Читать книгу Take Mum Out - Fiona Gibson, Fiona Gibson - Страница 9

His words are still ringing in my head when I wake up early next morning. While he may only be thirteen, and unable to tolerate virtually the entire vegetable food group, Fergus is absolutely right. I don’t need a boyfriend. I’ve managed perfectly well – well, I’ve managed – being by myself all these years, and have now reached the conclusion that any single men around my age are so baggage-laden they can barely face leaving the house, or are looking for girlfriends born in the early nineties or, as in Anthony’s case, are so clearly wrong for me that I shouldn’t have gone in the first place.

You only went because you were flattered, I remind myself, examining a tea towel which appears to have been used to stem the flow of ink from a leaking biro. In other words, I was momentarily grateful for a glimmer of male attention, which is no way to go about things. Also, that vile, slimy kiss – I can’t get it out of my mind. Is that how it happens these days? In agreeing to a date, was I sending the message, ‘I’m desperately starved of affection so, yes, of course I’ll welcome your fat, probing tongue into my mouth? In fact, you needn’t have bothered with the tasting menu. Half a cider would have done the trick …’

I worry, too, that it’s not just about Anthony, and that the real issue is I have become sex phobic. In fact, I suspect that the mere act of removing my underwear in front of any adult male would trigger a panic attack. It sounds ridiculous and it’s not because I’ve had terrible experiences in the past. Even when our relationship was in tatters, getting it together with Tom was always pretty good – but now, doing it with anyone seems wholly alarming and unnecessary. It’s like when you pass your driving test and think, this is amazing – I can finally do what all those other grown-up people have been doing all along. It’s incredibly exciting and liberating. Then months – years – pass by before you find yourself behind the wheel again, and when you’re suddenly thrown into the situation, it’s bloody terrifying. Only with driving, you can at least book a course of refresher lessons …

Anyway, as Fergus so succinctly pointed out, I have no need of a man in my life. I have two big, gangly, gorgeous sons. We have a decent, three-bedroomed flat. (I’ll gloss over the fact that Logan describes it, inaccurately, as ‘poky, like our car – why is everything so mini around here?’) And yes, I do have a Mini – the car, that is, a bright-red model which I like very much. I also have a job I enjoy, at least some of the time (the kids are mostly fantastic, the insurmountable paperwork less so) and there’s my ‘little sideline’, which I absolutely love. So what do I need a boyfriend for really? I’m starting to wonder if meringues really do fulfil all my womanly needs.

For one thing, they are so pleasingly uncomplicated, requiring just two main ingredients: egg whites, beaten to a cloud-like froth, and caster sugar, whisked in until satiny smooth. Follow the correct method and a meringue will never flop disappointingly. There are no nasty surprises, like discovering a portrait of an ex-lover tattooed on the pale curve of a buttock (as glimpsed during an ill-advised one-night stand several years ago), or being informed that four grand’s worth of work might just about salvage my face. Yet they’re far from tedious, as the possibilities for flavourings are virtually infinite. As kitchen inspector Erica observed, the perfect specimen is satisfyingly crisp on the outside, and gooey within – where would I find a man to beat that?

To obliterate lingering thoughts of Anthony’s tongue plunging towards my tonsils, I busy myself by gathering up the jotters which Fergus has left scattered across the kitchen table, and remove the two bulging schoolbags which have been dumped in the middle of the floor. As it’s Saturday, the boys are having their customary lie-in. Perhaps I should be demanding that they get up and do something useful, but I actually cherish these peaceful weekend mornings when there’s no one to moan about my choice of radio station.

I set out my ingredients and start cracking eggs, separating whites from yolks. Humming along to some faintly familiar chart music, I whip up a batch of basic mixture to divide into three bowls, one for each new flavour I’m trying out: strawberries, pistachio and rose water, and little gravelly shards of buttery salted caramel. Kirsty, Ingrid and Viv are coming over later for a taste-in. That’s what we call our regular gatherings, suggesting that my friends come over not just to chat and drink wine – or, in Ingrid’s case, supposedly fertility-boosting raspberry leaf tea – but to ‘help’. I remind Logan of this whenever he declares that I am ‘always’ having them over, as if, at my advanced age, there is something a little unseemly about being in the company of other human beings, purely for fun. Presumably I should interact only with colleagues, tradespeople and Tesco employees.

At around eleven, Fergus is the first to emerge from his boudoir. ‘God, I need food,’ he groans, jabbing a finger into the strawberry mixture and licking it.

