Coleman and Lara made love for nearly two hours. No words passed between them. It was such an instant, instinctive, intense experience that afterwards Lara did not know quite what to make of it. Lying on his office sofa, the weight of his relaxed, heavy arms resting on her naked breasts, Lara became enveloped by the rhythm of their breathing, and a slow panic began to rise up in her. They weren’t even in a bed. Lara was no prude. She and Matthew had made love (although it had been a tame, cautious affair compared to this), but they had known each other for years and were getting married. This man was her boss. A London gangster. His role as Lara’s friend and business partner had been burned out of her by the passionate heat of what they had just experienced. What was he now? What was she to him? Lover? There was still enough Irish Catholic in Lara for that to sound cheap. Boyfriend? Coleman was no boy. Maybe it was nothing. Just sex. A sixties moment. Coleman was desired by every woman he met. Maybe it was just her turn. Whatever the case, this was all a horrible mistake. She was naked, on a sofa, in the middle of the day, in the aftermath of lovemaking with a handsome Englishman she should be maintaining a business-like distance from. What had she been thinking? Lara was about to make a move to go when she felt the heat of Coleman’s breath on her neck. Her eyes closed involuntarily. Despite herself, she was unable to resist even the smallest advance from him.

Then, he moved his mouth to her ear and said, in a coarse whisper, so small it was barely audible, ‘I love you.’

Lara got such a fright she thought she mustn’t have heard him right. But she had heard him perfectly.

She managed to stop herself from saying ‘Sorry?’ to buy time out of her shock, and instead did the only thing she could do in response to such a momentous statement. She pretended not to have heard him, extracted herself gently from his arms and started to get dressed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, keeping her voice as light as she could. ‘I have to get back to the shop. They’ll be wondering where I am.’

She smiled at him, but knew it looked awkward and contrived.

‘Of course,’ he said, reaching for a cigarette. His eyelids dropped with disappointment and his jaw hardened. He was hurt. But there was nothing she could do about that except the one thing she would not do, which was tell him she loved him back.

Lara managed to sneak out of the club without anyone seeing her. Especially Noreen. The last thing she needed was her ex-boyfriend’s sister grilling her about this. Especially after she had expressed an interest in Coleman – although after this encounter it seemed even more unlikely a scenario.

❊

Annie was cleaning under her bed when the carpet sweeper hit something. Her case. She felt slightly nauseous at the memory of its existence. Then, even sicker at the realisation that the carpet sweeper had touched it. It had never happened before. The sweeper didn’t reach that far under the bed. It must have been moved. Annie got down on her knees to check and nearly threw up when she saw the angle of the case askew and the padlock facing her. Her first thought was maybe somebody else had moved it while cleaning. But nobody cleaned except her. Somebody must have been snooping. Not Lara. Noreen? But why?

For a moment, Annie wondered what she should do for the best. She took out the case and reassured herself that the lock had not been tampered with. They had no reason to suspect her of anything. Why shouldn’t she have a locked case under her bed? She was a private person.

Annie decided the best thing to do was to be open about it. Well, open about the case’s existence, if not its contents. So, when the three of them were gathered in the living room that evening she said, quite matter-of-factly, ‘Did anyone move my case under the bed?’

Lara vaguely said, ‘What case? What are you talking about?’

Noreen blurted out, ‘Pfffft. No? Why?’

‘Only I was cleaning earlier and I have a suitcase under my bed. It’s locked because it has a lot of precious, private things in it and somebody’s moved it.’

Lara looked aghast.

‘Why would anyone go under your bed?’

‘Well, they could be cleaning,’ Annie said, looking at Noreen.

Noreen laughed awkwardly. ‘That’s weird. Who keeps a locked suitcase under their bed?’ Noreen said, looking away as she refilled her glass from a can of TAB.

‘I do,’ said Annie.

Lara took the can off Noreen and took a swig from it.

‘Snooping again, Noreen?’

She nodded back at her and said to Annie, ‘Don’t leave anything private lying around with this one about, she’s nosy as all hell.’

Normally, Noreen would have taken the slagging. She knew she was nosy but this was different. If Lara had been on her own and said it, she might have taken it but in front of Annie, it felt like a betrayal. A double betrayal as she was also holding out on her over Coleman. In any case, she knew her instincts were right and that there was something fishy about Annie. Her cheeks burned with fury.

