You Never Can Tell

Angela knew this reunion would be make or break, but had she left Mike alone for too long?

- Ginny Swart

Angela climbed aboard the bus and looked around hopefully for a vacant double seat. After an exhausting 20-hour flight, all she wanted to do was put her head on to her jacket and sleep for the two-hour bus trip before she reached home.

But every seat had at least one person already there. She chose one next to a young man in a windcheater, heaved her backpack on to the shelf above and sat down. She hoped her companion wouldn’t turn out to be a talker.

But he waited until the bus had left the airport, then smiled and said, ‘Did you have a good time in Australia?’ ‘What? Oh!’ A koala on her T-shirt was a dead giveaway.

‘Great, thanks.’ His own clothes told her nothing, but she spotted a small Canadian flag in his lapel. ‘And you? Enjoy Canada?’ ‘Yep. Fabulous. I was working most of the time, but I managed to see quite a bit of the country.’

Well, let’s hope that’s that, thought Angela, and ostentatiously balled up her jacket to cushion her head.

As she did, a small leather folder slipped out and fell on to the man’s lap, opening.

‘Yours,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘Would this be the boyfriend by any chance?’

Mike’s face looked out at her for the thousandth time, the boyish, confident grin giving her the usual feeling of slight disbelief.

She still marvelled that Mike Hagerty, captain of the rugby team and all-round sporting superhero, had asked her – Angela Evans, the woman most likely to sprain her ankle when she ran – to be his girlfriend six months ago.

‘Yes,’ she said, smiling at the thought of him. ‘He’s meeting the bus in Norwich.’