Rose nods decisively. ‘I’ll be there.’
Nora looks almost overcome. ‘Oh Rose,thank you!’
‘Well, if you’re going, I’m going to have to go,’ Lisa decides, knocking back a glass of wine.
Nora’s eyes widen. ‘Really?’
‘I knew you could count on this lot,’ Jeff tells Nora. ‘Though I’ve no idea what I’m going to do with myself if you’re all off having fun without me . . .’
‘Come to Rusty Racquets,’ Nora says. ‘Everyone’s welcome to those – it’s an open session, for beginners and those getting back into the game.’
He scrunches up his nose. ‘Rusty Racquets? Can’t you give it a name that makes us sound a bit lessdecrepit?’
‘I’ll consider a rebrand if it means you’ll come,’ she grins.
‘Not necessary. I’m in.’
It’s all very touching. And I’m happy for Nora. But when Jeff nudges me in the elbow and says, ‘You know you want to,’ I refuse to budge on the matter.
‘I really can’t. Besides, you’re a gang. I wouldn’t want to intrude.’
A cacophony of protest follows, about how that’s ridiculous and they allreallywant me to take part. But I’m already getting a horrible feeling of déjà vu that only makes me dig in further.
‘I’m sure the others will love the lessons and I’ll spread the word, I swear,’ I tell Nora. ‘But I’d rather spend my weekends doing just about anything other than playing tennis. Sorry.’
Chapter 5
I have a fitful night, which can only partly be attributed to Jeff’s cocktails. At 3am, when I make the rash decision to look on Find My iPhone, I discover that Frankie’s last known location was recorded only an hour after she texted me. After that, the device apparently fell off the face of the earth. The sane part of me knows that she’s just forgotten to charge it and that she’s not currently on a life-support machine or having coke snorted off her bum cheeks by the head of an international drug cartel. Nevertheless, the dark corners into which my imagination crawls are not conducive to uninterrupted sleep.
This is one of those times when I feel Ed’s absence most acutely. Had he still been alive, I know what he’d have done now: wrap his warm arms around me, kiss me gently on the lips and sleepily tell me that our daughter will beabsolutely fine, before going back to sleep. And although a part of me would be irritated by his fathomless conviction that things would work out okay, it transpires that I needed that steadying presence like I need oxygen. Right now, I’d give anything to not be going through this without him.
Ed and I met the way most twenty-somethings did back then: at work. I’d gone to London to study art history at university and, after finishing my degree, never left the capital – except to go Interrailing with a couple of friends the summer I graduated.
Afterwards, I started a dream job in a gallery in Soho that I hated immediately, thanks to colleagues I never really gelledwith and an openly lecherous boss. I stuck it out for a few months, then spotted an advert for a graduate trainee scheme for Marks & Spencer.
I’d worked in retail part-time while studying – selling stationery in a branch of Paperchase and measuring children’s feet in a shoe store – but had never really thought of it as a potential career until then. But I liked interacting with customers, solving problems and learning about how things worked behind the scenes. And, though it wasn’t an obvious choice for someone with an art history degree, the prospects were good and it felt like something I could really enjoy.
I was taken on in that year’s cohort and immediately dispatched to the flagship Oxford Street store to learn everything from buying and design to merchandising and supply. I spent my first day in lingerie. Ed was in menswear.
Our paths barely crossed at first, though I’d occasionally see him in the staff room, where at lunchtimes I found a quiet corner to snatch half an hour with a book. I often found my eyes drawn to him from afar, to his broad shoulders and gentle eyes. He walked over one day and asked if the seat opposite was taken. I said it wasn’t, expecting him to drag it to another part of the room. But he placed his copy ofSuccessful Habits of Visionary Companieson the table and sat down. I closedMemoirs of a Geishaand we started to chat.
‘How’s the book?’ he asked.
‘I can’t put it down. Yours?’
‘Would it be weird if I said the same?’ he grinned.
I looked at the title again. ‘Very. Though admittedly I’m not a big non-fiction fan.’
My first impression was that he was way too confident, while at the same time impossible not to like. He was handsome, popular and had this amazing, expansive laugh that made you feel like the funniest person alive. I admired every new, little thing I learned about him. How he rememberedeveryone’s name, from the operations manager to the cleaners. How much he loved his family – three brothers and a sister, all born and raised in Streatham. We sat together all the following week and, the one after that, he asked me out.
Our first date was in a pub along the Thames, even though he never drank, and we kissed in the shimmering light of the London Eye afterwards. I went home bursting with happiness, feeling like my feet were barely touching the ground.
Before Ed, my romantic history was what you might politely call chequered (and, less politely, an absolute shitstorm). Boys had been the source of non-stop heartache, trouble and paranoia from the moment I’d had my first crush.
But Ed was the antidote to every terrible man I’d ever encountered. There was no second-guessing about whether he’d call. No worrying about whether he was going to disappear. This was a completely new and unexpected feeling in which I finally realised love should not be difficult. With him, it was ridiculously easy. He was never going to make promises and then disappear. I was in no doubt whatsoever about what he felt for me. In our first year as a couple, I don’t think we argued once.
While I moved on to various roles in the years that followed, Ed remained at M&S throughout his entire career and was a regional director by the time he died. He loved the place so much that there was only one time he ever considered leaving, when we talked about setting up our own company together.
