She stood back to admire her handiwork. ‘You look fabulous!’

‘You do,’ Clara agreed. She had been sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching Thea take her mother in hand. ‘You look beautiful, Mum.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ said Nell, touched. ‘But the truth is that I’d much rather be wearing my dressing gown and staying in for pizza with you and Thea!’

‘Instead of which you’ve got to go out to a glamorous reception and a date with a gorgeous man,’ said Thea with spurious sympathy. ‘It’s a dirty job, I know, but somebody’s got to do it, and tonight it’s your turn! Don’t forget your book,’ she added as they went downstairs to wait for the cab.

Resigned, Nell went into the sitting room and ran an eye along the shelves until she found the Swahili phrase book that Thea had apparently arranged for her to carry as a signal.

She wished Thea hadn’t chosen this book of all books. Pulling it slowly down from the shelf, she stared at it in her hands and felt the memories wash over her. It was years since she had looked at it. Keeping it hadn’t even been a conscious decision, and if anyone had asked her if she had such a phrase book a week ago she would probably have said that she didn’t.

‘Why did you tell John I would have this with me?’

‘Because I’ve been noticing that book on your shelves ever since I’ve been babysitting Clara,’ said Thea. ‘If I’m here on my own and there’s nothing on television, I see if I can find something to read, and that Swahili book always seemed to catch my eye. I’ve often wondered why you had it.’

Nell flicked slowly through the pages. ‘P.J. and I used to talk about a trip to East Africa,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘It was going to be an extended honeymoon. We planned to spend a few months there and we were both going to learn Swahili…’

Her voice trailed off as she remembered how young and innocent and enthusiastic they had been. She couldn’t contemplate a trip like that now without running through all the possible complications and difficulties first. But everything had been simple then. They had loved each other, and the world had been at their feet, and that had been enough.

She remembered going to a cavernous shop in Covent Garden with P.J. and eagerly buying maps and guides and phrase books. That had been just before she’d gone back to university for the last time, and the next time she’d been home, Simon had been there…

‘I wish I could go to Africa,’ sighed Clara. ‘I want to go on safari and see the lions and giraffes and elephants.’

Yes, that was what she and P.J. had wanted to do, too.

‘What is John going to be carrying, again?’ asked Nell, still leafing distractedly through the book.

‘A Swahili dictionary,’ said Thea. ‘He’s been to Tanzania, and that’s what made me think of saying you’d take your phrase book. I thought it was a brilliant idea,’ she added complacently. ‘No one else is likely to have one, are they? So you won’t be able to mistake each other, and it means you don’t need to bother with awkward descriptions.’

‘I suppose it’ll give us something to talk about, if nothing else,’ acknowledged Nell, opening her clutch bag. The phrase book was pocket sized, but the bag was so tiny that she could only just squeeze it in. The clasp wouldn’t close properly, but it was better than carrying the book in her hand. At least this way P.J. wouldn’t see it.

It was a slow drive into the centre of London at that time of the evening, and as Nell sat in the back of the minicab and looked out at the bumper-to-bumper traffic she found herself thinking about those old dreams of camping together under a wide African sky.

‘We’ll lie in our tent and listen to the lions roaring,’ P.J. had promised, his face alight. ‘We’ll watch the sun rise over the Serengeti and we’ll be married, and we’ll be together, and we’ll be the happiest people in the world!’

But they had never made it. She had chosen Simon instead, and that was a choice she had to live with, Nell knew that. On an impulse, she pulled the phrase book out of her bag, and turned it in her hands. For some reason the anger she had felt after that afternoon’s meeting had evaporated at the sight of it.

It wasn’t really P.J. she was angry with, Nell realised. She was angry with herself for regretting the choices she had made. She was angry because he had come back and made her think about how happy they might have been, might still be, if she had chosen differently. It wasn’t P.J.’s fault that he had moved on and made a success of his life without her.

She had Clara. Nell clung to the thought. She couldn’t imagine life without Clara, wouldn’t want to imagine it. But she could imagine being with someone who loved her and cared for her, someone who would make her laugh and hold her when she was sad, who would celebrate her triumphs with her, and commiserate with her failures. Someone who would share her life instead of shutting her off into a small part of it, the way Simon had done.

