said life was fair?’ Alister spun the tap to the ‘on’ position and pulled the hose trigger at the same instant as Michele stepped out from the house. The powerful jet of water met her head with an audible splat.
‘Oops.’ Alister took just a second too long to shift the jet away. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh –!’ Michele gasped, one side of her hair plastered to her head and the corresponding eye streaming mascara.
Natasha screamed with excited laughter. ‘You got splooshed!’
With a Tarzan yell, Jordan aimed his supersoaker at his mother. ‘Girls against boys! Choose your weapon.’
For a second, Leah thought Michele would give everybody a good scolding or whirl around and retreat to her room. Time seemed to stutter while water glistened on bare skin and lush lawn.
Then Michele wiped her face and slicked back her hair. ‘Girls against boys,’ she growled dangerously, yanking the bright green hose off the tap, leaving Alister with an altogether empty weapon. Jamming her fingers into the stream of tap water she sent it spurting in his direction with deadly aim.
‘Unfair!’ he bellowed, slipping on the grass as he floundered to escape at the same time as attempting to rearm himself by stealing Jordan’s water gun.
‘Get your own weapon, soldier,’ snapped Jordan, wrestling it back and aiming at his sister.
‘Eeep! Noooooo!’ Natasha flew across the garden with the water playing square between her shoulder blades. ‘All onto Jordan, girls!’
For the next hour the air was filled with screams, protests, laughter … and a lot of water. It was sufficient to swill away the tension – temporarily at least.
Finally, puffing hard, Michele held up her hands. ‘Enough! Ceasefire or I surrender or whatever I have to do.’ She fell onto one of the now damp loungers.
Glad that the atmosphere had warmed a degree or two, Leah flopped down on another, wringing out her hair. ‘I’ll get drinks when I’ve caught my breath.’
Michele closed her eyes and tipped her pale face to the sun. ‘Thanks. I think perhaps I overdid it.’ Her clothes clinging damply didn’t deter her from plummeting almost instantly into sleep.
Alister regarded his estranged wife sheepishly. ‘Maybe she did overdo it. She’s zonked.’
‘It’s to be expected, I suppose. She’s very pale.’ Leah’s eyes darted towards the youngsters, their heads bent over their phones as they recovered from the water war via their world of constant communication. When were they to be told about their brother/sister-to-be? Would they leap on the news, hoping against hope that the baby would reunite their parents? Her heart twisted to think of yet another bitter disappointment to poison their young lives. Since the first shock of their parents splitting up, when Natasha had cried for days and Jordan had shut himself in his room, they’d coped almost unrealistically well. It was as if they’d been able to grow thin protective shells.
But if those shells were put under pressure they’d surely shatter.
Keeping these uncomfortable thoughts strictly to herself Leah managed to bask in the sun for an hour before Natasha announced herself once again to be ‘staaaaarving.’ Michele stirred but sank back into her slumbers so, stifling a sigh, Leah laid down her magazine. ‘We’ll eat out here. Lots of lovely salad.’
‘And cakes?’ Jordan suggested, hopefully.
‘With ice-cream?’ supplemented Natasha.
‘For afters,’ Leah agreed.
She wasn’t sorry to go indoors and get a break from the powerful sun. The smooth tiles of the kitchen floor felt cool beneath her feet as she put eggs on to boil, then washed watercress and lamb’s lettuce for the salade verte. Humming quietly as she moved on to slicing big firm tomatoes that were so red they glowed, she became conscious of a man’s voice speaking French outside. Then Michele, evidently restored by her nap, replying. Alister joined in. Leah didn’t bother trying to follow a conversation that was way above her command of simple French phrases. Her sister and brother were Francophiles; French Language was Alister’s teaching commitment in his junior school and Michele loved to compete in airing her command of the language.
As Leah whisked together the ingredients for a quick pecan toffee pudding, covered it with brown sugar and poured boiling water over it before sliding it into the oven, she did catch Michele insisting, ‘Oui, oui, il est notre plaisir!’ It was good that something was giving Michele pleasure because not much seemed to, these days.
There was a little rice left from the risotto and Leah made a quick rice salad, chopping in tomatoes and spring onions with almonds while the eggs cooled, pausing only to call through the back door, ‘Could someone carry the table and chairs onto the lawn, please?’ and check that they did.
Finally, she grabbed napkins and cutlery and stepped out once again into the shimmering heat of the garden. ‘I’m ready to bring lunch out, if someone wants to help me.’
At the same moment, Michele called, expansively, ‘Welcome! Come and join us.’
‘Pardon?’ Leah halted in confusion.
Then two figures rounded the corner of the house and a deep voice replied. ‘Thanks. This is nice of you.’
Leah jumped as she recognised the workman and the teenager from next door. ‘Oh!’
‘This is my sister, Leah.’ Michele beamed.
The workman’s dark hair looked as if the wind had just blown through it, his even darker eyes smiling from his tanned face. ‘I’m Ronan Shea and this is my son Curtis. Great to meet you.’
‘You’re not French!’ Leah exclaimed.
‘No, indeed.’ If anything, she could detect a touch of Irish in his voice.
‘But you spoke to me in French!’
He grinned disarmingly. ‘I’m a big fat showoff.’
‘Leah, I’ve invited them to join us,’ interrupted Michele, ‘so they’ve brought their lunch and we’re all pitching in.’
As if to prove her words Ronan opened a cool-bag to display three different hunks of cheese, a whole cooked chicken, a portly loaf of bread and bottles of wine and cola. ‘I hope it’s not too inconvenient?’ His gaze remained steadily on Leah’s face, whereas his son seemed unable to lift his eyes above Leah’s neck. Although they weren’t far below it.
She felt colour sting her cheeks at the sudden realisation that she was standing chatting in her bikini for goodness’ sake. She forced a smile. ‘No, of course not. Just excuse me for a minute.’ Acutely aware of what felt like acres of flesh on display Leah tossed the cutlery on the table and set off for La Petite Annexe, forcing herself not to break into an undignified gallop.
Michele, perhaps realising belatedly that Leah wouldn’t have chosen to be wearing only a purple high-leg bikini when introduced to a strange man and his wide-eyed adolescent son, called after her, ‘You take your time and we’ll bring the food out.’
‘Good
