stays, the more Ben seems to enjoy having him around, and that frightens the life out of me.
The smooth sounds of Ella Fitzgerald that used to grace Mabel’s kitchen have been replaced by Aidan’s rather elegant classical music choice, which we follow as he leads us into the poky kitchen at the back of the cottage. To my relief, nothing much else has changed in here just yet, apart from a few cardboard boxes that are stacked in the corner, still to be filled in the big clear-out. It’s still a little bit cluttered, with Mabel’s green and white checked oven glove over the oven door and a selection of spices to the left, the tree of mugs to the right, and the bread bin that never had bread inside but always had a loaf or two sitting on top instead. The little ornaments that lined the windowsill are still there in their random display, with everything from porcelain ladybirds, a robin, a frog and even a little pig dressed up as a chef. Seeing these makes me smile.
‘The first thing I wanted to do when I moved in here was declutter this kitchen,’ she told me once when I questioned where on earth such a fine collection of ornaments came from. ‘But then I remembered how every little trinket in here has its own story to tell, and Peter loved living amongst his own home comforts. Young Aidan will always enjoy them too.’
Judging by the cardboard box that says ‘ornaments’ I’m not so sure Aidan shares Mabel’s sentimental ways, and I feel a touch of sadness that these little porcelain animals and ceramic insects have seen their final days.
Mabel’s table centrepiece of a large, silver candelabra stands proudly as it always has and I hope that Aidan, even if he is about to clear the place out for whatever is going to happen next here, is able to find some comfort with these remnants from his childhood surrounding him. So much of Mabel’s interior design was kept ‘as was’ in honour of Aidan’s grandparents, who lived here before she and Peter did, and although I know she didn’t always see eye to eye with her mother-in-law, she respected her memory enough to leave some of her trinkets still in their original place all these years after she’d left this world.
‘You look as if we should be eating in a fancy restaurant and not in Teapot Row,’ Aidan tells me as he pulls out a chair for me to sit down. My eyes automatically divert to my dress, which, apart from my attire at work earlier that day, is certainly a huge step up from the fleecy pyjamas or the denim dungarees he had previously seen me in.
Ben takes the seat opposite me, a place he always sits when at Mabel’s table, and without thinking he plays with the wicker table mat, rolling it up and making it into a telescope, just like he has done now for years when he comes here.
I tut and roll my eyes, giving the effect of ‘oh this old thing’ in response to Aidan’s subtle compliment towards my efforts, but I have to admit, I did choose my outfit carefully this evening as I wanted to feel and look good for the first time in a long while.
I didn’t dress to impress Aidan. I dressed to impress myself, of course, knowing that I have been dowdy and miserable for weeks now, and that it was time I started making an effort again, just as Mabel would have wanted me to. I’d made an effort for work again this morning, and I made an effort for tonight’s dinner, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Aidan. If I look good, I feel good. It’s as simple as that.
But am I being truthful by thinking this way or am I becoming the woman that every other woman hates? Am I turning into the type of woman who flirts around another woman’s man; the one who preys and waits on an opportunity to make him look at her just like the way Aidan Murphy is looking at me now? Please God, I hope not.
‘I have a thing for floral tea dresses,’ is the only neutral, middle of the road response I can come up with to acknowledge his roundabout compliment. ‘I find them very comfortable and snug.’
Aidan pours me a glass of cold Sauvignon Blanc and he barely gets the chance to finish filling the glass