fast-forwarded to the tale of The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak, forgetting that it was about a medieval mugging. She laughed out loud at the tale. I’d only just finished convincing her that the cowardly knight Sir Thomas Tom really wasn’t a good man when Sarah arrived home and gave me the hug that I needed and the one that Seonaid took as her absolute right, which, of course, it is.
‘Bad day, uh?’ she murmured, as she held me close.
‘Bad start,’ I agreed, as we broke the clinch. ‘I thought I was done with things like that. I think I’m magnetic, love. Of all the cars that fu . . .’ Realising that our daughter was still within earshot I stopped myself short. ‘He chose mine; he had to choose mine. I think I must be a magnet for grief.’
‘Nonsense,’ she insisted. ‘To our daughter and me you’re a love machine. You were just unlucky, that’s all.’
‘Not as unlucky as that wee lass.’
Sarah glanced at Seonaid and put a finger to her lips, ending the discussion just as James Andrew exploded into the room with all the energy of a small tsunami. I guessed from his exuberance that he had beaten his brother yet again at whatever game they had played.
‘Where’s Mark?’ I asked.
‘Doing his homework,’ Jazz replied.
I gave him a look that was meant to be somewhere between curious and severe, but probably didn’t make it past amused. ‘Don’t you have any?’
‘Some,’ he admitted.
‘Then wouldn’t it be a good idea to do it before you’re too tired to do it than when you are but I still make you?’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘I suppose.’
If we were negotiating, it didn’t last long. Sarah pointed at the door. ‘Go do it while dinner’s being cooked,’ she ordered. ‘Now. And take your sister with you,’ she added. ‘I want to talk to Dad.’
‘What’s for dinner?’ my son, in the act of leaving, asked me. Since his mother and I got back together, more or less full-time, we take turns in the kitchen. It’s another part of my new life that I enjoy.
‘Tuna steaks on the Foreman grill, potato wedges in the dry fryer, beans and fried onions,’ I told him. ‘A special request by Mark,’ I explained to Sarah. ‘He’s trying to bulk himself up, and reckons that fish is the way to go.’
She grinned. ‘Poor kid. For girls or boys, puberty’s a bastard, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘For lads, it brings a whole new set of personal targets. I still haven’t hit all of mine yet.’
We headed for the kitchen. For some reason Sarah likes to watch me cook; when I’m in my apron she calls me ‘Masterchef’. The wedges were waiting in the dry fryer. I set it for forty minutes and began to slice the onions.
‘What about Seonaid?’ she asked.
‘I’ve got a smaller steak for her. Not that much smaller, though; I think she’s in a growing phase.’
She smiled, and fetched me a Corona from the fridge. I looked at her as she handed it to me. ‘You not having one?’
‘No thanks. I’m on call, and anyway, I don’t fancy beer just now,’ she replied.
‘Wine?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’ve . . .’ she paused. ‘What’s that Scots saying? I’ve taken a schooner to alcohol.’
I laughed out loud. ‘That would be “scunner”, my darling. And most unlike you.’ A thought came to me. ‘Hey, what is this? This morning you had an uncontrollable desire for lemon drizzle cake. Tonight you have a booze intolerance. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?’
‘Absolutely,’ she replied, but I wasn’t letting it go. I snapped into interrogation mode, looking her in the eye.
‘Okay, there’s nothing you want,’ I stressed the word, ‘to tell me. But is there something that you should?’
‘Fucking cops,’ she murmured, then took the kitchen knife from my hand and laid it on the work surface. She slid an arm round my waist. ‘I’m late,’ she said.
It didn’t exactly hit me like a ton of bricks. Sarah’s mum made a prize-winning lemon drizzle cake, and since her death she’d never mentioned the damn confection, not once, until that morning.
‘How late?’ I asked, not even trying to suppress my grin.
‘Only a week. Too early to be taking it as fact, but you know I’m pretty regular; always have been.’
‘Have you done a test?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Aw Jesus,’ I chuckled. ‘Even I know it isn’t too early for that. Buy a kit, pee on the stick and that’s it.’