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‘No, I went to the gym after I’d finished and had one there so I’ll only be five minutes.’
‘Okay, I’ll throw them in the pan now then.’
Bruce nodded and trudged upstairs. She caught his scent as he drifted past her, manly and clean and she felt desire rise up inside her. Or was it desperation because she couldn’t have him and needed the confirmation that he still wanted her? She wondered if the smell of her skin, her perfume still triggered chemical changes within him. They were far too young to have a celibate relationship; she needed to get them back on track and if that meant trying every trick in the book and bending any way possible to make it happen, then she would.
He arrived downstairs just as she was putting the warmed plates onto the table. The steaks looked every bit as good as those they’d had at Birtwell Manor, with the added bonus that all his favourite must-haves were catered for:cheesy potatoes, caramelised carrots, onions, buttered sugar snap peas.
She poured a glass of Chablis and handed it to him.
‘Oh, that’s good,’ he said, appraising the first taste. ‘I’m ready for this. I’ve had a pig of a day, I’m absolutely knackered.’
‘You should have given the gym a miss then,’ she said.
‘Yeah… I probably should have.’ He sat down at the table ready to be fed. She didn’t say that she was pretty tired out herself after a hard week filled with translating Party Wall Acts into decipherable English, chasing council members for answers, having arguments with neighbours, doing admin for her bosses, cleaning two houses, washing, ironing, trying to calm down a distressed mother, shopping, ordering tablets, picking up tablets, fixing roller blinds, changing beds because all that heaped on a scale would not weigh heavier than Bruce’s tasks. His was a job, hers was just ‘stuff of life’.
‘Sunny rang earlier on,’ she said, sitting down opposite him. ‘He’s going to visit Mum on Monday morning so I said I’d pop round. He sounds okay.’
‘Course he’s okay,’ replied Bruce, picking up his cutlery.
‘He said he’d given up asking Angela and Simon if we could contribute to the wedding costs.’
‘Good,’ said Bruce. ‘Snotty bastards.’
Shay knew there was a bit of jealousy there. Bruce would have killed for their his and hers Range Rovers and holiday villa in Cyprus. They’d only met Sunny’s future in-laws once, at the ridiculously over-the-top engagement party held in the garden of their ten-bedroomed (and ten-bathroomed, as they took immense pride in flaunting) house with orchard, orangery and sauna suite. They were an odd couple: Angela, wobbly and round, loud – a typicalnouveau-riche show-off; Simon, so dull and quiet, a walking shade of grey. It was his business brain that had brought in the revenue but his wife who held the purse-strings.
‘I hope we don’t have to see them before the wedding,’ said Bruce. ‘Please tell me they’re not having one of those rehearsals in church.’
‘I haven’t heard anything.’
‘And I’m not wearing a top hat either and looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy just for their bleeding amusement.’
Shay wanted to laugh at that but didn’t. ‘Then don’t wear one.’
Bruce speared a carrot.
‘I hope she doesn’t get pregnant quick either. We’ve enough on having to deal with your mother and your father and no doubt Courtney’s gearing up for a new disaster.’
Shay’s brain questioned the use of that ‘we’. Bruce had done very little for her parents and it was always she who’d had to deal with Courtney’s escapades over the years. He’d just roll his eyes and withhold her pocket money for a week. Now he’d hold up a flat palm to it all, turn his head and say, ‘I don’t want to know. She’s old enough to sort herself out.’
‘We don’t have any control over that, do we?’ Shay replied, though she secretly hoped the same. ‘And as for my parents, well, I can’t not look after them, Bruce. They looked after me for long enough.’
‘Yeah, I get that. I just mean I don’t want to be a free babysitter any time soon on top of everything else.’
‘Well, Karoline’s a career woman isn’t she, so I expect they’ll wait a while to have any children,’ Shay said. Something else she didn’t want to think about because Karoline’s mother was a textbook monopoliser – another battle waiting up the road for them.
‘Steak’s nice,’ said Bruce, mid-chew.
At home she cooked it medium for him, so he’d eat it all. She sometimes wondered if he imagined the chefs in hotel kitchens reading his order chit and saying, ‘Wow – what a man, he takes his steak rare’ and doffing their toques in reverence.
‘I’m working all weekend,’ Bruce said then, eating at speed like Oliver Twist on his first bowl of gruel.
‘Really?’
‘Sooner I finish the job, the sooner I’ll get paid, so yes.’
‘Did you manage to show any builders the photos of Mum’s house yet?’
Bruce shook his head, an exasperated slow movement.
