‘To health, happiness and your future as a bookshop mogul or, failing that, a cleaning woman.’
‘A bookshop mogul or a cleaning woman?’ I laugh. ‘What a choice!’
‘Look at it this way,’ he says, taking a sip. ‘You’ll be the Mr Waterstone of your generation, or the Mrs Mop, even if it kills me,’ and I laugh.
‘How’s your friend,’ he says, putting the glass down. ‘Is he dealing with it better now?’
‘He’s really okay, actually.’ I flush slightly at the memory of the state I was in the last time I saw James, but he doesn’t mention it, and I push the thought out of my mind and carry on. ‘He’s started doing a course for people who have been recently diagnosed, and he’s met this amazing woman. She’s had it for thirteen years, and it’s just completely changed her life, for the better. So he seems to have started coming to terms with it now, which is extraordinary, given the state he was in.’
James shivers. ‘Horrible thought. Here we all are, thinking it couldn’t happen to us, and boom, suddenly someone you know gets it and it completely changes your opinion.’
‘God, I know. Tell me about it,’ and I lapse into silence, desperate to talk about something else before I start getting morose, but luckily James seems to realize and he changes the subject.
‘Just keep still!’ he says suddenly, and I freeze, expecting him to brush off an insect of some kind, but he reaches down and pulls a sketchbook out from under the sofa. ‘Keep still!’ he says, grabbing a pencil and starting to sketch.
‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ he murmurs in a crap French accent that makes me laugh, even as he stares at me intently, glancing at the paper as he scribbles away, then back to me, as I start to feel increasingly uncomfortable. ‘Beautiful, beautiful.’
I sip the champagne awkwardly, trying to keep my face as still as possible, just opening my lips a tiny bit to sip the champagne every now and then, and eventually James puts the pencil down, closes the sketchbook and picks up his glass again.
‘So how’s everything at Bookends?’
‘What!’ I practically shriek as I dive for the sketchbook, and he leaps out of my way as I open up the page to reveal a beautiful little sketch that looks exactly like me, only far, far prettier.
‘This is beautiful!’ I gasp, ‘even if it is the most flattering thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘Rubbish,’ James says. ‘That’s exactly what you look like. Trust me. I’m an artist,’ and I start to laugh.
Soon we have relaxed into the sofa, talking softly, about relationships, marriage, and then, after a while, about Josh and Lucy.
I tell him how hurt I am by Josh’s behaviour, that it’s putting me in an impossible situation, and that I wouldn’t wish this upon anyone, to know about an affair and not to be able to tell. The weekend that Josh is going away with Ingrid, I tell him, Si and I are spending Saturday night with Lucy, and I don’t know how good either of us will be at pretending that everything is normal.
And James surprises me yet again. He surprises me because on the one hand I think of him as this estate agent who has a huge talent for painting, and who doesn’t seem to take life very seriously, and then on the other he can be incredibly wise and sensitive, weighing up a situation and offering exactly the right advice.
He thinks that, however much we love Lucy, and love Lucy and Josh as a couple, it is not our place to interfere. He says that he knows it must hurt, but that whatever will be, will be, and that nothing we say or do will resolve things. It may in fact make things worse.
He says that sometimes an affair, while not, obviously, the ideal, can make a marriage stronger. That there are usually reasons why one of the partners is straying in the first place, and often when they stray a step too far, they realize what it is they actually have at home, and come bouncing back with all the vigour of a newly-wed.
But of course who can say if the trust will ever be there again?
He asks whether, if push came to shove, I would have to make a choice, and I have to stop for a while, amazed that my immediate and unconscious answer would be Lucy. Amazed because had he asked me this question six months ago, I would undoubtedly have said Josh, because Josh, after all, has been my friend for far longer.
Josh and I have a shared history, a common past, have known everything about one another since we were eighteen, but all that has now changed, and his infidelity has placed a wall between us, just as Bookends has permanently cemented my friendship with his wife.
I realize that Josh and I haven’t really spoken for months, that I have done my utmost to avoid him, and that the overwhelming emotion I have when Josh is around is anger.
But I know that James is right, that there is nothing I can say, or do, to change things. He goes to the kitchen, pulls another bottle of champagne out of the fridge (which is slightly worrying only because I haven’t eaten anything and I’m beginning to get seriously lightheaded), then sits down again, a few centimetres closer.
Now this, I have to admit, would normally startle me, but the champagne is definitely starting to have an effect, and I note the closing distance between us with nothing other than amusement.
But then he really startles me.
‘What about you and relationships?’ he says, out of the blue. ‘How come you’re still single?’
I start to laugh. ‘That’s like asking how come the sun is yellow. Or a tree is green. It just is. It’s a fact of life. Didn’t you know that even the name Cath is synonymous with singledom?’
James smiles. ‘You’re happy being single, though, aren’t you? You’re so independent, you never seem to need anybody. Christ, it’s taken me weeks to even get to see you by myself.’
‘I don’t know about that. I’ve just always been incredibly happy with my friends, and I suppose I never have really needed anybody.’
‘It’s funny.’ He shakes his head. ‘When I first met you I thought you were incredibly tough, but you’re really soft inside, vulnerable. Oh God, I’ve gone too far. That sounded so naff, I’m sorry.’
I start to blush, he starts to blush, and we both start speaking at the same time. I stop to let him carry on, and he does, looking at his glass rather than at me, and I know that he’s uncomfortable saying this, but he obviously feels he needs to make a point. ‘Look, without wanting this to sound like a line, I just think that you ought to let that softness show more often. You’re far more attractive when you do.’
I laugh nervously, because no one’s called me attractive in a very, very long time, and even then I’m not entirely sure they meant it, and then, without even realizing it’s happening, he’s kissing me.
Or I’m kissing him. Either way, we’re kissing, and once I’ve got over the shock, because I cannot even remember the last time I had a proper, passionate kiss (although this is far more gentle than passionate), we pull apart and I cannot wipe the smile off my face.
‘Is this okay?’ James whispers, and I nod, wondering whether it’s the champagne or the kiss that’s keeping this dopey grin on my face, but then not wondering for too much longer as he kisses me again.
‘Shit!’ I jump away as champagne pours on to my trousers, my having become so carried away the glass just flopped from my hand, and James laughs.
‘Let me get a cloth,’ I say, but he shakes his head, takes me by the hand and leads me up the stairs.
I follow him mutely, feeling as if I’m in a dream, because this surely can’t be happening, not to me. I just don’t do this any more. I don’t have sex. Aaargh! Sex! Oh God. He’s leading me to the bedroom.
Fortunately the grin is still plastered to my face, hiding this inner turmoil, but anyway, my body doesn’t seem to be listening, as it follows him up the stairs and into his bedroom as if on auto-pilot.