Desperately Seeking - By Evelyn Cosgrave Page 0,73

wine, and join me without needing to go through the customary formalities of how I was getting on at college or wasn’t Christmas/Easter/ Hallowe’en all a bit crazy. We would sit together, sipping the wine, and before we knew it, we’d be laughing about something silly one of us had said. I have always felt so at ease in Mike’s company, yet there’s the sense that we’re on the edge of something very exciting.

Now, suddenly, he turned to me. ‘I’ve really enjoyed this afternoon,’ he said.

‘Me too.’

He looked as if he might be about to say something more but he finished his wine and said it was time he went.

‘You should stay. It wouldn’t be a problem, and after all the work you’ve done…’

‘No, no, this is definitely just for the girls. We’ll do it some other time when it isn’t a girls-only evening.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘we will do this again, that’s a great idea.’

He was walking out of the door when I remembered the kitchen equipment and his CDs. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Hold on to them for a while. Your stereo and your kitchen are crying out for something new.’

‘OK, but I’ll drop them back soon. You might want to do some entertaining yourself.’

‘No hurry,’ he said and laid a hand on my shoulder and kissed me. It began as a kiss on the cheek, the way we’d always kissed, but just before our faces touched he turned so that the edge of his mouth brushed the edge of mine. It might have been an accident, but it felt as if he’d intended it all along. It was like the prelude to a deeper, longer, more passionate kiss. It was only a few seconds but it was unmistakable.

He didn’t catch my eye again and practically ran down the stairs.

The dinner was a great success. From the moment Iris stepped through the door she was at ease and soon it seemed that she’d always been part of the family. She was easy-going by nature – it would take a lot to faze her – but she appeared genuinely relaxed with us. And it was obvious she was stone mad about Lucy. I don’t think she took her eyes off her all evening, and everything she said was in some way a compliment to her. Marion had expressed concern to me earlier that she might be very domineering, given that she’d been such a driving force in Lucy’s coming out, but that didn’t seem to be the case. She was strong, certainly, but no stronger or bossier or more overbearing than the rest of us could be. In fact, she was very nice.

In appearance she was striking. She was roughly the same age as Jean, but she had the demeanour of someone much older. Her skin was soft and peachy and smooth; she was wearing hardly any makeup apart from a little eye-liner and maybe lip balm. Her hair was silvery grey; the grey was her own, the silver was courtesy of her hairdresser. ‘It suits me to look my age,’ she said. ‘I was never girly.’ And neither was she womanly exactly, but that’s not to say she was manly. She was wearing wide-legged black linen trousers with an oversized white shirt and a thick ethnic belt. Her shoes were indeed comfortable but they were also attractive – soft leather mules in a medley of criss-crossed colours. If you were to take her appearance as a whole you would have to say that she was rather Diane Keatonesque. Everything about her gave the impression of someone comfortably in control of her life.

She was full of interesting conversation too. She had been running her own firm of auctioneers and estate agents for more than ten years. It was small but highly successful. She specialized in leasing and selling office spaces but she’d handle anything if it was profitable. She had us in stitches as she told us stories of her experiences over the years. ‘You wouldn’t think property could be funny,’ she said, ‘but I’ve had some of my best laughs over a sale.’

And so the night proceeded, with Mike’s excellent dinner and Iris’s entertaining anecdotes, and the odd bit here and there from the rest of us, who were happy just to eat and listen. It was then that Jean first told us about her new flat-share. She was trying to fix a night for her house-warming. ‘I’m warning you in advance,’ she said, ‘that there’ll be no food