel free to contact me. If you don’t, then please could you kindly butt out of my life? Perhaps I can suggest a hobby? Knitting or bingo. A social life. In any event, something to keep you entertained enough so that the urge to meddle doesn’t become all-consuming.

Yours very sincerely,

Mr D. Arden Esq.

Any goodwill her neighbour had created during his mostly reasonable letter evaporated. Not a pig? She was right about that! This guy was a fully blown warthog.

Mr D Arden Esquire? He was mocking her, just with those three little letters. It made her insides burn and her head spin. Before she had a chance to think it through, she ripped the little green cap off the plastic carton of milk and poured the whole lot down the sink. She didn’t want any of his milk! She’d go out and buy her own. She didn’t want to have any connection to him at all.

There were a few moments of satisfaction as she watched the last of it gurgle down the drain, but then she realised she’d run out of bread and the only thing she had left in the cupboard was cereal. She squashed the empty plastic container to put in the recycling with slightly more force than necessary. There was no way she was going to attempt Weetabix now. It would be like eating hamster bedding. There was only one thing for it.

She threw the carton in her recycling bin and stomped off towards her bedroom. She was going to have to go out for breakfast but, to be honest, the further away she got from here right now the better, otherwise there’d be blue lights and sirens and a puzzled Scenes of Crime Officer wondering how a man could drown in a pint-sized puddle of milk!

Chapter Seven
There’s Good Blues Tonight

Dominic rang the doorbell, balancing a bunch of carnations and a bottle of wine from the petrol station in one hand. A few seconds later, the door opened and there stood Pete, all bearded six foot five of him, grinning. He slapped Dominic on the shoulder. ‘Nic! Mate … come in. We’re a bit behind schedule. Hope you don’t mind if we eat a little—’

He was cut off by a high-pitched female shriek from the living room. ‘Sammy! Nooooo! Don’t you dare—’

Pete took off running, Dominic hot on his heels. They both burst down the hallway and through the living room door. There they found Pete’s wife Ellen, who was close to tears, and a small boy completely naked from the waist down.

Ellen put her hands on her hips, but her defiant stance was spoiled by the wobbling of her bottom lip. She looked at her husband accusingly. ‘He pooed on the carpet. I told him not to but he pooed on the carpet.’

Dominic stifled a smile as he spotted the offending article right in the middle of the rug.

Pete shook his head. ‘Sam … Mate … You know you’re supposed to do it in the potty. Where’s the potty?’

Sammy, wide-eyed and silent, pointed at the corner of the room, to a gleamingly clean Lightning McQueen potty. Dominic didn’t blame him. Who wants to poop in a cool car? They should have got him Hello Kitty to do his business in.

Dominic looked at Ellen again. Her eyes were wild and she looked as if she was about to crack. Her hair was hanging out of what might once have been a ponytail, and her T-shirt was doused with ketchup stains. What had happened to the cool, slick girl he and the rest of his mates had envied Pete for snaffling first?

Obviously, Pete saw what he saw too. He scooped up his son and handed him to Ellen. ‘Look, you deal with him and I’ll deal with—’ he nodded towards the lump of brown on the carpet ‘—that. Okay?’

Ellen nodded gratefully, then swept swiftly out of the room and upstairs.

Dominic couldn’t help grinning as Pete dealt with his son’s ‘accident’. ‘Nice work if you can get it,’ he quipped, as Pete went to fetch a pair of hot pink rubber gloves from under the sink. Dominic dumped the flowers on the counter, put the wine in the fridge, then watched, smirking, as his best friend dealt very efficiently with the mess, disinfectant and everything.

Pete just shook his head. ‘You wait,’ was all he said, and, despite the fact he had just had to clean up someone else’s poo, he was still relaxed and smiling. Dominic would have expected at least a couple of swear words. ‘Well, that pretty much sums up my life at the moment,’ he added as he peeled off the rubber gloves and disposed of them. ‘What’s new with you?’

Dominic launched into the tale of the bike and notes and the snotty upstairs neighbour. He’d only got to the bit where he’d tripped over the bike when Ellen returned, this time in a clean T-shirt, her hair down and with Sammy in his pyjamas. ‘There,’ she said, handing the boy back to his father, ‘you can deal with your son.’

