Crystal Balls (33 page)

Needless to say, after a pathetic attempt to be taken seriously as the young, overstressed mother of these two mismatches, I didn’t secure that casting, nor the next, nor the next and so
it was that after years of door-knocking, with the odd opening, just not enough to pay the rent, I gave up.

I left my tiny bedsit after being evicted, with barely enough time to pack my belongings before I was turfed out and spent days on the streets, frightened, cold and lonely. My Thespian ambition
had been tried and tested, and I had come to a point where enough was enough. I had to put closure on the insanity of chasing fame and fortune and, oddly, it felt right. I was tired of the
travelling and the rejection and I knew there was something else that life had in store for me. Another purpose. Another pathway. My new life was out there somewhere and I didn’t know what or
even how it would manifest itself, but I did know I was taking back control.

I bolt upright, sending my feathered enemy, the duvet, flying. Beads of sweat surface on my forehead and I swallow hard.

Why then?
Why on earth am I even thinking about the past?
A failed past!
It was put to bed when my business opened. It was firmly put to bed when we won the contract. I witnessed
it floating away. I waved it goodbye. Farewell forever.
Have I gone mad?

I became an estate agent by a fluke.

When I eventually plucked up the courage to go home and tell my family that after years of trying I had only what I stood up in, I signed up with a local temping agency looking for work. Any
work.

“What skills do you have?” they had asked me.

Skills? Well, I can recite you Helena from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
? Not what you’re looking for? Okay.

It was established with impressive speed that I was useless. I couldn’t type. I knew nothing about bookkeeping. I’d only ever used a mobile phone and had no idea how to operate a
switchboard. My data-input scores were rock bottom and, as for words per minute, remove the plural and I’d say I did quite well. I waited for the phone to ring. But it didn’t. So I rang
them. I rang them every day, reminding them that I wanted, needed to work. More for the sanity than the actual monetary factor although I fully intended to repay my family for the abundance of
Western Union transfers. One day I begged them, I told them I’d do anything. Anything at all just to get me out of the house and to avoid looking in the mirror at the useless, pathetic effort
of a human being I had become.

“Well, there is one post. It’s an office junior role – but they usually hire teenagers,” she told me.

“I’ll do it,” I answered without hesitation. “When do I start?”

And there it was. The irony of helping people buy and sell homes when just weeks before I was homeless. I loved it. I loved the social aspect of getting to talk to new people every day. I loved
the importance of being given a task and completing it with alacrity. I loved the working relationship with my colleagues, sharing gossip about the management and other such immature sentiments.
But most of all I loved the certainty of it, the stability of a meagre but regular income and the consistency of having purpose and a central focus in my life. It was after a few years of hard
grafting and a brain full of appropriate subject matter that I took the opportunity to buy into the franchise and I’ve never looked back.

Until now. But I just can’t figure out why I’ve changed.

“Chantelle, do you know where the holiday chart is?”

She lifts her head from a mountain of paperwork. “I moved it to the kitchen – it’s taped to the back of the door.”

“Thanks.”

The office is empty. Generally, the early morning is our quietest time but it gives us the opportunity to tackle the mass of paperwork we’re hit with every day.

From the kitchen, I shout to Chantelle. “Kate and I are going away in a few weeks,” I tell her excitedly. “We’re going back to Stalis in Crete to relive some old
memories.” I take the whiteboard marker and mark crosses on the chart right through the days I need to take as leave.

It’s worked out perfectly. Chantelle and Heather won’t be off until July and August which is a great time for them and for me. People typically want to move in the summer but in
terms of viewings or putting their own property on the market, they tend to do this months earlier, some even at the start of the new year, so peak holiday weeks are a perfect opportunity for the
girls to get a much-needed break. I’m taking mine earlier to fit in with Kate’s filming, plus I can’t do extreme sun with the curse of fair skin so it suits me fine.

“Good for you!” Chantelle shouts back. “You really deserve it, Tina. How long has it been?”

I push the lid firmly on the marker, placing it back on its plastic shelf and wander onto the sales floor.

“Three years it’s been,” I answer, shaking my head in disbelief. “But it’s been so busy I just didn’t realise it was that long.”

