MILLIE'S FLING (29 page)

Hugh looked at the
Yellow Pages
, lying open at F for florists. He couldn’t decide whether sending Millie flowers would be a good thing to do or a bad thing.

Would it make matters better? Or worse?

The next morning as Millie emerged from the shower her dearest fantasy came true. Hearing activity outside, she wrapped an orange towel around herself and peered out of the bedroom window. A florist's van was double-parked in the street below.

As she watched, Millie saw a young skinny lad leap out of the driver's seat, lope round to the back of the van, pull open the doors, and lift out the most stunning basket of flowers she’d ever seen in her life. As her heart began to race, the young lad double-checked the address on the delivery slip and made straight for her front door.

Oh yes, yes, yes, thank you God, thank you, thought Millie, galloping joyfully downstairs. It was actually happening, which in her experience was an unusual thing for fantasies to do. But never mind, who cared, because Hugh had come to his senses and realized he hadn’t meant all those awful hurtful things he’d said, hooray, hooray, oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful dayyy—

Urrgh.

Unless the flowers were for Hester.

In which case, it would go back to being a decidedly un-beautiful day.

Orange towel firmly in place and heart equally firmly in mouth, Millie opened the front door.

The young boy peered at her through the jungle of blooms.

‘Millie Brady?’

YES, YES, YES!!!

‘That's me,’ said Millie, only just managing to stop herself leaping three feet off the ground and punching the air with glee.

‘Delivery for you.’

‘Really?’ Millie limited herself to a modest smile. ‘For
me
? Gosh, I wonder who they could be from?’

Oh well, it never did any harm to give the impression you were awash with fervent admirers.

‘Dunno. Card's in the basket.’ Bored, the boy shoved the massive arrangement into Millie's arms. ‘Try opening it and you might find out.’

He was probably jealous because nobody ever sent him flowers, Millie decided. Endlessly having to deliver them to other people and never getting any himself had caused him to become bitter and twisted.

Still, he wasn’t going to spoil
her
day. Nothing could do that, not now. Because Hugh had decided he loved her after all and he was begging her forgiveness, tra-la. Everything was going to be all right, diddly-dee, in fact from now on the entire rest of her life was going to be
perfect
.

Millie lowered the basket carefully on to the kitchen table— crikey, it was almost as
big
as the table—and rooted around until she found, in its midst, the all-important white envelope attached to a plastic prong.

Emerging from the undergrowth with her prize—and pollen all over her nose—Millie tore open the envelope and pulled out the card:

Dear Millie
,

I’m so sorry, my behavior on Saturday night was appalling. I do hope you can forgive me.

Richard.

Millie frowned. She turned the card over, found nothing on the other side, then turned it back again.

It
still
said Richard.

Right message, wrong name. Surely there was some mistake here? The flowers had to be from Hugh, they
had
to be. After all, he was the one she’d slept with on Saturday night, not Richard-the-gardener. Richard-the-gardener didn’t even know where she lived, for pity's sake.

Unless of course…

‘DARLING, HI, HOW
ARE
you? More thrilling news to report? Hang on, let me just grab a pen… okay, got one… right, fire away!’

‘Orla.’ Gripping the phone, Millie kept her voice even. ‘Has anyone asked you for my address?’

‘Hmm, darling?’

‘I’ve been sent some flowers.’

‘Really? Oh, that's fantastic! Gosh, that was quick.’ Orla laughed. ‘Poor boy, he turned up here this morning absolutely mortified… I’ve never seen anyone look so sheepish. He even groveled and apologized to me!’

‘Richard-the-gardener?’ Millie couldn’t help it, she had to be six hundred percent sure.

‘Well of course Richard-the-gardener, silly! Bless his cotton socks, he's the clean-living type, not used to drinking at all. After a few glasses of wine, he was up, up, and away, and from then on there was just no stopping him. All his inhibitions went for a burton—I told him that was what parties were all about!’ Orla laughed and paused in mid-flow to light a cigarette. ‘But of course when the poor lamb woke up yesterday morning and realized what he’d done he was absolutely mortified.’

Join the club, thought Millie. In fact, the club membership was expanding by the minute.

