Someone Like You (23 page)

‘It’s going in the paper tomorrow for three days,’ she said.

‘Are you excited?’ Hannah waved the waiter over to them.

‘Scared and excited,’ Leonie admitted. ‘Half of me is totally thrilled and the other half is scared stiff.’

‘At least you’ve done it,’ Emma enthused. ‘That’s the important thing.’

‘I may as well confess,’ Leonie said, ‘I only got the nerve to actually put the ad in because of Ray, my ex husband. I couldn’t really tell either of you on the phone because the girls were always there when you rang, but when the kids came back from America, they were all wound up because their father is getting married again.

Which is great,’ she added quickly, in case they thought she still carried a torch for her ex-husband. ‘It’s just that…’

‘It made you feel as if there was something deeply wrong with you because you don’t feel you’ve moved on and he has,’ Hannah said shrewdly.

Leonie nodded. ‘Ray and I were never really meant to be, I know that and he eventually accepted it, but we went through a lot together, what with the kids and everything.

It’s an important bond and I care for him. But I always thought I’d survive better than he would, to be honest.’

She remembered how, to begin with, she used to feel so guilty for separating because at least she had the kids and she’d been the one who instigated the breakup.

‘I thought he’d be lonely,’ she added ruefully. ‘Now he’s the one who’s got his life together and I haven’t.’

‘You have a great family and a job you enjoy,’ protested Hannah. ‘That’s getting your life together. Having someone to share it with is a bonus, but that’s all. I heard that by 2050 or something, thirty per cent of people will live alone. That’s normal.’

‘So says the woman who’s been lit up like a lighthouse all evening because of a glamorous Spanish actor.’

‘That’s not serious, it’s just fun,’ Hannah insisted.

‘What’s she like, this fiancee?’ asked Emma, sensing there was more to this than met the eye and knowing the deeply self-critical Leonie would care a lot if Ray’s new partner was stunning to look at.

‘A knock-out,’ Leonie said drily, confirming Emma’s hunch. ‘Mel adores her and had scores of photos of them all. She’s my age, not some bleached-blonde bimbo or anything.

She’s a lawyer and the exact opposite of me: elegant and slim with short dark hair, no make-up, and she looks amazing in jeans and casual polo shirts. Classy, basically.’

‘You’re classy,’ Emma said with fierce loyalty.

‘I’m not putting myself down,’ Leonie interrupted. ‘She’s just in another league.’

‘You’re only imagining it,’ Hannah said and rapidly ordered another round of drinks.

‘I’ll show you the photos some time. She looks like the sort of girl who was probably asked to be a model when she was seventeen but turned it down to go to Harvard because she’d prefer to be earning a fortune as a brilliant lawyer instead of doing lipstick commercials.’ Leonie stared into her empty wine-glass gloomily.

‘She’s probably crap in bed, then,’ Hannah insisted. ‘The type of woman who thinks making love with the light on is the last word in perversion.’

‘Yeah,’ Emma added, ‘the sort who thinks oral sex is talking about it! There has to be a fatal flaw in her.

Nobody’s perfect.’

After ages discussing exactly what could be wrong with the outwardly lovely Fliss - ranging from venereal disease to a sex-change operation transforming her from a male tennis player named Alan - the threesome finally left to hail a taxi and find a nice restaurant before the lack of food sent the wine straight to their heads. On Baggot Street, they went into a little Italian place and got through two bottles of wine with their lasagne, pizza and a wonderful carbonara that Hannah declared the best thing she’d eaten since she’d been to Italy.

‘I’ve never been to Italy,’ Leonie said dreamily. ‘I’d love to go.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Hannah said, ‘but it’ll be a long time before I go away again. I’m completely broke after Egypt.’

‘Egypt was great,’ Leonie said.

‘It was because we met up,’ Emma pointed out, ‘but I had such wonderful plans when I was there and I haven’t followed through on any of them.’ She stared miserably at the remains of her lasagne. ‘I planned to talk to Pete about IVF and I haven’t, and my father completely humiliated me and Pete the other day and I never opened my mouth.

I’m such a coward.’

‘What happened?’

‘I had some relatives over to my house for dinner for my mother’s birthday, and in the middle of it all, after I’d killed myself coming home from work early and making this special dinner, my father told some people that he had given myself and Pete deposit money.’

‘What?’ asked Hannah, not so much confused by Emma’s tipsy story as astonished by it.

