Read Online No Place For a Man by Judy Astley - Free Book Online

this lunch was more than just a jolly let’s-catch-up chat session she’d have made more effort on the looks front. She’d have bought something new to wear, rather than making do with her much treasured but four-year-old Ghost jacket. She also wished she’d had Philip at Hair We Are trim her rather shaggy hair into the kind of short sassy cut that could hold its own here so close to Sloane Street. Her highlights needed a bit of toning down too. The last colourist couldn’t quite believe that not everyone with mid-brown hair had a hidden craving to be blonde and had dabbed on chunks of pale gold with happy enthusiasm, radiantly confident of client satisfaction.
    Around them, fellow diners looked as if they were having a much better time. Their feet beneath tables were surrounded by plenty of evidence of what Natasha called Big Bag shopping, plundered from the most delicious stores. Now, with Matt’s career over and her own clearly on some kind of test drive, she’d be limited to the Small Bag variety, if any at all.
    ‘We could have pudding,’ Paula suggested as the waiter took their plates away. ‘ Shall we?’ Paula was leaning forward and sparkling her eyes at Jess as if the eating of a crème caramel was a huge and wicked temptation comparable with shoplifting at Harvey Nicks. The idea of something sweet was quite appealing, Jess thought, like a piece of chocolate when you’re a child and you’ve hurt yourself.
    ‘OK. I always love to have the kind of pudding I’d never be bothered to make at home. It’s like cocktails. A home-made piña colada just doesn’t have the same zing, does it?’
    Paula’s delicate fingers waved a little, as if she was just catching a thought. ‘Now cocktails, that’s one of the things I was thinking of.’
    ‘You were?’
    ‘We could send you out to do a course, learn how to make the perfect margarita, that kind of thing. And have you ever had a proper fitting for a bra? Or gone on one of those ghastly “flowers for the dinner party” courses?’
    Jess laughed. ‘No to all of them. Except the bra thing, and that was only because I was pregnant.’
    ‘Well there you are then.’ Paula leaned forward and smiled broadly. ‘Lots to do, plus any ideas of your own you can come up with. It’s more money of course, because it’ll take up more time. And we send youout with a photographer. It’ll be fun.’
    That was an order. It probably would be fun. And the words ‘more money’ were very welcome. For a while, too, there would still be Nelson’s Column as well, so she’d be earning quite a bit, enough to keep her from feeling like nagging at Matt quite so much anyway. Jess at last relaxed and plunged her spoon into her raspberry parfait. ‘And so, Jess,’ Paula began as Jess started to enjoy herself, ‘how is that gorgeous husband of yours?’
    Matthew was in the attic, still not dressed though midday had long since been and gone, sitting on the bed reading the Creative and Media vacancies in the Guardian . The paper was three days old but he assumed most of the jobs were still on offer, at least till the first wave of fast young things had had their e-mailed CVs downloaded and read. The problem was that he didn’t want to apply for any of them – it was Jess who’d bought the paper, thinking she was being helpful and with a careful look on her face as if she was trying hard not to ask him why he hadn’t rushed out first thing on Monday morning to buy it himself. He didn’t want to waste any more of his life trying to pretend to people that they were exactly as wonderful as they thought they were, and that those aspects of their lives/work/reputations that they wished the world to know about were the most fascinating things on the planet. He’d spent twenty-two years being, well what had he been? Surely there had to be a better word to describe his working persona than pleasant . There wasn’t. He’d spent all his working life buddying up to clients,