‘Like you should’ve stuck to your non-basket-case wife?’
Chapter Sixteen
George, as he’d promised but Tamzin had hardly dared hope, rang her mobile, making her feel all skippy inside. ‘On Friday, we’ve got sound check at six but we’re not on till half-ten. Jenneration’s headlining. So we’ll eat in between, yeah?’
‘Yes, OK,’ she answered breathlessly, hoping it didn’t sound as if it had been so long since a boy rang her that she’d forgotten how to talk to one.
‘Good day?’
‘All right. Visited my mother in hospital. That metalwork that goes into her hip is really gruesome though. How about you?’
His voice came back rich with the fun of living. ‘I’ve had an amazin’ day at uni. I got my exam essay in on time. And my car number plate was read out over the PA because I parked it on the end of a row. I was waiting to go into an exam and had to run off, with everyone laughing, and move it. The Director of Learning was standing by the car when I got there. I asked him if he was the car-park attendant.’
Tamzin giggled.
She went to bed feeling cautiously happy.
But woke in the morning with the familiar feeling of anxiety squeezing her head between its hands.
She curled up in bed, stomach churning. What should she wear to a live music gig? What were all the people like that George knew? She’d have to drive into the city and park. And drive home in the dark.
The desire to get out of bed drained away. Also the desire to eat, although her father knocked on her door and offered her a slice of toast and jam.
She closed her eyes on the snakes of fear in her belly and drifted back to sleep listening to the comforting and familiar sound of James working from home for the morning in his study, videoconferencing through his laptop, his dark voice rising and falling.
Her mobile woke her again – and it was George. Again! She tried not to sound as if she had just roused because he had been revising all morning and sounded full of life. ‘Shall I pick you up instead of meeting you in the centre?’
It wasn’t fair when her own car stood outside doing nothing, but, pathetically, she gasped, ‘Oh yes, please!’ And then, ‘Oh no, because I need to go shopping.’
But, after complicated negotiations and shouted conversation to her father downstairs, she managed to arrange for James to take her into the city en route to the office, and George to bring her home later. All parking and driving in the dark problems solved, she showered, ate a tomato sandwich that James made her, his smiles giving away how much he liked to see her happy, and hopped into the leathery seat of the Merc.
James dropped her right up by the cathedral, although it would mean him fighting his way out of the city again to his office. Tamzin clutched her bag to her chest and prepared to get out. ‘Explain to Mum, tonight, won’t you? And I’ll see her tomorrow.’
‘She’ll understand.’ James winked. It was nice that he was pleased she was going out, but she wished he wouldn’t make his eagerness for the old Tamzin so obvious. The old Tamzin had been shed and left behind, like a spider’s exoskeleton that looked real but wasn’t.
It was tiring battling the Friday afternoon shoppers at the clothes racks. She found black jeans with silver stars embroidered on the hips but the tops all seemed either unbelievably plain or low-cut where she was not so ample as before and – worse – short-sleeved. After trudging the equivalent of a marathon, she found a lace-covered white top with wizard’s sleeves and a belt below the bust. She could’ve bought the top in black but that would’ve meant a new bra, too, and she was fast losing the will to shop.
She trudged to the Ladies in John Lewis’s to change, pulling and biting the price tags off. She glared into the mirrors above the basins. Not bad. But now she was stuck with a carrier bag of clothes she’d changed out of. She shoved it into the bin. She wasn’t going to turn up for a date with George carting a carrier bag of raggy old crap.
To make reparation for using John Lewis’s loos when she hadn’t bought the clothes there she went into their coffee shop for a latte, bought breath freshener from Boots afterwards, used it so thoroughly that she felt as if she’d been gargling neat disinfectant, then wandered along to Cathedral Square where she had arranged to meet George, window-shopping so that she wouldn’t be early.
But he was late.
She gazed across the square at the acres of paving and the neat row of shops. He was late. Ten minutes. He wasn’t coming, then, obviously. Something had come up – something better. Someone. The aroma from the nearby takeaway kiosk began to make her feel sick.
Standing alone near the Guildhall, its arches making it look like a building on stilts, while the late shoppers threaded past her on both sides, her heart slithered, by degrees, to her feet. He was late.
Fifteen.
He wasn’t coming. He’d found someone else to take, or decided to go with his mates. She looked at her watch. Twenty.
Exhaustion began to buckle her limbs. She’d been taut all day but now she was coming unstrung and she wanted to droop, collapse, close her eyes and …
‘Hiya! Sorry I’m late.’
Her eyes flew open.
‘Some arse has let his car break down right in the entrance to the car park. Amazin’ chaos. You look well cool!’ He took her hand. ‘Better run or I’ll miss our sound check.’
