The Spark
Jules Wake

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Jules Wake 2020

Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Jules Wake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008444341

Ebook Edition © December 2020 ISBN: 9780008444334

Version: 2020-11-06

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Acknowledgments

Thank you for reading…

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About the Author

Also by Jules Wake

One More Chapter...

About the Publisher

For Sarah Wright née Spark. It seems fitting that this one should be for you, with love and thanks for an enduring friendship x

Chapter One

When my phone binged at ten to twelve, five minutes before I was due to leave, I could have predicted that the text message would be from my cousin Shelley. What I couldn’t have predicted was that her absence that day would change my life.

Sorry babe, I’m not going to make it.

Why was I even surprised? Spontaneous was her middle name, which made her possibly the most unreliable creature this side of the M25 but also possibly the most fun, which, when you had a childhood like mine, was a blessing of the mightiest order.

I could have been miffed. After all, she’d insisted I come with her because we’d be the only youngsters at her parents’ annual barbecue bash. I glanced at my watch. Nope. Couldn’t do it. She might be able to let Aunty Lynn down with no qualms – she was her daughter – but I had a few more scruples. Plus, it was a glorious sunny Sunday and I had no other plans, no garden, and no food in the fridge. Aunty Lynn was a bloody fabulous cook and believed in the feeding of the five thousand, which meant there’d be enough leftovers not only to see me through the week but also to take into work, where her interesting salads, incredible pavlova and chocolate cake would all be hugely appreciated, especially by the children. Lynn was nothing if not generous – well, apart from the fact that it seemed she’d hogged all of the giving and sharing genes and left none for my mum.

Giving myself a quick once-over in the mirror, I decided that my navy shorts and pale-pink vest top, both of which had seen better days, weren’t going to offend Aunty Lynn or Uncle Richard. Where hospitality was concerned, they were of the laid-back, the more the merrier persuasion. Anything went, as long as you brought a bottle. Pulling on my tennis shoes, because I planned on having a few drinks and the short walk across town was rather pleasant, I grabbed a four-pack of Budweiser I’d bought especially for the occasion and set off.

It was the sort of sunny day that makes you think that the weather might actually last and that the rest of the summer will be like this. There were a few wispy, cotton-wool-ball puffs of white in the sky, and the sky itself was that vibrant blue that feels as if it has depth to it, and as you stare at it you can almost see that it stretches right to the edge of the universe, which I think it probably did. Or maybe it didn’t. This set me off thinking about the sky and the sun, wishing perhaps I’d paid a bit more attention in physics… No, I didn’t. I bloody hated physics at school. Was glad to give it up. But I felt good that I’d sort of been pondering important things as I’d walked along. My job had been busy over the week, demanding on an emotional level which I was always careful to pack away in a metaphorical box. It’s the sort of job that can consume you and take over your headspace, which is why pseudo-physics and the contemplation of bigger things were especially good for my mental wellbeing. It’s the sort of job which, if you let it, could really drag you under.

And all this pondering had taken me through town, along the High Street, across the park with its fenced-in playground of busy swings and slides, teeming with small people who looked like plastic Fisher Price toys in their brightly coloured clothing, and now up the slight incline of Pettyfeather Lane to my aunt and uncle’s modest-looking semi. Modest-looking as in Tardis-like because the front is deceptive: once through a narrow, dark hall, it opens out into an enormous open-plan kitchen-diner-living-area with a whole wall of bi-fold doors leading onto a spacious, perfect-for-parties patio.

The front door was ajar, which immediately made me smile. It meant everyone was in the garden and as I walked up the short drive, I could hear that happy cacophony of a party in full swing. I stepped inside, skirting round a few discarded pairs of shoes, dumped handbags and jackets in the hallway. In this small market town, a forty-minute commute from London, people were pretty trusting and my aunt and uncle’s contemporaries and neighbours, having reached suburban, reasonably well-heeled mid-life, took the local low crime-rate and all-round decency of people for granted. It was a world away from the experiences of the people I worked with but it gave me hope that there could be a better way of life for them one day.

‘Jess, Jess!’ hollered my uncle in greeting from his spot behind the breakfast bar where he was doing battle with a Prosecco bottle, carefully easing out the cork. In his excitement, he let go of the cork, which promptly shot out with the pop of a gunshot and effervescent liquid foamed out of the neck of the bottle, which he waggled in his hand. ‘Quick, lovely, grab yourself a glass. Don’t want it going to waste. This is the good stuff. At least eight quid from Tesco.’ He waved the bottle at me enthusiastically which wasn’t doing the wastage any good at all.

Luckily, my darling rellies, unlike their daughter Shelley with her spontaneous unreliability, are totally by-the-book, stick-in-the-mud reliable (except they’re so not stick-in-the-mud personality-wise), and the flutes were exactly where they always were when they threw a party, just like the large plastic trug filled with ice and water and lager bottles, which I neatly sidestepped as I grabbed a glass and rushed to rescue Uncle Richard.

‘Well held, that girl.’ He filled my glass up. ‘How are you? Do you remember Fiona? Fiona, you’ve met Jess, my niece, right? Sorry, love, you know your cousin’s buggered off. Shame.’ He turned to Fiona who lived next door and whom I had met a gazillion times. ‘Of course, Jess is our favourite daughter. The daughter we wish we’d had instead of Shelley.’

Fiona laughed. ‘I’m not sure you’re allowed to say things like that.’

‘You don’t live with Shelley,’ said Richard darkly.

‘Hi, Uncle Rich,’ I said, giving him a quick hug, holding out my Prosecco glass so it wouldn’t spill as he gave me an effusive hug back. ‘And yeah, I should be favourite daughter. She’s bloody rubbish.’ I grinned at him as Aunty Lynn bustled up. ‘Dumping me for some bloke she met five minutes ago.’

Shelley was incapable of being without a man, whereas I was a bit – no, make that a lot pickier. It might have had something to do with my job.

‘Jess.’ My aunt gave me a big hug and then stood back with that typical, maternal cock of her head. ‘Are you eating properly? I can feel ribs.’

I laughed. ‘You said that last time I came, and that was after Christmas day when you force-fed me a ton of turkey and made me take the rest of the Christmas cake home.’

‘I probably did. You’re so lucky.’ She prodded her own contented-with-life rolls around her middle. ‘It would be lovely to get rid of these. I should join you on your parkruns.’ She pulled such a mournful face that both Fiona and I burst out laughing.

Richard put his arm around her. ‘Don’t you dare. I love you just the way you are.’

She brightened, patting his face. ‘I’ve trained you well. It’s only taken me thirty years.’ Suddenly she straightened as if remembering something. ‘Now Jess, why don’t you go outside. It’s far too nice to be inside.’

Given that the glorious weather was one of the principle reasons for coming, I did as I was told, although most people did when Aunty Lynn was around.

I spotted him the minute I stepped out onto the patio. Well, you couldn’t really miss him. He was the only other person my age. OK, and he just happened to be big, golden and … just downright gorgeous. He had one foot propped on the small wall edging the patio and he was leaning forward on his knee, lifting a beer bottle to his lips as the sun glinted off the blond hairs on his arms, which were tanned and muscled in all the right places. He had almost white-blond hair, tied back before exploding in a bundle of scruffy curls, and matching eyebrows that made him look like a Thunderbirds puppet. He wore baggy shorts which came down to his knees and were so scruffy they made mine look as though they’d been tailored by Alexander McQueen, the most hideous brown sandals (think: a pair of dead turtles) that were so middle-agedly awful that they were almost trendy, and one of those wife-beater vests in white (although, to cut him a bit of slack, it was very clean) that revealed plenty of bare golden skin (highlighted by design? I wondered) and a well-defined body (definitely highlighted by design). Oh dear, someone fancied himself.

I took first, second and third surreptitious glances – he was so not my type – but for some bizarre reason my hormones had other ideas and were jumping up and down in a state of parlous excitement that made my legs a little wobbly and my pulse take off like a bolting horse zigzagging all over a race course. There was erratic and then there were A&E-bound levels. All of which was completely ridiculous because I did not do laid-back surfie types. Seriously, he looked like he’d stepped off an exotic beach and left his bikini babe and surfboard behind. And as for those wrap-around sunglasses … did he think he was playing in a Test Match for Australia?

I think I was protesting a bit too much. I wasn’t normally this judgemental about someone I hadn’t even spoken to, and I definitely didn’t have this type of reaction just from looking at someone. I mean, I’ve had crushes on good-looking, totally unattainable, never-going-to-meet-them film stars and singers over the years, but never this instant zing of attraction for a real-life flesh-(oh yes, gorgeous flesh)-and-blood person.

With all these thoughts flashing through my brain, I think I must have been giving out flares of static electricity or something, because the blond god suddenly looked up, a bit like one of those glorious antlered stags scenting something downwind that you see on wildlife programmes on the Scottish Highlands. He looked straight at me and a fizz of excitement like an out-of-control Catherine wheel burst in my stomach, frying every last butterfly leaping about in there.

His wide mouth curved in a generous smile and he pushed up his sunglasses onto the top of his head.

‘Hi there,’ he said with friendly ease, crinkles appearing around properly deep blue eyes. Yeah, he was a regular perfect Adonis. And there was something in his eyes that said whatever I was feeling (and I told myself that it was just lust at first sight), I wasn’t on my own.

‘Hi,’ I replied, relieved to hear that my voice hadn’t let me down.

‘Nice to see someone of my own age.’ The warmth of his smile wrapped itself around my heart. Well, if not that then something was going on. There were some very weird fluttery feelings in my chest cavity. And there was definitely a level of interest in his gaze.

‘I’ve just had an in-depth conversation about lawn maintenance with a man who probably went to school with my grandpa and before that – don’t get me wrong, she was a very nice lady, but she was asking me if I could recommend a good electrician or a builder. Random or what?’

I smiled at his slightly bewildered expression. ‘It’s probably the vest.’

‘This?’ He yanked it down, which exposed a pair of smooth, almost hairless, perfectly toned pecs and a little vee of dark-blond hair between.

I swallowed and nodded.

‘It was the only clean T-shirt I had,’ he said. ‘Everything is on the line drying … or at least I hope it is, otherwise I’ll have nothing to wear to work tomorrow. And that will not go down well.’ He flashed me a killer smile full of laughter.

‘No, I imagine not.’ I smiled back, doing my best not to think of him naked. ‘What do you do?’ I paused. ‘Oh God, did I really just say that? I think I’ve turned into my uncle and aunt.’ I nodded back through the bi-fold doors behind us towards the adults in the kitchen.

‘Their party?’

‘Yes. My cousin asked me to come as moral youthful support … except she reneged about half an hour ago.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Oh, it’s not so bad. Have you seen the food yet?’

‘Actually, it seems like a very nice party. I’m rather glad I came now.’ He gave me another smile, this one a little more considered as he took a pull on his beer. ‘My parents moved here about six months ago.’ He nodded to the end of the garden. ‘They back on to your aunt and uncle’s. I’m housesitting while my folks are away, looking after the dog, and Lynn insisted I pop in.’ He shrugged, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I was at a loose end and food was promised.’

I laughed. ‘You definitely came for the right reason. Although I have first dibs on leftovers.’

‘Did you come packing Tupperware?’ he asked.

‘No.’ I couldn’t help smiling at his humorous expression.

‘Well,’ he said with mock seriousness, ‘all bets are off then.’ He chinked my glass with his beer bottle.

‘I might have to pull the favourite-niece card.’

‘How many nieces do they have?’ His laughing frown made me smile. In fact, I don’t think I could have stopped myself smiling back at him if my life had depended on it.

‘Only me.’

‘That doesn’t count. And I think favourite neighbour probably trumps that.’

‘Favourite neighbour?’ I echoed.

‘On account of I’m quiet, good at carrying heavy things, and excellent at plant-watering when people are away.’

‘So what do you do when you’re not housesitting for your folks?’ I was guessing carpenter or gardener; he looked as if he spent a lot of time outdoors, or maybe he still lived with his parents and didn’t have a job.

‘I’m a primary school teacher. Over in Redlands.’

‘What, St Bernard’s?’ I certainly hadn’t pegged him for a primary school teacher and definitely not at one that was dedicated to special needs.

He nodded. ‘You know it?’

‘I’ve heard of it. I deal with a lot of local schools through my work. Gosh, that must be … interesting. How old are the kids you teach?’

