Practically Perfect (34 page)

‘The appliances are all B grade, but I’ve managed to conceal the chips and things,’ Anna said.

‘I’m really impressed.’ Rob looked around the tiny but immaculate space.

‘I am quite proud of it,’ Anna admitted. ‘I bought everything over the Internet.’

‘Great. But right now I insist on taking you to the pub. You need high-fat, high-carb food. Nothing like it for lifting your spirits when you feel a bit blue.’

‘I shouldn’t be blue, of course, I should be elated, and in a way—’ Anna broke off.

‘Stop trying to analyse your feelings,’ said Rob, heading for the back door. ‘I’ll put Caroline in the garden for a couple of minutes and then we’ll go.’

‘OK,’ said Anna, aware that she was being bossed about and not objecting enough. ‘But it’s on me. Otherwise I won’t come, and will probably faint with hunger.’

Rob put his hand on her arm. ‘Go and comb your hair or something. I’ll see to Caroline.’

They walked through the footpaths to the pub. It was a lovely summer’s evening and the pub garden was full of families and couples.

‘Let’s go inside, where it’s quieter,’ said Rob. ‘You look too shattered for anywhere noisy.’

He guided her to a table in the corner where a large black settle formed a cosy seat. He fetched a couple of menus from the bar.

‘Right, so you’ve had no breakfast—’

‘I had a bar of chocolate!’ she protested.

‘No breakfast. Lunch?’

She shook her head. ‘Last week Chloe kept making
sandwiches
and bringing them over. She was in her element. The other women – Maddy and Betsy – they loved it too, although it was such hard work. They were getting away from their families.’ Anna was aware she was rambling a bit, but tiredness was scrambling her brain.

‘I can imagine you had a ball. Now let me get you a drink and then you can tell me all the details.’

‘This was supposed to be on me!’ she called pathetically to his back.

‘You’re dreadfully bossy,’ she complained, after he had persuaded her to order steak and chips when she said she just wanted a light meal.

‘My sister is bossy. I’m just doing my duty as a friend. Have some more wine.’

The joy of spending an evening with someone who wasn’t your boyfriend was that you didn’t have to try and make yourself appealing, you could just say what you really thought, admit ignorance, fling your hands about to make a point. After the first few restorative mouthfuls, Anna began to tell him about the last frantic week of getting the house, if not finished, at least presentable.

He listened attentively and asked pertinent questions but the moment Anna put her knife and fork together he said, ‘Pudding. I insist you have pudding.’

She looked across at him, about to refuse, and caught an expression in his eyes that confused her. Trying to interpret it, she held his gaze too long and looked away, suddenly embarrassed. He cleared his throat. ‘Treacle tart. I prescribe treacle tart.’

‘You’re being very profligate with my money,’ she said, trying to pretend there hadn’t been a moment of unexpected intimacy.

‘That’s fine. I’m sure after tomorrow you’ll be able to afford it. I’ll get you another glass of wine, too.’

‘It would have been more economical if we’d had a bottle,’ she said.

‘Yes, but unlike you, I have to drive.’

‘I’m sure the treacle tart would blot up quite a lot of alcohol. My sister has a recipe that uses condensed milk or something. It’s about a million calories a bite but so delicious.’ She paused. ‘I really don’t know if I could manage any, really.’

‘We could share one.’

‘Oh yes! That is a good idea. Here, let me!’ She made to get up but he wouldn’t let her move. She watched him go to the bar and thought that he was a fine figure of a man. A bit taller than Max and not nearly as well dressed, but he would definitely make someone a lovely husband. She closed her eyes to think about Max, but she found his image strangely hard to conjure.

She opened her eyes with a start when Rob spoke.

‘I ordered it with cream and ice cream because I didn’t know which you’d like best and was too idle to come over and ask you.’

He smiled and Anna suddenly realised that sharing a pudding was rather an intimate thing to do. But he was a friend; friends did share puddings.

‘I think I’ll just pop to the loo and wash my hands,’ she said as she clambered out of her seat.

‘Don’t smudge your make-up,’ he said.

‘I’m not wearing any!’

‘I know. Now go, and hurry back. If it arrives before you do I may eat it all.’

