Once the fitters had left for the evening, leaving a room stripped bare and thick with choking dust, she alerted Leonardo and dialled up a takeaway. Bledburn was not like LA, where you could have perfectly balanced, body-respecting meals delivered from a different place every day. No, here the choice was: pizza, curry, Thai. At Leonardo’s request, she ordered curry.
‘I don’t know if I dare eat this,’ said Jenna, looking bleakly at the array of foil trays oozing brightly coloured oils from between the edges of their cardboard lids. ‘My system might go into shock. I’ve lived on alfalfa sprouts and tofu for the last five years.’
‘Get it down your neck,’ said Leonardo with scorn. ‘I don’t even know what Alf whatsisname is. A decent biryani never did anyone any harm.’
She watched with some admiration as he tore into a doughy pouch of naan bread. He had an unabashed appetite for life that made her wonder if she’d ever had anything similar. She had, of course, she had. She remembered the nights in that tiny little Italian restaurant in the early days of her relationship with Deano – garlic bread, pasta of the day, tricoloured ice-cream sundaes. What a glamorous treat it had all seemed; real grown-up, adult living. Was it still there? She tried to remember what it was called – Semifreddo’s. That was it.
‘How long since you had a curry?’ she asked him.
‘Too fucking long,’ he replied through a mouthful of chicken madras. ‘Did you order any beer?’
‘No, they wouldn’t deliver alcohol. I did buy you a couple of bottles at the shop earlier, though. They’re not very cold, I’m afraid. Once the kitchen’s done …’
She reached into the box of provisions in the corner of the room and handed him a beer to go with his bottle of water.
‘Not having one yourself?’
‘Beer? Oh no. I couldn’t.’
‘Of course you could. Have the other one. I don’t like drinking alone. One must follow the rules of etiquette, you know.’ He was speaking in his fakey posh voice again.
Jenna had misgivings about letting such a gaseous liquid into her body, but she comforted herself that it was just the one, just this once. In future she’d remember not to buy the stuff.
‘So, what are you thinking of doing in this room?’ he asked, looking around at the peeling plaster and general air of mildewed woe that surrounded them.
They talked easily and with enthusiasm of different furnishing styles, floorings, paint versus wallpaper, lighting options, until the last grain of spice-drenched rice was disposed of. They had laughed at each other’s jokes, mirrored each other’s body language, and Jenna had found herself twirling strands of her hair far more often than she was accustomed to.
‘Where are you going to sleep?’ he asked, once the topic was exhausted. ‘Upstairs, I suppose?’
‘Eventually. I think I’ll just camp out in whichever room is warmest until I get round to the upper storey. It’s almost midsummer.’
‘The nights will be drawing in,’ said Leonardo, giving her a strange look. ‘Long, lonely nights. Don’t you miss him?’
‘Who?’
‘Diamond.’
That was the sixty-million-dollar question. Did she?
‘I miss what we once had,’ she said, putting aside her empty beer can.
‘And what was that?’
She had to think.
‘When it was just us. When we could just spend time fooling around, and laughing, and talking about rubbish. When we used to spend whole days in bed. When we thought we were soulmates and nothing would ever come between us.’
‘And when was that?’
She exhaled heavily.
‘Fifteen years ago. Then our careers started to take off and nothing was ever the same again. We were pulled in every direction, every waking minute of our lives. It changed us. We became different people.’
Leonardo grimaced. ‘Life’ll do that to you. So, how are you different now, compared to what you were like at twenty-odd?’
‘I’ve lost my starry eyes. I’ve seen what’s in the stars, and it isn’t that great.’
‘Wow, that’s poetic.’ Leonardo nodded sagely. ‘So you used to be romantic, and now you’re not?’