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sure if she was impressed or mocking me. I wasn’t sure about a lot of things, when I first met Melanie.
    ‘Afraid so,’ I said.
    She pushed her fringe back from her face and looked at me intently for a moment, brown eyes narrowed. It made me a little uncomfortable. But then she smiled. ‘So do you like it here,
then?’
    ‘Oh
yes
,’ I said, and she nodded, and smiled a little wider. Her front teeth were incredibly even and straight, apart from her eye teeth which were larger than the rest and
protruded somewhat, giving her a slightly canine look. Yet she was strikingly good-looking, in a natural, rather unkempt kind of way; tall, with long, thick dark hair that fell in heavy layers
around her shoulders. ‘I just can’t get to grips with the school run,’ I said. ‘That’s why we’re late again. My son has just started at Renfree Park, and getting
from one school to the other on time is a nightmare. Lots of people must have children at both schools. How do they all do it?’
    Melanie laughed. ‘We help each other out,’ she said pointedly, as if this was a concept we might not have heard of in London. ‘You know, pick up each others’ kids. Lift
share.’ And then she said, ‘I’ve got a boy at Renfree Park, in Year 9. But it’s easy for us because our house is near the school.’
    ‘My Sam’s in Year 9,’ I said, perhaps too eagerly.
    She gave me that intent look again. ‘Mm,’ she said. ‘Don’t know if Max has said anything about a new boy from
Lon
don.’
    ‘Oh. Well. Sam’s quite shy. I’m not sure if he really knows anyone yet,’ I said, and straight away I wanted to kick myself. I’d said it almost as an apology, as if
I was apologizing for Sam. And I’d labelled him, again.
    We stood there, awkward, for a moment. At least, I felt awkward. Melanie, quite clearly, was weighing me up. Then she said, ‘I’m organizing a football tournament at Renfree. You can
help if you want. Get your boy involved.’
    ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Thanks. That’d be great.’ I was so pathetically grateful. I’d never helped organize anything in my life before – I’m just not
that sort. But that could all change. And Sam wasn’t particularly interested in football, but that too could change.
    ‘It’s the first Sunday in December,’ she said. ‘We make a day of it. You could help with the food.’
    ‘I’d love to,’ I lied, and Melanie’s eyes narrowed just slightly.
    ‘Good,’ she said.
    Quickly, before I lost my nerve, I said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got time for a coffee?’ and immediately realized my foolishness because there was nowhere to go for a
coffee. The village contained a handful of streets lined with beautiful old cottages, the church, a miniature council estate (which was absolutely nothing like the council estates I was used to in
London), a post-office-cum-general-store, the primary school and that regrettable second-hand car dealer.
    Melanie’s eyes narrowed a little more and I knew exactly what she was thinking.
You can forget your Starbucks on every corner, here
.
    ‘Or a walk,’ I said. ‘If you like.’
    She carried on looking at me. Under her stare, I felt utterly exposed.
    ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you get in your car and follow me back to mine?’
    She drove fast, as people who are used to country roads often tend to, and I struggled to keep up with her. Her little red car kept disappearing and it was down to me to speed
up, much more than I was happy with. She didn’t slow down. She’d told me she lived near Sam’s school so I knew we were headed for the town, but it wasn’t until we hit the
queue for the main traffic lights that I could relax. Then, when we’d slowed right down, she wound down her window, stuck out her hand and jabbed her finger over the roof of her car to the
left a couple of times, and gave me the thumbs up.
    She lived in the centre of the town, in the same street as the butcher’s. Her house was