Lizzie shook her head. ‘It’s all yours.’
‘It’s pretty dreadful, isn’t it? But cheap.’
Lizzie thought he looked like someone who could afford to live somewhere far nicer than her. He had a prosperous, glossy air about him – in fact he was the sort of young man her parents would approve of. She quite approved of him herself. He was attractive.
‘So what was the flat like?’ asked Alexandra the following morning while they hung up their outdoor clothes.
‘Ghastly,’ said Lizzie. ‘It would be easier to live at home and commute from there.’
‘Do you want to do that?’ asked Alexandra.
‘No,’ said Lizzie. ‘Definitely not. I mean my parents are perfectly nice people but I want to live in London! At least for as long as the course lasts.’
‘I have an idea,’ said Alexandra. ‘Talk to you about it at lunch.’
Although Lizzie was fairly preoccupied with her own problems she couldn’t help noticing in the morning session that Meg was a bit distracted – not as focused as she usually was. Mme Wilson had to ask her twice to recite her recipe for shortcrust pastry. Meg managed it the second time.
‘My advice, girls,’ said Mme Wilson, ‘is to use this recipe for everything that requires a short crust. The egg yolk makes it easy to handle.’
‘Let’s go to the café,’ said Alexandra after all three girls had made quiche cases and baked them blind – a process new to Lizzie.
‘I was thinking,’ Alexandra continued, when they had cappuccinos in front of them and were lowering in the sugar lumps. ‘Why don’t you come and live in my house? It’s silly me living there almost all by myself when you have to go home to live with your parents, or find some ghastly flat-share somewhere.’
‘Oh my goodness! That would be amazing!’ exclaimed Lizzie. ‘But what would your – your guardians think about it?’
‘They won’t know and why would they object? Me sharing with a nice girl from the Home Counties would be just what they’d want for me if they ever gave the matter any thought.’
‘That would be perfect!’ Lizzie said, thinking how her mother would react to the thought of her sharing with a posh girl who lived in the very best part of town. She’d be so thrilled she’d possibly forgive her daughter for her geometric haircut.
‘Excellent!’ Alexandra clapped her hands.
Meg cleared her throat. ‘Might there be room for two people in your house?’
‘Of course,’ said Alexandra. ‘It’s huge. Why?’
‘It’s just I need somewhere to live now too. Urgently.’
‘But why?’
‘My mother’s got a job, which is brilliant, and it’s live in, also brilliant, but it leaves me homeless,’ said Meg.
‘Come and live with me then! We can all be together, which will be lovely. It’s quite lonely living in that huge house more or less on my own.’
‘There’s just one problem,’ said Meg, who, Lizzie felt, wasn’t quite delighted enough at the prospect of having her housing problem solved so happily.
‘What?’ said Alexandra.
‘There’s Clover.’
‘Who’s Clover?’ said Alexandra and Lizzie together.
‘She’s my dog. Well, not my dog really; she used to belong to the old man my mother looked after – where we’ve been living for the past five years.’
‘And he left her to you in his will?’ suggested Lizzie.
Meg became a bit emotional. ‘The thing is, the old man’s family – distant family; they never came to visit – wanted to have her put down. Clover isn’t young, she’s seven, but that’s not old either!’
‘Oh, that’s awful,’ said Alexandra. ‘Of course she can come and live with us.’ She paused. ‘There is one thing though.’
