CHAPTER TWO
I’d be the first to admit that I wasn’t the best at picking boyfriends.
After various disasters in my teens, three years ago I fell for a man called Nigel when I was twenty-one. He was ten years my senior and he seemed like a ‘proper grown-up’ after the boys I’d dated. Nigel (even the name was grown-up) owned a gallery filled with paintings and sculptures and other work by local craftsmen, and he moved in arty circles, which I remember rather impressed me. My sisters thought he was too full of himself. Skye told me this directly, although Rori was rather more diplomatic, saying that Nigel seemed nice but she thought I was probably better suited to my former boyfriend (Byron, who seemed to like his Irish Wolfhound more than me, which I thought was fair enough).
When I mentioned my sisters’ reservations to Ada, my mother, she told me bluntly that they weren’t going out with Nigel. It was my choice and I shouldn’t let their views sway me. I was encouraged by this, although in the next breath she rather undid her words of comfort by saying, ‘We all have to make mistakes in love. If I listed the number I’ve made in my lifetime, we’d be here all day.’
Nigel dumped me after three months. He said it was because he needed freedom from the constraints of a relationship so he could fully explore his creative side (he liked painting pictures of naked women from weird angles). But I knew it was because I’d embarrassed him at one of his posh gallery nights by having a fit of sneezing while he was making a speech to the assembled guests. I’d eaten an overly-seasoned ‘ricotta and grape crostini’ and the pepper had shot straight up my nose. I kept apologising profusely between explosions and everyone seemed to think it was funny, except Nigel. I blundered into the toilets and peace was restored but I don’t think Nigel ever forgave me for ruining his speech.
A more recent man-disaster came in the form of a handsome, hilarious guy called Ross. We met when we were both working in Devon as part of a team restoring the gardens of an old stately home, and we went out for a few weeks in December. I was all excited when I went home for Christmas, thinking this was ‘it’ and telling my family Ross was the man for me. Then it turned out he’d been two-timing me all along with another girl in the team called Pauline. They chose a big staff night out in January to announce joyfully that they were pregnant, and I hid my heartache by smiling and doing lots of thumbs-up, while secretly wishing I could crawl away and die. I couldn’t wait for the job in Devon to be finished so I could get back home.
I swore off men for good after that.
Then I went to visit an old friend of mine in London last month – and met Trevor.
Marina and I had gone to the same school and when we left at eighteen, we’d kept in regular contact. She was working as a media executive now and renting a little flat in Croydon, and the night after I arrived, we’d gone out to her local pub after dinner, intending to have a quick drink before heading off to the cinema.
The pub was crowded, so we ended up standing at the bar with our drinks. I found myself standing next to an irritating man who looked like Boris Johnson, spoke in a loud, plummy voice (he talked a lot) and kept flinging his arms everywhere to illustrate his point as he conversed with his friend. I kept wincing at Marina and trying to edge away from him, but eventually the inevitable happened and he knocked my glass of wine over with an extra-extravagant sweep of his arm.
The most astonishing thing about it was that he didn’t even notice what he’d done. Blithely unaware of the soggy chaos he’d caused, he walked off, presumably to find the Gents. And it was at that point that his friend – a brown-haired guy with an attractive smile – calmly took charge of the situation. He attracted the bar staff’s attention and procured a cloth to mop up the spillage, then he bought me another drink.
I was instantly drawn to Trevor, and when his friend returned and was horrified to find out that he’d knocked my drink over, I realised that he was a genuinely nice guy, too. As Trevor had commented, ‘It takes real skill to fall upstairs and trip over a blade of grass. And knock people’s drinks over. But my mate, Adrian, does it all with such style.’
We’d laughed and I’d held up my fresh glass and chinked his.
After that, the four of us started chatting, eventually moving to a nearby table. Time slipped by, and Marina and I never actually made it to the cinema that night.
Before we parted, Trevor told me he had a few clients in Surrey and asked if he could see me next time he was in the area, and I smiled and said that would be lovely. He wasn’t my usual type. Past boyfriends had invariably been tall, good-looking extrovert types with the ability to keep me in fits of laughter, while Trevor was quietly-spoken with a slim build and the air of a deep thinker. His hazel eyes were warm and intelligent, and I could tell he was listening with genuine interest to the stories I was telling him about my life as a gardener. So often, past crushes had turned out to be rather more interested in themselves than in me, so this was a real bonus.
Trevor was true to his word. The following week, he phoned to say he’d be in Guildford to see a client – he worked for a big accountancy firm in London – and did I fancy meeting up the night before? He named the hotel he usually stayed at, which was fairly near our house, so I suggested he come over for dinner once he’d checked in. Ada was away visiting her friend, Maggie – licking her wounds after being dumped by her man friend, Geoffrey – so I knew we’d have the house to ourselves.
I was nervous, of course – we barely knew each other – and at first, the night seemed to be turning into a disaster.
