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had said about grovelling men steeped in regret was true. It was simply that Liv had to live through the intervening three months of hell before the stalking began and she was forced to remove the batteries from her doorbell and serve a restraining order on him. “Damn that bloody ruthless bastard,” muttered Alex as she dropped Rescue Remedy onto Liv’s tongue and handed her another tissue.
    And, sadly, it didn’t make Liv’s pain any easier to bear when she remembered that she, too, had wanted to head for the hills and sand dunes and sunset and whatever other horizon her imagination had on special offer on that particular day of the week. She knew that it was all for the best somewhere very deep down inside her, but right now it was buried beneath all her dreams of Tim-style babies and a life signing her cheques as Mrs. Timothy Evans. She couldn’t get past regret. Regret that she hadn’t appreciated him more when he’d been around. Regret that she hadn’t noticed something was wrong when sex had gone from tepid to somewhere-as-exciting-as-plucking-your-eyebrows a couple of months ago. As Tim had sat on the bed, everything he said had been true and was really just an echo of Liv’s own thoughts: they had lots of other things to do in life; they should live a little more first, perhaps travel; the passion had just ebbed away; they were better friends than lovers. All that stuff she totally agreed with. Just why was it him who got to say it? “Ruthless bastard,” she sobbed again.

Chapter Four
    You May Have Been Dumped on Your Ass
by Your Rat Bastard Boyfriend,
but Life Goes on, Baby
    A lex was also right in another respect: women coped and men moped. Within a fortnight Liv was back behind her desk at work with a packet of Handy Andies in her fist and barely a tidemark on her finger where her engagement ring had been. She had decided to throw herself into work and become an index-linked businesswoman. For the fourth day in a row she’d been the the first person in the office.
    The office came to life in instalments—a few designers who either had dreamed of a hat so fantastic last night that they just had to get to work on it straightaway or hadn’t made a decent headpiece for months and who were fuelled by hatter’s-block anxiety, were the first. Then an intern whom all the nongay designers and men in the postroom fancied. It was always that way with work-experience people. Limbs, hair, pouty lips, beautiful husky tones. It didn’t matter if they were male or female. They’d grace the photocopy cupboard with their sublime presence for two weeks, then evaporate. When it came to new recruits, fully paid up members of the staff, there were always a great deal of spots, chipped teeth, and personal hygiene problems. What happened to all the beauteous youths? Liv wondered miserably. It was a metaphor for life. It all just crumbles and gets ugly. (Her body may have been sitting upright behind her desk, but her heart still felt as though it were being trampled under a herd of migrating buffalo.)
    She tapped into her voice mail hoping that there would be something from Tim: a trembling message of regret. “Sorry, I went to the doctor today and was diagnosed as having temporarily lost my mind, but I’ve got some antibiotics and the wedding’s back on. I’ve realised that carbonara sauce just isn’t the same without you.” Instead she got:
    “Message One.
    “ ‘Liv, babe, it’s Alex. Just to remind you that you’re gorgeous.’
    “Message Two.
    “ ‘Liv, darling, it’s Mum. Hope you’re feeling better, pumpkin. As I was taking the compost out this morning I suddenly thought: Catherine Zeta-Jones. Now she may have been heartbroken years ago by that Blue Peter person, but look at her now, lovely black hair and Hollywood at her feet. And there
he
is spinning the wheel of fortune on afternoon telly. Do you imagine that if she were Mrs. John Leslie she’d be on the cover of my
OK
magazine this month? I