Page 5 of The Girlfriend

I N HER LIFE, CHERRY HAD NEVER BEEN ON THREE DATES, ONE NIGHT after the other.

They headed into Hyde Park, past the golden Albert Memorial and across the Serpentine; Daniel was carrying a picnic hamper backpack, while she held the blanket.

It was hot against her body and she moved it, trying to have as little contact with it as possible.

The blazing heat of the day had subsided into a Mediterranean-like evening.

It was still light, and would be for at least another four hours, and the park was full of people filled with a spontaneous holiday-like zest and optimism.

Cherry was starting to enjoy herself. They’d gotten past the first couple of dates, with their potential for awkwardness and bouts of extreme politeness, and invisible ties had started to form.

She knew he was extremely focused on becoming a cardiologist, liked cycling and white-water rafting, and wrote using his left hand, but ate with his right.

He knew she liked strawberries, but not strawberry jam, her father had died when she was young, and she’d lived in a flat with her mum, whom she’d rarely seen because her mum had had to work.

She’d kept to herself that the flat was in a run-down part of Croydon, in the midst of streets that were constantly littered with debris: empty beer cans, discarded soft furnishings and general detritus, unidentifiable sodden rags that looked as if they still contained something misshapen inside their dirtied casings.

There was little money when Cherry was growing up, even less so when her father had died.

He’d been so stupid, so selfish, as to not have life insurance.

Her mother had had to increase her hours at the monolithic superstore on the edge of the town just to keep their tiny flat, and Cherry found her material world shrinking from low-budget fashion to hand-me-downs, no vacations except the occasional day trip to the beach, and embarrassments at school.

No money for a copy of the annual photo when all her friends were crowded round, giggling over who stood next to whom in the yearbook picture, while Cherry stood aside, excluded and self-conscious.

She had hated being poor. No, Cherry kept all this to herself and said something vague about coming from Surrey, which Croydon used to be part of, albeit many hundreds of years ago.

More information changed hands and with familiarity came warmth, and gentle teasing reinforced those tender bonds.

They’d also had their first kiss, a not unpleasant experience; in fact, Cherry knew she found Daniel extremely attractive.

They reached the fenced-off arena where tonight’s concert was to take place.

Daniel handed over the tickets he’d miraculously managed to get hold of at such short notice and they were in.

They followed the throngs to the grassy seating area and she let Daniel choose a place that had a good view of the stage.

He laid out the blanket and she sat down, stretching her long, lightly tanned legs out in front of her.

She noticed that quite a few people had brought portable chairs and was faintly aggrieved that they didn’t have the same.

She suspected after a few hours her backside would feel the hard ground beneath it, but then the London Symphony Orchestra started to warm up and she made an effort to put it out of her mind.

“I used to come here every year when I was young,” said Daniel. “We’d walk over, bringing tea with us. It was Mum’s way of educating me in classical music.”

So this was his local park. It was a far cry from what she’d grown up with: the careworn bleak collection of paint-peeling apparatus that had always harbored a few lifeless teenagers, like mold you couldn’t quite get rid of.

Cherry had never been to a classical concert before, although she made a point of listening to Classic FM every now and then.

She thought she’d carefully test him out with this news.

“First time for me. With classical anyway.”

He batted her statement away. “Trust me, you missed nothing before now. At least, I never really appreciated it when I was younger. Early twenties is the perfect time to enjoy classical—it says so in the Scriptures.”

She smiled, pleased with the way that went. It seemed she was not to be judged for cultural holes in her upbringing, which made her relax a little. Should she ever make a faux pas or misunderstand something, it hopefully wouldn’t put him off her.

“So this means then,” she said, accepting the chilled glass of Chablis in the obligatory plastic glass that he poured for her, “that we are at our peak.”

“The entire Proms lineup beckons. What are you doing the first Friday in July?”

She thought quickly as to what he could be referring to and remembered what she’d heard on the radio. It was the very first concert—the start of the BBC Proms annual eight weeks of classical music.

