‘Like Fabian,’ he said. He turned to me, bending to kiss my cheek briefly. ‘Sorry, Jessica, just had to do that.’ He pulled an apologetic face. ‘Actually, been wanting to do that ever since you appeared at the other side of my garden gate the other day. I’ve been feeling a bit fed up recently, a bit bereft to be honest, so it’s marvellous to meet wonderful friendly people like yourself.’
Gosh, I thought,this man is lovely. He really was interested in everything I was talking about in a way Dean never had been. Dean, when I was attempting to engage him in meaningful conversation, would be scrolling through TikTok, shouting at the footie on TV, and probably, now I thought about it, secretly navigating prospective women on Tinder. And Henry was so obviously in need of a friend. More than a friend even?
Don’t be so bloody silly, I told myself as the girls joined us in the kitchen and Henry moved away from me to welcome them and pour juice. He just wanted a friend. Someone to cook mac and cheese for himself and his daughter.
‘You OK, Lola?’ I asked. She appeared very quiet compared to Ruby, who’d talked non-stop ever since she and Lola had returned to the kitchen, praising the somewhat limp-looking salad I’d managed to put together, sniffing delightedly at the dish of macaroni cheese as I brought it out of the oven and generally bouncing about like the Duracell Bunny on class A drugs.
While my confidence and self-esteem had seeped slowly but surely away over the years I’d been married to Dean, withering like the plant in my hallway I was always forgetting to water, I knew the food I produced was always excellent. Ruby, despite her previous attendance at some private school where I’d always assumed good manners to be paramount, stood and, leaning over, scooped several huge spoonfuls from the dish onto her plate and, without further ado, immediately set to with her fork, shovelling in the mac and cheese as though there was no tomorrow. Lola, knowing my thing about table manners, was obviously embarrassed on her friend’s behalf, offering up a little apologetic, knowing look in my direction. I winked back at my daughter, grateful that we’d made some sort of contact again after days of her avoiding me, and she hid a smile. Lola took up the salad bowl, offering it to both Ruby and Henry and then me before helping herself to what was left.
Ruby grasped her fork in her right hand, wrapping her fist around the handle as though intent on stabbing someone. Something, anyway. She skewered methodically, impaling pieces of macaroni onto her fork, reminding me of the beautiful resident thrush in my garden whose sole mission in life was to bayonet the lawn for worms.
Henry himself ate very little, pouring more red wine as he chewed contemplatively at his food, ignoring his mobile which constantly bleeped and buzzed from the depths of his trouser pocket. While Henry might have been rather lovely to look at, I was beginning to wonder about him in his role as father to Ruby. He didn’t fully engage with her, certainly wasn’t reprimanding her about her lack of table manners. Maybe these things just weren’t important to him?
‘Mrs Butterworth’ – Ruby turned to me, her mouth still full – ‘may Lola come on holiday with us?’
Lola’s head came up at that and I could see a mixture of hope, confusion and panic in her eyes. I knew my daughter: knew, like me, she was a bit of a home bird. She might enjoy sleepovers at friends’ and with Mum, but more than a few days away from me and she was always ready to come back home. Maybe she was too reliant on me? As I had been with my own mum. Maybe I should be encouraging her to spread her wings? Go off with this new friend she’d so taken to?
‘Ruby…’ Henry started, giving his daughter a look.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked, smiling somewhat apologetically at Henry before turning to Ruby.
‘Oh,Idon’t know,’ she answered almost rudely and then, just as quickly, smiled. ‘Daddy surprises me. Tells Kateryna to pack my case and then, just like that, we’re off somewhere. We did Paris before Easter and… What was that place we went to in the February half-term, Daddy?’
When Henry didn’t answer, but instead directed raised eyebrows at this daughter of his, Ruby turned back to her food, a scowl on her pretty face.
‘I had business in the Netherlands,’ Henry explained. ‘Kateryna was great at taking you around the sights, wasn’t she, Ruby? She took you to the Van Gogh Museum…’
‘That was soboring,’ Ruby said.
‘…and the Anne Frank house…’ Henry went on mildly.
‘Even more boring,’ Ruby interrupted, folding her arms and leaning back on her chair so that the front legs came off the floor and its back rested on the wall behind her.
‘Oh.’ Lola almost sighed with envy. ‘Really? I’ve just finished reading Anne Frank’s diary.’
‘Have you? Why? Anyway, I don’t believe a word of it.’ Ruby gave a little catlike smile. ‘How could all those people hide in a secret attic for months?’
‘Years you mean,’ Lola said, eager to share this amazing fact. ‘Anne had to hide for more than two years. Imagine that!’
‘I can’t possibly imagine,’ Ruby said almost sulkily. ‘It’s all boring history.’
Once we’d finished the meal – Henry taking and eating little and Ruby, after her initial piling of too much food onto her plate, leaving the majority of it with the weaponised fork stuck into the detritus at right angles – I began to clear the plates. Lola stood to help me while Ruby gave a disparaging look in my daughter’s direction, followed by: ‘Leave it, Lols, that’s Kateryna’s job when she gets back.’
‘Why don’t you girls help yourself to a Magnum from the freezer and go and watch a film in your room?’ Henry eventually said. ‘Or something?’
‘Lola’s watching her weight,’ Ruby said slyly, turning her pretty little elfin face in Lola’s direction and holding my daughter’s eye. ‘Although, to be honest, you wouldn’t know it.’
‘Lola has absolutely no need to watch her weight,’ I said crossly, seeing Lola’s face redden. Why wasn’t Henry intervening here?
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs Butterworth,’ Ruby tinkled. ‘I really didn’t mean to offend anyone. Come on, Lols,youcan havetwoMagnums if you want.’ She brought her chair finally back down to earth, scraped it back carelessly across the floor and set off towards the freezer where she retrieved an unopened box of six ice creams as well as filching the tin of brownies I’d baked and brought with me.
‘Don’t make yourself ill, Lola,’ I warned as she followed Ruby out of the kitchen. ‘And,’ I called after their retreating backs, ‘the uneaten ones need to come back to the freezer before they melt…’ Again, nothing from Henry on his daughter’s behaviour. Oh well, I wasn’t here to judge on how much leeway an eleven-year-old should be given by a father. Mind you, it was having me question my judgement of the man.
I made myself concentrate on his good looks, his rather lovely blue eyes, the way he was looking at me now…
‘Come and sit down with me, Jessica.’ Henry smiled as soon as he’d closed the kitchen door behind the girls. He indicated the beautiful George Smith sofa at the far end of the kitchen in what I supposed, in estate agent-speak, to be the ‘family area’. ‘Do have a drink,’ Henry insisted, topping up my almost untouched glass of Merlot.
I sipped at the delicious red wine, wavering as to why I shouldn’t neck the lot. I could, as Henry had pointed out earlier, always take an Uber home.
