JAMIE HOLLAND
One Thing Leads To Another

For Rachel

Contents

Cover

Title Page

PART ONE: summer

chapter one: The Beginning of Summer and a Pact is Made

chapter two: A Promising Encounter on the Piccadilly Line

chapter three: La Vita è Bella

chapter four: Geordie and Jessica have Dinner at Tommy Byng’s

chapter five: La Vita è Bella Part Two

chapter six: Ponderings on Love

chapter seven: Money – Or the Lack of It

chapter eight: A Sunny Afternoon in Richmond (and a Bit in Borehamwood)

chapter nine: Summer Games

chapter ten: In the Footsteps of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman

chapter eleven: Stag Party

chapter twelve: Families

chapter thirteen: Playing Away

chapter fourteen: Jessica Eats Modern European

chapter fifteen: Eddie Fussle Gets Married

PART TWO: autumn

chapter sixteen: Long Weekend in Cornwall

chapter seventeen: Jessica’s Turn to Feel Disgruntled

chapter eighteen: Flin’s Annus Grows More Horribilis

chapter nineteen: Nadir

PART THREE: winter

chapter twenty: Ring in the New

chapter twenty-one: Jessica Starts to Realize her Plan

chapter twenty-two: Birthday Surprise

PART FOUR: spring

chapter twenty-three: A Life Beyond London

chapter twenty-four: It’s Always Good to Pause and Reflect

chapter twenty-five: Renaissance

chapter twenty-six: May 24 and Back at the Atlas

postscript

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE summer

chapter one The Beginning of Summer and a Pact is Made

Outside in the pub garden, it was still light, and surprisingly warm. It was the first time they had been able to sit outside that year, and the three of them were making the most of summer’s arrival.

‘OK then,’ said Jessica, laying her hands decisively on the table and looking at Flin and Geordie in turn, ‘we’re agreed. Yes?’

Geordie looked at Flin, nodded, and looked back at Jessica. ‘Agreed.’

‘Great. At last.’ Jessica smiled, and stood up. ‘I’ll ring the landlord straight away.’ She took her mobile phone out of her bag and walked away from their table.

It had been a trying few weeks. Initially the prospect of finding a new house had seemed quite exciting, but after sacrificing two Saturdays and several evenings trudging round gloomy, soiled houses, all three of them had become extremely disenchanted with the whole procedure. Nothing they’d seen had ever quite fitted the bill; even the house they’d finally agreed on wasn’t perfect, but for a year, they’d decided, it would certainly do. And the location – Barons Court near to the west road out of town – was certainly a big point in its favour.

‘Give it a lick of paint and it might look really quite nice,’ Geordie suggested hopefully.

‘Sure, it’ll look great,’ Flin agreed.

‘And I could easily put up a few shelves and bring a few bits and pieces up from home.’

‘Brilliant,’ said Flin. Geordie’s enthusiastic DIY-talk was cheering him up. He really wanted their new house to be as homely as possible and not like the down-at-heel digs he had lived in before; after all, they weren’t students any more.

Jessica switched off her phone and walked back over to them. ‘Ninety-three Turneville Road is ours.’ She grinned triumphantly. ‘We’ve got to sign next week and then we can move in the week after next.’ She kissed them both happily. ‘I can’t wait – it’s going to be such fun, the three of us.’

‘And Geordie’s already got great plans for improving the place,’ put in Flin.

‘Brilliant, darling – what a little DIY king you are. I honestly don’t know where we’d be without you.’ Jessica gave Geordie another kiss. Their decision had cheered her enormously and she felt suddenly more affectionate towards her two friends.

‘And you two are going to help,’ Geordie added, sternly.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ said Flin flippantly, then reminded Geordie it was his round.

Having returned with more drinks, Geordie sat down and lit himself a cigarette. ‘Thank God this is sorted out. Moving in will be fun. I need a bit of excitement in my life.’

‘Me too,’ added Flin.

‘Not much going on otherwise. Same old job, still no girlfriend,’ Geordie continued.

‘We’ll be a house of singletons,’ put in Jessica brightly. Flin and Geordie both glanced up from their pints dubiously.

‘Whoopee,’ said Flin.

Jessica tucked a strand of her newly shortened hair behind her ear and said, ‘OK, I’ve got an idea. We move in on the twenty-fourth of May and we’ve got the house for a year. By the same date next year we should all make sure we have better jobs and are in steady relationships. We should make it a special goal.’

‘But that’s always my aim,’ said Geordie. ‘I spend my whole time wishing my work wasn’t so boring and yearning for a girlfriend.’

‘We should make it a competition though,’ added Flin, warming to Jessica’s notion. ‘I mean, I’m obviously in more or less the same boat as you, Geordie, but if we had a definite time-scale to work to, then perhaps it would make us try harder.’

‘Exactly,’ said Jessica, ‘we should make a proper pact, right here, right now.’

‘I s’pose we could,’ said Geordie glumly, ‘although you two have such a head start. Jessica, you nearly always have a boyfriend.’

‘Nonsense – they’re just flings. I haven’t been out with anyone properly for ages, and anyway, I’ve never, ever been in love. By next May,’ she announced emphatically, ‘I want to be head over heels.’

‘And Flin’s always in love and he has a great job,’ continued Geordie.

‘Rubbish,’ said Flin. ‘Firstly, Claire and I split up nearly four months ago, and secondly I wasn’t really in love with her anyway. And film PR might seem fun to you, but the pay is dismal.’ He grinned at them both. ‘By next May, I want someone to be in love with me, and I want to be better paid, so at last I’ll be able to keep up with you two.’

‘And I want to be promoted too,’ said Jessica, ‘and working on much more exciting accounts, not just low-fat microwave meals.’

‘OK,’ said Geordie resignedly, ‘I don’t mind going along with this, although ideally I’d like to be doing a job I enjoy and both be in love and have someone love me by the end of next week.’

‘Pressure’s on already,’ laughed Flin.

‘That’s the whole point, darling,’ said Jessica, ‘it’ll focus our minds.’

‘And a bit of competition never hurt anyone,’ continued Flin, slapping Geordie heartily on the back.

‘What’s the prize?’ said Geordie dejectedly. ‘If it’s a competition, then there’s got to be a prize.’

‘All right,’ said Jessica, ‘the prize is free drinks all night. On May the twenty-fourth next year, we meet back here, at the Atlas, and whoever hasn’t fallen in love or been promoted has to buy the other two drinks all night. I think that’s fair enough, don’t you?’

‘What happens if none of us wins?’ added Geordie.

‘Then we still meet here, but everyone buys their own and we discuss what we’ve been doing wrong.’ Jessica looked at her two friends and raised her glass. ‘A pact has been made and we’ve got our house at last. Cheers to that, darlings.’

And two and a half weeks later, the three of them moved in. Flin managed to persuade Geordie to pick him and his belongings up from his sister’s house (where he had been staying temporarily for free), and Jessica and Geordie successfully transferred their belongings from their tiny two-bed flat in Hammersmith. It was a beautiful early summer’s day. The trees in the street were full-bodied with fresh deep-green leaves, lending an air of calm serenity to their new home. Inside, the sunshine brightened the whole house, and all three felt a renewed sense of expectation for the year ahead. It was going to be a good year.

That evening, with bags and boxes all around them, they once again toasted the challenge they had set themselves. They were in buoyant moods, the ordeal of moving house finally over. The early summer sun and new home helped create a creeping sense of confidence. It was as though by merely agreeing to the pact, they were sure to achieve their goals.

chapter two A Promising Encounter on the Piccadilly Line

Flin thought it the most wonderful serendipity bumping into Poppy again. They had been at primary school together and hadn’t seen each other for – yes, they agreed, it must be – sixteen years. In fact, it had been she who had recognized him as they stood wedged up against each other on the Piccadilly Line. It had taken Flin a moment to place her, but he felt justified in that: it seemed scarcely possible that the haughty girl who’d been his childhood object of hate could have blossomed into someone so … well, gorgeous. A carriageload of silent commuters shared their reunion. Oblivious to the glances and raised eyebrows, Poppy asked him a barrage of questions. What was he up to? Where was he living? Were his parents still in Wiltshire? It was so good to see him – and after all this time, he hadn’t changed a bit; she’d recognized him at once. Well, she certainly had changed, Flin thought to himself, and very much for the better. As the train pulled into Leicester Square, Flin moved to leave her.

‘I think it’s brilliant having found you again after all these years.’ She beamed at him, bright teeth and full, luscious lips. ‘Will you come to my party? It’s in Sussex.’

‘I’d love to.’ Flin meant it. She kissed him goodbye.

‘You must come,’ she cooed as the doors closed.

As he stood on the escalator well-I-nevering to himself, he supposed her invite was nothing more than conversational gush, and assumed he’d be lucky if he saw her again before another sixteen years had gone by. But much to his delight, that very same afternoon as he was writing up some production notes, she called.

‘Poppy! Hi!’ he exclaimed, startled. ‘How did you find me?’

‘Easy as pie!’ she told him triumphantly. ‘You told me who you worked for and there aren’t any other film companies with that name.’

This time they exchanged numbers and addresses properly. ‘Actually, I’ve just moved in,’ he told her, ‘last weekend, and you’re the first person I’ve given my new address to.’

‘I’m honoured,’ she replied, laughing. ‘Invite me to supper and I can be the first person to see it too.’

‘OK,’ Flin said, ‘as soon as we’ve made it respectable, you’re on.’

In the meantime, she told him, she was going to put an invite to her party in the post immediately. ‘And you must promise me you’ll come,’ she insisted once more.

‘I promise,’ he assured her, leaning back in his chair and smiling. What an encouraging start to the competition. He needed this excitement in his life and was fantasizing as to where it might lead when Tiffany put her head round his cubicle.

‘Daydreaming again, Flin?’

‘Hm? Yes, well, something funny’s happened. I was just thinking about it.’

‘Oh yeah? Let’s hear it.’

Flin told her. ‘What d’you think?’ he asked.

‘Play your cards right – who knows? Sounds to me like she’s making a hit on you though.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Yeah, I reckon. Anyway, keep me posted.’

Flin liked Tiffany. She’d only recently come over from Australia, but already he considered her his best friend in the department. He got on well with the others, but they all seemed a bit neurotic, especially his boss Martina, who, Flin had once been told, even put her shrink on expenses. There was no side to Tiffany though – or at least none that he’d seen. And they gossiped about everything: Flin told her all about his friends and the various dramas in his life, and she told him about hers.

It was good to be in their house at last and now with Poppy suddenly reappearing things seemed to be looking up. He had a good feeling about it – almost as though fate was lending a hand: new house, new girlfriend; it simply had to happen. Living with his sister had been very restricting. Both Sam and her boyfriend Will were very easy-going about Flin staying, and he adored his older sister, but however welcoming she and Will might be, Flin was conscious that it was their house and that he was nothing more than a guest there. And now he’d moved in with Jessica and Geordie, his oldest friends – it was going to be such fun, just like the old days when they were living near each other at home and spending all their time together. And so much better than his last house. He’d had a lucky escape there: the lease had originally been for a year, but when Eddie had decided to get married, they’d all agreed to move out after six months. It had been such a relief. Flin liked Eddie a lot, but his friend Bomber – well, just thinking about him made him wince. Putting Bomber immediately out of his mind, Flin punched in Geordie’s mobile number.

With only four or five miles to go, Geordie knew it might take him another hour to get home. It was nearly four o’clock and he could not understand why narrowing the M4 from three lanes to two should, at this time of day, cause the traffic to grind to a standstill. Each time this happened, he felt an overwhelming sense of frustration descend upon him. It was such a waste of his life. He had begun the journey in Manchester and from thirty miles north of Birmingham to thirty miles on its other side the motorway had been one huge contraflow. Those sixty miles had taken him the best part of three hours; the whole journey, so far, six hours. Ridiculous. He whacked his hand on the steering wheel. In the car next to him was a man in a light grey suit picking his nose, blankly devoid of emotion.

Geordie was not a great fan of London. He knew this was largely because he was still comparatively new to the place, but everyone seemed so rude. He hated being shouted at by overly aggressive cabbies, carved up by monstrous buses and jostled and accosted on the streets; he liked to be able to walk in a straight line along the pavement. Right now, in the throes of yet another hold-up on the roads, he was feeling particularly disgruntled. London may have been voted the coolest city in the world, but this did little to sway Geordie – he preferred a country pub to a London bar any day.

None the less, most of his friends seemed to live there, and although there was so much about the capital that he disliked, he knew he was basically quite happy and that it was too early to move out. That could wait, although he did have some sense of a grand plan: he would continue to work in London for another year or two, obtain some crucial experience in the IT industry, and then get the hell out into a business of his own. Working for Burt Kwang at FDU might be boring, but Geordie knew he had to put up with it: give his presentations, visit clients, learn about the industry and not let Burt’s indifference to him get him down. It was a case of going through the motions until the right opportunity appeared. In the meantime, he had the new house to think about. He needed to borrow some tools from his father to make the shelves and get the place painted. And he needed to sign up to a new tennis club now that the rugby season was over. He might be tall and fairly thin at the moment, but too much sitting about in his car without exercise would soon change that. Anyway, he liked feeling healthy.

After successfully blocking out an aggressive-looking BMW from cutting in ahead of him, Geordie flicked back a lock of his drooping blond mop and then looked in his mirror. At least he was ahead of the massive queue behind him. He glanced down at his phone, and was wondering whether he should call someone when it rang.

‘Guess what?’ said Flin in muffled tones from the hands-free microphone.

‘What?’

‘I’ve bumped into a gorgeous old friend from home and she’s invited me to her place for the weekend.’

‘Bastard! How’d you manage that?’

Flin told the story of his encounter for the second time.

‘Bastard!’ Geordie said again. ‘I knew you’d be first off the mark. And we’ve only been in the house half a week.’

‘Well, yes, obviously the pressure’s really on for you now.’

‘This better not stop you from helping out with painting the house.’

‘Course not, but if you think I’m going to turn down a weekend in the country because you want me to do DIY, think again.’

