The Love of Her Life

by Harriet Evans

  Oscar grabbed her hands, and brought them in front of him. Kate watched them, torn between slight embarrassment and real affection, and feeling something inside her, a voice that wouldn’t go away now.

  ‘I have a present for you, Venetia darling,’ he said, solemnly. ‘Kate, you too. Wait there.’

  And he vanished down the long parquet-floored corridor towards their bedroom. Kate stood next to her mother, rather excited – what was it?

  He reappeared a minute later, carrying two little bags.

  ‘Tiffany?’ said Venetia. ‘Oh, Oscar, no …’

  Kate looked at the pale-blue confection being held out to her. ‘Oscar. Wow,’ she said, taking it and opening it up to find a little box, wrapped in white ribbon. She opened it, feeling almost nervous.

  Nestling in the white silk padding was a chain and a pendant. A platinum chain, with a heart-shaped pendant, covered in diamonds, a tiny thing that bulged and glittered in the light from the lamp.

  ‘Oscar!’ Kate cried. ‘Oh my god. You shouldn’t have!’ She looked up, to find her stepfather watching her, a curious expression of sadness mixed with – what was it? Love? Kindness? Emotion? All those things were written on his face. She hugged him.

  ‘I love you Kate,’ he said, his voice choking with emotion. ‘Dear girl, thank you for coming back for the party.’

  ‘Of course I would –’

  He gripped her arm. ‘I know what it cost you,’ he said.

  He shook his head, forbidding her from further speech. ‘You were right to come back, but I know what it cost you. I love you –’ he added, as Venetia, who had been having considerable trouble with her box, managed to get it open to reveal a diamond tennis bracelet, dotted with hearts, and the screams of joy that greeted the unveiling of this present could, as Mrs Cohen said to Mr Cohen, on the floor below, be heard all the way in Hackensack, and what could they ever do about it? Sweet girl, Venetia, but boy, was she loud.

  So from mid-afternoon onwards a stream of caterers, waiters and servers flowed in and out of the apartment, setting up the buffet, building ice-sculptures, arranging flowers and moving furniture, so that the vast living room was split into two, with the piano and room for a little dancing at one end, and chairs at the other end for people to sit and eat.

  Kate’s mother, though she loved to pretend to be a drama queen, was in fact intensely practical in many ways; it amused Kate, the co-dependency she and Oscar imposed on each other, each behaving to type around the other but actually more than capable of finding the salad cream and booking a doctor’s appointment (Oscar) and booking a car and filing tax returns (Venetia).

  So, actually, at seven o’clock Venetia and Oscar were ready for their guests, who were due to arrive from seven-thirty, the caterers had left but the waiters had remained, the sun was starting to set over the park, fiercely red, flooding the last light of the day into the big airy room, and only Kate was missing.

  Because Kate was in her room, staring at her phone. One side of her hair was pinned back, the other side hung like a curtain across her face. She was in her dress, but her feet were bare, and her room was littered with makeup, shoes, clothes, half unpacked, half still in bags and boxes. She pressed ‘121’ again, and listened to the message, barely able to understand what she was hearing.

  ‘Hello, Kate. It’s Geraldine Garley, from Prince’s? The estate agents? We met on Friday? I just wanted to let you know we showed the flat today, to a gentleman, and I think we may have a tenant, Kate. He can move in on Monday!’

  Kate had listened to the message four times already. She liked this next part.

  ‘I must say, I’ve never dealt with such a speedy let, in all my years here. Well …’ (There was some hilarity in the background of the message; the sound of her colleagues laughing.) ‘I’ve only been here eighteen months you know. But … still, it’s incredibly fast.’

  Then there was some rustling of paper; Kate held her breath again, even though she knew the ending.

