‘Ah come on Mum, I only got back yesterday. You can’t expect me to go to the job centre.’
‘Oh yes, I can. You had all of yesterday afternoon and last night to recuperate. There’s no time like the present Isabel. Strike while the iron is hot.’ Her mum’s gaze flickered to the tea and toast as she tapped her foot.
‘Thanks for breakfast.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t leave your manners behind in Australia.’ She hovered in the doorway for a moment. ‘Ah, but it’s lovely to have you home Izzy. We’ve missed you, and as for Prince Charles, well, he’s been a lost lamb this last year.’ The bedroom door clicked shut behind her.
Lost lamb! What a load of rubbish. Isabel snorted silently. She’d seen him cavorting with his bone in the background when her mum and dad Skyped. She glanced at her tea and the plate of buttery marmalade toast; it was lovely to be home, though. It had been forever since someone had brought her breakfast in bed. She opened the pot her mum had just handed to her and rubbed the greasy salve into the crook of her arm. The relief from the burning itch was instant, and she reached under the covers to deal with the patch behind her knees. It wouldn’t clear eczema up, but it would stop her scratching for a bit and running the risk of getting it infected.
She put the pot back on the bedside table and rested her head back against the pillows. She’d get up in a little while. As for the job centre, she shuddered, she couldn’t face it. Babs had never sat on a plane longer than the two and a half hours it took to get from London to Benidorm. She’d give herself today to get over the seemingly endless flight home; she decided to add the job centre to her mental “I’ll do it tomorrow” list.
Chapter 4
Isabel pulled her curtains back and looked at the overcast sky outside. She’d been home two days, and it had been gloomy both of them. Might as well go for the trifecta, she thought. It didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t like she had plans for the beach or anything. No, today was the day she would find gainful employment. She’d visited the job centre yesterday and hadn’t had any luck. Admittedly she’d turned her nose up at the McDonald’s job, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she did enjoy the odd Big Mac she told herself, trying to put a positive spin on things. If the job was still going, she’d put herself forward for it.
She set about making her bed, and as she puffed the pillows to avoid another live demonstration on pillow puffing from Babs, she recalled how she’d bumped into her old friend, Charity yesterday. She’d been feeling flat and deflated as she left the grim, box-like building with its myriad of windows when Charity had called out to her. Catching her up on a pair of heels that beggared belief, she’d hugged her and said she’d heard she was back in town and had been meaning to text. The irony of the flippancy of a text didn’t escape Isabel; there was a time she and Charity had been inseparable.
Charity was on her lunch break, and after Isabel had admired the sparkly diamond on her friend’s finger, they’d had a somewhat awkward catch up over coffee. Now that she thought about it Charity had monopolized the conversation. She’d been so full of the news of her engagement to a chap, Isabel vaguely recalled her dragging her home from the pub the night of her going away do, to bother asking Isabel what her plans were now she was back. Still, Isabel figured it was fairly obvious she didn’t have a lot going on given she’d spotted her leaving the job centre. She wished she hadn’t agreed to meeting up for lunch today with her though. She’d never been very good at saying no. Charity hadn’t come up for air long enough to ask if she’d seen Ashley or Connor since she got back, but Isabel didn’t fancy her chances of avoiding that particular topic of conversation a second time.
The thing with having been away for a reasonable spell was that life carried on with the same day to day rhythms for those at home. She’d held off contacting any of her old crowd—she didn’t know where she slotted in with them anymore since she and Connor had split up. Besides, which they were all busy doing the same stuff they’d been doing before she left for Australia from what she saw on Instagram. She didn’t feel like the same girl she’d been a year ago and thank God for that because she’d been a bit of a mess.
Isabel couldn’t just pick up where she’d left off; she’d changed. Oh, she knew she should make an effort and organize a night out, and it would be good to have time out from her dad’s endless supply of Shrek and Kermit jokes where her hair was concerned. It wasn’t as if he was in a position to pass remark on her hair anyway not with the state of his geriatric boy band do. The problem was she didn’t have the cash to splash on a night on the town.
The thing was with everything going around in her head the way it was at the moment she couldn’t face trying to be the life and soul of the party. Yes, she was over Connor the time away had seen to that, and it would be satisfying to prove to her old crowd that
