Oh, a day of peace – if you didn’t count the chaos of film kit all over the ground floor or getting used to the idea of your mother suddenly deciding to marry someone you’d not yet met. All the same, Bella stretched out in bed and savoured the luxury of having twenty-four hours of quiet and calm in the house. Daisy and Dominic had a long-scheduled appointment with a visiting American film star who needed the kind of fast and thorough wardrobe update that you could, frankly, only get in Europe, so they were off to Selfridges way before opening time to check through their selection of clothes, shoes and accessories to take to her hotel. ‘A piece of piss,’ Daisy had confessed as soon as the rather defeated Esme had been soothed and packed off. ‘She’s a skinny, big-gobbed sort with perfect posture and years of red-carpet practice. She’d look good in a binbag.’ Dominic had nodded slowly, watching Daisy to make sure, Bella now thought, in the light of Shirley’s view of his attachment, that she’d noticed him agreeing with her.
‘And career-wise, she couldn’t act her way out of one,’ Daisy then bitched through her scary smile. ‘She couldn’t do sincerity if her pet puppy died right there on the set.’
‘And thus you completely shred the hard-won professional rep of a three-times Oscar nominee!’ Saul had commented wryly. ‘Way to go, Daisy!’
Keith the cat was stretched out across the end of Bella’s bed. James would have had a fit if he’d seen that. No pets, had been his adamant rule when he’d lived at the house, convinced that they were put on the planet solely for the carriage of germs and disease from the outside world into his near-sterile sanctuary. Bella wondered if Molly remembered that her instant reaction on being so very gently told that Daddy wouldn’t be living at home any more was a hugely excited, ‘So can we get a puppy?’ Bella had been tempted to go along with the idea, having in mind something big and protective and friendly, along the lines of Nana in Peter Pan, but the thought of taking care of two young children alone, as well as having to clear up after a whopping great dog, had been just too much. They’d settled on the spoilt and lazy kitten that was now the big, sprawling Keith. She reached down and stroked his ears. He twitched slightly and stretched out a broad paw, claws showing, browny-pink pads flexing.
What an idle life cats have, she thought; how blissful to know that all your needs are catered for by one devoted person. Not that she’d have wanted her own life to be like that, but having had almost total lone responsibility for the home and children made her pretty fierce about James wanting to stroll in and cash in half the house. But today, Bella resolved that James, the filming and all hassles would be firmly off the radar. She would concentrate on catching up on some work, if partly to keep tonight’s dinner with Saul out of her mind and her adrenalin level under control. She didn’t want – or intend – to feel all fluttery about a man again. It took ludicrous amounts of energy and brain space. It led to trouble and let-down, and the recovery-time from Rick wasn’t, she felt, quite over yet: she was sticking with the no-involvement rule. Not that getting involved with a man who wasn’t really over the loss of an adored wife was anywhere close to an option.
There was plenty to do with this spare day; Charlotte had emailed, wanting an update on the progress of the shoot, and nudging for a few gossip snippets to keep her interest going. And Bella’s publisher was wanting her to check over the cover copy for the next Orchard Girls book.
And there was her mother … since she’d come out with her ‘I’m getting married’ bombshell, she had, maddeningly, not been around to talk about it. On her return from the police station she had had a shower, packed an overnight bag and raced eagerly off into the evening to meet Dennis, assuring Bella she’d be back the following afternoon. She and Dennis were off to break their good news to his son Toby in Oxford, and planned to stay overnight at the Randolph hotel. Bella had about a hundred questions, if she could only pin Shirley down for a proper conversation. She tried the term ‘stepfather’, and found it rather strange and slightly wrong, as if it turned her into a little girl again. Maybe this Dennis too would find the idea a bit flinch-making, and they could happily agree it was never to be uttered. But most of all, she hoped he was a Nice Man. He must be. Shirley had had a few suitors over the years and had always, in the end, decreed them ‘not enough fun’. How lovely that she must have found one who was. Never too late, was the message there.
From downstairs, Bella could hear the sounds of Molly crashing around in the kitchen. Strange how quite a delicately built girl could manage to make so much noise and be so heavy-handed while doing nothing more physically demanding than sliding bread into a toaster and taking butter and marmalade out of the fridge. Bella hoped she wasn’t scratching the new worktop or splodging marmalade on the glass splashback. A little part of her was feeling this wasn’t quite her kitchen just now but belonged to Saul’s production company, which meant they should all treat it as if they were house guests. Ridiculous, but unshakeable; after all, it was possible that at the end of the filming, in a moment of fervent site-clearing, some of the crew would simply unbolt all the new doors, lift the worktop and load it all into a truck while she was down at Waitrose. As with so many things in life, it was probably best not to get too attached to it too soon.
