Jill Mansell - Mixed doubles

Maybe that was my lot, she thought despairingly, and I used it all up in one go, like Phil at the roulette table. One glorious, exhilarating surge of assertiveness ... and then, boom. Gone.

The meek shall inherit the earth ... as long as that’s all right with everyone else.

Wimps rule, okay? No, but really, are you sure that’s okay?

‘Look, I told you I had some things in the car,’ Pru blurted out, ‘and you said there wasn’t time to go back and lock it, so we didn’t. The thing is, by the time I did get back there, my things had been stolen. So I’m sorry, but here’s a list of what was taken. I spoke to my insurers but I’m not covered, so I’m afraid this is up to you as well.’

Eddie stared at Pru in disbelief. Then he stared in even more disbelief at the sheet of paper she had pushed across the table at him.

Her hands were trembling so much it could have been a bomb. It was hardly surprising they trembled, Eddie thought when he saw the size of the bill. More of a bombshell.

‘You mean you want me to give you another fourteen hundred pounds?’ He sounded totally baffled. ‘For a bag of old clothes?’

‘Five bags,’ whispered Pru. She wanted to tell him that if she had sold them through the Changing Room, she would have got more than that, but the words wouldn’t come.

‘You can’t be serious,’ said Eddie.

Pru stared down at her fingers, scrunched together in her lap. She knew what she should be doing. She should be fixing Mr Eddie over-the-limit Hammond with a haughty glare and telling him in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t her fault her car had been smashed up and spun into a ditch, that he was the one in the wrong and that if he found the prospect of reimbursing her so appalling ... well, then she would see him in court.

Joan Collins would have done it. Joan would have carried it off brilliantly. Maybe that’s my trouble, thought Pru. No shoulder pads.

‘How do I know you’re telling the truth?’ Eddie Hammond demanded suddenly. It crossed his mind to wonder about the hippy on the phone. Was there a drug problem there? Was Pru so desperate for money to feed her son’s/lover’s/husband’s addiction that she would do anything to raise extra cash?

He jabbed at the list with an agitated finger.

‘How do I know these clothes were really stolen?’

Well, thought Pru, I could show you a few empty fitted wardrobes.

Or she could have done, if the house hadn’t been repossessed.

He was right, of course. She had no way at all of proving it. She couldn’t blame him for being suspicious either.

I’m gullible, Pru thought, but even I’d have my doubts about something like this.

‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.’ Realising she’d started to shake, she stood up and made a dash for the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Eddie half rose out of his own chair, confused by the abrupt volte-face.

Quick, thought Pru, get me out of here before I start blubbing.

‘Home. Thanks for getting the car fixed.’ She shook her head violently. ‘It doesn’t matter about the clothes.’

Chapter 14

Liza took Pru along with her to the Songbird on Saturday night. She picked her up at eight o’clock.

Pru, thrilled to be invited — anything to get out of that bedsitter — said, ‘This is a treat. I thought you’d have brought your new chap. Couldn’t he make it?’

‘No.’ Liza slotted Sibelius into the tape deck. ‘Mainly because I didn’t ask him.’

Pru recognised the look on her face. Clearly, new chap was no more.

‘But you said he was gorgeous last week.’

‘Last week he was. This week,’ Liza said heavily, ‘he started asking me about my star sign. I mean, give me a break. He’s supposed to be a grown man.’

It occurred to both of them, though neither said it aloud, that considering it was mid-April, so far their New Year’s resolutions weren’t turning out terribly well.

Entering the restaurant was nerve-racking. Liza, wigged-up and dressed-down, knew she was being irrational. No one had ever recognised her yet, so why should they suddenly start now?

But that didn’t stop her heart pounding like a Sally Army drum the whole time they were being greeted and seated.

Liza’s eyes flickered to the left. There was the little waitress who had been in such a fluster last time. Quick flicker to the right ... and there serving behind the bar was the attractive blonde who had tried so valiantly to keep the rugby rabble in check. Liza wondered if this was the girl whose feelings she had hurt so much, Kit Berenger’s cousin.

Sweat began to prickle her scalp beneath the unflattering mouse-brown wig. She felt like a spy, a wartime secret agent desperate not to attract the attention of the enemy.

‘Relax,’ said Pru, ‘no one’s looking.’

‘I know. I just don’t want to be recognised.’

‘It’s hardly likely, if even Phil didn’t spot you.’

Oh bum.

‘Phil!’ gasped Liza, covering her mouth in dismay. ‘Shit!’

‘Well, yes,’ said Pru, ‘I know that now.’

‘I mean I can’t believe I did this to you. This is where .. . and I completely forgot ... Hell’s bells, how could I be so insensitive? Why didn’t you say something?’

Liza cringed. Then she double-cringed, realising they were actually sitting at the table where Blanche had wriggled her toes with such enthusiasm in Phil’s trousered crotch.

‘It’s all right. I knew you’d forgotten. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.’ Prue shrugged. ‘Why should I be bothered?’

Liza said admiringly, ‘You’ve got brave.’

‘My husband ran off with my cleaner. I live in a bug-infested bedsit. The hippy downstairs plays bloody Donovan records non-stop and apart from this dress I own precisely two jumpers, three nighties and a skirt.’ Pru hesitated, looking as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘You’d be surprised; after a while you can learn to not care about quite a lot.’

Liza stared at Pru. Pru gazed back.

Pru tried hard to keep a straight face.

Liza said slowly, ‘Donovan records?’

Pru nodded. Liza began to smirk. Within seconds Pru was in fits of giggles. Liza was helpless with laughter.

Holding her sides, barely able to get the words out, she said, ‘This hippy of yours. Do they call him Mellow Yellow?’

Pru was giggling so much her mascara had run.

‘That’s right.’

They were drawing attention to themselves. The family at the next table nudged each other, watching them. With a huge effort, Liza controlled herself.

‘I mean it,’ she told Pru when they had both recovered. ‘You are brave.’

‘I’m not,’ said Pru, mentally reliving the moment she had fled Eddie Hammond’s office. Oh yes, that had been brave, that had been breathtakingly courageous. Give the girl a VC.

‘You definitely can’t stay in that bedsitter,’ Liza persisted. ‘Death by Donovan, imagine. Come and live with me instead.’

‘What, in your one-bedroomed flat?’ Pru was touched by the offer but untempted. For the first time in her life — at the age of thirty-one — she was on her own. The least she could do was learn to cope with it.

‘My flat’s a jolly nice flat.’ Liza leapt to its defence. ‘It’s bijou.’

‘And if I moved in, it’d be more than your style that got cramped. Thanks,’ said Pru, ‘but I’m fine. Really.’

They were supposed to be ordering their meal. Liza forced herself to concentrate on the menu.

Every time she looked up, she realised Pru was glancing across the room.

‘Right, I’ll have the Stilton soufflé and the duck with kumquats. How about you?’ she said finally. Pru was doing it again. ‘Someone you know?’