As Faith reimagined her future, she was distracted by the fluorescent light sizzling above her head. The sound grated on her nerves and it was hard to say whether she or the tube would explode first. She could wait for maintenance to fix the fault, but she wasn’t known for her patience. She fetched the set of fixed ladders from the next aisle and wheeled it directly beneath the offending light fitting. Muttering to herself, she climbed up and removed the cover to expose two tubes, one of which had a blackened connector.

Having identified the source of her irritation, Faith climbed down to switch off the lights and used the torch on her phone to guide her back through the racks of supplies. It took seconds to disconnect the faulty tube and she was on her way down the ladder when her phone rang.

The stock room plunged into darkness as Faith pressed her phone to her ear and smothered the only light source. ‘Hi, Tara, what’s up?’ she asked, resting her body against the steps, her elbow on the top rung.

‘I tried phoning you yesterday.’

Faith had developed a bit of a habit of ignoring her friends’ calls, but there were days when she could do without the dramas April and Tara seemed to thrive upon, and Sunday with Nick had been one of them. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said with a shrug.

‘So anyway, April has some leave she needs to use up this week and we thought we’d have a catch-up on Wednesday afternoon if you fancy it?’

She was slightly out of breath as if she had been exerting herself, but the hairs on the back of Faith’s neck had pricked. It was nerves that made Tara’s voice shake.

‘I’ve already booked Wednesday off,’ said Faith. ‘You do realise it’s Valentine’s Day?’

‘I know, but I thought … Do you have plans for the whole day? Could you come over for an hour at least?’

Faith’s eyes bored through the gloom, picking out the shapes of boxes and gallon-sized poly bottles lining the shelves. ‘Nick’s going to be busy with work in the evening so we wanted to spend some quality time together in the day,’ she explained. ‘I think he’s planning something special.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Faith was disappointed by the response. Did Tara assume his plan was something as mundane as sex? What would she say if Faith told her she expected Nick to propose?

‘What if we made it earlier in the day?’ Tara suggested. ‘If I can get someone in to help Michelle, we could go for a walk in Pickering’s Pasture.’

‘Does that mean April will bring that stupid dog of hers?’