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‘Er … what’s gone weird?’ Erica asks Fergus politely.
‘My translator,’ he mutters, scowling at the gadget’s tiny screen.
‘Oh, what’s that for?’
‘For translating,’ he replies, rolling his coffee-brown eyes as if to say, Who is this bloody fool?
‘He likes buying old gadgets from charity shops and trying to get them to work,’ I explain.
‘That’s, um, resourceful,’ Erica says unconvincingly as Logan blows his nose on a square of kitchen roll.
‘Anyway, boys,’ I say firmly, ‘could you leave us for a minute please? This is important. Remember I told you—’
‘It has translations for thirty-six thousand words,’ Fergus cuts in, ‘in seven languages.’
‘Wow, that’s impressive,’ Erica says, checking her watch.
‘Tell it to say something,’ he demands.
Our visitor’s jaw tightens. ‘Er – hello, how are you?’
Fergus prods a few buttons. Ich bin diabetika, it chirps robotically. He touched my breast—
‘It said it’s diabetic,’ Fergus starts.
‘And someone touched its breast,’ Logan chuckles, twanging the elasticated waistband of his trackies.
‘Yes, we heard that.’ My posh voice has disappeared and now I, too, am sweating as I try to figure out how I might remove my sons from the kitchen without shouting or manhandling them in front of Erica.
‘It doesn’t have any,’ Fergus sniggers.
‘Have you been groping it?’ Logan ribs him. ‘’Cause it wouldn’t say that unless there was a reason—’
‘What are you on about?’ Fergus retorts.
‘You must’ve assaulted it,’ his brother exclaims as the darn thing starts up again: Ich bin diabetika. He touched my breast. Ich bin—
‘Fergus,’ I bark, ‘please put that thing away. We don’t need it right now …’
Logan rubs his upper lip where the faintest moustache is beginning to sprout. ‘We’ll never need it. It’s obsolete. What’s the point of a piece of crap like that when there’s Google Translate?’
‘Logan!’ I try to shoo him away with a fierce glare.
‘Well,’ Erica says dryly, ‘I suppose it has a certain retro appeal.’
‘What does non posso mangiare che mean?’ Fergus asks, mouth-breathing over the screen.
‘I’ve no idea,’ I mutter. ‘I don’t speak Italian.’
Erica clears her throat. ‘It means “I can’t eat that.”’
‘Great line for a meringue company,’ Logan snorts. ‘Maybe that should be your slogan, Mum.’
‘You can’t speak German either,’ Fergus reminds me, ‘or Polish or Dutch …’ No, because, clearly, I am an imbecile. There are many cockroaches in my hotel room, the translator bleats. I require police assistance immediately. Help! Help! Where is the nearest unisex hair salon? Ich bin diabetika—
‘Type in “goodbye”,’ I snap. ‘Type in, “It’s been very nice to meet you, Erica, but now I am going to leave you both to get on with important things.”’
I have been raped! the machine squawks, at which Logan honks with laughter.
‘Excuse me a second.’ Grabbing Fergus by his clammy hand, I march him out of the kitchen and into the living room where I hiss, ‘Stay here until she’s gone, okay? I’m trying to create a good impression and you’re really not helping.’
He fixes me with a challenging stare. ‘It’ll be useful on holiday if I can fix it.’
‘You’re going to the Highlands with Dad, remember? As far as I’m aware, they speak the same language as us.’
‘I don’t mean for Easter,’ he calls after me as I leave the room. ‘I mean our summer holiday. Are we going anywhere this year?’
‘Haven’t decided yet.’
‘We never go abroad,’ he bleats. He’s right – but how far does he think we’ll get on the bit of fluff I have left in my purse at the end of each month?
By the time I’m back in the kitchen, Logan has returned to his bedroom and Erica is clutching her brown leather briefcase in readiness for leaving. Meanwhile, I’m wondering if it would really be so terrible if the translator suffered an unfortunate accident, such as tumbling from our second-floor window and being run over by a car.
‘Well, Alice,’ Erica says coolly, ‘I’m pleased to tell you that your premises have passed.’
