‘I’ll introduce you to her while you’re here. She’s a lovely lady.’
Jules felt herself flooded with anxiety again. She really didn’t know what was happening to her. She wasn’t a nervous person. The opposite, in fact.
‘Please don’t.’
Carrie looked up.
‘Not yet, so you don’t have to worry. I know you need some quiet time.’
Jules nodded. She wanted to be alone, but not be alone. Quiet time meant time for thoughts. Did Gavin feel guilty or had he just seen her as a way to get some more money and a bit of sex, actually a lot of sex, and now he was satisfied in more ways than one?
‘Jules!’
Carrie clicked her fingers in front of Jules’s face.
‘I’m going to make a tomato risotto and I picked up a couple of pieces of sea bass to go with it. Is that okay?’
‘Yes, fine. Nothing tastes right at the moment though.’
‘I could cook you something really rank then and it wouldn’t matter,’ Carrie joked. ‘Like that cold cucumber soup I made when I first moved in with you. Remember that?’
‘How could I forget it!’
‘Or the curried eggs. God, they made us fart!’
‘They were disgusting, too.’
Carrie pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge.
‘I don’t know about you, but I could do with a glass of something. I’m whacked.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s such a long way from here to Manchester and you’ve done the journey twice in two days. You really shouldn’t have.’
‘Yes, I should, but I wouldn’t say no if you’re up to chopping a couple of shallots and then taking a turn stirring the risotto.’
Carrie took out two tall wine glasses from the glass-fronted cupboard and half-filled them with a grassy-scented wine.
‘To you,’ she said, handing one to Jules.
‘To friendship,’ Jules replied, clinking her glass against Carrie’s.
‘I’ll drink to that as well,’ Carrie said, taking a double gulp.
Twenty minutes later, as Carrie carefully added more stock to the risotto and Jules gently stirred, it occurred to her that at this particular point in time there couldn’t have been a better dish. There was something about the process that was meditative and soothing.
‘I saw a girl earlier,’ she said, ‘by the barn. About fourteen. Very pretty.’
‘That’ll be Tasha,’ Carrie said. ‘Rita’s granddaughter.’
‘Her mother was looking for her.’
‘Christabel. She’s always looking for Tasha and Tasha is always trying to escape.’
‘She did look as if she was hiding.’
Carrie stooped to extricate a large hunk of parmesan from the fridge.
‘Don’t blame her.’
