Helena shrugged.
‘So have you done anything about him?’ Amy went on, firing up all her regular arguments. ‘You need to get in there! You can’t just stand back and hope that he’ll do something, he won’t! Men are totally lazy when it comes to women.’
‘Probably because if most women are like you, men have them crawling all over them. They don’t have to make an effort.’
‘And women do!’ Amy was very clear on this point.
Helena was very tempted to say something about her and Jago, but she held back. It might rebound on her. So instead she said, ‘Well, my mother obviously doesn’t seem to have to make much of an effort. I’d have known if she’d had her eye on this silver fox.’
‘Give her a call,’ Amy repeated. ‘But don’t tell her off!’
‘As if!’ said Helena, although she took the warning to heart. She would be very casual, as if she wasn’t remotely worried about who her mother went out with.
She waited until early afternoon, when her mother was likely to be at her desk sorting out her diary, before she rang.
‘Hi, Mum! What’s this about you being seen with a silver fox!’ Helena hoped she sounded sufficiently light-hearted. ‘Did you have a good time?’ she added.
‘Amy told you?’ Gilly laughed. ‘I didn’t think it would take Michelle long to tell on me.’
‘To be fair, I think she was more impressed than disapproving.’ Helena managed to hesitate for a tenth of a second before going on. ‘So who was he and how did you meet him?’
‘Honestly, darling, anyone would think I was an underage convent girl, not a middle-aged woman, quite old enough to be in a public place with a member of the opposite sex.’
Helena’s laugh sounded a bit false, even to her. ‘Sorry! I’m just curious.’
There was a pause. Helena could picture her mother, who by now would be playing Spider patience on her computer, something she always did while on the phone unless it was a business call. Therefore a hesitation on Gilly’s part didn’t always mean she was thinking of what to say – she could just be working out a move with her game. ‘Are you still there, Mum? Or have you got a tricky patience to get out?’
Gilly laughed again.
Honestly, Helena thought, her mother could almost be accused of being giddy. ‘So? I can’t decide if you’re holding out on me or wondering if you’ll have to start your game again, for the hundredth time.’
‘Of course I’m not holding out on you. His name is Leo Simmons. I have only just met him and he had a spare ticket for the opera at Gainsborough House and asked me if I’d go. He’s new to the area and doesn’t know many people. I was just helping him out.’
‘And did you bring the picnic?’
‘I did! You know how I love making picnics.’
‘Were there leftovers?’
‘There were but I’m afraid I left them in the car with Leo. He was so appreciative.’
‘I’ll forgive you if you promise to arrange for me to meet him,’ said Helena, feeling she was winning. ‘Just a casual Sunday lunch would do. You could invite Martin and Cress.’
‘Then it would look as if he was having to meet all the family because we were going out properly which would be a bit much considering we’re not.’
‘Just invite me, then,’ said Helena, determined to meet her mother’s silver fox.
‘That would look worse! Really, Helly, you are being a bit unreasonable.’
‘You know me, I’ll go to any lengths to get one of your Sunday lunches.’ She paused. ‘I know! Why don’t I bring someone?’
‘Who? Amy? That would look very normal, I must say! I go out with him once and then five minutes later make him come to Sunday lunch with two giggling schoolgirls.’
‘We don’t giggle any more, Mum! At least, not all that often. And besides, I don’t mean Amy. I mean a man.’ Jago would do well out of the invite. Her mother’s Sunday lunches were famous locally.
‘A man? You? Good Lord!’
‘Just a friend, Mum, just like your friend!’ Helena was sowing the seeds carefully, not letting it look as if she and Jago were anything more than friends just yet.
‘OK,’ said Gilly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Gilly continued to sit at her desk, playing Spider, when an email appeared at the top right-hand corner of her computer and drifted into her in-box. Maybe inviting Leo to Sunday lunch would be easier than she’d thought.
She clicked on his email, unable to stop smiling with delight.
Chapter Nine
‘It’s kind of you to come with me,’ said Helena to Jago as she drove them to Fairacres the following Sunday. ‘It’ll stop my mum thinking I’m checking out her boyfriend, which I totally am.’
‘We all need to take time off to have lunch,’ said Jago easily. ‘Although neither of us are very good at that.’
‘We have deadlines,’ said Helena. ‘And I promise the food will be good. If you can put up with a certain amount of probing and we stick to our “just good friends, trying it out”, things like that, it should be fine.’
Jago shrugged. ‘Some people would think I was mad not to claim you as my girlfriend properly.’
‘Sweet of you to say so,’ said Helena, convinced he was just being gallant. ‘But those who know me would think it was crazy if I was treating us seriously as a couple so soon.’ She paused. ‘It’s a slight shame that my brother and his wife are going to be there. Although my niece is good fun, in a strange way. We had lunch with them only last week and, frankly, I prefer the gaps between family meals with them to be bigger.’
‘What’s wrong with your brother and his wife, then?’
‘My sister-in-law, Cressida, doesn’t really approve of food. She’d rather have a smoothie full of supplements than a proper meal. She disapproves of my mother’s old-fashioned methods that mean her roast potatoes are the best.’
‘What about your mum’s Yorkshire puddings?’
Helena took a breath. ‘I feel so disloyal saying this but, just sometimes, they aren’t so good. Everything else will be stunning. Two puddings afterwards at least. And lots of fabulous gravy. Sometimes I make the Yorkies for her.’
Jago didn’t speak for a few moments. ‘OK, I’m still on board for this. I can cope with a little bun instead of a Yorkshire pudding.’
Helena laughed. ‘It sounds as if you’ve experienced those.’
‘Many times.’
Gilly wished Leo hadn’t been so keen to come to her early and help. She found it slightly difficult to talk to people and cook – unless it was breakfast when she was so practised. But his enthusiasm for her company was flattering. He obviously wanted the lunch to go well as much as she did. Now, she was whisking her gravy, wondering if there was enough and, as always, deciding there wasn’t.
‘There’s always a point with gravy,’ she said to Leo, who was pulling corks out of the bottles of wine that he’d brought, ‘when it tastes perfect, but wouldn’t give people more than a teaspoon each. You have to steel yourself to possibly ruin it when you add things to make it enough.’