‘What does he do?’ Lisa had never thought to ask before, it hadn’t seemed important.

‘He’s a doctor.’

A doctor! ‘ What kind of doctor?’ A doctor of road-hygiene – in other words, a street sweeper?

‘Just a GP.’

The shock rendered her speechless. Here, she’d been affectionately thinking of Oliver as a bit of rough, and it turned out that he’d been middle-class all along and she’d been the bit of rough. There was no way now that she could take him to meet her parents.

For the rest of the drive, she hoped and prayed that, despite the dad being a doctor, they might be poor. But when Oliver drove up to a big, square house, the fake-Tudor lead-paned windows, the Laura Ashley Austrian blinds and the plethora of knick-knacks on the visible window-sills declared that they weren’t exactly strapped for cash.

Before they’d set off, she’d expected Oliver’s mum to be a big-thighed, good-natured woman in Minnie Mouse shoes who drank Red Stripe at breakfast and laughed in a high-pitched, ‘Heee! Heee! Heee!’ Instead, as she answered the door, she looked like the queen. A few shades darker, but with the helmet curls and Marks & Spencer’s prim duds, all present and correct.

‘Pleased to meet you, dear.’ The accent was pure Home Counties and Lisa felt her self-esteem wither even further.

‘Hello, Mrs Livingstone.’

‘Call me Rita. Do come through. Daddy’s late at the surgery, but he should be here soon.’

They were led into the well-appointed sitting-room and when Lisa saw that the soft furnishings had had their plastic covering removed, it was the final blow.

‘Tea?’ Rita suggested brightly, stroking the golden labrador which had laid his head in her lap. ‘Lapsang Suchong or Earl Grey?’

‘Don’t mind,’ Lisa muttered. What was wrong with PG Tips?

‘This wasn’t what I’d expected,’ Lisa couldn’t stop herself from whispering when she and Oliver were alone.

‘What did you expect? Dat we be eatin’ rice’n’peas, drinkin’ rum,’ Oliver slipped into a perfect Caribbean accent, ‘an’ dancin’ to steel drums on de porch?’

Exactly! It’s the only reason I came.

‘I don’t think so, my dear.’ He changed swiftly to BBC wartime speak. ‘For we are Brrrritish!’

‘The correct name for us, so I’m told,’ Rita had reappeared with a tray containing a plate of unsweet, no-fun, handmade biscuits, ‘is “Bounties”. Or “Choc-ices”.’

‘Wh – why?’ Lisa was confused.

‘Brown on the outside, white on the inside.’ She flashed a sudden, melon grin. ‘That’s what my family call us. And you can’t win because the white neighbours hate us too! Next-door told me that the value of their house went down by ten grand when we moved in.’

Unexpectedly, totally at odds with her M&S appearance, she gave a high-pitched laugh. ‘Heee! Heee! Heee!’ And Lisa felt the chip on her shoulder dissolve like the sugar she didn’t take in her tea. Well, so long as the neighbours hated them, that was all right then, wasn’t it? They weren’t half as scary now.

On their fifth date Oliver and Lisa talked about moving in together. They explored the notion further on the sixth. Their seventh date consisted of driving a van from Battersea to West Hampstead and back again, as they ferried Lisa’s considerable wardrobe from her flat to his. ‘You’re going to have to lose some of this kit, babes,’ he said in alarm. ‘Or else we’re going to have to buy a bigger place.’

Perhaps, Lisa subsequently realized, even then there were signs that all was not as it should have been. But, at the time, she was blind to them. Nothing had ever felt so right. She felt that he truly saw and accepted her, with all her ambition, energy, vision and fear. She reckoned they were two of a kind. Young, keen, ambitious, succeeding against the odds.

Around then, the concept of a soul-mate was a very fashionable one, recently imported from LA. Lisa was now the proud possessor of one.

Shortly after they got together, Lisa moved to Femme as deputy editor. This coincided with Oliver becoming a red-hot property. Even though he wasn’t always popular on a personal level – some people found him just that little bit too difficult – all the glossies were suddenly scrambling and competing against each other to use him. Oliver shared himself out equally between them all, until Lily Headly-Smythe promised to use one of his photos for the Christmas cover of Panache, then changed her mind.

‘She broke her word. I’ll never work for Panache or Lily Headly-Smythe again,’ Oliver declared.

‘Until next time,’ Lisa laughed.

‘No.’ His face was serious. ‘Never.’

And he didn’t, not even when Lily sent him an Irish Wolf-hound pup by way of an apology. Lisa was full of admiration. He was so strong-willed, so idealistic.

But that was before his intractability was turned on her. She didn’t like it so much then.

21

Ashling wasn’t having such a fantastic Sunday either.

She’d woken up bubbling with anticipation concerning Marcus Valentine. Curious and expectant, she felt gloriously ready – for a date, a bout of flirting, a dose of flattery. Very definitely something…

The morning was spent mooning around, encapsulated in warmth, her positive faculties on full alert. But as the day faded without a phone call, her inner smile curdled into irritability. To pass the time and expend excess energy she did a bit of cleaning.

Not that Marcus had said when he’d ring. Her disenchantment wasn’t so much rejection as the feeling of missing a good opportunity. Because even though she couldn’t say for sure that she fancied him, she suspected that she might. Certainly, she was willing to give it her best shot. Emotionally, she was all dressed up with nowhere to go and it wasn’t nice.

Look at me, she thought, scrubbing the bath with frustrated force. I’ve been here before. Waiting for a man to ring. Too late, she realized how much she’d enjoyed that brief pocket where she was no longer cut-up about one man and before she’d become hung-up on another. Serves me right for being shallow enough to fall for a man-on-a-stage.

How she regretted not having bellez’ed him when she’d had her chance. And it was too late now because she couldn’t find the note. She had no memory of actually throwing it out – she’d have remembered because she would have thought she was being cruel. But a rummage through pockets and bedside drawers yielded nothing, except guilt-triggering receipts and a flyer for a computer sale.