Girl on the Run (16 page)

‘Now, Abby,’ says Mau. ‘I hope you’re going to have a drink, given that it’s your birthday?’

‘I could be persuaded,’ I reply. ‘Though I’m taking it easy. It’s not technically my birthday until tomorrow and, given that I haven’t had a drink for weeks, I’m liable to be completely inebriated after half a glass of shandy.’

‘Take it easy on your birthday?’ scoffs Mau. ‘Whoever heard of such a thing!’

I laugh, but I’m determined. ‘If there’s one thing I’m
not
going to do, it’s get drunk and say a load of things I’ll regret in the morning.’

‘Did you know we call you Doctor Dishy?’

I attempt to put my elbow on the table and lean seductively towards Oliver. Unfortunately, I miss – and am forced to jerk up my arm like a fighter plane avoiding a mountain.

Oliver tries to look unfazed, as if he’s told this sort of thing every day. But he’s fooling nobody. He’s thrilled to bits, God love him. ‘Really? Who’s we?’

‘Oh, just me and . . . well, me really.’

He laughs. I laugh. Then I look across the table at Tom, who looks away. I don’t know what’s eating him.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever asked which hospital you’re based at, Oliver,’ I continue.

‘The Royal,’ he replies. Two words. Not particularly exciting ones at that. But Oliver, with his sweet, sexy, and slightly maladroit eye-contact, turns me to jelly.

‘Ooh, really? I’ve been to that one.’ I sip my wine, holding his gaze for far longer than I would if I were sober.

It’s only my third glass, but it’s significantly more potent than I ever remember wine being. It used to take far more than this to get me drunk, but after weeks of teetotalism, I have become, officially, a cheap night out.

‘Oh?’ smiles Oliver. ‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

There is something about his face that is inherently cute. I can’t work out if it’s the sparkle in his eyes or the gorgeous way his mouth twitches up at one side when he smiles. All I know is that it is utterly irresistible – and I am smitten.

‘I broke my wrist,’ I tell him, holding it out. ‘Sporting injury.’

Clearly, I’m not going to reveal that I fell out of a taxi. He might get entirely the wrong impression about me.

‘Really?’ With his back to the group he hesitantly picks up my arm, scrutinising the injury I dare not reveal happened six years ago. The touch of his fingers on my wrist sends shockwaves up my arm, despite being mildly anaesthetised by the wine. ‘Sounds nasty. Are you fully recovered?’

He suddenly looks all concerned and doctor-like and even sweeter than usual and . . . I don’t think I’ve
ever
found someone so attractive in my life.

‘I . . . I think so,’ I manage to respond. ‘Why? Do you have any recommendations about how I should look after it, long term?’

He smiles shyly. ‘Just go easy on the tennis court.’ Slowly, he pulls away and turns to the rest of the group, putting his hand in his pocket. ‘Anyone like another drink?’

I look at my glass. ‘I’ll have another wine, please. Would you like me to come and help you with them?’

‘No, it’s fine,’ he says, heading to the bar.

I engage in small talk with the rest of the group while he’s away, but struggle to hide my impatience for his return. Finally, as he makes his way back, I sense someone else’s presence and when I look up, realise it’s Tom.

‘You can’t sit there!’ I hiss.

‘I thought you might want to grill me about the pitch tomorrow,’ he shrugs.

He’s right. I really
ought
to grill him about the pitch tomorrow. After all, he works for the firm of architects I’ll be sitting in front of, trying to persuade them to do business with me. Whether it’s a small contract or not, it’d still be a good one to win.

‘That’s a great idea,’ I tell him, my eyes darting to Oliver as he goes to chat to Jess on the other side of the table. ‘So, what can you tell me that might help?’

‘Do you really call him Doctor Dishy?’

I narrow my eyes suspiciously. ‘How on earth do you know that?’

‘You said so.’

‘Oh.’ I get a vague sense that this might come back to haunt me when I’m sober, but the sensation is no more than a fleeting one. ‘Well, I . . . yes.’

‘You fancy him then?’ he asks.

‘He’s a very attractive man, that’s all I’ll say,’ I reply stiffly. ‘And he’s intelligent. Caring too – he must be if he’s a doctor.’

