“Yes,” says Laurel. “That’s Hanna. She’s not a little girl anymore though. She’s going to be twenty-eight next week.”
“And is this your son?”
“Yes. That’s Jake. My oldest one. He’ll be thirty in January.”
“He looks nice,” she says. “Is he nice?”
Laurel puts the wine in the fridge and turns back to Poppy. “He’s... well, yes. He’s very nice. I don’t really see much of him these days unfortunately. He lives in Devon.”
“Has he got a girlfriend?”
“Yes. She’s called Blue and they live together in a little gingerbread cottage with chickens in the garden. He’s a surveyor. I’m not sure what she does. Something to do with knitting, I think.”
“Do you like her? It sounds as if you don’t like her.”
Laurel and Floyd exchange another look. She’s waiting for him to pull Poppy back a bit, rein her in. But he doesn’t. He watches her in something approaching awe as though waiting to see just how far she will go.
“I barely know her,” Laurel says, trying to soften her tone. “She seems perfectly OK. A bit, maybe,controlling.” She shrugs. “Jake’s a grown man, though; if he wants to be controlled by another human being, I guess that’s his lookout.”
She invites them to sit down and eat some crisps. Floyd does so, but Poppy is still stalking the room, investigating. “Have you got a picture of your husband?” she says.
“Ex-husband,” Laurel corrects, “and no. Not on display. But somewhere, I’m sure.”
“What’s his name?”
“Paul.”
Poppy nods. “What’s he like?”
She smiles at Floyd, looking to be rescued, but he looks as keen to find out about Paul as his daughter. “Oh,” she says. “Paul? He’s lovely, actually. He’s a really lovely man. Very gentle. Very kind. A bit daft.”
“Then why did you split up?”
Ah. There it was. Silly her, not to have seen the conversational cul-de-sac she was walking straight into. And still Floyd does not come to her rescue, simply scoops some dip onto a pita chip and pops it into his mouth.
“We just... well, we changed. We wanted different things. The children grew up and left home and we realized we didn’t want to spend the rest of our lives together.”
“Did he marry someone else?”
“No. Not quite. But he has a girlfriend. They live together.”
“Is she nice? Do you like her?”
“I’ve never met her. But my children have. They say she’s very sweet.”
Poppy finally seems sated and takes a seat next to her father, who grips her knee and gives it a quick hard squeeze as if to saygood job on grilling the lady. Then he leans toward the coffee table and places a hand on the neck of the Cava and says, “Well, shall I?”
“Yes. Please. How did you get here? Are you driving?”
“No. We got the tube. Do you have an extra glass?”
She’s confused for a moment and then realizes that he wants the extra glass for Poppy. “Oh,” she says. “Sorry. I didn’t think. It’s the French way, isn’t it?”
“What’s the French way?” asks Poppy.
“Children drinking,” she explains. “Not something that happens much in other countries.”
“Only champagne,” says Floyd. “Only a sip. And only on very special occasions.”