Authors: Jill Mansell
At a petrol station on the outskirts of Padstow, of all the exotic locations imaginable.
Lloyd had been about to pay for his petrol at the till when a female voice behind him in the queue had declared, ‘Bugger!’
Lloyd, swiveling round to see who the Bugger belonged to, had smiled broadly at Judy.
Flapping her hand in half-hearted apology, Judy had pulled a face then grinned back.
And that, basically, had been that.
‘I’ve just stuck twenty quid's worth of petrol in my car.’ Judy showed him the contents of her well-worn handbag: a Mars bar, several dog biscuits, one lipstick, and a wrinkled Dick Francis paperback that looked as if it had been read in the bath. ‘And I’ve come out without my sodding purse.’
A single lipstick. And no hairbrush. Lloyd was instantly enchanted.
‘No problem, I’ll lend you the money.’
He liked the way she didn’t launch into a flurry of Oh-no-I-couldn’t-possiblys.
‘I might be a con-artist.’
‘A con-artist,’ Lloyd gravely informed her, ‘would never say that.’
‘Okay, you’re on.’ Judy nodded, accepting his offer and jangling her car keys. ‘And I only live a mile down the road, so if you aren’t in a tearing hurry you can follow me home and I’ll pay you back.’
‘I might be an axe murderer.’
‘I’ve got my dogs at home,’ Judy confided. ‘Axe murderers don’t scare me.’
Without meaning it to happen, Lloyd realized before the afternoon was out that he’d met his soulmate, the woman with whom he wanted—no, not wanted, with whom he
had
—to spend the rest of his life.
Judy Forbes-Adams had been widowed three years earlier. At fifty-three and with her children grown up, she too was satisfied with her life just the way it was. She loved horses and dogs and the Cornish countryside with a passion. On special occasions, she dashed on a bit of Yardley lipstick and remembered to brush her hair. She wouldn’t have recognized a designer outfit if it leapt out at her screaming Chanel, although she had both the means and the figure to wear anything that took her fancy. And, best of all, she couldn’t be doing with opera. Judy's idea of a good time involved listening to
The Archers
on Radio 4 while she planted out her pelargoniums.
It drove Adele insane that the good fairy had had the nerve to grant Lloyd the happy ending.
‘It's so unfair,’ she complained. Frequently and extremely crossly.
‘You’ll find someone else,’ Millie tried to placate her. Frequently and with an increasingly weary edge to her voice.
‘How your father can be content with a woman who spends her life in denim jeans is beyond me,’ Adele sniped. ‘Jeans, I ask you,
and
she's nearly sixty.’
‘Don’t ask me to say bitchy things about Judy. I like her.’
‘Ha. Next you’ll be telling me she's a better cook than I am.’
Adele liked to spend hours preparing tremendously ornate meals that she painstakingly arranged on plates so they ended up looking like mini-scaffolding.
‘She's nothing like you in the kitchen,’ Millie said truthfully. She was fairly sure Adele had never stood gossiping at the stove
waving a cigarette in one hand and stirring gravy with the other. Judy was, in fact, a terrific cook but Millie had learned—for the good of her health—to be diplomatic. ‘She does shepherd's pies, steak-and-kidney puddings, stuff like that.’
‘Great piles of stodge. No wonder your father's happy. Peasant food,’ Adele snorted. ‘That kind of thing's right up his street.’
PEASANT FOOD WAS RIGHT up Millie's street as well. Lunch with Judy and her father was always a treat.
Today it was sausage-and-onion casserole, rich and gloopy and piled over butter-drenched baked potatoes. Lloyd uncorked a bottle of Shiraz and Millie began to bring them up to date with all the gossip, kicking off with how she had come to be unemployed.
‘But that's just appalling!’ Judy exclaimed. ‘Honestly, couples like that make me
shudder
. And now you’re jobless… well, we can give you some money if you’re desperate, just say the word.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ Millie was touched by the offer, but she shook her head. ‘Finding work isn’t a problem. In fact, there's one job Hester's really keen for me to go for.’ Pulling Lucas Kemp's business card out of her back pocket, she showed it to them.
‘Darling, a strippogram!’ Judy clapped her hands in delight. ‘What a
scream
.’
‘If I stripped, people would definitely scream. Either that or complain loudly and demand their money back. I wouldn’t have to take my clothes off,’ Millie explained.
‘They want all sorts, like people who can sing, dance, and roller-skate. Anyway, it's just an option. I’ll probably end up waitressing or working in a bar.’
