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Cleaning? ‘Cleaning what?’
‘Anything that people will pay good money to someone else to clean for them rather than do it themselves. Cookers come top of the list, but kitchen floors and bathrooms are popular, too.’
She had got to be joking! The only cleaning fluid I’d handled recently came in small, expensive bottles from the cosmetic department at Claibourne & Farraday.
‘I don’t have any real experience in that direction,’ I admitted.
Aunt Cora’s flat came equipped with a lady who appeared three times a week and did anything that required the use of rubber gloves. She charged the earth on an hourly basis for her services, but I’d planned on sub-letting my sister’s old room in order to pay her. And to cover some of the monthly maintenance charges. Just as soon as it was vacant. Unfortunately Aunt Cora had taken advantage of Kate’s departure to offer her room to ‘some very dear friends who need somewhere to stay in London while they’re looking for a place of their own.’
I was hardly in a position to say that it wasn’t convenient. Actually, at the time it had been fine, but that had been months ago and there was still no sign of them finding anywhere else. And, staying rent-free—and, unlike me, expenses-free—in London, why would they be in any great hurry?
‘Well, that’s a pity. We can always find work for someone with the ability to apply themselves to a scrubbing brush. ‘ She gave a dismissive little shrug. ‘But clearly that’s an “anything” too far for you.’ With that, Miss Frosty stood up to signal that as far as she was concerned the interview was over. But just to ram the point home she said, ‘Should I be offered anything in your particular niche in the job market, I’ll give you a call.’
She managed to make the prospect sound about as likely as a cold day in hell. That I could live with. It was the smirk she couldn’t quite hide that brought an unexpectedly reckless ‘I’ll show her…’ genie bubbling right out of the bottle.
‘I said I was short of experience. I didn’t say I wasn’t prepared to give it a try.’
Even as I heard myself say the words I knew I’d regret it, but at least I had the satisfaction of surprising that look of superiority right off Miss Frosty’s face. I hoped it would be sufficient comfort when I was on my knees with my head inside some bloke’s greasy oven.
‘Well, that’s the spirit,’ she said, finally managing a smile. It was a smug, self-satisfied little smile, and I had the strongest feeling that she couldn’t wait to get stuck into the ‘domestic’ files and search for the nastiest, dirtiest job she could find. ‘I’ve got your telephone number. I’ll be in touch. Very soon.’
‘Great,’ I said, looking her straight in the eyes.
In the meantime I’d treat myself to the best pair of rubber gloves money could buy. It was, after all, my birthday.
It would be fine, I told myself as I reached the pavement and, on automatic, raised my hand to hail a passing taxi. Then thought better of it and stood back to let someone else take it.
It would be fine. Peter would be back from his holiday in a week or two, he’d find me something to do, and life would return to normal—more or less. But in the meantime my expenses had doubled and my income had just become non-existent.
It wouldn’t hurt to start economising and take a bus.
It wouldn’t hurt to buy a newspaper and check out the job prospects for myself, either. The only possible excuse for not taking whatever revolting job Miss Frosty dug up for me—and I had no doubt that it would be revolting—would be that I was already gainfully employed.
The prospect of telling her so cheered me up considerably. It wasn’t as if I was unemployable, or even lazy. I’d had loads of jobs. But the unappealing prospect of becoming unpaid housekeeper to my manipulative and thoroughly bad-tempered father was all the incentive I needed to stay seriously focussed. I was in the mood to show him, too.
Okay, so I’d majored in having fun for the last few years. I mean, what was there to be serious about? But I’d had a wake-up call, a reminder that I couldn’t carry on like this indefinitely.
Apparently I was supposed to get serious now I’d turned twenty-five. Get a career plan.
Let’s face it. I didn’t even have a life plan.
It occurred to me that if I wasn’t jolly careful another twenty-five years would drift by and I wouldn’t have had a life.
Yes, it was definitely time to get serious.