Bella climbed out of bed, put on her cosy old towelling bathrobe and padded down the stairs. Keith followed, miaowing for breakfast and plaiting himself dangerously around her feet.
‘You OK, Moll?’ Bella asked, going to switch the kettle on. ‘School early today?’
‘Mmm.’ Molly, over at the table and flicking through a magazine, mumbled through a mouthful of toast. ‘Carly’s pickin’ m’yup.’
‘That’s lucky. Oh and you’re not wearing grey! You look lovely – that vanilla top is perfect. You’ve been checking through your colour swatches, haven’t you? Maybe there’s something in it after all.’
‘Er, like nooo?’ Molly stared at her as if she’d suggested she’d stolen every item she was wearing. ‘This old top was just like in the drawer?’
Bella laughed, not believing her. ‘Funny how you and I were both spring … though in my case no spring chicken, of course.’
Molly smiled, her mood softening. ‘Oh Mum, don’t say that. You look great. For …’
‘For my age. Thanks.’
‘No, I didn’t mean … I meant that you look really good – for any age. Or you can do. When you try, like going out and that. I was so right about you and black though, wasn’t I?’
‘Yes, yes, I know. I just wish I’d known years ago – I still think it’s the useful lazy-woman’s option. Listen Molly, as it happens, I’m going out tonight. Will you be all right, just you and your gran? I’m going out for a quick dinner with … er … Saul.’
‘Ooh! I knew it! He fancies you! And of course I’ll be all right; I’m nearly eighteen, not eight, Mum.’
‘OK, OK, sorry! And as for fancying me, he like so doesn’t, as you’d say. It’s just a friendly thing, a sort of thank you for letting them use this place at such short notice. Though as I’ve got pretty much a new kitchen out of it I should really have invited him out, I suppose.’
‘“Just friendly”. Yeah right! So where are you going and what are you going to wear?’
‘Er … oh a restaurant in Covent Garden … and I haven’t thought what to wear yet. I’d wear my lovely black dress but … I don’t know, I try not to believe in all that colour stuff, but I can’t feel the same about that frock now.’ She sighed, thinking of her shiny Joseph dress. That could have been so perfect, but apparently only if she’d bought it in purple. And possibly if she didn’t still associate it with the Rick disaster. Oh well. Not that it mattered what she wore, really. As she’d said, this was just a friendly thing. She really wasn’t going to race into the town just for a very quick look-see at the shops in case the absolutely perfect pull-it-all-together little frock was on the first rail she looked at, begging her to take it home and make her evening perfect. No.
The kettle was boiling. Decaffeinated tea now, she decided as she felt the adrenalin zapping again. She chose a tea bag from one of the crew’s selection of boxes, something that might minimize the risk of blood-pressure overload.
‘You should ask Gran. She always looks great. She could do that Daisy’s job so easily – she’ll tell you what to wear.’
‘If she were here,’ Bella said. ‘She’s …’
‘Out with Dennis. Yes I know.’ Molly took her plate and mug to the sink and hesitated for a moment.
‘The dishwasher’s on the left,’ Bella reminded her. ‘Where it’s always been. So you know about Dennis?’
‘Oh ha ha,’ Molly said. ‘Did she tell you about Dennis?’
‘Well … yes.’ Bella was wary. It was down to Shirley to do the marriage announcement. It wouldn’t be fair to break the news to Molly without her say-so – or did she know about it already and was thinking the same? ‘Why, what’s she said to you?’
Molly looked guiltily breezy and replied, ‘Oh nothing much! Only that she’s seeing him!’
‘OK – well I don’t know much about him either. I’m sure she’ll say a lot more about him soon.’
‘Yeah, maybe. Gotta go. Just going to brush my teeth. And Mum?’
‘What is it? Are you sure you’re OK about tonight? If Gran’s off out again, you could have Carly round or someone else; I’ll leave you some fancy instant food in the fridge if you want.’
‘Giles. Can he come over tonight?’ Molly looked at the ground, suddenly finding something fascinating about the walnut floor.
‘Yes, of course he can. So long as …’
‘Eeuw, Mum, don’t say it! I promise! And just to make sure, you could lock your bedroom door!’ And she was gone – a flash of messy wheat-coloured hair, her vanilla top and skinny jeans and she was up the stairs, the cat (now full and needing yet more sleep) bounding up after her.
