Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [43]
`I need you to be here on time,' Bruce told her, even though the shop was empty. As he noted Chloe's lateness in his diary with secret satisfaction he announced ominously, `This isn't good enough.'
As she was leaving that evening, Chloe saw a car she recognised parked on double yellows outside the shop. Greg's friend, Adrian, beckoned her over.
`Chloe, it's about your mother. These phone calls, they've got to stop.'
`I've already told her that.'
Chloe reddened; every evening her mother delighted in recounting the details of her latest torrent of abuse. It was so humiliating. Not to mention pointless.
`We have to keep the answering machine on all the time now,' said Adrian. `It's a real pain.'
`I'm sorry. I don't want her doing it any more than you do.' Chloe fiddled agitatedly with the newspaper in her hands. She had three more flats to see and was desperate not to be late.
`Anyway, Greg's moving out next week, so after that she'll be wasting her breath.' Adrian took a last drag of his cigarette and flicked it into the gutter. `Maybe you could pass the message on.'
Chloe's hands went clammy.
`Greg's moving out? Where?'
Adrian gave her a measured look.
`Since your mother's the reason he's going, I don't think he'd be too happy if I gave you the address.'
Be brave, be brave.
`Is he… um, moving in with his girlfriend?'
`I really can't say. Chloe, don't ask me any more questions, okay? I'm just the go-between here.'
At least he had the grace to look embarrassed. Chloe thought of all the meals she had cooked for Adrian during the first weeks after his own wife had left him. Then, he had been shocked to the core, frequently drunk and desperate for company. She had listened to his endless self-pitying ramblings, fed and watered him, even ironed his shirts when he'd told her Lisa had run off with their only iron.
How many times during those weeks had Adrian shaken his head and told her how grateful he was? `True friends, that's what you and Greg are,' he had burbled in maudlin fashion after his ninth or tenth can of Stella. `I mean it, I don't know what I'd do without the two of you.'
That had been then, of course, and this was now. A whole year later.
Adrian was over Lisa. And he was sober.
`I'm looking for a flat as well,' said Chloe. `Actually I'm late for an appointment. I don't suppose you could give me a lift to Finsbury Park?'
`I would,' Adrian lied, `but I'm in a bit of a hurry myself.'
`I've seen forty-three flats in the last fortnight. They've all been terrible.' She gave it one last try. `Please.'
But it was no good. He wasn't her friend any more, he was Greg's.
`Sorry, Chloe. I just can't. You'd be better off taking the tube anyway.'
Better off jumping in front of it at this rate, thought Chloe as she watched the car pull away.
Two of the flats were awful but the third - in Clerkenwell - was okay. Chloe told the landlord she was very, very interested.
By the time she got home, there was a message on the machine from the landlord telling her that he had let the flat go to someone else.
Chloe reheated the remains of last night's pasta and drank a pint of her latest craving, strawberry milkshake. Then she ate two Chelsea buns and a tin of rice pudding, before running herself a bath.
While she could still afford hot water.
Afterwards, she surveyed herself in the bedroom mirror, peeling off her dressing gown as cautiously as a plastic surgery patient having the last bandages removed.
No wonder nobody wants to rent me a flat, Chloe thought, I'm so fat and hideous-looking I don't deserve one.
Covering herself back up - well, it wasn't fair on the mirror - she made her way through to the kitchen and unwrapped a packet of custard creams.
It was either eat or cry, and she was running short of tissues.
Not to mention time, Chloe realised with a stab of anxiety. In just over a fortnight she had