Flin’s upbeat mood did nothing to improve Geordie’s. What was wrong with him? Why this lean patch? If anything, it used to be the other way round: he was constantly going out with someone while Flin less frequently did. This was because Flin was nearly always chasing after people who were completely unobtainable. Whenever Geordie pointed this out, Flin would invariably reply, ‘But I’m in love, and I can’t help how I feel.’ It had been the same at school, Geordie remembered. Flin had been madly in love with a girl in the year above who simply wasn’t interested. Meanwhile, Kate Rodgers had been desperate for him. Flin had forever had plenty of girls after him: after all, he was a popular person, always had been. Geordie felt ever so slightly jealous of his oldest friend’s easy charm and ability to be liked by just about everyone. Even when they’d been little, Flin had been that little bit more popular than him, and nothing had changed since. Still, it had been great coming back from travelling into an even wider circle of friends, and for that he largely had Flin to thank.

Geordie had never really thought about being in love. He supposed he had been; certainly he’d told previous girlfriends he was. It had seemed the right thing to say. At any rate, he’d enjoyed a steady string of sleeping partners: Alex and Sophie in his first year, then Susannah for over a year, and finally Nell, whom he only split up with because he was going travelling and he didn’t want to have to feel guilty if he met anyone else. But since coming back, nothing.

Catching his own face in the mirror, he suddenly noticed a line had developed down one side of his face, etched between his nose and the corner of his mouth. Where had that come from? He was sure it hadn’t been there last time he looked. Had he really already reached that stage in life where the ageing process was beginning to set in? And his spindly round glasses were smudged and getting loose. This was too much: he was twenty-five, stuck in a traffic jam on the M4 and wrinkling. How had he let his life lead him onto this course? What had he been thinking when he left university? The truth was: Not a lot. The options open to a graduate with a lower second in zoology had seemed a bit limited, and since he had a bit of family money, he’d decided he might as well delay the career for a year or two and explore a bit more of the world instead. He flew east first, to Thailand and then on to Australia and New Zealand, where he skiied and surfed and hung out, and then worked for a bit in a bar. From there he moved on to conquer South America, finally pausing for just over a year in Buenos Aires. He’d loved Argentina; and the cost of living was so cheap, meaning he could work little and play hard. There were plenty of Europeans and Americans out there too, providing him with friends. He had a girlfriend there too: a lovely Argentinian who’d dazzled him with her Latin allure.

At some point, however, Geordie had realized that he was going to have to get on with life. So, to the relief of his parents and friends, he’d come back to England and almost immediately moved up to London, on the lookout for a ‘proper’ job. Jessica had been looking for a new place to live, so he’d moved in with her. And here he was, he thought to himself, his career under way, sitting in a traffic jam on the edge of London and rapidly ageing.

He felt faintly depressed. Having exorcised his wanderlust, his life now felt mundane. The lack of girlfriend was just beginning to really get to him. Christ, he hadn’t even had sex for over a year. What was it? Was he becoming boring? He was certainly feeling bored. Or was it just that it was harder to meet people these days? How did you meet new girls? Walk into a bar and start chatting someone up? Hardly. He thought about all the girls he knew. Most were spoken for; of those that weren’t, either he’d already been out with them, or didn’t fancy them, no matter how desperate he felt. And others, like Jessica, were just friends and always would be. This competition was all very well, but just how was he going to achieve these goals? Rooting around in the glove compartment, he found his much loved ELO Greatest Hits. Best not to brood. In the safety of his car, he could listen to whatever he liked, and sing as badly as he liked without anyone complaining – he liked ELO even if no one else did. Singing along the wrong words to ‘Mr Blue Sky’, he felt his good humour slowly return.

Geordie had phoned Jessica to relay Flin’s news, but she found it hard to feel too excited. She knew what Flin was like, knew that he always jumped in head first without pausing to think and that often his early enthusiasm came to nothing. And anyway, she could tell that Geordie was only phoning her because he was bored: he always repeated himself when he had nothing to say, and on this occasion told her for the second time that day that he and Flin would be out all evening. Still, she was quite pleased about that: it had been a bad day at the office and she felt in need of some quiet time to herself. Of course she adored Geordie and Flin, but they could be so noisy and exhausting sometimes.

Arriving back at the flat, she made a beeline for the sink, washed her hands, then applied a generous amount of hand-cream and morello cherry lip-balm, and poured herself a large glass of wine. Then she kicked off her shoes, switched on the television, and lay full-stretch on the sofa, checking through the post. Letter from the bank – boring; some mail for Geordie – boring, boring. But then an envelope that always cheered her up – her weekly edition of Bunty. Her friends found it extraordinary that someone who was normally so elegant and poised at all times should still subscribe to such juvenile drivel. But Jessica had read it ever since she was about ten, tenderly bought for her each week by her mother: it was comforting and she liked the assured regularity of this weekly package.

Leafing through pages of schoolgirl drama was as soothing as ever; after that she was looking forward to what she considered essential ‘me-time’ – time in which to unwind, have a bath, read a magazine or two and not talk to anyone. To her annoyance, though, she found she couldn’t stop thinking about Richard Keeble. How dare he make a pass at her! Then to make matters worse, Rob was still trying to sit next to her, even though she’d told him nearly a month before that nothing further was going to happen between them. Despite looking as immaculate as the moment she had left the house that morning, she now felt soiled and unclean. Even the restorative powers of lip-balm and hand-cream had failed her on this occasion. It was too much.

Richard Keeble always flirted with the younger girls. Although forty-something and acne-scarred, he was convinced they loved being chatted up and that his particular line of amusing cuff-links and bright ties made him a consul of contemporary chic. Rumour had it that he had had his way with one of the receptionists at last year’s Christmas Party, but Jessica could not have possibly cared less – she found him utterly repellent. That morning, however, she had been trapped by him between the third and ground floor as she was on her way to a meeting.

‘That dress is invitingly short,’ he had said to her, smirking and looking up and down her legs. Red with embarrassment and anger, Jessica had not been able to think of anything to say, so shot him a look of contempt instead. ‘Although, of course, I’d much rather see you without any dress on at all.’

Then he had winked, the doors had opened and he’d waited for her to walk out before following after her. He’d not actually touched her or been aggressively abusive, but Jessica had felt degraded and foolish, and to her horror had not been able to help imagining him writhing around on top of her, dribbling lustfully. Too disgusting; so she tried to picture lying on a Bermudan beach to erase the image.

Working for an advertising firm with progressive ideals meant that no member of staff had their own desk; instead each employee at Farrow and Keene had a trolley and a locker, a lap-top and a mobile phone. Having been forced to arrive early as she was suddenly frantically busy, despite feeling in a bean-bag mood, Jessica had settled down on one of the most coveted spots in the building. Then there had been the contretemps with Richard Keeble, and she had only just arrived back at her work-station when Rob turned the corner and appeared beside her.

Older than her by four or five years, Rob was a senior account executive whom she had initially quite liked; she had certainly been flattered that he had so obviously developed a crush on her. He was also much taller than her – always an important consideration – and she thought him reasonably pleasing to the eye. Ever since splitting up with Ed eight months before she had remained more or less single. She’d had a few flings, but nothing serious, and so when six weeks before Rob had asked her out for a drink, she’d accepted. He’d hardly bowled her over, but he had made her laugh and she’d quite enjoyed herself. Emboldened, he had then asked her out to dinner. Knowing the implications, Jessica had accepted – after all, he was offering to take her to Sartoria.

They had drunk good wines, followed by liqueurs, before going back to his flat in Notting Hill. By now quite drunk, she got into the cab with him, and he started to kiss her, gently at first and then hard and urgently. Vaguely aware that his style of snogging was a little aggressive for her tastes, she broke off. But by then they had reached his flat, and headed straight for his bedroom. Slightly cursing her drunken lack of self-control, she found herself looking up at his face, now etched with grim concentration, while he humped up and down on his black-sheeted bed.

That Saturday morning she made a quick escape. She hated mornings at the best of times, but on this occasion she had a persistently throbbing head and was disgusted with herself for letting things go so far the previous night. The last thing she wanted was any sort of conversation. So, making her excuses, she told him she had to drive down to her parents and that she’d see him next week.

Monday had been fine – not too awkward at work, and he had discreetly invited her back to his flat for supper. Although still a bit unsure about how she felt, she decided to go. From there the relationship moved forward, but not at all as Jessica had imagined. The first week found her liking him more and more, and she thought she might even want to go out with him properly – certainly his love-making seemed calmer. But then he became a bit … well, wet. He would say anything to please her and was no longer witty or interesting. When she began an argument – mainly to get a rise – he would simply acquiesce. She started avoiding him at work and finding excuses not to see him in the evening or at weekends. Eventually, she had realized that although he must have got the message, he had obviously chosen to ignore it, and so took him out for a drink and told him that any brief fling they might have had was over. He’d looked absolutely distraught, but then that wasn’t her fault. He would get over it; and she’d make sure never to become involved with anyone at work again.

After that he’d been away for a couple of weeks, but since coming back had continually tried to sit next to her at work. As a result, she’d taken to deliberately coming in later than him, which had meant having to put up with the worst workstations. That morning, though, she’d had to arrive early and Rob had yet again made a move to sit close by, until she’d warned him in no uncertain terms not to. She hadn’t seen him again until later after her meeting. He briskly sidled past her and dropped a note into her lap. She glared at him, but he was already walking off again with his back to her. She unfolded it and read:

Darling Jessica,

I know you think I was being a bit wet with you, but I swear I just wanted to make you happy. Now I know that’s not the way, I will be much more how I was when we first started going out. I know we can be great together, if only you could know how happy you make me! Please don’t ignore this – write back and let me take you out tonight and we’ll start again all over, with the new improved me.

Rob

Pathetic! Passing notes was the sort of thing schoolkids did. She felt exasperated. Her instinct was to ignore it and simply tear it up. But then she thought that perhaps resorting to his level was the only way to get through to him.

Rob [she wrote],

Can’t you see that by writing that ridiculous message you are being totally pathetic? I will never ever in a million years go out with you again – I’m sorry but it’s the truth. But please just leave me alone, or else I might have to take this harassment to a senior level.

Jessica

Being firm was the only way to deal with him and her annoyance with Rob and men in general renewed her disgust with Richard Keeble. Picking up her phone, she dialled his number.

‘Richard? This is Jessica Turpin.’

‘Oh, hi, Jessica, what can I do for you?’ came the reply.

‘I just want you to know that if you ever speak to me again like you did this morning, I will not be answerable for the consequences. I hope that’s clear. Goodbye.’

She put the phone down and returned to her screen with a sense of satisfaction. Maybe she had over-reacted, but it was important to nip these things in the bud. She had been far too lax with Rob and look what had happened there.

Lying on the sofa that evening, Jessica looked at the long length of her legs extending from her tiny black skirt, which in that position was even more revealing than normal. They were pretty good legs, she had to admit; she was lucky, especially as her mother was so small. All the same, she wondered whether maybe she should buy a trouser suit or two. The day’s events had upset her more than she’d imagined. And would she ever find someone she wanted to go out with for more than a few months? The longest relationship she’d ever had was with Ed and that had only been for a year. No one else had ever made it to the six-month mark. Why did all her boyfriends become so jealous and possessive? It was so tedious and so predictable, and made her feel that emotionally she hadn’t progressed from her teenage years. Admittedly, Rob had never exactly set her heart on fire, but she hadn’t expected him to crumble quite so quickly. She desperately hoped she would find someone to fall in love with, but sometimes seriously doubted it would ever happen. Perhaps she set her sights too high, expected too much. Perhaps she should ring Ed again. But then, even he had become a boring stay-at-home. And as soon as her ardour for him had started to cool, he’d turned into a drooling love-slave. Jessica sighed and turned back to her magazine. Really, it was too much, it really was.

chapter three La Vita è Bella

Leaving Geordie drilling rawl-plugs into the wall, Flin vowed to do his ‘bit’ towards decorating the house in the evenings the following week, and headed off towards Victoria and the train that would take him to Sussex and his destiny. He’d not been sure what to wear, and so had taken Jessica’s advice and decided on very dark brown jeans and a white cotton shirt. Simple and understated. And he was pleased that she had approved of his new haircut.

‘I’ve never seen it so short – very George Clooney and rather sexy, actually,’ she told him soothingly.

‘I think you look a complete prat – trying to be trendy just isn’t you,’ was Geordie’s contribution, although Flin ignored the remark. After all, Geordie had the worst dress sense of anyone he knew, whilst Jessica always appeared the epitome of style and elegance. He didn’t think he was particularly vain, but when Jessica approved of something, he took note. He wondered what Poppy would be wearing, and what her house would be like. It was bound to be stunning. And was this the start of something big? He had a good feeling, he really did.

Standing on deep and sumptuous gravel, Flin was paying the taxi when the front door opened.

‘Flin! You made it! It’s so good to see you!’ said Poppy, skipping over to welcome him with a delicate kiss on the cheek. With chestnut locks now loose and slightly dishevelled about her shoulders, and bits of grass on her bare feet, Poppy appeared a vision of simple loveliness. Leading Flin through the house to the garden, she eagerly told him who else was coming, who was here already, and what fun they were going to have. At this, Flin felt a wave of apprehension sweep over him. He had thought of nothing but seeing Poppy again, but now he was here, he felt suddenly shy. Just what was he doing here amongst all these strangers? Could he really expect to end up in the arms of someone like Poppy? He was beginning to think that he’d made a colossal mistake accepting the invitation. But it was too late for that: in the garden, a few people were milling about by the stream and Poppy gleefully led him over. A Pimm’s was thrust into his hands and introductions made. Flin had never been very good with names. Someone had once taught him a fool-proof method of how to remember who was who, but he’d forgotten that as well. On this occasion he logged a Sally and a Duncan but forgot who everyone else was. But if he worried about being left to fend for himself, he needn’t have done. Poppy suddenly looped her arm through his and asked him to tell her everything that was going on in his life, much to his delight. He started jabbering away enthusiastically, whilst she laughed and clung onto him as though he was quite the most important person in the whole world. Resisting the urge to continue talking about nothing but himself, he then asked her about her last sixteen years. They were now facing the back of the house.

