‘Oh right,’ he said, in a strangulated voice. ‘Why’s that then?’
‘They’re all getting married, having babies and moving away. Not always in that order.’ Margot’s smile was a badly rendered copy of itself. ‘I haven’t managed to do any of those things.’
Will put a finger between his collar and his neck. ‘Um, do you want to do any of those things?’
‘God, yes! Of course I do!’ Margot pushed away her glass as if it suddenly disgusted her. ‘I’ve spent the last eighteen years mourning not just my mum, and my dad, but being part of a family. Meanwhile, all my friends have managed to find someone and start their own families like it’s the easiest thing in the world. I haven’t. I’m left behind and that’s why I feel as if I don’t fit in.’
‘Well, I’m sure it will happen.’ Now that Will thought about it, it did seem strange that Margot was single when, apart from the micromanaging, she was the kind of woman that men would want to settle down with. Topper and his posse of finance bros had always been adamant that there were women you fucked and women you married, ‘wifeys’ they called them, rather predictably, but Margot was definitely a long-haul kind of girl.
She was pretty, smart, creative, independent. That would be more than enough, but she was also kind and always knew the right thing to say. Not the sort of woman that you’d let slip away. Margot was soft kisses, soft curves, the kind of softness you could get lost in. Will tugged at his collar again.
‘I want it too much, that’s the problem,’ Margot was saying. ‘I give off that deadly whiff of desperation. One sign of interest from a man and I become really needy. Even more needy than Blossom.’
‘I’m sure you’re not.’ Will was suddenly aware that he was doing nothing but mouthing platitudes, which he would have hated if the positions were reversed. ‘Blossom’s neediness is limitless.’
Another tenth generation copy of a smile. ‘You’re not looking to settle down and start a family, are you?’ she asked idly. Will felt that tingle at the back of his neck again.
‘No,’ he said flatly, because there was no other way to say it. He was still trying to find the emotional reserves just to start dating again. ‘Not in my immediate future.’
‘Which is why we have to stop with the kissing,’ Margot said in a rush. ‘Because it’s weird . . .’
‘My kisses are weird,’ Will echoed, which wasn’t the point at all, but it was where he’d got stuck.
‘Your kisses aren’t weird, and if I were still in my twenties, then I’d love nothing more than to be kissing a really handsome man with no thought of where the kisses might take us. And don’t look like that, Will. You must have at least one mirror in your flat, so you have to know that all your features are very pleasing to the eye.’
Will felt his face heat up. Not just at the unexpected compliment, because the only person who currently told him that he was ‘a gorgeous boy’ was Mary and she was contractually obligated to do so, but because Margot was much braver than he was, even though she’d never abseiled down a skyscraper. She’d initiated this awkward but necessary conversation with all of her usual grace, and she was even managing to maintain eye contact, though Will longed to stare at his feet, at the burger debris on his plate, even at Blossom who was enthusiastically nibbling at one of her paws. Anywhere but Margot’s steady gaze and equally flushed face.
‘You’re very pleasing to the eye too,’ Will said, and Margot raised her almost empty glass in gratitude for his clumsy flattery. There had been a time when women thought Will was quite suave because that was the image he’d desperately tried to project. But a lot had happened since those evenings in foreign cities, where it was easy to spout meaningless patter at women who knew the rules of the game they were both playing. No strings, no regrets, no hard feelings.
Will didn’t want that anymore, but then he didn’t know what he did want. Only that Margot wanted something completely different.
‘I’m thirty-six and, lovely as it’s been, I can’t waste time kissing people just for the sake of it,’ she said a little sadly, her features drooping, which slightly soothed the sting of rejection. ‘I need to be really single-minded and focused on starting a family as soon as possible’
Will nodded. It all made sense. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready for what Margot was craving. ‘Shall we just agree that a New Year’s kiss was the right thing to do, and so was a celebratory kiss because Blossom passed her Bronze Good Citizen Certificate?’ he asked casually – he’d spent years making himself say things casually instead of letting his emotions run rampant. ‘We can’t help it that we’re both extraordinarily good-looking.’
Margot smiled as if she didn’t want to smile but couldn’t help herself. ‘But we’re still friends?’
‘It’s not even a question,’ Will said. ‘Of course we’re still friends.’ For someone who had no talent when it came to friendship, Will had somehow managed to make a friend when and where he least expected to. A friend who he liked. Really liked. ‘Co-pawrents too, don’t forget.’
‘My greatest achievement in life is that you now say co-pawrents without any visible wincing.’ Somehow, again without Will knowing how, Margot had managed to cut through the awkward atmosphere that had engulfed them.
‘On the inside I’m wincing,’ Will said, and having Margot laugh and nudge him with her elbow wasn’t as good as kissing her but it would have to do.
29
Margot
Name: Dale
Age: 41
Status: Divorced, looking for dates and long-term relationship.
Likes: Long walks, intelligent conversation, good food and wine, and snuggling up on the sofa.
Dislikes: Smokers, moaners and cheaters.
‘Dale, forty-one, is obviously bitter about his divorce,’ Jacques said, reading over Margot’s shoulder as she perused her likely online matches during her lunch hour the next day.
It was excessively cold out, with a piercing wind that penetrated right through to the marrow, so Margot was relieved it was a non-Blossom week. She missed her dreadfully, not least because Blossom doubled up as a hot water bottle, but Margot wasn’t missing the icy hour standing about on Primrose Hill while Blossom frolicked.
It was also excessively hard to think about throwing herself back into dating when Margot couldn’t stop thinking about Will. Since their kiss on New Year’s Eve, she’d constantly replayed the memory of his lips on hers, his hands on her, his body against hers. But instead of adding their last and final kiss to the rotation, Margot knew that she had to try and pretend that it hadn’t happened. It certainly wouldn’t be happening again.
Being sensible and grown-up wasn’t very much fun. When Margot was a kid, she’d thought that being an adult meant that she’d never have to eat her greens or go to bed at a reasonable hour. But life wasn’t all chocolate for breakfast and staying up all night; it was having to do the right thing even when the right thing felt like the wrong thing.
As well as the kissing, the really stellar kissing that made her cheeks heat up, which she absolutely wasn’t thinking about, she was still processing what Will had told her about his last three years in New York. He’d been honest with her in a way that she’d never expected from that closed-off stranger she’d met four months before.