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I just sit there feeling his hand on my arm and the suggestion that’s there and I want to go home, I want to go home, oh, right about now, except Jess is making him laugh.
‘We should really think about it…’ Jess says. ‘You and Luke can play golf and Lucy and I can just laze by the pool by day…
Luke hands me my drink and I catch his eye. I so don’t want to go on holiday with him.
Nor him with me.
I taste the warm brandy as Jess prattles on, but it doesn’t warm me and I shiver a bit. I don’t know if limitless alcohol would be such a good idea with us four. Yes, Jess and I are best friends, he and Luke are best friends…
Now.
But they didn’t speak for two years though, apparently thanks to me. His hand is still stroking my arm and I take another sip of my brandy and I try to think of a polite reason to end this discussion now. ‘I don’t know if it would be much fun for Charlotte,’ I say, and his hand stops stroking my arm.
‘Let’s get you home…’ I’m relieved when he drops a kiss on my cheek and we say our goodnights. I offer to drive, because I've only had two, or three because I remember the brandy.
Make that four given the size of drinks Luke pours.
‘I'm fine,’ he says as I go to get the keys from him and we sort of have a little joke scuffle. The next thing I know, I'm against the car and he's giving me the kiss that he wanted to at the front door, or it’s a bit more than that, because his hands are on my bum he's pulling me in. I can feel that he’s a bit turned on and I'm turned on too.
‘Get a room, you two,’ Luke shouts from the door and we stop. There’s night laughter as we climb in the car and then we toot and wave and drive off, but as we turn out of their street, as I will his hand to my thigh, he turns to me. ‘Don't you ever embarrass me like that…’ he really lets me have it in the car on the way home. No, he hasn’t forgotten what I said at dinner. ‘Don’t you ever insinuate that I can’t…’
‘It was a joke,’ I say. ‘And they all know that it was a bloody joke.’
It doesn’t appease him; he’s still pissed off.
Well I’m pissed off now too and I tell him I am.
‘So what was all that back there?’ I demand and then I realise it was all for show.
Out go my plans and in comes a fight.
I tell him that I’m sick of them bringing up Gloria, I’m sick of hearing her name.
‘Yeah, well at least she knew how to behave at work things.’
I feel like crying, I am so pissed off, because yet again Gloria has messed up my night.
We say nothing till we hit the village.
‘It’s up for sale again.’ He slows down as we pass the cottage in High Street that he’s always got his eye on and I know he’s just doing it to rattle me, but I don’t say anything and then we pull into our street and there’s my house.
My beautiful house.
It’s detached with a big carriage drive and huge mature shrubs. Okay, I sound like an estate agent, but I love my house, even though we’re mortgaged to the hilt and with loans that I don't even want to think about. He thinks we should downsize, after all we've only got Charlotte, but there’s no way we’re moving - the only way I’ll leave here is in a wooden box.
Any fleeting, futile hope of a shag is out, because he’s checking his phone the second we’re in the door. He pours himself a decent drink and takes it upstairs and I’m just left there, just standing there, and I’m angry and I’m upset and I don’t really know what went wrong tonight.
I don’t know what’s wrong.
I remember his kiss, the suggestive way he was stroking my arm, all the promise of tonight and I’m still sort of… I don’t know, turned on….
I think of Jess and she’s got a real live thirty eight year old one, and a battery operated one too, and three quarters of an ice cream cake in her freezer. I don’t get it, because if I had ice cream in the freezer, I’d never sleep. Only tonight, it isn’t ice cream that I want!
I’m back to my friend Google and I type in words. After a few goes I’ve found what I’m looking for – and it promises discreet postage. I’m off to my handbag, to the zipped up bit, and then to another zipped up bit, which holds the credit card he doesn’t know about. I click the purchase button and I am told that in 2-3 business days it will be here.
It just doesn’t help tonight.
I head to the conservatory and I set up for breakfast.
