Monday to Friday Man (2 page)

I stroke Ruskin, thinking how much I’d also miss my Ravenscourt Park dog-walking friends. We’ve become an institution that meets every morning at eight o’clock, under the oak tree, come rain or shine.

God, I’d miss Susie too. Her daughter, Rose, is my goddaughter.

Then I think of Ed, again. ‘Oh, my God,
that was
Gilly,’ she’d said. I can’t bump into her again.

‘Gilly?’ Richard hands me my coffee.

‘I’m sorry.’ I take the mug, thanking him. ‘I was a world away.’

‘Remind me, have you sold your London place yet?’

‘No. It’s all early days but . . .’

‘What do you do, Gilly?’

‘Good question.’ I smile as I clear my throat. ‘I work in my friend’s antiques shop.’

‘Right.’

‘It’s only temporary,’ I rush to tell him. ‘I used to work for this company that hired out locations for photo shoots, adverts, conferences, that kind of thing, but it went bust under new management. She was terrible, the boss . . .’ I rub my hands together, realizing Richard doesn’t need to hear all the details. ‘Anyway, I’m just helping this friend out over the summer, until I move. Now, you said over the phone that you had a few houses within my budget?’

He shuffles some sheets together and a few fly onto the floor, which he doesn’t bother to pick up. ‘OK, let’s start with this one.’

It’s a thatched cottage. The kitchen has a black-and-white chequered floor and an ancient-looking cooker. ‘It’s on the main road to Dorchester,’ Richard says.

Scanning the details, I search to say something positive, but . . . ‘It looks
a little bit
pokey.’

‘Too right! Awful place,’ he agrees.

I watch him curiously as he produces another sheet, this one revealing a white cottage with a front garden and shutters over the windows.

‘The thing is,’ Richard begins, sensing I like it, ‘it’s down a steep hill and come the winter you’ll be trapped if there’s snow.’

‘Is it a lively place?’

‘Um, now what do you mean by lively?’

‘Well, it would be nice to meet some people my age.’ How about an attractive country gentleman who owns two golden Labradors, and who enjoys coastal walks and romantic meals by the fire? And dancing. Got anyone like that hiding in your filing cabinet?

Richard taps his fingers against the desk. ‘I forget who lives there apart from the vicar and his wife. She, poor thing, has been laid up for months, fell into her wheelie bin and skidded down the hill.’

I can’t help smiling at that.

He shows me another tiny cottage in a village that seems to consist solely of three houses and a postbox. The windows are the size of matchboxes and the curtains are drawn. I know I have a small budget, but come on!

‘Right.’ He pauses, looks tentative, but continues, ‘Listen, are you sure you want to move?’

‘Sorry?’ I say, just as my mobile rings and Ruskin barks. Flustered, I reach for my handbag and rummage around in it, aware that Richard is watching me. All manner of things come out: diary, bronzing powder, Oyster card, lipstick, even Ruskin’s poop-scoop bags. I’m sure mobiles conspire to hide the moment they call.

At last, you little devil. ‘Sorry, what was that?’ I switch it off.

He surveys my long dark-brown hair pinned back with a navy spotted scarf, my bangles and turquoise suede handbag; next he casts an eye down to my bare wedding finger. ‘I’m not sure the countryside is a place for ...’

‘Single women?’

He strokes his chin, nods.

‘I have thought about this,’ I admit, ‘but ...’

‘People will be suspicious of your motives in moving here.’

I look at him, puzzled.

‘You won’t get invited out much if that’s what you think. No invitations winging their way through your door I’m afraid.’

I smile nervously. ‘Why not?’

He leans in close towards me. ‘Women will feel threatened.’

‘No they won’t. What do you mean?’ I add.

‘Believe me, it happens. They’ll be scared you’ll run off with their husbands. You’re a good-looking girl,’ he says, with a sparkle now in his eye.

‘Running off with women’s husbands is not my style, believe me. And if they wear pineapple shirts like yours, there’s no chance,’ I add, beginning to relax. ‘I just need a change.’

‘These villages are idyllic right now, but come winter no one will darken your doorstep,’ he claims.

