Helena’s best friend Amy called on her the following evening. Helena had sent her a text –Met our new landlord Jago Pengelly– but hadn’t gone into detail. She knew she couldn’t cheat Amy by being brief. While Helena wasn’t interested in him as a possible date, Amy probably would be.
‘So?’ said Amy, putting the wine down on Helena’s tiny worktop and finding a couple of glasses, knowing exactly which cupboard to look in. ‘What’s he like?’
‘He’s a gentleman-builder,’ said Helena. She liked to be able to categorise people. A snappy two-word ‘type’ and they were filed away into a part of her mind she didn’t often visit.
‘So, good-looking?’ Amy handed Helena a glass of wine and came to sit next to her on the sofa bed.
Helena thought. ‘Not amazingly so, but quite attractive, I suppose.’ She paused. ‘I’m trying to think how you’d see him.’
‘And you’re not going after him yourself?’ It was obvious Amy knew what the answer was but she could never resist trying to bring Helena round to her way of thinking.
‘No, I’m focusing on my career, finding somewhere to relocate to, and getting enough stuff for Woolly World,’ said Helena carefully, as if to a small child who hadn’t heard this many times before. ‘Those are my priorities.’
‘And you can’t multitask? I care about my career too, but I can manage to run a few dating apps.’
‘Come on, Ames! I’m willing to share everything I know about someone you may well fancy. Just get off my case!’ She took a sip from the glass Amy handed to her.
‘You need to sort out your trust issues. Just because your father was a snake, it doesn’t mean all men are,’ said Amy, sitting down next to Helena.
‘I’m sure I’ll know the right man when I’ve got time to focus on it but just now I’m concentrating on my work. I have explained this about a million times, but having met a new man, I thought I’d pass him on to someone who might be interested. You.’
‘OK,’ said Amy, pulling one of Helena’s handwoven throws over herself. The mezzanine of Helena’s studio had been made into a tiny flat, but although it was now April and not actually that cold outside, it wasn’t ever very cosy. ‘About how tall is he?’
‘Tall, big, bigger than me, anyway. Which is why he needed me to rescue the kitten.’
‘You are quite small, Hels,’ said Amy, sizing her up. ‘He wouldn’t need to be huge to be bigger than you.’
‘All right, he looks as if he could play rugby.’
‘What? He has a cauliflower ear?’ Amy appeared put off by this thought.
‘No.’ Helena pictured Jago’s ears. ‘Nothing odd about them.’
‘You should be able to tell me all about him, with your spooky superpowers,’ said Amy.
Helena was a super-recogniser, which meant she had a photographic memory for people even if she’d only glimpsed them. While Amy knew about this, she was a bit sceptical.
‘I could pick him out in a crowd but it’s my powers of description that are failing me now.’ She thought about him. ‘He has a small scar above his eyebrow and his hair has a sort of straw-like quality. Not that it’s like straw exactly, but it’s the colour really.’ Thinking about him, Helena realised she felt a bit warm towards him. While she was perfectly capable of having men as friends and liking them, with Jago she felt the stirrings of attraction which was rare.
‘Voice?’ prompted Amy as Helena had stopped trying to describe him.
‘A nice voice. No noticeable accent.’
‘Eyes?’
‘Yes, he definitely has eyes.’
‘Agh! Colour?’
‘Not easy to define. Bluey-greeny, or maybe greeny-bluey.’
‘Nothing else you can tell me about him?’
Helena shrugged. ‘To be honest I was mostly dealing with my claustrophobia.’
Amy looked at her. ‘Helena! What on earth have you been doing?’
‘Earth does come into it, as it happens.’ And Helena related the story of how she’d had to rescue the kitten. ‘So we know he’s definitely an animal lover.’