‘OK, but you must let me show you round Pepperfield. After all, we left Salisbury to come here,’ she said, confirming his belief that large houses with one word for a name develop distinct personalities. And, of course, the house was stunning. It seemed to Flin, as Poppy led him from the flagstoned hall, through rooms and along creaking corridors, that every aspect of Pepperfield exemplified wonderful taste. Modern art vied for wall space along with contented-looking family portraits.

‘It’s wonderful, Poppy,’ he told her as they paused to look at some murals, apparently painted by a famous artist who had been friends with her grandmother.

She rested an arm on his shoulder. ‘I love it. I’m so glad we moved all those years ago. Can’t imagine us not living here now.’ She smiled at him, and Flin felt increasingly lustful for the girl who had years before made his life a misery. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s go back outside.’

At half past midnight, Poppy and Flin lay against the gazebo at the end of the garden. The brilliant almost-full moon was reflected in the stream; surrounding them were the chalk downs, dark, gently curving and ancient. Between long drags on their cigarettes and lingering sips of their wine, they gazed up at the stars trying to spot constellations that neither of them knew anything about. ‘Doesn’t the Plough look amazing tonight?’ Flin said without really having the faintest idea what the Plough looked like.

‘Wow, look at that shooting star!’ Poppy said.

‘Where?’

‘Missed it.’

The setting was perfect and Flin watched his cigarette smoke drift up into the windless night air. Already seduced by the house and setting, Flin looked down at Poppy, her head in his lap. She looked lovely. It seemed to Flin as though they were held there in a glow of poetic beauty.

‘It’s a good job Mark can’t see us now,’ she suddenly said.

‘Mark?’ asked Flin, alarms ringing.

‘My boyfriend,’ she replied flatly, taking another drag on her cigarette. Flin’s heart sank. By her behaviour towards him, Flin had assumed she was single. He should have known things were going too well.

‘Oh,’ he said, not knowing quite what to say.

‘He’s on a cricket tour,’ she said by way of explanation, and then added, with barely concealed contempt, ‘with all his mates.’

There was a pause and Flin, not wanting to lose the moment, daringly started stroking her hair.

‘Hmm, that’s really nice,’ said Poppy, smiling contentedly, her eyes closed. ‘Do you fancy a fuck?’ she said suddenly.

Startled, Flin felt momentarily wrong-footed. ‘Yes, actually, that would be just marvellous,’ he replied, his heart quickening rapidly. What did he care if the ground was really pretty dewy and hard? Turning her over, he gently laid her on the grass and kissed her, carefully lifting her knee-length cotton dress to reveal legs of cool silk skin. This was turning into one of the best and most exciting nights of his life, and Flin felt his ego being massaged to new heights. The whole scenario seemed to him so unlikely – it was the sort of thing he used to read in the letters at the back of Men Only that did the rounds at school. He was also – and who could blame him? – truly struck by the beauty of the scene: the moon and stars above them, an owl calling in the trees nearby, the gentle gurgle of the babbling brook and the smell of damp, summer grass. Her face seemed magical. He loved looking at the pale outline of her neck and shoulders, creamy light against the dark blue of her skin in shadow, which was rising and falling with her quickening breath. He felt earthy and manly, Mellors with his Lady Chatterley, enveloped in the smell of the damp grass and soil. D. H. Lawrence would have approved.

Afterwards, it suddenly seemed cooler and they were soon back inside the house. A tender kiss and Poppy floated tantalizingly upstairs, the moment gone for ever. But as Flin settled down on the sofa, his mind was positively humming. Was that it? Tomorrow, would she act as though nothing had happened? Could her current relationship survive this? Or was his liaison at the gazebo nothing more than a one-night stand? Having gone over the same thoughts without progressing further for about the thirty-eighth time he finally drifted off to sleep.

At 6.03 a.m., he woke up on the sofa with itchy eyes, a pounding head and a mouth that felt as though it had been in the Sahara for a week with no water bottle. Sun poured through the open curtains in the drawing room. It was another beautiful English summer’s day, and Flin, aware that thoughts of further sleep were useless, decided to walk up to the downs above the house. After a couple of pints of water and some Aquafresh had considerably improved his mouth situation, he was sure fresh morning air would clear the eyes and head. And so it proved.

Up on the downs, his feet sodden by the dew, he found the view everything he had imagined it would be. The sun broke through the morning haze of the valley below, a sylvan carpet encased by soft-curved hills of chalk. Droplets of dew covered the anthills and he marvelled at a prospect so fresh and succulent and green. He breathed in deeply, the pure, cooling air cleaning his nostrils and lungs. All his anxious thoughts had disappeared. Whatever the future held in store, nothing could take away his wonderful evening the night before. Smiling, he thought about the pleasure he would gain from reporting back so positively to Jessica and Geordie. Even at twenty-five, he still felt ridiculously competitive with Geordie and this pact had made him more so. He didn’t know why; it wasn’t as if relationships were a question of one-upmanship, but it had simply always been like that ever since they were young.

When he returned and went into the kitchen to make a much-needed cup of tea, Poppy was already there.

‘Where have you been so bright and early?’ she asked, kissing him casually on the lips.

‘For a walk on the downs. It was fantastic, absolutely beautiful up there,’ he told her as she poured him a mug.

‘How brilliant of you,’ she responded, then added, ‘I adore it here, and I love it when other people love it too.’ Then someone else came in and they were no longer alone. As more people woke, Poppy held court, organizing teas and coffees, and never tiring of putting in more toast, croissants and brewing more hot drinks. She was a perfect host, Flin thought, admiringly, so charming to everyone – including him but not especially so, as though nothing had ever happened at all.

She had affectionately kissed him goodbye, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be hearing from her again, and admitted as much to Jessica and Geordie when he arrived home later. Geordie was still fiddling about with power drills and planks of wood, and Jessica was painting in a pair of old dungarees, yellow emulsion already covering her hands.

‘So, I think we will still be a house of singletons for a bit longer,’ he told them as Geordie passed him a paintbrush.

‘Oh, well, never mind, darling, I’m sure it’s for the best,’ said Jessica. ‘You certainly don’t want to get caught up in some sordid love triangle. Much better you fall in love with someone who’s unattached. Take it from me.’

‘I agree,’ said Geordie, ‘and now you’re playing catch-up with the painting, so get stuck in.’ Flin reluctantly obliged, lamely slapping paint onto the sitting-room walls, but all the time his mind thinking furiously about Poppy and whether she might, after all, call again.

Tiffany wanted to know all about the party when Flin arrived back in the office the following Monday; she had lived Flin’s eager anticipation of the week before and was dying to know the outcome.

‘Sounds to me like you had a pretty successful time: a party at a great house and a night of hot passion,’ she laughed after Flin had given a detailed account of his weekend’s events.

‘As one-night stands go, it was pretty good,’ Flin admitted with an air of wistfulness not lost on Tiffany.

‘Well, you never know.’ She smiled consolingly at him from her perch on his desk. Flin wondered why he didn’t see more of Tiffany out of office hours – they had lunches together and sometimes went for drinks after work, but so far that had been it – clearly a work friendship only. He supposed they had separate friends, but even so he felt he should ask her over to supper one night now he was in the new house. Or perhaps they would have a house-warming party and she could come to that. Conscious he’d done rather a lot of talking about himself recently, he asked about her weekend. She’d gone to a big party to say farewell to one of her friends who was going back to Australia, and then – and this had been the best bit, she laughed – she’d gone to the Tower of London on Sunday. ‘It was fantastic,’ she effused, ‘and I loved seeing all the inscriptions in the cells. You just don’t get that kind of history back home.’

Flin hadn’t been there since he was a child. As a teenager, you didn’t come up to London to go to museums – you came to hang out at Camden Lock and to see the Cult at the Brixton Academy. And since he’d been living here, sightseeing hadn’t really occurred to him; there always seemed to be something else to do.

‘Have you been to the Natural History Museum?’ he asked her, suddenly remembering how he’d marvelled at the enormous dinosaurs when he was little.

‘No. Is it good?’

‘Brilliant, as far as I remember. I’d love to go again and see whether the dinosaurs really were that big.’

‘There’re dinosaurs?’ said Tiffany, clapping her hands together excitedly. ‘Well, let’s definitely go one day. It’d be fun.’

‘OK, you’re on,’ agreed Flin. But before they could discuss it further, Martina was yelling at them for the weekly department meeting, and they headed off without ever fixing a date.

By the middle of the week, Flin was convinced his weekend foray would be nothing more than a pleasant memory. But then, out of the blue, Poppy phoned. Tiffany took the call and put her through to him, saying in conspiratorial tones, ‘I think it’s her.’ Firstly she apologized profusely for not ringing earlier and then asked him over to her flat. She’d cook him supper and they could watch a film or something. His spirits soared. She was coming back for more. Perhaps in those two days she had even cleared the way with Mark.

Jessica preached caution. ‘Now don’t go blindly rushing in like normal – you know what you’re like.’

‘Of course I won’t,’ Flin assured her. ‘It’s just a bit of a laugh.’

‘Well, that’s fine, but don’t go falling madly in love with her until the boyfriend’s out of the way, that’s all I’m saying. Otherwise it’ll only end in tears.’

‘Clearly he’s on the way out though,’ Flin told her, ‘otherwise she wouldn’t be asking me over for a little one-to-one at her place.’

Jessica and Geordie both gave each other knowing looks, but Flin had little time for such cynicism. They were just jealous because he was making such good progress in the competition. This new romance with Poppy was fun and he was going to make the most of it. Spontaneity bred excitement and made life interesting.

Arriving at Poppy’s mansion block on Prince of Wales Drive, Flin felt his pulse quicken with anticipation. Someone was leaving the main front entrance, so he walked straight in without calling on the intercom. At the top of the third flight of stairs he arrived at the door of her flat and knocked firmly, causing the unlocked door to open slightly.

‘Hi, Flin?’ came a voice from within. ‘Sorry, I’m in the bath. Come in and talk to me.’ Her hair was bunched up out of the way, but almost everything else was immersed in a mountain of bubbles. Her feet and ankles were resting on the taps and two nipples, very erect, were also making a point of their existence. ‘Mark’s working late tonight and won’t be coming over, so you’ve got me all to yourself. Give me a kiss.’ So that was clear: Mark was not out of her life yet. But seeing her reclining in the bath Flin thought it fairly apparent what her immediate intentions were.

Once out of the bath she put on nothing more than a silk dressing gown which periodically revealed tantalizing amounts of bare flesh – a breast emerging as she bent over, or a full stretch of thigh when she sat down – perhaps deliberately, but more than anything proving she was a woman at ease with her body and comfortable with having it admired. From the bathroom Flin followed her into the kitchen where she handed him a very chilled bottle of white wine to open. Producing two glasses, she then proceeded to knock up a bowl of pasta, chatting all the while.

There was so much to talk about, and every story seemed fresh and new. She made him laugh and, equally importantly, she laughed at all his jokes too. Having finished the pasta, they moved from table to sofa, and then seamlessly to the floor, where she was lying against him and he was at last doing interesting things with her breasts with one hand and stroking her head with the other. Flin was vaguely aware of a clock striking at least ten when the dressing gown finally slipped away and all the teasing glimpses merged into a whole. He was lying back against the sofa, still dressed, looking up at an incredibly beautiful, slender and totally naked body, her tousled hair hanging forward as her hands were tugging determinedly at his belt buckle. He wanted to savour the moment, so that when he was old and grizzled and had not been with a woman in years, he would be able to think back and remember this completely. Unlike under the gazebo, where their love-making had necessarily been urgent, they now had time to explore each other’s bodies and make every stroke, lick and thrust long and meaningful. As Flin finally shuddered and stiffened, Poppy also tightened with pleasure and then, hugging him tighter in her arms, covered him in kisses. Bliss.

Later, Flin was to realize that the next couple of weeks were among the most exciting of his life. He saw few of his friends and spent as much time as he could with Poppy. At the house, his bed remained largely unslept in and at work Tiffany and Martina both commented on his sudden tardiness in the mornings. He knew Jessica would only ask him awkward questions about Mark and that Geordie would expect him to paint the house, so he tried to avoid them as much as possible. He was vaguely aware of a new-found selfishness, but then again, everyone was a bit one-track-minded at the beginning of a relationship and he felt sure his friends would understand. Mark, he knew, was away on business, but Poppy never mentioned him, and so it seemed a pity to spoil things by bringing him into the equation. Anyway, after all the time they had spent together, it seemed impossible to believe Mark was a serious threat. They picnicked in the park, strolled arm in arm along the river, spent long nights of making love … and she always looked so lovely and sexy, her long slender limbs a healthy golden brown from days spent in the summer sun. It seemed as though they lived in a world where no one else could play a part and Flin honestly wondered if his time with this gorgeous woman could possibly be more romantic.

The bubble burst rather suddenly. One evening, Flin eagerly bounced up the stairs to Poppy’s flat only to find Mark there. Impossibly good-looking, he had a chiselled chin squarer than a brick-end, making him seem healthy, confident and mature; self-confidence and success oozed out of every pore. Flin was taken aback. He had been convinced Mark must be out of her life. Still in his suit, Flin’s rival extended an arm for a predictably firm handshake, his cuff-linked shirt retreating to reveal an impressively solid and genuine-looking Rolex.

‘Good to meet you, Flin. What can I get you? Beer? Glass of wine?’ Suddenly Flin’s position as man of the house had been drastically reversed. It was more than disconcerting. Mark seemed so manly Flin felt he should opt for the beer. ‘Good man,’ Mark said, smiling, and disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Hi, Flin,’ said Poppy, coming out of the kitchen as Mark went in. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and said in a lowered tone, ‘Sorry, darling, I wasn’t expecting him tonight. But you don’t mind too much, do you?’

Course he bloody did, he minded a lot. Mark had just ruined his evening, possibly even his life.

Returning with the beer, Mark said, ‘So I gather you’re coming to the concert too?’