‘Hey, hands out of there,’ I exclaim.

He pokes at the caramel bowl.

‘Stop sticking your fingers into everything!’

‘Why? I’m starving. I’m about to keel over, Mum, and you just don’t care …’ He sniggers and makes for the pistachio bowl but I manage to swipe him away.

‘Uncooked meringue mixture isn’t proper breakfast food. If you can wait two minutes I’ll make you some eggs.’

‘Not too runny,’ he warns.

‘No, sweetheart,’ I reply, feigning subservience, ‘I’ll try to do them properly this time.’

‘You doing scrambles, Mum?’ Logan has emerged now, rubbing his bleary, pillow-creased face.

‘Yes, love.’

‘Can I not have mine rubberised like his?’

‘Of course! I’ll do both differently, according to your precise wishes.’ With a smirk, I grab my piping bag and start to pipe out strawberry kisses on a paper-lined tray, frowning as Logan starts jabbing his fingers into the mixture. ‘Please stop sticking your fingers into my bowls,’ I bark.

‘Whoa.’ He backs away, turning to Fergus. ‘You’d think I’d spat in it.’ They both chortle as I swap the two trays of cooked meringues in the oven for the freshly-piped batch.

‘So,’ I say, now turning my attention to their eggs, ‘what are you two up to today?’

‘I’m going to fix my translator,’ Fergus says confidently.

‘How about you, Logan? Is Blake coming over?’

He sighs loudly, clearly overwhelmed by my relentless questioning. ‘I’m going out.’

‘Where to? Who with?’

‘Just out, Mum, with people.’ No further information supplied.

‘Logan,’ I say, stirring their eggs on the hob, ‘you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that. I need to know where you are, hon.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m your mum, dearest.’

‘Yeah, and I’m sixteen, I’m an adult—’ He stops short as my mobile starts trilling; I don’t recognise the number but take the call anyway.

‘Hi, Alice?’ comes the strident male voice. ‘It’s me.’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s me – Anthony from last night. Don’t say you’ve forgotten already.’ He chuckles disconcertingly.

‘Oh, er … right.’ I shudder. It takes years, and probably living under one roof, before you’re allowed to announce yourself as ‘me’.

‘Thought you might like to come and see a movie later,’ he goes on.

‘You mean today?’

‘Well, yes, if you’re not doing anything. I’ve checked out the Filmhouse …’

God, that’s a little presumptuous. Maybe he interpreted me leaping away from his suckering lips as a sign of being unable to manage my yearning for him – like when you nudge away a chocolate cake in case you lose all control and end up devouring the lot. Or maybe he’s just eager to give me a good going-over with his roller.

‘Sorry, I can’t today,’ I reply, wondering what possessed me to add ‘today’ – ever is what I should have said.

‘Ah, yes, busy with your meringues, I’d imagine,’ he says with a snigger.

The boys are shooting me curious looks. ‘Actually, yes, I’m making a batch right now. Sorry, better go. Can’t leave the uncooked mixture sitting around too long …’

‘Oh, what’ll happen?’ he asks leeringly. ‘Will it lose its stiffness?’

‘What?’ Something sour rises in my throat; sixteen hours later, that amuse-bouche is still fermenting away in my gut.

‘Or are we talking more the texture of soft peaks?’ Anthony enquires.

‘Yes, sort of,’ I say tersely.

‘I’d like to see you brandishing your whisk,’ he growls. ‘I imagine it’d be handy for a little light beating …’

‘Logan, keep an eye on those eggs in the pan,’ I order him, striding through to the living room so as to distance myself from the boys’ flapping ears.

‘They’re rubberised,’ Logan shouts after me. ‘These are, like, teeth-bouncing eggs.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I hiss into the phone.

‘I mean,’ Anthony drawls, ‘a little tap on the bottom would be pleasing.’

I peer at a small muddy smear on the white wall and wonder, briefly, how it got there. ‘You mean with my whisk?’

‘Mmmm, yes …’

The small pause is filled by the sound of his rhythmic breathing.

‘You have a thing for kitchen utensils,’ I say flatly. He whispers something I don’t catch. ‘Speak up, I can’t hear you.’