‘So . . . yes?’

‘What if I do?’

‘Nothing,’ he shrugs. ‘I’m just surprised. I never thought you’d go for someone like him.’

I frown. ‘Look, you came over here to brief me about the pitch. Who am I up against?’

‘I can’t tell you that,’ he replies.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’d be unprofessional,’ he says.

Oh. ‘So should I be worried?’

‘Well, I’ve seen some of the websites your company has produced and I don’t think there’s any doubt about your quality.’

I grin, satisfied.

‘But you’ve still got to do a good pitch.’

‘Of course,’ I say, waving my hand and wanting to return to more pressing matters. ‘What do you mean,
someone like him
?’ I whisper.

‘I don’t mean anything,’ he replies. ‘Look, don’t get me wrong. I like Oliver. I’m just not sure I’d want to be his girlfriend.’

‘Well, fortunately for you,’ I say acidly, ‘I don’t think he goes for brunettes.’

When I wake the next morning it is with a nagging feeling that something’s wrong. That something’s gone wrong. Or maybe I’ve said something wrong or done something or . . .

Oh, shit!

The scene is replayed again and again, becoming increasingly vivid and unpleasant, like a car crash in a public information advert.

‘Did you know we call you Doctor Dishy?’

I can’t have said that. I
can’t
have.

By the fifteenth replay, it’s in slow motion, my words distorted in a hideous Darth Vader-esque drawl. Falling out of bed, I scramble to the hall on my hands and knees, grabbing the phone.

‘Jess!’ I grunt as she picks up.

‘Happy Birthday.’

‘Tell me I didn’t tell him,’ I plead. ‘Tell me, Jess. I
beg
of you.’

She is silent for a second. ‘I take it you’re talking about Oliver?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the fact that you told him . . .’

‘Oh nooo! I did tell him. I bloody well
did
tell him.’

‘If it’s any consolation, he looked pleased,’ she says.

I lie on the floor and look up at my ceiling rose. ‘No, Jess. It isn’t.’

Eventually, she asks: ‘Where are you, by the way?’

I frown. ‘At home, why?’

‘It’s not like you not to be at the office by now.’

I look at the clock, which says 10.16 a.m., and gasp, further destabilising my already horrific physical condition. I am violently hungover – and stupidly late. I’d intended to spend the first hour and a half of the morning going through the presentation I’m delivering to Tom’s company later, but that idea’s out of the window now.

Instead, I race to my first appointment, with a client on the edge of the city centre.

After I’m finished, I head to work and am two minutes away when I take a phone call from Priya demanding to know my whereabouts. She has some extremely pressing business to discuss, apparently – which would worry me from anyone but Priya, who has a tendency to summon high-level conferences regarding the state of the spider plants.

Instead, as I enter the office, I am torpedoed on the nose by something I realise only half a second later is a party popper.

‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Oops, sorry, Abby,’ says Priya. ‘That was a misfire.’

When I’ve got my bearings, I realise that the office has been decorated. Actually, that doesn’t do it justice. Our broom cupboard of a workspace has been adorned with about the amount of paraphernalia required to deck out a marquee for one of Elton John’s dos. There are balloons, streamers, banners, the lot. It’s quite overwhelming. I feel a lump in my throat.

‘Blimey, you lot.’ My voice wobbles. ‘You didn’t need to.’

‘It’s all Priya’s doing,’ says Hunky Matt.

‘You’ve gone to so much trouble.’ I am bowled over.

‘Not really,’ she shrugs. ‘You know my cousin Jez works at Cost-Cuts?’

I frown. ‘Er no, I didn’t, but—’

‘Well, they couldn’t shift this lot, so I got it all for one pound fifty.’

‘One pound fifty?’ I repeat.

‘We all clubbed together,’ she announces gaily.

I rather wish she hadn’t revealed that last bit. Still, it’s the thought that counts. And the thought’s
lovely
. I walk to my desk and take a look at the special birthday balloon tied to the mouse on my keyboard. It is a riot of colour, adorned with garlands of curly green ribbon and takes me right back to my childhood. Then I narrow my eyes and read the words on the side. It says
Happy Bar Mitzvah
.

