‘Brilliant. I’m having an unexpected-in-laws-for-dinner emergency and I’ve not eaten all day.’ She grabbed the top of my scone and crammed half of it in her mouth, crumbs spraying everywhere. Grimacing, briefly, she then winked, mouth bulging, before resuming the march out of the bakery. ‘Hup, two, three, four. Come on, troops, what comes after four?’
I sat and watched her line up the boys to cross the empty road. But, as they stepped off the pavement, one of them attempted to go AWOL, his little legs powering down the road. Dropping the bags, which bounced off the edge of the kerb, Ellen snatched up the other boys’ hands and raced after him.
While she shooed the absconder to the safety of the grass verge, I hurried outside to retrieve the shopping. As I scrambled after the contents, now rolling across the street, a familiar-looking taxi careened out of a side road and headed straight towards me. I scrabbled to get out of the way, but as the car veered to avoid a collision it ran right over two of the bags, the contents of which exploded in a shower of cream, eggs, passata and what smelt like vinegar. Nice.
I flicked the globules from my hair, smeared the cream off my face and wondered if it would be okay to eat it.
Tezza wound down his window. ‘Are you a complete idiot? Standing in the main road, waggling yer backside at unsuspecting drivers? If it warn’t fer me superior road skills I’d’ve hit one of them kids.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘If that shopping has messed up me paintwork I’ll be sending you the bill,’ he sneered before screeching off. Ellen bustled over. The boys, bouncing alongside, made no attempt to hide their peals of laughter.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t manage to save most of it.’
‘You’resorry?’ Ellen shrieked. ‘What if you’d been hit by that maniac? Dinner with Will’s parents is not worth risking serious injury or death for.’
I shrugged.
She screwed up her nose and peered at me. ‘Are you always this recklessly selfless?’
‘I’ve been sat in the bakery for twenty minutes and the only traffic was a mobility scooter. It wasn’t quite as fast as Tezza.’
She nodded. ‘Fair point. Let’s get you home and cleaned up. And you can save me from eating the remaining three doughnuts.’
I accepted her proffered packet of baby wipes and stole a glance at the triplets. Felt the bruise on my heart tremble. ‘Thanks, but I’m fine. You’ve enough on your plate.’
I took a step back towards the bakery, to retrieve my own shopping. ‘I hope your dinner goes okay.’ Flicking a blob of sauce off my hand, I pulled open the door.
‘Please come.’
‘What?’ Turning back, I saw Ellen still standing there, clutching at the ruined bags.
‘I’m begging you. No. Not quite begging.Stronglyinvitingyou to come and have a decent cup of tea and a doughnut with me, while I decide how I’m going to salvage my family dinner.’
I couldn’t help glancing around, sure she couldn’t be talking to me.
‘Please?’ She bit her lip, and I realised to my surprise the invitation hadn’t come from pity. ‘It’s not going to be very nice cycling home in soggy jeans.’
I wiggled my hips, assessing the damage. ‘All right.’
She beamed. ‘Hurrah! I haven’t had a proper conversation with an adult – other than my husband – in at least a week. I’ve been buried in prep for my new course.’ She gestured at herself. ‘Can you believe it? I’m finally going to university!Me!Anyway, I’m not sure I can handle any more questions about man-traps or medical mycology this afternoon.’
We began walking along the main street, the triplets hopping and climbing walls and spinning along the wide pavement.
‘Sounds like an interesting university course.’
‘Eh?’
‘Man-traps and mycology. I’m trying to figure out what the course is. If I knew what mycology meant, that’d help.’
‘Oh!’ She grinned. ‘No. That’s the kids’ questions. I’m training to be a midwife. A whole lot of different questions. Although I did have a boyfriend once who considered pregnancy a man-trap.’
We followed the boys down a gravel driveway to the Victorian house at the end.
‘It’s a life-long dream, and after giving birth to five kids I think I’ll be a flippin’ good one. But I haven’t exactly worked out how we’re going to manage it yet.’
After shooing the boys inside, Ellen led me through a tiled hallway full of coats and shoes into the kitchen. A battered oak table stood in the centre. An enormous oven, two solid dressers and rows of open shelving filled the walls.