‘I said,’ Anthony whispers, ‘I’ve been a very naughty boy …’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ I splutter, ‘you’re not a boy, you’re a forty-five-year-old man, and I hate to tell you but I use an electric mixer. D’you honestly think I could whisk up twenty-four egg whites with a hand whisk? I’d get repetitive strain injury or tennis elbow—’

‘Yes, but I just thought—’

‘Goodbye, Anthony.’ Having ended the call, I return to the kitchen, trying to emit an aura of serenity as I grab my mug of milky coffee and take a big gulp.

‘Anthony?’ Logan repeats with a smirk.

‘Was that Fat-Tongue Man?’ Fergus sniggers.

‘Who’s Fat-Tongue Man?’ Logan enquires.

‘No one you know,’ I say quickly, serving up the eggs, even though no one seems especially interested in eating them.

‘Who’s got a fat tongue?’ he persists.

‘No one, Logan. It was just something stupid I said without thinking.’

‘Anthony’s the man she went out with last night,’ Fergus announces, ‘and he tried to kiss her. That’s why she’s on about tongues. He tried to stick it in her mouth—’

‘For God’s sake,’ I cut in, ‘of course he didn’t. I barely know him …’

‘He snogged her,’ Fergus adds with a shudder, ‘and now he’s calling her at home.’ I dump the egg pan in the sink and blink at my sons. Now, although I still have no plans to see Anthony again – and can’t believe I found him pleasant company as we snacked on Ingrid’s canapés – I do take exception to the suggestion that no man should phone me ‘at home’.

‘Where else would anyone call me?’ I ask mildly.

‘Dunno.’ Fergus shrugs.

‘I mean, I assume it’s okay for me to take private calls here,’ I add, aware that I’m verging towards overreacting now, ‘seeing as I pay the bill and the mortgage on our flat in which our phone resides.’

‘Yeah, all right, Mum,’ he says, shoving aside his substandard breakfast and swaggering out of the kitchen, closely tailed by his big brother.

‘Why does she do that?’ Logan’s voice rings out from the hall.

‘Dunno.’

‘Clemmie doesn’t. She never talks to Blake like that.’

‘Nah, I know,’ Fergus agrees.

‘She respects him,’ Logan observes, then the TV goes on in the living room, cranked up to its customary old person’s volume, so I can overhear no more.

I stand there, heart hammering in my chest, as a TV advert for fence preserver blasts through the flat. Only when it has returned to a relatively normal speed can I concentrate on the matter in hand. I resume piping meringues, wondering why any interaction between me and an adult male is viewed as tawdry, whereas their father is regarded as the height of respectability. Having put the last batch to bake, I clear up the kitchen, and find the boys still lolling on the sofa.

‘You know Dad’s coming to get you at lunchtime tomorrow,’ I remind them, ‘so you really should start packing today.’

No response. They are watching a programme about the building of an eco-house, a dazzling wedge of glass clinging to a hillside in a remote part of Wales.

‘Look at that,’ Logan murmurs. ‘Imagine living somewhere like that.’

‘Yes, imagine,’ I say distractedly, surveying the scattering of shoes, batteries and backless remote controls on the carpet.

Fergus turns to me. ‘It’s an eco-house, Mum. It’s hardly got any carbon footprint.’

‘Amazing,’ I agree.

‘We should be more eco-friendly,’ he goes on.

‘In what way?’

‘Well, like, our oven’s always on, isn’t it?’

‘Not always,’ I correct him, ‘but quite a lot, yes, when I’m baking, obviously …’

‘It’s on so much, Mum! Think of what it’s doing to the planet.’

I take a moment to digest this. ‘Meringues take a long time to bake, Fergus. There’s not much I can do about that.’

He scowls, as if I might be making this up, and enjoy consuming vast quantities of electricity just for the hell of it. ‘Couldn’t you make something different? Something that cooks quicker?’

I burst out laughing. ‘What d’you have in mind?’

‘I dunno, you’re the baker.’ With that, he turns his attention back to the TV where the presenter is extolling the virtues of a composting toilet.

‘Oh, and just so you know,’ I add, my voice drifting like tumbleweed, ‘the girls are coming over later to test flavours.’

Logan throws me a bemused look. ‘The girls,’ he sniggers.

‘Okay,’ I say, my voice rising a little, ‘the women are coming over. Is that better?’

Fergus chuckles. ‘That sounds as if you don’t actually like them very much.’

‘So when are they coming?’ Logan wants to know.

‘About seven-ish.’

‘Ugh, all that talking and laughing …’

‘I know – hideous,’ I snigger, catching Fergus’s eye who grins in return. ‘We shouldn’t be allowed to congregate en masse.’