I’m actually tired now and I really do just want to take my make up off and go to bed, but my routines are too important to let a little thing like exhaustion stop me. I go back into the kitchen and pull croissants and bread out of the freezer and arrange them in a basket and cover them with a cloth. Then I make some bircher muesli and put it in the fridge to soak and then I fill the kettle with water, so it just has to be flicked on in the morning. I find my routines soothing and they work their magic tonight. I take one last look at my gleaming kitchen before I turn out the light and head up to bed but I see my reflection in the conservatory windows and the anger starts to fizz again - Luke’s wrong.
They are jealous.
And they have every reason to be.
For the most part.
I’m so angry about tonight. I just don’t get how, by the time I get up to bed, he’ll be asleep.
I feel like waking him up and shaking him.
I feel like telling him that this house is the love of my life and not him.
If I sound shallow and superficial, I don’t care.
I know I’m not.
I know why I’m here.
And I know why I’m staying.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Come on!’ I walk into Charlotte’s room to tell her to get in the shower, and see her chatting away on her mobile. ‘You can speak to them at school…’
‘But it’s Alice,’ she says, and I must have turned purple because she quickly concludes the call. ‘She rang me,’ Charlotte lies. As flaky as Alice is, surely even she wouldn’t be stupid enough to call a mobile phone from Australia.
I’m telling Charlotte the same as he comes in.
Or rather, I’m shouting.
‘Go easy on her, Lucy.’ Of course he takes her side. ‘She’s only talking to her sister.’
Half sister.
But I don’t say it.
Things have been a little tense since Saturday night and I do not want to open that can of worms again, but it’s another thing they don’t tell you when you marry that sexy older guy - he comes with baggage. In this case, apart from Saint Gloria, there are three grown up children. Thankfully, two of them live in Australia, but Eleanor, the eldest, lives nearby. Her husband, Noel is doing Charlotte’s braces, the invisible ones that cost a fortune, but we’re getting them cheap - that’s about the only perk to him having children– honestly. It would have been so much easier without them, because three more dysfunctional people you could not hope to meet.
‘I’d like a bit of back up here,’ I tell him. I can feel my face is all red and Charlotte is crying. ‘She’s been calling Alice again on her mobile phone.’
‘Use the house phone next time,’ he tells Charlotte.
Is that it?
Is that all he has to say about it? God, Charlotte’s got him wrapped around her little finger, she really does.
Which reminds me.
I’m just about to tackle him about the new pony when the house phone rings, and suddenly my morning turns to wonderful. ‘Of course,’ I say to Simone. ‘Bring her over. No, that’s fine,’ I smile. ‘Felicity can have breakfast here.’
‘What have you got on today?’ he asks as he sits down at the table in the conservatory.
‘I’ve got yoga and then the doctor’s…’
‘The doctor’s?’
‘I told you,’ I say.
I didn’t.
‘Is there any chance you can take in my watch -it’s got a scratch on the face.’
‘I’ve got a specialist appointment.’ I’m as indignant that he’s forgotten as I would be if I had told him.
‘It will only take half an hour, Lucy.’
‘I’m out all day. I’m going to struggle to get to school, to pick up Charlotte on time, as it is.’
Because I can’t do his watch today, I’m reminded of another job that’s outstanding. ‘Remember, you need to sort out the stable and the float… I want it cleaned up this week and sold.’
‘Look,’ I walk over to him.
‘Sort it, Lucy,’ he says and then sighs when I reach the table.
‘I’ve been thinking…’
‘I bet you have.’ Only he doesn’t say it with an edge. The row we had, or rather, the row we didn’t have, dissolves away and he pulls me onto his knee. I actually think we both regret the way it ended the other night, I really do, because I think he’s remembering the last time I was on his lap and how it could have worked out had we been a bit more nice to each other. He’s got this half smile on his face, one that says he knows what’s coming and I play with his tie a bit.
‘She really loved having a pony,’ I tell him.
‘Don’t you want your life back Lucy?’ He’s still smiling. ‘Up at five in the morning, pony club every weekend…’
