become.’
Anna looked down at her dirty cargo shorts and made a face at the idea of ever being referred to as a glamour puss again.
‘I couldn’t do it to Seb. ’
‘Seb schmeb,’ Hermione sighed. ‘He doesn’t even have to know. Email me a screen shot so I can see Luke.’
A few minutes later, after some convoluted and irritated instructions from Hermione teaching her how to take a screen shot and then how to email it, they were both staring at the same image.
‘He was always a delight. Always. And so exciting. Nettleton would have been unbearable if he hadn’t been around. You should do it, just meet him for coffee.’
‘Hermione, I’m engaged.’
There was a pause. ‘Anna. What did you do today? In fact, don’t tell me, it’ll make me ill. Just think what you would have done had you been here. What are you doing now? Let me tell you what I’m imagining and you can tell me where I’m wrong. Stop me anytime.’ There was a clinking noise as she assumed Hermione was taking a sip of her drink. ‘You’re in that crummy shop and, day to day, maybe one, two people come in. No one buys anything and if they do it’s a ghastly side-table or figurine. Tonight you’ll go home and sit in the garden, the scrap of lawn has possibly been trimmed recently with a Flymo or some other suburban tool. There are bedding plants in various arrays of life and death. Perhaps a fruit tree at the far end, which makes you convince yourself that you’ll make jam at some point and become a domestic goddess when really you’ll get fat and never eat the fruit because it will get some kind of disease or the apples will be too sour. I imagine there are birds tweeting and cows mooing which is all very lovely if you ignore the smell. I know that smell, Anna, I lived with that smell for eighteen years. And I bet your fence is just low enough for some busybody neighbour to stick her head over and say hello, bitch about someone in town or tell you that her colicky baby had her up all night. You haven’t stopped me yet, Anna. Let me think about you. The wine in your fridge is the only white wine you could find in the town, perhaps a Hardys or, if you’re lucky, an Oxford Landing. It’s warm because it’s so fricking hot that you can’t keep it cool enough, and, oooh I know, I bet you’ll lie on one of those ghastly sun-loungers that had brown and orange flowers on it and spiders that live in the metal fold-out posts while Seb watches the rugby or plays on his PlayStation. Am I close?’
Anna had shut her eyes. ‘He sold the PlayStation.’
‘Thank fuck for that.’ Hermione snorted a laugh.
‘Shall I tell you what I’m doing? Anna, I’m sitting on the balcony of my flat, the Thames looks beautiful, the sun just catching the water. I can see the Houses of Parliament and the wheel, the sky is red. Actually red, like someone’s squashed a handful of cherries and smeared it over the sky.’
‘That’s very artistic.’
‘Well I don’t work at Sotheby’s for nothing, darling. I am sitting on an Adirondack chair and I have my feet up on the glass wall of my balcony. And I have next to me a bottle of Bollinger in a cooler and a glass that I am topping up little by little so it doesn’t warm. And, later, my darling, don’t get jealous, I am popping to a party on the top floor of the Gherkin where the alcohol will be free and the Michelin-starred canapés my dinner.’
‘OK, that’s enough, thank you.’ Anna watched the marmalade cat perk up as the bell rang above the door and someone came in, nodding a greeting as she glanced over.
‘Put him in your Yeses, Anna. Seb doesn’t have to know. You need to grab yourself a little excitement while you still can. Before you forget, Anna. Before your waist starts thickening and you think getting 50p off your cappuccino because the milk wouldn’t froth is a bargain.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, looking back at the photo of Luke and trying to ignore the feeling that his crazy, action-packed existence conjured inside her, the taste of adrenaline and adventure in her mouth, the idea of slipping into something new, something chic and expensive and strutting into some bar and making him realise what he had given up in search of Sandhurst officer training and army fatigues. To show him what she had become since their teenage years snogging on park benches whenever she was back in the village. To see that glint in his wicked blue eyes, the cocky arrogance, to feel the shiver that ran through her just because he’d sauntered over to where she had been preening next to Hermione.
Then she shook her head to make the image go away. Feeling an instant rush of guilt about how just the idea of Luke Lloyd made her feel.
The customer was moving around the shop and Anna did a quick check to see they weren’t listening in on her call, before cupping her hand over the receiver. ‘Stop winding me up, Hermione, I know what you’re doing,’ she hissed.
‘Tempting though, isn’t it?’ Hermione said, gleefully. ‘It’s just a shame you’ve become so dull. If anything, just for us to have something to gossip about that’s not you getting married in the stinking cabbage hall.’
‘How did you know about that?’ Anna straightened up, forgot about whether the customer could hear her or not.
‘Seb phoned me to ask what I thought. And I told him it was a dreadful idea and that he should forget about it ASAP.’
‘He called you?’ Anna closed her eyes. ‘But he knew, he knew I wouldn’t want to do it.’
‘He’s a simple man, Anna. He wants a simple solution.’
‘Why would he have asked you before me and then still asked me? How do you know me better?’ She thought about their conversation the night before in the bathroom. Thought about the feeling of her pedestal teetering, her glamour slipping. Thought of the future and saw an endless wheat field stretching out ahead of her.
‘Look, Anna, Hermione is always right. Listen to me. What have you got to lose? Fucking hell, what are you expected to do, just stay cooped up in the country all your life, staring at cows and becoming the little wife? No. You need to live. People become boring in the country, it’s a proven fact. I mean, you never know, you think it’s Nettleton that makes you unable to breathe, but it could be the thought of marriage. Often I find that what we think is wrong in our lives is rarely what is. I’m not saying running off with Luke Lloyd is the answer but live a little, do some casual flirting, it’s fun. It’d make you feel better ‒ you’ve been through a shitty time recently ‒ it’ll make you feel more alive. And that can only be a good thing, Seb’ll notice the difference. And, he’ll never have to know either. If he did, he’d probably advocate it anyway ‒ wasn’t that his rationale about Smelly Doug ‒ a social experiment. ’ Hermione paused and Anna could almost hear her brain thinking of a new tack to take. ‘And anyway, you should come up to London, set up some meetings. Did I tell you I bumped into your little assistant the other day, the one who stole all your contacts. What was her name?’
‘Kim,’ Anna said, nodding vaguely at the customer as they did another lap of the shop.
‘Oh yes. Well, she said you should have a catch-up. And, look, listen to this, it says on Wikipedia that a pitchfork has long, thick, widely separated, pointed tines. Tines, Anna. Tines. See, always right, Anna. Hermione is always right.’ She snorted a laugh down the phone.
The bell tingled over the door again and Anna heard the familiar out-of-breath panting of Mrs Beedle, so scrabbled to get her feet down off the counter, ‘Look I’ve got to go, H,’ she whispered.
‘Only if you swipe that man into your Yeses, Anna. Swipe him,’ Hermione carried on regardless.
‘OK, fine.’ She pulled her phone out from where she’d quickly shoved it in her pocket and swiped Luke Lloyd into her Yeses. ‘I’ve swiped him. Happy? Now I have to go.’
Anna cut Hermione off, but kept the telephone to her ear as Mrs Beedle came towards her. ‘Yes,’ she said to the dial tone, ‘Absolutely, we have a range of different antiquities, something for everyone, and if there’s something specific you require, we can have it in mind as we scour the markets