‘What are you doing?’ She looked around to see if anyone had noticed but the streets were empty.
‘I want chips and you can’t walk, so I can walk in my socks and you can wear my shoes and carry those torture instruments you thought were modern and interesting.’
Diana took a moment to decide and then kicked off the heels and slipped her feet into his shoes, sighing with relief as she did. They were warm inside and her feet relaxed at once.
Douglas leaned down and picked up her heels and put one in each pocket of his suit jacket.
‘Come on then. I’ll buy you a cup of tea and I’m going to ask you all about yourself – instead of me talking about myself.’
7
Amanda
Amanda arrived in London to pick up the key to Moongate Manor from the lawyer’s office. She didn’t have time to sightsee, nor did she have the money, but she couldn’t help but feel a thrill as the taxi drove past Buckingham Palace and over London Bridge.
As soon as she was settled in Foxfield, she promised herself she would return to London and look at everything properly.
Amanda’s appointment at the legal office in Chancery Lane was in the afternoon, and then she planned to stay the night in a hostel and head to Foxfield on the train in the morning. It would be a three-hour train trip and then she would get a bus for the last stretch. She had it all planned in her head, but it still felt surreal.
She had put her bags in the hostel, showered to get rid of the travel grime and changed into what she hoped looked respectful and respectable for a twenty-six-year-old woman about to be entrusted with an old home with no caveats other than a hope she would maintain the house and returning the garden to its former glory.
A simple pink dress, cream sandals and her hair pulled into a bun would suffice. Some people said redheads shouldn’t wear pink but she couldn’t ever imagine not wearing pink. It made her happy and she needed that right now. She didn’t need to pretend she was anything other than what she was.
And with that resonating in her heart and head, Amanda went to her appointment to pick up the key.
*
Lainie rang Amanda’s phone as she was leaving the appointment.
‘How was it? Did they gift you with a large key to the house and present it on a red velvet cushion?’
Amanda stood outside on the street and looked up at the building.
‘You know, it was sort of anticlimactic. They gave me a bunch of papers to read and return to them in the mail, and a key in a yellow business envelope with my name scrawled across the front. I literally turned up at reception and they handed it to me.’
‘That’s it?’ asked Lainie.
‘That’s it,’ said Amanda as she began walking.
‘So what now?’
‘I’ll head up there tomorrow and see what it’s like. I have to meet the old owner – some woman called Diana something-something, one of those fancy two-surname people. Apparently, she’ll show me around and then it’s mine. My main task is to fix up the garden, which is a bit overgrown.’
‘Amazing! It all sounds so easy and we love it when things are easy. Let me know how it is. FaceTime me,’ said Lainie.
‘You’re right, it feels too easy,’ said Amanda. ‘Like there’s a trap of some sort that I’m not aware of.’
‘Why so suspicious? Maybe it’s just an amazing thing that’s happened for you?’
‘Maybe, but it all feels very unrealistic and kind of unreal.’
Lainie sighed. ‘You’re feeling tender because your mom died and you lost your job and your apartment, and now something great has happened to you and you can’t believe it’s real. You’re waiting for something terrible to happen because that has been your experience in the last year.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ Amanda admitted as a bus went past.
‘I just saw a double-decker red bus,’ she said. ‘In the wild.’
Lainie laughed. ‘Wow, love that for you. Did you hear anything I said?’