‘He can’t believe he behaved so dreadfully,’ Orla gabbled on merrily, ‘although I promised him he hadn’t done anything
dreadful as far as we were concerned. But he said he’d grabbed you and mauled you like an animal and he’d never been so ashamed in his life, he couldn’t imagine what you must think of him now.’

‘Did you tell him I thought he kissed like an Aquavac?’

‘Of course not! Heavens, the poor boy might have committed hara-kiri in my kitchen with his pruning shears. Anyway, the point is, he doesn’t
really
kiss like an Aquavac, it was only like that on Saturday night because he was so incredibly drunk. I bet he kisses perfectly normally when he's sober.’

‘In that case,’ said Millie, ‘why don’t you give him a try?’

‘Heavens, I’m miles too old for him—he doesn’t want a wrinkled old geriatric like me! Anyway, you’re the one he's mad about.’ Orla was sounding pleased with herself. ‘He told me so this morning— although of course I already knew that.’

Millie blinked.

‘How?’

‘Darling, it's my job to know these things! And guess what?’

‘What?’ Millie was beginning to feel like a parrot.

‘He's going to phone you up and ask you out to dinner!’

Never mind pleased with herself, thought Millie. Orla was, by this time, sounding positively gleeful.

In fact, she was fizzing with glee. Like Alka Seltzers dropped into a glass of water.

Millie said faintly, ‘He doesn’t have to do that. Really, one slobbery kiss, that's all it was. I forgive him, I promise.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Orla chided, ‘that's not why he's doing it. He's wooing you, sweetie. Wooing you!’

Deeply suspicious, Millie said, ‘Was this your idea?’

‘No it was not.’ Orla sounded shocked. ‘That would be cheating. Inviting certain people to my party is one thing, but ordering them about and telling them what to do next… absolutely not. I’m not Machiavelli, darling!’

Except she was, in a way, Millie thought later as she made her way across town to Lucas's house. Because thanks to the five thousand pounds Orla had paid her, she hadn’t felt able to tell Orla that she had absolutely no intention of going out on a date with Richard-the-gardener.

‘There's no point,’ she’d protested feebly, ‘it won’t come to anything.’

But Orla had said, ‘Oh come on, darling, you don’t know that for sure. You hardly know him for a start! At least give the poor fellow the benefit of the doubt.’ Her eyes sparkling with mischief, she had added, ‘If nothing else, it’ll keep Con on his toes. Might even make him the teensiest bit jealous.’

So, reluctantly, Millie had found herself going along with it. When Richard phoned her she would be perfectly lovely and charming and when he invited her out to dinner she would agree to go.

Because, for five thousand pounds, basically, it was the least she could do.

Anyway, one date, that was all they were talking about here. It wasn’t as if Orla was expecting her to bear his children.

Crikey, thought Millie, at least I hope not.

‘Hang on a second,’ Lucas complained when Millie had finished bringing him up to date on the Hester-front. ‘I don’t seem to be able to do anything right, here. There I was, thinking I was being Mr. Totally Heroic, doing the decent thing for once in my life, and now here you are, getting all het up and giving me grief about it!’

‘I’m not giving you grief, I’m just saying you hurt her feelings,’ Millie argued. ‘And now I’ve got a flatmate to contend with who's convinced she's about as sexually attractive as a polecat.’

Sighing, Lucas leaned across the desk to check the bookings diary. ‘Fine. So next time a naked girl throws herself at me, I’ll just give her one. No more Mr. Nice Guy for me.’

‘You’ve never been nice in your life,’ Millie protested as he flicked through the pages.

‘Hester's got a boyfriend. That's why I turned her down. How can you say I’m not nice?’

‘Yes, well, he's probably going to dump her anyway. And it's all your fault.’

Lucas laughed. ‘How?’

‘If you hadn’t turned Hester down on Saturday night, she wouldn’t have drunk herself into oblivion and spent the night asleep in Orla's garden. Ten minutes with you, that's all it would have taken. Then she’d have been safely back home by the time Nat knocked on our front door.’

‘Ten minutes? Thanks a lot,’ said Lucas dryly. ‘Anyway, you don’t mean that.’

‘Oh, I don’t know what I mean anymore.’ Exasperated, Millie shook her head. ‘I’m just saying it's no fun at all. Having to share a house with a moping, sniveling wreck. Anyway, forget it, let's change the subject. What's this new booking you’ve got for me?’

