Jill Mansell - Mixed doubles

Wondering for the millionth time why she was working in this dump with these idiots – and knowing the answer – Dulcie dropped the change into his sweaty hand and glanced past him.

‘Next please.’

‘I’m next ... oh!’

Until that moment all Dulcie had been able to see was a perma-tanned arm poking out from behind pork scratchings, clutching a termer. Then she caught a waft of Obsession and Imelda’s head popped into view.

‘What can I get you?’ said Dulcie, wiping her hands on her jeans and realising she didn’t even have the energy any more to be bitchy to Imelda.

‘You’re working here now?’ Evidently taken aback, Imelda forgot to be bitchy too. Well, almost.

‘What is it with this urge, all of a sudden, to get a job? Did you lose a ton of money with Lloyd’s or something?’

Fifty people were going frantic, waiting to be served. Since Imelda always drank G and T, Dulcie stuck a glass under the Gordon’s optic.

‘No, I just decided there was more to life than the country club. It was time to move on.’

‘To this place?’ Imelda raised immaculately plucked eyebrows and glanced around the Cat and Mouse, clearly unimpressed.

Dulcie shrugged and shovelled ice cubes into the glass. ‘Why not? You’re here.’

‘Christmas shopping with my sister.’ Imelda indicated another section of the pub. ‘She’s over there, waiting for me. Better make that two gin and tonics. Plenty of ice, please.’

Imelda had actually said please!

‘Christmas shopping.’ Dulcie suppressed a shudder. ‘I can’t bear the thought.’

Gosh, this felt strange, exchanging polite social chit-chat with Imelda and not a pot of ratatouille in sight.

By the look of her, Imelda was finding the situation equally odd, but if Dulcie – of all people –

was managing to be civil, then so could she.

Clearing her throat, she rested her elbows on the bar and lowered her voice.

‘How is Liza coping?’

‘As well as can be expected.’ Dulcie was used to being asked. She dropped slices of lemon into each glass and shrugged. ‘Not great. How does anyone cope, when something like that happens?’

‘Poor Liza. It must be terrible for her. Is she still staying with you?’

‘No, that was just for the first few weeks. She’s down with her parents now, in Devon. I think she needed to get away from Bath.’

‘Oi! Any danger of getting served in this place?’ demanded a bolshie-looking man in a brown suit.

Dulcie gave him a saccharine smile.

‘I’ll be with you in just a moment, sir.’

‘Sorry, I’m going to get you the sack.’ Imelda looked rueful.

Dulcie handed over her change. ‘I won’t get sacked. The slimeball manager fancies me rotten and I’m the hardest worker he has.’ And speaking of slimeballs ... ‘How’s Liam, by the way?’

‘Oh, we broke up. Well, it was pretty mutual,’ said Imelda, not very convincingly.

‘Some of us are dying of thirst over here,’ yelled another irritated customer.

‘... we were heading in different directions ...’

‘Sixteen pints of best and a medium sherry, when you’re ready.’

.. wanting different things out of life ...’

‘You mean he dumped you too,’ said Dulcie. To her amazement she found herself actually feeling sorry for Imelda.

Imelda’s shoulders drooped, but she managed a flicker of a smile.

‘Yeah. Bastard.’

‘Bastard,’ Dulcie agreed, nodding sympathetically. How stupidly they’d both behaved, vying with each other over such a total waste of space. ‘Who’s he moved on to now?’

‘Fifi Goodison-Blake.’

‘You’re kidding! That nymphet! How old is she, seventeen?’

‘And a half,’ said Imelda. ‘Disgusting, isn’t it?’

Fifi, a promising tennis player, was the impressionable daughter of Betsy, a long-standing member of the club. Even though she was a nymphet, Dulcie felt sorry for her. She remembered all too well how Liam had first broken her own, frantically pounding teenage heart.

Well, chipped the edges a bit anyway.

‘Poor kid,’ she mused, ‘she’ll be devastated when it’s over.’ Imelda picked up her drinks.

‘And it isn’t as if she’ll be able to cry on her mother’s shoulder,’ she said, unable to resist sharing the latest bit of gossip with her erstwhile rival. ‘Rumour has it he’s having it off with Betsy on the quiet too.’

Robert and Delia Cresswell were social workers; they lived in a three-storey Georgian townhouse with three children and seven cats, and nobody collected friends like Robert and Delia.

They were people people, endlessly enthusiastic, interested in everyone and so essentially good-hearted that rebuffing them made anyone who tried it feel a complete heel.

It was a kind of blackmail, but it was extremely efficient blackmail. When Robert and Delia held one of their legendaryparties, they invited everyone they knew. And everyone turned up.

James spotted Liza across the crowded drawing room. For a split second he wondered how long it had been since he’d last seen her, then it came back to him. The night of Patrick’s fortieth birthday, when he had walked out on Bibi. The surprise party to end all surprise parties, thought James. Christ, how could he forget?

Now, Liza was wearing a plum-coloured crushed-velvet dress and her thick blonde hair, tumbling over her shoulders, had grown longer since January. Otherwise, to the casual observer, she looked as untroubled and effortlessly sexy as ever.

Only when James moved closer did the difference become apparent. The pain might be carefully concealed but it was still there.

Liza, he realised, had been dragged into a heated discussion with a group of Delia’s fellow social workers about the various vegetarian restaurants in Bath. Alarmingly critical and determined to prove they knew just as much about food as Liza, they were now arguing loudly about the relative merits of buffalo and ordinary mozzarella.

James watched Liza’s dark eyes glaze over. Sympathising totally, he reached past the noisiest of the social workers and touched her arm.

He was rewarded by her face lighting up.

‘James! How lovely to see you.’

‘Need rescuing?’ he murmured as he kissed her cheek, and felt Liza’s answering nod.

‘Thanks.’ She breathed a sigh of relief when he had extricated her from the circle. ‘Phew. The great mozzarella debate. I couldn’t have taken much more of that.’

James shook his head. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘If you know Robert and Delia, you know why I’m here,’ Liza said with a wry smile. ‘Since I’ve known them, they’ve invited me to every party they’ve had. I’m actually staying with my parents at the moment, down in Devon, but I drive back every week to keep an eye on the flat. Delia spotted me and insisted I came along here tonight. The more I tried to tell her I didn’t feel up to it, the more convinced she became that a party was what I needed to buck me up.’

Poor Liza, fallen helpless victim to Robert and Delia’s bulldozer approach.

‘And has it?’

‘Of course it hasn’t. But they meant well,’ said Liza. ‘It’s my own fault anyway for being too much of a wimp to say no.’

She had lost some weight, James noticed. The famously voluptuous figure had been pared down, that mesmerising cleavage had shrunk. Being thinner didn’t particularly suit her, but since he knew she hadn’t done it on purpose he didn’t point it out.

‘I read about you and Kit Berenger in the paper, of course. I was so sorry to hear about ... you know, what happened.’

James felt awkward; it was always hard to know what to say. But Liza simply nodded. She understood.

‘He was the love of my life, James. You know what I used to be like. Kit changed all that. Then, suddenly, something like that happens ... and he’s gone. There was nothing I could do about it. I never even had a chance to say goodbye.’