Authors: Jill Mansell
‘Not surprised.’ Hester was filled with admiration; much as she might long to, she knew she didn’t have the nerve to make such grand, dramatic, stick-your-lousy-job gestures.
Particularly since she was self-employed.
‘Plus,’ said Millie, ‘according to Sylvia, I’m just panting to have an affair with her gorgeous husband.’
Hester rocked with laughter.
‘Pass the sick-bucket. And are you?’
‘Well, of course, I’d jump at the chance, but I don’t think I could bear all that jogging in matching track suits.’
‘Imagine.’ Screwing her nose up in sympathy, Hester said, ‘The nerve of that woman, thinking you’d go for someone like him. He's ancient, for crying out loud.’
‘In his forties,’ Millie agreed. ‘Almost as old as my parents. Last week a button came undone on Tim's shirt,’ she continued, ‘and all these awful white chest hairs popped out.’
‘Eeeuugh. And he fancies you!’ Hester's expression was triumphant. ‘You wicked little home wrecker you.’
‘He doesn’t fancy me though, that's the thing! It's just Sylvia having one of her freak-outs. Anyway, I’m glad I left.’ Millie shuddered with relief, ‘Life's too short. You know, I honestly didn’t realize how much I hated working with those two until I stopped.’
‘You’ll have to find something else to do.’
‘No problem.’ Millie's smile was bright, but this was undeniably the downside. Newquay in the summer season might be able to offer plenty of opportunities for employment but most of the jobs were awful.
Hard work and so poorly paid they made the wages of a Victorian chimney sweeper's boy look good.
Still, it wasn’t the end of the world.
Millie ran herself a bath while Hester tried ringing Nat in Glasgow. Within seconds she was barging into the bathroom.
‘Hmm. According to his flatmate, Nat's in the shower.’
Kicking off her knickers and wrapping a towel around herself, Millie said, ‘It's this new-fangled thing called keeping clean. All the best people are doing it these days.’
‘Okay, but what if it isn’t true?’ Hester looked fretful. ‘What if I’m having a miserable time being faithful to Nat and in return he's out shagging his way round every waitress in Glasgow? How do I know he isn’t making a fool of me?’
Exasperated, Millie poured half a bottle of Body Shop banana bath foam under the thundering taps.
‘Because Nat would never do that. He just wouldn’t, trust me.’
‘Trust you? Ha, that's a good one. You’re the shameless trollop who spends her days making cow's eyes at her ancient married boss.’
‘Sheep's eyes,’ Millie corrected her, testing the water with one toe. ‘And stop getting your knickers in a twist about Nat. He’ll ring back in a minute and everything’ll be fine.’
‘You’ve got your agony-aunt voice on,’ Hester complained. ‘All melty and soothing like a New Berry Fruit. Anyway, that's the other thing I came up to tell you. I’m just off out, so if Nat
does
bother to ring back, tell him I’ve gone to the gym.’
‘The gym?’ Millie, about to submerge herself in the bath, was astonished. ‘But you haven’t been to the gym for months!’
‘All the more reason to go now, tone myself up a bit.’ Hester patted her flat stomach with the faintly smug air of someone who knows she doesn’t need toning up. ‘Can’t let myself go to seed just because Nat isn’t here, can I?’
It didn’t take a genius to work out that this was excuse-speak for, ‘Can’t let myself go to seed now Lucas is back in town.’ Plus, Millie recalled, he’d always been a bit of a gym fiend himself. Hester was probably hoping to bump into him there, completely by chance of course, their eyes suddenly meeting across a ferocious-looking abdominal cruncher…
‘Right, don’t want to be late,’ Hester chirruped, before Millie had a chance to open her mouth. ‘See you when I get back!’
Nat phoned twenty minutes later. Millie, patting her wet hair with the towel slung around her neck, explained where Hester had gone.
‘This is the opposite of a dirty phone call,’ she told Nat. ‘I’ve just had a bath; we couldn’t be cleaner if we tried.’
‘I can’t believe she's gone to the gym,’ Nat marveled. ‘I thought she’d given up on all that.’
‘Ah well, you haven’t seen the state of her. In the last three weeks she's put on about six stone,’ said Millie. ‘Her boobs have dropped, her bum's like a sack of turnips. It's a horrible sight.’
‘But she looked like that before. Why else d’you suppose I left?’ Then Nat grew serious. ‘How is she really?’
‘Fine,’ Millie assured him. ‘Not fat at all.’
