Page 81 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

Jo sighed. It was pointless arguing. All those years of devoted service to Pop! Productions, all that time hoping that one day she’d get the chance of a promotion, and Leona had waltzed in and snatched it from under her nose.

And what was worse, far, far worse, was that this would make Leona her line manager.

‘Look, I know you must be disappointed…’

‘Yes, I am disappointed,’ Jo said. ‘For years, I’ve done everything perfectly. Everything you’ve asked me to do. Made sure that every shoot runs like clockwork. Every t crossed, every i dotted. I think of the tiniest details to ensure everything goes smoothly. I’m the obvious person to step up and do your job, but I make one little error and am unavailable for one shoot, and I get passed over like this.’

She felt out of breath when she’d finished and could feel her heart pounding, but it felt good. A few weeks ago, she’d have meekly accepted that she hadn’t got the job. At least now she was standing up for herself, even if it wouldn’t change anything.

‘David’s decided, Jo,’ said Caroline. ‘I’m sorry but there it is. Already organised.’

Jo returned to her desk. It was a cliché but the past seventy-two hours had been a roller coaster. There’d been the highs – summoning up the courage to do the local radio interview, the excitement and triumph of the festival, the discovery that Ras was actually Razz, and the decision to tell him how she felt about him – and then the lows – seeing Razz with Zoey and now Leona’s promotion. Her life had taken a sudden and unexpected downturn.

The festival had finished. It seemed pretty certain that she’d lost Razz; since the festival, she hadn’t had so much as a text from him And now the woman who spent most Friday afternoons giggling in the ladies’ loos, trying on different outfits and reapplying her mascara, was going to be her line manager. For a whole year.

31

Razz sighed, pulling the pile of papers from his desk towards him. This was going to take forever. It was the last thing he needed after seeing a steady stream of patients all day, but he’d neglected the admin part of his job – and admin was an increasingly large part of his job these days; far more than when he’d first qualified – during the run-up to the festival.

His phone beeped and Razz pounced on it, hoping it would be Jo. He opened WhatsApp and saw there was a message not from Jo, but from that friend of Kate’s from the speed-dating event. Zoey. With a y. So funny how she’d introduced herself that way.

He glanced at the message; it seemed she wanted to meet. He’d reply later when he’d finished this mountain of work. He’d never expected her to tick his box and for them to end up being a match.

In the meantime, he tried to focus on what he had to do. There were several letters from hospital consultants. He ran his eye over them quickly, trying to ascertain if there was any follow-up required on his part, but he couldn’t concentrate. He kept thinking of Jo, wondering what was going through her mind. Wondering why she’d left so abruptly after the festival had finished without so much as a goodbye. Had it been anything to do with that teacher, Matthew?

He’d happened to glance over during the speed-dating and had noticed that Jo and Matthew were so wrapped up in their conversation that they weren’t playing Scrabble at all. And then yesterday morning, he’d seen her heading outside – for a breather presumably – and he’d followed her out, wanting to get things off his chest, to tell her how he felt about her. He’d been intending to wait until after the festival – if she didn’t feel the same, it could make things awkward – but he couldn’t bottle his feelings up any longer. But then Matthew had got there first, and once again, Razz noticed, the pair of them were engrossed in their conversation. So much so that he hadn’t liked to intrude.

He should Iave intruded.

He’d told himself that there mightn’t have been anything between them at all, that perhaps they were only talking, but then Jo had raved on about Matthew, full of admiration and enthusiasm, saying wasn’t it wonderful how he’d stepped in and rigged up those cameras for the semis and the final at such short notice. ‘Isn’t he clever?’ she’d said.

Razz had looked over at the tall, blond man who looked like he’d stepped out of an episode of Love Island rather than being an IT co-ordinator in a small primary school in the Pennines, and decided that he had no chance. Matthew definitely looked like the outdoorsy type. He could picture them together, surfing in Cornwall, whizzing down parallel zipwires, camping in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish Highlands. Now that the festival was over, Jo was presumably longing to get back to her adventurous activities – not that she’d ever mentioned it.

There was no doubt in Razz’s mind; he had lost her.

Why on earth hadn’t he told her how he felt sooner?

He’d been intrigued by her from the start. And attracted to her. And confused by her. (Although he was, to be fair, someone who was often confused by the opposite sex.) On the one hand, judging by the way she dressed, she was someone who liked to blend into the background, but then she dyed her hair bright red. Judging from her dating profile, he’d expected someone more outdoorsy, more outgoing, but she’d seemed shy and anxious. At first, she hadn’t seemed that keen on descending into Gaping Gill, but she’d done it, which was more than he’d managed.

For the umpteenth time, he thought back to that day, to the drive home afterwards, when he’d been feeling embarrassed – no, more like mortified – about losing his bottle the way he had. He’d convinced himself that she’d never want him now; someone who said they liked adventurous activities wouldn’t have time for a man who was scared of heights. Nevertheless, when he’d dropped her off on Hazel Lane that day, he should have asked her if she’d like to meet up again. There’d been nothing to lose back then. No friendship at risk. If she’d said no, he’d have got over it, but she might have said yes. He’d thought for a moment that she was going to ask him in for coffee, and his heart had leapt, but then she hadn’t. That had decided him; he wouldn’t contact her again. If she got in touch, he’d ask for a second date. If she didn’t – well, he’d know she wasn’t interested.

He’d clung onto a small grain of hope for a day or two that she might text and thank him for the date. But she hadn’t.

And then she’d turned up at the club. He’d been so excited to see her again, and to discover that she loved Scrabble too, but he tried not to let it show too much. Women didn’t like men who were too keen, did they? Kate had told him that once, when he’d been having a coffee with Ludek in the (Not So) Little Board Game Café, so Razz had played it cool.

Instead of asking her out as he was itching to do, he’d asked her to help him organise a Scrabble event. It had been the perfect excuse to spend some time with her, to get to know her better, but now it was over.

Razz put aside the consultant letters. This was hopeless; he couldn’t keep his mind on the job. There was a stack of blood test results and repeat prescription requests to go through, but maybe he should go home, get an early night and tackle it all tomorrow.

He switched off his computer and turned off the lights in his consulting room.

On his way home, Razz’s thoughts turned to Jo once again. They’d grown so close during all those weeks of planning the festival together. They’d become friends, good friends, but he’d thought there was something more. There’d been so much eye contact. He could have sworn that on at least a couple of occasions, he’d seen her pupils dilate, a sure sign of sexual attraction.

Kate had told him once to make subtle moves on a woman: a hand on an arm, perhaps, or brushing away a loose strand of hair. That way, he could gauge her response, rather than ploughing straight on in there with some clumsy, cack-handed attempt at seduction. So he’d taken Jo’s hand over the Scrabble board that evening when she’d first suggested speed-dating; she hadn’t taken it away. He’d brushed cream from the side of her mouth when she’d been eating one of Annie’s eclairs. She’d looked away but hadn’t seemed too uncomfortable. But not looking uncomfortable wasn’t exactly a green light, was it? He had never been sure how she felt about him.

Jo had changed during the past few weeks, which had been lovely to witness but made working her out even more problematic. The rather nervous young woman he’d first met outside the town hall had become confident; she’d sailed through that live radio interview and stood on the stage at the festival as if it were nothing. And with every ounce of confidence that Jo seemed to gain, Razz became even more attracted to her. It was like watching a flower blossom, he thought. A cliché but perfectly true.

And then the festival had happened and it had all been a roaring success, and he’d wondered if they might go out after it ended to celebrate how well it had gone. Maybe he could order champagne – a little Dutch courage wouldn’t go amiss. But then he’d seen her with Matthew.