Normally Lucy would have thought long and hard about introducing someone new to her grandmother, but not this time. ‘Absolutely. I’m sure he would love to come!’ said Lucy.
‘And, darling, now that you have such an eligible man, I do hope that you are putting your crazy ideas about having a baby by yourself to rest?’ asked Annie. Lucy had been waiting for this. She had suspected that Annie was particularly thrilled about Rory’s arrival on the scene for this exact reason.
‘You never know, granny. Perhaps I won’t need to be a single mother after all!’ said Lucy.
‘I must say I’m jolly glad to hear it!’ said Annie. ‘I couldn’t have been more shocked when you told me you were planning on doing it alone. Daft idea… quite extraordinary!’
‘Yes, granny, you made that quite clear,’ said Lucy, hoping beyond hope that she would never have to face explaining the truth to her grandmother if events did not work out in her favour. She realised just how different her circumstances were this time around as the day she would be able to take a pregnancy test approached once again. She suddenly found herself unsure as to whether she would prefer to be pregnant or not.
Ginny had made her nightly telephone call to her mother between courses, so Lucy had also finally filled her in about Rory too, playing the romance down as much as possible, determined not to raise her mother’s hopes. Ginny sounded terribly excited nonetheless. And like Granny Annie, asked Lucy whether she was still going to pursue the ‘donor route’, as Ginny referred to it, now that she had met a nice young man. Ginny and Gus didn’t realize that she had received another round of treatment earlier in the month, and Lucy hadn’t enlightened them. She merely told her mother that all plans were on hold for a while, to which she could hear her mother’s audible sigh of relief.
Kissing her grandmother goodbye after dinner, she headed towards home, flagging down a black cab as she went. She called Rory and passed on Annie’s dinner invitation. He was delighted to accept, having heard so much about the infamous Annie. They planned to have a night in at Rory’s house the next day before going to the pub on Saturday, as promised, with Claudia and Dan. Lucy couldn’t wait to see the look on Claudia’s face when she saw him. She knew that they would get on incredibly well.
