Page 11

‘I wouldn’t start talking to Jonathan over there, in the chinos, unless you want to get embroiled in a forty-five-minuteconversation about kit cars,’ Holly said, gesturing to one of her father’s old work colleagues.

‘That doesn’t sound too terrible.’

‘Okay, why don’t you go over there and tell me how you feel in forty-five minutes?’ Holly smirked.

Evan’s eyes glinted. ‘You’re right, I’ll stick around here, perhaps chat to your mum and dad some more. You know, make them confident in my future son-in-law possibilities. Assuming your mum doesn’t still think I’m Giles.’

Holly bit down on her lip. The fact that Evan had mentioned being a future son-in-law should have been enough to set her heart into overdrive, but it was the comment about Mum that she focused on more. It wasn’t like her mum to mess things up. And it wasn’t like the name was the only thing. That whole weird incident with the neighbour and the landlord was leaving Holly more than a little perturbed. Holly wasn’t naïve about the fact that her parents were getting older. That was what parents did, but she never imagined the changes would be so swift. Particularly when her mother seemed so together the rest of the time.

‘Right, I’m going to see if Mum wants any help.’ She pecked Evan on the cheek yet again. ‘Try not to buy Hope any more presents while I’m gone.’

‘Is there a shop here?’ Evan joked before giving her one more kiss, this one on the lips and lasting far longer.

Holly wasn’t sure when she became the type of person who needed half a dozen kisses and soft farewells just to leave her boyfriend so that she could go to the kitchen, and yet, somehow, that was who she had become. Still, she wouldn’t feel guilty about it. She had waited long enough to find her Mr Right. And she deserved this.

When she realised it was getting ridiculous, Holly finally tore herself away long enough to head back into the kitchen. Hermother was standing in front of the oven, pulling out the fresh bread rolls, though the second she saw Holly, she ended the task to embrace her daughter.

When she broke away, her face was wrinkled with worry.

‘Holly, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘How could I have got his name wrong?’

‘It’s fine, Mum, it’s fine.’

‘I don’t know what came over me. And he’s ever such a nice man. He’ll forgive me, won’t he?’

Holly couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You mean for calling him the name of a man who wasn’t even my boyfriend? I’m sure he’ll get over it.’

Wendy nodded, her eyes glazing with tears.

‘Mum, it’s fine. Honestly. Evan is fine. You don’t have to worry about it. Really.’

She looked her mother squarely in the eye until she finally relented with a nod. Only then did Holly squeeze her in a tight hug. When they broke away for a second time, her mother’s worry lines had faded by a fraction.

‘Well, your dad seems very happy,’ she said. ‘He loves a good barbecue. Still, I was thinking we should get the cake ready now.’

‘Cake?’ Holly said, once again concerned. ‘But the barbecue food isn’t even ready, is it?’

‘No, not yet. But you know what your father is like with barbecues. It’ll take him ages. Everyone will be starving, then he’ll check the chicken and then everything will need to go back on again for another fifteen minutes. Then your Aunt May will start complaining about how she needs to get home, and how she always misses the cake, and then she’ll start whining about how an oven is better than a barbecue. I think it’s just easier to get the cake.’

At least now her mother was making sense. Aunt May was never one to complain quietly; if she was grumpy about something, everyone would know.

‘Okay,’ Holly said, thinking through the logistics. ‘Why don’t you take those bread rolls out, then check there’s room on the table for me to bring the cake? I’ll get the candles and bring it out in five.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ her mother said, fetching the tray of browning rolls out of the oven, before placing them on a cooling rack, while Holly searched in the drawers for the ‘six’ and ‘zero’ candles she had bought weeks in advance and hidden in a paper bag somewhere amongst the kitchen utensils.

‘Alright, love. Don’t be long,’ her mother said, as she headed outside.

A minute later, Holly had found the brown paper bag and some scissors to open the plastic packaging on the candles. She was cutting open the first one when a voice spoke behind her.

‘So Evan seems very nice. Even if he is trying to buy my child’s affections.’

11

Holly dropped the scissors with a clatter, her heart racing.

‘Jeez, Ben! Didn’t you ever learn not to startle people when they’re holding scissors?’

‘Sorry,’ he said, as he walked forward and kissed her on either cheek, like they had been old friends that hadn’t seen each other for a long time, not a co-parenting pair who had seen each other only a couple of hours before.