Free The Sunshine And Biscotti Club by Jenny Oliver Page A

mishmash of feelings. An excitement that Peter had broken their agreement not to talk for the first half of the week so that it was a proper break, but also a desire to keep hold of the slight flicker of old Eve that seeing Jimmy had dusted off and was bringing back to light.
    She went over to the lemon grove to answer, pushing her hair back before she did, rubbing her cheeks and positioning herself so she wouldn’t look like she had a double chin or big bags under her eyes when her image came up on screen.
    ‘Hello,’ she said, almost sultry.
    ‘Muuuummmy!’ Noah and Maisey yelled simultaneously.
    ‘Oh, hi, guys,’ she said, smiling, relieved, a tiny bit disappointed that Peter hadn’t even been there to say hello.
    They chattered away about their day, oohing at the big lemons and the fairy lights when she turned the camera round.
    She heard Peter shout, ‘Two minutes till bath time,’ and found herself wanting to tell him about Libby and Jake. Like she was holding a balloon that just got bigger and bigger the more she didn’t tell Peter.
    He’d never met Jimmy. Dex and Jessica he knew to say ‘Hi’ to, but Libby and Jake they had spent time with when they were first dating. Peter had walked away from their first meeting shaking his head. ‘He’s too good-looking for his own good. I can’t talk to him.’
    ‘Does he make you shy and nervous?’ Eve had sniggered as they’d stumbled drunkenly into a taxi.
    ‘No.’ Peter had shaken his head. ‘It’s like he’s not really the one talking. It’s like … Yeah, Claremont Road, it’s the block of flats—you can’t miss it, by the railway. Yeah? Great. It’s like he’s a guy playing him in a film.’
    ‘What? Sorry, I got confused about who you were talking to,’ Eve had said, laughing.
    ‘I’ve got to give the guy directions. You’re coming to mine aren’t you?’ Peter had frowned, clearly suddenly remembering that it would have been polite to ask first.
    ‘And they say chivalry is dead?’ Eve had said, as coy as she could be after most of a bottle of Australian sauvignon blanc, picked without consultation by Jake.
    At the time she’d been more interested in the fact that she was about to have sex with Peter than with anything he had to say about Jake.
    But now, when she couldn’t talk to him because of their agreement, now she remembered what he had said, she wanted to tell Peter that she knew exactly what he’d meant. That the idea of Jake being like a man in a film playing the part of Jake was a very clever observation. The kind of thing that she hoped was in the script he was writing. But if she said that now, in the current state of their relationship, it would sound patronising and if she told him what had happened he’d find out that Jimmy was there and that would lead to a whole other set of problems.
    But he wasn’t talking to her anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
    ‘Night, Mummy,’ said Noah. ‘We missed you but then Daddy took us to the pet shop to look at the puppies and that made it go away.’
    ‘That’s a lovely story, sweetheart.’ She laughed and then wished them goodnight and they all three kissed the screen and then the kids hung up.
    Dex was just coming back down the garden and she waited for him to draw level with her.
    ‘She says she’s fine.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t push it.’
    Eve nodded. As they got back to the table Dex returned to his seat, pouring himself another vodka, but Eve didn’t sit; instead she carried on down to the end of the garden where Jimmy was still standing.
    ‘Everything all right at home?’ he asked as she came up next to him.
    ‘Yeah. Just the kids going to bed.’
    He nodded.
    ‘You like it there? In the country?’
    ‘Yeah.’ Eve nodded, looking out into the falling darkness, at the forest of pine trees rising like witches’ brooms that started at the bottom of the garden and stretched out until they fringed the edge of the lake. Through a gap she could just make