tells lies,’ said Leonie calmly.
‘It doesn’t look as bad as it did,’ said Tilly, shooting an evil glare at Leonie, who simply grinned; she had a habit of saying what she thought. ‘Besides, everyone will be too busy looking at her eyes; don’t they look great?’
Leonie tilted her head. ‘Actually, they do.’
I batted my eyelashes at both of them.
‘It made me feel better. How did your wig-fitting go?’ I asked, reluctant to volunteer any information about my morning. The embarrassment of charging into a man who’d come closest to pricking my interest in a long time was still making me cringe.
‘The wig-fitting went really well,’ said Tilly, a little too enthusiastically. ‘Hardly any adjustments and I took lots of photos.’
Leonie and I exchanged amused looks.
‘So what went wrong?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’ Tilly’s high pitched denial countered her claim.
‘What did she do?’ I asked Leonie with a laugh. Tilly was hopeless with anything technological.
Leonie rolled her eyes. ‘This time it’s what she didn’t do. I had to upload the pictures on the system.’
‘I’m getting better.’ Tilly grinned.
‘No, you’re not,’ said Leonie.
I laughed at both of them. ‘What does Marcus think?’
‘He’s given up. He loves me just the way I am,’ said Tilly with a touch of smugness as she picked up her coffee. The story of how she and Marcus had got together was legendary in the building. We weren’t particular friends at the time but the story, with its elements of scandal – Tilly had been suspended for a time – had rocked the Opera House last December.
Leonie scowled at her. ‘You know you make the rest of us a bit sick.’
‘I know. Jeanie keeps telling me,’ said Tilly, pushing her hair back, her bangles jingling as she gave us both another totally self-satisfied grin. ‘But I think Fred’s pretty keen, isn’t he?’
Leonie beamed. ‘Yes.’
‘Oh, shut up the pair of you,’ I muttered, tutting. ‘I haven’t had so much as a sniff of a date in ages. And the last one was such a disaster I’m thinking about declaring myself a date-free zone.’
Tilly laughed. ‘What about that solicitor who wanted to know if you’d had any injuries at work? And how much your hands were worth?’
I shuddered. ‘Yes. I am never going out with a solicitor again.’
They both laughed and then I noticed someone stalking her way through the tables. ‘Oh, God.’ I ducked my head. ‘Don’t let her see me.’
Tilly looked over her shoulder and then turned back. ‘She loves me,’ she said with all the smug self-righteousness of someone who had been wronged and subsequently exonerated and now had the upper hand.
‘Ah, Viola, isn’t it? I wanted to catch up with you.’ Alison Kreufeld pulled up a chair, to everyone’s astonishment, and sat down.
‘Look, I’m really sorry. Was he OK? He’s not going to sue or anything, is he?’
‘I’m sure he won’t.’ She smiled as if I’d just played right into her hands. ‘Although you might be able to help there. I wanted to talk to you about our outreach programmes.’
I relaxed a little.
‘You know that in order to qualify for some of our funding there are a number of projects where we work within the community, to make what we do here more accessible to those in all walks of life.’
‘Yes.’ I nodded. I’d done a few school visits, playing in assemblies and talking to gifted music students.
‘Well, the gentleman I was showing around …’
Gentleman. Didn’t he have a name? James, I decided. There was a touch of Andrei Bolkonsky from War and Peace, as played by James Norton.
‘Viola!’
I looked up. ‘Yes?’
‘Mr Williams,’ Alison said with emphasis, ‘is a governor at a primary school in Notting Hill. His mother-in-law is a friend of the Opera House.’
So, Mr Nine-to-Five had a name and a wife.
‘We’ve been asked to help the school with its annual nativity.’ She pulled a face. ‘Although it’s very short notice, it does fulfil our outreach criteria and she is a very significant benefactor.’
I nodded, ignoring the barely contained sniggers of Tilly and Leonie.
‘It will be mainly mornings and possibly the odd afternoon. And you’re in Notting Hill.’
‘OK,’ I agreed, thinking that it didn’t sound terribly arduous. How hard could playing a few carols for the local school be?
‘Tell them you’re busy,’ said my cousin Bella, waving a wooden spoon at me as she took a quick rest from stirring the cake mix.
I hadn’t intended to mention my new outreach role but she’d asked if I was free the next day as she was expecting an Amazon delivery. ‘I need you to wait in for a parcel tomorrow afternoon for me. I promised Tina I’d meet her at Westfield to go Christmas shopping.’
She lived just around the corner from me in one those sherbet, pastel-coloured houses made famous in the film Notting Hill. Hers was painted a pretty pale powder-blue and was sandwiched between a sunshine-yellow house and a pale rose-pink house. Just walking along her street always made my heart lift and it was one of the reasons I loved living in this area. It was never a hardship coming here and I occasionally used her front room to practise while waiting in for her parcels. Her house was even more gorgeous inside, with its big high-ceilinged rooms decorated to within an inch of their lives with John Lewis furnishings and accessories. The extremely stylish kitchen, where I was currently sitting, had featured in several style magazines and at least one Sunday supplement.
‘What time’s your parcel arriving?’
‘Any time between twelve and four.’
‘I don’t think I can fit it in. I might be able to get here for three-thirty.’
‘Three-thirty, no earlier?’
‘I’m taking Dad to the airport and then I’ve just got time to come straight back home, drop the car back at Mum’s and get to the school for two.’
‘What are you going to be doing?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘I’m not
