‘No kids. A boyfriend but it’s pretty new. Seems to be going all right so far.’
Angie raised an eyebrow, but Hope wasn’t up for sharing much more. She had met Daniel at a reception that she had been invited to in York for a breast cancer charity that she was involved with. She had noticed him, buzzing about the place looking purposeful and possibly a little stressed, and she had concluded that he must be something to do with the organisation of the event, rather than a guest.
It turned out that his restaurant had provided the canapés, which were actually a cut above the cardboard offerings she was usually served. Their paths had crossed when he caught her shoulder with the edge of a tray of goat’s cheese tarts and sent them sliding down the front of her flame orange Carolina Herrera dress. The dress was borrowed and insured, but the look on his face had been priceless.
‘Oh my God! I’m so sorry. Here, let me . . .’ But he was at a loss to know what to do. He could hardly start fishing the tarts out of her cleavage.
She’d enjoyed watching him panic for a moment or two and then she began to laugh. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘These things happen, and I was just thinking that I might head off home anyway.’
‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘Well, you must give me your contact details so that I can pay for the cleaning of the dress.’
Hope looked down at the grease-stained silk. A blob of goat’s cheese was sliding majestically down her hips.
‘I think the dress is beyond saving,’ she replied wryly.
‘Shit,’ he said, and for a moment she’d thought he might actually cry. ‘This is the first one of these events that we’ve been asked to do, and I really need it to go well.’
‘The food was delicious,’ Hope had said, putting a finger down her dress to retrieve a tiny square of sun-dried red pepper and popping it into her mouth provocatively.
For a moment, he seemed to forget about the crisis as he watched her, but then the full enormity of the disaster he had created returned to him. He ran his hands through his hair. He was quite good-looking, Hope thought.
‘Oh shit,’ he said again. People had started to notice what had befallen her and were beginning to point.
‘Look, I’ll go to the ladies’ and clear up the worst of it. You go and retrieve my coat from the cloakroom, and I’ll meet you in reception.’ She opened her purse and fished out the cloakroom token. ‘My name is Hope Maxwell, in case they wonder why you’re retrieving my stuff. You can tell them that I sent you. They know who I am.’
He hadn’t questioned this but scampered off in the direction of the door. Hope thrust her shoulders back and used her best catwalk strut to carry her to the ladies’。 The whole incident struck her as funny, really, and it would get her out of having to chat to any more dignitaries, which was almost a blessing.
The next day, the most enormous bouquet of flowers had turned up at her agent’s offices. Carrie rang her in great excitement.
‘Who is Daniel the Clumsy? Whoever he is, he appears to be very sorry!’
There was a phone number on the card and so Hope had rung him, more to reassure him once again that no harm had been done, and from that there had been dinner and now a relationship of sorts. But she kept all this to herself. Angie was lovely, but Hope wasn’t the kind of person who overshared.
Angie, however, was. She kept Hope entertained with endless stories about the things that her daughter did and said. Usually that kind of detail annoyed Hope – was there anything more boring than listening to other people talking about their children? – but Angie managed to make her tales self-effacing and highly amusing. It got so that Hope almost felt as if she knew Romany, even though she had never met the girl. And Hope was nearly tempted to go and try one of Angie’s outlandish treatments, having heard so much about them over the weeks. Nearly . . . but not quite.
31
2016
Maggie could hardly believe it. It was thirty years since she, Angie and Leon had started at university. Well, thirty years and about six months to be precise, but with everything that had been happening she had missed the actual anniversary. Where had the time gone? It was such a cliché, but it really did feel like it had just been yesterday when she turned up in York, full of hope and ambition. The world had been her oyster back then, and she had believed that she could do whatever she set her mind to.
And until that point, it had been true. Whatever Maggie Summers had decided should happen, happened. It was as if she had a hotline to whoever was in control of the universe. Maggie Summers wants to go to university to read law. Tick. Maggie Summers wants to be a solicitor with a prestigious firm of solicitors. Tick. Maggie Summers wants to be made a partner. Tick. The list had gone on and on. Until everything changed.