Kate's Wedding by Chrissie Manby Page B

and ended with the Inland Revenue, for example, as had happened the month before.
    So Kate had made sure she had another appointment lined up. She had arranged to meet Helen for dinner at a restaurant close by. If this meeting with Ian went badly, then at least she and Helen would have something to laugh about later. So Kate was pleased and surprised to find that she and Ian had far from run out of conversation by the time the moment to leave rolled around. Quite the opposite, in fact; it was hard to drag herself away. Over dinner, she found herself telling happily married Helen that she thought she might have met someone really nice.
    ‘Oh, yeah? You thought Dan was “really nice” at the beginning,’ Helen reminded her. Helen had held Kate’s hand through her many break-ups from Dan, from the first one, which had only lasted for a week, until the last, which had been surprisingly permanent. Kate often wished she’d taken Helen’s advice to give Dan up as a lost cause far earlier.
    ‘No, really. He is nothing like Dan.’
    ‘Well,’ said Helen, ‘I’m glad to see you looking so excited. Just promise me you’ll be careful. Take it easy. At least make sure he’s not married before you sleep with him.’
    ‘He’s definitely not married,’ said Kate. ‘I think he’s just a straightforward nice guy who’s been too busy setting up his career to settle down. He’s the kind of guy you always said I should look for.’
    Helen picked up her glass. ‘I’ll raise a toast to that.’
    The second date, for which Kate allowed a whole evening, was just as lovely. Kate was impressed by Ian’s modesty, even though throughout the course of the meal it became clear that he had done some pretty impressive stuff with his life. He was very successful in his career. He was a partner in a big accountancy firm. He had grown up in Telford and was the first member of his family to go to university. He hadn’t forgotten his roots, though. He saw his family often. He doted on his nephews, his sister’s boys.
    By the end of the second date, Kate knew that she really, really liked this ordinary man and would definitely be seeing him again. It was just so easy to be with him. Dates three, four and five totally restored her faith in single men.
    With Ian, there was none of the usual trauma she associated with early dates. He called when he said he would. He always wanted to know what she was doing at the weekend. This experience was a world away from the nightmare of the early days with Dan. Kate remembered one horrible Sunday when she and Dan had arranged to have lunch together. He had promised to call first thing on Sunday with the plan. He didn’t call until two o’clock, by which time Kate had already made herself a sandwich. Dan blamed his flakiness on the trauma of his divorce.
    ‘I find it very hard to be pinned down,’ he said.
    ‘It’s hardly being pinned down,’ Kate tried. ‘If you ask someone to have lunch on a Sunday, they in return expect you to call and tell them when and where before one o’clock on the Sunday afternoon.’
    Ian had no psychological excuses for bad behaviour because, it seemed, he simply had no intention of behaving badly.
    After they’d been dating for about three months, Kate and Ian went on a mini-break to Copenhagen. They spent three nights in a charming hotel right by the port.
    ‘This is the first time we’ve spent three nights in a row together,’ Kate pointed out. ‘Do you think we could go for four?’
    ‘I think we could go for a whole lot more than four,’ said Ian.
    Kate had forgotten – or perhaps she had never really known – just how easy a relationship could be. Ian was constantly thinking of ways to amuse her. One morning, having stayed over, he left a note in her fridge, on a Post-it stuck to the milk.
    ‘You are lovely,’ was all it said.
    It was such a simple little gesture, but it reduced Kate to happy tears. There were so many moments like that.
    Kate hadn’t