Well, that could change. She would make an effort tonight. This John might be just what she needed, Nell told herself. He might be nice. Thea liked him, which was a good sign, but it was hard to imagine him at the moment. Whenever she tried to conjure up a possible picture, all she could see was P.J. smiling at her.
She pushed the image aside once more and concentrated fiercely on imagining a future with a man she loved. Maybe in years to come, she and John would look back on this evening as the first night they met, and they would remember the bar, and how they had felt and this dress…
‘You don’t think it’s too revealing?’ she asked, regarding herself dubiously in the mirror.
‘That’s the whole point,’ said Thea patiently. ‘It’s supposed to be sexy.’
‘But I’ve got to go to this reception first.’ And P.J. would see her wearing it. What if he thought she had made all this effort for him? ‘It’s not really appropriate for a work do.’
Thea waved work aside. ‘If they want you to turn up in a suit, they should keep work to office hours,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a heavy date tonight, and it’s more important that you look nice for that. Now, where are those shoes…? Ah!’
‘Thea, I can’t possibly walk in those,’ Nell protested as her sister pulled a pair of exquisitely delicate sandals from the bottom of her cupboard.
‘Who said anything about walking? You can get taxis this evening,’ said Thea. ‘I’ve already ordered you a cab to get to the gallery. You spent a fortune on these shoes, Nell, and you never wear them. Anything else will spoil the dress, anyway-unless you were thinking of going in your trainers?’ she added sarcastically.
‘I could put them in a bag and change when I get there, the way I do for work,’ Nell pointed out, but Thea wasn’t having any of it.
‘You are
She stood back to admire her handiwork. ‘You look fabulous!’
‘You do,’ Clara agreed. She had been sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching Thea take her mother in hand. ‘You look beautiful, Mum.’
‘Thank you, darling,’ said Nell, touched. ‘But the truth is that I’d much rather be wearing my dressing gown and staying in for pizza with you and Thea!’
‘Instead of which you’ve got to go out to a glamorous reception and a date with a gorgeous man,’ said Thea with spurious sympathy. ‘It’s a dirty job, I know, but somebody’s got to do it, and tonight it’s your turn! Don’t forget your book,’ she added as they went downstairs to wait for the cab.
Resigned, Nell went into the sitting room and ran an eye along the shelves until she found the Swahili phrase book that Thea had apparently arranged for her to carry as a signal.
She wished Thea hadn’t chosen this book of all books. Pulling it slowly down from the shelf, she stared at it in her hands and felt the memories wash over her. It was years since she had looked at it. Keeping it hadn’t even been a conscious decision, and if anyone had asked her if she had such a phrase book a week ago she would probably have said that she didn’t.
‘Why did you tell John I would have this with me?’
‘Because I’ve been noticing that book on your shelves ever since I’ve been babysitting Clara,’ said Thea. ‘If I’m here on my own and there’s nothing on television, I see if I can find something to read, and that Swahili book always seemed to catch my eye. I’ve often wondered why you had it.’
Nell flicked slowly through the pages. ‘P.J. and I used to talk about a trip to East Africa,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘It was going to be an extended honeymoon. We planned to spend a few months there and we were both going to learn Swahili…’
Her voice trailed off as she remembered how young and innocent and enthusiastic they had been. She couldn’t contemplate a trip like that now without running through all the possible complications and difficulties first. But everything had been simple then. They had loved each other, and the world had been at their feet, and that had been enough.
She remembered going to a cavernous shop in Covent Garden with P.J. and eagerly buying maps and guides and phrase books. That had been just before she’d gone back to university for the last time, and the next time she’d been home, Simon had been there…
‘I wish
Yes, that was what she and P.J. had wanted to do, too.
‘What is John going to be carrying, again?’ asked Nell, still leafing distractedly through the book.
‘A Swahili dictionary,’ said Thea. ‘He’s been to Tanzania, and that’s what made me think of saying you’d take your phrase book. I thought it was a brilliant idea,’ she added complacently. ‘No one else is likely to have one, are they? So you won’t be able to mistake each other, and it means you don’t need to bother with awkward descriptions.’
‘I suppose it’ll give us something to talk about, if nothing else,’ acknowledged Nell, opening her clutch bag. The phrase book was pocket sized, but the bag was so tiny that she could only just squeeze it in. The clasp wouldn’t close properly, but it was better than carrying the book in her hand. At least this way P.J. wouldn’t see it.
It was a slow drive into the centre of London at that time of the evening, and as Nell sat in the back of the minicab and looked out at the bumper-to-bumper traffic she found herself thinking about those old dreams of camping together under a wide African sky.
‘We’ll lie in our tent and listen to the lions roaring,’ P.J. had promised, his face alight. ‘We’ll watch the sun rise over the Serengeti and we’ll be married, and we’ll be together, and we’ll be the happiest people in the world!’
But they had never made it. She had chosen Simon instead, and that was a choice she had to live with, Nell knew that. On an impulse, she pulled the phrase book out of her bag, and turned it in her hands. For some reason the anger she had felt after that afternoon’s meeting had evaporated at the sight of it.
It wasn’t really P.J. she was angry with, Nell realised. She was angry with herself for regretting the choices she had made. She was angry because he had come back and made her think about how happy they might have been, might still be, if she had chosen differently. It wasn’t P.J.’s fault that he had moved on and made a success of his life without her.
She had Clara. Nell clung to the thought. She couldn’t imagine life without Clara, wouldn’t
P.J. would have been a husband like that. Nell stared unseeing out at the traffic and thought about the mistakes she had made. She had had her chance. She had been lucky enough to meet the right man for her, but she had blown it. She had been too young to appreciate kindness and integrity and strength and humour over good looks and glamour. Now, she could see how lucky she had been to find those qualities in her first love, but now it was too late.
Things might be different if P.J. hadn’t been quite so successful, but his immense wealth seemed to Nell to be an insurmountable gulf between them. It changed everything. She didn’t want him for his money, but how would he ever believe that now?
She would have to stay on her side of the gulf and make the best of it, Nell decided sadly. She would go and meet John, and make a real effort to start afresh, and maybe after a while she could forget P.J. all over again.
The gallery was already crowded when she got there, the hubbub spilling out into the street. If only she didn’t have to face P.J. again! Still, with this crowd, there ought to be a good chance of avoiding him. She would go in, show her face to Eve, talk to a couple of people and then go. She had a previous engagement, after all. She couldn’t be expected to rearrange her entire social life around work.
A brief hope that her name might have been missed off the guest list died as she was waved through, so she accepted a glass of champagne and looked cautiously around for Eve.
Of course, the first person she saw was P.J. He wasn’t looking her way, but still the sight of him made her heart jolt painfully, and she jerked her glass, sending champagne slopping over the rim and down the front of her dress. Nell brushed herself down with a hand that was shaking slightly, and told herself to get a grip.
