Love Is a Four Letter Word Read Free

start hunting for hats. And what would she do with it anyway? She could hardly keep it on all day. Perhaps she could claim to be Muslim. Or having chemotherapy. She stood at the kitchen sink and drank a glass of water to settle her stomach. Good grief, this was worse than going on a date or preparing for her first day at school. You’re thirty-three for God’s sake, she told herself. They’re not going to pick on you or try to nick your pencil case.
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    Mummy stands talking to Mr Bowndes, the headmaster. She lays a hand on his arm and tilts her head back as she laughs. Bella looks down at her own feet, at her new shoes. They are navy blue with shiny silver buckles and straps that are still too stiff to do up herself. It is September but she is wearing pristine white ankle socks with neat blue anchors around the cuffs. The other girls, she sees, have knee-length grey socks. Autumn socks.
    Through her new blue felt hat she feels a pat on her head. She looks up.
    â€˜So nice to see a pupil properly dressed with the correct school hat,’ says Mr Bowndes, leaning towards Mummy, ‘So few parents bother now.’ He laughs as if he is making a joke, but Bella supposes it must be a grown-up joke because she does not know what is funny.
    â€˜But it’s so charming, I think, no?’ Mummy does that thing with her voice, almost as if she is going to start singing, and taps the brim of Bella’s hat with one long finger.
    Standing still in her hat, Bella imagines she is a navy blue mushroom. She wishes she were in the woods, her feet sunk in velvet moss, her toenails growing, stretching, becoming roots in the earth. Rabbits would stop and talk to her and tickle her with their noses. She would listen to the leaves as they rustled in the wind.
    Mr Bowndes waves bye-bye to her mother then deposits Bella with an older girl who shepherds her to the correct classroom.
    She is the only one wearing a hat.
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    It took her longer to find Scotton Design than she had expected. This was probably because she was coming at it from the other way round, she decided. Still, there seemed to be a Brigadoon-like quality to the place. Surely it had been down that turning just past the shoe shop? Hang on a tick – last time, she’d come from the station, so that meant she should have turned left back there, not right. Or did it? She stood still for a moment, trying to ignore the flutter of panic rising in her stomach. A passer-by sighed loudly as he detoured around her, impatient at yet another gawping tourist blocking the pavement. The tower of the cathedral loomed large to her left – ah-hah, cathedral on left, so – yes, past greasy chip shop and Waterstone’s.
    Renewing old London habits, she veered automatically into a café as she neared the office, to pick up a cappuccino and a Danish. Excess froth splurged out of the steam hole in the lid, sidling lava-like towards her fingers.
    She was still licking her fingers as she entered the reception area to be greeted by her new boss.
    â€˜Bella! You’re here! Great!’ Seline checked her watch. ‘New client meeting at 2! But I’m out most of the morning so I’ll have to brief you in two mins! OK!’
    â€˜Fine!’ Bella lifted her voice, attempting to interject exclamation marks to match Seline’s tone. Had she really been like this at her two interviews? ‘Of course!’ She looked around for somewhere to set down her cascading coffee. Tomorrow, she’d be sure to get herself a quadruple espresso so she could boost her energy levels and not sound like the dormouse from Alice in Wonderland by comparison.
    â€˜Gail! Do the honours, will you!’
    â€˜Here – let me take those.’ Gail disentangled Bella from her cup, her coat, her briefcase. ‘Pay no attention to Seline. She’s just trying to impress ’cause you’re t’ swanky art director from