C
HAPTER
F
OUR
Hilary stood outside the city centre hotel suite where the lighting design course was being held, rooting frantically in her bag for her registration document. She was sure she had put it in with a shopping list and two bills she had written cheques for that needed posting.
The door to the small foyer burst open and a tall, lanky man with a mop of blond hair flopping into his eyes, and carrying a large pink folder under his arm and wearing the pointiest shoes she had ever seen, hurried towards her, panting. Hilary paused from her rooting and grinned in spite of herself. Someone else late too, she thought with relief, glad she wouldn’t have to slink in bashfully alone.
‘Hi, is this where the lighting design course is? Are you doing it too?’ He sounded breathless but he managed a smile.
‘Yes, if I can find my registration letter.’ Hilary resumed her rooting.
‘You remind me of my sister, she carries a sack too,’ he said, eyeing her large tote bag. ‘We’ll go in together, it’s probably started. It’s a quarter to ten and it was starting at 9.30 sharp! As it said in the letter. I’m Jonathan. Jonathan Harpur.’
‘Oh! I’m Hilary Hammond’ she responded, thoroughly irritated with herself and wondering if in fact she’d put the letter and bills in the dashboard of her car which was parked a good ten minutes’ walk away.
‘Right, deep breath then,’ the man said, inhaling loudly before wincing.
‘What’s wrong?’ Hilary asked.
‘I drank a bottle of Chardonnay on an empty stomach, and feel a tad iffy,’ he murmured, opening the large green door.
A group of around thirty people sat taking notes from the diminutive, bespectacled lecturer, who was pointing to an image on a large screen of a shop-floor display of fabrics, and talking about something called metal halide lighting. Hilary knew that shop or store lighting was completely different from domestic, especially where fabrics were concerned, and a light as close as possible to natural light was needed. Hopefully this was the point being made and they hadn’t missed too much of the lecture and would be able to grasp what was being taught, fairly quickly.
All the seats at the back were taken and Hilary glanced at her companion, who grimaced and began to edge along the side. ‘There’s seats at the front, hurry along, please, we have a lot to cover,’ the man said impatiently as everyone turned to look at them. Mortified, Hilary scuttled behind her new acquaintance who nonchalantly flicked his purple scarf over his shoulder as he strode along ahead of her. There were four empty seats in the middle of the front row and he sat on one of them and she sat down beside him and took out a large notebook from her tote, and then realized with a sinking heart that she had to go rooting for a pen. She scrabbled desperately in the depths of her bag as the lecturer eyed her irritably.
‘Err . . . em . . . my pen,’ she said weakly, catching her companion’s amused gaze.
‘I’ve two, take one,’ Jonathan murmured, handing her a blue biro. ‘Mary Poppins has nothing on you,’ he added sotto voce as he clipped some pages to a clipboard and, pen poised, gazed expectantly at the lecturer.
Hilary giggled, earning another irate frown from the lecturer, before she lowered her head and opened her notebook as he began to discuss new developments in lighting technology.
‘I’m more interested in domestic lighting, to be honest. Fitting out a store or display premises wouldn’t be my cup of tea,’ Jonathan confided as they sipped coffee and nibbled on dry pink wafer biscuits a couple of hours later at the coffee break.
‘Umm, we do all types of lighting in my job, domestic and commercial. My dad has a lighting business and showrooms; I run it for him,’ Hilary told him, trying not to gobble her biscuit. She was starving, having only had time for a half-slice of toast that Millie hadn’t eaten. The girls were having a sleepover at her sister’s and she’d had to pack overnight bags, as well as getting them ready for school.
‘Really? Do you give discounts to friends?’ Jonathan enquired. ‘I have a new interior design commission. I need lights and lamps and shades and now I’m your friend.’ He grinned at her and she laughed.
‘I’m sure we could do business, Mr Harpur.’
‘Excellent, Ms Hammond! Here’s to a long and fruitful friendship.’ He clinked his coffee cup against hers and winked. ‘Look at the Mona Lisa over there, casting sultry glances at the guy in the brown cords. She’s wasting her time. He plays on my team.’
‘Gay?’ Hilary arched an eyebrow.
‘For sure. I should go over and flirt with him myself.’
‘How do you know?’ Hilary asked. ‘He looks . . . er . . . em . . .’ She was going to say butch but stopped in case she implied that Jonathan wasn’t. The minute she’d seen Jonathan’s shoes, and the scarf draped artistically around his neck, she’d known that he was gay.
‘You always know who plays on your team,’ Jonathan assured her confidently. ‘He’s been eyeing me up all morning so Mona Lisa is barking up the wrong tree there,’ Jonathan smirked.
Hilary laughed. Mona Lisa was a spot-on description of the slightly round-faced, dark-haired girl with the protruding eyes, who had introduced herself as Jacintha and informed them, as Jonathan politely handed her a cup of coffee, that she was an architect with a ‘cutting edge’ firm in Merrion Square. She believed in using the medium of architecture in