“Standing in the Royal Albert Hall, waving a Union Jack?”

“It’s a date,” he said, laughing, and they looked at each other, both glad they’d banked something for the future, and each had been as keen as the other.

Then the music started to play and she watched the violinists bow fiercely in unison, each musician pouring his heart into the score.

Goose bumps appeared on her arms and she turned and smiled at him in a way that made him catch his breath.

“I wish I had a talent like that,” she whispered admiringly before turning her face back to the stage.

Daniel sneaked little glances at her while she was watching the orchestra.

He loved how there was something refreshing about her newness to things.

Old girlfriends, sisters of his friends from school, had been hard to surprise, and some even harder to please.

He’d often felt jaded just by being in their company.

Cherry, although far from gauche, hadn’t been hothoused since a toddler and he found he could enjoy a classical concert that he’d experienced many times before, just by being there with her.

He suddenly felt an urge to share even more with her: galleries, concerts, trips to the coast, maybe even a holiday abroad.

There and then, the summer took on a new promise.

As Mozart’s symphony lifted her and dropped her back down again, Cherry sensed she was being watched and she let him. She enjoyed the attention and it was nice to have it from someone of quality, something that had only happened once before in her life.

* * *

It had been six months since she’d last seen Nicolas Brandon, but his face was as clear as if he sat in front of her right now.

She’d persuaded an old school acquaintance to go out for a drink (on the pretext of wanting to catch up), only the place she chose was a small, discreet, upmarket cocktail bar some way from both of their homes.

She walked in, her friend exclaiming in loud admiration behind her at the surroundings, and there he was, as she knew he would be.

She opened her purse and took out some money.

“Do you mind getting these? I’m going to the loo.”

Her friend went to the bar and Cherry walked toward Nicolas.

When she was only a couple of yards away, he looked up and the startled, embarrassed look on his face both gratified and pained her.

He was the eldest son of a telecommunications mogul and was in his last year of a master’s in economics at Oxford as a precursor to the training he’d get at his father’s side; eventually he was destined to take over the family business.

He’d grown up on the Webb Estate, a gated residential conservation area housing multimillion-pound mansions in the very southern part of Croydon, where the hundred-year-old “rules” included a banning on the wearing of shorts and hanging out washing in the garden.

She saw him glance around as if he was pretending he hadn’t noticed her, but there was no way on earth she was going to let him escape. She advanced right up to his table until he had no option but to acknowledge her.

“Hi,” he said, feigning surprise.

“Hi yourself. Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“Michaelmas break. We finished last week.”

She knew this because she’d looked up the dates for the Christmas holidays on the university’s website.

“So, er . . . you still come here?” he said.

It had been their place, one that he’d brought her to on their first date, and she remembered the times they’d held hands across the table and made plans for when he left to go back to university.

She was going to change her shifts so that she no longer worked weekends at the restaurant where they’d met and instead visit him at Oxford.

It hadn’t struck her at the time that all the plans had been to his benefit more than hers.

“Last time probably. I’m moving.”

“Oh yes? Where to?”

“Kensington.” It wasn’t strictly true, but there was enough truth in it.

“Oh?” A tiny, disbelieving smile crossed his face, as if she’d gotten confused about where and what Kensington actually was.

“What, you don’t think I’m good enough?”

He frowned and looked away. “It’s not like that.”

“No? I remember you saying your parents had certain demands on you, things you said weren’t your ideas, but you had no choice if you ever wanted a chance to take over your father’s business.”

She looked up as a girl, a beautiful silken blonde, approached the table from the direction of the restrooms, a look of consternation on her face.

Cherry stood stock-still, her heart hammering.

He hadn’t wasted any time. This was the kind of girl his parents would approve of: a girl with money, a good background, good connections.

“Is everything okay?” she said suspiciously, looking from one to the other.

“Fine,” said Nicolas quickly .