An Autumn Crush (17 page)

‘I couldn’t get a proper plasterer,’ mocked Juliet when she had stopped laughing.

‘Ha ha,’ said Steve. ‘I’ll be there tomorrow night at six on the dot. What are you cooking for me?’

‘Tripe, shite and onions,’ said Juliet. ‘We’ll have a takeaway. I presume you’re coming as well, Guy?’

‘If I must,’ shrugged Guy, trying to appear nonchalant but ending up like surly Heathcliff again.

Floz had to really beat back the
harrumph
that was fighting to burst from her. No, he really didn’t have to feel obliged. Far be it from her to keep him from roaming the windy moors
looking for dead Catherine Earnshaw.

Guy was used to seeing clean plates when he cooked. He took it hard when food was left – and there was, unfortunately, not a clean plate on the table. Even from Steve, who usually ate
everything, however bad it was. He was the only one who had ever cleared a plate when Grainne cooked.

Steve filled everyone’s glass up, whilst Guy prepared dessert. At least now he could earn back some points because his strawberry Charlotte Russe, with strawberry coulis and champagne and
strawberry cream, was a masterpiece.

‘That wasn’t half bad,’ said Steve, letting loose a very long and space-freeing burp as he ferried in the condiments from the dining-table.

‘Yeah right,’ huffed Guy.

‘Okay, you’ve done better.’

‘I’ve never done worse.’

‘All right, you win. It was pretty bad.’

‘The word you are looking for, Steven, is crap. If you’d bought it in my restaurant, you’d never have come again.’

‘Take a chill pill, brother.’ Steve picked up the dessert plates. ‘What are we having next?’

‘Something I managed to get right,’ said Guy proudly. ‘Strawberry Charlotte Russe.’

‘Always a winner when you’re trying to get into a girl’s . . .’

‘Girl’s what?’ boomed Juliet’s voice behind him. Steve’s arms flew up and the dessert plates jettisoned into space, but somehow miraculously he managed to catch the
lot. Had it been an audition for Billy Smart’s Circus, he would not only have passed but been upgraded to the star turn.

‘Bad books by ruining her diet,’ Steve said quickly.

‘Who’s on a diet?’ sneered Juliet. She didn’t wait for an answer but turned to Guy and said, ‘I came in to help. Shall I take the cream jug?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Guy. The pressure to impress was telling on him. He had gone very red and hot.

Steve didn’t say anything else. He was already in the
Guinness Book of Records
for most feet in one mouth at any one time. Guy carried the dessert through and wallowed in the ripple
of joy that the sight of the mighty cake caused.

Except Floz had to pass because she was allergic to strawberries.

‘You’re
what
?’ cried Guy loudly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Floz quietly, feeling an embarrassed flush rising to her cheeks. She had obviously upset him a lot with that revelation, judging by the look on his face.
‘I wish I could eat them — I love them, but I can’t.’ He obviously had a TV chef’s temper. They threw people out of their restaurants who criticized their food,
didn’t they?

‘
Shit, shit, shit
,’ said Guy under his breath. That was it, surely. That was all that could go wrong.

Wrong.

When Floz nipped to the loo, Perry leaned in close to Juliet. ‘Such a lovely girl. Is she single?’

‘Well,’ began Juliet, checking that Floz was out of earshot, ‘she was, but an old flame has just come back on the scene.’

Guy groaned inwardly. What next? Because the way his life ran, there sure as hell would be another nasty ready to manifest itself.

Juliet was half-ratted by the time they’d had coffees, plus a sample or twelve of Grainne’s home-made cherry brandy, which was actually quite nice, considering her total inability to
cook. Juliet was so mellow that she even let Steve kiss her goodbye on the cheek. Perry and Grainne kissed Floz and told her she was welcome any time. Steve kissed her too and told her that
he’d see her tomorrow. Out of all the possible kissing combinations, the only one that didn’t happen was one between Guy and Floz. He did a ‘how’ hand thing, like a rude Red
Indian from the kitchen doorway.

Still, she decided not to play his ‘I hate you’ game and said warmly how much she had enjoyed the food, even though they both knew that was a lie. His mains had left a lot to be
desired, and his dessert would have made her whole head itch and her lungs wheeze. She wished she knew why he was so awkward in her presence. The thought even visited her that he had known in
advance that she was allergic to strawberries.

‘That went well,’ said Steve, as Floz and Juliet’s taxi trundled off down the road. Guy didn’t answer. He was too busy crashing his head against the kitchen wall.

Not long after the taxi dumped them at the door, Juliet was asleep on the sofa. Floz switched on her monitor to find the welcome sight of another letter from Nick.

Attached were two pictures of a boy, one not happy about being in the sort of frilly-fronted suit that a bingo-caller would relish, the other of a
little boy grinning on a rocking horse. They were instantly identifiable as younger versions of the man she remembered from the photographs he had sent her in the past. Photographs she wished she
had kept.

The boy in the photographs made her look at him with a mother’s heart. She imagined what Nick’s mother must be feeling, remembering the son she had seen grow and blossom only to find
that his autumn had come early. There were few worse curses for a mother than to lose a child.

Floz slept surprisingly deeply but woke early, which was just as well because Juliet would have slept through her alarm. She was happy to put bacon sandwiches together for them
both whilst Juliet tore around getting herself ready.

