Фиона Гибсон – The Woman Who Met Her Match: The laugh out loud romantic comedy you need to read in 2018 (страница 11)

At around midnight, I hear Cam coming in. ‘Okay, darling?’ I call out.

‘Yeah, good, thanks,’ he replies from the landing. ‘Managed not to fry myself on all those terrifying wires …’

‘Glad to hear it,’ I say with a smile. There’s some pottering about, then music starts up in his room – low volume and pretty mellow, nothing to complain about really – and I detect a whiff of smoke, which Cam might have brought home with him, although of course, venues have been non-smoking for years. He’s probably having a shifty roll-up out of his bedroom window. I know he does this – I’ve found the odd Rizla lying around, and those tiny cylindrical filter things. Although I don’t love the fact that he smokes, he’s assured me that it’s only occasional. When you think of the kind of stuff he could be getting up to, is it really worth falling out over something like three roll-ups a week? Anyway, at his age – post-Antoine, having just started my first job – I was smoking proper ciggies, sneaking them out of Mum’s packets.

Christ, I must have dozed off. I come to, groggily, with the main light still on and my laptop balanced perilously close to the edge of my bed. It’s 3.47 a.m. ‘Get a grip,’ I mutter, placing it on my bedside table.

Just one more check … a message! Whoop!

Hi Lorrie, here’s a recent pic from not so sunny Melbourne. Hope all’s good with you and the kids, love Dad xxx

My father, grinning in a wetsuit, the wet black rubber with banana yellow flashing doing a sterling job of holding in his small paunch. His arm is thrust around Jill, his wife, who’s bare-faced and grinning in a pink T-shirt, baggy shorts and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Both looking great, I reply.

Hey, you’re up late! Been out at a party?

Who comes home from parties at this hour on a Monday night? Oh God, plenty of people do. How old and sour I have become.

No, just having trouble sleeping for some reason. Night, Dad. Love you. L xxx

*

I manage to get through the whole morning at work without checking Facebook on my phone. But at lunchtime, on my way out to buy a sandwich, I crack and message him.

Hi Antoine, I type, my heart rattling only slightly, what a surprise to receive a friend request from you. How are you?

There. Pretty neutral, I’d say.

I glide through the afternoon, reminding myself that this is nothing – just an innocent little friend request – and the very fact that I’m all het up about someone I haven’t seen since 1986 suggests that I really should get out more. Not on dates – definitely not dates – but out in the world generally. Take this summer, for instance. It’s not just my shaky finances to blame for the fact that I have no holiday planned. It’s the issue of who to go with. Naturally, Cameron doesn’t want to come away with me anymore; he and Mo have a vague notion of going to a couple of festivals. Pearl, who works as a nanny to extremely well-heeled families these days, is due back soon from working in Dubai, but the last thing she’ll want is to go away again. Other friends are happily ensconced with their families – two-parent families – and I can’t imagine Stu would want to come away and abandon Parsley Force for a week. Anyway, we’ve never been on holiday together. I think he’d be a bit taken aback if I asked.

In contrast, Amy is off to Bella’s family’s holiday home on the Algarve. ‘They’re so looking forward to it,’ Bella’s mum, Cecily, tells me when she drops off Amy that evening. ‘They’ve been talking about nothing else.’

‘Thanks so much for inviting her again,’ I tell Cecily as the girls disappear to the living room.

‘Oh, she’s such a pleasure to have around, and Bella would be bored stupid, stuck with just her brothers for company.’ She pauses and sips her tea at my kitchen table. ‘How about you? Are you managing to get away?’

I shake my head. ‘Maybe later in the year, I’m not sure yet.’

‘I should have asked you to come too. There’s room, you know, and you could get a last-minute flight, just fly to Faro and we’ll pick you up—’

‘Oh no, Amy would hate that …’ I correct myself, ‘I mean, she loves coming away with you. She had the best time last summer. It wouldn’t be the same if I tagged along.’

‘You wouldn’t be tagging,’ she insists, and it occurs to me that the real reason I have turned down previous offers to stay in Cecily and Gerry’s Portuguese villa is because … well, I don’t quite fit into their world. Although we have only got to know each other through our daughters’ friendship, I admire Cecily immensely; she’s a powerhouse of energy, taking charge of her four children without ever seeming to break into a sweat. However, en masse the Kentons are just a little too, well, perfect. No sugar is allowed in their house – ever. The only ‘biscuits’ permitted are seed-covered crispbreads by someone called ‘Dr Kaarg’; Cecily is always asking Stu to pick some up for her when he visits a certain out-of-the-way supermarket which stocks the entire Dr Kaarg range. Plus, it’s true that Amy enjoys the novelty of being away with the Kentons. Other people’s families always seem a little shinier than your own.