  ‘A doctor, actually, he says he knows you. Kate, isn’t it a small world? Doctor Mac Hamilton, his name is. Anyway, he said he’d already seen it the previous week? I didn’t know you were showing it before then, Ms Miller. He wants it from Monday, and that’s why I had to let you know … Um …’ (she cleared her throat, a degree of perplexity in her voice) ‘And … he specifically asked that I ring you and tell you something – he said he knew you? OK. He said he had to see it again to realize he didn’t want to let it slip through his fingers. He said it doesn’t need fixing, that it’s perfect as it is. Well, so I should hope so. There’s one more thing, what else did he say? Hold on …’ (more rustling of paper) ‘Hold on a second. I wrote it down. Right, he said … “Tell her I’d be happy to take her out for dinner to discuss it.”’ There was a pause. ‘Oh. I don’t get that part! I hope he still wants the flat. Nigel, where have you put the –’

  The doorbell buzzed, as Kate jumped, and the phone fell out of her hand. The first guests had arrived.

  ‘Kate, dear?’ Oscar called. ‘Are you coming? What are you doing in there?’

  And Kate stared around the room. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, in blind panic. ‘I’m an idiot. I don’t know.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Five months later

  Autumn came, after a terrible, wet summer, and surprised everyone by arriving with a beautiful, gentle September. Kate was always annoyed by people who claimed, with the air of one who is a little bit original, to ‘love’ autumn, who said it was their favourite season. What rubbish, she always thought. It wasn’t just that it started getting darker at night – what’s good about that? It was that it rained. It was slippery. Leaves fell everywhere, and made everything more slippery. It was impossible to dress, because one spent the whole time longing to don one’s new autumnal clothing, usually involving brown or grey knitwear of some description, and when one did, one stepped outside for the day to discover that it was, actually, twenty-three degrees.

  Kate wrote as much, in her column that last week of September, and as she gazed out of the window, towards the just-setting-sun, she chewed her pen (which she hated herself for, it was a disgusting habit, and she’d once got a splinter of biro caught in her throat and nearly choked) and pressed Save. The weather was changing today, definitely, she thought. Summer was definitely, finally over. It was nearly October.

  She didn’t want to be late. She looked at her watch: six o’clock. Pushing herself up and away from her desk, she stood up, and stretched, yawning loudly. She went into her bathroom, which still had the smell of fresh wallpaper. At Zoe’s insistence, she’d had the bathroom wallpapered, in this gorgeous black and white, Swedish cartoony design she’d seen in a hotel in New York. It was waterproof, and she loved it. She’d had Hollywood star lights put up around the mirror, and she switched them on, slapping her face and looking critically in the illuminated mirror. She looked back at herself, and smiled, though part of her still thought that growing out her fringe was a mistake. At least it was getting to the stage where she could get away with an insouciant, jewelled clip effect.

  With surprising speed Kate put on some powder, some mascara and some lipgloss, and then pulled on her little black cropped linen jacket, which was her summer/autumn jacket/coat dilemma salvation (she’d written about that the week before in her column, and was still going through the emails from readers about where they could buy it and what to do when it got colder). She wound her scarf around her neck and, shutting the door lightly, paused at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Night, Mr Allan!’ she called up.

  The door opened, after a few seconds.

  ‘Have a lovely evening, Kate,’ came a faint, warm voice. ‘I heard the yawn, thought you must be about to go out. Do enjoy it. Let me know, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll be up tomorrow morning for coffee. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘What are you listening to?’

  ‘Miles Davis. Miles Davi
s, you ignorant girl. Goodbye.’

  ‘Bye!’

  The door closed, and she ran down the stairs.

  The air was rich with rain and wet leaves as Kate came outside. She smelt woodsmoke, drifting on the evening air from the gardens down the road. People were hurrying out of Maida Vale Tube station as she crossed the road and ran inside, glad of the warmth of the usually-stuffy Underground. Well, she thought to herself, autumn really is here if I’m glad that the Tube’s warm. It’s the sign.

  She sat down on the train and pulled open her book. Her mother had just sent her The Talented Mr Ripley, which she’d never read before, and she was enjoying it with the sort of addictiveness you usually get with chocolates or, in Kate’s case, Marmite. The train was quiet, going the wrong way back into town. When they got to Marylebone, someone skidded on a free evening newspaper lying on the ground; he paused, in mid-air, waving his arms, and then reached out to grab the pole next to Kate; she reared back in alarm, holding out a hand to stop him falling. He steadied himself, and smiled at her, embarrassed, and she smiled back at him, embarrassed that they had almost had contact, that he had almost looked foolish. But other than that it was quiet, almost soporific, and Kate’s eyes closed just a little.

