The Lavender House

by Hilary Boyd

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Later in Life Romance

Synopsis

Nancy de Freitas is the glue that holds her family together. Then she meets Jim. Smoker, drinker and unsuccessful country singer, he should be completely unsuited to the very together Nancy. And yet, there is a real spark. But Nancy's family don't trust Jim one bit. They're convinced he'll break her heart. Can she be brave enough to follow her heart? Or will she remain glued to her family's side and walk away from one last chance for love?

Release date: August 4, 2016

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

Nancy was in the kitchen preparing supper, listening to The Archers on the radio, drizzling olive oil over some summer vegetables for roasting, when her husband, Christopher, walked in and told her he was leaving. The July evening was breezy and cool, but the doors to the garden were open, the tortoiseshell cat from next door prowling around the tubs on the flagstone patio, rubbing his body luxuriously along the smooth earthenware sides of a pot of lavender.

Christopher stood across the room, the island worktop between them. He was dressed in jeans and his navy sweater, the high zip-neck brushing his chin, although the zip was partially undone. Thin, small and tidy, tanned from his endless walks in the Suffolk wetlands, his grey hair short, almost monk-like, he seemed determined, almost fierce, as he clutched his brown leather holdall in his left hand.

‘Where are you going?’ Nancy asked, holding up her oily hands, like a surgeon ready to operate, as she paused in her task of tossing the onions, courgettes, peppers and baby tomatoes. ‘It’s nearly supper time.’ She reached across to turn the radio off, using her elbow to press the green knob: Christopher hated The Archers.

‘I’m going to see Tatjana.’

‘Now? Why?’

Tatjana was the newest member of the Downland Singers, a small madrigal group Christopher had set up nearly thirty years ago. From Latvia, she had auditioned when Gillian Perry – Christopher’s protégée – had left because of her husband’s cancer. Christopher had been very enthusiastic about her, said she had an extraordinarily pure soprano voice. Which obviously – as Nancy was about to discover – was not her only asset.

Not answering her question, her husband said, ‘I won’t be back tonight.’

Nancy frowned, not getting it.

‘I won’t be back,’ he repeated.

‘Won’t be back? Why not?’

‘I’m staying with Tatjana, Nancy.’

And when Nancy, still baffled, continued to look blank, he added, by way of explanation, ‘We’re in love.’

She stared at him. From a man of sixty-nine, the words sounded made up, fatuous. Genuinely unable to take them in, she lowered her hands and reached for the kitchen roll, wiping the oil from each of her fingers one by one. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if that’s the case, you’d better get off, then.’ Her gaze was fixed on his face and she saw his shock, almost bewilderment, at her reply; shock that must mirror her own.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking away.

And she thought that he probably was, in his own way. Not a man to emote, nor someone who seemed to care much about anything in life except his music, Christopher de Freitas nonetheless considered himself to be a decent person. And a brilliant musician – although not all would agree. An Early Music specialist, he had studied classical guitar at the Royal College, then the lute. His madrigal singers were internationally famous among Early Music enthusiasts.

Nancy had met him when he came to the Royal Northern College of Music – where she was studying piano – to give a lute masterclass. Not that she was interested in the instrument as such, but her fellow student, Oliver, was, and she was interested in Oliver. But he was quickly forgotten as Nancy became mesmerized by Christopher’s penetratingly blue eyes – which lighted frequently on her as if he had singled her out for special attention – his mastery of the instrument, his fluent exposition of Renaissance music and madrigal forms. By the end of the two hours, she was hypnotized. Afterwards she had gone up to thank him.

He had given her his card. ‘If you’re ever in London, look me up. I have a concert at the Cadogan Hall in June. I can get you tickets, if you like?’ It was posed as a question, although she felt he assumed she would ‘like’. His confidence was absolute.

