Someone Like You (47 page)

. ‘Emma, it’s your father,’ said a voice. ‘Can you come over? I can’t cope.’

There was nothing to beat the satisfaction of a job well done, Hannah thought with pride, as she phoned the office to tell them 26 Weldon Drive was finally sold. Nothing.

Not that first glass of wine after a hard week, not amazingly orgasmic, earth-shattering sex, nothing. Well, she allowed herself a faint grin, not that she’d had much experience of the orgasmic, earth-shattering sex thing lately. Not for over a month. A month and two days to be utterly exact.

Celibacy had its good points, she conceded. You didn’t have to bother with uncomfortable G-strings sliding into the crevices of your body in an attempt to look permanently ready for sex, nor did you have to worry about whether your bikini-line resembled a hippie with a shaggy perm instead of a smooth expanse of hairless flesh. Nobody saw these bits when you were celibate, except the women in the showers in the gym, so why bother?

Hannah reckoned you could always tell the desperately in love women in the gym by the state of their bikini-lines.

Women with perfectly waxed pubic mohicans were in the throes of a love affair, madly exfoliating, plucking and manicuring so that their beloved would think them perfect examples of womanhood. While women hairier than Demis Roussos were either single or in a very longterm relationship where they were in such an advanced state of intimacy - sitting on the loo while their beloved was in the bath - that they didn’t bother with waxing or plucking.

Still, it was a disgrace not to bother with these feminine things, Hannah decided. There was no excuse to be slovenly.

She’d book a beauty salon session later. Just because Felix wasn’t hanging around like a male rabbit on heat, there was no reason to let her standards drop.

She shut and locked the front door of number 26, admiring the garden, which was awash with crocuses of every colour. Vermilion ones drooped beside vibrant yellows, with a few shy, creamy white flowers bending their bell-like heads beside the privet hedge as if overwhelmed by the gaudy glory of their friends. The woman who’d been selling the house loved her garden, that was for sure. If only she’d taken as much care of the interior, it mightn’t have taken four months to sell the place.

On the market in November, it was now nearly February and the office had despaired of ever flogging this particular des res. It didn’t matter how many coffee beans or loaves of bread you stuck in the oven or what sort of fragrant lilies you displayed on the hall table when buyers were coming round, the most outstanding smell in number 26

was of unneutered tomcat and unwashed clothes.

Hannah had been given the house as one of five properties in her portfolio. David gave senior agents at least fifteen each, many of which were for auction, but as she was only a junior, she had five for sale by private treaty.

She loved her new job. She loved the freedom of driving around from property to property, organizing viewings and seeing clients. Normally, David would have put her working on customer service for at least a year before letting her manage properties as a junior agent. But he had a lot of faith in her.

She was studying auctioneering part-time now, one night a week and some weekends, and had vowed to pass her exams in record time. Donna had been a great help, giving her advice on tricks of the trade, telling her how to handle any lone viewer who made her nervous (‘Stand near the door,’ Donna warned. ‘I know you’re supposed to be keeping an eye on the place to make sure they don’t steal anything, but you’re more valuable than any trinket they can pocket.’)

There was so much to learn, about negotiating, the legal aspects of the job, and how to deal with difficult clients.

‘Most people are so incredibly grateful when you sell their home,’ Donna explained. ‘That’s a huge part of the buzz of the job, it’s very rewarding. But there are difficult ones too, and you’ve got to know how to deal with them.’

Donna grinned. She had lots of hilarious stories about her years in the business. There was the one about the man who’d been drunk and goosed her as she led him upstairs to see a flat, another about a wet dog who’d been inadvertently let into the property when the owners were out. ‘I gave that dog an entire pack of biscuits to get him back into the garden!’ Donna laughed. ‘The viewing was due to start at half two and I had this huge wet animal running around the house like a lunatic, throwing himself on to beds and destroying the place.’

She’d even come across one couple making love on a dining-room table when she let herself into a house. ‘The woman was one of the owners,’ Donna recalled, ‘but the man wasn’t her husband. I bit my lip to stop myself laughing.

They were so embarrassed.’

Hannah had a few stories of her own now. Like the awful occasion when she’d lost a set of keys to a house.

She’d searched high and low and hadn’t been able to find them.

David had grinned when she came to tell him, cringing in case he’d be furious.

‘You can’t qualify as an estate agent if you haven’t lost at least one set of keys,’ he said kindly. ‘Tell the client we’ll get the locks changed at our expense.’

