‘Charming. What does that make me? Minced meat.’ Vince walked off huffily.
I literally slapped my forehead. God, he was such a drama queen. He’d be offended for the rest of the day now. I hadn’t meant anything to do with his predilection for on-line dating.
I gave it one last read through. Vince was right, it did sound slipperish. Ignoring the small matter of already being ten minutes late, I added a quick post-script.
P.S. Liverpool supporters erudite? In which parallel universe would that be?
That wasn’t flirty, was it? No. With a resolute stab that nearly pinged the enter button off the keyboard, I pressed send and shut down the email. Oops, even by my shoddy time-keeping standards, I was late.
Of course, she was already there, perched at one of the high tables in Café Paul and engrossed in her iPhone. I knew exactly what my sister would look like without having to peer through the window. Pristine and pressed to perfection. I could have made easy money betting on the fact that Christelle would be wearing a pure white cotton shirt, peaked tramlines down each sleeve, and a figure hugging black pencil skirt along with a nipped in matching jacket from either Hobbs or Jigsaw. Her glossy brown hair would be scraped mercilessly back into the dullest bun you could imagine and she’d be wearing rubbish make-up. Seriously, she didn’t have a clue. Lipstick in a dull nude colour which made her lips vanish into her face and a matt brown eyeshadow over the whole lid that made her eyes recede into her head. With her figure and gorgeous hair, she could have looked like some sixties starlet. It wasn’t fair. Stick a button on my nose and I’d look like one of those anime cute cartoon girls, except with way too much curly hair. I would have loved to get hold of her and give her a serious make-over but we weren’t that sort of sisters. Oh Lord, no.
‘Late again.’ Why the hell did she have to look at her watch? I wasn’t going to deny it. I was nearly always late to meet her. Maybe it was psychological. It minimised the amount of time we had to spend together.
I shrugged cheerfully. ‘Problem with a virus at work.’ It sounded almost professional and competent, something she might appreciate.
For once, Christelle appeared vaguely interested. ‘Serious? That can be terribly damaging. I heard of one solicitor’s company who had to buy a new server because they’d got some malware that corrupted everything. It almost put them out of business. And they’re a very smart outfit. They have some very high profile, blue chip clients.’
‘Our IT department is very good,’ I said smoothly as if it were the sort of thing that I regularly trotted out.
‘That’s so important,’ said Christelle nodding. She stuck her head out, trying to catch the attention of the waiter who acknowledged us with a quick nod before disappearing with an armful of dirty crockery.
We lapsed into silence.
‘So,’ I said, ‘how’s work?’
‘Good.’ She stopped there. I had about as much of an idea about her job as she did about mine. She was a barrister, except she didn’t do the exciting criminal stuff, no she did employment law which from the little I understood sounded deadly.
I’ve no idea why she insisted on these monthly meetings, they were always excruciating. But no, regular as clockwork, she phoned at the beginning of the month to suggest we meet up.
‘So, are you busy this weekend?’ I asked, praying the waiter would get a move on.
‘Yes, it’s Alexa’s thirtieth birthday and we’ve hired a gorgeous house. It sleeps twenty-eight, which is perfect.’ She whipped out her phone and showed me a couple of pictures of a fantastic view and a rather lovely looking Edwardian mansion perched on the side of a wooded hillside.
You see, that I couldn’t fathom. Whatever I thought about my sister, her social life was always busy.
‘What about you?’
I smiled. ‘I’ll be working late on Friday and Saturday.’
‘I don’t know how you manage to have a relationship. I find it hard enough to get dates with my hours let alone working most nights. Doesn’t Felix mind? Do you ever get to spend a weekend together?’
‘He doesn’t mind.’ That was the wonderful thing about Felix. He’d never minded. He understood how important my job was to me. And me working evenings had never been an issue. I paused, trying hard to picture my very uptight sister going on a date. She’d never mentioned any romantic entanglements and I’d always assumed she was too busy pursuing her career to bother with such irrelevancies. For some reason, Marcus popped into my head. He was probably Christelle’s perfect date, not that I’d wish her on him.
‘Do you do a lot of dating?’ I asked, surprising myself.
It took her a minute to answer. In fact, she spent a good thirty seconds rummaging through her handbag, in a most un-Christelle like fashion, before she lifted her head. I could almost see her weighing up how to answer.
The second thirty seconds seemed to hang with unexpected portent between us. Sink or swim. Do or die. Crash and burn. Her foot poised over uncharted territory.
And then she cleared her throat and I felt a pulse of shock at her candid look.
‘Not with any success. You’re so lucky. You and Felix have got it all sussed. You were friends with him first. I’ve been on so many dates but I just never seem to click with anyone. On paper, they’re absolutely perfect … and then I meet them.’ Her childish expression combined with the most exaggerated eye roll, again so not Christelle, made me break out in a wary smile.
‘They’re either unmitigated hooray Henry tosspots,’ she broke off, ‘excuse my language,’ she added, giving me a look that dared me to say anything, ‘or stuffed shirts who spend the entire date trying to work out whether I’m more successful than they are and whether I’ve billed more than them in the last forty-eight hours. It’s pathetic.’
‘It must be hard.’ I tried to look sympathetic, but quite frankly they sounded eminently suitable. ‘Ah, the waiter,’ I said and grabbed the menu. ‘What do you fancy? The fruit tarts look gorgeous, but then so do the palmiers and the chocolate croissants here are to die for.’
‘Cappuccino for me and a croissant amandes.’ Christelle snapped shut her menu and handed it to him, while I had now discovered the enticements of chocolate éclairs, raisin pastries and pear and rhubarb tarts.
I chewed at my lip as Christelle folded her arms. ‘Make that two Cappuccinos and I, hmm, I can’t make up my mind between the…’ I turned the menu over and then peered beyond the waiter at the glass fronted cabinets. ‘Or should I have one of the strawberry tarts. No. I’ll have a pain au chocolat …’
The waiter clearly had my measure, because he whipped away the menu before I could change my mind and go for one of the glistening strawberry tarts.
Christelle put her elbows on the table.
‘We need to decide what we’re going to get for Mum and Dad for Christmas.’
‘It’s ages away,’ I said. Why couldn’t people enjoy the build up to Christmas? Planning this far ahead took away all the fun and spontaneity. Present-buying should be an adventure and a grand expedition to all the beautifully decorated