‘Interesting is one way of putting it,’ he said, his smile broad and full of sunshine. ‘But I love it. I have a class of nine. They’re aged between nine and eleven. Key stage 2. Nearly all with some form of autism.’

‘That must be difficult. Coping with all those different needs.’

He looked at me slightly surprised. ‘Most people think it must be an easy gig.’ The light in his eyes dimmed for a second. ‘They assume kids with special needs don’t need an education. Or are too difficult to teach, so I don’t need to bother.’ There was a fierceness in his eyes, and if I hadn’t already been halfway to head-over-heels in something with him, that would have pushed me over the edge.

I beamed at him. I couldn’t help myself. And I suddenly realised that I could be completely open with him, completely honest.

‘And I bet you do bother. A lot.’

‘I do. I love working with my kids. They’re a real bunch of characters and every one of them deserves to have the best chance in life that they can get. It’s my job to make sure I give them that. Some of them are incredibly bright, super talented, but they just don’t have the mechanics to cope with life in the same way that you or I do.’

‘I’m impressed.’

‘Don’t be. I’m lucky. I’m doing a job I love. So what do you do?’

I smiled broadly. ‘I bet some people feel a bit insubstantial when you ask them after telling them what you do.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not a saint or anything. I have good days and bad. And sometimes,’ he paused with another of those charming twinkles, ‘I tell the children off.’

‘Shame on you. Those poor little angels,’ I added in a mockney accent.

‘Angels my arse, not when the little devils decide to superglue my shoes to my socks while I’m wearing them.’

‘I won’t ask,’ I said, giggling now. Honestly, I felt a bit drunk on this smiley warm-eyed exchange; it was going to my head. Although I didn’t feel fuzzy or out of focus. No, I felt sharper and more in tune than I’d ever felt before.

‘Well, if I could wash the shoes and socks together, it’d save a whole heap of time getting dressed in the mornings.’ We both laughed at the ridiculous image, our eyes meeting and then holding for that fraction of a second too long, but then neither of us looked away.

‘I’m Sam,’ he said, holding out a hand, still meeting my gaze, those too-blue eyes dancing with amusement and other lovely things. He was sunshine and happiness and it all seemed to be brimming out of his eyes.

‘I’m Jess. Nice to meet you, Sam.’

‘So what do you do, Jess?’

‘I work for a women’s refuge,’ I said, going on to name the nearest town just off the M1.

‘Wow,’ he echoed my earlier words, ‘that must be difficult too.’

I lifted my shoulders. ‘It has its moments. My job is to help the women – and often their children too – get back on their feet. Most of the time, they’ve fled with nothing. There’s a lot of liaising with schools, social workers, doctors, hospitals and, sometimes,’ the corners of my mouth turned down, ‘the police.’ Not many of the women I worked with ever went through with it and pressed charges; their self-esteem had been too eviscerated for that.

‘Sounds like a tough job. Makes mine look easy.’ The admiration in his eyes made me shrug.

‘Makes me appreciate how easy I’ve had it,’ I said. ‘And how lucky most people are and they don’t even realise it.’

‘That’s very true,’ he chinked his beer bottle against my glass again.

I’m not sure where the next hour went. Sam was the easiest person to talk to and we just seemed to have so much in common. We both disliked Fawlty Towers with a passion (and agreed that, horribly dated or not, comedy in the 70s must have been woeful); we both loved The Big Bang Theory; we both thought David Tennant was the best Doctor Who ever, adored Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and both believed that Imagine Dragons was simply the best band ever, although Sam insisted that Coldplay came a very close second.

Despite my stomach starting to make grumbling noises, I felt a distinct lurch of disappointment when my aunt yelled, ‘Food is served,’ through the open doorway, making me realise that there were plenty of people in the garden but I’d been so intent on Sam that I’d been unaware of anyone else around us.

‘Good. I’m starving.’ He gave me a quick once-over, his gaze running down my legs and then back up. I saw his Adam’s apple bob. ‘Are you eating?’

‘Hell, yes,’ I said. ‘Why do you think I’m here?’

‘Phew. I thought for an awful moment, with a stunning figure like that, you might be one of those lettuce sniffers.’ He winked.

With a giggle, I shook my head vehemently, although I’d taken the ‘stunning figure’ on board to pore over later. ‘Uhnuh, I love my food.’ We headed inside and fell into line together as we collected plates, napkins and cutlery.

Aunty Lynn had laid out a fine selection of salads and breads, while Uncle Richard had clearly done sterling service over hot coals as there were several plates of sausages, chicken and pepper kebabs, and home-made lamb burgers.

‘Well, you’d never guess,’ he said shooting my legs an approving look.

‘Thanks. It makes the parkrun I did yesterday worthwhile.’

‘What? Here in Tring?’

‘Yes.’

‘I did it yesterday! It’s a bugger. That hill’s a killer. I normally do one over at Rushmere Country Park in Leighton Buzzard.’

‘Is that where you live when you’re not housesitting?’

‘Yes, although I should move here really. I spend so much time this way. I play for Meadows Way Cricket Club at the weekend and spend a couple of nights a week in the nets there.’

‘Nice. Well, I think it is. I know nothing about cricket, but I’ve been to the clubhouse a few times.’ The cricket club was on the edge of town and had two big pitches bounded by high, well-trimmed hedges, between which was a large two-storey clubhouse with balconies looking out over the grounds and rather beautiful views of the nearby Chiltern hills.

‘You should come up sometime.’ He paused and looked away at the food. ‘Gosh, this looks amazing.’

We ended up sitting shoulder to shoulder on the small wall seat outside, eating in almost companionable silence. Something had slithered into that earlier easiness. I could sense it in Sam’s fierce attention to his food.

I kept my head down and carried on eating, conscious of the warmth of his leg next to mine and the movement of his forearm occasionally brushing my skin as he ate.

His fork dropped with a clatter to his plate.

‘Jess, there’s something I need to tell you.’

He lifted his head, frown lines etched into his forehead. ‘This is going to sound like a proper cliché but I really like you…’

The but might as well have been there in ten-foot-high shouty capitals.

‘Don’t worry. It was nice to meet you.’ I went to stand up but he put a hand on my arm.

‘No, I mean it. I really like you. I’d like to stay in touch but … I’ve got a girlfriend.’

‘Hey, it’s fine,’ I said brightly, because really it was. He was a lovely bloke and we’d spent a nice (Jess? Seriously? Nice?), OK, bloody lovely afternoon together but that was all it was. ‘It was lovely to meet you.’ I ignored the heavy lump that seemed to have taken up residence in the pit of my stomach and the sudden sense of the sun going in.

‘Jess, wait. Don’t go.’

He stood in front of me, so close that I could see the quick pulse in his neck and the rapid rise of his chest. I think seeing his flustered state was probably what made me acquiesce when he took my hand and led me down to the bottom of the garden. Gorgeous as he was, and wonderful as the spark between us was, having a girlfriend was a red line. I’d seen the bitterness seep into my mother’s soul when my dad left her for another woman, warping her spirit and stealing her positivity. The consequent fallout had caused cataclysmic changes in my life. Stepping on another woman’s toes was something I would never do.

‘Jess,’ he said urgently. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on.’

‘You didn’t,’ I said gently, trying to smile.

‘This isn’t a line, but I’ve never met anyone I…’ he lifted his shoulders looking delightfully bemused, ‘I just clicked with.’ His eyes met mine, radiating sincerity and sorrow. ‘I’d like to be mates with you,’ his mouth pursed in a self-deprecating line, ‘but I think that would last about five minutes.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘The thing is, I’ve been going out with Vic for four years. I’ve never looked at anyone else. Not once.’

‘And that’s good,’ I said brightly, feeling horribly jealous of her.

‘Can we stay in touch?’

All my instincts were telling me to say no, but the thought of him walking out of my life for ever was suddenly terrifying and I found myself saying yes.

Chapter Two

‘You’ve got a bit of bounce in your step this morning, girl,’ announced Holly, stirring her coffee for all she was worth, as though it might whip up a bit more energy for her. ‘Good weekend?’

‘Not bad. I’ve got food.’ I held up a bulging carrier bag.

‘Good old Aunty Lynn?’

‘The very same.’

‘Please say there’s some of her tabbouleh in there. Ooh and that pomegranate and feta salad. I love that.’

‘Might be,’ I said swerving the carrier bag away from her gimme-gimme grab and crossing the kitchen to unload a series of plastic takeaway cartons into one of the large communal fridges.

‘How was it here?’

One weekend a month we were on call in case there was an urgent need to offer refuge to someone. Weekends tended to be pressure points.

‘Quiet. No new residents. And I think the council have finally found a place for the Thorntons.’

‘Oh, that’s fantastic. When do you think they’ll be moving out?’

The refuge could house up to six families at a time, seven at a pinch. The Thorntons were our longest serving members of the household at the moment – Mum, three young boys and a baby. They desperately needed their own place. Most of the women that arrived – with little more than the clothes on their backs, their children clutching, if they were lucky, one prized toy – were given one bedroom, which for both practical and emotional reasons they shared with their children, although without exception the kids couldn’t be prised from their side. All five Thorntons had been sharing one bedroom for the last four weeks.

There was only one lounge area with a shared TV, which led to a lot of bickering among the children, and a communal kitchen which was set up so that the residents could help themselves to the basics we stocked in the fridge. They could cook for their own family unit or for others. No one family was ever the same; some loved to cook while others barely had the energy or the strength to think about food. Having food that someone else had prepared was always a treat and it was guaranteed that Aunty Lynn’s offerings would be a hit.

‘They’ll be moving out as soon as I can persuade the council to put a new carpet in the place. And I’ve spoken to the local charitable trust and they’ve agreed to provide curtains and bedding.’

‘Oh, my aunt’s neighbour has some spare bedding which she’s going to donate.’

We were the queens of begging, borrowing and stealing to keep our residents in home comforts.

With coffees in hand, we drifted through to the little admin office, a somewhat grand title for the cramped space with two desks facing each other. It was a good job we liked each other so much, as we pretty much lived in each other’s personal space. We were very different: Holly was pure Essex with dyed raven-black hair piled up into an ornate bun on her head with a French plait feeding into it. She wore tons of make-up and favoured bold, bright colours. The surface of her desk – well, I think under all that paper there was a surface – mirrored her personality, but at any given time, she knew where absolutely everything was. She was a demon for detail and never forgot a thing, which was jolly handy. She was also doing an OU degree in psychology and liked to involve me in the theories she was learning about at any one time.

By contrast, my desk was super tidy, but I too could also lay my hand on anything within seconds.

My first task of the morning was to try and persuade a local headteacher to take on two new children that had recently arrived with us, although there was only one place at the school. It took umpteen phone calls and several emails liaising with the county admissions team, the head, and the social worker assigned to the case before I was finally able to push away my keyboard and put down the phone to pick up the black coffee that Holly had just brought me. As I took the first life-saving sip, the bing of my phone caught my attention, and my heart skidded to a halt before kicking off like a frolicking pony.

Hi Jess. Hope you haven’t troughed all those leftovers yet. Lovely to meet you at the weekend. Sam.

I picked up my phone and stared at the message. Conflicting emotions showered like meteorites: pleasure, regret, hope, guilt, annoyance. Chiefly annoyance, I realised. He had no business texting me.

‘Blimey. That’s a complicated look,’ said Holly. ‘Bad news? Good news? Indifferent news?’

‘The jury’s out,’ I said with a sigh, holding my phone in both hands. Why had he texted me? That said he wasn’t the man I thought he was. I should be pleased that it proved the point. ‘I met this guy. Sam.’

‘And that’s him. Don’t tell me, he’s given you the I-just-want-to-be-friends message.’

‘Sort of.’

Holly rolled her heavily kohl-lined eyes. ‘See, I should write the book.’

‘You’ll dislocate your eyeballs one of these days if you keep doing that.’

‘Whatever, sweet cheeks,’ she replied with irreverent disdain. ‘Are you going to text him back to tell him you weren’t interested in him anyway or just keep looking at your phone as if it’s got all the answers to the universe and everything?’

‘Forty-two,’ I said automatically, immediately thinking of mine and Sam’s silly conversation (if you haven’t read Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which we both had, the answer is forty-two). I sighed and put my phone down. I should ignore it. He was out of bounds. And then two seconds later I picked it up again. The message was innocuous; he hadn’t done anything wrong. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

‘Want me to text him for you? “Bog off, you bastard, and don’t darken my inbox again.”’ Holly waved her bright-blue-tipped hands at me, trying to get me to hand it over.

