Monday to Friday Man E-Book

Alice Peterson

• Herausgeber: Bedford Square Publishers
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 396

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

What do you do if you're 34 and recovering from being jilted two weeks before your wedding day? While friends are marrying, having children and moving to the depths of the countryside, Gilly Brown finds herself alone in London with just her little dog Ruskin for company. It's time to move on, so on a friend's advice she looks for a lodger, a Monday to Friday one, and finds handsome television producer Jack Baker. Gilly falls for Jack's charm and is transported into an exciting social whirlwind of parties, dining out and glamour. When Jack is introduced to Gilly's family and friends, it's only the attractive and eccentric Guy, the newest recruit in the dog walking group, who isn't quite so convinced about Jack's intentions. As Guy watches them grow closer, his suspicions of Jack and his feelings for Gilly deepen. Is Jack so perfect after all… and what exactly does he get up to at the weekends?

Leseprobe

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Praise for Alice Peterson

‘Echoes of Jane Austin, A Room With a View and Bridget Jones’s Diary’ Robert O’Rourke on Monday to Friday Man

‘If You Were Here is a moving and emotional story about facing a life-altering dilemma’ Jill Mansell, bestselling author of Rumour Has It

‘It’s not often that I fall in love with a book within the first few pages, but it happened to me with this one’ The Bookbag on You, Me and Him

‘Compelling and beautifully written’ Daisy Buchanan, journalist and author on If You Were Here

‘As it was the favourite book of the year to date for my reader in this field, I had to read it too… I loved it. It’s character-led, warm and sensitive’ Sarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller on Letters From My Sister

‘This is a wonderful portrait of the different dynamics within an unusual family’ Sara Lawrence, Daily Mail on The Things We Do for Love

‘A lovely example of realistic fiction that many women will be able to relate to’ Sun on One Step Closer to You

‘A lovely read, tackling both light and dark material with real assurance. I love the idea of a love triangle where one of the characters has died, which actually makes him more of an obstacle than if he were still alive. Also, the thought that you can find true love twice feels a strong romantic notion – and quite true, I’m sure’ Tom Williams, Chalet Girl screenwriter on Ten Years On

To Bernice and Zek in memory of Alice

1

‘You slot the capsule into the machine like so,’ the shop assistant demonstrates, positioned in front of a deluxe coffee machine. Her red hair is pinned back into a tight ponytail that swishes from side to side. ‘Press the cappuccino button and there you go!’

‘Wonderful,’ I say, as the gleaming machine gurgles, churns and froths the milk. This Italian coffee-maker was one of the wedding presents I had to return reluctantly.

For the finishing touches she sprinkles chocolate powder into the mug and hands it to me. I take a sip.

‘Well, what do you think?’ she asks.

And that’s when I see him.

I stare into his face.

I knew that one of these days we would bump into one another.

After all we both live in Hammersmith.

I’m still not ready to face him.

My eye is drawn to the watch I gave him for his birthday two years ago. I remember putting it round his wrist, Ed leaning across to kiss me.

Now he can’t even look me in the eye.

A fair-haired woman approaches with a piece of paper in her hand. ‘Edward, darling, have we put the Le Creuset casserole dishes…’ She stops, sensing the awkward atmosphere. ‘On to our list?’ she finishes, glancing at me and then back to him.

‘We need to go,’ is all he can say.

The glamorous woman whose groomed appearance gives the impression that she lives in a health spa waits to be introduced, but instead Ed takes her arm and firmly leads her out of the shop.

I exit the cookware department without my deluxe coffee machine and step numbly onto the escalator, clutching the handrail, tears stinging my eyes. I can’t believe he’s getting married! Six months and he’s moved on. How could he?

I overhear hushed voices.

‘Hang on… Gilly? Oh my God! That was Gilly?’ Her powerful scent fills the air.

‘Don’t talk too loud,’ he insists, before adding, ‘we’ll come back later.’

‘You’d better not walk out on me,’ she says, glancing over her shoulder.

I watch them leave the shop.

When it’s safe to follow, I walk out of the double doors, catching a reflection of myself with froth decorating my top lip.

2

‘This is Dorset FM playing you your favourite hot summer tunes,’ the smooth-voiced radio presenter says, ‘and here’s another great track from a singer who needs no introduction.’ Next I am belting out, ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ by Lionel Richie as I drive into the open countryside.

Ruskin, my dog, barks in protest on the back seat, before sticking his nose out of the window again, enjoying the wind against his face.

‘What’s wrong, Rusk?’ I call, glancing over my shoulder towards him. ‘I have the voice of an angel!’

He barks again, clearly saying I haven’t and that he’s not too keen on my musical taste either. He’s always been more of a Bach and Mozart man.

I pull over into the side of the road to let a tractor crawl past.

I think I needed to bump into Ed last weekend. I really do.

‘Nearly there, sweetheart,’ I promise Ruskin.

Following a friendly exchange between the tractor driver thanking me for waiting, and me thanking him for thanking me, I drive on.

I’m not going to dwell on it, I tell myself.

