Jane Green - Bookends

But then Lucy found George. She’d asked his advice in Homebase, thinking that he looked like a man who knew what he was talking about. George not only turned out to be a fantastic chippy, he also had a team of people who worked with him, all of them reliable, hard-working and nice.

In short, George was a godsend – despite being the sort of man who believes that men are the hunters, and their primary job in life is to protect women, who should, incidentally, be feminine, giggly and completely hopeless at anything other than cooking, sewing and bringing up children.

George, naturally, adored Lucy, and, though he seemed to be slightly wary of me at first, he warmed up pretty quickly after I found myself succumbing to the helpless female act, because, stupid as this may sound, it was just easier and it meant he’d get the job done.

But Christ, did it get results. I have never met a harder worker than George. Lucy literally had to force him to stop for coffee by bringing in huge slabs of cake and delicious sandwiches every day, trying to tempt him to take a break.

‘I’ll just have a bite now,’ he’d say, carefully unwrapping it so as not to tear the tinfoil, ‘and I’ll save the rest for later.’

‘Lucy, you put my missus to shame, you do,’ he’d say, when he finished the mouthful, while Lucy briskly said he was talking nonsense, and she was sure that Mrs George was a wonderful cook.

And how do I feel about all this? I feel as if I’m walking around with constant butterflies in my stomach. I still can’t quite believe that it’s actually happening, and if anything I’m even more nervous now than when I left my job, but Lucy’s so reassuring, so calming, that I try to push the negative thoughts out of my head when they appear.

So today is the first D-Day, as Lucy put it. In other words, decorating day. Josh is turning up later, and even Si has invested in some decorators’ overalls to help out, but for now it’s just Lucy and I.

We wait until George and Sam have packed up and headed off to the pub for a well-earned drink, before tugging off the lids of the paint pots and starting to paint.

We work in silence for a while. Select FM is keeping us company, even though I’m tempted not to listen any more due to the ghastly Will, who seems to have slightly come between Si and I, if only by virtue of the fact that Si seems to spend all his time with Will.

I do feel incredibly selfish, disliking Will as much as I do, because surely I should be thrilled that Si has finally found someone, but I can’t shake the feeling that Will is going to hurt Si – particularly after that conversation with Alison – and he just deserves to find someone so much better. Luckily Si seems to have forgotten that I was going to get the dirt on Will from Alison, and I figure that as I’ve now got away with it for a month, the chances are I’ll get away with it for good.

After an hour my arm starts killing me. Lucy on the other hand seems to be thriving, and one wall’s almost done, so I keep my moans to myself, figuring that I’m not going to be the first to crack.

Two hours later I climb off the stepladder and stretch, grinning as Lucy does the same thing.

‘Cath?’ Lucy says, leaning her head on my shoulder. ‘Whose blasted idea was this?’

I start laughing. ‘Thank Christ,’ I say. ‘I thought I was the only one thinking this is a bloody nightmare.’

‘It’s not quite a nightmare,’ she sighs, ‘but it’s not half as much fun as it looks on the box.’

‘On the box?’

‘You know, all those adverts where young couples smile adoringly at one another while they’re decorating the nursery.’ Then Lucy starts to laugh. ‘Tell me I don’t look as bad as you.’

‘What? What’s wrong with the way I look?’

‘Go and look in the mirror.’ Lucy sternly orders me to the tiny loo off the stock room. I look like a slightly less soigné version of Cruella de Vil. In other words, my brown hair now has a sunshine yellow streak running along one side, about four inches thick. My face is splattered with tiny blobs of yellow paint, and there are smears of yellow on my forehead where I’ve obviously got some on my fingers, and without realizing have pushed my hair back.

In other words, I look a mess.

‘I see what you mean,’ I shout out to Lucy, who still looks as clean and shining as when she arrived. ‘I look like Big Bird gone wrong.’

‘Actually you look rather sweet,’ Lucy says. ‘Why don’t we have a break?’

‘I’ll tell you what.’ I reach for my purse. ‘I’ll go up the road to the takeaway and get a couple of coffees, how does that sound?’

‘You can’t go out like that!’ Cath says. ‘Even if you do look sweet. You stay here and I’ll go.’

‘Fine,’ I say, shrugging, and off she goes.

With nothing else to do, I pick up the paint roller and carry on, and don’t even turn around when I hear the door open five minutes later.

‘Just put mine on the table,’ I shout. ‘I’ll be down in a sec.’

‘No rush,’ says a voice that is definitely not Lucy’s. ‘I can see you’re busy.’

I turn round to see James standing there, although for a second I don’t quite recognize him because in the intervening weeks I’ve grown used to seeing him in the neighbourhood in his navy suit. Not that we’ve had time to chat – we’ve been far too busy for that – but we manage a wave and a grin through a window.

But now, in his weekend gear again, he looks like the boy next door. These clothes suit him far more than the suits. In the suits he somehow appears slightly uncomfortable, almost like a little boy playing at being an adult, although I know I shouldn’t be saying that, given that he’s five years older than me.

‘Is this a bad time?’ He’s already apologizing, backing out, thinking he’s made a mistake, but I clamber down the ladder telling him not to be ridiculous, we’re only painting.

‘I can see,’ he laughs, and I laugh with him, frankly not caring that I look like a dog’s dinner, although obviously, if I were interested, it would be a completely different story.

‘Anyway’ – I point my roller at him sternly – ‘you should be offering to help. You’d probably do a much better job than me.’

‘I doubt that,’ he says, ‘but I’d certainly do a cleaner one.’

‘Yes, well. I’m sure that wouldn’t be difficult.’ I peer at him closely because he seems to be carrying something in his right hand. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’

‘I walked past earlier and saw you both in here, and I remembered that I had something for the shop, so I thought I’d drop it in.’

‘For the shop? What is it?’

James hands over the package just as Lucy walks through the door.

‘James! How lovely to see you!’ She puts down the polystyrene cups of coffee and gives him a hug, which would normally surprise me, given that she hardly knows him, but it’s typical Lucy behaviour and only seems to faze James very slightly.

‘Oh damn!’ She looks at the two cups of coffee. ‘Let me run out and get another one for you.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ James says. ‘I’ll go.’

‘Are you sure?’

James nods.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘But come straight back and we can all have some strudel together.’

‘Strudel?’ I look at her.

‘My latest try-out.’

I roll my eyes to the ceiling, wondering how on earth I’m going to manage to retain my voluptuous, yet normal size 14, when Lucy’s bringing in these delicious things all the time. And Christ, it’s only going to get worse. How am I going to resist?

Perhaps it will be as my friend Katy said: she used to love chocolate, but then she started to live with a man who was a confirmed chocaholic and kept gallons of the stuff all over the house. She swore blind that after the initial temptation she got so sick of bloody chocolate she never touched it. But then again, Katy is, and always has been, a size 10.