‘No!’ said Heather. She knew that in order to keep things going at the shop, I’d remortgaged my house. It had seemed like a safe bet at the time. There had been a golden phase about seven years ago. I’d had an article in Vogue, another in a local paper, and for a while I’d been flavour of the month, with all sorts of people wanting my personalized jewellery. However, the last few years had been like swimming upstream. I worked seven days a week, kept the shop open on a Sunday when the weekend crowds descended on Hampstead, but still I was barely breaking even. I’d ignored the signs for as long as I could. It was time to take action.

‘OK, I have a plan,’ said Heather.

‘Good. Because my brain seems to have frozen.’

‘Lunch. I’m taking you out. We can talk it all out over a glass of Prosecco.’

12

‘OK. Job number one, meet with Stuart and go through the accounts tomorrow. In the meantime, we could do some number crunching,’ I said when Heather and I had settled at a table at the back of a café on Highgate High Street.

‘What’s that famous quote from Gone with the Wind?’

‘“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”’

‘No, not that one.’

‘“You should be kissed by someone who knows how.” That was always a personal favourite of mine.’

Heather groaned. ‘No, not that either.’

I laughed. ‘“As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again,”’ I said in my best Texan accent.

‘Things aren’t that bad, Bea. No, the one I meant was, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”’

‘Ah, yes, exactly.’

‘Let’s do a Scarlett O’Hara. I think we should sleep on the news; you meet with Stuart then we reconvene when we’ve had a chance to give it some thought. In the meantime, tell me about your holiday.’

‘God, India seems a million years ago now. Talk about back to reality with a bang.’

‘Forget about that for now. Photos. I want to see photos.’

‘Are you sure? I took hundreds.’

‘I am sure.’

I got out my iPad and we spent a pleasant time revisiting scenes from my time abroad; it did cheer me up to look back and see all the great locations I’d been to. ‘I bought some earrings and ankle bracelets for the shop when I was in Jaipur,’ I said as I showed photos of the Amber Fort. ‘And it was probably foolish of me to have shelled out on going away at all, especially at a time like this.’

‘Don’t talk rot,’ said Heather. ‘You deserved a break. You haven’t had proper time off in years, and it’s not every day you turn fifty. So … best moment of the trip?’