CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next day our decadent lazy Sunday morning in bed is ruined by the heavy sound of the front door slamming closed, even though neither Josh nor I is anywhere near it.
Josh doesn’t look too concerned, but I flick a glance towards him.
‘Have you got a ghost?’
‘What? No.’
‘What’s that noise then?’
‘Front door.’
‘I got that. Who is it, is probably more what I mean.’
‘Probably Tamara.’
‘Who …?’
‘My best mate.’
‘Your best friend is a girl ?’ I didn’t see that coming.
Josh nods, slowly starts moving out of bed, pulling on some clothes. ‘She’s a bit early, though.’
‘Early for what?’
‘Ice-cream tasting. Come on, this’ll be a fun way to spend the morning – eating ice cream for breakfast. We don’t get to do that very often as adults, do we?’
Josh leans over the bed and gives me a quick kiss, before pulling on the rest of his clothes and moving towards the stairs, giving me a grin as he disappears round the corner.
I lie still for a minute before getting up and ready. I thought we were having a lie-in. And Josh’s best friend is female. No eligible bachelor for Scarlet in this direction then – she won’t like that at all.
Tamara’s downstairs. She’s also just wandered straight in through the front door without knocking or … Does she have her own key?
I dress, whip on a little bit of make-up and brace myself to meet Josh’s best friend.
The second she starts speaking I can hear she’s posh. But being called Tamara, there were no surprises there, were there? She bounds towards me as I enter the kitchen, embracing me in a too-tight hug and masses of natural icy-blonde hair. ‘Hello-o-o,’ she trills. ‘I’ve heard so-o-o much about you! Josh won’t stop going on and on,’ she says at a hundred miles an hour. ‘Lexie this and Lexie that …’
‘Oh. He’s—’ I stop myself finishing with the words said nothing whatsoever about you. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you,’ I rally back.
Tamara keeps talking at speed.
Her smile is infectious and her figure is an eye-catching hourglass shape. My gran would have made a comment along the lines of ‘good child-bearing hips, those’, which is what she said about Scarlet, who is similarly shaped, when they first met. She never said that about me, because I’m straight up and down. I waited years for boobs to arrive and, when they did, it was as if they forgot to appear properly.
‘I chose Daphne’s for you, did you like it?’ Tamara asks.
‘Daph— Oh, the restaurant in Chelsea.’ Josh had said a friend recommended it. ‘It was wonderful. Good choice. Thank you.’
‘Phew! I googled for hours and hours.’
‘You googled ? I thought you’d been there?’
‘No. Josh asked for help and I wanted to make sure you had a lovely time, so I looked at so many reviews for different restaurants, and proximity to the station and the hotel and …’ she continues, and I cast a glance at Josh. He obviously knows all this information, but I’m finding it just a little bit odd.
Tamara moves about the kitchen, making two mugs of tea, and after a while, still talking so quickly about the farm and ice cream and asking how Josh and I got together, she goes back to the cupboard for a third mug and a teabag. She’s clearly at home here.
‘I think the lavender might be a bit bold,’ she says, switching the chat to ice cream after she’s decanted some into a variety of bowls for us. ‘I think we should focus on flavours everyone recognises, or a diversification thereof … like this one: blackberry ripple, for example. Tell me what you think.’
She hands me a spoon and I take a bowl. I’m drawn into her captivating presence. This is all happening so quickly. Ten minutes ago I was in bed. I taste some ice cream. The lavender is surprisingly nice and I admit as much.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Josh says, dipping his spoon in and taking a mouthful from my bowl. ‘It’s a bit like perfume. But it doesn’t hurt to broaden our horizons a bit, and it’s not like we have a huge production line. It’s small batch and artisan, so we can diversify as much as we like in as many quantities as we like and see what sells out, up at the farm shops that have already agreed to trial us. It’s your baby, though, Tam, so you tell me what you want to do.’
‘It’s only my idea,’ Tamara says. ‘It’s your product.’
Josh and Tamara talk non-stop. Their knowledge about dairy production goes over my head, but their enthusiasm is infectious and I nod in all the right places. They talk in acronyms, like a shared code.
Eventually Tamara stands up at a speed I wasn’t prepared for, hugs Josh and then me, which is sweet, tells me how lovely it was to meet me and that she wishes me a safe journey home later on and hopes to see me again soon.
‘Lexie’s not going back to London just yet,’ Josh chimes in. ‘She’s going to stay for a couple more days.’
‘Oh, that’s great ,’ she exclaims. ‘You’ll love it here. If you want any pointers about shops or whatever while you’re here, I’m your woman.’
Eventually we say our goodbyes.
The front door bangs as Tamara bounds out. ‘She’s so nice,’ I say. ‘And gorgeous’, because I want to sound Josh out about this in particular. I’ve never been in a scenario where a guy I’m dating has a best friend who’s a very hot female.
