“Do you really think you can do better than me?” I whisper. “Do you know something I don’t?”
He puts his paws on my knees and I pull him into my arms, holding him close, as I have so many times. He doesn’t reply, of course. He’s just a cat.
But I can’t help but wonder all the same.
“So hang on …” Heather holds up a hand, disbelief written across her face. “Give me a moment to get my head around this. Freddie actually suggested that Casper might be a better judge of character than you are?”
I busy myself picking coriander leaves out of my salad. “That’s about right, yes. And then he made me a terrible cup of tea.”
“And all of this after Casper had chased James out of the house with a chunk missing out of his trousers?”
We’re sitting in one of our favourite cafés on King’s Parade, right in the heart of town. Heather even managed to get here early and grab the last table in the window, so we can watch the world go by. Even in the middle of the day the streets outside are packed. I’m pretty used to the bustle of Cambridge these days, but sometimes even I find myself surprised by the sheer crush that the centre turns into in the summer months. By now, in early October, the tourists have alleviated somewhat, and the students are back, giving the whole place a different feel. Less febrile, more focused. One of them hurries past the window now, laptop bag clutched in his arms, chin tucked into a red checked scarf. Probably late for a seminar, I think vaguely. Goodness knows, I’ve been there myself plenty of times.
“Well—” Heather sits back in her chair, her lunch still untouched on her plate “—something of an eventful evening, then.” She says it with a straight face, but I can see the corners of her lips twitching.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” I say warningly, but my voice trembles traitorously as I do so, somewhat ruining the effect. “It’s not funny.”
She shakes her head gravely. “Of course not. Nothing humorous about it whatsoever.”
Outside, the student with the scarf has joined a gaggle standing outside King’s College, listening to their professor wax lyrical about the architecture. He’s gesturing enthusiastically up at the building, and for a moment I’m so busy watching that I almost miss Heather’s next words altogether.
“You know, I wonder if Freddie might be right. In part, at least.”
I almost choke on my watermelon iced tea. She waits primly while I recover my equilibrium.
“Excuse me?” I finally manage to rasp.
It’s not often that my measured, ultra-practical best friend can surprise me. But when she does it’s always in style. Like the time she whipped her bra off at the tarts and vicars theme night in our second year at university. I think I might still be getting over that now.
She nods sagely, unrolling her cutlery from the napkin. “I think it makes a lot of sense. In fact, I can’t believe you didn’t think of it before. Could you pass the pepper, by the way?”
I hand it over in a daze. “You really think I have terrible judgement when it comes to men?”
She sprinkles a fine dusting of pepper onto her plate. “No, but I do think that you move too fast sometimes.”
“Too fast?” I echo disbelievingly, putting my knife and fork down with a clatter. “This coming from the person who had a baby at twenty-two!”
“That’s different and you know it.” She leans forward, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Look, be honest. How much did you really know about James?”
“Well …” I hedge, before one look at her face tells me not to bother lying. She knows me far too well. “Not a lot, I suppose. We’d only been out a few times.”
“Exactly!” She looks triumphant. “And yet here you are, talking as though it’s a major breakup. So he was a nice, interesting man—so what? There are plenty more of those out there.”
If we weren’t in public, I’d put my head on the table.
This is the thing about talking to Heather; much as she might try, she just doesn’t understand what a minefield modern dating is. She met her husband during freshers’ week at university. She’s never had to navigate the rocky waters of dating apps, or exclusivity, or the commitment-phobia which seems to be rife amongst anyone under the age of thirty. If I asked her about ghosting, she’d probably guess it was something to do with Halloween.
In her world it’s easy to walk into a bar or a party, start talking to a nice man and, the next thing you know, you’re buying crockery together and putting down a deposit on a marquee. Sometimes, I wonder if I should break it to her that it’s not the nineties any more.
“You’ve always been the dreamer of the two of us,” she’s saying now. “You’ve always wanted …” she waves her fork in the air, as though to whisk up the ideal word “… magic. Romance. And there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have it, but the way you just leap into things, with your heart on your sleeve …” She breaks off with a frown, pointing the fork at me. “Don’t pull that face. I’m allowed to worry about you, you know.”
I look into her anxious blue eyes and immediately feel guilty. In her smart black turtleneck, her glossy dark hair pulled back from her face, she looks impossibly put together. But I can see the tense lines around her mouth, the too-tight set of her shoulders. She’s always been like that, from the very first day we met in university halls. What was supposed to be a carefree, spontaneous time— that always proved a challenge for Heather. She could never quite let go, never relax. I suppose that’s why we were drawn to one another. We both needed something the other could give, me a little of her level-headedness, her serenity, and her my sense of wonder, my open-minded optimism.
“Of course you do,” I reply gently. “But I’m fine, Heather. I’m a grown woman; I can deal with my own disasters. You have plenty of other things to worry about. Oscar, for starters.”
“He certainly gives me plenty to worry about.” She begins to daintily cut her avocado wrap into small pieces, presumably so she doesn’t have to pick it up. Heather doesn’t really do finger food. I’ve seen her eat nachos with a knife and fork. “I have absolutely no idea where he gets it from. I was the most shy, retiring child in the playground for my entire school career. And Dominic wasn’t exactly a bad boy himself.”
“No,” I say, trying not to smile as memories of Dominic in a choirboy’s cassock and ruff spring to my mind. Heather showed me that old album when we were both a bit tipsy on raspberry vodka, and I swore I’d never mention it again.
“Neither of us have ever broken a single bone,” Heather continues, sawing into her wrap with increased force. “Oscar’s barely three, and he’s already broken his arm twice. Thank God the second time it happened at nursery; if it had been at home again, I probably would have had social services banging down the door.”
I stifle my mirth with a well-timed cough.
“You might well laugh,” she says accusingly. “But this is supposed to be one of your duties, you know, as his godmother. To care and protect his sapling young mind, steer him in a more respectable direction. Make sure he doesn’t grow up into a total hellion.”
“That’s if you die, Heather. Which, hopefully, you’re not planning on doing any time soon. Until then, I get to be the fun adult figure in his life. The one he comes to for advice, or contraband ice cream milkshakes.”
She groans. “Yes, because that’s just what he needs. More fun in his life. He has such a dreary time of it. Nothing nice ever happens to him … or so he’d have everyone