His eyes hold mine. It’s like the entirety of his attention is focused on me. I am the single most interesting thing in the world. The wittiest, the cleverest, the most fascinating. This is his magic.
Then he says, “Calm, optimistic, wounded.”
I’m taken aback by his forthrightness. And it makes me defensive. I break the connection. “Apparently, you know me too well. What on earth can we talk about now?” I ask.
“Oh, I don't know,” he says. “There's a host of things I want to find out about you.”
“Like what?”
If he says something hackneyed like ‘the face you make when you come’, I’m leaving. Boss or not. Those fantasies will just have to burn themselves out.
“Why did you call your daughter Effie?”
“I don’t know. I looked at her and she was an Effie. We’d been calling her Peanut but obviously that wasn’t going to fly any longer. And when Mike said he didn’t like the name, that sealed it.”
His eyebrows rise. “Oh?”
And there’s a world of questions behind that sound. “Well, he’d just told me he was leaving. Effie was only seconds old, and he was off. I was lying there, exhausted and emotional, and he dropped his bombshell. I was speechless, completely floored. I’d genuinely thought we were trying to make a go of it as a family, but he was just biding his time. He thought he’d been a saint for standing by me while I was pregnant. Like the hard work started with conception and finished with the birth.”
He winces. “That was kinda crass.”
“Which sums up Mike perfectly. Can we leave it there? I don’t want to waste time on him.” I pause. “Also, can I ask that we don't talk about Effie tonight?”
His eyes widen, but he says, “Okay.”
“It's just that I spend all my life being Effie's mother. That's what I am, twenty-four seven. I just want one little pocket, one evening, where I can pretend I'm just Cora. Cora, single, in her twenties, out to have a good time.”
“Fair enough,” he says. “And what does Cora-in-her-twenties do to have fun?”
I try to think back to my life before Mike, before Effie. “I like to dance. I like to sing at the top of my voice, but I can only do that when I'm in the car on my own, because I was born without any talent.”
“Talent can be taught. Perhaps you should join a choir.”
“A choir? How old do you think I am? Anyway, I don't think a choir would suit my inner wild child.”
“Have I ever met this inner wild child? Does she get out much?”
I consider whether the question is straightforward or innuendo. But there is nothing suggestive in his tone, so I answer in the same easy-going manner. “Oh, yes. I've danced all night. And jumped out of a plane, driven in a rally, skinny dipped at midnight in a crater lake.”
“Did you do all that before you became a mother?”
“I did all that before I met Mike.”
“That’s a lot.” He pauses. “So, back when you were growing up, what did you want to be? I’m guessing it wasn’t assistant to the most wonderful boss in the world.”
I let him have his bit of vanity. Acknowledging it with nothing more than a smile, I say, “A princess. Doesn't every child? I actually held onto that dream a lot longer than most. It took me a while to work out I'd been born into the wrong family.”
“You don't have any sisters or brothers, do you?” he asks.
“Sadly, no. I don't know why, but there's just me. I’d have liked siblings. But it wasn’t my choice, and it's not the sort of conversation I could ever have with my parents.”
“Why not?”
“Because maybe they tried and me asking would remind them of the pain. Maybe they only ever wanted one child and me asking would imply dissatisfaction with their choice. And it’s too late to change anything.”
I lean back as the waiter arrives to collect our empty plates and replace them with full ones. When he leaves, Anders leans forward again, his eyes glittering in the golden-hued light. “Effie said your parents are in Angola?”
“For the time being. My mum and dad have lived all over the world. Dad’s in the oil industry,” I say, making it sound way more glamourous than the health and safety compliance officer he is. “Every couple of years it's a new country. When the accident rate in a facility gets to an unacceptable level – and believe me, they don’t set that bar low – he gets sent in.It normally takes two to three years to turn it around, and he’s moved on to the next place.”
