Million Love Songs(27)

There’s a great cycle shop/café combo there which I love. They do the best cappuccino in town and always have cool tunes playing. When I was first divorced, I hated to go into cafés by myself. I felt as if everyone was looking at me and wondering why I had no husband, no mates. Now it’s become second nature. I like the time that I spend alone, deep in contemplation – or, more likely, looking at Twitter on my phone to see what Ryan Gosling is up to. The other thing I like about this café is that it’s not full of the pram set. You’ll not find a toddler crawling beneath your table with the remains of a chocolate croissant spread round its mouth. Instead, it’s always populated by fit Lycra-clad cyclists talking about pedals and headsets and handlebars and stuff I don’t understand – nor particularly want to. Perhaps I should chat up one of those.

Yet, when I swing in today, it’s full of glamorous lady pensioners who look like they’re having a book group meeting. Maybe they like to look at the firm thighs of cyclists while they talk about Anita Shreve novels. Perhaps I should join a book club even though I haven’t read a novel since I was about fifteen. That’s the kind of thing single women do. I don’t recall seeing it on that internet list of hobbies though.

I have a nice relaxing coffee and listen to the mellow sounds. I think about texting Mason, then I realise that I don’t actually have his number. Then I double-realise that it would be a bad idea to text him. If there’s going to be any texting then it should come from him. Besides, he strikes me as the kind of guy who’d like to do all the running.

Clearly, the whole chillout thing works as, when I reach the last bit of froth at the bottom of my cup, I’ve talked myself into going to my dive lesson. I shall be cool but friendly with Joe. I won’t flirt or go all giddy when he holds my hand underwater. I won’t go to the pub afterwards to socialise. I shall be an island. I’ll complete the course, learn to dive – of a fashion – and then tick the box marked ‘done’ and move on. That’s exactly what I’ll do.

After the coffee stop, I go round to my parents’ house. Dad is at work keeping the wheels of the banking industry turning at Santander, but it’s Mum’s day off from her job-share as secretary at a local school. I stick my head round the door and shout, ‘Hiya!!’

‘Hello, love,’ Mum shouts back. ‘Just dead-heading the plants in the conservatory.’

Giving them a death sentence, more like. My mum tells everyone she’s got green fingers but between you and me, she can kill an orchid stone-dead in a week. It’s a gift. One which I have inherited.

She comes into the kitchen, wiping soil and random bits of petal from her hands. ‘It’s like the Sahara in that conservatory,’ she complains. ‘I’m having to water every day. I’m trying to persuade your father to get a proper roof put on it, but he likes the sunshine. He can fall asleep in a nano-second in there.’

I kiss her cheek while she’s still muttering on.

‘Do you want lunch?’ she says. ‘I’ve only got cheese or ham. Or there’s some chicken from last night. Or I could get a pizza out of the freezer. Or whip you up a Caesar salad. I haven’t been to Sainsbury’s so there’s no cake.’

My mother feels as if she’s failed in life if you haven’t eaten after you’ve been in the house for more than thirty seconds.

‘A sarnie would be fine.’

‘Cheese? Ham? Chicken? Or I can open a tin of tuna. Or boil some eggs. Your father’s got some pork pies hidden from me at the back of the fridge. You’re welcome to them, but on your own head be it.’

‘Cheese. Don’t go to any trouble.’

‘It’s no trouble.’ She kisses my cheek. ‘How can making lunch for my favourite daughter be any trouble?’

‘I’m your only daughter.’

‘And I don’t see enough of you.’

‘I’m busy at the pub. I’ve been doing some extra shifts.’

‘Don’t let them take advantage of you,’ she warns. ‘You’re too easy.’

I think she’s means easy-going. I’m sure of it. Though if she’d seen me letting my boss take advantage of me the other night, then she’d have a point.

‘No young man on the horizon?’

‘I’m not fifteen, Mum.’ I’ve been in the house for about three minutes before we get on to my chequered love life, so this is even a record for Mum. See what I mean about them sometimes being too close?

‘I want to see you settled,’ she says as she washes her hands and delves into the fridge.

‘What you mean is that you want me to knock out a couple of grandbabies.’ And as soon as possible.

‘You’re not getting any younger.’

‘Thanks for pointing that out.’

‘By the time I was your age you and your brother were both teenagers.’

Probably about the same age as Daisy and Tom are now.

As she butters bread in a ferocious manner and slaps some ham on it, even though I’m pretty sure we’d settled on cheese, I say, ‘It’s different now, Mum. Everything takes longer. We don’t settle down until much later. I’ll probably be a pensioner before I can buy my own home.’

‘You leave everything too late. We didn’t have holidays in Mexico or go out drinking cocktails. We saved up and got married.’