‘It’s not like that.’

‘Oh Lord, you’ve gone all moony-eyed.’ Holly shuddered. ‘He’s not worth it. He’s a man, remember.’

I rubbed my hand over my face. ‘I don’t know what to do. The thing is, he’s really nice.’ And I was scared that if I responded to the text, we could end up having one of those text flirtations where things are said that shouldn’t be, especially when he had a girlfriend. There was a girl code. You don’t mess with another girl’s man. Another woman’s husband. The code was ingrained. I’d seen the damage done to my mother. It was unfair to cause that much pain to another person who was innocent and blameless. And that didn’t even begin to cover the additional casualties of any children involved.

‘Who? What? Where?’ asked Holly.

How could I possibly put into words that perfect storm of recognition between Sam and me? Every time I thought about it, saying we just clicked didn’t come anywhere close to covering it. Clicked sounded like a seatbelt slotting home, fingers snapping; it didn’t describe the feeling of completeness, the accompanying soar-away feeling as though I was taking flight, the magical, serendipitous sensation of being so in tune with another person, or the exchange of a smile because you didn’t need words.

Holly would laugh her cute little pop socks off.

Particularly as it’s all so unlike me. Seriously. I’m Miss Practical, a sensible, problem-solving kind of gal. This was not my style. I didn’t fall in love at the drop of a hat, or in this case the chink of a beer bottle against a Prosecco glass. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever really been in love.

I think, in the quiet moments, when I was completely honest with myself, I was a little bit scared of love. Perhaps frightened of what loving can do to someone when it all goes pear-shaped. My dad left my mum when I was eight; she took it extremely badly and never really got over it. I’m probably guilty of keeping a shield up to protect myself from what I see as the fallout, the collateral damage, and the eviscerating wounds that not being loved anymore can leave. I’ve seen it first-hand and it’s not pretty. I think it put me off opening myself to the possibility of falling in love. I’d had a couple of boyfriends. Long-term, too. But no one who’d ever made me feel quite like I’d felt in the company of Sam.

Being of a pragmatic bent, I didn’t believe in fairy tales and certainly not love at first sight but there was definitely something about him that had left an impression that was proving difficult to dislodge. I looked at my phone again. Ingrained politeness forbade me to ignore the text, which is really what I should have done, and I’ll admit that that little bit of ego that said, he likes you too, pushed my better judgement aside.

Lovely to meet you too.

My finger hovered over the keyboard, tempted to say more. God, I really wanted to. I liked him. More than liked him. But he belonged to someone else. I had no business here. It was wrong to even be thinking about him. Should I even send this polite innocuous text? But it said nothing really. I pressed send.

Three hours later, when there’d been no return text, I sadly acknowledged that I liked Sam even more. He was abiding by the rules. A good man who hadn’t strayed when temptation beckoned. Damn. It really did make me like him. Our text conversation was at an end and I knew it made sense. I wouldn’t contact him again. It was the right thing to do.

Chapter Three

‘I thought I recognised those pins,’ said a voice coming alongside me as I puffed my way along the dirt track, my feet crunching on the impacted soil of the avenue leading up to Nell Gwynn’s monument.

Flicking my glance sideways I almost stumbled at the sight of Sam easing alongside me with a delighted grin on his face.

‘Oh, hi,’ I said in a ridiculously girlish high-pitched voice, but it’s not easy being surprised and breathing at the same time, as well as wondering just what shade of tomato you’re approximating. I was guessing anywhere between overripe and sunburned-to-buggery. ‘Fancy seeing you here. Still housesitting for your folks?’ Except it came out more like ‘Fan … cy see … ing you … heeeeere,’ between pants. I sounded more like a rusty old swing.

He grinned at me. ‘No, I’ve been relieved of dog-sitting duty and been awarded the Légion d’Honneur medal for services to plant watering and recycling. My dad had a bet on that I would forget to put out the right bins for collection.’ He beamed again. ‘He never needs to know that Mum texted me reminders both weeks.’

‘What if I tell?’ I teased, managing to get it out in one exhalation. My memory had failed me; it had forgotten Sam’s golden glow of effervescent energy and that aura of glad-to-be-aliveness that seemed to envelop him. God, yes, I know I sound ridiculously fantastical. He was a mere man and not some immortal Greek god, but he certainly had some presence about him. And he was just so easy to talk to.

‘You wouldn’t, would you?’ His eyes widened dramatically and he clutched his hands to his chest, which made me laugh.

‘Remind me, what was it I was telling?’ I asked, enjoying the silliness between us. I’d thought about him quite a few times over the week. A memory I took out and stroked, like a child with its comfort blanket. I knew nothing was ever going to come of it but meeting a nice guy had been a pleasant reminder that there were still some out there.

He laughed, and for the next few minutes we fell into a silent rhythm, the pad, pad of our trainer-clad feet and the extension of our legs in perfect sync with each other and our breaths coming out in short energy-conserving pants as we matched each other step for step. I’d never thought about it before but there was something quite personal about running so in sync with another person.

We ran on in silence, which was only broken when I slipped unexpectedly on some loose dirt on the path. Sam’s arm shot out to grab me, otherwise I would have gone down. I stumbled but managed to stay upright.

‘You all right?’ he asked slowing his pace to wait for me.

‘Yeah,’ I panted, my heart pounding even harder with the sudden surge of adrenaline the near-fall had released. He jogged on the spot for a minute, his blue eyes completely focused on me, and for a moment it was as if everything else around us receded and we were only aware of each other.

That pesky adrenaline rocketed back into place and I could feel my heart dancing about all over my chest. I did that eyes-widening thing, which was probably what scared him off. That or licking my lips – completely inadvertently. I was running. They were dry.

There was no denying the electrical charge between us and he looked away, his mouth tightening, alarm skittering in his eyes.

It was as if I’d suddenly scalded him.

After that, he ran a pace ahead of me, as if he felt it would be rude to sprint off but he no longer wanted to run with me. I didn’t blame him. Another fall like that and I could take him out.

Gradually, he stretched out ahead of me and there was no way I could keep up with him. He passed me with a jolly wave on his downward leg as I was panting up the final hill before the turn around to come back on ourselves.

When I finished the course and picked up my sweatshirt and keys from the tarpaulin near the finish funnel, I saw him up ahead leaving the course without a backward glance. With a sigh, I said goodbye to a couple of people and walked back across the bridge over the dual carriageway, stopping in the middle to watch the cars whizz past under the bridge. They were like me and the man called Sam. Cars that passed each other, both headed in completely opposite directions. It had been nice bumping into him again – a bit too nice. Like when you spot a fabulous dress and you hunger for it but don’t buy it because you either really don’t need it or can’t afford it, so you’re good … although you can’t stop thinking about it. And yet you know that if you went back, it wouldn’t be as nice as you remembered; it’s not the dress for you. Well, unfortunately Sam was not that dress. He was still every bit as gorgeous as I’d remembered. And still as unavailable.

Later that day he invited me to be friends with him on Facebook.

‘Well, I binned him after that. Seriously? The man wanted me to wax his back after the second date. He’d even brought along a pack of wax strips!’ My cousin Shelley’s shrill indignation rang out in a quiet moment in the courtyard of the King’s Arms where we and my friend Bel, short for Annabel, were all nursing rather delicious gin and tonics on a school night, which felt horribly decadent.

‘I’d have gone for it and pulled each one off really slowly,’ said Bel, her eyes gleaming with mischievous malice.

‘Where do you find these men?’ I asked, laughing as Shelley took her disgust out on her ice cubes, poking at them with her straw.

‘There’s a special store with my name on it, Shelley Hilton Louses R Us, and they run the production line just for little ole me.’

‘Aw hon.’ I laid a hand on hers and gave it a quick squeeze. ‘That’s not true.’

‘You’ll find someone nice, one day,’ said Bel, with the comfortable conviction of someone who’d been shacked up with their man for eighteen months, three weeks and five days.

Shelley caught my eye and winked. ‘Who says I want nice? That’s my problem; I love a bad boy.’

Bel shook her head. Her boyfriend Dan had written the book on nice.

‘And,’ added Shelley, with a wry smile, ‘apparently I’m too indiscriminate. That’s what Mum says.’

I shook my head, loyalty coming to the fore rather than honesty.

Shelley laughed. ‘Come on, you know she’s right. You never have these problems.’

‘I never have any dates,’ I put in.

‘Because you always say no to everyone.’ Bel nudged me with her elbow.

‘You’re too discriminating,’ said Shelley rather proud of her clever observation. ‘A little bird told me that you got on rather well with a certain Mr Hottie from next door at Mum and Dad’s barbecue.’

I schooled my face into complete equanimity and shrugged.

‘Don’t give me that butter-wouldn’t-melt look.’ Shelley pulled a face. ‘Mum said Mr Hottie was taking a lot of interest. Sorry I ducked out on you. If I’d known what a complete and utter lard-arse of a bastarding bastard Sean would turn out to be, I’d have stayed home.’

‘It wouldn’t have done you any good. Mr Hottie is well and truly taken. Sadly.’ I pulled a jokey face of disappointment, which hid the raw hit of regret that punched me. ‘Although, funnily enough, I saw him yesterday.’ Both Shelley and Bel perked up and sat up in their seats, like a pair of cartoon villains smelling the scent of prey.

‘At the parkrun.’

‘Oh, bad luck.’ Shelley winced. Exercise was a dirty word where she was concerned. ‘That sucks. I bet you were all sweaty, weren’t you? Not a good look. That’s a nightmare.’

I gave a half-laugh. ‘Not really, when he has a girlfriend and he’s not interested.’ Despite all my good intentions, I couldn’t help the slight droop to my mouth which of course my eagle-eyed cousin spotted.

‘You like.’

I shrugged. ‘He’s very…’ utterly delicious, ‘nice, but like I said, he has a girlfriend.’

‘Ah, that’s a bloody shame.’ Shelley waved her gin glass in the air before halting suddenly, ‘Is it a serious, serious girlfriend? Do you know that? I mean, are they living together?’

‘Shelley!’ I warned.

‘What? All’s fair in love and war.’ She shrugged with a mutinous roll of her eyes. ‘Come on.’

Bel caught my eye. She understood. ‘No, it isn’t,’ I said quietly.

‘They’re not married,’ protested Shelley snatching up her drink. ‘They got kids?’

‘Neither, as far as I know, but it’s nothing to do with me because I’m not going there. As far as I’m concerned, he’s out of bounds.’

‘But you like him.’

‘It doesn’t matter if I like him. It’s wrong.’

Shelley scrutinised me in an over-obvious way before saying, ‘I’ve never known you even to “like” someone.’

I tried to play nonchalant. ‘He’s a nice guy. And this is a long-term girlfriend. It is serious.’ I knew that because I’d been doing a little investigation. ‘They’ve been going out for years.’

‘Aw, that’s a shame,’ said Bel in her soft voice, cottoning on straightaway ‘But you don’t want to get caught up with him. It’s so easy to start a flirtation and get carried away.’

Bel’s words stilled me, although I probably wouldn’t have confessed what I’d been doing since Saturday. I nibbled at my lip. It wasn’t as if I was doing any harm, was I? But I still felt a little grubby about it.

Facebook is the modern-day Pandora’s box. I kind of regretted clicking that Confirm Friends button. I couldn’t resist and it had done me no favours. I’d spent a good hour trawling through Sam’s posts, like an intrusive truffle hound sniffing out everything I could find out about him, including his surname, Weaverham … and her.

Every picture of him made me feel slightly gooey in the middle, but at the same time, I felt a touch guilty and voyeuristic, especially now I knew his girlfriend’s name and what she looked like. And then I’d made the fatal mistake of moving onto Instagram to check her out. Big mistake – to quote Pretty Woman – huge. Victoria Langley-Jones was an Instagram influencer with her own vlog and half a million followers. Eek! I’d half hoped she’d be sort of ordinary – not that I’m exactly anything in the looks stakes – but she was flipping gorgeous. Long, long dark hair with a slight curl in it, with a tall, shapely figure that went in and out according to enviable proportions and the sort of legs that looked perfect in the high ankle-strap sandals she seemed to favour.

