I’m fidgety after that phone call with Leena; I look around for a job to keep me busy. I’m just eyeing Fitz’s washing up when I spot Leena’s laptop on the breakfast counter and perk up. Perhaps Tod is available to talk.

There is a new message waiting for me on the dating website, but it’s from someone new.

OldCountryBoy says: Hello, Eileen. I hope you don’t mind me saying hello?

 

OldCountryBoy’s profile picture is photograph of him as a young man, dressed in a loose white vest with a cap on his head. He was certainly handsome then, but that doesn’t mean a lot now. Though I don’t mind so much about handsome. After all, Wade was a real looker, and see how he turned out.

EileenCotton79 says: Of course! I’m on this website to meet people.

 

I hesitate, and then, after a moment’s thought, add a smiling face, like Leena does when she’s texting. It’s a bit flirtatious – I think – but why not, eh? Tod and I are being ‘non-exclusive’, after all. And twenty-something Eileen Cotton, with her big plans for a London adventure … She would certainly have imagined there’d be more than one man in the mix.

13

Leena

‘Are you sure you don’t want to just buy them a cake?’ Ethan says.

I’m balancing the phone on top of Grandma’s vintage stand mixer while I try to bake please-like-me brownies. I’ve decided Roland and Penelope will be my first target in winning the May Day Committee around to my medieval theme. If a team have banded together against you, the best approach is to divide and conquer, and I sensed weakness from Penelope. Separated from Betsy’s influence, I think she might be quite friendly. She is letting me borrow her car, after all.

‘No! I’m having a rural idyll up here in Hamleigh, remember? Baking is very idyllic and rural.’ The knife slips across the cold block of butter and stabs me in the thumb. I try very hard not to swear, so as not to ruin the general air of domestic goddessery I’m trying to evoke here.

‘Baking is also quite hard,’ Ethan says mildly, ‘especially if you’ve never done it before.’

‘I have a comprehensive blog post guiding me through,’ I tell him, squinting down at the printout beside the mixing bowl and sucking my sore thumb. I open the pack of flour and it tears, sending a snowfall of self-raising down my jeans. ‘Gah.’

‘Angel, come on. Just buy some brownies, put them on a plate, and do something interesting instead. Hey, I’ve been staring at this system requirements traceability matrix for hours and I’m getting nowhere. Want to dig your teeth into that?’

I brush down my jeans. I actually really don’t want to get my teeth into that – it’s been surprisingly great forgetting about Selmount while I’m up here. Also, even I don’t like system requirements traceability matrices.

‘Do you mind if I don’t?’ I say tentatively. ‘Sorry, I just feel like I need a break.’

‘Whoa, turning down a spreadsheet! That’s got to be a first.’

‘Sorry!’

‘No worries. I should go, though – this is hours of work if I’m going it solo.’

‘Oh, right. Sorry. You’re still coming this weekend, though, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah, for sure, if I can get away. All right, angel, speak soon!’

‘Good—’

Oh. He’s gone already.

*

That evening, Penelope answers the door and stares at the plate of very, very dark brown brownies that I have thrust towards her.

‘Umm. Hello?’ she says.

‘Hi! I made brownies!’

I am relying on the ‘it’s the thought that counts’ principle here, because these brownies are clearly burned.

‘Look, I’m a horrible baker,’ I confess, ‘but I really wanted to bring something around to say thanks for letting me share the car.’

Penelope stares at me blankly for a moment. ‘Roland!’ she yells, so loudly I let out a little surprised eep. ‘Sorry,’ she says, noticing. ‘His ears, you know. Roland! Roland! Marian’s girl is here, she wants to talk about the car!’

‘Perhaps I could come in and speak to you both?’ I suggest, as Penelope continues to shout over her shoulder. She has impressive lungs for a woman so small and frail looking.

‘Umm,’ Penelope says, suddenly rather shifty.

‘Penelope, dear!’ calls a familiar voice from inside the house. ‘Come and look at these tropical cocktails Jackson’s made, they’re ever so fun!’

That was definitely Betsy.

My mouth drops open. Jackson appears in the hall behind Penelope.

‘Oh. Hi,’ he says. He is holding a cocktail in what I think may be a knickerbocker glory glass. It even has a small yellow umbrella in the top.

A small yellow umbrella takes planning.

‘Are you having a May Day pitch meeting without me?’ I say, fixing him with my steeliest glare, the one I usually reserve for men caught mid-perv on the tube.

Jackson steps back slightly. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No, no, really not. I’m just making tea for Penelope and Roland, I do it every week, and sometimes Basil and Betsy come along, and we just … got talking about cocktails.’

‘You just got talking, did you?’

‘Why don’t you come in, Leena?’ Penelope says.

I step inside. The house is like a time capsule from the sixties: an autumnal patterned carpet in oranges and browns, dark oil paintings, three china ducks flying their way up the hall wall and past the stair lift. It’s stiflingly warm and smells of potpourri and gravy.

Roland, Betsy, Basil and Penelope are sitting around the dining table, all clutching cocktails with variously coloured umbrellas and slices of pineapple adorning their glasses.

‘Hello,’ I say, as pleasantly as I can manage. ‘So. What’s on the menu tonight?’

‘Just a roast,’ Jackson says, disappearing into the kitchen.

Oh, sure, just a roast.

‘And brownies for pudding,’ he says.

I’m glad he’s no longer able to see my expression because I’m confident I have not managed to disguise my dismay at this news. I quietly set down my plate of blackened brownies on the Welsh dresser by the dining-room door, wondering whether there’s somewhere I can hide them so Jackson doesn’t see them. That’s quite a large pot plant over there. The brownies could definitely pass for soil if I put them around the base.

‘What was it you wanted to talk about, dear?’ Penelope asks, making her way back to her spot at the table.

‘The car!’ I say, after a moment of trying to remember what my cover story was for bringing around my please-like-me brownies.

‘Oh, yes. Serving you well, is it?’ Roland asks.

‘Yes, I just wanted to say thanks – it’s been brilliant,’ I lie.

That car is an absolute wreck. I have discovered in the last week of driving it that the air conditioning switches inexplicably between sauna hot and see-your-breath cold, and no amount of reading the manual online can help me figure out why. It is definitely making me a more dangerous driver. I now regularly remove or put on clothing while at the wheel, for example.