The Sunshine And Biscotti Club (6 page)

‘I actually have an email that I have to answer so if we’re not carrying on with this then I just need to go out and, you know, answer …’ Jessica said, untying her apron and leaving hesitantly, unsure if it was allowed or not.

Eve had gone back to her workstation and Libby could feel her watching. She did everything she could to hold in her disappointment. And, in an attempt to overcompensate, her voice came out far too sweet as she said, ‘Seriously, it’s fine. Go. No probs at all.’ Then she did a big wide smile as she slotted Jimmy’s biscotti into the oven.

Eve stayed where she was but her phone was buzzing on the table with another FaceTime.

‘Noah, I can’t talk right now,’ Libby heard her whisper. ‘Yes, it’s very nice. Very good. You’re very clever.’

Then there was a slam of an oven door and Giulia marched to the front, muttering, ‘I am finished with this. A complete waste of my time. There is no cooking being done. I have work to do. My biscotti are in the oven.’

Libby felt the same crushing disappointment of that first ever supper club. ‘OK, well, probably best to just end it there, don’t you think? Call it a day,’ she said,
keeping her voice emotionless and breezy even though Eve was the only one left in the room to hear.

Then Libby pulled her phone out of her pocket and took a couple of snaps for Instagram. Of Jimmy’s biscotti in the oven. Of them all lounging outside soaking up the late afternoon sun:
A well-earned break while the biscotti bake
.

‘So what the hell’s Jake playing at?’ Eve asked. They were still sitting on the pink metal chairs in front of the outhouse. Dex had been to the bar and come back with a bottle of vodka, ice, and some glasses. The biscotti that Libby had made for Jimmy sat on a plate in the centre of the table. Libby wasn’t with them. She hadn’t come back from the main hotel since the class had been cancelled.

Eve knew she should have gone to find her. She knew she was upset. But the idea of it felt awkward, like she’d pat her on the shoulder and not quite know what to say. She wasn’t confident enough that her presence would be of any comfort at all.

Dex sat back with his vodka, the ice chinking in the glass. ‘Jake will do whatever he thinks he can get away with.’

Miles sat forward, elbows on his knees, his fingers steepled in front of him. ‘I just can’t believe he was stupid enough to do it online.’

Jimmy huffed a laugh. ‘Oh, come on, this is Jake.’

Eve reached to get her drink from the table and brought it back, her hand resting a whisper away from Jimmy’s thigh. There was something intoxicating about having him back; she could stare at his face all night and it still wouldn’t be enough. It wasn’t even that she fancied him, which she did because it was hard not to fancy Jimmy—all tattooed tanned muscles, hair shorn close to his head, skin radiating vitality, white t-shirt so threadbare you could see his skin through it, low-slung green combat shorts—but more that she couldn’t bear to have him out of her sight. Looking at him was addictive.

‘It’s exactly the kind of thing he would do,’ Jimmy went on. ‘Every time he doesn’t get caught he’ll push a little bit harder.’

Eve frowned, remembering the Instagram pictures of Jake carrying a massive Christmas tree on his shoulder or giving Libby a piggyback on a country walk. ‘You think he’s done it before.’

Jimmy almost choked on his swig of beer. ‘Are you serious?’

Eve looked at Jessica who shrugged, equally nonplussed. It felt weird talking about Libby and Jake like this at their place.

‘Of course he’s done it before. The guy’s the ultimate player,’ Jimmy went on. ‘He can’t sit still. Never could. Christ, he’s shagged people left, right, and centre over the years.’

Eve paused with her drink up to her lips. ‘Wow,’ she said, before taking a little sip, the vodka coursing cold through her body. Poor Libby. For a second she thought about her life envy. Even their infidelity was bigger and bolder and more media friendly than her and Peter’s quiet little bust up. ‘Do you think she knew?’ she asked.

Jimmy held his hands up. ‘I don’t see how she didn’t know. He’s been—’

He was cut off by Jessica doing a really loud cough and they all turned to see Libby standing at the gate to the lemon grove. She had a bottle of ice cold vodka in her hand and a couple of spare glasses. All around her fairy lights sparkled in the leaves.

Everyone was silent for what seemed like hours.

Jimmy looked down, rubbing his hand over his forehead.

‘Giulia said you were all on vodka,’ Libby said, trundling through the silence as if nothing had happened. She swallowed. ‘So, erm, I brought this.’ She held up the condensation covered bottle. ‘But I think, though, I think I’ve just forgotten something. I’ll be back in a tick,’ she said, then turned and took a couple of paces, then turned again and added, ‘I’ll leave this here.’ She put the vodka bottle and glasses on the ground by the fence then disappeared back through the grove.

‘Shit,’ said Dex.

Eve put her hands over her mouth.

