click away from the conversation with Howard, and press Find a Match. I fill in all the boxes, but I do it a bit differently, this time. Age: 75 plus. Locations: East London, Central London. Male or female? I click both boxes.
This is rather cheeky, but it’s for a good cause. I press on the first person who appears on the list: Nancy Miller, aged seventy-eight. I click the little envelope icon to send her a message.
Dear Nancy,
I hope you don’t mind me sending you a message, but I’m setting up a club in Shoreditch for over seventies, and I wondered if you’d be interested in coming along for our grand opening this weekend …
*
I spend hours sending out messages. There are over a hundred people on this list. I’m very glad Fitz showed me how to ‘copy and paste’, otherwise this would have taken all day; as it is, my eyes hurt, and my neck is stiff from sitting here at the laptop for so long.
I begin to get replies already. Some of them are a little nasty – Take your advertising elsewhere! This isn’t the forum for this sort of thing! – and some of the men seem to be taking my invitation as an opportunity to start flirting, which I can’t be doing with – I’ve got more important business to attend to now, and none of them are a patch on Howard or Tod, anyway. But there are already a few people who sound interested in the Silver Shoreditchers’ Club. I’d love to come along, says Nancy Miller. Will there be games? asks Margaret from Hoxton.
Letitia pops around just when I’m at the end of my patience with replying to messages. She says she’s dropping around a new herbal tea she wants me to try. I invite her in to drink it with me – I suspect that was the real intention of the visit – and fill her in on my new plan to advertise our club.
‘I wish I was as nifty with that thing as you are.’ She nods to the laptop.
‘Oh, I’m sure you could learn!’ I say. ‘Ask Fitz, he’ll teach you.’
‘He’s a good man, Fitz,’ Letitia says. ‘Has he found someone to take Martha’s room yet? He was fretting about it when we last spoke.’
I smile. Letitia’s been down in the communal area at least once a day, arranging vases of flowers, plumping cushions. These days when somebody comes through, they always stop for a chat. On Monday evening I saw Aurora and Sally down there playing cards with her. We’re trying out the tables! Aurora had said. Then: Boom! Full house! went Sally, slamming her hand down and making Letitia jump.
‘Not yet,’ I tell her, reaching for a biscuit. ‘I think he’s going to put an advert up on the Internet somewhere.’
‘Well whoever it is, they’ll be lucky to live here.’
‘Letitia … Have you ever thought about moving out of your flat?’
She looks horrified. ‘Where to?’
‘Not far. Over here. To Martha’s old room.’
This is an excellent idea, if I do say so myself.
‘Oh, no,’ Letitia says, hiding behind her tea mug. ‘I couldn’t leave my flat. What about all my beautiful things! And anyway, nobody young wants to live with an old biddy like me.’
I push the last biscuit towards her. ‘Nonsense,’ I tell her. ‘Though I do see your point about your lovely bric-a-brac. I mean,’ I add hastily, catching her expression, ‘your lovely antiques.’
‘I couldn’t leave the flat,’ Letitia says, more firmly this time, so I don’t push the point. It’s a shame, though – she could do with the company, and I worry how she’ll cope when I’m not here to nudge her along, even if we do manage to get the Silver Shoreditchers’ Club running regularly.
Once Letitia has gone home, I nurse my empty teacup for so long the china goes cold against my palms. I can’t stop thinking about the receipt on Ethan’s hall table, the wet toothbrush in his bathroom. I know I’m inclined to jump to the conclusion that a man is unfaithful – it’s quite reasonable in the circumstances, so I don’t blame myself for it. But I need to know if it’s clouding my judgement.
I reach for my phone and dial Betsy’s number.
‘Hello, love!’ she says. ‘How’s your handsome actor?’ She pronounces it ac-tor, which makes it sound even fancier.
I smile. ‘He’s as dashing as ever. May I ask your advice about something, Betsy?’