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Thea says, giving Saul the same nod she gives all her clients, ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’

      Saul waits for Mr Sewell to disappear upstairs. Thea could murder that muffin. It had been an early start and a long day.

      ‘I’m starving,’ she says. She approaches Saul who is offering her the cake. He snatches it back as she’s about to take it. ‘Hey!’ she protests.

      ‘Say yes!’ Saul says. ‘If you say yes, the muffin is yours.’

      ‘Yes?’ says Thea. ‘Whatever – yes please.’

      ‘But you don’t know what you’re agreeing to!’ Saul exclaims.

      ‘I’m so hungry I’d agree to anything,’ Thea assures him.

      ‘Really?’ he says, a veritable twinkle to his eye. Thea nods, literally licking her lips. Still he holds the muffin aloft. ‘Would you say yes to a Gimp Mask and PVC crotchless knickers?’

      Thea regards him as if he’s mad. ‘Yes, yes, now give me the sodding muffin – I’m going to be late for Mr Sewell.’

      ‘Would you say yes to moving in together?’ Saul says, offering her the cake.

      Thea’s heart leaps into her mouth while her stomach somersaults and Saul’s proposal fills her head. Suddenly, there is no room for cake. And she can’t find her voice and time stands still and poor Mr Sewell is in his underwear, face down on the bed in the room at the top.

      ‘Well,’ Saul says, ‘are you going to say yes?’

      Thea stares at him.

      ‘Is that a yes?’ Saul asks, jiggling the cake temptingly.

      Thea gulps.

      ‘Live with me, be with me,’ Saul implores, ‘let’s move in together, live with each other for ever and ever. Live happily ever after.’ He picks out a chocolate chip. ‘Say yes – and the muffin is yours.’

      Thea blinks, grins and nods. Yes, she mouths. ‘Yes!’ she laughs.

      ‘Fantastic,’ Saul says, ‘and all for the price of a muffin.’ He turns her around to face the stairs. ‘Back to work, missy,’ he laughs, giving a gentle shove to her bottom, ‘see you later.’

      Thea is five minutes late for Mr Sewell.

      ‘Sorry to keep you,’ she apologizes quietly. She puts the muffin down on the table. She knows that she’ll be in a quandary whether to eat it or keep it for sentimental posterity. ‘Now,’ she says to Mr Sewell, ‘how’s that back of yours?’

      ‘Not bad,’ he says, lifting his head a little, ‘how are you?’

      It’s the first time Mr Sewell has ever asked Thea anything remotely personal. She’s slightly taken aback. ‘Oh, fine,’ she breezes, ‘I’m fine, thank you.’ She lays her hands lightly on Mr Sewell’s back, closes her eyes and inhales deeply. She controls her exhale while she moves her palms up his back to his neck, strokes out along his shoulders, sweeps down and up his arms, squeezes along his upper arms and then swoops her hands back over his shoulders and down his back. He sighs with relief and pleasure. His body feels good to her. Much softer and more receptive than on his last visit. It’s an easy massage to give.

Cohen & Howard

      Alice held Thea very close as she embraced her. And when she sensed Thea was ready to pull away, she held her tighter still. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘I’m so pleased. It’s the right time. It’s brilliant news.’

      ‘Do you think I’m doing the right thing?’

      ‘You have to ask?’

      ‘Are you happy for me?’

      ‘You have to ask?’

      ‘You do think that Saul is The One For Me, don’t you?’

      ‘You have to ask?’

      Alice and Thea gazed at each other, manic excitement manifest and contagious in their dancing eyes and slight breathlessness.

      ‘So,’ Alice said, ‘there we have it. We’re all grown up, you and I. God, I’ll probably be pregnant by your house-warming party,’ Alice said with a slump to her shoulders, ‘and I’ll be confined to wearing some God-awful kaftan and support tights.’

      Thea looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I wasn’t really thinking of house-warming parties. But are you really thinking about pregnancy?’

      ‘I can’t see how my marriage will survive if I don’t,’ Alice reasoned, a little darkly.

      ‘Shit,’ Thea exclaimed, ‘don’t say that. You’re not serious? I mean, I know you’ve been low – ambivalent even – but we’ve talked through it all, haven’t we. Time and again. Surely you are not considering a baby to hold the answer?’

      Alice was quiet. She regarded Thea with a meekly apologetic pursing of her lips. ‘I’ll never forget your mother begging you to be the glue to keep your father from leaving. How old were you? Fifteen?’

      ‘Fourteen,’ Thea corrected.

      ‘When did you last see him?’ Alice asked.

      ‘Three years ago?’ Thea estimated.

      ‘It’s interesting,’ Alice said quietly, ‘how divorce affects a child by shaping their attitude towards love as adults. Many become totally averse or utterly cynical to long-term relationships. You come from a pretty poor example of marriage and yet it seems it’s given you the determination to truly believe in lasting love. It would make an interesting article for Adam – how blokes are affected by their parents’ relationships.’

      ‘Well, it seems you and I have struck lucky with Saul and Mark then, as they both come from good stock,’ Thea mused.

      ‘You make them sound like prize rams – in fact, you sound like your mother!’ Alice laughed. Her expression changed, she placed the back of her hand against Thea’s cheek. ‘You have always imposed somewhat fairy-tale proportions onto love and eternity. I know I tease you. And sometimes, it has landed you in a pickle. But ultimately, I think it’s your greatest strength. I may rib you for being a hopeless romantic but actually I admire you for it.’

      ‘You don’t mind that I don’t believe in your theory that your phenyl-something is the cause of love?’ Alice laughed and shook her head. ‘When I was little,’ Thea said cautiously, ‘the only way to block out the noise of the rows, the only way to put something pretty into my life, was to lose myself in this imagined world of heroes and heroines triumphant in love.’

      ‘Well, now you have your hero in Saul,’ Alice said conclusively.

      ‘And you have yours in Mark,’ Thea said, adding a note of warning to her voice. ‘Do not use a baby as glue, Alice, please.’

      Alice regarded her wedding ring thoughtfully. ‘Glue, Sellotape, Velcro,’ she said quietly, ‘some type of weathertight bonding is needed, that’s for sure.’

      ‘Bonding,’ Thea said, musing over the word. ‘It’ll be within you, within the home itself,’ she said decisively, ‘you’ll just have to patiently seek it out.’

      ‘And there ends our correlation between love and sticky stuff,’ Alice proclaimed. ‘There are only so many metaphors a girl can take in her lunch hour.’

      ‘Love is sticky stuff,’ Thea shrugged with a wink, ‘if we’re talking fellatio.’

      With his sharp suit, loud tie and verbal swagger, the estate agent at Cohen & Howard reminded Thea of Peter Glass but as Saul didn’t know Peter Glass, and as Thea assumed that all estate agents were probably alike, she didn’t comment. Just then, with the agent slicking back his already product-laden

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