Immaculately groomed, she had that slightly high-cheeked pouty expression reminiscent of a more approachable Victoria Beckham. I also discovered – from her many posts and a couple of sneaky peeps at her vlogs – that she came from quite a wealthy background; her pictures showed that she drove a Mercedes convertible, shopped at Harvey Nicks and Selfridges, loved oysters and champagne … and Sam. Really loved Sam. On her vlog she had features on shopping, dining and general opinion pieces which included: this season’s ten best little black dresses, tux shopping with your man (and yes, Sam looked exceptionally handsome in black tie at some fancy tailor’s in Jermyn Street), Marks and Spencer bra fittings versus Rigby and Peller, a parade of fashion faux pas at Ascot and what the best-dressed wore to a county cricket match.

‘Why is it all the good ones are taken?’ asked Shelley plaintively, bringing me back to the little pub terrace with a welcome bump. I knew Bel must have been shooting vicious behave-yourself looks at her while I’d been daydreaming.

All my Facebook spying had revealed was that Victoria wasn’t the sort of person I’d be friends with in a million years. And why was I even thinking like that? She was Sam’s sort of girl.

‘I mean, it’s not like…’ Shelley was off and, much as I loved my cousin, dear Shels could pontificate on the tragedy that all her friends had snaffled the best blokes and there were none left. Not single ones anyway.

When she finally came to the end of her diatribe and lurched away to the toilet, taking Bel with her, I picked up my phone and took an illicit shufty at Facebook, knowing I really shouldn’t. Sam had posted a picture of himself, looking particularly handsome in cricket clothes. Who knew? Even with the funny pads on his legs and leaning one-handed on his bat, the sight of him set a few butterflies fluttering low in my stomach. Above the picture the caption read, ‘Another century today – looks like I’ll be getting a jug in.’

Below it was a range of comments and of course I couldn’t resist taking a tiny peek into Sam’s world. His friends.

‘Make it two, you tight git,’ commented Mike, his circular photo revealing a big, dark, handsome man with his arm slung around a blonde woman.

‘About bloody time,’ commented Drew.

‘Lightweight. Only the one century.’

‘That cover drive is getting dull, old man.’

‘Hogging the crease again, Sam.’

I had absolutely no idea what any of that meant – not that it mattered. I sighed.

And then, unable to help myself, I scrolled through more comments until I came to the one I was really looking for.

Victoria had posted. ‘My batting hero. Love you so much.’

The butterflies turned to rocks. I resisted looking at her latest vlog; it probably had shots of Sam in action and her in the perfect outfit cheering him on.

I switched my phone off and tucked it into my back pocket. I needed to unfollow him and stop with the stalking.

Chapter Four

‘Is that another new top you’re wearing?’ asked my mother as she returned to the lounge carrying the large tea-tray. I stood up to offer to take it, even though I knew she’d decline. Just like she declined every Sunday and I kept offering. It was one of the mother-daughter dance-steps it seemed we had to go through each weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my mum, but she’s what’s known as ‘a difficult woman’.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do you like it?’ I spread my arms out to show off the sleeves with their cute cut-outs over the shoulder and upper arm which exposed a glimpse of tanned skin, which I was mightily proud of. ‘I got it in H&M, in the sale.’

‘And it’ll probably last five minutes. I wouldn’t stand too near a gas fire; you’ll probably go up in flames in that cheap material.’

She smoothed down her beige wool skirt to make the point. It was a pencil skirt that she’d had so long, it was about to come back into fashion.

‘I know, but it was so pretty I couldn’t resist,’ I said with a smile at her. She still managed to look elegant in whatever she wore, in a straight-laced, buttoned-up sort of way.

‘Well, as long as you’ve not spent your whole pay packet. Mortgage payments come first. Although they’d be a lot smaller if you’d been sensible and bought here instead of that place.’

‘Don’t worry, Mum. I’m—’

‘I’m not worried,’ she snapped, quick to deny any sort of emotional involvement in my life. ‘But don’t expect me to bail you out if you run into difficulty. I don’t know why you had to live over there.’

She did know, and I refused to feel guilty about living within walking distance of my aunt, uncle and cousin instead of her.

‘That’s not going to happen,’ I reassured her with a smile. ‘I’m careful with money. You taught me well.’ The latter was said with calm, resigned equanimity. Debt was Satan’s temptation and spending money was evil – I’d received that message with bells on it.

‘Hmph. How’s your cousin?’ My mum’s question was asked with an added sniff. ‘More tea?’

She didn’t really approve of Shelley but we’d clearly run out of conversation, so this was her fall-back option. Jeepers, I’d been there less than half an hour.

‘She’s good,’ I said, lifting my teacup and saucer towards the outstretched teapot, giving the clock behind my mother’s head a quick glance. I swear, time in her house is different to anywhere else in the universe. A bit like dog years but in reverse. Somehow, here, it felt as if there were one hundred and twenty minutes in an hour instead of only sixty.

‘Is she still working at the beauty place?’ The lines around her mouth tightened as she pushed the milk jug towards me.

‘Mum, it’s Champneys, and yes, she’s still working there.’ I poured a tiny amount of milk into the watery Lapsang Souchong that she insisted on serving. It was like piss and not my cup of tea at all, but I’d never say anything, nor would I tell her that I would rather have a huge mug of builders’ tea, the type that fuelled Holly and me at work.

‘I suppose when you don’t have much in the way of qualifications, it’s as good as anything. Not much point in getting a degree if you’re not going to use it.’ I ignored the pointed comment. ‘Mind you, she’s so spoiled, I should be impressed that she even works. Lynn and Richard have been far too…’ It was tempting to tune out because I’d heard it all before.

‘Jessica!’ Oh, darn it! I had tuned out and now Mum was looking at me with her bulldog’s-chewed-a-wasps’-nest face, her chin sinking into her skinny, elongated neck, surrounded by a ruff of well-tanned contours. ‘At least pay attention when I’m talking to you.’

‘Sorry, Mum. I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment.’

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow. ‘I asked if you had any more thoughts about going to your great aunt’s wedding. We’re going to have to go.’ Her mouth pursed with walnut wrinkles.

I shut my eyes for a second. I really didn’t want to go there.

‘I still need to find out if I’ll be on call that weekend. Holly hasn’t booked her holidays yet.’

‘Well, I don’t see why you have to wait on her. I thought you were the manager.’ My mother’s voice was shrill.

Technically I was, but it wasn’t the sort of place you pulled rank, or even thought about it. I might have the paper qualifications and the shiny degree to which my mother had made scathing reference, but Holly’s ten years of experience made her a million times more savvy and street smart than me. We made a good team; I never thought of myself as her boss.

‘I’ll ask her this week,’ I said with a sinking heart. Third time around, Great Aunt Gladys’s wedding was going to be fun with a capital F; going along with my mother would be miserable with a capital M. At sixty-nine, Gladys had bagged herself an extremely wealthy toy boy, Alastair, and they were getting married in style, the details of which had yet to be revealed but the save-the-date card featured Gladys in a jumpsuit and goggles, just about to launch herself out of a plane, with her fiancé grinning behind her and miming pushing her, which gives you a clue as to the type of couple they are. If Gladys has spent her three score and nearly ten years cramming as much joy and happiness into her life as she can, my mother has spent almost the commensurate amount sucking the joy out of her own and those of the people around her.

I know, I know, this is my mother we’re talking about and I should be a lot more charitable, more of a loving daughter. I am being a complete bitch and I shouldn’t. She’s not really that bad and she’s had it tough. Really tough. And I should have a lot more sympathy. My dad walked out without any warning when I was eight. Apparently he met the love of his life and couldn’t live without her. Giving up his well-paid job in London, he moved to Cornwall and never paid a penny of child maintenance. To give her her due, despite our desperate finances, Mum never borrowed a penny. Aside from one brief period when my childhood turned into a nightmare, I was always clothed, fed and taken on holiday every year. Although the delights of Filey do wear off after the fifth, sixth and seventh visit. When I was sixteen, I signed up to go to Christian Camp with the local Sunday school just to escape the week’s enforced shivering on a Yorkshire beach and the utter tedium of sharing a B&B room with my mother and her best friend, Dawn. If that sounds ungrateful, then I’m afraid I am. As I said, no one does stored-up bitterness quite as well as Mum, even though she now owns her own house and is practice manager at a very large GP surgery in Aylesbury and could actually start enjoying herself. She refuses to even talk about my dad and I’ve given up trying now.

‘Of course, I might have a plus one by then,’ I said, unable to resist being a little bit mischievous. ‘Or you might.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Jessica.’

‘You could always take Dawn. I’m sure Gladys wouldn’t mind.’

‘And can you imagine what she’d say if I did?’ My mother’s lips quivered with indignation. ‘She’d make some ridiculous insinuation that we were special friends or something.’

‘I’m sure she wouldn’t. She knows you and Dawn are good friends.’ I lied; it was exactly the sort of thing that Gladys would assume, thinking that she was being terribly liberal. Before Mum knew it, Gladys would be trumpeting about her niece, ‘you know, the lesbian one’.

‘So who’s the young man you’re thinking of taking? You haven’t mentioned anyone before. It is such a shame; you are a pretty girl.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ I laughed at her cautious compliment.

‘You’re very pretty. Is that better? I just don’t want you to get big-headed. It’s not just about looks. I can tell you that. You favour your father. And look what happened to him.’ Bitter lines fanned out around her eyes. Part of me was tempted to go for broke and say, ‘What did happen to him? After he left, why didn’t we see him again? Why did he abandon us?’

‘No, Mum, I look like you,’ I said firmly, smiling at her. ‘And you look great. And if I’ve still got a figure like yours at your age, I’ll be well chuffed. You know you’re a very attractive woman,’ I said rolling my r’s in an appalling Scottish accent, mimicking Duncan, her next-door neighbour.

Mum let out a you’re-being-ridiculous huff but at the same time she allowed herself a tiny smile and patted her hair. ‘The man is deluded but a gentleman all the same. I still don’t have to dye it. Poor Dawn is always at the Nice and Easy.’

She picked up her tea and took a thoughtful sip. ‘Well, if you do find yourself a plus one, you might not want to take him. If he meets Gladys he might run a mile. You don’t want him thinking insanity runs in the family.’

‘Gladys is deliciously bonkers, Mum. She’s not going to frighten anyone off, and it’s highly unlikely I’ll have a plus one. It was just supposition.’

‘Supposition. That’s a good word.’ Mum nodded approvingly, as if to say, See, that English degree wasn’t wasted after all. ‘So there’s no one on the horizon then?’

For someone who’d been so royally shafted by a man and whose life had been utterly shattered by the experience, there was a terrible irony in Mum’s continued desire for happy-ever-after for me. When Dad left she crumbled and things had got messy quickly.

‘No,’ I said with a shrug, wishing just this once that there could be.

I didn’t tell her as I backed out of her drive, my window wound down to wave at her as I left, that my next stop was dinner with my cousin and my aunt and uncle. With a touch of guilt, I watched her become smaller and smaller in my rear-view mirror, a neat little figure in her cream blouse and smart skirt.

Touch of guilt? What sort of bullshit was that? I had so much guilt where my mum was concerned. Even eighteen years on, she didn’t know how to be happy, or seem to want to be. It made her hard to be around and for that my guilt exceeded Catholic proportions. I didn’t mention going to my aunt’s because I didn’t want her to feel left out, although she probably knew. My aunt regularly reminded her that she was always welcome, that there was an open invitation. In fact, the invitation was open to every waif and stray in Tring. My aunt had a big heart and couldn’t bear the thought of anyone being lonely. Despite Aunt Lynn’s weekly phone call and invite, Mum declined ten times out of eleven, preferring to stay home and get organised for work the next day. We all still treated Mum with kid gloves, even though she was so much stronger these days – not that she seemed to appreciate it.

There was no way I was declining the invitation. Roast chicken was roast chicken. And roast chicken easily trumped washing and ironing, even when I’d been out clubbing on a Friday night. Staying over at Bel’s sister’s in London meant that I’d only managed to do one load of washing. Tomorrow morning, Monday, I’d be the one wrestling with the ironing board and rushing around grabbing clean knickers from the drying rack tucked behind the sofa in my bijou lounge.

When I pulled up onto the spare space at no. 11 Pettyfeather Lane, behind Shelley’s car, I was pleased to see that there were no other cars. Just the family today, which I was relieved about, given my unwashed hair scooped up in a scraggy bun and the bags under my eyes as a result of too much girl talk on Friday after clubbing.

I let myself in, calling, ‘Hello, honey, I’m home,’ as I walked into the kitchen.