Dominic raised his eyebrows in lieu of a question.

Pete grinned. ‘Anything smelly and revolting he does is apparently down to my genes. Ellie takes no responsibility for it whatsoever.’

Dominic chuckled. Ellen certainly had a point. He’d known Pete for ten years and there had definitely been a lot of smells and noises and other disgusting things at times.

‘Right, ‘Pete said, and hung his son upside down by the ankles. ‘We’re going to settle it once and for all … Where do poos go?’

‘Potty!’ Sammy yelled back. And then there was lots of giggling and shouting and squealing, mostly from the kid, as he tried to wriggle free of his father’s grasp.

‘So flipping well do them in there!’ Pete said, dropping his son head first onto the sofa and proceeding to tickle him.

‘Pete!’ Ellen yelled, from the kitchen that joined on to their large living room. ‘He’s never going to go to sleep if you get him all worked up like that!’

‘Okay,’ Pete called back breezily, continuing to tickle Sammy, but putting a finger in front of his mouth to indicate they should carry on quietly. Father and son grinned at each other, then Sammy surprised Pete by launching himself at his father and clinging round his neck like his life depended on it.

‘Luff you,’ he whispered into Pete’s neck.

‘Love you too, mate,’ Pete replied, his voice taking on a scratchy quality.

For some reason, Dominic found a bit of a lump in his throat.

‘Come on then, trouble,’ Pete said, standing then picking Sammy up round his middle. ‘Time to say goodnight. Mummy first …’

He disappeared into the kitchen and the clattering of pans stopped for a few seconds, then returned. ‘Don’t forget Uncle Nic,’ he said. Dominic expected Sammy to be shy, like he was last time he’d visited. Maybe a fist bump or a high-five would have done. But when Pete put Sammy down, Sammy rushed at him and gave him a hug almost as tight as he had done his father.

For a moment, Dominic wanted to just close his eyes and feel the warmth of Sam’s small body. ‘‘Night, monster,’ he said gruffly, as Pete picked Sammy up once more and headed upstairs. While he was gone, Dominic drifted in the direction of the kitchen in search of a drink.

He found Ellen in there wrestling a heap of pasta into a pan of boiling water. ‘Spag bol again, I’m afraid,’ she said, smiling ruefully at him. ‘I think we had that last time you came.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s home-cooked and I don’t have to reheat it in the microwave, so it wins on both counts. Besides, you make the best spag bol in Islington!’

‘Aw, you’re so sweet,’ Ellen said and left her sauce to come and give him a big squeezy hug. ‘We’ve missed you.’

Dominic hugged back. ‘I’ve missed you both too,’ he replied. And he really had. As much as he moaned about Pete, he and his wife were the one constant in his ever-changing world. He gave Ellen a kiss on the cheek and, as she pulled away, he said, ‘Can I help myself to a drink?’

Her mouth dropped open. ‘Oh, God. What must you think of me? I haven’t even offered you anything to drink! What do you want? Wine? Beer? Both?’

He smiled and opted for the beer. They chatted about nothing in particular until Pete came back down the stairs and joined them. He and Dominic rested their backsides against the counter of the galley kitchen and sipped cold lager out of the bottle. It was heaven.

‘Oh, yes!’ he said, after swallowing a swig. ‘I didn’t finish telling you about my upstairs neighbour.’ And he launched back into the story again, embellishing it here and there just to make Pete and Ellen laugh.

‘So, did she write back?’ Pete asked.

Dominic nodded, smiling. ‘You bet she did.’ He put his beer down and pulled a crumpled, folded envelope from the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Look at that.’

Pete took it from him and read it, chuckling, Ellen looking over his shoulder. ‘I’ve always thought you were “an unbearable, egotistical lout” myself,’ she said. And then the pasta boiled over. ‘Flip!’ she yelled. ‘That’s because you two are distracting me. Now get out of my kitchen so I can finish in peace!’

Pete saluted his wife and led the way back to the living room, where he and Dominic dropped down on different sofas. Pete handed the letter back.

‘Ah, I think your new pen pal is sweet,’ he said, giving Dominic a patronising look. ‘And she certainly is getting feisty in her old age! Maybe you should go and knock on her door, ask her out to an early bird dinner?’