Ed looked handsome. Slim and tanned. I’d saved up for months to buy him that watch. I grip the steering wheel. ‘Look, Ruskin, isn’t it stunning? Look at the sheep and all this green space and blue sky! We are going to love it here!’

I’m convinced Ruskin and I should move out of London and make a new start in the country. I will miss London; I have so many happy memories. Dancing on Friday nights with my friends. Staying up until five in the morning and then enjoying lazy breakfasts as the sun rose. On Saturday nights Ed and I would usually go to a party or dinner and when we returned home, we’d carry on drinking cocktails and stick some music on and be silly. I loved those evenings. The museums are some of the best in the world… though it is true to say I don’t make the most of them. Spitalfields and Camden markets on a Sunday. Ed introduced me to opera. I was never sure I was going to like it, but I found myself falling in love with my evenings at Covent Garden. It’s where he proposed.

It is hard to imagine living somewhere else… except recently… well, recently things have changed. For me London’s lost its shine. Maybe that’s because I’m single and many of my married friends have moved away. Only this morning did I receive yet another change-of-address card from an old school friend of mine, and on this card was a black-and-white illustration of a family waving goodbye as they ascended the sky in a hot air balloon, with the caption above, THE DIGBYS ARE TAKING OFF!

I drive past a thatched cottage, the front door open, letting in the sun. Now where in London would you be able to do this? Certainly not in Hammersmith, where I zigzag the pavements, avoiding one dodgy-looking person after another.

Late at night all I hear now are drunken voices outside my bedroom window and I wake the following morning to find shards of glass on the road. My car was broken into last week. Admittedly I was stupid enough to have left my gym kit on the back seat. The bastards took all of my CDs except for The Best of Girls Aloud.

I arrive in a sleepy market-town square and park right outside Hunters Estate Agents. As I unbuckle Ruskin from his seatbelt, I spot my A-Z squashed under the passenger seat, keeping company with an empty plastic water bottle, a heap of crumpled parking tickets and… what the hell’s that? It’s some old tangerine peel. I’ll do a major tidy-up later.

Examining the parking sign, I discover with delight that I don’t have to pay. In London I can barely utter my name without being charged, so that’s another good reason to leave.

I open the door and walk into the middle of the room, Ruskin pulling me along at a pace towards a man sitting behind his desk.

‘Gilly?’ He stands up to shake my hand. ‘Gilly with a G?’ he adds cautiously with a wry smile.

I smile back, amazed by his memory. Dad used to say that I’d tell everyone I was different because my name was spelt with a ‘G’ and not a ‘J’. I think the last time I met Richard was in Dad’s kitchen. I must have been about ten; Richard would have been in his late teens. He had longish dark hair, was loud and confident. I remember thinking his cowboy boots were trendy. He’d come over for tea with his father.

I look at him now, guessing he must be in his midforties. I thought he’d be taller, but then everyone is big when you are still growing up. He’s solid in build with a crushing handshake and… oh my God… such terrible dress sense now! Why is he wearing a glaring yellow tropical shirt with pineapples on it? He must be going through a midlife crisis.

‘Good to see you again,’ Richard says, ‘it’s been a long time. How’s your dad?’ Richard is my father’s godson, and it was Dad who had suggested I see him if I really was keen on moving to the country. Richard’s father, Michael, and my dad met during their National Service and have kept in touch ever since. I remember Michael and my father reminiscing about getting up early in the morning to polish the toecaps of their boots until they shone like the sun, and constantly being shouted at by the sergeant. I had enjoyed listening to their stories.

‘Please, take a seat,’ he says, surveying me in my denim miniskirt, shades and pink Birkenstocks. I take off my sunglasses. Behind Richard’s desk, mounted on the wall, is a large black-and-white framed photograph of an aerial view of Dorset. ‘Cute dog,’ he comments.

‘Thanks.’ I glow with pride. Ruskin is my rescue dog, five years old and a terrier of some kind with a tail like a palm tree, thick sturdy legs and a handsome head too large for his body. Children laugh when they see him but always want to stroke him. To my mind, he’s the most loyal man in my life and I won’t hear a word said against him.

After briefly exchanging news about each other’s dads, Richard gets down to business. ‘So you’re looking to buy in this area?’

‘That’s right. I want an adventure,’ I say boldly. There’s no reason why I can’t take off like the Digbys, I think to myself.

‘I can’t remember… do you have family here?’

‘Yes, yes. My Aunt Pearl used to live in…’ I narrow my eyes, trying to remember. ‘Tolpuddle. That’s it. Tolpuddle.’ I remember, as a child, being sent off to Aunt Pearl’s during the summer holidays with my twin, Nick. We enjoyed it. She’d take us to lots of different beaches, and Nick and I climbed rocks and played ducks and drakes in the sea.

Richard crosses his arms. He has a strong square face, curly dark-brown hair and thick eyebrows.

‘Anyway, I drove through some lovely villages this morning,’ I decide not to tell him that some of these villages seemed half-dead, ‘and saw a cottage for sale in… Poddlehampton, or was it Puddletown… Puddlesomething anyway.’

‘Piddlehinton.’ He’s trying not to smile. ‘Would you like a coffee or tea?’