What was this? What concert? It was the first Flin knew about it. Momentarily caught off-guard, he assured Mark he was; then immediately regretted his split-second decision. Why was he being so nice to them both? Why not snarl at Mark and stake his claim to Poppy right there and then? But he knew he’d missed his opportunity and anyway, acquiescence was easier than confrontation. But even more galling, there seemed to be no dampening Poppy’s enthusiasm. If she had been worried about having her two lovers spending the evening together, she never showed it.

‘Flin, you’ve been promming before, haven’t you?’ she asked.

‘Um, no, I haven’t actually,’ he replied truthfully. He had only ever been to one classical concert and that was at school when he was going through his Brideshead phase.

‘Well you’ll love it. You just turn up, hand over your three quid and stand anywhere you want.’ Flin was hugely relieved to discover this was not going to set him back a fortune, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Poppy.

‘My poor darling, were you thinking it would cost twenty pounds?’ she laughed, adding for the benefit of Mark, ‘Poor Flin’s been worrying that this would be horribly expensive!’ Mark laughed too and assured Flin that he would never have come if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was so cheap. Patronizing bastard, thought Flin, laughing too.

‘It wasn’t the money,’ Flin lied, ‘but don’t we need flags to wave? I don’t want to make a promming faux pas.’

‘Flags are only for the last night,’ Poppy laughed. ‘Come on, it’ll be fun.’

Afterwards, Flin left them to it. His self-esteem, which had been riding at an all-time high, had plummeted spectacularly. People like Mark made him sick, although he knew this was essentially envy. Standing briefly outside the Albert Hall, Mark gave Flin his leave, saying, ‘Good to see you, mate,’ as though saying ‘mate’ meant he was in touch with all rank of man. Poppy smiled charmingly, as if everything was perfectly as it should be. In a moment, they were hopping into a taxi. Flin despondently trundled off to the nearest underground at High Street Kensington wondering how Mark had been able to hail a taxi that quickly outside the Albert Hall on a concert night. The situation had to change – and soon – but Flin was bleakly aware that he was leagues behind his rival in terms of wealth and stature.

Jessica and Geordie could not resist the ‘told you so’s’.

‘I’m sorry, darling, but it’s so obvious she’s using you. This boyfriend of hers – whilst being good-looking, rich and successful, is clearly treating her like shit and so she’s latched on to you to boost her self-esteem.’

‘It’s not like that at all,’ Flin told Jessica weakly.

‘All right, if you say so.’ She kissed him affectionately. ‘But just don’t trust her an inch. Take on board my woman’s instinct.’

‘Yeah, give her a wide berth,’ added Geordie. ‘You know what you’re like, you get all caught up in the romance and fling yourself headlong into completely unsuitable relationships. Anyway, what about your share of the decorating?’

A few days later, though, just as Flin was beginning to despair of ever seeing her again, Poppy suggested they go out for supper. He had very lamely offered to take her, but capitulated quickly on her insistence that it was ‘her shout’. She had suggested it, she said, he could take her to dinner next time. Sitting at an outside table, Flin smiled at her as she popped an olive neatly into her mouth and smacked her lips. She took his hand and rubbed it and then looked down at the table slightly anxiously, before meeting his gaze again.

‘I’m not being very fair to you, am I?’ She had suddenly grown serious. ‘I mean, you must wonder what’s going on?’

Flin did not really want to respond to that, so smiled wistfully instead.

‘Mark and I have been together a long time, and it’s difficult to end it all. But I know I should. You’re so much better than him in every way. And I’ve just adored the last couple of weeks. Mark’s a complete shit to me, you know.’ She took a large swig of her wine and accepted the cigarette that Flin offered her. ‘Tonight, for example,’ she said, exhaling her first drag, ‘he’s gone off for another of his boys’ nights with his City chums. I’m not allowed to join in, of course. I’m strictly persona non grata, not able to drink enough pints and talk about rugby and stocks and shares.’

‘But would you want to spend an evening doing that? It sounds pretty grim to me.’

‘No, of course not, but that’s not the point. It’s just that he’d rather do that than be with me.’

‘Surely not,’ said Flin, gallantly.

‘Flin, our relationship is totally on his terms: he still fancies me, and I’m sure he thinks I look nice on his arm at parties or what-have-you, but if I get in the way of him playing his sport, or seeing his stupid friends, then, well …’ She trailed off. All that cash must be nice though, thought Flin to himself. He couldn’t imagine she had to buy Mark dinner. Poppy had not finished, though. ‘I know everyone thinks Mark is so wonderful. Under normal circumstances you’d probably like him too.’ Flin doubted it, but kept quiet. She continued, ‘Things haven’t been great for a while, but then we’ll have a great weekend or evening together and I think perhaps everything is OK after all.’

‘But it’s not?’ said Flin.

‘No.’

Although Flin had been enjoying listening to Poppy telling him how awful Mark was, he was keenly aware that Jessica’s assessment of the situation had been uncomfortably accurate. But then again, now that Poppy was coming clean, this was clearly his opportunity to improve his own stakes. Delicate tact was what was required. ‘Hm,’ he said, feeling it was about time he said something decisive, but not quite managing it.

Poppy looked straight at Flin with large doleful eyes. ‘I just don’t feel I can trust him. Really, I’m a very insecure person. I need to feel wanted and … I don’t know … a bit special.’

‘Well, I’d look after you,’ he told her emphatically. ‘I wouldn’t treat you like an attractive appendage to have around whenever it was useful.’ Flin felt that was the sort of comment she was fishing for and a unique opportunity to prove that he was sensitive to a girl’s needs. She suddenly softened and smiled at him.

‘Sweet Flin. I think you would look after me, wouldn’t you? You’re lovely, you know.’

The next morning, she invited him to Italy, and the roller-coaster that Flin’s emotions had become soared again to the previous week’s high. Her parents were hiring a farmhouse in Tuscany, she told him, in the vine-laden hills between Florence, Siena and San Gimignano, and it was enormous and needed filling up. Her sister was going too and had invited three of her friends. The prospect seemed impossibly romantic to Flin and he immediately filled his mind with images of Poppy swanning around Italian side streets in long, light summer dresses. She was offering ten days in a beautiful part of the world, wonderful food, delicious wine and, most importantly, time alone without Mark to get in the way of long nights of love-making.

He had already made plans to go on holiday with Jessica and a few others later on that summer, but still had enough days spare to fit in the time in Italy. He had a bit of spare money – living with his sister had saved him a lot of rent and although he knew he would need that later on, convinced himself that cash worries should not be a serious obstacle. After all, Poppy’s parents were paying for the villa, he’d probably be spending just as much money if he stayed in London. And nowhere, but nowhere, was more expensive than London. So, all he was really looking at was the price of the airfare, and he could just about manage that. He accepted her invitation immediately.

Directly before Poppy was due to fly out with her parents, she had had to go on a long-arranged weekend with Mark. He had been invited by some clients to go fishing in Scotland and Poppy had agreed to accompany him. ‘It’ll be totally awful, but I promised and I have to go,’ she had said. Flin was not at all happy about it, but the promise of great things to come convinced him not to make an issue of it. To add to the complications, Flin’s late addition to the party meant that he could not get on the same flight as Poppy and the rest. He had to fly the next day, but Poppy assured him this was not a problem – she would simply meet him at the airport a day later.

Flin was careful not to tell Jessica or Geordie about Poppy’s weekend with Mark.

‘So the boyfriend’s finally gone, then?’ Jessica asked him.

‘Yes, he’s been shown the door,’ Flin lied.

‘Well, it seems I was wrong then. I hope you have a jolly time, darling.’

‘You bet I will,’ Flin told her eagerly. ‘Ten days of love-making with a beautiful girl and Tuscan hills as company.’

‘And her family,’ added Jessica.

‘Well, yes, but they’ll be off doing their own thing, I’m sure. Poppy’s hardly going to get me all the way over there just so I can join the family trips to the Uffizi.’

Jessica said nothing, but Flin was far too excited to worry about her scepticism. What did she know anyway? He was going to have a brilliant time, and at least Geordie was green with envy.

When he finally reached the arrivals door of the airport, there was no one there to greet him, no luscious Poppy in sight. There was an awful moment when Flin suddenly realized that he didn’t even know the address of the farmhouse, let alone a telephone number. But no sooner had he started to panic, there was a honking of horns and up screeched a tiny Fiat Panda with arms waving madly from the windows. Poppy jumped out, ran up to him as he advanced grinning inanely, and gave him a huge hug.

‘You’ve made it! How absolutely marvellous – you’re going to love this, it’s simply the most fantastic house in the most fabulous setting.’ And with that, they skipped back to the car, which already contained four people including Poppy.

‘Sorry it’s a bit of a squeeze, but you sit in the front,’ said Poppy. ‘This is Dad, this is Alice and this is George.’

Flin shook hands with Poppy’s father, a benign professorial-looking figure, and said, ‘Hello, hello,’ to the other two as the car lurched off into the city traffic. Her father may have a mild and gentle demeanour but Flin was quick to discover that his appearance was in strong contrast to his driving, which was fiendishly fast. Careering round corners, his expression never changed from one of quiet passivity – there was none of the deep-set determination or taut knuckles that are normally associated with motor-racing. Flin sat clutching his bag trying not to look at the road too much and feeling slightly conscious that he was the new boy and late arrival among what was really a bunch of strangers. Poppy and Alice chattered enthusiastically about the house and things that simply had to be seen, and Flin joined in whenever he could or should, all the time thinking that it would be good just to get there alive and talk to Poppy alone.

The journey lasted about forty minutes. Finally the tiny Fiat jolted along a track at a marginally slower pace with vines either side, then up a hill until they pulled into a courtyard. It was too dark to see whether the house lived up to Poppy’s superlatives – but even so he could sense a certain aura of splendour about the place. The four of them walked straight in to the flagstoned kitchen and Poppy’s mother strode over to greet the new arrival with a firm and formal handshake. Younger and taller than her husband, she cut an impressive figure in her three-quarter-length khaki trousers and white linen shirt.

‘Buon giorno, Flin, welcome on board. Call me Liz.’

‘Thank you so much for letting me come and join the holiday,’ said Flin in his very best sincere and polite voice, ‘it really is very generous of you indeed.’ He dumped his bag on the floor and then met Alice’s other two friends who had just appeared through the front door.

‘This pair of love birds are Max and Charlie and I think they’re marvellous,’ said Poppy, tugging on Charlie’s arm. Charlie was tiny – about five foot nothing and already bronzed, while Max looked relaxed and faintly disinterested in Flin’s presence, leaning against the doorway and twiddling his goatee. He made Flin feel instantly unfashionable.

‘How you doing?’ said Max and then extended one arm for a handshake before spluttering something from the depths of his lungs into his other hand. ‘Ugh, er, sorry,’ he recovered.

Charlie smiled sweetly. ‘You’ll love it here, it’s just so … um.’ She waved her hand and gazed bashfully at the ceiling. The word or phrase she was searching for did not come. She shrugged. ‘Yeah, it’s so, well, perfect.’

‘Come on, Flin, I’ll show you your room.’ Poppy took his hand and they walked through the kitchen and into a hallway and up some stairs. All the walls seemed to be white and the floor and stairs left bare stone. Flin’s room had two single beds, but even at that stage Flin was deaf to any alarm bells ringing. In the corner was a tiny sink and in front of the beds were two huge windows with wooden shutters.

‘Are you going to be OK in here?’ she asked, kissing him lightly on the shoulder. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come! Now, come down whenever you’re ready but I’ve got to go and help Mummy with the supper,’ and off she went.

Supper was quite lively, and it became clear to Flin that Liz liked good conversation with plenty of discussion and interesting debate. This was better than awkward silences, but Flin felt constrained by the fact that his conversation should be intelligent and pertinent at all times. Donald, Poppy’s father, spoke very softly, but seemed to be so revered by everyone that as soon as he opened his mouth everybody else immediately shut up and listened keenly to what the old sage had to say. He appeared to be rather amused by his strident wife; in fact he seemed rather amused by everything, demonstrated by the faintest hint of a perma-smile and a frequently raised eyebrow. Whilst a heated discussion about the value of television took place, Flin decided to keep quiet and assess the gathering. Alice and George were an item and had a room in the main house, which Donald and Liz clearly had no objection to, while Max and Charlie, who were also a twosome, had a room in one of the outhouses. Only then did it occur to Flin that he and Poppy were the only ones not sharing a room, and he began to feel just the tiniest bit irked. But then, he supposed, he was the last to arrive, and so put the matter out of his mind.

The meal seemed to last an aeon, and Flin began to feel increasingly frustrated. He was desperate to talk to Poppy on his own and to steal some kisses al fresco; Sussex revisited, but beneath an Italian moon. Eventually, after the coffee had been drunk and after helping to wash up, Flin excused himself and went outside for a cigarette. Poppy followed and at last the two of them were together and alone. He took her hand and kissed her soft cheek.

‘I can’t believe I’m here and that we’ve got over a week to go,’ he told her as they strolled down the steps into the garden. There was a pause. Poppy suddenly seemed quite unaccustomedly embarrassed. All at once, Flin knew what was coming.

‘Flin, I don’t want you to be angry, but Mark and I patched things up in Scotland. We did a lot of talking and I think I’ve got to give it another chance.’

He absolutely couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘I mean, it’s not as if we could have got up to much with my parents here anyway.’

Couldn’t they? What was she on about? Of course they could! Why invite him otherwise? Did she honestly think he’d come all this way just to be told that she’d decided, after all, that she wanted to stay with someone, who was, by her own admission, a total shit? Flin reeled. What could she be thinking? Had she gone completely insane?

He took a long drag on his cigarette. Outwardly calm, his mind was racing in a panic. With eight full days to go, he desperately needed to be rational. If he said what he actually thought, life would become even more difficult. She was offering friendship. If he turned that down, he would be in even worse trouble. He took a deep breath.

‘It’s a long way to come to be told that,’ he said with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘But this is a fantastic place and we are going to have fun, fun, fun with a capital F,’ he said, smiling weakly. Thank God it was dark.

