Five Winters(88)

“Didn’t you want to take him to the classes yourself?”

“I haven’t got the time. Or I won’t have, not if Buddy really becomes a superstar.” He paused. “I’m applying to do a teacher training course in September. To become a maths teacher.” His head was down, and he looked suddenly shy.

A maths teacher. Yes! That was so right for him. “That’s fantastic, Mark.”

He looked at me hopefully. “Do you really think so?”

“Of course I do. You’ll be brilliant at it.”

He smiled. “Thanks. I’m pleased, I must admit. Finally—finally I know what I want to do. I’m looking forward to spreading the joy of maths to the world, you know? Anyway, as I won’t be working from home anymore, Mum and I have agreed to share care of Buddy. He’ll be with her during the week and with me at weekends. A bit like the child of divorced parents but without the need to shunt a suitcase back and forth.”

“Won’t he need a suitcase for all his dog toys and trophies?”

Mark smiled. “They can go in the boot of his chauffeur-driven limousine if he gets really famous.”

Damn. Despite all my efforts, we were back to our normal bantering selves. This could easily act as a gateway to a serious chat—which I was determined not to have—about how strained things had been between us lately. Where the hell was Rosie?

Right on cue, my phone bleeped with a message.

Sorry, can’t make it today after all. Last-minute Christmas shopping. See you next week. R. XXX

“Bad news?”

“Yes. Rosie can’t make it today after all.”

“Sorry to hear that.” He raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Though I suppose that does mean you’re free to come with me to the Museum of the Home after all?”

Five minutes later we were on our way. It was a quiet walk, what with me simmering like a pot about to come to a boil, resenting the fact that Mark thought he could just turn up and decide what I was going to do on the Saturday before Christmas. Furious with myself for relapsing and just going along with what he wanted.

Not that I didn’t want to go to the Museum of the Home. I always enjoyed going there, especially at Christmas. I just didn’t want to want to go with Mark. Yet, despite everything, it seemed that I did. And I really shouldn’t.

“Do you know about the history of the museum?” Mark asked, breaking the silence. Well, I supposed somebody had to break it. The Museum of the Home was two miles away from my flat. “It was originally built as an almshouse for the poor by this guy Geffrye. People were very altruistic in those days if they could afford to be, weren’t they?”

“It was probably an attempt to salve his conscience,” I sniped. “Geffrye was connected to the slave trade. That’s how he got the money to be altruistic. Didn’t you know?”

Mark’s face fell. “Was he? No, I didn’t know that.”

“Not a lot of people do.”

This time, when silence fell, Mark didn’t try to break it. Not at first, anyway.

Then he said, “Look, Beth . . .”

And I just couldn’t bear whatever he was going to launch into. Couldn’t bear to think about the days after Christmas when I’d ignored his calls. The uncomfortable atmosphere between us over the dinner table at Sylvia’s—Mark hollow eyed from the fallout of splitting with Grace, Buddy acting as an effective buffer for our awkwardness.

“Where d’you think Rosie and Giorgio will get married?” I asked. “Enfield or Rome?”

When Mark smiled sadly, I knew he was only too aware I’d spoken to shut him up. But he responded gamely anyway. “I’d have thought you’d know that better than me. Presumably, you’re going to be a flower girl or a matron of honour or whatever they call it?”

“The word matron conjures up images of starched nurses’ outfits,” I joked, casting desperately around for a scrap—no matter how small—of humour and feeling sadder than I’d felt since last Christmas as I did so. “I’m not sure that’s the look Rosie will want to go for with her bridesmaid outfits.”

“You’ll have to go down the flower-girl route then.”

“A frothy party dress, becoming braids, and a woven basket of posies?”

He pretended to appraise me, then nodded. “I reckon you could pull it off.”

Oh God, we were here at the museum. Thank God we were at the museum. At least now we could talk about the exhibits.

The Museum of the Home’s main exhibits—which were all decorated for Christmas at this time of the year—were sitting rooms from across the ages, decked out with original furniture and paintings for their period, with well-researched place settings on the tables and artificial representations of food of the day.

Visitors weren’t allowed in the rooms—you had to stand behind a silken rope and gaze into the interiors, staring back into the past. The first room dated from 1600 and had a table groaning with food, which I knew, since I’d been here several times before, was mainly sweet, sugar having been so expensive at the time that it was an expression of wealth. A sort of sweet-tasting version of keeping up with the Joneses.

As I looked at it now, it was all too easy to imagine images of the mock eggs and bacon made entirely of sugar paste being posted on Instagram, had Instagram existed back then.