‘I only meant … don’t let him get in the way of your schoolwork!’ Bella went to the doorway and called rather lamely after her.
‘No you didn’t, Mum!’ Molly yelled back over the banisters. ‘You meant “Make sure you don’t get pregnant!” Maybe I’ll remind you about that when you go out with that Saul bloke tonight!’
Good grief, Bella thought, laughing as she went back to her tea and put a croissant into the microwave, when did it become OK for daughters to talk to their mothers like that?
Bella had dealt with emails, written a few taster paragraphs about the programme for Charlotte and wasted half an hour looking through the estate agent details of the dismal rabbit-hutch premises that James thought would suit her so perfectly. Now she had, strewn across her bed, just about every outfit that she’d bought over the past decade. For the first time, she rather wished Daisy had insisted on trawling through each of the fashion victims’ own wardrobes. In a bossy instant she would have been able to give Bella an idea of what ‘mid-season’ was about, and how to dress for going out with a man who was Just a Friend on an autumn night that might turn chilly. ‘Layers are key,’ she could almost hear Daisy insisting vehemently into her ear, completely disregarding the fact that layers, however thin the fabric of each, do tend to bulk out anyone who is over a size 8. That much, Bella didn’t need Daisy to tell her.
In a decisive moment, Bella picked out skirts, trousers, a couple of dresses and three jackets, none of which she’d worn for ages, and stuffed them into a binbag. Wow, that felt good. She looked around the room and, still intent on purging, added a heap of no-longer-used make-up items.
‘There!’ she said, feeling satisfied as she started hanging her diminished collection back in the wardrobe. ‘That’s so much better.’
‘Talking to yourself?’
Bella heard herself shriek and her heart rated doubled. James was standing in the bedroom doorway, smirking at her.
‘How the hell did you get in? And what are you doing up here?’
‘You’d left the garden doors open,’ he said, not shifting from the doorway. She moved closer, brandishing a metal coat hanger, and he backed away.
‘I opened them to let fresh air in, not stale husbands,’ Bella snapped. ‘You can’t just sneak up the stairs like that.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he said, ‘I only meant …’
‘Look, James, I don’t care what you meant. You can’t make free with the premises after all this time, no matter what it says on the deeds.’
‘Deeds. Yes, that’s what I’ve come about.’
‘Then you should have called me. Right now, I’m busy. I’m sorting.’
‘So I see. Ready for a relocation situation?’ he asked eagerly, eyeing the remaining clothes on the bed. She pushed past him, going down the stairs with her bulging binbag.
‘No, not for moving. Just to get rid of too much stuff. Come on James, out of my house. I’ve got things to do. We can catch up another time, just give me a call.’
She heard him mutter ‘Our house’ not quite under his breath, but let it go.
‘Oh but while I’m here … er … your friend Dina?’ James lingered in the hallway. ‘Is she, you know … spoken for?’
Bella smiled, feeling almost fond of him for a moment. ‘Oh James, in spite of all your corporate-speak nonsense that sounds really quite sweet and old-fashioned!’
He shrugged. ‘Just a small but apposite paradigm shift in terminology,’ he said. ‘It seemed to fit. Anyway, is she? I’m just curious.’
‘No, she’s not with anyone just now, is the answer to your question. Dina’s husband died suddenly after an episode with …’ Bella hesitated; this was Dina’s private territory. ‘He had a heart attack, several years ago. Overdid it in sport, all very unexpected.’
‘Sport’ was broad enough. No need to mention the prostitute or the school-style cane.
‘And she hasn’t found someone since?’ James looked quite excited. ‘Has the world gone mad? A beautiful woman like that on her own? One who cares about soiled cutlery? She seems the sort to keep Dettol wipes in her car.’ Bella thought he looked more thrilled at this possibility than he would have if Dina had kept an extensive array of pleasure-enhancing lubricants in her Fiesta’s glove box.
‘Do you know, I think she probably does. Her car always smells extremely pine-bleachy, that’s for sure; like a freshly cleaned public loo. And she keeps special driving shoes too, and takes off her street ones before she gets in.’ James closed his eyes in bliss; he looked close to swooning. One brief meeting in the restaurant and it was the dental nurse thing all over again: instant infatuation.
‘Dina is part of our Fashion Victims programme, so she’s here most days just now,’ Bella went on. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you give me a call some time tomorrow and I’ll see if I can fix a meeting for the two of you?’
Well, she thought, as he bounced happily back to his car, at least it might distract him from selling the house.
