‘That’s why it works, it’s personal, curated.’
‘If you say so.’ She took a glug of wine. ‘It’s also dusty, very dusty.’ She felt the need to do this, using self-deprecation to smother any embarrassment, having found it hard to take a compliment since her teens, when an unhealthy pocketful of self-doubt had weighed her down. It hadn’t been easy being the tall, lanky one in the pack. ‘Okay, so five minutes,’ she prompted, half in jest, happy to be in his company. His presence helping to dilute some of the hurt of Jenny’s visit earlier, the moment her friend had shrugged free of her hand, something she doubted she would ever forget.
‘Right, yes.’ He put his wine down and took a deep breath. She liked the way he looked at her, as if she were something to be admired,bright.Compared to how Jenny could barely meet her gaze and the way Aiden sometimes rolled his eyes at her, it was lovely. ‘I still find it quite extraordinary how we met in the car park before the kids knew each other, and here we all are.’
‘It is extraordinary.’ She too placed her glass on the table and toyed with the stem, grateful for the prop.
‘A bit like Cupid was lining up his arrows and one accidentally caught us while aiming for the kids.’
‘Is that what you think?’
His words so blatant. If he had been hit by Cupid’s arrow then did he meanlove, is that where his thoughts were heading? It was a thought that was both thrilling and ridiculous! But love didn’t happen like that, no matter how strongly Aiden protested. It simply couldn’t. She felt the slide of unease over her skin.
‘No! Of course that’s not what I think.’
‘Oh.’ She quickly took another sip, embarrassed to have let her thoughts gambol ahead, his denial causing a complicated response that was both a relief and a disappointment.
‘I don’t think there was anything accidental in it.’ His tone was resolute, and she got the feeling he was testing the water. She remembered Jonathan doing something similar all those years ago.
‘So if I did ask you on a date... what do you think you might say?’
‘I think I might say yes...’she’d beamed.
‘I always find it interesting how people meet, how they begin.’
‘How did you meet your husband?’
She both welcomed and was made uncomfortable by the ease with which he asked. It was without awkwardness or any sense of competition, as if he were confident that that was then and this was now, and there should be no reason for any tension over the two worlds colliding. She figured it said more about her than it did him that she was not quite as comfortable with the topic, feeling so very connected, still, to the man she had lost.
‘How did we meet?’ It was an odd feeling, the rush of love she felt for Jonathan at the retelling of how they had started, while her stomach performed star jumps at no more than the sound of this man’s voice, seated in front of her, where Jonathan had sat countless times. The simple truth was it was nice to talk about him, keeping him present in the way she used to with Jenny and Phil, laughing over his quirky sense of humour and the many scrapes they’d found themselves in over the years. ‘My dad loves cricket. It’s his passion, any cricket, international events, local park matches. He lives in Portugal now and spends the cricket season with one ear clamped to the radio. Drives my mum nuts. He loves everything about it, the sound of the ball hitting the bat, the gentle ripple of applause, the complexity of what at first appears to be a simple thing. I mean, you just throw a ball, hit a ball, and run up and down between some sticks before the ball reappears, right, how hard can it be?’
‘Yep, that’s pretty much it.’
She liked the grin that accompanied his response.
‘He’d have you pinned in the chair for a good hour if he heard you saying that, wanting not only to explain the intricate strategy of the game, but trying to convert you to loving it too. He is quite the evangelist when it comes to his sport.’ She liked talking abouther dad too, promising herself to call him later. ‘Anyway, he was asked to coach a local team of under-twenty-ones out Keynsham way where we lived. I got roped in to help with cricket tea, which I always hated, until that one day, when I pitched up and met a rather reluctant fielder, Jonathan Brown. I saw his name on a team sheet before we actually met, and it made me laugh.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s the name of Paddington’s brother!’
‘Is it? I thought that was Michael.’
‘Oh no,’ she sighed, ‘I’m sorely tempted to end this conversation right now and show you the door. Please don’t tell me you are unfamiliar with the Brown family? And you’re getting confused, it was Michael Bond who wrote it.’
‘Yes, you’re right. And confusion seems to be my current state. I spent an age this morning looking for the reading glasses that were on my face and which I was using to read the instructions on the back of a tin of varnish that were unfeasibly small!’
‘Sounds like you might need new glasses.’
‘Don’t say that. Every trip to the optician is a reminder of my decrepitude. The way she shakes her head and writes me a prescription, it’s never good news, is it? And don’t start me on the cost of frames, which I assumed must be solid gold, but no, they’re bloody plastic!’
It was her turn to smile. It was easy. So easy to chat to him, easy to ignore all the reasons why this was a bad idea. A reminder of what it felt like to share the mundanity of life with another, to have someone to sit alongside, to eat up the quiet hours in the day, someone who might run her reading glasses up the stairs when she settled down for a pre-sleep read.
‘I avoid the doctors for the same reason,’ he confessed. ‘I have no interest in hearing what part of me is wearing out, failing or shrivelling.’
‘Oh Dominic.’ She sat up straight, her tone quite altered. ‘You mustn’t avoid going to the doctor! Please don’t do that.’
‘If we’d seen your husband sooner, well . . .’