‘Oh. A cappuccino please.’

‘You’re not at Foxtons.’

I blush. ‘Instant’s great, thanks.’

He heaves himself out of his chair, walks up a couple of steps, and then he’s out of sight.

I look around the office restlessly before reaching down to stroke Ruskin, who’s lying under my chair.

I gaze out of the window, telling myself not to think about bumping into Ed and his new wife-to-be any more. When I’d stared into his face all I could think was I used to wake up to that face each morning. I know his every line, the shape of his mouth, the story behind his faded scar on the left-hand side of his forehead. I look down at my hands. She wouldn’t wear chipped nail varnish, or bite her nails. I wonder if Ed has told her the story behind his scar?

I am jolted from my thoughts by noise and cursing coming from the kitchen, and Richard asking me if I want milk and sugar. It sounds as if he’s having a fight with the mugs and the kettle is about to explode. As I watch a doddery man shuffle past outside, pushing a trolley on wheels, a ripple of panic sets in. What am I going to do here? Would I find a job easily? I’d miss my father if I left London. He lives in our old rundown family home by Regent’s Park. I don’t think he wants me to move, but you can never quite tell with Dad. I know Anna doesn’t want me to go. Like me she’s single, and she and I are like sisters. I’d miss my twin, Nick, too. I’d especially miss his children. Still, they could all come and stay, couldn’t they, in my idyllic country cottage with pale-pink climbing roses and a pretty front gate. I can see the girls now, running barefoot around my lawn, laughing and playing under the sprinkler. In the evenings we’d have fun picking raspberries from my garden.

I stroke Ruskin, thinking how much I’d also miss my Ravenscourt Park dog-walking friends. We’ve become an institution that meets every morning at eight o’clock, under the oak tree, come rain or shine.

God, I’d miss Susie too. Her daughter, Rose, is my goddaughter.

Then I think of Ed, again. ‘Oh, my God, that was Gilly,’ she’d said. I can’t bump into her again.

‘Gilly?’ Richard hands me my coffee.

‘I’m sorry.’ I take the mug, thanking him. ‘I was a world away.’

‘Remind me, have you sold your London place yet?’

No. It’s all early days but…’

‘What do you do, Gilly?’

‘Good question.’ I smile as I clear my throat. ‘I work in my friend’s antiques shop.’

‘Right.’

‘It’s only temporary,’ I rush to tell him. ‘I used to work for this company that hired out locations for photo shoots, adverts, conferences, that kind of thing, but it went bust under new management. She was terrible, the boss…’ I rub my hands together, realising Richard doesn’t need to hear all the details. ‘Anyway, I’m just helping this friend out over the summer, until I move. Now, you said over the phone that you had a few houses within my budget?’

He shuffles some sheets together and a few fly onto the floor, which he doesn’t bother to pick up. ‘OK, let’s start with this one.’

It’s a thatched cottage. The kitchen has a black-and-white chequered floor and an ancient-looking cooker. ‘It’s on the main road to Dorchester,’ Richard says.

Scanning the details, I search to say something positive, but… ‘It looks a little bit pokey.’

‘Too right! Awful place,’ he agrees.

I watch him curiously as he produces another sheet, this one revealing a white cottage with a front garden and shutters over the windows.

‘The thing is,’ Richard begins, sensing I like it, ‘it’s down a steep hill and come the winter you’ll be trapped if there’s snow.’

‘Is it a lively place?’

‘Um, now what do you mean by lively?’

‘Well, it would be nice to meet some people my age.’ How about an attractive country gentleman who owns two golden Labradors, and who enjoys coastal walks and romantic meals by the fire? And dancing. Got anyone like that hiding in your filing cabinet?

Richard taps his fingers against the desk. ‘I forget who lives there apart from the vicar and his wife. She, poor thing, has been laid up for months, fell into her wheelie bin and skidded down the hill.’

I can’t help smiling at that.

He shows me another tiny cottage in a village that seems to consist solely of three houses and a postbox. The windows are the size of matchboxes and the curtains are drawn. I know I have a small budget, but come on!

‘Right.’ He pauses, looks tentative, but continues, ‘Listen, are you sure you want to move?’

‘Sorry?’ I say, just as my mobile rings and Ruskin barks. Flustered, I reach for my handbag and rummage around in it, aware that Richard is watching me. All manner of things come out: diary, bronzing powder, Oyster card, lipstick, even Ruskin’s poop-scoop bags. I’m sure mobiles conspire to hide the moment they call.

At last, you little devil. ‘Sorry, what was that?’ I switch it off.

He surveys my long dark-brown hair pinned back with a navy spotted scarf, my bangles and turquoise suede handbag; next he casts an eye down to my bare wedding finger. ‘I’m not sure the countryside is a place for…’

‘Single women?’

He strokes his chin, nods.

‘I have thought about this,’ I admit, ‘but…’

‘People will be suspicious of your motives in moving here.’

I look at him, puzzled.

‘You won’t get invited out much if that’s what you think. No invitations winging their way through your door, I’m afraid.’

I smile nervously. ‘Why not?’