‘You mean you don’t want to come over? Empty house?’
What do I have to do, beg? Why has he gone remote all of a sudden? Molly sat on the stairs wondering this as she listened to Giles breathing into the phone. Breathing, saying nothing. What was that about? Usually he never stopped talking. And where had he been in the last few days? He hadn’t turned up in school. She’d texted him four times today – not one reply.
‘You know, empty house as in nobody home? Giles? Are you still there?’
‘Yup. Am here. I just, I like can’t come tonight. Got stuff on. Late with coursework. Sorry babe. Another time, yeah?’
‘Are you blowing me out here, Giles? Totally, as in for good? Because that’s what it sounds like to me.’ Molly chewed her thumbnail, dreading the answer ‘Yes’.
‘No! Not at all! Still love you Molly.’ He was muttering it, as if someone were close by and listening. Perhaps they were. Probably it was Giles’s mother, who was one of those energetic gym mums who whizzed around the house and seemed to be everywhere, always smiling and big-eyed and pleased to see everyone and wanting Molly to talk hair and clothes with her because, she complained, she was outnumbered by men in the house and in need of girly chat. Nice and friendly as she was, no wonder Giles preferred to see Molly when he was safely off the premises. The last time they’d been in his room (just watching Doctor Who, luckily), his mother had bounced in clutching a copy of Marie Claire to ask for an opinion on a cropped studded-leather jacket. Did Molly think she was too old to wear it? Yes was the clear answer, but ‘No’ had to be said, yet in a tactful, ‘deep down I really mean yes’ way.
Molly had come to the end of her patience. To her it was a clear case of ‘Still love you, BUT …’ Too cowardly to face her and come right out with the truth, was he? Her heart was thumping painfully and she felt choking tears on their way. Something had changed since he’d rolled her on the grass under the trees on the school field, and she had no idea what. And it looked like she wasn’t going to find out in a hurry, as there was nothing coming down the phone but faint and distant breathing. Not very even breathing come to that, though not uneven in a good way.
‘Yeah right. OK. You love me. Like you’re giving me reason to believe it. Let me know when you’re ready for a conversation. Bye.’
She clicked her phone shut and went into the kitchen. There was no Mum to hang out with – she’d got a date. No Gran – so had she. Everyone was out having man-friend fun and she was left at home with Keith the cat, who was asleep, shedding fur all over the ridiculous purple velvet sofa. Fliss would be cross in the morning; it would be her job to brush it all off.
She had a look in the fridge, took out the remains of last night’s shepherd’s pie and shoved it into the microwave. When the ping went she looked at it, felt slightly ill and left it on the worktop, unable to face eating it because all her insides were already filled up with a solid lump of sheer misery. She went and lay on the sofa alongside the cat, looking out to the tall tobacco flowers in the garden, almost luminous white in the deepening dusk. Carly – she’d talk to Carly. She might come up with what was wrong with Giles. And even if she couldn’t, she’d do her best to cheer her up. That’s what best mates were for.
Mon Plaisir, on the cusp of Soho and Covent Garden, was a restaurant that Bella had been to before, though that time it had been a bit of a rush as she’d been there for an early pre-theatre supper with a bunch of women friends. She remembered it for the speedy service, friendly French staff and pretty, slightly quirky decor. She arrived early, but not by so much as to look embarrassingly eager, and as the cab dropped her off in the crowded narrow street, she could see Saul crossing the road to meet her.
‘Bella!’ he said, kissing her. ‘You’re looking gorgeous!’ So the simple fallback – yet non-black – choices were the best in the long run: a three-year-old silky ginger dress with tiny cream spots (Jigsaw), cinched in with a chocolate obi-style belt (Toast), cream crêpey jacket (Handwritten).
‘Oh … thanks! So are you!’ Well, he was – why shouldn’t she say so? So simple for men: an unstructured blue-grey jacket plus white linen shirt equalled casually instant style. It was funny, it struck her now, that men wore such a limited range of items: basic shirts, jackets – they didn’t vary that much in design and yet some men had the knack of looking wonderfully comfortable and effortless, whereas others seemed always stiff and awkward and as if they’d been forced reluctantly into their outfits by bossy uniformed nannies. Saul was one of the former sorts, James, regrettably, one of the latter; when he wasn’t wearing a tie, he kept touching his neck as if worried that something vital was missing and that he was bordering on embarrassing exposure. Saul looked as if he didn’t actually possess a tie. She tried not to think of him owning a black one for funerals, one that was stashed away in a corner of a drawer since the day he’d buried his adored wife. Now wasn’t the time to be morbid.