‘Hey, lovely,’ said Aunty Lynn wiping her hands on her pinny. ‘Oh, my darling, you’ve got some excess luggage going on there. Was it a good night on Friday?’

‘Yes.’ I laughed and wiped at my eyes. ‘It was a late one, not helped by Bel and the girls yakking until the wee small hours.’

Someone grabbed me around the waist, enveloping me in CK One. ‘You’re a fine one to talk, Jess. God, woman, why don’t you ever put on any weight? I hate you! Why couldn’t I have got Mum’s side of the family’s genes instead of Dad’s sausage fingers and stocky man-thighs?’

I turned to return Shelley’s hug before stepping back and nodding at her cleavage, tastefully displayed in a very pretty floral dress. Next to me she looked all shiny and polished. ‘Don’t complain. You got boobage. I’m still buying teen bras in M&S.’

There was an awkward silence and from the shocked amusement on both Shelley and Aunty Lynn’s faces, I knew before I turned around that I’d made this announcement to some complete stranger.

If only. Broadcasting my bra size to just about anyone else would have been preferable.

When I turned around, I met Sam’s laughing blue eyes, which to give him credit did not duck below my neckline but held my gaze.

‘Hi, Sam,’ I said, an octave higher than my usual register.

‘Hey, Jess, how’re you doing? I haven’t seen you at the parkrun for a couple of weeks.’

‘Oh, I’ve been busy,’ I lied. Busy avoiding you. My Instagram habit had got a bit too much and I’d decided I needed to go cold turkey. So much for that strategy. All the attraction I felt for him roared back into life with rocket-propelled jets.

‘Sam, would you like a beer? He’s just been helping Richard move a couple of paving slabs in the garden. He’s housesitting for his parents again.’ Aunty Lynn’s jaunty tone wasn’t fooling anyone. ‘Jess, would you get one for him from the outside fridge and help yourself to a drink?’

Sam’s eyes danced as I stomped to the fridge, which was actually inside the pantry but for some historic reason was always referred to as the outside fridge to differentiate it from the fridge in the kitchen. I snatched up a beer and grabbed the Prosecco bottle, realising my hands were shaking. Must be the adrenaline rush, I told myself. Lynn was directing Shelley, who was helping make gravy, even though it was still nearly thirty degrees outside. We were experiencing a week of record-breaking temperatures, even though it was late May, but still the Hilton family had to have their Sunday roast. Food was food. I wasn’t complaining, although I did feel a little Shanghaied by Sam’s presence. And also cross that no one had warned me and given me a chance to prepare.

Although, if I’d known he was coming, would I have been able to help myself? And did he think that I knew he was coming?

Flipping the cap off the bottle with the opener attached to the door frame, I handed Sam his beer and turned my back on him as I poured myself a small glass of Prosecco before topping up Shelley and Lynn’s glasses.

‘Why don’t you two go out in the garden?’

‘Don’t you need any help?’ I asked, desperately semaphoring a message to her with my eyes.

‘No, darling. I’ve got everything under control. Shelley, don’t let the gravy burn.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ said Lynn, bustling away with a steamer full of uncooked broccoli. ‘We’ll be eating in about ten minutes, when Richard gets out of the shower. That all right with you?’

Faced with no other option, I grumpily followed Sam outside to sit at the table on the patio under a big cream umbrella. Despite the parched brown grass, the rest of the garden was a riot of colour, with pots of flowers lining the edges of the curved patio steps. I studied the blousy petunias spilling over the sides of the glossy blue planters.

‘I’m sorry, Jess,’ said Sam, his blue eyes sorrowful. ‘I can see you’re mad at me but I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong. Would you like me to go?’

I swallowed. ‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here. I thought you might think…’ My words trailed away. If I said any more, I’d say too much.

‘I had no idea you’d be here, honestly. Richard popped around fifteen minutes ago asking if I’d help with the paving slabs and then Lynn invited me to stay for dinner.’ His mouth drooped, his eyes hooded. ‘Roast chicken was a lot more appealing than last night’s Domino’s.’

‘Don’t give me those puppy-dog eyes, Sam Weaverham!’

‘Too much?’ Laughter lit his blue eyes.

‘Far too much. I bet your mum stocked the fridge to the gunnels for you while she’s away.’

His cheeks dimpled with a naughty smile. ‘You know her.’

‘No, but you give off those spoiled-rotten vibes,’ I said, trying to be snotty and failing miserably, as my face creased into a smile. ‘How long are you housesitting for?’

‘Just the weekend. They’ve gone to some fancy wedding down on the Isle of Wight, so decided to stay a day either side. They’re back tomorrow.’

‘I’ve never been to the Isle of Wight. My school always went in Year 6, but the day before we were due to go, my appendix burst.’

‘Ouch. I’ve never been either, if it’s any consolation.’ He suddenly grinned. ‘I’ll show you my scar if you show me yours.’

‘You’ve had your appendix out?’

‘Yup, two years ago, the scar’s almost invisible now.’ With that he whipped up his T-shirt and showed me his very tanned stomach, with dark-blond hair disappearing below his shorts. Jeez Louise, was the man trying to kill me?

I had an instant hot flush, and my pulse went into overdrive as he traced the tiny silvery scar with his index finger.

‘They glued it together,’ he said. ‘It’s amazing. In the olden days we’d probably have died.’

‘That’s a cheery thought,’ I said, taking a cooling swig of Prosecco and holding the glass to my cheek. There was no way I was showing off my equally neat scar, although a little bit of me had fallen even more for his total lack of self-consciousness.

And we were off, the conversation running free as we discussed childhood ailments and competed for the most broken bones. He won; he’d broken three ribs in one go during an unfortunate incident with a cricket bat.

‘So, are you enjoying this weather?’ asked Sam after a comfortable lull in the conversation. He leaned back in his chair, completely at ease, his tanned limbs sprawling comfortably as the sunlight danced over the reddish blonde hairs dusting his arms and legs. He looked like a sun god. ‘Or are you getting fed up with it?’

‘I love it. I just wish I had a garden to enjoy it. I’m lucky I do have a teeny tiny balcony that I can sit on, but it gets the sun in the morning rather than the evening.’

‘Nice for breakfast,’ he said with a nod.

I sniggered. ‘In my head, when I first bought the place, I planned to sit there eating healthy yoghurt, sprinkled with fresh strawberries and nuts.’

‘And?’ Sam’s eyebrows lifted in amused anticipation.

‘I’m usually rushing around with a bowl of Weetabix, trying to find my car keys and pull on my only pair of hole-free tights, which I had to wash the night before and which have been drying on the boiler all night … and that’s way too much information, but you get the picture.’

‘Sounds like real life to me. I’m a toast-in-the-car man, with my coffee in the cup holder and more toast when I get to work. And then toast at breaktime with the kids.’

‘A lot of toast,’ I observed, swatting at a wasp that was getting a bit too close to my wine glass. The pesky thing – the first of the season – was sluggish and stupid and was now dancing around the rim of the glass. I stood up to bat it away again and managed to knock over Sam’s beer. As we both lunged for it, I somehow managed to trip over his feet and … there he was, both hands on my upper arms, holding me up. Classic romantic-comedy territory … except it didn’t feel funny; it felt bloody terrifying. My stomach had gone into freefall and I couldn’t look anywhere but into his too-blue, too-perceptive, too-knowing eyes.

I was so conscious of his fingers touching my bare skin through the stupid gaps in my top (so that’s what they were for!) and of his lips just inches from mine. Oh yeah, every cliché in the book and it was horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Because I so wanted to kiss him and I knew, without being anything but honest, that he wanted to kiss me.

And we couldn’t. The knowledge pumped a great big fist right into my stomach.

I’m not sure who reared back first; it might have been simultaneous. I do know I felt sick. Properly I-might-throw-up-any-second sick. Which was a rather bizarre reaction. Was it shame? Regret? Disappointment?

Sam rubbed his hand over his forehead looking horrified and took another step back.

‘Dinner’s ready,’ called Lynn, appearing at the door.

‘Blimey, are you ill, Jess?’ said Richard after I refused a second helping of roast potatoes. I was still pushing the first lot around my plate.

‘No.’ I summoned up a smile I was far from feeling. ‘I think it must be the heat. I’m not that hungry.’

‘I’ll have yours,’ said Shelley as she leaned over and stabbed one with her fork. ‘Sod the man-thighs. At least they’re all bought and paid for.’

Everyone laughed and I sneaked a quick glance at Sam, unable to stop myself. He looked serious and had been carrying on a conversation with Aunty Lynn about his parents’ dog. She’d been talking about getting a dog forever – Uncle Richard called it Project Puppy – but never having owned one before, she entertained a certain amount of trepidation about the prospect. He hadn’t looked at me once since we’d come in from the garden.

‘Talking of which,’ he said, putting down his napkin with a show of great regret, ‘I ought to go and check on Tiggy. Make sure she’s got enough water. With all that fur, this heat is not good for her.’

‘Oh, you should have brought her,’ said Shelley. ‘Then Mum could have got her dog fix.’

‘You should get a dog, Lynn,’ said Sam rising to his feet. ‘I’m sure Mum would help you out with any questions. Thanks for dinner, and I’m sorry to cut and run. It was really nice of you to invite me.’ He looked around the table. ‘Nice to see you… Shelley. Jess.’ He gave a nod towards both of us, not making eye contact, and followed Lynn, who insisted on escorting him to the front door, still peppering him with questions about Tiggy’s daily routine.

‘Well,’ drawled Shelley. ‘He is seriously hot.’

Richard covered his ears. ‘I don’t think this is an in-front-of-Dad conversation, is it?’

Shelley grinned at him.

I huffed out a sigh. ‘And it’s not a conversation I want to have.’ I turned to her. ‘Please leave it.’

Her eyes widened for a second and then awareness kicked in and her face softened. ‘Sorry, babe.’ She patted my arm.

‘Dad, have another Yorkshire pud. You know you want to. Now that Wonder Boy’s gone you can stop holding in your paunch.’

Richard laughed and helped himself to not one but two big fat Yorkshire puddings. ‘Your mum loves me just the way I am.’ He waved one of the Yorkshires on his fork at her.

‘What’s that?’ asked Lynn as she slid back into her seat. ‘He’s such a lovely boy. Richard! Two! You said you were worried your trousers were getting a bit tight. That’s not going to help.’

‘Really, Dad!’ said Shelley with a wicked grin.

I let the family banter wash over me and luckily none of them noticed how quiet I was, or if they did, they thankfully didn’t mention it.

Chapter Five

I hit the ground running on Monday morning. Holly was already there when I arrived.

‘Two new arrivals this weekend. They’re still sleeping. Came in late last night,’ she said, handing over a mug of tea. ‘Little boy, he’s ten. Mum is twenty-eight. They’re not in great shape. I’ve got a meeting with the housing department about the Slater family.’

Some of our clients had already been in the system for a few weeks when they came to us and this was a halfway house while they were waiting to be housed. Once they left we provided ongoing support along with the social workers. Others arrived having fled literally hours before with nothing. ‘Not in great shape’ meant the latter.

‘No problem. I haven’t got anything on today. I’ve got a TAF meeting tomorrow.’ We use a lot of acronyms at work. I was referring to a Team Around Family meeting, which involves lots of different agencies involved in supporting our families. ‘I can settle them in.’

I often wondered about how the children felt about their fathers. Not having had one of my own for the key years of my life it was something that I spent a lot of time thinking about. Would the children ever see them again? Would they want to? How would the things they’d seen affect them in the future? Had Mum got away before psychological harm had been done?

I knew that my dad leaving had definitely influenced my job choice. Although he hadn’t been violent or abusive he had definitely inflicted a terrible wound on my mother’s life. When I was eight I hadn’t been able to help her when things had spiralled out of control. There had been no safety net for my mother, no one to help. This job, although far from perfect, was about us picking up the pieces and it made me feel that, in a very small way, I was making up for not being able to help my own mother.

‘Hi, I’m Jess,’ I said, introducing myself to the tired-looking woman with grey shadows dappling her petite, fine-boned features. ‘Would you like some coffee or tea?’

‘Tea, but I don’t want to be no bother.’

‘Well, let me show you the kitchen and then you can help yourself any time you like. It’s Cathy, isn’t it?’

Nodding, she cast a fearful look over her shoulder at the little mound in the bed. ‘I can’t leave our Jakes.’