‘You could have told me earlier,’ she said now, as if she were speaking from outside her body, looking down on the middle-aged pair in their tidy, middle-class kitchen. No shouting, no drama, all perfectly polite, as she added, ‘I wouldn’t have bothered with supper.’ Her body was screwed so tight, she seemed capable only of such inanities as she waited for him to go.

‘Right . . .’ her husband muttered, still hovering, as if he were reluctant to leave, whereas the exact opposite must be the case, Nancy thought. He must be desperate to get this scene over with, to escape his intolerable guilt. Desperate to lie with relief against Tatjana’s ample bosom.

That was the last word spoken in their thirty-four-year marriage.

Better than a note on the kitchen table? Nancy wondered, after three-quarters of a bottle of Rioja on an empty stomach, gazing at the vegetables still sitting forlornly on the work-top – like her, rejected, deemed not fit for purpose. Numb with shock, she didn’t cry. And after the whole bottle of wine and a couple of large shots of Christopher’s Glenfiddich, she realized through the drunken haze that she’d known for some time, like a painful bruise she couldn’t touch, what was going on between her husband and Tatjana Liepa.

What the hell are you supposed to wear for a line-dancing evening in a Brighton pub? Nancy asked herself, as she flicked through the rail of clothes in her cupboard, vainly searching for an outfit for her friend Lindy’s sixtieth. Lindy had not been helpful.

‘Oh, doesn’t matter, wear jeans and boots or something,’ she’d said airily. But Nancy’s jeans were M & S jeggings – not even distant cousins to authentic Levi’s – her black boots better suited to a day’s work in a building society office than stomping the boards to a Dolly Parton song.

All the clothes that used to fill her wardrobe when she was still Mrs Christopher de Freitas – sleek dresses and velvet jackets, black evening trousers, silk tops and beaded handbags – were long gone to the charity shop in Aldeburgh, and she didn’t miss them one bit.

I’ll look like someone who’s wandered in from one of Mother’s bridge evenings, she thought, ripping off a frumpy light-blue cotton shirt she’d tried on because it was sort of denim-coloured. In fact, I dress more like my mother with every passing day. Which thought had her slamming her wardrobe shut and running downstairs, out of her cottage, across the gravel to the bigger house.

*

‘Hiya.’ Ross, her son-in-law, grinned as Nancy came into the kitchen, a curved, two-handled blade poised in his hands, the chopping board in front of him covered with a mound of bright green herbs. Beside him was a bowl of uncooked grey prawns, another of broccoli stems, a smaller one with chopped garlic, a bottle of soy sauce and a shiny red chilli. Nancy smiled back, wondering if she ever saw him when he wasn’t attached to a knife and surrounded by ingredients. He had his own restaurant, the Lime Kiln, three miles away, and even when he wasn’t there – like today, Sunday – he still did nothing but cook every moment he was awake.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked, turning to skim the sharp metal blade back and forth at high speed across the herbs. Overweight, broad-shouldered and around six feet in height, he had shaved the last vestiges of his hair, leaving a gleaming dome, which seemed to heighten the beauty of his huge brown dark-lashed eyes, the fullness of his mouth and his strong, jutting chin. Pale from too much time indoors, if he wasn’t handsome he was charismatic, with a loud voice and a ready smile. Nancy liked him a lot.

‘Not well,’ she said, shifting Bob, the cat – female, but her granddaughters had insisted on the name – and flinging herself down on the faded green sofa, strewn with a bright and diverse set of cushions. ‘Is Louise upstairs? I need to find an outfit . . . I’m going line dancing.’

Ross’s eyes widened and he guffawed. ‘Line dancing? You’re kidding me. Wouldn’t have thought that was your thing, Nancy.’

