‘Luck,’ I say, reaching over and taking another chocolate. ‘And control.’
It’s only when the clock strikes half-twelve that Esther suggests making a move. In the hall, Jack hands out the coats and, while he helps Diane and Esther on with theirs, I agree to meet them in town the following Friday at ‘Chez Louis’ for lunch at twelve-thirty. Diane hugs me goodbye and when I shake Esther’s hand I tell her that I’m looking forward to seeing her again at the lunch. The men kiss me goodbye and, as they leave, everybody thanks us for a perfect evening. In fact, there are so many ‘perfects’ ringing round the hall as Jack closes the door behind them that I know I’ve triumphed. But I need to make sure that Jack knows I have.
‘We need to leave at eleven tomorrow,’ I say, turning to him. ‘To get there in time to take Millie for lunch.’
PAST
My life became perfect eighteen months ago, the day Jack danced with Millie in the park. Some of what I told Esther was true—I’d seen Jack in the park the previous Sunday but hadn’t thought he’d be interested in someone like me. First of all, he was exceptionally good-looking and back then I didn’t look as good as I do now. And then there was Millie.
Sometimes I told my boyfriends about her from the beginning, sometimes—if I liked them a lot—I said that I had a younger sister who was away at school but only mentioned that she had Down’s syndrome a few weeks into the relationship. Some, when I told them, didn’t know what to say and didn’t stay around long enough to say anything much at all. Others were interested, supportive even, until they met Millie and were unable to classify her spontaneity as wonderful, as Jack did. Two of the best were still there long after they met her, but even they had trouble accepting what a huge part of my life Millie was.
The clincher was always the same; I’d told Millie from the beginning that when the time came for her to leave her wonderful but highly expensive school she would come and live with me, and I had no intention of letting her down. It meant that six months previously I’d had to let go of Alex, the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with, the man who I’d lived very happily with for two years. But when Millie had turned sixteen, the imminence of her arrival began to weigh heavily on him—which is why I found myself, at thirty-two years old, single once again and seriously doubting that I would ever find a man who would accept both Millie and me.
In the park that day, I wasn’t the only one who noticed Jack, although I was probably the most discreet. Some—mainly the younger women—smiled at him openly, trying to catch his attention, while teenage girls giggled behind their hands and whispered excitedly that he had to be a film star. The older women looked at him appreciatively and then, more often than not, at the man walking beside them, as if they found him wanting. Even the men looked at Jack as he walked through the park, as there was a casual elegance about him that couldn’t be ignored. The only one who remained oblivious to him was Millie. Engrossed in the card game we were playing, there was only one thought in her mind—winning.
Like many others that day in late August, we were picnicking on the grass not far from the bandstand. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jack head for a nearby bench and, when he took a book from his pocket, I turned my attention back to Millie, determined not to let him see me looking at him. As Millie dealt the cards for yet another game, I decided he was probably a foreigner, an Italian perhaps, in London for the weekend with his wife and children who were visiting some monument or other and would join him later.