Summer of Love (36 page)

Fiona had instantly offered to go and see Sian, to find out what on earth was going on, but Angus forbade her, in such a way she felt obliged to promise that she wouldn’t. She was sure there must be some mistake but she couldn’t interfere. Since then she’d just had to watch him suffer, although she hoped that the long periods he spent in his study meant he was writing his book.

She had just snipped off a rose that hadn’t really finished blooming when she heard the telephone ringing. She ran in, hoping it was Sian, hoping everything would be normal again.

It was James.

Suddenly she found it hard to breathe. She was a little breathless anyway, from having run in from the garden.

‘Oh, hello!’ she said, trying not to let him hear she was short of breath.

‘Hello. Fiona, I’m calling to ask you to dinner.’

‘Well, dinner would be lovely.’ Fiona’s breathing was easier. She seated herself on the little bench that was next to the telephone in the hall and imagined a nice little restaurant or pub that backed on to a river.

‘At my house,’ James went on.

Fiona got up. Now she had severe butterflies in her stomach as she heard the subtext. ‘Right.’ She didn’t feel up to elaborating.

‘I want to cook you a really special meal, not just what happened to be in the fridge.’ He paused. ‘Will you come?’

Fiona rubbed her lips together and snatched a breath. It would be lovely to see him again and it would get her away from the house and Angus’s misery for a while. ‘If you tell me when, possibly.’

‘When would suit you? Would during the week be suitable? Or is it easier for you at a weekend.’

‘During the week would be fine,’ said Fiona. ‘I know weekends are busy for you.’

‘I could manage but I don’t want to wait until the weekend if I can help it,’ he said. She could hear that he was smiling.

‘So – when?’ She worried she wasn’t sounding as enthusiastic as she felt at the thought of seeing him again, but nerves were making her keep to the point. She didn’t want to gush.

‘Wednesday?’

‘Fine,’ said Fiona. ‘What time?’

‘Is half past seven good for you?’

‘Yes. Very good for me. See you then. ‘

When she sat down she realised she hadn’t felt like this for many, many years. She also thought that if there was a drug that sold that feeling she’d buy it on the street corner with no qualms at all.

Of course she wasn’t in love. She couldn’t be. She didn’t know James all that well really. It was lust. But along with the lust came a very large dollop of sheer terror. It was an exhilarating combination and for a moment it swept away her feelings of sadness about Angus and Sian. And soon after this came guilt. That was a woman’s fate, she concluded. No joy without guilt about some bloody thing or other.

Now she only had to worry about what to wear. But what a worry! Supposing they carried on from where they left off? She not only had to think about what to wear on top but her underwear.

She went upstairs to inspect her knicker-drawer. A quick rummage produced several pairs of Sloggis, comfy and reliable and as sexy as cold porridge. Then there were the attempts at something slightly less homely, lacy but scratchy and so never worn, and then the huge selection of the make-you-thinner type. Fiona bought these often but usually decided they made her so hot it was better not to actually wear them.

Anyway, she couldn’t let James see her in something resembling an old-fashioned, long-legged bathing costume, only very tight and mercifully not stripy. She would have to think of something to wear that wouldn’t require strong elastic to flatter her.

She decided she had nothing suitable and went to her little study to go on the internet to visit her favourite catalogues on line.

Another dilemma: what sort of event was she attending? ‘Special Occasion’? ‘Mother of the Bride’? She shuddered. Eventually she found a couple of things she thought would do. One was a simple button-through sleeveless dress in linen that went with a very pretty, slightly floaty, long shrug. She would never ever usually show her bingo-wings in public, but provided it was dark – or darkish –she could whip off her top and hope he would be distracted and not notice her arms.

She went through the long and tiresome process of ‘adding to her basket’, finding her credit card, typing it in wrong a couple of times and forgetting her password until eventually she had managed to place her order. Then she decided it was far too ‘dressed up’ and would look as if she was trying too hard.