I stopped at the corner shop to stock up on cat food, and while I was there picked up the evening paper. I scanned the ads while I was waiting for the girl behind the counter to stop flirting with a man buying a motorcycle magazine and discovered to my delight that I could job hunt on the internet, thus bypassing the doubtful pleasure of being made to feel totally useless on a face to face basis.
I also bought a notebook—one with a kitten on the cover and its own matching pen. I’d need a notebook if I was going to do all this planning. And, feeling virtuous, I circled all the likely job prospects in the paper while I was on the bus, jumping off at my stop fired up with enthusiasm and raring to go.
‘Big Issue, miss?’
Saving money or not, I wasn’t homeless like the man standing on this freezing corner selling copies of a magazine for a living.
‘Hi, Paul. How’s it going? Found anywhere to live yet?’
‘It’s looking good for after Christmas.’
‘Great.’ I handed over the money for the magazine and then bent down to make a fuss of the black and white mongrel pup sitting patiently at his side.
‘Hello, boy.’ He responded happily to a scratch behind the ear and I gave him a pound, too, which more or less cancelled out my economy with the taxi. ‘Buy yourself a bone on me.’
I went in through the back entrance to the flats so that I could feed the little stripey cat who’d made a home there. She appeared at the first sound of kibble rattling in the dish. She was so predictable. Then I walked through to the lifts, grateful that my ‘guests’ were away for an entire week and determined to make a serious start on the job hunting front.
There were distractions waiting for me in the lobby, however.
I might be trying to ignore my birthday, but nobody else was taking the hint. The porter had a pile of cards for me, as well as a parcel from my sister—who was away visiting her in-laws for a family celebration—and some totally knockout flowers.
There was a whopping big bunch of sunflowers—my absolute favourite, and heaven alone knew where the florist had managed to get them this late in the year—from Ginny and Rich. I felt a lump forming in my throat. I was practically certain that it was a rule of being on honeymoon that you were supposed to be totally self-centred and forget that the rest of the world existed. I touched the bright petals. Not Ginny…
There was an orchid in a pot from Philly, too. I hadn’t seen my here-today-gone-tomorrow next door neighbour in ages. She and Cal were always flitting off to some corner of a foreign field, or jungle, or mountain range to film exotic fauna. Neither of them had allowed the arrival of their baby daughter to slow them down, but just carried her along with them, papoose-style, wherever they went.
I’d have been okay if the arrangement of pale pink roses hadn’t been from my mother.
I sniffed. Loudly. I refused to cry. I did not cry—I’d used up all the tears I was ever going to shed over Perry Fotheringay—but it was a close-run thing. Everyone in the world I loved was married, or away on an adventure, or busy getting a life. Not that I begrudged any of them one bit of happiness or success. I was just a little bit tired of endlessly playing the dizzy bridesmaid and doing my best to avoid catching the bouquet tossed so carefully in my direction before waving them off on their new lives. That was all.
I opened the package from my sister. Nestling inside the layers of tissue paper, I found a pot of industrial strength anti-wrinkle cream, support stockings and a pair of ‘big knickers’. The card—’Over the hill? What hill? I didn’t see any hill…’—that went with it contained a voucher for a day of total pampering with all the extras at a luxury spa. It was exactly what I needed.
A laugh and a bit of luxury.
I was still grinning when the phone began to ring. I picked it up, expecting to hear a raucous chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to you’ from one of the gang I hung around with.
‘Sophie Harrington—single, sexy and celebrating—’
‘Miss Harrington?’ Miss Frosty’s voice froze the smile on my face. ‘How are you with dogs?’
‘Dogs?’
She wanted me to wash dogs?
‘One of our clients needs a dog-walker, and it occurred to me that this might be something you could do.’
Oh, very funny.
If this was her idea of ‘changing my life’ she could keep it. I’d go somewhere else. I cleared my throat, about to tell her what she could do with her dog-walking job; I just about managed to stop myself from saying it.
I’d said ‘anything’. If this was a test I wasn’t about to fail it just because I was too proud to walk someone’s dog for money. Not when I’d probably have done it for nothing, if asked nicely. Who was I kidding? Not probably—I’d have volunteered like a shot. I loved dogs. They were always the same. Up-front and honest. They had no hidden agendas, no secrets. They never let you down.