It takes me a moment to process this. ‘You mean everything’s okay?’
She nods. ‘Yes, you’re ready to go.’
‘Oh, that’s great! Thank you.’
Her clear blue eyes skim the room, settling momentarily on the scrunched-up piece of kitchen roll which Logan deposited on the table. Then, just as she makes for the door, another small object catches her eye. She frowns, and I follow her gaze towards the cooker – or, more precisely, to the small, turd-like object that’s poking out from under it.
It’s a bit of old sausage. Time seems to freeze as we stare at it. It hasn’t been there long, I want to explain. Or I could joke about cutting it open to date it, the way you can count the rings in a tree. But instinct tells me that Erica wouldn’t find that amusing so, mustering a brazen smile, I saunter towards it and send it scooting under the cooker with a sharp kick. Our eyes meet and she smirks. ‘Well, good luck with your meringues,’ she says. ‘I think it’s a great idea for a business. And I do hope your son manages to get his translator fixed.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_54025e63-38aa-506f-a22c-907c2a94b281)
Four months later (#ulink_54025e63-38aa-506f-a22c-907c2a94b281)
It’s a cool, breezy afternoon as I leave Middlebank Primary where I work as the school secretary. Having texted the boys, who’ll head straight home from their nearby secondary school, I take a short detour via Betsy’s, a smart, airy cafe housed on the ground floor of a converted chapel. In recent years, there’s been an explosion of quaint tea shops here in Edinburgh. While there is no shortage of cupcake suppliers, meringues appear to have novelty appeal, which has proved good for business. Betsy’s is owned by an eager young couple who look like they’re barely out of college.
‘Just wondered how it’s been going this week,’ I tell Jenny, who offers me tea in a gilt-edged china cup.
‘Really well,’ she says, ‘especially the tiny ones – the meringue kisses.’
‘People seem to prefer them with coffee,’ I tell her.
‘We’ll take more next week,’ she adds. ‘What d’you think, Max?’
Her boyfriend turns from the coffee machine and grins. ‘Oh, sure. If Alice can handle it.’
Jenny laughs. ‘We were just saying we don’t know how you manage to fit it all in. With your job and family, I mean …’
‘Oh, it keeps me sane, actually,’ I reply truthfully.
‘Well, you’re obviously doing something right,’ Jenny says with a broad smile. ‘They’re the new cupcakes, right?’
Max nods. ‘Far superior in my opinion. All that thick, cloying icing …’ I leave the cafe filled with optimism and pride. While meringues have always been a personal favourite of mine, maybe I’ve hit on a gap in the market here.
My mobile rings; it’s Ingrid. ‘So what happened?’ she asks eagerly, referring to her party on Saturday night.
‘We’re meant to be going for dinner next Friday,’ I tell her.
‘I knew it! I saw you two, huddled together in the kitchen …’
I laugh. ‘We weren’t huddled, we were talking.’
‘Talking intently,’ she remarks.
‘Well … it was just chit-chat really, but he seemed interesting …’ It’s true: while I don’t think either of us was bowled over, I could see no reason not to see him again. After all, my dating activity is roughly on a par with a solar eclipse these days.
‘Well, he seemed hugely keen,’ Ingrid goes on as I march up the hill at a brisk pace. ‘Every time you wandered off to talk to someone else, he was prowling about looking for you. I hope you’re going to give him a chance.’
I inhale deeply. ‘I don’t know, Ing. It’s just been a hell of a long time, you know?’
‘All the more reason then.’
‘And there’s the boys,’ I add. ‘You know what it’s like.’ She doesn’t really; happily married to Sean for a decade now, and with a charming daughter who plays no less than three musical instruments, Ingrid is more sorted than anyone else I know. There’s the matter of being unable, inexplicably, to conceive another baby after Saskia, but following a failed IVF cycle they are trying again, and Ingrid is always keen to stress that another child would merely be the icing on the cake.
‘That doesn’t mean you can’t date,’ she says firmly. ‘It’s not as if they have to meet every person you have a drink with. You’re hardly going to haul him home after dinner, going, “Hey boys, meet your new Uncle Anthony …”’
‘Christ, no,’ I exclaim.
