Eventually, the letterbox rattled, quickly followed by an expensive engine purring away into the distance.
I counted to ten, ran down the stairs and then spent an age clearing the stack of old paint pots, deckchairs, plastic tubs full of nails and boxes bulging with Betamax videos before I could squeeze my arm round to reach the note pushed through the letterbox. F. F. Fisher (headed paper) asked me to call, again offering to buy the house for well above market value.
Why was he so interested in Charlotte Meadows’ old cottage?
I ripped up the note and got back to my washing.
Forty minutes of wringing and squeezing later, I picked the bits of note out of the bin and pieced them back together, copying Fisher’s number onto a scrap of paper. One day the house would be finished. If I was still living without basic appliances then, I might just consider Fisher’s offer. After all, I’d never even met Charlotte Meadows. Staying here out of sentimentality would be stupid and pointless, right? Perhaps I would feel more sentimental about a decent kitchen and living closer to civilisation.
I blew my nose, wiped the tears – now mysteriously falling – and got back to work.
15
That evening, we convened the first meeting for theChristmas Book Club Challenge. Once everyone had a slice of warm apple cake, Ellen called us to order.
‘Good to see you all here. I hope you’ve been enjoying your challenge and have some stories to share. Who’s going first?’
Sarah volunteered. She’d been dying to tell us all about her first Lovelife!date.
‘So, my challenge is to find a man who’s not a lazy, selfish, untrustworthy waster,’ she announced.
‘That shouldn’t be too hard!’ Ellen said.
‘Yeah, but he also has to be interesting, kind, love kids, properly like me and be single.’
I snuck a glance at Jamie. He looked like a stunned bear.
‘Apart from that I’m keeping an open mind. But, I thought, why not kick off with the best-looking bloke on the app? He didn’t seem a total deadbeat, so we arranged to meet at Scarlett’s for a drink. I spruced myself up, dropped Edison at the Dud’s and sat in the car park until I was ten minutes late, so’s not to seem too keen.
‘First impressions: miraculously, Tom looked even better in real life. Bought me a drink, didn’t ogle my boobs or anything. It was a cracking start. My heart wasracing, ladies and gentleman. It ain’t thumped like that in a while.’
The gentleman opposite me looked as though he might need CPR.
‘And?’ Ashley leant forward, her necklaces tapping on the table, voice slightly breathless.
‘And then he started talking.’ She paused, looking round at us all. ‘And talking. And then a load more talking. I bought us another drink, and he talked some more. It became pretty obvious what his favourite topic of conversation was: Tom. Main hobby? Tom. Primary interest? Tom. What was he looking for in a relationship? My guess, a mirror. Not a real-life woman with a brain and a mouth of her own. I don’t know if a woman exists who’d enjoy listening to him r-a-a-amble on about how awesome and fit and brilliant he is. But I’m not that woman. In my opinion, nobody should spend an hour describing their daily fitness routine. Let alone on a date. I could tell you what this man had for breakfast. He probably couldn’t tell you my name.
‘So, lesson learnt: unnaturally good-looking, may equal, unnaturally self-centred and boring. I’m going to try a boy-next-door type next.’
Jamie, now seeming a little less shell-shocked, looked thoughtful. Perhaps he was figuring out how to move next door, given that Sarah’s only neighbours were squirrels and foxes.
‘Thanks, Sarah,’ Ellen said. ‘We’ll look forward to hearing future instalments. Who’s next? Lucille?’
Lucille tucked a strand of glossy hair behind her ear. ‘My challenge is to run a marathon. But I wouldn’t want to bore you by going on about my fitness regime.’ She tossed Sarah a sour glance.
‘Well, why not tell us something else, instead?’ Jamie said. ‘Why pick this challenge? What’s training been like?’
Lucille talked for a few minutes about how she spent most of her time at work, or with her kids and husband, and rarely any time alone, just by and for herself. So, she now got up every morning at six and ran. Sometimes she used the time to think, sometimes just tobe. She had made it up to five K in the first month, her feet were sore, her shins ached and she’d lost three pounds. The sound of her kids whining ‘Mu-u-u-u-mm-e-e-e’ no longer made her feel like sticking her face in the blender. She was addicted.
Jamie then brought out a large plastic tub. ‘I have quite a… physical job, as you know.’ He wiped one hand across his brow. After leaving the army, Jamie had started a ‘problem resolution’ company specialising in resolving the kind of problems he couldn’t talk about, for security reasons. Reasons such as those ‘problems’ might come and kick the crap out of him. Or blow up his car.
He was on first-name terms with police superintendents, politicians and leading figures in industry. Ellen told me that last year he’d spent New Year’s Eve with the National Security Advisor. He often worked with Kiko’s husband, Adam, when things at the charity got sticky, which was how he’d heard about the book club. He frequently disappeared for days at a time at very short notice. Yet, in the past two years, he’d only missed two book-club nights. A third time he turned up late, with black paint smeared across his face and a three-inch gash along his forearm held together with duct tape. He calmly discussed the historical crime novel, drank coffee, ate chilli popcorn and patted Florence before disappearing back into the night.
But just get that sneaky, badass, fearless warrior who vacuum-packed villains for breakfast in the same room as Sarah, and see his muscles tremble. He swallowed, picked up the tub, put it down again.
‘My job can be quite stressful. And violent. Leaving it behind, to switch back to being, well, human again, can be hard. So, for my challenge I thought I’d do something homely. The opposite of kicking a vicious psychopath in the windpipe. I made these.’
He opened the box with his battle-scarred hands, and tipped it up to show rows of cupcakes, half iced pink and covered in white roses, the rest blue and topped with miniature rainbows.