Dominic looked at him. ‘Don’t be stupid. Why would I want to do that?’

Pete shrugged. ‘Because this is the closest thing you’ve had to a relationship in ages.’

The grin Pete wore as he finished his sentence got right up Dominic’s nose. He put his beer down on an end table and stared at his best friend. All traces of laughter had gone and his mouth was a thin line. ‘If you’ve got something to say, just say it.’

Pete held his hands up in mock defence. ‘Whoa,’ he said laughing. ‘What’s got your knickers in a twist?’

‘You,’ Dominic said simply. ‘You’ve been churning out the same old gag for years now. It’s getting a little old.’ Pete shook his head, still smiling, but there was a narrowing in his eyes. ‘It was just a joke, mate.’

Dominic picked up his beer again, took a long hard swig. ‘Well, it feels like more than that when you just won’t leave it alone. If this is your way of trying to tell me you think I need to find a woman and settle down, just come out and say it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to listen, but at least have the guts to be honest about it.’

Pete looked back at him warily. Dominic knew his friend well enough to know that Pete was weighing up whether he should just blow the whole thing off by making another joke, or be serious about it. Dominic was secretly hoping he’d do the former. Why on earth had he picked this fight? It was all that snarky letter writing going on between him and Ms Claire Bixby, probably. For some reason she’d got him all riled up.

Pete eventually cleared his throat and looked down at the rug, the exact spot where the poo had been when Dominic had arrived. ‘Well, I do think you’d be happier if you’d just—’

‘For crying out loud!’ Dominic waved the letter at him. ‘I’ve got one bloody busybody trying to run my life already. I don’t need you making it a double act!’

Pete’s rather bushy brows drew together and lowered. He glared at that spot on the carpet now. ‘Stop being so bloody oversensitive!’

‘I’m not being oversensitive,’ Dominic said tightly. No one had ever labelled him a drama queen – far from it – and he wasn’t going to let his best friend start now. ‘But it’s hardly surprising, is it? I only see you once every couple of months and it’s always that – or something like that – that are the first words out of your mouth. Admit it. You think there’s something wrong with me, just because I don’t want what you’ve got.’

Pete, whose expression was normally as jolly and open as a teddy bear’s, frowned and his jaw tensed. ‘Well, maybe there is something wrong with you. You’ve got to admit it, you’ve been on a romantic losing streak for a long time. It’s been years since you scared Erica away. She was a great girl, you know.’

Silence, thick and complete, fell in the living room.

Dominic saw Pete’s Adam’s apple bob. He knew he’d stepped over a line.

‘Well,’ Dominic said, draining the last of his beer and standing. ‘If you really think that, I might as well go.’ He was tempted to throw the bottle at the wall, but he knew that would upset Ellen, so he just put it down carefully on the end table and walked towards the door.

‘Nic! Mate!’ Pete began to rise.

Dominic ignored him. ‘Don’t you “mate” me,’ he said, as he passed his friend and walked out the door. ‘Mates don’t judge each other! Mates don’t tell each other what to do! Mates support each other’s decisions even if they don’t agree with them.’

And then he walked out the front door and into the annoyingly warm night. He’d have really liked the salve of cold air on his skin.

Ellen rushed into the living room, wooden spoon still in hand. She looked at the open door, and then at her sheepish husband sitting on the sofa. ‘Oh, Lord,’ she said wearily. ‘What did you go and say this time?’

*

Dominic rode his bike home with little regard for traffic lights or pedestrians. He was really tempted to throw his bike in the hallway and be done with it, but he hauled it back into his spare room, muttering under his breath as he did so. The computer was sitting on the desk, its blank screen staring at him. He might as well check his email …

But he didn’t check his email. Instead, he opened up his web browser and went to Facebook. He spent a while faffing around reading things on his timeline – ‘meaningful’ quotes, status updates about friends’ pets, silly quizzes that everyone knew were silly but still did anyway. He discovered his knowledge of rock lyrics was legendary, that his Hobbit name was Ogbutt Merryfoot and that if he were an ice cream flavour he’d be vanilla – which he was quite upset about.

Eventually, though, he clicked through to what he’d really come here to look at, even though he’d been kidding himself he hadn’t.