‘Thursday night, nine o’clock at the Castle Hotel in Truro. Name of Drew.’ Lucas consulted his diary. ‘The wife booked it. You’re there to surprise her husband while they’re having dinner in the hotel restaurant. Here's the poem she wants you to recite.’ He handed her the fax that had been paper-clipped to the page in the diary. ‘It's their anniversary apparently.’

Millie glanced at the poem—typical slush-bucket stuff about loving each other till the end of time, I’ll be yours and you’ll be mine, etc., etc. Nauseating of course, but easy enough to learn.

Oh dear, maybe I only think it's nauseating because I don’t have a man of my own. Nobody loves me so I’ve become all sour and cynical.

Folding up the sheet of paper and stuffing it into her jeans pocket, Millie turned to leave.

‘Oh, one other thing before you go,’ said Lucas.

‘What?’

‘That question you asked me the other day. Remember, about being able to tell when people fancy you?’

Of course she remembered.

‘Sort of.’ Millie shrugged. ‘So?’

‘Your new friend.’ Lucas gave her a knowing wink. ‘The one you were with at the party on Saturday night. Con Deveraux.’

Mystified, Millie said, ‘What about him?’

‘Just thought you might like to know. He definitely fancied me.’

Sylvia Fleetwood's lips pursed like a cat's bottom when the door to the travel agency clanged open at twenty-nine minutes past five. She and Tim had some supermarket shopping to pick up on the way home from work. Tonight they had decided on salmon fillets poached with dill and new potatoes with baby broad beans, and there was nothing more annoying than being held up at work then discovering when you arrived at the supermarket that they’d sold out of salmon.

‘You deal with it,’ Sylvia told her husband, loudly enough for the customer to hear—honestly, some people were
so
inconsiderate. ‘I’ll start locking up. We don’t want to be late, do we?’

‘Sorry, hello, don’t worry about the time.’ Recognizing the customer, Tim Fleetwood flapped an apologetic arm in the direction of one of the chairs. ‘Sit down, take as long as you like. How are you anyway? Looking very well, I must say.’

‘You’re too kind,’ declared Adele, arranging herself on the chair and smiling vivaciously at the compliment because she knew it was true; she’d spent the entire afternoon being pampered in Deluxe, Newquay's premier beauty salon. ‘But I need a holiday.’ Leaning forward, she confided, ‘Not to mention your expert guidance. I want you to tell me everything you know about Tuscany!’

Tim Fleetwood rubbed his hands together in delight; this was the kind of request he most enjoyed. For twenty years he’d been besotted with Tuscany, which had to rate as his all-time favorite holiday destination. Even if, these days, they tended to venture further afield because this was what Sylvia preferred.

‘Ah ha, well now, you’ve come to the right place.’ Swiveling round, breathing in the scent of Adele Brady's exotic perfume, he sifted through the rows of brochures on the shelves behind him. ‘Let me show you this one… and this one… and these three…’

At the door, carrying her bag and ostentatiously jangling her keys, Sylvia said, ‘We really mustn’t be late, darling. Remember, squash court's booked for seven-thirty.’

‘Oh look, I’m being a nuisance, I can tell!’ Adele exclaimed. ‘Why don’t I take these brochures home with me and pop back tomorrow?’

‘No, no, no need for that.’ Bravely, Tim adjusted his spectacles, glanced across at his wife and said, ‘Why don’t you pick up whatever we need from the supermarket while I finish up here. I’ll be home by half past six.’

By this time Sylvia's whole face was pursed. She recognized the client now, from her previous visit to the shop.

‘Surely you don’t need a whole hour.’ What are you planning to do, for God's sake? Have sex with her?

‘Not for this.’ Tim tapped the brochures on the desk. ‘But there is something else I need to arrange.’ He smiled across at his twitching wife and hinted, ‘Something to do with a birthday…?’

Short of dragging him out by his thinning sandy hair, Sylvia realized there was nothing more she could do.

Well, almost nothing.

‘Fine, then.’ She deliberately didn’t look at Millie Brady's done-up mother. ‘Just so long as you weren’t planning on getting me one of those ghastly, common singing-telegram affairs.’