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‘I might have told your son that I love him.’
‘And I’m going to stay in Bristol,’ Joe adds.
‘Thank the lord for that,’ Denise beams. ‘You pair of daft bats. Now why don’t you head off? All of this time spent not really communicating with each other … you must have a lot of catching up to do.’
Joe and I start to protest but Denise is having none of it. ‘Jim and Sid will be here any minute to wait with me and take me home. Shoo!’
‘Consider us shooed,’ Joe says, taking my hand.
We walk back down the corridor, fingers interlinked. Joe calls for the lift and leans himself against the wall as we wait, gently pulling me towards him.
‘You know all that “communicating” Mum thinks we need to catch up on?’ he says softly into my ear.
‘Mmm.’
‘I don’t intend to do very much of that with you for the rest of the day.’
‘Absolutely no talking,’ I agree.
‘Is Lila still in Cornwall?’ Joe asks.
I nod. ‘And Sid’s with your dad, right?’
‘So we’ve got the whole day without any small people.’ Joe raises his eyebrows.
‘However will we fill it, Joe Kitson?’
‘Oh believe me, I can think of some ways.’ He smoulders.
The lift doors open. It’s one of those massive hospital lifts and it is completely empty. I pull him inside.
‘I do have one final question,’ I whisper.
‘Shoot.’
‘Your place, or mine?’
Chapter 33
Mass hysteria has descended amongst the kids over the past few days and all the parents agree that it is definitely time for the summer holidays to start, even though I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to entertain Lila and keep my business going for six weeks solid. She’s like a feral beast at the moment, still waking at dawn and rampaging through each day with a vim and vigour I could only dream of. Joe and I have organised a few things for the kids to do — Lila and Sid are going to tennis camp together and there’s a weeklong forest skills course they’re taking part in with some of the other Barnaby’s children. Plus Celeste is threatening to invite everyone to the Battenbergs’ ‘country pad’ in the Cotswolds for a long weekend.
‘Will there be room for us all?’ I ask as we wait at the school gates for the last time this year.
Celeste considers this. ‘I might have to free up some space in the staff quarters if everyone can make it, which bring its own problems of course. We can’t do without the caterers but I suppose we could manage without the masseuse, and the dog walker could probably go …’
Joe makes a noise like he’s trying not to laugh and I nestle happily against him. It’s a week since Denise had her fall and she’s doing so much better after some rest. Meanwhile Joe and I are surviving on adrenaline alone. Work plus kids plus Denise tlc during the day and … Let’s just say we’ve been burning the candle at both ends. One look from Joe is all I need to melt into a puddle of molten gold and I still cannot keep my hands off him.
‘I’ve got plenty of picnic stuff!’ Tally says and I drag my thoughts out of Joe’s underpants and back to reality. School pick-up. So much has changed since we met here at the school gates earlier this year. I thought I’d given up on men full stop and now here I am struggling to get my mind out of the gutter after even the briefest of shared looks with my very own Hot No-Longer-Single Dad.
I turn my attention to Tally, who is riding towards us on a bike with a pretty basket on the front while one of her teenage ‘interns’ runs along beside her, filming the scene.
‘We have drinks,’ I say, a bag for life by my feet.
‘I may have eaten some of the cake on the way over,’ admits Frankie, holding out a Victoria sponge with a bite missing.
Once the kids have poured out we walk in little groups towards the park, chatting about their first year at school and how we can’t believe it’s over already. It’s so different from the start of the year, when I felt completely ostracised from the group. As I walk, it strikes me that it wasn’t just down to them. They’d already formed a clique, sure, but it was up to me to make an effort. I’d had my guard up for so long that these barriers were an absolute mission to break down. And yet here I am, gabbing about reformer Pilates with Tally as if I know what I’m talking about. I mean, I’ve done normal Pilates so it can’t be much different?
‘You should come to my next class,’ she says as we set up camp in the park, the kids making a beeline for the playground.
