Copyright

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2017

This ebook edition 2017

Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2017

Cover design © Emma Rogers 2017

Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008157029

Ebook Edition © Feburary 2016 ISBN: 9780008157036

Version 2018-05-10

Dedication

For Maggie Dun

My first ever (and best ever) boss xxx

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the same author:

About the Publisher

Prologue
The Summer of 1986

‘It’ll be good for you,’ Mum announced. ‘You’ll improve your French; see a whole different side of life. You don’t want to be stuck in boring old Yorkshire all summer, do you?’

She was applying her make-up at her dressing table mirror: two coats of spidery black mascara, frosted peach lips and a flash of apricot blusher across each cheek. She closed her small, tight mouth and swivelled round on the stool to face me. ‘You might even meet a nice French boy. Oh, I hope so, Lorrie! Just think – your first boyfriend. That’s what’s meant to happen on a French exchange!’ She turned back to her mirror, brushing on bronzer until her face took on a shimmery metallic hue.

At sixteen years old, I knew that people only said it’ll be good for you when it was something you didn’t want to do. And this was a prime example.

I didn’t want a French boyfriend. I had never been out with anyone in Yorkshire – no one had even shown any interest in kissing me – and I doubted that my arrival in a foreign country would suddenly heighten my allure. I didn’t even want to go to France, especially not to a stranger’s house. My French was pretty limited. I was fairly confident I could buy a cauliflower or report the presence of cockroaches in my hotel room but as for living in a French family’s flat for an entire month? I was fully prepared for no one to understand a single word I said. Although I had tried to convince Mum that I’d learn just as much by studying my textbooks at home, she wouldn’t listen. Once she had made up her mind, that was that; firm arrangements were made, my terrible passport picture taken in a photo booth with my hair scraped back so I looked like a potato, and travel tickets booked. Clearly, there was no point in arguing.

There were many other reasons why the thought of going to France scared me:

• I was to fly there, despite having never been on an aeroplane before. In fact, I had never been on any mode of transport where a talk on safety procedures was required.

• French girls were thin and sexy – and I was neither of those things.

• French people kissed on both cheeks just to say hello, i.e. much potential for humiliation. It was all about sex. Everything was. Even their nouns were either masculine or feminine.

In fact, I knew from occasional glimpses of French films that everyone was always snogging the face off each other. So what would I do while all that was going on? I would take photos of churches and force myself to buy things in shops. Bonjour! Un chou-fleur s’il vous plaît, Madame. Merci, au revoir! I would trot back to my penpal’s flat with my cauliflower in a basket and sit and write postcards home.

In my own bedroom, which smelt of the tinned meat pie Mum had heated up earlier, I dropped a selection of cheap biros into my suitcase, wishing I was at least travelling with someone. However, despite Mum’s insistence on using the term ‘French exchange’ – implying a load of British kids all singing excitedly on a coach – it was just me, being packed off to a stranger’s place, alone.

It had all started when we were allocated penpals through school and I’d ended up with a terse-sounding Valérie Rousseau. Our correspondence so far had been rather basic (‘What is your favourite sport?’ ‘Le ping pong,’ I lied, not actually having one). Next thing I knew, Mum was on the phone to Valérie’s mother, wafting her cigarette and putting on her Penelope Keith voice with the odd French word flung in: ‘Merci, Mrs Rousseau. Lorrie is très excited to come and visit chez vous!’ And that was that; the trip was arranged. ‘Well, she sounded very nice,’ Mum announced. ‘Not that she speaks much English, but you’ll be fine.’

I should also point out that my destination wasn’t Paris. It wasn’t even the CÔte d’Azur, which I’d at least heard of. I was travelling alone to somewhere called The Massif Central, which sounded like an ugly office block with an enormous road system around it. For all we knew, Valérie’s parents could have been alcoholics or child molesters – but this was the eighties and no one really worried back then.

I zipped up my suitcase and studied the instructions Mum had hammered out on her manual typewriter:

1  1. Overnight coach to London Victoria Station.

2 2. Tube (Victoria Line, light blue, then Piccadilly Line, bit darker) to Heathrow Airport. Check which terminal on your ticket – I think there’s a few?

3  3. Get on plane. If you need anything, ask an air hostess. I’m sure they’re very nice.

4  4. Arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport. Don’t leave your small bag on the plane and remember to pick up your suitcase from luggage collection thing!

5  5. Train to Gare du Nord.

6 6. Go to jail. Go directly to jail! Do not pass go! Do not collect £200!

7  7. Not really, haha. Just change onto Metro (like tube but French) and proceed to Gare d’Austerlitz.

8 8. Train to Châteauroux. Valérie’s Mum (Jeanne) will meet you there (you should have phoned her in Paris to say what train. Number is in your purse in case you lose these instructions. DO NOT FORGET TO PHONE!).

9  9. Have fun!

I studied the sheet of A4 for the billionth time, prickling with annoyance at the Monopoly reference – as if this were the time for jokes! – and then went to find Mum. She was still in her bedroom, scooshing hairspray all over her coppery curls.

‘Well, I’m all packed,’ I announced.

She beamed at me. ‘Good girl. Exciting, isn’t it?’

I folded up her instructions into a neat little square. ‘I’m a bit nervous actually.’

‘What on earth is there to be nervous about?’

‘Just … stuff.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Mum, I hardly speak any French!’

‘You must do. You’re studying it at school, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, but that’s school French, not proper French like people speak in France …’

Mum tapped at her hair as if to ensure it was sufficiently crispy. ‘Don’t be so defeatist. You must’ve picked up a bit of vocabulary over the years. Now come on, Lorrie – we need to get going. Your coach leaves at ten and you don’t want to miss it, do you?’

What would French teenagers make of me, Lorrie Foster, I wondered, with my jeans from the market and chubby little chipmunk face? I still hadn’t believed that Mum would really send me off to a foreign country on my own. Now the moment was here, I wished I’d packed earlier – and more carefully – as she had been urging me to do, instead of being in denial and leaving it until the very last minute. But it was too late now to try and dress Frenchly. It was too late for anything because I was dragging my suitcase downstairs whilst trying to shake off the feeling that Mum simply wanted me out of the way for a month so she could have boyfriends over, or whatever it was she planned to get up to. My parents had divorced six years earlier. With her make-up and hair freshly done, she was clearly planning a night out after she’d shovelled me onto the overnight coach to London.

‘I wish I’d had the opportunities you have,’ she announced as she drove me, rather speedily, to the bus station. What, the opportunity for a trip she didn’t want to go on? I sat in gloomy silence and stared out of the passenger window until she pulled up in the car park. Then, with a powdery cheek held briefly against mine, she bade me goodbye and warned me against the perils of drinking during the day. ‘They love their wine, Lorrie, with all meals – even breakfast. Try to fit in with their ways but don’t embarrass yourself, will you?’ I promised I wouldn’t, and as I climbed onto the coach, I turned to give her another wave. She had already gone.

On the journey to London, I pressed myself against the coach’s greasy window as the man beside me slurped noisily from a can of beer. Clutching Mum’s typed sheet of paper, as if it were instructions for saving a life, I braved the short but turbulent flight. Whilst I had no need for the waxed paper sick bag I found in the seat-back pouch, I was still relieved to know it was there. As reminded by Mum, I dragged my case off the luggage carousel and made my way across Paris, becoming tearful only when I found myself unable to operate a French public telephone. With my ropey vocabulary and lots of miming, I managed to explain my predicament to an elderly lady who obligingly helped me to call Valérie’s mum. From there I sped south, the train hurtling between endless rolling fields and towns with all kinds of exotic accents sprinkled like confetti over the letters, until finally I was greeted with two cheek kisses by Jeanne – who had a reassuring plump face – and Valérie, with her stern gaze and long black centre-parted hair, who looked as undelighted by my arrival as I was.

They lived in a sparsely furnished apartment above a bakery: Valérie, her kindly but permanently harassed mother (no dad was mentioned and I didn’t like to ask), plus a mysterious older brother, Antoine, whom I had yet to meet. He was away camping with friends, I was told: le camping. Hey, I was picking up this French malarkey! In fact, I soon discovered I could cobble entire, rather wobbly sentences together – simply because, reasonably enough, no one spoke much English in a sleepy village in the middle of nowhere. Valérie certainly didn’t – or at least, she didn’t seem willing to make much effort. I gathered that, as in my situation, her mum had been the one who had been keen for me to visit: ‘I’m happy Valérie has English friend,’ she explained falteringly, while her daughter glared at me over the rim of her mug of chocolat chaud.

By the end of week one, my French was severely put to the test with the arrival of my period. Having left it so late to pack, I had forgotten to bring sanitary towels. I’d spotted a box of Lil-Lets on Valérie’s dressing table. However, as I feared tampons – and Valérie – I decided instead to approach her mother: ‘Er, je suis beaucoup désolé, mais j’ai mon …’ No, no, period would surely be feminine. ‘Ma, er …’ Menstrual cycle? My bicyclette menstruelle? I stared as she slung three horse – horse! – steaks into a frying pan. ‘Er, avez-vous une serviette, s’il vous plaît?’ I blustered, sweating profusely now.

‘Une serviette?’ Jeanne frowned.

I nodded and smiled. ‘Oui, s’il vous plaît.’

‘Mais il y’a une sur ton lit …’

‘Non, non, c’est, uh …’ Try as I might, I couldn’t scrabble together the vocabulary to explain that I didn’t mean that kind of towel.

‘Tu as besoin d’une autre?’ Jeanne asked.

(Almost fainting with relief). ‘Oui!’

She flipped the sizzling meat and took herself off to the airing cupboard, returning with a bath towel with an anchor embroidered on it: ‘Voilà.’

I thanked her warmly and slipped out of the flat, managing to find what seemed to be the sole shop in the village that stocked des serviettes hygiéniques.

In a weird way, this incident boosted my confidence. Faced with having to fashion my own sanitary towels out of the virtually non-absorbent loo paper favoured by the Rousseau family – or the belligerent corgi who lived across the road – I had used my initiative and managed to avert disaster. Now, I felt determined to get to know the languid girls who hung around Valérie’s apartment. Still too shy to join in properly, I remained on the fringes, trying to follow their conversations whilst affecting a bored – rather than panic-stricken – expression. When they were debating what exactly a British pop star might be singing about, I tentatively suggested that I might be able to help by writing out the lyrics. Valérie shrugged and said okay, if I wanted to – and so it began.

While Valérie still seemed to regard me as a particularly unpleasant smell, her friends seemed thrilled by this new service. Soon, I was filling my days by stressfully putting back the needle on Tears for Fears and Duran Duran singles while a clutch of honey-limbed girls fidgeted impatiently on the edge of Valérie’s bed.

Culture Club. Paul Young. The Commodores. Phil Collins (a low point). I realised I could get away with a bit of guesswork – thus completing my lyric sheets faster – and no one would cotton on. In fact, by the end of my second week in France, whilst not exactly popular, I was verging on being accepted by the teenage population of the village.

Perhaps regarding me as a sort of project, Valérie’s best friend Nicole had taken it upon herself to teach me how to apply make-up. Not a frosting of gaudiness, as favoured by my mother, but something altogether more subtle and incredibly flattering. So those gorgeous French girls did wear make-up after all. They just applied it properly, with a light hand. Under Nicole’s stern eye, I learnt that a smudge of pinkish rouge and biscuit-coloured eye shadow, plus a little lip gloss, had a remarkably enhancing effect.

With her baby blue eyes and a fondness for a white vest and no bra, Nicole was breathtakingly beautiful. I watched with rapt attention as she demonstrated how to curl lashes, and gushed thanks when she allowed me to use her make-up. I loved the smell, the packaging, the enticing shade names: Bleu nuit. Bois de rose. She gave me a couple of products she no longer used, and I topped up from the meagre selection at the village pharmacy. Life felt brighter. I took to ‘putting on my face’ and offering to run errands for Jeanne, feeling proud of being able to ask for things and trot back to the flat with everything on the list.

And then …

Antoine returned from le camping: a vision of messy blond hair, a smattering of stubble (manly!) and caramel limbs in battered old khaki shorts and a sun-bleached Depeche Mode T-shirt. Long, sweeping lashes grazed his chocolatey eyes. He smelt of grass and coconut. ‘Hi,’ he said with a smile, dumping a rucksack on the living room rug and kissing my cheeks (ooh!).

I’d been focusing hard on Duran Duran’s ‘A View to a Kill’ but from that moment on, a fortnight into my trip, lyric services ground to a halt. Now, there were far more interesting things to keep me occupied. I’d never known a boy to show much interest in me before, but Antoine seemed to want to know everything about me. Or rather, he wanted to discuss the novels he’d read in English which, to my mind, marked him out as a genius (I had difficulty enough interpreting texts in my own language). His obvious eye-pleasing qualities aside, it was a relief to be able to communicate in my own language instead of forever worrying about using a wrong word.

Appalled by how much time I’d spent holed up in the gloomy apartment, Antoine appointed himself as my tour guide, and we soon became inseparable. Valérie seemed faintly relieved that I had been taken off her hands, and by now I could pick up enough from her conversations with her friends to know they were having a giggle about her brother and me. I didn’t care. Those timely make-up lessons had boosted my fragile confidence, and the village, which had so far failed to make much of an impression on me, suddenly blossomed into the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. Antoine and I sat on the riverbank, chatting whilst dipping our bare toes into the cool water. We lay in a field, looking up at the turquoise sky whilst feasting on bread and cheese. I could hardly believe that such ordinary things could be so delicious.

The sun beamed down on us as Antoine took my hand on a walk through the forest. We were on our way to visit his friend Jacques, whose family kept goats and made cheese from their milk. As we picnicked in their untended garden, Antoine kissed me properly for the first time. It was like an electric current shooting through me. For days, we had just been friends hanging out, and now we were lying in each other’s arms, snogging fervently in the long grass while his friend – thank you, Jacques! – wandered off to help his father with the goats. No one had kissed me that way, ever. It felt as if my hormones, which had been lying dormant like a pan of cold soup, had been turned up to a rapid boil.

When Antoine took me deeper in the woods, I was a little nervous; he was eighteen, he’d have kissed hundreds of girls not to mention having done it – of course he had, you could just tell. But I felt safe with him. We kept stopping to kiss some more, and he whispered that he couldn’t believe I didn’t have a boyfriend back home. I could have floated then, like dandelion fluff. I still couldn’t believe that a boy like Antoine wanted to be with me in this way, when I suspected all of Valérie’s friends fancied him.

