She pressed pause on Netflix, then tapped the green icon to pick up.
‘Hello?’ she said, and braced herself.
‘Don’t you “hello” me, young lady, as if you don’t KNOW it’s your mother on the line. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for over a week.’
Rachel cringed, genuinely remorseful. ‘Sorry, Mum. Really. Work has been crazy since I started back.’
‘Has it indeed?’ She sounded disdainful, disbelieving. Her Stoke accent got noticeably stronger when she was annoyed.
‘We’re pitching for loads of new business,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve been staying late a lot, helping out.’
She’d decided not to tell her parents about the takeover or the risk it might pose to her job. There was nothing they could do about it, after all, and it would only worry them – something Rachel always avoided, if possible.
‘I see. And I suppose you’ve been out with Laurence whenever you’ve had a night off?’
Rachel hated that her mum sounded cheered by the thought of her gadding about with a man she had already dumped. The time to confess had come.
‘Actually … Well. Laurence and I are sort of … not seeing each other any more.’
‘Oh, love! What happened?’
Tenderness and concern, Rachel observed.This won’t last long.
‘It wasn’t going anywhere, Mum. He’s a perfectly nice guy, he’s just not the man for me.’
‘Are you telling me you’ve finished with another one? Chucked someone else stable and decent?’ Mum’s voice was shrill now, and utterly devoid of sympathy. ‘I mean, who are you holding out for, Rachel – one of the Hemsworth brothers?’
Rachel boggled, not sure whether to be outraged or amused. ‘Obviously not. But I can’t stay with someone just because they have a pension plan, Mum. You can’t base a relationship on a well-stocked wine rack, or the fact that someone’s capable of keeping a grow-your-own basil plant alive. I need tofeelsomething for whoever I’m with.’
‘Rachel, by the time I was your age I was married with two children,’ her mum said.
‘Yes,’ Rachel cut in. ‘You were married to a man you were wildly in love with, who hopped on the ferry, left his family in Ireland and followed you home from Dublin after a holiday fling. You’re hardly in a position to tell me romance is dead.’
‘It wasn’t dead thirty-seven years ago! But at best it’s on life support these days, what with all this revenge porn and sexting and Grind-It.’
‘Grindr. And that’s an app mostly used by gay men.’
‘Don’t change the subject, Rachel. Meeting someone nowadays is HARD. Half the blokes out there are weirdos and nutters. And yet every time you get close to one who seems sane and normal, you dump him. I don’t understand what your problem is.’
Rachel could feel her temper beginning to fray. ‘Right now, my problem is this conversation. Plus the fact that you don’t seem to care whether I’m happy, just that I have a man in my life. A sane one, apparently – but even you have to admit that “not an axe murderer” is setting the bar pretty low, Mum.’
‘OfcourseI care about you being happy! But will you be happy all by yourself when Anna and Will get married? And when that nice-looking friend of Will’s finds someone too, and disappears?’
‘Mum, Anna and Will don’t even live together yet. There’s no way they’re getting married anytime soon.’ Rachel noticed the speed at which her chest was rising and falling, and tried to take slower, deeper breaths.
‘But who’s there with you now?’ her mum pressed on. ‘Nobody, I’m guessing, or you wouldn’t have picked up the phone. It’s Saturday night, Rachel – you should be out enjoying yourself and you’renot.’
Rachel groaned. It stung that her mum was right: that, of her closest friends, she was the only one left alone this evening. She wondered again what Tom was up to.
Rachel heard her dad muttering in the background – something that sounded like, ‘Jean, for the love of God, rein it in a bit.’
‘Rachel,’ Mum went on, ‘all I’m saying is that lack of fireworks isn’t a good reason to finish with someone who cares about you. Dark and dangerous men might feel more exciting, but you can’t rely on them. That John Luther’s a looker, but you couldn’t trust him to do the weekly shop.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Mum!Dark and dangerous men?Luther? What are we even talking about?’ Jack’s face floated into Rachel’s mind and she batted it away briskly. ‘As far as fireworks are concerned, the chemistry between me and Laurence was barely enough to ignite a sparkler. And for the record, Idowant a boyfriend … Maybe even a husband one day. I’m just not prepared to stay with someone when I know it isn’t right. It wouldn’t have been fair to Laurence to keep seeing him, or any good for me in the long run.’
‘Whatever you say, love,’ Mum sighed. She sounded more resigned than convinced. ‘What are your plans for the rest of the weekend?’
Glad of the change of subject, Rachel cast around for something to say. Her eyes fell on a shoebox in the hallway, just visible from her position on the squashy pink sofa. It contained a pair of running trainers she’d ordered in the sales but had yet to break in.