He was a bit of a conundrum, she decided, using a paper towel to blot her face, which, she realised rather too late, had been very dirty. Most of the time he was a really good friend, one she liked and respected very much, but every now and then he made her doubt her feelings –
about
him and about Max. She was overtired and not thinking straight, she concluded, and went back to the table.

‘Oh my goodness. I’ve never seen anything so decadent in my entire life!’ she exclaimed. ‘Thank goodness we didn’t order one each by mistake!’

‘It does look fairly substantial, but as it represents about three meals for you, I think you should tuck in. We’ve got two spoons here.’

It crossed Anna’s mind that however attentive and sophisticated Max was, with vintage champagne at the ready and rose petals on the bed, he would never have encouraged Anna to eat like Rob did. Of course, food wasn’t love and one shouldn’t confuse them, but somehow, at that moment, she found Rob’s nanny-like caring appealing. However hungry she was, she would never have eaten with quite such abandon with Max watching her.

She picked up her spoon and, paying careful attention, cut off a piece of tart, making sure she took a bit of ice cream and cream at the same time. She smiled ecstatically at him and put it in her mouth. ‘This is really fabulous,’ she mumbled through a large mouthful. ‘You’d better dig in before I eat it all.’

‘Not a chance. Let me at it.’

An undignified race followed. Anna triumphantly speared the last piece of crust. ‘I win!’ she cried, rather louder than she had intended. ‘That means I get to pay.’

She had reached the bar and was pulling her wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans before he had even started to move. As she handed her credit card over, laughing, the barman said, ‘It’s not often my customers are so keen to part with their money.’

‘It was a really delicious meal. Thank you,’ she said,
having
put in her pin number. She handed across a five-pound note. ‘I’ll definitely come again.’

They walked down past the village shop, through the summer night, in silence. The fragrance of a nearby philadelphus mingled with some tobacco plants. She was going to miss the village so much, she realised, and resolved to buy somewhere else as near as possible.

‘You really don’t need to walk me home,’ she had protested to Rob.

‘Yes I do,’ he had said, brooking no argument.

‘Nothing bad is going to happen to me, you know.’ She realised that him walking her home would turn the evening into a date, and not just a meal between friends. A second later she knew it had been a lovely date, one she didn’t really want to end.

‘I know,’ he said quietly.

As it wasn’t exactly far out of his way – his car was only parked up the lane – Anna didn’t argue further, but her mind was racing. Why had she enjoyed a meal in the pub with Rob so much more than the grand restaurant she had been to with Max? And how would it end? She suddenly felt funny about the simple kiss on the cheek that would finish any normal evening with a friend.

‘That was a really nice evening,’ she said quickly and slightly formally as they arrived at her front door. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘I should be thanking you,’ said Rob. ‘In fact I do thank you, very much.’

Anna looked up at him in a fog of confusion. All that she thought she’d been certain of had blurred, so she didn’t know where she was any more. If Rob magically turned into Max she’d feel disappointed. She wanted friendly, easy Rob more than glamorous Max, whom she’d loved for years.

Rob put his hands on her shoulders. Then he brushed her hair back from her face and cradled it gently. Her heart began to beat faster as she anticipated his kiss. He bent his head and then they both heard voices along the lane and he straightened up, a flicker of frustration passing across his face.

‘Hello!’ whispered Chloe, carrying a sleeping child. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘We’ve had dinner at the pub,’ said Rob shortly. ‘What about you?’

‘A day with my parents. They wanted to see for themselves that I was all right so they invited us to lunch. Very hard work, I can tell you.’

Mike appeared carrying a bigger child. ‘Let’s get these monsters into bed,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll go back and get Harry.’

‘Well, goodnight then,’ said Rob when Chloe and Mike had disappeared into the house with their bundles. ‘And thank you very much for a wonderful evening. Good luck tomorrow.’ He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and turned away.

As Anna watched him walk down the path in front of the cottages she wondered what would have happened if Chloe hadn’t appeared just then. Once she was finally in bed, having let Caroline out and in again, she contemplated Max and Julian’s visit tomorrow afternoon. It would be nice to see Max again, she decided. But when she closed her eyes it was Rob she thought of. How very odd, she murmured, when I’m not in love with him at all.

‘All it needs now is a big vase of lilies on the coffee table,’ said Chloe the next morning, wiping her hands on her jeans.

