4

~ Hoover your mattress every so often. You will be amazed and repelled by how much dust comes out of it.

T he precise details of my subsequent meeting with Tony and Dean remained a blur, but the upshot was clear enough: they'd terminated my employment on the spot.

‘You haven't left me with much choice,' Dean had whined, as if I'd massively inconvenienced him by forcing him to sack me, on top of everything else.

I stumbled out of Dean's office, unable to connect myself to the situation unfolding around me. There was a weird, nervous energy in the air. I could hear the phones ringing, and Johnny and Karina doing a forced laugh that told me that my recorded shame had spread beyond the walls of Marsh a day which – hands up – I usually wasted wandering around the shops.

I took a deep breath, like someone halfway through ripping off a very long plaster. Then I gritted my teeth and reached for the carrier bag of bills I'd brought from my old flat, to try to work out how quickly I needed to find a new job.

It wasn't that I was scared of financial matters – I had recently conducted a major property transaction without any hiccups – I just never managed to get myself organised enough to deal with my day-to-day running costs. Somehow when it came to money my accounts got tangled up with strange emotional seaweed; I was terrible for impulse buys, usually after I'd guesstimated how much spare cash I had, and couldn't bring myself to look at how much I'd spent on interest when I'd missed credit-card payments by forgetting when they were due.

But now, I resolved, now I was going to turn over a new leaf! I'd been meaning to conduct a financial audit on my bills now I was in a new place. Most of the utilities were paid by direct debit so I hadn't thought properly about how much prices had risen until I saw the figures in front of me. The reality was sobering, and I spent an hour browsing various money-saving websites for budgeting tips, until I caught myself comparing air fryers and had to reel my attention back in.

In with my bills were two parking fines that I'd ignored for so long they'd basically quadrupled to ‘next stop: bailiffs!' levels. I paid them, trying not to think about how much less it could have been if I'd sorted it months ago, and then found a reminder about my road tax, which was overdue. I had a mild panic attack thinking of the number of police cars I could have driven past with no road tax (wait, did I have an MOT?) and paid everything in one go so it was done.

Next, bank statements. I got the highlighters out and started isolating essentials, like food and utilities, insurance, council tax, gym membership, petrol, and so on. I hesitated over my twice-monthly payments to Magnolia Nails and Lashes, then highlighted that too. Grooming was essential to finding another job. To be fair to my nails and lashes, I also highlighted my two-monthly haircut. And the waxing and eyebrows.

Then I added it up. Then I added it up again, because I'd clearly got it wrong the first time. After bills and essentials, I'd been operating on a monthly surplus of ￡3.23. No wonder I'd been at the edge of my overdraft.

And now I had nothing coming in after my next pay cheque.

The figures swam in and out of focus in front of me, and I forced myself to stand up, shaking off the ‘run away!' impulse before it took hold. I had to sort this out. No naps, no quick cups of tea, no procrastination. My first thought was to call Cleo for advice, as I had done for guidance on everything from bad tans to bad break-ups, but as I reached for my phone, something stopped me.

What would Cleo say when I told her I'd got myself fired for negligence? The old Cleo would have laughed at my stupidity then helped me find a new, better job – and also offered me three different untraceable ways to revenge myself on Emma Rossiter. But the new Cleo, Businesswoman of the Year Cleo, the post-Elliot single lady Cleo … I wasn't so sure she wouldn't side with Emma and Dean. She'd even given Dad honest advice when he asked her to sample his signature bake for the Cake Club.

‘If you can't be honest with your own family, what's the point?' she'd demanded when a visibly deflated Dad had shuffled off to ‘educate himself on buttercream'.

I'd said nothing. I'm not ashamed to say I prefer kindness to honesty.

‘Facts,' I said, as if speaking my advice out loud might make me follow it. ‘Let's get the facts.'

I opened my banking app to see exactly how much money I had. There was enough to cover my outgoings for a month, more or less. Then what? A wave of anxiety rolled over me like nausea. For the first time in my life I had no savings to fall back on; I'd used up my emergency buffer paying the parking fines and road tax and, even though as recently as last week I'd had a giant heap of cash, I'd transferred the whole lot into Mitch Maitland's company bank account two days ago in return for an investment in the Lark Manor project.

