Sunshine liked this new woman.
“Are you going to yell through the letter box too?” she asked her.
Sarah pondered a moment. “Well, I thought I might just try the doorbell.”
Sunshine was hungry. It didn’t look like she was going to get any lunch at Padua today.
“Good luck,” she wished Sarah, before setting off for home.
Freddy and Laura were still dithering in the pantry, straining their ears to hear if anyone remained at the front door. The doorbell rang again. A single sound, followed by a polite pause. Laura retreated back into the pickles.
“You go,” she pleaded with Freddy. “Please.”
Freddy relented, fueled by remorse for the insults Felicity had aimed at Laura.
He opened the door to an attractive, middle-aged brunette with a confident smile and a firm handshake.
“Hello. I’m Sarah. Can I see Laura?”
Freddy stood back to let her in.
“You can, if she comes out from hiding in the pantry.”
At the sound of Sarah’s voice, Laura hurried into the hall to meet her.
“You were hiding in there too!” she reminded Freddy.
Sarah looked at them both and winked at Laura.
“Hiding in the pantry! Now that’s a euphemism if ever I heard one.”
“Not a chance!” Freddy’s answer was a knee jerk, but a kick in the teeth nonetheless for Laura.
Sarah, as usual, saw what was required. She took Laura by the arm.
“Why don’t you make me a lovely cup of tea? And by the way, your hair looks gorgeous.”
CHAPTER 25
Sarah Trouvay was a first-class barrister with a stellar career, two healthy, rumbustious young boys, and a rugged architect husband. She also had an unexpected talent for yodeling, which had earned her extravagant plaudits as Maria in the school production of The Sound of Music. She and Laura had met at school and remained close friends ever since. Not close in terms of geography or frequency; they rarely met or spoke more than two or three times a year. But the bond between them, formed at an early age and tempered over time by triumphs and tragedies, remained as durable as it was dependable. Sarah had witnessed the bright, sparky, dauntless young Laura gradually, relentlessly diluted by a bad marriage and a barrage of self-doubt. But she had never given up hope that one day, the real Laura would reemerge victorious, in glorious, shining Technicolor.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Laura asked as she filled the kettle.
“Well, the six very drunken and virtually unintelligible messages which you left on my voice mail in the early hours of this morning might have had something to do with it.”
“Oh God! I didn’t, did I?” Laura hid her face in her hands.
“You most certainly did. And now I want to hear all about it. Every last sordid detail. And I think we’ll begin with ‘Poor Graham.’ Who the devil is ‘Poor Graham’?”
Laura told her almost everything. Beginning with the dress, which was still hanging half out of the bin, and ending with the sinking of the second bottle of prosecco in front of the fire. The rest of the night—including the phone calls—had disappeared forever into alcohol-induced oblivion.
“Poor Graham,” Sarah was now able to agree. “Whatever made you agree to go out with him in the first place?”
Laura looked a little embarrassed.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just because he asked. Nobody else has. He always seemed nice enough. Nothing obviously wrong with him.”
Sarah shook her head in disbelief.
“Nothing wrong doesn’t make him ‘Mr. Right.’”
Laura sighed. If only she could stop thinking about “Mr. Wrong” as “Mr. Right.”
She hid her face in her hands again.
“Damn that ruddy gardener!”
She had said it out loud, before she could stop herself.
“Who?”
Laura smiled ruefully. “Oh, nothing. I’m just talking to myself.”
“That’s the first sign, you know.”
“First sign of what?”
“The menopause!”
Laura threw a biscuit at her.
“I should have known it was never going to work when he started going on about Nordic walking.”
“He was trying to impress you with his pole!”
Sarah spluttered with laughter and even Laura couldn’t stifle a guilty giggle.
And then she told her about the kiss on the porch. That dreadful, interminable kiss.
Sarah looked at her and shrugged her shoulders in exasperation.
“Well, what in God’s name did you expect? You don’t fancy him. You never have. It was always going to be like kissing cardboard!”
Laura shook her head emphatically.
“No. It was much, much worse. Cardboard would have been infinitely preferable.” She remembered the slug with disgust. “And a lot less wet.”
“Honestly, Laura, why didn’t just offer your cheek, or failing that, pull away a bit quicker?”
Laura’s cheeks were blotched with laughter and embarrassment.