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Annie said, not getting the joke, which made Noreen hate her even more. ‘I just wouldn’t like to think of anyone going through my private things.’

Noreen was speechless with rage but could hardly defend herself, so she stood up and said, ‘I’ve left something in the club.’ Then she went downstairs.

She found Arthur and the two of them had a whisky and a fag, and she made him tell her the story of his nickname again. His company and anecdotes reminded her that she was on this great adventure, and that Lara was her oldest friend and they would get over this misunderstanding. Annie was a different kettle of fish. She would have to bide her time, but by God she was going to find out what was in that padlocked case.

After Noreen left, Alex turned up at the door full of beans.

‘You are not going to BELIEVE who just called,’ he said, the moment he stepped into the living room.

‘Amaze us,’ said Lara.

The day after the shoot, when Alex’s pictures had appeared on Penelope Podmore’s page, Lara became inundated with requests from magazines for her clothes. Things were flying. Every model agency in town wanted Annie.

‘Vogue.’

Lara raised her eyebrows. That was big. Annie was in the kitchen, distracted.

‘I said VOGUE,’ Alex shouted at her but she only smiled politely.

‘They want me to take some test pictures of Annie – try us both out. Like Bailey and Shrimp. They think we have a vibe.’

‘I can’t ask Fred for time off,’ she said, wiping down the kitchen counter. ‘We’re short staffed at the moment and the builders are keeping us really busy.’

Alex thought she was joking. He nearly swallowed his own teeth. He looked at Lara. ‘Is she serious?’

Lara nodded. Despite her modelling up a storm on the day of their shoot, Lara could feel that Annie was stalling on starting a modelling career, for some reason. Maybe it was her whole secrecy, privacy thing that drove Noreen so mad. Maybe she just had cold feet about the modelling business. Maybe that wonderful flowering they had seen was a one off or maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t interested in being a fashion model.

‘Lara!’ he pleaded. ‘Talk some sense into her.’

‘If she doesn’t want to do it, she doesn’t want to do it,’ Lara told him. ‘It’s up to Annie.’ Annie was cleaning and cleaning, wiping and polishing. Lara could see she was agitated; whatever was the matter with her there would be no use talking to her when she was like this. She was gentle, but Annie could be as stubborn as a mule.

As he was leaving, out of Annie’s earshot, Alex pleaded with Lara.

‘Please talk her around. This is my big break. And yours.’

‘I like my job,’ Annie said, when Lara came back in.

‘You know this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Annie? Vogue don’t ask twice,’ she said. ‘You’ll never get this chance again.’

‘I already earn more money than I need,’ Annie said. ‘I’m happy at Fred’s. I don’t need anything more.’

‘But you were good at it,’ Lara said. ‘The pictures look great. It’s such a waste not to do it.’

‘It’s just how I look, Lara. It doesn’t mean anything. Being beautiful isn’t…’ Then she got a faraway look in her eyes. ‘It’s not good. It can be – a curse.’

Lara could see that Annie was overwhelmed and not being disingenuous about her beauty. She seemed, if not unaware, then at least genuinely uninterested in the power of her appearance. Everyone in London was all about the look. Annie had it but she wasn’t interested in using it. Lara sometimes wondered if there was something fundamental missing in her friend.

It was almost admirable enough for her to let it go. Except that Lara had a vested interest in harnessing Annie’s beauty to promote That Girl. Bigging this up was getting them nowhere. So she played it down.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s no big deal here, Annie. And there’s certainly no need to leave the cafe. Just take one afternoon off, we’ll take a stroll up to a quiet part of Kensington Gardens, and Alex can just take some snaps of you. No fuss. I’ll do your hair and makeup and put you in one of my frocks.’

Annie still looked uncertain.

‘Please, Annie. It’s the only way I’ll get the fashion editor there to take notice of me.’

‘But you’re a brilliant designer. They should take notice of you anyway.’

‘I need a face, Annie. And I’m afraid you’ve got it.’

Annie looked at her and Lara put on a pleading face. She had her.

‘Just this one time? Please? I promise I won’t put pressure on you again.’

Annie nodded.