Maybe it hadn't cleared yet. Was there still time to grab some back? I checked my online banking again to find that … no. It had gone. I had ￡7.2 in my savings account.

Slowly, I leaned forward until my forehead rested on the cool kitchen table and yearned, not for the first time, to turn the clock back just ten minutes. Five minutes, even. Why hadn't I done the sums before I paid those fines? I could have paid them in instalments.

I was considering my options – none of them great – when the phone rang.

It was Mum.

‘Do you fancy a coffee?' she asked. ‘I was going to pop round to your office but I wasn't sure if you were working today.'

I stared at the cheap kitchen cabinets. Sunlight was illuminating the smeary fingerprints. Ugh. I had to tell her sometime. Why not now?

‘I've been sacked,' I said, and hearing the words aloud – that I was not good enough – brought back a feeling I hadn't had in a while: that ‘thanks for coming in' polite audition dismissal. Without warning, I felt small. And scared.

‘What?' Mum's reaction was so shrill I could hear her outside the door of my flat.

I got up and went to the door to save her the bother of pretending she hadn't come round to do some covert hoovering while I was out. She was standing there, phone to her ear, mouth agape.

‘Come in,' I said, still on the phone, so she did.

Mum put the kettle on while I recounted the whole story – more or less. She was so indignant on my behalf that she almost took a layer of metal off the sink she was scouring.

‘It's outrageous!' she interrupted, before I'd even got halfway through. ‘You should sue!'

I almost explained why this wouldn't be a good idea, then decided against it. Mum's outrage was comforting, like being wrapped in a blanket on the sofa. A second, metaphorical blanket; I was already wrapped in my most comforting fleece throw. So I nodded, let her rant on about my successes, and tried not to get cheese on toast crumbs on the newly wiped table. Mum always made cheese on toast when Cleo or I had some kind of childhood crisis (me = a bad test; Cleo = detention and, in yet another instance of something our family never spoke of, suspension).

Once or twice my conscience nearly pushed me to set her straight, but hearing her marvel at the houses I'd sold and tell me how proud she and Dad were of me for selling my flat for such a gigantic profit – well, I needed to hear some positivity about myself. I wasn't generating a lot right now.

Mum suddenly stopped scouring and put her hands on her hips. ‘Your dad's friend, Philip – he's a solicitor. I think he works on employment issues. Do you want Dad to give him a call?'

‘No! I mean, no, it's OK.' The last thing I wanted was to speak to anyone about Marsh & Frett. I'd braved a two-second glance at my phone and even the opening lines of the messages winded me like punches in the chest. Apparently I was a meme on the Our Longhampton Facebook group. A meme . (Thanks for that heads-up, three people from school.) The mere thought of walking into town, knowing total strangers were mocking me, gave me a physical urge to hide.

‘Surely they should have given you more notice?' said Mum, peering at me closely. ‘Is it legal, to just sack someone like that?'

‘Mum, I don't want to go back there. I'm sure I'll find something else,' I said with more confidence than I felt.

‘Of course you will.' She draped the wrung-out cloth over the sparkling taps, and looked around for something else to clean. There was a lot to choose from. ‘And of course you've got that nest egg from your flat sale safe in the bank.' She paused and gave me a stern look. ‘Although it would be silly to fritter that away, sitting around doing nothing for months.'

‘No,' I mumbled. Probably not the time to tell her where that nest egg was.

She seemed pleased with the confirmation of my sensible financial attitude, and began attacking the hob. The more Mum cleaned, the more energy she generated. ‘In the meantime, you could give your sister a hand – Cleo was telling me only last night that she was recruiting new team members. She's got more enquiries than she can handle!'

‘I'm not working for Cleo,' I said, just in case she wasn't joking.

‘She's expanding her business into housekeeping,' Mum went on, as if I hadn't spoken. ‘She was telling me she's thinking about hiring a marketing expert, and I mean, that's more or less what you've been doing, isn't it? You're so good at social media. Why don't you pop round later? Have a chat about it?'

‘Mum, I can't work for Cleo, it would be a disaster.'

‘Why?' Mum seemed surprised. ‘I know you two have your moments, but she's your sister, she'll want to help you out of a tight spot.'

‘I think it would be a mistake,' I said, firmly.