‘You could juggle,’ Judy declared with enthusiasm. ‘That would be fabulous! Who could resist a singing, roller-skating jugglogram?’
‘Except I can’t juggle,’ Millie pointed out.
‘No, but I can.’ Jumping up from the table, Judy grabbed five satsumas from the fruit bowl on the dresser and began tossing them into the air. Deftly, she juggled them then caught them and executed a modest curtsey.
‘Five years,’ Lloyd marveled. ‘Five years we’ve been together and I never knew.’
‘Just one of my little secrets.’ Judy raised a playful eyebrow at him. ‘International woman of mystery, that's me.’
‘Did you run away as a child and join the circus?’ Millie was enthralled.
‘What else can you do?’ said Lloyd. ‘Walk tightropes? Tame lions? Balance a ball on the end of your nose?’
‘When I was nineteen, I spent the summer traveling with a boyfriend. When we ran out of money we learned how to juggle. Then we busked our way around Europe.’ Judy shrugged as if it were the most normal thing in the world. ‘And once you know how to do it, you never forget. Like riding a bike. Now there's a thought.’ Eyes alight, she turned to Millie. ‘You could be a unicycling, singing kissogram, that’d really stop the show!’
Millie burst out laughing at Judy, standing there before her in her loose white shirt, faded jeans, and espadrilles, with her messy shoulder-length fair hair and her hands full of satsumas.
‘Don’t tell me you know how to unicycle as well.’
‘Of course I don’t know how to unicycle. We could never have afforded a unicycle! Heavens, we were so broke we could barely afford the paraffin for our flaming clubs.’
When they had resumed eating, Lloyd frowned at the business card on the table.
‘Why does this fellow's name sound familiar?’
‘He's the one Hester spent her teenage years pining over,’ Millie reminded him. ‘The DJ, remember, who moved away to London?’ She pulled a face. ‘Now he's back and Hester's come over
all hopeless and besotted. That's why she's so keen for me to take the job. Poor Nat. I just hope she doesn’t do something incredibly stupid and make an idiot of herself.’
‘I was keen on a girl once,’ Lloyd idly recollected. ‘I used to cycle past her house, peering up at her bedroom window. Then one day I saw her there, watching me. I was so excited I crashed my bike into her father's car.’
Judy grinned and sloshed more wine into their glasses.
‘Oh well, if it's embarrassing moments you’re after, I was once
mad
about this boy in St. Ives. One day a crowd of us went down to the beach for a swim and there he was. So we stripped off our clothes—we were all wearing our swimsuits underneath—and I decided to be really brave. I sauntered up to him in front of all his friends and asked him if he knew the time.’
‘And?’ Millie held her breath.
‘He said, “Yeah, darlin,’ about time you got your knickers off.” And when I looked down I realized I still had my awful pink underpants on over my swimsuit. It's not
funny
!’ Judy protested. ‘Imagine the trauma. Took me years to live it down.’
Emboldened by the urge to compete—and by her third glass of red wine—Millie immediately launched into her own embarrassing story, the one about the Wallet and the Phone Call.
When she reached the hilarious punchline (‘For your information, my wife is dead’), Judy groaned and clapped her hands with a mixture of horror and delight.
‘I know, I know, I’m
so
ashamed.’ Millie shook her head and felt herself going bright red again; it happened every time she even thought about it.
Lloyd patted her arm and said cheerfully, ‘My daughter, the diplomat.’
‘Dad, I was mortified! I just hung up.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t true,’ Judy suggested. ‘My darling husband
always had atrocious taste in sweaters, but as soon as anyone made fun of them, he’d look distraught and say, “This was the last thing my mother knitted for me before she died.”’
It was a nice thought, but Millie knew she couldn’t allow herself to hang on to it.
‘This chap wasn’t joking,’ she said sadly. ‘He really meant it. He was disgusted with me. Up until then he’d seemed so nice… he had this really warm voice.’
‘Oh well, that's men for you.’ Judy waved a dismissive arm. ‘So what did you do with the wallet?’
‘Posted it off to him. I scribbled a quick note saying sorry, but the guilt won’t go away. You’d think it would have started to wear off by now but it hasn’t, in fact it's got
worse
.’ Millie shuddered just thinking about it. ‘Whenever I remember that phone call I get these awful icy shivers whooshing down my spine. Sometimes it's like standing under a
waterfall
—’
‘Darling, write him another letter!’ Judy exclaimed. ‘A proper one this time. Then you can grovel and apologize to your heart's content.’
