Practically Perfect (18 page)

‘Er, yes, I think so.’ Anna felt almost too flustered to speak.

‘Have you got your phone on you?’

‘Yes.’ She found her bag, which had slipped round, and scrabbled for her phone. ‘Here it is.’

He took it from her, pressed some buttons and then handed it back. ‘I’m not taking any chances with you losing my number again. And I’m going to take yours.’

Anna knew perfectly well how to use her mobile phone, but seeing him tapping in numbers made her feel incredibly inept. Unusually for her, it wasn’t unpleasant.

‘I’ll ring you,’ he said. ‘We’ll meet again. Soon.’

While she was putting Laura’s suede loafers back on in the Ladies, some hours later, Anna considered the fact that if Max Gordon had suggested she went back to his flat, she’d have gone. She wouldn’t have cared about the inevitable consequences, she’d have just gone.

Zara was being sick in the loo. Crystal was redoing her
eye
make-up for the taxi ride home. Amanda was gleefully counting how many new telephone numbers she’d collected.

‘I think that was a jolly good evening, don’t you?’ she asked the room in general.

The lavatory flushed and Zara emerged. ‘Next time we do this, can one of you remind me not to mix my drinks? Hey, Anna, what about you? Dark horse, or what? I didn’t think you even remembered Max Gordon.’

‘He sort of – came back to me,’ said Anna, trying to keep a smile of pure smugness under control.

‘I’ll say. You were practically glued together on the dance floor, you lucky cow.’ Zara turned on the tap and stuck her mouth under it. ‘I really had planned to have him myself, you know.’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Anna, who did feel a bit rueful under her ecstatic happiness.

‘So why didn’t you go home with him?’ asked Zara, who was showing no bitterness about Anna’s success.

‘He didn’t ask me,’ she said simply.

‘You wouldn’t have slept with him on the first date!’ said Crystal. ‘That’s so against
The Rules
.’

‘We’re not at school, Crystal, there are no rules,’ said Amanda.

‘I meant the book,’ said Crystal in a quiet voice, suddenly aware that only she had heard of it.

‘So, have you got his number?’ asked Zara.

Anna nodded. ‘More to the point, he’s got mine.’ However much she loved him, fancied him, wanted him, all the possessive, passionate sort of words in the dictionary, she would never ring him up, not if her life depended on it. It was something to do with having not done it before. He had her number; he had to make the running.

Fortunately, she was, at this moment, fairly optimistic
that
he would ring her. Tomorrow she knew she’d doubt it, but tonight, she had faith.

‘Are we all ready, then?’ said Crystal, satisfied with her appearance at last.

‘I think so,’ said Anna, swinging the bag with the black high-heeled shoes in it.

‘Have we all said goodbye to all the people we should say goodbye to?’ asked Amanda.

‘Think so.’ Zara sighed. ‘It was a good night. We must do it more often.’

‘What about you, Anna?’ asked Crystal. ‘Have you said goodbye to Max?’

‘Oh yes, we said our goodbyes in the foyer.’

‘And he didn’t take you with him? I think that’s almost insulting.’ Zara was still miffed about this.

‘Not at all, he’s showing respect,’ said Crystal. ‘Now come on.’

Although Anna had seen Max leave the hotel, he must have come back specially, for he was waiting in the shadows by the door as they left. He didn’t say anything, he just raised his fingers to Anna in greeting. No one else noticed him, but it made Anna’s heart leap.

Her mobile rang just as she was settling into bed. Her heart leapt again, but this time in panic. What could possibly have happened for her sister to ring her at this time of night? Caroline, their mother, her house, all suffered various terrible fates in her imagination in the few moments it took her to get to her phone.

‘I was ringing to make sure you’d got back safely,’ said a low voice that didn’t say whom it belonged to.

Anna sighed ecstatically, not for the first time that evening. ‘Of course I did. What could possibly happen to me?’

‘Nothing. I suppose I just wanted to hear your voice again. I’ll say goodnight now.’

‘Goodnight,’ breathed Anna.

It took her ages to get to sleep. Every word, every bit of dialogue had to be replayed in her mind, analysed, dissected, inspected for double meanings. She couldn’t believe such an attractive man fancied her, done up like Cinderella in borrowed finery.