Chantelle is still working away. Her black-framed glasses complement her black tailored suit, nipped at the waist and classic in style. Her dark hair has been recently cut and sits just on her
shoulders in a contemporary-style bob, curling under ever so slightly towards her perfect jaw-line and touching her flawless, velvety skin. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be so
beautiful. And to be so unaware of it. I tell her constantly she’s gorgeous as I’m sure does Colin. But the best endorsement has to be the head-turning and general reactions from the
opposite sex. Even my dad fancies her though he wouldn’t say so, but he did manage to get flustered when I ask him what he thought of her. “Very nice. Erm, very nice,” was all he
managed. And then his face and neck turn a wonderful shade of scarlet.

“Are you and Colin going to get away this year?” I ask her.

“Nope.”

“Why not?” I probe nosily, perching on the end of her desk and invading her space. She hates it when I do that.

Chantelle continues to look down, deliberately evasive. I know her so well. Something is going on.

“We’re saving up.” She looks up at me. “So unless you want to double my salary, we’ll be going to our gate and back.”

“God, I haven’t heard that expression in years!” I laugh. “You know full well that as soon as some of this commission starts coming in you are
so
set for a pay
rise. I give you my word.”

“Ooh!” She chews the end of her pen.

Please don’t do that when the punters are in. It looks obscene.

“What are you saving for then?”
There’s no stopping me today.

Her eyes peer over the glasses, their blackness challenged by even blacker eyelashes and plucked-to-precision eyebrows.

“We thought we might get married.” She says this with total nonchalance and a complete lack of excitement.

What?

“What?” I pull the pen from her hand and shove the paperwork to one side to get her full attention. “Hello? Is anybody home?”

She simply shrugs her shoulders. “It’s all very low key. I don’t even want an engagement ring and we just want a small wedding.”

I catch a fleeting glimpse of a sparkle in her eye.

“That way we can put more down on a house.” As usual, her practical and pragmatic approach sums her up beautifully and predictably. What a bride she’ll make! Me, I’d go
for the full shebang! The best of the best. A no-expense-spared truly lavish ceremony and I don’t mind admitting that I’d be at the heart of it all. It really would be all about me!

“Get up, you fool!” I stand in front of her, pulling at her arms, but she remains firmly put. “I can’t hug you while you’re sitting down! Chantelle, if I
didn’t know you better I’d think you were playing hard to get!” I tease, knowing this will create a reaction.

She dives up from the chair, shuddering, and allows me to give her what I class as half a hug.

“Thanks, Tina.” Her smile is serene and calm and I can see how happy she is even if it is being kept under wraps.

“Hey, I usually charge for such physicality but, given it’s you, let’s call it a freebie.” I smack her cheek with my bare lips, watching her look of repugnance.

“Don’t be so homophobic,” I tell her sternly. “That’s your only downside, Mrs.”

“Yep, that and working with you!” she giggles.

The phone shrills and I grab it in a millisecond, crossing my fingers as I answer.

“Hello?”

“Tina, there’s someone here to see you,” Chantelle says. “Are you free to come downstairs?”

“On my way.”

It wasn’t the call I was hoping for but maybe this is even better? I slam the phone down and rush to the small mirror hanging on a piece of string, held in place by a badly hammered-in
nail. My version of do-it-yourself. I give my face the once-over and smooth down my skirt.

I know it’s just got to be Brian. I knew he’d come around. I’m not after an apology or anything but it was a bit silly him leaving like that. I don’t know what came over
him. Perhaps it’s a touch of the old mid-life crisis. Satisfied with my appearance and grateful that Touche Éclait has taken away the sleep-deprivation look I had just seconds ago, I
make my way downstairs slowly and calmly, collecting my thoughts as I travel and catching my breath before I come face to face with Brian.

He
is standing there with the usual grin from ear to ear and he waves at me as I make my way onto the sales floor.

Simon!

“Simon?”

“Well done,” he smirks. “You remembered my name. Not just a pretty face.”

I try to be short with him but his impish grin and usual wit loosens me up and I decide not to give him a hard time. He doesn’t deserve it.

“Ha ha, very funny.” I smile at him. What have I got to be cross about? “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Mr Heath-Jones?” It’s quite safe to be friendly
towards him – once I drop in Brian’s name once or twice, he’ll know I’m definitely no longer on the market.

