‘When am I going to find time?’ he began, but he saw that he could expect no sympathy from me so he sighed and clicked his tongue. ‘Very good, ma’am.’
‘And no hip flasks in the wheelbarrow,’ I said, making it a parting shot as I headed out to the reception hall.
‘Of course not. Lucy!’ he called, hurrying after me and catching me just before I opened the front door.
‘What?’
He stood in silence for a moment, flushed and handsome and framed by the huge double doors that led into the biggest of the drawing rooms.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
* * *
For the rest of that week I practised my positions whenever I had some time and space to myself, which wasn’t often, given my accommodation situation.
In the car I worked on remembering which position equated to which number. I drove around muttering, ‘Arse – six. Fours – five. Present – seven’ until I had it off pat.
It probably wasn’t helpful of my brain to imagine Joss in a black silk shirt and tight black trousers standing over me with a riding crop while I rehearsed my poses, but my brain had always been a bit like that. Treacherous bastard.
In fact, my brain seemed quite happy to have Joss on it pretty much all day and all night.
‘If somebody broke your heart,’ I said, sitting with Jamila in a tea shop by Tylney Market on Saturday afternoon, ‘could you ever forgive them?’
She gave her scone a startled blink.
‘Broke my heart?’ she repeated. ‘I don’t really get that. I mean, broken things can be repaired, can’t they? I don’t believe in a permanently broken heart.’
‘Really? What if Akram cheated on you? Wouldn’t that damage you?’
‘Lucy, I don’t want to think about that while I’m planning my wedding! But it would depend on so many things. On the whole, I like to believe in giving second chances. I do it all the time at school. Children make mistakes – you can’t hold it against them.’
‘Akram isn’t a child though.’
‘He isn’t a cheater either.’
‘Fair enough. But if you had a man who wasn’t Akram, and you loved him more than anything, and he let you down so badly you took years to recover … could you forgive that?’
She put down her teacup and regarded me closely.
‘Lucy, who are we talking about here? Your man in Hungary? Has he been in touch?’
I thought I might as well let her labour under this illusion. She didn’t know about my history with Joss and I didn’t want to talk about it specifically.
‘No, but if he did,’ I said.
‘Are you really devastated?’ she asked, her head on one side. ‘I thought you said it wasn’t that big a deal and you were drifting apart anyway. Is absence making the heart grow fonder?’
‘Maybe I just miss Hungary,’ I said.
Budapest would be fiery hot at this time of year, the Danube brown and sluggish. It was warm enough here. I wondered if Joss was in the garden, shirtless, his strong body browning in the sun, his hair damp with sweat.
I ordered a glass of iced water from the waitress.
‘It’s not surprising,’ Jamila soothed. ‘Such a big part of your life, all over and done with. I can’t imagine it, since I’ve spent my whole life in the Dullsville Vale.’
‘You’re happy, though, aren’t you? You’ve got a good man, a job you love, a grown-up life with family and friends around you. It’s all coming together for you. My life is a mess.’
‘But you’ve achieved so much,’ she exclaimed. ‘You did so well at school, went to a good university, got an amazing job abroad. You’re the one we all envied.’