‘I understand, but—’
‘There is no but.’ She cut him short.
‘Right.’ He swallowed loudly. ‘Good night, CP.’
She hated the way it felt, hearing their quickly established nickname, hated that she would never get used to the sound of it, hated the taste of disappointment that sat on her tongue and the deceit that coated her lips. She had been flirting with a married man. Flirting when she was still so desperately cut up over losing her husband, and he had a wife,a wife!
‘Good night.’
She lay still for some minutes, letting the words of their conversation permeate. She was a fool, an easily flattered fool. Hopping out of bed to wash her face in cool water, it was as she stood over the sink and flicked on the light that she saw Jonathan, as ever, looking over her shoulder. His expression was thoughtful. She closed her eyes, unable to deal with his mood and obvious judgement, not when her own was so fresh and acute.
‘I... I know. I know, my love,’ she stuttered, ‘time to climb back into my ice den.’
Chapter Seven
Enya plonked the three weighty shopping bags by her front door and flexed her palms, which carried the imprint of the handles, before fishing inside her handbag for her buzzing phone. A text from Jenny filled the screen:
I Have Prosecco And Tiramisu. Why Don’t We Eat Pudding Later And Drink Too Much. We Can Dance In The Kitchen. Whaddya Say?
She smiled at the prospect, thankful, so thankful for her friend, whose messages and visits were indeed bright jewels that brightened up the most ordinary of days.
Am Cooking For The Kids But Come Over – And Yes, We Can Hide The Tiramisu And Plonk! I’ll Dig Out My Abba Cd!
Her friend’s reply was instant:
Ace!
She was already looking forward to it and could hear the comforting notes of ‘Dancing Queen’ in her head. It helped calm the worry beginning to flare at the thought of the prawns that had been out of their freezer home for at least half an hour now. This was what Jenny did, made everything feel a little bit better. It wasn’t lost on her how her friend put effort into being there, into thinking up weird and wonderful ways to give her something to look forward to.
Three weeks had passed quickly, it felt like mere days since she’d been feeling anxious about getting to the airport on time to drop her son off, and now she was feeling anxious about getting to the airport on time to pick him up. It had been easy to return to the predictability of life, a life edged with loneliness once Dominic’s marital status had been exposed.
He hadn’t been uppermost in her mind, not really, yet now, remembering the car-park incident, she thought about the lovely man who had bashed her door, the lovely,marriedman who had bashed her door. Her shame had faded a little and in its place sat the subtle ache of embarrassment at the fact that she had allowed herself to feel so giddy, so physically affected over the smallest and most minor of interactions. It wasn’t typical for her, she was smarter than that.
‘Morning, Enya!’
‘Oh, morning, Maeve!’ She felt the hint of a blush to have been thinking about HCK at all, not that Maeve had ever professed to have or displayed any mind-reading skills, but still. ‘All okay?’ Her lovely neighbour popped out on to the path that ran between their two houses from where they both accessed the bin shed, and what would in days gone by have been the coal store.
‘It’s so warm, not yet midday and it’s this hot!’ The older woman wafted her tunic.
It always fascinated her, the way people were keen to tell her what the weather was like when she was standing in front of them, as if she were not staring at the same sky, experiencing the same temperature, with her prawns slowly deteriorating and crying out for the chilly interior of her fridge as she searched for her key. Her bolder self, the one that she kept under wraps, wanted to say,‘Really? Warm, you say? Well, strike me down! And here’s me in my snow boots and ski snood! But then I am part Arctic fox!’
Instead, she smiled and nodded. ‘’Tis a bit.’
‘Aiden’s home today then.’
Maeve lived next door to the Hudsons and had watched the children on either side of her garden fences grow up and fall in love when in their late teens. The woman felt a lovely sense of connection to the two youngsters, and said often that when they got married, she wanted a front-row seat.
‘Yes! I’m picking him up from the airport in a few hours. I’ve been and got all his favourite bits. Including prawns!’ Enya laughed, hoping her worry might leach from her words and Maeve would advise her not to tarry and go get that seafood in the fridge. But no.
‘Expect Holly has missed him, poor love. Three weeks! It’s a long time.’
Try three years...‘Yes, although I think she’s taken the opportunity to redecorate their bedroom.’
‘She’s a clever girl, has always been very clever.’
‘She is, Maeve.’
The older woman would never, it seemed, forget that Holly, aged nine, had aced her cycling proficiency while Aiden had managed to fail his spectacularly and had stood in the front garden wailing loudly for all to hear before kicking his bike. Not his finest hour. A more churlish, overly proud mother might take the opportunity to point out that Holly would be struggling to pay her rent as she tried to get her home-made craft business offthe ground, were it not for the hefty wage her cycling-proficiency-failing, bike-kicking, super-skilled son was bringing in each month as a robotics engineer. He was, however, and in fairness, still a bit wobbly on two wheels.
