A Wedding In The Village. Abigail Gordon

without their mum?’

      ‘They seem to be. They’re doing their homework at the moment, reluctantly I might add. And what have you planned for the evening, Megan?’

      ‘Chores,’ she told him without much enthusiasm.

      ‘Come round for supper, then.’

      ‘I can’t keep butting into their lives, Luke,’ she said hesitantly.

      ‘What about my life?’ he questioned levelly ‘I’m going to need some company to bring me back to adulthood occasionally. We’re going bowling on Saturday and I’ve had instructions that I shouldn’t ask you to join us. It’s boys only.’

      ‘That’s fine with me,’ she said with feeling. ‘And in any case, I’ve already got something arranged. In Manchester, too, as it happens.’

      He was immediately curious. ‘Anything interesting?’

      ‘To me, yes. I’m going to have a leisurely afternoon going around the shops and then I’m meeting one of my friends from university for a night at the ballet.’

      ‘Sounds good. Is she anyone I might remember?’

      ‘It’s a he.’

      ‘Oh, I see,’ he said flatly, and wished he hadn’t been so nosy. It served him right for not thinking there might be someone already in her life. Red-gold hair, green eyes and a fluid mover like Megan were not going to go unnoticed by his own sex.

      ‘Am I likely to remember him, then?’

      He was glad this conversation was taking place over the phone. If Megan could see his expression she would pick up on his dismay.

      ‘Andy Warhurst.’

      ‘Really! Then I’m presuming that he must have changed a lot,’ he commented dryly. ‘I remember him as disruptive whenever he chose to attend my lectures.’

      At the other end of the line it was dawning on Megan that he was jumping to the wrong conclusions. She wouldn’t be interested in Andy Warhurst in a thousand years, but maybe it would do no harm to let Luke think she might be.

      The truth of it was that after they’d all left university, Megan had introduced Andy to Jenny, one of her childhood friends from the days when they’d been in the same ballet class. They’d fallen in love and got married, and now Jenny was a member of the company who were at present performing at a theatre in central Manchester.

      Jenny had been the one most keen to make a career in ballet and she’d rung to ask Megan if she’d like to see the show. ‘I’m only one of the chorus,’ Jenny had said. ‘But I’ve got two tickets. Andy is going to use one of them and I wondered if you would like the other.’

      ‘Oh, yes!’ Megan had said immediately.

      ‘So would you feel like joining up with him?’ Jenny had asked. ‘It isn’t really his scene, and I know he’d like to see you again. I promise that he’s much better behaved these days,’ she’d told her laughingly.

      The arrangements had been made, and now Luke was getting his wires crossed.

      ‘So how about supper, then?’ Luke asked, returning to his earlier suggestion.

      ‘I suppose I could pop down for half an hour.’

      ‘Great, so we’ll see you then.’

      * * *

      Her mother had phoned earlier and Luke had been the main topic of conversation.

      ‘How are you and he getting along?’ she’d wanted to know.

      ‘Not bad so far. But it’s early days yet.’ Megan had told her. ‘Luke is going to have his hands full on the domestic front for the next few weeks.’

      ‘Why is that?’

      ‘Sue has gone to France to stay with friends.’

      ‘And taken the boys with her, I hope.’

      ‘I’m afraid not. They didn’t want to go, and in any case she couldn’t take them out of school during term time.’

      ‘So her brother has been left in charge of them?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And the garden center, too?’

      ‘Hmm. But I don’t think that will give him much trouble. Everyone who works there is very loyal, and before you ask about the practice, Luke is spot on and determined not to let his other commitments interfere.’

      ‘Good,’ her mother said, and Megan knew she was saying what Margaret wanted to hear.

      ‘Now, tell me about yourselves,’ Megan coaxed, moving onto safer ground ‘Are the house and its surroundings as wonderful as you remember them?’

      ‘Absolutely. We’re going to love it here, but only if you are happy back there in the village.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ Megan said, omitting to mention that she’d had grave doubts about the suitability of the man they’d found for her to share the practice with, and that they hadn’t entirely disappeared.

      And now she’d accepted his invitation to go for supper because she couldn’t see enough of him. She was heading for a fall and knew it.