‘We can still spend all our time together,’ she said, hugging his arm and warming to the fact that her announcement had been so painless. ‘I’m sorry though, and I do think you are gorgeous. You’ll be better off with someone far nicer than me.’

He felt sick. This was a monumental disaster, and there was absolutely no escape.

chapter four Geordie and Jessica have Dinner at Tommy Byng’s

Jessica was just about to go and run her bath when Geordie finally walked through the door. As always (and it was no different now they had moved to the new house), he immediately asked Jessica whether there was any post or messages for him.

‘Just some bills and a couple of messages for Flin from Josh,’ she told him, without looking up from her magazine. And as always, he pressed the answerphone anyway.

‘Yo, big man!’ said Josh’s voice. ‘I’ve got your new number. Nice one. I need someone to get drunk with and you’re the name I’ve pulled out of the hat. Call me immediately.’

The second message was even more concise: ‘Of course you’re not there – you’re getting laid in Italy you little Julio. Forgot. Ignore that last message.’

Geordie sighed. ‘No calls, no decent letters – not even a postcard from Flin.’

‘Poor you, how trying,’ replied Jessica, looking up at him. ‘Get yourself a drink and then come here and calm down.’

A short while later, Jessica had made it into her bath and was testing a new body scrub when the phone rang.

‘Hello,’ said Geordie, picking up the receiver in an instant.

‘Geordie, hi, how’s things?’

‘Flin! What are you doing calling? Where’s our postcard?’

‘I’ve only been gone four days. Give me a chance. Just thought I’d see how you guys are, you know … How’s our house?’

‘Great – I’ve painted the bathroom now and put up a new cabinet. What about you? How’s the holiday of love?’

‘Um, good, thanks. Really good. Great.’

Flin was being very odd, Geordie thought. Hardly very enthusiastic at all. ‘Flin, are you OK?’

‘Yeah, yeah, fine.’ Flin paused. ‘Listen, Geordie, is Jessica there?’

‘In the bath,’ Geordie told him, ‘why?’

‘Oh nothing – it doesn’t matter. Look, I’m running out of money – I’ll see you next week, OK? Have fun.’

Geordie immediately padded upstairs to tell Jessica.

‘Something has definitely gone wrong, the poor lamb,’ Jessica said through the bathroom door. ‘I knew that girl was a cow.’

‘He sounded very weird,’ Geordie confirmed as he stood on the landing, leaning against the bathroom door. ‘Not himself at all.’

‘Well, let’s hope he manages to resolve it, whatever it is,’ said Jessica, splashing.

Geordie nodded. ‘He’s always fallen in love too easily.’

‘I don’t think he’s ever been in love actually. I think it’s more that he thinks he is.’

‘Maybe.’

There was a short contemplative silence between them and then Jessica said, ‘Oh, dear – and this body scrub is hopeless. I’ll probably discover it’s scarred me for life. Geordie, my love, what’s to become of us?’

Geordie didn’t bother to answer. Although he was loath to admit it to himself, he felt pretty low.

Still, at least that night he and Jessica were going over for supper at Tommy’s. Tommy had been at school with Geordie and Flin and had then gone to the same university as Flin too. Through them he’d got to know Jessica pretty well – everyone knew everyone, after all. He shared a flat in the Olympia side of Barons Court with an old friend of his called Jim Dawson. Both were hearty, fun-loving, beer-chugging sport fanatics.

As it was a pleasant evening, Geordie and Jessica decided to walk. Taking far less time than they had supposed, they ended up arriving a bit too promptly. Jim had not even arrived back home from work. Undaunted, Geordie took out a four-pack, Tommy poured Jessica some wine and they all sat down in front of the telly, which was murmuring and flashing images in the background. Although Jim and Tommy had made a slight effort to make the place respectable – throws over the sofa, a few plants and framed pictures – the ashtrays, empty tankards and various balls and other sporting accessories clearly indicated theirs was a bachelor pad and nothing more. Even the plants, that most elementary indicator of domesticity, were insipid little fronds, while pride of place above the fireplace was a print of the fifteenth hole at the Belfry. Dominating one corner of the sitting room was a complex music system and a massive television, with CDs and videos scattered haphazardly below. Long-dried shirts, socks and boxer shorts crammed the radiators.

It was quite apparent that Tommy hadn’t even started preparing supper, and the arrival of his friends seemed to delay this further. He happily chatted away to them – how was work? What had they been up to? Where was Flin at the moment? He blew a multitude of smoke-rings from underneath the acutely curved peak of his Oakland Athletics baseball cap. Apparently Jim’s new girlfriend – Katie Symons – was coming too.

‘Lovely girl,’ said Tommy, ‘Jim’s got himself a humdinger.’ And then making up the party was a friend of his from work called Molly Duguid. ‘So not a major bash,’ Tommy continued, ‘but it means we can all put in some serious chit-chat.’ Then he got up and announced that he really should be applying his culinary talents and sorting out supper. Geordie’s ears had twitched at the mention of Molly and he couldn’t help wondering – as he did with any new girl he might meet – whether she was a) pretty, and b) single. Coming on her own was an encouraging sign, though.

No sooner had Tommy disappeared into the kitchen than Jim turned up. Looking slightly flustered, he went straight for the kitchen and the fridge and only then came in to say hello to Geordie and Jessica.

‘Jessica, hi! You look gorgeous as ever.’ He took hold of her shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks and then turned to Geordie. ‘Good to see you,’ he grinned, shaking his hand unbelievably firmly, ‘how are you, mate?’

Slumping himself down on the sofa and pulling on the top of his can of beer, Jim asked them their news, and then ambled off to get changed. Both he and Tommy were just beginning to forge successful careers, albeit in different fields: Tommy worked for a pharmaceutical company as a brand manager, while Jim worked for a City bank. Geordie had always known Tommy would do well – he had the gift of the gab and bucketloads of self-assurance, ingredients that counted for a great deal. Both he and Jim were now earning pretty impressive salaries, even if the decor of the flat suggested otherwise; greater evidence of their material wealth could be found on the street below, where gleaming under the orange neon were Tommy’s Beamer and Jim’s MX5.

It was strange how quickly their lifestyles had changed, Geordie thought to himself. Only a few years ago, they had all looked so unkempt and slept and drank far more than they ever worked. Now pin-striped suits and cuff-linked shirts were the uniform, not worn-through jeans and ethnic jumpers. At first, he had found this change very disconcerting. When he’d set off to travel the world, no one had a proper job and they’d all still been students in attitude and circumstance, larking about with no responsibilities worth talking about. He’d been back in between, but only ever for Christmas when everyone else was on holiday and partying; so, on the surface, nothing much had seemed to have changed. But it had, irrevocably. The carefree days of early adulthood had gone for ever. Maybe that was why he had travelled so much: to perpetuate his youth, to delay growing up. All the same, it was a shock to discover that his friends no longer wanted to play every night.

Two years of travelling, however, had done little to clarify his career options, and he certainly had no better idea of how to achieve his entrepreneurial goal. But he’d vowed to himself that he would never sit another exam in his life, and determined never to join one of the professions like so many of his friends. He remembered having a huge argument with Eddie Fussle, who had been taken on by Freshfields. Geordie had told him that he’d only chosen law because it was expected of him: Eddie’s background, class, his parents’ expectations, guilt – all these factors ensured that he was bound to follow the safe path. Eddie had argued back that although perhaps that might in some ways be true, he knew he would always be comfortably off and able to work anywhere in the country, and that as far as he was concerned, Geordie was just a ‘waster’ and that he, Eddie, would have the last laugh. Whilst travelling, Geordie had often thought of such friends (as he settled down on the beach or contemplated skiing down another mountain), working harder than they ever had in their lives and probably ever would again. In the prime of their lives, in their early twenties, they were working flat-out. Such a shame; such a waste. All the same he’d felt left behind when he first came back. Most of his friends had done their hard graft at the bottom of the rung and were established in their various careers. Perhaps Eddie had been right. He’d been keenly aware he had a lot of catching up to do.

Initially, Geordie had sold advertising space. He quickly discovered he had a natural talent for selling things, but none the less hated it, loathing the tedium of being glued to a phone all day and repeating the same old patter over and over. But relief was at hand – within three months he was approached by a computer software company called FDU and offered a job selling computer monitors and managing various key accounts. Maybe not the greatest work in the world, and nothing he’d ever planned to do, but he got a company car and did a fair amount of travelling around the country seeing clients. In fact, he could often be out of London for the best part of the week clocking up enormous mileage and Argos Premier Points. It was an aspect of the job he quite liked, for he was always slightly relieved to escape London.

It was just before half past eight when Molly turned up. Jessica had gone to talk to Tommy in the kitchen and Jim was still changing, so Geordie went to open the door. As soon as he saw her, he felt a spontaneous attraction to her. It was her eyes, so perfectly light and shining and staring up at him, that caught him off guard, and although this took only a fraction of a second to register, it was she who spoke first.

‘Am I at the right place? Only you don’t look much like Tommy or Jim, unless either of them has radically altered.’ She smiled at him again, and Geordie laughed.

‘No, no, this is Tommy and Jim’s flat all right. I’m just their new doorman. Actually, I’m Geordie. Hello.’ He held out his hand, feeling a kiss to be too familiar on a first meeting. She took it, still smiling.

‘I’m Molly. How do you do?’

As he ushered her inside they were hit by the powerful smell of simmering curry. Jim then appeared from his room and took over the hosting.

‘Molly, darling, what can I get you to drink? We’ve got wine, or beer, or another colour wine.’

‘A beer would be great. Where’s Tommy?’

Geordie looked at her with even greater admiration. Quite tall, she wore her dark brown hair in a shoulder-length bob, which accentuated her eyes even more. Geordie thought she was beautiful, not in a classical way, but pretty, humorous and, he noticed appreciatively, she even had quite big breasts and liked beer.

Jessica could see Geordie blatantly staring at Molly as Tommy came out to greet her, and wondered idly whether he might be in luck. She hoped so. Really, it was about time Geordie ended this lean stretch. His moaning about his lack of a girlfriend was beginning to become tiresome. She couldn’t work out precisely where he was going wrong: Geordie was always entertaining, fairly good-looking in a blond, stringy-bean sort of way, and also moneyed: when added together, this made him quite a catch. Perhaps she should help him improve his dress sense and execrable taste in music. In the meantime, though, Jessica was conscious that Tommy was starting to flirt with her quite blatantly and so decided to stop worrying about Geordie and flirt back instead. Not that anything would come of it, she assured herself; it was just a bit of fun. Tommy might be good-looking but he was not her type at all.

Molly was sandwiched between Jim and Geordie. Much to Geordie’s annoyance, Jim was totally monopolizing the conversation and she was responding by laughing at everything he was saying. Jim was gallantly serving her rice, filling up her glass and leaning in towards her as he regaled some other uproarious incident in his life.

Eventually, he pushed back his chair and disappeared out of the room, and Geordie quickly turned to Molly, a bottle in his hand. ‘Wine?’ he asked her.

‘No thanks, Geordie, I think Jim is fetching me another beer.’

Smiling at her, he just said, ‘Ah,’ and slightly anxiously pushed his round metal-framed glasses back up his nose. By God he fancied her! ‘I know you work with Tommy, but it would be very useful if you could tell me anything else I should know about you in, let’s say, sixty seconds.’

She laughed. ‘OK, you say “go” when I should start.’

Geordie primed his watch and then said, ‘Go!’

‘Born in India 1972, father worked for tea company, don’t remember much about it but vaguely aware that it was always hot, sent to school here when seven, hated it to start with but gradually came to terms with being ordered about by oppressive lesbian teachers. Um, parents had by this stage moved to Sri Lanka, in fact only came back to England about five years ago when Father retired, he’s quite a bit older you see and I have two brothers who are now both married and in their thirties, and whom I adore, so I must have been an afterthought or a mistake. Went to boys’ school for sixth form, which I loved – all the attention was great, and I think I had about five boyfriends there. Um, um, what next? Oh, yes, read History at university, totally useless degree but great fun for three years – lots of drinking and parties, and then travelled for a year and a half to delay the inevitable. Went back to India and the Far East and then worked in Australia for a while. Now I live in Highbury in a flat with Lizzie, who was at university with me. I like food, drink, the countryside and old films and I dislike working, the London underground and having to queue or wait for anything. There, how did I do?’

‘Bang on sixty seconds. Very impressive.’ Her résumé had delighted him and he wondered whether, on that evidence alone, he could ever find a more perfect match. Jim had come back armed with cans of Stella, but his moment had passed and Molly’s attention was firmly taken up by Geordie.

‘Now it’s your turn. Give me your watch so I can keep time.’

Geordie spewed forth. He was careful to mention anything that might appear alluring: that he was brought up in a village near Salisbury, that his house had a swimming pool and tennis court, that he had travelled extensively and that he hated London, and also hugely disliked ‘good cause’ ribbons. From then on it was plain sailing. They had so much to talk about – travelling exploits, working abroad, her childhood in the sub-continent, weekends in the country – jabber, jabber, jabber. They were in their own little compartment for the rest of the evening, to which no one else had right of entry. His attention totally held by this vision before him, what did Geordie care for Tommy’s flirting with Jessica, or the discussion about computer technology being debated by the other four?

Jessica made the first move to order a cab. Although she had always liked Tommy, she did not want him to get the wrong idea. But on the other hand, he was pretty handsome and had been really quite entertaining … whatever, it was time to go and she would just have to see how matters progressed. The ordering of cabs stopped all other conversation and Molly goshed, grabbed Geordie’s wrist to look at the time and said she really ought to be getting back to Highbury.

‘I’ve really enjoyed talking to you tonight,’ Molly told Geordie, giving him a peck on the cheek goodbye. ‘We must do it again sometime.’

‘When?’ replied Geordie, a little too quickly.

‘Give me a ring.’ She flashed him a smile and then said her thanks and farewells to Tommy and Jim and was gone.

In the cab back to Turneville Road, Geordie sighed contentedly. ‘Jessica, I’m in love. I’m definitely in love.’