We reached a lake, deserted and glittering with a wooded island in the middle, and stripped off to our underwear and swam. Me, Lorrie Foster from Yorkshire with a body the colour of rice pudding, swimming in my bra and knickers with a boy! ‘You’re so beautiful,’ Antoine said afterwards, gallantly offering his T-shirt for me to dry myself. He praised my skin (‘like cream’), my eyes (‘dark, mysterious’) and even my mouth (‘so pretty, like a flower’). If he even noticed my chubby thighs or wobbly bottom, he didn’t seem to view them as faults – and soon, neither did I. It was as if I was seeing myself differently, like the way you adjust the settings on a TV. Finally, I was seeing myself in full brightness.

My cheeks glowed and my badly highlighted hair seemed to acquire a new sheen that had never been apparent under drab Yorkshire skies. Every cell in my body seemed to shimmer from all the kissing we were doing. Because, of course, following that afternoon at the lake, we spent every possible moment in each other’s arms, swiftly graduating onto the kind of ‘petting’ the sign at the swimming baths warned you not to do. Oh, we petted all right, but there was no pressure to ‘go all the way’ (as it was quaintly known back home), even when we were alone in the apartment, because the unspoken message seemed to say: this is perfect.

Every night, as I drifted off to sleep on the pull-out bed in Valérie’s room, I could still feel Antoine’s kisses hovering on my lips. I was madly in love, changed forever. The ‘View to a Kill’ lyrics remained untranscribed.

My last day in France loomed like a darkening cloud. We could hardly bear to talk about it. ‘You’ll come back,’ Antoine kept saying, as if to reassure himself as much as me. ‘Or I could visit you. I need to find a job anyway – anything’ll do. I’ll save up and come to Yorkshire!’ Try as I might, I couldn’t picture him in our chintzy living room back home, being fussed over by Mum.

On the day I was leaving, we all squished into Jeanne’s tiny car and drove to the railway station, where she and Valérie hung back awkwardly as Antoine and I hugged goodbye. I love you, he mouthed as the train pulled away. On the plane, I was crying so much the lady in the next seat gave me her embroidered hankie and said I could keep it.

Back home, I’d expected Mum to notice a difference in me immediately – to comment on my new, more sophisticated appearance and demeanour. I was certain she’d say something about the understated make-up I’d started to wear. However, she seemed more eager to tell me about Sue down the road who’d been coughing up bile, and how we’d have to cut back for the rest of the summer due to the exorbitant cost of my trip (I didn’t notice any cutting back where Mum’s make-up purchases were concerned). Only when I told her about Antoine did she sit up and take notice. ‘He can come here for a holiday!’ she enthused, and I wondered if it might actually be possible.

We wrote to each other, declaring our love, and then from a couple of letters a week, his airmailed missives dwindled to perhaps one a fortnight, then monthly, followed by a gaping void, during which I felt hollow and tried to tell myself the postmen must be on strike. However, the rest of our mail – the endless bills and Freeman’s catalogues – seemed to be arriving without any problem. Maybe the French postmen were striking?

They weren’t, of course. Antoine’s life was simply continuing without me; I had faded to him, like a newsagent’s neglected window display. The occasional letter read more like an exercise in rudimentary English: We played good at football on Saturday. Our apartment is painted outside. How is the weather in Yorkshire?

Even at sixteen, I knew that asking about the weather suggested he was no longer obsessed with my creamy skin or mysterious eyes. Valérie had stopped writing too – my visit had been the death knoll to our ‘friendship’ – apart from to dash off a hasty note, informing me that Antoine was now ‘madly in love’ with Nicole, my make-up tutor. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared at her last flippant sentence (‘I just thought you should know!’). Well, of course he’d end up with her; she was stunning. Yet I’d believed him when he’d said he loved me, and convinced myself that he was oblivious to the charms of his sister’s friends. I could almost hear Valérie’s cruel laughter as I screwed up her letter and threw it into my bin.

As autumn slid into a cold, wet winter, another letter arrived from France. ‘Ooh, is it from that boy at long last?’ Mum cooed, as I charged upstairs to my room to read it in private.

Dear Lorrie,

I hope you are well.

Valérie learns karate but broke shoulder.

Quite busy next few weeks.

Antoine

And that was the last I ever heard from the beautiful boy from the Massif Central.

Chapter One
30 Years Later

He’s done that thing.

That thing of using a really old photo on his dating profile. How long ago was it taken? Ten years? Fifteen? This could be a fun guessing game. As if I wouldn’t notice that his hair isn’t in fact a lush chestnut brown as it appears in his picture but actually silver.

‘Lorrie? Hi!’

‘Ralph, hi!’ Force a smile. Don’t look shocked. Don’t stare at the hair.

‘Lovely to meet you.’

‘You too …’

‘Shall we go in then?’ he asks brightly.

‘Yes, of course!’

As the two of us stride into the Nutmeg Gallery, I try to reconcile the fact that the man I’ve had lodged in my head – with whom I’ve been corresponding via email all week – isn’t the eerily youthful-looking Ralph I’d expected to meet. Dressed in a crisp white shirt, new-looking jeans and a blue cotton jacket, he is a perfectly presentable man of forty-eight. He has striking blue eyes, his teeth are notably good – shiny and white, probably flossed – and he’s in pretty decent shape, suggesting that he does a bit of light jogging and goes easy on the booze. So why dig out a picture from something like 2002? When someone does that – and it contravenes the trade descriptions act really – it doesn’t matter how attractive they are, because it’s all you can think about.

And you feel sort of duped.

It was Ralph’s suggestion to meet here, outside the gallery tucked away by a pretty stretch of the canal in Islington. Ideal, I thought. The art bit would feel pleasingly grown-up. I know I shouldn’t still regard galleries in that way, being forty-six myself. I mean, I am mother to two teenagers, for goodness’ sake. I shouldn’t need to do certain things – like look at art – in order to feel like a bona fide adult. Then, after we’d sped through the gallery, we could get to the part I was really looking forward to: a chat in the cafe he’d mentioned, with tables overlooking the canal. ‘Amazing home baking,’ he’d said.

I’d had a good feeling about today, and not just due to the cake element. Ralph had been chatty and interesting in his emails: a solicitor – again, pleasingly grown-up – with hints of poshness and a warm, likeable face. After a couple of dud dates with other men I’d allowed myself a glimmer of hope. But now, well, he’s just not what I expected.

‘I didn’t even know this place existed,’ I tell him as we wander into the first gallery room.

‘Oh, I’ve been here a few times. It’s a charming little place.’

As we study the paintings – at least, I pretend to study them – a sense of awkwardness settles over us.

‘So, how’s it been so far?’ I ask lightly. ‘The whole, um, online thing, I mean?’ An older couple are perusing the artworks, and my voice sounds terribly amplified in here. Perhaps it wasn’t such a great choice of venue after all.

‘Oh, I’ve just started really,’ Ralph says. ‘In fact, you’re the first person I’ve met.’

‘Really? Well, I’m flattered.’ Silly thing to say, I know. He probably just hasn’t got around to meeting anyone else yet.

‘What d’you think of these?’ He indicates a row of small paintings, all in similar beigey hues. They are close-ups of various body parts – a forearm, a thigh, a rather septic-looking finger – each bearing a plaster.

‘Not crazy about them,’ I admit. ‘It’s all a bit medical, isn’t it?’

Ralph chuckles. ‘Yes, it is a bit. The permanent collection’s much better – let’s go take a look.’

We stroll through to an airier room filled with bright, splashy abstracts which are far more pleasing with their cheery colours. Ralph makes straight for a still life depicting a wobbly yolk-yellow circle on a sky blue background.

‘That’s quite striking, isn’t it?’ I remark.

He nods. ‘Yes, it was always Belinda’s favourite.’

‘Belinda?’ I give him a quizzical look.

‘My wife,’ he explains.

‘Oh, right.’ This floors me even more than the hair colour shock. From our email chats, I learnt that Ralph enjoys reading thrillers, cooking Asian food and jaunts to the south coast: reassuringly unremarkable stuff. One cat, no kids – ‘Just didn’t happen for me’. However, although a couple of relationships have been mentioned, no wife has popped up in our communications. I study the painting, wondering how I’m supposed to respond. Really? Well, I can see she has excellent taste … Or, How about showing me more paintings Belinda loves?

Now I can barely concentrate on the art at all as a terrible thought hits me. He said wife, not ex-wife. Surely, if they were separated or divorced, he’d refer to her as his ex. I mentally scroll back to the email where Ralph mentioned his situation, relationship-wise: ‘I’ve been on my own for just over a year …’ Not single, but on his own. Plus, the painting was Belinda’s favourite; past tense. Which can only mean one thing: Belinda is dead.

I throw Ralph a quick glance as he finally tears himself away from the yellow circle painting and moves on. Is this why he suggested meeting at the Nutmeg Gallery – because Belinda loved it here? It makes sense, too – the vintage profile photo, I mean. He’s still so deranged with grief, he couldn’t get it together to find a more recent one – or perhaps she was in all of them, hugging him. God, how tragic. This is probably the first date he’s been on since she died.

As we drift into the next room, I run through possible ways of broaching the subject sensitively: So, erm, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened with Belinda? Is Belinda still, er … ‘around’? Neither sounds quite right.

Ralph starts to stroll around, hands clasped behind his back as he gazes thoughtfully at the artworks. It’s not paintings in here, but a collection of grubby old baskets with bits of frayed rope attached, dotted around on the parquet floor. On closer inspection, because I’m trying to appear suitably fascinated – and not like some heathen who only likes paintings of thatched cottages or kittens – each of the baskets has a small item inside. Nothing precious or beautiful, but the kind of stuff you might have crammed in the cupboard under the sink: rubber gloves, a bottle of Cif, a pair of rusty Brillo pads sitting snugly together as if they might start mating.

Although I know I should be open-minded, just as I’m trying to be open-minded about Ralph, I’m starting to think we should wrap up the art bit now and head to the cafe. That unmentionable thing – Belinda, his dead wife – hovers between us, but right now, with the elderly couple still lurking close by, isn’t the right moment to bring it up.

‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ Ralph remarks.

‘Oh, er … yes, very.’ Be positive. It was his idea to come here and the poor man’s bereaved. ‘What d’you think it’s all about?’ I ask.

My stomach growls as he gazes around. I was too intent on getting ready – black and white spotty dress, patent heels, full face of make-up and a ruddy blow-dry – to think about lunch and now it’s gone 3 p.m.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘I think it could be interpreted in lots of ways.’ He pushes back his neatly cropped hair. ‘I don’t want to sound pretentious. You know how people can be about art …’

‘Oh, yes,’ I say, warming to Ralph a little now, but wary of over-warming to him out of pity. ‘It’s all cleaning stuff, isn’t it, trapped in baskets? So I think it’s about that terrible hemmed-in feeling you have when you’ve got the kitchen nice and shiny and then everyone storms in and messes it all up and you think, Christ, it’s like Groundhog Day – bloody endless.’ I smile, feeling pleased with myself.

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s quite that.’ He chuckles patronisingly.

I sense my cheeks reddening. ‘No, well, I was joking. To be honest, this kind of art isn’t really my—’

‘I think,’ Ralph interrupts, ‘what we’re seeing here is a comment on the permanence of the enclosed objects, juxtaposed with the impermanence of the lobster pots—’

‘Oh, is that what they are?’ I glance at a galvanised bucket in the corner with a mop propped beside it. Are they part of the art as well, or did the cleaner just dump them there?

‘Well, yes, what did you think they were?’

Rustic storage solutions? Quirky hats? As I’m not a fisherman I had no idea … ‘Um, I knew they were something nautical,’ I fib, not that it matters, as Ralph doesn’t appear to have heard me.

‘… And as you’d expect, they show distinct signs of weathering due to the erosive effects of the sea. And what the artist is alluding to here is …’ I phase out, ceasing to listen for a few moments. ‘… Then again,’ he chunters on, ‘it could be more about the concept of cleanliness, of sterility in a world literally milling with germs and bacteria …’ He stops and blinks at me. ‘Do you think?’

‘Yes, that could be it,’ I remark, wandering towards the small white card on the wall, hoping that’ll settle things once and for all. But all it says is:

I AM NOT A CRUSTACEAN by Thomas Trotter, 1991

Lobster pots and household objects

Which tells us nothing more, apart from the fact that the artist was born in the nineties, suggesting that he has never acquainted himself with a Brillo pad in any kind of useful way.

Now, close to the exit, Ralph is surveying a small pile of brownish tweed fabric lying on a wooden plinth. ‘Another Thomas Trotter piece,’ he observes. ‘Hmmm … what’s this one saying?’

I look at it dispassionately. It’s saying: What were you thinking, not even finding out if he’s a widower or not? And now, because you pity the man, you’re frittering away your precious Sunday afternoon with someone who insists on throwing around fancy words, which would be fine, maybe, in other circumstances. But who says ‘juxtaposed’ on a first date? Actually, I fancy going straight home and juxtaposing my arse with the sofa, thank you very much …

In fact, if it wasn’t for my kids, I wouldn’t be here at all. They’re the ones who forced me to join datemylovelymum.com in the first place. ‘Me and Cam were talking, Mum,’ ventured Amy, my fifteen-year-old, fixing her wavy dark hair into a no-nonsense ponytail. ‘We just thought you should … get out more. Do stuff. Enjoy yourself.’

Christ, they were worried about me. Didn’t they think I was managing, holding down my full-time job in the beauty hall of a department store, whilst keeping things ticking along at home? I wasn’t keen on the implication that I was anything less than a vision of contentment.

Cameron, who’s seventeen, pitched in. ‘We just thought you should, er, try one of those dating things …’

‘Like Tinder?’ I spluttered.

‘No! God no. Tinder’s for our age. There’s others – ones for older people. It’s what single women your age do. They have no way of meeting people any other way.’

‘But I meet people all day,’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s my job—’

‘Yeah, we know about that,’ he conceded. ‘It’s called traffic stopping …’

‘But actually,’ Amy cut in, smirking, ‘it’s taking innocent people hostage and forcing them to sit on your stool so you can plaster them in foundation.’

‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘I tie them up and gag them. I never told you that part.’

Cam tossed his choppily cut brown hair back from his handsome, angular face. ‘Stop changing the subject. We’re not talking about customers at a make-up counter. We mean, you know …’ He winced slightly. ‘Meeting a man.’

‘Oh.’

‘And we’ve already written your profile,’ Amy added, her dark eyes glinting with amusement.

‘What? All this plotting and scheming’s been going on behind my back?’

‘Yeah, it was fun,’ she said, grinning. ‘Stu helped us.’ So my oldest friend – currently our lodger – was in on this too? The traitor!

