Page 25 of Hit For Six
‘How did it go earlier?’
‘Yeah, great. I think you did me a favour eating half the cinnamon roll.’ Monty laughed. ‘The coffee just about kicked in but by the time the head coach arrived for the photoshoot with Seth, Sanjay, London and myself, I could barely keep my eyes open. I might have had a catnap.’
‘Ha ha. Well, I’m glad it’s all official now. What a feeling. Your family must be elated.’
Strictly business, no pleasure you said. Utterly hopeless, Lola.
‘I wish.’
Oh.
They both stood there for a moment, more than a little stupefied. Until Lola snapped herself back to the reason for Monty’s visit, deciding this was not the time or the place to grill him on his snippy reply ref his folks. She ushered him inside. She decided it would be best if she adopted an estate agent persona, rushing him along the rustic corridor and pointing out the two bedrooms en route, before giving him a whistle stop tour of everything else that was key to carrying out his job.
‘Did I detect a shrine to Prince in that one?’ asked Monty as they sped past her personal space, Lola realising that she’d made the rookie error of forgetting to shut her bedroom door. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be nosey but the glare of purple was kind of hard to miss.’
Charming. Who didn’t love Prince’s music? But Lola was all about the queens and if she got onto the subject of musical theatre, Monty would be stuck here all night.
‘Luckily you won’t be going in there,’ she quipped, so that he had no idea whether it was her room or Fumiko’s.
‘Touché.’
Lola tried to restrain herself, but before she knew it, she’d thrown her head back over her shoulder to treat Monty to a withering look, only just remembering to turn around in time for the first mini flight of stairs, which faced the bathroom, whose entrance she almost flew into. Not mortifying at all.
Argh. Now Lola remembered Monty offering to stay over, and she supposed that was the way that some cat sitters operated. But surely he’d prefer to nip in and out instead. It was only a few nights. He probably slept on Egyptian cotton sheets. Who’d want to give those up for Primark’s finest duvet set?
Squiffy just needed food, water and a litter tray change. Okay, she’d probably appreciate some cuddles and the sound of a friendly voice. But she had to be introduced to Monty first. Squiffs was used to mainly female company. What if she hissed at him and it was hate at first sight? It was majorly unfair to condemn their visitor before he’d introduced himself, but cats were super intuitive and for all Lola knew, Squiffy could have deduced from Lola’s recent moods that each and every male was the same bad news. Oh, heck. She hadn’t bargained on that.
Lola still couldn’t believe that Monty’s mother had been so strict as to refuse him a hamster. It seemed a bit mean when his sisters had owned horses. But it was all too easy to judge and, as she’d recently discovered, there were two sides to every story.
‘Now we’re passing the lounge,’ she announced, quite unnecessarily.
Lola had plumped up the cushions and run the vacuum cleaner over the carpet but there had been little time foranything else. She’d not even thought about prepping dinner yet, which was probably a blessing as she didn’t want Monty inhaling the smell of her lasagne-for-one and trying to outstay his welcome. Although, faced down with knobbly, chocolate-covered and salt-encrusted pretzels so soon after this morning’s cinnamon roll, her stomach was in rollercoaster mode. The battalion of butterflies wasn’t helping.
‘Squiffy may be in there or she could have run down the next lot of stairs to the kitchen. She usually flits between the two. Let’s go down to the basement now to see if we can find her. I’ll need to show you where all her food is in any case– as well as the back door to the garden… although, you’ll be glad to know that she doesn’t tend to poop there, which is going to make your life so much easier.’
‘I see. Erm… after you?’
Was it her imagination, or had Monty suddenly lost his nerve? They came to an awkward standstill at the top of the next small flight of stairs, where Lola realised she’d been rambling on about the less endearing features of the apartment (the compact bathroom with its broken window pane that provided excellent ventilation in the summer months, the quirkily uneven staircase that dated back to who knew when and would probably only cause a problem if you’d been on the wine or were treating yourself to breakfast in bed, the arty farty but unreachable cobwebs on the high hallway ceiling which had the added benefit of housing big fat spiders– and the moths and earwigs they feasted on) in admirable estate agent patter, as if she was trying to sell him the place.
Monty’s brows shot up. Ha, she’d got him. And now she could narrow down his own dwelling to one of those fancy new riverside apartments. Lola knew it!
Finally they descended to the kitchen. At a certain time of day when the golden ball in the sky deigned to put in anappearance, its rays hitting the window at just the right angle, it created a lovely cosy patch right next to the dining table, its light spangling across Squiffy’s second cat bed. And the rest of the time, this room needed constant illumination if you wanted to be sure that you’d put a tea bag in your cup or bread in the toaster.
Monty hung back by the fairy-lit doorway, the reality of his goodwill finally dawning on him. This had been the worst idea. Why had Lola opened her big mouth this morning? The power of that indulgent cinnamon roll and its instant sugar hit. Squiffy meandered over, then, miaowing softly and Lola bent to stroke her.
‘She won’t scratch.’ Lola hoped. ‘Come in, park yourself on the sofa and let her get used to you.’
Lola gestured at the battered two-seater, which had long been a fixture in the unnecessarily large kitchen. Monty perched himself rigidly on the edge of the couch, folding his hands ineptly in his lap one moment and threading his fingers together the next. His lack of experience and nerves were showing already and Lola didn’t need another reason to find him endearing, dammit.
‘Cup of tea?’
She smiled, gritting her teeth beneath the facade. On the other hand, this was going to take significantly longer than planned. But what choice did she have? She needed to make Monty feel comfortable. He was her only hope and the trip was in a matter of days!
Lola bustled about at the sink, pulled two small mugs from a cupboard, dropped a tea bag into each of them (suddenly wondering if he’d favour Earl Grey since he was posh, and then remembered her newfound confidence: PG Tips would have to blimming well do), and waited for the kettle to boil. At which point, she had to do a double take.
Squiffy was currently brushing herself against Monty’s leg, purring softly! Sure, their visitor was still on his guard, his own body hunched over like a question mark that was about to bolt out the door. But his panic stricken face now displayed the beginnings of a grin, his eyes growing saucer wide at Squiffy’s approval. Oh, thank fuck for that. And yes, the silent expletive was necessary. Lola was beginning to think she’d need to find a cat hotel so she could take Squiffy to Germany with her.
She didn’t dare break the spell so she made the tiniest of movements to fetch the milk from the fridge and the teaspoons from the drawer. But she needn’t have worried. Squiffy was smitten and had jumped onto the couch, whilst Monty’s posture now resembled an exclamation mark. She purred even more contentedly, padding about next to him, her tail high. It was all Lola could do to concentrate on not burning herself as she poured hot water over the tea bags and let them brew.
