“I discovered some beautiful silk handkerchiefs in an antique shop,” she said. “I might sew them together to make a waistcoat.”
Ginny tried to feign interest and caught sight of Nico from the corner of her eye. She was sure her face was shining scarlet and she hoped Edna hadn’t noticed. Her kiss with the hotelier had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, a reaction to Phoebe’s pregnancy and Adrian leaving, that had left her reeling. She tried telling herself it had only been a friendly embrace, yet the buzz it had given her was like internet shopping, multiplied by ten. She felt sure she was radiating shame.
“Has the cat got your tongue?” Edna tapped her knee. “That makes a change.”
Ginny hugged her belly. “I feel a little seasick.”
“The water’s flat,” Edna said, rooting in her handbag anyway. She handed Ginny mints and a packet of travel sickness tablets. “Daisy wasn’t a good traveler either. Where did you, Nico and Curtis get to?”
Ginny performed an uncomfortable shuffle in her seat. She swallowed a travel tablet then popped a mint in her mouth. “Nico took me to see a beautiful garden,” she said, not mentioning Curtis’s early departure. “My daughter phoned while we were there, to tell me she’s pregnant.”
“Oh, that’s excellent. Congratulations.”
Ginny thought Edna’s tone sounded a little dry. “It’s going to be great,” she told her. “I can’t wait to push a pram and read stories to a little one again. We’ll bake cookies, sing nursery rhymes together and have lots of cuddles.”
“That sounds wonderful.” The older lady’s lips were so straight they almost vanished. She knitted her fingers together in her lap. “You must make sure you still take time for yourself. It’s very important.”
Ginny thought it was a strange thing to say. Her new role as a grandparent was going to be exciting and might plug the gap in her life. If Phoebe had discovered her pregnancy sooner, Adrian might not have made such unwise decisions. “I appreciate your concern,” she said.
Edna stuffed the mints and tablets back into her bag. “I’ll tell you a little tale,” she said. “I gave up driving a car when I turned seventy years old, even though I have twenty-twenty vision.”
Ginny frowned, trying to work out how this was relevant.
“I’d never had a car accident in my life,” Edna continued. “Then, one day, I drove Daisy to the hospital for an appointment. She had to go there a lot, always something or other that needed assessing or treating. It was rush hour and the motorway was horrendously busy but I navigated it with ease. All was fine until I came to park the car. I checked all around me as usual before I reversed. And then...crunch. I heard the crumple of metal. I was so busy concentrating on everything else that I didn’t see a huge tree behind the car. It seemed to appear from nowhere.”
“Were you and Daisy okay?”
“She was asleep and didn’t notice a thing. Icouldn’tbelieve that I hadn’t seen the tree. So, what I’m saying to you Ginny, is this: when you’re busy navigating life, thinking you have your eye on everything, there’s sometimes an unseen obstruction that stops you noticing something glaringly obvious.”
“Are you saying that a grandchild or Adrian could be my weak spot?” Ginny asked, still confused.
Edna patted her leg. “You cared for me and the others by inviting us here. You give out advice to strangers on the radio, and now I’m giving it to you.” She cleared her throat and paused. “I can see that you and Nico like each other.”
Ginny coughed out her mint. It rolled around on the deck of the boat until she stamped her foot on it. She felt like Edna had been spying on her and Nico in the garden. “That’s ridiculous. I hardly know him.”
“Hmm,” Edna said. She pointed at each of her eyes in turn. “Don’t forget, twenty-twenty. Take time to notice and enjoyallthe things in life. It’s what I’m trying to do now.”
Ginny noticed that on Edna’s other side, Curtis had cocked his head, as if listening in to their conversation. He nodded as if agreeing with Edna’s advice.
Ginny felt too flustered to say anything to him and stared at the horizon instead. The sky and canal were almost the same shade of gray, difficult to see where one ended and the other began.
Edna prodded Ginny’s arm to break their scratchy silence. “Look what Eric found for me in a shop,” she said, opening her bag to reveal a vintage English game of bingo.
“That’s nice,” was all Ginny could manage to say.
“Daisy and Desmond hated the game,” Edna said. “It’s terribly sad they’re no longer here, but I need to make the most of things. I have you to thank for my renewed joie de vivre.”
Rather than being pleased for Edna’s new zest for life, and her own role in it, Ginny felt like she’d been jabbed all over with a sharp stick. She took her bag and set it down on the seat, slowly leaning over sideways to use it as a pillow. “Please wake me up when we reach dry land,” she said.
Back in her hotel room, Ginny curled up on her bed and tried to stop Edna’s words about parking, surprise trees and Nico from circling in her head. Her moment with Nico had left her nerves on edge, a similar feeling to when Miss Peach had asked how well she really knew her husband.
Adrian had made a mistake and, now, so had she. They’d both been tempted by others. Was that a big enough reason to throw away their life together?
To distract herself, Ginny picked up her phone and looked at online baby boutiques. A soft roaring lion toy was so cute, and she’d have to buy a cot, changing mat and blankets. The tiny outfits were gorgeous and new shopping possibilities were endless.
She opened an unread WhatsApp message and found Phoebe had sent her a photo of the scan. The baby looked like a kidney bean with tiny arms and legs and Ginny already felt a rush of love toward it.
Dad says it looks like him, Phoebe said.