Mum sighed and sat down at the kitchen table, pulling her chair nearer mine. I lifted my blanket like a wing, and she snuggled in with me, linking the fingers of her left hand with my right, the way she did when I was little, her other arm slipping around me. ‘People come and go, Robyn,' she said. ‘But your family … we're here forever. If you're having a tough time, Cleo will want to help you, I'm sure of that. Just like you used to help her.' She paused, hoping I'd smile.

I managed a feeble smile.

‘Remember those Brownie badges?' she added.

Cleo stuck to the ‘recollections may differ' defence, but when I was nine I read all the books she talked so enthusiastically about for her Book Lover badge, and even polished the brass candlestick for her House Orderly badge. I know, ironic. I had twenty-one Brownie badges, to Cleo's four. Brown Owl, a retired head teacher of the old school (literally and metaphorically), wouldn't let Cleo leave until she had eight badges. We'd blitzed the last four together as a joint enterprise one summer holiday.

I'd never been happier. It had made me feel grown-up – and valuable – to help Cleo break out of Brownie Jail as she put it. She'd given me her old DVD player and some Rimmel lipsticks. I still had the lipsticks in a box somewhere.

‘Things have moved on a bit since then, Mum,' I said.

‘Not really. You two, you're still my little girls.'

‘Even if we're both bigger than you?'

‘Even when you're pushing me to the M&S sale in a wheelchair.'

Mum gave me a nudge, and we shared one of those half-sad, half-happy smiles that covers a multitude of memories. It felt like another warm blanket thrown over us both.

‘I don't mind giving Cleo some social media strategies,' I lied, to be nice. ‘But honestly, I'll find a new job soon.'

‘Maybe this could be the start of a new direction?' Mum persisted. ‘It's such a great opportunity for you two to work together.'

‘We do work together,' I pointed out. ‘I've been putting thousands of pounds her way in cleaning contracts.'

‘ Proper working together, I mean. A family business. I've said to Cleo for a while that she needs a deputy manager, so she can spend more time with the boys. It's hard for her being a single mum, she never has a spare moment, working the hours she does and then coming home and looking after them by herself.'

This was a bit much. Setting aside the casual dismissal of my actually quite lucrative help for a moment, Cleo took outrageous advantage of Mum's on-tap grandma services, and had enough free time to attend networking dinners and personal training sessions, whereas Mum still hadn't used the massage voucher I'd given her for Christmas because her availability was ‘limited'.

‘She has more free time than you do,' I said. ‘You're virtually on the payroll as it is, the amount of babysitting you're doing for her. She takes us for granted, assuming we're always free to do her bidding. I couldn't pick Orson up from football the other night and she more or less accused me of neglecting my responsibilities. My responsibilities?'

It came out more sharply than I meant it to.

‘Oh, Robyn …' Mum suddenly sank her head into her hands and didn't speak for several moments.

I waited, then said, ‘Mum, are you all right?' I hadn't meant to upset her.

Besides, weren't we supposed to be worrying about me?

She stayed where she was then, to my relief, raised her head and said, slightly tearfully, ‘I just want the best for you both. It's what you do when you're a mum. You'll get it one day. You just want to be able to fix everything, make everything better. Sometimes you can, and sometimes—'

‘Sometimes you have to leave it to us to fix our problems,' I insisted. I didn't want to go down the ‘when you're a mum' road. That was a whole other annoying kettle of fish. ‘And I can. I've got a couple of things in the pipeline, as it happens. I will be fine. Honest. But there's no need to tell Cleo about any of this, OK? Not until I've got myself sorted out.'

‘I won't, love,' said Mum.

But I knew she would. Cleo got everything out of everyone, eventually.

Once she'd left, I phoned Mitch. I hardly wanted to discuss my ritual humiliation, but I'd rather he heard it from me than the Internet.

‘Robyn!' he said with such enthusiasm my mood lifted immediately, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. ‘I was just thinking about you.'

‘Really?' Even better. I felt an unexpected tingle. Talking to Mitch outside work was different now. We were partners, working on our own project. Together.

‘I've got the official documents here from Allen about your investment.'

My investment. My money hadn't gone, it had just moved. That made me feel a lot better. The metaphorical sun moved beyond the cloud and a rainbow came out.