‘Not with Caroline in the house, thank you,’ Anna
laughed
. ‘Although of course she won’t be in the house because you lot are taking her for a walk.’

Chloe nodded. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about selling houses it’s that you must remove all pets.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘Although I suppose if you had a very beautiful exotic breed of cat that was the same colour as the suede sofa, you might be all right.’

‘I haven’t got a suede sofa, although mine does look heaps better with that throw over it, thank you, Chloe.’ She’d managed to brush most of the dog’s hairs off it, after Caroline’s nocturnal visit.

‘As long as no one sits on it, it should stay tucked in like that,’ Chloe said. ‘That’s the joy of throws. No one with children could have a white sofa, but you can have lots of throws and just chuck them in the washing machine when they get dirty. White does make everything look bigger. Very important.’

Chloe sounded so knowledgeable that Anna asked, ‘Have you sold many houses, Chlo? I thought you bought next door when you were first married.’

‘Oh, we did, but when I was breastfeeding Bruno, I watched an awful lot of daytime television telling you how to turn your slum high-rise into a penthouse flat.’

‘I watched quite a lot of that sort of thing when I was a student.’ Anna tweaked the throw once more for good measure.

‘You can’t do that when you’ve got more than one baby, of course, unless it’s
The Tweenies
, or something.’ She sighed, as if she missed those months spent on the sofa, switching her hungry baby from one breast to the other, with no apparent space in between feeds. ‘All the houses had lilies when the people came round.’

‘Well, even if you are removing Caroline’ – Anna glanced at her dog who had been banished to her indoor kennel
while
the set-dressing had gone on – ‘I’m not having lilies. They’re terribly expensive and the pollen marks your clothes.’

Chloe laughed and perched herself on a stool. ‘As if you care! But we haven’t got time to go into town and buy some, and anyway those twigs look nice. Anyone would think you’d actually bought them. What time are they coming?’

‘Half past two. They’ll have had lunch with Max’s mother. Lucky things.’ Anna pulled a face and rearranged the twigs for the hundredth time.

‘Aren’t you invited for tea?’ Chloe said mischievously.

‘Yes, but I’m not going to go. I just couldn’t face it. She’s bound to recognise me and I’d have to raid your wardrobe, again.’

‘She is the sort of person who’d judge you by your clothes.’

Anna bit her lip. ‘Max dresses beautifully and I really like seeing the way his suits fit, but the trouble is, it makes me think I have to, too. That was what was so nice about going out with Rob last night.’

‘What?’ Chloe’s matchmaking antennae leapt to attention.

Anna flapped a calming hand. ‘Oh, you know, just being able to slob out together, sharing a pudding, letting him practically carry me home.’

‘You weren’t that drunk, were you?’

‘Of course not. I was very tired and I sort of leant on him. Now, do you think the house looks all right?’ Anna changed the subject before Chloe started asking more questions she didn’t feel ready to answer.

‘It looks fantastic!’ Chloe reassured her. ‘And it doesn’t show that it’s not actually finished. The staircase is to die for.’

‘It’s quite like your staircase, actually, and I haven’t noticed you dying for that.’

‘You know what I mean. It looks totally original. And the bathroom is posh enough to eat your dinner out of.’

‘Now, Chloe, I’m aware that my appetite has increased somewhat over the last few days, but it’s not fair to suggest …’

Chloe pushed her. ‘You know what I mean. That bath is bloody gorgeous.’

Anna laughed. ‘And so it should be, the torture I had to go through to get it! Naked in front of thousands of people, surrounded by bubbles! It would have been less trouble to install one carved from a single ruby.’

‘Red wouldn’t look right with all the stripped elm,’ said Chloe seriously.

Anna made a face at her. ‘And it would have been far too heavy. The structural engineer would have made me reinforce the floor even more than he did.’

‘But all that went very well, I thought.’

‘Oh yes, it did. I’ve been very lucky with my officials,’ she said, thinking of Rob in particular. ‘And with my friends,’ she added, putting her hand on Chloe’s arm. ‘Thank you for helping me do all this. Not only did you get Betsy and Maddy along, but you’ve worked really hard today. And I know it wasn’t easy for you getting the boys looked after, even with Mike around.’