Jessica narrowed her eyes. ‘You knew,’ she said to Jimmy. ‘You knew and you didn’t tell her.’

Jimmy shook his head. ‘It’s none of my business.’

Miles raised a brow.

‘Are you kidding?’ Jessica said. ‘She’s your friend.’

‘So was he. Is he.’ Jimmy made a face. ‘Come on, why would I get involved in this?

Dex?’ Dex shrugged. ‘It’s messy.’

Jessica rolled her eyes.

‘Never get involved.’ Jimmy held up his hands. ‘People’s relationships are their own business. They choose what they want and what they want to see.’

‘That’s such a cop-out,’ Jessica stood up and walked over to the gate to pick up the vodka.

‘Oh, and you’re the expert?’ Jimmy said, and they all suddenly became fascinated with their drinks.

Jessica huffed, jaw clenched, and bashed the bottle down on the table.

Jimmy shook his head and sat back in his chair, taking a swig of his drink probably to stop himself saying any more.

‘One of us should go and find her,’ Eve said, knowing that it should be her, but something was holding her back. Pride, perhaps. The feeling of being the outsider. The fact that all this had been going on in Libby’s relationship and she hadn’t told her.

She glanced around for a possible candidate. Miles was still battling the jet lag and had sat back with his
eyes closed. Jessica was clearly quietly fuming about Jimmy’s comments and not about to get up again. It was Dex who paused as he was refilling everyone’s glasses and, looking up at Eve, said, ‘Give me one sec and I’ll go.’

When Dex stood up Jimmy did as well but, as Dex strode off towards the hotel, Jimmy took his drink and wandered down to the very bottom of the garden. Jessica kept staring moodily down at her glass.

Eve was about to follow Jimmy when her phone rang. She glanced at the screen to see Peter’s name flash up for FaceTime and was hit by a confusing mishmash of feelings. An excitement that Peter had broken their agreement not to talk for the first half of the week so that it was a proper break, but also a desire to keep hold of the slight flicker of old Eve that seeing Jimmy had dusted off and was bringing back to light.

She went over to the lemon grove to answer, pushing her hair back before she did, rubbing her cheeks and positioning herself so she wouldn’t look like she had a double chin or big bags under her eyes when her image came up on screen.

‘Hello,’ she said, almost sultry.

‘Muuuummmy!’ Noah and Maisey yelled simultaneously.

‘Oh, hi, guys,’ she said, smiling, relieved, a tiny bit disappointed that Peter hadn’t even been there to say hello.

They chattered away about their day, oohing at the big lemons and the fairy lights when she turned the camera round.

She heard Peter shout, ‘Two minutes till bath time,’ and found herself wanting to tell him about Libby and Jake. Like she was holding a balloon that just got bigger and bigger the more she didn’t tell Peter.

He’d never met Jimmy. Dex and Jessica he knew to say ‘Hi’ to, but Libby and Jake they had spent time with when they were first dating. Peter had walked away from their first meeting shaking his head. ‘He’s too good-looking for his own good. I can’t talk to him.’

‘Does he make you shy and nervous?’ Eve had sniggered as they’d stumbled drunkenly into a taxi.

‘No.’ Peter had shaken his head. ‘It’s like he’s not really the one talking. It’s like … Yeah, Claremont Road, it’s the block of flats—you can’t miss it, by the railway. Yeah? Great. It’s like he’s a guy playing him in a film.’

‘What? Sorry, I got confused about who you were talking to,’ Eve had said, laughing.

‘I’ve got to give the guy directions. You’re coming to mine aren’t you?’ Peter had frowned, clearly suddenly remembering that it would have been polite to ask first.

‘And they say chivalry is dead?’ Eve had said, as coy as she could be after most of a bottle of Australian sauvignon blanc, picked without consultation by Jake.

At the time she’d been more interested in the fact that she was about to have sex with Peter than with anything he had to say about Jake.

But now, when she couldn’t talk to him because of their agreement, now she remembered what he had said, she wanted to tell Peter that she knew exactly what he’d meant. That the idea of Jake being like a man in a film playing the part of Jake was a very clever observation. The kind of thing that she hoped was in the script he was writing. But if she said that now, in the current state of their relationship, it would sound patronising and if she told him what had happened he’d find out that Jimmy was there and that would lead to a whole other set of problems.

But he wasn’t talking to her anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

‘Night, Mummy,’ said Noah. ‘We missed you but then Daddy took us to the pet shop to look at the puppies and that made it go away.’

‘That’s a lovely story, sweetheart.’ She laughed and then wished them goodnight and they all three kissed the screen and then the kids hung up.

Dex was just coming back down the garden and she waited for him to draw level with her.

‘She says she’s fine.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t push it.’

