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Betsy grins, picks up the teaspoon. At the first mouthful of the dessert, she closes her eyes in apparent bliss.
Miranda turns to the sink and begins to wash out a small saucepan. ‘Always have to do the pesto pan by hand,’ she says, scrubbing at it. ‘The dishwasher bakes it on. Then there’s green specks over everything. Tell you what, you only make that mistake once.’ She laughs, places the pan upside down on the drainer. Wipes her hands on her jeans, then rests them on the edge of the sink for a moment. She does not turn to face him.
The air is strange. Sam is not sure why. ‘Are you OK?’
She turns then, but her smile is weird. ‘Of course! And I won’t tell, don’t worry. Who would I tell anyway? I barely go out!’
Sam wonders if he should have told her sooner, when all he had was suspicions. He probably should have. Since his schoolmate Si left for Ireland, Miranda is the closest thing he has to a best friend. The lads are great, but…
But she’s asking him about the job now, and he comes to his senses. They have completed the new paving, he tells her, and the plan tomorrow is to set the stilts in concrete for the decking.
It is only as he leaves that the subject of Naomi comes up again.
‘I’m so pleased for you, mate,’ Miranda says when he stops in the doorway. He has the impression she has got over whatever it was. ‘I hope it works out. Just…’ She pauses, her nose wrinkling.
‘Just what?’
With some effort, she meets his eye. Hers are a tawny amber colour, like autumn. ‘Just be careful, that’s all. Don’t want to see you get hurt again.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ll keep my wits about me.’
CHAPTER 16
OK, so Imayhave invented the bit about tawny amber – not the colour, but him noticing in that moment and not thinking muddy pond or mouldy lentils or something. You can’t blame a girl for hoping. And as we got to know one another and his shyness fell away, he did look into my eyes more and more when he spoke to me, as I did into his, so he can’t have found the sight of them completely revolting.
Wedgwood blue, in case you’re wondering. His.
Sam arrives at the Harbour a little before eight. They are only serving drinks outside still, but there are heaters on the balcony. It being a Monday and not tourist season, the place is empty. He orders a pint of Otter and bags the table directly under the heater.
Naomi arrives only five minutes late, dressed in a thick khaki parka coat, navy-blue scarf and matching beanie hat. At the sight of her, he stands abruptly, knocks the table and sends a splash of ale onto the zinc top.
‘Hi.’ He reaches a tentative hand towards her upper arm and aims to kiss her on the cheek. The kiss doesn’t land and neither does his hand, but she doesn’t swerve to avoid him, so he presses on, asks her what she’d like to drink.
‘Diet Coke.’
‘Diet Coke! Right you are.’
When he returns, they say cheers and she says she’d join him in a real drink but she’s driving, and he can’t help but notice that this too is new: she never drove drunk but she would always have a couple, which probably put her a little over the limit, especially as she barely ate anything.
Politely, rather formally, he thanks her for coming over to Lyme.
‘I’m bored of Bridport,’ she says. ‘To be honest, I barely go out anymore.’
Miranda said the same thing earlier; it glances on their reason for meeting. An uncomfortable silence falls.
‘So, do you want to start?’ he asks, determined to learn from his mistake last time and be open to conversation instead of trying to take control. From experience, he knows it’s better to let Naomi lead.
‘Listen, I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘About everything.’
He feels the chair thump against his back. He has never heard her say sorry before, not like that, not in all the time they were together.
‘Don’t be,’ he says, but she holds up a hand.
‘No, it’s important. I need to apologise. I should have told you about Tommy. I was going to, but then the weeks went on and I think I was in a bit of shock. I had a lot of anger, and before I knew where I was, it was the twenty-week scan and by then Jo and I were like this little unit, you know? We even talked about raising it together – did you know she can’t have kids? And then it felt too late to tell you because I should’ve told you sooner and I guess I just put my head in the sand. It was too much. I’ve never been that maternal, you know that, and my mum wasn’t… I mean, she’s not around anymore and I just found it so, so hard.’ Her eyes gloss. She blinks. ‘Yeah, it was hard. It was… a lot.’ She drinks, her eyes darting to the boatyard, to the sandy beach beyond.
‘You don’t have to explain.’ He holds up his hands. ‘I get it. The way we left things wasn’t… It was bad. I’m sorry for my part in that. And I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I thought if I called, you’d think… I mean, we both needed to recover.’
She nods, her gaze fixed on the tabletop.