  She was tired. She had babysat Harry and Flora the night before, while Zoe and Diggory went out to dinner for his birthday. She was still recovering. Last week she’d babysat while they went to the final Prince concert at the O2 centre. The children had been exhausted from a big afternoon at the park and they’d fallen asleep right away. Last night, however, had been a nightmare of getting up, going back to bed, bad dreams, arguments, bargaining, and recriminations (on Kate’s part, in her head). She thought, resentfully, that the sooner Diggory moved in with Zoe and they stopped having to go out on dates the better. Francesca always got out of babysitting, because of her long hours. Mac seemed to want to, the crazy man, but then he was their uncle, and his working hours meant often he couldn’t. Kate got stuck with it more than she wanted and she moaned vociferously about it to Zoe. But really, she couldn’t have loved it more.

  She was remembering the rhyme Flora had been chanting the night before, the pattacake pattacake one, and it chimed exactly with the rhythm of the quiet carriage, and she might easily have missed her stop had her book not fallen into her lap and roused her with a start. She hopped off the train, her heart beating fast.

  Tickets to Much Ado about Nothing had been sold out ever since they’d announced who’d be in it: a famous Hollywood star, who’d never acted in the West End before, but the reviews were amazing, and people genuinely said she was pulling off the part of Beatrice, that the chemistry between her and the grizzled, experienced RSC actor doing Benedick was so amazing it had to be seen to be believed. Kate couldn’t wait. It was her favourite play. She got off the Tube a stop early at Oxford Circus, and walked through town, past Liberty’s, through Soho Square, stopping to look in the windows of shops, smiling at the hardy drinkers still out on the pavements. She walked fast, weaving in and out of the throngs, avoiding eye contact, hugging herself against the now-chilly evening, enjoying being out, being bumped by people, living here, walking towards the theatre, towards him …

  Down the side alley, before Great Windmill Street, was the theatre, and there, waiting for her, like she knew he would be, was Mac. He was holding two programmes.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, her heart beating even faster. She kissed him, as he slid a hand around her back, pulling her towards him.

  ‘I got two programmes, you see,’ he said stepping back.

  ‘After the programme debacle of the Open Air Theatre date, I thought I’d better not risk it.’

  ‘You’re learning all the time,’ she said. ‘I missed you.’

  He wrapped both his arms around her. ‘I missed you too,’ he said, and kissed her again. ‘How was your day? Did you get the column done?’

  ‘Nearly,’ she said. She took his hand. ‘I’ve got tomorrow as well. How was yours. Did you do that craneotomy?’

  ‘Tracheotomy. Stop watching Grey’s Anatomy,’ Mac said, grinning. He scratched the side of his face, and touched his knuckles lightly against her cheek. ‘Where are we going afterwards?’

  ‘Back to mine?’ she said.

  ‘I meant for food, but back to yours is fine,’ he said, fishing in his pocket. ‘Although Francesca says to tell you, she’s away all weekend. Oh, and my room needs serious vacuuming.’

  ‘Why does she think I’d want to know about that?’ Kate said, sternly. ‘Isn’t the vacuuming your problem?’

  ‘Two separate points,’ said Mac, hurriedly. ‘Very separate. She’s away all weekend. First point. Second point, I need to hoover.’

  ‘Great,’ said Kate. ‘So you’re coming home with me tonight. And I’ll come over on Friday evening, and you’ll have hoovered.’

  ‘I can guarantee it.’ He smiled at her; she smiled at him, they looked at each other for a long, long time.

  ‘Let’s go in,’ he said eventually. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Kate said. ‘I’m ready.’

