By the look of things, he was doing just fine. Gone was his usual black bomber jacket, shiny from wear, and instead he was dressed in high-end business casuals: cashmere coat and navy shirt over pleated trousers. In short, he was shockingly well groomed. But that wasn’t the half of it .?.?. Beside him was a girl of, at the very most, twenty-five. Very demure and expertly made-up, in a tailored dress and long cream coat. Suddenly, Ally’s boho outfit felt just a little scruffy and as though at her age she might be pushing it. The girl seemed to be mainly supporting herself by clinging on to Francis’s arm. Come off it, Ally thought. Mum would’ve described this girl as lamb dressed as mutton. She looked smart, sure, but she could have worn that same outfit in her fifties.
But crikey, it was definitely a makeover takeover. The thought of moulding Francis into somebody more presentable had never occurred to her. But it certainly had to this girl, and he seemed perfectly happy to go along with it, and unless Dad had been holding out on her, which was unlikely, this was all very recent. With a shock, she could see exactly how it would all pan out. Francis would marry this girl. It was so obvious. He was naturally conventional, which wasn’t a bad thing in itself, butthere was something just a little naïve about him and, following his latest promotion, he’d all of a sudden become a catch.
Across the café, she caught sight of Rosemarie gawping at the scene – thank God, at least she had a witness.
‘Ally, what a surprise. Is this your Saturday job? Is this part of a cunning plan to take over the world?’ he boomed and introduced his date as Fleur.
She piped up in a dainty, kittenish voice, ‘It’s nice here. Very quaint, isn’t it, Frannie?’
‘Frannie’ – was she fucking serious? Nobody in his life had ever called him that. It was ridiculous. Ally felt the girl’s ‘quaint’ remark was directed at her, though it might just have been her paranoia. She was painfully aware of Pete eyeing her from the storeroom door, where he was measuring up for new cupboards. She felt trapped and that anything she said was likely to offend someone.
‘So, Francis, you’re not out playing golf with Dad today?’
Hah, at least that might force him to be honest about whatever Hallmark fantasy he seemed to have been kidnapped into.
‘I’ve been granted shore leave,’ he announced in a mock-jocular tone.
‘Forty-eight hours, so we have to make the most of it, don’t we, Frannie?’
Cutesy couples banter. Oh .?.?. bollocks. They’d never done that. They’d only ever spoken like .?.?. well, normal people. Francis seemed to have acquired an entirely new persona. Sort of plummy and paternalistic. The girl gazed up at him and murmured, ‘Frannie knows I don’t like being a golf widow, don’t you?’
If she stayed there, Ally realised, she was actually going to puke. When in doubt, get busy, she decided. She pointed them towards Dave for their takeaway coffees and headed over toRosemarie with her order.
‘At feckin’ last, I was about to assault that young waiter and wrestle off him whatever he was carrying. What the hell is going on over there? I thought he was still single. You’d think they’d just done the pre-marriage course and put down the deposit on a house. God, she looks so fertile, like she’s permanently ovulating.’
‘Don’t be vile.’
‘You OK?’
‘No, ’course not.’
‘That’s not natural. That girl is wearing fecking flesh-colour tights.’
‘So?’
‘Nobody wears flesh-colour tights these days except the royal family, and that’s only because it’s kind of the law. There’s something going on.’
Even though she hadn’t seen Francis in months, in her mind he’d been still out there somewhere. The truth was, they hadn’t fought, there hadn’t been a cross word spoken. She’d left the apartment on New Year’s Eve because somebody had to do something, but then, he hadn’t tried to stop her either .?.?. which hurt more than she’d allowed herself to admit. They’d never talked things through like the self-help articles said you were supposed to, so in a weird way, it felt like they’d never fully split. She’d always thought that maybe they’d bump into each other someday and see one another with new eyes.Hah. How big an eejit could you be? Right now, she felt like Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner, only to look down and see she was hanging in mid-air.
‘Look,’ hissed Rosemarie. ‘Princess Bride is after going to the bog. Go on up and talk to him.’
Ally had only got halfway across the floor when the loo door swung open and Fleur swanned back out. Bloody hell, nobodycould manage to pee that fast. All she’d done was reapply her lipstick and just a hint of cheek blush, making her look even more fresh and peachy, if that were possible. Fleur twinkled prettily while planting herself directly in Ally’s path.
‘So, I believe you and Frannie are old friends. Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name?’ The dimple beside her mouth seemed to whisper ‘I’m the chosen one’, as she daintily accepted her coffee with a teeny-tiny hand that looked like it had never been sullied by washing-up liquid.
Ally hesitated before realising she simply couldn’t be arsed to reply.
‘Yeah. See you again, Fran,’ she called flatly as they made their exit. At the last moment, he turned and waved stealthily.
Rosemarie’s left nostril said it all.
‘What a cunt.’
‘See you in Pyg at five?’
‘You betcha.’
* * *
