Chapter 2
By the time Fiona had negotiated the Friday rush-hour traffic, unloaded her box and started cooking their celebration meal, she felt in a party mood. Bridget Jones had it all wrong. Forget envying the ‘smug marrieds’, it was being the ‘smug occasional girlfriend’ that the rest of the world should aspire to. The thought popped into Fiona’s head and the joy of it made her twirl between cooker and fridge. The skirt of her dress rose and danced in wave-like anticipation of Joe’s arrival. She got all the romance and excitement without having to share a curry-smelly bed after his evenings with mates, or having to put up with adult children continually boomeranging back and forth. As soon as a man moved in, everything good went out of the window. More absence than presence makes a relationship work.
The oven-timer pinged. Fiona retrieved the stroganoff, stirred in the cream cheese and put it back to finish cooking. Joe wouldn’t complain about the beef being replaced by a plethora of exotic mushrooms — even though at heart he was a carnivore.
She scrolled through Spotify and selected ‘Classic Romance’ as tonight’s background. Obvious, commercial, in-your-face, lovey-dovey tunes were for people insecure in the arms of their lover or those too young to know better. She prepped the broccoli and sugar snap peas to the ‘Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet’. The veg would go into cook while Joe was pouring the wine. He always brought a half-bottle of expensive, quality red, which made Fiona feel spoiled and special, just one large glass each so that Joe could still drive home at the end of the evening. If they lived together or saw each other more than one night a week the romance and excitement would disappear. Plus, she didn’t want his presence to impinge on the other carefully curated areas of her life.
When the doorbell went, Joe’s face on the camera was obscured by roses. Without counting, she knew there’d be twelve. Unoriginal but forgivable. His grin was bigger than usual when she opened the door and, after depositing the roses on the kitchen worktop, his arms went around her. He smelled faintly of soap and toothpaste and spicy aftershave. She ran her fingers down his back and over his still-firm bum. Kissed the start of his chest hair, which was just visible in the ‘V’ of his open-necked shirt, and attractively dark despite the classic silver peppering on his head.
His breath tickled her ear as he pulled her closer. “I’ve missed you. Once a week is not enough. And I had to wait an extra day this time.”
Fiona didn’t reply, she just melded into him. There was no point in spoiling the moment by saying once a week still suited her just fine. In the beginning, when he was getting over the rawness of his divorce, it had suited him just fine too. But recently, after almost a year together, she was getting the feeling that he wanted more from her, and she wasn’t sure that she had more to give. Now he pulled back and looked her in the face. He was frowning slightly, and his eyes were silently questioning, as though he was judging the situation before announcing something she might not react well to. Fiona felt her shoulders tense. Saved by the ping of the timer, she rushed to rescue the stroganoff and sent Joe into the dining room with wine glasses and corkscrew.
“I brought roses because this is a celebration.” He picked up his conversational thread when she’d served the vegetables. It was then that she noticed he’d brought a whole bottle of wine this time.
“Thank you.” Fiona looked up from the creamy mushrooms and smiled. She assumed he was referring to her retirement.
“Depending on what you think, this could be a brand-new start for both of us.”
“Both of us?”
“The stars have aligned. Or rather, the pipes have corroded.”
Fiona put down her knife and fork and looked at him. “What?”
“I got woken early this morning by the ceiling coming down in the kitchen and part of the lounge.”
“Oh no!”
“Oh yes. Apparently, the pipe to the hot water tank has given way. I don’t know all the details, I had to go to work before the letting agency got a plumber there.”
“Have they fixed it?”
He shook his head. “The house is uninhabitable. I need somewhere to live.” He put his cutlery down for a moment. “My brother’s agreed to put me up tonight but he’s not keen on an open-ended arrangement. And then I thought, after twelve months together, this is the perfect time for us to move our relationship on to the next stage. What do you think?”
Heat engulfed her. He wanted to live here! Seeing him once a week suited her just fine. “Doesn’t the landlord have to rehouse you?”
His knife and fork were on their way to retrieve his final few mouthfuls of mushrooms. “No.”