‘Of course they will! I’ll make sure friends visit me all the time.’

‘What are you doing to do stuck down here? Play bridge?’

‘I’ll get a job. It’ll be fun!’

‘You haven’t thought this through, have you?’

‘I have! I want to be somewhere different. I want a garden for Ruskin and I want . . . I want a healthier life. Clean fresh air.’

‘It smells of silage round here,’ he laughs.

‘Oh, don’t be so stupid. I’ll have a lovely garden where I can grow my own vegetables and fruit,’ I insist. ‘Raspberries, potatoes and . . . and . . . purple sprouting broccoli!’

‘If you think you’re lonely now ...’

‘Lonely! I’m not lonely.’ I bend down to stroke Ruskin, curled up with his face resting on my feet.

‘Why are you really moving?’

‘What?’ I daren’t look up. His question takes my breath away.

‘Gilly, someone once told me I should leave London only when I hated it, when I’d squeezed all the juice out of it. Stupidly I didn’t take their advice and I miss it like mad. I’m not sure you’ve reached that stage yet.’

I picture Ed again and at last some courage fires up in my belly.

‘Want to bet?’

He nods.

‘I’m tired of the same old scenery. I’ve become immune to the wailing sirens and accidents that happen right under my nose. I hate paying the fucking congestion charge, Ruskin has no garden, just paving stones, hardly any of my friends still live in London and . . . and . . . the ones that do only invite me round for tea where I have to listen to their screaming children demanding ice cream in a cone not a bowl!’

I breathe again. My God, that felt good.

‘I don’t have a job, well, not a proper job right now,’ I continue, like a pressure cooker letting off steam. ‘I’m free and single so I have nothing to lose, right? So what if I’m single? What if I never meet anyone, Richard? If I just live my whole life in London and then get buried in Hammersmith too? I’m scared, I’m ...’

He sits up. ‘You’re scared?’

‘I’m so angry with myself.’

‘Why?’

And then the strangest thing happens. I start to cry and Richard is handing me tissues and telling me to let it all out, his voice now soft, as though he’s my therapist.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say eventually, wiping my eyes. ‘I’m really all right . . .’ I falter. ‘Oh God, Richard,’ I exclaim, knowing I can’t fool him now, ‘I’m so embarrassed! I haven’t seen you in such a long time, and here I am breaking down in front of you.’

What must he think of me?

‘You don’t need to be sorry.’ Richard smiles. ‘Happens all the time.’ I find myself smiling back at him. ‘But tell me,’ he asks gently, ‘what is it?’

I sigh. ‘I still love him,’ I say.

Richard listens patiently as I fill him in on my four-year relationship with Ed and how it ended abruptly, only two weeks before our Christmas wedding. There was no explanation from him except for a scribbled note on the hall table that read, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t marry you.’

‘Do you sometimes feel like you’re sitting on the sidelines, that you’re watching everybody’s life move on except your own?’ I ask him.

‘Often.’

I tell him that I’d bumped into Ed and his future wife in Selfridges.

‘God, Richard, I’m stuck in a rut.’ I wait for him to say something comforting. ‘Tell me what I should do.’

‘You need to stop feeling so sorry for yourself and get on with it.’

‘What?’ I say, taken aback by the sudden change of tone.

‘I feel for you, Gilly, I really do. What this Ed did was unforgivable, but it’s been six months. You need to move on.’

‘I know,’ I say, bottom lip quivering.

‘Moving here isn’t right. You’re running away.’

I fiddle with the strap of my handbag. ‘You’re married aren’t you, Richard?’

‘Divorced. It’s a lonely business. Believe me, I’ve felt like running away too.’

I glance at him, surprised by this sudden confession.

‘If I were you, Gilly, I’d go back to London with my lovely dog and start having some fun again. What are you smiling about?’ he asks me now.

‘Going back home. London’s dirty, so expensive and everyone’s rude,’ I add. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, but the other day I was told to fuck off by a drunk on my own doorstep who then proceeded to chuck his beer can at me.’

Richard smiles.

I tell him how Gloria, my neighbour, had asked me if I had a new lodger who’d forgotten his key.

