Page 26 of Wild Swimming at Croftwood Lake
‘Okay.’ She turned and smiled at him, catching his eye before he looked back at his drink, smiling shyly. ‘I’m glad you asked. I don’t have many friends around here and we’re almost neighbours after all.’ She leant into him gently, feeling his arm stiffen briefly against hers before she pulled away.
After a lazy rest of the morning, having showered and dressed in something appropriate for a lunch date with Hilary, Nora set off for town. She parked at the same place as before and walked through the churchyard to the high street.
Hilary had bagged them a table and gave a wave when Nora walked in, beckoning her out of the queue.
‘Have a look at the menu board and then save the table while I order,’ said Hilary.
After a quick to and fro about who was going to pay, Nora backed down, chose a tuna melt panini and sat at the table. There was no sign of Toby today which after a handful of visits where he’d always been there, seemed unusual.
‘Where’s Toby today?’ she asked Hilary when she came back to the table carrying their drinks.
‘He’s gone to America to visit his children. They live in LA with their mother and her husband. He goes over every couple of months if he can. Plus, he has business in New York so it’s easy for him to do that at the same time.’
‘Blimey, he’s a bit of a jet-setter, then.’
‘Mmm, he is. He used to do a lot more of it from what he says, and he doesn’t miss it. If it wasn’t for the children, he wouldn’t be. A lot of the business can be done online these days, but he likes to show his face every so often.’
‘Have you been to New York with him?’ Nora had always wanted to go, but once she had the money to afford it, Julian wouldn’t accept the fact that she’d be paying for him, and so they never went anywhere that he couldn’t afford to pay for himself. To start with, she’d thought that was quite a noble stand to take, but now she felt differently; he had been a martyr, trying to spoil her fun.
‘No, but I want to. He only ever goes for a couple of days on his way to or from LA, and there hasn’t really been a good time so far. We’ve not been seeing each other that long, really. We had a holiday to California planned at Christmas, but we had to postpone it, and then Laura brought the children over here instead.’
‘I’ve always wanted to go to New York,’ Nora said, dreamily. ‘I love the idea of seeing all the places that are in the films, especially Sleepless in Seattle.’
‘Don’t you sell your work over there? It could be a business trip.’
‘I do. It’d be more fun if I didn’t have to do any work or networking, but it’d be cool to browse the shops where they sell my stuff.’
‘We ought to go on a girls’ weekend. It’d be much more fun going with you than with Toby. There’s no way he’d want to go shopping.’
Nora laughed. ‘You’re on.’ It was one of those things that she knew would probably never happen, but if it ever did, she’d be up for it. Hilary was definitely shaping up to be a good friend. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask whether you think anyone would be up for swimming at the lake? Archie’s thinking about opening it to the public and I said I’d gather a few people to get a feel for whether it’s a goer or not.’
‘How cold is it?’ Hilary looked less than keen.
‘I don’t know exactly, but it’s got to be almost ten degrees by now I would have thought.’
‘Ten?’
‘Honestly, once you’re in you’ll feel amazing. I was going to ask Lois as well. She seemed keen when I told her about it.’
Hilary sighed. ‘If there’s one thing I hate more than a cold lake, it’s missing out on the fun in a cold lake. I’ll come. Do you want me to ask Jess and Patsy? See if they can rustle up any other takers?’
‘Perhaps that’s enough for now. We probably ought to keep it quiet for now in case anyone objects.’
‘No problem. I’ll make a WhatsApp group for us and we can decide on a day.’
‘Great, thanks.’ Nora took a sip of her elderflower lemonade, and decided now was the time to share about the book club. ‘Have you been to the library to choose the next book for book club yet?’
‘No, have you? You are going to come again aren’t you? Did you enjoy it?’
Nora laughed again at Hilary’s barrage of questions. ‘I loved it. It was so refreshing to be able to chat to a total stranger about the same book we’d both read rather than to people you know who might be a bit judgy.’
‘That’s definitely the beauty of it. Of course, in the end you’ll know all of us and you’ll never be with a stranger but the judgy thing never really happens anyway. I think because you’ve both made the choice to read that book out of the options, it’s not like the book is ever forced on you like a normal book club.’
‘Do you know, I never thought of it like that, but you’re right. We both picked the thriller because we preferred that over the others, so it’s a much better starting point.’
‘And you got on with Constance.’
‘I did, she was so funny. Kind of old-fashioned but she was easy to talk to. The only thing was she was trying to set me up with her son.’ Nora rolled her eyes.