‘I can stick it in the post and you'll get it Monday, unless …' Mitch hesitated. ‘Unless you're around this afternoon? I'm going to be driving through Longhampton, I can drop it round to you. If you give me your address, I could—'

‘Why don't we meet for a coffee?' I asked quickly. I'd have suggested a drink, but maybe it was a bit early in the day to suggest toasting the deal. I didn't want to look like an alcoholic.

‘Yes! Why not? Want to suggest somewhere?'

Double rainbow. Result.

Mitch was sympathetic about my job situation. I didn't tell him the complete story, obviously, but more than I'd told Mum. I anecdoted what I could anecdote (like Dad being engrossed in an article about combine harvesters while all hell was breaking loose) and skipped over the painful bits. He'd find those out for himself soon enough – although I tried not to think about that.

‘So if you know of any jobs going …' I finished, hopefully.

‘I will certainly keep my ear to the ground,' he said.

‘Doesn't have to be local.' I chased the last bits of cake around my plate. ‘In fact, ideally not local. But, you know … marketing, sales, whatever.'

I hoped Mitch would say, ‘Come and start work on the Lark Manor project right now,' but he didn't.

‘I'll have a think,' he said. ‘I've got a mate who's setting up a commercial agency in Birmingham, he might have something. And we work with a few property search agencies who always need people with local knowledge. You'll be fine, though, Robyn. Everyone hits bumps in the road now and again. This time next year, you won't even think about this, I promise you. It'll be like it never happened.'

He swirled the last of his coffee around the cup, then looked up at me from under his lashes. ‘Don't forget, you're a great negotiator. I'd have you on my team any day.'

Mitch's kindness made me feel a bit overwhelmed and I pretended to look in my bag for my phone to disguise the surge of tears. I'd managed to shake off my earlier gloom with a frantic hour of self-improvement before we met, but the adrenalin was wearing off and the reality of finding a new job was sinking in.

What would I do for a reference? I hadn't even thought about that. Could I ask Mitch to give me a reference for the work I'd done with St Anselms?

A shadow fell across the table and I breathed in some expensive cologne, close to me. I felt Mitch's finger slip under my chin then, with the gentlest pressure, lifted it up.

I raised my eyes to his. Mitch was gazing straight into my face, leaning in to check I was OK.

He really was gorgeous, I thought, distractedly. Gorgeous men weren't usually this kind and supportive, not in my experience anyway. If I was being honest, even I hadn't expected Mitch to be as sweet as this.

‘Chin up,' he said, with an encouraging smile. ‘You're going to be fine. Trust me.'

I took a deep breath and before I could even think, ‘Is he going to kiss me?' he'd reached for his own phone and was scrolling through his contacts, firing off suggestions of people I could call.

Maybe it was going to be all right, I thought, writing down names and numbers as the pieces of my shattered self-confidence slowly began to regroup. Maybe this was actually the best thing that could have happened to me.

Although, obviously, it would take a lot of time for me to start feeling grateful for Emma Rossiter.

Unfortunately, on Friday, two things happened which stalled some of my positivity.

My car, which had gone for its overdue MOT, failed its MOT, and cost me the best part of my final pay cheque to fix.

The second thing was that, for the first time ever, I opened a brown envelope as soon as it arrived and discovered that rather than getting a council tax rebate for my flat, as I was blithely assuming, I actually owed them money. An amount almost exactly equal to what I had left.

I also got two ‘thanks for applying but no thanks' emails for the other two jobs I'd applied for, and a TV licence reminder, but by that point I'd stopped counting. I had no money left, and the rent was due in twelve days. I no longer cared about television because my life now resembled the worst kind of made-for-TV drama.

Obviously, I spent a few hours staring at the ceiling, listening to Tomasz's workout and praying for divine intervention, but when Mum popped round to see if I wanted some frozen lasagne, her weakest excuse yet, it didn't take much for her to nudge me over the cliff edge.

Fine , I would go and work for Cleo. Just for a few days, only on her social media, in her office, and the nanosecond one of Mitch's contacts came good, I'd be off.

I saw the text Cleo sent Mum in response. Happy to help Robyn out but obviously on probationary terms. Cxx

A true vote of sisterly confidence.