‘And it’s been, what – over a year since that finance guy? The one who wanted to inspect your bank statements?’
‘And told me off for not having an ISA,’ I add with a grin. ‘Yeah, more like eighteen months actually.’
‘Well, they’re not all like that. I’ve only met Anthony a couple of times but he seems lovely. Handsome, didn’t you think? In that groomed, takes-care-of-himself sort of way. Not gone to seed. Has a personal trainer, Sean reckons, and he’s brilliant at golf …’
Golf! Checked trousers, diamond-patterned sweaters … no, no, I mustn’t think that way. I replay last Saturday night, when I was leaving Ingrid’s party: It’s been lovely talking to you, Anthony had said, fixing me with intense grey eyes, like wet slate. I don’t suppose you’d like to come to dinner sometime? There’s a friendly little local place I know … how are you fixed on Friday night? A proper date-night, then. All we’d talked about was who we knew at the party, how long we’d been living in Edinburgh and a few sketchy background details about our lives. I hadn’t exactly experienced an urge to kiss him, or to glimpse that nicely honed body naked – but maybe ISA-man killed my ability to fancy anyone at all. And surely, any normally functioning woman would find a tall, smiley, smartly dressed man like Anthony attractive? Which is why I agreed to meet him for dinner – because I was bloody flattered to be asked.
‘I have a good feeling about this,’ Ingrid adds, ‘and I know you’re excited really.’
‘Am I?’ I say, laughing.
‘Yes, you’re panting.’
‘Ingrid, I’m marching up a hill …’
‘Well,’ she sniggers, ‘I can’t wait to hear about it. I mean, eighteen months. Christ. It’s time you were back out there.’
‘Back out there? Sounds like a sign in an NCP car park …’
‘Oh, stop it,’ she says, mock-scolding. ‘Promise you’ll go and not make up some crappy excuse about the boys being ill or whatever. I know what you’re like, Alice Sweet.’
She does, too, in the way that a friend of twenty years – since our second year at college – is aware of the difference between a mere reluctance to date, and full-blown terror at the very prospect. Which is, admittedly, the situation right now. Plus, with a track record like mine, I have to ask myself, is it worth it, really? Getting ‘out there’, I mean? It’s not just ISA-Man, and his perpetual nagging about share acquisition. It’s the whole, sorry dating debacle since I split with Tom, the boys’ father. A handful of encounters scattered over six years of single parenthood – each one making me question why I was in some gloomy, sticky tabled bar, or having sex with someone who might well have been simultaneously calculating the net profit on his investments. Frankly, I’d rather have been cosied up on the sofa with Logan and Fergus, munching crisps and sniggering over something daft on TV.
‘So you promise not to back out,’ Ingrid says firmly.
‘Promise,’ I say.
A small pause. ‘It’ll be great. I’m not sure what he does exactly but he seems like a really driven, thrusting guy.’ We both bark with laughter as I finish the call, trying to convince myself that Ingrid is absolutely right.
*
On Friday, as I pull on my new dress – sapphire-blue linen, grabbed from some sale rail one lunchtime – my thoughts fast-forward to tomorrow when the date will be over and I’ll be happily regaling Ingrid, plus our other college friends Kirsty and Viv, with the details. It’s a pleasant spring evening, the kind that coaxes dog-walkers and couples out to our gently sloping park, with its wide open sky and a glimmer of the Firth of Forth beyond. Hell, is it really eighteen months since I last slept with someone, let alone had a date? In contrast, Tom had found himself a wife less than a year after we split (he and I had never got around to tying the knot). He is married to the fragrant Patsy, founder of a children’s sleepwear company called Dandelion. They live in a vicarage in Cumbria surrounded by rolling fields and cattle, and have an adorable golden-haired daughter, Jessica, who regularly models for the Dandelion catalogue. We’re not talking Hello Kitty nighties or SpongeBob pyjamas; the only embellishment allowed on Patsy’s top-quality garments is a tiny embroidered dandelion clock.
