Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

‘Oh.’

The waiter never knew how close he came to being kissed for arriving precisely then.

‘We’re ready to order,’ Leonie said brightly.

‘I’m not sure what I want,’ dithered Bob.

The waiter began to move away.

‘NO!’ Leonie said loudly. ‘It’ll only take a moment to decide.’ At least ordering would get them off the subject of ex-partners.

But there was to be no joy on that score. Bob wasn’t to be deterred. Obviously labouring under the opinion that any new inamorata had to know all about the previous ones, he considered it his duty to tell Leonie as much as he possibly could about Colette. By the time the crispy duck had arrived, Leonie knew more about Colette than she did about Bob. Colette was also a teacher but had taken a career break to have her first baby. She lived in Meath, was doing an aromatherapy course in her spare time and had been extremely gifted at the violin, if only she’d kept it up.

‘You’ve got to move on, though, haven’t you?’ Leonie announced firmly when she’d had enough of both Colette and the duck. ‘That’s why we’re here, Bob. To move on.’ She gave him an earnest look, the one she saved for telling children in the surgery that pets were a responsibility and had to be looked after, not just cuddled once and dumped back in an unclean cage.

‘Yes,’ Bob said passionately, as if he spent endless hours thinking about the concept of getting on with your life. ‘To move on, to meet other people who understand just what it’s like out there on your own: the pain, the hurt, the sleepless nights. I can tell that you understand, Leonie,’ he added heatedly, eyes roving over the purple velvet tunic that made her look even more bosomy than usual. ‘You look like the sort of person who understands things.’

Nodding, Leonie wondered whether he assumed this type of understanding would involve her pulling his head towards her bosom and letting it rest there, comfortingly. Probably, she decided. Colette had been cast in the role of the perfect partner, the one who’d got away, while Leonie was the Motherly Stand-In, who’d be good for a bit of affection to stave off pangs of loneliness.

‘Not many people understand what it’s like to be just dumped and left there, all because you’ve changed from the sort of person you were in the beginning,’ Bob said, staring at the remains of his dinner. ‘People change, I know that now, but you can change together. It’s a challenge, but you can do it. You just need the chance.’

‘You mean, Colette didn’t give you the chance?’ Leonie asked, abandoning the attempt to have a Colette-less conversation.

He shook his head sadly.

Leonie sighed. It was perfectly obvious that Bob didn’t want a partner; he wanted a support group: the Been Dumped, Now Talk About It Group. He’d blindly assumed that a voluptuous blonde divorcée must fit into the same emotional category and that was why he’d answered her advert. He wasn’t looking for love. He was in love. With Colette.

The only positive side of Bob’s descent into emotional misery was that he stopped being so jumpy. Leonie realized that if she was a bit nervous about being seen on a blind date, Bob was positively phobic about it. Every time a waiter appeared within his range of vision, he jerked, as if expecting to see the parents’ committee descend upon him and mutter something about blind-dating teachers not being suitable role models for impressionable young minds.

What was he doing here, Leonie wondered, idly crunching up another prawn cracker. They did manage to talk about Bob’s supposed other hobbies: cinema and hill-climbing.

‘I’m not much of a climber, although I walk Penny every day. But I love the cinema. I don’t really have anyone to go with because my mother prefers the theatre and the kids want to see James Bond or things with teenage actors I don’t recognize.’

‘We can go together,’ Bob said, sounding pleased. ‘How about this time next week? You pick the movie.’

At least she had a date of sorts for the following week, Leonie reflected as she drove home, stuffed to the gills with Chinese food yet feeling deflated. Bob certainly wasn’t suitable partner material, but he was a new friend and wasn’t that what agony aunts always advised: meet new people, new friends, and, when you’re least expecting it, a partner will appear. It looked good written down, anyhow.

What a strange evening. She realized she’d even talked about Ray. Well, when you were with somebody who was passionately interested in the concept of ex-relationships, you couldn’t help putting in your thruppence-ha’penny worth. And Bob had been interested too, although astonished when he realized that she had instigated her marriage break-up. ‘You simply decided it was over?’ he said, shocked.

Leonie shrugged. ‘What was the point of staying married if we weren’t right together?’ she said. ‘Too many people do, purely for convenience, because the other person is there. I don’t understand that. It’s like you’re too scared to do anything different even though you’d secretly like to do it. That’s fear of the unknown, not real love. I couldn’t cope with a life like that. I believe there’s somebody perfect out there for all of us.’