‘It isn’t, but it’s Lindy’s sixtieth birthday party. What can I do?’ In fact it wasn’t the dancing that bothered Nancy – she loved dancing on the rare occasions when she got the chance. It was the party itself, any party, that wasn’t Nancy’s ‘thing’. Unlike her ex-husband, who seemed able to enter a room full of complete strangers and instantly bond with them, Nancy found socializing like pulling teeth, the low-grade panic never quite going away. And she’d barely been out in the years since the split. At first after Christopher’s defection she’d retreated, shut the doors of their white-painted Suffolk farmhouse on her friends and made endless excuses, which became increasingly implausible, to avoid their company, until they’d given up trying. Then, when she’d moved to the cottage just north of Brighton, three years ago now, teaming up with Louise and Ross, she had known no one with whom to party.

Before Ross had time to answer her, there was a shriek from the TV room. Hope, nine, and Jazzy, six, came barrelling into the kitchen with shrieks of ‘Nana, Nana!’ and threw themselves into her arms.

*

Clutching a large glass of Pinot, pressed upon her by Ross, some salted almonds inside her, Nancy plonked herself down on her daughter and son-in-law’s bed. Hope was already eagerly rummaging in her mother’s drawers and cupboards.

‘Look, Nana,’ she exclaimed, her large brown eyes – inherited from her father – alive with the drama as she reached on tiptoe and yanked down a shimmery gold knitted bolero jacket that would have been better suited, in Nancy’s opinion, to one of Hope’s Barbies than either her or Louise. ‘This is perfect for a party.’

‘Umm . . . Maybe a bit . . . shiny?’

Louise chuckled at her mother’s expression. ‘Impulse buy,’ she said, tossing a fringed leather jacket in butter-coloured suede at her. ‘Perfect, no?’ She turned to rummage along the rail again. ‘I’ve got some denim dungarees here somewhere . . . but maybe that’s a bit more farmhand than cowboy.’

Jazzy pulled her thumb out of her mouth. ‘Nana can’t wear dungarees to a party,’ she said, her tone shocked. She was sitting beside her on the bed, watching operations carefully with her round blue eyes.

‘What about these?’ Louise, nodding agreement, brandished a pair of jeans. ‘These are better. They should fit and they’re real Levi’s.’

Her daughter took after Christopher in appearance: small-boned, slim, with well-defined, almost sharp features. She was shorter than her mother by about two inches, very like her father, with his deep-blue eyes. Only Nancy’s thick, previously dark-brown hair seemed to have survived the genetic inheritance, and Louise didn’t make the most of it, pulling it back in a short, severe ponytail. But she had a sort of gamine quality that Nancy knew men found attractive, and a charming smile that instantly softened her darting, nervy expression.

‘Go on, try them on,’ Louise was urging.

‘Now? Maybe I’ll take them home . . .’ Nancy was embarrassed in front of the girls, who were gazing disapprovingly at their mother’s choice of garments.

‘No, come on. I want to see what you look like. Shoo, girls, let Nana change. I’ll call you when she’s ready.’

Once the girls had gone – she could hear them giggling outside the door – Nancy undressed to her T-shirt and knickers and pulled on the jeans and jacket. The jeans were a bit short and a bit tight around her post-menopausal midriff, but the jacket fitted perfectly. She eyed herself in the long mirror on the bedroom wall, Bob rubbing against her legs as she stood there.

‘See? You look brilliant.’ Her daughter grinned at her from the other side of the bed. ‘Very C and W.’

‘C and W?’

‘Country and western, Mum. Get with the programme!’

‘Ha! Of course.’ She twisted sideways in the mirror, twitching her fringe on her forehead, her pure silver-white hair falling in a thick bob to just past her chin, accentuating her strong cheekbones and wide grey eyes. For a second she had a tantalizing glimpse of her younger self as she twirled in her daughter’s clothes. ‘I had a panic earlier that I was beginning to dress like Mum.’

Louise laughed. ‘Could be worse. Granny always looks incredible.’

‘Yes, but she’s eighty-four! I have the exact same M & S jeggings as she does.’

‘You and half the country.’

Nancy sighed. ‘I think I panicked because the other day she pointed out that I’m the same age as she was when Daddy died. And I thought she seemed so old at the time.’

