mugs before they were due back on the coach.
Finally, there was a brief lull in custom. Hope sat back in her chair, feeling drained and wondered how she’d last till her four o’clock tea break.
‘What did you buy for Matt?’ asked Yvonne, sneaking a forbidden packet of toffees across to Hope. Eating was forbidden behind the counter but Hope reckoned her blood sugar needed a top-up.
‘A tie, a bottle of that wine he likes and some aftershave,’ she said as she surreptitiously unwrapped a toffee.
‘That’s nice,’ mumbled Yvonne, her mouth full.
They chewed in silence for a while and Hope began to mentally plan her evening, the highlight of which was to be Matt’s special birthday dinner. Just the two of them, assuming that Millie didn’t kick up a fuss and refuse to go to bed. She was only four but she already ruled the Parker household with a chubby little iron hand in a velvet glove. Two-year-old Toby was such a contrast to his older sister. He was so quiet that Hope worried about him being at the day nursery every day. She knew Millie was well able to stand up to anyone who’d look sideways at her but would she stand up for Toby? You heard so much about children bullying other kids and Hope would kill any child who’d hurt her beloved Toby. With his pale, sweet face and watchful eyes, he reminded her of herself as a child. She prayed he’d grow up to be stronger and more forceful, like his father.
‘Presents for men are so difficult,’ sighed Yvonne. ‘I love the idea of those women who say things like “I’m wearing your present.” You know she’s wearing some basque or suspenders and stockings and that’s his present. I might try that with Freddie.’
‘Lovely,’ said Hope automatically, a bit embarrassed to be getting so much detail about Yvonne’s sex life. Yvonne was twenty-nine, Welsh, and very open about everything, in direct contrast to Hope. Hope liked to keep her personal life personal, although it was difficult when you worked with someone as inquisitive as Yvonne, who was quite capable of asking questions like what would Hope do if Matt ever had an affair or had Hope ever used a Dutch cap.
‘Er, no,’ Hope had said, going pink, on that particular occasion. Aunt Ruth had not brought her up to be chatty about sex and things like that. When she’d had her first period, Aunt Ruth had said nothing but had given her a book on girls growing up. Well, she’d actually shoved it into Hope’s hand and gone off abruptly to her bridge class. The subject had never been referred to again. Hope was fascinated when she read those ‘how to keep your sex life alive’ articles in women’s magazines, although she’d never have dreamed of trying any of it out with Matt.
‘You should give Matt that sort of present tonight,’ Yvonne nudged her.
‘What sort of present?’
Yvonne lowered her voice because Mr Campbell had come out of his office and was standing near the photocopier. ‘Wear something sexy and tell Matt it’s the final bit of his present.’
‘Honestly, Yvonne,’ whispered Hope, ‘you’ve a one-track mind.’
‘Yeah, one track and it’s a dirt track,’ giggled Yvonne, flicking back a bit of jet-black poker-straight hair.
Three customers arrived all at once and Hope managed to put Yvonne’s suggestion out of her mind. It wasn’t that she was contemplating wearing sexy underwear and surprising Matt. She was uncomfortably aware of the fact that Matt would probably be much happier with a new tie and a decent bottle of wine.
Two hours later, she’d braved the traffic going out of the city towards Bristol and was turning into Maltings Lane. One of the more modern streets in Bath, it was a winding road of pretty houses built in the fifties with honey-coloured Cotswold stone. Because the houses were small and reasonably priced, the street was full of young, professional couples with small children, two cars and no time for doing their handkerchief-sized gardens.
When they’d moved in five years ago, Hope had had great plans for becoming a gardening expert and had bought a gardening encyclopaedia along with a book dedicated to creating a haven from a small suburban plot. These books were currently jammed into the bookcase on the landing, alongside the home decorating book she’d got in a jumble sale. Hope rarely even looked at their patch with its overgrown sliver of lawn and weed-encrusted rockery where four stunted conifers sat huddled together in tight misery and refused to grow taller than six inches. Hope didn’t look at the garden tonight either: she was too late even for her usual guilt-laden ‘I wish I had time to do something with the garden this weekend’.
Marta would be furious if she picked the kids up after six fifteen. Marta ran Your Little Treasures, the nursery where Toby and Millie spent every week day. The nursery was so well-run and well-staffed that Hope couldn’t afford to voice the opinion that Marta herself was a bad-tempered bitch when it came to dealing with her charges’ parents. There was such fierce competition for places in YLT that she daren’t risk antagonizing her. If Hope’s children left the nursery, there would be thirty families queuing up to fill their places. ‘Marta is definitely short for martinet,’ joked Matt every time Hope came home on the verge of tears because of a dressing down from Marta for being late. Matt didn’t understand how Hope hated those confrontations.
The nursery closed at six fifteen and any parent who arrived a second later was treated to a lecture of the ‘if you think I’m going to be taken advantage of, you’ve got another think coming’ variety.
Hope couldn’t imagine a single person who’d dare take advantage of Marta. Pity.
She unpacked the shopping from the Metro’s boot. Next door’s cat sat plaintively on Hope’s doorstep, sheltering from the icy late September wind and generally giving the impression that he was a candidate for an animal shelter despite being so fat that he no longer fitted through his cat flap and had to be let in through the windows. Hope dragged the shopping to the door, hoping that a few hours in the locker at work hadn’t made the milk go off.
‘You can’t come in, Fatso,’ Hope told the cat, trying to open the door and insinuate herself inside without letting him in. She managed it, dumped the shopping on the kitchen floor and looked at her watch.
Six o’clock on the nail. She wasn’t going to be late. Relieved, she shoved the milk into the fridge and raced out of the house.
She hurried round the corner to the nursery which was, as usual, surrounded by double-parked cars, weary parents and cross toddlers. Hope had found it was easier to walk there instead of spending ten minutes trying to park.
‘Hello,’ she said with false cheeriness to Marta, who stood like a rottweiler at the door, grimly working out whom to bite and whom to suck up to. ‘Cool isn’t it?’
‘It is nearly October,’ Marta snapped, gypsy earrings rattling furiously.
Hope grinned inanely and then hated herself for it. If only she had the guts to tell Marta where she could stuff her sarcastic remarks. Not for the first time, Hope indulged in her favourite daydream: where she and Matt had won the lottery, thereby allowing her to give up work and devote herself to the children full time. In her fantasy dream world, being a full time mum included help from a cleaning lady, an ironing lady and someone to trail round the supermarket doing the grocery shopping. It also meant being able to tell Marta to take a running jump because Hope wouldn’t need the nursery any more. She’d look after her children herself, thank you very much. She’d be able to spend hours every day with them, doing finger painting, making up stories and doing things with cooking chocolate and Rice Krispies when the children could help stir the mixture without her shuddering at the thought of cleaning bits
