‘Actually, there is. Kids’ card games. Have you played Dobble? I took no prisoners with my nieces a couple of weeks ago. They were seriously impressed.’
‘I haven’t met your family,’ Luigi said. ‘You should bring them here.’
‘I will.’ He would not. He didn’t need Luigi telling his sister and her family about his romantic brunch with Cassie. Ella would start harbouring hopes that he was about to settle down.
Cassie nearly tripped as someone jostled her in the doorway – maybe she should stop wearing those wedge heels so much, although they did look great – and James put his arm out to steady her.
‘Too cute,’ Luigi called after them.
‘I’m still thinking about the exhibition.’ James separated his third egg white and yolk. ‘If I’m honest, I wasn’t really expecting to love it, but there was a lot of interesting social history there.’ The exhibition, at the V&A, had been about the role of the high heel throughout history.
‘I know. There’ve been some seriously weird people through the centuries.’ Cassie was doing something with herbs and spices and chickpeas.
‘You thinking about the bondage thing?’ James looked over her shoulder and sniffed. ‘That smells mouth-watering. Have I eaten that before? Did you leave some of that for me in my freezer?’
‘I did. And, no, you can’t have any now.’ She nudged his arm out of the way with her shoulder before he could sneak a mouthful. ‘You get on with your pavlova.’
James smiled. This was the kind of day you could get used to.
There were a lot of hugs when Anthony, Juliet, Jack and Chloe arrived. All between them and Cassie. James shook hands and air-kissed instead. It felt too strange to leap from three years of having ignored people – purposely, if he was honest – straight to hugging. It was genuinely good to see them, though. There was something to be said for knowing your neighbours.
‘I’ll get the drinks,’ James told Cassie. ‘You have a lot of catching up to do.’ She was in the middle of a detailed conversation about how Juliet’s ninety-three-year-old mother was recovering after the hip replacement she’d had a couple of weeks ago. Juliet had been worrying that her mother would get depressed during the post-operative phase but apparently she was doing brilliantly. James had had no idea about any of that, which felt slightly odd, given that the operation had happened while he’d been living here, in the same building as Juliet, and Cassie had been back on the island.
James handed Juliet and Chloe their drinks and asked Anthony and Jack what they’d like. Juliet had finished talking about her mother and Anthony was now telling Cassie all about his latest wood carving.
‘He’s so talented,’ Cassie told James. ‘You should see his flat. All sorts of wood sculpture, everywhere. Beautiful to look at. So impressive.’
‘You’re flattering me.’ Anthony was beaming away.
‘I’d love to see them.’ James said. Anthony beamed even more.
James couldn’t decide whether he adored Cassie for her ability to become very close to people, fast, or slightly put out that maybe he was just another friend; did she feel there was something special to their friendship, as he did? No, she must do; of course she did. He definitely hadn’t imagined the moments there’d been between them. Also, all these people had confided in Cassie but they didn’t really know a lot about her life other than the superficials. He was pretty sure that she hadn’t told any of them about her IVF cycle, for example.
‘And there you go.’ He handed Anthony and Jack rhubarb and ginger gin cocktails – Cassie had decided they should go fancy on the drinks – and sat down with the others.
‘It’s just so exciting. I keep buying more and more baby stuff. It’s all soteeny. And cute. And gorgeous. And lovable,’ said Chloe. She pointed to one of her scan photos again and said, ‘Look at its beautiful little face. I just can’t get over how perfect my little bean is. Pregnancy isthemost amazing thing.’
James glanced at Cassie on the other side of the table. Her normally animated face looked somewhat stone-like. Not surprising. At a guess, this had to be excruciating for her.
For a sober person, Chloe was behaving with a remarkable lack of tact given that she and her husband were at a dinner party with four people, all older than them, all childless. Any one, or all, of the four of them might have wanted children. One of them might have just bloody had an unsuccessful IVF attempt this summer.
‘Very cute,’ he said, smiling at Chloe and standing up. ‘Can I get anyone some more pudding? More wine? Coffee? Tea? We have several herbal ones.’
‘I’d have liked to have had a baby. My mother would have liked to have been a grandmother. One of the great sorrows of her life is that she doesn’t have a grandchild.’ Apparently Juliet wasn’t going with James’s subject change. Her voice was harsh, really different from its usual softness. ‘But I didn’t meet Anthony until I was too old.’
Anthony’s face dropped. ‘We’ve had a wonderful time, though, haven’t we, darling?’ He frowned. ‘All our travel? We couldn’t have done that with a baby.’
‘No, you’re right, you’re absolutely right.’ Juliet patted his arm. ‘Extremely right and extremely childless.’
Okay. Subject change required.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ James said. ‘In case anyone does want tea or coffee.’
‘On the upside,’ Cassie said to Juliet, ‘we non-pregnant people can get as drunk as we like.’
‘Absolutely right.’ Juliet downed her wine and said, ‘Could you make mine an Irish coffee, James? We have had a lot of fun, haven’t we, Anthony? I think children would have ruined our sex life. I doubt you could safely keep sex toys in the house with young children around.’
Good Lord.