Cam fetched his laptop to show me their ‘work’:

Our mum is a lovely outgoing and attractive person who would like to meet someone special. She is kind, sociable and loves a laugh with her friends. She is incredibly thoughtful and has brought us up all by herself for the past seven years. In all that time she has been single, not because there is anything wrong with her but because she has always put us first. But we are older now and both feel it’s time for her to get out there, meet someone special and enjoy life to the full.

Mum is called Lorrie – short for Lorraine – and is forty-six (but looks younger). Why not meet her and find out how lovely she is?

Please get in touch,

Cam and Amy

Oh my God. It wasn’t perfect, I decided as I blotted my sudden hot tears on a tea towel. It certainly wasn’t what I would have written myself. But, like a child’s lumpen rock cake lovingly transported home from school, you have to give it a try.

Slowly, the idea started to grow on me. Not in a ‘finding a life partner’ way – I’d had that in David, my children’s father and lost him seven years ago – but the odd date now and again, just to liven things up. So I agreed to go with the profile my kids had so sweetly created, and see what happened. Perhaps I’d find a ‘companion’, like wealthy Victorian ladies used to have?

First of all I met the curiously named Beppie, a plummy ‘lifestyle consultant’ – whatever that meant – who charmingly remarked, ‘If you’re not looking for anything serious we might be able to have a bit of fun.’ As if he might deign to sleep with me when there wasn’t much on the telly. No thank you.

Marco, my date before Ralph, had perhaps three teeth in the whole of his head due to extensive oral decay, judging by the remaining examples (in his profile picture he’d had his mouth firmly closed). Was I being too fussy, hoping for something at least approaching a full set? Probably.

Yes, I get lonely, but for someone to hang out with there’s always Stu, who’s funny and kind and does possess teeth, and who I have known since we were school friends growing up in our beleaguered West Yorkshire town. We snogged just the once, under the stairs at a party in 1987 (my futile attempt to get Antoine Rousseau out of my head), and never mentioned it again. The unspoken message was that we knew each other too well as friends for anything else to happen, and the kiss had been a drunken accident. By our early twenties, when we drifted to London at around the same time, I’d almost forgotten it had ever happened.

I glance at Ralph now as he prowls around the gallery, reading all the little cards on the wall. Will this be a case of third time lucky with my online dates? I’m trying to remain positive.

He turns to me and indicates the bundle of brown fabric. ‘Ooh, it’s called “jacket for two”. The idea is, we both get in it and wear it together.’ He beams eagerly as I step back.

‘But surely we’re not supposed to touch it?’

Ralph shakes his head. ‘No, it’s an interactive piece. Look, it says over there on the wall, “Please wear me with a friend …”’

But we’re not friends! ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so …’

He holds up the grubby-looking garment. ‘Look, it’s enormous.’

‘It really is,’ I agree.

‘I think even we could fit into it!’ What, me with my ample chest and sizeable backside? He’s really not helping himself. ‘Must have been specially made,’ he adds.

‘Yes. Wow.’ I can smell coffee wafting through from the cafe. I’m starving now, to the point of light-headedness. Perhaps this, coupled with my pity for Ralph, is why I find myself standing there like some inert shop mannequin while he drapes half the jacket around me. It smells like an ancient sofa in a tawdry B&B as he feeds one of my arms into a sleeve whilst shimmying into the other half himself.

He buttons up the jacket with impressive speed. We are now both trapped in it, our bodies pressed awkwardly together. I can feel the thumping of Ralph’s heart as he grins at me. ‘We’re a living sculpture!’

‘Yes, lovely. Very good. What an amazing, er, concept.’ What the hell am I saying? If Amy told me she’d been cajoled into wearing a stinky jacket with a man, I’d be horrified. As a single parent, I hope I have raised her to have a darn sight more self-respect than I clearly possess. I’m sweating now, my special date pants clinging to my bottom (not that I was expecting to show them but, you know) as I fumble for the buttons.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ralph exclaims as I struggle out of the jacket.

‘Nothing. I’m just a bit hot, that’s all. Think I might be having a flush. Look, Ralph, I’d really like a coffee now if you don’t mind,’ i.e. enough of Thomas-bloody-Trotter and his so-called art!

‘Oh! Yes, of course …’ He pulls his arm from the sleeve and dumps the jacket back on its plinth, trooping rather sulkily beside me as we make our way to the cafe.

As we order lattes, my gaze skims the array of baking on offer. ‘A piece of carrot cake please,’ I tell the girl behind the counter before turning to Ralph. ‘Would you like something?’

‘No, no, you go ahead, though,’ he says.

We install ourselves at a table at the waterside. It’s a picturesque stretch of canal, with a row of brightly painted narrowboats moored on the opposite bank. A mallard duck bobs along on the water, and a young couple stroll hand-in-hand along the towpath.

‘Well, that was interesting,’ I remark.

‘Glad you thought so,’ he says with a smile.

Silence descends, and I focus instead on sampling the carrot cake which, I have to say, is perhaps the best I have ever tasted.

‘I’ve really enjoyed this afternoon,’ Ralph adds.

‘Oh, me too,’ I say through a mouthful of delicately spiced sponge and creamy icing. I swallow it down, soothed now by the delicious cake and the slight breeze, and decide Ralph’s not that bad really. This has become my marker of dating success: he’s not that bad really. I glance at him as he observes the bobbing boats. ‘I hope you don’t mind …’ I venture cautiously, poking at my cake with my fork. ‘I mean, I sort of need to ask you this really, but, of course, I completely understand if you don’t want to talk about it …’

He raises a brow. ‘Yes?’

‘Um, you know the painting with the big yellow sun? The one you said Belinda liked?’

‘Oh, yes, it’s called “Orb”.’ He sips his coffee.

I clear my throat. ‘Look, I hope this isn’t intrusive, but you said, “My wife”. So I’m sort of assuming – well, you know, otherwise you’d have said my ex …’ Hotness spreads up my cheeks. ‘Is she … I mean … what happened to—’

‘Oh, it was all very amicable. We married very young, silly mistake really. In fact, we’re still married—’

‘You’re married?’ I dump my fork on my plate.

‘Well, yes, technically, I suppose …’

‘Which means yes!’

‘No – we’re separated, split up over a year ago. Sorry, I really must stop saying my wife. I realise how confusing that sounds …’

‘No, no, it’s fine. So, where is she now?’

He shrugs. ‘Moved north, to Halifax.’

‘Oh, right!’ I glance towards the canal, wondering whether or not to feel relieved. A narrowboat is chugging by, a man with a white beard at the helm, an elderly woman in jeans and a faded rugby top primping a tub of Michaelmas daisies on the deck. They both wave, and I wave back, then glance down at my cake which, although I’ve made inroads, now seems huge and unwieldy. It’s not that I’m trying to appear feminine and dainty. It’s just, my appetite seems to have withered away. ‘Er, would you like some of this, Ralph? I’m not sure I can manage it all.’

‘Oh, no thanks, I stopped off for a sandwich before we met.’ His mouth flickers into a smile as he adds, ‘You tuck in, Lorrie. I can see you’re a girl who very much enjoys her cake.’

I blink at him. Well, that’s flipping charming, isn’t it? Fatty, is what he means. Porky lady, cramming in the carbs and cheesy topping. ‘I am actually,’ I say with a terseness he doesn’t seem to notice.

‘Well, that’s good,’ he says with a smirk. ‘A healthy appetite, that’s what I like to see in a lady. Not your picking-at-a-lettuce-leaf type!’

‘Okay, thank you, Ralph …’

He leans forward. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean—’

‘No, it’s fine, really.’ That’s it. I have to get out of here. I edge my plate aside and pull my phone from my bag, frowning as if something urgent might have happened at home. ‘Sorry, but I’d better be going …’ I slip my phone back into my bag and get up from my seat.

His face falls. ‘So soon? That’s a pity …’

‘Yes, um, I’ve enjoyed the gallery, it’s been a lovely afternoon but I really must dash …’ Then I’m off, turning briefly to wave goodbye as I leave the cafe by its wooden gate, and striding towards the tube station, feeling leaden inside, and not due to the Nutmeg Gallery’s home baking.

Chapter Two

Like a burglar, I creep into my house and dart upstairs before Stu and the kids can accost me. They know I’m back, of course. Stu has already called out ‘hi’, and I can sense them all waiting downstairs, keen to hear all about my date. That’s what my personal life amounts to these days: cheap entertainment for my lodger and kids.

In the bathroom now, I start to cleanse my face. Primer, base, blush, tawny lips. Eye shadow – three shades – plus liner and mascara: what a fat waste of make-up. Lovely make-up at that; La Beauté is a premium brand. ‘That just means expensive, Mum,’ Amy observed. ‘Why don’t they just admit it?’ She was right, and our gorgeous products are worth every penny – although of course, I would say that. I am La Beauté’s counter manager in a beautiful, old-fashioned department store – a little like Goldings in Bradford, to which I would accompany Mum as a child, fascinated as she had her face done by one of the scarily made-up ladies who worked there. While there are La Beauté counters in stores all over the country, ours was the UK’s first and remains the favourite among customers. Somehow, despite being a global brand, the company still retains a cosy, family feel, and I can’t imagine working for anyone else.

Plus, I adore cosmetics and the magical things they can do. Just as when Nicole taught me the ways of make-up in France, I still love the way it can change how a woman feels about herself: with confidence all buffed up, as if given a brisk shimmy with a chamois leather cloth. That’s how I felt as I put on my face before setting out to meet Ralph. Now, though, I realise it was all wrong for a casual date at a gallery on a Sunday afternoon (and I’m supposed to be an expert on make-up!). I’m not a shined-up version of myself. I’m just a tired-looking middle-aged woman who’s too fond of her cake.

Laughter drifts up from the kitchen, where Stu and the kids are bantering away. I sniff my cardigan sleeve. It pongs of that arse-smelling tweed jacket. I whip it off and change into a T-shirt and jeans, tie back my shoulder-length dark brown hair – hair that I not only blow-dried but deep conditioned for my date – and head downstairs to greet my public.

‘So?’ Stu grins at me.

I shrug and start to make coffee. ‘Not good.’

‘What happened?’ Amy asks, still in her basketball kit from training this morning. ‘Was he weird?’

Was Ralph weird, or is it me? I tell them about the un-dead wife, Ralph’s arty pretensions (‘juxtaposed!’) and the fact that the photo he’d used was decades old. ‘It’s so much easier for men,’ I grumble. ‘They just come onto the site and write their own profiles, thinking they have the pick of all us desperate single mums …’

‘No one thinks you’re desperate,’ Stu says with an unconvincing smirk.

‘So what else happened?’ Amy asks eagerly, folding her slender arms. I describe the lobster pots and the outsized jacket while they all stare, agog, as if enjoying a thrillingly diabolical Eurovision performance.

‘What a twat,’ Cam exclaims, chuckling.

‘And he said,’ I add, indignation bubbling up in me again, ‘“You’re obviously a girl who very much enjoys her cake.”’

‘Girl?’ my son sniggers, missing the cake significance entirely.

‘Never mind the girl bit—’ I start.

‘Well, you do enjoy cake,’ Stu teases, his greeny-blue eyes glinting. ‘You’re a cake appreciator. You wolfed that lemon sponge I made last weekend …’

‘Oh, thanks—’

‘C’mon, you’re just a woman with a healthy appetite …’

‘That’s what Ralph said! Can we stop this? Please?’

Stu gives me a pained look as I slump onto a kitchen chair. ‘Hey, what does it matter what some idiot said? Forget all about it and move on to the next …’

‘There won’t be a next,’ I say firmly.

‘Aw, Mum, don’t be like that.’ Cam gets up from his seat, towering above me at well over six feet, pale arms dangling from the sleeves of his unironed grey T-shirt. He bends to give me a little squeeze.

‘No, I’ve decided, I’m coming off the site.’

‘But you’ve hardly met anyone yet,’ protests Amy.

‘I have, love. I’ve met three and that’s quite enough. I don’t think I can go through with this anymore—’

‘Oh, we’ll miss the reports,’ Stu says, pulling his trilling mobile from the back pocket of his scruffy jeans. Mercifully, this halts the interrogation. He snatches his ring-bound notepad from on top of the microwave and starts to scribble with his phone gripped to his ear. ‘Walnuts, cashews, agave nectar, medjool dates … yep, got all that …’

The kids amble off, and I load the washing machine as he falls into some light-hearted banter with the customer at the other end of the line.

Stu moved in with us last September, when his live-in relationship with Roz, an intimidating psychotherapist, finally fell apart. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but he slotted in so easily that neither of us has seen any reason for him to move on – and of course the extra cash helps out. In fact, it was from a wine-fuelled chat around this very kitchen table that the idea for Parsley Force, Stu’s emergency forgotten ingredient delivery service, was launched. We’d had a craving for posh crisps, and I’d joked that it would be terribly handy if we could just call someone up and bark, ‘Salt and vinegar, please – 120 Pine Street!’ down the phone. Stu had remarked that, surely, people were always needing things: snacks, booze, a missing ingredient from a recipe. What they needed was a hero to deliver it to their door. He’d been working as a motorcycle courier but really wanted to set up something of his own. This, he decided, would be perfect.

‘But don’t people read a recipe right through before they start, to make sure they have everything?’ I asked. Apparently not, he declared with tipsy confidence. They just skim it and lurch right in and then … disaster! Dried mulberries are required! ‘So why wouldn’t they just run out to the shops? I mean, this is London, not the Shetlands. Shops are open all the time.’ Too busy, lazy or drunk, he reckoned. ‘Where will you buy the stuff?’ I asked.

Stu rubbed at his darkly-bristled chin. ‘Er, just in supermarkets, obviously, or delis, specialist shops, whatever. Basically, I’ll just be picking up all the annoying little things they’ve forgotten to buy.’

And so the business was born, with the aid of a hastily knocked-together Facebook page and some judicious advertising in local magazines. In partnership with his mate Bob, Stu took to zooming all over North London on his motorbike, giving me a fascinating insight into miniature dramas happening all over the city: ‘We crave cheese and we’re too drunk to drive!’ And – frequently – ‘Could you bring wine and cigarettes?’

‘But who’s Parsley Force for?’ I wanted to know, a few weeks into their venture.

‘People who call in help. The types who have cleaners, gardeners, all that.’

‘Not me, then.’

‘No, and you don’t need any of that because you have me.’

He’s right and, although I’d never imagined having a housemate at forty-six years old, I doubt if I could have found a better one. He leaves sauce bottles sitting on the table, lids off, but does loads of cooking and we never seem to run out of essentials anymore. He is incapable of grasping that bread doesn’t need to be stored in the fridge, but he can deal with a bird that’s flown in through the open kitchen window, catching it deftly in a tea towel before freeing it outside. He is not averse to running the hoover about, and on weekends, like an obedient Labrador, he goes out for the newspapers, which we lie about reading companionably.

