Someone Like You

‘OhmiGod, I’m so sorry, please let me help you clean it off,’ he’d said, his face a picture of innocent remorse as they both stared at the remains of a strawberry shake dripping steadily off Hannah and on to the floor.

And she’d gone with him in the direction of the toilets, not even nervous about going off with a strange man, even when he came into the ladies’ with her and insisted on using loo paper to soak the shake off.

She should have refused him when he asked her out for a drink that evening. But then, Hannah was her mother’s daughter and, at the age of twenty-seven, she was still young enough to be impressed by someone who actually wrote for the Evening Press.

At home in Connemara, the Campbell family had only ever read two newspapers: the local paper the Western People and the Sunday Press. She’d grown up with it, had watched her mother put the previous week’s paper at the bottom of the chickens’ coop when they were hatched under the kitchen table; had laid it on the floor so that the men coming home from working on the farm wouldn’t muddy the floor with their filthy boots. To go out with someone who worked for the same group, well!

Of course, when she finally met Harry, court reporter extraordinaire, Hannah’s mother hadn’t been that impressed by him despite his job. But it was too late then. Hannah loved him and could already see herself walking down the aisle with him, radiant in white something or other, smiling for the official photo which would appear in that Sunday’s paper. Together for richer for poorer, for better for worse. Hannah loved that idea, the notion of stability, security.

Marriage hadn’t been on Harry’s mind. ‘I’m a free spirit, Hannah, you’ve always known that: I thought that’s what you liked about me,’ he’d said as she stared at him slack-jawed the day he told her about South America.

‘Yes, but up till now your version of being a free spirit meant going to music festivals, buying Jimi Hendrix albums and not paying the phone bill until they threaten to cut us off!’ she shrieked, when she finally found her voice.

Harry shrugged. ‘I’m not getting any younger,’ he said. He was the same age as Hannah. ‘I don’t want to waste my life. This trip is just what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been stagnating, Hannah. We both have.’

That was when she picked up his leather jacket and threw it out the front door. ‘Leave!’ she yelled. ‘Leave now, before you waste any more of your precious life. I’m so sorry I was a waste of time and contributed to your stagnation.’

She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. He’d left there and then, and slipped back in to pack up his stuff the following day when she wasn’t at home. Rage and fury had possessed Hannah as soon as he was gone, and she’d immediately moved out of the flat they’d shared into another smaller, nicer place, using their deposit money to buy a new bed and sofa. There was no way she was sleeping on the bed she’d shared with that bastard. If he wanted his share of the money back, he could sue her. He already owed her ten years of her life, not to mention all the cash she’d loaned him over the years because he frittered his salary away.

For a year, nothing. And now, out of the blue, came a letter. On the first day of her new job, Hannah sat for a moment at her kitchen table, staring into space. Then she wrenched open the drawer and read the rest of the letter.

Two paragraphs from the end, Harry got to the point: ‘I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m writing, Hannah. But you can’t cut someone out of your life when you’ve spent ten years with them.’ Oh yes you can, she hissed at the letter.

I’m coming home in a few months and I’d love to see you. I’ve kept in touch with what you’re up to, thanks to Mitch. He gave me your new address.

Damn Mitch, cursed Hannah. One of Harry’s old colleagues, she’d told him where she was living when they’d bumped into each other in the supermarket a few months ago.

I’d love to see you, Hannah, although I’m not sure if you’d want to see me. I’d understand it, but I hope you don’t still feel bitter.

Bitter! Bitter wasn’t the word. Toxic with rage fitted the bill much better, Hannah fumed.

I think about you a lot and feel that we went through so much we’ve got unfinished business between us. If you’re keen, you can e-mail me. Bye, Harry.

His e-mail address was at the bottom but Hannah barely looked at it. She felt dizzy with temper, absolutely straight-up furious. How could he? Just when she was sorting her life out, how dare he try and weasel his way back in. See him again? She’d rather remove her own appendix without an anaesthetic.

