She looked me up and down. “Hi, Beth,” she said, with a kiss, kiss on both cheeks. “Look at you in your folksy dress. You don’t see many like that in East London.”
Grace herself was wearing skintight white jeans I would never in a million years have had the courage to wear and a skimpy red vest top. She looked amazing.
“Well,” I said, probably sounding defensive, “I live here now, not East London.”
“So you do,” she said, patting my arm and walking past me as if she owned the place. “And it’s good to see you here. Jaimie, I’d murder a cup of coffee before we set off. Is that all right? I didn’t want to stop in case we got caught up in the traffic. And I’m desperate for the loo.”
I turned from following her progress, and there was Mark.
“Hi, Beth.”
“Hi.”
He was wearing a crumpled blue shirt that made his eyes look sea green. I’d always liked him in forget-me-not blue. But I could have done without the gaping, tonsil-revealing yawn he was currently subjecting me to.
“Sorry,” he said. “I slept nearly all the way here. Grace was listening to some work thing. You look lovely, by the way.”
“Folksy, Grace just said.” I wasn’t even sure what that meant. Little old ladyish? Like a milkmaid?
He considered me, head tilted. “No, not folksy. Pretty. You look pretty.”
I had never known how to take compliments from Mark, so I turned my back on him and led the way into the house. “Well, er, thank you. Shall we go in?”
“Better had. Grace and her coffee. She needs to get a main line set up. I’m going to hold out for a beer myself. There will be a beer tent at the festival, I assume?”
“I think so.”
“D’you remember Paul and Rosemary, who ran the Student Union bar?” Grace asked Jaimie when we were sitting round the kitchen table and she was sipping her precious coffee.
“Once met, never forgotten,” Jaimie said.
It was curious, watching him interact with Grace. I’d seen him talk to her at Richard and Sylvia’s party, of course, but it was different here in his home. Our home. He was all smiles and bounce, the host with the most. But then we hadn’t had any other chances to socialise with guests, so maybe this was just how he was. It was kind of cute.
“They were the oddest couple,” he told me and Mark. “Both bodybuilders. Paul raced pigeons too. Gave them all strange names.”
“What sort of names?” asked Mark.
“I don’t know—ridiculous things, like Hercules.”
“Don’t forget Cleopatra,” said Grace.
Jaimie laughed. “Oh yes. There was a Cleopatra, wasn’t there? Didn’t she go missing?”
“I think she did, yes.”
“Maybe she ran off with Mark Antony,” said Mark.
When I sniggered, he grinned at me.
Grace lifted her eyebrows. “Very funny, darling,” she said, sweeping on with her tale. “Anyway, I ran into Paul and Rosemary the other month when I was giving a business advice session. They’ve just opened a pub outside Cambridge. Wanted advice about employing staff.”
“Goodness,” said Jaimie. “Fancy that. I can’t imagine them running a business.” He laughed, looking at me. “If she’d had a few drinks, Rosemary used to stand on a table and do all these muscle-rippling moves to make her tattoos come to life.”
“What, like this?” asked Mark, striking a pose.
“Yes,” said Grace. “But with more muscle.”
“Hey,” said Mark, pretending to be offended.
She stroked his face. “Don’t worry, I never have found overly muscular men attractive.”
“That’s just as well,” Mark said. “Because I have an accountant’s muscles.”
“Remember that bodybuilding competition Paul and Rosemary organised?” asked Jaimie, continuing the conversation as we set off on foot for the festival, and he and Grace were off down memory lane, walking in front, with Mark and I behind.
It was a perfect late-spring day, and the gardens were full of frothy lilacs and silky magnolias. When a tabby cat came out of someone’s drive to weave around my legs, I stopped to stroke it.
“Still charming the animals, I see,” said Mark.
“I try,” I said, giving the tabby a final stroke before moving on. “How is everyone? Have you seen your parents lately?”
“Not for a few weeks. Mum sent you her love.”
“That’s nice. I must phone her.”
“I’m quite surprised about today,” he said.
I looked at him. “Surprised about what?”
“I didn’t think you liked folk music.”
I shrugged. “It’s quiet in Ely. You have to make the most of any events that come up.”
“The Folk Festival is a wonderful event,” Grace chipped in. “Isn’t it, Jaimie?”
“That’s what I keep telling Beth,” Jaimie said.
“I can’t imagine why you think you don’t like folk music, anyway. It’s so beautiful. And some of it’s very lively. You can certainly dance to it.”
I can dislike folk music if I want to, I wanted to retort, but I kept on smiling, wondering whether Grace was this bossy with Mark. But of course she was.
“Are there too many milkmaids and wandering rovers in folk music for you?” Mark asked me, laughter in his voice.
Grace swept on, not giving me the chance to reply. “Folk music has so much history and depth. And passion. Maybe you’ve just been unlucky with what you’ve heard up until now. We’ll have to educate her, won’t we, Jaimie?”
“Sounds like she’s in for a fun day,” said Mark.
“Er, I am here, you know,” I said, and Jaimie dropped back to give my hand a quick squeeze.
“We’re only teasing you.”
“Yeah, don’t kick your milk pail over,” said Mark. “We’ll soon be roving around the beer tent.”
“Very funny.” I gave him the kind of shove Rosie would have given him had she been there and burst out laughing when he pretended to stagger. God, it was good to see him. I’d been a bit nervous about it, to be honest, but the familiarity of our banter was a warm rush I’d really missed. Even at the height of my teenage crush, he’d managed to make me laugh.
Grace and Jaimie had walked on a bit, still talking about old times, no doubt, so a space had opened up between them and us.
Enough space for Mark to be able to say, “I haven’t seen Jaimie this happy for ages,” without Jaimie hearing.
I looked at him. “Really?”
He nodded. “God, yes. He’s a man transformed. Grace was so worried about him when he split from Harriet. One time she came over, and he was just lying on the floor sobbing his heart out. She said it was dreadful.”
God, poor Jaimie. No wonder he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Has Grace ever said why they split up? Jaimie’s never told me.” A part of me felt a bit bad, asking the question, but another part of me really wanted to know. When he wasn’t missing the girls, Jaimie always seemed so sure of himself. In fact, he’d been at his most vulnerable the night we’d met, at the wedding reception.