‘We should know better, right?’ I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee.
‘No, never grow up,’ he replied. ‘What’s that phrase by Oscar Wilde?’
‘Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast,’ we both said at the same time, before laughing self-consciously. Milla caught my eye, instantly catching the mood in the air. I loved how she could read me so easily, because in the next moment she was suggesting Jamie stay for breakfast. He looked from me to Milla. ‘I don’t want to intrude. I can quickly show you the plans I drew up or leave them here.’
‘No!’ I insisted, a little too strongly. ‘I mean stay, if you’re not in a hurry?’
‘Holly is the best cook,’ Milla enthused. ‘You don’t want to miss out on her fry-ups.’
I tell Angus that over breakfast Milla and I discovered Jamie had moved back to London six months ago, after splitting up from his wife. He was in the process of a divorce. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I’d said, trying my best to sound it.
‘When in fact you wanted to dance around the kitchen table?’ Angus suggests. ‘And sing hallelujah.’
‘Exactly,’ I say, realising Angus is getting to know me well. ‘I was so relieved Milla was there because she could ask all the questions I wanted to, like did he have any children, and was he single?’
I go on to describe how Jamie had told us he and his ex-wife, Fran, short for Francesca, had met at school, and went to college together– he was doing a furniture design diploma, he’d always loved woodwork and carpentry. Fran was studying art. They’d married in their early twenties before moving to a remote part of Ireland, where his wife’s family lived. He told us they were like Barbara and Tom fromThe Good Life– they grew their own vegetables, he designed and made all their furniture, they lived life as simply as possible. ‘What happened?’ I’d asked him.
‘My hair,’ he replied with a hint of a smile.
‘Your hair?’ I repeated. His hair was short, in fact exceedingly short, accentuating his bone structure and dark eyes.
‘It used to be down to my waist. I was a right old hippy. Still am, inside.’
I’d laughed at that.
‘Anyway, one night I felt in need of a change so I shaved the whole lot off. The following morning, she took one look at my bald head and said, “‘I’m leaving you.”’
‘She didn’t,’ Milla said.
He put his knife and fork down. ‘No, she didn’t.’ He’d smiled, but I could see the hurt in his eyes. ‘She left me, out of the blue, for another man.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Milla said.
‘What a fool,’ I added.
For the rest of the morning, we looked at his plans to redesign Milla and Dave’s kitchen. They had recently moved into a five-bedroom house in Shepherd’s Bush. It seemed so grown-up, a house on three floors, with a kitchen as large as my entire ground floor combined, but it was a kitchen that needed a lot of work. It was painted in a vile mustard yellow and the cupboards were a sludgy manure brown. Jamie talked passionately about his ideas to knock everything down, ‘That’s the fun part,’ he’d said, ‘demolition. Therapeutic. Much cheaper than going to counselling.’ I attempted to be interested in wood samples and paint finishes, and the best place for Milla to put her washing machine and tumble dryer, but instead was hopelessly distracted by the rapid beating of my heart, especially when Jamie leant across me to reach for his paperwork, our hands touching.
I tell Angus how over the next few weeks, I found myself rushing over to Milla and Dave’s after work, on the pretext that I wanted to see how ‘the kitchen’ was coming on. It was during the summer, so Jamie often worked late, giving us at least half an hour to chat, Milla discreetly saying she needed to make a phone call or have a shower after work. Left alone, we talked about everything, from his school days to his dream job: making props for film. As a boy he’d loved film and television. ‘That’s why I chose to come back to London. Not many opportunities in the middle of nowhere. But it’s been harder than I thought,’ he said. ‘I’ve got no idea how to open that door.’
‘Did he ever work in film?’ Angus asks.
‘In the end, no. His business expanded and became so successful, and besides, he loved his job.’
‘Carry on,’ Angus encourages me. ‘I want to know how you got together.’
I tell Angus about my boss, Clarissa, and how I’d confided to Jamie, one night, how she reduced me to a nervous wreck. ‘I recall him vividly stopping what he was doing, saying, “Quit, Holly, no job is worth it.”’
‘That’s what Soph used to say to me,’ Angus says. ‘So come on, what happened next? I want to get to the juicy part.’
‘“Ask him out,” Milla said to me one evening, after Jamie had left. But I couldn’t. I had to hope that my visits and gifts of chocolate were enough to get the message through. “Boys don’t get the message,” Milla insisted. “I had to practically throw myself on Dave.”’
Angus nods. ‘We can be slow on the uptake.’
‘Milla was desperate,’ I admit. ‘“Ask him out and then the two of you can hang out atyourplace, and I’ll finally have a kettle where it should be,”’ she’d said, gesturing to hers, perched on top of the television, surrounded by mess.
‘In the end I took both their advice. “I quit!” I told Jamie with pride, when the kitchen was almost completed, some three weeks later. He seemed particularly impressed when I told him I’d thrown coffee down my boss’s silk shirt. “Crikey, remind me never to get on the wrong side of you,” he’d said, as I watched him pack up his tools for the night, telling me he’d almost finished the job.
‘I wanted to celebrate the end of Clarissa, and the beginning of me. A new me who had already called Harriet and had an interview the following day. “Will you come out with me tonight and get drunk?” I asked.
