Page 2 of People In Love
Is thirty-seven old?
Old enough that I figured that ship had sailed for him, Shay says. For you, too. All the hen parties we host, here? All the wedding invites you make? And you’ve always said you’re not the least bit interested.
And I’m not, really, Nora says. She takes a duster to the shelf and sweeps around the ceramics, careful not to nudge them out of place. But I felt something, when he asked me. Out of nowhere, it just felt … right.
She turns on the spotlights, then, and the pot plants throw shadows around the room.
I had that with Horace, Shay says. All those years insisting I was a cat person, and then there he was, with his spindly legs and his slobbering chops and I was the proud owner of the Greatest Dane in all the land, buying squeaky toys and butternut boxes and a mattress bigger than mine.
I remember.
So soon you’ll be floating down an aisle in a frothy whitedress, Shay says. Throwing tantrums about seating plans and lobbing a bouquet at me, your last single friend –
None of that, says Nora, but Shay says just you wait! Everyonesaysthey want something casual and then gets swept up in diamond shoes and hand-embroidered napkins and salmon babies on crumpets.
Blinis, you mean.
So youwerethinking about hand-embroidered napkins?
That’s hardly off brand, for me, Nora says, just as the door dings open and the qigong master, Colleen, walks in, stamping the slush from her boots.
What’s off brand? she asks, and Nora offers her a cappuccino; Colleen says she’s a gem.
Shehasa gem, Shay declares. On her finger.
Thanks for sharing, Shay, Nora says as she pours milk into a jug, and Shay says wellyouwouldn’t have said anything, and Colleen looks like she’s not following, so Shay points at her own bare finger and then at Nora, who is hiding behind the coffee bar. Glint of gold, as she raises the steamer wand; a gasp, then, from Colleen.
No, she says.
Yes, says Shay. Colleen claps her hands, her leather gloves making a light smacking sound before she strides across the room, pulling Nora into an embrace.
To Robin? she says, and Nora blushes, both thrilled and embarrassed to be rammed against Colleen’s breast pocket, as Shay laughs, says come on, who else?
_
Quite the normal Thursday ensues. Coffee-making, a calligraphy class. Nora sells a Jesmonite vase and some soy candles and a bouquet of dried flowers that cost more than theflowers she won’t be having at her wedding. None of that, she repeats, to Shay. No white dress, no chair covers or family drama. And then it rolls round to half five, and she knows the actual drama she’ll have to deal with is imminent. Robin is shooting on location, won’t be back for dinner, and she has to face her mother sooner or later.
Good luck, Shay says, as she pulls on her hat and gloves, just as Robin texts her the exact same thing. Thanks, Nora says. I’ll need it.
Outside, there are still Christmas lights strung above the traffic despite the fact that it’s the end of January. She dawdles the short distance to the train station, buys a different ticket to usual and gets on a different train. Puts her headphones in, chews her thumbnail as she watches the lights of London melting into suburbia, going over what it is that she’ll say. Then half an hour has passed and she’s off the train, over the bridge, past the pub she used to get served in, underage. Flash of the time she sat so close to Bren his thigh was wedged against hers. Smell of stale smoke in the upholstery. Bag of crisps shared, salt on the film of the open packet, their friends, his friends really, laughing and joking. Salt-vinegar of their breath as they all talked until closing, the two of them alone, still talking, on the last bus home.
This same bus, right here. She sits in her preferred seat at the back and watches as the kebab shops and traffic lights give way to a mass of fields and night sky, a place with no street lights, cottage windows glowing gold. And then there is the duck pond and the village hall, the cottages she knows by name. Nora wants to stay sitting on the bus, loop back into town. But instead she thanks the driver, steps off and heads across the grass, barely acknowledging the memories that rise as she passes the swing set on the green. Summers spent scuffing their shoes on the tarmac, too grown up, then, forswinging back and forth. Watching the sunsets and the house martins. Stretching out the hours before Josie would call Bren inside, and she herself would go back to Freya, because there was no point sitting there without him.
Edge of the green, now, where there are two semi-detached cottages standing separate from the others. Shared gravel driveway, hanging baskets. Both living room windows with their curtains drawn, pink-patterned on the left, velvet on the right. Shadow of Jon in the driveway with his buckets and rags, there she is, he’d say, as she crunches past the two parked cars. Dirt and grime visible now on both bonnets in the moonlight, because he was the only one who ever cleaned them.
At the door, she lets out a long, steadying breath. Then pushes open the unlocked porch, so that her mother calls out, Josie?
It’s me, Nora says, as she steps over the gardening magazines piled on the floor.
Darl! her mother cries when Nora enters the kitchen. The oven is on, the fan whirring, and the usual jam jars are everywhere, filled with pulses or pebbles, spider plants sprawling from the shelves. A lucky cat waves on the window sill as Freya glances round from her place by the sink, dressed in a carmine tracksuit, her hair tied up with a head scarf. Just you?
Robin’s on location, tonight.
And to what do I owe this impromptu visit?
Oh, you know, Nora says, her heart pounding in her throat. Boredom.
Touching, Freya says. Make yourself useful then, will you? Good haul today. I nabbed some velvet shanks, would you believe! Winter chanterelles, too, and some other interesting specimens that I can’t quite identify … could be delicious, cooked in a bit of garlic butter,orthey could temporarily blind the poor sod who decides to eat them.