‘You’re not old, Mum. Sixty is the new forty,’ Louise said briskly, shutting down Nancy’s worries as she always did. Her daughter spent a lot of time in a state of anxiety herself, and perhaps couldn’t cope with it in Nancy too. Nancy found it disconcerting sometimes, but perhaps it was better not to dwell on things she couldn’t change. It was just the creeping fear, new to her, that the rest of her life was already mapped out, that she would follow her mother’s example of safe, female company – notwithstanding Dennis, a septuagenarian fancy-man her mother’s friend had recently taken up with – filling the time left with bridge and Noël Coward, fancy cakes, cruises and Marks & Spencer, en route to the grave. Because although Frances had an enviable life for someone of her age, she seemed permanently discontented, disappointed at the way things had turned out.

‘Found them!’ Louise, who had been scrabbling in the bottom of her cupboard, waved aloft a pair of ankle boots with small heels and pointed toes in light-brown suede, metal studs decorating the zip line. ‘These are almost cowboy.’ She handed them to her mother. ‘They don’t quite match the jacket, but no one will notice that.’

‘Will they fit?’

‘Have a go. I’ve worn them a lot so they’re quite stretched.’ She watched Nancy struggle into the boots. ‘Fantastic. Come in, girls, come and look at Nana.’ She eyed her up and down. ‘You’re so classy, so elegant, Mum. You look good enough for any line-dancing party.’

The pub was loud with a country song, although it wasn’t one Nancy recognized. She was late, havering right up until the last second about whether or not she would go.

Wearing her daughter’s clothes did nothing for her confidence. Not only did she feel a fraud – ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, as her mother would say, her voice heavy with censure – but the boots had pinched her toes even on the short walk from the pub car park and the jeans’ waistband had created a small but unattractive bulge beneath her white T-shirt where it dug into her flesh.

Pull yourself together, she admonished herself, straightening her shoulders and taking a deep breath as she spotted Lindy in the crowded space, standing with a group of women by the bar. She was clutching a bottle of lager, dressed in outrageous denim shorts, a tasselled leather waistcoat over a white-cotton vest and the alligator-skin cowboy boots she’d told Nancy she’d bought in Denver thirty years ago. She looked amazing, about twenty-five, with a large Stetson clamped over her long blonde hair.

‘Woo-hoo, Nance! Thought you’d chickened out!’ Lindy shrieked, throwing her arms round her friend. Nancy had met Lindy at the school gates, picking up their grandchildren – Toby was in Hope’s class – and a friendship had developed, fuelled by Lindy’s voracious appetite for any form of culture. Cinema, literature, music, theatre, dance, you name it, Lindy would buy tickets.

Nancy handed her a birthday present. It was a silver bangle with a small turquoise in the centre that she’d found in a little shop in the Lanes.

‘Darling, you’re so kind. I didn’t want everyone spending money on me,’ Lindy was saying, bending to put the wrapped box and card into a large bag at her feet. ‘I’ll open it later – it’s too crazy in here.’ She stood up again. ‘Now, who do you know?’

Monica, Jessy, Alison, Rosanne, Suzie and Precious were introduced and two more whose names she didn’t catch. The only one Nancy had met before was Alison, an old friend of Lindy’s from college. They had all gone to see a Terence Davies film, The Deep Blue Sea, which had been playing at the Duke of York’s in Brighton. Nancy remembered being carried away by the soundtrack, a heartrending Samuel Barber violin concerto, but Alison had seemed reserved, hard to talk to.

The women were pretty well oiled already so Nancy had some catching up to do. But she was relieved to see that Lindy’s guests were wearing a mish-mash of outfits – just two with hats, three with authentic boots. Only Lindy really looked the part . . . and some.

‘What will you have?’ Rosanne, Lindy’s teacher at the art class she attended in Lewes, asked Nancy.

She settled for a Budweiser, preferring wine but not wanting to get drunk. She was driving home.

