‘That’s good. Didn’t they mind that you don’t speak any Italian?’
‘LOL,’ she replies, leaving me none the wiser as to how this is ever going to work.
Eventually, I click on Instagram, where I am briefly sucked into a video with the title ‘Three Power Backhand Secrets’, but find my mind starting to drift. And before I know it, I’ve ended up making the one Google search I promised myself I wouldn’t.
Sam Delaney plastic surgeon
The results that filter in include various listings at NHS and private hospitals, all accompanied by the samehead-and-shoulders shot, a photo that does him no justice whatsoever, but a bolt of heat still spreads through my centre. I click on the first search result and read a biog that describes him as ‘Associate professor of craniofacial plastic and reconstructive surgery’ – and goes on to list a whole load of accolades and fellowships, adding that his specialism is ‘facial trauma management’.
I click on an accompanying video entitled ‘Jim’s story’. It’s ten minutes long and features a NATO veteran who was on a peacekeeping mission in Sudan when a landmine destroyed the bones of his face and jaw. He’d had eight previously unsuccessful surgeries, hadn’t eaten solid food in twenty-five years and was living every day of his life in pain.
‘Then I met Mr Delaney.’
When Sam appears, my heart catches. He’s in a suit, looking sharp. I take in the soft bristles of his beard. The faint crinkles around his eyes. The bob of his Adam’s apple when he speaks. He explains how he worked to reconstruct Jim’s entire jaw using bone from his fibula, state-of-the-art technology and virtual planning. When he talks, it’s with an air of inexhaustible brilliance that he seems completely oblivious to. You’d think he was describing how he’d built some Lego.
‘I got my life back,’ says Jim, in a tearful summary. ‘That’s no exaggeration. I owe this man my life.’
I turn my phone on silent and sigh as I try to decipher my thoughts, which were significantly more straightforward when I thought he was a total sell-out.
Chapter 23
I used to love working in central London in the days when Ed and I had our flat in Balham, not far from where his parents lived. When I got ready each morning, I relished putting on my armour, silky blouses and red lipstick, feeling like Melanie Griffith inWorking Girl. We no longer worked for the same company by then – I’d moved to a head office role for another department store – but we would walk to catch the Tube together, then go our separate ways at the station.
I’d spend every lunch hour gazing in the windows of its upscale boutiques, selling everything from vintage art and hand-crafted furniture to luxury tableware and bespoke rugs. I’d play a mental version of ‘shop’ – like I had as a child when I’d set up a pretend store and make Jeff buy various tins from the food cupboard. Only now, I’d study the storefronts and curate entire collections of accessories and design pieces, romantically imagining what I’d sell in one of these units if it were ever up to me.
Unfortunately, I won’t have time for browsing today. I’ve been summoned to London for a meeting at Barisian Group headquarters along with several other key members of staff. But I managed to get an early train so that I can meet Ed’s mum Terri beforehand.
We’ve arranged to meet in a little café near Blackfriars, not far from the Barisian building, and she’s already there when I arrive. She stands up and waves at me from across the room, with that huge smile on her face that looks so like herson’s that it occasionally brings a lump to my throat. When she approaches and wraps me into a hug, it strikes me that it’s no wonder Frankie loved snuggling up with her when she was little. She has the kind of big, soft arms that make any embrace feel like being wrapped in a duvet.
‘Oh, it’s so good to see you, darling,’ she says.
‘The feeling’s mutual, Terri,’ I reply, with a big smile. ‘How are you? You look fab.’
‘Well, I’m enjoying my retirement, I must say. I thought I’d be bored stiff but it’s amazing what you can fill your time with.’
The next hour passes in a happy blur of coffee and catching up. She tells me about how Ed’s brother John has a new girlfriend, and that Ed’s dad has signed up for painting classes.
‘Are you serious?’ I say, taken aback at the last one. Gilbert worked for London Underground for forty-two years and never struck me as especially artistic.
‘I’m afraid so,’ she says, chuckling at my reaction. ‘He loves it but I’ve told him if he expects me to put his pictures up in the living room he’s got another think coming. So, have you heard from Frankie recently?’
‘Yes, she’s having the time of her life,’ I tell her.
‘I could tell. She called me when she got to Paris,’ she smiles. ‘I’ve never heard her so excited.’
‘She certainly seems to be enjoying it so far. Not sure what the stress is doing to my blood pressure, of course . . .’
She gives me a sympathetic look. ‘It must be hard for you. You won’t be the first mum to be worried sick about their daughter going off travelling. Plus, the two of you have been through a lot together.’
I lower my eyes briefly. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Well, we all have.’
I already know that seeing Terri will be the highlight of my day and, though I walk away feeling lighter on my feet, it doesn’t last.
The moment I step inside Barisian’s glass-fronted building and see the one lonely soul behind a desk, my visit takes on an automatically ominous nature. The reception is huge and cavernous, more suited to the entrance of NASA than a retail company. I’m the first of the Fable & Punk staff to arrive so perch on a fashionably uncomfortable sofa until the others get here, and we’re directed up to the fifth floor.
‘Oh well, let’s get this over and done with,’ sighs Aurelie, under her breath.
‘Angus seems to think we have nothing whatsoever to worry about,’ Oliver says.
