It’s only then I notice the six-foot-high, sparkly red heart suspended in the jeweller’s shop window I’m leaning against. Inside the heart, it says: Will you be proposing to your special someone this Christmas?
It’s a big, in-your-face display that would make me feel sick even if I hadn’t just bumped into my ex and his stunning girlfriend.
I head back to the car, moving like a figure in a dream, only dimly aware of people staring at me and parting to let me through.
Driving home, I face up to the fact that I’ve been in denial. I thought I’d got Jamie out of my head but I was kidding myself. Deep down I never really believed he was gone for good. In the dark caves of my subconscious, I was waiting for him to come to his senses and realise his mistake.
I feel as if I’ve been hurled back to square one. It’s like a game of snakes and ladders. I’ve been swinging up those ladders, showing everyone how brave and resilient I am. And then, just as I’m a whisker from victory, I land on the giant snake that tumbles me all the way down to the bottom of the board.
The phone is ringing when I get in.
‘Hello, dear. How are you?’
It’s my mother.
‘Fine thanks.’
‘And how’s Jamie? Still beavering away in the City?’
‘Er – yes, Jamie’s fine too,’ I manage to croak.
My mother never asks about Jamie. How ironic that she should mention him now. Today of all days.
She doesn’t know about the break-up. It’s easier to keep quiet about it. She would ask far too many probing questions in her effort to determine how I’ve managed to cock things up this time.
I’ve told her about Izzy’s Organics, though, and I really wish I hadn’t.
Today she says, ‘Is this really what you want to do? Sell vegetables?’ I picture her pained expression. Her brow would crease into lines of dismay if it were not for the Botox.
‘Yes, it really is, Mum.’
‘But what does Jamie think of this? Will it actually bring in money?’
‘I think so.’
‘You don’t sound too certain.’
‘Well, I am.’
She sighs. ‘I would have thought three years at university would equip you for rather more than a job as a door-to-door salesman, Isobel.’
I slump down at the kitchen table.
‘But never mind,’ she says, ‘I’m sure you know best.’
‘Speak to you soon. Got to go,’ I mutter through gritted teeth and hang up.
I trail upstairs, shed my clothes and get into bed. I don’t care that it’s only four in the afternoon. I want the complete nothingness of sleep.
Jamie is gone and he’s never coming back. (Not that I’d want him if he did, but that’s not the point.)
My life is a pile of horse manure.
I was even kidding myself about Erik.
Pathetic.
Later, the phone rings and I jerk awake, wondering what time it is.
It’s Anna, wondering why I didn’t meet her for coffee in Guildford as we planned.
I struggle to a sitting position. ‘Oh God, Anna, I’m so sorry. I completely forgot.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes.’ I rub my gritty eyes and peer at the clock. ‘No.’
‘What happened?’
‘I saw Jamie with Emma.’
Anna gasps and is silent.
I swallow hard. ‘They looked – I don’t know – happy.’
‘Bastards,’ says Anna comfortingly. ‘Do you want me to come over?’
‘Yes please. No thanks.’
‘Well, which?’
Sighing, I say, ‘I’ll be fine. On my own.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. I’ll phone tomorrow morning at eight to check you’re OK.’
‘Thanks,’ I whisper and hang up.
Erik, in a red and gold matador costume, is sitting at the blackjack table and I have to stop him! I watch in horror as he empties the contents of my purse onto red.
‘No!’ I cry. I’m desperately trying to push my way through the crowds but an invisible force is holding me back.
Jess appears. She’s twirling a pink parasol over her shoulder and is dressed for her wedding in a column of silk that would be perfect if it wasn’t fluorescent green.
‘Hear that?’ she says, at the sound of a bell. ‘It means you’ve won.’
The bell does another ‘ding-dong’ and I prepare to rush into Erik’s arms and claim my prize. At long last, my money worries are over!
Then I open one eye and see the legs of the bedroom chair.
Bugger!
Maybe if I close my eyes I can get right back into the dream …
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
I peer at the clock, bug-eyed and headachy. Seven forty-five. In the morning? That means I’ve slept all afternoon and all night. I pull on my dressing gown and stumble downstairs to open the front door.
A strange sight greets me.
A short man with a disproportionately large bottom is wrestling a mass of glossy green foliage into the back seat of his car.
‘Oh, you’re in, are you?’ he says, peering over his shoulder at me.
His view is restricted by a comb-over that’s broken free of its mooring. Smoothing it back, he straightens to his full height, which isn’t very far. He eyes my robe and I smile brightly, wondering if he thinks I’m the kind of housewife who cheers up an otherwise drab day by dragging tradesmen in for a quickie.
I notice the driver’s door has To Die For printed across it in jaunty orange italics.
‘Flowers for Fraser?’ He manhandles the bunch of exotic blooms back out of the white Fiat and hands me the bouquet. When he shuts