He leans in close towards me. ‘Women will feel threatened.’

‘No they won’t. What do you mean?’ I add.

‘Believe me, it happens. They’ll be scared you’ll run off with their husbands. You’re a good-looking girl,’ he says, with a sparkle now in his eye.

‘Running off with women’s husbands is not my style, believe me. And if they wear pineapple shirts like yours, there’s no chance,’ I add, beginning to relax. ‘I just need a change.’

‘These villages are idyllic right now, but come winter no one will darken your doorstep,’ he claims.

‘Of course they will! I’ll make sure friends visit me all the time.’

‘What are you doing to do stuck down here? Play bridge?’

‘I’ll get a job. It’ll be fun!’

‘You haven’t thought this through, have you?’

‘I have! I want to be somewhere different. I want a garden for Ruskin and I want… I want a healthier life. Clean fresh air.’

‘It smells of silage round here,’ he laughs.

‘Oh, don’t be so stupid. I’ll have a lovely garden where I can grow my own vegetables and fruit,’ I insist. ‘Raspberries, potatoes and… and… purple sprouting broccoli!’

‘If you think you’re lonely now…’

‘Lonely! I’m not lonely.’ I bend down to stroke Ruskin, curled up with his face resting on my feet.

‘Why are you really moving?’

‘What?’ I daren’t look up. His question takes my breath away.

‘Gilly, someone once told me I should leave London only when I hated it, when I’d squeezed all the juice out of it. Stupidly I didn’t take their advice and I miss it like mad. I’m not sure you’ve reached that stage yet.’

I picture Ed again and at last some courage fires up in my belly.

‘Want to bet?’

He nods.

‘I’m tired of the same old scenery. I’ve become immune to the wailing sirens and accidents that happen right under my nose. I hate paying the fucking congestion charge, Ruskin has no garden, just paving stones, hardly any of my friends still live in London and… and… the ones that do only invite me round for tea where I have to listen to their screaming children demanding ice cream in a cone not a bowl!’

I breathe again. My God, that felt good.

‘I don’t have a job, well, not a proper job right now,’ I continue, like a pressure cooker letting off steam. ‘I’m free and single so I have nothing to lose, right? So what if I’m single? What if I never meet anyone, Richard? If I just live my whole life in London and then get buried in Hammersmith too? I’m scared, I’m…’

He sits up. ‘You’re scared?’

‘I’m so angry with myself.’

‘Why?’

And then the strangest thing happens. I start to cry and Richard is handing me tissues and telling me to let it all out, his voice now soft, as though he’s my therapist.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say eventually, wiping my eyes. ‘I’m really all right…’ I falter. ‘Oh God, Richard,’ I exclaim, knowing I can’t fool him now, ‘I’m so embarrassed! I haven’t seen you in such a long time, and here I am breaking down in front of you.’

What must he think of me?

‘You don’t need to be sorry.’ Richard smiles. ‘Happens all the time.’ I find myself smiling back at him. ‘But tell me,’ he asks gently, ‘what is it?’

I sigh. ‘I still love him,’ I say.

Richard listens patiently as I fill him in on my four-year relationship with Ed and how it ended abruptly, only two weeks before our Christmas wedding. There was no explanation from him except for a scribbled note on the hall table that read, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t marry you.’

‘Do you sometimes feel like you’re sitting on the sidelines, that you’re watching everybody’s life move on except your own?’ I ask him.

‘Often.’

I tell him that I’d bumped into Ed and his future wife in Selfridges.

‘God, Richard, I’m stuck in a rut.’ I wait for him to say something comforting. ‘Tell me what I should do.’

‘You need to stop feeling so sorry for yourself and get on with it.’

‘What?’ I say, taken aback by the sudden change of tone.

‘I feel for you, Gilly, I really do. What this Ed did was unforgivable, but it’s been six months. You need to move on.’

‘I know,’ I say, bottom lip quivering.

‘Moving here isn’t right. You’re running away.’

I fiddle with the strap of my handbag. ‘You’re married aren’t you, Richard?’

‘Divorced. It’s a lonely business. Believe me, I’ve felt like running away too.’

I glance at him, surprised by this sudden confession.

‘If I were you, Gilly, I’d go back to London with my lovely dog and start having some fun again. What are you smiling about?’ he asks me now.

‘Going back home. London’s dirty, so expensive and everyone’s rude,’ I add. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, but the other day I was told to fuck off by a drunk on my own doorstep who then proceeded to chuck his beer can at me.’

Richard smiles.

I tell him how Gloria, my neighbour, had asked me if I had a new lodger who’d forgotten his key.

‘Oh my God!’ he exclaims as he rolls up his glossy property magazine and thumps it against the table in triumph. ‘I’ve got it,’ he says, sounding like Professor Higgins. ‘Get a lodger.’

‘A lodger?’

He crosses his arms with satisfaction. ‘Yes! I was only reading about it in the paper the other day and how everyone’s renting out their spare room. Hang on, you’ve got a spare room, right?’

I nod. ‘A very small one.’

‘There you go then.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I need time to warm up to ideas.

