Page 66 of A Night with Damien Spur

Not a good start to the morning. She’d only posted her profile a couple of days ago. But so far, no good.

There were mostly men with pathetic nicknames like Lost Soul and Try Me, or who lived miles away, like Eddie from Esher.

Maybe give it another week. No shame in it. Difficult to meet people nowadays. And most of her single friends were fishing in the same pond.

But why hadn’t Damien called? Surely he had sent her story to the agent as he’d promised.

She put on her shiny white raincoat and black velvet beret, ready to go out to the corner shop to buy some milk as she usually did at the beginning of the week.

It was a miserable morning. Dark grey sky and drizzling. But she liked where she lived. Thanked the good Lord every day that she had no mortgage to pay on her very nice Victorian house in Gondar Gardens. Next to civilised neighbours – a solicitor on her left with a very nice wife and two well-behaved children, and on her right, an anaesthetist, who wasn’t married but lived with a friendly nurse called Margaret who’d invited Anna for coffee last week.

She clip-clopped down the hill and while she was waiting to cross the road, she saw the shop owner on the other side taking the newspapers in out of the rain. At that very moment, a new thought popped into her head.

She had been coming to the store for three years and yet she didn’t know his name.

So this time when she went into the shop, she asked, ‘I don’t want to be intrusive, but what is your name?’

‘Christos Georgalides,’ replied the good-looking Greek with grey curly hair who always greeted her with a big smile.

‘Mine is Anna Rose. Lovely to meet you.’

‘Nice to meet you, too,’ he said. ‘It’s funny, I see you more than I see my own sister and yet we’ve never had a chat. Well, now we’ve met, would you like an Easter biscuit? My wife made them.’

‘Thank you.’ She took one of the powdery crescents from the paper plate on the counter and popped it in her mouth. ‘Mmm, scrumptious. So light and crumbly.’

She walked over to the fridge. ‘You know what, Christos? I think I’ll try the almond milk today for a change.’

‘It’s very good, and next week you can try my wife’s baklava,’ he said, putting the carton into a blue plastic bag.

Anna had a feeling on her way back to her house that today something special was going to happen. And it did.

As she came through the front door the phone rang.

‘Anna,’ Damien said, ‘expect a call from my friend, Justin Baird. He runs a top literary agency that has a large children’s division. He likes your book.’

She held her breath. ‘Damien, I never thought… This is fantastic! A million kisses! Oh, thank you. Would you like to come for—’

He cut her short. ‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘Just be your sweet self. Got to go.’

Chapter 18

Justin Baird had invited Anna to lunch at the Ivy. Main chat: contracts, film deals and celebrity gossip.

She arrived fifteen minutes late, a tradition she had always kept, dressed in her fifties glamour: a sleek brown mink that Evelyn had given to her, a chic black dress, patent-leather high heels and a velvet pillbox hat.

‘Mr Baird’s table, please,’ she said to the maître d’.

‘May I take your jacket?’ he asked.

‘Thank you.’ She dropped it from her shoulders and walked gracefully to the table.

‘Hello, Anna.’ Justin Baird stood up to greet her – a tall, good-looking guy with rugged features and dark hair, who wore an elegant navy suit with a silk tie.

Early fifties, she guessed.A proper man: old school, Evelyn would say.

Attractive, late thirties, he mused.

Justin Baird didn’t waste time. ‘The DogThat LostIts Barkis magical. The agency would love to represent you. I think we could tie the story up with a book and a movie deal. We’ll pitch it to Disney.’

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