‘Darling, I’m thrilled you’re taking our pact so seriously. But it’s a bit sudden, isn’t it? I mean, I could tell, we could all tell, that you were keen on her, but you’ve only known her for a few hours. She might have a dangerous psychopathic side.’

‘I’ve seen enough to know. I have to go out with her, I just have to, she is my perfect dream girl. And she said I could call her.’

‘OK, darling, you do that. But hold back on the declarations of love. A girl doesn’t like to be rushed.’

That night, Jessica fell asleep almost instantly, but in the adjoining room, Geordie lay awake for hours, thinking of Molly and hoping for a miracle.

chapter five La Vita è Bella Part Two

Neither Jessica nor Geordie heard anything more from Flin until the following Sunday night. For Jessica, Sunday nights were sacrosanct and she always did her level best to make sure that nothing came between her and the television. She did not want to talk to anyone, go to a party, watch a film at the cinema or any other extramural activity; she just wanted to eat supper on her lap (preferably something that was easy to cook with minimum fuss from Marks & Spencer), watch telly and then go to bed, safe in the knowledge that she had passed a relaxing and undemanding evening in readiness for the week ahead. She had a television in her room, but it was good to be able to relax in front of the twenty-four-inch model Geordie had hired from Radio Rentals without his snide comments on her viewing choice.

When the phone started ringing, Heartbeat had only just begun with a group of teddy boys from Whitby arriving in Aidensfield to cause trouble at the annual fair. Generally speaking, Jessica tended to screen any phone calls whatever the time of day. If Flin or Geordie were there, they would pick up the phone but in their absence she just waited for the answer machine to click into action. There were several reasons for this, all perfectly valid from Jessica’s point of view: firstly her mother had an annoying habit of phoning her at least once a day. ‘Ah, Jessica, chérie, how are you, my darling?’ she would start in her heavy French accent, and then barrage her with inquiries about what she was up to, how her day had gone, where was she going that night, who was seeing whom – questions, questions, questions. Jessica found it exhausting. Much easier not to pick up the phone and then she never had to feel awful about being rude to her mother and hurting her feelings. The second reason was that people like Rob would phone, or some other man she was trying to avoid, and she hated having to deal with awkward confrontational conversations, particularly during free evenings. Thirdly, quite often she couldn’t be bothered to talk to anyone. If she were stuck on a desert island she supposed she might eventually bore herself, but on the whole she enjoyed her own company and was perfectly happy doing her own thing – reading books and magazines, watching telly and videos. So when the phone rang, she ignored it and carried on watching Heartbeat, where PC Mike Bradley had just arrived on the scene.

The answer machine switched on. ‘Jessica, I know you’re there. Please be there. It’s me. Pick up the phone.’ Sigh. Pause. ‘Jessica, pick up the bloody phone, please. Jes—’

‘Flin, do you realize what time it is? Heartbeat has just started,’ she barked into the receiver. ‘Stop being so selfish.’

‘Listen, Jessica, darling, I’m really sorry, but I need a huge favour.’

‘If you think I’m coming to pick you up from Heathrow, think again.’ What was he on?

‘Look, please, Jessica, I really need you to.’ He always said her name a lot when he wanted something. ‘I had my card swallowed in Florence, I’ve used all my traveller’s cheques and I have no other way of getting home. You know I wouldn’t ask you if there was an alternative. Please.’ Flin continued through her silence: ‘Can’t you record Heartbeat and come back in half an hour and pretend I never interrupted your Sunday night at all? Please. I’ll make it up to you.’ Having finished yelling down the phone at the open-air kiosk at Terminal One, Flin waited for her verdict.

‘How?’

‘How what?’

‘How will you make it up to me?’

‘I don’t know. But I will and you’ll be glad you came and picked me up, I promise. What about a subscription to Jackie or something?’

‘Hm,’ she said. She knew she would have to fetch him. ‘Oh, all right – but this is the last time.’

‘Thanks, Jessica, you are more than gorgeous. I’ll be outside Terminal One. I can’t tell you how good it is to hear a friendly voice once more.’

Jessica put the phone down and scrabbled around for a blank video and then headed off. Flin was so annoying. Typical of him to have had his card swallowed up, and even more typical of him to bank on either her or Geordie to come to his rescue. But what did he mean by that last bit? she thought to herself as she quickly put on some lipstick and tidied her hair.

Any irritation Jessica may have felt disappeared by the time she saw Flin standing helplessly by the pick-up point; somehow, for all his height, he looked like a lost little boy. Hopeless, but it was good to see him. For his part, Flin was elated to see Jessica. He’d forgotten just how beautiful she was. Elegance personified and a true friend indeed. An hour earlier, with enormous relief, he had said his farewells, and then, while waiting for Jessica, had wandered around happily looking at all the comforting signs of English life. Warmth stole over him as he recalled his life before Poppy.

‘So?’ said Jessica, as soon as they started off again.

‘You don’t want to know. It was awful. A total, unmitigated disaster.’

‘I do, I want to hear the whole saga from start to finish.’

‘Jessica, I just can’t bear to – and please don’t say “I told you so” in a superior way, or I’ll probably go mad.’

‘Well, I did, and I do think that in return for picking you up – on a Sunday night – the very least you can do is tell me what happened.’

Flin acquiesced. ‘It was dreadful, J,’ he told her, having explained about Poppy’s bombshell. ‘You were so right. She was just using me to bolster her confidence, but it was a bloody long way to go to find that out. I felt such an idiot although I completely realize it was as much my fault as hers. Should have known my image of being carefree and in love in Italy was too good to be true.’

‘Not really – just with her,’ Jessica said, hoping to sound sympathetic.

‘The first morning I was there,’ Flin told her, lighting one of her cigarettes, ‘I remember waking up very early and sitting outside on the terrace and thinking, I would do anything to see Jessica and Geordie cheerily walk round the corner. Or any of my friends for that matter – just someone friendly I could talk to. I really wished I had a mobile I could call you on. Geordie would’ve had his internationally linked up and ready to use.’

‘Of course he would,’ Jessica laughed.

‘The real tragedy was that it was such a beautiful place. The air was fantastically fresh and I was sitting there, drinking coffee and watching the early-morning sun beginning to lift the lingering mist from the slopes of vines. A bell even started tolling from the nearby village – I felt as though I was in some sort of advert or Merchant Ivory film.’

‘Sounds heaven.’

‘It should have been. Such a bloody waste.’

‘My poor darling. So what did you do all week? Did you just pretend nothing was amiss?’

‘Exactly. I mean, what else could I do? If I acted sulky and petulant, a) that would have made things worse, and b) it would have looked rude to her parents who quite clearly had no idea that Poppy and I had at any stage been romantically involved.’

‘And what were they like?’

‘Liz and Donald? Really sweet, but Christ, did Liz like sightseeing. She was nice, but completely ran the show all week and we all trooped round museums and monasteries all day long while she gave us the guided tour. She was a bit like Eleanor Lavish from A Room with a View. Great if you’re into history of art, not so brilliant if you’re not.’

Jessica laughed once more.

‘Well, I’m sure I’ll laugh about it one day,’ Flin continued, ‘but there was one time when I very nearly lost it completely. We’d been looking round the church of San Marco and Liz had been giving us another lecture. “Just look at Fra Angelico’s brushwork,”‘ he said, imitating Liz’s precise speech. “‘You can see every sweep of the brush as the paint was carefully applied to this figure’s robes.” That was the sort of stuff she’d come out with. What’s more, I’d been there before with Josh when we went inter-railing and frankly, once you’ve seen one fresco, you’ve seen them all. Well, as you can imagine, by the end of it, I was pretty keen just to get back to the villa. But no, we then had to go round the bloody Duomo, with Liz starting yet another lecture. By the time we finally headed back to the cars, I was feeling decidedly tired and grumpy, but I was also determined not to get in Donald’s car as he was just about the worse driver I’ve ever seen.’

‘Worse than you, darling?’ asked Jessica.

Flin ignored the jibe. ‘Much, much worse. Believe me. Anyway, having engineered my way into Liz’s car, I thought I was safe until Poppy and Alice, Poppy’s sister, started singing rounds.’

‘Rounds?’

‘You know, singing the same tune but at different times.’ Flin shuddered at the thought. He had never felt so awkward in his entire life, and doubted he would ever forget that particular car journey. With a renewed wave of gloom sweeping over him, he recalled his feeble attempts at joining in.

‘Oh, Flin, haven’t you ever sung rounds?’ Poppy asked him. ‘You know, I sing a line, then Mummy sings a line as I’m starting my second, then Alice joins in, then you join in and so on. You can sing, can’t you?’

Yes, Flin thought to himself, but it always made him feel self-conscious, especially when he was the only male amongst three females. Liz started the ball rolling. ‘London’s burning, London’s burning.’

Then Alice sung the same line as Liz moved onto ‘Fetch the engines, fetch the engines.’

At the moment Flin was due to join in, Poppy and Alice, and Liz in the mirror, all nodded at him gleefully. But at that appointed moment, racked with horror and embarrassment, he remained mute.

‘Come on, that’s when you come in,’ Alice said, at this stage still humouring him.

‘I’m not very good at singing.’ Flin knew he sounded lame.

‘Nonsense, anyone can sing this,’ Liz scoffed.

‘Have a go, Flin, it’s good fun, honestly.’

A dark cloud of self-consciousness lowered above his head before enveloping him completely. From its murky depths, he growled out his lines.

‘There, that was easy enough.’ Poppy smiled at him encouragingly.

‘You’d find it a lot more comfortable to sing at the proper pitch, though, Flin.’

‘Mummy, don’t bully him. Flin can sing however he likes. Now what next?’

The next ‘round’ was considerably more complicated and, try as he might, Flin was not able to get to grips with it at all.

‘Look, sorry, I’m spoiling your fun. You three sing without me. Let me just listen to you doing this properly,’ he had told them.

Deciding that Flin was a lost cause and that any further attempts at coercion were useless, they finally ignored him and carried on singing increasingly complicated sequences. Flin chewed his fingers and abstractedly watched the Tuscan landscape drift past his window, conscious that his week from hell was descending into new depths of surreal horror.

‘God, that sounds horrific,’ said Jessica, laughing out loud yet again as Flin recounted the sorry tale. ‘Why on earth didn’t you just do your own thing?’

‘I thought it would seem rude, but after the Day of the Rounds, I decided that I had to make a break for it, whether I offended them all or not.’

‘And did you?’

‘Not in the slightest, which made things even worse. I should have left them to their sightseeing much earlier.’

‘So at what point did you lose your credit card?’

‘The same day – my day of supposed freedom,’ Flin told her.

This had been a further disaster. Liz had decided they should look round the church of Santa Croce in Florence and then spend the afternoon in the Uffizi. Flin had excused himself from both but had gone with them into Florence. After pottering about on his own he made for a café-bar in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria and had got chatting to two girls, fresh out of school and on their years off.

‘That must have been quite fun,’ suggested Jessica.

‘It was really. They were quite impressed by my job and I enjoyed showing off a bit. But they also made me feel a bit maudlin. They were so excited about everything, with all that fun and freedom of college ahead of them. I really wished I was four years younger and sitting at the table with friends, with no responsibilities in the world. Being grown-up and constantly having to worry about work and money is so boring. I really liked idling about and being a student.’

‘Yes, but when we were younger we couldn’t wait to grow up. I remember that very clearly,’ Jessica told him.

‘Yes, I s’pose you’re right.’ Flin was silent for a moment. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘we all got quite drunk, especially one of the girls, who tipped her wine glass all over me. Her friend decided she should take her back to their hotel and I stayed in the bar for a couple more drinks. I had wine all over my crotch and I didn’t want to get up until it was dry.’

By that stage he felt quite drunk himself, but sleepy as well – the sun had been beating down all day – and so went for a nap under a tree. He was only supposed to sleep for an hour or so, but when he awoke realized that it was evening and that he’d missed his rendezvous with the others by several hours. Of course, he’d rushed off to the meeting place but there was no sign of them or the cars anywhere. What was he to do?

‘What did you do?’ asked Jessica.

‘I panicked,’ Flin confessed.

It was true, he had. He remembered that moment particularly clearly. His head was pounding furiously from the combination of hangover and exercise. It all seemed a bit bleak. He didn’t have the telephone number of where he was staying – it had never occurred to him that once in Italy, he would need it. Nor could he quite remember the address, but was confident that he could find it – probably. Near Greve somewhere; Montefiore, or something like that. He would go to a cashpoint, take out some money and find a taxi to take him there, with a driver who hopefully spoke some English. It would cost him a fortune, but he could see no alternative. Wondering whether the others would have tried to look for him, or gone to the police, he tried to think what he would have done if he were them. He hadn’t been able to think.

Finding a cashpoint easily enough, he put in his card and opted for ‘inglese’, but then realized with absolute horror that he could not quite remember his pin number. This was a new card he’d only had for a couple of weeks. He felt sure it was 4432, or 4423, or was it 2243? He tentatively tapped in 4432, but it was rejected, as was 4423. No, it was definitely not 2243. Holding his hands up to the sky, he circled round for a moment and then stood staring at the cash dispenser. This was too much. How could he have been so stupid? If Italian cashpoints were anything like British ones, it meant he had one chance left. What the fuck was the stupid number? There were definitely a couple of fours in it, and he was pretty sure there was a three and a two, or was it a three and a seven? He pressed 4473. And his card was retained.

‘So then what?’ Jessica asked him. By now they were approaching Hammersmith.

‘I had to take a taxi ride and hope that I’d firstly be able to find the place and secondly the others would have enough cash to pay the driver.’

It was an experience he hoped he would never have to repeat. The taxi driver had clearly been confused by his nonsensical attempts at Italian. Flin eventually worked out where he needed to go by doing a lot of pointing and saying ‘scusi’ at regular intervals. First he directed his finger towards a dog-eared map in the taxi, and then pointed to where he knew the village was.

‘Ah, Montefioralle!’ the driver exclaimed with almost as much relief as Flin. By the time they reached the village it was dark and Flin realized that they were lost again. Eventually though, exhausted, thoroughly fed-up and nursing a splitting headache, he found the correct track down to the villa and made it back.