  If you enjoyed

  the Love of her life

  you’ll love Harriet Evans’ bestselling novel,

  a hopeless romantic

  Read an extract now …

  CHAPTER ONE

  Laura Foster was a hopeless romantic. Her best friend Jo said it was her greatest flaw, and at the same time her most endearing trait, because it was the thing that most frequently got her into trouble, and yet falling in love was like a drug to her. Having a crush, daydreaming about someone, feeling her heart race faster when she saw a certain man walk towards her – she thrived on all of it, and was disastrously, helplessly, hopelessly incapable of seeing when it was wrong. Everyone has a blind spot. With Laura, it was as if she had a blind heart.

  Anyone with a less romantic upbringing would be hard to find. She wasn’t a runaway nun, or the daughter of an Italian count, or a mysterious orphan. She was the daughter of George and Angela Foster, of Harrow, in the suburbs of London. She had one younger brother, Simon, who was perfectly normal, not a secret duke, nor a spy, nor a soldier. George was a computer engineer, and Angela was a part-time translator. As Jo once said to her, about a year after they met at university, ‘Laura, why do you go around pretending to be Julie Andrews, when you’re actually Hyacinth Bucket?’

  But Laura never stopped reality getting in the way of fantasy. By the time she was eighteen she had fallen for: a runny-nosed, milk-bottle-glasses-wearing primary-school outcast called Kevin (in her mind Indiana Jones, with specs); her oboe teacher Mr Wallace, a thin, spotty youth, over whom she developed a raging obsession and calluses on her oboe-playing fingers, so ferociously did she practise (she would stand outside his flat in Camden in the hope she might see him; she wore a locket which contained a bus ticket he’d dropped around her neck); and about fifteen different boys at the boys’ school around the corner from hers in Harrow.

  When she went to university, the scope was even greater, the potential for romance limitless. She wasn’t interested in a random pull at a club. No, Laura wanted someone to stand underneath her window and recite poetry to her. She was almost always disappointed. There was Gideon, the budding theatre director who hadn’t quite come out of the closet. Juan, the Colombian student who spoke no English. Or the rowing captain who was much more obsessed with the tracking machine at the gym than her. Her dentist, who charged her far too much and then made her pay for dinner. And the lecturer in her humanities seminar who she never spoke to, and who didn’t know her name, who she wasted two terms staring at in a heartfelt manner.

  For all of these Laura followed the same pattern. She went off her food; she mooned around; she was acutely conscious of where they were in any room, thought she saw them around every corner – was that the back of his curly head going into the newsagent’s? She became a big, dumb idiot whenever any of them spoke to her, so fairly often they walked away, bemused that this nice girl with dark
blonde hair, a sweet smile and a dirty laugh who seemed to like them was suddenly behaving like a nun in a shopping centre, eyes downcast, mute. Or they’d ask her out – and then Laura, for her part, usually came tumbling down to earth with a bang when she realised they weren’t perfect, weren’t this demigod she’d turned them into in her mind. It wasn’t that she was particularly picky – she was just a really bad picker.

  She believed in The One. And every man she met, for the first five minutes, two weeks, four months, had the potential in her eyes to be The One – until she reluctantly realized they were gay (Gideon from the Drama Society), psychopathic (Adam, her boyfriend for several months, who eventually jacked in his MA on the Romantic Poets and joined the SAS to become a killing machine), against the law (Juan, the illegal immigrant from Colombia), or Josh (her most recent boyfriend, whom she’d met at a volunteer reading programme seminar at work, decided was The One after five minutes, dated for over a year, before realizing, really, all they had in common was a love of local council literacy initiatives).

  It’s fine for girls to grow up believing in something like The One, but the generally received wisdom by the time Laura was out of university, as she moved into her mid-twenties, as her friends started to settle down, was that he didn’t really exist – well, he did, but with variations. Not for Laura. She was going to wait till she found him. To her other best friend Paddy’s complaints that he was sick of sharing their flat with a lovesick teenager all the time, as well as a succession of totally disparate, odd men, Laura said firmly that he was being mean and judgemental. James Patrick – Paddy to his friends – was a dating disaster, what would he know? To Jo’s pragmatic suggestions that she should join a dating agency, or simply ask out that bloke over there, Laura said no. It would happen the way she wanted it to happen, she would say. You couldn’t force it.