Bad Heir Day by Wendy Holden Read Free Book Online

but devout wasn’t one of them.
    “She’s on her knees in front of the wardrobe mirror saying ‘Oh my God.’”

Chapter Five
    Anna looked lovingly at the tiny, coloured oblong—English graduate seeks work as author’s assistant—and blew it a surreptitious kiss as she pinned it to the noticeboard of Kensington Library. “Good luck,” she whispered to it. In fact, acting on Geri’s advice, she had left as little as possible to chance. Geri had stipulated she use hot pink card, neatly and clearly printed in ink, to distinguish it from the other dog-eared and sloppily Biro’d offerings usually found on noticeboards. And the noticeboard Geri had favoured, during her impromptu post-breakfast consultancy the morning after the wedding, was that of Kensington Library.
    “Only bestseller-list regulars can afford to live there,” Geri explained, as they stood in the castle entrance hall knee-deep in bags, most of which seemed to be hers. “Guess I’d better shoot,” she added as a tense-looking Miranda appeared. “Before she shoots me .See you in London anyway. Good luck.”
    “Here’s my address.” Anna thrust it at Geri as she strode in high-heeled boots out of the Gothic arched doorway and disappeared into the mist. The roar of a powerful car engine could be heard almost immediately.
    As she turned and left the library, Anna wondered what Geri was doing now. As yet she had had no word from her, although admittedly only a few days had passed since the wedding. She was probably out of town; Anna imagined her reclining in club class on her way to troubleshoot some international management crisis or other, head to foot in tailored pinstripes, exciting the discreet interest of a few tanned and handsome businessmen with cryptic smiles. Or sweeping through town in a limo, a mobile clamped to her ear. Or moving swiftly but authoritatively through an open-plan office, a gaggle of executives rushing after her, waving papers and vying for her attention.
    Meanwhile, all Anna herself was doing was wandering vaguely down the library steps, having stuck a small pink card on the noticeboard, and wondering whether she had done the right thing. It seemed pathetic in comparison. But what, as Geri had said, could go wrong?
    Anna imagined listening raptly as Julian Barnes read aloud his latest chapter, or hovering helpfully in the shadow of Louis de Bernières’ desk lamp. Perhaps her little pink plea might even be spotted by a visiting Gore Vidal or Garrison Keillor and she would be whisked away to the land of white picket fences, clapboard, clam bakes, and American literary legend. In the meantime, she boarded the number 10 bus and was whisked away to the land of Seb slouching in front of the television and a kitchen full of empty crisp packets, crusted cereal bowls, and ringed coffee mugs.
    Staring out of the window as she juddered past Hyde Park, Anna’s thoughts wandered due north to a soft-spoken Scotsman with wide-apart eyes and rumpled hair. As they fought through the traffic of Knightsbridge, Anna was lost in her memories of Dampie. The stone-flagged hall, the vast fireplace with carved canopy, the tapestries, the stags’ heads, the ancient, misty, standing-stones-and-islands romance of it all…
    Suddenly, Anna realised she’d missed her stop and was at the bottom of Oxford Street. She’d have to walk almost all the way back up to Seb’s South Audley Street flat now. “ Fuck !”she muttered.
    “No need for that sort of language,” snapped the conductor.
    ***
    “ Fuck !”Cassandra threw down her pen and scowled at the Schnabel on the wall of her study. A present from her publishers when her fourth novel went through the five hundred thousand barrier, it only served to drive home the fact that she was getting precisely nowhere with her fifth. She flung herself theatrically back in her zebraskin chair, stretched her hands out before her, and tried to raise her spirits by examining the vast and glittering rings on