Could you have any less of a filter? her inner voice despaired. You’ve now just succeeded in making what Grandma would have called ‘an exhibition of yourself’.
‘Are you grabbing lunch?’ he suggested, which was a perfectly normal question. However, she was feeling totally overextended.In her old life at Celtic Concrete, she wouldn’t have exchanged as many words in a week with colleagues as she’d done in the past few hours and, honestly, the energy it would have taken for another conversation with a stranger, attractive or not, was beyond her.
‘No, I’ve got to go home,’ she heard herself blathering. ‘I’ve to .?.?.’ come on, think of something, ‘clean out my fish tank.’
He looked amused. ‘That’s a new one.’
Having started down this ludicrous path, she needed to commit to it. ‘They’re overdue, the weekend ran away with me. If I don’t do them today it could be toxic .?.?. In fact, it could be deadly.’
He nodded with a smile. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a tragedy.’
She gave a quick smile and beat it out into the October sun, rolling her eyes at herself. She was heading for home when her phone rang – Rosemarie’s name flashed up.
‘Hi, I’m on my tea break. If I don’t talk, I’ll only eat a muffin. What are you up to?’
‘Not much. Going to buy fish.’
‘Oh good, healthy option. High protein.’
‘Not to eat .?.?. In a tank.’
‘What? Why?’
Ally explained everything about the café, her new job and finally her excuse to Pete. ‘He’ll probably be in tomorrow so if I don’t do it, it’ll be a lie.’
‘That’s ridiculous, Ally, he’s not going to come round to your apartment and make an inspection now, is he?’
‘Obviously not, but maybe it’s time I got some fish anyway. I need to slow down.’
‘Ally, are you OK?’
‘’Course I am. Except, I’ve just noticed my new runners are covered in melted cheese and Béarnaise sauce. So, tell me aboutWilliam, did you see him today?’
The truth was that, throughout her shift, at the back of her mind she was thinking of William. How she’d describe it to him, the laugh they’d have, how he’d be impressed. In fact, her inner dialogue with William was the saving grace that kept her from panicking.
‘He dropped by on some lame excuse about checking a connection, but I think he might have secretly been pining for you.’
Really? Then why hadn’t he just texted her. He could have got in touch any time over the weekend. She secretly knew that Rosemarie was trying to be kind to her. Truth was, there was an inner version of William that was largely her own creation and the outside William, with his own plans – and right now, the two seemed to be pretty separate.
‘Gotta go, guess who’s only eaten two squares of chocolate and no muffin? Yaay, result, see you in Los Banditos tomorrow at six thirty.’
And she was gone, leaving Ally to find her way to the pet shop.
* * *
She squeezed her way into the musky atmosphere of the cramped, dimly lit shop, full of scuffling and cheeping from rows of cages filled with hyper-anxious hamsters, sleeping snakes and brightly coloured birds. There was something sad and yet compulsive about the atmosphere of pet shops; she’d been fascinated ever since her grandfather had brought her to one when she was six to buy her a goldfish. Maybe that’s why she was there now: the wish to re-create that long-lost safe time.
‘Fish?’ she enquired of the elderly man in glasses, bundled up behind the counter in a puffa coat and scarf. In truth, helooked more like part of the ecosystem than a salesperson. He raised his arm slowly, using the absolute minimum energy, and pointed towards the back of the shop. Obediently, she made her way down through what proved to be deceptively large premises. There was something magical about tropical fish tanks .?.?. They glowed with an exotic warmth, as though they were a tiny cube of some balmy ocean far away.
‘What were you looking for?’
Ally practically jumped out of her skin as the owner had apparently dislodged himself from his burrow and was now filling up most of the aisle behind her.
‘Something small, it’s just for my apartment.’
‘Haruuuummm,’ he intoned, like Treebeard the Ent. ‘Starter set-up, then. Although, I’d advise getting a decent-sized tank. You don’t want your fish to end up too crowded. Fish need their space. Just like people. Some breeds of fish are fussy, fighty; some will get on with anyone. But you have to let them settle in.’
She chose a pair of fish called guppies. They were beautiful, with silvery sides and flowy fins that reminded her of a breeze blowing through the net curtains in her old bedroom.
