I say.
‘Are you Libby’s boyfriend?’ Rosie asks, suddenly perking up and showing a bit more interest in me.
Or, to be more specific, in Olly.
At least, I assume this is what all the sudden pouty lips and hair-flicky action are about.
And Olly is looking nice today, in his smart suit, and with his sandy hair vaguely tidy for once, so I suppose I can’t blame Rosie for all the pouting and flicking, even if it does feel a bit … incestuous. Because she’s my (wince) new stepsister, and Olly is practically my brother.
‘No, no,’ I say, hastily, before Olly has to be the one to do so. ‘We’re just friends.’
‘Oh,’ says Rosie, meaningfully, as if Olly, being helpfully single, might suddenly decide that a seventeen-year-old is a suitable match for him, at thirty-three, and whisk her on to the dance floor for a bit of a smooch.
‘I just came over, Libby,’ Olly says, tactfully ignoring Rosie’s eager body language and turning to me instead, ‘to see if you wanted a dance. I think I might have worn your grandmother out, unfortunately, so I’m a partner down. I get the impression the jazz band are keen for some enthusiastic participants, though, so if you’re up for cutting a rug …?’
‘Delighted to,’ I say, with abject relief, as I clasp his outstretched hand. ‘I’ll catch you later, Dad. You probably need to circulate anyway, right?’
‘Absolutely,’ Dad says, looking pretty abjectly relieved, himself, to be rid of me.
‘And great to meet you, Rosie,’ I add, with what I hope is a suitably friendly-but-not-overly-intimate stepsisterly wave. ‘Maybe we can … er … keep in touch? I’m sure Dad can give you my email address if you’d like.’
Her eyes boggle at me as though I’ve just suggested writing each other letters with a quill pen and ink and sending them off by horse-drawn mail coach.
‘Anyway, congratulations again,’ Olly says, swiftly and smoothly, as he starts to lead me in the direction of the dance floor. ‘You’re shaking,’ he adds, to me, in a low voice. ‘Tricky conversation?’
‘Not for my dad and his brand-new stepdaughter, no,’ I say, but quietly, because I don’t want Grandmother to hear. She’s sitting on a chair in the shade of some nearby trees, where Olly must have chivalrously parked her, with a fresh glass of champagne in her hand. ‘They seem to be getting on like a house on fire. He’s taking an interest in her future … introducing her and her friends to all his favourite movies … supplying the popcorn …’
Olly gives a little wince of his own – amazingly, his first of the trip. ‘Sorry, Lib.’
‘It’s all right.’
It isn’t, really. Because although my dad not being bothered about me is something I’ve come to terms with, it’s quite different to see my dad taking such obvious pleasure in building a relationship with a daughter who’s come into his life through circumstance, and not biology.
Those cosy-sounding movie nights Rosie mentioned, for example. They were precisely the sort of thing I used to crave – I mean, really crave – when I was growing up. I had a few of them when I was eight or nine and still staying over at Dad’s for the occasional night (before plans for His Book properly took off, and he lost interest in me entirely). And I can still remember how exciting it was to be treated like a grown-up, and shown Dad’s favourite movies until way, way past my bedtime. Casablanca, and The African Queen, and Some Like It Hot … with hindsight, of course, not all of them exactly the sort of thing an eight-year-old enjoys. But I enjoyed them with Dad. Despite his stiff, rather formal method of showing them, with frequent breaks for him to point out Meaningful Scenes. A method he seems to have loosened up on where Rosie is concerned.
‘Do you want to go?’ Olly asks, lowering his voice still further. He has one hand on my waist and one on my shoulder as we dance (or rather, rock aimlessly from side to side; I evidently haven’t inherited Grandmother’s rug-cutting genes), and he uses the latter hand now to give my shoulder a gentle, comforting squeeze. ‘I’m happy to make the excuses if you want. I could say you’re feeling ill. Or I could say I’m feeling ill. Or I could say we’re both feeling ill – blame it all on those mushroom vol-au-vents I’ve seen doing the rounds, and cause a mass stampede for the exits …?’
I laugh. ‘Thanks, Olly, but I think I’d be even more unpopular around here if I put the kibosh on Dad and Phoebe’s big day.’
‘You’re not unpopular.’ He looks down at me. ‘Not with anyone who matters.’
We’re interrupted by the sound of 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
