‘Amazing, thanks. The kids are so American now, you’d barely recognise them.’
I close my eyes. When I open them, Dominic is gesturing for me to put my phone on speaker so that he can hear Lewis’s side of the conversation. I shake my head. The look I get in response tells me I’m being silly, but I don’t care. I’m not risking pressing a button that might cut Lewis off.
‘Flora’s doing great. Loves the climate here. Keeps saying she can’t believe she put up with the grey, gloomy English weather for so long. When are you guys gonna get your lazy asses out here to visit us?’
Another classic Lewis Braid move: making you feel guilty for not accepting an invitation you never received.
‘Do you ever come back to the UK?’
‘Yeah, when we can. We were back for Christmas, stayed with Flora’s parents. They’re still in their little place in Wokingham. Bit of a squeeze with seven of us!’
Seven. Lewis, Flora, Thomas, Emily, Flora’s parents … and Georgina. She has to be the seventh person. Still, no harm in checking …
‘How old is Georgina now?’
‘She’s twelve. Terrifying how quick time passes, isn’t it? Did you and Dominic ever have any more?’
‘More time?’ I’m confused.
‘No, more children. Though, come to think of it …’ Lewis laughs. ‘God, what I wouldn’t give for more time. Bet you’re the same. Remember before we had kids, how we used to spend whole days lying around by the river, or watching movies?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anyway, enough about the past! As my favourite life coach always says: memories of the past are notthe past. They’re thoughts you have in thepresent,aboutthe past.’
I shiver. Dominic mouths ‘What?’ I turn away from him so that I’m not distracted. Lewis talking about the present and the past makes me feel …
What? That he’s more likely to have frozen his children in time to prevent them from ageing? Ridiculous.
‘Your favourite life coach?’ I say, forcing out a laugh. ‘How many do you have?’
‘I don’tseethem, I just listen to their podcasts. But enough about my perfect life in sunny Florida – tell me what you’ve been up to. Are you working again, or still a slacker?’
I’d forgotten this: that Lewis described it as ‘slacking’ when Flora and I gave up our jobs to look after our babies. He loved that joke; it became one of his regulars. I never minded it. It was like his boasting: so outrageous, we all assumed he didn’t mean it.
Except Flora.
I didn’t think of it at the time, but now I wonder: was that why she always looked worried and said, ‘Lew-is,’ while Dom and I were busy saying, ‘It’s fine – we don’t take him seriously’? Was Flora scared he was revealing too much of his true character?
‘No, I’m working,’ I say.
‘Aha! Hunting heads again!’
‘I’m not in recruitment any more. I retrained as a massage therapist.’
Lewis laughs loudly. ‘A masseur! You mean a hooker, right? Is that what this call’s about? Are you a hooker hoping for a hand-out from an old friend? Or, should I say, a hand-job? No, wait – that’s the wrong way round. If you’re a hooker, you’d be offeringmea hand-job. I’m mixing up my hooker metaphors.’
I do some fake-laughing and try to move the conversation on, but Lewis insists on knowing what I actually do, if not hookering. I explain to him about trigger-point massage, what led me to it, the principles involved. ‘Hmm,’ he says when I’ve finished. ‘Reckon you could sort out my tennis arm?’
‘Definitely,’ I say. ‘What about Flora? Is she working now, or—’
‘Hardly. She’s committed to slacking for life.’
‘You know, I … I drove past your old house.’
‘The Newnham flat? How’s it looking these days?’
‘No, the house you moved to afterwards. In Hemingford Abbots.’