‘Flin, that sounds just about the most horrific thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, what did they all say?’

‘They weren’t very amused. Especially as I’d racked up about fifty quid with the taxi driver. “Where on earth have you been? We’ve been worried sick,” and all glaring at me accusingly. It was awful. And Poppy had a complete fit, at which point so did I.’

‘What did you do?’ Jessica was incredulous.

‘I told her I was really ill, had sunstroke and had lost my card and that her yelling at me was the final straw. She swallowed it actually, and was really quite attentive for the remaining days. Still, if I never see her ever again, I can’t say I’ll be sorry.’

‘You poor love. I don’t know what to say,’ Jessica told him as she pulled into Turneville Road.

‘At least we’re all in the same boat again. Unless, of course, there’s something you haven’t told me.’

‘Well, something has happened, actually,’ admitted Jessica.

‘Oh, no, what?’ Flin responded, unable to check himself.

‘Geordie.’

‘Geordie? No! What?’

‘He thinks he’s in love. Although nothing’s happened yet,’ Jessica added hastily. Then she told him all about their night at Tommy’s and how Molly had asked Geordie to call her.

‘Oh, great,’ sighed Flin. ‘So now not only will I have to put up with a love-sick housemate, but Geordie’s also ahead in the competition. Don’t tell me you’ve found someone too.’

‘Don’t be so mean-spirited. Anyway, I don’t think I have, but Tommy was definitely acting keen.’

‘Tommy? Not your type, surely.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Jessica gave him a capricious smile.

‘Oh, just brilliant. And I thought I was glad to be home.’ Flin sighed once again and slowly stomped upstairs with his bags.

Sitting forlornly on his bed, Flin looked at his belongings. A few clip-framed posters and a couple of shelves of books, CDs, records he never played any more and a few other bits of bric-à-brac. And his tired-looking old Aiwa music deck. As far as his worldly goods went, that was about it. Twenty-five, he reflected sadly, and his most valued things were his cherished collection of Beatles vinyl originals and CDs. He had no trust fund like Geordie, no savings and brilliant pay package like Jessica and virtually all his other friends. Just a large overdraft not far from its limit once again after an extravagant and utterly miserable holiday.

Part of him was glad to be back, especially with the fun of living in the new house, but a larger portion still felt incredibly low that it was over with Poppy. He hated being single and the thought of having to start all over again depressed him. Three years down the line from graduating and he felt he’d hardly progressed. Eddie Fussle was getting married in three and a bit weeks’ time. Perhaps that was the answer. Maybe they would be post-student workers one minute and then suddenly emerge from the chrysalis as fully fledged marrieds. Mind-boggling. It had never occurred to him that people of his age were even remotely ready to undertake something quite so … well, he supposed ‘grown-up’ was the only phrase.

Buying a house was probably the next big step. If he had his own house he would feel considerably more inclined to treat it with respect, but this seemed another impossibly futuristic scenario. How on earth was he ever going to be in a position to afford a house, let alone furniture to go in it? He thought about all the thousands of houses in London. How could anyone afford them? Even a tiny flat seemed ridiculously expensive, and despite his near-constant penury, he was aware he earned more than most Londoners. Life could be so demoralizing. Still, he should be glad for Geordie. Jessica was never going to have a problem finding a boyfriend, but Geordie – well, he had to admit his friend deserved a break, and if Molly did materialize into something good, then, competition or no, he should be glad for him.

Having unpacked, Flin was back downstairs being told by Jessica to stop feeling sorry for himself when Geordie walked in.

‘Flin, you’re back! How was it with the luscious Poppy?’

Jessica glanced at Flin to await his response.

Flin sighed. ‘Not quite what it was cracked up to be, actually.’

‘No?’ Geordie grinned. ‘The parents interrupting your nights of hot sex?’

‘Something like that,’ Flin replied, shifting on the sofa.

‘You’re going to have to tell him, darling,’ put in Jessica.

Geordie was looking expectant. ‘Tell me what?’

‘Oh, nothing. Look, do you fancy catching last orders?’ Flin asked him. Of course, Flin was going to have to tell Geordie about it, but he wanted it to be a highly edited version, out of earshot of Jessica. His car-ride confessional had been cathartic, but then again Jessica was a good listener. Admitting all to Geordie would take him down to a new level of humiliation – Geordie may be his best friend, but there were some things that simply could not be discussed with blokes.

Over a pint in a quiet corner of the pub Flin explained how he and Poppy had had a bit of an argument and things had gone badly wrong from then on. He did tell the story of the taxi-ride, but skirted over the other details of the holiday.

‘What a nightmare,’ Geordie said, recognizing that tact and sympathy were required at the present. Making him suffer could be saved for later.

‘Yeah,’ said Flin sullenly.

‘I mean, I really thought you had it sewn up.’

‘Hm,’ nodded Flin

‘To be honest, I was jealous as hell! She was absolutely gorgeous! I had all these images of you shagging under the olive trees or vines or whatever. I bet she looked even better with a deep tan.’

Flin winced. ‘Geordie, can you please stop going on about how gorgeous she must have been? It’s very painful for me.’

‘I’m commiserating,’ said Geordie.

‘Well let’s just change the subject,’ said Flin.

‘Sure,’ said Geordie, then added, ‘but I must admit I wouldn’t have wanted to be in your shoes. It does sound really embarrassing.’

‘It was.’

They both sat in silence for a moment, looking at the brown, flat liquid in front of them.

‘Anyway, on a brighter note, I think I’m about to fall in love.’

‘Yeah, Jessica said. That’s great.’ Flin looked up wearily from his beer. ‘Well done.’

‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me about it?’

‘OK, sorry.’ Flin took one of Geordie’s cigarettes. ‘Go on then, let’s hear it.’

As Flin got into bed that night he decided he would just have to try and put the Poppy débâcle behind him. It was no good being permanently maudlin. And he may suddenly be behind with the romantic part of the competition, but there was still a long time to go and there was always work. Bruklin Sale was coming over – the talk of Sundance – and he knew that this presented a golden opportunity to make a big impression. He had the opportunity to help establish this bright, new and exciting director/star in the UK; and well aware that Bruklin was unspoilt by years riding the publicity bandwagon, Flin knew he would have more influence over what this new star would do to promote than the vast majority of campaigns he worked on. Internal promotion was difficult in his line of work; the way forward was to put together campaigns that people in the business noticed. Get noticed, and get headhunted. It was as simple as that.

chapter six Ponderings on Love

While Flin was lying in his bed and giving himself a talking to, Geordie was trying to relax in his nightly bath. This had become an important part of his day for several reasons. Firstly, he never slept well if he missed out on this ritual: he hated feeling soiled and grimy and especially loathed having to get under his duvet with dirty feet (if he ever had to forgo his bath, he at least made sure his feet were clean). Secondly, he loved lying in warm soothing water and reading. It enabled him to relax after the rigours of the day and he kept a stash of Tintins, Asterix and rugby magazines for this purpose. Recently he’d adopted the additional habit of taking a cup of tea in with him – Earl Grey with one lump of sugar and just a dash of milk was how he liked it. He’d discovered drinking caffeine never kept him awake; if anything it merely aided relaxation and so quickened sleep.

Surrounded by mountains of bubbles and sipping tea from a new mug bought for the new house, Geordie was trying to read King Ottakar’s Sceptre, but found his mind wandering. He could not stop thinking about Molly. Jessica had told him to wait a few days before phoning and now he knew the moment was approaching. God, he so hoped it would all work out. The very thought of lifting the receiver and dialling filled him with nerves. He couldn’t remember ever having felt like this before. No girl in the past had ever caused him such a sense of nervous anticipation. He thought about his past girlfriends. How he’d left Nadia in Argentina then tried to see Nell again once he’d come back from his travels. By that stage, she’d long got over him and was going out with a lawyer with red hair. Then he suddenly remembered his first girlfriend and smiled to himself at the thought. Geordie supposed he must have been about fifteen, just before O levels, and he and Flin had just started smoking and trying to look cool. The two of them had gone to a local girls’ school social and had ended up snogging two girls called Vicky and Clarissa. He’d followed Vicky around all evening and in retrospect it was clear she’d been keen for him to make a move. But he had never snogged anyone before and his intense fear of rejection had made him hold back until, clearly despairing of ever making her conquest, she’d grabbed his collar and shoved her tongue in his mouth. He could remember it all so clearly. Flin, much to Geordie’s irritation, had snogged several times before then, and had wrapped up the deal with Clarissa early on in the evening. At the end of the party they compared notes and Geordie had felt ecstatic, not so much because of the sexual pleasure, but more due to relief that he had crossed this teenage hurdle.

He’d gone out with Vicky for about three weeks. At one point, Flin and he had taken the girls to the fair and had swaggered about in trenchcoats bought from the flea market, smoking Marlboro reds. Whizzing around in the Waltzer he’d tried to remain unfazed, despite feeling nauseous, while the girls screamed and laughed, their hair across their faces and getting caught in their wide-open mouths. Between the strutting and prancing, though, there’d not been much sexual activity: a grope of a breast and more snogging, but definitely no activity below the waistline. Not that surprising really – there simply wasn’t a lot of opportunity for clandestine meetings and one day he’d received a letter from Vicky, in handwriting considerably more mature than his, announcing that they were drifting apart and therefore she wanted to finish it. Geordie had never realized they’d been that close. Flin had a similar letter from Clarissa on the same day.

Thereafter the main opportunity for meeting girls had been at parties held during school holidays at the racecourse in Salisbury. Such functions provided three clear aims for Geordie, Flin and their mates: get very drunk, ask the DJ for obscure and thus very cool tracks, and pull a girl. It was on one of these occasions that Flin beat him to the next great hurdle of life. Up until then neither of them had talked about it. They discussed sex and girls all the time, but since neither of them had actually slept with anyone at that stage, they always skirted over the precise details of any sexual conquests. That night, however, while waiting for Flin’s father to come and pick them up, Flin had been cock-a-hoop.

‘What a great fucking party that was,’ he said ecstatically and then turned to Geordie and added with great deliberation: ‘literally.’ Geordie clearly remembered Flin’s smug expression.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, I, er, got my oats, didn’t I?’

‘No way!’

‘Way, man, you better believe it. I shagged Sophie Stewart by the edge of the grandstand.’ Geordie had felt intensely jealous, infuriated that his friend had one up on him. From then on it had seemed of paramount importance that he lose his own virginity as quickly as possible.

He went back to reading his Tintin wistfully. Those days had been fun. No careers to worry about and the future seemed all mapped out. How times had changed. Now he was developing lines on his face. And when he’d last had his hair cut, he’d discovered some grey amongst the otherwise blond locks. And what was even worse, he had a sneaking suspicion his hair was thinning a little. His golden youth was fading.

The following evening, he announced to Flin and Jessica that the time had come to phone Molly.

‘Do you want us to make ourselves scarce? I’d hate to put you off,’ offered Jessica helpfully.

Geordie thanked her – he could feel his heart beating loudly enough without having the other two there to distract and make him feel even more nervous.

‘Do you think we should listen in?’ Flin suggested to Jessica in the hall.

‘Don’t be so rotten, Flin. Come on, leave him to it.’

They pressed their ears to the door.

It was so embarrassing making the first call. Geordie knew that she knew that he fancied her, otherwise he wouldn’t be calling. But at the same time, they both had to pretend that this was not so obviously the case. With a deep breath he rang the number. Come on, come on, he thought impatiently as the phone began to ring with no response. After about ten rings, there was an answer.

‘Hi! Molly?’ Geordie said, quick as a shot.

‘No, sorry, this is Lizzie. Molly’s not here.’

‘Oh, um, sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ Smart-arse, thought Geordie, sending a false laugh down the line.

‘Well, could I leave a message for her please?’

‘Sure – just let me find a pen.’ Geordie could hear the receiver being put down and some rattling about from the other end. ‘Fire away.’

‘Could you ask her to call Geordie.’

‘Oh yes, Geordie. Sure thing. She met you the other night, didn’t she? I was wondering when you’d call.’

Geordie had absolutely no idea how to respond to such brazen upfrontness. ‘Were you? Well, if you could ask her to call me that would be great. I’m in all night. Thanks a lot.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘Am I?’ Geordie really was too taken aback.

‘Your number.’

He told her and said goodbye and then slowly stomped through to the kitchen.

‘Well?’ asked Flin, in an innocent tone.

Geordie relayed his conversation with Lizzie. He thought it a good sign that Molly had obviously mentioned him to her, and felt encouraged.

‘That’s fantastic. She’s clearly been waiting for you to call. She must be keen, darling, take it from me,’ Jessica assured him.

‘Are you sure? That’s good, is it?’

‘Definitely.’

An hour later they were all eating their way through a ready-to-cook Thai montage meal when the phone rang.

‘That’ll be it, old sport,’ said Flin, patting Geordie on the back. It was. Geordie’s mind raced. He felt quite heady with excitement.

‘Hello, Geordie. It’s Molly. Sorry I wasn’t in when you called earlier.’

‘It doesn’t matter at all. Thanks for phoning back. How are you?’

‘Fine, thank you. How are you?’

‘Good, thanks, great. Molly?’

‘Geordie.’

‘I was wondering whether you might be around on Saturday afternoon.’

‘No, I’m not. No, hang on a minute, that’s Sunday. Yes, I am.’

‘I thought it might be fun to do something.’

‘OK, sure.’

So far, so good.

Geordie gingerly suggested that they meet in Richmond – he had thought it might be romantic to walk along the river, have lunch and maybe stop in at Ham House. Much to his delight, Molly agreed and arranged to meet him at Richmond station at midday.

After ringing off, Geordie clenched his fist in triumph. ‘Yes, you little beauty!’ he shouted. She must be keen. Well, quite keen. She must be, she must be. It was only Monday. Five days to contain his excitement. He prayed it would be sunny.

His Thai was almost cold and both Flin and Jessica had finished theirs.

‘Just what I need,’ said Flin ruefully, ‘a delirious loved-up housemate.’

