Remembering now, and with a painful jolt to her heart, how alone, empty and bereft she’d felt that night, Hilary slipped her hand into her handbag, found her wallet and picked out what she was sure would cover the cost of her share of the lunch, mostof which she hadn’t been able to eat. She couldn’t remember when she’d last experienced hunger, or enjoyed anything she ate.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, slapping the money down onto the table and getting clumsily to her feet, ‘I’m not feeling well, I need to go.’
And she did. She fled, before anyone could try to stop her or ask if they could help in any way. She was in such a desperate hurry to escape, she almost tripped over a small apricot-coloured poodle with a couple sitting at a nearby table.
She drove out of the car park as fast as she dared, vowing never to put herself through another of these unbearable lunches.
She wasn’t one of the Girls anymore.
And that was something else she’d lost.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lunch with Ronnie Sharp at the Green Man in Grantchester, followed by a stroll along the river in the beautifully mild October weather had made for a very pleasant outing. Bon-Bon had had a high old time nosing around in the long grass, although he hadn’t been so happy inside the pub when that rude woman had tripped over him, and she hadn’t even apologised. It was as if she’d barely noticed him.
Ronnie was back from Majorca to sort out what he referred to as a few business odds and sods. He had knocked on Venetia’s door earlier in the week and asked if she was free for a drink that evening. Later, and leaving Bon-Bon watchingThe Great British Bake Off, she had taken the stairs up to the top floor and made her way along the carpeted corridor to Ronnie’s apartment, her steps triggering ceiling lights to come on overhead. It was hard to believe, but this was the very same route she had followed as a child when going to see Edie Buckle in her cosy office-cum-sitting room next door to the sick room. In those days there hadn’t been a plush royal-blue carpet, just a worn stretch of curling linoleum the colour of vomited pea soup, as all the children had described it.
From what she had seen of Ronnie’s apartment that evening it was very much a bachelor pad and lacked any real heart, or even a sense of home. There were a few items of statement furniture in the sitting room and some rather unfathomable abstract pictureson the walls which served to add to the sterility and transient feel of the place; it could have been a soulless hotel room. While Ronnie had poured her a glass of wine, he’d confessed to having employed an interior designer to kit out the apartment when he’d bought it. ‘I was lazy, and just let the woman get on with it while I was in Majorca,’ he’d explained.
As the evening had progressed, she’d felt that he was quite a different Ronnie to the one she’d met the evening of the welcome drinks party when she’d moved in. It was as if when not in front of a crowd, he didn’t need to live up to the role of Ronnie-the-Rogue which was how he’d come across before. But in Venetia’s experience everyone played a role depending on the situation, no one was immune from playing up to an audience.
It might have been the excellent quality of the Alberiño they were drinking, but by the second glass she had entrusted Ronnie with her secret about Bon-Bon. He’d been tickled pink that she had a stowaway dog in her apartment and had assured her that his lips were sealed.
‘I’m more than happy to keep your secret,’ he’d said with a laugh. ‘Anything to get one over those two bossy women who think they run the show here.’
He’d shared with her that he’d had a personal run-in with the Enforcers last year when he’d let a friend keep a campervan in the parking area by the garage block. Apparently, even though Ronnie had said it was a temporary arrangement, Joanna and Cheryl had described the vehicle as an eyesore, claiming it made the place look like a cheap campsite.
‘Which naturally,’ Ronnie had told Venetia, ‘made me want to install a wreck of a campervan of my own just to really annoy those stuck-up whinge-bags. And you know what,’ he’d gone on, ‘there’s nothing in those management rules about not being allowed to keep caravans or campervans here. Not a word.Nada!’
The more they’d chatted, the more Venetia had enjoyedRonnie’s company, but she’d sensed that it wasn’t just business loose ends that he was here to tie up. She’d been proved right over lunch today when he’d mentioned he had an appointment at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. She didn’t feel she knew him well enough to ask what it was for, other than to say she hoped it wasn’t anything serious. He’d avoided answering her by steering the subject onto something else.
Now, back from Grantchester, and after inviting Ronnie in for a cup of coffee, Venetia let them into her apartment. Setting her tote bag down on the floor in the hall, Bon-Bon hopped out, shook himself from his nose to his tail, then trotted through to the kitchen and his water bowl. They followed behind the little dog.
Taking in his surroundings with an appreciative nod, Ronnie said, ‘Your apartment feels much more of a home than mine.’
‘Thank you, but there’s nothing like a ragtag collection of squashy old cushions and faded rugs to make a place feel lived in. Make yourself comfortable, while I put the kettle on. I apologise for not having one of those fancy coffee machines, the best I can do is a cafetière.’
‘Hey, no standing on ceremony with me,’ he replied, ‘instant will do perfectly.’
‘In that case I shall take you at your word.’
Having ignored her invitation to sit down, Ronnie prowled around the room, then went over to the window to look out at the grounds in the autumn sunshine. ‘You have a better view than I do from my apartment,’ he said when a few moments had passed. ‘I missed the boat when the apartments with the best views came up for sale.’
‘You have a view of the woods though,’ she said, ‘that’s not so bad, and it’s not like you live here permanently.’
He shrugged, then pushed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. ‘True. But life changes.’
‘That sounds rather like you’re considering making changes?’
‘Sometimes,’ he said quietly, almost more to himself than her, ‘change is thrust upon us, whether we want it or not.’
The coffee made, Venetia took the two mugs over to the sofa, pondering on what Ronnie had said, or more accurately the reflective way in which he’d said it. It made her wonder if he was worried about something. His hospital appointment perhaps?
When they were both seated, and feeling that she would like to help if she could, she said, ‘You could tell me to mind my own business, but if there’s anything I—’
‘Whoa!’ he said, holding up a hand to interrupt her. ‘Whenever a woman says that, I know jolly well she has no intention of minding her own business. So go on,’ he added with a chuckle, ‘do your worst.’
Amused at what she’d been accused of and knowing it was true, as it simply wasn’t in her nature to let something go, she said, ‘Do you currently find yourself in a position of having unwanted change thrust upon you?’
