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‘Look, I’m getting confused. You said that you wanted me to meet your parents. Is that guy your father?’
‘No.’
‘Then I don’t get—’
‘They are the closest thing I’ve got to you meeting my family right now.My mum is in Nepal at a yoga retreat.I told you that already.’ Thea knew that he wouldn’t be meeting her mum any time soon. Her mum was always travelling and was into learning something new on her travels. A few months ago it was cooking exotic dishes and visiting the souk in Marrakesh to seek out spices to take with her to the cookery classes she was attending as part of her trip. Now she was into yoga. It sounded, from the postcards she’d sent, as though she rather fancied learning the craft and becoming a yoga teacher.
Thea remembered reading that and thinking that her mum probably wouldn’t get that far before she lost interest and moved on to something else. What Thea would have loved was for her mum to come home, but with her state pension, and the rent from the upstairs flat, it turned out cheaper for her to spend the autumn and winter abroad.
Thea had grown up in this house. Her mum had decided to convert the house into two flats and gift the ground-floor flat to Thea. Thea’s older sister was married, and would eventually own the flat upstairs; their mum had placed it in a trust for her.
Thea felt so lucky to have her own place in London. She didn’t imagine many young women in their early thirties were that fortunate. What she would do with it if and when she married, Thea hadn’t decided. Why would she? Thea gave Miles a sideways glance. The topic of marriage and settling down permanently together had not, so far, come up. That was because of his work. But Thea wasn’t exactly pressuring him to change their long-distance relationship.
‘Don’t touch that!’ She caught him absently picking up one of her cookbooks.
He put it down on the kitchen counter.
Thea picked it up and slipped it back in its rightful place, where he’d found it. The cookbooks were on a shelf above the kitchen worktop, organised in alphabetical order. It wasn’t just the cookbooks that she’d carefully arranged. Everything in her flat had its place.Thea liked her orderly flat and her orderly life.She wasn’t quite sure how a guy would fit, living there properly. Miles only ever stayed a few days on a flying visit, and then left. Would she cope with the possibility of having to clear up after someone else, with more laundry and piles of ironing, and with someone else using her stuff and not putting things back just so?
She’d had a taste of what it might be like on one occasion when he’d stayed a few nights in one go. It wasn’t like him; he normally came over for a night or two and then had to leave. Sometimes he had late work commitments, and the only time they got to spend together was a few hours over dinner. But she’d experienced what it was like to have somebody leaving dirty clothes on the floor. He had picked them up, but she was concerned about the fact that such things bothered her. How could she live with someone twenty-four-seven if she lifted off when a cookbook was out of place? She had realised that she only felt everything was under control when she could control her environment.
Thea stared at Miles. She didn’t want to think about that right now. What she did want to think about was the reason she was cooking dinner. Despite her reservations about eventually moving in together, she wanted the evening to work. Miles wasn’t helping.
‘And your dad?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘You said they were like your substitute parents.’
‘That’s not quite what I said.’ In all the time they’d been together, he’d never taken much of an interest in her background or her parents. Whenever she had brought up her past, his eyes had glazed over, and she had been pretty sure he wasn’t listening.
She watched him shake his head in frustration. ‘Whatever. But what about Edward?’
Thea smiled. ‘Edward has been like a father to me since I was nine. He is a close friend of my mum’s.’
‘Close? How close?’
‘Just a family friend. He’s been happily married for forty years.’
Miles walked up to the kitchen door and opened it a crack. He turned around, and whispered, ‘So, where’s his wife?’
Thea didn’t know what to say to that. She had invited Edward’s wife too, but Edward had said that she had a prior engagement and couldn’t come.
Thea checked the timer on the oven, then turned down the heat under the vegetables.
‘You never speak of him, I notice.’
‘Him – who?’
‘Your father.’
Thea stared at him. ‘There’s nothing to talk about. He disappeared when I was nine, and we never heard from him again.’
‘God, I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah, well – that’s all in the past. It’s been twenty-five years.’
Miles walked over and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘You still miss him, don’t you?’
