When Alice Met Danny. T Williams A

be living next door to him for the next six months, I’ll be able to borrow him when I get lonely.’

      ‘I can’t imagine you being lonely for long.’ She made no comment but poured the tea and carried the mugs through to the sitting room on a tray, along with a packet of biscuits.

      He nodded towards them. ‘Not so worried about slobbing out on the couch after all?’

      She gave him a smile and pushed them across. ‘I seem to be running around a lot these days. I may even have lost weight since leaving G&B.’ She glanced across at him. ‘You’re looking fit and well. Something or somebody doing you good?’

      He ignored the reference to “somebody” and groaned. ‘I’m in training. I’ve been in the gym almost every day for the last God knows how long. When you phoned last Saturday, it was my first lie-in for weeks.’

      She cut in before he could supply any more details about what he and the girl might or might not have been doing. ‘What’s all the training for?’

      ‘I was going to tell you. I’m going to be coming down to your neck of the woods in a few weeks’ time. There’s a big windsurfing event in Devon in June, in Beauchamp itself as it happens. There’s going to be a race for old-timers like me, and I’ve let myself get talked into competing.’

      ‘I saw the poster.’ As she said it, she had an image of a windsurfer, stripped to the waist, his perfect abs shiny with sweat, as the huge breakers pounded the beach behind him. She shook the picture out of her head and concentrated on Danny’s face. She was pleased to see that, unlike the baby and the dog, his eyes did not follow the movement of her hand as she nibbled at the biscuit. ‘Well, let me know when you are going to be there. I’ll come along and cheer. Come to think of it, I should have a spare room by then. It’s a bit small, but it would do you for a day or two.’