Quick, thought Pru, get me out of here before I start blubbing.

‘Home. Thanks for getting the car fixed.’ She shook her head violently. ‘It doesn’t matter about the clothes.’

Chapter 14

Liza took Pru along with her to the Songbird on Saturday night. She picked her up at eight o’clock.

Pru, thrilled to be invited — anything to get out of that bedsitter — said, ‘This is a treat. I thought you’d have brought your new chap. Couldn’t he make it?’

‘No.’ Liza slotted Sibelius into the tape deck. ‘Mainly because I didn’t ask him.’

Pru recognised the look on her face. Clearly, new chap was no more.

‘But you said he was gorgeous last week.’

‘Last week he was. This week,’ Liza said heavily, ‘he started asking me about my star sign. I mean, give me a break. He’s supposed to be a grown man.’

It occurred to both of them, though neither said it aloud, that considering it was mid-April, so far their New Year’s resolutions weren’t turning out terribly well.

Entering the restaurant was nerve-racking. Liza, wigged-up and dressed-down, knew she was being irrational. No one had ever recognised her yet, so why should they suddenly start now?

But that didn’t stop her heart pounding like a Sally Army drum the whole time they were being greeted and seated.

Liza’s eyes flickered to the left. There was the little waitress who had been in such a fluster last time. Quick flicker to the right ... and there serving behind the bar was the attractive blonde who had tried so valiantly to keep the rugby rabble in check. Liza wondered if this was the girl whose feelings she had hurt so much, Kit Berenger’s cousin.

Sweat began to prickle her scalp beneath the unflattering mouse-brown wig. She felt like a spy, a wartime secret agent desperate not to attract the attention of the enemy.

‘Relax,’ said Pru, ‘no one’s looking.’

‘I know. I just don’t want to be recognised.’

‘It’s hardly likely, if even Phil didn’t spot you.’

Oh bum.

‘Phil!’ gasped Liza, covering her mouth in dismay. ‘Shit!’

‘Well, yes,’ said Pru, ‘I know that now.’

‘I mean I can’t believe I did this to you. This is where .. . and I completely forgot ... Hell’s bells, how could I be so insensitive? Why didn’t you say something?’

Liza cringed. Then she double-cringed, realising they were actually sitting at the table where Blanche had wriggled her toes with such enthusiasm in Phil’s trousered crotch.

‘It’s all right. I knew you’d forgotten. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.’ Prue shrugged. ‘Why should I be bothered?’

Liza said admiringly, ‘You’ve got brave.’

‘My husband ran off with my cleaner. I live in a bug-infested bedsit. The hippy downstairs plays bloody Donovan records non-stop and apart from this dress I own precisely two jumpers, three nighties and a skirt.’ Pru hesitated, looking as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘You’d be surprised; after a while you can learn to not care about quite a lot.’

Liza stared at Pru. Pru gazed back.

Pru tried hard to keep a straight face.

Liza said slowly, ‘Donovan records?’

Pru nodded. Liza began to smirk. Within seconds Pru was in fits of giggles. Liza was helpless with laughter.

Holding her sides, barely able to get the words out, she said, ‘This hippy of yours. Do they call him Mellow Yellow?’

Pru was giggling so much her mascara had run.

‘That’s right.’

They were drawing attention to themselves. The family at the next table nudged each other, watching them. With a huge effort, Liza controlled herself.

‘I mean it,’ she told Pru when they had both recovered. ‘You are brave.’

‘I’m not,’ said Pru, mentally reliving the moment she had fled Eddie Hammond’s office. Oh yes, that had been brave, that had been breathtakingly courageous. Give the girl a VC.

‘You definitely can’t stay in that bedsitter,’ Liza persisted. ‘Death by Donovan, imagine. Come and live with me instead.’

‘What, in your one-bedroomed flat?’ Pru was touched by the offer but untempted. For the first time in her life — at the age of thirty-one — she was on her own. The least she could do was learn to cope with it.

‘My flat’s a jolly nice flat.’ Liza leapt to its defence. ‘It’s bijou.’

‘And if I moved in, it’d be more than your style that got cramped. Thanks,’ said Pru, ‘but I’m fine. Really.’

They were supposed to be ordering their meal. Liza forced herself to concentrate on the menu.

Every time she looked up, she realised Pru was glancing across the room.

‘Right, I’ll have the Stilton soufflé and the duck with kumquats. How about you?’ she said finally. Pru was doing it again. ‘Someone you know?’

Pru shook her head.

