Ted’s eyes dropped to his pint and he shuffled in his seat. ‘Bit of this. Bit of that,’ he said, without meeting her eye.
It didn’t sound very honest, whatever it was, but Evelyn found that she didn’t mind. She was more intrigued than anything else. ‘Sounds fascinating,’ she murmured.
Ted shrugged. ‘Pays the bills,’ he said. ‘Most of the time, anyway.’
He finished his pint and gestured to their empty glasses. ‘Another?’ he asked her. ‘Do you want a real drink this time? Can’t have me drinking on my own.’
Evelyn wasn’t at all sure that she did, but she didn’t want to seem ungrateful. ‘Gin and tonic,’ she said.
‘Ice and a slice?’ he asked as he stood up, and she nodded.
A straggle-haired DJ was just setting up in the corner of the room, his boxes of records all set out on a table next to his turntables. He was playing an Abba hit from a few years before by way of background music, and Evelyn caught herself humming along with the melody. The party would probably become less sedate as the evening drew on, she thought. Brenda and Jim knew how to enjoy themselves and the voices in the room were getting louder and louder as the alcohol flowed. She decided she would probably leave before it got to that point. She would wait until the food had been served – she couldn’t afford to turn down a free meal – and then quietly slink away without anyone noticing. She could explain to Brenda later if she seemed upset that she had gone without saying goodbye, but to be honest she suspected she wouldn’t be missed.
Ted had been to the bar for a third time when the buffet was declared open. He and Evelyn were at the front of the queue, after the bridal party themselves of course, and they both came away with plates piled high. Ted had to hold his sausage rolls in place on top of the mountain of finger rolls so they didn’t tumble off. He didn’t seem to think any comment on his apparent greed was called for, so Evelyn didn’t comment either, and just tucked into her food with relish.
‘So how come you’re not hitched, then?’ Ted asked her as he licked the salty crisp crumbs from his fingers. ‘Nice-looking lady like yourself, I’d have thought you would have been snapped up years ago.’
Evelyn shrugged. ‘Where to start?’ she said. ‘Never met the right man. Always busy at work. Wrong time, wrong place. Take your pick.’
‘But you do want to get married, have kids and all that?’ he asked.
No one had ever asked her that before. She was thirty, so perhaps people now assumed she wasn’t interested in a conventional married life. But she was. In fact, the idea of never having any children made her unloved heart beat harder in her chest. She had always assumed that it would just happen when the time was right and she found it distressing that it was beginning to look like it might not.
‘I do,’ she replied. ‘I really do. But I have things to do first.’
At this point other people would probably have sucked their teeth and shaken their heads and made some unhelpful comment about not leaving things too late, but Ted just nodded as if this was a perfectly sensible way to carry on, and Evelyn felt herself warming to him for his understanding.
‘And what about you?’ she asked. ‘Anyone special in your life?’
There was a pause in which Ted seemed to close down. His smile faltered and he cast his eyes low to the floor before he spoke.
‘There was someone,’ he said. ‘Anni-Frid.’ He paused, swallowed. ‘But it didn’t work out.’
Evelyn watched him carefully, dying to ask questions but worried that it might scare him off. In the end she just said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and he shrugged.
‘It was a tragedy, really,’ he continued, his gaze still firmly on his pint glass. ‘But she went off with a bloke she worked with. Benny. He wasn’t much to look at – short, beardy. I told her she should take a chance on me but in the end, she picked him. Suppose that’s the name of the game.’
He looked up now, his playful eyes peeping out under his lashes, and then he grinned and Evelyn realised she’d been had.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she said in mock anger. ‘I was building up some proper sympathy for you then.’
‘Sorry,’ he smirked. ‘Couldn’t resist. Actually, I was married once but it didn’t work out. We were both too young. Amicable split. No hard feelings, but I’m not looking to make the same mistake any time soon.’
Was he marking her card, Evelyn wondered? Not that it mattered. Despite her overall life plans, Evelyn wasn’t looking for a husband, or even a boyfriend just at the moment. She was going to be far too busy for anything like that.