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Chapter Two

Sarah

Sarah idly scratched her left bum cheek under the flimsy material of her cotton shorts and stretched her right arm out into the warm, unmown grass. A plump bumble bee was nuzzling in some clover just beyond her fingertips; she admired his wriggling, furry form, his rotund work ethic, his purpose. The faint pong of distant manure nudged at Sarah’s nostrils. An ancient transistor radio stuck wonkily on the ground competed for her attention with an overhead wood pigeon. Smooth FM, the oft-repeated jingle kept proclaiming; music to fall asleep to. She thought so, anyway. The Carpenters were singing about rainy days and Mondays when today was hot, sticky, with no breeze, and Friday. Not that it mattered much to Sarah what day it was, when they had all pretty much merged into one this summer.

She had been drifting on and off all afternoon, in a languorous haze – very easy to do in her little orchard to the rear of her cottage, especially when it was this sunny and warm. In between snoozes she’d consumed three Magnums – dark chocolate, she might hasten to mention; they were clearly much better for you – and half a packet of custard creams. She really must stop adding those to the online shop, she thought; the twins didn’t even like them any more.

She considered letting her eyes lazily close once more, but her phone, a little away from her outstretched hand and half concealed by fat blades of grass, lit up suddenly and started angrily buzzing. Who could that be? Connor, needing to be picked up from his job at the factory because he’d got another puncture on his bike? Olivia, saying she was at a friend’s and wasn’t coming home for dinner again? Or her boss, Mandy, recruiting her for another hateful stint in her local job as second-in-command children’s party host? Sarah had better answer it. She reached for the phone with the tips of her fingers and slid it towards her.

The name flashing on the screen was Ginny Mulholland. At first Sarah didn’t recognize it, then, with a start, she twigged.

Sarah sat up, knocking her tall, half-drunk glass of cloudy lemonade all over her battered, thrown-off flip-flops and part of her left foot. A wasp immediately began to swarm close to it and Sarah swatted it frantically away.

‘Hello?’ She stood up and turned in the direction of the manure pong and Westins Farm, somewhere behind the orchard, where a tailwind from the pine trees sometimes made the mobile signal better than hopeless.

‘It’s Ginny! Ginny Mulholland. From House Events.’ The woman’s chirpy voice sounded like it was being buffeted through a wind tunnel, and Sarah was extremely surprised to hear it at all. She hadn’t expected to hear from Ginny again; she’d expected a polite rejection letter in the post and a good chuckle to herself at her own ridiculousness for applying for her old job. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine, thanks, Ginny,’ she replied, her voice shaking a little. ‘You?’

Sarah’s ridiculousness had happened during a very similar lazy afternoon in the orchard, in May, when she was reading the paper and eating more biscuits. She was crazy to even have it catch her eye, really – that ad in the Temporary Job section of The Guardian – but somehow, in a moment of absolute madness, Sarah had applied for an eight-week contract for the job she’d done twenty-five years ago. At the same company. In London. She’d almost laughingly emailed her CV before she’d had time to talk herself out of it: a hastily cobbled-together CV, done on her crossed legs, on the laptop, which stated she had been Events Organizer for House Events, London, for five years, from the age of twenty-one to twenty-six. A reign that culminated in a National Events Organizer award for Sarah, given to her at the Royal Albert Hall, just before she had to give it all up. She almost couldn’t explain why she’d sent it.

‘I’m marvellous. I’m calling from the tarmac!’ trilled Ginny. ‘Just leaving the Caymans by helicopter!’

Ginny had spoken to Sarah from the Caymans three weeks ago. An impromptu Skype interview had been conducted from her sun lounger, framed by an infinity pool and a magnificent sunset, from what Sarah could see, whilst Sarah had struggled to unearth a non-messy corner of her house for a backdrop, plumping for the front door of the fridge … after she had hastily slung some random and far-from-aesthetic fridge magnets to the sticky floor.

Boredom was why she’d done it. Why she’d sent the CV. Sarah was bored, bored, bored. Bored of wellies, of picturesque sunrises across the fields, of tractors, of puddles, of her cottage and the view from her bedroom window. Of the village she had been brought up in. Of the organized chaos. Of dressing up as Elsa or Belle or Spiderman and serving plates of jam sandwiches and cheesy footballs at children’s parties. And the twins no longer needed her, not really – they were nineteen, Olivia had nearly completed her gap year and was off to university in the autumn and Connor had his little local job, hopefully progressing to something decent later on (at least she sincerely hoped so). The pair of them now just bellowed ‘Mum!’ at her from far corners of the house, when she was on the loo, out of habit.

