Page 10 of The Riviera House Swap

‘That’s OK,’ Nina lied, inwardly seething. Had the woman not heard of picking up after her dog?

Pierre regarded her, his head on the side. ‘Still, it’s meant to be good luck, isn’t it?’ the woman said, her head taking on a similar angle to her dog’s, a wistful look crossing her face.

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘You know. Stepping in doggy-do. That’s meant to be good luck, I think.’ The woman sounded slightly less sure of herself.

‘That’s bird poo,’ Nina said, scraping her shoe against the edge of a drain. ‘Not dog poo.’

‘Oh,’ said the woman. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Very.’

‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘I bet any kind of poo will do. I bet you’re going to have a lucky day.’

‘I suppose.’ Nina was beginning to feel she’d stepped into some strange alternative reality where people discussed different sorts of excrement in the street and their various significances.Rabbit poo? That means you’ll make a new friend. Cat? Ooh, better buy a lottery ticket, you’ll be coming into some money.

She shook her head. Reading tea leaves was something, but she wasn’t sure this type of brown clairvoyance would ever catch on.

‘Well, good luck anyway!’ The woman smiled. She seemed quite buoyed by the whole episode and gave Nina a cheery wave as she walked away. ‘Come on Pierre,’ she said. ‘And no more presents for nice ladies, young man!’

‘Bye,’ said Nina, not really knowing why. As the woman disappeared around the corner, Nina realised that the woman had disappeared without cleaning what was left of dog-Pierre’s good-luck charm from the concrete. She found a few leaves to throw over the flattened remnants, in an attempt to spare anyone else the same fate (or good luck – depending on how you viewed it).

Her shoe as clean as it was going to get, she turned and continued her walk towards the glass sliding doors into the building that would swallow up another day of her life. Just in time for a large, white present from a friendly bird in the sky to slap onto her hair in the strongest message from fate she’d had yet.

Maybe, she thought, the poo godsweresmiling on her. Maybe fatewason her side.

She just wished they’d find another way to let her know.

5

The office was practically empty. Ever since their boss had decided to give people the opportunity to work from home three days a week, it had lost its heart – or whatever heart it’d had previously – and because the days spent at home were flexible, you were never quite sure who you were going to get or what the atmosphere was going to be like when you ventured in.

Today, it turned out, just two of the other staff were there – Terry from accounts and George, the trainee who spent most of the time surreptitiously texting his girlfriend. In times gone by, Nina had welcomed a half-empty office, but these days, with Rory gone and only her oft-absent cat, Rupert, to keep her company, she’d have welcomed a little more social interaction than the brief grunt she received from George and the couple of remarks about the weather she received from Terry.

She hated the loneliness of a deserted office, but at least today it meant she had the ladies’ loos to herself when she first got in. It gave her a chance to de-poo herself as best she could. She ran a little water over the relevant section of her hair and attempted to dry it under the hand dryer. Then she slipped off her shoe and held her breath as she let the hot tap run overits sole. After drying it with a paper-towel, she straightened her clothing and made her way to her desk.

Sitting in the near silence, entering data into a spreadsheet and updating the staff files, Nina felt as if time was almost standing still. Eventually, home time came around and she tidied her desk and stood up. She’d go home, she decided, treat herself to a takeaway, then just collapse in front of the TV. The hangover had lifted by midday, but she had a kind of post night-out fatigue – it would be great to finally kick back and relax.

Then she remembered.

The dance class.

Damn. She checked her phone to see if ‘Mandy’ had by some wonderful chance cancelled the whole thing. But no. No messages.

Of course, she thought, as she zipped up her coat at 5p.m., she could just leave it. Start next week. Find a different class entirely. Problem was, she had a sneaking suspicion that it was now or never. If she went home tonight, fifteen more years would somehow slip by and she’d have nothing to show for them once again.

Sighing at her own annoying self-resolve, she said goodbye to George, who – as far as she could tell – had stuffed a few envelopes today and spent the rest of the time on social media, and left the building. She grabbed a sandwich from the small supermarket near the car park and ate it in the car. Then, brushing the crumbs from her trousers, she started the car and made her way to the church hall close to her house, still having to force herself to keep going in the face of her almost all-consuming reluctance.

The hall was gently lit from the inside, throwing a yellow glow into the shadowed half-light of early evening. Nina watched as a few other women walked into the hall, laughing and joking together. None of them looked offputtingly fit or bendy, andmost of them looked around her age and relatively friendly. It was A Good Sign.

She parked close to the wall in the corner of the small car parking area and shuffled into the back with her carrier bag. It would be better to change here – everyone else seemed to have arrived in their kit and she didn’t want to be the odd one out, having to change in the toilet and probably dropping her trousers in a puddle in the process.

It had been a while since she’d wriggled out of a pair of trousers in the back of a car – and she’d forgotten both how undignified and how difficult it could be. She’d just managed to remove her smart work trousers and was trying to work out whether the leggings were inside out or not when there was a knock on the window. She froze like a rabbit in headlights, startled into stiffness in her rather grey, oversized knickers. A woman who looked to be in her late sixties, her silver hair tied into a bun like a ballerina, grinned at her on the other side of the glass, then raised a hand and motioned that she wind down the window.

Reluctantly, she acquiesced.

‘Hello love,’ said the woman, who seemed completely unfazed at the sight of Nina’s half-nakedness. ‘Do you know if this is the right place for the dance class?’ She smiled, sending a wave of wrinkles across her face.

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