I’d bought all the ingredients to make a chicken curry from scratch, buying spices I’d never even heard of, but while showing Trevor around the house and the back garden, I managed to burn it to extinction. Mortified, looking at the dried-up mess in the pan, I suggested we go out to eat instead.
Trevor shrugged. ‘We’ve got everything we need for my summer pasta speciality right here.’
‘Have we?’ I looked at him in surprise.
He grinned and took my hand. ‘Follow me.’ So we went back out into the garden to my vegetable patch and picked fresh peas, spinach, spring onions and herbs. Then Trevor poured me a glass of wine and donned my flower-patterned apron, apologising with a wry smile if it cancelled out all hint of masculinity (I was surprised to find it really didn’t; it was rather sexy, in fact, watching him cook in my apron). He put a pan of pasta on to boil. Then he stir-fried the summery vegetables with chunks of smoked salmon, a glug of double cream and a generous splash of white wine.
It tasted amazing and we opened another bottle and talked for hours. Around ten, I made coffee and we sat together on the sofa, chatting and eating chocolate biscuits from the packet, then reluctantly, he said he really ought to go as his meeting was at nine next morning. We arranged for me to visit him in London the following weekend, and he said he’d take me to see the movie I’d wanted to see the night we met, which I thought was really cute, and when we kissed at the door, I felt that delicious, familiar stirring of desire.
After waving him off to his hotel, I wandered into the kitchen to clear up, a dreamy smile on my face. But after a while, memories of past romantic disasters started elbowing their way into my thoughts, so I gave myself a firm talking-to. It was obvious Trevor liked me as much as I liked him, but there was no rush. We’d take our time getting to know each other properly. If we took it slowly, maybe I’d finally manage a relationship with a happy ending.
The weekend was lovely. He took me to the park for a picnic lunch and in the evening, we decided against the cinema because we were having such a great chat about my business plan and my dreams of having a summerhouse as a base for the business in Ada’s back garden. I’d decided on a name, ‘Flower Power’, and I felt energised and happy talking about it because Trevor didn’t seem at all bored by all the business and gardening talk. Quite the opposite. He kept coming up with good ideas himself to make my business plan stand out. Finally, though, when I realised we’d just been talking about my stuff all evening, I suggested we get ready to go out to the cinema.
‘Or... we could open a bottle of wine and you could tell me how you see your first year of business panning out?’ He smiled. ‘How many staff do you think you’ll need to begin with, for instance? And where will you advertise?’
And as he was clearly as interested in the chat as I was, I relaxed and forgot my guilt at monopolising the conversation, and we talked on into the night.
When I told my sister Skye about how Trevor had rescued dinner on our first proper date, she looked intrigued. But a little worried as well.
I laughed at her expression. ‘I know what you’re thinking. He sounds too good to be true and you’re worried I’m going to rush headlong in and ruin everything.’
‘We-e-ell.’ She shrugged doubtfully and I couldn’t really blame her. She was probably thinking this was shaping up to be just another disaster in the cumulative chaos that was my romantic life.
‘I’m taking it easy this time,’ I told her earnestly. ‘I promise it won’t be like my usual passionate crushes that end in tears.’
‘Actually, Trevor sounds like he might be a keeper. But are you attracted to him?’ she asked.
‘I am, actually. He’s got a lovely dry sense of humour, which I find really sexy, and he can cook. And he bakes as well! I told him I loved coconut in things so he baked me these gorgeous cherry and coconut cupcakes.’
Skye nodded approvingly. ‘Can’t wait to meet him. In fact, the weather forecast is great for the weekend so Saul and I are going to the cabin. Why not join us on the Saturday and bring Trevor?’
‘Really? We won’t be spoiling your romantic weekend?’
‘Of course not. The more the merrier. I’ll ask Rori and Kurt as well... see if they fancy a barbecue and a swim in the river.’
She smiled, her cheeks glowing. Actually, Skye’s cheeks seemed to be permanently aglow these days, ever since she and the lovely Saul had got together. She’d put her flat in London on the market and she’d moved in temporarily with Saul – planning, she said, to buy a place of her own once the flat was sold.
‘So will you come?’ she asked.
‘Erm... maybe,’ I said doubtfully, wondering if Trevor would be able to fit it into his weekend.
‘Is there a problem? Is he shy of meeting us?’
I shook my head. ‘Not at all. I think he’d love to come. It’s just he’s bought a holiday home on the south coast near Worthing but it’s a bit ramshackle by the looks of things – he showed me pictures – so he’s currently spending every weekend doing it up.’
‘Oh, lovely. Maybe you could do the garden for him.’
I grinned. ‘Great minds think alike. I’m already subtly probing for ideas of what he’d like.’
So that was decided.
Rori said she and Kurt would love a day in the country and that she’d make dessert.
I said I’d bring a big salad, to which Skye said – with a sly grin – that it was far more important that I bring Trevor so they could check him out.
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, but when Trevor said the plastering could wait and he’d be delighted to join us on Saturday, all I could do was cross my fingers and hope for the best...