Jilly Cooper

An Uplifting Evening

This story was first published in the STORYCUTS series by Transworld Digital 2011

Taken from the collection Lisa & Co.

Jilly Cooper has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Contents

Cover

An Uplifting Evening

Backmatter

We hope you enjoyed this story. If you want to read more stories by Jilly Cooper, try her other contributions to the Storycuts series such as

And May The Best Girl Win/Johnnie Casanova 9781448125692

A Pressing Engagement 9781448125753

Lisa/Political Asylum 9781448125708

Alternatively, read the original parent collection, Lisa & Co 9781409032168.

An Uplifting Evening

Lunch with Elizabeth always depressed me. ‘Don’t you think Colin is beginning to take you for granted?’ she was saying, ladling French dressing over her salad. ‘I mean, he gets his shirts washed, his meals cooked – when he’s in,’ she added darkly. ‘You’re always going round to his flat to clean it up. And what do you get out of it? Precisely nothing.’

‘I love him,’ I said, wondering how I would ever get through my spaghetti.

‘You’ve been going out with him for two years now,’ she went on, ‘and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of marrying you.’

‘I don’t want to get married,’ I lied weakly. ‘Not for years yet.’

Elizabeth had got marriage on the brain. After eighteen agonizing months of marching her boyfriend up and down in front of the Gas Board showroom, she’d managed to get engaged – and was horribly smug about it.

‘Of course you want to get married,’ she said. ‘And Colin’s quite a catch.’

She was right – Colin was a marvellous catch. Neck-crickingly handsome, much fancied at the tennis club and doing phenomenally well at his job. But Elizabeth was also right about him using me, and although I defended him hotly, he did take me for granted. We’d reached that awful stage in our relationship – hell when we were together because we ratted so much, even more hell when we were apart because I never knew what he was up to.

That day, however, Elizabeth’s lunch-hour sermon depressed me less than usual, for in the evening Colin – for the first time in weeks – was taking me out.

I went straight round to his flat from the office, but there was no answer, so I let myself in. In the hall was a pile of washing with a note on top: ‘Angel,’ it said – always ‘angel’ when he wanted something – ‘I may be held up at the office after all. Be a duck and pop round to the laundrette with these. Love, Colin.’