*

‘Okay, girls . . . listen up! I’m Jim Bowdry and I’m your host for the evening.’

The tall man dressed as a cowboy waved their birthday group over to a cordoned-off area on the opposite side of the pub, which had a small, black-painted plywood stage built against the end wall, supporting speakers, a stereo deck and a set of drums pushed into the far corner. An open laptop currently balanced on one of the speakers. Nancy was relieved the dancing was about to start, preventing the need for any more small talk. She was on her second beer and was beginning to feel mellow. The women, it turned out, were a good crew, unpretentious and lively – even Alison had thawed with a drink inside her.

‘Right.’ Jim stood in front of them adjusting his mic, which was attached to a headset buried beneath his worn silver-white Stetson. ‘Who’s done this before?’

Only four hands went up, one of them Lindy’s, and Jim grinned. ‘So many line-dancing virgins . . . Ooh dear, it’s going to be a long night.’ Which remark was greeted with drunken laughter. ‘Don’t worry about getting it right. We’re just here to have some fun. And remember the old Japanese proverb: “We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” ’

It was clear this was well-rehearsed patter, but the proverb – if it was indeed a proverb and not something Jim had made up for the occasion – tickled Nancy and she couldn’t help laughing as she caught his eye.

Lindy, standing next to Nancy as they formed two lines, whispered, ‘Hmm, like the look of our friend. That outfit makes him all macho, as if he’s just about to wrestle a steer to the ground or whatever cowboys do.’ The wink she shot Nancy was positively lascivious. ‘Know what I mean?’

Nancy grinned, but she felt slightly out of her depth. It was literally decades since she’d had such an exchange about a man. Yet she did like the look of Jim. He was probably around her age, above six feet tall, his thick, iron grey hair – with a pronounced widow’s peak – tied back in a short ponytail. His dark eyebrows were set over bright blue eyes, which seemed permanently amused, a strong, slightly crooked nose and well-defined lips. He reminded her of a more rugged, less effete, version of the actor Terence Stamp.

‘We’re going to start with some basic moves,’ Jim was saying. ‘I’ll demonstrate first, then talk you through it. It’s not rocket science, we’ll have a routine going in no time.’

Nancy thought that was unlikely, faced with ten or so tipsy women in their sixties, most of whom had never performed a line dance in their lives, but she was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d done this before; he should know.

‘First, the grapevine, very simple . . .’ He stood for a moment, facing them, his thumbs hooked into his jeans pockets, moving to the country song playing on the sound system. ‘Step to the right, left foot behind, step out, feet together and tap.’ He moved slowly, did it again to the left, still slowly, his body graceful and fluid. ‘Now you try.’

The group, with varying degrees of commitment, performed the move.

‘Great! Now a bit quicker . . . to the right, left behind, right foot, tap. Step to the left . . .’

Jim beat time to the music on his thigh and counted them in as they followed his lead. After a while he added other steps, turns, jumps, scuffs and taps, ‘Back, back, back, back, now turn it out to the left, step to the right, grapevine . . .’ changing the song on the laptop to suit dances with exotic names such as the Electric Slide, Bootscoot Boogie and Tush Push, which spoke for itself. He stood with his back to them, guiding them, calling out the steps into the mic, his lean frame swaying provocatively.

It was hot in the small space, the air close, music high volume, the rest of the pub filled to bursting with the Saturday-night throng. Nancy could feel the perspiration damp on her face, but she was loving every minute of the dancing.

‘Oops!’ Lindy, giggling and flailing in her shorts and boots, collided with Nancy, which prompted Precious, on Nancy’s right, to crash into her, domino-style.

Jim turned to see what was happening. ‘Need some help?’ he asked Nancy, coming to stand between her and Lindy. With his hand on her arm, his body close, he began to coax her back into the steps. ‘Jump . . . feet together, heel, toe, tap . . . You’re good,’ he said, his words suddenly sounding so intimate in that crowded room. She didn’t dare look at him.

