over her shoulder. She doesn’t notice my silence as I stare into the freezer; she’s chatting away as she makes one jug of hot chocolate sauce and one jug of butterscotch.
‘What happened to my trio of desserts?’ I try to make a joke but my voice has gone all husky.
‘Who's got time?’ Jess says and she proceeds to tell me the recipe. ‘You get a good ice cream and a mud cake which you break up and stir in to the ice cream, along with Crunchies and Snickers, all chopped up, add Maltesers and a big slug of Baileys too. Then, wrap it in cling film, put it in a cake dish and you shove it all back in the freezer. Great isn't it?’ Jess says, peeling off the cling film and sprinkling chocolate flakes over it as I watch. ‘Don't worry.’ She must have seen the slight horror on my expression. ‘I used gloves to mix it.’ Then she winces as she remembers that I’m allergic to ice cream. ‘Lucy, I forgot!’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ It’s no big deal, I tell her. ‘I’ll just skip to the cheese.’
‘Are you sure?’ Jess checks and I nod. We start to carry the desserts through and I see my husband look from the plate and up to me as I hand him one and I know I’m being served another warning to behave.
I go to get the next lot of plates and, as I do, Jess asks would I mind putting the rest of the cake back in the freezer?
I do so, and then I carry the last couple of plates through.
‘Not for me, thanks.’ Luke pushes the plate away from him and carries on with his conversation and I try to focus on what’s being said. They’re talking about something that happened around the turn of the century and, of course, I can’t concentrate. My eyes keep moving to Luke’s discarded plate. To the ice cream that’s melting. I don’t get how he can just leave it; I don’t get how Jess has eaten half of her slice and seems finished.
‘Lucy will know.’ Luke drags me into the conversation. ‘Remember that guy who headhunted Cameron - you remember don’t you? We were on that boat on the Thames – when you still worked there.’
I have no idea who he’s talking about.
‘Anyone want seconds?’ Jess stands.
It’s the only thing I can hear.
‘You must remember him,’ Luke insists. ‘He was talking to you for ages.’
‘I don’t remember him.’ I shake my head, but Luke won’t let it drop.
‘The time you got sea-sick,’ Luke prompts and I take a slug of wine, though I feel like tossing it at Luke, or picking up his melted ice cream and slamming it into his gob, because I know what he’s doing, I know what’s coming next.
‘That was Gloria who got sea-sick.’ Someone chimes in and I go to refill my wine glass but I change my mind and turn to Jess.
‘Do you have any soda water?’
‘Sure.’ She’s blushing for me, and goes to get up, but I’m already standing.
‘I’ll get it.’
I feel as if I’m going to cry but wouldn’t they just love that?
I head to the kitchen and I walk past the freezer. I feel like cutting a slice, a decent bloody slice and eating it in here, but instead I pour some water from the tap and gulp it down, but I’m still thinking about what’s in the freezer, so I pour another glass.
Then I feel hate come in.
I know it’s hate because I feel it enter the room with Luke.
Jess must have sent him.
‘Sorry about that.’
‘Fuck off.’ I turn my head a fraction and snarl.
‘Lucy, I am sorry. I honestly thought it was you. I got you mixed up with Gloria.’
‘Please,’ I snort. ‘You wouldn’t have much trouble telling us apart.’ I swing round from the sink. ‘She’s twice my size with a moustache.’
‘That’s right,’ his smile is black. ‘You know, sometimes I think I’m being too hard on you, and then you remind me again, what a cold hearted bitch you really you are – I feel so much better about it now.’ He looks at me and I know that he sees me, the real me, or rather the old me before I reinvented myself - what was it he once said? “You can take the girl out of the council estate…”
He’s said a lot more than that in his time.
That night on the Thames, the one he honestly just got so