‘He gave us 12,000 pounds when we were buying our house,’

Emma said. ‘I told you about it, remember. But he didn’t really give it to us. He lent it to us, and we’re paying him back. But he told this woman - my parents’ next-door neighbour - that he had given it to us. He made it sound like loads more money, in fact,’ she added bitterly, ‘as if he’d paid for the whole house and that Pete and I weren’t grateful. That’s insulting to Pete.’

‘It’s insulting to both of you,’ said Leonie angrily.

‘No, it’s worse to Pete,’ Emma insisted. ‘He works really hard so we’ll have a nice home and food and everything, and just because we didn’t have enough saved for the house and needed a loan, my father is treating him like some layabout. That’s what makes me so angry - I didn’t say anything to defend Pete.’

And it had rankled ever since, boiling through her body like lava. She was used to being put down by Jimmy O’Brien, but she wouldn’t stand for her beloved Pete being humiliated. Yet she had stood for it. She had said nothing and had let Pete down. The rage burned through her again.

‘It’s hard to say things to your family,’ Leonie said diplomatically.

‘No

it’s not,’ Hannah said quickly. ‘You’ve got to stand up to him, Emma. He’s a bully and he’ll never stop.’

Rubbing her suddenly throbbing forehead, Emma said tiredly: ‘Look, can we forget this, please? I don’t want to talk about it, I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

‘But you did,’ protested Hannah. ‘You need to talk about this and do something …’

‘OK, but not now!’ yelled Emma, startling them all. ‘I want to forget about him, right?’

Leonie clasped Emma’s hand gently. ‘All right, we’ll stop talking about it. Hannah, wink at the waiter and see if you can get us some dessert menus. I feel a zabaglione moment coming on.’

It was half two and, feeling deliciously tipsy, Emma crawled into bed beside Pete’s sleeping form and snuggled up against him. Normally, she’d never attempt to wake him if he was asleep, but she wanted to be cuddled.

‘How are ya, Em?’ he murmured, turning over sleepily and putting his arms round her.

‘Fine,’ she said, wriggling down under the duvet to hold his toasty body close to hers. ‘Did you miss me?’

‘Loads,’ he said, burying his face in the curve of her neck and planting a couple of woozy kisses on her skin.

‘Did you have a nice time?’

‘Brilliant. We had way too much to drink and I left the car at Sachs Hotel. Will you give me a lift into town tomorrow morning so I can pick it up?’

‘For you, anything,’ he said. ‘Do you know what, Em?’

‘What?’ She kissed the top of his bald head.

‘I love you, even though you stink of garlic!’

She tickled him in retaliation. ‘That’s to hide the scent of the other fella I was really out with - you know, the six foot four karate instructor. He uses this very powerful aftershave and eating garlic is the only way to throw you off the scent.’

‘I’ll kill him,’ Pete said, his voice getting sleepier. ‘Can I go to sleep now, you wild woman?’

Waiting for Felix Andretti to phone was worse than waiting for Godot, Hannah decided. When he didn’t ring the day after she’d met him, she took a deep breath and told herself that such a delay was perfectly normal. He was acting cool, not being too eager. It was perfectly understandable. That didn’t stop her jumping every time her phone rang, desperately hoping it was him. She didn’t leave her desk at lunchtime that Thursday, either, asking Gillian to buy her a sandwich instead.

‘I’ve a lot to do,’ she said vaguely, rifling through files and trying to look too horrifically busy to walk the five minutes down the road to the sandwich shop.

She ended up reading the newspaper and doing the crossword while she ate her tuna sandwich and drank two cups of coffee, longing for the phone to ring.

On Friday, she dressed up in killer high heels, a long lean dark skirt with a split up the side and a kitten-soft cashmere cardigan in a flattering bronze colour. She left her hair loose and wore her contact lenses instead of her glasses, in case they might be off-putting. Wearing her matching coral-pink net bra and G-string, she felt highly desirable and utterly turned on. Felix, she decided smugly, was the sort of man to turn up out of the blue and ask you out to dinner. It would kill her to do it, but she’d have to refuse. As she worked, she toyed with the various ways she’d neatly rebuke him for his audacity in expecting her to drop everything.

‘Do I look like the sort of girl who can make a date at a minute’s notice?’ she’d say archly, making him weep with desire and suffering. ‘Sorry, I may be able to fit you in next month …’ She’d hardly be able to wait that long herself, but she didn’t want Felix to think she was desperate.

