 Life
Skills
A combination of overwork and jet-lag had propelled
Julia Fairfax into becoming engaged to Oscar. She then realised
she had fonder feelings for his adorable Labrador than for Oscar
himself and that something was drastically wrong. Ditching her fiancé
and jacking in her job, she decides to revolutionise her life.
Her new career as a cook on a pair of hotel boats
is certainly a departure, and teaches her more about life than how
to get a couple of narrow boats through a lock. But even afloat
Julia’s past catches up with her. Not only must she contend
with the persistent Oscar (not to mention his frigthful mother and
her own mother’s determined matchmaking), but also the arrival
of her childhood enemy, the enigmatic Fergus Grindley.
Chapter One
‘I just don’t understand you, Julia!’
Discreetly, Julia wiped the spit from her eye and tried to get
out of range. If she’d realised Oscar was going to be quite
so upset when she broke up with him, she wouldn’t have done
it in his car. She would have invited him in for coffee and he would
have been spared hitting his funnybone on the steering wheel, which
he’d done twice already, and she could have avoided the more
physical manifestations of his distress.
‘And all this wanting some “fun” nonsense!’
he went on. ‘You’re a bit old for that, aren’t
you?’ A droplet of indignant froth landed on her sleeve.
‘I’m only thirty-four, not exactly over the hill,’
she said quietly, burrowing in her pocket for a tissue.
‘It’s pretty old to have children! And Mother offered
us so much help with them!’
Julia began to lose sympathy for him. ‘You mean when she
offered to drag your old nanny out of her retirement home so they
could be potty-trained the moment they’re out of the womb!
Hasn’t she heard of disposable nappies?’
‘She offered help with school fees too!’
‘Only if we have a boy who’s bright enough to get in
to dear old Sandings!’ She referred scathingly to his Alma
Mater, the last place on earth she’d send her children to,
if she ever had any.
‘Well, of course. Private education is expensive. You could
hardly expect her to fork out thousands of pounds for a gir –
someone who’s not very bright.’ He fell silent, aware,
possibly for the first time in his life, of how crass he had been.
Julia took a moment to swallow her rage. There was no point in
ranting at Oscar. He was sexist and élitist in every fibre
of his being and he could no more change that than he could change
his blood group. Why had it taken her so long to spot it?
‘I do appreciate it was kind of her to offer help with school
fees’ – she fixed her gaze on his walnut dashboard so
he wouldn’t see she was lying – ‘but I’m
still breaking off our engagement. Children aren’t my first
priority right now, and we’d just make each other miserable.’
‘Then why did you agree to marry me in the first place?’
It was a fair question, but while she knew the answer, it wasn’t
one she could give Oscar. ‘You’re very attractive. I
was flattered by your attention. And I do love Sooty.’
This last was a mistake. Her spot of ego-restoration was undone
by the reference to his half-grown black Labrador which had been
a puppy when they first met.
‘Sooty!’ Oscar blinked. ‘What has Sooty got to
do with it?’
‘Well, nothing really. It was just that anyone who has a
dog seems like good marriage material.’ She’d gone off
course. She was trying to soothe Oscar, not make him feel like a
refuge for unmarried portential mothers, which, sadly, he was. ‘I
was flattered, Oscar,’ she repeated. ‘But I’ve
realised I could never be the sort of wife you need.’
Cover illustration by Sophie Griotto; Cover: www.headdesign.co.uk
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