day planned, one of cultural sightseeing in the art galleries and museums, and I’d planned to wear sensible clothes and sneakers and take a picnic lunch with me so I didn’t have to eat in a high-priced tourist-trap cafe. But today, I don’t feel quite in that frame of mind after all. In fact, the huge department stores along Oxford Street keep appearing in my imagination. Just a few days ago, when I arrived, I would have been far too intimidated to consider going in to such places on my own, but now something has subtly changed.
I chatter to De Havilland as I make some coffee and put some cereal in a bowl. In response, he saunters over to a scratching panel that Celia has put on a cupboard door and spends a happy few minutes ripping it to shreds with his claws while I bore him with my witterings.
‘Do you think London is really making me brave again?’ I ask him, as he digs in and then tears out his claws. ‘I used to be brave, believe it or not. I went off to uni on my own, knowing absolutely no one and ended up making loads of friends.’ I think wistfully of Laura, a fellow student who became my closest pal. She’s travelling in South America, spending her last few months of freedom there before starting a job in London with a management consultancy company. She promised to send me emails whenever she passed an Internet place, but I haven’t picked up my emails for a while now. It’s strange that I’ve barely thought about them either. Usually I’m glued to my laptop, surfing the net, catching up with what everyone’s up to, getting gossip. Now it’s sitting abandoned in a bag in the bedroom and I’ve forgotten all about it.
Today I’ll see if I can get a connection, or at least take the laptop somewhere I can log on. Every cafe has Wi-Fi these days, after all.
As I get dressed, I wonder what Laura would make of my break up. She’d be sorry for me and sympathetic, but I know that, deep down, she’d be glad. She tried to like Adam for my sake but when they’d met on the one occasion Adam had visited me at college, staying over in my shared student house, she’d not taken to him. I’d seen that look in her eyes while they talked, the one that showed she was barely keeping in her irritation. Afterwards, she’d tried to bite her tongue, but eventually she’d said, ‘Don’t you think he’s a bit . . . a bit boring, Beth? I mean, he talked about himself all night and never once about you!’
I defended him, of course. All right, Adam could be a bit egotistical, he could ramble on a little – but he loved me, I knew that.
‘I’m just worried that he doesn’t love you quite enough. He takes you for granted,’ she said, concern in her eyes. ‘I don’t know if he deserves you, Beth, that’s all. But if he makes you happy, then fine.’ Laura hadn’t said any more about what she really thought of Adam, but when a third-year law student had shown a bit of interest in me, she’d urged me to spend some time with him and see what happened. Of course I hadn’t. I was taken.
Thinking about Laura makes me yearn for some company. I’ve been alone for a while now and I need some interaction. Instantly my plan takes shape. As for wandering alone in galleries – well, that can wait for another day.
‘Oh, that looks wonderful on you, really wonderful!’
I’m sure it’s just sales patter – the assistant says it to all the customers, I expect; no doubt everyone looks marvellous in her company’s clothes – but there’s something frank in her gaze that makes me believe her.
Besides, if the mirror can be trusted, I do look surprisingly good in this dress. It looks like nothing on the hanger, and even on it’s a fairly ordinary black dress, but it seems to bring my hidden charms to life in the way it fits so well across my bust and follows the curve of my waist and hips in such a perfect smooth line down to my knees. The fabric is some kind of silk mix that means it’s clingy but
I chatter to De Havilland as I make some coffee and put some cereal in a bowl. In response, he saunters over to a scratching panel that Celia has put on a cupboard door and spends a happy few minutes ripping it to shreds with his claws while I bore him with my witterings.
‘Do you think London is really making me brave again?’ I ask him, as he digs in and then tears out his claws. ‘I used to be brave, believe it or not. I went off to uni on my own, knowing absolutely no one and ended up making loads of friends.’ I think wistfully of Laura, a fellow student who became my closest pal. She’s travelling in South America, spending her last few months of freedom there before starting a job in London with a management consultancy company. She promised to send me emails whenever she passed an Internet place, but I haven’t picked up my emails for a while now. It’s strange that I’ve barely thought about them either. Usually I’m glued to my laptop, surfing the net, catching up with what everyone’s up to, getting gossip. Now it’s sitting abandoned in a bag in the bedroom and I’ve forgotten all about it.
Today I’ll see if I can get a connection, or at least take the laptop somewhere I can log on. Every cafe has Wi-Fi these days, after all.
As I get dressed, I wonder what Laura would make of my break up. She’d be sorry for me and sympathetic, but I know that, deep down, she’d be glad. She tried to like Adam for my sake but when they’d met on the one occasion Adam had visited me at college, staying over in my shared student house, she’d not taken to him. I’d seen that look in her eyes while they talked, the one that showed she was barely keeping in her irritation. Afterwards, she’d tried to bite her tongue, but eventually she’d said, ‘Don’t you think he’s a bit . . . a bit boring, Beth? I mean, he talked about himself all night and never once about you!’
I defended him, of course. All right, Adam could be a bit egotistical, he could ramble on a little – but he loved me, I knew that.
‘I’m just worried that he doesn’t love you quite enough. He takes you for granted,’ she said, concern in her eyes. ‘I don’t know if he deserves you, Beth, that’s all. But if he makes you happy, then fine.’ Laura hadn’t said any more about what she really thought of Adam, but when a third-year law student had shown a bit of interest in me, she’d urged me to spend some time with him and see what happened. Of course I hadn’t. I was taken.
Thinking about Laura makes me yearn for some company. I’ve been alone for a while now and I need some interaction. Instantly my plan takes shape. As for wandering alone in galleries – well, that can wait for another day.
‘Oh, that looks wonderful on you, really wonderful!’
I’m sure it’s just sales patter – the assistant says it to all the customers, I expect; no doubt everyone looks marvellous in her company’s clothes – but there’s something frank in her gaze that makes me believe her.
Besides, if the mirror can be trusted, I do look surprisingly good in this dress. It looks like nothing on the hanger, and even on it’s a fairly ordinary black dress, but it seems to bring my hidden charms to life in the way it fits so well across my bust and follows the curve of my waist and hips in such a perfect smooth line down to my knees. The fabric is some kind of silk mix that means it’s clingy but
Similar Books
