I arrived at the hall I was relieved to see all the lights on and the temperature was warm enough that I automatically shrugged my coat off. Miss Mimi was rosy-cheeked and happily working out a routine for the Monday evening jazz class. (Was it really safe for someone her age to be kicking that high?) There was no hint of the frailness that had hung around her on Saturday. I could almost believe I’d imagined it.
I made my way down the corridor to the office. Once inside, I closed the door behind me and leant against it. I smiled as I looked around. Right, I thought. Where do I start?
My thoughts turned to the red electricity bill. Surely, the best thing to tackle first was the finances. Who knew what other payments might have been overlooked? And I needed to get an idea of how much money came in and out, so I could suggest a budget for any future big payments.
I hunted in one of the bookshelves, where I remembered seeing some handwritten accounts ledgers, and started to flick through them. They were thoroughly kept in a neat hand. Not Miss Mimi’s extravagant loops, that was for sure, and it didn’t look like Sherri’s enthusiastic round, squat writing either, which meant these must have been Dinah’s work. My theory was confirmed when I discovered I couldn’t find any books for the last two tax years, which was when Miss Mimi had said Dinah had moved to Portugal.
I put them back on the shelf and carried on my search. Surely, Miss Mimi had to have some kind of financial records since her full-time administrator had quit?
Ten minutes later I found what I was looking for. It wasn’t a proper accounts ledger, but a handful of large, hardback notebooks. Each page was labelled with a year and a month and then there was a list of fees that had come in and payments that had gone out, but I couldn’t find any corresponding bank statements. I guessed that looking for profit and loss statements or balance sheets would probably be a waste of time.
However, duplicate statements could be ordered from the bank, and even if I couldn’t find any tax returns or financial statements, Miss Mimi’s accountant should be able to supply them. The name of a local one-man firm was listed in the back of one of Dinah’s neat ledgers. I’d just fire off an email and see where that got me, and until a reply came I had my work cut out for me. I was going to clear this office of clutter if it was the last thing I did!
When Friday came around again, I dutifully turned up for adult tap. I’d been tempted to stay home to avoid another dose of humiliation, but that was a bit hard to do when I’d spent all week working alongside Miss Mimi.
I crept in at the back again while the others were engrossed in a discussion about a dance competition show they’d all seen on the TV that week. I quietly put my tap shoes on while they talked. I’d seen the same programme, but I didn’t comment. Why would they be interested in anything I had to say? They didn’t know me from Adam.
I heard the door swing open again and a cool breeze curled into the hall, its tendrils reaching even me in the farthest corner. While I tied bows in my laces, I glanced behind me to discover that Nancy had arrived.
Part of me wanted to ignore her. The way she’d been with me the previous week had been really weird. I’d even told Candy about it, but she’d warned me I was becoming a hermit and it was making me paranoid. Of course, I’d told her not to be so stupid, but thinking back on our conversation, I was starting to wonder if she was right.
Every time I left the front door these days, I felt as if people were watching me. Judging me. And they couldn’t all be, could they? I mean, up until Ed’s spectacular fall from grace I was pretty sure most people didn’t even notice me when I walked down the street.
So maybe Candy was right. Maybe it was all in my head and I’d jumped to conclusions about Nancy last week. After all, while we hadn’t been the kind of friends who’d spent all our time round each other’s houses. When we’d been at Miss Mimi’s—which had been a lot—we’d been practically inseparable, and she had no reason to dislike me. We hadn’t even set eyes on each other for twenty years.
I stepped forward, but Nancy acted as if she hadn’t seen me. And maybe she hadn’t. She seemed to be deep in thought as she sat down on one of the chairs and changed into her tap shoes, then walked across to the barre on the other side of the room and started doing a few warm-up exercises.
You tried, a little voice in my head said. Leave it at that.
But I knew that was the coward’s way out. I couldn’t stay holed up in my house with just my cat for company forever, could I? And what better place to start than with someone who’d known me before my notorious fifteen minutes in the tabloid limelight? With someone who’d actually once liked me?
After a moment of hesitation, I followed her. Ugh. I was going to be standing right in front of the mirrors, but I supposed that couldn’t be helped.
‘Hi,’ I said, then grasped around for something else to say. ‘You’ve hardly changed at all.’ Not exactly eloquent, but at least it got the ball rolling.
She still had the same long, thick, dark hair, the good bone structure. She’d never been one of those teenagers who’d looked scruffy, her make-up had always been flawless and her clothes neat, and that had followed her into adulthood, although, clearly, she had a better clothes budget now. I wasn’t very good at identifying designers, but I knew expensive when I saw it.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, and went back to studying her reflection in the mirror as she stretched out her calf muscles. She didn’t return the compliment. She also didn’t say anything else.
I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘How are you doing?’
Nancy smiled again, and I noticed her teeth, too perfect in their regimental alignment, almost too white. The lights of the hall reflected off them, highlighting their glossy sharpness. ‘Oh, you know,’ she replied with an airy laugh. ‘Paul and I live in Langdon Park now. The house was a bit of a wreck when we got it, but we’re slowly licking it into shape.’
‘Wow,’ I said, not even having to pretend to be impressed. Langdon Park. While not a stately home, it was one of the lovely old manor houses in the area, the kind that well-off Londoners liked to snap up for a rural retreat if they could.
And where was I? Back living at my parents’ house with its eighties dado rails and avocado bathroom suite. No husband. No kids. No accomplishments at all to speak of. I wanted to crawl away and pretend I hadn’t started this conversation, but I had. There was no choice but to tough it out. I swallowed and carried on.
‘Paul must be doing well at …’ I trailed off, belatedly realising I couldn’t remember what Nancy’s husband did. The last time we’d exchanged Christmas cards must have been more than a decade ago.
‘He’s a wine broker,’ she said.
Had someone left the door open? Because the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees.
‘And how about the kids?’
Nancy’s smile bloomed into the real thing. ‘Oh, Lilly’s off to Oxford next year, we hope, and Callum’s auditioning for Oliver! in the West End next week. We’re all very proud.’
I nodded. She had it, didn’t she? Nancy had my John Lewis Christmas ad life.