‘It’s an easy way to make some money,’ he tempts me.

I think about this. Since being made redundant from my last job my salary has plummeted. Mari, my dogwalking friend who owns the antiques business, can’t afford to pay me much more than the going rate for working in a shop. Recently I’ve been making my own packed lunch to save some cash.

‘I’m too old for a flatmate, I’ve done all that. I’m too set in my ways now.’

‘Well, unset.’

Next thing I know he’s ushering Ruskin and me out of the door. ‘What are you doing?’ I say in protest as he propels me out into the fresh air.

‘Taking you out for lunch.’

‘Hang on…’

‘There’s a good pub across the road. Clearly you need convincing,’ he finishes.

3

I am scrolling through the jobs section of my newspaper when Mari staggers into the shop carrying a marble bust. She’s just returned from a stock-buying trip in France. ‘Look at this handsome fellow, Gilly!’ She lowers him onto the sofa. Ruskin and Basil, Mari’s Jack Russell, reluctantly make room. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’

He is, but where is he going to live for the next few months? The long oak table in the middle of the room is already piled high with treasures. ‘Is there a lot?’ I ask, following her outside.

‘Less than last time, more than the time before.’

Soon I’m helping Mari unload the stock from her battered old white van, vases and lanterns littering the pavement. ‘All they need is a glaze and rich fabric cushions,’ Mari says, when she sees me raise an eyebrow at a set of rusting garden chairs.

Mari, short for Marigold, is one of my most flamboyant dog-walking friends. She’s in her late forties with jetblack hair cut into a chic bob, and today she’s wearing a lime-green jumpsuit. I first met her four years ago in Ravenscourt Park, standing under the shade of an oak tree near to the underground station. She was smoking a menthol cigarette in between hurling a ball for Basil to retrieve. Mari is divorced with no children. ‘I never wanted them,’ she told me on one of our walks. ‘I only wanted a dog.’

Her shop, along the Pimlico Road, specialises in antique chandeliers, mirrors, lanterns and vases, and she’s just been to various brocantes to find bargains. Mari has a great eye; she picks things up that most of us would walk straight past. With a bit of sprucing up, she can see that what is underneath the cobwebs, dead flies and dust is in fact a Georgian chandelier.

‘Now this is interesting,’ Mari tells me, both of us crouched down on the floor looking at a large, circular, silver light. ‘I would think it was made in the twenties,’ she guesses, ‘and used by surgeons to perform operations. Some clever person had the idea of taking the design from the eighteenth-century peasant lights.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ I say, imagining it in my own fantasy French rustic kitchen.

‘What I love about antiques is they’re dead people’s stuff,’ Mari states. ‘Think of all the fabulous parties this light has witnessed,’ she says, gesturing to one of her new chandeliers that looks as if it’s come from the rubbish dump.

‘Yes, yes, but when Bob gets his hands on it, it’ll be perfect.’ Robert Chamarette is Mari’s glass and metal man, whom Mari loves almost as much as Basil. ‘Think of all the servants that have polished her,’ she continues, ‘all the scratches and knocks she’s had, and somehow she’s found her way into my shop.’

‘How much did it cost?’

‘Oh, Gilly,’ she tuts. ‘It’s not how much “it” cost. It’s how much I can sell it for.’

Later that day, when Mari is out meeting a journalist who wants to hire some chandeliers for a Hello! photo shoot, I continue to scan the jobs section of my newspaper, but no jobs leap off the page. Maybe that’s because I just can’t face any more interviews? I think I’d rather endure root-canal treatment than be subjected to more rejections. I shut my eyes, remembering them…

Interview One: ‘Gilly Brown, would you like to go in?’ the glamorous receptionist asks me. This job is in the fashion business, working for a dress-design company, so I’ve gone out of my way to look the part, wearing a fitted dress with new gladiator-style ankle boots.

As I walk into the interview room, towards a stylish woman with blonde hair sitting behind her glass desk, I trip on the edging of the carpet, lose my balance and virtually fly towards her, finishing my grand entrance with a crash-landing into my seat. Straight away I know I haven’t got the job, rather like when I took my driving test and bumped up and over the pavement within the first minute.

Interview Two: ‘What are your strengths and weaknesses?’ he asks. I’ve applied for a job in a bank.

‘I’m very good with people, but terrible with figures,’ I claim proudly. Why is he looking at me like that?

Interview Three: ‘And you can work long hours, right?’ This interview is for a hot-shot advertising company and to my amazement it’s going really well.

‘Absolutely,’ I reply. ‘I will put in one hundred and ten per cent. I won’t let you down.’ Under the desk I cross my fingers. I’ve always hated that one hundred and ten per cent expression, but judging from his beaming smile, he loves it.

He stands up and leans towards me. ‘Are you hungry, Gilly?’

I glance at my watch. ‘Well, come to think of it, I am a bit peckish,’ I say, wondering where he’s going to take me for a celebratory lunch to announce I’ve got the job.

‘I meant hungry for success,’ he says quietly.