Erica’s profile popped up in front of him. She’d changed her picture, he noted. One of her on holiday, looking tanned and relaxed. She’d smiled at him like that at the beginning of their relationship.

His finger hovered above the mouse button. He should unfriend her, he knew. He was going to. It was just … It seemed a bit petty, especially as they’d been broken up almost four years now. There wasn’t any venom left between them. She’d moved on. New husband, twins, a house in the suburbs. And he’d moved on too.

Hadn’t he?

Even though he knew he shouldn’t, he clicked on her photos tab. Instantly, scores popped up. Erica out with the girls. Erica cuddling her babies. Erica smiling with her new husband.

Obviously, he hadn’t had trouble giving her what she wanted, what she needed. What she’d eventually told Dominic he was incapable of.

You can’t do it, can you? she’d levelled at him. You can’t go anywhere beneath the surface. Or you won’t … and I can’t spend my life with a man like that, a man who refuses to open up to me and doesn’t want me to open up to him. So I’m sorry, Dominic, the answer is no. I can’t – I won’t – marry you. Not unless you can change.

He closed his eyes and inhaled.

God help him, he’d tried. Really tried. But it hadn’t been enough for her and eventually she’d left, and he’d just got the offer to do that filming job in Madagascar, so he’d left too. Just started travelling. Hadn’t really, truly come home again. Not in his head and his heart anyway. It was easier this way. Why kill yourself trying to do something you weren’t cut out for? Better to stick to what you were good at, and what he was good at was travelling – and making films.

He didn’t want it anyway. That’s probably why he was rubbish at long-term anythings.

With a sigh, he realised he hadn’t been angry with Pete because he’d been wrong, but because he’d been right. He was going to have to apologise, wasn’t he? But Pete would just have to leave it alone after that, not go digging in that wound just because he could. It had been okay to rib each other like that when they’d both been young, free and stupid, but the dynamic had changed now.

He shook his head, shut Erica’s profile down and turned his computer off. Look who was poking at old wounds just because he could. Pete had nothing to do with his little pity fest just now.

Stupid man, he told himself. You’re happy as you are.

But, as he wandered into the kitchen to eat yet another tiny box of cereal – a poor substitution for Ellen’s spag bol – he couldn’t help thinking about what it would be like to have a little mini version of himself like Pete had, and just whether that might plug the growing hole inside him, the one that seemed to widen every time he got on an aeroplane.

Chapter Eight
Teacher’s Pet

They’d already started watching the film when Claire heard someone slide in the door and shuffle into a seat at the back. She waited a few moments then glanced nonchalantly over her shoulder.

Abby. That was a surprise. When she’d been absent at the usual start time, Claire had assumed they’d seen the last of her.

As Teacher’s Pet rolled on, Claire found her thoughts returning to the newest member of the Doris Day Film Club more than once. Although Abby seemed out of place in their little group, Claire couldn’t help thinking that maybe fate had brought her their way. There was a lost quality about her that made Claire think of a scared stray animal.

If Abby’s mother was as demanding as she sounded, Claire suspected they were on a losing mission right from the start. However, Abby had come to them for help, and for that reason alone they would try. Doris herself would almost certainly approve – although the strays she championed since her retirement from Hollywood tended to be the furry, four-legged kind.

In a strange way, Abby reminded Claire of the Clark Gable character in Teacher’s Pet. He played a ‘tough as nails’ journalist who had a chip on his shoulder about other people getting the education he’d been denied. While Claire didn’t think Abby had a chip on her shoulder about being a girl, she’d done what the hard-nosed newspaper man had done – instead of trying, she’d just given up and turned her comfort zone into a fortress.

‘God, how I love that film,’ Candy said, as the lights went back on again and the credits rolled. ‘I love the fact that Doris was playing intelligent career women who could hold their own against any man back in the late fifties, before it was really fashionable. That scene where she tells Clark Gable off in the lift is pure gold dust.’

Bev and Maggs murmured their agreement.

‘Despite the huge age gap between Clark and Doris, it still works as a romance,’ Peggy said, joining the discussion. ‘The characters are unusually three-dimensional for a romantic comedy.’

Kitty giggled. ‘My favourite bit is when Clark kisses Doris in her office, taking her by surprise, and her legs buckle under her when she walks back to her desk.’

