She looked at him, briefly appraising. ‘Sorry, I’ve got a boyfriend,’ she said.
Millie looked up from her till as the boy sloped, shamefaced, out of the sliding doors. ‘Why did you tell him that?’
‘What?’
‘You haven’t got a boyfriend, have you?’
‘Well, no, but?—’
‘Ah, he was cute! You should have given him a chance!’
Bella shrugged. In truth, she’d panicked, said the first thing she could think of. Hehadbeen quite cute. She probably should have given him her number or something. But too late now.
‘He’ll be back,’ Millie predicted.
‘You reckon? I think that shampoo will probably last him about a year!’
They both laughed.
Working in the pharmacy could be boring, but the other staff were fun and they often found something to giggle about. Sarah had disappeared to uni two years ago and although they kept in touch with the odd email or text, her life had diverged so far from Bella’s that it was as if they were two strangers, staying in touch just for the sake of it.
But she’d found a new group of people at work, was trying to make something of herself. Kitty was always at her to get pharmacist training, but it just didn’t appeal.
‘You know it’s not too late to study, to do something different,’ Kitty was fond of saying. ‘I can help you, and Dad will.’
‘Dad doesn’t even remember I exist.’
‘Come on, that’s not fair.’
But even Kitty could probably hear the falseness in her words. Dad was wrapped up in a brand-new family, a brand-new life. Linda had given birth to two boys in quick succession and now they had half-siblings two decades their juniors.
She couldn’t explain to Kitty how her life, however small it might seem to her hot-shot lawyer big sister, was big enough. That she might not be stimulated, or particularly fulfilled, but at least she felt safe.
13
NOW
The first thing she felt was a throbbing in her head. Rolling over in the darkened room, she groaned. Something had woken her. Half-awake in the blackness, she tried to focus on her surroundings.
Gradually she tuned in. It was a rhythmical, beeping sound. Her morning alarm. Something fizzed through her – maybe shock, maybe… oh God, it could be vomit.
Itwasvomit.
She pulled herself up to her feet and stumbled, getting her bearings just quickly enough to grab her wastepaper basket and empty what was left of her stomach contents into it.
She crouched by it afterwards, breathing heavily and letting her stomach and head settle, before standing up on slightly wobbly legs and slipping along the corridor to the bathroom. Splashing some cold water over her face, she straightened and looked into the mirror at the fallout of yesterday’s still present make-up, the hair that had lost any sense of style and now stood up in an enormous bouffant. The eyes that looked dull and pinched rather than bright and wide as they might after a night’s sleep.
She was still wearing the yellow dress.
She thought to Kitty’s words yesterday, how she should be prepared for her first day of work. Get an early night. And regretted just for a moment not having listened to her.
Damn it. Why did the woman always have to be right?
* * *
Bella managed to have what must have been the world’s quickest shower, shoved on an outfit – with no time to worry about whether it was the right choice – and raced to her train with her hair half-damp from a half-arsed towel dry.
She had twenty minutes to get herself presentable and pull herself together before starting. Her hangover had lifted a little – perhaps the result of the large glass of water she’d gulped down at the kitchen sink before leaving – and although she was still exhausted, the relief at having made the train and the adrenaline from the rush preceding this had given her a kind of energy boost.
