Feeling simultaneously furious withandsorry for myself, I down my wine quickly in a few big gulps. Then, instead of pouring another – which I want very much – I force myself upstairs to bed. Because, even if I fucked things up today, Iama good vet. And I’m neutering Annie Lancaster’s ferret at 8.30 a.m.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LAUREN
Charlie sits up with Kim, Lorenzo and me late into the night. It’s good to see him hanging out with us, more relaxed now than he was at lunch. While he agrees that Miles ‘seemed a bit weird’, that’s all he seems to want to say on the subject.
‘What did you think of Esther?’ Lorenzo asks.
‘She’s all right,’ Charlie replies noncommittally.
‘Did you mind her grilling you about where the moon goes and all that?’
‘She wasn’tgrillingme,’ he says with a shrug. ‘She only asked.’ Later, when he’s mooched off to his room, the three of us carry on tucking into the cheeses and yet more wine, around the table where mulletgate happened.
‘I can’t understand what she sees in him,’ Kim marvels, meaning Esther and Miles of course.
‘Neither can I,’ I say. ‘But there must be something, mustn’t there? I mean, she’s in love with the guy. You can see that …’
‘James must hate it,’ she adds. ‘Their situation, I mean.’She turns to Lorenzo. ‘How would you feel if one of our girls had a boyfriend like that?’
‘D’you even need to ask?’ He looks aghast.
‘Anyway,’ I add, ‘so much for our relaxed, getting-to-know-each-other lunch. What an idiot I am.’
‘Why d’you say that?’ Lorenzo exclaims, frowning.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Kim insists.
‘But it was my idea to do it.’ I rub at my face and check my phone to see messages there.
‘James?’ Kim asks, and I nod. ‘Are you going to reply?’
‘I will tomorrow,’ I say, realising there’s a missed call too. My phone’s on silent and it’s too late to call back now.
‘Don’t let this spoil things between you,’ she says firmly, squeezing my arm. ‘He’s lovely. And you’re so happy. It’d be awful if it wasn’t the same after this.’
‘It just feels a bit weird now,’ I murmur.
‘It was just unfortunate,’ Lorenzo offers, ‘that Miles came at all, and then was such a dickhead and James rose to it. Put it out of your mind.’
‘I’ll try,’ I say. Put like that, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal; that someone who hadn’t even been invited had ended up sabotaging the thing. ‘James was already upset about Miles going on about babies,’ Kim remarks.
‘Yeah.’ Lorenzo cuts off a sliver of Brie. ‘I can’t blame him, to be honest …’
‘Maybe things’ll be better with Esther next time you meet,’ Kim offers. ‘When her boyfriend’s not around.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say, feeling marginally better now, and grateful that my friends weren’t in a hurry to leave tonight. ‘Y’know, I didn’t expect me and Esther – or Charlie and Esther – to become instant friends,’ I add. ‘I mean, I didn’t imagine they’d be skipping off down the garden together.’
Kim smiles. ‘They might surprise you.’
‘I very much doubt it,’ I say, realising that we’ve avoided discussing what we really thought about Esther today. I suspect Kim and Lorenzo haven’t wanted to voice their true feelings, and I’ve just wanted to push mine away.
What do I think really? I didn’t warm to her especially. Although I suspect I’m oversensitive, I’m pretty sure she was teasing Charlie, albeit gently – and there was no need to leap up and demand to leave.But she’s James’s daughter, I remind myself, after Kim and Lorenzo have gone home. I so wanted to like her – and for her to like me – because she’s part of who he is. A huge part, obviously. We can’t have an awkward scenario every time our paths cross.
I go to bed, trying to figure out how to reply to James’s messages, settling on a short:Don’t worry, we’ll talk soon.Obviously that signals the opposite:DO worry! Worry an awful lot for bringing that prat to my house!But it’s all I can come up with right now.
There’s no message from him when I wake up. Instead of obsessively checking my phone, I throw myself into testing the recipes I’d lined up for today. I bake batches of herby crackers and courgette patties and whip up a creamy cheese dip, and photograph them in a casual set-up on the kitchen table with milky sunshine streaming in. I carry on working away, keeping busy, deciding that I won’t let one fuck-up of a lunch spoil things between James and me. I know he’ll have been busy at work but we often message or call when he manages to grab a quick break. Today there’s been nothing. I’m hoping that he’s not the one feeling weird about us.
