Page 38 of Just for the Season

‘Really?’ I take a moment to thank the server for my drink, which he’s just placed on the table. ‘Roderick, but really?’

‘Oh, after your grandfather. That’s lovely. And yes, really. You never know.’ Frankie tastes her drink. ‘That is good. It might rival apple juice and champagne.’

‘What’s your middle name?’

‘Haven’t got one. And Frankie is short for Francesca.’

‘Got it.’ I take a poppadom and some mint sauce. ‘Can’t beat a Saturday night Thai.’

‘Very true.’

‘Favourite condiment?’ I grin at her. ‘Honestly, I don’t know whether I’m going to be able to talk to you without posing “favourite” questions.’

‘Hmm, maybe we should be daring and branch out from favourites. We could also venture down bests and worsts. Like… worst ever day at work? Actually.’ She pauses. ‘This is a question that I should know the answer to. What’s your job? If you work. Obviously I shouldn’t assume that you do.’

‘I do work but I’ll have to kill you if I tell you exactly what I do.’ I regret the words as soon as I say them.

‘Oh my goodness, is that true? Please tell me it is; I’ve always wanted someone to say it to me and mean it.’

‘Pleased to be of service,’ I say, because now I’ve started this I have no option but to continue. ‘Yes, it’s true.’

‘Wow. Are you a spy?’

‘Nope. And, also, you won’t guess. And, also, I have absolutely no idea why I said it because I could just have told you my cover, and now I’m going to tell you that and you have to forget I ever said what I said or, as aforementioned, I will have to kill you.’ I think I’ve gone mad. I never allude to this even vaguely, let alone explicitly like this. I can’t even blame it on alcohol.

‘This is amazing,’ Frankie breathes. ‘For this, I’m almost happy to have humiliated myself so spectacularly with the whole drunken fake boyfriend announcement. So what’s your cover?’

‘Dairy farmer.’ I really cannot understand why I told her that it’s a cover. It is a cover for my main job, but it’s also true. There was no need whatsoever for me to say anything else. I think I got seduced by our conversation, genuinely telling each other stuff. Or just by her smile; I’m not sure. ‘Genuinely, please ignore what I said before and don’t repeat it to anyone, including Ellie. If that’s okay. I have no idea why I said it.’

Frankie looks at me for a long moment and then nods. ‘I mean, I am the queen of saying something and immediately regretting it. That’s the entire reason we’re here right now. I can’t tell you how much I immediately regretted the “Marcus is my boyfriend” thing. So, yeah, I’m going to assume that you meant the whole you-can’t-tell-anyone thing, and I’m not going to tell anyone else about it.’ She tilts her head to one side for a moment, thinking, and then smiles, like she’s kind of laughing internally. ‘You know if you wanted to mess with someone’s mind that would be a great line to pull. Like I will now wonder forever if you are in fact a spy. And every time there’s something like a Novichok incident within a hundred miles, I’ll be like hmmmm.’

‘Yeah, you don’t want to get on the wrong end of my poisoned umbrella. Yeah, no, not a spy.’

Frankie leans forwards and says, very seriously, ‘That is what a spy would say, isn’t it?’

‘Would a spy stupidly tell you that they couldn’t tell you or they’d have to kill you?’

‘Well, duh,’ she says. ‘A stupid spy would. Or a cunning one who thought I might notice something odd about them and needed to double bluff.’

‘Very true. Although would a cunning one display any oddness?’ I sit back in my chair as Frankie considers that very valid point. ‘Anyway, I do agree that was very inconsiderate of me. You’ll never know.’

‘I will allow the inconsiderateness,’ she says, ‘purely because I was even more inconsiderate roping you into this.’

I pretend to consider her point but, really, I don’t need to consider it, because this fake relationship is, I realise, no particular hardship, given that Ruby and Sam are cool with it. If they’d been upset it would have been a disaster. But they weren’t; they just thought it was funny. And I have to say, this is a much better Saturday evening than I would have been having at home.

‘Evens,’ I say, and raise my glass.

Frankie laughs and raises hers too.

We stray away from fact finding, and just have normal conversation through our starters, until we break for the server to clear the table.

When he leaves us, Frankie says, ‘So where do you think we are on acceptable levels of knowledge about each other for a couple?’

Out of nowhere I think that I have no idea what it’s like to kiss her, and as her boyfriend I should know that. I’m not her boyfriend, however, and clearly I never will be.

‘What’s your favourite colour?’ I ask, clutching at straws to push the unwelcome kissing thought away.

‘Purple. Yours?’