fantastic.’
Mark smiled. ‘And there’s more. I’ve got a lead on a job that looks promising.’
‘Wow! It’d be so good to have you back on a regular salary.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Mark leaned over and kissed me. ‘Now. What else can I fix for you today, madam? Burst water pipe? Faulty boiler?’
I nodded my head towards the marking. ‘Do you feel like marking eighty Year 6 assessments while I’m away?’
‘I can’t help you with that, I’m afraid: you’re the smarty pants. Why don’t you take them to your mum’s? You’re bound to get a chance to do it there.’ He paused. ‘But, please, darling, please don’t make her feel bad about you going down.’ He lifted my chin with his finger. ‘I know what a little martyr you can be.’
Audrey’s new job is in the office of the shipping firm where Janet works. She’s far too busy on the first day, meeting the other staff and learning the ropes, to think about Ralph Templeton. But, as she starts to settle in over the next few days – as she answers the phone, types the invoices, and franks the mail – she finds her thoughts returning to the handsome stranger who’d taken her number, and she’s surprised to realise that she’s hoping he’ll telephone.
‘How about we go back to that jazz café tomorrow after work?’ she says to Janet as they chat over their hot tiffins in the tea room almost a full week after their night out. She traces her finger over the Formica countertop that’s stained with rings from mugs of tea. The smell of old cigarette smoke hangs in the air and a ceiling fan circles lazily overhead.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ says Janet. ‘Any particular reason why?’ She raises an eyebrow at Audrey.
Audrey focuses on her dal bhat, the simple dish of spiced lentils and rice that she’s come to love. ‘I thought the cappuccinos were amazing.’
‘Just the cappuccinos?’
‘Yes, just the cappuccinos.’
‘Because I suspect there’s another reason you want to go back. A tall, handsome reason in a grey suit, perchance?’
Audrey feels heat rush to her cheeks. She licks her spoon and, once she decides to talk, finds that the words spill out of her. ‘Okay. Maybe you’re right. You have to admit, there was something about him. But it’s not that I want to see him. I just want to know why he hasn’t called. I mean, why make the effort to come over and give me his card and get my number if he’s not going to call?’
‘Oooh!’ teases Janet. ‘I do believe the lady’s got her knickers in a twist!’
‘I have not!’ Audrey flicks a piece of chapatti at Janet. ‘It’s just – why did he ask if he’s not going to call? Do you think I gave him the wrong number by accident? I’ve gone over it a hundred times.’
‘No. I saw what you wrote. It was right.’
‘Well, what then? Do you think it was a dare? Or did I say something wrong?’
‘No, no. It’s not you,’ says Janet. ‘He’s just a chancer. Probably got a better offer. Sorry. Ignore it. Move on.’
‘Whatever you do, don’t tell me there are plenty more fish in the sea!’
‘Well, there are. It’s just that maybe we’re not fishing hard enough.’
‘I’m not fishing at all. I’m hoping the right fish will offer itself up on a plate for me when the time’s right. With chips and dill mayonnaise!’
‘So romantic! But, Auds, we’re twenty-seven. I hate to tell you, but the fish are offering themselves to girls a lot younger than us. To some men, an unmarried twenty-seven-year-old is a scary proposition. We’re going to be thirty soon. Thirty! They imagine all we want to do is tie them down and get ourselves pregnant.’
‘Seriously?’
‘’Fraid so. I’ve heard it from guys. Sometimes I pretend to be twenty-three because, as soon as they find out how old I am, they run a mile. I worry about it. I worry that I’ll never meet the right one. That I’ll be a mad old spinster with only cats for company.’
Audrey skims off the fine skin that’s formed on her chai, then breathes in its comforting scent of cardamom and cloves. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that from where I’m sitting. It beats sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.’
Ralph Templeton eventually calls. But not on the phone. When Audrey and Janet step out of the office on Friday evening a week later, there’s a grey Daimler parked outside, a crowd of beggars teeming around it, pawing at its sleek paintwork and tapping at its windows. As Audrey approaches, the back door of the car opens and Ralph Templeton climbs out, a bouquet of brightly coloured flowers in his hand. His suit is immaculate and there’s something commanding about him as he straightens up to his full height. Filthy street children scatter out of his way.
‘Miss Bailey,’ he says, holding out the flowers. ‘I wondered if you’d do me the honour of accompanying me to dinner tonight?’
It takes Audrey a second or two to understand that Ralph Templeton is here in person, to ask her out to dinner.
‘Tonight?’ she says. She looks down at her clothing, more office than night out. ‘It’s just I … I’m not …’
‘You look beautiful,’ says Ralph. ‘But if it makes you feel better, I took the liberty of choosing a few dresses. They’re in the car. You could pick one and change at the hotel.’ He lets this sink in. ‘I have a dinner reservation at the Taj.’
Audrey looks at Janet. Janet widens her eyes. ‘Fish,’ she mouths, and Audrey turns back to Ralph, bobbing her head as she replies, ‘Yes please. I’d be delighted to join you. Thank you.’
Ralph opens the car door wide once more. ‘After you,’ he says.
On the back seat of his Daimler, Ralph Templeton puts his arm around Audrey and pulls her close to him. She breathes in the now-familiar scent of his cologne and rests her head against his chest. He strokes her hair almost absently, letting it twine itself around his fingers, and Audrey sighs, her mind full of images of this man – this stranger – who’s shot into her life like a bolt of lightning. Was their first date really just three weeks ago?
Audrey feels her cheeks flush as she remembers the way Ralph had devoured her with his eyes over dinner that evening; the way his gaze had made her feel so gauche despite the expensive dress she’d picked. Maybe she is a little younger, less sophisticated, than the women Ralph’s used to, but he seems charmed by that. She bites her lip: thinking back, she can’t believe she’d actually given him a real phone number in the café instead of transposing a couple of digits like she usually did when men pushed for her number; she can’t believe she’d agreed to go out to dinner that night he’d turned up at her office. How life turns in an instant, she thinks.
After their first date, Ralph had bundled her onto the back seat of his Daimler and nuzzled her face until his lips found hers, then he’d kissed her all the way back to her tiny studio flat. Despite his protests,