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AS it happened, Francesca, too, had a new piece of jewellery. Her three leaves from the oak tree she’d had incorporated into a gold necklace. It had been specially made for her.

“Not another like it,” the goldsmith told her, which struck her as apt since, in her mind, there was no-one else like Grace or Evie, either. In their memory, she wore the necklace constantly. She missed them so much! She had expected to love life in London, but she didn’t. All the other young women she met seemed so much more worldly-wise than she was. Even with her cousins, now she saw more of them, she had the feeling of a big gulf. Sometimes she felt desperately lonely.

Taking a deep breath, she climbed the steps to the smart entrance of the Misses Symmes-Browne School. It wasn’t that she needed a job, heavens, no! Her father’s new business venture in property development was doing wonderfully well. But at the school she hoped to acquire some of the sophistication she felt she lacked.

This class was in flower-arranging. As they waited to begin one of her fellow students, a confident girl called Annabel, seemed to be taking an interest in her. Francesca smiled at her. Here, she thought, was absolutely the kind of girl from whom she could learn.

“Are those leaves real?” Annabel asked, pointing at Francesca’s necklace.

Francesca nodded and started outlining their history but broke off as she saw that Annabel was laughing.

“But how divinely country-bumpkinish!”

Some of the others started laughing, too, and Francesca felt more out of her depth than ever.

Next day, she considered not wearing the necklace. But because of its significance, she put it on anyway. And continued doing so every day.

Sometimes, after classes, a group of them called into an Italian coffee bar that had opened around the corner. By now Francesca reckoned she was progressing, because she’d started recognising that Annabel wasn’t a wonderfully self-assured and admirable person so much as a bully, plain and simple!

It was on one of these visits that the necklace became the centre of attention again.

“Oak leaves, aren’t they?” a young man called Oliver asked Francesca. “It’s a lovely way to preserve them. A lovely idea.”

Francesca knew he was called Oliver because Annabel had got into conversation with him one afternoon. He was training to be an architect, she recalled, at an office across the road. He had an attractive, intelligent face, and hair maybe a couple of shades darker than her own light blonde.

She told him a bit about the necklace’s history and he listened intently, to Annabel’s annoyance judging by the expression on her face.

When Francesca stood up to leave, he packed his things and walked out with her.

The same thing happened later in the week, and at the weekend he invited her to an exhibition with him.

And suddenly she loved London! Oliver was a native and he knew everywhere – and seemed to want to take her everywhere.

“Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” she overheard Annabel saying one morning when she arrived at the school. “He’s an up-and-coming architect, and her father is a property developer. Good career move for him, getting in with our country girl!”

Francesca tried to put the words out of her mind. She knew what sort of person Annabel was – she should just forget it. And yet it was true that Oliver was ambitious and that someone like her father could undeniably help him. So was he just using her?

It didn’t feel like that when he kissed her. And yet, and yet . . .

Alan Spink

Alan is a member of the “Friend” Fiction Team. He enjoys working closely with writers and being part of the creative process, which sees storytelling ideas come to fruition. A keen reader, he also writes fiction and enjoys watching football and movies in his spare time. His one tip to new writers is “write from your imagination”.

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