“Pleasure? What type of a guy do you think I am, Tina?” he replies straight-faced. “I’m here in a professional capacity only.”

Chantelle looks from Simon across to me and I know what she’s thinking. It’s not true. A mild flush sweeps over me as I relive the embarrassing memory of our single, intimate
encounter.

“I need a favour,” Simon tells me with sincerity.

“Okay. Have you time for a coffee?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Do you say that to all the boys or am I special?”

She’s giving me that look again.

“You’re special alright, Simon,” I snort, ignoring Chantelle’s look of accusation. “More like a special case!”

We take a detour through the poky kitchen where I make us a coffee and then head upstairs. I move my chair to his side of the desk so it doesn’t feel like I’m interviewing him. I do
that quite a lot in fact. It can be quite intimidating sitting opposite someone as they fire question after question at you so, where possible, I try to sit on the same side as my clients to relax
them more. It works every time and they never feel like they’re being sold anything. After all, we’re on the same side.

Simon slurps the coffee, dipping his biscuit heartily and cramming it into his mouth in its entirety. My mother taught me never to dunk anything. “
It’s so common,
darling,
” she told me as a child and as such I don’t do it. Neither a biscuit nor a bread roll goes anywhere near liquid form. I take in his demeanour. His pinstriped suit is
perfectly tailored but for some reason it looks like it belongs on somebody else. Somebody more prim, more proper. Like Brian. I glance at a stain on the knee of his trousers and observe his
scuffed shoes.

“Mayonnaise.”

“Huh?”

“A blob of mayo fell on my trousers yesterday,” he explains. “Haven’t had a chance to put it in the dry-cleaner’s yet. Darn good sandwich though!” He licks
his lips.

A tingle runs right down my spine as I recall how that same tongue teased my feet and bathed my toes in its moist home. While I’ve made a damn good job of blocking out the sad state of
affairs, every now and then I’m reminded of how good it felt and just how in control he was.
He
who I thought was Brian.
He
who I thought would be Brian today.

I glance down at the Rolex, a reminder of a special night together. Special until I ended up in the Accident and Emergency department. Maybe he was right. Maybe I am a curse? But I never used to
be. Over the past number of years I have prided myself on being in complete control of my life, both business and personal, but looking back over the last couple of months I’ve done nothing
but mess up. Big time. I’m beginning to wonder where it all went wrong. But then again very soon I’ll know whether a certain turn of events is capable of fixing it.

“Hhmm.” Simon clears his throat.

I look up at him to see him wearing that ridiculous smile. Honestly, he looks so silly. “Welcome back,” he says.

I smile at him with sarcasm. “What’s the favour then, Simon?” I ask, cringing, waiting for the innuendos.

“My car is knackered,” he tells me sadly.

His bottom lip juts out for sympathetic effect but all I can do is laugh. He looks so funny.
And cute. Tina!

“It’s nearly ready for car heaven which means I can’t pick Tim and Sam up from the airport on Wednesday. Can you do it?”

My eyes lower with embarrassment as I think about the absolute dagger Sam gave to me when I rudely interrupted her wedding nuptials. We parted on okay terms but I’m not sure my face is the
first she’ll want to see. But I have to face the music at some point. At least she didn’t tell Mum or Dad. I knew she wouldn’t.

“Sure, it’s no problem. I’d love to, and if that’s all you want, then I’m quite relieved,” I snort.

“What else could I want?” he asks.

His face is a picture of innocence and, as so often with him, I’m confused. I wonder if he jests so professionally to mask his true feelings or perhaps it’s simply that he
doesn’t fancy me and like a lot of things it’s all in my head. I’m never sure with him because it’s just like being around a friend. Someone you want to swing from
platonically or have a pint with or watch a crap DVD with. Or just be with. Effortlessly. His hair juts out in a multitude of bizarre directions. You can tell that some type of attempt has been
made to normalise it, albeit in a mad rush by the looks of things. His shirt collars have been given the once-over and I silently laugh as I imagine Simon removing his jacket to reveal a smoothly
pressed front, where the material is visible to the eye, but crumpled sleeves, back and sides. What I can’t do is ask him to remove his jacket although I’d love to prove myself right.
You just get a feeling for some people but the mere mention of clothing removal and I’ll be powdering my face in green compact for days to come.