‘She looks nice, doesn’t she, Rufus? You daft old boy!’ Rory said, laughing at his dog, who was sitting with his head cocked to one side, looking quizzically at them both. ‘What do you want to do now?’ asked Rory, as Lucy sat on his lap at the kitchen table and gave him a kiss.
‘Do you fancy watching a movie?’ suggested Lucy.
‘Great idea,’ agreed Rory.
Lucy reached for the remote control and they scanned through the movies on the planner, then the box office, finally settling on some new thriller that they had both missed at the cinema. They spent a relaxing afternoon on the sofa, cuddled up to one another, gripped by the twists and turns of the plot
After the film had finished they took Rufus out for a walk on the green nearby then popped into Sainsbury’s to buy ingredients for a roast dinner, leaving Rufus whining on the lead. Lucy put a small, corn-fed chicken into her basket, some roasting potatoes, onions for bread sauce, vegetables and milk. With their stomachs starting to rumble at the prospect of a traditional Sunday roast, they returned to the flat. Rory had picked up an enormous cardboard box from outside the shop, and he ripped off the edges to make a low, makeshift basket for Rufus in his little corner. Lucy found an old, ripped sleeping bag that Ollie had left behind the Christmas before last and donated it to Rufus’s new bed. Having wolfed down the dog food that Rory had bought him from Sainsbury’s, he settled happily with a sigh of contentment into his cosy basket.
Lucy put her iPod in the dock, filling the room with the spellbinding, deep voice of Nina Simone. Rory and Lucy worked in the kitchen in perfect harmony to prepare their meal, chatting all the while, teasing each other about how to improve on their culinary techniques, competing over whose mother had taught whom best. Once again she marvelled at how completely at ease she felt in his company. She hadn’t found the tiniest thing about him annoying or off-putting, it was as if he were too good to be true.
Lucy rubbed butter into the prickled skin of the chicken, chopping a lemon in half and inserting it deep into the cavity, then she turned the oven on to heat up. Rory set about peeling and chopping the potatoes ready for roasting, while Lucy placed a baking tray of fat in the oven to heat up in preparation. With the potatoes parboiling, they put the chicken in the oven and carefully spooned the potatoes into the steaming hot fat, spitting and hissing as each fluffy potato hit the pan. Lucy made the bread sauce, setting Rory the task of chopping the onions, and they got the vegetables ready to cook later.
Standing back to take a look at Lucy, Rory said, ‘Oh dear, I’m afraid you’ve been a little bit clumsy,’ his hands on his hips. ‘What a messy pup!’ he said, getting a wet cloth from the sink to attempt to wipe her face.
‘Oy, you can’t talk!’ screeched Lucy as she dodged the incoming cloth. ‘You’ve got a piece of potato peel in your hair, you muppet!’ she said as she extracted it, dangling it in front of him as proof.
‘Who are you calling a muppet?’ asked Rory, chasing after Lucy with the cloth. Shrieking, she ran around the kitchen table, Rory in close pursuit. He pinned her down by the window seat, tickling her until she begged for mercy, and wiping the flour from her face. Barely able to breathe from laughter, they lay collapsed on top of each other, gasping for breath.
‘What are we going to do while we wait for the roast to cook?’ asked Lucy, batting her eyelashes innocently.
‘Mmm, I can’t think,’ muttered Rory, as he pinned her down with the full length of his body. ‘Actually, I’ve got an idea,’ he said, his voice deeper and lower all of a sudden as he kissed her, grinding his hips against hers, before picking her up as though she was as light as a feather and carrying her into the bedroom.
Wrapped once more in a dressing gown, Lucy padded out of her bedroom an hour or so later to baste the chicken and turn the potatoes, by now a crisp, golden brown. Having worked up an impressive appetite once again, she set about blitzing some bread crumbs in the blender for the bread sauce. Stirring in milk, onions and seasoning with salt and pepper, she flicked on the kettle, smiling to herself as she heard Rory’s rich baritone singing from the shower. Rufus came over to sniff around her feet as she cooked. It was so nice having a dog around, she chatted away to him merrily as she laid the table, setting two place mats and a candle in the centre. She opened a bottle of red wine and poured herself and Rory a glass, it was a Spanish Rioja, and as Lucy sipped it, she savoured the rich, fruity taste.
She poured boiling water over the cauliflower florets, fetching some peas from the freezer and putting them in a small pan. As she stirred the bread sauce, Rory came out of the bedroom, wearing a T-shirt and her kikoi draped around his legs. He wrapped his arms around her and she leant back into him, enjoying having someone to cook with and chat to once again in her flat.
Rory insisted that his speciality was making gravy so he took over the final stages of the roast, setting the chicken to rest on the carving board, sprinkling plain flour and some of the red wine into the juices from the meat, and adding some of the water from the vegetables. He left Lucy to stir it while he set about carving the chicken, shaving thin slices of breast meat as juicy and succulent as could be. With the roast finally ready, and Rufus satisfied with a couple of scraps from the carving board, they piled their plates high and sat at the table, eating their hard-earned meal and listing their favourite foods, the best meals they had ever eaten, and the most exotic.
‘I’ll win this one, hands down!’ announced Rory.
‘What was it?’ asked Lucy,
‘Lambs testicle!’ he said proudly.
‘Eurgh,’ said Lucy. ‘That is disgusting… why? Where?’
‘It was a dare while I was travelling in Africa after finishing school. It was pretty horrendous, I’m not going to lie. What about you? Can you trump that?’
‘Cow stomach.’
‘That does sound pretty rank.’
‘But I’m ashamed to admit I couldn’t eat it. It was like a sheet of the thickest rubber imaginable, and worse, you could see the spiky villi all over it…’ Lucy went green at the thought.
‘I definitely win then!’ laughed Rory. ‘I’m no wimp!’ Lucy gave him a playful shove.
After their meal, pleasantly full and with wine glasses topped up, they settled on the sofa to watch some Sunday night television.
Later, as they got into bed, Rory having taken Rufus out for a last run around the green, she felt as deep a sense of contentment as she had ever felt. She knew, without the slightest trace of doubt, that she was in exactly the right place at the right time, and, most importantly, that she was with exactly the right person.