‘You know what I mean.’ Nat hesitated. ‘I miss her, Millie. Being apart from Hess is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.’ Another pause, then half laughing he said, ‘God, listen to me. Cue the violins. I suppose I’m just asking if Hester misses me too.’
Millie's freakish ability to cross her toes had always caused howls of revulsion. Luckily there was no one around to witness the display as she crossed them now.
‘Of course she does. She never stops talking about you. You’re the best boyfriend she's ever had.’
‘You always know the right thing to say.’ Nat sounded as if he were smiling. ‘Look, tell Hester I rang and give her my love, will you?’
‘In a non-physical way,’ Millie assured him as the doorbell rang. ‘Ooh, have to go, someone's at the door.’
‘And I need to get back to work. I’ll try phoning again tomorrow night. Off you go,’ said Nat. ‘Speak to you again soon.’
‘Bye.’ Millie wondered if Hester realized how lucky she was. Why couldn’t everyone in the world be as lovely as Nat?
ORLA HART WAS SHIVERING on the doorstep in a hopelessly impractical pink lace shirt, long floaty skirt, and silver sandals. The weather had taken an abrupt turn for the worse and raindrops were spitting ill-temperedly from a slate grey sky.
Standing next to Orla on the step was a stone statue of a young girl clutching a bowl.
Temporarily lost for words, Millie said, ‘I didn’t even know it was raining.’
‘Well you do now. Okay if I come in?’
Millie stepped to one side and Orla staggered past her into the narrow hallway with the statue in her arms. Panting slightly, she lowered it to the ground, before turning to face Millie.
‘Okay. Now last time I gave you a lift back to Newquay, you wouldn’t tell me where you lived.’
‘That's because you kept insisting you wanted to buy me something as a way of saying thank you,’ Millie reminded her.
‘But you saved my life!’
‘All I did was sit and talk to you for a bit. I didn’t want a reward.’
‘Well, too bad.’ Orla's smile was unrepentant as she patted the carved stone head of the statue. ‘I saw her this afternoon and knew at once I had to buy her for you. Isn’t she heavenly? Think how gorgeous she’ll look in your garden!’
She probably would, thought Millie, if only we had one.
‘She's great.’ Praying she could bluff her way through this— maybe by some miracle Orla Hart wouldn’t notice that all they possessed was a tiny backyard—Millie said, ‘But you didn’t need to do this.’
Orla shook her wet hair out of her greeny-gold eyes and fixed her with an earnest gaze.
‘Remember on that cliff top, you said you couldn’t walk away because your conscience wouldn’t let you? You told me you’d end up a basket case if you left me there to jump.’
‘Sort of.’ Tightening the belt of her dressing gown around her waist, Millie wondered if she had post-bath panda eyes from where her mascara had run. She hoped Orla wouldn’t think she’d been crying.
‘Well, now it's my turn to have you on my conscience. Shall we go through?’ Tilting her head, Orla indicated the living room, which Millie knew for a fact was in a mess.
Luckily Orla didn’t appear to mind. Her bright eyes darted around the room, taking everything in. But in a nice rather than a critical way, Millie was relieved to note.
Unlike her own mother.
‘You’ve been sacked,’ Orla told Millie, perching on the arm of their old bottle green chesterfield sofa.
‘Actually, I resigned.’
‘Really?’ Orla didn’t sound convinced. ‘I went back there this afternoon and that owner-woman said they’d had to let you go.’
‘I definitely resigned,’ Millie assured her.
‘Oh. Well, good. I think.’ Orla paused, looked anguished for a few seconds, then blurted out, ‘Okay, but you have to be completely honest now, did it have anything to do with me?’
‘Nooo!’ Millie exclaimed, so dramatically that they both knew at once that it had. If you wanted to sound believable, Millie remembered—too late, as usual—you had to sound normal, verging on the deadpan. Never ever overdo it.
Except, of course, she always did.
‘It wasn’t really to do with you,’ Millie rushed to explain, ‘I promise. You just somehow ended up getting dragged into it.’
‘I knew it.’ Orla sounded distraught. ‘That awful woman with the huge wart on her nose. She was behaving really oddly with me.’
Millie frowned. ‘Sylvia? Sylvia doesn’t have a wart on her nose.’
‘She's mean, like an old witch,’ Orla declared impatiently. ‘She looks as if she should have a wart on her nose. And I practically had to twist both her arms off before she’d give me your address. So go on then, why did you leave?’
Since Orla had now slid off the threadbare arm of the chesterfield and was making herself comfortable on the sofa itself, Millie fetched a bottle of red wine from the kitchen, unearthed two glasses that actually matched, and told her.