They were given a corner table, at the L of the padded banquette seating. ‘Oh good,’ Bella said as they sat down. ‘I really don’t much like sitting opposite people, do you? It always seems a bit remote and formal, like a job interview. I much prefer this right-angle thing.’
‘Me too, and I also think the side-by-side thing is a bit odd too,’ he agreed. ‘As if you’re on a bus. And if it’s with someone you don’t know well, there’s that leg-touching thing that you can’t avoid and you’re wondering if they think it’s deliberate. And maybe it is, but then you wonder the same about them … Oh, sorry, Bella, I’m waffling!’
‘You are a bit!’ she told him, amused that he too seemed a bit nervous. ‘But it’s OK. And I’m glad that so far we agree we’re happy with the seating arrangements.’
‘Yes. It’s an excellent start,’ he said, all pretend serious. ‘Always good to begin without a disagreement, I think.’
The waitress handed them menus and asked about drinks.
‘Champagne, yes?’ Saul suggested.
‘Mmm, thanks, that would be …’
‘Another plus on the non-disagreement side. I’ll stop counting now, I promise. So – do you have any colour restrictions on food today? Green only? Or are you going to be really tricky to feed and insist on blue?’ he teased.
‘Not green; it’s Thursday so … ooh let me see, it’s red – I’ll have to have red mullet and tomatoes. I can eat nothing else today.’ Bella scanned over the menu quickly. She was quite hungry, but the mildly anxious sort of hungry where she knew that if she were suddenly faced with a large plate of something, she’d only be able to eat a quarter of it before the butterflies inside her crowded out her appetite. Ridiculous really, to feel all teenage like this. Saul was such a warm friendly sort, so easy to be with, she really should simply relax and enjoy herself. Instead, behind the butterflies, she had a feeling of mild dread, as if this evening really mattered and that if it all went wrong, nothing in her life would ever go right again.
The champagne arrived, Saul raised his glass and smiled at her. ‘Here’s to … er, what shall we drink to? You choose.’
‘I suppose it should be to the success of Fashion Victims,’ Bella said, clinking her glass against his.
‘And I suppose you’re right, because, being a woman, your lot always are … but … tonight’s not about the programme, don’t you think?’
‘OK, if not the programme, then …?’
‘To us? Or is that presumptuous?’
Bella hesitated, wondering quite what he meant. To presume he meant it in a start-of-a-romance kind of way would be … well … presumptuous. But the thought of it caused a surge of those inner butterflies. Unexpectedly big ones, almost hawkmoth size. At this rate, she was going to have to swallow a vat of insect repellent to keep them under control. To be safe, she took the humour route. ‘OK then, here’s to us still being on speaking terms this time tomorrow.’
‘Excellent – that’s a good one. But I can’t think why we wouldn’t be. All is well at the moment,’ he looked at his watch, ‘a whole fifteen minutes in.’
‘Exactly – it’s looking good so far,’ she agreed, sipping her drink and feeling a sudden elated rush of the bliss of being out, single, free and in the company of a sweet, attractive, friendly man with whom she had no intention of getting involved.
‘Wow, that’s one hell of a smile!’ he commented. ‘What brought that on?’
‘Um … oh I don’t know! Just feeling happy to be here, right now, that for a few hours everything’s OK and home and the hectic stuff and all dull reality can be left behind?’
He was looking at her, saying nothing but smiling, happy with what he saw. She went on, nervously feeling she should fill the silence gap, ‘Now you think I’m nuts, don’t you? That I sound like some tragic escapee from suburbia who so rarely gets out that I’m going to behave as if I’m on … oh I don’t know … an overexcited hen night or something, and get ludicrously giddy.’
‘I don’t think that at all. I think you had a rare recognition of a truly happy moment. Carpe diem is all very well as a motto, but it only works if you realize the day has been seized. Usually we never notice till it’s whizzed past. And don’t put yourself down, Bella. I know about your non-suburban work life: you’re a successful journalist, a top-class writer and you have a job anyone would envy. But I also know more about you than you’d think – remember I’ve turned a big part of your home upside down. Seen how you are in it, how your family co-exist. I know your tastes in paintings, colours, plants, what’s in your fridge, what’s on your bookshelves, some of the things that people usually don’t get to know till way down the line in a relationship.’
‘All a bit one-sided so far, isn’t it? Slightly unfair. I don’t know anything like that much about you. Only …’ She hesitated.
