glances over his shoulder as he bent to apply bicycle clips to his trousers? I could overlook those, I thought as I posed coquettishly on the church step, one arm stretched high above my head on the door jamb, the other on my hip.
‘Who’s jolly interesting?’ Oh Lord, Saintly Sue was looming from the shadows, breasting her music, cheeks very flushed. The Only Virgin In The Village, Peggy called her; desperate to be plucked.
‘Dostoyevsky,’ Luke told her, straightening up. ‘Jennie and, um, Poppy here, are starting a book club.’
She almost bounced on the spot, cashmere embonpoint jiggling. ‘Oh golly, how exciting! Can I join?’
‘No,’ I said quickly. Jennie shot me an aghast look.
‘Of course you can!’ she gushed.
I blinked. ‘Can she? I thought we didn’t want any more women? Bearing in mind …’ I covertly inclined my head Luke’s way.
‘No, no, I meant too many older women. Didn’t want it getting too, you know, pensioner-ish.’ She cast Sue a collaborative look. ‘But of course Sue can come, Lord yes. See you both next Tuesday, then.’ She had my arm in a vice-like grip. ‘Seven o’clock. Oh, and it’s going to be at Peggy’s house, not Angie’s – the one with the white picket fence. Toodle-oo!’ She frogmarched me off down the path at speed, leaving Luke gazing after us blankly; Sue, as if she’d been shot.
‘Have you been drinking?’ Jennie hissed.
‘No, why?’
‘Because you’re behaving as if you are completely and utterly pissed. You’re being outrageous, Poppy!’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, and I end up looking like some ageist bigot just to get you off the hook!’
I stopped in the lane. Felt my forehead. I did feel a bit inebriated, actually. A bit light-headed. I was aware that my timorous desire not to rock the boat had been replaced in some fabulously epiphanic way by a desire to be true to myself whatever the consequences. The trouble was, my feelings had been suppressed for so long without the valve being even slightly loosened, that now the lid was off, the contents were not so much out, as all over the walls.
‘Sorry. Sorry, Jennie.’ I walked on, slower now. ‘But the thing is,’ I said carefully, feeling my way, ‘I feel the truth is so … well, crucial, suddenly. Of such vital importance, you know?’ I turned to face my friend earnestly. I felt faintly visionary about it; might even get a bit evangelical. ‘I mean, it’s so liberating, isn’t it?’ I urged. ‘Why don’t we all just say what we mean all the time? Always?’
‘Because polite society dictates that we don’t, that’s why,’ she said heatedly. ‘Just because you’re a widow, doesn’t mean the bridle can come off, you know. Doesn’t give you carte blanche to say whatever comes into your head. You still have to exercise restraint; can’t just trample on people’s feelings!’
I blinked, suitably rebuked. ‘No, I suppose not,’ I conceded. ‘Except … everyone tramples on mine?’
‘Phil trampled on yours,’ she reminded me. ‘Not everyone.’
‘Why are we going in here?’ I ducked as we made a sharp right turn and went into the pub under a low beam.
‘Because if you haven’t had a drink,’ she told me as she steered me into the snug of the Rose and Crown bar, ‘then perhaps you should. Two large gin and tonics, please, Hugo.’ This, to the barman, a local teenager in his gap year, as she parked me firmly on a bar stool. Still looking distinctly harassed she flourished a tenner at him. ‘And even if you don’t need one,’ she told me, collapsing in a heap on a stool beside me, ‘after that, I jolly well do.’
9
A few days later I received a surprisingly efficient missive from my solicitor in the form of an email, apologizing for our disorganized inaugural meeting and wondering if I had time to ‘pop in for a second attempt’. I did, as it happened, the following afternoon, and since he too was free, a meeting was arranged. As I sat in his supremely tidy waiting room, watched over by a pleasantly plump blonde matron with pussycat-bow chiffon blouse, navy skirt and red nails, I realized something of a sea change had occurred here since my last visit. When I was shown into his office it became all the more seismic as Sam Hetherington stood up to greet me, spotty tie firmly in place, suit jacket on, papers and files previously littering the floor now neatly aligned on shelves behind him, no half-empty mugs of tea, and no sign