nobody would come out until the next morning. Which meant another morning off work while she waited for the engineer to arrive. Hearing the desperation in her voice, one of them suggested that she pull out the machine and see if one of the hoses at the back had come off. ‘If that’s the case, you could fix it yourself, love.’
Well, yes, if she had the strength to pull the machine out of its slot. Sloshing around in the great pool of water, Perdita struggled to get a grip of the machine, but it was hopeless and in the end she gave up. She would go and ask if Tom would give her a hand. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?
But it was Ed who answered the door, not one of the children, as she had hoped, and Perdita was horrified at her body’s instant, instinctive and quite uncontrollable reaction. It was as if every sense, every nerve ending, had forgotten that she was tired and miserable and was jumping up and down and cheering instead. It was a worrying sign when a month of severe talking-tos had simply left her body overjoyed at the mere sight of him again.
‘Perdita!’ he said in surprise.
Still smarting from her rejection, Ed had tried to make things easier for both of them by avoiding her as much as possible, but now he was shocked at her appearance. Once his own instinctive leap of joy had subsided, he saw that she was pale and drawn and so tightly wound that she looked as if she would snap if he touched her with his finger. ‘What is it?’ he asked in concern.
To her horror, Perdita felt tears grab at her throat and for one terrible moment she thought she wasn’t going to be able to speak at all as she forced them desperately down.
‘I was wondering if Tom could come and help me move my mother’s washing machine,’ she managed, but her voice was shamefully cracked and wavering all over the place. ‘I’ve had a bit of a flood.’
‘I’ll come,’ said Ed.
Shouting up the stairs to tell his children where he would be, he walked back with Perdita, who was intensely grateful that he wasn’t going to ask questions. It would take so little for her to burst into stupid tears, and the quiet reassurance of his presence was making her worse, not better. It would have been so much easier to pull herself together if he had rolled his eyes at her uselessness, or been annoying or patronising.
But Ed wasn’t like that. He pulled the washing machine out easily, found the hose that had come off and reattached it without the slightest fuss. Pushing the machine back into place, he turned to find Perdita mopping ineffectually at the water that covered the floor.
‘You look terrible,’ he told her bluntly. ‘Have you had anything to eat?’
‘I was just coming to make something when I found this mess,’ she said wearily. ‘I don’t think I can face anything now.’
‘You need something or you’ll be ill too.’ Ed hesitated. ‘Why don’t you go and have a bath or shower and I’ll have a look in the fridge?’
The thought of a bath was so inviting that Perdita had to close her eyes to resist it. ‘I need to dry this floor first,’ she said.
‘I’ll do that.’ Ed took the mop from her and it was a measure of Perdita’s tiredness that she simply didn’t have the strength to snatch it back. ‘Go on, off you go-but don’t fall asleep in the bath or I’ll have to come up and get you!’
‘I can’t let you do this,’ she said helplessly.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, what about Lauren and Cassie and Tom?’
‘They’ve had something to eat, and they know where I am. They’re all supposed to be doing their homework, but I have no doubt that the minute they heard I was going out they all sloped downstairs and are happily watching some rubbish on television,’ said Ed in a dry voice.
‘Still…’ Perdita hesitated and he glanced at her.
‘Still, what?’
‘You shouldn’t be doing this for me when…well, you know…’
‘When you don’t want to kiss again, and have been avoiding me ever since?’
At last there was some colour in her cheeks. ‘You said you didn’t want to be friends,’ she reminded him.
Ed sighed. ‘I was angry and disappointed, and I didn’t act in the grown-up way I should have done,’ he admitted and then he smiled. ‘Of course we are friends, Perdita,’ he said gently. ‘And what any friend would do now is insist that you go and have a bath. Go on, off you go,’ he said, making shooing motions with his hand, and Perdita succumbed to the wonderful temptation of being told what to do.
When she came down after her bath, the floor was clean and dry, the washing machine whirring to catch up with its interrupted programme, and the kitchen smelled wonderfully of grilling cheese.
‘I’ve made you macaroni cheese,’ Ed told her, seeing her sniff appreciatively. ‘It’s not very glamorous, but I couldn’t find much in the fridge and, anyway, it felt like good comfort food. I’ve also taken the liberty of finding another bottle of your father’s wine. I’m sure he’d agree that you need a glass right now.’
Taking the dish of macaroni out from under the grill, he pulled out a chair from the kitchen table with a flourish. ‘If madam would care to take a seat?’
Perdita sat obediently. There was a horrible constriction in her throat which made it impossible to speak but she managed a smile, albeit a very wobbly affair.
Ed set a plate in front of her and presented the dish with a serving spoon. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.
But Perdita couldn’t. All at once the pressure of tears was too much and she had to press her fingers to her eyes to hold them in, and even that wasn’t enough to stop the humiliating trickle from beneath her lashes.
‘Hey, what have I said?’ Ed put down the dish and allowed himself the luxury of touching her. How could he
‘Nothing. I’m just being pathetic.’ Pride helped Perdita draw a deep breath and lift her head, and she brushed the traces of tears furiously from her cheeks. ‘I’m just not used to anyone looking after me,’ she tried to explain. ‘It’s only because you’re being so nice to me,’ she added almost accusingly.
The grey eyes filled with humour. ‘Would you rather I was horrible to you?’
‘At least I wouldn’t snivel,’ said Perdita with a return to her old form, and Ed smiled as he pulled out a chair and sat down at the end of the table.
‘You’re tired and overwrought,’ he pointed out. ‘A few tears is the least you’re allowed. Now eat up your macaroni before it gets cold!’ he pretended to scold her.
Perdita picked up her fork. ‘This looks delicious.’
‘I’m afraid the sauce is a bit lumpy,’ Ed apologised with a grimace. ‘I can never get it to go smooth. The kids are always moaning about my sauces.’
The sauce was, indeed, lumpy but to Perdita, tired and hungry and desperately in need of some warm, comforting stodge, it was one of the best things she had ever eaten.
‘It’s fantastic,’ she said in between mouthfuls.
‘I feel sure you’re just being kind,’ said Ed, but she could tell that he was pleased. ‘You should hear Cassie and Lauren when I make it for them. They get down on their knees and beg me to go on a cooking course where I can learn to make a sauce properly, the minxes!’ he finished with a grin.
‘You don’t need to go on a course,’ said Perdita. ‘I can teach you how to make a sauce. I’ll teach you all, in fact. There’s no reason why your kids shouldn’t learn, too-there’s no mystery to it!’
Ed brightened. ‘Would you really do that?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It’s what any friend would do,’ she quoted his own words back at him.
There was a tiny pause. ‘So is friends really all we can be, Perdita?’ Ed asked after a moment.
Perdita didn’t answer directly. She put down her fork and reached for her wine. ‘Did I ever tell you about Nick?’ she asked, her eyes on the glass she was turning slowly between her fingers.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Is Nick an ex-boyfriend?’
‘He was more than a boyfriend,’ said Perdita quietly. ‘Nick was the centre of my world for two years. I loved him the way I’ve never loved anyone else. I would have done anything for him.’
Ed wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear all this, but he had asked, he supposed. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in compromise?’ he said, remembering what she had told him when they’d first met. ‘You must have compromised somewhere along the line if you lasted two years.’
