Page 42 of Just for the Season

‘Yes. With my…’ He pauses for a very long time and then says, ‘Ex-wife.’

From the slightly awkward way he mentioned her I’m guessing he really doesn’t want to talk about it, so I just say lightly, ‘It sounds amazing. I’m really looking forward to fake-going there. Did you see all the sights when you went?’

‘Yeah… some of them. Beautiful city. Anyway. That was a great evening, thank you.’

‘No, thank you,’ I say. ‘You moved my stuff and you took me for dinner, and you put up with me asking you a lot of questions that you then pointed out were completely unnecessary.’

Marcus laughs. ‘Yeah, when you put it like that, I’m a complete angel.’

There’s a sudden tapping on the outside of my window.

I scream, like I’m in a B-rate horror movie – utterly terrified for one split second that there’s a murderer outside the window – and then Marcus presses a button on his side to roll the window down. ‘Good evening, Mrs Bittern,’ he says to the white-haired woman I can now see standing there peering in at us.

‘Good evening,’ I say, trying hard to pretend that I wasn’t screaming like a banshee approximately twenty seconds ago.

Mrs Bittern – who I do now recognise – is very elderly, possibly older even than Gran, and lives just along the road from the café. She’s very short, which I think is what caused me to think some sort of murderous headless monster was tapping on the window.

‘Even I heard that scream,’ she says, cackling. ‘And I’m very deaf. You were scared.’

‘Ha, yes,’ I agree. ‘A little bit.’

‘A little bit a lot.’ She’s still cackling.

Marcus is now chuckling by my side.

I smile too, to humour them both.

‘Nice evening out somewhere?’ Mrs Bittern asks when she can speak again through her mirth.

‘We went to the Jade Elephant in Chartfield,’ Marcus tells her.

‘That’s a very nice restaurant for a pair of lovebirds,’ she says. ‘Well, I won’t keep you. You’ll be wanting to get upstairs to the flat and get canoodling without people like me getting in your way.’

I wince, and instinctively check how Marcus is looking. He also has an expression of pain on his face.

‘I would love, obviously, to go upstairs and canoodle,’ he says after a short pause, ‘but unfortunately I have to get back to the kids.’

‘I thought they were staying at Rob and Miranda’s tonight?’ Mrs Bittern says. It is truly unbelievable how everyone knows everything in this village.

‘You are absolutely right,’ Marcus says. ‘I forgot. Well, thank goodness. We can canoodle.’

‘Let’s do it,’ I say, very chirpily. ‘Let’s go upstairs. How lovely to see you, Mrs Bittern. Good evening.’

‘Enjoy yourselves.’ She gives us an enormous wink. ‘Remember you’re only young once. Make the most of it.’

Mrs Bittern is a slow walker, and therefore she remains within earshot the whole time we’re getting out of the car and opening the front door to the café. We therefore talk at length about the stars in the sky and the weather forecast.

‘Have fun,’ she calls as we go inside.

I begin to giggle, hard, as Marcus closes the door on the sound of her cackle.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I gasp, ‘for dragging you into this.’

‘If I’m honest—’ Marcus is now really laughing too ‘—the whole thing was worth it for all the canoodling chat.’ He looks round in the direction of the window and then back at me, with his face screwed up (very attractively, actually – purely an objective observation). ‘I think we might need to go upstairs because our silhouettes are visible from outside. As in… not much point coming this far and then not doing things properly. As it were.’

‘Oh dear, yes, very good point. Okay. So. Let’s go and have a glass of water. I have no actual drinks, apart from the champagne.’

‘Great.’