‘Hannah,’ interrupted Gillian rudely, ‘it’s the man about the dodgy plumbing in the gents’. Don’t forget to tell him about the problems in the kitchen.’ Ripped from her reverie, Hannah applied herself to the task in hand.

‘Going anywhere special, love?’ enquired the plumber cheekily as he stared at the length of Hannah’s shapely leg in her sexy skirt while she showed him into the kitchen.

She shot him a murderous look.

‘I was only asking,’ he muttered and got to work.

Half five came and went with no personal phone calls.

Hannah could have wept.

She stood at her desk, morosely tidying up and thinking that she’d certainly hear nothing from Felix now until next week; if he rang at all, that was. The only way he could contact her was at work.

David James emerged from his office, yawning and carrying his briefcase in one hand.

‘Going anywhere special, Hannah?’ he asked, eyes roaming admiringly from her clinging cardigan all the way down to her perilous shoes.

‘I wouldn’t ask that if I were you, mate,’ muttered the plumber, passing on his way out to his van. ‘She’ll have you up on sexual harassment charges, that one.’

He fled past Hannah before she could glare at him.

David grinned. ‘Did he try it on?’

‘Not really,’ she admitted. ‘He got me at a bad moment.’

‘Fancy going for a quick drink to turn it into a good moment?’ David said idly, long fingers drumming the desk.

She shook her head. She was too miserable to be cheered up.

‘Just one, and you can moan to me,’ David pushed.

She began to relent. One drink wouldn’t kill her and while she was talking to David James, at least she wouldn’t be moping about bloody Felix.

‘Call for you on line one,’ yelled Donna. ‘Personal.’

A quiver of excitement rippled through Hannah. ‘No,’

she said to David. ‘I’m meeting someone.’

David shrugged. ‘See you on Monday,’ he said.

Hannah snatched up her phone and punched line one.

‘Hannah, it’s your mother. I know it’s last minute, but can Stuart and Pam stay with you for the weekend?’

‘What?’ said Hannah crossly, furious that it wasn’t Felix phoning her and just as furious at the thought of having her brother and his wife to stay with her for the weekend.

The flat was much too small for guests and, what’s more, she and Pam didn’t get on. Mind you, neither did she and Stuart. ‘Last minute isn’t the word. Why couldn’t they have asked me before now? And why are you phoning, Mum?

Has Stuart lost the use of his dialling finger?’ she added sarcastically. Her brother was their mother’s pet and she did everything for him.

‘Don’t fly off the handle, would you, Hannah,’ her mother said, unperturbed. ‘They’re up for a wedding and the arrangements for the hotel didn’t work out. It’s the least you can do. They’ll be up by ten tonight, and Pam says not to bother cooking.’

Hannah snorted. She’d had no intention of doing any such thing.

She drove home in a rage. The flat was immaculate as always, although after a weekend of Stuart, it’d doubtless be a tip. Hannah left fresh sheets and a duvet cover on top of the spare-room bed but didn’t change the bedclothes her brother could do that. She wasn’t running a damned hotel. In fact, that was probably why Stuart was coming there. Too mean to pay for a hotel, she guessed accurately.

She cooked an omelette for herself and watched television, simmering away at the thought of both her inconsiderate brother and Felix. Why go to all the bother of chatting her up and pretending to be crazy about her if he had no intention of ever seeing her again? What was the point} Hannah didn’t get it. Was the chat-up a type of sport? Did handsome guys keep scoreboards on flirting so they could gauge how irresistible they were? Probably. She had a mental vision of Felix boasting about how he’d made ‘this girl in the estate agent’s drool for me. I tell you, lads, she was eating out of my hand.’

Stuart and Pam arrived at half eleven, waking Hannah who’d fallen asleep in front of the telly after watching Frasier.

‘Thought you’d be out on a Friday night,’ said Stuart, dumping a giant suitcase on to the floor and prowling around the flat speculatively.

‘How could I be out if I was waiting for you pair?’

demanded Hannah, immediately irritated.

‘You could have left a key with the neighbours,’ he said.

‘You could have booked into a hotel,’ Hannah suggested.

Pam,

used to the way her husband and his sister got on, made her way to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

‘Do make yourselves at home,’ sniped Hannah, furious at how her sister-in-law had blithely made herself at home without asking permission.