of days after it with a plan and I have just returned from helping him with it.
I had been pruning the garden, fairly sure you would be chastising me for letting weeds grow. I’ve never been completely convinced which ones are weeds, sometimes they seem rather pretty. Luke approached me looking uncharacteristically nervous, his normal relaxed demeanour ruffled, a hand through his hair, his eyes darting around the plants.
‘It is looking very good,’ he finally said.
I sat up. God, my body ached. I see now why you were so keen on purchasing that heated roller massager for your back. My knees sounded like something was popping in there as I stood. I knew he wasn’t here to talk about our garden. For an enchanting moment I wondered if he might be here to ask for our permission. For Lottie. I know you always wanted him and her to stay together. A ‘keeper’ you had called him. It had been when he brought you those dark chocolate ginger nut biscuits a week or so after you’d made a comment about loving them. You were putty for him after that. That and his ‘lovely hands’, which I still can’t quite seem to see are different to anyone else’s hands, and I swear sometimes he catches me looking. He certainly has very neatly clipped nails.
I never asked what you thought of my hands. I hope you liked them.
He dithered about the subject for an age, following me inside in silence, pacing the kitchen before finally sitting down. In fact, our tea had almost gone cold. He had been twitching in his chair in the kitchen, tapping on the placemat, and I was about to make my excuses and get back out to the garden.
‘Do you think you could help me with something?’ He blurted it out, spilling the last of his tea on the Formica table and then leaping up to wipe at the puddle.
‘Calm down!’ I laughed and threw a cloth at him. ‘Of course. What do you want?’
‘I was thinking, after our fishing, about what I could do. And well . . . I’ve been seeing a bit of Arjun lately, helping him with something, secret, just work really, so I thought I could ask him for a favour too and he was keen but, of course, with his hip like it is . . . ’
What secret project was Luke working on with Arjun? Why would his hip stop him? I was desperately trying to keep up, Cora, unused to seeing Luke so flustered.
‘Well, the long and short of it is Arjun told me that you and Cora could dance. That is, you were, are’ – he corrected himself quickly – ‘quite a good dancer. Arjun wants to help too but he’s out of action so he told me to ask you.’
I frowned, trying to unravel what he was asking. I wasn’t sure there was a question as yet.
‘You see, I was telling him I’d like to do something a little special. I know we’ve both been doing the odd thing, dating the old-fashioned way, but I wanted to really show I could make an effort. So I thought, what could I do? I could learn a dance. Women love a man who can dance, I know, I see it at weddings all the time. I’m the man over by the bar making my way through the circle of Brie and the wedding cake and hoping Lottie is too distracted to want to dance, but really I know she would. And I’ve never felt equipped, left-footed, like a giraffe on roller-skates.’
He finally paused for breath and honestly, Cora, I almost roared with laughter. The poor man looked like he might melt into a puddle of red-faced embarrassment in our kitchen right then and there. You would have made him feel a lot better, you would have gushed and enthused over his idea. As it was I bumbled through it, his own embarrassment making me more awkward.
‘I could help,’ I offered.
His shoulders sagged with relief but the crimson didn’t leave his cheeks. ‘That’s great. I wanted to learn something straightforward, something I could lead Lottie through. Arjun mentioned a waltz or a cha-cha. I wasn’t sure. They all sound like different brands of whiskey.’
He was about to rattle away again so I interrupted him. ‘A paso doble might be a good option,’ I said tentatively.
He leapt on it. ‘A paso doble, right, yes, that sounds ideal. Well, when could we make