Grace sighed. ‘I want to be kissed like that one day.’

Everyone turned and looked at her. It was the most she’d said all evening.

‘Don’t we all,’ Maggs added dryly, and the whole room had a chuckle, including Abby, who then flushed and looked at the floor.

Claire stood up. ‘Before we all head off tonight, I want us to put our heads together and see if we can find a way to help our newest member.’ She glanced at Abby, who now looked as if she was about to slide off her seat and under the table. Claire understood the urge to squirm when one was the focus of attention better than anyone, but there wasn’t any other way, and this was what Abby had asked of them, after all.

‘Watching films is all well and good, and we all know Doris had impeccable style, but I think we probably have it within our small group to offer some practical help too.’ She turned to look at Candy specifically, who had a very sensible head on her shoulders and always looked stylish, but Kitty started bouncing in her seat.

‘We’d love to help, wouldn’t we, Grace?’

Grace nodded coolly.

‘We’ve already talked about it,’ Kitty added.

Abby looked warily from one to the other. ‘You have?’

The vintage girls, both in red and white polka dots this week – Kitty with white on red, Grace with red on white – looked at each other before continuing.

‘If you’d let us … We’d really like to give you a makeover.’

Abby looked shocked, as if she’d just been announced the next Miss Universe, and maybe just as tearful. ‘You’d do that? For me?’

Both girls nodded. ‘You’d be helping us really. We love doing makeovers,’ Kitty said, ‘but Grace says she’s getting bored doing them on just me. What we really need is a fresh canvas.’

‘Fresh meat, more like,’ Maggs muttered under her breath.

‘Are you up for it?’ Kitty asked, nodding encouragingly.

‘Um … I think so.’

‘Great!’ Kitty said, clapping her hands together. ‘How about we do it before the next film club meeting?

Abby looked nervously between them. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘We’re going to have so much fun,’ Kitty said brightly, as she stood up, and she and Grace linked arms and scurried away, plotting furiously as they disappeared down the stairs.

The rest of the club members started to drift after them, but before Abby escaped, Claire went over to her. ‘Are you okay with the whole makeover idea? It’s fine to say if you’re not.’

Abby looked grim for a few long moments. ‘I’m as fine as I’m ever going to be with it, and I’ll never get those tickets if I don’t, so I suppose I’ll just have to do it, no matter how I feel about it.’

‘Is it a special match?’

Claire expected Abby to nod just as emphatically, but instead she looked flustered and her cheeks grew pinker. ‘Kind of …’ She looked at her trainers as she scuffed the offensively patterned carpet with one of them. Eventually, she looked up at Claire from under her hair. ‘It’s not so much who’s playing, but who I was hoping to ask to go with me.’ And then she blushed even harder.

‘A boy?’

Abby’s eyes stayed on the carpet. She nodded. ‘I’ve known him since we were in primary school together. We bonded over a shared love of football and we’ve been friends ever since, it’s just … every time I look at him, things seem to go a bit weird.’

Claire nodded. She remembered feeling that way about boys when she was Abby’s age, that swirly feeling in her stomach when you thought about them. The little kick of your pulse when you knew you were going to see them.

‘Does he feel the same way?’

Abby’s face told Claire everything she needed to know. ‘I’m just “Abs” to him, his mate with the killer left foot, but I thought maybe if we could get away from the other lads, have some time on our own …’

Ah, it was all starting to make sense now: Abby’s sudden and desperate need to embrace her hitherto undiscovered feminine side, why she’d come back to the Doris Day Film Club.

‘Can’t you talk to your mum about this? If you told her why you wanted the tickets, she might understand.’

Abby shook her head, her lips a thin line. ‘All she wanted after two boys was a daughter she could fuss over and dress up and go shopping with, and instead she got me. I’m just one huge disappointment to her. She just thinks Ricky encourages me in my tomboy ways.’

Claire gave Abby what she hoped was a sympathetic look. ‘Well, we – the club and I – are going to do everything we can to make sure you prove her wrong at that party. If you want our help, we’ll pull out all the stops to make it happen.’

Abby stood up, looking concerned. ‘Do you really think you can help me look like a girl?’

