Page 40 of It's Now or Never

‘Oh Gramps,’ I said, giving him a shy smile. ‘How could you tell? There is someone but it’s early days yet. We’ve been out a couple of times together, but I honestly don’t know if it will go any further than that. He’s different to any man I’ve met before. He’s intelligent, funny, rich, oh and drop-dead handsome too.’ I could hear the note of longing in my own voice. ‘I really like him, but I’m not certain how he feels about me or if he’s ideal boyfriend material.’

‘Ha ha, is that so,’ said Gramps, a smile lighting up his face. ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that!’

‘You weren’t? But you said…’

‘No, this is what I meant,’ he said, getting out the local paper from the wicker basket and opening up the pages. Pride of position on page three was a glorious colour photo of a lovely lady showing off the delights of a vegetable slicer standing next to a plump ripe tomato on legs.

‘Oh my god!’

‘It is you, isn’t it? I knew it! I’d recognise that cheeky smile and those shapely calves anywhere. What on earth were you doing, love?’

I giggled. ‘It was a job. Thankfully only a two-day job, but yes, I took the starring role of the tomato. I’m only pleased they didn’t publish my name in that article. Only a granddad would recognise me beneath that outfit. I’m sure no one else would.’

‘Yes, I think you’re probably right.’ Gramps was still laughing. ‘The lads down at the Legion couldn’t believe it was you when I showed them.’

‘Please tell me you didn’t, Gramps?’

He nodded affectionately. ‘Well, I’m proud of you whateveryou do. Look, you’ll have to bring your new young man round here so I can get to meet him. I’ll give him the once-over and tell you whether I think he’s right for you. Mind you, I remember you thinking the last one was ideal boyfriend material and look what happened to him!’

‘Yeah, you’re right there, Gramps,’ I said with a sigh.

Gramps tilted his head to the ceiling, a mischievous smile on his lips.

‘What do you think your nan would be saying if she’s up there looking down at us right now?’

‘Ooh, she’d be furious about you getting married again, I’m sure!’

‘I know, she’d be bloomin’ livid.’ His laughter was so contagious that I couldn’t help myself from joining in. ‘She’d be loving you as a tomato though. That would keep her giggling for days on end. And as for that new young man of yours, I’m sure your nan will be putting him through an extensive vetting procedure as we speak. If she thinks he’s right for you, then everything will work out for the best and if she doesn’t, it won’t. It’s as simple as that.’

If only it was as simple as that, I thought with a wry smile.

‘Life has to move on, isn’t that right, Jen? For all of us. You know, in the absence of some champagne, do you think we ought to have another pot of tea and an extra slice of cake to celebrate this fantastic news?’

Any excuse for an extra slice of cake was always a good one for me. While Gramps refilled the teapot I cut into the lemon drizzle cake. I’d be delighted to extend my congratulations to Marcia the next time I saw her. Anyone who could make cakes as good as these had to be a welcome addition to our little family.

19

I’d spent three long weeks working at SBB Engineering and I was slowly losing the will to live. Three weeks of my life that I’d never be able to get back. When Polly had offered me the new assignment I’d made sure to quiz her on whether the role would require any dressing up in ridiculous costumes. When she’d assured me it didn’t, I’d jumped at the opportunity. My priority, I realised, had to be to earn as much money as I possibly could, especially as the Christmas season was approaching, to supplement my freelance income and enable me to do all the exciting things I wanted to do.

Instead of being thrown into a stimulating and challenging new environment with dynamic new people, as I’d hoped and expected, I was stuck alone, in a top floor office of a company that sourced and supplied ball bearings.

The tiny office had only a small window which, slightly worryingly, had bars against it, a single desk and chair and hundreds of box files that seemed to date back to pre-millennium times – stacked in dangerous Jenga-style piles around the room, just waiting to topple over and pin me to the floor. On thewindowsill was a forlorn pot plant that I took it upon myself to nurture back to health. In the absence of anyone else to talk to, I gave it a few encouraging words each day and some much overdue water.

‘Hello, how’s it going?’ Kelly, the office manager, the only other person I’d met since I’d started at SBB, poked her head round the door. She was friendly in a forced, unnatural way, which made me suspect she actually hated me beneath the cheery persona. She’d spoken of Bob and Michael and sales directors and ‘the team’, but I hadn’t actually seen another soul and I was beginning to wonder if they weren’t all a figment of her imagination and this wasn’t just a one-woman operation.

‘Great’ I said, opting not to tell her that I was close to slitting my wrists at the sheer mind-numbing drudgery of the task in front of me. ‘Slowly, but I’m getting there.’

‘Yes.’ She peered over my shoulder at the computer print-outs on my desk, I could feel her disappointment wafting over me in a low cloud of gloom. ‘We were hoping you might be a bit further along than you are, but hopefully you’ll speed up as you get more used to the product details.’

I sighed inwardly, feeling I already knew far more about ball bearings than I really needed to know: stainless steel, chrome, quarter inch, half inch, miniature, deep groove, self-aligning, super precision, packs of fifty, packs of a thousand and everything in between. I typed in that many entries into the new order processing system I felt sure I could have chosen ball bearings as my specialist subject on Mastermind and come out with the winning score.

‘When you’re done with those ones I’ve got some additional product details that need to be added here.’ She handed me a great fat wedge of print-outs, twice the size of the ones I’d entered already. The sight of them sent me lightheaded. At this rate I’d behere until my dying day, possibly crushed to death under the weight of all those files.

‘Fine,’ I said, smiling sweetly. ‘I’ll get on to them as soon as I can.’ My mobile phone buzzed on the desk and I reached across to see who it was.

‘Oh,’ she said haughtily, ‘perhaps I should have mentioned it, Jen, but I’m afraid you’re not allowed to take personal calls here.’

‘Excuse me?’

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