‘We collided because we’d parked round the side and I came round the corner at speed,’ says the woman following her. This must be Sid. ‘You know how fast I walk, Finn. We were like two wildebeests at the watering hole. Some of my flowers are in a heap in the ground at your front door.’
Steve and Finn follow them, laughing.
Sid puts down the remains of the flowers.‘I wasn’t sure about the lilies,’ she says, wiping her hands on her black trousers and extending one forward.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. And I’m beaming at her because Sid is as straightforward as they come and her smile is utterly genuine. She is dressed in possibly the least pretentious way I have ever seen and, believe me, I have seen them all. She’s wearing a blackT-shirt, a black cardigan, black trousers and black trainers. Nothing looks expensivelabel-y. She has short, messy dark hair, quite a heavy splurge of dark eyeliner and eyeshadow and possibly a swipe of lip balm. That is it, the extent of it. There’s no,I am here and I am fabulous, look at me in my cashmere.
I have to stop thinking like that, it’s not normal.
I immediately let my stomach out. It’s fine, so what if the ludicrously expensive jeans I bought recently do not suck the two babies’ worth of belly in.
‘Will we leave the flowers out there?’ I say.
Angie has dumped her flowers in the sink and gone off in search of the loo.
‘I’ll get scissors and go out,’ says Sid thoughtfully. ‘Snip off anything that’s still salvageable. But all in all, I think we did a really good job of destruction there.’
‘Knew you’d get on,’ says Finn.
I look at him and I think he’s glowing with happiness. They might be friends but I sense it could easily segue into something more. Or has it already...? Once, I would have whispered this to Nate as soon as we had a moment alone, but not tonight.
‘So, this is Sid,’ he says, ready to welcome them now they’re in his castle, and I watch my husband go to Sid to kiss her on both cheeks,Continental-style, which is his normal greeting of women in a social setting, even those he doesn’t know. But a weird thing happens. Sid moves a step back and extends a hand.
‘You must be Nate,’ she says, in a low, firm voice, hand further extended than normal.
She doesn’t like being touched: it comes to me in a moment. No, she doesn’t like being touched by men, because she didn’t mind colliding with Angie, seemed to think it was funny, and was relaxed about shaking my hand.
Nate seems taken aback, cross even, and for some reason I can’t explain in my rational mind, I decide that she is fabulous. FABULOUS.
Steve and Finn burst out laughing, as if at some private joke.
‘The old charm doesn’t always work,’ says Steve and he digs my husband in the ribs.
Yes, Nate, I think – the old charm doesn’t work.
Sid says, ‘If you could give me scissors and a compost bag for the flowers?’
I laugh. ‘You are kind but, honestly, it’s fine.’
‘No, really,’ she says.‘I hate when there’s mess, I like to tidy things up.’
‘Right,’ I say, knowing determination when I see it. I see it in Joey every day, when he tries to get out of doing his homework. And even though Sid is a lot older than Joey, I can see absolute firm determination written all over her. I hand her scissors and a compost bag.
‘Won’t be long,’ she says. And she’s off out.
‘She’s great, isn’t she?’ says Finn, leaning against the cooker, which is where he normally stations himself when he comes to our house for dinner parties. ‘Knew you’d like her.’
‘I love her,’ says Angie, coming back into the room having removed her blouse and now clad merely in an elegant camisole with a silky wrap around her shoulders.
‘That’s because she’s normal,’ says Steve. ‘You were expecting Ivanna the terrible.’
‘She wasn’t terrible,’ says Finn. ‘She was just high maintenance.’
‘You don’t need high maintenance,’ says Nate firmly, as if he needs to be top dog again. ‘You need someone like Marin, only you can’t have her because she’s mine.’
‘I don’t need anyone. I’m off dating, I’ve told you. Sid and I are pals.’
Yeah, right, I think.
