Page 54 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘Some people like fruitcake.’

‘Don’t ask whether she still puts a pound in it.’

‘You . . . bake him a fruitcake and put a pound in it?’ says Amsan.

‘No,’ says Lish. ‘I bake everyone a fruitcake. Then it’s just a race against time.’

Everyone digests this around the table.

‘It didn’t matter when he was cycling twenty miles a day.’

‘Well, anyway, got to go,’ says Janey, and Milton’s bleep goes off.

‘Call it a date!’ says Lish, desperately, as she goes. ‘Shower! Lipstick! Hair! Breath spray!’

‘Breathspray?’

‘Preventative, you idiot.’

‘Yasmin met someone for a date off of the internet whose tooth was brown and he asked her to pull it out for him as he couldn’t get an NHS dentist and was too scared to do it himself,’ starts Amsan, as Janey heads off, groaning.

*

She changes into her nice jeans with the turn-ups and a red stripy top with a boat neck. Then she looks at her neck more closely and puts on a white shirt and a tank top Essie bought her for Christmas instead. It is from Brora, an incredibly posh Edinburgh brand, that Janey would never consider, and also she has never worn a tank top in her life and doesn’t get the point of them. It is navy with a thin burgundy trim and actually as Janey slips it on over the shirt she slightly sees the point of it. It is neat and slick and keeps her shirt tucked in, and the colour brings out her eyes. Huh. She had been so willing to write it off as Essie buying her stupid and impractical things just to show off how much money she has, and making some point to her mother that she never goes anywhere remotely fancy enough that she could justify spending this much money on a jumper that doesn’t even have any sleeves. But in fact it is flattering and pretty and she feels nice wearing it.

She adds some lipstick in a colour that matches the trim, pulls on a nice pair of trainers, and figures that, okay, she’s a little dressed up, but she’s not wearing a ballgown. It occurs to her that the nicest and most expensive item of clothing she owns is now almost certain to get peed on by six puppies and she should probably keep it for best. Then she reminds herself that keeping things for best is a total waste of life and energy, and heads downstairs.

Essie frowns. She was having a slight reverie about Dwight’s bum in his tight jeans, which is crazy because she thinks tight jeans are ridiculous. Connor dresses as though he’s in a Hugh Grant romantic comedy, which she absolutely thinks is the correct way for men to dress, not like Woody fromToy Story. But they cupped him so very well and . . .

She tells herself this is just because she hasn’t seen Connor for so long. And their hayloft days were behind them quite quickly. It was very sexy and romantic at the time, but she was finding hay in very odd places for quite a long time after that, and bed is more comfortable after all. It’s become . . . very sweet, and quite conventional. Which is absolutely fine of course, she’s not complaining . . . she just can’t believe how very fixated she got on that drop of sweat rolling off Dwight’s tight chest.

Which is why she has now found herself sitting here ordering grouting for him, and checking everything off on the spreadsheets. Which she said she would never do; she never meant to get so involved. But there’s so much to do. She has to give Wee Jim a timeline, otherwise he’s going to keep sanding the same bit of banister for eternity. The beautiful finished homes she loves to look at never mention all this stuff. They’re all terribly vague about moving out to other places, or employing project managers . . .

She looks up. Oh, God. Is that what she is?

Her mum comes down the stairs, smelling perfumey.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to move the puppies – fancy it?’

‘No, I’m going to call Connor,’ Essie says, loudly, as if Connor can hear her and she is just proving she isn’t thinking about anyone else. Which she isn’t, as, one, that would be stupid, and two, she has heard Wee Jim discussing Dwight’s success with women when they didn’t realise she was upstairs, and Dwighthad said,I do explain to these little ladies that I just can’t be tied down, and Essie had snorted so loudly he’d heard her and said,What was that for?and she’d said,Oh nothing, little laddie, and he hadn’t liked that at all.

She shakes her head and turns to look at her mother. ‘Is that the tank top I got you? It’s from . . . ’

‘I know. I love it.’

‘You’re wearing it tomove puppies?’

‘I thought it would be nice . . . ’

‘Yeah, whatever.’

Janey bites her lip. ‘And I thought it might be nice to . . . spend an evening with a guy...’

Essie’s face is the worst; she looks . . . not disgusted, or interested. She looks completely and utterly bamboozled, as if her mum could notpossiblyhave an opinion on the opposite sex in any way at all.

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ says Janey, upset and flustered, and heads out the back door.

---