Page 75 of The Village Cafe in the Loire

Good luck! I’ll be at home, at Mum’s by 2.

That was a relief. If Amber was home, the pressure to visit would be off.

Finally. Pascal. ‘Not sure I’ll be able to make it back for the launch,’ she drafted, looking at the words on the little screen – words that would sever that part of her life. And deletedthem. She’d talk to Pascal properly, however difficult it was, she thought. Tomorrow.

28

‘Morning!’ she said, beaming at the receptionist, Clare, who smiled back uncertainly. She showed her pass and walked confidently to the lift, pressing the button and waiting for it to reach her. Then, stepping in, making brief eye contact with the other passengers, she pressed button four and was whisked upwards.

She’d reminded herself on the way there that for the past eight years or more, this was what she’d wanted. She’d just lost her sense of direction. The key was to embrace it, fully. She’d printed out her latest five-year plan and with any luck, she’d still be on track despite the blip. And the flat wasn’t important, not really.

Tonight, she’d tell Pascal her plans. Maybe they’d see each other again, who knew? She suppressed the slightly nauseous feeling that rose up in her when she thought about it, but quickly focused her thoughts on today’s work. Once she got her feet back under the desk, her eyes on the files she had to work on, those thoughts would recede and she’d be back in her old groove. It was fine. It would be fine.

‘Hi,’ she said, walking past various desks. ‘Hi, how are you? Great. Good to hear.’ She would hold her head high, ignore any curious looks or comments, and soon her outburst too would be written over like obsolete code and forgotten.

She drew out her chair and sank into it, feeling rather edgy, and fired up her computer. There were twenty new emails from this morning alone. Good. She’d have something to get her teeth into.

It took her a good hour to familiarise herself with where everything was up to, but she was soon on the phone, reintroducing herself to clients, informing them that she was back from her travels. At least she had been somewhere, she reflected, so she didn’t have to lie about what it had been like. Most people sounded downright jealous, then the conversation would turn to facts and figures and arrangements and customer surveys, and they’d get bogged down in the numbing numbers they threw around all day.

She ignored a call from thenotairewho’d sent her the original letter, and another from her mother, concentrating solely on work. And when Maurice dropped by in the afternoon to check that she’d read up on the client they were meeting, she was able to fire off some relevant data that had him nodding in admiration. ‘Good show!’ he told her. ‘Sure we’ll snag ourselves a new client.’

Perhaps, at some point down the road, she’d find a way to stop him perching on the end of her desk, she thought after he’d left. He couldn’t surely get much rest from draping one of his buttocks onto the laminated surface, and there was something proprietorial about it that she didn’t like. Yes, he was her line manager. No, that didn’t mean he could put his bottom wherever he pleased. She resolved to think of a tactful way to prevent it happening again. Perhaps it was time to move the cactus?

By the end of the day, she was feeling more like her old self than she had in weeks – even before the incident, she’d been tired and run-down and not firing on all cylinders. Now, batteries recharged, she felt truly on top of her game. Good.

She thought about the café, briefly. It seemed distant, almost like a dream, from this perspective. She let the thought flit away and returned her concentration to the report she was reading.

Five-thirty came and the office thinned out. Half an hour until the meeting where she’d prove herself more than worthy; make them realise how good it was that she was back.

It was when she was exiting the bathroom, after restyling her hair and topping up her make-up in readiness for the meeting, that it happened. Her phone buzzed in her bag and she drew it out to check the screen.

Amber

Home! Call me?

Becky stepped back into the cubicle – personal calls weren’t forbidden at work, and this was after her allotted hours, but still it seemed unprofessional to be making them on the first day back. ‘Hi, you!’ she said as her friend answered. ‘I’m so glad you’ve been discharged.’

‘Me too.’

‘So what are you doing? Lying on the sofa waiting for your mum to feed you grapes?’

Amber let out a rather hollow laugh. ‘In bed,’ she said. ‘It’s weird, I couldn’t wait to leave, but now I’m home without people monitoring me, I feel a bit… strange, I guess.’

‘That’s understandable. But they must be pretty confident you’re OK to have let you out?’

‘I guess.’ There was a silence. ‘It’s crazy, you know, being back in my bedroom. I swear Mum’s going to tell me to go to bedat nine and stop me having my phone overnight, like I’m fifteen again.’

Becky laughed. ‘She’s just being protective.’

Amber’s voice wobbled. ‘Becky,’ she said, ‘I realise this probably sounds pathetic and you were back at work today so probably don’t fancy a train ride, but could you come see me? I feel… it just feels so odd. I…’

‘Oh, Amber.’

‘Yeah, I know. I hate feeling like this. But can you? The train’s quite quick out to Hatfield, if you go from King’s Cross? I really need to see you.’

‘I’ve got—’ Becky began. But then, ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course I can. Hang in there.’

She slipped the phone back in her pocket and went to find Maurice.

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