I’m sure we can,’ she said, smiling.

Abby smiled weakly back. ‘Thank you, Claire.’

Claire watched her trail down the stairs, looking slightly less forlorn than when she’d arrived, and then she made sure everything was shipshape, switched off the lights and closed the door.

Much to her surprise, she found Maggs waiting for her on the landing. ‘Well …’ Maggs said. ‘Have you read it?’

Read what? Claire almost said, and then she remembered. She hadn’t used that handbag since last week and she’d made herself forget about the letter. Besides, she’d had other letters on her mind since then – a string of notes going backwards and forwards between her and her cheeky neighbour. On the one hand, he was driving her crazy, but on the other, she had to admit he had quite a way with words, and sometimes he could be quite funny.

No, she thought to herself. Do not be sucked in by surface charm. That was how her mother had got snared by her father. He’d seemed lovely while they’d been going out, courteous, strong, principled. It was only after she’d married him that she’d discovered just how iron-clad those principles were, and just how exacting he could be if anyone failed to meet his standards.

Okay, her downstairs neighbour was nothing like him – mainly because he had no standards whatsoever – but the advice was good all the same. Always look deeper. Always look beneath. Exactly what she hadn’t done with Philip.

Her ex-husband proved her point quite nicely. He’d seemed the polar opposite from her father when she’d met him. He’d been romantic and affectionate and thoughtful, but she’d still fallen into her mother’s trap. Maybe she wouldn’t have if Mum had been around to warn her. Gran had tried, but Claire had pigheadedly refused to listen, and then, after a few years, when she’d really realised what he was like, she’d been too stubborn and proud to admit she was wrong.

Anyway, she didn’t want to think about Philip. It was over. In the past. She was moving on, just as she had done with her father.

They started walking down the stairs, and Claire could feel Maggs looking at her. ‘What?’ she asked.

‘Well? Have you read it?’ Maggs said, rather impatiently. It was only then Claire realised she’d been so lost in thought – hijacked first by Mr Dominic Arden and then her ex – that she’d forgotten to answer her.

‘Sorry,’ she said laughing. ‘Away with the fairies. And, no, I haven’t read it. I don’t intend to. I told you that last week.’

Maggs didn’t say anything. Didn’t mean she wasn’t communicating heaps.

‘I know you think it’s a mistake,’ Claire continued, ‘but I can’t do it. What happened, happened, and I have no desire to revisit it. What was it that Doris’s brother said about her? Something about her never being concerned beyond what the momentary problem was … That’s how she’s managed to say stay so bright and sunny in the face of everything that happened to her, and I think I’m going to adopt that philosophy.’

Maggs just grunted softly. ‘That all sounds very pretty, but don’t forget … the past has a habit of coming back to bite you in the derrière whether you want it to or not.’

‘Don’t you worry about my derrière,’ Claire said, as they emerged into the lounge bar of The Glass Bottom Boat. Kitty, Grace and Abby were sitting at a small table, the vintage girls talking animatedly, Abby looking slightly bemused. George was hovering near the door. He looked as if he was about to say something as Claire and Maggs approached, but Maggs just gave him a little wave and carried on out the door.

‘Claire said she’d give me a lift again this week,’ she said, as she swept past, too late to see George’s expression turn from hopeful to crestfallen. Claire didn’t miss it though.

She almost said something to Maggs, but Maggs was wearing that inscrutable, don’t-try-to-mess-with-me expression that Claire knew only too well. She’d say something, all right, but with Maggs timing was everything. She’d just have to pick her moment carefully.

They walked slowly down the street in silence. This week she hadn’t been able to find a space near the pub, so she’d had to park down the side of the playing fields opposite, but it was a nice night for a walk – warm, not as sticky as recently, and the proximity to midsummer meant that it wasn’t fully dark yet and a slash of turquoise edged the horizon, despite the fact it was past ten.

Claire walked, trying to keep her mind on the sound of her shoes on the cracked paving stones, on the hum of a city summer night – dogs barking, neighbours arguing, someone somewhere playing a radio too loud so the music drifted between the houses and out into the almost-deserted park. But her mind refused to focus on these concrete, present day things. Now that Maggs had brought him up, it kept drifting back to her father, images of him, memories. She felt as if her mind was a runaway car, which kept veering slowly off in the wrong direction and then she’d notice and grab the steering wheel and coerce it into going back onto the route she’d planned for it.