But thank God we do, I think, leaving him to ogle the eco-house while Logan gets up and heads out, to meet his people.

*

‘I never realised Anthony was like that,’ Ingrid exclaims later as I set down plates of freshly baked meringues on the kitchen table. ‘What a complete creep. I feel so responsible. If I’d known, I’d have warned you off.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I assure her as Kirsty and Viv munch on my confections, equally dismayed by the outcome of my date. ‘You didn’t exactly throw us together and force me to go out with him. I thought he was nice, actually. A proper grown-up …’

I’m aware that I have this grown-up-in-a-good-way thing, probably as a reaction against all those years spent with Tom. I don’t mean grown-up as in, ‘Every Saturday will be spent trundling around Homebase until I drop down dead.’ More, ‘It’s okay – I can fix things and throw a meal together, and I’ll never expect you to remember my relatives’ birthdays.’ An in-this-together sort of feeling … like we’re equals. If I occasionally yearn for anything, it’s that.

‘I guess there was no way of knowing he likes being smacked with utensils,’ sniggers Kirsty.

‘Well, I thought he looked creepy,’ declares Viv, smoothing back her neat auburn crop. ‘I tried to communicate that to you every time I came into the kitchen.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ I tease her. ‘Whenever you glanced over you gave me an indulgent smile, as if to say, “Ah, that’s nice, Alice enjoying some adult male company for a change.”’

‘No, I didn’t. God, you’d have no end of male company if you wanted it, if you put out some signals. You’d be fighting them off with sticks …’

We all laugh, and I quickly shush them as Fergus scampers in to grab a bottle of Lucozade from the fridge and barks a speedy hello before disappearing again.

‘Does he know about your date?’ Kirsty murmurs.

‘Yep. Heard me muttering to myself about Anthony plunging his tongue down my throat …’

Viv splutters. ‘That’s the kind of conversation you have with yourself?’

A strawberry meringue dissolves in my mouth. ‘Sadly, yeah. I probably traumatised my poor boy …’

‘Bet he’d love you to meet someone, though,’ Kirsty suggests.

‘You really think so?’ I laugh dryly. ‘He interrogated me after Anthony called today. God knows how things would be if I dared to bring a man back to the flat. I’d have to smuggle him in, covered in a blanket, like a criminal being ushered into a police van. And then we’d lie in bed, as silent as lambs in case Fergus – his bedroom is next to mine, remember – got wind of some action and set off his translator to spite me: “I have been raped!”’

Everyone howls with laughter. Seriously, though, is it any wonder I find the very thought of sex rather anxiety-making?

I glance at Viv who, perhaps in an attempt to inspire me, has switched the topic to her current dalliance with some whippersnapper she pounced on in a bar. Although the four of us are close in age, Viv has by far the whizziest life these days. As studio manager at a textile design company, she easily passes for a decade younger with her Mia-Farrow-esque crop, which she carries off beautifully with her large brown eyes, pronounced cheekbones and the rosy complexion of the child-free. Viv married young, at twenty-one; the ring had barely been slipped on her finger when her husband started to micromanage the way she dressed (no hemlines above knee-length) and even her make-up (i.e. none). So jealous was he, she used to joke that he’d probably implanted some kind of tracking device in her while she slept – then he caused an almighty scene when she was chatting to some man at a party, and it stopped being remotely funny. Sick of being ‘under surveillance’ as she put it, Viv packed her belongings into two battered old cases and walked out. There’s been a dizzying amount of flings since, though nothing remotely approaching serious.

‘You need to cast the net wide,’ she instructs me now, smoking a cigarette at the open kitchen window. ‘Find yourself a younger man. Everyone’s doing it these days.’

‘You mean you are,’ I snigger. ‘Anyway, how young is too young, d’you think? I mean, what are the rules?’

She takes a drag of her cig. ‘Half your age plus seven is perfectly fine.’

‘And how did you work that out?’

She grins and drains her wine glass, refilling it to the brim from the bottle. Viv drinks fast, with seemingly no ill effects next morning; but then, my hangovers were child’s play before I had kids.

‘Well,’ she explains, extinguishing her cigarette under the running tap and dropping it into the bin, ‘that way you avoid people crowing that you’re twice his age. And think of the energy levels, Alice. Younger guys don’t need much sleep, and when they do it’s at the proper time – you know, at night, and not when you’re watching a movie together.’ My mind flashes back to Tom sleeping, seemingly for days on end, like a hibernating dormouse in his duvet nest on the sofa. ‘Although, I have to say, it’s not all good,’ Viv goes on, cheeks already flushed from the wine.