P.J. would have been a husband like that. Nell stared unseeing out at the traffic and thought about the mistakes she had made. She had had her chance. She had been lucky enough to meet the right man for her, but she had blown it. She had been too young to appreciate kindness and integrity and strength and humour over good looks and glamour. Now, she could see how lucky she had been to find those qualities in her first love, but now it was too late.

Things might be different if P.J. hadn’t been quite so successful, but his immense wealth seemed to Nell to be an insurmountable gulf between them. It changed everything. She didn’t want him for his money, but how would he ever believe that now?

She would have to stay on her side of the gulf and make the best of it, Nell decided sadly. She would go and meet John, and make a real effort to start afresh, and maybe after a while she could forget P.J. all over again.

The gallery was already crowded when she got there, the hubbub spilling out into the street. If only she didn’t have to face P.J. again! Still, with this crowd, there ought to be a good chance of avoiding him. She would go in, show her face to Eve, talk to a couple of people and then go. She had a previous engagement, after all. She couldn’t be expected to rearrange her entire social life around work.

A brief hope that her name might have been missed off the guest list died as she was waved through, so she accepted a glass of champagne and looked cautiously around for Eve.

Of course, the first person she saw was P.J. He wasn’t looking her way, but still the sight of him made her heart jolt painfully, and she jerked her glass, sending champagne slopping over the rim and down the front of her dress. Nell brushed herself down with a hand that was shaking slightly, and told herself to get a grip.

She risked another glance. Like many of the other men in the room, P.J. was wearing a dinner jacket, and the severe black and white tailoring made him look powerful and more distinguished than she had ever seen him. He was standing on one side of the gallery, talking to a dark, intense girl who was dressed in such a challenging way that Nell wondered if she was one of the artists.

He seemed absorbed in his conversation, and Nell let her eyes rest hungrily on him for a moment. It was as if everything about him were in sharp focus, the planes of his face, the set of his shoulders, the white cuff against his brown hand as he gesticulated, and her stomach clenched with longing.

Turning abruptly, she headed off in the opposite direction in search of Eve. There was such a press of people, none of whom seemed to be the slightest bit interested in the pictures and installations that lined the walls, that it was quite hard work pushing through them and when Nell had got as far away from P.J. as she could, she paused. She couldn’t see any sign of Eve.

What now?

The whole exercise was pointless anyway, Nell told herself. There was no way they were going to be able to talk properly to anyone in this crush. Perhaps she would just slip away now…

Glancing longingly towards the entrance through a break in the crowd, she found herself staring straight into a pair of familiar warm blue eyes that lit at the sight of her.

P.J. smiled at her, and Nell’s bones seemed to dissolve. Appalled, she spun on her heel before she had a chance to think and turned her back pointedly, desperate to break the effect of that glinting blue smile. Her instinct was to bolt for the entrance, but if he saw her leaving now P.J. would know that it was because of him.

Unseeingly, she stared at a picture on the wall instead, pretending to be absorbed in it. Surely P.J. would get the point and leave her alone now?

‘What do you think?’ His voice came from behind her and Nell jumped. How had he got across the room that fast? Why had he come at all? Couldn’t he see how hard this was for her?

Her mouth was dry, and she moistened her lips. ‘Think?’ she repeated stupidly. How could she think when he was standing right beside her, near enough for her to turn and lean into him, to rest against his broad chest and wind her arms around his back and cling to him as if he were her last refuge?

‘Of the picture,’ P.J. prompted.

‘Oh.’

With difficulty, Nell focused on the painting and discovered that she had been apparently absorbed in an extremely explicit male nude study. A wave of colour surged up her cheeks, but somehow she managed to keep her expression composed enough.

‘Interesting use of brushwork,’ she said stiltedly, and P.J. laughed.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve learnt to like contemporary art, Nell!’

‘I wouldn’t say “like,’” said Nell, ‘but maybe I’ve learnt to appreciate some of the things I wasn’t old enough to appreciate before.’