Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [94]
When Jennifer arrived, he’d just taken a shower, and his hair was dripping on his collar when she put her arms around his neck and hugged him. She saw the set table, over his shoulder, the fire already roaring in the grate, and was touched that he’d gone to so much trouble to make it nice. Last Saturday night, she and Stephen had eaten a takeaway curry on their laps in front of an ancient episode of Inspector Morse. She must have fallen asleep. When she’d woken at about one in the morning, cold and stiff-necked, her tray had still been on the coffee table, the vestiges of masala sauce dry and crusty on the plate, but Stephen had already gone to bed. She’d punished him with cold feet, and by yanking the duvet so that it uncovered his shoulder, but he’d been irritable and unrepentant, shrugging her off and claiming that he’d tried to wake her and been given the brush-off. The next morning, padding through to boil the kettle for tea, she’d looked at the tray, still there, sniffed the stale smell of a curry not cleared away, and an equally stale marriage not addressed, and felt utterly depressed.
This was much nicer.
They poured her ingredients out of the Waitrose carrier bag onto the work surface. She’d bought monkfish, pancetta, fresh herbs. Wild rice. Mascarpone and biscotti. Figs. And a great bottle of red.
Which they’d drained by the time he served dinner. He’d handed Jennifer another bottle and the screwpull corkscrew while he plated up.
And now they’d finished that one, too. Chopin had given way to Joni Mitchell—Jennifer’s choice. They’d moved from the dining table to the giant squashy sofas, each of them curled up on one, facing each other. He thought of Hannah and looked up at the oversized railway clock on the wall behind Jennifer’s head. Eleven P.M. Hannah had promised to be home by 12:30 A.M. She’d moaned and whined and claimed she’d be leaving before all the real fun started (which was, of course, exactly his intention), and called him a Victorian father, and stomped a bit, but she’d promised. He’d given her cab money and issued all the usual warnings about safety lying in numbers and making sure her phone was switched on and fully charged. He trusted her; he just wasn’t sure about any other bugger.
Jennifer watched him check the time.
“Worried about her?”
“Not really, no. She’s a pretty sensible kid. And so are her friends, by and large, I think. I still can’t sleep properly when she’s out, though. Keep one eye and one ear open until I hear her come in, you know?”
Jennifer smiled. “I bet. How’s the studying going? When do the O levels start?”
“GCSEs, my dear! Giving your age away. Mocks before Easter. The real deals in the summer term. But lots of it is coursework these days. That’s going on right now.”
“Poor thing.”
“Ah—she’s a clever kid. Her teachers think she’s going to do well. Despite everything…”
“I’m sure she will. Has she got a boyfriend at the moment?”
“Don’t think so. No one special, at least. Although I’d probably be the last one to know, wouldn’t I?”
“Nah—you two always seem pretty close.”
“We are, I suppose. We certainly have been since Barbara died. She’s been a bit of a teenager just lately though. You know, just pushing the boundaries a bit, flexing her muscles. She’s probably fed up with being cooped up here with me. And I just think talking to me about boys, and what she may or may not get up to with them, might be a confidence too far, you know? She’s probably more likely to confide in you lot than in me.”
“Amanda maybe. Even Lisa. Not me, I don’t think. Hannah sees me as just some old married woman. Past it.”
“Come on.”
“Listen, I was fifteen once. I know how it works. Well past the age and