Charlie grinned at Nick. ‘Let the woman work, I say.’
And so the inaugural Carrie breakfast came to be. When Nick, carrying Arthur, and trailed by Bea and Delilah, came down the stairs, the table was laid for their mother’s favourite weekend breakfast – round pancakes with bananas and maple syrup. Scott’s laptop was somehow hooked up to project images onto a white wall – how the hell had she done that? The pictures that usually hung there had been taken down – and a series of images and short videos of Carrie was playing silently. Nick was almost transfixed. There she was, Carrie. Laughing, fooling about, blowing kisses. As he watched, the pictures traced a journey. An impossibly young and pretty bride. An expectant mother cradling her bump proudly. A new mum, tired and triumphant. In the swimming-pools, on the sofas and at the parks of their life together.
The children saw the pancakes before they saw the wall. ‘Pancakes! Yippee! I love pancakes.’
Delilah clambered onto a chair, and reached across to the large serving dish in the middle, picking one up in her hand and taking a bite.
Then, ‘It’s my mummy!’ Bea froze for a long moment, every adult in the room watching her face, then clapped her hands. She pulled on the wooden chair where her sister sat, angling her to see the wall. ‘Look, Lila. It’s lots of pictures of Mummy. That’s you, in her tummy. I know, because that’s me, holding her hand. See?’
‘Aw. Look!’ Delilah didn’t stop eating but her eyes, too, were fixed on the wall. Bea helped Arthur into his chair, little mother that she was. ‘Wait a minute, Arthur. Keep looking. You’ll be in a picture in a minute.’
Heather glanced from the children to Nick, clearly nervous as to how he might react. He tore his gaze away, and looked, dew-eyed, back at her. He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he just hugged her tightly. Over her shoulder he saw Scott, who nodded, then patted his chest above his heart. Charlie picked Arthur up, and sat down with the little boy on his lap, pouring syrup and cutting a pancake into toddler-sized pieces, but it was difficult with tears in his eyes.
Laura stepped forward and did it for him, then moved to where Heather was leaning against the door. ‘You’re a bloody star, do you know that? A bloody star.’
55
Laura told herself she intended to apologize to Joe, and that was why she was wandering towards his place. To take the blame for what had happened, and to smooth over what would seem to them both now, surely, an embarrassing episode. It was more adult, she said to herself, to seek him out, to tackle the inevitable awkwardness head on. They were here for a couple more days – she was bound to run into him. She wanted him to know she didn’t expect anything from him. Or hold what had happened against him.
She’d never had a one-night stand. What an admission. She almost had, once, at university. She’d been pissed and taken some guy back to her room, thinking that everyone else did it, but her flatmate, Lou, had hammered on the locked door long enough to get rid of him: she said she knew Laura would be really cross with herself in the morning if she went through with it. She was right, of course. Laura had always been too careful. She’d have agonized and analysed and effectively sucked out of the encounter whatever illicit pleasure she might have had in it.
So did what had happened with Joe count?
She hadn’t gone there expecting it so much as daydreaming about it, so that when it had it was almost like it had been happening to someone else. What had surprised her the most was the tenderness afterwards. He’d wanted her to stay – he’d been kind and considerate and affectionate.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a one-night stand, did it? A one-night stand with a good guy. There were still good guys.
Whatever her reasons for seeking him out, though, she couldn’t not.
He was in his workshop when she arrived, adjacent to the house, two barn doors open, and the sound of a machine making his whereabouts known. He didn’t hear her come in. He was wearing a conker-coloured leather apron over jeans and a T-shirt, goggles and a mask. He was working on the table they’d picked up the other day, sanding off layers of paint and varnish to reveal the pale wood underneath.
For a while she just watched him work. He was unbelievably sexy in concentration. Then she stepped two, three paces around the edge of the room until she knew she was in his line of vision. When he saw her, he switched off the machine, pushed the goggles onto the top of his head, and pulled down his mask. Beneath it he was smiling broadly. He looked pleased that she was there. ‘Didn’t hear you come in!’
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’
‘You’re not. I’m due a break. I’m happy to see you.’
‘You are?’
He walked towards her. ‘Of course.’
When he drew level with her, he put one hand on the back of her neck and kissed her. It wasn’t a polite kiss, or a friendly one. It was hungry. He smelt of sawdust and, just a little, of clean, fresh sweat.
‘I was hoping you’d come. Give me a sec to get this clobber off.’
‘You don’t have to stop on my account. I don’t want to hold you up.’
Again the smile. Laura wondered if he knew exactly how sexy it was. She figured, at his age, he must do.
‘No, I want to.’
With the apron and the safety gear put neatly on the workbench, he came back towards her. ‘I’m glad you’re here. Come and have some tea with me.’
She let herself be led into the house. He filled the kettle and switched it on, took mugs down from the thick oak shelf behind the sink. ‘How are you?’
‘Good. I’m good. I wanted to say, you know, about the other day …’ She felt like an awkward teenager, blurting. He came to stand close to her, and the feeling got worse. And better.
And then, before her agonizing and awkward explanation or apology, or whatever it was, could continue, they were kissing, and his arms went around her and moved lower, firmly pulling her into him, and the kettle boiled, and no one wanted tea any more …
‘That went well,’ she said, much later. ‘I came to apologize.’
He murmured into her neck, ‘Apology accepted.’
She pushed him away, with no conviction whatsoever. ‘I’m serious. I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘You’re pretty good at it.’
‘And you’re determined not to let me be serious, even for a minute.’
He sat up, shoulders back, assuming a sober countenance. ‘Sorry. Serious. Go.’
It was her turn to smile. ‘We don’t know each other.’
‘What would you like to know? I’m an open book.’
‘I don’t know … How did you get here?’
‘In the existential sense?’
‘No. The actual sense. I know bits and pieces but I can’t fit any of it together.’
‘And that bothers you?’
‘A bit.’
He sighed, but he was still smiling.
‘Okay. Fair enough. It’s pretty simple. I stepped off the conveyor-belt. I was oh-so-conventional at one point. University. Good job in the City. Made my old dad proud. Saw a gap in the market. Started a business. Financial services. Please don’t make me tell you about it. Sold the business a few years later, made a few quid. Professional life going well, personal life down the tubes. Don’t spend too long trying to figure out whether the two things are linked, but I suspect she waited to leave me until I was worth a bit. She took half, but it was half of quite a lot. I wasn’t Gordon Gecko or anything, but it was enough. I hated having to let her take it, and I hated myself for hating it. I woke up one morning in my empty bed in my Canary Wharf flat and realized I didn’t need to stay there. Had nothing left to prove to myself or anyone else in that arena. Wanted something different. Came here. Didn’t do a lot for a year or so. And then I got bored. I’m not a do-nothing type of guy. There’s only so many books you can read. So I took on the garden for Lucy and Col. Started the upcycling. That’s where you find me. And now I have a life I truly, truly love.’