Barefoot in the Dark by Lynne Barrett-Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

Jack Valentine!’ she said with feeling. ‘Me! He must have thought I was the doziest, most irritating person on the planet.’
    Her cheeks still burned at the memory of her faux pas. How had her composure deserted her so utterly? Why did she feel so jangly all of a sudden? She had, after all, just been doing her job.
    Kayleigh was at the reisograph, reisographing something. She peered into the hole where the paper was supposed to come out.
    ‘I’m sure he didn’t,’ she said. ‘Bloody thing. Do you know what it means when the zig-zag light comes on?’
    ‘It means the paper’s jammed. You need to –’
    But Kayleigh was already sorting it. Hope wrestled with her other boot. And sighed. She had, she realised, become all too used to the schizophrenic nature of her present situation. No – she had created it. The brave face, the stoicism, the affectation of feeling OK. At first as a shield against well-meaning sympathy, but then, as the months passed, it had come to feel normal. The best way to manage the demons within. Thus there was the work her: confident, outgoing, ambitious, ever smiling, and then the real her: the duck legs underneath the swan, paddling fretfully and anxiously, out of sight. Yet somehow, today, the distinction had blurred. She had, she realised, felt her real self laid bare. It had been only the one and a half glasses of wine, but the afternoon now stretched unprepossessingly ahead of her, fuggy and distracting and full of paperwork and phone calls, when what she really wanted to do was put her feet up on her desk and consider the unbearable lightness of being. She didn’t know what that meant exactly, only that it seemed to suit her mood. And the consideration of such things was suddenly an altogether more enticing prospect than the pile of work that beckoned her now. Secretly, because it embarrassed her hugely, she was in a state of high, if somewhat worrying, excitement. She knew this was in some part due to the wine, but even so, a germ of daydream had lodged itself in her mind. A germ of a daydream about him . Him and her. Them, in fact. Silly, but it wouldn’t go away.
    Work, she told herself. This was work. Nothing to be frightened of. Jack Valentine had been absolutely right, of course, and the evidence was now sitting on her desk. She picked it up. Yet another letter from yet another agent, explaining that yet another big-shot celebrity would, regrettably, not be available to support their worthy cause. That he got requests all the time and that sadly it was impossible to support all of them. But at least this one had a cheque in it. For fifty pounds. And now she had someone anyway, even if she hadn’t known who he was.
    She put the letter down and kicked her boots under her chair. Her head might feel like the middle of a pavlova, but her feet felt like balls of angry wasps.
    ‘Ah!’ said Madeleine, coming in and parking her bottom on the corner of Hope’s desk. ‘The wanderer returns! So. Tell all. What’s he like? Is he nice? Is he on side?’
    ‘He’s going to speak to someone,’ she told her. ‘He said he’s very happy to give us a quote and do a photo – and do the race itself, if it fits in with his schedule – and he’s going to speak to someone at work about the rest. He’s going to ring me next week.’
    ‘Excellent,’ said Madeleine. ‘Pity he isn’t in television, but there you go. I expect he’s well-connected. And, besides, the trainer connection is eminently exploitable too. I was talking to George from the sports shop this morning and he thinks we might be able to wheedle some freebies out of Reebok, so, all in all, it’s looking like we might have some serious progress on our hands.’ She clapped Hope on the back. ‘Well done, sweetie. Great work.’
    ‘I enjoyed it. He’s nice.’
    ‘As in “nice” or as in nice ?’
    Hope coloured. ‘As in nice. As in helpful. As in pleasant. As in –’
    ‘Rubbish! Come on. Come clean. As in nice