You And Me, Always(64)

‘OK.' Bemused, Lily shrugged and watched him back away. As he turned and  headed for the car, she called out, ‘But if my surprise happens to be  chocolate truffles, I like milk, not plain.'                       
       
           



       



You might think there were only a couple of items you needed to buy, but  start pushing a trolley up and down the aisles of a huge supermarket  and it soon began to fill up.

Then again, wasn't this why she was here? Having lost her nerve when  Lily had cheerfully informed her that Declan was on his way down from  London, Coral felt again the rush of adrenalin she'd experienced at the  realisation that she was about to come face to face with him once more.

And like a perfectly mature and sensible forty-eight-year-old woman, she'd run away.

Well, driven away. In an outright panic.

Which was completely pathetic and ridiculous, because he'd still be  there when she arrived home with her bags of shopping, but at least this  way she had an extra hour to mentally prepare herself for his arrival.

Pausing in the loo roll aisle, Coral reached for the sixteen-roll  multipack of their usual brand and added it to the trolley. Oh God, look  at her hands; she stopped to examine them, conscious of Trent's parting  comment last week. Spending so much time in the reclamation yard had  always been hard on her nails; she kept them short, unpolished and  workmanlike.

Had people been raising their eyebrows at her hands for years, inwardly  appalled by the sight of her plain, unglamorous nails? Should she maybe  head over to where they sold the make-up and buy a bottle of nail  polish?

Since procrastination was the order of the day, she wheeled her trolley  over to the aisle that segued from shampoos and shower gels to shaving  equipment, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. She was usually in a rush, so  it made a nice change to be able to loiter and browse. And goodness,  there were so many kinds of polish to choose from.

Two women a bit further along were looking at lipsticks, comparing  shades on the backs of their hands. Idly listening in, Coral wondered  whether she should treat herself to a lipstick too.

‘Beigey-pink, that's your colour,' the dark-haired woman told her blonde  friend with an air of authority. ‘Don't go for that purply one,  whatever you do.'

Coral paid attention; the woman sounded as if she knew what she was on  about. When they'd moved away from the lipsticks, she would choose a  beigey-pink one for herself.

‘Oh my God, what are you buying that stuff for?' The blonde one let out a  muffled shriek and jabbed her finger at the slim cardboard package  she'd just spotted in her friend's hand. ‘Eurgh, gross!'

‘It's OK, calm down.' The brunette laughed. ‘I don't have piles. You use  the cream under your eyes to shrink your eyebags and tighten the skin.  It's like a miracle, I promise you. A facelift in a tube! All the top  beauty experts swear by it.'

The blonde woman stared at her in disbelief, then turned and  clip-clopped back down the aisle. Returning with an identical tube, she  brandished it at her friend. ‘OK, but only because I trust you. You'd  better not be having me on.'

Once they'd headed off to the checkouts, Coral moved along to the  make-up section and chose the beigey-pinkiest of all the lipsticks. Then  she selected a nail polish to go with it. Who knew, maybe in future  people would stop shuddering with revulsion at the sight of her naked  mouth and fingernails and life would change out of all recognition.

Finally she sidled down to the bottom-cream section and picked up a tube  of the stuff the two women had bought. Well, if it was as miraculous as  it sounded, may as well give it a whirl. She dropped the tube into the  trolley and covered it with some of the much-nicer-to-look-at bags of  fruit and veg. OK, now it was probably time to pay; this supermarket  might stay open until ten o'clock in the evening, but she really  couldn't put off seeing Declan for that-

‘Hi,' said Declan's achingly familiar voice in her head.

No, not in her head. Behind her head.

‘Hwaargh!' Coral spun round to find him standing right behind her. Oh  God, and she'd actually emitted a ridiculous-sounding squawk, like a  rugby player doing a haka.

‘Whoops, didn't mean to make you jump. You were miles away.' He smiled. ‘Sorry!'

