‘Clive’s very easy. He loves eating with me, he loves eating without me. Clive will roll with however the evening pans out. Don’t feel bad about Clive either way. Also: I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, but I can actually eat spaghetti without makingthatbig a mess.’
Georgie laughed. ‘Well, in thatcase, I’d love to eat Italian with you.’
His smile in response got her somewhere deep, deep inside, with some very serious melting and butterflies. Which was ridiculous, wasn’t it? She was basically hanging out with him to get her secret back. And he was basically hanging out with her because he’d been away for years and didn’t know that many people. And of course he was just being kind-hearted by helpingher with skating. And had time on his hands between jobs. That was all it was.
‘I haven’t asked how you got on with the cats.’ Raf moved his shoulders around against the back of the too-small-for-him front passenger seat as Georgie pulled out of her parking space and tried not to get alleekabout the fact that they were going for dinner together.
‘They were adorable,’ Georgie lied. One of them had been; the other had been very hissy and spitty. ‘I’ve just remembered something I forgot to ask: their names.’ She’d been focusing entirely on the letter retrieval. Max had been astonished that she didn’t know what they were called because usually she knew the names, ages, habits, you name it, of the friends’ and neighbours’ pets that she fed.
‘Clive and Molly.’
‘Wow. Two Clives cannot be a coincidence. Is Clive the cat named after the neighbour?’
‘Erm. That is a good question. I’ll have to ask my aunt.’
‘Do you also have a neighbour called Molly?’
‘Also a good question.’
Georgie looked at him out of the corner of her eye and gulped. He was looking at her and smiling, and suddenly it felt like they were having a really important conversation. What had they been talking about, though? Oh! Nothing important at all. Cat and neighbour names.
She slowed the car right down while she caught her breath; it couldn’t be safe to drive, even on a quiet side road, when you were feeling this, well,flustered.
Okay, so she was going to de-fluster herself. Get some conversation going again.
‘What would you call a cat if you got a new one?’ she asked, changing gear very deliberately (and also very nerve-wrackingly, because his thigh really was very close to the gear stick).
‘Hmm. I really don’t know because I’ve never thought about it, but now you ask I definitely prefer human names for cats. I don’t like your Fluffy or Tiddles type names.’
‘Me neither,’ said Georgie approvingly.
‘Your top two names for a cat?’
‘I mean, Horace and Peggy, obviously,’ Georgie told him.
‘Of course.’ He grinned at her as she glanced at him as they stopped at some traffic lights.
They were still talking about animal names when they parked on Raf’s road.
‘No horse should ever be called Humphrey,’ he insisted, as they walked round the corner and came to a halt in front of the restaurant.
‘You’re wrong, but agree to disagree.’ Georgie stepped inside and looked around. ‘Oh, wow. This is lovely.’
It was the quintessential British neighbourhood Italian with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, dripping candles in wicker holders, mellow music, black and white photos of Sophia Loren on the walls, the works, all done in a very, very nice way; there was something about the ambience that just drew you straight in.
‘I can immediately see myself with a heaped bowl of pasta and a glass of red here as often as I could afford it.’
‘Yes, I’ve been spending alotof time in here. Pretty sure I know the menu off by heart.’
‘Raf.’ A smiling, bearded man wearing a black shirt and black trousers moved towards them with his arms out, and the two of them exchanged a hug.
Raf introduced the man as the owner, Antonio, and Antonio hugged Georgie too, and then told them to follow him to one of his best tables.
‘How many times have youbeenhere since you got back?’ Georgie asked.
‘Ha, not that many. We go way back. I used to come here before I moved to New York.’ With his wife presumably, although he didn’t say so.
Georgie waited a second in case he wanted to mention her, and then opened her menu and said, ‘Wow, it all looksdelicious,’ and started talking very animatedly about the listed options to put the thinking-of-Raf’s-wife moment behind them.