‘Is he still sleeping?’

‘No.’ Her worry-filled eyes darkened with fear.

‘Perhaps he’d like some juice and a biscuit,’ I suggested. Many of the women that came here had been bullied, coerced and told what to do for so long that making choices was often difficult. They didn’t like to upset anyone. Our job wasn’t to rehabilitate them or make any judgements; it was to provide unconditional support and a safe haven. Holly and I were not counsellors or legal experts; we were there to provide the infrastructure of the refuge, to make sure that the place ran smoothly, help facilitate access to a new life and ensure that the women felt safe.

‘I can ask him.’ She padded in her battered slippers to lean over the huddled lump. ‘Jakes love, you want something to eat?’ I noticed the scratches around her ankles.

A muffled ‘No’ came from the pile of bedclothes.

‘It’ll do you good, love,’ she coaxed, flashing me a desperate look.

‘There’s no hurry,’ I said, giving her a gentle smile. ‘Why don’t I bring a tray up and you can come down to the kitchen when you’re ready? There’s a bathroom just through here.’ I pointed down the corridor. ‘Towels are in there. And there are some clothes and things you might need in the cupboard over here. Help yourself to whatever you need for the time being.’

The women in the house had to do their own cooking, buy their own food and keep the place clean and tidy, but we helped out with food and clothing when they first arrived, as sometimes, like Cathy, they arrived with absolutely nothing. I guessed from the state of her ankles her slippers were the footwear she’d left in.

By the time I left work, it was after six. My tiny flat felt hot and stuffy and I dragged myself around opening every window, trying to get a through-draught, yawning as I went.

Dear God, it had been a long day. I peered at the inside of the fridge and pulled out the last can of Coke. I didn’t feel like eating and the fridge and cupboards held slim pickings. I went out onto the balcony where I sat at the little two-person bistro table, staring at the second empty chair and letting myself brood. I couldn’t get little Jake’s face and its black eye out of my head. How could someone do that to a child? Let alone a father? Parts of my childhood had been scary and chaotic but at least no one had ever intentionally hurt me.

The view is probably what sold the miniature apartment; it’s a conversion at the top of an older building and the balcony is built into the eaves of the roof, looking out over trees and fields which slope up towards the Chiltern Hills. It’s the perfect thinking spot, although I don’t normally let the job or the past get to me. We’ve been trained to have resilience – the ability to bounce back – which, as Holly told me regularly, was why I was so good at my job. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so thick-skinned that I don’t care, it’s just I know that for me to help and make a difference, I have to be practical and pragmatic. The women that came to us had all too familiar stories. Although stories is the wrong word. They aren’t stories; they’re real. You never get used to the harrowing accounts, but you do learn to manage your own response.

Today I’d not managed very well. I lifted the can of Coke with a heavy sigh. I couldn’t get Cathy and Jake out of my head. What they’d been through and what life now held for them.

So yeah, I was moping. Not something I do very often.

I pushed at the second chair with my foot. Sometimes it would be nice to have someone sitting there, a man who would listen to me have a mini rant, a quick weep, and then tell me I was doing OK and give me a cuddle.

Oh dear, I really was feeling sorry for myself this evening. Good job I had a Pilates class at eight with Shelley and Bel, a bit of a treat as Bel was rarely around during the week. As an auditor for a big accountancy firm, she often spent weeks at a time working away.

I pushed myself to my feet. Enough brooding. I would go and see Aunty Lynn and scrounge tea there. She was bound to feed me and just being at her house always comforted me.

‘Mum.’ I squeaked the word as I sauntered into Aunty Lynn’s big kitchen-diner, having opened the front door with my own key and yelled, ‘Hello, it’s me.’

‘Jess.’ My mother’s face was a cross between disapproval and hurt. I wouldn’t have dreamed of letting myself into her house. I wasn’t sure I still had a key.

What was she doing here? Usually she only deigned to visit on high days and holidays.

‘Hello, Jess,’ said Aunty Lynn, deliberately not commenting on what a nice surprise it was to see me, as she usually would.

‘Hey cous, come to scrounge tea. You’ve timed it perfectly,’ said Shelley with a smirk, relishing the awkwardness.

‘I thought I’d call in on my way to Pilates,’ I said, not daring to look at the clock, the hands of which would have mocked me. The class didn’t start until eight o’clock, it was ten to seven.

‘Have you eaten?’ asked Lynn, already looking at the damn giveaway clock. ‘You’ve got plenty of time, your class doesn’t start until eight. I’ve made a lovely niçoise salad.’ She was already laying an extra place at the table. ‘Why don’t you stay as well, Joan? There’s plenty. Richard, my beloved salad dodger, won’t want any, far too healthy.’

‘I heard that,’ called an indignant voice from the other room and we all grinned at each other. My mother’s mouth tightened.

‘I’m afraid I can’t stay,’ she said in that prissy tone, which we all knew meant, I know when I’m not welcome.

‘Oh, do stay, Joan. You can spend some time with Jess.’

Inside I winced. Wrong thing to say, Aunty Lynn.

‘I can spend time with Jess whenever I want without your permission, Lynn.’ And with that my mother flounced towards the front door. I raced after her.

‘Mum, don’t be like that. Lynn’s just being hospitable. I came to see Shelley really. Why don’t you stay?’ I pleaded, although I couldn’t begin to imagine what the atmosphere would be like if she changed her mind.

‘I’m not being like anything. I need to go home. I’ve got a perfectly good supper waiting for me at home.’ There was no arguing with the straight, affronted back now presented to me. Mum had taken umbrage and I felt horribly guilty. Me marching in unannounced just underlined that this house had always been and still was my sanctuary. As a child it had offered the light and colour lacking at my mum’s house.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ I said desperately.

‘I’m sure you’re busy but when you can fit me in. You know where to find me.’

Ouch, I really had upset her.

Could my day get any worse?

‘Blimey, why did I let myself in for this?’ asked Shelley. Pilates didn’t count as proper exercise, she’d decreed, because, allegedly, it didn’t involve sweat, which just went to prove she wasn’t doing it properly.

‘Because it’s good for us,’ I said, actually feeling a lot better than I had earlier. All that breathing, contorting myself into the right shape and using muscles that were usually left to their own devices meant that there was no space in my head to think of other things.

‘It’s good for you,’ she groaned. ‘With your taut, bendy body, and tiny boobs. Mine just get in the way.’

‘Stop boasting,’ said Bel. ‘You know we’d both love to have a cleavage.’

Shelley cheered up and pushed up her double Es with both hands. ‘I’ve got a body made for lurve, that’s my problem.’

We both burst out laughing.

‘Obviously, that’s where I’m going wrong,’ I said. ‘My body’s not even built for dating.’

‘I know someone who was very interested and he’s young, free and single, now.’ Her eyes gleamed with sudden delight and a sly smile lit up her face.

I ignored her, I refused to take the bait. It wasn’t the first time she’d attempted to fix me up with one of her random and completely unsuitable mates-of-mates.

She arched an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you want to know?’

‘No.’

‘Not even if it’s someone you really, really like.’

I glared at her. What? We were thirteen? Did she mean Sam?

‘You do know he’s broken up with his girlfriend?’

I didn’t need any more information. She did mean Sam. A rush of adrenaline crashed through me so unexpectedly that I dropped one of my trainers.

‘H–he has?’

She nodded, gentle for once, as if she knew it mattered. ‘Yes, sorry, I assumed you’d know.’ She lifted her shoulders in mute apology. ‘Mum was talking over the fence to his mum; she mentioned it.’

‘Wow,’ I said. For some reason I felt totally numb. Sam had finished with his girlfriend. I think I was too scared of what it might mean to dare to feel anything. ‘Do you know when?’

Was it before the weekend? After Sunday?

Shelley shook her head. ‘Mum didn’t say. I can ask her if you like.’

I gave her the look.

‘Uh, maybe not.’ Her quick grin was sympathetic. Given ammunition like that, Aunty Lynn would be straight round to Sam’s mum like a secret agent on a mission.

But now I was confused. Sam hadn’t made deliberate contact since he’d sent the Facebook friend invite. There’d been no further texts. Maybe I was imagining the mutual attraction, wishing it to be so, like some sort of reverse denial. People did that sort of thing all the time, didn’t they? Stalkers who were fixated on people, believing their victims returned their affection. Maybe I’d just read too much into those feelings? Maybe he was one of those guys who was incapable of not flirting? Maybe Sam was like that with any girl who gave him so much as the flutter of an eyelash and let slip a flash of attraction? A complete man-whore, who tested the waters but never went in deeper because he had a steady relationship that kept him safe. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became.

Bel and Shelley both kept quiet, for which I was extremely grateful. There were too many questions and thoughts churning around my head to make sense of anything.

As the sky was still cloudless and the sun blazing brightly, even though it was after nine, we walked home in our T-shirts and leggings. The pretty High Street was quiet, as if everyone had stayed home to enjoy the rare evening warmth. We walked along in near silence and I could feel Shelley and Bels shooting me concerned glances.

As we walked up the slight hill to the mini roundabout where Shelley would peel off, I put out my arms, catching both of them on the forearm. ‘Guys, can you stop worrying about me. Shels, I can almost feel you plotting. And Bels, you can stop fretting about me.’

‘Well, it’s just not like you to be…’

‘Quiet.’

‘So serious.’

I laughed as they spoke at the same time. ‘Well, you can quit worrying. I’m fine. Sam hasn’t even been in touch, so he’s probably not interested.’

That thought didn’t stop me going straight on to Instagram and Facebook as soon as I walked through the front door and my phone picked up the Wi-Fi signal.

Sam had posted nothing since Saturday on his Facebook newsfeed, where he’d shared a video which featured him hitting a cricket ball with an almighty thwack that seemed to reverberate around the pitch. In his uniform he looked official and business-like, and the determined, predatory stance as he faced the ball made him appear quite different to the laughing golden man I’d met several times. I watched the video a second time, taking in the slow, deliberate step out to strike and the flash of power unleashed when he hit the ball. I knew bugger all about cricket, but I knew damn sexy when I saw it. My mouth went dry.

His Instagram feed hadn’t been touched for over a week. Knowing I shouldn’t, I tapped Victoria’s name into the search box.

Her most recent post was last night; she looked gorgeous but there was a dangerous hint of black widow in her dressed-to-kill pose. A midnight-black lace dress skimmed the tops of her thighs, the endless legs accentuated by high, sexy sandals. The look was completed by the dress’s magnificent slashed neckline that dipped virtually to the navel, showing off high, full breasts. The picture had femme-fatale-on-the-prowl written all over it, as did the fifty comments below.

‘Show him what he’s missing, girl.’

‘He’s a fool.’

‘You go, girl.’

‘Shit for brains, that man. You deserve better.’

‘Can’t believe it, babe. Hugs.’

‘Aw hon, you look beautiful. Plenty of fish.’

I sat down with a thunk on my sofa. It was true. Sam had finished with Victoria.

Chapter Six

My phone rang as I was rushing for a train. I had exactly six minutes to run up the escalator and make a mad dash to the platform for the 17.34 to Tring after a rare midweek day’s shopping and lunch with an old university friend in London. I picked up my pace, ignoring the strident ring and after dithering with my oyster card and cursing when it didn’t seem to work, I managed to catch the train by the absolute skin of my teeth.

As I got into the nearest carriage with the beeping signalling the doors closing ringing in my ears, I slumped into the first available seat, breathing so hard I barely noticed my own feet, let alone who I was sitting next to, until someone laughed. So much for all those parkruns! They hadn’t prepared me for a sprint.

‘Jess Harper!’

‘Michael!’ A familiar face loomed into focus. Michael had been in my year at school and his girlfriend, Helen, had been in the same year as Shelley and one of her best friends. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘On my way back to Tring. I’m staying with the folks at the moment. I’ve been working down in Southampton since finishing uni, and then a job came up in London and I fancied a change … and Mum and Dad have downsized. And,’ he looked a touch embarrassed, ‘helped us out with a deposit to buy a place.’ Then his eyes lit up. ‘Me and Helen have just got engaged.’

‘Oh wow! Congratulations! Shelley didn’t tell me.’

‘She doesn’t know and Helen’s going to kill me for telling you first. Please don’t say anything. They’re going out for a drink tomorrow.’

‘I won’t say a word.’ I gave him a cheerful wince, easily able to imagine Shelley’s excited shriek the minute she spotted the engagement ring. ‘We should all get together sometime for a drink.’