‘This is very thrilling,’ announced Jessica, then thought of her own situation. Despite her vows, she’d enjoyed Tommy’s attentions. Perhaps she would go to the cricket match on Saturday and see him then. She could ask Lucie to come with her and then she’d have someone to talk to while the boys were fielding. Cricket matches could be quite fun if it was a warm and sunny day and there were plenty of people she knew. Add a bottle of wine or two and it made for quite a relaxing day out. She felt rather pleased with her plan, and smiled to herself at the prospect.

chapter seven Money – Or the Lack of It

Despite the enormity of the events that had occurred to him since he’d last been in the office, Flin had arrived back at work to discover nothing much had changed; he felt as though he’d never been away. Thanks to Tiffany, both his e-mail and voicemail had been regularly checked and his in-tray neatly sorted. She was away his first day back, but on her return had made a beeline for his desk and flashed him one of her huge dimpled grins.

‘Hi, you’re back! How was it? I’ve been itching to know.’

‘It was terrible. Worse than terrible,’ he confessed, the humiliation returning once again.

‘No way – why?’ She was sitting on the edge of his desk, her out-sized shirtsleeves reaching her knuckles, and thick rubber-soled pumps dangling from the end of her legs.

‘I don’t know if I can tell you. I’m too embarrassed.’ He was too, but somehow couldn’t help smiling at her look of utter incredulity.

‘Oh, Flin, you have to!’

He acquiesced, giving her the Geordie Heavily Edited Version. ‘So as you can imagine, I’m almost glad to be back at work.’

‘I’m so sorry. What a bitch – honestly.’ She bit her bottom lip for a moment, then added, ‘Well, it’s nice to have you back. It’s been really boring without you.’

Her sincerity was genuine and spontaneous. Flin felt cheered – this was the nicest thing anyone had said to him in a long time. ‘Thank you – and thanks for clearing the deck.’

‘Oh, no problem,’ she said, then trotted off to her own desk.

No one else really probed him too much about his holiday. Martina had said, ‘Wow! You look really brown!’ but didn’t actually ask him whether he’d enjoyed himself or not and by lunchtime his being away was old news and quite forgotten.

He had also phoned his bank to order new cards and made an arrangement to take out thirty pounds from his nearest branch. It was a sum unlikely to last him a week, but Flin hoped it would at least encourage him to try and be a bit frugal. Noticing a day later that two-thirds had already gone, he phoned his bank again to check his balance. He wished he hadn’t – just twenty-six pounds and eleven pence left until he was up to his overdraft limit. This revelation plunged him into renewed gloom. He knew he’d spent a lot of what he’d saved while being at his sister’s on the holiday, but was sure he had at the very least in excess of a hundred pounds. How could he be so far out? It was depressing but, none the less, he was confident he could pull through until pay-day, so long as there was no extra drain on his resources.

‘I’m broke too, if it’s any consolation,’ Tiffany told him later.

‘Really?’ Flin had never really given much thought to anyone else having cash crises. Obviously Tiffany earned less than him, being only an assistant publicist, but he just assumed everyone else was better than him at looking after their money. Hearing Tiffany’s tales of financial strife rather cheered him up, he shamefully realized. A partner in debt, a fellow money-mismanager. He had always felt he was the abnormal one among his group of friends; they all seemed to live their lives with consummate ease on what they either earned or had inherited.

Geordie arrived back shortly after him that evening and quickly brought up the subject of outstanding bills.

‘We’ve got to pay the gas, electricity and phone connection fee, I’m afraid. Here,’ he said, handing Flin the letters. ‘Sorry, but it always costs a bit to get everything set up in a new house.’

‘So how much do I need to pay?’

‘Your share is forty-eight pounds, I think. We really should send it off tomorrow. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.’

Flin felt sick. ‘The problem is, old man, I don’t actually have forty-eight pounds. I’ve got thirty-six quid to last me nine days and ten of that is in cash. Can’t we wait for a final notice before paying these?’ Why did Geordie always have to be so organized about such things, and why did he always have to make him feel so bad about being poverty stricken?

Geordie gave Flin a rueful grin. ‘Look, don’t worry about it. I’ll pay your share and you can pay me back next week when you get paid. But honestly, Flin, you are hopeless. I just don’t understand how you never know the balance of your account.’

‘I thought I did, and I thought it was a lot more,’ he said feebly and added, ‘But thanks – I’ll pay you back next Wednesday.’

‘You should keep a book and note down everything you spend, then you’d always know. Just get into the habit.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’ His friend was right and Flin also knew that it was decent of Geordie to bail him out, but being patronized by his housemate made Flin feel resentful. It must be so wonderful, he thought, to have money like Geordie.

‘Maybe I should change jobs altogether – perhaps that’s the way to get ahead in the competition,’ Flin told him resignedly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous – you love your job.’

‘I know I do on the whole, but I clearly don’t make enough to live on, do I? I’m sick of being perpetually broke and having to suck up to you to help me out.’

‘You’d be mad to chuck it in. Where else are you going to have the opportunity to meet all those film stars and so on? You may not get paid a fortune, but you don’t do too badly considering you’re being paid to watch films and visit sets. Can’t you just put a bit aside once a month or something?’

‘I do always do that, but then dig into it because I run out of the other. It’s all very well for you to preach at me, but you’re one of the main culprits in persuading me to do things.’

‘You can always say “no”.’

‘And watch you and Jessica go off and have fun without me? I’d like to see you try it – honestly, Geordie, you have no idea what it’s like always to be short of cash.’

‘Look, I’m sorry, but I have little sympathy. You have loads of good mates, a fantastically interesting job, you still manage to go on holidays abroad and do nearly all the things you want to do. I know this Poppy thing’s been a blow, but really, you have a pretty good life. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself, that’s all. And it’s not my fault I’m not poor like you.’

Before Flin could respond, Jessica walked in. ‘Hi, darlings, can you give me a hand? I decided to do a shop on my way back from work.’

The taxi outside was loaded with Tesco bags, a crate of beer, washing powder and an enormous bag of potatoes. Flin and Geordie dutifully obliged and took everything straight into the kitchen while Jessica paid the taxi. As they were filling up the fridge, she came in and gave them both a kiss and told them they owed her twenty-six pounds each.

‘You can add it to the tab,’ Geordie told a distraught-looking Flin.

‘Thanks,’ he mumbled quietly. Regardless of what Geordie had just said, he really hated life at the moment. How different things had been a few years before. At school and then university, no one had had a lot of money. They all seemed to be more or less in the same boat. Geordie may have had a trust fund, but they all had to do temping jobs in the holidays and during their years off; and somehow money was never much of an issue. And there were grants, parents and overdrafts to pay the bulk of life’s costs. Now, they were all totally on their own, with no help from anyone. And there was an increasingly obvious divide between those who earned a lot (i.e. all his friends), and those who did not (i.e. him). He was wallowing in self-pity again. It was unlike him to feel down for long, but he really had to try and snap out of it, and fast.

chapter eight A Sunny Afternoon in Richmond (and a Bit in Borehamwood)

Geordie had begun to think his boss had almost forgotten he existed when Burt uncharacteristically gave him the challenge of coming up with a new marketing package. He was to work on it with Mike, another sales manager who’d joined FDU just before him. The two had always got on well and Mike had even played in Geordie’s rugby team on a couple of occasions. He was really the only person at FDU that Geordie saw for the odd beer outside work; Mike was bored too and was one person Geordie could whinge to about Burt and work who truly appreciated his grievances.

‘It’s time you two got your brains into gear,’ their Taiwanese boss told them with typical frankness. ‘You’ve both been cruising along for too long on your soft arses, so you better make it good.’

This had come as something of a shock to Geordie, who had become unaccustomed to applying his brain much at work. After all, he’d hardly had much need: he could sell monitors in his sleep. What was more, Burt had only given them a couple of days to get their plans together. All the same, he and Mike had worked hard and Geordie felt pretty pleased with their efforts. Furthermore, he’d quite enjoyed the whole exercise. His excitement about Molly had, he felt, if anything, given him a sharper edge that week.

Their plan was to link up with a graphics card company. This was something that was put into a PC to improve all the computer graphics and presentation. Geordie’s premise was that if an individual wanted improved graphics it stood to reason that he would want a decent monitor too on which to use his improved presentation. Therefore he proposed to strike a deal with a graphics card company whereby FDU placed a voucher worth a small discount off any FDU monitor. This would give the graphics card company a competitive edge over other graphic card companies. He and Mike had worked out the finer points of how to implement this dazzling piece of marketing initiative and enthusiastically presented their plans to Burt.

‘I am thinking this,’ he said to them deliberately, ‘it is like a flower in a piece of shit: you made it look very pretty and attractive, but underneath it, it is full of crap.’

‘OK, fine,’ said Mike, after a short pause, ‘how about this: we create a link-save with a graphics card company whereby a buyer gets twenty-five per cent off both products when he or she buys them together.’

‘Different flower, same piece of shit,’ Burt said flatly. ‘A whole lot of trouble for very small feedback. You come up with an idea that is simple to set up and makes us big money on big order, and then I might be interested. This idea of yours will never make us much money as we are only talking about individual sales. But keep trying. I want you two to keep thinking of a plan.’

‘Well that was a bit of a waste of time,’ Geordie grumbled to Mike after they left Burt’s office.

‘Yeah, it was a bit demoralizing,’ Mike added, ‘but he’s right, you know.’

It was a comment Geordie had not expected from Mike, but it came like a sharp slap round the face. Mike was right: Burt was right. Geordie thought quickly. ‘I can see that now,’ he said after a pause. ‘Well, we’ll just have to come up with something really good instead and dazzle him with our sensational business acumen.’ They chuckled, but Geordie realized he’d meant it; thinking up cunning marketing strategies was certainly more fun than not really having to think at all. And although he had little time for Burt as a man-manager, he greatly respected what he’d achieved. Burt was an entrepreneur, and had set up FDU from nothing, zipping between Taiwan and the UK. Although it was still a comparatively small company with only two dozen full-time employees in the Borehamwood office, it had a high annual turnover and Geordie reckoned Burt must be taking home at least a six-figure salary. What Burt had told him in so swiftly stamping on his idea was that it was no good wasting valuable time on small fry. You had to make the maximum use of time and expenditure and think big. If Geordie was ever going to make it alone, these were the sort of tenets he was going to need to follow.

Driving back home that night, Geordie realized he’d let complacency set in. He was a good salesman, but had been doing the job with his eyes shut. It was an attitude that would hinder his entrepreneurial dreams. He hadn’t been challenging himself and it was no wonder he was bored. Bored and becoming boring. Hardly surprising he couldn’t find a girlfriend. But now Burt had laid down the gauntlet: the challenge was there for the taking. He hadn’t understood until it was spelt out for him that what Burt wanted was people with initiative and drive, two things that had been painfully lacking from his life in recent months. His boss had been ignoring him because he hadn’t earned any attention. Successfully selling monitors was not enough.

It also became clear to him that the same principles applied to his quest for Molly’s heart and that his time of reckoning was painfully close. It was Friday evening, the weekend had arrived once more. Geordie felt convinced that the next twenty-four hours had the potential to be one of the most important days in his life. He knew quite a few people would be going to the pub that evening, but was determined not to waste away an evening with idle debauchery. Jessica was going for dinner with Lucie, but he had persuaded Flin to stay in with him, reminding him that going out would only mean spending money he did not have.

‘Well played,’ Flin told him when he saw the pie, ice-cream and cans of beer Geordie had brought back with him. ‘I’ll go out and buy some more cigarettes while you fix up the fodder.’

‘Look, I feel a bit guilty staying in on a summer’s evening, don’t you?’ Geordie confessed.

‘A couple of quick ones in the Rutland might not be a bad idea,’ suggested Flin.

‘Not a bad idea at all,’ agreed Geordie quickly, ‘although I’d sort of meant to stay in and prepare myself psychologically.’

‘Don’t be so pathetic. Honestly, Geordie, we’ll only have a couple of pints and anyway, it’ll relax you.’

‘Oh, all right,’ agreed Geordie. He’d always found it hard to say no to the lure of the pub.

‘So tomorrow’s the big date,’ said Flin, as Geordie put two pints onto the wall outside the pub.

‘Feeling a bit nervous about it, to tell the truth,’ Geordie confessed. ‘Honestly, old man, I took to her that night like I’ve never taken to anyone before.’

‘You’re making me very jealous. You’re about to embark on the love of your life, while I’ve just finished with mine. One of life’s strange little ironies, I suppose.’

‘Look, I’ve only met her once. She might find me totally repellent by the end of tomorrow. And anyway, Poppy wasn’t the love of your life, so don’t be so melodramatic. Furthermore it would never have lasted.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It just wouldn’t.’

‘So are you suggesting that if a relationship isn’t going to last it’s not really worth getting excited about?’

‘Suppose I am. I mean, what’s the point at our age? I, for one, do not want to be spending my entire life going out with people for a month or two and then moving on to someone else. I think the idea of long-lasting companionship is quite appealing. It’s different when you’re younger anyway – you’re surrounded by an enormous choice of women all after pretty much the same thing, so it’s a hell of a lot easier to chop and change. Nowadays, it’s a damn sight harder to meet new people, and, more specifically, new and single people. I don’t want to have to embark, again and again on an increasingly difficult quest for girlfriends. Anyway, I thought we agreed this in our pact.’

‘I didn’t realize a proper girlfriend meant girlfriend for life. You’re only saying all this because you’re so loved up. We don’t all have to follow Eddie Fussle’s example, you know.’

‘I never mentioned marriage, Flin. You say I’m loved up, but you’re just bitter.’

Talking of which, Geordie and Flin managed four apiece before they finally made it back to the house. They still hadn’t eaten and so were beginning to feel quite drunk. Geordie’s choice of stodge helped soak up the alcohol, but they also drank the tins of beer bought earlier. At the end of the video they felt pissed enough to put on Flin’s copy of Withnail and I for yet another viewing and sat sipping glasses of whisky, anticipating out loud their favourite lines.