Thinking of Cassie, Nina was reminded that she had been a poor friend to her neighbour and hadn’t been in touch with her recently. The last she’d heard from Cassie was that her ex-husband was still in a coma, his life hanging by a thread, and that she was desperately worried about Emily. ‘It’s a lot for her to cope with,’ Cassie had said, ‘I just wish she’d never gone to Dubai in the first place.’
No time like the present, Nina thought, taking out her mobile from her bag to message Cassie. But when she looked at the screen of her mobile, she saw she’d missed a call from her father-in-law, which he’d then followed up with a message. Opening it, she saw he’d sent her link to the online grief group he’d found so helpful – the group that had led him to meeting the woman he was now involved with. Did he think it might be a way for her to meet someone? A widowed man with whom she could share her grief? The thought so appalled her, she immediately deleted the email. Then she felt petty. Keith was only trying to help her. He had been helped and he wanted the same for her.
Looking up and seeing Jakob coming towards her across the crowded terrace, she put her mobile away.
‘Rosé as requested,’ he said, sitting down and passing the glass of wine to her. ‘I also ordered some hot honey chicken wings and olives. Is that okay?’
‘More than okay,’ she said, the thought of food suddenly making her feel hungry.
‘Excellent. And now,’ he said, sitting back in his chair and raising his glass of beer to her, ‘we can relax.’
Yes,she told herself.Relax!And amazingly, ten minutes later she realised she was relaxed, and she was actually enjoying herself. Jakob, it turned out, had a hidden talent for mimicryand could put on a variety of accents ranging from Scottish to Geordie, Liverpudlian to Brummie as well as something straight out ofEastEnders.
‘How in the world have you learnt all these accents?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘I hear a voice and it just clicks with me.’
‘That’s quite a gift. What other talents do you have which I don’t know about?’
‘I can boast of nothing else, I’m afraid. What about you, what secret talents do you have?’
‘I’m double-jointed,’ she said, ‘look.’ She pushed her thumb on her left hand so that it lay almost flat against her wrist.
‘That’s not human,’ he said with a shudder.
She laughed. ‘You’re not the first person to say that.’
‘What else can you do?’
‘I can procrastinate for England.’
He drew his brows together. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I’m always putting things off.’
‘You don’t appear to. To me you always seem so decisive.’
‘That,’ she said, taking a sip of her wine, ‘is because you only see me in a work environment where I’m used to making decisions about the gallery. Those are easy. I find personal decisions far trickier. I never used to.’
‘But you moved house, that must have been a difficult decision to make when it was so personal.’
‘That’s true, but it felt right, so I didn’t try to talk myself out of it. I knew it was a step into the future, rather than staying in the past.’ She said nothing about the name of Hope Hall instilling in her a sense of optimism for her new future.
‘And has it worked?’
‘Yes and no,’ she said, and before she was expected to elaborate on this, a young girl appeared with their food. She hated talking about herself, so was glad of the distraction.
When the girl had gone, Nina said, ‘You know, you’ve never really explained why you’re here in Cambridge when you could be anywhere in the world doing a far more—’
‘Don’t say it!’ he interrupted and with a shake of his head.
‘Don’t say what?’
‘That I could be doing something far more important, or more ambitious. That I shouldn’t be settling for what others might think is a cooshy set-up. That’s what my parents think, anyway.’
‘Cooshy?’she repeated.
‘Soft. Easy. An easy option.’
