Extract

 

Monday: 10.35 a.m.

 

The massage had not begun well. The towel had fallen off, leaving Jo stark naked on the bed for several painfully long seconds. Oil had run into her freshly washed hair and her masseur seemed to have some sort of indigestion situation going on which involved small, almost inaudible, but faintly smelly garlic burps.

The mobile in her bag had rung twice, which she'd tried to ignore, shrugging off images of babysitter du jour - her mother - desperately trying to contact her because the girls had choked/drowned/been abducted.

But now, apart from the incredibly annoying tinkly music in the background, she was finally settling down into this and relaxing. The masseur was circling his thumbs firmly down the sides of her spine, -gradually unwinding the tension that had built up in the brief time since she'd returned from the half-term holiday week.

For six lovely days she'd managed to avoid all newspapers, most news bulletins and any phone -conversations with her divorce lawyer, Hugo.
However, she was now back in London, back in contact, and already she felt bombarded, although technically she had one last day of holiday left.
The massage was fanning out over her neck and shoulders and she sank gratefully into the foam -mattress trying not to think about the list of things she had to do today: more presents were needed for her older daughter, Mel's birthday and she had run out of ideas; Hugo would have to be called; her mother 'wanted to talk'; a mountain range, no, make that, the Himalayas of laundry was waiting for her back at home, not to mention last week's entire set of newspapers which she would have to plough through so that when she walked into the newsroom at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning she would have some inkling of what to write about this week.