Mile End Girl by Maggie Ford

Author:Maggie Ford [Ford, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473573314
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2022-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Through the curtains it was only just growing light. The bedside lamp was still on, the alarm clock beside it showed seven fifty-five! The diary lay beside the pillow still open at the place she had reached before falling asleep, unaware that she had done so.

The phone call had shot her awake. Otherwise God knows when she’d have woken up, having gone to bed in the early hours taking the diary with her to read on. It had been James on the phone, saying he would be round in half an hour for his computer and stuff.

Her sleep-befuddled reaction, ‘Jesus! James, d’you know what time it is?’ had been cut short as he rang off without any apologies for waking her. No hint of remorse about what he’d done to her, no concern for her feelings. He appeared to be only interested in himself.

Black anger pulsed through Jenny as she replaced the phone and dragged herself out of bed. Fumbling for her dressing gown, she struggled into it and staggered to the bathroom, head still reeling from the sudden move from horizontal to perpendicular; she had never been one for leaping straight from sleep to wakefulness. To jolt her awake like that then ring off – who did he damned well think he was?

It was Wednesday, the first working day of the New Year. She’d have to phone her office. There was no way she could go in. This flu everyone was going down with provided as perfect an excuse as any.

And anyway, she needed to be here when James arrived. She wasn’t having him ransack the place with her not here. Giving the toilet handle a wrench fierce enough to nigh break it, she slammed the seat down on its protesting flushing. Then she flung off dressing gown and pyjamas, stepped into the shower and turned the nozzle on to a vigorous, stinging jet.

She dried and dressed with equal fury, yanking a comb painfully through the tangle of her hair, which curled naturally as it dried before the hasty hairdrying. Make-up, though, she applied with a little more precision – he wasn’t going to arrive to see her drab and disorganised. On this thought she applied a dab of Gentle Poison perfume. Appropriate!

Half an hour! Half an effing hour! ‘All right?’ had been his last words before hanging up. How dare he assume it was all right! But he would, wouldn’t he? Bloody dynamic James! Thinking back, it was obvious in the light of his behaviour that his consideration towards her had only stemmed from self-interest. She had been his possession, just as Jessica Medway had been the possession of her husband, though in a different way.

If one thought about it, about the little things she had always passed over, he’d been like that with her all through their marriage – taking it on himself to assume she liked red carnations when he brought her flowers because he liked red carnations; never bothering to consult her on what

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