‘You’re allowed to smoke,’ she added, detecting the signals of nicotine deprivation as Orla fiddled frantically with her many bangles.
‘Are you sure? I could always go and stand in the garden.’
The clothes-airer was currently up in the yard, which meant there wouldn’t be room for Orla too. Lord, that carved stone statue was going to look as out of place there as Victoria Beckham in a betting shop.
Millie said generously, ‘It's raining. Anyway, I don’t mind. Just flick your ash in that plant thingy behind you.’
Hugely relieved, Orla kicked off her flat silver sandals and lit up. Her toes actually curled with pleasure, Millie noticed, when she inhaled.
‘So the old witch thought you were after her husband,’ Orla marveled when she’d heard the whole sorry story. ‘She must be one of those super-jealous types who imagines every female under the age of eighty is panting to get their hands on her man. I hope you told her you’d rather have sex with Jabba the Hut. Actually, it would jolly well serve her right if you
did
have an affair with that awful husband
of hers, or gosh, better still, I could have an affair with him! Ha, that’d teach her a lesson, wouldn’t it?’
Heavens alive, Millie goggled in alarm, was this what all novelists were like? One teeny germ of an idea and they were off and running with it like a relay baton, getting more and more carried away?
Not to say it wasn’t an entertaining idea in theory…
‘Except Tim would never have an affair with anyone,’ she told Orla gloomily. ‘He and Sylvia do everything together. He probably goes along to the bathroom with her when she wakes up in the night needing the loo.’
‘I can’t bear those kind of couply couples!’ Orla exclaimed with passion.
‘They wear matching sweaters.’
‘Well that kind of behavior is just
laughable
.’
‘And they go to the same aerobics class.’
‘Pathetic. People like that,’ Orla declared, ‘make me want to be sick.’
‘They were never friendly towards me anyway, so it's not as if I enjoyed working for them.’ Millie gave her a reassuring look. ‘Actually, walking out on that job has quite cheered me up.’
‘Oh, but I still feel horribly guilty.’ Having smoked her way down her cigarette at a rate of knots, Orla swiveled round and stubbed it out in Hester's neglected azalea plant. ‘And I forgot to ask you this morning how it turned out with your boyfriend after he stormed off last week.’ She looked hopeful. ‘Did he forgive you for jumping out of his car and saving my life?’
‘Um… actually, no. But it doesn’t matter,’ Millie went on hurriedly. ‘I told you before, I didn’t even want to be with him. Really, it was all for the best.’
‘Oh Lord, this is terrible,’ wailed Orla, ‘I’m a complete walking disaster. Here's you, a lovely, kind girl who's never done anyone any harm. And now, you’re left without a job
and
a boyfriend—for pity's
sake, one way or another I’ve managed to single-handedly destroy your life.’
‘Will you stop this?’ Millie's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. ‘You’re doing it again, getting carried away, making a drama out of a… blip. For a start, Neil wasn’t the love of my life. Secondly, I
can
find myself another job.’
‘But—’
‘And I’m not always a lovely, kind person either,’ Millie assured her. ‘Sometimes I can be completely vile.’
‘Well I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that for one moment. I mean, look at you,’ Orla declared, spreading her hands, ‘with your ripply blonde hair and those great big eyes… you’re an absolute angel! Yes, that's exactly what you look like, an
angel
…’
Millie had always yearned to be tall and angular with sticky-out cheekbones, poker-straight black hair, and a haughty manner. Her ideal woman was Lily Munster. Desperate to convince Orla, she said, ‘But that doesn’t make me a nice person!’
‘I bet you are.’ It was no good, Orla's mind was made up. ‘I bet you’ve never done anything thoughtless or mean in your life.’
So Millie was compelled to prove it, mentioning no names of course, by skimming through the story of Hugh Emerson's wallet, the ensuing phone call, and the stomach-churning moment when she realized she’d committed one of the all-time great faux pas.
‘So you see,’ Millie concluded five minutes later with just a smidgen of triumph, ‘I can be as awful as the next person.’
‘Except you didn’t know this chap's wife was dead. Sorry,’ said Orla briskly, ‘but that doesn’t count at all. Anyway,’ she went on, ‘you’ve gone bright red just telling me about it, which only goes to prove what a sweetheart you are.’
It was hopeless. For a fraction of a second Millie was tempted to announce to Orla that one of her hobbies was pulling the wings off
butterflies and that she was also partial to a spot of kitten-drowning in her spare time.