He is handsome, certainly, in a mussed-up sort of way, and has been resolutely single since Roz called time on their relationship. Yet, when I suggested he tried online dating too, he gawped at me as if I had suggested colonic irrigation: ‘Christ, no thanks. Too many crackpots out there.’ Yet the meeting of crackpots is positively encouraged where I’m concerned.

He finishes the call now, shoving his phone into his pocket and beaming at me. ‘Ingredients for vegan cheesecake. She hadn’t realised her guests are vegan and she’s now having to rethink dessert. I mean, that’s not going to be a cheesecake, is it, by any stretch?’

And off he goes, just as my phone pings with a text: Would very much like to meet again, Ralph. What, to insult me some more about my fondness for baked goods?

Sorry, I reply, it was lovely to meet you, but I’m afraid there wasn’t any chemistry for me. Yep, that old line. Good luck with meeting someone, I add before deleting him from my phone.

Chapter Three

The summer holidays used to be a source of low-level guilt for me – despite Pearl, our wonderful childminder, who soon became a close friend – but those days are gone. As Cam is working – albeit sporadically, helping to set up lighting for gigs – and Amy’s sporting activities continue all summer long, nowadays I can trot off to work, leaving them to their own devices with a fairly clear conscience. Plus, Stu is around much of the time, not as a surrogate father or anything, but as a reasonably sensible adult about the place.

Although it amuses Cam and Amy to think of me dragging women by the hair to our counter in the beauty hall, it doesn’t quite work that way. The approaching of customers is indeed called traffic stopping but no one is bullied or insulted. ‘My God, you’re really flushed! You need our new colour corrective powder!’ I once heard a consultant from a rival brand saying to an aghast-looking customer. But that is not our way at all.

‘Make a friendly approach,’ I was instructed during training by Nuala, our fresh-faced area manager, when I joined the company ten years ago. ‘No leaping out, scaring them, or accosting them with a mascara wand. You’re there to sell products, of course. But no one will buy so much as a hand soap if they don’t feel inclined, by which I mean happy and good about themselves. Your job is to help them feel that way.’

I soon discovered that traffic stopping isn’t as terrifying as it sounds. After all, it’s only make-up and skincare we’re offering, not a rectal examination. Today, I spot a woman pushing a buggy containing a sleeping baby and holding the hand of a little boy, and figure that she might appreciate a little pampering. As we have a stock of colouring books in a drawer under the counter, I am never put off by the presence of small children.

‘Excuse me,’ I start, ‘I wondered if you’d have a moment to try our new summer colours?’

The woman glances to the side as if I must be talking to someone else. ‘Oh, er, I don’t think—’ she blusters.

‘Wanna go,’ mutters her son, who looks about four years old, tugging hard on her sleeve. ‘Wanna go now.’

‘Oh, Archie, we’ve only just got here,’ she says wearily.

‘Why are we here? It smells bad. I can’t breathe!’ He stares at her, his breathing now coming in audible gasps.

‘For goodness’ sake,’ she groans as a terrible rasping noise emanates from his throat.

‘What’s happening?’ I exclaim. ‘Does he have asthma? I can fetch help—’

‘No, he certainly doesn’t have asthma,’ the woman snaps.

‘I can’t breathe!’ the boy gasps. ‘It’s horrible in here. Why does it stink of flowers? Aggghhhh … huuuurrrrr …’

Because it’s the beauty hall of a department store …

‘Stop this right now,’ his mother barks, snatching at his hand, at which Archie’s breathing reverts instantly – miraculously – to normal. She turns to me. ‘Sorry about that. What were you saying about summer colours?’

A moment of recognition passes between us as I remember myself, not with Cam – he was remarkably good-natured in department stores – but Amy, who couldn’t bear the places, and would jab her poky fingers into the trays of make-up testers if I so much as glanced at a new product.

‘They’re lovely,’ I say. ‘Very fresh and easy to wear. Come over and I’ll show you.’

Obediently, with her son merely muttering now, she manoeuvres the buggy to our counter where she obligingly hops onto a stool.

‘Would you like a colouring book and some crayons?’ I ask Archie. Although he merely scowls, I glance over to where my colleague, Helena, has just rung a customer’s purchase through the till. ‘Helena, could you give this little boy a colouring pack, please?’

‘Sure, no problem.’

His mother shifts on the stool. ‘I can’t be too long, and I’m afraid I’m not planning to buy anything.’

‘Oh, that’s fine. We’re just showing the new range, that’s all.’

‘I mean, I really can’t afford anything. Is this stuff expensive?’

‘It’s a quality brand but really, it’s fine. There’s no obligation at all.’

On the floor beside her, Archie is leafing crossly through the colouring book.

‘I’m Lorrie,’ I add.

‘Jane.’ She smiles faintly.

‘Nice to meet you, Jane.’

‘It’s all pictures of stupid ladies’ faces,’ Archie growls, tossing the colouring book aside. The drawings are lovely, the originals having been sketched by sisters Claudine and Mimi, the now-elderly founders of our company, who live in Grasse in southern France.

‘Well, yes,’ I say. ‘The idea is, you can use the crayons to draw make-up on them …’

‘There’s no boys,’ he complains.

‘Yes, but you can make the ladies into whatever you like.’

He throws the pouch of crayons down. ‘Don’t wanna.’

Yes, you do. Give your poor mother a break, for goodness’ sake, after your phoney asthma attack. ‘You could make them ugly,’ I suggest.

He brightens a little. ‘Like with spots? And black teeth?’

‘Yes, if you want to,’ I reply as Jane exhales slowly, visibly relaxing as Archie starts to deface a picture with exuberance.

‘Please don’t put too much make-up on me,’ she says.

‘Don’t worry, you look great as it is. Are you wearing any now?’ A superfluous question, asked out of politeness: she is bare-faced, a little tired-looking but very pretty, her dark blonde curly hair pulled up into a haphazard top-knot and secured with a plain rubber band.

‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ she says with a smile.

‘Yes, I remember those days.’

Using a make-up sponge, I apply the thinnest layer of BB cream, and our newest eye shadow in ‘tea biscuit’ on her lids.

‘Haven’t worn make-up since Lila was born,’ she adds, indicating her still-sleeping baby in the buggy.

I add a little eyeliner in a nutty brown, followed by mascara. ‘Well, that’s understandable. Other priorities take over, don’t they? But it’s still nice to take a few minutes for yourself …’

‘Or have a haircut,’ she adds. ‘D’you have children?’

‘Yes, two – almost all grown up now. They’re fifteen and seventeen …’

‘Oh, tell me it all comes back,’ she exclaims as I add a touch more liner. ‘Your life, I mean. Feeling human again.’

‘Yes, of course it does—’

‘Before they reach their teens? Please tell me it happens sooner than that or I think I’ll go stark raving mad!’

‘Don’t worry, it happens much sooner than that.’

Jane smiles, clearly enjoying herself now as Archie draws angry red spots and purple lesions all over an elegant illustration of a woman’s face. ‘Well, I hope I look as good as you do when these two are teenagers. But then, I bet you never let yourself go, even when yours were babies …’

‘Oh, I did,’ I say truthfully. In fact, I remember there were periods when the kids were well beyond babyhood and the very idea of putting on a face to greet the outside world was furthest from my mind. Of course, I don’t tell Jane that, after I lost David, my hair didn’t see a brush for days on end. It didn’t occur to me to look in a mirror, and I only got dressed because friends urged me to.

David and I had been together for fifteen years – we’d never married, we simply hadn’t felt the need – and I had forgotten how to be without him. After the accident, it was the children who literally kept me going. For them, I had to get out of bed every morning because ordinary life didn’t stop. I was a lone parent now, ferrying them to and from Scouts and judo (Amy’s short-lived obsession) and basketball (still her favourite thing in life). I turned up at school concerts – Amy sang in the choir, and Cam briefly flirted with the French horn – and parents’ evenings alone, one of the kinder teachers always making the effort to come over and say, ‘How are you, Lorrie? I know it’s been a difficult time.’

Yes it was – because David was dead. I mean really dead, not a Belinda’s-gone-to-Halifax scenario. It happened on one of those rare winter’s nights when London is properly blanketed in snow, like in a children’s story. We were happily cosied up for the evening in the house we still live in – 120 Pine Street, London E2, an ordinary little terrace made a little less ordinary by the original outdoor wooden shutters at the living room windows. With Cam and Amy in bed, David and I were looking out at the snowflakes falling slowly, illuminated by street lamps. ‘Fancy some wine?’ I asked, and David said yes, and because I was already in PJs he pulled on his thick padded jacket and a woollen beanie and headed out to the 7-eleven. Ever obliging, that’s what he was like. Not a pushover – he knew his own mind, taught English in a challenging North London secondary school and took no nonsense from the kids there – but nicely old-fashioned in that he was willing to go out and buy wine, because I fancied a drink.

Because I wanted it, not him. Because I was worn out from a long week of working and being Mummy, and longed for a glass of something cool and chilled.

If I’d put on the kettle and had a mug of tea, it would never have happened.

If I hadn’t been such a greedy wine-guzzling lush, it would never have happened.

If I hadn’t had a bath after cajoling the kids into bed – and still been in jeans and a sweater rather than PJs – then maybe I’d have nipped out to the shop, and he’d still be with us now.

I try to push away such thoughts and pause to study Jane’s face. She seems to have fallen into a sort of reverie. Choosing a neutral pinky-brown pencil, I outline her full lips, then apply a semi-sheer lipstick with a brush. Archie is now drawing thick round spectacles on the lady with the terrible skin condition in the colouring book.

The off-licence is only a five-minute walk away from our house, around the corner and down towards the Roman Road. And that’s where it happened, just as David turned the corner, the car coming too fast on freshly fallen snow, skidding and slamming into him. And that was the end.

I brush on a little pinkish blusher, followed by translucent powder. ‘All done,’ I say, forcing myself to focus on my customer’s now-radiant face.

‘Oh … gosh …’ Jane studies her reflection in the mirror. ‘I look, well … human again!’

I smile as Archie gathers himself up from the floor. ‘You look great,’ I tell her. ‘Really beautiful.’

She bites her lip and smiles. ‘Thank you.’

‘It was a pleasure.’

‘I’m sorry, I feel as if I really should buy something but, you know, I can’t justify—’

‘Not at all,’ I say, opening our drawer of hidden delights: a bevy of free samples. ‘You can try this at home,’ I add, dropping a mini lipstick into a crisp white paper bag, ‘and this night cream’s lovely. You know, you can actually cheat a good night’s sleep …’

‘Oh God, I need that,’ she says, laughing.

I add a sachet of body lotion and a vial of fragrance.

‘Thank you, are you sure?’ They are tiny things, but she regards them like jewels. Her baby daughter whimpers in the buggy and Archie, still gripping a fistful of crayons, is tugging hard at her hand.

‘Yes, of course. Take them home and enjoy them. I hope I’ll see you again sometime.’

Her face breaks into a wide smile. ‘You will, definitely. You’ve really made my day.’

‘My pleasure …’

‘What made your day?’ Archie demands as Jane manoeuvres the buggy away from our counter.

‘Oh, just having my make-up done …’

‘Don’t like it, Mummy.’

‘Well, I do. I’d forgotten how lovely it feels to wear lipstick. And you know what, darling? That lady gave me a free one and I’m going to start using it every day.’

Chapter Four

Of course, it’s not always like that, by which I mean not every customer walks away delighted. But usually, they feel a little better. It might simply be due to being tended by someone, or it could be the restorative power of make-up. I can honestly say that, once the storm had calmed, lipstick helped to pull me through the toughest period of my life.

After David died, I was allowed as much time off work as I needed. Stu and Pearl both turned up with home-cooked quiches and Tupperware cartons of curry and chilli to tide us over. My freezer was jam-packed with labelled plastic tubs, and Stu, a better-than-average baker, festooned us with more cakes than we could actually manage to eat. While my own mother didn’t seem to know what to do with me, he and Pearl were there, almost constantly, sitting and listening as I went over and over that terrible night, and when there really wasn’t anything left to say, they washed up and tidied and helped Cam and Amy with homework. To me, it seemed ridiculous that homework was still happening – that the world was still happening outside our house. Without children of her own – she and her husband had been unable to conceive – Pearl became far more than our childminder. She’d show up to take Cam and Amy to the zoo or the theatre, and became an auntie figure, woven into the fabric of my family. Whenever I suggested that she was doing too much for us, she insisted she’d rather be with us than stuck with Iain at home – ‘the boring farter in the corner’, as she termed him. At the mention of ‘farting Iain’, Cam and Amy convulsed with laughter. It seemed they were familiar with his gaseous emissions. As they had ricocheted through phases of being withdrawn and exploding with anger over tiny upsets, I was just terribly grateful that my children could still laugh.

My work colleagues visited too. Helena babysat, even though she’d only just started at our store, and area manager Nuala treated me to her cleaner for an entire day. I sat on the couch, feeling grateful but strangely redundant as Rosa cheerfully dusted and hoovered and our house emerged from its layer of grime and neglect.

At first, I didn’t notice the La Beauté goodie bag Nuala had brought me. When I did, I just dumped it on a bookshelf. What was the point of taking care of myself or trying to look pretty? The very concept seemed ridiculous when David was no longer there. I wasn’t even sure if I could ever return to work and enthuse over the plumping qualities of our latest serum. Perhaps I should retrain as a firefighter or a police officer, something that would make a real difference? But then, those jobs involved no small element of personal risk, and now Cam and Amy had only me to take care of them, I became terrified of something equally dreadful happening to me, leaving them all alone. Even making a will, and citing Pearl as Cameron and Amy’s guardian, did little to ease my fears.

One drizzly afternoon, Amy plucked the rope-handled La Beauté bag from the shelf and peered into it. Considering its contents useless, she tossed it aside on the sofa and a moisturiser, a night cream and a lipstick tumbled out. I only applied the lipstick because my lips were dry and sore. A couple of hours later, I happened to glimpse my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I looked better, I realised. More like the functioning human being I was pretending to be. I started wearing the lipstick daily and then I added a little base, some blush, a touch of eyeliner, as I had every day before the accident. I’d started to use the moisturiser and night cream too, soothed by the feeling of gently massaging them in. Taking a few minutes to apply my make-up each morning felt frivolous at first, considering what had happened. But it also meant I could face the day.

