Jill Mansell - Mixed doubles

Although, actually he didn’t know how lucky he was. Having stupidly imagined Liam would arrive promptly at nine, she had first grilled the steaks then put them in the oven to keep warm.

By ten o’clock they had acquired the consistency of dog chews. Flinging them out through the kitchen window had been an act of mercy. If the foxes had got at them, thought Dulcie, serve them right.

‘Sweetheart, it was a business meeting. I was held up,’ Liam protested. In reality it had been an Imelda meeting and he had been held down, but some details were better glossed over. From what he could gather, there wasn’t much love lost between the two girls.

Dulcie was on the brink of making some cutting remark about the lack of phones where he’d been when she realised how it would make her sound. Like some nagging old wife, she thought with a shudder, the frumpy, bitter kind whose husbands you felt most sorry for, the kind where you wouldn’t blame their husbands for wanting to sneak off.

How awful, and this is only our second date. If it even counts as a date . . .

But Liam was here, and that was what mattered. When you were famous, Dulcie realised, you lived by different rules. It was like inviting the Queen to tea and expecting her to pitch in afterwards with the washing-up. If you ever wanted to see her again, bunging her a pair of Marigolds and telling her to get scrubbing wasn’t a smart move to make.

Liam was glad he’d made the effort to come round. Fish fingers and reheated baked potatoes might not set the pulse racing but they were an excellent source of vitamin B. Anyway, now she’d stopped sulking he had Dulcie to make his pulse race.

If he was honest, Liam preferred Dulcie to Imelda, who had spent most of the evening dropping hints the size of comets about holidays. Liam had marvelled good-naturedly at her train of thought; women were funny creatures. He’d taken Imelda to bed a couple of times, that was all.

Whatever made her think he’d want to spend a fortnight with her in Phuket?

Liam’s attitude to life was uncomplicated. All he wanted was to keep fit, play tennis and have as much fun as possible with the opposite sex. This, he decided, was where Dulcie definitely had the edge. He was genuinely fond of her. She was more laid-back, probably relishing her own new-found freedom, and hadn’t so much as mentioned holidays. Liam, very much a ‘so many women, so little time’ man himself, was mystified by the female preoccupation with — yawn —

monogamy and — bigger yawn — settling down.

Jesus, where was the fun in that?

With Eddie needing to be driven that morning to Swindon for a meeting at eleven which was likely to go- on for hours, Pru had consulted her diary and decided to get Terry Hayes’ cottage out of the way first. Ringing him beforehand to be on the safe side and getting no answer — he wasn’t kidding when he said he started work early — she pulled up outside his front door at seven thirty and let herself in.

The kitchen didn’t take long. When Pru had finished in thereshe moved on to the bathroom.

Terry had bought himself some new aftershave, she noticed. Ralph Lauren, Polo. Nice. And a bottle of hair-thickening shampoo. Trying to spruce himself up, Pru thought with an indulgent smile. Bless him. What’s the betting he’s splashed out on new underpants too?

Humming to herself, Pru fished the Hoover out from the cupboard under the stairs and hauled it upstairs. Elbowing the door open, she launched herself into Terry’s bedroom. Honestly, what was it with men? Why did it never occur to them to draw back the curtains before they left for work?

The Hoover landed with a crash on the floor. Two people abruptly jack-knifed into sitting positions on the bed. Only semi-covered by the tangled duvet, they were both naked.

And neither of them was Terry Hayes.

‘What’s going on?’ demanded the man, sitting bolt upright. ‘Who’s she?’ squeaked the girl next to him, pulling the duvet up to her ears.

‘I’m the cleaner.’ Pru told herself not to be so silly, they couldn’t possibly be burglars. In the semi-darkness she peered closely at the man, who was rather good-looking. Those heavy eyebrows and piercing dark eyes, now she came to think of it, were definitely familiar.

‘Who are you?’ said Pru. ‘Terry’s brother?’

‘Pru?’ The man began to relax. He grinned at her. ‘I’m Terry.’

‘No you aren’t.’ Pru hesitated, confused. This was like a John le Carré novel where the gardener suddenly whisks off his beard and turns into a KGB agent.

‘Actually, he is,’ volunteered the girl in the bed. ‘And I’ve worked with him for the last four years, so I should know.’

Having taken the intrusion amazingly calmly, considering, Terry asked Pru if she wouldn’t mind making them all a pot of coffee.

Ten minutes later, showered and dressed, he appeared in the kitchen.

‘Sorry about barging in,’ said Pru, going pink at the memory as she poured the coffee into green and gold cups. ‘I thought you were at work. I did ring.’

‘Day off. I never hear the phone when I’m asleep.’ Terry dismissed her apology with a good-natured shrug. ‘Anyway, I’m curious. Why didn’t you think I was me? What’s my bossy sister been telling you?’

‘Nothing,’ protested Pru. ‘Marion didn’t say anything. It’s my mistake. It was the photograph in your bedroom, that’s all. I just assumed the chap in it was you.’

Terry’s rather angular mouth twitched.

‘It was me.’

‘But—’

He tapped the side of his nose.

‘Before I had this done.’

Pru winced. She’d put her foot in it again.

‘You mean you had an ... an accident?’

‘No accident. You’re being wonderfully tactful,’ Terry looked amused, ‘but there’s no need.

You’ve seen the photo, Pru. Let’s be honest, I was born with one hell of a nose.’

‘Oh ... well ...’

‘Jokes? I heard them all. Witty nicknames? Honker, Concorde, Big Bird ... I’ve been called everything in my time. When I was at school, the other kids made my life hell,’ Terry went on.

‘Then you get older, and people might stop calling you names, but you know they’re still staring at you, trying to concentrate on what you’re saying to them and all the time thinking: "God, look at the hooter on him." ‘

Pru couldn’t stop staring either.

‘So ... so you had plastic surgery?’

‘It wasn’t a question of vanity.’ For the first time Terry sounded defensive. ‘I just wanted to look

... normal.’

‘Oh I know,’ cried Pru. She understood exactly how he must have felt. ‘I know. Did ... well, did it hurt?’

He shrugged.

‘A bit. But it was worth it. If it had hurt a hundred times more, it would still have been worth it.

You see, I don’t have tothink about my nose any more. Why are you crying?’ He looked worried. ‘Pru, stop it. You mustn’t cry. Your nose is fine.’

Unable to speak, Pru raised her arms and scooped her hair away from her face.

At that moment the girl who shared both Terry’s office and his bed came into the kitchen wearing his towelling dressing gown.

‘Good grief.’ She eyed Pru’s ears with alarm. ‘Shouldn’t you get those seen to?’

‘Karen is to diplomacy what Margaret Thatcher is to tap dancing,’ Terry apologised. ‘But this time I have to say she’s right.’

Pru covered her ears back up again. Funny how all it had taken to overcome a lifetime’s fear of surgery was a snapshot of a man with a beaky nose.

Typical, too, that all those years when money had been no object, she hadn’t been able to pluck up the courage to have her ears fixed.

Now I’ve got the courage, Pru thought gloomily, and I can’t even afford a tube of UHU.