Willow was inclined to agree. ‘So, Mrs Powell,’ she tried once more. But she got no further.
‘Well, it’s been nice chatting to you, dear. That’s the trouble with being old, you don’t have the chance to chat that much; people are always in such a hurry. I can go for days without seeing or speaking to anybody. No time for the pleasantries in life, that’s the trouble with folk. Like I say, it’s been nice talking with you, but I really must get on now. Goodbye.’
Willow knew she’d lost her chance so reluctantly said goodbye too.
‘Mind not on the job today, Willow?’
It was Kyle and he was standing right behind her. How did he do it? How did he creep up on her the way he did?
‘It wasn’t a convenient time for the woman to talk,’ Willow lied, scrolling through the list of donors on her computer screen. Well, it wasn’t that big a lie, Mrs Powell did have an appointment withEscape to the Countryto keep, didn’t she?
Seemingly satisfied with her answer, Kyle went to check on the latest recruit to AoK. He was yet another actor who needed an income between jobs and the flexibility to bunk off to go for auditions at short notice. Kyle didn’t really like actors – too full of themselves, he believed – but he knew better than anyone that they could act up a storm when it came to pleading a good sob story to get a donor to increase their regular donations.
There was no answer from the telephone number Willow had just dialled, and seeing she was now eligible for a fifteen-minute break, she removed her headset and went to the office kitchen to make herself a drink.
While she waited for the kettle to boil, she felt her mobile vibrating in the breast pocket of her dungarees. Woe betide anyone who answered or made a personal call while they were supposed to be working.
As she thought it would be, it was Rick. When she was at work, he always liked to make sure she was all right, that she wasn’t overdoing it.
‘Hi there,’ he said, ‘what are you up to?’
‘Just making myself a drink.’
‘And you’re okay? You’re not feeling too tired or too stressed?’
‘You know I don’t work down a coalmine, don’t you?’ she joked.
‘And you know what I’m like, I worry about you. How’s our Little Princess?’
Willow put a hand to her bump, which the midwife had called a ‘very small neat bump’ during her last check-up. Rick worried that she should be bigger at this stage, but the midwife, who had recommended some antacid to sort out the indigestion problem Willow had previously suffered, didn’t seem to think there was a problem.
‘All bumps are different,’ the woman told Rick firmly when he’d queried her size. He always took time off work to accompany Willow to her antenatal appointments. He asked far more questions than she did. Her mind just went blank when she was being examined or was talking to the midwife.
‘She’s fine,’ Willow said in answer to Rick’s question and just as the kettle clicked off.
‘What are you drinking?’ he asked. ‘Not coffee?’
‘Weak decaffeinated tea,’ she lied, reaching for the jar of Gold Blend. It was only her second cup of the day –and second lie of the day– what harm could that do?
‘What time will you be finishing this evening?’ he asked.
‘Six o’clock.’
‘I’ll swing by and pick you up in that case.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘I know there isn’t, but I like to look after you and this is my way of doing just that. I’ll see you at six, and don’t keep me waiting like you did last time, I don’t want to risk getting a parking ticket.’
He ended the call and, her coffee made, Willow took it through to the small communal lounge. A couple of other co-workers were there, each on their mobile phone, deep in conversation with whoever was at the other end of the line. She opted for the table in the corner by the window which looked down onto a jumble of wheelie bins.The glamour of it all, she thought with a smile.
So why stay?She heard Rick’s voice inside her head.
Because, when everything else felt wrong and out of her control, this at least felt normal. Here at AoK she could almost forget she was pregnant, and more importantly, forget that Rick had lied to her about poor Cedric. Everybody told little white lies, she did it all the time, she was even guilty of telling some enormous lies, but those were only to herself. What Rick had done was different. The untruth he’d told was just too awful.
She had sort of forgiven him, well, as best as she could, but Lucy and Simon refused point-blank to forgive Willow. She’d tried explaining to them what had happened, and why Rick had lied to her, but they refused to believe it. They were convinced that she had been in on it and had deliberately lied to them.
‘If they can’t accept your apology, or believe you, then they can’t be genuine friends,’ Rick had said to her. ‘You’re better off without them.’