‘Don’t forget, we’re having a takeaway tonight with Guy and
Steve
,’ said Juliet, again with that hint of a scoff in her voice.

‘I won’t,’ said Floz. She was glad about that because she would never cook for that man again. Although, if his attempts yesterday were anything to go by, he had no right to
slag off anyone else’s cuisine. Her pasta had been far superior to his sprouts. They were harder than Mike Tyson.

Floz felt strangely numb and lonely when Juliet breezed out of the flat. Despite living alone since her divorce, she hadn’t felt particularly lonely, but Juliet was such a big presence, it
was easy to feel the impact of her not being around.

Lee Status rescued her from any lurking doldrums by ringing just before 9 a.m.

‘You sent in some brilliant poetry for ill people, by the way,’ he complimented Floz.

‘I hope you don’t want any more,’ she replied.

‘No, we’ve dropped the range,’ he said. ‘Market research feedback wasn’t too favourable. Obviously you’ll still get paid.’

Not favourable? What a shocker, thought Floz.

‘Lovely brief this week. Everyday humour – nice and easy. Heavy on the farting jokes, please. And I could do with a couple of really good rhymes about turds and bogies.’

Floz nodded. What a way to earn a living was a thought that often crossed her mind in this job.

Juliet was slightly hungover, and not in the best mood to listen to Coco bragging over the phone about what a wonderful weekend he’d had with Gideon. They’d been to
the pictures and watched
Harry Potter
whilst sharing a bucket of popcorn.

‘Then he came back to mine and set up my new computer for me. And sorted out the cinema surround on my TV. Honestly, Ju, he’s an absolute wizard with techno stuff. He’s fab,
fab, fab. I love him.’

Juliet tipped a couple of Ibuprofen tablets into her mouth. ‘I thought you were taking things slowly.’

‘This is slow for me!’

‘I’m dying to meet him,’ said Juliet, trying to sound enthusiastic, but the pain thrumming in her temple was hampering that process.

‘Oh you will. He’s very shy though.’

‘Shy? Not your usual type then.’

‘No, he’s not my usual type at all,’ Coco sighed.

Every one of Coco’s exes had been brash and loud and OTT, and no
way
would he have considered going out with a ‘computer geek’ before. Gideon was a turn up for the
books. Juliet wasn’t convinced that Coco hadn’t been kidnapped by aliens and had his brain rewired. Then again, maybe they were just getting older and their tastes were changing.

‘Fancy coming round tonight? We’re having a curry with Guy and Steve.’

‘Oooh. Steve seems to be coming over quite a bit recently. Do you think he fancies Floz?’ gossiped Coco. ‘What are they like together? Do they flirt openly?’

Juliet’s jaw dropped open. ‘They get along very well, I noticed at Mum and Dad’s yesterday. Let’s watch their body language tonight and compare notes,’ she plotted.
She would keep her eye on developments between those two, because if Steve Feast hurt lovely Floz, she would kick his nuts so hard, he’d be chewing them like gum.

‘Thank you, but I must decline,’ Coco said dreamily. ‘We’re having a romantic night in. I think he might stay over tonight.’ He sounded like a giddy teenager. Just
like Juliet did when Roger first asked her out. She wondered if she would ever feel like that again. She was getting older and fussier, and nice men who ticked more than one box on her desirable
chart were becoming distinctly thin on the ground.

Floz broke off from writing a string of birthday jokes to write to Nick, because a letter was bursting out of her and she needed to keep those lines of communication open for
as long as she could.

She hit send, feeling as if she were being ripped to bits from the inside. She couldn’t bear it. She pulled the last of the tissues from the box
at her side and pressed them to her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, rejoined the real world and threw herself into writing a lot of jokes about bodily functions for Lee Status whilst trying not
to think about what might have been, had life been fair.

Juliet studied the takeaway menu but what she really wanted – which was sex and lots of it – was not featured. The older she got, the more horny she became at
ovulation time. She dragged her thoughts from Piers Winstanley-Black and back to choosing between a dopiaza and a rogan josh.

Floz was setting the table. Juliet lifted her eyes from the menu and looked at her new friend. She wondered if Steve really did have the hots for her, and couldn’t wait to watch them
together that evening. But, also, what was happening with Floz’s mystery ‘old flame’? He wasn’t exactly making her dance around the room with happiness, if their romance was
re-blooming.

The entryphone sounded and Juliet buzzed up her brother and Steve, who was dressed in his plastering whites.

‘Wotcher,’ he greeted with his big cheerful smile. ‘Please don’t fancy me too much in my work-gear, girls.’

‘Come in, shut up and get on with it,’ grumped Juliet. He really was a first-class prat. She knew he actually believed that he looked seductive in his plastering whites. It had never
crossed her mind that inside that tough shell of his was a bruised little boy wanting to please.

‘Thanks, I’ll have one sugar in my coffee,’ parried Steve.

‘Hi, Guy,’ said Juliet, ignoring him.

Floz disappeared to the kitchen to make Steve a drink, grateful for the excuse to get out of glowering Guy’s way.

Floz took her time making the coffee and stayed to chat to Steve whilst he was plastering. Guy noticed her reluctance to come into the room where he was. He really had alienated her with all his
stupid clumsiness, and every attempt he made to put things right only seemed destined to make things worse.