62

Stella lay back on the sky-blue plastic dental chair, feet raised, and took the mirror the hygienist, Heather, handed her.

‘You see,’ Heather said, whirring an electric toothbrush on to Stella’s front teeth, ‘you’ve got to get right up under the gum, one tooth at a time. It’s no use swishing it from side to side.’

The lecture was the same every six months and Stella barely listened, just politely nodded and agreed, as always, to think about getting an electric brush. Which she had no intention of actually doing; she hated the buzzing, frenetic assault on her teeth. But it stopped the lecture until next time.

She let Heather dig about in her mouth, while her mind wandered back to Peregrine Galbraith. What had started as a light-hearted friendship – which they both agreed was huge fun – was now, after a number of delightful theatre outings, dinners, the odd exhibition and a lot of laughter, beginning to get more complicated. Sex had raised its weary head.

Stella didn’t not fancy him, as she put it to Annette when questioned on the subject – which, as her friend pointed out, was not exactly a ringing endorsement – but neither did she feel compelled to jump into bed with him. It wasn’t like Jack, in any way.

But recently, Perry, although way too polite to push her, had been making signs that he hoped she might. Stella was feeling the pressure, however slight, in the way he gazed at her after he’d had a drink or two. Or when she occasionally stayed over in his elegantly restored eighteenth-century house in East London. She always slept in the spare room, but there had been a couple of awkward moments recently when they’d said good night. She’d thought Perry might be about to lunge. And she thought she might not resist.

But he must have seen the doubt in her eyes, because he never went any further, just smiled and kissed her cheek, promising scrambled eggs and bagels – or some such – for breakfast. Should I just do it? she wondered now. Should I just have sex with the man and find out if it works? Was this the sort of compromise she could expect at her age?

As Heather finished scraping and began to polish her teeth, Stella gave in to the permanent ache that had settled around her heart when she thought of Jack, blinking away tears behind the yellow plastic safety glasses. It should get easier, I should try and make it get easier, she told herself. But every time she was reminded of the baby Lisa carried, she wanted to cry with vexation.