The blonde girl arrived to take their order. She was pretty and utterly charming and Liza, deciding she must be the cousin, wondered how she would react if she knew who’d she’d just been charming to.

‘Come on, who is it?’ she persisted, when the girl had left them. Pru’s eyes were still darting across the restaurant. ‘No idea. He just keeps looking over.’

‘Fancies me. Fatally attracted to my stunning wig,’ Liza smirked, ‘not to mention my cardigan.’

She glanced over her shoulder and found Kit Berenger staring straight at her.

Shit.’

‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

Liza nodded, white-faced. ‘How did you know?’

Embarrassed, Pru pleated her napkin. ‘Dulcie said he was gorgeous.’

‘More to the point,’ said Liza, ‘does he know who I am?’ But how can he, she wondered, when I’m looking like this?

‘What happens now?’ Pru’s stomach rumbled; she hadn’t eaten all day. The prospect of not staying after all almost made her want to cry.

‘Right, no need to panic,’ Liza announced firmly. ‘I mean, let’s be logical about this. He can’t possibly have recognised me. And we’ve ordered now, so we can’t leave.’ Fretfully she said,

‘What I don’t understand is why I didn’t spot him before.’

‘He wasn’t there when we arrived,’ Pru whispered back. ‘He came through that door.’ She nodded at one marked Private. The look Liza gave her was long and measured.

‘So you guessed who he was straight away.’

‘I didn’t think it mattered,’ Pru protested guiltily, ‘so long as he doesn’t know who you are. I didn’t want to put you off your meal.’

The Songbird was a forty-seater restaurant. Tonight – and Saturdays are the busiest night of any restaurant’s week – it was half full.

Or half empty, depending on your viewpoint.

Either way, it wasn’t great news. Liza wondered how many of the unoccupied tables were down to her.

She couldn’t fault the Stilton soufflé, which was creamy and light with an outer crust browned to perfection. The roast duck with kumquats was brilliant too.

‘This,’ declared Pm, prodding her poached salmon with a fork, ‘is divine.’

Liza wondered how on earth it could be physically possible to feel a pair of eyes boring into your back. She didn’t need to look round, she just knew it was happening.

‘If you want to leave,’ said Pru heroically, sensing her discomfort, ‘we can.’

Liza wanted to. The trouble was, she wanted to sample the puddings more.

‘Is he still looking over?’

‘Well, kind of.’

‘That means yes.’

‘He’s standing up,’ Pru murmured, watching covertly as he pushed back his chair.

‘Hell’s bells—’

‘It’s okay, he’s gone through that door again, the one marked Private.’

He was away for some time. When the door finally reopened, Liza had just taken her first mouthful of almond and apricot tart. Pm, who had chosen the honey ice cream, was so carried away by its miraculous taste and texture that her eyes were closed.

‘You don’t mind if I join you for a moment,’ said Kit Berenger, pulling out the empty chair next to Pru.

Liza wondered briefly if it was worth putting on a German accent. If he challenged her, she could simply deny everything, say she didn’t know vot he was tocking about.

But really, was there any point?

She wondered instead if Kit Berenger was about to rip her wig off. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight if he did; she was wearing an Ena Sharples hairnet underneath.

He didn’t. He looked hard at her for several seconds. Then with his index finger he tapped the dark-blue linen tablecloth, less than an inch from Liza’s wrist.

‘Very good, but that was the giveaway.’

Pru stared at the tablecloth. Heavens, was there a microphone hidden beneath it? Was the table bugged?

‘I heard you laughing. When I turned round I couldn’t see your face.’ He tapped again. ‘But I saw this.’

She had always worn her watch, a man’s steel Longines, on her right hand. On her little finger she wore a narrow platinum ring. Liza was so impressed by his powers of observation she almost smiled. Maybe this is it, she thought, my chance to apologise and make amends, to tell him what a terrific meal we’re having .. .

‘I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing back here,’ Kit Berenger went on icily, ‘but you certainly aren’t wanted. So I suggest you leave, this minute.’

‘Now look—’

‘Haven’t you done enough damage?’ he demanded, hissing the words across the table like poison darts. ‘Haven’t you already hurt Nicky enough?’

Liza flinched. Mortified, Pru stared down at her melting ice cream.

‘This restaurant doesn’t need customers like you,’ said Kit Berenger, standing up. ‘Come on, out.

And don’t start bleating about the bill because we don’t want your money either.’

‘Have you told your cousin who I am?’ asked Liza, feeling sick. So much for making amends.

‘Are you mad? Why do you suppose I want you out of here?’

‘You’re making a scene.’