‘Sounds pretty good to me,’ Kirsty says ruefully. I know she and her husband Dan have been having problems lately; their three children are home educated, and he appears to have reneged on his part of the deal, which was to teach them science and maths. As Kirsty has pointed out, home educating is a cinch when you’re sitting in a peaceful office, ten miles from home.

‘I mean, look at the state of my face,’ Viv laments. ‘I’m so sleep deprived, I can’t tell you.’ She jabs at the faintest hint of under-eye baggage.

‘That’s normal,’ Kirsty retorts. ‘I’ve had mine for so long, they’re permanently etched on my face.’

Ingrid leans forward. ‘You know the best treatment for those? Pile ointment. Alice, d’you have any old tubes kicking around?’

‘Thanks a lot,’ I scoff. ‘When you think of my bathroom cabinet, you’re not picturing a beautiful pot of Crème de la Mer. You’re thinking a mangled tube of Anusol.’

‘Well,’ she says with a smile, ‘you have had that … problem over the years, haven’t you?’

‘Not for ages,’ I insist, heading to the bathroom anyway and returning with the requested tube.

‘Great. Dab it on,’ she instructs Viv.

‘What are you doing?’ Fergus, who’s returned to the kitchen for further supplies, stares at us from the doorway.

‘Emergency beauty treatment,’ Viv explains, patting an eye-bag with a finger and waggling the tube. ‘This, Fergus, is your mum’s bum cream but as you can see, it has other uses. It multitasks.’

She is slurring a little, and he regards her with horror before backing out of the kitchen.

‘Thank your lucky stars you’re not a woman, Ferg!’ she cackles after him. ‘Our lives are so fucking complicated.’

‘Viv,’ I scold her, only half joking, ‘you’ve traumatised my poor boy. He’s thirteen. He doesn’t need to know alternative uses for haemorrhoid ointment.’

‘It’s good for him,’ Viv insists, ‘to learn about the quirks of womankind. You cosset those boys, keeping them all wrapped up in cotton wool …’ Christ, what is she on about? ‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘never mind that. Who are we going to fix you up with after that disaster last night?’

‘No one.’ I crunch a rose-scented meringue.

‘Come on, there must be someone …’

‘What about Derek?’ teases Ingrid, flicking back expensively blonded hair.

I splutter with laughter. Derek is the janitor and sole male employee at my school, where Ingrid’s daughter Saskia is a pupil.

‘He’s lovely but he’s also pushing sixty, I’d imagine. I don’t want a boyfriend who’s twenty years older, thanks all the same.’

‘You don’t want a younger one either,’ Viv teases.

‘God, she’s choosy,’ Ingrid snorts as Logan barges in. He glances around, transmitting a silent message – Christ, pissed middle-aged women – even though Viv’s knocked back most of the wine so far, and is already grabbing another bottle from the fridge.

‘How are you, Logan?’ Kirsty asks pleasantly, causing his expression to soften. He likes her the best, approving of her earth-mummy credentials (although, when I jokingly asked if he’d like to be home educated, he shrieked, ‘God no!’).

‘Good thanks, Kirsty,’ he says gallantly, helping himself to a Tunnock’s teacake from the cupboard.

‘Not having any of these meringues?’ Viv asks.

‘Nah, maybe later.’

‘Poor boy’s all meringued out,’ Ingrid chuckles, sipping her tea as Logan beats a hasty retreat from the kitchen.

‘What a handsome boy,’ Kirsty declares.

‘Like his dad,’ I chuckle, and it’s true; however useless Tom may have been, he also happened to be one of the most striking men I’d ever met, if you go for that whole intense, brown-eyed brooding thing, which he – and now Logan – possess in spades. Plus, Tom is hanging on to his looks remarkably well. Due to a lack of stress or exertion, probably.

‘Anyway,’ Ingrid says, ‘I still feel bad about Anthony and his whisk thing.’

‘Oh, I don’t care about that,’ I declare, refilling Kirsty’s empty glass. ‘It did make me think, though, that I’m not going to bother going on random dates any more.’

Ingrid catches my eye. ‘And by random dates, you mean …’

I shrug. ‘Just some man who happens to ask me out.’

‘Why not?’ Viv asks, aghast.