The rest of the journey was spent catching up with news of old schoolfriends and passed so quickly that I completely forgot my missed call.

It was only as the train slid into the station that I pulled out my phone.

Sam’s name on the screen left me suddenly dry-mouthed and I swear my heart stopped for a second.

‘Bad news?’ asked Michael, looking worried.

‘No, just … an unexpected call.’ It had been three weeks since I’d heard that he and Victoria had split up.

I’d spent a week and a half tormented by the ridiculous hope that I might hear from him. This was followed by a forlorn week and a half realising that he was obviously no longer interested, if he ever had been at all, and that I’d imagined that spark between us.

I must have looked shell-shocked. Even though stray thoughts of Sam managed to creep through every now and then, I’d filed him under O for ‘out of bounds’ and locked the filing cabinet as tight as a bank vault. I’d stopped peeking at his and Victoria’s Instagram accounts and noticed that his Facebook posts had dwindled to virtually nothing. This was a complete bolt from the blue. Even though I wanted to call him straight back, the peculiar geography of Tring station being a mile and a half out of town and the constraints of politeness meant that I had to offer Michael a lift home.

As soon as I walked through the door I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking as I pressed the bold black letters at the top of the recent calls list. He’d called twice but neither time left a message.

Wah! I’d pressed the screen too soon. What was I going to say? You were supposed to prepare for these things. Did I look too eager? Too desperate?

‘Hey, Jess.’

‘Hi, Sam.’ I was shy? What the hell? I’m never shy. I walked into the flat and perched on the edge of the sofa.

There was a silence.

‘Sorry, have I called at a bad time?’ I asked, picking at a loose thread at the bottom of my shirt. I desperately didn’t want it to be a bad time.

Sam laughed and all the silly trifling innate worries – like maybe he’d regretted calling me, or maybe it was an accident – vanished as I pictured his blue eyes crinkling, his face coming to mind as if I’d seen him yesterday.

‘No, not at all. Any time is good.’ I could almost hear him grinning. I mean, I just knew he was grinning from something in his speech. Is that crazy? ‘It’s just that earlier when I called, I had it all prepared. You know, exactly what I was going to say and now … I’m a bit thrown because I’d convinced myself that you wouldn’t call me back and … would you like to come out for a drink with me?’

‘Yes,’ I said laughing, charmed afresh by his honesty.

‘You would?’

‘Do you want me to think about it?’

‘No,’ he said quickly before adding in a gabbled rush, ‘Istomorrowtoosoon?’

Chapter Seven

A bad day in the refuge is when one of the women decides that going back to the life they know is preferable to living with the uncertainty of if the council will find them a suitable home, if their children will settle in their new schools, and if they can cut it on their own.

Holly and I know it’s not our fault, we really do, but it doesn’t help with the numbing sense of loss and failure. Today was a bad day. The Slater family, for whom I’d fought so hard to get the three children into the same school, had returned home. Mr Slater’s texts promising to change, pleading with her to drop the charges, and photos of their spacious executive house in a nice part of Surrey had done the damage. You don’t expect domestic abuse in nice, middle-class families. The stereotypical image of fraught, poverty-stricken lives affected by the issue is a long way from reality. There are no stereotypes. These are real people, real families, from every walk of life.

It was tempting to cancel Sam. I wanted him to meet the nice, shiny, happy version of me, not the sickened and heartbroken version who hated the powerlessness of days like these, when you wonder over and over if there was anything you’d missed. Anything you could have done. The truth was that the Slaters’ immediate future was grim – a one-bedroomed council flat and living on benefits until the children were older. Mrs Slater used to drive an Audi four-by-four, shopped in John Lewis, and had lost a spleen.

I didn’t cancel him. I rocked up at the pub twenty minutes early and went and sat in the garden at one of the benches, with my back to the table, under a shady tree with a large glass of Coke, the condensation dripping down the side, which I held against my neck. It was another heat-searing day with the temperature hitting the high twenties, which I didn’t mind so much now that I was outside. I texted Sam to tell him where I was.

The pub was perfectly positioned, only a ten-minute journey from work for both of us, but I acknowledged, with a grim, unhappy smile, that wasn’t why Sam had chosen it. I looked around the garden; it wasn’t busy but even if it had been, I wouldn’t have known a soul here. The pub was far enough away from Tring that it was unlikely anyone would spot us. I winced, hating the feeling that we were creeping around. I guessed that Sam was being considerate of Victoria’s feelings; I got that, but it suggested things on too many other levels that I didn’t want to examine. Was this a proper date? Did it mean something? I’d not been able to stop thinking about Sam since the moment I’d met him, even though I’d tried really hard. Was it possible that he could feel the same about me? The thought that he could thrilled me as much as it filled me with terrible guilt. I’ve got a pretty well-developed conscience. I’d seen my mum when Dad had gone; she’d tortured herself wondering what the other woman had that she didn’t, what she’d done wrong, and whether there was anything she should have done differently.

I traced the condensation with my finger and tried hard not to think about how Victoria might be feeling. Even so, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit sick at heart. No one should go through the pain my mother had suffered.

Knowing it was the dumbest move I could make, I picked up my phone and carried on looking at the Instagram feed I’d succumbed to peeking at earlier that afternoon. It was clear that she and Sam breaking up had not been a mutual decision. Her recent feed featured lots of pictures of happier times with her and Sam among the same group of friends. The numbers varied, but the same faces recurred in different groupings: lounging on the field at a cricket match, dressed up and posing for the camera at a wedding, a group selfie on a sun-drenched beach that looked somewhere exotic and well above my paygrade, in Barcelona at the Sagrada Familia. It was a gloriously technicolour, detailed documentary of their history together and an indelible testament to how intertwined their lives had been.

I snapped off my phone and pushed it away. Instead, I gazed up at the leafy canopy above and wondered how the leaves managed to stay so crisp and green when the grass had given up the ghost. The hillside view was probably normally rolling verdant field; today it was brown scrub.

‘Jess!’

Sam appeared

‘Hi.’ I stood up. He smiled at me, his eyes dancing as they met mine, mischief and warmth brimming in them, and like magic, the dragging frustration of my day and the wearying feeling of guilt vanished.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he walked right up to me and put his arms around me, his hands resting in the small of my back. He kissed me full on the lips, putting a marker in the sand straightaway. No messing about, but also no assumptions. No tongues and no lingering snog. It was a kiss that stated his intent, but he hadn’t carried it through. It was an offer, but it gave me a choice. It was honest and straightforward. A man after my own heart.

‘Hi,’ he said, his voice husky and raspy. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.’

My heart banged in my chest and I must have looked like a right dorky idiot because all I could do was gaze breathlessly up at him like some dozy heroine in a black and white film. Luckily, I don’t think he noticed or cared because he was grinning like an idiot back at me.

‘Me too,’ I admitted.

‘Want a drink?’ he asked.

I watched shamelessly as he walked back into the pub. He looked good in smart-casual gear, but I preferred him in shorts and a T-shirt. Like this, he looked slightly constrained and buttoned-up. It was a uniform – appropriate, but not really him.

When he came back with two Cokes, as soon as he sat down beside me, he ripped off his tie, a bland grey knitted affair that looked as if it belonged to a geography teacher circa 1950, and stuffed it in his pocket, undid a couple of buttons on his shirt, and rolled up his sleeves.

‘Better?’ I teased.

‘Tie day. I bloody hate them. Had to meet some parents. The head likes us to look professional.’ He shook his head as he took a long swallow.

With the avid attention of a lovesick puppy I stared at his Adam’s apple and felt my hormones flicker like a light bulb in a bad horror film.

‘You look lovely and cool and sort of floaty in that dress.’ He grinned. ‘I wonder what the head would say if I turned up in one. So much cooler than trousers.’

We slipped into a seamless and quite deep conversation about stereotypes, gender, sexism and #MeToo. It wasn’t all serious; we laughed and joked as well.

Before I knew it, I’d drunk excessive amounts of Coke but had not wanted to waste a minute with him in order to get up to pee, so now my bladder was nearly the size of a Swiss ball.

‘Don’t make me laugh,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘I really need to go to the loo.’

I hobbled inside and took a look at my face in the mirror. It was wreathed in a ridiculously broad smile. Nothing had been said about what today’s meeting meant and I hadn’t acknowledged that I knew he’d split up with his girlfriend. I was assuming he must know that I knew. But it wasn’t as if there were any kind of elephant in the room. We hadn’t spoken about anything personal, but it didn’t feel contrived or deliberate, as if we were avoiding the subject; instead, we were so busy enjoying each other’s company and had so much to say that we’d gone with the flow.

Giving myself a quick look in the mirror, my face flushed and my eyes brighter than normal, I shook my head. ‘You’ve got it bad, girl.’

As I walked back to the table, I saw Sam frowning down at his phone, one hand playing with a block of blue and red plastic, but as I drew nearer he looked up, his face brightening with a smile. He put the phone face-down on the table. I glanced at his other hand.

‘What’s with the Lego?’

There was a wistful quality to his smile as he held it up, separating the two bricks.

‘It was on the floor as I left work and I just shoved it in my pocket but there’s something about Lego that’s very satisfying.’ He snapped the two pieces together. ‘The pieces always fit together perfectly, never wonky or misaligned. They’re perfect together.’ His face was serious as he suddenly glanced up and held my gaze. ‘That’s how I felt when I first met you. We clicked.’ His pause was filled with sudden shyness and a faint blush on his cheek and he fiddled with the two blocks again, pulling them apart. My heart melted just a little. I knew exactly what he meant; he couldn’t have said it any better.

‘Sorry, that sounds a bit … cheesy,’ he apologised, putting the pieces down on the table.

I couldn’t help myself. I laid a hand on his. ‘No, it doesn’t. I know exactly what you mean, but saying it out loud to anyone else would sound…’ I lifted my shoulders. He’d expressed that instant sense of rightness I’d felt in the garden talking to him.

‘Crazy?’ He lifted those golden eyebrows, the lines around his eyes crinkling with sunshine and warmth.

‘But it’s not crazy,’ I said, squeezing his hand before picking up the blue plastic block. ‘It’s Lego.’ I palmed it and put it into my bag and he followed suit, putting the red piece in his pocket, both of us smiling idiotically at each other, oblivious to the rest of the world.

‘Do you want another drink?’ he asked.

I pulled a face. I really didn’t but I didn’t want the evening to end.

‘Not just yet,’ I said, pleased that I’d come up with the perfect compromise.

Right answer. His hand stilled.

‘So … what happened with your girlfriend?’ There, it was out, and I didn’t feel the least bit pushy about it.

With a wry face he tugged at the cuff of his shirt. ‘We broke up about a month ago.’

‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just wanted to clear things up. Let you know that I knew you’d split up. I wouldn’t want you thinking I’m the sort of girl that goes after another girl’s bloke.’

‘I never thought that for a minute,’ he said quickly.

I saw his Adam’s apple dip furiously as he toyed again with the cotton fabric. ‘The thing is, Jess, I … I couldn’t stop thinking about you. That first time I met you … well, it…’ He gave me a candid look. ‘It bloody terrified me.’

‘Oh,’ I said, deflating inside. Not exactly what I wanted to hear. Fancied you straightaway would have been nice. Thought we clicked, nicer still. Terrified made it sound as if I were some praying mantis-type who would chase him and gobble him up. It sounded too much like being the other woman.

He smiled, and then he only went and cupped my face with his hand. Cupped my face with his hand! Talk about romantic, tender and sweet. The gesture, totally natural and unexpected, set off a small explosion inside me.

‘Hey.’

The gentle half-smile almost made me cry.

Then he dropped his hands to fiddle with the cuff of his shirt again. ‘Terrified because I knew I wanted to be with you. It smashed through everything I thought I was sure about in my life. I’d been going out with Vic for four years. We were perfectly happy. At least I thought I was. There was nothing wrong … but then, well, I tried to put you out of my mind. Told myself I’d imagined it. That it was … I dunno, just instant attraction.’ He swallowed hard, his fingers still playing with his cuff.

‘But when I saw you at the parkrun, it was the same. No, it wasn’t; it was worse, because I knew it wasn’t fleeting. And I knew you felt the same way.’ His eyes bored into me. There was no trace of arrogance there, just an honest statement of fact. I nodded.

‘I did and, yeah, honestly, it scared me too. I had no business feeling anything for you. You had a girlfriend. You were completely out of bounds.’