‘… only about how I work and about Lucy. I could have – probably should have – mentioned I’d also had another very brief marriage that didn’t last. It was never meant to.’
Bella thought about what her mother had said about those who’ve been happy rushing to repeat the experience. She didn’t want to probe into the mistake it had obviously turned out to be.
‘Oh, that’s … well, sad, I suppose.’
‘But Lucy was very much a “life-goes-on” woman,’ he continued. ‘And she made me promise not to go in for shrines and eternal grieving, and I haven’t. She’s a great memory, but a long-distant one now. Even so, however much you live in the present, when you lose someone like that, eventually they turn into – oh I don’t know – some weird information barrier that has to be got over when you meet someone new. Bit of an elephant-in-the-room thing, really. That’s why I told you about her – because if I’d left it much longer and then said something, you’d think I was still completely hung up on the past.’
‘So you’ve been single for a while, then?’
Saul laughed. ‘Not devoutly so. I’m not a natural at the casual stuff, though. How about you? What’s the “after James” story?’
‘After James … well … OK, I’ll give you a brief history of my non-love life in one short paragraph,’ Bella began.
And it was during the grilled tuna with fennel (both had chosen the same) that Bella realized the old saying really was true after all: looking back now, recounting the Rick-in-New-York episode did make her laugh, and Saul too. It came under the heading of fun and self-deprecating anecdotes. She told Saul of her flight from the hotel (‘a bit overdramatic, now I come to think of it. I should have just stayed on and enjoyed the city on my own,’) and her venomous cursing of the innocent guest, after choosing the wrong bedroom door.
‘I was so furious and let down at the time, the last thing I ever expected was that it would become something to giggle about,’ she said.
‘Maybe it’s who you’re telling it to,’ he suggested.
‘OK then, or maybe it’s just the way I tell ’em.’
‘Pudding?’ he asked as the menus were handed out.
‘I couldn’t, honestly. This has been wonderful, but I really couldn’t eat another thing.’
‘Coffee, though? Either here, or we could go to the Bar Italia, or …’
‘Or?’ she asked, all mock-innocence.
‘Well I’ve seen yours, maybe you’d like to see mine. Er … place of residence, that is!’ he clarified, as Bella was overcome with a giggle attack.
‘OK – yours. I’d love to. I’ve seen the office, now show me your rooftop garden.’
Out on the pavement the street was buzzing with crowds let loose from theatres. Every cab had its light out. Saul took Bella’s hand and steered her through the throng at Cambridge Circus. ‘We could walk there, but …’ He looked at Bella’s shoes, which were strappy, high-ish sandals. ‘Those look like car-to-bar shoes only, not really for pavement use, am I wrong?’
‘A bit wrong – I’d never wear shoes I couldn’t run for a bus in, but it would have to be a not very fast-approaching bus. By Daisy’s standards, they are practically flats.’
‘By Daisy’s standards, everything short of completely perpendicular counts as flats. OK – this is what we’ll do, then,’ he said, raising an arm towards the traffic. A bicycle rickshaw, driven by a smiling boy, stopped beside them and Saul gave the address. ‘Hey, you two romantics,’ the boy said in what sounded like an appropriately Italian accent, ‘you be warm under blanket and you can snog.’
Bella climbed in, slightly wary of how vulnerable the fragile vehicle would be to the surging buses, cars and taxis. Saul tucked the blanket across them both and put his arm around her. She snuggled close, glad of even this small gesture of protection from the brutal traffic surrounding them. ‘Have you ever been in one of these before?’ he asked.
‘No, never!’ she laughed. ‘I suppose I think of them as just for the tourists. But tonight I do feel a bit like a tourist myself, seeing this part of the city with you. It must be the unfamiliarity of being in this mad contraption that gives it a whole new angle.’
In truth, it was the excitement of being with Saul, she realized. It was that fragile elation of being with a man whom she was really, really beginning to like and who was quite possibly feeling the same about her. It made the city seem newly radiant; every Soho building looked like an architectural masterpiece, every overspilling ordinary bar seemed gilded and exotic. This was dangerous, heady stuff, she thought, as the enthusiastic and skilled rickshaw driver pedalled madly and wove in and out of the near-static traffic with terrifying verve.
‘The driver will be cross with us,’ Saul said, pulling her closer towards him.
‘Why is that?’ she asked.
‘Because we’re not doing what he told us to do. He said we have to kiss. So I think we should. It’s our duty.’ His mouth brushed the edge of hers.
‘I think we should too …’ she murmured. ‘It would be so wrong to disappoint him.’