Meg opened her mouth and then closed it again.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Meg signalled at the waiter. ‘Let’s go and hunt down those blankets and jumpers.’
Cassie and Meg had found a lovely soft polo neck jumper for Cassie’s mother and were trying to decide whether to buy it in cream or emerald green when a woman with a baby in a pram interrupted them to say, ‘Meg. Hello. I thought it was you. Howareyou?’
‘Good, thank you. So sorry, we’re in a bit of a rush.’ Meg took both the jumpers and started walking towards the till. Like she really didn’t want to talk to the woman. Odd. Meg never behaved liked this.
‘You dropped your umbrella.’ The woman held it out and Cassie, not having been as quick off the mark as Meg, and therefore still near to her, took it.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘No problem.’ The woman smiled at her and then looked more closely at her. ‘I’m Sophie. I feel as though we’ve met before. Not surprising, I suppose, given that you’re a friend of Meg’s. Glasgow’s a small place.’ Strange, because Cassie didn’t recognise her atall. She was tall, slim and blonde with a warm smile and startlingly blue eyes. Quite recognisable, really.
Meg had only half-turned round. ‘Glasgowisa small place. Great to see you.’
She turned away again and started to move away as Sophie said, ‘Have you seen Archie?’ Meg turned back round as Sophie pulled back her pram cover to give them a better view of her truly gorgeous baby. ‘Eight weeks old. My third,’ she told Cassie. ‘I’msurewe’ve met before. It’s going to annoy me until we work out where. Do you work with Simon perhaps? Simon Grant?’
Cassie froze.
Meg sprang into action, looking at her watch with an exaggerated circular motion of her arm and saying, ‘Oh my goodness, Cassie, we’relate. Great to see you, Sophie. Archie’s beautiful. Love to all. You know what, I don’t think either of these jumpers are right. Bye.’ She put the jumpers down on the nearest display table, took Cassie’s arm and marched her towards the escalator.
‘So that’s Simon’s wife?’ Cassie said.
‘Yes.’
‘And baby.’ The baby had actually looked quite like Simon. God. The pain. That was maybe whatherbaby would have looked like. Cassie felt a tear trickle out and opened her eyes really wide to stop any others following. She wasn’t bloody doing this. It was four years ago. It was sad but it was in the past and she had a lot of great things in her life and she wasnot doing this.
‘I was going to get tissues out,’ Meg said as they got off the escalator, ‘but you don’t look like you need any.’
‘I don’t. It’s in the past.’
‘I amsoproud of you.’
‘Is that what you were going to tell me when we were finishing our lunch?’
‘Yes. Wish I had, now.’
‘Hard to predict that we’d bump into her. Also, honest truth, how old are her other kids?’
Meg screwed up her face. ‘The oldest is about four. She’s the person he was having an affair with when you split up.’
‘Right.’ Cassie waited for the wave of emotion to hit her. It didn’t. ‘Wow. What an arse. How many times has he tried to get in touch with me? And the whole time he’s had at least one child.’
‘Yes.’
‘Wow. Thank you for not telling me when I couldn’t have coped with it and for giving it to me straight now. Do you know what I want to do?’
‘Castrate him?’
‘Nope. Better than that. I’d like to go back up and buy both those jumpers because Mum’ll love both of them and they’re a great price and I don’t want Simon to have any effect on my life whatsoever any more. And then let’s get on with having a fantastic weekend.’
* * *
‘We’re going to miss you.’ Juliet took a delicate bite of one of Luigi’s mini lemon tarts. Cassie had cooked the main course for their dinner but she wasn’t going near any baking – apart from anything else it had taken her three days to clean the oven last time she’d messed up and she was leaving tomorrow – so she’d bought in their puddings.
‘Yes, we are,’ the others chorused through full mouths.
