Jill Mansell - Mixed doubles

Bored with lessons in car maintenance, Dulcie found herself wondering what his ex-wife looked like. Wholesome, presumably. Like Rufus, only without the beard. She tried to imagine how he would look if he shaved it off.

With a start, Dulcie realised he was still talking about oil.

.. a five-litre can of Castrol GTX Protection Plus. They sell it in the garage down by the river. Bit of a hike back up the hill, but that can’t be helped.’

That was the trouble with these do-it-yourself types: they always wanted you to do it yourself too. Dulcie leaned wearily against the wall.

‘Can’t I just phone the garage, get them to do all that?’

Rufus was looking at her thin arms. In return, Dulcie wondered how old he was – around thirty-five at a guess, though with beards it was always hard to tell. Then she wondered if the grey sweater was older or younger than Rufus.

‘Look, you’ll never carry a five-litre can all that way. I’ll go.’

‘What about the café?’ said Dulcie, startled.

Sounding amazingly unconcerned, Rufus said, ‘You’ll just have to take over until I get back.’

Chapter 37

It was like visiting your granny in hospital then suddenly being hauled into the operating theatre and told to take over while the surgeon went off for his lunch break.

Well, Dulcie conceded, maybe not quite like that, but along those lines. Luckily the café wasn’t crowded so she didn’t have to get into a flap. All the prices were chalked up on the blackboard behind the counter, the till was ancient and straightforward to use, and any questions Dulcie had were answered by Maris, who worked in the kitchen.

‘How long have you and Rufus been together?’ asked Dulcie during a quiet five minutes. She leaned against the freezer and watched Maris, who was fluffy-haired and energetic, chop a mound of onions.

Maris looked amused.

‘We aren’t together. Rufus’s wife left him six months ago.’ She wiped her eyes, streaming from the onion fumes. ‘They used to run this place together, and I worked here part-time. Now it’s just the two of us keeping the place going.’ She finished chopping, and deftly slid the onions into a pan of sizzling oil, adding fondly, ‘Bless him, he works so hard. Trying to get over his wife, that’s what it is. He still misses her like mad.’

‘Why did she leave?’

Dulcie wondered if it had been the beard.

‘Louise? Ran off with the bank manager over the road. You wouldn’t have thought it, to look at her.’ Maris, clearly a gloriously indiscreet gossip, glanced at Dulcie for encouragement.

Avid for details, Dulcie said, ‘What, was she the prim and proper type? Or a sour-faced old prune?’

‘Hairy legs.’ Maris lowered her voice. ‘She never shaved them. Well, you’d have needed a lawn mower.’

‘Didn’t put the bank manager off,’ remarked Dulcie. ‘Or Rufus.’

‘Poor Rufus. He adored her.’ Energetically Maris stirred the sizzling onions, then reached for a Sabatier and a bulb of garlic. ‘He’s a lovely chap.’

‘Seems nice.’ Dulcie nodded. If you liked that kind of thing. ‘Do anything for anyone, Rufus would. Got a heart of gold.’

‘Does he drink?’ said Dulcie.

‘What, you mean is that why Louise left him? N0000!’ Maris looked shocked. ‘Nothing like that.’

Dulcie grinned.

‘I didn’t mean does he get paralytic and beat up his wife. I was just asking, does he drink?’

She was busy clearing tables when Rufus reappeared ten minutes later, out of breath but beaming. He poured the oil into the engine, tried the key in the ignition and gave Dulcie a jubilant thumbs-up as the engine burst into life.

‘Thanks,’ said Dulcie before she drove off. ‘That was really kind.’

‘My pleasure.’ Rufus, still pink-cheeked from climbing the hill, smiled at her over the wound-down driver’s window. ‘And thank you for looking after the café. Take care of this car now,’ he reminded her good-naturedly. ‘Try and check the oil at least once every ten years.’

‘I met someone really nice today,’ Dulcie told Pru over supper that evening.

Pru looked doubtful.

‘You mean Liam-type nice?’

Dulcie imagined Rufus and Liam standing next to each other.

‘The opposite of Liam.’ She smiled, thinking that if Liam was a pin-up, Rufus was a quick-wash-and-brush-up. ‘He’s not a bit good-looking. Just ... kind.’

Pru silently marvelled at this piece of information. He didn’t sound Dulcie’s type at all.

‘Where did you meet him?’

Dulcie helped herself to more cannelloni. She offered the rest to Pru.

‘He mended my car.’

‘You mean he’s a mechanic?’

More and more unlikely, thought Pru. But useful.

‘No, I just broke down and he offered to help. He runs a wholefood café in Mortimer Street.’

Dulcie scraped greedily around the edges of the dish for the best bits and added, ‘He’s got a beard.’

Pru was beginning to suspect a set-up. Was Dulcie serious?

‘Hang on, let me get this straight. You fancy a man who isn’t good-looking. He has a beard and he runs a wholefood café.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m getting a horrible mental picture here of David Bellamy.’

‘Don’t be daft, of course I don’t fancy him.’ Forking up her cannelloni with characteristic speed, Dulcie avoided Pru’s eye. ‘He’s just a nice bloke, that’s all. Kind.’

Pru was by this time struggling to keep a straight face. ‘I see.’

‘I don’t fancy him,’ Dulcie repeated stubbornly. ‘I just like him. And you know what?’

‘What?’

Dulcie had been puzzling over it all afternoon. She had only just worked it out. She gazed across the table at Pru.

‘All the time we were talking, he didn’t look at my boobs or my legs once.’

Remembering that she was supposed to be apologising to Liza, and taking advantage of feeling unusually saintly, Dulcie decided to ring her after supper.

‘Who do you keep trying to phone?’ said Pru twenty minutes later.

Still no reply. Fretfully Dulcie hung up.

‘Liza. But the bloody selfish, ungrateful old bag’s buggered off out.’

Maris was serving a family of six when Dulcie came into the café the next day. Up to her elbows in plates, and therefore unable to wave, she waggled her eyebrows instead and called out cheerfully, ‘Rufus is in the kitchen. Go on through and tell him he owes me fifty pee.’

Rufus was wearing different clothes today. The sleeves of his blue and brown checked shirt were rolled up and he was kneading vast quantities of bread dough. There was flour in his hair and on his brown corduroys.

‘You owe Maris fifty pee,’ said Dulcie.

He looked delighted to see her.

‘Hi! Car okay? No more problems?’

‘The car’s fine.’ Dulcie held out the box she’d been clutching. ‘Here, this is for you. Just to say thanks for yesterday.’

Rufus wiped his floury hands on a clean cloth and took the whisky.

Glenmorangie. My word, what a treat! Dulcie, you shouldn’t have. I wasn’t expecting anything.’

‘I know. But I asked Maris and she said you enjoyed a drop of whisky. She thought—’

‘Did she indeed!’ interrupted Rufus. ‘In that case, the bet’s off.’

Dulcie was puzzled.

‘What bet?’

The doors separating the kitchen from the dining area swung open. Maris stood there grinning.

‘Rufus said we’d never see you again. I said we would.’

‘Unfair,’ Rufus protested. ‘You had inside information. That’s cheating.’

Unperturbed, Maris squeezed behind Dulcie, opened the door to the utility room and hauled out a high chair. ‘Table four need this. Hang on and I’ll be back in a sec.’ She gave Rufus a triumphant smile and winked at Dulcie. ‘For my fifty pee.’