Page 53 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘That wouldn’t even be the worst date,’ says Amsan.

The others turn to look at her. ‘Surely not.’

‘Surely yes. Someone matched with Yasmin on a dating site and says they had a tip slot booked and would she come with them and by the way did she have a car.’

‘Ooooh!’

‘That is bad,’ says Milton, shaking his head sadly at the state of the world.

‘I can never do them,’ says Janey. ‘I just can’t.’

‘You can’t because you’re too busy having sex with a very hairy man who only owns one pair of trousers,’ says Lish. ‘You have to do it for me. Johnson is on a ban for six weeks.’

‘So he should be!’ says Janey in horror. ‘Seriously, you want to do it with him when he’s ill?’

‘I do,’ says Lish, stoutly. ‘He’s lyingright there.’

The others regard her with a certain amount of respect, which she ignores. ‘What are you wearing? Don’t say black.’

Janey is in her smart black trouser suit, which is kind of just about smart, but also, trousers. ‘Just this?’

‘Well, that’s stupid.’

‘Why?’

‘Seven dogs – you’ll be covered in hair. You’ll look like a burst cushion!’

‘Oh my God,’ says Janey. ‘Stop it.’

‘We’ll stop it,’ says Lish, ‘when you agree to go home and change. We know you have time.’

Janey smiles apologetically. She must offer Lish some more time sitting with Johnson. He’s a mean Scrabble player.

‘Just do your last appointment by phone and say you’re checking to see if they can hear down the phone,’ offers Amsan. ‘Nobody will notice.’

‘You’re all terrible,’ says Janey, used to being ribbed about her supposedly easy job. ‘Anyway, look at all the gifts you get, Lish.’

It was true. Lish gets showered in thank-you presents and chocolates by grateful mothers, even if she sometimes darkly observes that they are really grateful to whoever it was had just got them their epidural but they couldn’t remember her name.

‘I’ve got to stop that,’ says Lish. ‘Johnson is too heavy. That’s what got us here.’

‘That’s just Johnson shape,’ says Janey. ‘Doesn’t he walk it all off anyway?

‘No,’ says Lish. ‘It’s bad. Since they replaced his bike with an electric one, for all the hills.’

‘No,’ says Amsan, pretending to beat her head on the desk. ‘What were they thinking?’

Milton just shakes his head slowly. As a porter, he covers about fifteen thousand steps a day, pushing a heavy trolley.

‘They were thinking, let’s make all our posties get sick,’ says Lish, shaking her head. ‘He’s going to need new shorts when he goes back to work.’

Nobody asks if this is an ‘if’.

‘Well, he can practise round your house,’ says Janey carefully.

‘Not really,’ says Lish. They live out in the sticks, a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere, but it’s right on the road with no pavement; you have to drive to get anywhere. ‘He’s missing the fruitcake the most.’

‘One whole fruitcake?’ says Amsan.

---