‘Bloody left and right . . . never could tell the difference. You’re going too fast!’ Lindy gasped, flapping her arms as she headed in the wrong direction again and crashed into Jim and Nancy. Jim, laughing, held her up and again his eyes met Nancy’s over Lindy’s head. Nancy felt an unfamiliar bubble of pure joy as she laughed with him.

‘All right for you, teacher’s pet.’ Lindy pulled a face at Nancy as Jim stepped to the front again and turned his back. ‘Luurve his butt in those jeans,’ she went on, too loudly, only inches from his ear. Nancy cringed as Jim turned, a wry grin on his face, and began instructing them in the Macarena, a less hectic dance that mostly involved arms and hips.

*

‘That was so much fun.’ Lindy, still breathless, was propped up on a high stool, her Stetson lying on the bar in front of her, her bare tanned legs looking enviably taut and muscled – Lindy worked out like most people breathed. Alison and Nancy were the only ones left now: it was after midnight and the others had gone home when the dancing finished. Jim was over by the stage, putting away his mic, removing his hat, brushing back the hairs that had strayed from his ponytail, wiping the sweat from his face with a red spotted hanky. He had slowed the tempo of the music now, and Kris Kristofferson was singing ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’.

‘Jim’s going to join us for a drink.’ Lindy’s eyes were fixed lewdly on their host as he walked towards them, mouthing the chorus to himself.

‘Mind if I nip out for a smoke?’ he said, as he joined the group. ‘Won’t be long.’

‘What will you have to drink?’ Alison asked.

‘Oh, er, Heineken would be great. Thanks.’ He disappeared into the night, delving into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes as he went, his boots ringing loudly on the wooden floor in the near empty room. Nancy was disappointed. She hated smoking.

‘He is mine,’ Lindy intoned drunkenly, shimmying her hips as she watched him go. ‘He is so totally mine.’

Alison rolled her eyes. ‘Leave him alone, Lindy.’

‘Why should I? He doesn’t have a ring on his finger and he definitely likes me.’ She giggled. ‘But, then, what’s not to like?’

‘I’ve had such a great time,’ Nancy said, quickly changing the subject. ‘I haven’t danced in ages.’

‘Me neither,’ Alison said. ‘I thought it was brilliant.’

And Nancy thought she looked unusually flushed and happy. Alison was an educational psychologist, a small, intense woman who, Nancy felt, seldom relaxed. Her husband, Nick, had died in his forties from some heart problem and she had never remarried.

When Jim returned, bringing with him cold air and the trail of tobacco smoke, Lindy pulled an empty bar stool close. ‘Here, sit down and talk to me.’

Jim politely accepted, inching the stool a bit further back before settling. He picked up his beer and took a long, thirsty draught. Nancy thought he seemed a little nervous of Lindy’s flirtatiousness, but he must surely be used to it in his line of work.

‘So you enjoyed your birthday?’ he asked her. He had a gravelly voice – probably from all that smoking, Nancy decided – with the undertone of amusement she’d noticed earlier.

‘I just adored it, darling,’ Lindy replied, laying a proprietorial hand on his arm, ‘even if I can’t tell my right from my left.’

‘You did well . . . You all did, considering most of you hadn’t tried it before.’

‘Ha! Don’t think so. I was rubbish.’ Lindy reached out and drew Nancy to her side, wrapping her arm round her waist. ‘Now, Nancy here, she’s a natural.’

Jim glanced at her and smiled.

‘It’s easy if you follow everyone else,’ Nancy said, then looked quickly away as she felt the heat rising to her cheeks. She hoped he wasn’t still gazing at her. But when she turned back his blue eyes were fixed on her face. Stupid bloody woman, Nancy berated herself silently. The first man to look at you properly in years and you have to go and blush.