‘How much an hour?’ I asked. Since I hadn’t been asked nicely, I might as well be businesslike about it.
She told me.
A dog-walker didn’t rate as much per hour as a secretary, but if I was totally honest I had to admit that I could walk a lot better than I could type. And I couldn’t afford to be choosy.
‘Two hours a day—first thing in the morning and again in the evening,’ she continued. ‘It will leave you ample time to fit in other jobs during the day.’
‘Great,’ I said, the spectre of greasy ovens looming large. But it occurred to me that not only would I have a little money coming in—and I wasn’t in any position to turn that down—I’d also have plenty of time to work on my career plan. Look for a proper job. ‘When do I start?’
‘This afternoon. It’s a bit of a crisis situation.’
Naturally. Some idle bloke couldn’t be bothered to walk his own dogs and it was a crisis.
‘That’s not a problem, is it?’
‘Well, it is my birthday,’ I replied sweetly. ‘But I can take an hour out from the endless round of fun to walk a dog.’
‘Two dogs.’
‘Do I get paid per dog?’ I asked. ‘Or was the rate quoted for both of them?’ I was learning ‘businesslike’ fast.
‘You’re being paid for an hour of your time, Miss Harrington, not per dog.’
‘So I’d be paid the same if I was walking one dog?’
I thought it was a fair question, but she didn’t bother to answer. All she said was, ‘The client’s name is York. Gabriel York. If you’ve got a pen handy, I’ll give you the address.’
I grabbed my new kitty notebook, with its matching pen, and wrote it down. Then, since the ability to put one foot in front of the other without falling over was the only potential of mine that Miss Frosty-Face was prepared to tap, I registered with a couple of online agencies who might ignore me but at least wouldn’t be rude to my face.
CHAPTER TWO
I WAS late. It wasn’t my fault, okay? People had kept phoning me to see what I was doing to celebrate my birthday. No one had believed me when I’d said nothing. They’d just laughed and said, ‘No, really—what are you doing?’ and in the end I’d relented and promised I’d meet Tony down the pub at nine o’clock.
Then my mother had phoned from South Africa, wanting to tell me about everything she’d been doing—well, obviously not everything—and I could hardly say I had more important things to do, could I?
Anyway, it was hardly a matter of life or death. Dogs couldn’t tell the time and I didn’t have to rush off anywhere else. They’d get their hour. Start twenty minutes late; finish twenty minutes late. Sorted.
Gabriel York’s address proved to be a tall, elegant, terraced house in a quiet cul-de-sac untroubled by through traffic. Its glossy black front door was flanked by a pair of perfectly clipped bay trees which stood in reproduction Versailles boxes; no one in their right mind would leave the genuine lead antiques on their doorstep, even if it would take a crane to lift them. The brass door furniture had the well-worn look that only came from generations of domestics applying serious elbow grease—a fate, I reminded myself, that awaited me unless I gave some serious thought to my future.
The whole effect was just too depressingly perfect for words. Like something out of a costume drama, where no one was interested in the reality of the mud or the smell of nineteenth-century London.
This was a street made for designer chic and high, high heels, and I felt about as out of place as a lily on the proverbial dung heap.
My own fault, entirely.
I’d stupidly forgotten to ask what kind of dogs Mr York owned, and since there was no way I was going to call back and ask Miss Frosty to enlighten me I’d gone for the worst-case scenario, assuming something large and muscular, times two, and dressing accordingly. At home that would have meant one of the ancient waxed jackets that had been hanging in the mud room for as long as I could remember and a pair of equally venerable boots. The kind of clothes that my mother lived in.
Had lived in.
These days, as she’d told me at length, she was to be found stretched out poolside in a pair of shorts, a halter neck top and factor sixty sunblock. I didn’t blame her; she was undoubtedly entitled to a bit of fun after a lifetime of waiting hand, foot and finger on my father for no reward other than an occasional grunt.