To swerve us away from my lack of holiday plans, I fill Cecily in on my latest dating adventure – the living sculpture, the conceptual art – at which she honks with laughter, strawberry blonde curls tumbling into her eyes.

‘Oh God, Lorrie. You must find a decent man who isn’t completely weird. Let me find you one. There are lots at work, handsome guys in their forties, divorced, bit of baggage, but then who hasn’t amassed some of that, at our age?’

‘Oh no, please don’t set me up. I’m not looking for any more dates …’

She helps herself to a slice of Stu’s recent bake – a particularly moist and delicious gingerbread – and takes an enthusiastic bite. The sugar ban doesn’t seem to extend beyond the boundaries of the Kentons’ home. ‘Well, what about meeting more men from that dating site?’

‘Oh, no, I’m coming off that …’

‘But you’ve hardly given it a chance!’

‘I have, Cecily. Three dates is quite enough—’

‘Three’s nothing in that sort of world.’

I laugh. ‘You don’t know that sort of world. You have no idea what it’s like to spend an evening with someone who drones on about how much he hates work – how the insurance business is killing him – and all you can do is stare at the three little brown pegs which you suspect might actually be teeth …’

‘Ugh, really? It provides good stories, at least.’

But who wants to go on dates just for stories? I reflect as Cecily takes another bite of cake. She and Gerry have been together since, well, forever, and still adore each other. As well as Bella – who’s an excellent pianist – they have Matthew, Oliver and George, all accomplished classical musicians with impeccable manners and hearty red cheeks. Their Victorian townhouse gleams with gilt-framed accolades.

‘Oh, there is someone who’s crawled out of the woodwork,’ I add, lifting my laptop from the worktop. ‘See what you think of this …’ I open Antoine’s Facebook page and click on the beach picture.

‘Mmmm, he’s a bit of a fox. Who is he?’

‘First love,’ I explain. ‘Well, first obsession really, but it felt like true love at the time. Mum packed me off to France at sixteen to stay with my penpal. He was her older brother and he’s just sent me a friend request …’

‘So you had a thing with him?’

I nod. ‘Just a holiday romance, I suppose, although there wasn’t any “just” about it at the time …’

‘Let’s see more pictures,’ she enthuses as I start to click through them. ‘So many work events,’ she adds. ‘Conferences, meetings, that kind of thing …’

‘It’s all very corporate,’ I agree, hearing the front door open and Stu striding in.

‘Hey, Stu,’ Cecily says with a smile.

‘Hey, Cess.’ He always calls her this. I’m not sure she likes it much, but she does like Stu, so she lets him get away with it. ‘What’s this?’ he enquires, glancing over my shoulder. ‘You’re Facebook friends with an orange?’

‘It’s actually a person,’ I explain. ‘Remember Antoine, from that French trip? The one who stopped writing—’

‘Not the shithead who broke your heart?’ Stu asks.

‘Yep, that’s the one,’ I say wryly.

He turns to Cecily. ‘She was devastated. Cried for weeks. Of course, it was left to me to pick up the pieces …’

I sense my cheeks colouring as Cecily crooks a brow. ‘And you accepted his friend request?’ she remarks.

‘Well, yes, but only because—’

‘So, did he poke you?’ Stu cuts in.

‘Stu, she was only sixteen!’ Cecily exclaims.

‘No, I mean a Facebook poke.’

I laugh derisively. ‘No one pokes anyone these days. No one’s poked anyone since about 2007 …’

‘No, I heard it was coming back,’ he says, suddenly quite the social media guru. ‘People are poking each other all over the place. So, you didn’t tell me he’d been in touch?’

Cecily and I exchange a quick look.

‘It was only yesterday,’ I remark.

‘Oh, right. So, what does he want?’ He cranes forward for a closer look, radiating disapproval.

‘Just to be friends, I guess …’

‘Friends?’ he repeats.

‘Yes, is there anything wrong with that?’ I’m starting to feel rather crowded in now, and slightly regret turning this utterly insignificant incident into a public event. I decide not to mention that I have already messaged Antoine, and have yet to receive a reply.