‘Because …’ I shrug. ‘I’m not even sure I want to meet anyone. I mean, I like being able to please myself and not be answerable to anyone. And I kept thinking, when I was in that restaurant with Anthony with all the silly, tiny food, why am I doing this? I’d have had a nicer time at home with the boys.’

Kirsty gives me a concerned look. ‘That’s because you knew virtually nothing about him, apart from that he plays golf.’

‘We should vet the next man you go out with,’ Viv suggests.

‘I am thirty-nine,’ I remind them. ‘I can usually weed out the weirdos and whisk-pervs.’

‘I’d never have imagined a whisk could be considered erotic,’ Kirsty muses. ‘What d’you think he’d have made of your piping bag?’

We all snigger, then Viv adds, turning serious, ‘All I mean is, we could find suitable dates for you. If each of us picked someone – really carefully, I mean, putting lots of thought into it – then you’d have three really lovely, eligible men to choose from.’

I frown. ‘But surely, if you knew someone that appealing who you thought might be interested, then you’d have told me about him already.’

‘No, we wouldn’t,’ Ingrid declares, ‘because you’ve got this whole thing going on of, I am perfectly all right by myself, thank-you-very-much.’

‘You can even build flatpack furniture,’ Kirsty observes.

‘Well, yes – if you take it step by step it usually turns out all right.’

‘You’ve been single far too long,’ Ingrid observes. ‘Flatpack’s no fun unless there’s a load of swearing and someone storms out in a furious temper.’

I nibble a salted-caramel meringue; good, but the caramel shards should be ground finer so as not to stick to the teeth.

‘Okay, so you reckon I need someone to say, “Stand back, fragile maiden, allow me to fly into a complete rage while building this bookshelf for you.”’

Viv shakes her head. ‘No, you just need some fun.’

‘You mean I’m a miserable trout?’

‘No!’ everyone cries.

I laugh, appreciating their concern, but eager to swerve the conversation away from my sorry love life.

‘So what d’you think of these flavours?’ I ask, indicating the shattered remains of the meringues on the plate. ‘Can we put them in order of favourites?’ Everyone starts debating, and I scribble down comments and suggestions.

‘Our flavours sort of match us,’ Viv observes when everyone has nominated their favourite. She’s right; I’d have guessed she’d nominate pistachio and rose water, the on-trend flavour combination in confectionary circles. I expected Kirsty, fresh-faced with her tumble of light brown curls, to go for strawberries, while Ingrid – all languid beauty with her refined features and salon-fresh waves – is definitely a salted caramel girl (sorry – woman).

‘Shows how different we are,’ Kirsty agrees.

‘And how we’d all pick a very different sort of man for you,’ Viv adds with a grin.

There’s a burst of laughter from the TV in the living room. ‘I’m just not keen on the idea of being set up, you know?’ I venture. ‘It feels too … forced.’

‘But almost everyone’s set up at our age,’ Ingrid points out. ‘How else d’you think it happens, apart from online dating, which you won’t even consider?’

‘I just don’t want to turn it into a project,’ I say, feeling ever-so-slightly bossed around now. ‘Anyway, if you did all pick someone, what if none of them were right? I’m not being negative here, but it’s pretty likely, isn’t it? I mean, three isn’t that many.’

‘We’re thinking quality over quantity,’ Viv explains.

I nod, considering this. ‘But then, if it didn’t work out, I’d feel bad because each of you had put so much thought and effort into it.’

Kirsty shrugs. ‘It wouldn’t matter a bit. You could reject them all if you liked. It’s just a bit of fun.’

‘For you lot, maybe,’ I snigger, topping up my glass.

‘Oh, come on,’ Viv says, ‘just give it a try. I mean, who knows you better than us?’

‘We’ve known you for twenty years,’ Kirsty points out.

‘That’s sixty years’ combined experience of Alice Sweet,’ Ingrid says with a throaty laugh.

I crunch a pink-flecked meringue. Kirsty is right; the combination of heady strawberries, and the chewy sweetness of the meringue, are a perfect match. ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘I’ll give it a try.’

‘Brilliant,’ Ingrid exclaims.

‘We’ll start thinking of candidates,’ Viv announces as everyone starts babbling excitedly. ‘My God! You might even love them all …’

I laugh, buoyed up by the wine and being with the women I love most. ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘but let’s hope they’re not too appalled when they meet me.’

‘They’ll think you’re gorgeous,’ Viv declares, shaking her head. ‘God, Alice, what’s wrong with you? Have some belief in yourself.’