Chapter 10
Amanda stares at the vegetable rack in her sleek and spacious kitchen. Last time she looked, there were lots of lovely vegetables sitting there. Plump organic vegetables, bought at immense cost from east London’s most Instagrammable greengrocer.
Where are they now? Not here, clearly! Amanda is no cook, but since she acquired a top-of-the-range air fryer she’s been feeding the beast with as much foodstuff as it can possibly handle.
She had planned to roast vegetables for lunch, drizzled with a tahini dressing and sprinkled with seeds.
Now all that remains in the rack is a single withered potato the size of a thumb.
In her soft black cami, yoga pants and fluffy mules, she marches through to her guest room.
At least, it used to be her guest room: beautifully designed, the walls a subtle pink called Calamine Rose, the bed made up with a multitude of plump pillows and unnecessary cushions and an embroidered bedspread from Anthropologie.
Sometimes, during her lengthy spells as a single woman, Amanda would go in there just to sit and inhale the calm and beauty of a room barely used, yet always ready.
Her guest room. It made her feel so grown-up and sorted; the perfect hostess.
However, since Jasper’s career pivot, it hasn’t been Amanda’s guest room. Now it’s his art studio and it looks like shit.
Jasper doesn’t appear to have noticed her standing there in the doorway, fixing him with a furious glare.
He is clearly busy, ‘in the flow’ as he puts it, sitting cross-legged on the bare wooden floor which she had stripped by a handsome muscular guy with his thrumming sander and painted a soft white.
‘Jasper.’
‘Hmm?’ He doesn’t even bother looking up.
‘What are you doing?’ Amanda snaps.
‘Printing?’ Obviously , his tone implies.
‘What d’you mean, printing?’ Her gaze skims the small paint-daubed objects scattered all around him. They’re vegetables, she realises. Chunks of sweet potato and carrot and butternut squash. Her vegetables from Roots that this beautiful man would want to spend the rest of his life with her.
She felt like the luckiest woman in London then. But she doesn’t feel lucky now.
‘I’m going out,’ he barks at her.
‘Good! Go then!’ The front door bangs and suddenly, without warning, Amanda’s eyes flood with hot tears.
She needs to speak to someone – to let it all out.
Briefly, she thinks of calling her lovely mum.
Amanda’s parents left Glasgow many years ago, for a cottage on the Northumberland coast. They adore her, and of course they’d listen and console her and say it doesn’t matter; everyone makes mistakes.
But then what? They’d worry themselves senseless and she couldn’t bear that.
She also has an older brother, Gary. But he lives in Brisbane and although they get along well, they don’t have that kind of relationship.
Amanda is crying heartily now, sitting on the kitchen floor next to the foil cheese wrapper that Jasper must have dropped.
It’s not his stupid paintings, or the way he manhandles her fridge, or the fact that Ollie hasn’t called with any job offers.
It’s not even the realisation that Jasper’s youth and beauty haven’t rubbed off on her (quite the contrary; now she feels old ), or the fact that she is not in love with him.
It’s the realisation that there is no one in London she feels she can call – not one friend whom she knows will be there for her.
Perhaps that’s her fault. The result of all that batching . But then it occurs to her that there is someone – and didn’t she travel all the way from Glasgow for her wedding? Surely she’ll be willing to listen and won’t judge her?
Amanda wipes more hot tears from her face, grateful now that Jasper stormed out. Then, having coughed away the roughness from her throat, she wipes her nose on her sleeve and calls her oldest friend.