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There’s not much I can do about that.’
    He scowls, as if I might be making this up, and enjoy consuming vast quantities of electricity just for the hell of it. ‘Couldn’t you make something different? Something that cooks quicker?’
    I burst out laughing. ‘What d’you have in mind?’
    ‘I dunno,
you’re
the baker.’ With that, he turns his attention back to the TV where the presenter is extolling the virtues of a composting toilet.
    ‘Oh, and just so you know,’ I add, my voice drifting like tumbleweed, ‘the girls are coming over later to test flavours.’
    Logan throws me a bemused look. ‘The girls,’ he sniggers.
    ‘Okay,’ I say, my voice rising a little, ‘
the women
are coming over. Is that better?’
    Fergus chuckles. ‘That sounds as if you don’t actually like them very much.’
    ‘So when are they coming?’ Logan wants to know.
    ‘About seven-ish.’
    ‘Ugh, all that talking and laughing …’
    ‘I know – hideous,’ I snigger, catching Fergus’s eye who grins in return. ‘We shouldn’t be allowed to congregate en masse.’
    But thank God we do, I think, leaving him to ogle the eco-house while Logan gets up and heads out, to meet his
people
.
    *
    ‘I never realised Anthony was like that,’ Ingrid exclaims later as I set down plates of freshly baked meringues on the kitchen table. ‘What a complete creep. I feel so responsible. If I’d known, I’d have warned you off.’
    ‘It’s not your fault,’ I assure her as Kirsty and Viv munch on my confections, equally dismayed by the outcome of my date. ‘You didn’t exactly throw us together and force me to go out with him. I thought he was nice, actually. A proper grown-up …’
    I’m aware that I have this
grown-up-in-a-good-way
thing, probably as a reaction against all those years spent with Tom. I don’t mean grown-up as in, ‘Every Saturday will be spent trundling around Homebase until I drop down dead.’ More, ‘It’s okay – I can fix things and throw a meal together, and I’ll never expect you to remember my relatives’ birthdays.’ An in-this-together sort of feeling … like we’re equals. If I occasionally yearn for anything, it’s that.
    ‘I guess there was no way of knowing he likes being smacked with utensils,’ sniggers Kirsty.
    ‘Well,
I
thought he looked creepy,’ declares Viv, smoothing back her neat auburn crop. ‘I tried to communicate that to you every time I came into the kitchen.’
    ‘No, you didn’t,’ I tease her. ‘Whenever you glanced over you gave me an indulgent smile, as if to say, “Ah, that’s nice, Alice enjoying some adult male company for a change.”’
    ‘No, I didn’t. God, you’d have no end of male company if you wanted it, if you
put out some signals
. You’d be fighting them off with sticks …’
    We all laugh, and I quickly shush them as Fergus scampers in to grab a bottle of Lucozade from the fridge and barks a speedy hello before disappearing again.
    ‘Does he know about your date?’ Kirsty murmurs.
    ‘Yep. Heard me muttering to myself about Anthony plunging his tongue down my throat …’
    Viv splutters. ‘That’s the kind of conversation you have with yourself?’
    A strawberry meringue dissolves in my mouth. ‘Sadly, yeah. I probably traumatised my poor boy …’
    ‘Bet he’d love you to meet someone, though,’ Kirsty suggests.
    ‘You really think so?’ I laugh dryly. ‘He interrogated me after Anthony called today. God knows how things would be if I dared to bring a man back to the flat. I’d have to smuggle him in, covered in a blanket, like a criminal being ushered into a police van. And then we’d lie in bed, as silent as lambs in case Fergus – his bedroom is next to mine, remember – got wind of some action and set off his translator to spite me: “
I have been raped!
”’
    Everyone howls with laughter.
Seriously, though, is it any wonder I find the very thought of sex rather anxiety-making?
    I glance at Viv who, perhaps in