Bob had looked at her so blankly that it was obvious he couldn’t comprehend what she was getting at. Mind you, Leonie thought as she parked outside the cottage, her mother had never been able to understand it either. Every once in a while, the normally orange-juice drinking Claire would have a couple of glasses of wine and start gently berating her daughter for divorcing Ray.

‘You’ll never find a man like Ray,’ she’d mumble sadly.

Leonie thanked the man above she hadn’t revealed anything about her blind date to Claire. Because Bob certainly wasn’t a man like Ray – husband material, in other words.

Mel’s good humour appeared to have evaporated when Leonie got home.

‘Danny’s a spanner-head,’ she said crossly, emerging from the sitting room before her mother had time to struggle out of her coat.

‘Don’t use that type of language, Melanie,’ Leonie said wearily. ‘What’s he done now?’

‘He was watching videos all evening and we couldn’t bring Liz and Susie in to see ER,’ sniffed Mel. ‘And he let them smoke in the house, too,’ she added triumphantly.

‘You can’t keep your mouth shut, can you?’ roared Danny, who could hear what was going on from the sitting room.

‘Well, you let them smoke,’ roared Mel back.

‘Oh yeah, and you’re Miss Goody Two Shoes who’d turn her nose up at a cigarette if she got the chance, right?’

Mel clammed up like a shot. She must have been smoking herself, Leonie realized. That’d have to stop. Mel could forget about ever getting pocket money again if she started smoking. But that was an argument for tomorrow. Leonie felt she’d had enough tonight.

‘Would the two of you stop this bickering,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not in the mood for it. Try and act your age for once.’

Abby was in the kitchen with Penny and her plain face lit up with a grin when Leonie went in.

‘Well done, Mum,’ she said. ‘They’ve been at it since you went out. I nearly rang Gran to ask could I go round to her house to escape. By the way, Hannah rang and asked you to give her a buzz when you got in.’ Abby’s eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘I never pointed out that you were supposed to be with her and Emma.’

Leonie grinned back. ‘I’ll let you in on my secret if you promise to keep it to yourself.’

‘Mum!’ Abby looked wounded. ‘You know I can keep a secret.’

‘Of course, I know you can.’ Abby would carry a secret to the grave, unlike her sister, who’d promise not to breathe a word to anyone but wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself for longer than a day. Leonie didn’t like asking Abby to keep something from her twin, but she knew that while Abby would be pleased her mother had had a date, Mel wouldn’t. Capricious and demanding, Mel liked to be the centre of her mother’s world and wouldn’t have coped well with news of a rival for her affection, even if it was Bob.

‘I was meeting a man for dinner. Hannah set me up with a friend of hers,’ Leonie improvised. ‘He’s very nice and she thought we’d get on. We did,’ Leonie paused delicately, ‘but as friends, really. We’re going to the cinema next week, but we’ll just be friends, nothing else.’

‘Do you still love Dad? Is that why you haven’t got a boyfriend?’ asked Abby suddenly.

Leonie felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. ‘Is that what you think?’ she asked. ‘That I still love Dad like that, that I’m upset about Fliss?’

Lips clamped together as if she was scared she’d said the wrong thing, Abby nodded mutely.

‘It’s not like that at all, darling,’ Leonie said. ‘I’m happy for Dad, and I’m not in love with him in that way. I love him…but as a friend, as your father, not as anything else.’ God, she thought blankly, what else could she say to convince her daughter that she wasn’t in bits over Ray and Fliss’s nuptials?

‘I’m not upset about the wedding…’

‘But you looked as if you were,’ blurted out Abby.

‘Did I?’

Abby nodded.

‘It was a shock, that’s all,’ Leonie said, floundering. She must have looked terrible the day the kids came back from America. She thought she’d hidden it well. Obviously she hadn’t. ‘I didn’t want to go out with anybody when you were younger,’ she said in a rush. ‘It was too hard to think about men when I wanted to look after you all.’ She reached out to touch Abby affectionately.

‘I want you to be happy,’ Abby said, her face crumpling. ‘If Dad is happy, I want you to be too. Is he nice, this man you met tonight?’

For the first time since the strained conversation had started, Leonie smiled genuinely. ‘He’s nice, but he’s not Brad Pitt.’