Relief and understanding flashed across his face.

‘I didn’t know what to do. I sent you that Facebook request. I wanted to stay in touch but … I didn’t want to do anything … sleazy. I loved Victoria. Four years is a long time … but the way…’ his eyes met mine, slightly haunted and definitely guilt-ridden, ‘…the way I felt about you … eclipsed that. Suddenly I just knew I didn’t love her … enough anymore. I could have kept going but it felt like lying. As if I were being unfaithful to her because I had feelings for someone else.’

The warmth of his hand enveloped mine where it lay on the table, like an anchor, as if reminding us both that this wasn’t some crazy fantasy and that we weren’t being blown off course by a tissue of myths and half-truths.

‘I kept hoping it might wear off. That I could stop thinking about you. I hoped I’d imagined it all, but my feelings for you were like a tick burrowing. I did my best to ignore them. Pretended I’d imagined how lovely you were. I told myself you couldn’t possibly be as nice as I remembered.’

I closed my eyes. There was such anguish on his face, it almost hurt.

‘That doesn’t sound very nice, does it?’ he asked.

‘Actually, it is. You were doing the honourable thing. The right thing by Victoria.’

‘But it didn’t wear off and when I saw you at Lynn and Richard’s again, I … I felt sick because I knew I was never going to get you out of my head. I knew I had to see you, but I couldn’t until I finished with Victoria.’

I winced, guilt biting as my stomach clenched. So he had finished with her for me. I was the other woman. The weird mix of euphoria and nausea roared back. I felt like I was in the middle of a see-saw, balanced in between joy and pain.

‘Then I wanted to wait because I didn’t want you to be blamed for the break-up. I didn’t want anything to…’ He broke off with a mirthless laugh. ‘Shit. This sounds so fucking cheesy. I didn’t want anything to taint us.’

Then my heart wanted to burst. I’m Miss Practical; pink-hearts-and-red-roses romance is not my bag at all. I’ve seen too much of the reality of romance dressed up in fear, lies and loathing, but Sam’s heartfelt words hit home like slugger punches. I knew he was being totally honest and for a minute I allowed myself to feel the glee, happiness and sheer joy. We were so on the same page, but he was right; it was freakishly terrifying.

I turned my hand over under his and opened my fingers so he could lace his through mine.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘If it’s any consolation, from the minute we met, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. And I promise, I tried really hard not to. Women have enough trouble with men without having other women shit on them as well.’

‘I left it as long as I could.’ He squeezed my fingers. ‘I’ve been shitting myself that you might hook up with someone else.’

With a laugh, I shook my head. ‘I’m what’s known as very picky.’

‘So, Jessica Harper, will you go out with me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I take you out to dinner on Friday?’

‘Next Friday?’

‘No! Tomorrow, Friday.’ He grinned. ‘I didn’t want to sound too needy.’

I nudged him with my shoulder. ‘You idiot.’

He slung an arm around my shoulder. ‘Who’re you calling an idiot? I’ll have you know my kids treat me with respect at school. They call me Mr Idiot.’

Chapter Eight

‘So what’re you going to wear?’ asked Shelley, lolling across my bed, waving a glass of Prosecco towards my wardrobe. As soon as she heard I had a date with Sam, she’d hotfooted it over to my flat and insisted we crack open a bottle to celebrate the fact that I was a hair’s breadth away from getting a shag and all your dried-up inner workings might get lubricated. Her words, not mine.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me before,’ she moaned, taking a sip of fizz at the most awkward angle.

‘If you spill that on my sheets, you can change them. I don’t want Sam thinking I’ve wet the bed.’ As soon as I said the words, I coloured bright red. Talk about the unconscious coming to the fore.

‘Planning on bringing him back tonight, are we?’ asked Shelley, immediately homing in on my slip of the tongue.

‘No. Definitely not. Not at all.’ I looked at the fresh duvet cover and undersheet which had been slipped on ten minutes before Shelley had arrived. I was not going to sleep with Sam. Not on a first date. I never did that sort of thing.

‘Oooh, Jess is all flustered,’ she teased. ‘Aw, look at you, all pink and cute.’

‘Just shut up,’ I said, fighting a smile. ‘You’re such a bad influence.’

‘Hardly, you’re the goodest girl I know. Have you ever slept with anyone on a first date? Had a one-night stand?’ She held up her hand before I could even shake my head. ‘I rest my case. But I can tell you really like him. He’s pretty phwoar. Bet he looks good naked.’

‘Objectification, Shells.’

‘Oh puhlease, girl. The man is sex on a stick. My hormones get in a tizz when I see him.’

‘Your hormones are like over-anxious puppies. They get excited when they see anyone.’

‘True,’ sighed Shelley, not the least bit offended. ‘What can I say? I’m the friendly type. I’m a people person. And this has all happened very fast. Spill, babes. Spill. What happened? And how come you kept so quiet about it?’

‘Because there was nothing to tell until about seven o’clock last night. Now, what do you reckon? This dress?’ I held up a silk dress that I’d only managed to wear once or twice. I’d bought it for a wedding a couple of years before and not had many occasions to drag it out again despite absolutely loving it. If I didn’t work in a place where the women were lucky to have any clothes, let alone nice things, and had left all their favourite things behind, I would have been tempted to wear it for work just to get some use out of it.

Shelley rolled her eyes. ‘I hate you. It’s plain, plain, plain and you’ll look flaming gorgeous in it. What size do they call that? Barbie?’

I ignored her and stripped off my towel. ‘Oh God, I might need another shower before I go out.’ I sniffed under my arms and Shelley tossed me the can of deodorant from my dressing table.

‘It is sooooo hot,’ she moaned flopping back on the pillows of my bed, making herself comfortable as I pulled on a strapless bra and my best knickers.

‘Uh, shag me knickers. She’s going in.’

‘No, they’re not,’ I said perhaps a wee bit defensively. ‘They’re bus knickers.’

‘Babe, no one is getting run over tonight. So where’s Doctor Lurve taking you?’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-nine and three-quarters, give or take a couple of days.’ She grinned at me and lifted her Prosecco glass before taking a hefty, satisfied gulp.

I ignored her and pulled the dress over my head, loving the swish of the peacock-blue silk as it slithered into place.

‘Yup, I really do hate you.’

I wrinkled my nose at her and smoothed the fabric over my hips, giving myself a quick glance in the mirror.

‘And no, your frigging arse does not look big in that.’

‘Neither do my boobs,’ I pointed out, glancing at her magnificent cleavage displayed to full advantage in a fuchsia-pink playsuit, the fabric around her boobs only just containing the girls.

She patted them complacently. ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Which is why you, pencil-stick-thin lady in the bias-cut number, look sensational.’ She jumped up, her Prosecco shifting dangerously in her glass. ‘You, cous, look flipping gorgeous. He’s one lucky man and don’t let him forget it.’ She patted my cheek. ‘Make him work for it, babe. You’re far too nice to people. Although, give him brownie points for taking you to Olivio. It’s well nice there.’

It was a smart restaurant over in the next town and she’d offered to give me a lift.

‘I’m impressed. Good choice. You don’t want to go out with a cheapskate no matter how manly or gorgeous he is. Sex doesn’t put any meat on your bones.’

I ignored the latter comment. ‘I’m not expecting him to pay for me. He’s a teacher.’ The restaurant was known for its relaxed, casual ambience and decidedly tasty food, which wasn’t super expensive – but we weren’t talking a quick Prezzo pizza either.

‘You are so low maintenance.’ She took a step back and pretended to study me. ‘Are you sure you’re related to me?’

I laughed. ‘The jury’s been out on that one for decades.’

‘If a man takes me out for dinner, I expect him to dig deep.’

‘And I prefer to pay my share. That way there’s no expectation of any other sort of payment.’

‘Again, are you related to me?’

‘Shell, I’m not buying it. You’re not that shallow. And you don’t shag on a first date.’

She winked at me. ‘Not always.’

‘Sure you want me to drop you here?’ asked Shelley with an exaggerated raise of her eyebrows as I directed her to the car park.

‘Absolutely positive,’ I said, gathering up my handbag from the footwell of her dinky Fiat 500.

‘You spoil all my fun,’ she said with a wicked grin, whipping the car into the smallest of spaces and ramming on the brakes, almost sending me through the windscreen.

‘Yes,’ I replied with a quick glance at my watch. I had ten minutes to walk to the restaurant, which was deliberate planning. ‘You’re not coming with me.’ My repressive tone didn’t have any effect. She grinned and I rolled my eyes. She would have waited with me like some kind of overbearing dad until Sam showed up.

‘How are you getting home? Want me to pick you up later?’

‘Sam said he’d give me a lift home,’ I said, brushing an imaginary speck of fluff from the silk of my dress.

‘And will you be inviting him in for coffee?’ She shimmied her shoulders and lowered her voice.

‘No!’ I nudged her with my shoulder in protest at her pitiful attempt at being sultry and suggestive. ‘Well, I might, but it will only be for coffee.’ I opened the door, the heat of the afternoon hitting me as I started to slide out. It had been another scorching day with the temperatures soaring into the 30s.

‘Have fun.’ Once again, like a pair of naughty caterpillars, her eyebrows waggled. ‘And make sure you text me all the deets as soon as you’re home … unless of course he’s with you.’

Ignoring her, I shut the car door, but I grinned as I walked away. Inside my stomach, a dozen drunken butterflies were lurching about, making me feel wayward and giddy … and that anything could happen.

Maybe my senses were finely tuned to him or maybe I recognised his gait, but from the other end of the street I spotted him walking along ahead of me in the same direction and yeah, I almost stumbled. My hormones had some sort of early warning system and at the mere sight of him, my heart rate took off at a runaway gallop and my skin flushed with a rush of pleasure. In navy chinos and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his tanned forearms, he looked yum. And no, I was not looking at his bum … well, not especially. It was the first time I’d seen his hair loose, and although I’d didn’t normally do men with long hair, the thick blond curls just added to the overall heart-socking package.

My pace slowed and for a moment I watched him, aware of the most ridiculous primitive urge to storm over, grab him and kiss the living daylights out of him. There was also a small matter of wanting to push my fingers through all that glorious hair. Yeah, my hormones had taken me hostage and were making crazy-girl demands. I needed to get a grip on them and on myself.

With a little involuntary sigh, I watched him for a few seconds more. OK, ogled might be more correct. I took in the long legs which my memory helpfully reminded me were nicely muscular and tanned. His phone was clamped to his ear and he was talking. He slowed and stopped, his head bobbing slightly. Even while admiring his perfect form, I could tell something wasn’t right. He put a hand on his hip, then raised it to swap the phone to his other ear. It looked like a lengthy conversation. He started walking again. We were getting nearer to the restaurant. A few more paces and then he stopped again, waving his free hand in an expressive move that spoke of frustration and agitation. Then he stopped dead and as he turned so that I could see his profile, he threw his head back and looked upwards. It needed no lip-reading expert to discern the words ‘God give me strength.’ Whether he said them or just mouthed them I wasn’t entirely sure, but it didn’t take any kind of Poirot powers of deduction or little grey cells to figure out that he wasn’t a happy camper.

I hesitated, loath to intrude while the selfish bit of me wanted to wade in, for him to stop the conversation. Today sizzled with so much promise and had been so long awaited. Pretty much since the first time I’d met Sam, he’d been there on the periphery of my thoughts. All day, anticipation had bubbled and fizzed, each hour marking another step closer towards basking in the fierce attraction between us.

He was now stationary and his hand movement was agitated, jabbing up and down in the air, so I took my time, giving the nearest shop windows a really thorough inspection. Five minutes later, I had price-checked every single holiday that the local travel agent were offering – I could fly to Malta for seven nights and stay in a four-star hotel for £599 from either Luton or Birmingham – and decided that the shoe-repair shop’s less than inspiring display of shoe laces, insoles and polish didn’t warrant any further interest but he was still on the phone, although he had now crossed the road and was outside the restaurant pacing up and down.

It was seven-thirty now. I glanced at my watch again, feeling uncomfortable. I could see Sam’s face more clearly. Pain tinged the frustration. It was a conversation he really didn’t want to be having and there was a sense of exaggerated patience in his words.

Every last butterfly in my stomach dropped dead mid-flight. This felt private but if he looked up now he would see me, so I couldn’t retreat. I had to keep moving forward although I made my steps as small and slow as possible.

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