When You Walked Back Into My Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

good?’
    ‘You’re serious?’
    The doctor looked awkward now, his face suddenly clouded. ‘Not a date or anything. I didn’t mean that. There’s a gang of us go most weekends to a place in Earl’s Court. It’s fun, gives you a chance to let your hair down. You might enjoy it.’
    It was Flora’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘Thanks, but I can’t dance.’ She remembered the last time she’d had to, at afriend’s wedding. ‘I just shuffle about pretending I’m too cool to try any harder.’
    ‘Know the feeling. But you don’t have to be able to dance. A couple are full-on Fred Astaire wannabees, but the rest of us are just muddling through, having a laugh.’
    Flora didn’t reply for a minute. Part of her wanted to go, wanted, as Simon said, to divert her thoughts, even for a few hours, away from Fin McCrea. But they were work colleagues … it might be awkward.
    ‘I’m afraid I can’t do Friday,’ she said.
    ‘OK,’ he replied with a quick smile. ‘Another time, perhaps.’
    She nodded. ‘That’d be good.’
    *
    Flora couldn’t wait to get Dorothea into bed for her nap that afternoon. She herself felt much more tired than the old lady seemed to be. As soon as she was settled, she went through to the kitchen and made her own lunch: toast and cheese and a tomato. She took her plate and a cup of peppermint tea through to the sitting room and sat down on the sofa with a sigh of relief. I should have said yes to Dr Kent, she told herself as she munched her toast. She hardly ever got out these days; usually she was too knackered after a twelve-hour shift to even consider it. And given that it took time to change and get ready, then to travel somewhere,and she only got off work at eight, the evening was almost over. But I could have made the effort, she thought. He was only trying to be nice.
    Her mobile rang and she dug it out of her uniform pocket, swallowing her mouthful before speaking.
    ‘Rene, Hi.’
    ‘I need to have a word with you about something, Flora.’ The high-pitched voice on the other end of the phone sounded anxious as usual. ‘Is Dorothea asleep? Can I drop round now for half an hour? I don’t want her worried.’
    ‘Of course. See you in a minute,’ Flora replied. What else could she say to her employer? But she was thoroughly irritated at having her break interrupted. She wondered what Rene wanted to talk about. She made it sound terribly important, but then everything was a drama with Rene.
    Dorothea’s friend made her customary whirlwind entrance. She was around sixty, Flora thought, small and very thin, with wild sandy-grey hair wisping around her long face like an overbalancing halo. She dressed invariably in a denim skirt or jeans, with a pastel T-shirt (perhaps also picked up as a bargain in Edinburgh Woollen Mill) topped with a sleeveless, navy padded body-warmer and sensible lace-ups. She had been friends with Dorothea for over thirty years. They had met at an art class, both pupils of a manthey called ‘the Maestro’ – Flora had no idea what his actual name was – who apparently took them for sketching trips to France. When Dorothea had begun getting a little frail, Rene had offered to take over some of the paperwork and bill paying, and it had eventually led to her having Dorothea’s power of attorney.
    ‘How is she?’ Rene whispered, before dashing through to the sitting room and closing the door behind them with exaggerated care.
    ‘Good, I think. She’s seems quite bright today,’ Flora told her.
    Rene sat down on the sofa and gestured to Flora to do the same.
    ‘I wanted to talk to you without Dorothea overhearing.’
    Flora nodded.
    ‘Has she said anything about Mary to you?’
    Mary Martin was the nurse who worked almost every night, refusing to take time off because she said she slept most of the time and didn’t need to. Bel had developed a dramatic theory that she didn’t actually have a home, and that during the day she wandered from café to