Free Back to Vanilla by Jennifer Maschek Page B

simply what you saw, and
she had the advantage of a certain distance, which perhaps allowed
her to be kinder.
    Their first meeting
had, she supposed, been a highly staged one 12 years previously,
and slightly fraught for their children, then much younger adults.
They were both there clutching hands and waiting as she walked into
the Mediterranean-influenced restaurant in London’s Upper Street,
which, she’d been assured, catered superbly for her daughter’s
newly discovered vegetarianism.
    There was a bustling
little shop area as she walked in, which turned into a larger
eating room down the centre of which ran two long wooden tables,
space for maybe 14 people on each, and with more discrete tables
for two and four lining the edges. Brass lampshades punctuated the
centre of the ceiling. The place was mainly painted white, but made
colourful by organic elements everywhere, the rich purples, reds,
greens and yellows of fruits, vegetables and grains temptingly
mixed in various combinations in bowl upon wooden bowl. Where the
salads ended the cakes began, glossy and tempting. The place was
not packed but already semi-buzzing by 7pm on a Thursday evening.
The food smelt delectable and she was hungry.
    Lyall was, on the
surface at least, as laidback as ever, if a little more attentive –
concerned about her drink, her lack of spoon, and his father’s
increasingly late arrival – whereas her daughter had simply been
quiet, like she always got when something felt important to her.
The little she’d gleaned about Lorna’s future father-in-law she
intuitively liked the sound of, although the anecdotes came out in
fits and spurts, which, she had to confess, possibly made him seem
more compelling.
    When she pieced
together the facts, he was a journalist, Scottish, had divorced
Lyall’s mother as a result of what seemed simply to be a
straightforward drifting apart, when the boy was just eight, and
she knew both that he’d insisted on having joint custody and that
there was no hint of it having been contested. Having spoken at
length via Skype to Lexi, whom she wasn’t due to meet in person
until the wedding in late September, she liked her a lot, and had
picked up no trace of animosity towards her ex. In reality, Lexi
spoke of him much more kindly than Jane would ever have spoken
about Lorna’s dad. It fact, her Edinburgh uptightness softened
along with her eyes when his name came up. These were all good
portents.
    Lyall, she had picked
up, had spent much of his childhood crossing between homes in the
Scottish capital, before studying English at UCL, his first taking
him straight on to a job as an editorial assistant down the road
from where they now sat chatting about the menu, the smells
surrounding them, increasingly keen to sample the food.
    They were just
reaching that tricky stage of waiting where the small talk has
fizzled out and there’s no point sinking your teeth into anything
deeper, when he pitched up. Back then, not so long ago really,
Alasdair cut a tall, solid presence, a self-assured man in his
mid-50s dressed in a dark jacket, flamboyantly frilled white shirt
and a green tartan kilt; the latter item of clothing took Jane
completely by surprise, but not as much as the mesmerising effect
his general demeanour had on her. At that moment, she had no idea
what she’d been expecting, but this amiable and charismatic figure
had most certainly not been it.
    “So, can you believe
that these two youngsters haven’t learnt from the blighted lessons
of their forefathers, and still insist, in the 21st century, on
tying the knot?” was his opening line, as he approached the table.
And after shaking hands with his son, whom he hadn’t yet seen
during that visit, before clasping him into an enormous bear hug,
he gripped his future daughter-in-law warmly to his chest and
turned to Jane.
    “Here’s the point
where I should perhaps comment on the apple not falling far from
the tree, seeing two such beautiful woman