Fiona suddenly felt suffocated. She stood up and, without waiting for him to finish, took both plates into the kitchen. She needed space to think.
“Hey!” he shouted after her.
She grabbed a spatula and scraped the remnants of their meals into the organic waste caddy. When she looked up, he was there, handing her a refilled glass of wine.
“Sorry. I’ve surprised you, landing like this. But I didn’t want to call earlier and interrupt your last day at work.”
Fiona’s brain wouldn’t calm down and find the words to speak coherently. “I . . .”
“I know we agreed to take things slowly, but that was months ago. The ink on my divorce papers wasn’t dry and you wanted to get used to having a man in your life again. That’s all in the past now, and we get on great, don’t we?”
Joe was right, they did get on great — for one evening a week, not 24/7. “Are you sure there isn’t alternative accommodation insurance or something?”
“The landlord didn’t have insurance and the repairs could take months. I’ll pay my way; I’m not looking for a free ride.”
“What about a hotel until you can find somewhere else to rent? What we have together is special and I don’t want to spoil it by rushing to live together.” She was trying to let him down gently and preserve the relationship they already had at the same time.
“This isn’t rushing, Fiona.” He took her hands in his. “And Rose’s tenure in the family home ends next year when Adele turns twenty-one, so then I’ll have capital to use towards us buying somewhere together.”
Buying together was definitely not going to happen, but turning Joe away now could mean losing him completely. And she didn’t want that either. “OK.” She spoke slowly; only a few hours earlier she’d recognised life might have to become more free-flowing to fill the black hole left where her career had been. “Let’s see how it goes.”
She wouldn’t be able to please herself; she’d have to bend and compromise to accommodate his wishes. She’d heard her colleagues whinge about their partners and she didn’t want that to happen to her and Joe. But as long as she recognised all of that as a possibility, she could make sure it didn’t happen.
“Thank you.” He pulled her gently towards him and kissed her. “We can properly share our lives now, meet each other’s family and friends . . .”
Fiona didn’t want Joe overlapping into all parts of her life. It was easier and safer to keep things separate, but she couldn’t say that yet.
“My stuff’s in the car. You put the coffee on while I fetch it. And I’ve got a present for us.”
Fiona covered the fruit salad she’d made for dessert; her appetite had gone.
Joe came back into the hallway with two huge suitcases and a long, chilly draught of late November air.
“We have to have ground rules. I’m not taking on the role of a wife or housekeeper,” she said. “No dirty underwear or wet towels on the floor. There is a laundry basket in the bathroom. You do your share of housework — I’ll make a rota.”
“Stop panicking! I am housetrained, you know.”
“And no boomerangs. Definitely no boomerangs.”
Joe grinned at her use of their private nickname for his son and daughter. “Dan’s just started renting with a mate. And Adele’s uni term doesn’t finish for another fortnight but she’s totally wrapped up in this boyfriend of hers anyway. She was mostly at his in the summer. I haven’t spoken to her for weeks but she said back then that she’d been offered waitressing work over Christmas so not to expect her back.”
Joe knelt and unfastened the larger suitcase. Then he stood up and, with a flourish, presented her with a large, flat cardboard box patterned with scarlet Christmas roses, plump pink hearts and white mistletoe berries. It was perforated with little numbered doors.
“Allow me.” Joe pressed open the door marked ‘1’ and retrieved a chocolate.
“But it’s only the twenty-ninth. We should wait until Sunday — delayed gratification and all that.”
“Let’s start the way we mean to go on,” he said. “Life is for living. And that means we can break the rules if we want to. You’ve retired today and I’ve moved in. Two brand-new starts that need celebrating. Half each.” Instead of snapping the chocolate in half and handing her a piece, he held it in his mouth, pulled her close and kissed her.
The act was sensual, toe curling, and Joe was working his usual seductive magic on her. Slowly and gently they shared the dark chocolate between their tongues. Maybe, just maybe, with a fair wind, a housework rota and no boomerangs, they could make this work.