‘I suppose so, but she’s like family,’ Josh replies, and I take that at face value. He carries on, tidying away mugs and spoons while I finish off the rest of the blackberry-ripple ice cream, which is incredible. Ice cream for breakfast is the best.
‘Is this a recent best friendship?’ I ask.
‘No. Since we were children. Babies, I guess. Tam was born the day before me, and her mum was next to mine in the hospital ward.’
‘Oh,’ I reply, wondering what to say next.
But Josh saves me. ‘We weren’t always friends. We hated each other when we were about ten or eleven. Can’t remember why, though. Then we met again through Young Farmers.’
‘Young Farmers …?’
‘It’s a rural social group, and we’ve been hanging out ever since. Then Tamara started here when I needed more of a hand. She works hard, wants the best for the farm, the best for me – she’s a great friend. I’ve got male friends and while they’re good for banter, you couldn’t ring them up at two a.m. and cry down the phone to them when something’s gone wrong,’ he says, laughing off his confession jokingly.
But I think he’s being real. ‘Have you done that?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. Once. I made a bit of a bad decision on the farm. It all worked out in the end, but I needed to sound off. Sometimes girl mates are just better, less judgemental,’ he finishes.
‘Yeah,’ I agree as I think of Scarlet and how she’s always there to be real with me, to pick me up when I’m down or simply to be sympathetic, depending on what I need. I hope I’m that for her too.
It’s nice that Josh has got a good friend to whom he can show his emotions. I’m pleased for him.
‘Is she a bitch? I’ll bet she’s a bitch,’ Scarlet says on the phone to me later, in an outstanding show of unasked-for solidarity. I had to break it to her that Josh’s best friend was not a single handsome farmer.
Josh is in the kitchen, cooking a roast dinner from scratch. I’d helped peel potatoes, but after I sent Scarlet a message telling her I wasn’t coming back home yet, she rang me straight away and demanded to know if I was being held hostage. I’ve snuck into the sitting room and am completing slow laps around the huge sofas, while talking. We’ve moved on to Tamara now, although I dropped her into the conversation so gently that I thought Scarlet wouldn’t say anything. She leapt straight on it, which means I’m now worried.
‘You can’t be best friends with a girl if you’re a guy,’ she says. ‘It’s a fact. Look at all the shit that went down in When Harry Met Sally .’
‘I’ve not seen it,’ I confess and Scarlet splutters in surprise. ‘Give it to me in a nutshell,’ I command.
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Don’t be silly. Tamara’s not a new friend. They’ve known each other since they were kids. They’re like … family.’
‘Just be aware. Monitor the situation and react appropriately,’ she instructs, as if we work at NASA and there’s a live mission under threat.
‘Yeah, OK,’ I say trying not to sound dismissive and we sign off as I return to Josh, who’s waiting patiently for me, candles lit on the table.
‘Ta-da,’ he says with a flourish as he presents a roast dinner with all the trimmings.
‘Is this one of the cows I met earlier?’ I sort of half joke.
‘Don’t start …’ he warns with a smile, and I decide I’m going to have to put their cute little faces out of my mind if I’m going to carry on like this with Josh. I look around the homely farmhouse kitchen and then back to him. I could get used to this.
Saying goodbye to Josh a couple of days later at the train station was hard for both of us. ‘I wish you could stay longer’ was his parting shot to me as I waited for the London-bound train to arrive. Then he followed up with, ‘Come back next weekend?’ before giving me the most delicious kiss.
How could I say no? I feel so secure with Josh in these early stages. And they are early stages. But feeling this wanted and secure in a relationship is something I didn’t think I’d experience again, after having been so horribly cheated on. In a way, now, I almost understand why Simon waited for me to rumble his actions rather than confess. Yes, there was cowardice there, but also the desire not to hurt someone.
Or perhaps I’m bestowing my own morals onto him. Because, although what passed between Chris and me was brief, it was something. And yet I still have not replied to his last message. It’s been days since his last simple Hi . And last night he messaged again, which makes me close my eyes tightly and put my hand over my face in embarrassment when I see it.
Big Talk round … whatever we’re on. Chris’s previous message is still sitting above this one, unanswered. I’m wrong. He hasn’t got the hint at all. I feel awful now. What would you say if I told you I think I can get you a job?
Well, that’s not at all what I was expecting. There’s no more to the message. As teasers go, it’s up there.
I feel terrible replying to this message when I haven’t replied to his previous one. It’s such a transparent motive. He’ll probably be asleep now, so I send the following, knowing I’ve got a few hours’ grace until Chris wakes up: What kind of job? Because if it’s in interior design, I am obviously going to jump at it. Then I send another one. Thanks for thinking of me.