Jill Mansell - Chapter 1

‘Fifty! Gosh.’ Maybe it was for a book club. Hesitating for a moment, Lola said, ‘You have to pay for them in advance, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh no, it’s OK.’ The woman shook her head. ‘I don’t want to pay for them.’

‘I know it’s a lot of money. But somebody has to.’

‘But not me! I just want you to put them on the shelves. Make a nice display like you do with the Richard and Judy books. Right at the front of the shop,’ the woman said helpfully, ‘so that people will buy them.’

By the time Lola had finished explaining the niceties of stock ordering to a disappointed Fidelma Barlow, it was almost eight o’clock, kicking out time. Fidelma, shoulders drooping, left the shop.

Lola, who knew just how she felt, dispiritedly straight- , ened a pile of bookmarks and wondered if she could bear to go along to the party tonight that Tim and Darren had invited her to ... except she already knew she couldn’t, which meant she was now going to have to come up with a convincing reason why not.

The next moment she looked up and almost fell over. There, standing six feet away like an honest-to-goodness mirage, was Doug.

Lola’s heart, which never listened to her head and hadn’t yet learned to stop hoping, went into instantaneous clattery overdrive.

‘Hello.’ She clutched the computer for support. ‘What’s this? Is my mum on the telly again?’

Doug smiled slightly. ‘No.’

‘My dad then? On Crimewatch?’

‘Haven’t spotted him on Crimewatch. Maybe he was the one in the balaclava.’ Tilting his head, Doug said, ‘But you’re half right. I am here because of your dad.’

‘You are?’ She hadn’t been expecting him to say that. ‘We had a chat on Saturday night.’

‘You did?’

‘He didn’t mention it? OK, obviously not. Well, we were at the Savoy.’

Lola boggled. ‘My dad was there?’ So that was why his mobile had been switched off. And to think he could have come along to the cinema with her instead.

‘Well, we didn’t communicate by telepathy. He spoke to me about you. Quite forcefully, in fact.’

Doug paused, then glanced over at a nervously hovering Darren who was waiting to empty the till. ‘Sorry, could you just give us a couple of minutes?’

‘Um, but I need to get the—’

‘Darren?’ Lola murmured the word out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Go away.’

‘OK’ Defeated, Darren slunk off.

‘I was watching you with that woman just now. The one who wanted you to stock her book,’

said Doug. ‘You were really nice to her.’

‘That’s because I’m a really nice person. Believe it or not. And you were eavesdropping.’

‘Not eavesdropping. Listening. Like I listened to your dad on Saturday night.’ He waited, gazing directly into Lola’s eyes. ‘I know why you took that money when my mother offered it to you.’

‘What?’ Lola felt as if all the air had been vacuumed out of her lungs. How could he know that?

It wasn’t physically possible, it just wasn’t.

Doug gave an infinitesimal shrug. ‘OK, I don’t know exactly why. But I do know it didn’t have anything to do with a Jeep.’

‘How? Why not?’ Anxiety was now skittering around inside Lola’s stomach like a squirrel.

‘Because you told me you could never tell me the reason you needed the money. And that’s what you said to your fathertoo.’ Doug tilted an eyebrow at her.. ‘But if the Jeep story was true, there’s no reason why you couldn’t have told us that. Therefore it stands to reason that it wasn’t.’

Lola felt dizzy. This was like being cross-examined on the witness stand by a barrister a zillion times cleverer than you. In fact this might be a good moment to faint.

‘So basically,’ Doug continued, ‘you needed the money for something that meant far more to you than a Jeep. It was also something you were determined your mother was never to find out about.’ Pause. ‘Well, there was only one other person on the planet who was that important to you back then.’ Another longer pause. ‘And that was your stepfather Alex.’

Lola’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked and realised the shop was empty. No customers, no staff. Everyone had gone, miraculously disappeared. Thank God.

‘I can’t tell you.’ Helplessly she shook her head. ‘I just can’t. I made a promise.’

‘That’s OK, I’m not asking you to. No digging.’ Doug’s voice softened. ‘I know who you did it for. I don’t need to know why. I didn’t understand before, but I do now That’s enough. It’s all in the past.’

Was this how Catholics felt when they were absolved of all sin and forgiven by God? Lola, who hated crying in front of people but seemed to have been doing a lot of it lately, could feel the tears rolling faster and faster down her face. She couldn’t speak, only nod in a hopeless, all-over-the-place, nodding-doggy kind of way.

‘You know, you’ve been pretty lucky as far as fathers go. First Alex, now Nick. He’s so proud of you,’ said Doug.

For heaven’s sake, how was she supposed to stop crying if he was going to come out with stuff like this? Blindly Lola nodded again and wiped her sleeve across her wet cheeks.

‘And he certainly made me think,’ Doug went on, ‘when he told me I’d missed my chance with you.’

‘He really said that?’ Lola sniffed hard. This was the thing she’d forgotten about fathers; how much they loved to embarrass their daughters in public.

‘And the rest. As if it hasn’t been hard enough these past few months, reminding myself why I should be steering clear of you. Then along comes your father giving me all sorts of grief, then explaining to me why I should think again. That knocked me for six, I can tell you.’

As if it hadn’t been hard enough these past few months? Slowly, desperate not to be getting this wrong, Lola said, ‘So that night when you first saw me again at your mother’s house ... does that mean you didn’t hate me after all?’

‘Oh yes I did. With all my heart. Absolutely and totally.’ Doug half smiled, causing her heart to lollop. ‘But at the same time the old feelings were still there as well, refusing to go away. Like you were refusing to go away. It drove me insane having you back in my life, because I wasn’t able to control the way I felt about you. I wanted to be indifferent, to see you and feel nothing.

But I just couldn’t. It wouldn’t happen.’ He tapped his temple. ‘You were in here, whether I liked it or not.’

Lola was trembling now, almost but not quite sure that his coming here tonight was a very good thing. ‘Like a tapeworm.’ He looked amused. ‘You always did have a way with words.’

‘Oh Dougie, all this time you’ve been hating me, I’ve been trying my best to change your mind’The words came tumbling out in a rush. ‘In the end I just had to give up, told myself to stop before I made a complete prat of myself ... except I already had, over and over again ..

‘I quite enjoyed those bits. I think watching you try to play badminton was my favourite.’ He grinned, moved closer to the counter. ‘I waited in the bar afterwards, but you didn’t turn up.’

‘In case you accused me of stalking you again.’

‘I’m sorry. I haven’t behaved very well either.’ Ruefully Doug said, ‘I’ve lied to you, for a start.’

‘About what?’

‘The photos of us when we were young. Of course I kept them. They’re at home, hidden away in a cupboard,’ his eyes glinted, ‘along with my secret stash of Pot Noodles’

‘I knew it!’ Triumphantly Lola said, ‘Once a Pot Noodler, always a Pot Noodler. Did Isabel know about this?’

Ach, Isabel .. .

‘What’s wrong?’ said Doug when she winced.