He shook his head. ‘No, it’s my mother’s childhood house. She was the favourite child so it was left to her, which caused an almighty row in the family and now nobody speaks to one another.’
‘Families, huh?’ I said, leaning my head against his arm. Hearing that his were as barking mad as mine was strangely comforting.
‘Mmm.’ Then he tapped his book. ‘You happy if I read this?’
‘Oh, sure.’ Although I felt a slight pang of disappointment at this. I’d imagined my first minibreak weekend with a man would be a glorious, exhilarating adventure where nobody else in the world mattered (especially not Margaret Thatcher), and in between bouts of euphoric sex where I came every time, we’d discuss the big issues in life: religion, potential children’s names, our favourite flavour of crisps. I know I’d written ‘must like reading’ on my list but I didn’t mean he had to do it all the time.
I turned away to watch through the window as London slid by, counting the carriages of an old train as we passed it. If there were an even number, his parents would like me and I wouldn’t embarrass myself. ‘One, two, three, four, five…’
‘What are you doing?’ Rory asked, head lifting from his book.
‘Nothing,’ I replied quickly, glancing across the aisle through the other window where there were no old trains and nothing to count. No counting this weekend, Florence Fairfax. Keep that madness locked down.
Almost two hours later, we caught a cab that smelt of fried onions from Norwich station.
‘It’s about twenty minutes,’ Rory told me, before talking to the driver for the entire journey. About the weather, about the football, about the local MP who neither of them liked.
‘He talks a load of old squit,’ said the driver, before catching my eye in his mirror. ‘Excuse my language,’ he said.
I shook my head and smiled at his reflection as Rory rattled on. You could put him down on the moon and he’d find someone to chat to. He’d charmed everyone in the shop on Thursday night. Well, nearly everyone. But Zach hadn’t even given him a chance. He’d just assumed the worst about Rory and stubbornly refused to change his mind. And then he’d been busy flirting with my sister. I wondered, yet again, whether anything would happen between them and glanced at my phone. I hadn’t heard a peep from her since Thursday evening and she’d been out last night. Maybe with Zach? Maybe, right now, Zach was waking up in my house and playing hunt the tea bag in my kitchen? I narrowed my eyes at the thought as we slowed down and the taxi pulled through an old metal gate with a sign on the front of it: Rollmop Manor.
We crunched along a gravel drive, flanked by lawn, before the driver stopped. All I could see through the window was a front door surrounded by stone pillars.
‘That’ll be £18.50 please,’ he said and I tried to pay since Rory had bought our train tickets.
‘Definitely not,’ he said, passing a twenty to the front. ‘You’re on my tab.’
‘I’m always on your tab,’ I said. I felt guilty. Our bill was constantly uneven because Rory paid for everything: for coffees, for dinner. For taxis. For bottles of wine and bunches of peonies.
‘I hope so,’ he replied, kissing me briefly before opening his side of the car. ‘Chop chop, let’s find the matriarch.’
I climbed out, grateful for fresh air after the onions, and was about to stretch when a grey blur hurtled across the lawn and jumped at me so I staggered, nearly falling to the gravel. ‘JESUS CHRIST IT’S A WOLF.’
Its paws were on my shoulders so I skipped back a couple of steps to try and free myself. ‘Help, Rory! Help me. How do I get it off?’ I shrieked.
‘Merlin, get down!’ Rory said, but he was laughing. ‘It’s not a wolf, you big wimp. It’s my mother’s greyhound. Merlin, here, boy.’
Merlin dropped his paws and trotted to Rory. My heart was thumping against my chestbone and I felt stupid. Why had I become some sort of dog magnet? I eyed Merlin warily as he thrust his head under Rory’s hand. He was the size of a small pony. How much did that thing eat?
I brushed the dog hair off my chest and glanced up at the house. It looked old, built from pale yellow stone with two storeys of sash windows running across it.