‘Oh my God!’ he exclaims as he rolls up his glossy property magazine and thumps it against the table in triumph. ‘I’ve got it,’ he says, sounding like Professor Higgins. ‘Get a lodger.’

‘A lodger?’

He crosses his arms with satisfaction. ‘Yes! I was only reading about it in the paper the other day and how everyone’s renting out their spare room. Hang on, you’ve got a spare room, right?’

I nod. ‘A very small one.’

‘There you go then.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I need time to warm up to ideas.

‘It’s an easy way to make some money,’ he tempts me.

I think about this. Since being made redundant from my last job my salary has plummeted. Mari, my dogwalking friend who owns the antiques business, can’t afford to pay me much more than the going rate for working in a shop. Recently I’ve been making my own packed lunch to save some cash.

‘I’m too old for a flatmate, I’ve done all that. I’m too set in my ways now.’

‘Well, unset.’

Next thing I know he’s ushering Ruskin and me out of the door. ‘What are you doing?’ I say in protest as he propels me out into the fresh air.

‘Taking you out for lunch.’

‘Hang on ...’

‘There’s a good pub across the road. Clearly you need convincing,’ he finishes.

3

I am scrolling through the job section of my newspaper when Mari staggers into the shop carrying a marble bust. She’s just returned from a stock-buying trip in France. ‘Look at this handsome fellow, Gilly!’ She lowers him onto the sofa. Ruskin and Basil, Mari’s Jack Russell, reluctantly make room. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’

He is, but where is he going to live for the next few months? The long oak table in the middle of the room is already piled high with treasures. ‘Is there a lot?’ I ask, following her outside.

‘Less than last time, more than the time before.’

Soon I’m helping Mari unload the stock from her battered old white van, vases and lanterns littering the pavement. ‘All they need is a glaze and rich fabric cushions,’ Mari says, when she sees me raise an eyebrow at a set of rusting garden chairs.

Mari, short for Marigold, is one of my most flamboyant dog-walking friends. She’s in her late forties with jet-black hair cut into a chic bob, and today she’s wearing a lime-green jumpsuit. I first met her four years ago in Ravenscourt Park, standing under the shade of an oak tree near to the underground station. She was smoking a menthol cigarette in between hurling a ball for Basil to retrieve. Mari is divorced with no children. ‘I never wanted them,’ she told me on one of our walks. ‘I only wanted a dog.’

Her shop, along the Pimlico Road, specializes in antique chandeliers, mirrors, lanterns and vases, and she’s just been to various
brocantes
to find bargains. Mari has a great eye; she picks things up that most of us would walk straight past. With a bit of sprucing up, she can see that what is underneath the cobwebs, dead flies and dust is in fact a Georgian chandelier.

‘Now this is interesting,’ Mari tells me, both of us crouched down on the floor looking at a large, circular, silver light. ‘I would think it was made in the twenties,’ she guesses, ‘and used by surgeons to perform operations. Some clever person had the idea of taking the design from the eighteenth-century peasant lights.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ I say, imagining it in my own fantasy French rustic kitchen.

‘What I love about antiques is they’re dead people’s stuff,’ Mari states. ‘Think of all the fabulous parties this light has witnessed,’ she says, gesturing to one of her new chandeliers that looks as if it’s come from the rubbish dump.

‘Yes, yes, but when Bob gets his hands on it, it’ll be perfect.’ Robert Chamarette is Mari’s glass and metal man, whom Mari loves almost as much as Basil. ‘Think of all the servants that have polished her,’ she continues, ‘all the scratches and knocks she’s had, and somehow she’s found her way into my shop.’

‘How much did it cost?’

‘Oh, Gilly,’ she tuts. ‘It’s not how much “it” cost. It’s how much I can sell it for.’

Later that day, when Mari is out meeting a journalist who wants to hire some chandeliers for a
Hello!
photo shoot, I continue to scan the jobs section of my newspaper, but no jobs leap off the page. Maybe that’s because I just can’t face any more interviews? I think I’d rather endure root-canal treatment than be subjected to more rejections. I shut my eyes, remembering them . . .