Lucy laughs. ‘I’m not sure that nicer is the right word, but she’s certainly more amenable. Cath, my darling, I’m still completely terrified of her, and the only reason I keep her is because of Max, but at least she seems a bit happier, which certainly makes life easier for the rest of us.’
‘Oh well,’ I say, shrugging. ‘At least she’s not stealing from you.’
‘What?’ Si’s looking at me as if I’ve gone mad.
‘I’m serious. One of the girls at work was telling me about a nanny they had, and every night when her husband got home he’d empty all the loose change out of his pockets and put it in one of those huge ketchup jars.’
‘Yeuch,’ Si spits. ‘Sounds messy.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Si, it had been emptied and washed. Anway, they suddenly realized that all the pound coins and silver had gone, and the only thing left was a huge jar of coppers. She must have got hundreds.’
‘Didn’t they say anything?’ Si’s aghast.
‘Apparently they tried to ask very nicely, but she got terribly upset, so they just left it and a week later she told them she couldn’t work for them any more after being accused of something like that and she left.’
Si smiles. ‘I suppose she took the kitchen sink with her?’
‘Don’t laugh.’ Josh lays down the Money section and leans forward. ‘Peter, one of the guys I work with, noticed that all his socks were disappearing. They couldn’t figure it out and he kept buying more and more of these Italian silk socks that cost a bomb and can only be found in Harrods or somewhere.
‘Then one day Peter’s wife went into the au pair’s room while she was out and her bottom drawer was slightly open and there were all the socks.’
‘Bitch,’ hisses Si, as Lucy and I start laughing, and Josh sits back petulantly.
‘It’s not the fact that it’s only socks,’ he justifies. ‘It’s the principle of the thing.’
‘Yeah,’ Si sneers. ‘Bloody sock thieves. They should all be hanged. Anyway, serves him right for spending such a fortune on socks in the first place.’
‘Christ, will you listen to us?’ I’m suddenly horrified by our conversation. ‘We sound so middle aged. Middle class. Talking about au pairs, for God’s sake. What’s happened to us?’
There’s an awkward silence for a moment, and then the waitress arrives with our food. Lucy sits back and sighs with pleasure.
‘God,’ she says, sniffing, ‘I can’t tell you how lovely it is to be cooked for! Cath, I promise you I won’t dwell on the subject because you’re right, this conversation is just too awful, but I’ve just got one thing to add…
‘We should actually count our blessings with Ingrid. She is a bit peculiar, but at least she’s not dishonest, or a liar, or untrustworthy, and that’s really the important thing. That, and the fact that Max, as we all know, adores her.’
‘That boy really has no taste,’ Si says acidly, with no shadow of a smile. ‘Reminds me of his father.’
‘Si!’ Lucy and I exclaim at once, and Josh looks at Si in amazement, because there was more than a hint of viciousness in that remark, and although I know what he means, that he’s talking about Portia, he has no right to be that obvious in front of Lucy.
‘Si!’ Lucy says again. ‘Are you trying to say that Josh picked me in bad taste?’
Si recovers masterfully. ‘My gorgeous Lucy,’ he says, kissing her on the cheek, ‘the one time in his life Josh has shown impeccable taste was in choosing you. No,’ he says, catching, and holding, Josh’s eye until Josh – almost imperceptibly – starts to squirm, ‘I was talking about his clothes.’
I breathe a sigh of relief as Si reaches under the table and gives my leg a squeeze to reassure me.
‘I mean, look at that shirt, for God’s sake,’ he says. ‘Aren’t you a bit old to be doing that whole student rugby thing?’
Lucy laughs and Josh looks down at his shirt. ‘But I love this shirt,’ he says. ‘I’ve had this shirt for ever.’
‘I know,’ Si grunts. ‘Looks like it,’ and, as he picks up his fork and stabs a chunk of mango, I realize that Si is genuinely angry about this, and the only way he knows how to express it is to come out with these odd, vicious remarks.
Just as long as Lucy doesn’t know.
We wander up to the O2 centre on Finchley Road for a lazy afternoon film, our breath visible in the cold air, and it feels lovely, it feels normal. I love this time of year. Early November, just as everyone starts to feel lovely and cosy, getting ready for the full force of winter, and the perfect time to disguise yourself with layers of snuggly warm clothes.
When Si walks me home I say goodbye knowing that this has been a perfect Sunday, and that it really doesn’t get much better than this. Si is off to see a friend up the road, although he says if he’s not there he’ll pop back and we can have supper together.
Luckily for Si I have managed to go shopping this week. Unfortunately I went shopping at exactly the time they tell you never to go shopping, namely when you are completely starving. Starving in a supermarket completely obliterates reasonable thought, and instead of ending up with healthy, nourishing food that will last you a week, you end up with a basket of terrible fast food that is definitely bad for you and will probably be gone by the end of the night.
But even I couldn’t have managed to polish off the contents of my fridge in one night, so Si can, if he comes back, look forward to a double cheese and pepperoni pizza, half a packet of onion bhajis, eight (I only ate two) pitta breads, the obligatory houmous and taramasalata, three quarters of a pack of pre-sliced Gouda cheese, a full and unopened packet of Chinese chicken wings, and a four-pack of white chocolate mousse.
Not a bad feast for a Sunday night, I think you’ll agree.
I open up the Culture section, grab an old biro and circle my evening’s viewing, and then, feeling absurdly decadent, start running a hot bath, even though it’s only six o’clock in the evening. I think a glass of wine is called for, and I pour myself a glass of chilled Chardonnay and pad back into the bathroom, scraping my hair off my face with an elastic band that I pulled off a wad of post a few days ago.
And, soaking back into the hot water, I think how lovely today was. Even though we have spent our Sundays like this for years, it is only when you take a break, or when something threatens to disturb the routine, that you fully appreciate it when it is back to normal.
I pull off the elastic band and soak my head under water, loving the warmth, the feeling of being completely cut off from the world, and, reaching for the shampoo bottle, I come up for breath and lather up my head.
I dip under again and, as I emerge, shampoo still clinging to my hair, I keep very quiet because I’m sure I just heard the doorbell ring. A few seconds go by and there it is again. Definitely the doorbell.
Oh Christ. I grab a towel from the bath rail and, shivering, jump out of the bath, frantically rubbing the shampoo now dripping into my eyes, almost blinding myself in the process. I stumble to the front door, clutching the towel around me tightly, squinting out of the left eye because the right is now too clogged with shampoo and days-old mascara to open properly.
Now I know you should never open the door without asking who it is first, particularly not when you’re female, single and living in London.
And even more particularly when you’re half naked and wrapped in a towel, even if, as in my case, that’s not a particularly appealing sight, given that the towel, for starters, is threadbare and not quite clean, and my face is streaked with mascara and my hair is still half covered in shampoo and is sticking up on the left side, but I was convinced it was going to be Si, so I didn’t think twice.
Now I know you’re not stupid, even though I, quite obviously am, but there on the doorstep, surprise surprise, is James.