I open my eyes and find myself laughing. Oh God. I failed so badly at the last fence. Needless to say I didn’t get that job either and after a series of rejections I really lost my nerve and confidence, so when Mari asked me if I would like to replace her old assistant, I said yes immediately. I thought a temporary job could be the perfect opportunity to clear my head, earn some money, really think about what to do next and brush up on my interview skills. My friends and family had smiled when I told them I was working in an antiques shop. Anna, my best friend, who works in marketing, said she’d imagined people in the antiques industry to be short and bald with half-moon spectacles perched on the end of their noses and hunched shoulders from peering too closely at faded trademarks on porcelain.

But I like it here. Extraordinary customers come to Mari’s shop, from all over the world. Only yesterday an Italian woman swept in, modelling a Vivienne Westwood outfit with a flowing designer scarf that she’d insist on dramatically throwing across her shoulders, so much so that it would get tangled up in the antiques. Repeatedly I had to extricate it carefully from a vase or lantern, praying the material wouldn’t rip. When she attempted to walk downstairs in her killer heels, I suggested that she put on my Birkenstocks instead. You see, the shop is set on two levels. The ground floor has creaking floorboards, old kilim rugs designed to trip me up and treacherous stairs leading down to the basement. It smells slightly old and musty, and though everything is utterly higgledypiggledy, it has a certain charm to it. I cannot afford to work here for too long, though. The trouble is I’ve asked myself again and again what I would like to do next, but I still don’t know. I don’t want to apply for just any old job; I want to find something that I feel passionate about.

Mari’s real love is acting, and when people ask her what she does, she tells them proudly she’s an actress. In her free time she auditions and performs in local theatre productions. ‘I won’t let my dream go,’ she tells me. ‘I don’t want to die with a pinched, bitter face. You have to find something that makes you happy, Gilly.’

What is my dream?

Since leaving Manchester University with an English degree I’ve jumped from one job to another as if they were hot stepping stones. I smile, remembering one of my teachers saying I was like a little butterfly, never settling in one place for too long. ‘When I grow up I’m going to be a farmer,’ I’d say to my school friends one week. ‘I want lots of horses and dogs.’

‘A hairdresser,’ was the next idea.

‘Pop star.’

‘Model.’

‘Vet.’

My cv is a jumble sale of different roles, ranging from charity work to even (ironically) working for a career consultant to help others find their dream job. I could apply for another post in the locations industry; apart from the boss, I enjoyed working there for three years. My father said it was a world record. I made some contacts. I’m sure I could call them to see if they knew of any job opportunities coming up.

I gaze down at my paper. What’s stopping me? Why do I feel something is missing?

‘When you feel stuck in a rut,’ Richard had said, over a ploughman’s lunch, and sounding increasingly like an agony aunt, ‘you need to do something different. Life can be like a padlock refusing to open. One small change in the combination can finally open the door.’

‘Rusk, what am I going to do?’ I stroke him, wishing he had the answer.

‘Get a lodger,’ I hear Richard pipe up again. I jot down my monthly expenses and fret as the list goes on and on. Maybe I should cancel my gym membership. I need to be going at least three times a week to make it worthwhile.

Richard’s got a point. I should make the most of my home; after all I’m lucky that I’m even on the property ladder. Five years ago, when my mother’s mother died, she left Nick and me enough money to put down a decent deposit on a house. My grandmother was an austere, distant figure in our lives; Dad always says she left us money in her will because she felt guilty for avoiding us when my disabled sister Megan was born.

I stare at the list again. This morning my credit card bill arrived. It’s had one too many outings recently. I know I shouldn’t have bought my Birkenstocks. Plus my gas and electricity bills have gone up.

There is no doubt that I need the rent. I pick up the phone. A lodger? ‘Hang on,’ Anna whispers, ‘vile boss coming, will call back.’

Anna works for a marketing company that specialises mainly in sports and travel. Growing up, we went to the same school, formed our first pop band together with Nick called the Funky Monkeys, played and tobogganed in the snow, and Anna often came with our family when we took Megan to the seaside or the zoo.

Just as I’m about to tuck into my packed lunch, I hear the little tinkle on the door and shove my sandwiches back inside the box. A stooped old man enters, carrying a Boots plastic bag. He shuffles towards me and I quickly warn him not to trip up on the rug. ‘Can I help?’ I ask politely. He’s wearing a collection of clothes that can only have come from a jumble sale.

‘Um.’ He lingers. ‘Um. I’m looking, yes lovely things here, looking for er… er… a set of um…’

The phone rings and I’m wondering if I should pick it up. I notice the maroon socks inside his brown sandals. Oh, please hurry up.

‘Er… yes, now, what I’m after is… um, a set of um, er, china platters.’

I try not to laugh. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, sir, but we only sell antiques, mainly lights and mirrors.’ I gesture to the mirrors pressed against the wall. He looks lost and unsure what to do next. I guide him gently out of the shop and point him in the direction of Peter Jones.

I rush back, hearing the phone ring again. ‘Mari’s Antiques… oh, Anna, hi…’

‘Sorry about earlier. Got to be quick. I’ve just been talking to one of the guys at work and he does this Monday to Friday thing. Google it,’ she orders. She’s about to hang up when she can’t help saying, ‘I’m so relieved you’re not moving. I need you here. Us single girls, we need to stick together.’

