Husband Material (London Calling #2)(56)

I sort of liked that Mum was bad at deception. Judy, however, as a result of…of…a great many aspects of her tumultuous life history, had no problem with it at all. “Ah, of course.” She beamed.

“Congratulations, old boys. Meant to bring you a gift, but it’s fattening up in the lower pasture.”

“You know,” said Oliver incredibly gently, “I am still a vegan.” It wasn’t much of a protest, but it was more than he would have managed two years ago.

“Not to worry.” Judy seldom let go of an idea once it was in her head. “Keep it in the garden. Good for the grass.”

I wasn’t sure why I was getting into the details of this given that the nonspecific animal in question was almost certainly fictional, but I couldn’t quite help myself. “You realise I live in a top-floor flat, and Oliver’s garden is about eight feet across.”

“Well, that changes things.” Sitting back, Judy stroked her chin thoughtfully. “I’ll have to give you a goat instead.”

I was beginning to feel like I was in one of those improv games where you had to keep saying “yes and” to whatever your partner came up with. “I don’t think we’ve got room for a goat either.”

“Don’t be silly,” Judy told me, undaunted. “Everyone’s got room for a goat. They’re tiny. Practically stackable.”

Thankfully—and I use this word advisedly—Mum came to my rescue. “Judy, stop talking about the marvellous wedding present you are getting them for the wedding you definitely knew about. We are here to eat the extra-special vegan special curry—”

“Mum,” I interrupted. “Have you remembered Gruyère is still not vegan?”

She shrugged. “I found the vegan cheese. You can buy vegan everything these days. You can even buy the vegan bacon. I said to Judy, I said I thought vegans did not like bacon. Why make bacon for people who do not like bacon?”

“It’s not about liking or not liking.” I was hoping my unfailing support of my boyfriend’s dietary choices balanced out my entirely failing to tell my mum we were engaged. “It’s about ethics. Like when you were protesting against nuclear weapons in the eighties.”

A look of worrying comprehension crossed Mum’s face. “Oh. So, he does it to get laid?”

“Yes,” said Oliver, as he de-spanielled the sofa. “My refusal to drink milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.”

“Well,” returned Mum, “since, as I already knew, you are engaged now, you need to have only one boy in your yard.”

It was at about this point that Oliver’s inability to contradict authority figures clashed terminally with Mum’s inability to lie. He turned to me. “Would I be completely out of line in thinking you hadn’t actually told your mother we were getting married at all?”

“What?” cried Mum valiantly. “No. That is outrageous. Why would I have said so many times that Luc had told me you were getting married if he had not told me you were getting married? How could I possibly have known?”

Oliver was looking unconvinced. But also, and this was the important bit, unfurious.

“And what about the goat?” Mum had clearly decided she was going down with the ship. “How could Judy have arranged a goat for the wedding if she had not already heard about the wedding?”

Having created a small oasis in a sea of dog, Oliver sat down and was immediately re-dogged. “Call me a cynic, but it has crossed my mind that the goat might be imaginary.”

“Don’t be silly, Oliver. How can you give somebody an imaginary goat?”

I folded myself onto the floor next to Oliver and put my head in my hands. “Mum, it’s fine. Thanks for covering for me, but you need to stop helping now.”

Mum’s attitude shifted in a nanosecond. “In which case, Luc, I need you to know that I am very offended.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I mumbled. “I meant to, but it was kind of a sudden thing, and I wanted to do it in person, but then I accidentally told Oliver I already had.…”

“Yes”—that was Oliver—“why did you do that, Lucien?”

My head was staying in my hands. It seemed the best place for it. “Well, you’d told your parents so I was worried that you’d think if I hadn’t told Mum it would mean, I don’t know, something.”

“It means,” Mum said, “that Oliver is a better son than you are.”

I looked up. “Then that’s fine. Because you’ve got him now.”

Mum considered this. “That is a fair point.” She sat down on the sofa and put her arm around Oliver. “Luc, this is Oliver, he is my son.

He is a very nice boy, he has a good job and always calls his mother.

Oliver”—she gestured contemptuously at me with her free hand —“this is some ungrateful shit who sometimes comes to my house and eats my curry and complains about it.”

“Mum,” I protested, definitely not sounding like a teenager. “I’m really sorry. There’s been a lot going on recently—”

She tossed her head. “How would I know? You never talk to me.”

“I talk to you all the time. I just didn’t mention this one thing.”