‘I’m sure your brain is a simmering mass of inspiration but I’m sure you said something about cake that I didn’t understand.’
Amy got up to find bowls into which she put the stew. She carved two huge slices from a loaf they’d bought at the show and put thick slabs of Welsh butter on them. She brought it all over and set it down on the coffee table. Helena opened another bottle of wine. It was going to be that sort of night.
‘Yes, it was a cake my mother made for her boyfriend. I admit it.’
‘What? Gilly’s got a boyfriend! Oh – the silver fox my mum saw her with at the opera? That’s great!’
‘No, not him! He wasn’t such a great catch, it turned out.’ Helena went on to explain what was wrong with him until Amy was convinced.
‘So, tell me about this other boyfriend?’
‘Well, he’s her accountant so they’ve known each other for years but have only got to know each other properly just recently. The cake was for a surpriseparty his aunt gave him. It was a bird’s-eye view of what you see when gliding, apparently. Mum suspended a glider over it. I saw the pictures as well as the cake. And then I got the idea of doing a cross section of the earth.’
‘Well, they looked amazing. And you produced quite a lot of other work considering you’d cleaned yourself out for Springtime.’
‘That was because Jago was so amazing at looking after me so all I had to do was work.’ She paused. ‘I couldn’t have managed without him.’
‘I know you’ve been pretending you’re a couple – don’t think you can pull the wool over my eyes – excuse the pun – but are you really a couple now?’ Amy sounded wistful.
‘Yes.’
Amy nodded slowly. ‘And you’re sure about this? Obviously you’ve had boyfriends but you always said they were just a bit of fun, and it was only very recently you said you didn’t have time for men.’
‘It’s amazing what you find time for when you fall in love.’
There was a long silence. ‘So Jago is the real deal? The one, etc., etc.?’
‘Yup.’ To lighten the mood a little she added, ‘And in case, like Mum, you were wondering, he is definitely not gay.’
‘Gilly thought he was gay? Oh, that’s adorable! Why?’
‘Because he borrowed a hot-water bottle for me. She told me she thought hot-water bottles were camp.’
‘That’s so sweet! And so like Gilly.’
‘I know.’ They sat in silence for a little while, sipping their wine. ‘So, Ames, how was your holiday?’
Amy had been on a yoga retreat, her unspoken agenda to find a man with a perfect and very supple body. ‘Lovely, inspiring, a real break but man-wise a total failure. There was this lovely guy on the course but there were more lovely women and he picked one of them.’
‘Oh, Amy, I am sorry.’
‘So, your perfect, hot-water-bottle borrowing hot-sex machine—’
‘I never said that!’
‘—hasn’t got a non-gay best friend, has he?’
Helena laughed, relieved to hear her friend wasn’t too cast down by her failure to snag a yoga expert.
‘Well, now you come to mention it, his best mate from forever, who I still haven’t met, is newly single. You might be just the person to make him happy again.’
‘I might be! Now tell me all about him.’
Helena realised she’d made an error. She knew very little about James apart from his name and that he and Jago went way back. She also knew he likedfootball and lager, neither of which was going to make him sound attractive to Amy.
‘To be honest, I don’t know anything – hardly anything – except he’s a mate of Jago’s.’
‘Men do sometimes have very peculiar friends and if they’re not peculiar they can be quite ugly.’