The offices of KrisisKids were silent and empty at eight fifteen on Monday morning when Emma let herself into her office and surveyed it with pleasure. Small, really only a cubby-hole, it was plain, simple, and she loved it. The walls were the same restful lemon as the rest of the office, the furniture was blonde wood and the plants that grew luxuriantly on top of her four filing cabinets flourished in the natural light from the huge picture window. Giant posters covered the walls telling visitors to WATCH THE CHILDREN – YOU MIGHT BE THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN HELP, and giving their phoneline number. Emma had taken over running the phoneline a year ago and had worked hard to develop it from a service which ran during office hours into one which was open round the clock. Staffing a phoneline for such hours was hugely expensive and problematic. But Emma now had a vast rota of qualified counsellors and, although there were times when gremlins got into the system and four people phoned in sick at the same time, it was a big success. Thanks to the phoneline, KrisisKids now received a large state grant and, thanks to a lot of media coverage, the contributions from the public were increasing.

Seeing the phoneline become a success was very rewarding, but Emma often felt it was tragic that there was a need for such a service in the first place. The grainy black-and-white photo of a crying boy on the poster was a set-up. As far as Emma knew, the boy was a happy child model whom the advertising agency had picked because he was small for his age. But the image was powerful nevertheless. His sad eyes seemed to follow Emma around the office, reminding her of how badly people could treat children.

It was ironic, she always thought: she, who was childless, worked in an industry where children were the primary focus.

Emma’s desk was just as pristine as she’d left it a week previously: not one piece of paper marred the gleaming wood, her photo of Pete sat at a perfect right angle to her computer monitor, and the painted wooden box she kept her paper clips in was in its usual position beside the phone. Only her overflowing in-tray was evidence that she’d been on holiday. Files, letters and bits of crinkly photocopy paper sat in a perilous heap, towering over the edges of the plastic tray.

‘Lovely holiday?’ enquired Colin Mulhall, appearing out of nowhere and perching on the edge of Emma’s desk, eyes gleaming inquisitively.

The publicity department second-in-command and office gossip, twenty-something Colin was ruthless in his pursuit of personal details. Emma often felt that MI5 had missed out by not signing Colin up for something. He mightn’t have been able to speak Russian or Iraqi or even basic English, come to that, but his intelligence-gathering skills were second to none. He couldn’t type a press release without hitting the computer spell check at least four times to see if he’d spelled everything right, but if you wanted to know why the new girl in accounts kept coming in with red eyes every morning, Colin was the only man for the job. Except that Emma never wanted to know the gossip. It wasn’t her scene. Being brought up by a mother who lived and breathed gossip had instilled in Emma a loathing for dishing dirt about other people. If the girl in accounts had eight lovers, a drug habit and a fetish for wearing fishnet stockings and no knickers, Emma didn’t want to know about it.

‘Fair enough,’ said Finn Harrison, the charity’s press officer and Colin’s boss, who loved a bit of gossip himself but respected Emma’s decision not to get involved.

‘I don’t know why she’s working for a charity when she’s not the least bit charitable and hasn’t the slightest interest in normal people. She obviously thinks she’s above hearing about our humdrum lives,’ Colin said darkly about Emma. He resented her managerial position. She was his superior and it rankled. He, Colin, should have been third in command to Edward Richards, not the prim Emma Sheridan. ‘Miss Smug with her perfect husband and perfect figure. I bet she has some dark secret. She’s probably having it off with the boss. Her door is always closed. Forward planning meetings, my backside.’ Under the circumstances, Colin and Emma were not best pals. Emma avoided the photocopier when Colin was laboriously copying out his badly typed press releases. But, because as third in command to the MD Emma had access to lots of juicy, top-secret information, Colin was always trying to engage her in friendly conversation.

This couldn’t be it, Emma thought suspiciously. Colin had a tale to tell.

‘You’ll never guess,’ Colin said now, preening ever so slightly in his ridiculous bow-tie (his trademark, he called it) and jaunty yellow shirt that did nothing for his sallow complexion.

‘You’re right, I probably won’t,’ Emma replied.

Colin’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Edward is bringing in an outside PR firm to help with the phoneline. He doesn’t think we’re getting enough good press.’

‘That’s crazy, it’s been working wonderfully,’ Emma shot out. ‘I can’t believe he’s thinking of that without consulting me.’ Suddenly aware that she’d said too much, she clammed up. ‘I better get some work done, Colin,’ she said brightly. ‘Get rid of those holiday cobwebs.’

‘Egypt, was it?’ Colin enquired, knowing he was being dismissed but not wanting to leave yet. ‘Did Pete enjoy it?’