She stomped down to her bedroom cupboard, determined to find something she already owned. Everything came out and was put back as not being right. Eventually, she went downstairs for a cup of tea.

At least having to worry about what to wear for dinner with James meant she wasn’t worrying about Angus and Sian, thought Fiona when Wednesday arrived, standing in front of her wardrobe for what seemed like the millionth time in the last three days. She’d suggested to Angus again that she should talk to Sian but his response had been the same: she was not to do that under any circumstances.

She stared at the clothes she should have known by heart and then, on impulse, she pulled out a favourite dress, very old and much washed. It was linen and used to have a pattern of roses on it. The pattern was faintly discernible but faded and subtle. The colour was like spilt tea and brought out her own colouring; it always made her feel good. And, far more by luck than design, it went perfectly with the shrug part of the outfit Fiona had bought specially for this dinner.

Relieved to have the decision made, she went to her bathroom.

She’d done a major exfoliate and moisturise the night before, so she just had a quick shower, reasonably confident that her skin was as good as it could be. She’d tackled her armpits too, bewailing the fact that recently developed near-sightedness meant she couldn’t see to use a razor properly and had to use vile-smelling hair-removing cream. But now she felt she’d done her best and was not entirely displeased. Remembering what she’d heard Gok Wan say on the subject once, she applied scissors and some colouring mousse to her pubic area, but utterly refused to contemplate his advice with regard to wax. She’d rather die without ever having sex again than go through that amount of pain.

She took stock of herself in the mirror, pulled her shoulders back and her stomach in and decided, if the lights were suitably low and James didn’t have A1 vision either, she’d pass muster. She started on her make-up.

When she finally set off to town to James’s flat, possibly a bit before she really had to, she still thought the likelihood of having sex with him was low. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, but she couldn’t see herself getting through all the embarrassment that would go before. Although she was as groomed and buffed and depilated as she could be, she couldn’t actually imagine taking her clothes off with anyone else present. She didn’t think she could get into bed without her clothes on and wait for him to come to her either. In fact she had to stop thinking about it altogether because every scenario seemed to offer more opportunity for humiliation than the last. Far better to die a chaste old woman than go through any of it!

She felt good in her old dress though. She’d ironed it carefully and with the new shrug it looked very pretty. Being linen it would look crushed fairly soon, but as long as she looked her best when she turned up, that was OK.

She’d brought a bottle of wine with her, one from the deepest part of the cellar where the good stuff was. She didn’t know what it was like really, just that it was red. She didn’t expect James to open it, it was a present. She’d have brought champagne but she didn’t want Angus to see it chilling in the fridge. It would have seemed wrong to have something so celebratory when he was so sad.

She had felt a little devious as she left the house. She’d told Angus that she was having dinner with a friend and if it looked like they were going to finish the bottle she might stay over. She wasn’t asking his permission or anything, she was just being considerate to the other adult she shared the house with. That was what she told herself, anyway.

She didn’t really want to think about how Angus might react to the news that she had a boyfriend. She’d messed up their lives so much when she got married again too soon after her husband died, in the mistaken belief –among the other reasons for doing it – that it would be good for the boys to have a father-figure.

Her confidence and pleasurable anticipation grew as she drove. It was a lovely late summer’s evening, and while the anxiety she had felt ever since James’s phone call was still very much there, it had almost become indistinguishable from desire.

She was too early. She parked where she usually did when she came to town and sat in the car, tweaking her hair in the driving mirror and trying to control her breathing. She checked her mobile to make sure he hadn’t phoned to cancel and then decided she might as well go. She was just working herself up into a state. She would walk slowly and look in the shop windows. James was a very punctual person, he wouldn’t mind if she arrived dead on time.

He must have been waiting for her in the shop because he opened the door almost immediately. He stood with the door wide looking at her, smiling. Her own smile grew and grew as she looked up at him.

‘I am so very pleased to see you,’ he said. ‘Do come in.’