And slowly, I started to heal. Much to Mum’s consternation, I returned to work: ‘But what about the children?’ she asked, suggesting that they would be better served if I stayed at home full-time. Yet how could I, when I needed to support us? They were at school, we had Pearl to look after them until I came home from work, and it was good for me to have some structure back in my life. I started to take pride again in being able to help customers to feel better about themselves, if only for the few minutes they spent perched on our stools. My world might have crumbled but small pleasures could be had in introducing a customer to our new, especially silken mascara. Now my job seemed to be less about meeting daily and monthly targets – although, for some reason my sales soared – and more a matter of sharing my love of beauty.

While life at home was hectic, stepping into our store brought an immediate sense of calm. Deliciously scented, and soothing even on the busiest days, it felt like the kind of place where nothing bad could ever happen. Now I understood why Mum had been so drawn to the lavish displays of frosted lipsticks and pearlised nail polishes in Goldings back in Bradford.

A few months after the accident, it all came out that Anneka Salworth, the thirty-two-year-old woman driving the car that killed David, had had an epileptic fit at the wheel. She had been told by her consultant not to drive, and was charged with causing death by dangerous driving. Her defence centred around the snowy road conditions, but she was found guilty and given a five-year prison sentence. I could have gone and seen it all played out in court, but took the kids camping to Cornwall instead.

It was late spring and still a little chilly, but building fires on the beach, and seeing Cam and Amy truly having fun for the first time since the accident, lifted my spirits more than any guilty verdict could. I even braved the freezing water with Amy. Swimming in the sea had been the thing she and David had loved to do together more than anything; he always adored ploughing through the waves. I am a rather feeble, splashy swimmer, and Cam always preferred to lie on a towel with a book. But we swam and cooked and laughed together, and during those few days my anger seemed to blow away on the sharp sea breeze. In fact, Anneka Salworth, with her droopy perm and doleful grey eyes – of course I’d Googled her and read the brief news reports – now seemed no more culpable than the snowy conditions that night, or me asking for a bottle of sauvignon.

I didn’t want to blame anyone. I just wanted to at least pretend to be a normal functioning family, and for the three of us to find a way to be happy again.

Naturally, I still think about David every day but, somehow, during the past seven years, we have all managed to find a new way of living. Work has been a lifeline as I have risen up through the ranks to the position of counter manager. Today, business is brisk throughout the rest of my shift, and by the time I arrive home, Amy has headed off to her best friend Bella’s while Cam, too, is on his way out.

‘Got to go,’ he says, giving me a speedy hug in the hallway. ‘Last-minute call, emergency thing ’cause someone’s sick. Gig on the Holloway Road …’

‘Oh, that’s great, love.’ Hopefully, this line of work will continue throughout Cam’s last school year. After that, he has vague notions to ‘try and get into sound engineering’, and I can’t help thinking, what would his dad have made of that? But then, I can’t think that way. Cam is a sociable, popular boy. He’ll get by. ‘Be careful,’ I add as an afterthought, at which he stops at the front door and smirks.

‘Be careful of what?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Wires. Plugs. Electricals.’

He chuckles and pats my head as if I’m a fretful aunt. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not nine. I won’t go sticking my finger into anything.’ And with that, he’s off, clambering into his mate Mo’s revving, battered old van; Mo who, like Cam, is seventeen and barely shaves yet, so how can he possibly be in charge of a vehicle? It seems as scary a concept as the pair of them being let loose to perform a heart operation.

In the kitchen now, I wave through the window at Stu and Bob, his friend and business cohort, who are deep in conversation at the table in our tiny back garden. Prowling for something to eat, I discover prized treasure in the form of leftover spaghetti and fresh pesto – clearly Stu’s work – in a pan on the hob. Too hungry to bother with heating it up, I shovel it down straight from the pan before joining Stu and Bob in the garden.

‘Hey, Lorrie,’ Bob says, hands wrapped around a mug of tea. Parsley Force has certainly knocked back their beer consumption, as most of their call-outs happen in the evenings and late into the night.

‘Hi, Bob. How’s it going?’

‘Really good,’ he enthuses. ‘Better than we could’ve hoped, amazingly.’

I glance at the A4 pad covered in scribbled notes on the wrought-iron table. ‘Plans for world domination?’

He nods and grins. ‘Well, expansion plans. Marketing, social media, that kind of thing. We’ve probably taken things as far as we can just relying on word of mouth …’

‘He reckons we need to start promoting,’ Stu offers. ‘A newsletter, competitions, more activity on the Facebook page …’

Bob laughs, adjusting the black-rimmed spectacles that dominate his boyish face. ‘Poor old granddad, afraid of social media. Thinks it’s just some conspiracy to glean all our personal information …’

‘Well, what else is it?’ Stu retorts.

‘It’s useful,’ I remark. ‘What about keeping in touch with old friends? Everyone’s scattered all over the place these days. How else would we all stay connected?’

‘Er, via telephonic apparatus?’ Stu smirks.

‘Okay, but when are we supposed to phone each other?’ I ask. ‘We’re all working all day and who has time for long conversations at night? Without social media, people would just fall off the radar …’

Stu shrugs. ‘Friends who fall off the radar can’t have been that important in the first place.’

‘But I don’t want to lose people,’ I insist. ‘And anyway, what about my dad? How else would we be able to keep in touch when he’s 12,000 miles away in Australia? It’s over a year since I’ve seen him for real but with Facebook I still get to see him in his silly yellow shorts, trying to light a barbecue, getting told off by Jill for squirting lighter fuel all over the prawns …’

Stu shrugs. ‘Okay, there is that …’

‘And it’s how we’ll spread the word,’ Bob adds. ‘Build up a wider customer base, get people talking, maybe even attract some press coverage …’

‘Who’d want to interview us?’ Stu asks.

‘I don’t know. Someone might find us inspiring …’

‘You could be photographed looking all macho in your biker leathers,’ I add with a grin. ‘That could boost your customer base—’

‘Or close us down,’ Bob sniggers as I leave them to thrash out their plans in peace.

Alone in the living room, I find myself wishing the kids were around tonight. These days, I barely see them. Cam’s often working or hanging out with Mo and the rest of his mates, and Amy loves being at Bella’s. Who can blame her, with their semi-wild garden and the summerhouse Bella’s dad built? Even at fifteen, the girls still love to ‘camp’ in it. Anyway, I shouldn’t be reliant on my children for company.

I curl up on the sofa with my laptop and, being more of the Bob persuasion where social media is concerned, I log onto Facebook with the intention of catching up with Dad.

Ah, a friend request. I click it open and my heart seems to clunk.

Antoine Rousseau.

Antoine from the Massif Central? Antoine who saw me swimming in my C&A bra and pants? It can’t be him. Occasionally, I’ve wondered what he’s been up to over the years – and, okay, when I first joined Facebook I had a quick search for him. Okay, okay, I spent hours trawling for my teenage love – just out of curiosity, of course. There were so many men called Antoine Rousseau – none of them looking anything like the boy I remembered – that I gave up.

I stare at his name. As he doesn’t have a proper profile picture, I’m still not convinced it’s the Antoine who dumped me in favour of bra-less Nicole. The photo is of an orange sitting on a white plate. What’s that all about?

I open his page but, as we’re not Facebook friends, all I can see is a small selection of pictures: blowsy pink flowers in a garden, a glass of wine on a garden table. And, in bold black type, what looks like one of those motivational phrases, which I have an aversion to in any language and can’t even bother trying to translate.

There is one picture of a person. As it’s taken from a distance on what looks like an otherwise deserted beach, it’s hard at first to tell whether it’s him. I peer at it, and slowly he comes into focus.

A tall, slim man with light brown hair, squinting in the sunshine. A lopsided smile. Bit Boden, actually, in a loose, windblown checked shirt and stone-coloured chinos. My God, he does look like ‘my’ Antoine. In fact, I’m sure he is. What on earth possessed him to contact me now, thirty years since we last saw each other?

Bob’s voice floats in from the garden. ‘We need a proper website. People expect it. It’s like a shop window …’ His voice fades as I’m transported, as a shy and chubby teenager, back to 1986, and a lake deep in the woods where the most beautiful boy I had ever set eyes on handed me his T-shirt to dry myself …

Antoine Rousseau, trampler of my tender sixteen-year-old heart.

Decline or accept?

Bastard.

I click accept.

Chapter Five

I sit there, poised for a message to say hi, how are you? It’s been a long time! Pathetic, I know. Beneath my undeniably middle-aged exterior, I am clearly still that desperate schoolgirl yearning to glimpse a blue airmail envelope bearing a French stamp. Lorrie Foster, written in his spidery hand – oh, the thrill of it!

Irritated with myself – haven’t I matured one iota during the intervening thirty years? – I call out goodnight to Stu and Bob, who have relocated to the kitchen table, and carry my laptop upstairs in the affectedly casual manner of someone planning to order some new saucepans from Amazon.

While I’m getting ready for bed, I keep checking Facebook, my gaze constantly flicking towards it as if I have lost all control of my eyeball-swivelling muscles. My fingers are tingling with the effort of not messaging him. Hello Antoine, I want to type, this is a bit of a surprise! Or rather, Have you any idea how heartbroken I was, and how I took solace in all those ‘forbidden’ Viennettas Mum kept stashed in the chest freezer in the garage, plus stolen Dubonnet from her drinks cabinet? Of course, I don’t really harbour any bitterness now. It was just a teenage thing, a holiday infatuation that fizzled out. After everything that happened subsequently – meeting David, having our children and then losing him – Antoine seems barely significant. But still … what does the shitbag heartbreaker want? Curiosity niggles at me like an itch, and I can’t help wondering what he’d make of me now, aged forty-six, a generous size sixteen and currently wearing Primark pyjamas with penguins printed all over them.

Of course, now we’re Facebook friends, I can access Antoine’s entire photo archive and pore over his grown-up life. At least, the Facebook version which, as everyone knows, is carefully curated to demonstrate an unfailingly happy and enviable existence. However, as a test of willpower, I decide to postpone the pleasure. Instead, I prop up my pillows in bed and force myself into the calmer territory of eBay, where I try to concentrate on finding a suitable dress to wear to my mother’s wedding in three weeks’ time.

Mum’s love life: now there’s a template to avoid. She grumbled about Dad constantly, yet fell apart after turfing him out of the house when I was ten years old. There followed a series of ill-advised liaisons, all ending in heartbreak – but now, thankfully, she is deeply in love with a nice bit of posh called Hamish Sowerbutt, who’s over a decade younger, terribly kind in his scatty way, and clearly adores her. The fact that I don’t have my wedding outfit sorted is causing Mum no small amount of agitation. However, so far, I haven’t found anything suitable. ‘Remember it’s a classy, formal affair,’ she retorted recently. What is she expecting me to turn up in? Ermine?

Then I’m back on Facebook, unable to resist any longer, and now examining numerous pictures of presumably corporate events Antoine has attended. The men are all dressed virtually identically in dark suits, the women in smart jackets and dresses in navy or grey. How disappointing. This is Antoine at work – all professional smiles and handshakes – and gives away nothing about his personal life. There isn’t even anything to indicate the sort of company he works for, or what his job actually is.

In one picture, Antoine – again suited and, it must be said, dashingly handsome – is standing in front of an audience with a microphone, giving some sort of speech. I picture the honey-tanned boy with floppy, overgrown hair and golden skin, covering my neck in tiny feathery kisses. He now looks like the sort of man who has manicures. I stare and stare until each picture has imprinted itself onto my brain.

At around midnight, I hear Cam coming in. ‘Okay, darling?’ I call out.

‘Yeah, good, thanks,’ he replies from the landing. ‘Managed not to fry myself on all those terrifying wires …’

‘Glad to hear it,’ I say with a smile. There’s some pottering about, then music starts up in his room – low volume and pretty mellow, nothing to complain about really – and I detect a whiff of smoke, which Cam might have brought home with him, although of course, venues have been non-smoking for years. He’s probably having a shifty roll-up out of his bedroom window. I know he does this – I’ve found the odd Rizla lying around, and those tiny cylindrical filter things. Although I don’t love the fact that he smokes, he’s assured me that it’s only occasional. When you think of the kind of stuff he could be getting up to, is it really worth falling out over something like three roll-ups a week? Anyway, at his age – post-Antoine, having just started my first job – I was smoking proper ciggies, sneaking them out of Mum’s packets.

Christ, I must have dozed off. I come to, groggily, with the main light still on and my laptop balanced perilously close to the edge of my bed. It’s 3.47 a.m. ‘Get a grip,’ I mutter, placing it on my bedside table.

Just one more check … a message! Whoop!

Hi Lorrie, here’s a recent pic from not so sunny Melbourne. Hope all’s good with you and the kids, love Dad xxx

My father, grinning in a wetsuit, the wet black rubber with banana yellow flashing doing a sterling job of holding in his small paunch. His arm is thrust around Jill, his wife, who’s bare-faced and grinning in a pink T-shirt, baggy shorts and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Both looking great, I reply.

Hey, you’re up late! Been out at a party?

Who comes home from parties at this hour on a Monday night? Oh God, plenty of people do. How old and sour I have become.

No, just having trouble sleeping for some reason. Night, Dad. Love you. L xxx

*

I manage to get through the whole morning at work without checking Facebook on my phone. But at lunchtime, on my way out to buy a sandwich, I crack and message him.

Hi Antoine, I type, my heart rattling only slightly, what a surprise to receive a friend request from you. How are you?

There. Pretty neutral, I’d say.

I glide through the afternoon, reminding myself that this is nothing – just an innocent little friend request – and the very fact that I’m all het up about someone I haven’t seen since 1986 suggests that I really should get out more. Not on dates – definitely not dates – but out in the world generally. Take this summer, for instance. It’s not just my shaky finances to blame for the fact that I have no holiday planned. It’s the issue of who to go with. Naturally, Cameron doesn’t want to come away with me anymore; he and Mo have a vague notion of going to a couple of festivals. Pearl, who works as a nanny to extremely well-heeled families these days, is due back soon from working in Dubai, but the last thing she’ll want is to go away again. Other friends are happily ensconced with their families – two-parent families – and I can’t imagine Stu would want to come away and abandon Parsley Force for a week. Anyway, we’ve never been on holiday together. I think he’d be a bit taken aback if I asked.

In contrast, Amy is off to Bella’s family’s holiday home on the Algarve. ‘They’re so looking forward to it,’ Bella’s mum, Cecily, tells me when she drops off Amy that evening. ‘They’ve been talking about nothing else.’

‘Thanks so much for inviting her again,’ I tell Cecily as the girls disappear to the living room.

‘Oh, she’s such a pleasure to have around, and Bella would be bored stupid, stuck with just her brothers for company.’ She pauses and sips her tea at my kitchen table. ‘How about you? Are you managing to get away?’

I shake my head. ‘Maybe later in the year, I’m not sure yet.’

