Peacock Emporium by Jojo Moyes Page A

here. Say yes to me, Douglas. Please.’
    He had a brief insane impulse to throw their possessions into a single suitcase and roar up the drive in the MG, Athene delighted and wrapped round him, then disappear into a technicolour future in some exotic foreign land.
    Athene’s gaze hadn’t wavered.
    ‘I need a bath,’ he said. And, wearily, turned towards the stairs.

Five
     
    The Day I Broke Somebody’s Heart
    Oh, I know I don’t look the type. You’re probably thinking I’ve never inspired passion in anyone. But I did, a long time ago, before middle age and grey hair covered up what few attributes I ever had. His name was Tom, and he was a dear, sweet lad. Not the best-looking chap, but an absolute brick. Solid as a rock, he was. Good family. And he adored me.
    He wasn’t the type to talk much. In those days men didn’t. Not in my experience, anyway. But I knew he adored me, from the way he used to wait on the corner every evening to walk me home from the office, to the beautiful pieces of ribbon and lace he would save me from the remnants pile at his father’s factory. His family was in haberdashery, you see. He was learning the business from his father. That’s how we met. Not very manly, you’re probably thinking and, yes, we did have the odd ginger, as Mr Holstein used to call them, but when you saw him . . . well, there was nothing effeminate about him. He was a big chap, huge shoulders. Used to carry bolts of fabric for me, piled three or four on his shoulder as easily as if he were tipping his jacket behind him.
    He used to come in with trays of buttons and bits of trimming, lovely Victorian lace that he’d rescued from boxes just starting to go damp. He left them for me wordlessly, laid out, as if he were a dog presenting me with a bone. I used to make my own clothes, then, you see, and when I was dressed up he could always point out one of his buttons, or a piece of his velvet trim. I think it made him rather proud.
    And he never pushed me. Never made any great declarations, or announced his intentions. I had told him, you see, that I’d never marry. I was very certain of that, and I thought it only fair to tell him at the start. But he just nodded, as if that were a fair decision, and decided to adore me anyway. And, gradually, I found I worried less and less about whether I was leading him on, or being unfair, and I just enjoyed his company.
    It was a pretty tricky time to be a single girl, the sixties. Oh, I know you think it was all Mary Quant and free love and nightclubs and the like, but there were very few of us really living that kind of life. For girls like me, from respectable families, who didn’t have a ‘fast streak’, the times could be pretty confusing. There were girls who did, and girls who didn’t. And I was never sure which of those I should be. (Although I nearly did, with Tom. Several times. He was very good about it, all things considered, even when I told him I’d decided to be a virgin for life.) And there was this pressure for one to be à la mode , to wear the latest fashions, whether they be Biba or the King’s Road, or, like mine, made from Butterick and Vogue patterns. But our parents were all rather scandalised, so one was under this huge pressure to wear a mini-skirt or whatever and yet felt rather embarrassed to be doing so.
    Perhaps I just wasn’t liberated enough. There were plenty who were. But Tom seemed to understand and like me, whatever I was, or however I tried to be, and we had a rather lovely time for a couple of years.
    So it was a bit of a shame that he had to suffer so on the first occasion that he was introduced to my parents.
    I had invited them to London to see a show. My mother was excited about it, and Daddy was rather sweet too, although he wouldn’t have said as much as I had hardly been home in a year. I had booked us tickets for Hello, Dolly! at the Theatre Royal and afterwards a light supper at one of the new Golden Egg restaurants,