That got his attention.
‘You mean you can’t have a Mars Bar with your afternoon cup of tea?’ he asked, stunned.
‘Most days I don’t have time for an afternoon cup of tea,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘I just throw coffee down my throat and hope it’ll keep me going until home time, which is usually somewhere around eight o’clock if I’m lucky.’
‘Eight o’clock and they won’t even let you have a Mars Bar?’ Dad whimpered. ‘It’s inhumane.’
Even though he looked surprised, none of this was new information. He knew I worked absurd hours for old men who dedicated their lives to keeping the world just the way they liked it, and he had encouraged me do it with a smile on his face. Because once upon a time, he wanted to be one of those men. Like Mum said, he was old-fashioned about a lot of things. But he also loved his kids. It was time for him to accept that things had to change.
‘I don’t know where I’m going to end up,’ I said, choosing my words carefully now that I had him somewhere close to onside. ‘But it’ll be somewhere I feel like I belong. Where I don’t have to work for shitheads who say and do disgusting things I haven’t even told you about because well, it’s embarrassing and ugly and not the sort of thing you want to tell your dad who is so proud of the fact you work for them. Wherever I go next will be better.’
‘And it’ll be somewhere you can eat a sodding Mars Bar whenever you want!’ he replied, completely fired up evenif he was choosing to focus on one of the lesser problems with my job. ‘I’m sorry, chicken.’ He pinched his shoulders together then let them slump down. I know the job isn’t a walk in the park, but it’s still hard for me to understand walking away after putting in all this time. Couldn’t you change things by staying? Shake it up a bit from the inside? This isAbbott & Howewe’re talking about, Magic Circle, top dog. It’s what you’ve always wanted.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ I corrected gently. ‘It’s what you always wanted. I just wanted to impress you and Cerys. Plus, I thought working in a law firm would be more like it was onAlly McBealbut no, no one sings, no one dances, there’s zero Robert Downey Jr and I’ve not seen hide nor hair of a dancing baby.’
‘Your mother bloody loved that show,’ Dad muttered. ‘Don’t mention it when we get home, it’s bound to be streaming somewhere and I cannot sit through all of that again.’
‘You’ve got a deal.’ I wound my arm through his, feeling something like peace all around.
‘I won’t pretend I’m not concerned,’ he said, straightening the flap of his cap. ‘And I do hope you give this a lot more thought before you hand in your notice, but whatever you decide to do, well, it’s up to you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is,’ I agreed, turning my face towards the light that broke through a bank of low-hanging clouds. That was good enough for today. ‘Shall we go on down to Chatsworth or do you want to go back?’ I asked.
He looked down at my muddy trainers, borrowed coat and grey face. ‘I’m not sure you’d make it,’ he said, steering us back in the direction of the house. ‘Let’s get you home and put the kettle on.’
‘Thank you,’ I muttered. My legs were jelly. ‘I’d have died before we got halfway across the field.’
‘Whatever you do next, make sure it’s something that mostly involves sitting down,’ Dad advised. ‘Long-distance runner is not going to be your thing.’
‘I need a job where I can sit on my arse all day, drink a lot of tea and eat Mars Bars,’ I replied. ‘Any ideas?’
Dad scrunched up his face with concentration. ‘Have you considered running for prime minister?’
‘Iwasthinking about getting out of central London,’ I replied with a thoughtful sniff. ‘But now I think about it, I do quite fancy the country house and company car.’
‘They’ll let anybody run a country these days,’ Dad said, cheerfully striking the ground with his walking stick. ‘Worth keeping it in mind.’
‘Always worth keeping in mind,’ I agreed, marching along beside him.
The sun shone brightly when I stepped out the front door after lunch. Even though it was blinding outside, the air was still frosty and the snow was still on the ground, deep and crisp and even. It crunched under my feet as I practised my lines in my head.
Hi Dev, about the whole kissing thing yesterday, I’ve been trapped in a time loop so I know you used to have a crush on me plus we almost did it in Bernard and Lesley’s pool the other night so …
I caught the eye of a tiny sparrow perched on a frosty white branch.
‘No, you’re right,’ I said. ‘Probably a bit much.’
The sparrow quite rightly flew away.
I didn’t know what I was going to say. Dev was theone who had pulled me through the last ten days. The one person I still wanted to see even when I could hardly bear to open my eyes. He helped me see how brave and bold and downright stupid I could be if I put my mind to it and he made me feel things, in my heart and in my M&S underwear, that I thought only existed in books and films and all those songs I’d learned by heart but never truly believed. I felt strong with him. He reminded me of a time in my life when every door was unlocked, just waiting to be opened. Somewhere along the line I’d confused a closed door with a locked one, but Dev had reminded me I was the one with the key. All I had to do was turn the handle and walk on through.
To me, Dev was everything.
To him, I was a woman he hadn’t spoken to in a decade who randomly snogged him in the street twenty-four hours earlier.
It’s going to be OK, I told myself as I opened the latch on our garden gate and turned onto the footpath between our two houses, pulling my jacket closer around me.
Don’t overthink it.