On the other hand, he would never have fancied the girl in dungarees, her hair stuffed into a scarf to keep it out of the machinery, who kept just about clean, but who didn’t wear make-up and quite often shared her bed with a dog.

But why worry about that? She could keep that girl a secret, and always be soignée and elegant. She might even learn to put her hair into a French pleat.

Her ecstasy continued for the entire journey home. Inevitably, she suffered moments of doubt: he only wanted her for her body – except if that were the case, he could have had it, if he’d only asked! He only wanted her to design an en suite for his mother – that didn’t quite fit, either, because he’d cut her out from the crowd before he knew what she did, because he’d remembered her. The most realistic fear was that he wanted a short affair and would leave her more broken-hearted, more obsessed, more useless than ever. And that was what would happen. At Didcot, as the train passed the cooling towers, she came to this realisation. And yet, somehow, it didn’t bother her. She would have had the rapture, the seventh-heaven experience. So what if it came to an end? In real life, men like Max Gordon didn’t marry and live happily ever after with girls like her.

Laura and Will were there to meet her train, as arranged. As soon as she got on to the platform and walked towards Laura’s open arms, she knew something was wrong.

‘What’s happened? It’s Caroline, she’s got out and been run over, hasn’t she?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Laura hugged Anna hard. ‘If she did get out, she’d hardly get run over trotting along the lane.’

‘If she saw a cat, she might chase it across the main road,’ said Anna, confident now that this had not happened.

‘Honestly! Did you have a nice time?’

Anna was faintly surprised that the sort of time she had had was not inscribed on her forehead. ‘Wonderful, thanks, now tell me what’s wrong.’

‘It’s nothing that bad,’ said Laura, frowning. ‘How did you know anything is?’

‘I could tell by your expression.’

‘Oh, Anna,’ snapped Laura, ‘you always did have that sixth-sense thing.’

Anna smiled up at Will, who had taken her case. She didn’t think she had a sixth-sense thing, she just thought Laura was a bit lacking in feminine intuition.

‘So, what is it, then?’ Anna asked when they were in the car. ‘If it’s not Caroline, it must be Mum.’

‘No, she’s fine,’ said Laura.

‘And it’s not anything really terrible,’ said Will over his shoulder to Anna, who was sitting in the back seat. ‘We could have a cup of tea at home before we discuss it. No need to make a drama out of a crisis,’ he muttered to Laura.

‘So,’ said Laura, falsely bright. ‘How was the party? Did you meet up with anyone nice?’

‘Nice’ didn’t quite describe Max Gordon but Anna said, ‘Yes,’ anyway. Zara and Amanda had been nice.

‘What sort of nice? Friendly nice or romantic nice?’

‘I just meant I met up with old friends who were nice,’
said
Anna, who didn’t feel anything like ready to tell her sister about Max. ‘We had cocktails and a lot of fun.’

‘And nothing bad happened to Chloe’s dress?’

Was this code for: ‘Did Chloe’s dress get thrown up on, or torn to shreds by a passionate old flame?’

‘No. What could happen to it? It’s very “easy-care”. She told me.’

‘So, no more goss?’

‘How much do you want? It was a college reunion, not speed-dating.’

‘OK.’ Laura sighed and then brightened up. ‘I bought a cake at the market yesterday. You didn’t tell me about that!’

‘Didn’t I? Sorry!’

‘It was wonderful! Do you know, there’s a man there who sells local champagne? We had a bottle last night, didn’t we, Will?’

‘Sure did.’

‘That bed’s really very comfortable, and the bedroom is going to be heavenly.’

At last, after Caroline had greeted Anna, giving her a nasty scratch in her excitement while she did it, and everyone had been settled with cups of tea and cake from the WI stall, Anna felt able to say, ‘So what’s the drama then?’

Laura exchanged glances with her husband. ‘You don’t need to worry about it, really.’

‘And maybe you won’t need to worry about it at all,’ said Will firmly.

‘The thing is,’ said Laura, ‘we heard yesterday from a colleague. Will’s been made redundant.’

‘Oh my God!’ Anna exclaimed.

‘If we hadn’t been here, Will would have got the news on Friday. His friend rang him on his mobile. But it’s been on the cards for some time.’