By lunchtime, my hangover is starting to subside, even though I’ve been literally snowed under with work. On another positive note, I have two responses to my fundraising emails – one from my Aunt Steph in Australia, the other from James Ashton, the boss of a construction firm I targeted ages ago. They couldn’t be more different in style.

James Ashton’s is rather more formal.

Well, thank God. Since I decided to send out my standard fundraising email to a ton of extra contacts, I’ve had a few genuinely promising responses. Okay, the donations so far have come in a trickle, not the flood I was hoping for, but at least that’s something. The email from James Ashton, however, makes me feel particularly excited.

Because while there’s been a fair amount of interest from individuals, what I’m still missing is a big company to sponsor me. A firm that will give a massive boost to my total so far. James Ashton’s company could do it, especially if he’s got a personal reason to support the cause. What a bugger he can’t see me for so long though.

I pick up the phone and get through to his PA, who offers me an appointment in early December.

‘I don’t suppose there’s anything sooner?’ I ask. ‘It doesn’t need to be lunch – twenty minutes or so would do. I can be very quick.’

‘Funnily enough, his eleven-thirty today has just cancelled – he was supposed to be meeting him on site. So if you can make it then . . .’

‘Yes,’ I say before she can finish her sentence. ‘I’ll be there.’

As I put the phone down I briefly wonder if I’ve been hasty. Between my late start and this, I still haven’t gone through my presentation to Caro & Co. – Tom’s company. I shake the thought from my head. I’ve conducted so many pitches identical to the one I’ll be doing for them, I could do it in my sleep. It’s not something I’d usually do, of course – but I’m certain I’ll get away with it. And the opportunity with James Ashton, on the other hand, is too good to miss.

I’ve never frequented the Garden of Eat’n café before and hell would have to experience a cataclysmic cold spell before I was dragged back.

I perch on a sticky chair, sipping tea the shade of a urine sample, as sour-smelling grease permeates the air so thickly that even breathing is difficult. The menu consists of a limited selection of trotter-laden meat products, deep fried in what I suspect is the same fat that was installed in its pan when they first fitted the kitchen.

My fellow diners and I are regularly assaulted by a lardy cloud of black smoke billowing ominously from a set of double doors. This is accompanied by a symphony of four-letter words whose source – a large and uncommonly grubby chef – emerges every couple of minutes with his culinary delights, most of which are swimming in so much oil they almost qualify as soup.

If other customers are unimpressed, they don’t show it. The place is doing a roaring trade courtesy of the building site next door – although the waitress’s inexperience in silver service is apparent each time she chucks down a plate and slaps a customer round the head if they dare ask for ketchup.

James Ashton arrives twenty minutes late wearing a suit and hard-hat and instructs Chantelle – the waitress – to bring ‘his usual’.

Five minutes later, just as the meeting has taken a turn for the better – and he agrees to cough up a thousand pounds – it immediately takes a turn for the worse.

I can almost see James’s large plate of deep-fried heart attack landing squarely in my lap before Chantelle’s well-practised chuck goes awry. I can see the food sliding off the dish in an elaborate waterfall of gristle – and feel the hot, putrid oil seeping into the material of my Karen Millen skirt.

In the split second before it happens I can see it all – but there’s not a thing I can do to stop it. And when Chantelle conjures up a mouldy dishcloth which she then uses to scrub strenuously at my skirt in an attempt to make amends, I also know that – with twenty minutes before I’m due at Caro & Co. – I need to think quick.

‘Abby Rogers, to see David Caro,’ I tell the receptionist. She’s in her late fifties, with hair the colour of Cherryade and lipstick like wet Dulux.

‘For the website presentation?’ she smiles, then she scrunches up her nose. ‘Oooh, what’s that funny smell?’

I reposition my bag over my skirt. ‘No idea,’ I reply.

Okay, so the quick-thinking failed. I raced over here, my mind whirring with possible solutions to the fact that the entire front of my skirt is now soaked with foul-smelling sausage grease, but came up with precisely none. At least none that seemed satisfactory. Instead, I’m having to shuffle round gripping my bag firmly in front of the offending patch – and hoping that the team of people to whom I’m about to present all have blocked noses.