‘I found it quite hard to keep up, though,’ Alison was saying, and Nancy sighed with relief as Jim’s attention was diverted. ‘If I lost my concentration for a second it all fell apart.’

‘It’s just practice,’ he said. ‘Once you get used to the steps your feet do them automatically.’

‘Mine don’t.’ Lindy wiggled her boots in the air, showing off her legs but wobbling dangerously, clutching the bar for support.

‘Do you do a lot of these evenings?’ Nancy asked Jim, interrupting Lindy deliberately. The booze was really getting to her friend – she was blinking in the slow, inebriated way of all good drunks, fading fast, her speech more and more slurred.

‘Nope, not many. I’m mainly a singer. Country music.’

‘A singer?’ Lindy twitched back to life, nearly knocking over her bottle of beer. ‘Wow, I luurve singers. Are you published . . . no, that’s not right . . . recorded?’ She laughed. ‘You know what I mean.’

Jim smiled. ‘Yeah, have been. But not for a while now.’

‘Wow,’ Lindy said again, the single syllable drawn out to its maximum capacity. She gave him a playful shove. ‘Go on, then, give us a song.’

‘Haven’t got my guitar.’

‘Shouldn’t stop you. Come on, pleeease. One teensy tiny little song, just for me? Sing a Johnny Cash or something. It’s my birthday! You can’t deny a birthday girl her wish.’ She batted her thick black lashes at him. ‘That would be sooo mean.’

Jim shifted awkwardly on his stool. ‘I’d love to, but it’d be rubbish without my guitar.’

Lindy blinked at him, her expression darkening. ‘Oh, don’t go all precious on me, darling.’ Her tone was suddenly imperious as she made the effort to haul herself upright. ‘I hired your services. If we want you to sing, isn’t it all part of the package?’ She stared at Jim as if waiting for him to burst into song.

Nancy froze and glanced quickly at Alison, whose eyes were wide with dismay. This was a side to Lindy – obviously drink-fuelled – Nancy hadn’t witnessed before.

Jim just raised his eyebrows. ‘Why don’t you come to my next gig, Lindy? Then you can hear me at my best.’ The accompanying smile was so winning that Lindy’s expression relaxed.

‘Yeah . . . yeah, might do that,’ she said.

‘I think it’s time to get you home.’ Alison moved purposefully to Lindy’s side and took her arm, which her friend immediately shook off.

‘Noooo! It’s way too early! It’s my birthday, for God’s sake. I’m going to . . . stay up all bloody night.’ And with that, Lindy slid gracefully off her stool and landed in a heap on the pub floor, her bare limbs concertinaed beneath her.

*

Jim helped Alison get Lindy into her car. They had persuaded her to drink some water and the barman had made her a strong coffee, which she’d immediately thrown up – luckily making it to the Ladies first. She was still barely conscious.

‘You don’t think we should take her to A & E, do you?’ Alison asked them, after they’d loaded Lindy into the front seat. ‘I’ve never seen her this bad before, even at college.’ Her small face was pinched with concern.

Nancy looked at Jim, thinking maybe he had more experience of this sort of problem, but he shrugged. ‘Not sure that’d help.’

‘Won’t she just sleep it off?’ Nancy suggested. They were standing beside Alison’s blue Mondeo in the semi-darkness of the empty pub car park, the night air bitingly cold after the warmth of the bar. She glanced through the window at their sleeping friend, whose head was slumped on her chest, blonde hair trailing across her face, hands hidden in the sleeves of her leather jacket.

‘But what if she vomits in her sleep and chokes?’ Alison asked.

‘She’s got a point,’ Jim said.

‘What will A & E do, though? Won’t she just lie on a trolley for four hours and then be sent home?’

‘Well, I don’t feel comfortable leaving her alone. I’ll take her home with me.’ Alison frowned. ‘You hear the most awful stories . . .’

Nancy remembered Lindy saying that Alison was a major worrier, her life a perpetual series of what-ifs. ‘Do you want me to come too?’ she offered, a