Millie wilted; she only wished she could.
‘I can’t remember his address. Too embarrassed, I expect. It's wiped from my memory. Gone.’
‘Oh well then, put it out of your mind. Just forget it.’ Judy's tone was consoling. ‘Life's too short.’
‘Certainly was for that fellow's wife.’ Lloyd winked at Millie across the table.
‘Dad! That's a terrible thing to say!’
‘I know. Can’t think where I get it from,’ said Lloyd.
‘One, two… bum.’
‘One, two, three… bugger.’
‘One… oh fuck it!’
From the living-room doorway, Hester said, ‘I’d ask you what you thought you were doing, but it would be a dumb question.’
‘Oh, hi.’ Bending down, Millie retrieved the satsumas that had rolled under the table. She’d dropped them so many times they were now as soft and squishy as breast implants.
‘You’re juggling,’ Hester said accusingly.
‘I’m not, am I?’
‘No, actually, you’re not. You’re trying to juggle.’
‘I’ve spent the whole afternoon trying to juggle… one, two, three…
damn
. Judy's been teaching me. She said it was easy,’ Millie wailed, ‘and it's not, it's bloody impossible!’
‘Stop, then. Don’t do it.’
‘Two, three, four… sod it. And no I
won’t
stop.’ Millie doggedly picked up the dropped satsuma. ‘I’m not going to let this beat me.’
‘You even left the post sitting on the mat,’ Hester complained, waving the sheaf of letters like a poker hand. ‘I stepped on them when I opened the door. Oh yuk,’ her lip curled up in disgust as she leafed through the unexciting collection, ‘now I know why you didn’t pick them up. Water rates, phone, scary bank statement, gas bill… nightmare.’
‘There's a letter from Nat.’ Millie recognized the handwriting on the final envelope.
‘If it was stuffed with cash I might be excited,’ Hester said fretfully. ‘Did you phone Lucas?’
She really was a hopeless case.
‘No,’ said Millie. ‘Although I thought I might write to Nat, keep him up to date with… everything.’ Meaningfully, she waggled her eyebrows.
‘Honestly, you have no idea how unscary that is.’ Hester broke into a grin. ‘You
know
you’d never do that.’
‘I might,’ Millie protested. ‘Nat's my friend too.’
‘And that makes no difference at all.’ Hester was smug. ‘Because I’m your
best
friend.’
‘I could always demote you.’
‘You never would though. You love me too much. Will you phone Lucas tomorrow?’
‘I might.’
‘Pleeease?’
‘I’ll think about it.’ Millie heaved a sigh. ‘And while I’m thinking about it, you might like to make me a cheese and Marmite toasted sandwich and a lovely big mug of tea.’
The penny suddenly dropped several hours later. Hester was out again, pounding the treadmill down at the gym and no doubt carefully patting her face with a hand towel every couple of minutes so her make-up wouldn’t run. Millie, having wallowed happily in the bath and caught up with the goings-on in
EastEnders
, wandered through to the kitchen in her dressing gown in search of biscuits. With no Hester around, it looked as if she was going to have to make her own tea.
Idly rolling the end of her dressing gown belt into a Catherine wheel, Millie ate a biscuit and waited for the kettle to boil. There were the bills that had arrived today, thrown down on the worktop waiting to be filed away.
In the bin, where all bills that didn’t have FINAL DEMAND printed in menacing red letters all over them were meticulously filed.
Steam began to billow from the spout of the kettle. Millie, counting under her breath, tried to guess the exact moment it would automatically switch itself off.
(The words Get a Life sprang to mind, but it was a harmless enough game and she enjoyed it.)
‘Three, two, one…
now
.’
Click
, went the kettle.
And
dinggg
, went the penny as it suddenly, finally dropped.
‘Oh!’ Millie exclaimed aloud, her heart pounding away like Hester on her treadmill.
Scrabbling at the bundle of bills, it took her no time at all to find what she was looking for.
I am such a
jerk
, thought Millie. Why on earth didn’t I think of this before?
There, on the itemized phone bill, was the mobile phone number she had rung at half past midnight on the third of May.
Simple.
Four minutes and thirteen seconds, Millie noted. That was how long she and Hugh Emerson had spoken to each other. Funny how much chaos and damage you could inflict in four minutes and thirteen seconds. Not to mention pain and embarrassment and shame and bitter regret.