Emma couldn’t resist. She widened her eyes dramatically. ‘Pete didn’t go, Colin,’ she said. ‘See you later.’

Leaving an astonished Colin to interpret that bit of disinformation, Emma sorted through her post. At least having a bit of drama at work took her mind off the crises in her personal life.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_09694f04-4ebf-597a-9aa6-ad3bffcc85fc)

From her seat near the escalator, Emma could see Kirsten striding along through the afternoon crowds in the shopping centre looking exactly what she was: wealthy, perkily pretty and utterly sure of herself. And she was only fifteen minutes late, which had to be a record, Emma thought, watching her sister’s progress through the centre, her step as confident as a supermodel. She looked amazing, as usual. Kirsten’s hair, currently a rich chestnut crop, contrasted perfectly with the tiny butter-coloured suede jacket she wore over a tummy-skimming white T-shirt and faded blue jeans. Emma knew she’d have looked ridiculous in an outfit like that, but Kirsten carried it off with ease. People who knew Emma were always amazed to meet Kirsten purely because they looked so utterly different, like the before and after pictures in some glossy magazine feature.

‘I’d never have guessed you two were sisters,’ they’d gasp, staring at Kirsten, who was the picture of adorable modern chic beside deeply conservative and almost old-fashioned Emma. Kirsten looked at home in cute jewelled hairslides and bounced around in clunky contemporary shoes, while Emma wouldn’t dream of using anything other than plain kirby grips to hold her hair back and was a fan of loafers and nice court shoes.

But different hair, clothes and make-up aside, the two sisters actually had incredibly similar features. Both had the same long nose, pale amber-flecked eyes and thin lips. There the resemblance ended.

Kirsten’s irrepressible self-confidence gave her an impish beauty that Emma was convinced she’d never achieve. Emma waited until her sister was half-way up the escalator and began waving to attract her attention.

When Kirsten spotted her, she walked over slowly and sat down on the other seat with a sigh, rifling through her small Louis Vuitton handbag for her cigarettes. Like the square-cut emerald on her wedding-ring finger, the bag was genuine.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, as she always did when they met up. ‘I was on the phone to one of the girls on the committee and I couldn’t get rid of the stupid bitch. I knew you’d get a coffee and sit down if I was late.’ She lit up and inhaled deeply.

Emma couldn’t stop herself from looking reproving. She worried about her younger sister and wished she wouldn’t smoke.

‘They’re Silk Cut White, for God’s sake, Em,’ Kirsten said pre-emptively. ‘There’s so little nicotine in them you’d get cheekbones like Tina Turner sucking to get any hit at all.’ Kirsten grinned evilly. ‘Very useful practice for Patrick, all that sucking. Not,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘as if there’s much of that these days. I’m going to have to order some Viagra if he doesn’t perk up soon.’

‘You’re terrible, Kirsten,’ Emma said mildly. ‘What would poor Patrick think if he knew the things you told me about him? He’d die if he knew you discussed your sex life.’ She was fond of her solemn, hard-working brother-in-law and often wondered how the hell he and Kirsten had managed to stay married for four years without one of them ending up in the dock on murder charges.

‘I only tell you these things, Em,’ protested Kirsten, looking innocent. ‘I have to talk to someone or I’d go mad. It’s work, work, work all the time these days,’ she grumbled. ‘He never stops. We never have any fun any more.’

‘Well, perhaps if you went back to work, you wouldn’t be so bored,’ Emma retorted, more sharply than she’d intended.

‘I’m not going back to work and that’s final.’ Kirsten shuddered and pulled Emma’s empty coffee cup over to use as an ashtray as they were sitting in the no-smoking section. ‘I don’t need the money and I’m not cut out for work, Em. I hated that bloody job in the building society, all that getting up in the morning and sitting in the traffic to be yelled at when I got in for being late. Besides, Patrick likes having his dinner on the table when he comes home. I couldn’t do that and work, could I?’

‘Kirsten, you don’t cook. If it wasn’t for Marks & Spencer’s ready meals, poor Patrick would be a stick insect.’

‘Stop nagging,’ Kirsten said good-naturedly. ‘Will I get you another coffee before we start shopping?’

Over coffee, they discussed their mission: to buy a birthday present for their mother, who would be sixty the following Wednesday.