She didn’t want to think of him.

If anything, she should want to think of her mother, who’d been wonderful and loving and resourceful. She’d been gone ten years now. If she’d known their time together was going to be cut short, she’d have asked more questions. Or maybe not. In her twenties, she wouldn’t have known the right things to ask. Maybe it was only now she was older with one bad marriage behind her herself, that she wished she could ask Mum if it had been the same for her.

At least she’d separated from her toxic husband. Why hadn’t Mum left her father? Why had she waited for him to do it to her? Why hadn’t she ever stood up to him? After he’d left, she’d blossomed into being the bright and funny and strong woman Claire would always choose to remember her as.

Suddenly, a question popped free, one she hadn’t realised she’d needed the answer to until it left her mouth. She glanced across at Maggs. ‘Did he ever hit her? My mother?’

They kept walking, but something about the atmosphere between them changed. The air grew stiller, thicker.

He hadn’t ever hit Claire, although she’d always been afraid he might. She could remember a specific look in his eye that had always made her stomach quiver. A tingle of cold ran up her spine now, just thinking about it.

Maggs kept her focus straight ahead. When they reached Claire’s car, she stopped and turned to face her. ‘Honestly? I don’t know … Maybe.’

Claire nodded.

She was starting to fear she’d known the answer for a long time, but just hadn’t dared face it.

She unlocked the car and opened the door for Maggs. When they were both settled inside, before she turned the key in the ignition, Maggs spoke again. ‘I know Laurie was always worried for your mother when he got into one of his moods. We didn’t talk about it. People didn’t in our day. It was the sort of shameful thing you just swept under the carpet, but I guessed she suspected what her son was capable of.’

Claire shook her head. ‘I don’t understand it. How did such a lovely woman as my grandmother raise such a cruel, dysfunctional son?’

Maggs let out a heavy breath. ‘You don’t remember much about your grandfather, do you?’

‘No,’ Claire replied slowly. Just a vague memory of a stern man with white hair.

‘I keep thinking about him recently,’ Maggs said quietly, all the usual sass and sarcasm gone from her voice. It made her sound younger, less invincible. ‘I never liked him, you know, not even right back at the start. Maybe I was jealous he stole my best friend, or maybe I just saw a little bit into Laurie’s future. I don’t know …’ She breathed in sharply. ‘Anyway, I think he had a lot to do with how your father turned out.’

Claire shook her head. She’d never heard Maggs talk like this before. Maybe it was the gin she’d been nipping from her hip flask that evening. In the darkened room while they watched the film, she’d seen little flashes in the gloom as the street lamp outside had reflected off the shiny metal.

She pondered that as she turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine, shattering the fog-like silence that had settled around them.

‘I’m surprised Gran didn’t ever marry again after he died,’ she said, her tone light, as she indicated and pulled away. ‘She was still a very attractive woman, even into her fifties.’

‘I thought the same about Cathy. Your mother wasn’t short on admirers once your father had cleared off, you know.’

Claire nodded. She had memories of a couple of well-dressed men coming to the house with bunches of flowers, of them taking her mother out to dinner while Mrs Winfield from next door babysat, but there hadn’t been many and they’d usually disappeared after four or five dates.

That had been sad too. Mum had been so pretty and funny. She’d had a way of making everyone feel included, as if she’d allowed them entrance to a special club where everything would always feel safe and warm and fun. When Claire had asked if she had a boyfriend, her mother had laughed the suggestion off. She’d said she was much more interested in taking care of Claire, and it wasn’t the right time to get serious about anyone.

At the time, Claire had assumed this was just another selfless act of love on her mother’s part, but now she wondered if there had been another reason.

‘Runs in the family, doesn’t it?’ Maggs said, as they navigated the narrow back streets almost empty of traffic. ‘First Laurie, then Cathy … And you haven’t seen anyone else since Philip.’

