There was a vase of pink peonies in the centre of the table and acres of lighted candles arranged on various shelves and side tables close by, reflecting and glittering in the only two crystal glasses to have survived marriage, children, divorce and now singledom in the cottage on the edge of Sheldon Common. There were French-blue cotton napkins, casually folded and dropped onto the side plates – Susie didn’t want to look as if she was trying too hard; spotless matching cutlery – Robert had a whole thing about smears and the odd bit of broccoli welded on by the dishwasher; alongside a little dish of pitted olives and some bread-sticks.
In the oven the main course – chicken breasts, tiny button mushrooms, roast garlic, spring onions, ginger, cashew nuts and strips of red pepper – was doing interesting things in a clear stock.
While Susie patted and fluffed and tweaked, Milo, her mongrel, watched her from the rag rug in front of the hearth, wondering about chicken division vis-à-vis faithful hounds and long-standing lovers.
‘Susie, there is something I really need to talk to you about,’ Robert had said when he’d popped by on Tuesday evening on his way home from work. He had looked very earnest. ‘I think that we really need to talk about the future.’
The future. Susie smiled, and then huffed on a serving spoon before giving it a brisk once-over with a tea towel.
They had been going out for the best part of three years. Robert wasn’t exactly the kind of man she had ever imagined herself settling down and growing old with, but he was a nice guy. He could sometimes be a bit overbearing – pompous and snobby was how her sister had once described him, but then she was married to a man who thought anything you didn’t grow, catch or shoot yourself was fast food, so she was hardly in a position to talk about peculiar male habits.
Robert was bright and reliable, intelligent, and even though he didn’t do fun very often, he was presentable. Presentable, and tall, and well-dressed, and forty-six; he liked dogs and was a bit public school and, okay, yes, he was just a teensy-weensy bit on the bald side, but nothing that couldn’t be coped with – after all, we all have faults – and he was rather endearing, and she loved him.
Susie glanced up at her reflection, caught in the mirror above the fireplace. Candlelight was a good choice, she thought, screwing up her eyes to focus. She looked fabulous, or perhaps it was just that she wasn’t wearing her glasses.
‘There is something important that I want to discuss,’ he’d said. ‘To be honest I don’t feel I can leave it any longer.’
Something important that couldn’t wait any longer. She set the spoon back down on the table. Moving in together? Maybe marriage? Maybe both?
Would she change her name? Mrs Robert Harrison … Mrs Susie Reed, wife of Mr Robert Harrison … Or would they be hyphenated? Mr and Mrs Reed-Harrison; or did Harrison-Reed sound better? The Reed-Harrisons entertain at home in their stylish Norfolk country home.
Susie was wearing a long, elegant cream linen dress, with low-heeled brown leather sandals and some chunky wooden jewellery, although not too much because Robert wasn’t keen on frills and had a ‘strictly no fluff, feathers or sequins’ policy, since he’d been rushed to casualty with a bugle bead up his nose after a particularly raucous scout-gang show. Not that she had many of those kind of things in her wardrobe, but she might have a mad moment, a show-tune, corset, kitten-heeled mule and fishtail frock afternoon.
If pressed, Robert said that he preferred white cotton underwear from Marks and Sparks. Unlike her ex-husband, Robert had never bought Susie anything black and red with suspenders for Christmas that needed taking back. Obviously Robert just didn’t see her as that kind of woman, and Susie wasn’t sure if she should be pleased by that or not …
‘Dessert spoons,’ Susie murmured thoughtfully, touching them with her fingertips. She’d made this thing from the cookery page of the local paper for dessert, with summer fruits, double cream and Muscovado – it was currently chilling in the fridge. She planned to serve it with Florentines from Waitrose, after garnishing the top with a couple of fat raspberries and a mint leaf, all dusted down with a quick flick of icing sugar. It looked great in the photo.
Robert worked in the Environment Agency, doing something which mostly seemed to involve wearing a dark suit, sending memos, having meetings and getting really grumpy by Wednesday afternoon. They’d met at Sheldon Common’s annual midsummer’s dinner dance in the village tithe barn. He’d looked very good in black tie.
He’d said, ‘Are you the woman with the long-eared hairy mongrel who’s bought Isaac’s Cottage?’
Hardly a chat-up line to make a woman go weak at the knees, but she’d never seen herself as high maintenance and didn’t trust flash, so it wasn’t a bad opening. Apparently he had always loved the cottage, seen it every day for years as he drove home from work – and before she knew it Susie was inviting him round to take a look at what she’d done by way of renovations. He’d arrived the next day with a decent bottle of red – a good sign – she’d cooked a spag bol and they’d been seeing each other ever since.
Robert was a little more staid and sensible than she would prefer in a perfect world, but Susie was getting to the point of thinking that maybe staid and sensible might be a good thing. She’d done her share of unreliable, lying, two-timing bastards. She’d been married to one for the best part of fifteen years, and once really was enough. Maybe staid and reliable was the new rock and roll.
And besides, Robert was good with power tools and he’d got a pension plan and a good income and was always on about the future and financial security. It wasn’t that Susie couldn’t manage on her own – she could manage very well indeed and had done for years – it was just that she preferred life when there was someone to share it with, and when she considered it long and hard, Robert Harrison, if not exactly Mr Right, came out very high on the Mr Could-Do-a-Lot-Worse index.
In the kitchen the timer went ping, and while Susie wondered how she would say yes, she practised gliding effortlessly across the floor like a nun she had once seen in a film, and reconsidered the possibilities. Should she smile and say, ‘Oh Robert, of course,’ or should she make him wait, explain that she needed time to think. Or maybe she should just smile winsomely and nod, all bright-eyed and overcome by emotion.
She bobbed down to open the oven door, the heat hitting her like a slap before Susie carefully manoeuvred the cast-iron pot up onto the worktop, imagining she was Delia.
‘And here we are, piping hot and ready to serve – smells absolutely wonderful, doesn’t it? Let’s have a little look, shall we?’
Susie lifted the lid; the chicken casserole was done to a turn, perfect. There were tiny new potatoes, sugar-snap peas and baby carrots in the steamer to go with it. She dipped a spoon in the sauce – maybe it needed just a tiny bit more pepper. Susie had brought a handful of chives in from the garden to chop up and sprinkle on top just before serving, hoping Robert wouldn’t be late. ‘And now, having adjusted the seasoning, just a few chives on the top to garnish – if you haven’t got chives you can always use a little freshly chopped parsley.’
Susie had had to stop being Delia out loud since dating Robert; nor was he keen on her being the woman on Gardeners’ Question Time, or Linda Barker when she was decorating either. She’d made a conscious decision to spare him the full Nigella. He’d said very early on in their relationship that he found it unnerving to hear people talking to themselves.
She looked round at the cosy kitchen and let her mind wander. Would they sell up and buy somewhere together? And what happened if Robert wanted a bungalow and she fell in love with a place with blackened beams and an ingle nook? What if he had always hankered to live on that horrible little housing estate near his fat, miserable sister and Susie couldn’t resist the lure of a narrowboat? Maybe renting somewhere together first was a better idea. Would he go down on one