‘Do you miss the boys?’ Nia asked, taking the drink Anna was holding out to her.
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘But it’s not quite as simple as missing them. I feel like they’re a part of me, so it’s strange when we’re not together. But it’s so wonderful to have time to myself, to not have to make anyone dinner or wash anyone’s football kit.’
It was day five of the holiday and Anna felt settled into it. The weather had been mid-twenties and sunshine all week, and her stress was falling away.
‘I don’t miss anything,’ Nia said, taking a long drink. ‘Is that bad? Does that mean there’s something wrong with my life?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Anna said. ‘But at the same time, I bet you’d miss stuff if you were here for longer than a week. A week’s nothing.’
‘What would I miss? My tiny flat and my boring job?’
Nia laughed to show that she was joking, but Anna felt uneasy. Was Nia unhappy? And if she was, why didn’t Anna know about it? Over the years, she’d talked about her lack of a family, about how it wasn’t really a choice she’d made but a set of circumstances that had come to be, but Anna didn’t think it was something that plagued her. She loved Anna’s boys and spoiled them every birthday and Christmas with extravagant presents Anna and Edward would never have chosen, and Anna had thought she was mostly content in that role, in her life.
‘Your flat is lovely and you really like your job, you can’t fool me.’
‘I do like my job,’ Nia said. ‘But I could do without the drama sometimes. Did I tell you Ellen and the boss have split up?’
‘No!’
‘Last month. It’s horrendous. You can tell he’s just hoping she’ll leave but there’s no way she will. She’s been there longer than I have. They’re being super polite to each other and then making faces behind each other’s backs when they think no one’s looking. It’s like I’m invisible to them or something. And when he goes into his office, she starts talking about things I really don’t want to hear, like how he does yoga DVDs in his pants. Can you imagine? I had to stop her the other day because I just knew she was going to talk about his sex face and there’s only so much I can take. Anyway, now she has a new man, apparently, and she’s made her screensaver a massive picture of his face to make a point. It’s really off-putting when you have to go to her desk for anything. She’s always minimising everything on the screen so you have to look at it, almost daring you not to say anything.’
‘What does he look like? The new guy?’
‘He looks like the boss, that’s the thing. At first I thought itwas him, thought she’d gone absolutely mad. But then I saw he had this awful teardrop tattoo by his eye…’
‘Isn’t that supposed to mean you’ve killed someone?’
Nia’s eyebrows shot up and Anna knew her eyes, behind her sunglasses, would be wide. ‘Does it? Why don’t I know that?’
‘I don’t know. Not enough true crime documentaries.’
‘Fuck me. I wonder whether she knows that! Okay, now I sort of can’t wait to get back. Thanks, Anna. Anyway, how’s work going for you?’
Anna had been working part-time at the boys’ school library for a few months. It made a lot of sense, in that the work was term-time only and the hours matched school hours. It was a job share, between her and a pleasant woman in her fifties called Sandra, who was always happy to swap days if required, like for this holiday. And she loved helping the kids find books they would enjoy. But a lot of what she did was mindless and she still looked longingly at job sites for publishing roles at least once a week.
‘It’s fine, just dull.’ She drained her drink.
‘Another?’ Nia asked.
‘Not for me. I’m going to read for a while.’
Nia shrugged. ‘Just me then.’
Anna picked her book up again. It was one her old company had published, and it was being billed as the big romance hit of the summer, but she couldn’t quite get into it. It was clear that the two main characters were going to end up together and Anna just didn’t like the man very much. If she’d worked on it, she’d have called itPride and PrejudicemeetsBefore Sunrise.
A shadow came over her book and Anna saw that Nia was back.
‘You didn’t tell me the barman was hot,’ she said, sitting backdown and putting her drink on the floor next to her. ‘Not a J though, before you ask.’
‘Did he try it on with you?’ Anna asked, ready to tell her story.
‘He did. And we’re going to go for a drink tonight when he finishes.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Anna asked. ‘He’s so young.’
Nia sighed. ‘God, so what? I’m not planning to marry him. But it’s a long time since I slept with a twenty-seven-year-old and I wouldn’t mind reminding myself what that’s like.’
Anna was quiet. It wasn’t up to her what Nia did. But over the years, their job had been to protect one another, to give advice. Shouldn’t she let Nia know that this guy was sleazy, that he hit on every woman who went to order drinks? Or didn’t it matter? She decided to say nothing. And she allowed herself to feel quietly hurt that his interest in her had been nothing to do with her, after all.