It wasn’t the modelling she minded. But the possibility of curious Noreen snooping around in her room had unnerved her. Her past would make anyone want to keep a low profile and becoming a fashion model was the opposite of that. She’d enjoyed being photographed but she got a fright seeing her picture published in an English newspaper. However, she owed it to Lara to help her in any way she could. And these pictures, Lara assured her, were just for the fashion editor’s eyes and not for publication.

Alex was a nervous wreck when Lara called and told him her plan. He told her that Vogue would be expecting him to put together a big studio shoot. However, Lara told him there was no way Annie would agree to that and persuaded him to call the picture editor and stand his ground. ‘Tell her you work better on location and one to one,’ she told him. ‘Which is true. You call the shots – they’ll respect you for it.’

In the end, they were charmed and a date and time was set, much to Alex’s irritation, around Annie’s work schedule at Fred’s.

❊

Days passed, Coleman had not gone near Lara in the shop, or the flat. Lara felt annoyed about that. Although she knew it was an irrational expectation, part of her wanted Coleman, a proud, macho man, to risk almost certain rejection by telling her he loved her again with such brute force it would quieten the uncertainties she had been feeling since their encounter.

Although the very idea of it terrified her too. What would be the consequences of being with him? An English gangster. What would it mean? He said he loved her – did that equate to marriage with a man like that? Lara was a free spirit but she was also an Irish Catholic. How did that work?

She was so confused. First by her own behaviour. That sudden, passionate letting go she had experienced in his office was very unlike her. Then – with Coleman? And his declaring he was in love with her like that. So soon? It didn’t seem possible and yet, in some small part, she felt as if this was something she had really known. Was this what she wanted? Had she wanted it all along? Her and Coleman? She was a middle-class Irish girl from a good family and he was a cockney orphan who had grown up to be a gangster. Lara winced at her own bourgeois sensibility and, yet, it didn’t seem possible that she could be in love with him. And how could you not know if you loved someone or not? Surely love was the great certainty. She had never been uncertain about Matthew. If anything, she had been too certain. The more she thought about it, the more of a puzzle it seemed to become.

After a few days keeping herself distracted by the buzz of the shop, Lara decided to lock herself in the studio. Doing some practical, creative work was the best way she knew to give her some space to take it all in and decide what to do about Coleman and the business because, after all, the two were intertwined.

Lara pulled her apron down from its hook behind the door and, placing the plain, navy rectangle over her head, walked across the bare floorboards to her cutting table. Reaching into the pocket for a pencil, Lara found a letter from her mother that she had stuffed in there a few days ago. Lara’s mother sent her long gossipy missives about what was happening back home in Cork, every week. Her mother was never short of news, much of it about the state of their neighbours’ health and of little interest to Lara. Lara wrote back sporadically, brief notes giving her mother the bare facts about where she was working and what she was doing, but always the impression that she was busy, and happy and getting on with her life, which was all her concerned parents wanted to know. Her mother’s letters were important to Lara because they were the only thing connecting her to home. She had thrown herself into London life so hard that sometimes Lara felt she was in danger of forgetting who she was. Marian’s letters grounded her, reminded her where she was from and stopped her from becoming completely lost in this new, English world she had chosen. Lara grabbed the envelope and tore it open. One of her mother’s silly, light-hearted gossipy letters was just what she needed to escape this jittery, uncertain feeling that was taking her over since she and Coleman made love.

Dear darling Lara,

Just sending you a short note to alert you to the fact that Frank Lyons was onto us by telephone just now. He said himself and Patricia are worried about Noreen. Apparently, she left for London a month ago and hasn’t been in touch. She told them she was staying with you. I told him that was news to me. I wouldn’t put it past the strap to lie to her parents while she went off gallivanting. That said, she will never be as deceitful as that vile brother of hers. Sorry to preach darling, I am your mother, after all!

I’m afraid I had given Frank your address before he informed me that Matthew is also over in London at present (studying or something) and that he might call on you. I was most insistent in trying to put the man off but you know what he’s like. Very brash (I never liked him). I am so sorry. Just thought I had better warn you in case Matthew turns up at your door and gives you a fright!

All my love, Mam.

P.S Bridie Bannagher has pneumonia! More next week.

Lara stood, paralysed. Matthew was in London.

In a moment she realised that everything had changed. Rather, the confusion that had been building in her the past week climaxed and spilled over.

When Noreen went for an afternoon nap in preparation for the evening shift she found Lara waiting for her.