Tom’s contact with our sons is sporadic and largely dependent on his ‘work commitments’. We’re talking a weekend down at the vicarage now and again, although he is whisking the boys away to the Highlands during the Easter holidays, which they seem to be regarding as a rare treat (no complaints about it ‘not being abroad’ where their dad’s concerned). ‘Patsy said I can model the teen boys’ range,’ Fergus told me recently, startling me with his enthusiasm. So, while he’s reluctant to be seen walking down the street with me these days, he’d be perfectly happy to risk being spotted by his friends in a checked seersucker ensemble in a bloody catalogue. Of course, Logan and Fergus have no idea that, for much of our relationship, Daddy modelled the same three pairs of limp, not exactly box-fresh underpants in rotation, until they literally shredded in the washing machine. Nor are they aware that he spent virtually all of our thirteen-year relationship in a fug of Southern Comfort and beer. (Granted, Tom was never a horrible or, God forbid, violent drunk. He’d just go all floppy and canine, pawing at me and trying to lick my face.)
All that limpid puppy stuff had been okay-ish pre-kids, when we’d been students in a house share together. It was still bearable – just – when I gave birth to Logan, perhaps because, as a twenty-three-year-old new mum, I was so freaked out that I couldn’t fully register anything else that was going on around me. We muddled on for years because I still loved Tom, despite his unsavoury pants and habit of penning poems along the lines of: Lovely Alice/I don’t need a palace/with you at my side … Until the day arrived when the boys were seven and ten and I realised that, unless we split, I’d spend the rest of my life coming home from work to have Tom glance up from the sofa and ask, ‘Do we have any milk?’
You see, back then, Tom didn’t go out to work. He wasn’t a partner in Dandelion, giving talks on the virtues of organic brushed cotton and formaldehyde-free dyes. In his early thirties, and with both Fergus and Logan at school full-time, he was still trying to figure out ‘what it is I really want to do’.
As I am, an hour later, as I pause outside the restaurant which Anthony has booked for our date tonight. It is housed in a creamy sandstone crescent, sandwiched between solicitors’ offices, a small, white sign the size of a postcard offering the only hint of its existence. It is called, simply, ‘chard’ (lower case ‘c’), which I know vaguely to be some kind of leafy vegetable, although I can’t say I’ve eaten it. However, it’s clear that Anthony wasn’t being completely honest when he described the restaurant as a ‘friendly little local place’. Unless this is the kind of establishment he frequents all the time; a possibility which causes my hands to become instantly tacky with sweat.
I inhale deeply, wondering if the boys are okay at home, and reminding myself that of course they are – Logan is old enough to leave school, have-sex-God-forbid, get married and even buy a scratch card without parental consent. And I’ve left them with a stack of cash, takeaway pizza menus and permission to order whatever they like.
Christ, I could murder a Four Seasons right now …
I push open the heavy glass door and step in. There he is, smiling broadly at a table in the centre of the sparsely populated room. I fix on a smile and am greeted with a kiss on the cheek.
‘Hope you like this place,’ Anthony says, sweeping out an arm in appreciation of the grandeur of the building. ‘It’s a favourite of mine.’
Or maybe the thin crust with pine nuts and spinach, which never fails to disgust Logan: ‘Like, why would anyone want a pizza with salad all over it?’
‘It’s lovely,’ I say, taking a seat.
‘I thought we’d have the tasting menu,’ he announces. ‘It’s the only way to fully appreciate what they do here.’
Those slate eyes sparkle. I swallow hard and glance down at my menu.
‘That sounds great.’ Be positive, I remind myself as the waiter appears and Anthony orders. Ingrid was right, I absolutely should be here, because this is what grown-up single women do. And it’s time to move on, to be proactive and seize the moment, after six years of crap dates and sex which has been at best, a mild diversion and, at worst, made me seriously consider celibacy as a more satisfying option.
‘So you mentioned you’re a teacher,’ Anthony says, his confident tone snapping me back to the present.
‘I’m actually a school secretary,’ I remind him, having imparted this fascinating information at the party.
‘Oh, I see.’ His eyes fix on mine.