That was just what Claire needed to pop her out of this rather maudlin mood she and Maggs had created between them. She chuckled softly to herself. She should have known better than to broach this kind of subject with Maggs. ‘Don’t be daft,’ she replied. ‘It’s completely different. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just not the right time. I need to focus on the business at the moment …’

She trailed off and her mother’s voice echoed in her ears: It’s just not the right time, Claire, love. I think my focus should be on you at the moment …

She shook that thought away as she craned her head to see out of an awkward junction. ‘Anyway,’ she said, pulling out the trump card she’d almost forgotten about, ‘I’ve got a date tomorrow.’

She could feel Maggs’s beady eyes on her as she concentrated on the road. ‘Oh, yes?’ Maggs said, her pitch as high as Claire imagined her eyebrows were. ‘Anyone nice?’

Yes, Claire thought to herself, but that was the problem. Nice and not much else, but telling Maggs that wouldn’t get her off her back. However, there were a few pertinent facts about the man in question that might.

‘His name is Doug Martin and he’s a client. And before you ask, yes, he’s single. He’s also rich and very attentive. He’s taking me to a party at The Hamilton.’

She risked a sideways glance to gauge Maggs’s reaction. Maggs was looking suitably impressed. Claire smiled to herself. Distraction manoeuvre complete.

‘Sid and I went dancing there on New Year’s Eve once,’ she said wistfully. ‘It was the toast of the town then. Shame that it fell into such disrepair.’

‘It will be again, if the new owner has anything to do with it,’ Claire said, ‘and there’ll be some very useful contacts at that party.’

‘Hmm,’ Maggs said. ‘You’re going out with a rich, attentive man and the thing you’re most pleased about is what it can do for your career. Now tell me, what’s wrong with this picture?’

‘Nothing,’ Claire said haughtily. ‘Mixing business with pleasure is how us youngsters do it these days.’

‘Ouch,’ Maggs said, and let out a reluctant chuckle. ‘Touché, Miss Bixby. But just you make sure there’s more pleasure than business in this scenario, okay?’

She made the turn into Maggs’s road. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘I know that look,’ Maggs muttered. ‘You’ve worn the same one since you were a little girl. It’s your “I’m pretending I’m listening, but really I’m going to do my own sweet thing” look.’

Claire pressed her lips together and tried not to smile. ‘Learnt it from you.’

Maggs mimed taking a bullet to the chest. ‘And the hits just keep on coming.’

Claire pulled into a space outside of Maggs’s house and yanked on the handbrake. ‘You can’t go all superior on me, otherwise you’ll have to admit you were a bad influence.’

‘All I’m saying, is that you could do with some male company,’ Maggs said, as she opened the door and eased her slightly creaky body from the car. ‘You work all the time and when you’re not working, you’re doing club stuff, or hanging out with girls.’

‘And George,’ Claire reminded her, smiling just a little too sweetly.

‘You’re on a roll today,’ Maggs said, her tone grudging. ‘I shouldn’t have taught you so well.’

Claire got out of the car and came round to where her grandmother’s best friend was standing and gave her a hug. Maggs shook her head, but smiled as she did it, and let Claire press a kiss to her papery cheek.

‘I’ve told you before not to meddle in my love life,’ Claire said, ‘not until you’ve got one of your own, at least.’

‘You’re no fun,’ Maggs said, as they pulled apart.

‘You want me to turn the tables on you? I saw the way George looked when you blew him off this evening. Crushed doesn’t even begin to cover it.’

Maggs shook her head. ‘He’s too young for me.’

‘So? What’s wrong with a toy boy?’

‘I’d eat him for breakfast.’

Claire laughed. Maggs probably would as well. Poor old George. Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. ‘See? You need to start taking some of your own advice, Dr Maggs. You accuse me of not moving on, but I don’t see you doing much of that yourself.’

‘I’m practically in the grave,’ Maggs said wearily. ‘If I “move on” too much, I’ll just fall straight into it.’

‘Now you’re just getting dramatic,’ Claire said, although she knew Maggs was okay when she was hamming it up. It was when she closed right down, didn’t show a thing, that Claire got truly worried about her.

Maggs sighed as she headed up her garden path. ‘I do hate it when you’re like this,’ she said, with more than a touch of the martyr about her.

Claire smiled to herself as she got back into the car. ‘When I’m like what?’ she called out.

‘Right,’ Maggs replied, as she opened her front door and disappeared.

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