LITMIR.BIZ

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Perfectly coifed, she had lovely cared-for nails, Hope noticed, and her lipstick looked faultlessly applied; as if she’d just that minute rushed out from primping in the ladies’. Hope was conscious of the fact that her own windswept fair hair was dragged back in a pony tail and her morning lipstick a thing of distant memory.

      Sales assistants invariably made her feel like an unkempt road warrior. She remembered a time when she herself was always beautifully groomed, those far off days before the children, when giving herself a French manicure had been a prerequisite on Sunday evenings. These days, she spent Sunday evenings sweating over the ironing board, worrying about the week ahead and trying to match socks from the enormous laundry pile.

      ‘Is it a present?’ inquired the sales woman, her tone implying that there was no way someone like Hope would be coughing up for such an expensive tie otherwise.

      ‘Yes,’ said Hope, stifling a wicked urge to say, no, it was for her, she dressed up in men’s clothes at the weekends and, actually, was looking for a partner to go with her on a Harley-Davidson-Lesbian Day Out on Sunday.

      Instead, she arranged her face into a polite expression. Being honest, there was no way she’d pay that much money for a tie otherwise. Even if as a fortieth birthday present, it was still ridiculously expensive. The only consolation was that Matt would love it. It would go with the very sophisticated new suit he’d just bought and with his image, also highly sophisticated. The only unsophisticated part of the Matt Parker experience was Hope herself. Was that the problem? she thought with a pang of unease.

      Matt hadn’t been himself lately. Usually he was one of life’s optimists, happy, upbeat. But for the past few months, he’d been listless and moody around the house, only content if they were doing something; filling their time off with endless activities. He didn’t seem happy to sit and blob around on those rare occasions when the children weren’t murdering each other. Edgy, that was it. Matt was edgy, and in her dark, terrified moments, Hope was scared that it was something to do with their marriage. Or her.

      ‘Shall I gift-wrap it?’

      ‘No, I like wrapping things myself,’ Hope confessed. Anyway, getting the shop to wrap things was always a waste of time, she’d discovered, as she could never resist trying to open a bit of the wrapping paper when she got home so she could admire the gift. Invariably, the paper got ripped when she was trying to shove whatever it was back in, so why bother?

      She added the tie to her selection of plastic bags and left the shop hurriedly.

      Hope rounded the corner at Union Street and collided with a gaggle of tourists oohing and ahhing over the city’s elegant sandstone Georgian buildings. It was a beautiful place to live but after five years there, Hope was guiltily aware that she took Bath’s beauty rather for granted. For the first six months, she’d walked around with her neck craned, but now, she raced along like all the other residents, almost immune to the city and constantly cursing the tourists who straggled across the streets like wayward schoolchildren. She pushed open the glass door into Witherspoon’s Building Society, conscious of the fact that it was now twenty to three and she should have been back at half past two.

      Mr Campbell, manager and assiduous time-keeper, was also conscious of the time.

      ‘You’re ten minutes late, Mrs Parker,’ he said mildly.

      Hope gave him a flustered look, which wasn’t hard after her dash down Union Street. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Campbell,’ she said breathily. ‘It’s my husband’s fortieth birthday and I was buying him a present…’

      ‘Never mind,’ Mr Campbell said soothingly. ‘Don’t let it happen in future.’

      She rushed into the staff room, stowed her shopping in her locker, wriggled out of her navy woollen coat and hurried back to her counter.

      ‘How can you get away with being late and not get the face eaten off you by that tyrant?’ demanded Yvonne. Yvonne had worked at Witherspoon’s for five years, the same length of time as Hope, and complained she was still treated like a delinquent probationary by the manager.

      ‘Because I have an innocent face,’ replied Hope, managing to smile all the while at Mr Campbell, ‘and you look like a minx.’

      Yvonne was placated, as Hope knew she could be. Yvonne liked the idea of looking minxy. And she was so good humoured that she never took offence; not like Betsey, Hope’s other good friend. Betsey took offence at everything and would have demanded to know what Hope had meant by calling her a minx.

      Hope knew that she’d never look like a minx in a million years. Minxes did not have fawn-coloured curly hair with lots of wispy tendrils that you could do absolutely nothing with, nor did they have rounded comforting faces with large, almost surprised hazel eyes, and small delicate mouths like shy girls from 18th century French paintings.

      Matt had once told her that he’d fallen in love with her ‘other worldliness’. ‘As if you’ve got lost from a historical mini-series and have stepped out of your gown to appear in the twenty-first century,’ he’d said lovingly. Matt was given to saying wildly romantic, unusual things. He was wasted in advertising, she thought fondly.

      All five counters were frantically busy for the next half an hour, with huge groups of time-pressed tourists arriving to change their traveller’s cheques into hard currency, all frantic to get some cash so they could buy huge quantities of Bath Abbey tea towels, T-shirts with the Abbey printed on them and decorated mugs before they were due back on the coach.

      Finally, there was a brief lull in custom. Hope sat back in her chair, feeling drained and wondered how she’d last till her four o’clock tea break.

      ‘What did you buy for Matt?’ asked Yvonne, sneaking a forbidden packet of toffees across to Hope. Eating was forbidden behind the counter but Hope reckoned her blood sugar needed a top-up.

      ‘A tie, a bottle of that wine he likes and some aftershave,’ she said as she surreptitiously unwrapped a toffee.

      ‘That’s nice,’ mumbled Yvonne, her mouth full.

      They chewed in silence for a while and Hope began to mentally plan her evening, the highlight of which was to be Matt’s special birthday dinner. Just the two of them, assuming that Millie didn’t kick up a fuss and refuse to go to bed. She was only four but she already ruled the Parker household with a chubby little iron hand in a velvet glove. Two-year-old Toby was such a contrast to his older sister. He was so quiet that Hope worried about him being at the day nursery every day. She knew Millie was well able to stand up to anyone who’d look sideways at her but would she stand up for Toby? You heard so much about children bullying other kids and Hope would kill any child who’d hurt her beloved Toby. With his pale, sweet face and watchful eyes, he reminded her of herself as a child. She prayed he’d grow up to be stronger and more forceful, like his father.

      ‘Presents for men are so difficult,’ sighed Yvonne. ‘I love the idea of those women who say things like “I’m wearing your present.” You know she’s wearing some basque or suspenders and stockings and that’s his present. I might try that with Freddie.’

      ‘Lovely,’ said Hope automatically, a bit embarrassed to be getting so much detail about Yvonne’s sex life. Yvonne was twenty-nine, Welsh, and very open about everything, in direct contrast to Hope. Hope liked to keep her personal life personal, although it was difficult when you worked with someone as inquisitive as Yvonne, who was quite capable of asking questions like what would Hope do if Matt ever had an affair or had Hope ever used a Dutch cap.

      ‘Er, no,’ Hope had said, going pink, on that particular occasion. Aunt Ruth had not brought her up to be chatty about sex and things like that. When she’d had her first period, Aunt Ruth had said nothing but had given her a book on girls growing up. Well, she’d actually shoved it into Hope’s hand and gone off abruptly to her bridge class. The subject had never been referred to again. Hope was fascinated when she read those ‘how to keep your sex life alive’ articles in women’s magazines, although she’d never have dreamed of trying any of it out with Matt.

      ‘You should give Matt that

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