The Mini-Break. Maddie Please

was going to accessorise that with the beginnings of a black eye.

      It hadn’t been a great day after all. In fact it had been an Olympic-standard bastard of a day with knobs on. What was I doing here again?

       Chapter Five

      I camouflaged my developing black eye with several layers of Touche Éclat and went out again the following day as I had decided I was low on something. It might have been loo cleaner or olives. I can’t remember and really I was just looking for an excuse to get out and about. To see people and talk to them. Which was odd because in London no one talks to anyone unless they absolutely have to and it never bothers me. And if you do they look at you as though you’re some sort of maniac rather than just someone who is asking about delays on the tube.

      In Superfine Supermarkets I was unreasonably thrilled to see my latest paperback was on the shelves at number four. I looked around furtively and then moved my book to take over the top space, which should have been filled with Dan Brown’s new one but it had sold out. Yes, I know it was very childish but I was sufficiently pleased with myself to take a shelfie, which I then posted onto Twitter with ‘Oooh look, I’m doing well in Devon!’

      You would think after all the books I’ve written and all the bestsellers I’d be immune to it but I’m not. I bet even J.K. Rowling is pleased to see her books in the window in Waterstones.

      Then a load of emails landed on my phone so I did what a lot of other people seemed to be doing and went to the supermarket café for a cup of rather unsatisfactory coffee and a slice of cake.

      I went and bought a few more things I didn’t need and some stuff for washing delicate woollens in the hope that I would ever get the crusty soup deposits out of my cashmere sweater. And then I saw a stand full of Ordnance Survey maps and I bought the one that covers the area of Sally’s house. This isn’t in any way the sort of thing I would normally do. I don’t quite know what was coming over me. I even flicked through a glossy magazine dedicated to all the local attractions of Dartmoor and Devon in general and was almost seduced into buying it when I saw an article about artisan bread making in Tavistock. Then I started looking around for binoculars. Binoculars? I mean really, do stop it.

      I was past the checkout when my phone rang.

      ‘What are you doing? Where are you? You do realise you’ve missed that do at the National Portrait Gallery you were so keen on going to?’

      ‘Hi, Jassy, everything okay?’ I said, steering my trolley past a small boy having a tantrum because his mother wouldn’t let him have a go in the coin-operated fire engine.

      ‘No actually. No, everything is not okay. I’ve had Benedict on the phone every evening since you left London. He’s really upset. He says he just had a friend round to his home and you got the hump.’

      ‘I didn’t, I just reacted as anyone else would have when I found him entertaining a scantily dressed blonde in my frigging kitchen and tried to pass her off as just a friend.’

      ‘So why did you just shoot off like that? What’s the matter with you? Chuck him out, for God’s sake! You could stay here if you want time to cool off. I mean now you’re miles from anywhere. I’ve been ringing you and emailing you and you never answer.’

      ‘And by the way it’s not Benedict’s home, it’s mine and perhaps he needs to be reminded of it.’

      ‘Then even more reason why you’d better come back. Leaving him to get on with it isn’t really the best way of teaching him a lesson. What on earth’s the matter?’ Jassy said in an eye-rolling tone of voice.

      ‘No, okay, right. Look, I found him with a strange woman in my kitchen. I think I have a perfect right to be annoyed. Don’t you?’

      ‘He just said he had a friend round and you flew off the handle.’

      ‘A friend? Yes right! She was wearing my frigging apron – the one I bought in New York as a joke – and chopping up onions with my knife too. And Benedict knows I hate anyone cooking in my kitchen. I’ve lived there for nearly three years and never so much as turned the grill on. And there she was wobbling her breast implants all over my granite worktops!’

      ‘Yuk! That’s not a nice image!’

      ‘Look, Jassy, that’s not the point. The point is that I went back to my home, as I’m fully entitled to do, and Benedict had some tart in the kitchen.’

      ‘Oh he said that was Tess. I can’t remember her last name. She’s on that late-night chat show with thingy with the beard. She gives out the drinks. You know, where the guests are sitting there talking about their latest book or film or husband. She’s the one who comes round with a tray of champagne and not much on.’

      ‘Well she had even less on when I saw her! Trollop!’ I shouted.

      Two people looked round and steered their trolleys pointedly away from me.

      ‘Well no wonder you were mad with him,’ Jassy said soothingly, ‘but why didn’t you show him the door instead of going off on holiday?’

      ‘I just need to get away, okay? I needed some time to think.’ I closed my eyes for a moment. I hadn’t been thinking straight for quite some time.

      ‘It’s not the same without you here. The Gang are all missing you.’

      The Gang.

      I could just imagine them all sitting around our favourite table in our favourite wine bar with an eclectic clutter of bottles and glasses in front of them. All of them partying like they were still in their twenties, even though so many of our other friends had already married and had kids. The very thought of seeing the Gang was suddenly rather exhausting.

      I tucked the phone under my chin, got to my car, opened the boot and started putting my shopping in.

      ‘Are you still there?’

      ‘Yes, Jassy, calm down. I’m not having a holiday; it’s more of a working mini-break. I’ve been writing and it’s been going well. I just want to finish off a couple of things. What day is it?’

      ‘Um, um, Tuesday.’

      ‘Right well I’ll come back at the weekend. If you see Benedict—’

      ‘He’s bound to drop in.’

      ‘—tell him I’m still furious and he’d better not have any more friends like that in.’

      ‘Okay, stop shouting. You can always come and stay with me you know. You’re very welcome.’

      I thought about it. Remembering Ralphie’s lascivious growling at my sister ‘Come here, you, I’m going to bowl a maiden over,’ in the next room was not something I wanted to repeat.

      ‘Look I’m probably over-reacting. Let me think about it. I’m a bit messed up at the moment,’ I said.

      ‘I’ll say! Where are you anyway?’

      ‘In the supermarket car park.’

      ‘Look, just come back. Otherwise Benedict is going to drive me mad.’

      ‘So it’s okay if he drives me mad?’

      ‘Well he’s your boyfriend. Stop being so difficult! Get rid of him. Hang on, Ralphie’s just got back. He’s been out to fetch his dry cleaning.’ She giggled. ‘We got chocolate body paint on his DJ trousers. You would have howled. We’d been—’

      ‘Please, Jassy, I don’t want to know.’

      ‘Promise me you’ll be back at the weekend? And by the way we’ve got an invite from Penguin for Samira’s book launch. Waterstones. Piccadilly.’

      ‘Yes I promise.’

      *

      I