CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
February 2024
It’s Valentine’s Day and I’ve cooked Josh and me the most amazing dinner. I feel like a proper country housewife these days. I’m fully settled in here and, even though I had a bit of a panic before I was due to move in, about how everything might be between Josh and me, it turned out to be groundless on that score. I wasn’t sure how things might change if I was a permanent fixture. Would I take him for granted? Would he do the same to me? Would the fun we’d had getting to know each other dwindle away?
But it was just like it was before, a year and a half ago, when I accidentally found myself staying for what I considered far too long for a new relationship, even though it was only a few weeks. Josh is right. Back then, it laid the foundations for the start of us living together.
We had Christmas Day together this year with his family. It would have been a bit strange if we hadn’t, given that we live together now. And then Josh drove on Boxing Day as we set off early, making the whistle-stop tour towards my parents’ houses. We’re a proper couple. Who live together. It still feels so strange to think it.
Tonight we’re having boeuf bourguignon, with Josh’s wonderful beef and all the other ingredients we had in the pantry. It meant I didn’t have to get on the push-bike in the depths of this icy winter and dice with death on the country lanes. I’m nowhere near passing my driving test and the only real downside of village life is that if I’d felt isolated before when I was part-living here, I’m really feeling it now.
I had half-hearted ideas about joining bookclubs and yoga classes, but they haven’t come to anything. I’m so busy with work, and I can’t really get around unless Josh drives me. Public transport is a dud out here, and taxis are hit-and-miss. Plus Josh is so busy with work that he’s too tired in the evenings to run me around like a very sexy chauffeur. I asked him once and he was practically asleep on the sofa after a gruelling day. I don’t want to ask again. The guilt would ruin me. Instead, when he has a spare bit of time, we’re going to keep working on my driving lessons. Then, when I pass, I can take myself to these social activities and make some friends.
Tamara pops in every now and again, but I notice she’s being respectful and not bashing the front door open without invites, in her cute but clumsy way. She texts first and checks it’s OK.
Josh seems put out when she texts me and not him, and we hang out just the two of us more often now. Josh wonders how his best-friendship with Tamara can have morphed into me and Tamara hanging out together loads instead.
‘Am I the third wheel?’ he asks with a sideways smile as we discuss this over our Valentine’s Day dinner.
‘Sadly, yes,’ I joke. ‘In the divorce I get custody of Tamara.’
‘Divorce?’ he asks and then narrows his eyes.
‘I’m joking,’ I reply. ‘Not actually suggesting we get married, so I can take Tamara with me when it all ends.’
He laughs, but it’s an uncertain laugh, sort of nervous.
I can’t work out what he’s thinking. Josh has not been getting my sense of humour much these days. Maybe I’m not funny any more. Maybe he’s distracted. I make Scarlet laugh. I made Chris laugh, often when he was trying to drink something.
‘We’ve been together a year and a half next month,’ I say.
‘Have we?’ he asks. ‘That’s flown.’
‘I guess it has, yeah. That’s a good thing,’ I reason.
‘Yeah,’ he says.
He’s quiet, staring at his food. Then he looks up at me. Candles flicker between us, and I wonder … it is Valentine’s Day after all. A year and a half is too short a time in which to get engaged, surely. What would I do if Josh asked? Would I say yes? God, I’ve no idea.
This silence lasts too long. Josh looks away, sips his wine and I sip mine. I dig around in my mind for something to say. ‘Do you think you might be able to come to the hotel opening next month?’
‘I know I said I’d try, but as it’s midweek it makes things tricky here. If I can, you know I will.’
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry. I know your time isn’t your own. The farm is the other woman in our relationship.’
He gives me a curious glance.
‘I’ll bore you rigid with how it all went after the event,’ I tell him.
‘Please do. And take pictures?’ he asks. He reaches out across the table, holds my hand for a moment, before we go back to eating our food.