‘I should have asked you to come too. There’s room, you know, and you could get a last-minute flight, just fly to Faro and we’ll pick you up—’

‘Oh no, Amy would hate that …’ I correct myself, ‘I mean, she loves coming away with you. She had the best time last summer. It wouldn’t be the same if I tagged along.’

‘You wouldn’t be tagging,’ she insists, and it occurs to me that the real reason I have turned down previous offers to stay in Cecily and Gerry’s Portuguese villa is because … well, I don’t quite fit into their world. Although we have only got to know each other through our daughters’ friendship, I admire Cecily immensely; she’s a powerhouse of energy, taking charge of her four children without ever seeming to break into a sweat. However, en masse the Kentons are just a little too, well, perfect. No sugar is allowed in their house – ever. The only ‘biscuits’ permitted are seed-covered crispbreads by someone called ‘Dr Kaarg’; Cecily is always asking Stu to pick some up for her when he visits a certain out-of-the-way supermarket which stocks the entire Dr Kaarg range. Plus, it’s true that Amy enjoys the novelty of being away with the Kentons. Other people’s families always seem a little shinier than your own.

To swerve us away from my lack of holiday plans, I fill Cecily in on my latest dating adventure – the living sculpture, the conceptual art – at which she honks with laughter, strawberry blonde curls tumbling into her eyes.

‘Oh God, Lorrie. You must find a decent man who isn’t completely weird. Let me find you one. There are lots at work, handsome guys in their forties, divorced, bit of baggage, but then who hasn’t amassed some of that, at our age?’

‘Oh no, please don’t set me up. I’m not looking for any more dates …’

She helps herself to a slice of Stu’s recent bake – a particularly moist and delicious gingerbread – and takes an enthusiastic bite. The sugar ban doesn’t seem to extend beyond the boundaries of the Kentons’ home. ‘Well, what about meeting more men from that dating site?’

‘Oh, no, I’m coming off that …’

‘But you’ve hardly given it a chance!’

‘I have, Cecily. Three dates is quite enough—’

‘Three’s nothing in that sort of world.’

I laugh. ‘You don’t know that sort of world. You have no idea what it’s like to spend an evening with someone who drones on about how much he hates work – how the insurance business is killing him – and all you can do is stare at the three little brown pegs which you suspect might actually be teeth …’

‘Ugh, really? It provides good stories, at least.’

But who wants to go on dates just for stories? I reflect as Cecily takes another bite of cake. She and Gerry have been together since, well, forever, and still adore each other. As well as Bella – who’s an excellent pianist – they have Matthew, Oliver and George, all accomplished classical musicians with impeccable manners and hearty red cheeks. Their Victorian townhouse gleams with gilt-framed accolades.

‘Oh, there is someone who’s crawled out of the woodwork,’ I add, lifting my laptop from the worktop. ‘See what you think of this …’ I open Antoine’s Facebook page and click on the beach picture.

‘Mmmm, he’s a bit of a fox. Who is he?’

‘First love,’ I explain. ‘Well, first obsession really, but it felt like true love at the time. Mum packed me off to France at sixteen to stay with my penpal. He was her older brother and he’s just sent me a friend request …’

‘So you had a thing with him?’

I nod. ‘Just a holiday romance, I suppose, although there wasn’t any “just” about it at the time …’

‘Let’s see more pictures,’ she enthuses as I start to click through them. ‘So many work events,’ she adds. ‘Conferences, meetings, that kind of thing …’

‘It’s all very corporate,’ I agree, hearing the front door open and Stu striding in.

‘Hey, Stu,’ Cecily says with a smile.

‘Hey, Cess.’ He always calls her this. I’m not sure she likes it much, but she does like Stu, so she lets him get away with it. ‘What’s this?’ he enquires, glancing over my shoulder. ‘You’re Facebook friends with an orange?’

‘It’s actually a person,’ I explain. ‘Remember Antoine, from that French trip? The one who stopped writing—’

‘Not the shithead who broke your heart?’ Stu asks.

‘Yep, that’s the one,’ I say wryly.

He turns to Cecily. ‘She was devastated. Cried for weeks. Of course, it was left to me to pick up the pieces …’

I sense my cheeks colouring as Cecily crooks a brow. ‘And you accepted his friend request?’ she remarks.

‘Well, yes, but only because—’

‘So, did he poke you?’ Stu cuts in.

‘Stu, she was only sixteen!’ Cecily exclaims.

‘No, I mean a Facebook poke.’

I laugh derisively. ‘No one pokes anyone these days. No one’s poked anyone since about 2007 …’

‘No, I heard it was coming back,’ he says, suddenly quite the social media guru. ‘People are poking each other all over the place. So, you didn’t tell me he’d been in touch?’

Cecily and I exchange a quick look.

‘It was only yesterday,’ I remark.

‘Oh, right. So, what does he want?’ He cranes forward for a closer look, radiating disapproval.

‘Just to be friends, I guess …’

‘Friends?’ he repeats.

‘Yes, is there anything wrong with that?’ I’m starting to feel rather crowded in now, and slightly regret turning this utterly insignificant incident into a public event. I decide not to mention that I have already messaged Antoine, and have yet to receive a reply.

‘I s’pose not,’ Stu says with a shrug, ‘if you really want to be in contact again …’

‘Well, I think he’s gorgeous,’ Cecily adds with a grin.

‘He’s all right,’ I say lightly.

‘Oh, come on! Look at those lovely dark eyes, Lorrie. The chiselled cheekbones. Very sexy in that polished professional sort of way …’

‘Puh.’ With a snort, Stu ambles away. He opens the fridge, peers inside and closes it again.

‘Well, that’s enough Antoine for me,’ Cecily adds, jumping up. ‘Better head back before I get overheated.’ She turns towards the kitchen door. ‘Bella darling? We really need to get going …’

And off they go, shortly followed by Stu, who’s called out on another job – emergency unsalted butter required in Crouch End – so, with Amy enjoying one of her customary soaks in the bath, I hunker down at the kitchen table and scroll through yet more of Antoine’s pictures.

More personal insights into his life is what I’m looking for: a wife, a girlfriend, children. A couple of photos I missed earlier were taken at some kind of gathering in a garden, in which he’s wearing a casual shirt and jeans, but there are no couply pictures, and there’s nothing to indicate whether he’s married or not. I examine picture after picture like some rabidly obsessed teenager, and when I check the clock on the cooker I realise over an hour has passed since Stu went out. That’s how long I’ve spent gawping at someone I haven’t seen since I was sixteen years old. What’s wrong with me? I am forty-six, I have a tunic to iron for work tomorrow, there’s a load of saggy old vegetables to dispose of in the fridge.

Allowing myself one final peek, I click on the picture that isn’t of a person or thing, but a phrase – perhaps one of those mottoes for life. Nuala pins them up whenever we’re all gathered together in a hotel for a La Beauté away-day: Because every woman is beautiful. Antoine’s reads: La vie est comme une bicyclette. Pour garder votre équilibre, vous devez continuer à avancer.

Even I can understand the first bit. Google translates the rest: To keep your balance, you must keep moving. So this is the type of person he’s turned out to be: a-life-is-a-bicycle sort of man. Right-ho. I go back to the corporate pictures, vaguely registering Stu arriving home and clattering about in the hallway.

A message pops up. Antoine!

Hey Lorrie, Thanks for accepting :) I’m very flattered that you remember me …

Remember? Is the man insane? Of course I remember!

Realise it was thirty years ago, he continues. Where does all the time go?

Oh, I don’t know – it just keeps moving. On its bicycle probably.

So, he goes on, what are you up to these days?

I wait, but nothing more comes. So, how to respond? I rehearse the words in my head: I am in charge of a highly successful make-up and skincare empire … Although I travel widely, what I love most is being with my two delightful teenagers in my beautiful house in a sought-after part of London …

I glance down at Amy’s dusty red and black basketball boots, dumped in front of the cubbyhole shelves that are meant for wine, but which are stuffed with random items such as gardening gloves, jam jars and obsolete chargers.

Stu saunters in, pulling off his crash helmet. ‘Still in a sweat over your French fancy?’

‘I’m not in a sweat,’ I retort. ‘Just a bit taken aback, that’s all.’

He peers down at my face. ‘Yes you are. You’re all flushed and your pupils are dilated …’

I laugh awkwardly and try to angle my laptop so he can’t see the message. Too late. His eyes light upon the screen.

‘Ooh, he’s messaged you. Are you going to reply?’

‘I might …’

‘What are you going to say?’

Jesus, it’s like having another teenager about the place. Any replies from datemylovelymum yet? Let me see! ‘Just … you know,’ I murmur. ‘Normal stuff …’

‘Tell him what an amazingly handsome, adorable housemate you have. Go on. Make him regret running off with that French girl, what was her name …’

‘Nicole …’

‘… And realise what a fuck-up he made of things. Make him pine for you, Lorrie …’ He guffaws loudly.

For Christ’s sake, is my entire private life to be held up for everyone else’s cheap entertainment? I try to radiate calm – and mentally compose a suitable message – but it’s impossible now with Stu hanging over me.

He extracts a Magnum ice cream from the freezer and rips off its wrapper. ‘You know what you should put? You should say—’

‘Stu, please!’

‘Whoah, I’m only trying to help …’

‘Yes, but you’re sounding exactly like my mum. You know she used to tell me what to put in a thank you letter? “Don’t just say thanks for the sweater, Lorrie. Say what you like about it – be specific about how you love the colour, the feel of it, how it goes with your jeans …”’

He licks the ice cream slowly. ‘Please don’t say I’m like your mum.’

I stand up and go to touch his arm, but he steps away. ‘Oh, of course you’re not. I just meant—’

‘I was only trying to help,’ he cuts in like a petulant child.

I look at him, embarrassed now for acting like a lunatic over a casual friend request. ‘Look, I know you were. But I really don’t need anyone’s help to message someone …’

‘Yeah, I know.’ He tries for a smile, but it falters. ‘He uses a photo of an orange for a profile picture.’

I chuckle. ‘Yes, he does. Seems like a bit of a jerk.’

Stu drops his Magnum, only half-finished, into the bin. ‘You don’t really mean that,’ he adds, affecting a teasing tone as he saunters out of the kitchen. ‘Anyway, if you’re going to obsess over someone who broke your heart thirty years ago, then I’m not going to stand in your way.’

Chapter Six

It’s a cool and breezy Wednesday morning and, after Stu’s prickliness, I’m looking forward to throwing myself into a day at the store.

I didn’t bother replying to Antoine’s message last night. Instead, I went straight to bed, finally drifting off to the muffled chatter and laughter of Cam and Mo in Cam’s room. No one had surfaced by the time I got up. I dressed quickly in my La Beauté tunic and the required smart black trousers, and applied my make-up – dark eyes, red lips, my professional face – on autopilot.

As I emerge from the tube station a text pings in from Cecily: I have a theory about the lovely Antoine. He’s newly divorced and thinking, hmm, who can I contact from my past? And you were top of his list!

I smile, amused by her line of thinking. The thing is, when you’re single, married friends are especially keen for you to ‘get out there’ and enjoy some dating adventures. Perhaps they miss that flurry of excitement, and want you to have some fun for them to enjoy, safely, from the sidelines.

I stop outside a closing-down Rymans and reply: Top of the list? Very much doubt it. Will keep you posted! And so to work, where I know precisely what my role is, and what’s expected of me – unlike with the rest of my life.

*

‘The lovely thing about this day cream,’ I say, spreading a little across my customer’s finely boned face, ‘is that it’s like wearing nothing, but all the time it’s keeping the cells plumped up for at least seven hours, whilst helping to stop moisture evaporating from the surface …’

‘You mean it doesn’t sink in?’ she asks.

‘Well, yes, it does, but a very fine layer sits on top of the skin, acting as a protective barrier.’

‘Do you actually know this?’

This takes me aback. I was surprised, actually, that this older woman agreed to come to the counter as I approached her. She’d glided in – tall, perfectly poised with erect posture – just after we opened this morning. I’d expected a brisk ‘no thanks’ and for her to saunter straight past.

‘All our products have taken years to develop,’ I explain, ‘and when something new is launched we all try it over a few weeks. This is the cream I use every day.’

She smiles knowingly. ‘Of course it is, but then, you have to say that.’

‘I’d never recommend anything if I didn’t feel confident that it works.’

She touches her cheek. ‘It does feel rather nice, I have to say.’

I smile. ‘Would you like to try some of our new make-up colours too?’

‘Oh, is there any point at my age?’

I study her for a moment. What a face she has: almost sculpted, with an amazing complexion, her green eyes as striking as a cat’s. In her mid-sixties perhaps, she is a vision of elegance in a simple blue cotton dress and a lace-knit black cardi. Her silvery bob, not a hair out of place, hangs neatly at her pointed chin.

‘I think there’s a point at any age,’ I say, ‘if it makes you feel good about yourself.’

She frowns briefly. ‘Oh, go on then, why not? It’s just, I’ve never been a make-up person, I’ve never actually worn lipstick …’

‘No, well, I can do something very subtle for you.’

‘And I do have something coming up – an important presentation which I’m actually quite nervous about. Silly, I know, at my age …’

‘Not at all,’ I assert.

She blinks at our array of eye shadows, looking quite baffled. ‘Anyway, I’m thinking that make-up is somewhat necessary for such an occasion. It’s just expected, isn’t it, that one looks … polished these days? Could you give me some advice on that?’

‘I’d be delighted to,’ I say. ‘I’m Lorrie, by the way …’

‘Gilda.’

‘Don’t worry, Gilda, I won’t do anything outlandish. Neutrals are best when you want to look professional. So, I’ll start with our new primer …’

A small frown. ‘I have no idea what primers do.’

‘They just form a smooth base for make-up,’ I explain, ‘and contain tiny light-reflecting particles—’

‘I don’t want to look like a mirrorball!’

‘Oh, you won’t, because when I apply base over that …’

‘So base goes over the … what’s it called again?’

‘Primer.’

Gilda chuckles. ‘The base coat …’

‘Well, sort of …’

‘Like I’m a roughcast wall.’

I laugh, because she really is astoundingly beautiful and I don’t think she’s even aware of the fact.

She sits bolt upright as I apply a light cream base, and seems to be paying rapt attention as I talk her through the make-up. ‘I’m using this neutral beige over your lids,’ I explain, ‘and some darker brown close to your lashes and along the socket line – this gives an impression of depth …’

‘Not too much, please,’ she murmurs.

‘No, I promise it’s not a lot. Just a smudge of liner and some brown mascara, it’s much softer than black …’ I add blusher and a subtle brownish-rose lipstick. Although it is a full face of make-up, the effect is subtly enhancing.

