Luke seemed to have enjoyed himself but then he could slip easily into most settings. If there was a vague excuse to be competitive and drink at the same time he was pretty content.
‘All right?’ he said, watching me change into my pyjamas and then wearily stack papers and folders in a pile to take through to the living room.
‘Fine.’
‘It wasn’t exactly the most romantic evening,’ he said, easing the papers out of my hands and moving through to the living room with them.
‘It was fine, not bad,’ I said, like a 3-star Trip Advisor reviewer.
‘It made me think, though,’ he said, placing the folders and papers on the table. ‘We should be doing more stuff together, shouldn’t we? That was the best part of the night, being slightly bored at times but being slightly bored and able to share that with you.’
‘So whistling not your thing?’ I said, trying not to look twitchy at the amount of paper I needed to look at tonight.
‘No, but I like this new project of your grandad’s. Let’s give it another go.’
I pulled out the chair ready to take a seat and start work. ‘I’ll ask him what’s next.’
Luke dipped down and kissed my shoulder. ‘Do. And don’t work too late,’ he said, with no real feeling, knowing full well he would be asleep long before I made it back to our bed.
I watched him leave the room with a small, sad smile. He was right. We did need to spend more time together. Otherwise what was the point of being together at all?
Darling Cora,
Are you cross that I have agreed to date women in return for ensuring Luke and Lottie do more things together? I’ve been imagining that look you can give me, that arch of your eyebrow that could always put the fear of God into me. Those times were few but memorable: after I told you it would be extravagant to double-glaze all the windows in the house; when I was so unwell on New Year’s Eve I vomited in your window box, and when I sat you down and told you I wanted to retrain as a zookeeper. You know what you mean to me and it isn’t about me meeting someone else, I couldn’t meet someone else, there is no one else but I want to play along, I want to show willing so that Lottie continues to play along too. But I am aware I haven’t really asked your permission. You won’t start haunting me horribly or send down your mother to do it for you?
The scheme has been launched and Lottie and Luke were present and correct at the whist drive in the hall. You would have loved seeing them there surrounded by blue rinses and our friends. I’m not completely convinced it was the triumphant success I hoped it would be but when they left they seemed comfortable and happy, Luke giving me a discreet thumbs-up and Lottie grinning up at him. I do believe one of them let slip our little arrangement, as worryingly Paula sidled over to me at the end of the night and although she said she was just returning her glass to the table I wasn’t completely sure she wasn’t trying to grab my buttock. It was rather alarming.
Geoffrey was suitably hopeless and we lost, of course we did. Arjun seemed quieter than normal perhaps, a little less energy this evening. Perhaps he is coming down with something? He was cross with me for not taking the D3 tablets he foisted on us a year ago now. The bottle hadn’t been opened. I know he misses you and I enjoy sharing stories about you with him. Howard is, of course, the same: brash and ever-present. He has been telling me all the gory details from his own dating life – that man really is reprehensible.
I’ve got an absurd list of ideas to try and you would boggle at what people have to do these days to meet somebody. And there are so many ways it can go awry! Have you heard of breadcrumbing? I won’t go into it, it is too horrifying. Oh, Cora, I wish you were here to laugh and cuff me round the ear. How I miss being endlessly teased by you, how I miss sharing this space and all the stories with you. How I miss you.
Teddy
Chapter 10
Love is the seed from which happiness grows
SOPHIE, 86
Grandad had texted me an address in Wimbledon and a start time for our next mysterious event a few days later. I left chambers feeling nervy, anticipation swirling in my stomach. I wondered if Luke was feeling the same way. I imagined a candlelit restaurant, discreet waiters, the kind of place that gives you an impossibly small but completely delicious amuse-bouche on a large white dinner plate.
Or perhaps we were due to see a movie together, a silent film or something from back in the day? Curled up in an oldfashioned cinema, hands sneaking into each other’s. Feeling the flutter of excitement as I pondered the options made me realise Luke and I rarely made plans to do anything together. We would go for an impromptu dinner or some drinks in a pub but we didn’t schedule in evenings like this. I smoothed my skirt and applied a fresh coat of pale pink lipstick on the Tube, feeling pleased that for once I wasn’t late.
I hadn’t reckoned on Luke being late. He was almost as assiduous as Amy about punctuality, so it was with some surprise that I turned up at Wimbledon tube station to be greeted by a grovelling text message telling me he would meet me at the venue. My stomach grumbled as I walked past numerous restaurants, mouth-watering smells emerging every time the doors were opened. Following the line on my map I failed to notice the rain until I felt the drops trickling down my neck and under my jacket, and by then it was a downpour. Sheltering under a bus stop, hair frizzing, feeling damp and borderline starving, I felt my good mood quickly evaporate.
The venue turned out to be a room at the very top of a vegan café. Moving down the corridor past signs for henna tattoos, meditation retreats, cupping and more, I patted at my hair as I climbed up the stairs, images of the candlelit dinner fading in my mind. Peeking through the square of glass in the door I was heartened to see Grandad, Howard and Geoffrey all huddled in one corner by a trestle table filled with glasses and jugs of squash. I wondered where Arjun was. I wasn’t used to seeing them as a threesome. Also Geoffrey looked pale and nervous, fiddling with the buttons on his coat, eyes flicking left to right as Howard and Grandad seemed immersed in conversation.
Frowning, I pushed open the door and headed their way before being intercepted by a lady with a blonde beehive, dressed in a turquoise tunic and wearing bright orange lipstick.
In a thick Eastern European accent she asked, ‘You are new to class?’
Class? Images of vintage cinemas, shared popcorn or amuse-bouche melted in front of me.
I looked closely at the other tables lining the walls, now taking in the tubes of paint, the jam jars filled with paintbrushes, the wooden boards, boxes of charcoal and stacks of blank paper.
‘Art,’ I said aloud, thoughts of dinner now well and truly drained away. My stomach grumbled. If it was a still life it would be in danger of getting eaten.
‘You have very good aura, creative soul,’ the lady said, her nostrils flaring as if she was trying to suck my aura into her.
‘Er, thank you.’
‘Are you beginner or more advanced?’
‘Oh, well, I did Art GCSE.’ I shrugged, distracted by Howard who was crossing behind her. ‘But I only got a C. I did a picture of a windmill, though. I thought it was quite good.’
‘What is windmill?’
‘Oh you know, a—’ I started doing wild hand movements, the Beehive lady’s eyes widening in alarm.