She stepped over the threshold and into the shop, which seemed full of shadows. He put his arms on her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. Then he took her into his arms and kissed her again, this time not on her cheek. When they broke away she looked up at him and wondered how she’d never noticed how sexy and twinkly his eyes were. Her nerves subsided somewhat but her desire didn’t.

‘Come upstairs.’

She preceded him up the narrow, twisting staircase to the flat above, liking it all over again, with its wide polished floorboards that undulated slightly, old rugs, crooked windows and dark furniture.

She looked about her, preparing to sit on the sofa in front of the fireplace.

‘No, not there,’ he said and ushered her to a corner she hadn’t been aware of before. A little crooked door stood open. ‘Come to what passes for a garden for me.’

He led her to a balcony, just big enough for a small round table and two chairs. On the table was a plate of blinis with smoked salmon and something that looked like sour cream. There were two glasses and nudging up against an urn filled with lavender was a wine-cooler with a bottle of champagne in it.

‘This is lovely!’ she said. ‘So unexpected!’

‘Yes. It’s just a bit of extra roof really, which goes over the landing downstairs, but it had already been made into a balcony when I bought the premises. I think it’s what convinced me it was the right property.’

He poured the champagne and handed Fiona her glass. ‘Here’s to you,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this.’

But what was he looking forward to? The mental coin-flipping that had been going on in her head started up again; desire warring with fear. Fiona sipped; the bubbles helped. The coin came down firmly as a ‘no’. She was not going to sleep with him. She was just too scared.

Having made this decision, convinced it was final this time, she relaxed a little and accepted a blini. It was delicious.

‘What are we celebrating?’ It wasn’t the wittiest remark ever devised but she couldn’t think of anything better.

‘Being here, tonight, on this lovely evening. With you.’ He seemed unaware that she’d just decided he wasn’t going to see the underwear the sale of the books had financed even though it had been far more expensive than everything else she was wearing put together.

‘It is lovely to be here, I must say.’ She sighed a little, possibly regretting her decision. ‘I brought a bottle of red. I left it on the table. I’m not sure what it is –I just grabbed it from the cellar. Obviously we don’t have to drink it –it’s a present really.’ Aware she was gabbling, she sipped her champagne. I must be the worst sort of date, she decided, too old to be girlish and too inane to be a sophisticated older woman.

‘Just relax, Fiona,’ said James, causing her heart to give a little flip. ‘Nothing is going to happen that you don’t want. Just concentrate on us having a pleasant meal in not-unpleasant surroundings. Although I do admit to wanting a garden on nights like this.’

‘But this is lovely too.’ Fiona looked about her at the roofs and chimney pots, the view of the streets, cafés and bars, people doing evening things. ‘It’s just different.’

‘Most of the time I’m very happy with my mostly urban existence. Look. There’s the spire of the parish church and just beyond that you can see the river. It’s a town but it’s old and I like that. Just now and again I’d love a bit more greenery.’

‘You could grow a honeysuckle in a pot or something, add a bit of trellis, make it seem more like a garden.’ Then she stopped talking, aware that she’d fallen into her old trap of trying to solve everybody’s problems even when they didn’t want them solved.

‘Sit down, darling, and eat the blinis. I’ve got to fiddle about in the kitchen.’ She liked the way he said ‘darling’. It reminded her of her first husband.

James had definitely changed since she’d known him, Fiona decided, or was it just that she was looking at him in a different way? When she first met him he’d been charming and polite but not particularly dynamic. Now he was taking charge in a way she found very attractive. She wondered if all motherly people liked to be bossed about, just a little bit.

He came back quite quickly with a big bowl full of asparagus and a smaller one with hollandaise. ‘I know it’s not really in season but it’s such a short season, I think it’s all right to extend it.’ He’d brought napkins but no plates. ‘I thought we could just dip into the sauce and eat.’

Fiona plunged a spear into the hollandaise. ‘Did you make this?’

‘I did. It’s not that hard really.’

They ate their asparagus and sipped champagne in friendly silence. But although she hoped she looked calm, she was still nervous. It had been such a long time since she’d been alone with a man like this.