‘So what do you think?’

Gilda swivels towards the mirror. ‘Oh!’ She regards herself for a moment.

Hell, she’s horrified.

‘Well, I have to say …’ She peers more closely. ‘Yes, I actually like it. Gosh, that’s a surprise. It did feel like an awful lot of stuff you were putting on …’

I exhale with relief. Although I always care, it seemed especially important that Gilda – a lipstick first-timer – was happy with my handiwork. ‘It probably did, if you’re not used to it …’

She hops down off the stool. ‘And I couldn’t be doing with all that every day, good lord no …’

‘No, of course not. But for a special occasion – for your presentation …’

‘Yes, quite. You know, I think I might have a go myself.’ She smiles. ‘I’ll take them, please.’

That’s a bonus. I didn’t expect a sale. ‘Which products were you thinking of? Here’s everything I’ve used today …’

I lay out the make-up on the counter, which she peruses carefully.

‘Oh, I’ll take the lot, darling. You’re very talented, I can’t quite believe how, well …’ She pauses and checks her reflection again. ‘… How damn good I look!’

‘You look wonderful. I’m so glad you’re happy.’

I ring through her purchases and watch her stride away.

‘God, she was gorgeous,’ exclaims Helena, who’s just returned from her break. ‘I’d love to be like that when I’m her age. It gives me hope. And wasn’t she pleased! Isn’t that a great feeling?’

‘It is,’ I say truthfully, because that’s what I love most about my job: seeing a woman light up with pleasure after I’ve applied her make-up. We get to know our customers a little, too, albeit for the short time they’re perched on our stools. We hear about new relationships, break-ups, difficult mothers, career triumphs and disasters – the whole range of life’s dramas. Making up someone’s face is such an intimate thing. Often, a woman opens up, more than you’d ever imagine.

‘You’re definitely coming out tonight, aren’t you?’ Helena adds.

‘Yes, of course. Looking forward to it …’ It’s Helena’s birthday today – her thirty-sixth – reminding me that I’m by far the oldest team member here. As one customer put it, ‘It’s nice to get advice from someone who understands mature skin.’ Ouch. She was right, though, and even our younger customers – barely twenty, some of them – seem to enjoy my rather motherly approach. I reassure myself of this on rare occasions when I panic about being put out to pasture.

At lunchtime, having picked up a sandwich, I install myself on a bench in the nearby tree-lined square and check my phone. Antoine has messaged again.

Hope you don’t mind me getting in touch, Lorrie. I knew it was you right away. You have hardly changed at all.

Oh, please – flatterer. Yet I can’t help smiling.

Where are you? Still in Yorkshire?

I take a fortifying bite of my sandwich and type:

Hi Antoine,

Lovely to hear from you. It was quite a surprise, I have to say. I’m in London – I’ve lived here pretty much all my adult life actually. East London, Bethnal Green. I live with my two teenagers and our lodger, Stu. Life’s really good. How about you? Where are you living these days?

I’m poised, waiting for a reply; I can see he’s online with his little green light on. There’s a burst of laughter from a group of young women all stretched out on the grass. Despite the cool breeze, their skirts are hoiked up to maximise tanning potential.

Life is good thank you, he replies. I live in Nice – very different from that sleepy place I grew up in, where nothing ever happened! Do you remember it? I have very happy memories of my time with you. :)

Hmm. So he likes a smiley emoticon. Could it be interpreted as flirty, or would that be a wink? I’m not au fait with the language of commas and dots. Another message appears:

I have two teenagers too, Nicolas and Elodie.

Lovely names, I reply.

Thank you, of course I think so! And yours?

I have Cameron, who’s seventeen – everyone apart from his grandma calls him Cam – and Amy, she’s fifteen. She spends every spare moment at basketball training. Cam loves music and wants to be a sound engineer – or at least he thinks so. It’s all rather vague at the moment.

They sound like great kids. Mine live with their mother in Paris so it’s a long way. But we see each other when we can. They are fifteen and thirteen and growing up fast. It’s hard to believe we were just teenagers ourselves when we met that summer! Do you remember?

Does he actually think I have no memory at all?

Yes, of course I remember, I reply, then add a smiley :)

Amy would be appalled. I’ve glimpsed her texts – they are littered with emoticons – but she reckons there’s a cut-off age (twenty) for their usage.

Having finished my sandwich now, I’m starting to feel slightly ridiculous, sitting here on tenterhooks for another message. I can virtually hear Stu, carping into my ear: ‘Your pupils are massive and you’re all flushed! Jesus, Lorrie, look at the state of you …’

Amazing wasn’t it? Antoine types. The best time!

Wow – that’s a bit … suggestive. Fragments of his long-ago correspondence – the spidery handwriting with its distinctly French-looking loops and curls – flutter into my mind as I get up and drop my sandwich wrapper into a nearby bin. I’ll never forget you, he wrote in his letters back then. I’ll always love you, my beautiful Lorrie.

I stop at the corner of the street. Five minutes left of my break. I type a message, feeling emboldened now.

Can I just ask what’s made you get in touch with me now, after all this time?

Hell, why not? I want to know what he wants, and I’ve been far too reserved lately. Take the date with Ralph. What possessed me to just sit there, being pleasant, while he told me I was clearly very fond of my cake? Why didn’t I say, ‘Actually, that’s incredibly rude of you and, while we’re at it, I really couldn’t give a toss about what Thomas Trotter is trying to “say” with his caged Brillo pads’?

I hover, staring at my phone like a fixated teenager. Perhaps Cecily was right, and Antoine is newly single and working his way through the list of all the women who’ve been in any way significant to him. Who would I have, if I was playing that game? Without David, there is literally no one. There have been others, of course – a few forgettables before I met him, then more recently Pete Parkin from the electricals department at work, with whom I had a brief thing about three years ago, until he left to take up a deputy manager’s position at Holland and Barrett. But he’d hardly feature on any list; in fact, I suspected we’d only got together because we were both lonely and ended up chatting at a work leaving do. We had absolutely nothing in common, and the sex, which happened just a handful of times – accompanied by the shrill squawks of his parrot in the living room – was a rather dismal affair.

I moved a few months ago, Antoine replies. I’m still sorting through papers and photos, trying to throw things away. Do you find it hard to let go of things?

Oh, yes. Our loft is stuffed with boxes and bags containing David’s possessions. His books, paperwork, numerous shirts with frayed collars that he refused to throw away: they’re all there, waiting for decisions to be made about their destiny.

Once, I got as far as packing up a dozen or so shirts for charity. I was halfway to the shop when I glimpsed a faded blue one poking out of the bag – the one David always took on holiday and threw on over a T-shirt when the beach turned cool. I pulled it out of the bag and briefly buried my face in it, certain I could smell his sun-warmed skin and not caring whether passers-by thought I was crazy. Then I hurried home and bundled the bag of shirts back into the loft.

That, Antoine types, is when I found pictures of us!

I stare at my phone. Pictures of us? I don’t remember many being taken, and the only one I have from that trip is of Valérie and me, sitting rather unhappily on the edge of her bed. I am smiling tensely and Valérie is pulling off one of her socks.

Really? I type. I am amazed you have any from that long ago.

Yes, he replies instantly, it was lovely to see them. You know, I couldn’t believe you had travelled alone, all the way from Yorkshire, with that piece of paper your mother typed. You were brave. Anything could have happened to you …

Something did happen to me.

I thought you were clever, brave and beautiful …

My heart seems to slam against my ribs.

Look, here’s one of the pictures …

My breath catches as a photo appears. It’s a little fuzzy, and at first it’s hard to believe it’s really us. He’s probably photographed the old print with his phone. But I remember it being taken now, by one of Valérie’s friends on a blisteringly hot day. Antoine and I are standing on the old stone bridge in the village, squinting a little – or at least I am – at the camera. He is looking at me, and his slim brown arm is slung around my shoulders, pulling me close. I have dreadful hair – yellowy highlights clashing against my natural brunette, the style verging perilously close to mullet – but I look so happy. Both of us do. You can see it clearly, shining out of our faces, even from a thirty- year-old faded print.

Wow, I type.

It’s lovely, he replies.

Apart from my highlights!

Highlights?

Those yellow stripes in my hair …

I swallow hard, poised to walk back into the store, wanting to remind him that his letters became rather blunt (‘Valérie learns karate but broke shoulder!’) before petering out altogether. I could tell him about my prowlings in the hallway at home, waiting for the postman, or the fact that I lied to Gail Cuthbertson, the mean girl at school, when she asked if I still had ‘that French boyfriend’.

‘Yes, if it’s any of your business.’

‘Let’s see a photo of him then.’

‘Don’t have any.’

‘Yeah, ’cause you made him up!’

Of course I don’t hold grudges: not like my mother, who’s still prone to muttering about my father’s unwillingness to fix a dodgy plug – ‘It’s like he was waging a campaign to electrocute me, Lorrie. Like he wanted to shoot thousands of volts through my body!’ And they broke up thirty-six years ago.

‘Can’t you just let it go, Mum?’ I implored her the last time she dredged it up. ‘It’s a very long time ago and he’s safely on the other side of the world. No one’s going to get electrocuted now.’

‘Maybe Jill will,’ she muttered, with a trace of gleefulness.

So, no – of course I’m not bitter about a teenage romance that fizzled out.

I thought you had lovely hair, Antoine replies now.

A busker starts playing a harmonica incredibly badly as another picture appears on my phone: the two of us again, this time lying on our backs in some grassy place – the goat farm perhaps – photographed from above. I guess his friend must have taken it. Of course, it was long before the days of selfies. My T-shirt is rumpled and slipping off one shoulder, and I am smiling broadly; that pouty photo face, the one all the girls do now, hadn’t been invented then. Even if it had, I’d have been too filled with happiness to remember to pull it.

I stare at the picture, no longer registering the throngs of people all around because I’m just seeing me, a young girl madly in love for the very first time. My vision fuzzes as Antoine’s message appears:

I have to tell you, Lorrie, it was the summer I came alive.

Chapter Seven

There’s no time to reply and, anyway, I haven’t the first idea how to respond. The summer he came alive? What does that mean? I hurry back into the store and find Nuala hovering at our counter.

‘Ah, here you are, Lorrie.’ She smiles tightly.

‘Oh, sorry, were you looking for me?’

‘No, it’s okay, you’re here now. Just wondering how things are going?’

Helena, who’s helping a customer to select a blusher, throws me a quizzical look.

‘Great,’ I reply. ‘We’re all hitting targets, the day cream and serum are going especially well …’ Nuala knows all this because our sales are carefully recorded and monitored. In her late thirties, authoritative but approachable and chatty with the team, she usually just drops by to ensure everything is tidy and just so. She might share some gossip from one of the other stores, and one of us will touch up her lipstick. Today, she doesn’t seem interested in any of that.

‘Just wanted to let you know,’ she starts, pushing back her sleek black hair, ‘we’re having a bit of a company meeting on Friday and it’s really important everyone attends.’

‘Oh, okay. What’s it all about?’

‘Just a little thing for all the counter teams in the south-east. There’s a hotel booked for it. You’ll receive an email but I wanted to see you personally …’ She clears her throat and glances around anxiously. Although she’s my boss, we have known each other for long enough to have developed a sort of friendship. However, today she is emitting definite don’t-quiz-me vibes.

‘Is it a training session?’ I ask.

‘Um, no, it’s not training. Well, not exactly.’

‘Come on, Nuala. Don’t leave us all hanging like this.’

She smiles tersely and her neck flushes pink. ‘Sorry, I can’t say anything else. It’s an early start, I’m afraid – 8 a.m. – and breakfast will be served. You’ll be back here by noon.’

I glance at Helena, and then back at Nuala. ‘You mean we’ll all be there? But what about the counter?’

‘Don’t worry,’ she says briskly. ‘I’m bringing in a team to cover things here. It’s only a few hours …’

‘A team? What d’you mean?’

‘Trainees. They’ll manage,’ she adds with uncharacteristic sharpness.

‘The counter will be manned by trainees?’

‘It’ll be fine, Lorrie. Trust me, please – oh, and you should all be in uniform for the meeting, that goes without saying …’

‘Yes, of course,’ I murmur, glancing down at my black La Beauté tunic with its white logo on the breast pocket. As if we’d turn up in T-shirts and jeans.

Nuala swipes her trilling phone from her shoulder bag and purses her lips at it. ‘Sorry, got to take this.’ She steps away, hair half-covering her face, already murmuring into her phone.

I look at Andi, an eager school-leaver and our newest recruit. She pulls a ‘what the hell?’ face, but there’s no chance to speculate, not with Nuala loitering nearby. Anyway, if something’s afoot, we won’t help matters by standing about gossiping.

I approach a customer, inviting her to try our new, ultra-light foundation, and fall into easy chit-chat as normal. ‘You’ll find it’s as light as a BB cream, while smoothing out imperfections …’

‘Oh, I’d like to try that …’

‘Could you hop on the stool for me and we’ll see which colour gives the best match?’

‘Great,’ the woman says. ‘The thing is, foundation always looks orange on me …’

Antoine flickers into my mind as I dab at her face with a cosmetic sponge. Antoine, with his orange-for-a-face profile picture, who reckons he ‘came alive’ in the summer of ’86.

‘Oh, that does look good,’ she exclaims, examining her reflection. ‘I’ll take it.’

‘Great, would you like me to cleanse it off for you?’

‘What, and look like my knackered old self?’ She laughs, oblivious to Nuala who’s still lurking close by, barking into her mobile now: ‘Yes, they’ll all be there. Of course I’ve said it’s compulsory …’

My customer trots away with her purchase, and I busy myself with tidying up my counter area, while trying to ignore a niggle of unease about all of us attending this meeting. The company is strict about holiday leave; many of our customers are fiercely loyal and expect to see a familiar face at the counter. In fact, I can’t remember a time when we have all been off at once.

Looking severely rattled now, Nuala finishes her call and turns to address us again. ‘I meant to say, one or two counter staff might be asked to stand up and do a little talk at this, er, thing. It’s nothing to panic about—’

‘Really? What kind of talk?’ I try to keep my voice level.

‘Oh, you know, just a quick, spontaneous thing. The essence of what La Beauté is all about …’

I study her face. Her pale blue eyes look tired, and her lipstick has worn away.

‘Any idea who’ll have to do this?’ Helena asks.

‘Honestly, I have no idea. But I think we should all be prepared, okay?’

‘So we should prepare, even though it’s meant to be spontaneous?’ I smile to show I’m fine with this, but Nuala’s mouth remains set in a tight line.

‘Really, it’s nothing to worry about. All they want to see is a real passion for the brand …’

‘Who’s they?’ I ask.