Her mobile rang, blistering the quiet of the midmorning suburban street.

‘Hannah, urgent message for you,’ said Sasha, the office manager who’d been appointed when Hannah began to work as an estate agent full-time. ‘Mrs Taylor, from Blackfriars Lodge in Glenageary just rang up in a complete panic.

Her daughter’s got measles and she can’t take her out of the house for the viewing. She wants to know if there’s any way we can let people see the house but stay out of that room. I know,’ Sasha added, ‘it’s crazy. But she asked me to ask you.’

‘Does she not realize that the viewers will be at risk of getting measles into the bargain, not to mention the fact that they’ll all want to explore every centimetre of the place, the under-the-stairs cupboard included?’ Hannah laughed. ‘I’ll phone her back, don’t worry about it.’

Once she’d persuaded Mrs Taylor to stop panicking and promised to reschedule the viewing for the following week, she phoned Leonie to make sure she was still on for lunch.

Hannah had to drive to Enniskerry in County Wicklow for a viewing that afternoon, so she had arranged to meet Leonie for a quick sandwich halfway.

‘Can you make it?’ Hannah asked, once she finally got through after waiting five minutes with a canine barking chorus in the background in place of ‘Greensleeves’.

‘Yes,’ sobbed Leonie.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Hannah in alarm. ‘Is it Abby again?’

‘A guinea pig just bit me and, ouch, it’s sore.’

Giggling erupted from the other end of the phone. ‘Is that all?’

‘You want to get bitten by a guinea pig some time, sweetie,’ Leonie retorted. ‘They’ve got teeth like chisels.

And now he’s squealing like an Italian tenor - you’d think he was the one who’d been bitten! Cuddly little thing, my backside! You won’t believe his name: Peaches. Honestly, the names people give animals. They should have called him Pavarotti, the way he sings. Or maybe Fang.’

‘Will you be recovered enough from your encounter with Peaches to join me for a sandwich in half an hour?’

Hannah enquired.

‘Only if I can have a slice of cheesecake too,’ Leonie bargained. ‘I’m celebrating.’

‘What are you celebrating?’

‘You’ll have to buy me the cheesecake first.’

‘Spill the beans, Ms Delaney,’ Hannah ordered, plonking the tray with their lunch on it down on the table in the corner of the pub. ‘What are you celebrating? If it’s a man, I don’t want to know. Poor single old dears like me don’t want to hear about other people’s sex lives.’

Leonie laughed. ‘That’s moving a bit fast, even for me,’

she joked. ‘Particularly as I haven’t actually met him yet.’

‘So it is a man,’ Hannah said triumphantly. ‘I knew it.

You are a terrible tart! You know, Leonie, you only ever light up when it’s something to do with a man.’

‘I might be unlit when I meet him, because it mightn’t work out,’ Leonie pointed out. ‘He’s one of my personal advert men and I got the courage to phone him the other day. He sounds amazing, so friendly and clever and sensitive and…’ She grimaced. ‘Then I get the collywobbles when I think about Bob and what a disaster that turned out to be. He sounded lovely on the phone too, so this guy could be terrible.’

‘Nonsense. He’s probably wonderful.’ Hannah took a bite of her tunafish sandwich.

‘I’m hoping for a six foot blond Adonis with a body to die for and healing hands,’ Leonie said dreamily. Then gasped. Talk about putting your foot in it. That was almost a perfect description of poor Hannah’s Felix. Leonie had finally seen him on a sitcom on ITV and he was gorgeous.

Gorgeous and somewhere else. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.

‘Sorry about what?’ Hannah didn’t appear perturbed; she continued eating her sandwich. ‘I’ve got to be at the next house in half an hour,’ she apologized, ‘so I’ve got to wolf this down. Spill the beans on the new bloke.’

‘His name’s Hugh.’

‘Wonderful name,’ Hannah said delightedly. ‘You can sing that Whitney Houston song now: “I Will Always Love Hugh”! Geddit? Hugh and not You?’

‘I’m glad you’re an estate agent and not trying to break into the comedy circuit,’ Leonie said calmly. ‘But I digress.

Hugh -‘ she shot Hannah a stern look - ‘works in a bank.

He’s an investment adviser and he’s separated too.’

‘That’s good.’

‘He’s older than me and he’s mad into dogs. He’s got three: a spaniel, a Jack Russell and one Heinz 57 variety.

