to more than one person.
She slid home the bolts on the back door and went upstairs to bed.
Miranda Penhaligon lay in her single bed listening to the wind. It sighed through the rooftops between the obsolete chimney-pots and rocked the tangle of television aerials. Several streets away the Thames would be sludgy and rippled, no more than that, nothing so severe as the waves which would be crashing over the Cornish coastline leaving a litter of stones and seaweed, nylon rope and crates which had been swept overboard from fishing-boats. The wind might whip at hemlines and come at you in gusts at a corner but it didn’t tear at your hair and bring stinging tears to your eyes. It was meeker in the city, as if it lived the half-life Miranda had become accustomed to. How I miss Cornwall, she thought, and how I miss them all, Joel especially.
London was all right for a while but the novelty had palled. Miranda had imagined that its population would make use of all the entertainment that was on offer but the girls she worked with went home most evenings to eat and watch television, only going out at the weekend with boyfriends or other girls.
She turned on her side. After fifteen months she still had trouble getting to sleep. There was no true darkness, no silence and stillness here. Traffic all through the night, rumbling taxis, their fares slamming the doors, lorries and cars and early morning road sweepers. And streetlights.
Tears filled her eyes. ‘I can’t bear it,’ she whispered although there was no one to hear her. ‘I want to go home.’
On Thursday morning, puffy-eyed, she dressed in her city clothes, ate some cereal and clattered down the stairs of the building in which her flat was situated. At the end of the street she jumped on a bus and squeezed in between two other people on a long side seat. Ten minutes later she got off and headed towards a tall building of whitish stone and lots of glass. The offices of an insurance company where her role was not clearly defined. Miranda had no qualifications and guessed she had got the job because she was decorative and good with people over the telephone.
At her desk she switched on the computer terminal and typed a letter of resignation. One month. She would give them the month they were due, they had, after all, been fair to her, then she would leave.Besides, she needed some time, she had to plan ahead.
‘Morning.’
Miranda looked up. Standing in front of her was the only cause for regret. Michael Hanson. It was his smile which had first attracted her, and then his personality. They had been seeing each other out of office hours for four months.
‘A little wistful this morning?’ He leaned towards her, his hands on the edge of the desk. She could smell his aftershave.
‘Just tired.’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t show. You always look good to me. Shall I get you a coffee?’
‘Please.’ She watched him retreat. Loose-limbed, confident and very sexy but her choice had been made.
Michael returned and placed the two plastic containers in their flimsy holders in front of her. He knew something was wrong and wondered if he was responsible. Miranda Penhaligon was not the first woman he had been serious about but she was the first one he didn’t want to lose. She was almost as tall as himself, and as slender. Her skin was olive, her eyes dark brown, which was an odd but striking combinationwith her honey-coloured hair. She looked somehow foreign but when he had said so she had laughed and told him she was Cornish.
‘Hence the name,’ she had added, saying she was surprised he had not recognised her accent. But she had come to realise that, thanks to bad imitations by television actors and a lack of concern about the West Country in general, everyone who lived the other side of Bristol was considered to be some sort of Somerset-speaking rustic farmhand by those who lived in London.
‘Look, let me take you out tonight, somewhere