He ignored her.
‘It’s all my fault. I told Alfie he could find you on the towpath that day. He said he wanted to talk to you face to face.’
‘Yes, to help mesee sense– how lucky we women are to have men around to put us right on so many issues.’ Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him, as a brief glance at his face that flushed red confirmed.
‘The next thing I know you’re out on a date.’
‘It was not a date.’ She felt the urgent need to clarify, to regain a little of her dignity in the face of her humiliation. ‘It was categorically not a date! It was a nasty and calculated ambush.’
‘He’s not a bad person.’
‘Just a dishonest one,’ she countered. ‘Lying through omission is the worst.’
‘He’s my mum’s brother.’
‘What?’ She screwed her face up at him.
‘I know what you mean about lying through omission, and so I thought I should say: Alfie is my uncle. My mum used to be Rita Portland, then she married my dad and became Rita Vaughan. I’m the youngest.’
‘Oh, well, that figures! A family affair, how delightful.’ There it was again, that sarcasm.
‘Everything is messed up.’ Joshua ran his fingers through his hair.
‘Oh, don’t worry. I am quite confident, even though it causes me great pain to admit it, that despite my plans to resist, you will still get your grubby mitts on my property and all that lovely profit. I’m coming to realise that I am just an old woman with no voice. It’s a terrible feeling to be so ignored. Galling that people think I can be appeased with the odd letter and suggestions of how I might go forward, even the mention of money, as if I am no more than a problem to be solved, a bill to be settled, an irritation, and not a person with a whole life!’ She hadn’t meant to rant, but there we go.
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant Clodagh, Miss Newman. We were getting on really well. And now ...’
Lilly laughed then. Joshua looked crestfallen, and it was funny, kind of; she was losing her home, potentially losing her fight, and he was more concerned that his uncle’s subterfuge might have put a spanner in the works of his dating plans.
‘She’s far too good for you.’ She spoke half in jest. ‘She’s honest, for one thing!’
‘Do you think she might still come for a coffee with me if I ask her?’
Lilly turned to face the young man, who was, despite her anger at the whole situation and her wariness of his uncle, an open book. It irritated her how much she liked him in spite of his part in this whole fiasco. The gentle putt-putt of a boat reversing into the dock filled the air.
‘I don’t know. Maybe. You’ll have to ask her yourself.’
‘Thank you.’
‘What are you thanking me for?’
‘For not telling me to stay away from her and for not chasing me off the towpath.’
‘I’m sorely tempted to do both.’ It was her turn to come clean.
‘I need to say something, but I don’t want you to shout at me.’ He squinted.
It was strange to hear the quaver of fear in his voice, as if she werethatperson, someone whose wrath he ought to fear, which could not be further from the truth.
‘Say what you need to and I will not shout at you. I rarely shout!’ She shouted the last bit, remembering how she had first met Clodagh on that glorious day that was to be their beginning, right here on the riverbank.
I don’t think I barked. The thing is, he threw rubbish into the river – plastic! He threw plastic!
‘Alfie told me to give you a message. He said that he would be here around eleven to pick you up.’
‘Urgh, that man! I don’t want a message, and kindly tell him not to waste his time as I will not be going anywhere with him any time soon.’ Her blood raced at the sheer audacity of it.
‘I . . .’