Eve nodded. As they got back to the table Dex returned to his seat, pouring himself another vodka, but Eve didn’t sit; instead she carried on down to the end of the garden where Jimmy was still standing.

‘Everything all right at home?’ he asked as she came up next to him.

‘Yeah. Just the kids going to bed.’

He nodded.

‘You like it there? In the country?’

‘Yeah.’ Eve nodded, looking out into the falling darkness, at the forest of pine trees rising like witches’ brooms that started at the bottom of the garden and stretched out until they fringed the edge of the lake. Through a gap she could just make out the water, black and shiny like tar.

‘I can’t imagine it. You in the countryside. Someone said you have chickens,’ he said, laughing. ‘I told them they must be wrong. Eve would never have chickens.’

‘I do have chickens. I think I’m a chicken person.’

‘You weren’t a chicken person when I knew you.’

‘Well, we grow up, don’t we?’

‘And you’ve grown up into a chicken person?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said with a firm nod.

Nothing had ever happened between her and Jimmy. They had sort of danced around each other like storks on a nature documentary. All show and bluster. All long lingering looks as they lay in bed together, the light from the TV flickering across their faces. Jimmy was a player. He liked fun and he liked women. But where other girls came and went, Eve stayed. She was the one
he couldn’t have. Because Eve too was a player. In a different way to Jimmy—more coquettish flirt, more of a tousled blonde-haired, big-eyed fun lover who boys followed like the Pied Piper. And she loved it. Like a big game. At the time Jimmy was still at medical school and she’d come back from work, all stilettoed up thinking she was it, and they’d go out together to see what havoc they could cause, what fun they could have. And more often than not they’d come home together, a trail of longing behind them; they liked to leave people hanging. Leave them wanting more.

Eve’s mum and dad were the kind of parents who took her to Glastonbury every year from toddlerhood. And she would dance with flowers in her hair and appear on the front page of the papers like an angel in a field. They were the kind of parents who wanted nothing more than for her to have fun. And Eve liked to have fun. But quite often Eve had also lived with her grandparents, dropped off when her parents needed some together-time. They’d drive off in their van and get so high they wouldn’t sleep for a week. For Eve, her grandparents became her safety net—the safe, predictable harness that underpinned all that fun.

And as a result she went through life always just checking behind her for a similar net in whatever shape or form it might take. When she moved into the flat, the tether was her job in marketing at a top cosmetics firm.
A job where she shone, where she rose fast, where she had a nice, familiar routine to fill her days so her nights could be filled with fun.

But then Jimmy had packed in his course to cycle round the world. The moment he told her was like a photograph stamped forever in her mind. ‘Come,’ he’d said.

She’d stared at him.

The paths diverged in her head.

She saw herself on a rusty old bike, untethered, freewheeling down some dirt track, flowers in her hair.

But she had to go to work the next day.

‘No,’ she had said.

She had lived since then wondering what would have happened if she’d said yes. Like a dull background noise. Now, though, as she stood at the bottom of the garden next to Jimmy it was beeping like a metal detector, stronger than it had ever been.

‘And marriage?’ he said. ‘That’s good?’

‘Yeah, fine.’ Eve nodded. She picked at the leaves of an olive sapling. ‘It’s not fine actually. We’re on a break.’ As soon as she said it she knew she shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t have entrusted her secret to this other man. She shouldn’t have casually handed him something so precious—because just him knowing their weakness made it infinitely weaker. It felt immediately disrespectful of Peter. Making him, them, foolish.

Jimmy had turned to look at her, his eyes bright in the darkness. ‘Are you happy about that?’ he asked.

‘No.’ Eve shook her head, pulling another leaf off the olive tree. ‘I don’t want it to end, especially not for the kids.’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘I think kids adapt. I did. You shouldn’t stay just for the kids.’

‘I’m not.’ Eve threw the leaves on the ground and brushed the tree where she’d absently plucked its branch bare in an attempt to make it better. ‘That came out wrong. I’m not at all. I just …’ She paused. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.’

Jimmy made a face. ‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. It feels wrong.’

‘You liked marriage?’

‘It’s not over, Jimmy, it’s not past tense, it’s just a little break.’

He shrugged.

‘And yes, yes I did, do, like it. I love it.’

Jimmy didn’t reply; he just laughed lightly before finishing his drink.

Eve turned her back on the view and suddenly saw smoke filling the outhouse. ‘Shit, did anyone take that woman’s biscotti out of the oven?’ she said, jogging over to the glass door.

‘What woman?’ Jimmy asked.

‘The moody one. Giulia. Her biscotti,’ Eve shouted. And the rest of them sprang up from the table and
followed her into the outhouse as she ran to the back of the room and yanked open the oven. A cloud of smoke engulfed her as she pulled out the baking tray.

She felt Jimmy’s hand on her shoulder as she started coughing.