intimate dinner and she wanted to clap her hands with glee when she saw it.
‘It got a bad review in the papers for being a cliché,’ David said as they ignored the menu and stared at each other over the candles on their table. ‘But the food is delicious and the staff are great. So what’s wrong with candles and red tablecloths?’
‘I love it,’ said Peggy happily. ‘Let’s eat all the clichés tonight!’
‘And hold hands across the table,’ he added, reaching forward to take her hand.
‘Yes,’ she said, folding her fingers into his.
The bistro staff came from a variety of countries around the world and could speak a lexicon of languages, but all of them could recognize diners wrapped in romance and oblivious to everyone else. So Gruyere-topped French onion soup, crusty bread, boeuf bourguignon and good red wine were delivered to the table silently, leaving the couple to eat and talk uninterrupted.
Peggy felt as if they were encased in a magical bubble which nothing could break: this evening was simply perfect in every way.
David wanted to know all about her – unlike so many of the men she’d met over the years, who were too caught up in determining their own wants and needs. He asked what films
she
liked to see, what food
she
liked to eat. He’d cook her dinner at his place, he told her as they drank their wine: all he needed was to get his brothers out of the house.
Then, when talk inevitably moved onto their backgrounds and he asked about her childhood, she gently batted him away: ‘Let’s forget everything except now,’ she said. ‘Tonight is all that matters.’
As she said it, she knew this wasn’t merely a ruse to stop him asking about her past. Suddenly, her life before him had ceased to matter. Whereas normally, it coloured everything. But this wonderful night with this wonderful man had changed all that.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like Interpol – I want to know all about you, Peggy,’ he said, and she smiled across the table at him, lean and rangy in a casual grey shirt.
‘Why are you calling the shop Peggy’s Busy Bee Knitting and Stitching Shop? There’s nobody less bee-like than you. You’re so calm and serene. You don’t buzz around.’
‘I don’t have a very good answer, I’m afraid,’ she said, finally giving up on the boeuf, knowing that she would feel full for a week. ‘My mother does wonderful embroidery and for a while she embroidered napkins for a gift shop. The lady who ran it, Carola, said my mother was the most artistic person she knew and told Mum to embroider whatever she wanted. Mum chose bees. They were beautiful. Each napkin was different because she said no matter how hard you tried, each embroidered bee ended up different, same as people.’
Peggy’s bubble of happiness quivered and she felt the familiar emotions welling up in her. Thinking about her mother always made her want to cry. Sitting here with this good, kind man, she wanted to tell him everything because he ought to know. But of course, she couldn’t.
‘Dessert,’ announced David, as if he could read her face and wanted to spare her thinking about whatever was clearly hurting her. ‘I don’t think it’s very French, but they make a wonderful cheesecake here.’
And the sadness passed. Peggy pushed it all out of her mind. She’d been alone for so long and she deserved this, didn’t she?
During that glorious week, they went out three times. The second date was to the cinema; on the way there, David walked on the outside of the pavement, he automatically paid for the cinema tickets, and stood back to let her enter the line of seats so she could pick the one she wanted.
He was gentlemanly, she decided, as the film began. Such a weird, old-fashioned word, but it suited him.
And there was no denying that she was intensely physically attracted to him. From the moment she’d spotted him walking towards her in the wine bar where they’d arranged to meet before the movie,
‘It got a bad review in the papers for being a cliché,’ David said as they ignored the menu and stared at each other over the candles on their table. ‘But the food is delicious and the staff are great. So what’s wrong with candles and red tablecloths?’
‘I love it,’ said Peggy happily. ‘Let’s eat all the clichés tonight!’
‘And hold hands across the table,’ he added, reaching forward to take her hand.
‘Yes,’ she said, folding her fingers into his.
The bistro staff came from a variety of countries around the world and could speak a lexicon of languages, but all of them could recognize diners wrapped in romance and oblivious to everyone else. So Gruyere-topped French onion soup, crusty bread, boeuf bourguignon and good red wine were delivered to the table silently, leaving the couple to eat and talk uninterrupted.
Peggy felt as if they were encased in a magical bubble which nothing could break: this evening was simply perfect in every way.
David wanted to know all about her – unlike so many of the men she’d met over the years, who were too caught up in determining their own wants and needs. He asked what films
she
liked to see, what food
she
liked to eat. He’d cook her dinner at his place, he told her as they drank their wine: all he needed was to get his brothers out of the house.
Then, when talk inevitably moved onto their backgrounds and he asked about her childhood, she gently batted him away: ‘Let’s forget everything except now,’ she said. ‘Tonight is all that matters.’
As she said it, she knew this wasn’t merely a ruse to stop him asking about her past. Suddenly, her life before him had ceased to matter. Whereas normally, it coloured everything. But this wonderful night with this wonderful man had changed all that.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like Interpol – I want to know all about you, Peggy,’ he said, and she smiled across the table at him, lean and rangy in a casual grey shirt.
‘Why are you calling the shop Peggy’s Busy Bee Knitting and Stitching Shop? There’s nobody less bee-like than you. You’re so calm and serene. You don’t buzz around.’
‘I don’t have a very good answer, I’m afraid,’ she said, finally giving up on the boeuf, knowing that she would feel full for a week. ‘My mother does wonderful embroidery and for a while she embroidered napkins for a gift shop. The lady who ran it, Carola, said my mother was the most artistic person she knew and told Mum to embroider whatever she wanted. Mum chose bees. They were beautiful. Each napkin was different because she said no matter how hard you tried, each embroidered bee ended up different, same as people.’
Peggy’s bubble of happiness quivered and she felt the familiar emotions welling up in her. Thinking about her mother always made her want to cry. Sitting here with this good, kind man, she wanted to tell him everything because he ought to know. But of course, she couldn’t.
‘Dessert,’ announced David, as if he could read her face and wanted to spare her thinking about whatever was clearly hurting her. ‘I don’t think it’s very French, but they make a wonderful cheesecake here.’
And the sadness passed. Peggy pushed it all out of her mind. She’d been alone for so long and she deserved this, didn’t she?
During that glorious week, they went out three times. The second date was to the cinema; on the way there, David walked on the outside of the pavement, he automatically paid for the cinema tickets, and stood back to let her enter the line of seats so she could pick the one she wanted.
He was gentlemanly, she decided, as the film began. Such a weird, old-fashioned word, but it suited him.
And there was no denying that she was intensely physically attracted to him. From the moment she’d spotted him walking towards her in the wine bar where they’d arranged to meet before the movie,
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