‘Oh, just the head honchos, you know …’

I frown, confused by her vagueness; I know most of senior management by name. Her phone trills again, and she waves quickly, her glossy heels clacking as she marches away from our counter, past clusters of perplexed-looking assistants from the other counters, towards the revolving front door.

Andi widens her eyes at me. ‘That sounds scary. I hate public speaking. I always feel like I might actually throw up.’

‘It’s no big deal,’ I say, affecting a breeziness I don’t feel, ‘and it’ll probably be good for us, whatever it is. Just a little team get-together to keep us all on our toes.’

*

The upstairs room in the pub that Helena reserved for her birthday gathering has been double-booked. So we’ve been bundled in with a crowd of incredibly loud twenty- somethings who seem surprisingly inebriated, considering it’s only 7.30 p.m. Crammed around a too-small table, we all ooh and ahh as Helena opens her presents, enthusing over each one in turn. However, the larger group dominates, their choice of music pumping relentlessly from a speaker above my head.

‘He says it was all moving too fast,’ shouts a girl from the other party, inches from my ear. ‘And now I hear he’s moved in with that woman. You know the fat one who’s, like, thirty?’

I glance around, and she casts me a look of disdain as if I have no business being here at all.

‘Oh my God,’ gasps her friend, flicking her tussled blonde hair. ‘The one with skirt up her arse, cellulite on display?’

Helena’s sister Sophie catches my eye across the table and grimaces.

‘Yeah, don’t know how he can stand seeing her naked.’

Our nondescript meals are brought by a glum waitress, and bear all the hallmarks of having hopped straight from freezer to microwave. I poke at my bland Thai curry, wondering when thirty was deemed ancient and whether I can get away with slipping off home pretty soon.

The two girls are still positioned right beside our table where they are continuing their annihilation of this unnamed woman. ‘She must be at least a size fourteen,’ the blonde one remarks.

‘Yeah! God, it’s disgusting. It always amazes me how some women allow themselves to get to that size.’ I look down at my bowl, my appetite having waned, my curry watery and tepid. After our initial sterling efforts, our group seems to have given up on making ourselves heard above the din. Even Helena looks as if her spirits are sagging.

As our plates are cleared, I reflect that, at some point, Mum stopped mentioning my ‘puppy fat’, declaring instead, ‘You’re lucky, you can carry off your size because of your height.’ Which made me feel like some vast ocean liner: strong, sturdy, reliable in high seas.

More people are crowding into the room now, jostling our table and shouting over our heads. The waitress seems to have forgotten that we’ve ordered another round of drinks, and I find myself yearning to be spirited home to Stu and the kids.

‘Let’s go somewhere else,’ Helena says in frustration.

‘Good idea,’ remarks Sophie as the bill is plonked on our table, without the extra round of drinks. As we divvy it up, I make my excuses for a quick exit and hug Helena and Andi goodbye. That’s one bonus of growing older; there’s no shame to be had in ducking out early.

Liberated into the humid July night, I make my way towards the tube, finally getting a moment to consider Antoine’s ‘the summer I came alive’ declaration. How am I supposed to respond to that, and why is he telling me now? Perhaps he was just hit by a wave of nostalgia, as I am occasionally. Only mine tend to feature David and the children, the four of us together, on a holiday or at Christmas, or just lazing around the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Sometimes, I miss him so much it causes an actual ache.

As light rain starts to fall, I step into Tesco Metro where I select packets of chilli and lime rice crackers to satisfy Cam’s copious late-night snacking. Amy favours cheese – the pricier varieties, naturally – and it’s as I approach the dairy section that my mobile rings.

‘Hello?’ I reach for a wedge of Brie.

‘Hi, Lorrie. It’s Ralph—’

‘Oh! How are you?’

‘Great. Look, I hope this isn’t a bad time …’

‘Um, I’m just shopping actually …’ And didn’t I explain last Sunday that we wouldn’t be meeting again? I drop the cheese into my basket, confused as to why he’s calling at all.

‘Right,’ he says.

‘Ralph, you did get my text, didn’t you? After our date, I mean?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he blusters. ‘Yes. Sorry. I’m just calling because, uhh …’ There’s some anxious throat-clearing. ‘I think I owe you an apology.’

‘Really? What for?’ The cake thing, he must mean.

Feeling generous, I select the smoked cheese Amy likes, the one with the terracotta-coloured skin.

‘Oh … everything really,’ he says with an awkward laugh. ‘Mentioning Belinda, for one thing. I’m not sure what I was thinking. That’s not what one does on a date, is it?’

‘It’s okay to talk about your ex,’ I say lightly, ‘and I did ask. Don’t worry about it.’ It’s slightly less okay to infer that I’m a cake-scoffing heifer, not that I care about that now …

‘… And going on about the art,’ Ralph continues. ‘Obviously, they weren’t your cup of tea, those wound paintings, the Thomas Trotter installations …’

‘Well, they were interesting.’

‘No, I’m sorry. You must have found me a colossal bore …’

‘No, not at all,’ I say, firmly, making my way down the aisle.

‘You’re very kind, Lorrie. Anyway, what I wanted to say is, I was terribly nervous on our date. Does that sound pathetic?’

‘No, of course not. It’s nerve-racking, this online dating business, strangers thrown together like that. But look, Ralph, I’m in Tesco, I really must get on and—’

‘The thing is,’ he interrupts, ‘I was pretty taken aback when I saw you.’

I stop and frown. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Oh, please don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re really not like you appear in your photo …’

‘Aren’t I?’ Neither are you, Mr-dig-out-a-pic-from-the-90s!

‘No. I mean, your photo’s lovely, of course – that’s why I contacted you in the first place. But in real life you’re much more, er …’

Oh, God, what now?

‘… You’re beautiful!’ he exclaims.

I blink, wondering whether I’ve heard him correctly. ‘Erm … that’s very kind of you, Ralph …’

‘No, I mean it. I think I was rather bowled over, and when I’m nervous I sort of … oh God, this is awful, I am sorry, but I wanted to impress you, I suppose.’

Something in me softens, and then I realise I’m doing it again. At the gallery it was poor, bereaved Ralph. Now it’s poor, nervous Ralph. I must get a grip before I find myself agreeing to another date just because I feel sorry for him. ‘Well, thanks for explaining,’ I murmur.

‘That’s okay. Just thought, if I cleared the air, you might agree to meet me again, just for a coffee or something—’

‘I’m sorry, but no,’ I say firmly.

‘Ah. Okay.’

‘But there is something else,’ I add. ‘Something I’d like to say about our date, if that’s okay.’

He coughs. ‘Oh. Yes, of course.’

‘It’s about the cake thing.’

‘The cake thing? I’m sorry, I don’t—’

‘Remember when we were in the cafe?’ I cut in, emboldened now. ‘You said something that came across as rather rude, actually.’

‘Really?’ He sounds aghast.

‘Yes, you said, “You’re obviously a girl who very much enjoys her cake.”’

A small silence hangs between us. ‘Oh. Was that impolite?’

‘A little, yes.’

He sighs audibly. ‘I’m so sorry. I meant it as a compliment actually. It’s very attractive, you know, seeing a woman enjoying her food, tucking in with gusto …’

‘Really?’ I say, laughing now.

‘Yes. Women these days – the ones I work with at least – it’s all tiny trays of sushi for lunch, or maybe a dip and some crudités …’

‘I’m not a crudité sort of woman.’

‘No, I can see that.’

‘Because I am a larger woman, you mean …’

‘Well, yes, although I’d rather use the term curvaceous …’

Those few forkfuls of Thai green curry sit uneasily in my stomach. ‘Pardon?’

‘Or perhaps I should say voluptuous,’ he adds, and there’s a catch to his voice now that makes me shudder.

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t,’ I remark.

‘I meant it as a compliment. You’re very attractive. The way you carry yourself, your body …’

I frown, aware that his breathing has taken on a rasping quality. ‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with—’

‘… When we interacted with the art,’ he adds. ‘I noticed it then, especially …’

‘I beg your pardon?’ I have stopped by the laundry detergents.

‘When we – you know – tried on that jacket. It was rather …’

‘Rather what?’ I bark, flinging a bottle of fabric conditioner into my basket.

‘It was, you know … quite stirring. I enjoyed interacting with you, Lorrie …’

It takes me a moment to process this. ‘You mean in an art way? You were stirred by the art?’

‘No, by being in such close … proximity to you. You see, when we were pressed up together I couldn’t help but notice your marvellous figure …’ Oh my God. ‘I’m sorry,’ he goes on, sounding a little breathless now. ‘You see, since Belinda left, I haven’t actually been physically close to anyone at all …’ I am standing dead still. An elderly woman gripping a gigantic pack of loo roll gives me a quizzical look. ‘… And there we were, so close together, and it was rather …’ His breath catches.

‘Stirring?’ I snatch a three-pack of yellow dishwasher sponges from the bottom shelf.

‘Well, yes.’ There’s a sharp intake of breath, then another.

‘Are you jogging, Ralph?’

‘Jogging? No, no, I’m still at work—’

‘But it’s nearly nine o’clock!’

‘Yes, I often work late,’ he pants. ‘Busy, you know. And I’ve been thinking about you. Been thinking how much I’d like to, uh, get to know you better—’

‘You sound out of breath,’ I cut in. ‘Are you ill?’

‘No, no—’

‘Are you saying all this in front of your colleagues? Or are you the only one left in the office?’

‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m being discreet …’

I frown. ‘Are you under your desk?’

‘No, no …’ His voice, I realise, has an echoey quality, as if he’s in a small enclosed space. ‘I’m in the gents’ actually.’

‘Oh!’

‘Bit of privacy,’ he adds as it dawns on me what he’s actually doing.

‘Are you in a cubicle?’

‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

‘And what are you doing exactly?’ I ask sharply.

‘I’m just thinking about our date, about me and you all buttoned up together in that jacket …’

Oh, dear lord. ‘For God’s sake, Ralph. Do you know how vile this sounds? How completely creepy it is to talk to a woman in this way?’

He makes a choking sound. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t help—’

‘I think you can help yourself actually,’ I snap, ‘unless you’ve stumbled into the office loo and your trousers and pants fell down and your hand has accidentally clamped itself around your penis.’

I end the call, plunge my mobile into my pocket and stride up to the nearest available till, dumping my basket with a clatter onto the counter. The girl at the till gives me a startled look, and the customer at the next till – a huge bear of a man clutching a box of frozen toad in the hole – swings round to stare.

‘Good on you, darling,’ he says with a throaty laugh. ‘You bloody give ’im what for.’

Chapter Eight

It’s raining heavily by the time I leave the supermarket, causing people to duck into doorways or march quickly, heads bent against the weather. I hurry into the tube station, gripping my carrier bag tightly, the relaxing effect of those couple of glasses of wine having now worn off.

That’s definitely the end of datemylovelymum and me. Any dating at all, actually. If it’s adult male company I’m after, there’s always Stu: amenable, funny, requiring no effort whatsoever in the personal grooming or acquisition of fancy lingerie departments. He has seen all my pants anyway: the full range from fancy black lace to saggy and greying. Mine and his are often laundered together, and sit companionably on the radiator drying side by side. They are even touching, sometimes. No one thinks anything of it. I have seen him trimming his nasal hair with his clipper, and he has watched with interest while I’ve applied some kind of acid solution to my recurring corn. We might as well be an old married couple – apart from the fact that we probably like each other more than most long-term partners do.

Who needs sex anyway? No one died from a lack of it, as far as I am aware. Neither Stu nor I have had any for a thousand years – well, ages anyway – and he, at least, seems pretty chilled out most of the time. A celibate life seems preferable now to running the risk of encountering any more men like Ralph. That’s the thing with having big boobs, hips, bottom and all that: it tends to bring out the creeps. There seems to be an assumption that a larger woman is parading herself – ‘flaunting her assets’ in Daily Mail speak – and a certain type of man takes this as permission to make personal comments. ‘I love a woman with curves,’ growled Pete from electricals, kissing my stomach in his nicotine-hued flat, last time we were in bed together. ‘God, you don’t half give me an appetite, Lorrie. If we hurry up and get dressed we’ll be able to use my two-for-one Groupon deal for that Indian buffet down the road.’

I’m still fizzling mad – not about Pete Parkin, but Ralph – by the time the tube reaches Bethnal Green station. I stumble out of the carriage, glowering at an elderly man who stares pointedly at my chest as he waits to get on. ’D’you really think,’ I want to shout, ‘that women don’t notice when men are doing that?’ I hope to God Amy learns to handle this kind of thing better than I ever have.

It’s only when I’m halfway down my street, jacket damp from the rain, hair flat against my scalp, that I realise my bag of fancy cheese, fabric conditioner and chilli-spiked snacks is still trundling along on the Central Line towards Epping.

Damn it. Damn it all. I let myself into the house and call out a dull hello.

‘Hi, Mum,’ Cam replies from the living room. I find him lying prone on the sofa, TV blaring unnecessarily, seeing as he is reading a dog-eared novel. ‘All right?’ He delves into a family packet of crisps.

‘Yes, just went to Helena’s birthday do after work. You look tired, darling. Why don’t you head up for an early night instead of lying here?’

‘Aw, no, I’m all right.’

‘D’you really need the TV on?’

‘Yeah, I’m watching it.’ His gaze returns to his book.

‘Is Stu around?’

He shakes his head, grudgingly shifting up on the sofa to make room for me to sit beside him. ‘Out on a delivery, I think.’ That’s disappointing. I need someone to offload to, about Nuala’s surprise visit to the store today and, more urgently, Ralph fiddling with himself in his office loo, ugh. I need to turn it into something funny and I know Stu will be able to make me laugh about it.

‘Hi, darling,’ I say as Amy appears, fresh from her bath, her long dark hair wrapped up in a towel. ‘What’ve you been up to today?’

‘Shopping for my holiday.’ She beams excitedly. ‘Bella said Portugal’s going to be even hotter than last year. Hang on, I’ll show you what I bought.’ She runs off and returns with a Topshop bag, extracting a couple of bikinis in her preferred sporty style: one plain navy, one jaunty red and white stripes.

‘They’re lovely. Bet you can’t wait.’

‘I can’t,’ she says, stuffing them back into the bag and snuggling on the sofa beside me. ‘You okay, Mum?’ She turns to look at me.

‘I’m good,’ I fib. ‘Oh, there’s just something coming up on Friday. It’s on my mind a bit – a work conference thing. Only heard about it today.’

‘What’s that all about?’

‘No idea but I might have to do a little speech.’ I grimace. ‘D’you mind if I try something out on you? It’ll only take a few minutes …’

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