I smile. ‘I’d have missed you too.’

‘Monday to Friday,’ I type that evening, having just returned from a night out with Anna. We went to one of our favourite Greek restaurants near her flat in Clapham.

I love my evenings with Anna. We have known each other since childhood, and she is like a ray of sunshine, someone whom I always feel better for seeing. Currently she’s single, though how long that will last who knows? Anna has no problem attracting men. She’s fair with a spattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and men fall for her husky voice and infectious laugh. ‘My problem is I become restless quickly,’ she says. Anna claims she’s had enough of men now, she positively wants to be single, but I know the real reason why she finds it hard to commit. She’s always been in love with Paul, one of her colleagues at work. Nothing’s happened between them because he’s married. I haven’t met him yet.

I click onto the Monday to Friday site now.

‘By the way, how come you decided to find a lodger?’ Anna had asked earlier tonight.

‘I’m going to get over Ed,’ I announced proudly. ‘If he can move on, so can I.’

‘About time!’

I tell her about Richard, and that while he was a useless estate agent, he’d made a lot of sense with this lodger idea.

‘I could kiss the ground Richard walks on! Is he married?’ she’d added.

A clean-shaven man called Miles pops up onto the screen with a beaming white-toothed smile, modelling a City suit. ‘Monday to Friday works like a dream,’ he says. ‘No long commute to work, no traffic jams! Just a simple hop and a skip on the tube, and voilà! I’m in the office. Then, come the weekend, I go home for real. I couldn’t recommend it more as it ticks all the boxes. It’s a no-brainer!’

Steady on, Miles. He looks as if he’s positively going to fly through the screen and land in my lap to convince me.

I scroll down to read some further testimonials from successful landlords and ladies.

‘My Monday to Friday man is a professional and a pleasure to have around,’ says Mandy. ‘What’s great is he doesn’t have a lot of baggage, so my home still feels like my own.’

Now this is important because in my small two-bedroom house there isn’t much space for anyone, let alone their baggage. One of my favourite hobbies is browsing shops and markets to find unusual things. Recently I found an abstract African sculpture of a bird in flight that I put in front of my fireplace.

There’s a box which says, REGISTER NOW! With one simple click homeowners can be accepted into the system overnight. ‘What do you think about that, Ruskin?’ I ask him. He’s lying on his back in his usual spot on the armchair, paws in the air. I go over to kiss him. ‘Would you feel threatened by a stranger in the house, my little pumpkin pie?’

Returning to my computer, I wonder if I should register now or sleep on it. I’m not good at doing anything spontaneously. I err on the cautious side. When I drive, I will drive around the roundabout twice to make sure I am going in the right direction. Ed used to be driven mad by my indecisiveness. Dad says I will go to my grave flapping about one thing or another, like did I leave the iron on or forget to double-lock the front door?

‘Gilly, just think about it,’ I can hear Richard advising me again over our pub lunch. ‘A guy can do any DIY around the house for you, fix the showerhead, change your plugs, unblock the drains, know where the stopcock is.’

‘I can do all that, no problem!’ I said hesitantly.

‘OK, but you just never know who might turn up on your doorstep. Maybe, if you interviewed enough people, you could meet Mr Right.’

‘I’m not looking for Mr Right.’

‘Oh, Mrs Right then? You bat for the other team?’

I find myself laughing when Miles pops up once more, telling me that with just one touch of a key I am making a giant leap towards a richer and brighter future.

Go for it, Gilly. Think of the money. You need it.

I click on the REGISTER NOW button and hold my breath.

There. Done it. No hesitation. Richard would be proud of me.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I’d said to him, at this stage feeling he had quizzed me enough on my private life and it was now time to put him under the spotlight. Apart from Richard being my dad’s godson I knew little more about him. ‘Why are you an estate agent, because let’s face it you’re a pretty terrible one?’

He shrugged. ‘I ask myself the same question every day.’

‘And?’

‘I still don’t know the answer.’

‘Are you happy?’

‘Happy? That’s a hard question. No,’ he’d said with ease. ‘It’s simple for me to tell you what to do,’ he confided, showing some vulnerability, ‘but when it comes to our own lives, we make a right old mess of it, don’t we?’

Life can be like a padlock refusing to open. Maybe Richard is also searching for that one thing to make him happy?

Perhaps we all are.

4

Ten days later

I type in my password BOBBY SHAFTOE. This is a folk song our family used to sing with my baby sister, Megan, on car journeys to the seaside.

Welcome, Gilly Brown, it says. I click on a box that leads me to my room’s profile. Your house in Hammersmith has had 28 VISITORS but O ENQUIRIES.

I log off, incredulous. My house and me are like a wallflower. No one wants to dance with us. What’s going on? Surely there must be some administrative error on the system, but when I repeat the process I am told again that no one is interested. Zero enquiries.

