Angus signalled to the waiter that he would attend to topping up her glass himself. He reached to pull the bottle, with a linen serviette wrapped around its neck, from the bucket of ice on its silver stand.
‘So…’ He watched the tiny strings of bubbles filling the flute. ‘Are you all packed for tomorrow?’
Moira made a curious sound that was neither affirmative nor negative. She picked up her glass, took another gulp of the champagne and then set it down again.
‘About this holiday,’ she said, her words trailing off. ‘…um…’
‘Our trip to the South of France.’ Angus nodded. ‘You’re going to love it, Moira, I promise.’
He reached to take her hand but had barely touched her fingers before she pulled them back as if she’d been burned.
‘The thing is… and I’m really sorry, Angus… but I don’t think I can come with you.’
Angus caught the eye of the waiter, who was approaching their table with menus, and the young man did a smooth U-turn and picked up a water jug at another table to top up glasses.
Angus needed to make sure that he’d heard her correctly. ‘You don’tthinkyou can come with me?’
Moira visibly swallowed. ‘No…’ She cleared her throat. ‘IknowI can’t come with you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because… it wouldn’t be right. That’s why I agreed to come and have dinner with you tonight, because itdidfeel right that I explained this face-to-face.’
Angus was genuinely perplexed. Didn’t every couple go travelling with each other these days? Wasn’t it as essential as having pre-marital sex to make sure that they were compatible?
‘I really like you, Angus,’ Moira continued in a rush. ‘I thought it might turn into something more than a friendship, you know?’
No. He didn’t know. As far as he was concerned they’d walked out of any purely friendship zone the first time he’d invited her out to lunch. You didn’tdatefriends. You certainly didn’t go to bed with them. Not in his world anyway, although, to be fair, he didn’t have that many people he considered to be good friends.
He did have what he thought was a healthy social life. He had numerous business contacts that were happy to meet for a drink. Old schoolmates. Ex-girlfriends when things had ended amicably. People whose company he enjoyed. But there was nobody he would particularly miss if they fell off the planet. Whatdidconstitute the definition of a friend, exactly?
He tuned back in to what Moira was saying, though he knew he’d missed the start of it.
‘…and that’s when I realised what was happening. Just one date and we were falling in love…’
Wait…what?
Unconsciously, Angus pulled his hand from where it was still lying on the table. He rubbed his chin, as if that might help him make sense of what he was hearing, which seemed to be a breathless account of how Moira had hooked up with a motorbike courier, Douglas, who delivered most of their important documents. He shifted slightly in his seat in his discomfort but that only made it worse. The presence of thering in his pocket wasn’t reassuring now – it was more like a riff of mocking laughter. He was even aware of the shape of the folded boarding passes for the flight to France, also in his pocket, because he’d printed them to show Moira. Over dessert, maybe, so that they could talk about how much they were looking forward to this holiday.
‘It was like being swept up in a tornado. You know, like Dorothy inThe Wizard of Oz?’
Angus cleared his throat, trying to refocus on what she was saying. ‘I… don’t quite follow…’
‘I didn’t know, because it’s never happened to me before but that’s what falling in love feels like.’ She laughed softly. ‘So it’s notfallingat all, really, is it? That makes it sound like you’ve tripped over something that shouldn’t have been in the way and it’snothinglike that. You know, don’t you, when it’s meant to be?’
Angus was frowning even more fiercely now. ‘No,’ he said, a little curtly. ‘I don’t believe I do.’
He’d thought he did. He’d thought he was making a carefully considered, sensible choice that was clearly the correct one for himself.
‘Oh…’
Comprehension was dawning and it made Moira’s eyes shine as if sudden tears were accumulating. He also noticed that her skin looked quite radiant in the light from the candles on their table. She looked more beautiful than she ever had before, in fact. How ironic was that?
‘That’s so sad,’ she said, with feeling. ‘How old are you again, Angus? Nearly forty?’
‘Thirty-seven.’ The correction was clipped.
‘And you’veneverfallen in love?’
