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‘He only has a single mattress in his bedroom.’ I regret the words as soon as they’re out.
‘You were in hisbedroom?’ she shrieks. ‘This I have to hear. For such a platonic relationship, beds seem to be featuring an awful lot, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘It’s not like that,’ I tell her hotly. ‘He’s renovating a house, and he showed me around it at the weekend, that’s all.’
‘So you’re seeing each other outside work?’
I’m getting annoyed with her now. ‘Stop reading more into everything than there is. I had to do some health and safety training on how to use ladders, and he offered his scaffolding for me to practise on.’
‘Sorry, but that sounds like the plot of a porno movie.’ She puts the husky voice back on. ‘Come and see my scaffolding. There is a really long pole I’d like to show you. Next thing you know, he’ll be round to fix your washing machine and you’ll have to pay him in kind.’
‘I don’t have a washing machine. I have to go to the laundrette.’
Thankfully, this little nugget is enough to divert her, and she goes back into outrage mode about how Atkinson Construction are taking advantage of me. When I tell her about my conversations with Deborah, she’s all for leaping into her car, driving round to Deborah’s house, and shoving a few of Teddy’s looser turds through the letterbox. Now that I’ve got her off the scent of the non-existent romance between Noah and me, I’m enjoying the conversation much more, and I’m smiling broadly by the time we disconnect.
* * *
‘So, I’ve got my nickname. I’m Carol,’ I say to Noah the following Saturday. He’s managed to coax me up to the second storey of the scaffolding, where my reward is helping paint the soffits and fascia boards at the top of the house. I was seriously wobbly when I finally made it up here, but I’m slowly acclimatising and, although I’m not completely relaxed, my heart has stopped pounding. I know I’ve got to get down at some point, but I’ll deal with that when it happens.
‘I heard John calling you that. It’s a good sign, means he’s accepted you. Do you know how he got there?’
‘Yeah, it was a toss-up between Carol and Wendy, apparently.’
‘I didn’t hear about Wendy. Where did she come from?’
‘John’s grandkids are intoBob the Builder, and Bob’s business partner slash love interest is a woman called Wendy, apparently. Anyway, he decided that was too obvious and ditched it.’
‘If we were going withBob the Buildercharacters, I’d have called you Lofty, after the crane that doesn’t like heights,’ Noah laughs.
‘Shut up, boat boy. Anyway, how come you’re such an expert on children’s TV? Is there a Mrs Noah and a brood of baby Noahs somewhere, waiting anxiously for their real-life Bob the Builder to come home?’ Ava would be proud of me. This is just curiosity though, nothing more. I will confess to the occasional sideways glance at his biceps, which are flexing in a most attractive way as he moves the paintbrush, but there’s no intent in it. If I’ve conquered my fear of heights enough to make it up here, I’ll take all the rewards I can get, thank you.
‘No Mrs Noah or baby Noahs,’ he replies. ‘My sister’s children watch it and, naturally, they think I’m just like him. Anyway, tell me how you ended up as Carol.’
‘Typically convoluted. He’s decided that, as project manager, I’m the numbers bird, as he puts it. That led him to the TV programmeCountdown. Do you know it?’
‘I’ve seen it. That’s the one where the contestants pick random consonants and vowels, and then have to make the longest word they can think of.’
‘That’s the one. There’s also a maths round, where they pick a load of numbers, and then have to add, subtract, multiply and divide in order to get as close as they can to a number set by the computer.’
‘I’d forgotten about that.’
‘At the end, the co-presenter tells them how to do it, and she’s the numbers bird. John named me after her.’
‘Umm, isn’t the numbers bird Rachel Riley?’
‘Naturally, but this is John we’re talking about, so you have to go back a few years.’
‘Ah. Carol Vorderman.’
‘Exactly.’
‘How are you getting on with him? He’s obviously softened to you.’
‘Yeah, I could do without him calling me “darlin’” and referring to me as a “bird”, but other than that, I think we’re making progress. He was very pleased with his roof trusses when the right ones turned up on Wednesday.’
‘I always thought the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach,’ Noah smiles.
‘Unless you’re John, it seems.’