Sarah also wanted to do something for herself. Get her life back, somehow, however temporary. Get herself back. So, yes, indeed, it had been a moment of madness. What woman ever manages that, really – after children, motherhood and a soul-destroying marriage … even if that was a million years ago.

The exciting, transatlantic Cayman Islands to Tipperton-Mallet-in-Suffolk interview had gone fairly well, Sarah supposed, although Ginny kept getting distracted by ‘Bertrand’, a young man who hovered behind her in budgie smugglers and constantly interrupted to ask if she was coming to the beach and what time was lunch. Sarah answered all Ginny’s questions as best she could and had even made her laugh a shrill, tinkly laugh a couple of times, but Sarah had heard nothing from Ginny since. She had assumed her old company, House Events, were just going through the motions in interviewing her at all – fulfilling their positive discrimination quota whatnots in being seen to not exclude late forty-something women who had seen better days. She’d assumed she hadn’t got the job.

‘I’ll cut to the chase,’ trilled Ginny, ‘as I’m being called to board. We’d like to offer you the job.’

‘Sorry?’ Sarah felt like she may pass out. What?

‘I said I’d like to offer you the job!’

‘Really?’

Sarah was flabbergasted. She was also, suddenly, not bored, or feeling redundant, or like she wanted to get her life back, but petrified. She was forty-eight. She wouldn’t know the Tube map now if it came up and bit her on the backside. The only thing she’d organized herself in twenty years was Tipperton Mallet’s weekly art class and the tiny village phone box library. She didn’t own a pair of heels, or even a smart jacket. She wore wellies and cagoules. She had ‘it’ll-be-all-right’, short Mum hair and a face devoid of make-up because she long since couldn’t be arsed …

How could she do this job? How could she scrub up for London, both literally and figuratively? Sarah Oxbury had let herself go and it had all gone on other people … What on earth made her think she could do a glamorous, important job in London and return to something resembling her old life?

Because she once had done a glamorous and important job in London, a little voice inside her head told her. Because that life once was hers! Why not do something for her? Why not take this chance?

‘Are you sure?’ Sarah asked.

‘Yes!’ shouted Ginny. ‘Bertrand! Watch the Vuittons! Sorry, Sarah, between me and you he’s going to be dumped once we get back to Miami. Absolutely hopeless, although fabulous quadriceps … So, what do you say?’

‘Well …’ Sarah said.

‘You need to be quick,’ said Ginny merrily. ‘I’ve got approximately thirty seconds!’

‘I’d like to accept the job.’ Sarah began to shake.

‘Wonderful,’ said Ginny. ‘You remember I said it would be a very short-notice start?’ Had Ginny said that? Sarah had only skim read the finer details, but she did remember the job was a two-month post covering part of an employee’s maternity leave, with a possible chance for permanent employment.

‘It starts on Monday.’

‘Monday!’

‘Monday morning, yes. Blame HR – I always do. Is Monday morning a problem?’

‘No, absolutely not, it’s not a problem,’ stammered Sarah. Bloody hell. Monday morning?

‘Nine o’clock sharp then, please, in the office. I won’t be there for at least a couple of months. I’m off on the Mayor of Guadeloupe’s boat. Another interminable Caribbean cruise.’ She yawned. ‘So, all good?’

‘All good,’ said Sarah unsteadily. She’d applied for it – albeit on a digestive-fuelled, crazy whim – and now she’d got it.

‘Fantastic,’ said Ginny and, like people on telly, she hung up without saying goodbye.

‘Bye, Ginny,’ said Sarah, into the ether. She slid her feet into her sticky flip-flops and tried not to hyperventilate. She’d got the job! No more wellies, no more Elsa, no more cheesy footballs. She was going to be in London, on Monday morning, for nine o’clock sharp, back in her old job …

She was totally insane … Apart from everything else, how the hell was she going to start a new job on Monday morning, in London? When it was a two-hour commute, she had an old banger of a Fiesta that was barely guaranteed to make it to the next village, and there had been intermittent train strikes for the past god knows when? How the blazes was she going to get there every day? She needed to stay in a hotel or something, during the week, Sarah thought, but she knew her salary, despite being good, wouldn’t run to that.

Sarah left the orchard and walked to the back door of the cottage, picking up various Connor and Olivia discarded paraphernalia as she went: a Converse trainer, a broken shuttlecock, a pair of headphones. Her head felt fried. She had to think, she had to think very carefully about who she knew in London. And then she might have to – very, very reluctantly – call somebody she hadn’t spoken to for a very long time.