I just didn’t want to be reminded of the difference between her life and my own, that was all.
Here in London it was doing something seasonal in the way of freezing drizzle, and although I’d stuffed my hair into a pull-on hat I hadn’t been able to find a pair of gloves; my fingers were beginning to feel decidedly numb.
Anyway, without the luxury of a help-yourself selection of old clothes to choose from, I’d had to make do with my least favourite jeans, a faux-fur jacket—a worn-once fashion disaster that I’d been meaning to take to the nearest charity shop—and a pair of old shoes that my sister had overlooked when she moved out. They were a bit on the big side, but with the help of a pair of socks they’d do. They’d have to. I wasn’t wearing my good boots to plough through the under-growth of Battersea Park.
Now I realised that I looked a total mess for no good reason. I needn’t even have bothered to change my shoes. I only had to take one look at those pom-pom bay trees to know that Mr York’s dogs would be a couple of pampered, shaved miniature poodles, with pom-pom tails to match. They’d undoubtedly consider a brisk trot as far as Sloane Square a serious workout.
So, I asked myself as I mounted the steps to his glossy front door, what kind of man would live in a house like this? My imagination, given free reign, decided that Mr York would be sleek and exquisitely barbered, with small white hands. He’d have a tiny beard, wear a bow tie and do something important in ‘the arts’. I admit to letting my prejudices run away with me here. I have a totally irrational dislike of clipped bay trees—and clipped poodles.
Poor things.
I rang the doorbell and waited to see just how well my imagination and reality coincided.
The dogs responded instantly to the doorbell—one with an excited bark, the other with a howl like a timber wolf in some old movie. One of them hurled itself at the door, hitting it with a thump so emphatic that it echoed distantly from the interior of the house and suggested I might have been a bit hasty in leaping to a judgement based on nothing more substantial than a prejudice against clipped bay trees.
If they were poodles they were the great big ones, with voices to match.
Unfortunately, the dogs were the only ones responding to the bell. The door remained firmly shut, with no human voice to command silence. No human footsteps to suggest that the door was about to be flung open.
Under normal circumstances I would have rung the bell a second time, but considering the racket the dogs were making my presence could hardly have gone unnoticed. So I waited.
And waited.
After a few moments the dog nearest the door stopped barking and the howl died down to a whimper, but apart from a scrabbling, scratching noise from the other side of the door as one of them tried to get at me that was it.
Seriously irritated—I wasn’t that late and the dogs still needed to be walked—I raised my hand to the bell to ring again, but then drew back at the last minute, my outstretched fingers curling back into my palm as annoyance was replaced by a faint stirring of unease.
‘Hello?’ I said, feeling pretty stupid talking to a dog through a door. The scrabbling grew more anxious and I bent down, pushed open the letterbox and found myself peering into a pair of liquid brown eyes set below the expressive brows of a cream silky hound.
‘Hello,’ I repeated, with rather more enthusiasm. ‘What’s your name?’
He twitched his brows and whined sorrowfully.
Okay, I admit it was a stupid question.
‘Is there anyone home besides you dogs?’ I asked, trying to see past him into the hallway.
The intelligent creature backed away from the door, giving me a better look at his sleek short coat, feathery ears and slender body, then he gave a short bark and looked behind him, as if to say, ‘Don’t look at me, you fool, look over there…’ And that was when I saw Gabriel York and realised I’d got it all wrong.
Twice over.
His dogs were not poodles and he wasn’t some dapper little gallery owner in a bow tie.
Gabriel York was six foot plus of dark-haired, muscular male. And the reason he hadn’t answered the door when I rang was because he was lying on the hall floor. Still. Unmoving.
I remembered the echoing thump. Had that been him, hitting the deck?
The second hound, lying at his side, lifted his head and looked at me for a long moment, before pushing his long nose against his master’s chin with an anxious little whine, as if trying to wake him up. When that didn’t have any effect he looked at me again, and the message he was sending came over loud and clear.
