his phone ringing, somewhere inside his suit jacket.
‘That’s Nora’s ringtone,’ I say, because we’ve both had her programmed in our phones, ever since she moved up to Glasgow a few years ago, with ‘Auld Lang Syne’. ‘We should answer. It might be something to do with her flights, or something.’
My mood is lifted, briefly, by this reminder of the fact that Nora is meeting us at Glasgow Airport later on this evening so that we can all fly back down to London together: she’s coming ‘home’ for the week so that she can help Olly with all the last-minute preparations for his restaurant opening, and come to his opening-night party on Friday evening.
‘No, I expect she’ll just be calling back to see if I’ve decided whether or not to take her up on her suggestion about Tash and the motorbike.’
I blink up at him. ‘Tash and what motorbike?’
‘Er … I was telling you about this in the bar last night, Libby.’ He looks surprised. ‘You weren’t that drunk, were you?’
No; I wasn’t very drunk at all. But there was a full five minutes, possibly even longer, when I got distracted by the sight of the single-malt whisky bottles lined up along the top of the bar. Single-malt whisky bottles make me think of Dillon. And when I think about Dillon, which I very rarely allow myself to do, entire swathes of time can get sucked into this sort of … vortex, I suppose you’d have to call it. So Olly could have been sitting in the bar buck-naked with a loaf of bread strapped to his head, talking about the time he was abducted by aliens, and it wouldn’t have even registered with me.
‘Tash,’ Olly re-explains, patiently (more patiently than he’d be doing if he knew it was thoughts of Dillon that had distracted me last night), ‘is going to come down to London to stay this week, too. Something about a conference, and apparently she’s a dab hand with a hammer and nails … she’s offering to help out at the restaurant in the evenings …’
Tash, one of Nora’s closest friends from the hospital they both work at in Glasgow, is almost certainly a dab hand with a hammer and nails. Tash is the sort of person who’s a dab hand with everything. A bit like Nora, in fact, capable and unflappable, which is probably why they’re such good friends.
I didn’t know she was going to be coming down to London with Nora this week.
Not, I should say, that I’ve got any kind of a problem with Tash, who’s seemed really nice every time I’ve met her.
It’s just that I’d been envisaging some lovely quality time spent with Nora over these next few days: helping Olly get the restaurant ready for the Friday opening; chatting late into the night over a bottle of wine; shopping for the last few bits and bobs she might need for her own wedding at the end of July, just over a month away …
I mean, obviously we can still do all those things with Tash around, too. From the times I’ve spent with her whenever I’ve visited Nora up in Scotland, I know Tash enjoys a drink and a gossip just as much as Nora and I do, and seeing as she’s a fellow bridesmaid, it would make perfect sense for her to come on a wedding-shopping expedition.
But still. It’s not quite the way I’d fondly imagined this week would go, that’s all.
‘Anyway,’ Olly goes on, ‘she’s planning on riding down on her motorbike, and Nora wondered if I wanted to hire a bike and go home that way, too.’
‘Instead of taking your flight?’
‘Yeah. We can do it in eight hours or so, with breaks. I mean, it’s not that I think Tash needs the company, or anything – she’s always seemed pretty self-sufficient whenever I’ve met her.’
I don’t know why the idea of Olly and Tash riding motorbikes all the way from Glasgow to London should make me feel as antsy as it does. After all, even if I did have a problem with Tash (which as I’ve already said, I absolutely don’t), Olly taking the long, uncomfortable route back home with Tash instead of a nice quick flight with me and Nora shouldn’t bother me in the slightest. It’s just because I’ve been a bit thrown by the idea that I might not get to spend this week hanging out with Nora in the way I’d envisaged, I decide. And maybe also by the fact that I hate him riding a motorbike, full stop. I watched a terrifying news segment once about a horrific accident caused by a bike skidding under an articulated lorry, and the memory has stayed with me.
‘So I was going to say no, but I’ve been thinking about it, and … well, a night-time bike ride …’ Olly looks wistful for a moment. ‘Nora suggested it because she thought I might like to clear my head a bit. What with this big week coming up, and all that, it should be pretty quiet on a Sunday night. And I haven’t ridden a bike in so long, I’ve almost forgotten how peaceful it is.’
‘Then you should definitely do it,’ I say. Reluctantly, but as enthusiastically as possible. Because I can tell from that wistful expression on his face that he really wants this.
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely! Just take it carefully, please, please, Olly, and obviously lay off any more champagne for the rest of the afternoon …’
‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ says Olly. ‘I’m here taking care of you today, remember?’
‘I know. And I’ll take care of you all next week, Ol, I promise. I mean, I may not be a dab hand with a hammer and nails, but I’ll bring coffee, and homemade food …’
‘There’s honestly no need for that,’ Olly says, hastily – as well he might, given that he’s a bona-fide foodie and I can’t cook for toffee. ‘Moral support will be fine.’
Which he thoroughly deserves, because he is, indeed, as Grandmother has pointed out, absolutely wonderful.
‘Oh, God … Grandmother,’ I suddenly say. ‘Did she go on and on at you about us, Olly? I’m so sorry, she just gets these crazy ideas into her head, and—’
‘It’s OK, Lib, honestly. I mean, yes, she did mention the concept of you and me a few times during our turn about the dance floor … you’d make an excellent wife, apparently …’
I wince. Not for the first time today and not, I expect, for the last. (I mean, there are still speeches to come, and everything. And if I can get through whatever sentimental mush Dad will have to say about his ready-made new family, I’m going to need a hell of a lot more champagne than I’ve drunk so far.) ‘Ugh, Olly, I’m sorry.’
‘… and she wants to live to see at least one successful marriage for a member of her family, and to see one bride walking down the aisle in her veil who doesn’t make her think the whole thing is doomed from the very start …’
It’s a fair point. Grandmother’s children haven’t exactly managed the most successful set of marriages between them, and if the photos of my own mother in the veil are anything to go by, the clock was running out for Mum and Dad pretty much from the very moment they half-heartedly said I do.
‘… and I remind her of her late husband, apparently. And you remind her of herself. And they were blissfully happy for forty-six years. So really,’ he finishes, with a strained-sounding laugh, ‘what more evidence does anybody need that you and I ought to be together?’
This is mortifying.
I mean, yes, people are always accidentally mistaking me and Olly for a couple: I think both of us are pretty used to that now. But to have it coming from as stern and proper a figure as Grandmother feels, somehow, too real for comfort. It’s a bit like the moment we shared our one and only kiss, in Paris – the Mistaken Thing we’ve never talked about since, after far too much wine and far too intense a conversation about love. I can’t quite look Olly in the eye, and I’m certain, from the strain in his voice, that he’s just as embarrassed as I am.
‘Again,’ I say, sounding pretty strained myself, ‘I’m really sorry. She’s unstoppable when she gets the bit between her teeth. I had no idea she was going to latch on