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me Matthew was in London?’

Noreen’s stomach sank to the ground. How did she find out? Oh my God – had he been to see her? Lara was waving one of her mother’s letters at her. It was so stupid of her to think she could keep a secret from anyone in Ireland. No matter where you were in the world, word got around by letter. In just one short week, everyone would know your business.

‘I didn’t think it was important. I didn’t think you’d want to know. You hadn’t asked after him.’

That was all true. She was out of it now.

‘Of course I didn’t ask after him. Why would I? After what he did!’

Noreen felt a pang of defensive anger rise up in her. After all, Matthew was still her brother. Bad and all as he was, blood was thicker than water. Normally, it would be in Noreen’s nature to lash out and give as good as she got. But something in her held back. Some survival instinct, perhaps a maturity brought on by being away from home, reminded her that this was Lara’s flat she was living in. And, she was working for a man who was, almost certainly, Lara’s secret lover. Plus, she was annoyed now. In not talking about her brother she had been simply protecting her old friend. Her silence had been motivated by kindness rather than deception. How dare Lara accuse her of keeping secrets when she was, after all, an open book? Even going as far as expressing an interest in Coleman when Lara had, clearly, set her sights on him herself. This small humiliation rose up in Noreen now as a petulant swipe.

‘Exactly,’ she said, breathing in slowly, turning her anger into haughty reason. ‘I didn’t want to add to your upset.’

‘Well you’ve bloody well added to it now by lying to me,’ Lara shouted at her.

Noreen took another deep breath, closed her eyes and said, ‘I’m so sorry, Lara. I didn’t mean to upset or offend you.’

Both of them knew Noreen well enough to know that she wasn’t one bit sorry. However, fiery, impulsive Noreen had never held the moral high ground before. When it came to losing her temper, she was generally the first to blow. She found she was rather enjoying this new, passive aggressive Noreen and the obviously disquieting effect it was having on Lara. She felt more in control of herself. She was using her annoyance to better effect.

‘Would you like me to give you the address where Matthew is staying?’ she asked, plastering a look of genuine concern on her face which, as the person looking at it, Lara found barely convincing.

Lara wanted to kill her. But this new, conciliatory Noreen had discombobulated her. Plus, she had no other way of finding out where Matthew was. And, in the past hour since she read her mother’s letter, Lara realised that she did need to see him, very much. She was still confused about Coleman, but the letter from her mother, as well as being shocking, revealed to her that the past might hold the answer to her future. She had not got over Matthew and needed to see him before putting their relationship, and all the anger and hurt it had caused her, to rest. Seeing him, she decided, was a necessity, and she could not bear the idea of sitting around waiting for him to call.

‘I haven’t even been to see him myself,’ Noreen went on. That was true. She hadn’t, technically been to see him. Noreen didn’t mention that he had been to see her. She hoped to hell if Lara did go and see him (which she probably wouldn’t. She’d have to be some eejit to pick her wimpy, priest brother over a hunk like Coleman), he’d have the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

‘To be honest, Lara, I really didn’t think it was such a big deal, but if it means so much to you, of course, I’ll see if I can dig out the name of the seminary where he’s staying.’

‘Thanks,’ Lara said, plastering a grateful and apologetic smile on her face, which to Noreen didn’t look the least apologetic or grateful.

Their stand-off was interrupted by Annie who came tripping in the door with a bag of food.

‘I just saw Coleman on the way up,’ she said. ‘He was asking if you were going down to the club this evening, Lara. Said he had something he wanted to talk to you about.’ Then she winked – a cheeky wink. It was most unlike her to joke around like that, but Annie had changed a little. Nothing dramatic, just a lightness had taken her over, making her feel like making a cheeky comment about Lara and Coleman. Not, for one moment, did she think it might be considered indiscreet, or that Lara might worry that Annie knew something that she shouldn’t know, or was wondering if Coleman had said something to her. Opposite her, Noreen was quietly fuming, convinced that obviously Annie knew about her friend and Coleman. Lara had confided in Annie and not her, and now, the sly cow was teasing them both with it.

‘I’ve got spaghetti for dinner,’ Annie said and, oblivious to the flatmates’ anxiety and anger, walked towards the kitchenette.

‘Lovely!’ the two Cork girls said in unison.

Except, in truth, neither of them felt it was very lovely at all.