I search the site for advice. Sometimes lodgers’ emails are accidentally sent to a Junk or Spam folder…

Ah! I dive straight into my Spam folder, but nothing. Maybe it’s the recession? Perhaps I should lower my rent? I check to see if that shabby apartment just over Hammersmith Bridge has gone yet with its plastic sofa and mouldy curtains. It didn’t look half as nice as my house and they were charging £100 more per month. It’s right on the main road, I mean, who’s going to…

I don’t believe it.

The doorbell rings.

My neighbour, Gloria, single all her life by choice, just turned sixty, retired from the aromatherapy world (she used to be a masseuse), bursts in, silver hair wild, wearing a baggy purple T-shirt with black leggings. Every Saturday morning we go to the gym together. She’s a lovely mix of nights out on the town with her friends, ‘on the batter’ as she calls it, and early nights in with a cup of hot chocolate listening to Radio Four.

She came into my life five years ago, when I had just brought Ruskin home to live with me. She knocked on my door to ask if I had a powercut. When I shone a torch in her face, she realised I was in the same situation, but she could also see I was anxious. I told her my puppy had disappeared.

We searched high and low. Was he locked in the downstairs loo? Had he slipped down the drainpipe? Was he under the sofa? He was nowhere! When Gloria found me lifting the lid off my teapot, she announced that I was officially mad.

She then beckoned me over, putting a finger to her lips. She had crouched down beside the sink. ‘Come here, darling,’ she whispered. Ruskin had slipped into the gap between the tumble drier and the washing machine. After gentle coaxing he came out, cobwebs stuck to his ears.

‘I’m not sure I can look after him,’ I said, my voice wobbling. Since I was a child I’d wanted a dog, begging Mum to let us have one, but she said she couldn’t cope with a puppy and Megan. ‘I’ll be the one who has to walk it,’ she’d said.

I promised myself that when I was older and had my own home, I’d get one. When I visited Battersea Dogs Home Ruskin was one of the first dogs I saw. He was fast asleep in his basket, curled up in the shape of a kidney bean. As I knelt down, he opened his eyes and walked towards me, placing a paw between the bars of the cage. The girl showing me round said he had never done that before and that’s when I knew he was my boy.

‘Maybe I’ve made a mistake,’ I confessed to Gloria that night. The sense of responsibility overwhelmed me.

Gloria handed him to me, a bundle of fur. ‘You’re his mother now. He needs you.’

‘Hi, treasure,’ she says now, strutting into my sitting room and throwing her swimming kit onto my sofa. Ruskin bolts over to say hello, wagging his tail as she scoops him into her arms. ‘Why aren’t you ready?’ she asks when she sees I’m still in my pyjamas.

‘Sorry, I’m just coming.’ I rush back to my desk. ‘Like your flip-flops,’ I mutter.

‘Aren’t they wonderful! They’re so comfy, tone my pins and… well, they do everything for me but pay my bills quite frankly. What are you doing, ducks?’

‘Changing my profile.’

Gloria pulls up a chair. ‘No luck yet?’

‘Not a squeak.’

‘They ought to be snapping this place up. You should at least be getting a few bites by now.’

‘They’re not fish,’ I laugh.

‘Budge over,’ she demands, ‘let me take a look.’

Gloria scans my advertisement. ‘It is the school holidays,’ I remind her. ‘London’s pretty dead in August.’

Gloria reads out the description of No. 21. ‘I live in Hammersmith, in a two-bedroom house on a quiet peaceful road.’ She pushes me aside, clicks the ‘edit your details’ button. ‘It’s time for some serious artistic licence, Gilly.’

I look at my watch. ‘What about our swimming?’ Gloria and I swim three times a week; we call ourselves the Olympians. We’re often overtaken in the slow lane but it doesn’t worry us.

‘Stick the kettle on,’ she says.

Gloria describes our street as a lively place with a great sense of community.

‘But they want somewhere quiet, don’t they?’

‘No! It’s no bleeding wonder you’ve had zero response. This ad’s as cold as a winter’s day in Siberia.’

‘Really? Is it?’ I reread it, and have to agree that I wouldn’t want to move in this very minute. It does sound pretty boring.

Gloria puckers her lips and gets stuck in now. ‘Oh, look! Have you checked this out?’ Gleefully she presses a button that takes us to a site that gives tips on what matters most to Monday to Fridayers.

‘Monday to Fridayers like to socialise,’ Gloria states. ‘You see! They want some fun.’ She then reads what I had written, ‘There are a couple of pubs within walking distance.’

‘There are a couple of pubs nearby,’ I say.

‘Oh, golly gosh. I can hardly contain my excitement.’

‘Go on then. Say there are superb pubs all within walking distance,’ I tell her. ‘And numerous coffee bars, delicatessens and shops,’ I say, enjoying this now, ‘and a beautiful park on my doorstep.’ Gloria and I have soon rewritten my advertisement, proudly alerting prospective Monday to Fridayers to the fact that I am only seconds away from the District Line and in prime position for all the motorways and airports. ‘Excellent transport links,’ Gloria types.

She glances at the next tip. Some lodgers like to know a little about yourself so feel free to give as much information as you wish.

She returns to my advertisement, reading off the screen, ‘I like swimming, films, writing and reading.’