She clapped her hand to her breastbone. ‘It's OK, you just caught me by surprise. What are you doing here?'

Which, seeing as he was standing in front of her clutching a  security-tagged bottle of Laurent Perrier in each hand, wasn't the  brightest of questions.

‘I've just completed on that Georgian property in Kensington. I thought  we should celebrate.' He raised his arms, because she evidently wasn't  clever enough to recognise two bottles of champagne when she saw them.  ‘Anyway, how are you? Looking well! It's good to see you again.'  Belatedly he leaned across to greet her with a friendly kiss on the  cheek, but the corner of the shopping trolley was trapped between them.  It promptly ricocheted off Coral's hip, banged against the supermarket  shelving and sent a piled-up display of cardboard packets careering into  her trolley and on to the floor.                       
       
           



       

Not painkillers. Nor indigestion tablets. Or vitamin pills, oh no.

It had to be dozens of packets of condoms, didn't it?

‘God, sorry again. My fault.' Declan began hastily scooping them out of the trolley.

‘Doesn't matter! It's fine! Let me do that  … ' Desperate for him not to  delve down and find the Other Packet, Coral took over. ‘Why don't you go  and pay for the champagne?'

‘It's OK, we'll go together. I can help you with everything at the checkout. Are you all done?'

All done? She was overdone. The supermarket had air-conditioning, but  she could feel her skin prickling with perspiration as they made their  way over to the line of checkouts. While they queued, Declan said,  ‘Sorry to hear about you and Trent, by the way.'

‘It's all right. Those things happen. Well, you know that; it happened  to you too. You go first.' Coral gestured at the conveyor belt as the  customer ahead of them finished paying.

‘Ooh, I say!' The middle-aged cashier beamed up at Declan as she rang up  the two bottles. ‘Someone's got something nice to celebrate!'

Declan smiled back and said, ‘I hope so,' at the exact moment Coral said, ‘He definitely has!'

Which caused a bit of confusion. ‘Oh, sorry,' said Coral. ‘I thought you said the deal was done?'

‘Ah yes. That one is.' Declan looked momentarily flustered. ‘But there's another one I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for  … '

‘I was wrong, then.' As the cashier took his card, she confided, ‘When  customers buy champagne, I always try to guess why. At first when I saw  you two together, I thought you were celebrating your wedding  anniversary  … '

‘We're not married!' Coral blurted out.

‘ …  and then I saw you weren't wearing wedding rings, so I decided it was  your birthday and he was taking you out somewhere lovely for dinner.'

‘It's not my birthday. We're just friends.'

The chatty cashier shrugged, unruffled. ‘Ah, right. Isn't that a shame? Oh well, never mind.'

‘Want me to unload your trolley for you?' offered Declan.

‘No, I'll do it! You can help with the packing if you like.' Coral began  busily piling things along the length of the conveyor belt. The  friendly cashier started scanning the items through the till. Declan  filled up carrier bags. While he wasn't looking, Coral found and deftly  removed the tube of pile cream from the trolley and placed it on the  non-moving side of the conveyor belt beneath a rack of sweets. Phew,  done. She finished the rest of the unloading, then moved the trolley up  to the other end and began transferring the filled carriers into it.

‘Hello? Is this yours?'

The voice was clipped, authoritative and boomingly loud. Turning, Coral  saw a tall woman in her late sixties brandishing the tube of pile cream.  Of course she's brandishing it, because this is my life.

‘No, not mine.' She shook her head. ‘Thanks, though.'

‘Well I believe it is yours,' the woman persisted. ‘Because I saw you take it out of your trolley.'

‘Is it yours, love? What is it?' The friendly cashier reached out an  upturned hand for the item. ‘Want me to put it through the till?'

‘No, I don't,' Coral's voice went a bit high-pitched, ‘because it isn't  mine. And I don't know what it is because I've never seen it before.'

It felt as if everyone in the store was now listening to the exchange. Flustered, Coral lifted a bag into the trolley.