Later they would both try and remember what they had talked about and could only recall snatches, yet they filled almost three hours chattering about their jobs, the people they worked with, family, school, life. Conversation between them coasted on smooth, easy tracks. They shared a dessert, neither able to attempt a whole one. A tiramisu, two spoons. Talk waded to deeper water over coffee.
‘When did Alex die?’ asked Pete.
‘The sixth of February,’ Laurie replied. ‘There was a crash on a dual carriageway. A lorry driver was texting, skidded on black ice, crossed the central reservation and thudded into a lot of cars. If Alex had been sitting in the passenger seat he would have survived because he took the impact on his side. The consolation, if there is any, is that the emergency services said it would have been so quick he wouldn’t have known anything about it. I’m not sure if I believe it, but I hope it’s true.’
Pete swallowed. He’d died on the same day as Tara, he hadn’t realised that. A flash of the scene lit up in his head. There in the carnage, a black Mitsubishi crushed on one side, unscathed on the other. That was her fiancé’s car? The same crash? It had to be. Something stopped him probing more; they would be swallowed up by the detail if he did. Their tentative steps forward would count for nothing as they would be dragged by the scruff of the neck backwards into that dark February night. That was a conversation for later, not now.
Laurie felt a gloom begin to lower itself onto her and she shimmied it away. ‘Anyway . . .’ she began, at the same time as Pete said, ‘I’m sorry, my fault, I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘For another time,’ said Laurie. It was inevitable that talk would stray to the thing that had brought them together.
‘Eat your truffle,’ said Pete, pushing the saucer of handmade chocolates towards Laurie. She picked one up and popped it into her mouth and her face registered delight, like a much younger girl having an illicit treat. He thought again how pretty she was, softer with her hair down; a few more dates along the line and he would reach over and thread his fingers through it. For a moment he had a brief insight into what his father must have felt when his mother had gone and he’d met Cora: that life had changed and a different hand of cards with a different queen had been dealt to him. Memories would not keep him warm at night and he had too much love banked inside him not to share it.
It reminded Pete to tell Laurie that he wouldn’t be at Molly’s Club on Wednesday.
‘Dad’s sixty-five. He’s having a party in the garden. He’s going to crank up the firepit for the cold and set up the drinks table under the pergola in case it rains.’
‘Oh, how lovely. Fingers crossed that the weather holds.’ Laurie bit into a dark truffle this time and a tumble of soft toffee dribbled down her chin. She laughed and wiped it away quickly, bashfully, and Pete pictured himself leaning over and kissing the caramel from her lips.
‘Have you bought him something nice?’ she asked.
‘A snooker table,’ he said, not opening up the can of worms by telling her how his father’s partner would consider that a thrown-down gauntlet. Cora and crash, both C-words he’d avoid tonight. ‘You’d be welcome to come.’ He said it without thinking. ‘I mean I know it’s a bit early to start introducing you to the family. I mean – oh lord, that sounded a bit full on. If you’re at a loose end . . .’
Laurie rescued him from his gabbling. ‘That’s very kind of you, but you concentrate on your dad, it’s a family day. You can tell me all about it next time we see each other.’
‘Yes, okay, I will.’ The good bits anyway. Probably not about Cora’s reaction to the surprise gift.
The bill came, which Pete snatched up. Laurie opened her mouth to protest.
‘Save your breath. It’s not happening,’ he said.
‘Do you ever watch First Dates?’ said Laurie. ‘When the woman lets the man pay and they get to the “do you want to see this person again?” line and she says no. I think that’s so mean.’
‘Would you say no?’ asked Pete, suddenly emboldened.
Laurie took in a deep breath, suddenly emboldened. ‘No.’
‘No “no” or no no.’
Laurie smiled. She’d smiled a lot this evening. She smiled a lot around this man. ‘I’d say yes, I would like to see this person again.’
‘Good, because it’s a really awkward figure to halve.’ Pete pretended to wipe sweat from his brow. He had a sudden vision of the old TV advert where the man from Del Monte said ‘YES!’ Yes she wanted to see him again, in the context of a date. He didn’t want to feel this thrilled but it was bulging dam walls within him.
He waved his Visa at the waiter who glided over with a card payment machine, thanked Pete, wished them both a good night.
‘Let me at least pay the tip, Pete,’ offered Laurie.
‘It’s done,’ said Pete. More than ten per cent, she estimated as he put down some notes onto the bill plate.
They stood, he held out his arm and she took it, felt the firmness of the muscle through his jacket. They walked out into the cool October air. The sky was deep blue velvet and the moon a fingernail snip, edges crisp. A beautiful evening, a memorable evening. The start of something, they both sensed it.
Once again Pete opened the car door for her. Laurie thought he might be the type of man who would keep to this behaviour. This wasn’t a veneer that would wear off; consideration was part of his DNA. She imagined he would be still opening doors and offering his arm to his wife after many years of marriage.
They turned into her drive. The real end of the date. Would he attempt to kiss her? she thought. Should I attempt to kiss her? he thought.
Laurie dashed away the awkward moment before it came, or rather delayed it.
‘Would you like a coffee?’ she asked him as he applied the handbrake.
He wanted to squeeze every second out of this evening, but played it cool. ‘I could manage a quick one I suppose,’ he replied.
She opened the door, switched on the light, invited him to follow her through to the kitchen where she put the kettle on.
‘Thank you for the most wonderful evening, Laurie,’ said Pete, sitting at the island. ‘I have so enjoyed your company.’
‘Thank you,’ Laurie replied. ‘I’ve had a lovely time too.’ She brought the coffees over, sat on the stool next to him. She noticed how his large hands made the mug look much smaller than it was. They sipped their drinks in a silence that seemed to shimmer around them like a forcefield. It didn’t matter that neither of them said anything, just being there together was enough, each wondering if the other felt it too, but at the same time knowing they did.
‘Look . . .’ eventually Pete spoke, a nervous drag of his fingers around the back of his neck ‘. . . I don’t know what this is between us. I don’t know if we are bound by circumstance or if it’s something stronger but I think you’re great, Laurie, and this . . . this feels so right, it sounds bonkers but it’s true. I can’t wait to see you again.’
Later she would remember that she moved to kiss him first. She would recall in glorious detail how his hands closed around her back and held her as if she was something precious. She would not remember how they got up the stairs but she knew she must have led him to the second bedroom, not hers, not in the room where Alex’s ashes sat. They fell onto the bed there undressing each other urgently but tenderly too. She had never done this before, never slept with a man on the first date. Pete had slept with Tara on the first night he met her but it wasn’t like this, two pieces of something drifting around in the orbit of life, chancing together, fitting as if they were whole a long time ago but had been smashed up, separated and together they became repaired. As if they had found each other. As if they were meant to be.