Page 112 of For Love or Money
‘I might give it a go myself,’ her father said.
‘It’s not very environmentally friendly, is it?’ her mother said, still not taking her eyes off the video, Lesley noticed. Therewassomething strangely compelling about watching it.
‘Since when have you worried about that?’ Lesley asked.
‘I’m every bit as environmentally aware as the next person,’ Miriam said huffily.
‘What if the next person is David Attenborough?’
‘You always have a smart answer for everything!’ her mother said, as if it was a bad thing.
The video came to an end. ‘Will we watch another one?’ her father asked.
‘Sure. There are loads.’ Lesley scrolled through the list of soap cutting videos to show them. ‘And look how many hits they get.’
‘Theyarevery popular, aren’t they?’ Miriam said, and Lesley could tell she was weakening.
‘And much more on trend than extreme ironing,’ Lesley said.
‘I do have that set of soaps the cleaner gave me last Christmas,’ Miriam said thoughtfully. ‘Fig and custard or some such ghastly concoction. I’m never going to use them.’
Her mother made tea, and they were all still watching YouTube when Katrina returned from her walk.
‘What are you all looking at?’ she asked.
‘Soap cutting videos,’ Lesley said.
‘It’s the latest YouTube sensation,’ Miriam told her. ‘I think I’m going to give it a go. The extreme ironing is very hard on my back anyway.’
‘God, what’s this sudden obsession with YouTube, Mam? How do you evenknowabout YouTube at your age?’
‘Oh, Liz from the bridge club showed me one of those proposal videos,’ Miriam said airily, casting a sly look at Lesley, ‘and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. Such a lovely idea.’ She sighed. ‘So romantic!’
‘Ugh! You think?’ Katrina screwed up her face. ‘If someone did that to me, I’d fucking castrate them on the spot and putthaton YouTube.’
Miriam gasped, looking horrified. Lesley tried to catch her eye, but her mother was studiously avoiding eye contact with her. So she had to make do with smiling smugly to herself and trying to telepath ‘Told you so’ to her.
‘How was Nice?’Romy asked later when Lesley called her.
‘Fantastic! I had sex with Al!’ Lesley squealed down the phone, glad to be talking to someone who realised this was big news.
Romy gasped. ‘Really?’
‘Still am, actually. Shagging him, that is. Well, not right this minute, but—’
‘I should hope not. It was good then? The sex?’
‘Yeah. It was ... kind of amazing, actually,’ Lesley said, grinning to herself at the thought of it.
‘So you fancy him now?’
‘Yeah, I think so. I mean yes, I do.’ She hadn’t been too sure at first if it was just general free-floating horniness, and Al just happened to be the one getting the benefit. But she had decided over the last couple of days that it was definitely Al-specific.
‘See, I told you it could happen if you gave it a chance.’
‘You were right. Who knew?’ Lesley said wonderingly. ‘My first grower!’
But there was still a lot to process about her and Al too. She didn’t really know what this thing between them was or where she stood. It had only started because she’d jumped him the night of the thunder storm. Were they just having sex? Was he attending to her needs as he’d offered to do, making it up to her because she couldn’t be with anyone else while they were pretending to be together? She’d always felt he liked her more than she liked him. But now that shedidlike him in that way, she was starting to wonder if she’d not only caught up, but overtaken him.