Ludlum, Harris and Wilbur, after the novelists. He’s into adventure thrillers.’

‘And you discovered all that over the phone? He must be some talker.’

‘He is,’ Leonie said happily. ‘Imagine if we got married and at the wedding we had to talk about how we met and what we remembered about it. I’d have to say I fell in love with him when he told me he rescued Wilbur from certain death when someone tried to drown him as a puppy. Someone had put him in a sack and thrown him into the Grand Canal. If not for Hugh, poor Wilbur would be dead.’ Her face had that moony, dreamy quality that said she was in fantasy land. And she was.

Leonie was picturing the wedding, complete with four dogs in their Sunday best as bridesdogs (Penny) and groomsdogs (Wilbur, Harris and Ludlum) with beribboned sachets of Mixed Ovals on the tables instead of pastel fondant sweets.

It was Hannah’s turn to deliver a stern look. ‘Leonie, stop confusing people who love animals with people you’re going to fall in love with. It’s not the same thing. And I wouldn’t mention weddings to him, either. Men aren’t as keen on the idea as women are, I think.’

Leonie finished her sandwich and started on the cream laden slice of cheesecake. ‘You’re right. I have become a bit obsessed with weddings since Ray and Fliss got married.

I can’t help it. That Calvin Klein dress haunts me. Every time I pass Madame Lucia’s Bridal Boutique in town, I peer in the window to see if there’s anything suitably elegant that I should put a deposit down for. I mean, it’s mad. Mel caught me looking in one day and I had to pretend I was straightening my rain hat in the window.’

‘When’s the big date?’

‘Saturday night.’

‘That’s good, because at least you know he’s really separated and not just married but pretending to be separated to get women,’ Hannah said without thinking.

Leonie looked shocked.

‘Some people do use personal adverts to spice up their life when they’re actually already involved,’ Hannah explained, sorry she’d started this. ‘But a date on a Friday or Saturday is a good sign.’

‘I’m not sure any of it’s a good sign,’ Leonie said, still looking startled.

‘Sorry. I really am, Leonie. I’m so anti-men right now I’m turning into an embittered old cow. I should just stay at home and write a feminist polemic and be done with it.

Hugh sounds really nice, and well done you for getting the courage to phone him. Ask him if he has any brothers,’

she joked. ‘No! Only kidding, don’t. I’m not in any condition to see a man. I don’t want a man, either. They’re nothing but trouble.’

‘No word from Felix, then?’ Leonie asked delicately.

Her friend shook her head. ‘Not a whisper. He left a very nice Paul Smith T-shirt behind in the laundry basket and I only found it the other day buried right at the bottom.

I cut it into pieces and now I’m using it to clean the bathroom,’

Hannah said with quiet satisfaction.

‘Anyway, I’m over him. Felix was proof that I’m not die sort of woman who should get involved with men. It’s too messy. Maybe I should be ultra modern and become a mistress. I was reading this article in the Daily Mail about a woman who says she’s got her career and a bloke once a week and it suits her fine. His wife gets the dirty socks.’

‘You’d hate that,’ Leonie argued. ‘You’re an all-or nothing sort of person.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. So I’m sticking to nothing,’ Hannah said firmly. ‘No men, ever again.’

She was sitting quietly at her desk later that afternoon when the phone rang. Hannah picked it up absently, her mind on her paperwork, and then she froze. She would have recognized that voice anywhere. Low, soft and lighthearted, as if something had amused him and he was

quietly laughing at it while he was speaking to you.

‘Hannah, great to talk to you.’

She slammed the phone down with such force that Sasha, Steve and Donna all looked up from their respective desks in surprise.

‘The phone went dead and I got that high-pitched squealing noise,’ Hannah lied blatantly. She was not about to say that Harry-fucking-Spender had phoned her out of the blue, after eighteen months in South America, eighteen months of swanning up and down the bloody Amazon having a whale of a time while she tried to pick up the pieces of her life again. How dare he? How bloody dare he? The computer document she’d been working on disappeared and the monitor darkened into Screensaver.

Everyone in the office had a different one. Hannah’s was a kitten chasing after a ball of wool. Normally it amused her, watching the kitten pounce excitedly on the wool only to see it bounce away. She slapped the return key sharply and the kitten vanished. Her phone rang again. Without betraying the knot in her stomach at the sound, Hannah picked up the receiver and cradled it between her neck and chin the way she normally did.