‘That’s awful!’ Anna, still buzzing from the party, tried to take it in. The thought of her sister’s family, which had always seemed so perfect, with Will out of a job, was such a shock.

‘I’m quite likely to get a job soon, or consultancy,’ said Will confidently. ‘There
are
other jobs.’

Anna glanced at Laura and saw that she wasn’t quite as relaxed about it as her husband. ‘Well, you are good at what you do,’ she said.

‘Exactly! I probably won’t be unemployed long enough to finish the decorating.’ Will laughed, but Laura still looked rather anxious.

‘I thought you were a specialist,’ said Anna. ‘Are there lots of jobs in your field?’

Will grinned. ‘Well, not in the field, because mostly I work in an office, but—’

‘Oh, Will!’ Laura snapped. ‘You know perfectly well that Anna is right! It’s very unlikely you’ll get a job doing what you’ve been doing. You’ll have to downgrade.’

‘Well, that won’t kill me. It’ll be a nice change.’

‘So what would your perfect job be?’ asked Anna. ‘If you wrote your own job description?’

Will decided to take the matter seriously for a moment. ‘I’d set up on my own, not work for anyone else, and then if I didn’t make it, it would be my fault, not anyone else’s. I want to be in charge of my own destiny.’

The two sisters regarded him, considering this rather grandiose statement.

‘Then I must sell the house,’ said Anna rather shakily. ‘You’ll need all the capital you can get.’ Although she knew it was the only decision she could make, it wasn’t an easy one.

‘Oh, it’s all right, Anna,’ said Laura quickly. ‘Will won’t actually do that. It would be far too risky.’

‘Not as risky as all that. I’ve got enough good clients to start off with if I had a bit of money to tide us over,’ said Will.

‘And you must follow your dream!’ Anna was suddenly aware of sounding like an old film. ‘I mean, if that’s what you’ve always wanted to do, and think you can make it, you must do it. I’ll sell the house. It’s what I always planned, after all.’ But it still hurt to say it.

‘Don’t over-react, Anna,’ said Laura. ‘You must take your time to do up the house. It would be silly to rush and spoil it. We’ve got some savings.’

‘Yes, but weren’t you going to use them to put on an extension? The boys are getting bigger by the second!’

‘We’ve still got more room than Chloe’s got, and only two boys,’ said Laura.

‘You’ll need every penny you can get. I’m going to sell the house as soon as possible, and that’s final.’

‘You may not find it that easy,’ said Laura, shaking her head. ‘The market’s very slack at the moment.’

‘I’ll put it on the market now then, which will give me time to finish it.’

‘You love this house!’ Laura protested.

‘I know but it always was an investment. You were the one who told me I mustn’t fall in love with it.’ Thank God Laura didn’t know whom else she’d fallen in love with! If she told Laura about Max now, she’d die from anxiety.

‘I know, but it’s such a perfect little house. We’ve loved staying here and were having a brilliant time until we got the news. I don’t think you should rush into selling this. We can manage for a while. There’ll be redundancy money, though not much,’ Laura conceded.

‘Well, I’m selling,’ Anna insisted. ‘This house was bought as an investment. I’m not changing my plans, I’m just bringing them forward by a few months. I’ll have to
get
builders in to help me, but I budgeted for that anyway.’ She frowned, wondering if her design for the bathroom would be passed.

‘Oh, Anna! This is such a pretty area.’

‘I can buy again in the same area!’ Privately she doubted this as her house had been such a bargain. ‘Maybe I could get something at auction.’

‘That would be exciting,’ said Will.

Laura sighed deeply. ‘To hell with tea, let’s have a proper drink.’

Will produced a bottle of whisky. ‘I didn’t buy this at the market.’

Chapter Eleven

LAURA AND WILL
left the following morning. While they were collecting their belongings – and there were a great many of them – Anna began to feel flat, and decided she should give Chloe back her clothes as soon as possible. She had left her phone turned off all Sunday, in case Max rang and she couldn’t speak to him because she was with her sister, but when she went to bed, there were no missed calls. She tried hard not to feel disappointed – after all, he was a busy man, and although he’d seemed very keen yesterday, she couldn’t expect him to be so keen that he’d want to ring her the very next day. So after she’d waved Laura and Will off, she settled Caroline and then found her borrowed finery.