Beneath the Skin(25)

‘How are you doing, man?’ Sami asks.

He shakes Mike’s hand at the bar of the Royal Oak. It started as a joke, the handshake, but neither of them can recall why. There were so many quips and so much laughter in the Boot Room that this particular lore has got lost. ‘Are you off to the match tomorrow?’

‘I am, but I’m not renewing next season if they carry on playing so bloody badly. All that money and they’re still rubbish. They need a new manager,’ Mike replies.

‘Funny, I feel as though I’ve heard that before. Now if you stuck with one manager instead of binning them every two minutes …’

‘Yeah, well, even for twenty championships I wouldn’t have had Beetroot Face if he was the last manager in the land. You still pretending to be a Red, Sami?’

‘Only when a client invites me for champagne and prawn sandwiches. Come on, even you wouldn’t turn down a corporate freebie.’

‘You’re right.’

‘I’m always right, man. Though trying to convince the wife is another matter.’

Mike inwardly winces at the expression ‘the wife’. ‘She has a name, you know. You are so bloody sexist,’ Olivia reprimands Sami whenever she hears him use it.

He glances at Sami. ‘Everything OK?’ he asks.

‘You know Sophie.’ Sami looks thoughtful for a moment then laughs. ‘Nothing I can’t sort out. What’s going on in here? It’s bloody empty tonight. Maybe it’s the scaffolding. Always said this place would fall down.’

‘Easy bet, Sam. It is seventeenth century! A pint or a pint?’

‘Hello, chaps. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.’

Mike and Sami turn towards the voice. It’s Charlie Proctor, white-faced and sweaty. ‘Bloody hell, Charlie, what are you doing here?’ Mike laughs. ‘Has Helen let you out or did you escape?’

‘Thought Friday nights were spent in bed with your experienced older wife,’ Sami teases.

‘I escaped and I’m here to get legless,’ Charlie replies, breathing heavily. ‘Be a good man and get me a whisky, would you? It’s bloody cold out there. Has David arrived yet? He’s not answering his phone, but I tried Antonia and she said he was here.’

‘Perhaps he’s got, er, waylaid?’ Sami replies glancing at Mike with a grin.

Mike studies Charlie’s baffled face. There’s something innocent and childlike about his expression, even though he usually looks far older than his years.

‘I’m sure he’ll be here in a couple of minutes,’ he says, putting a reassuring hand on Charlie’s arm. Then he grins. ‘Come on Charlie, spill the beans, what’s Helen done to upset you?’

‘Should we talk about the book at some point?’ Antonia asks no one in particular. The other women are Sophie’s friends. They’re deep in discussion about local gossip, the latest series on Netflix and the Kardashians, leaving Antonia in her familiar place on the periphery. She likes to talk about the book choice. Her secretly made notes are stashed in her handbag. Hopeless at school, leaving with only a few low-grade GCSEs to her name, she’s recently discovered novels and can’t get enough of them. But a hum of women with lots to say surrounds her in Sophie’s warm, brightly coloured front room, none of it about the book.

‘I’ve read the book!’ Sophie announced earlier to the eight or so book clubbers in the room. ‘Though maybe not all of it.’

Which is progress, Antonia thinks. Sophie usually reads a summary of the chosen novel on the internet and still manages to have an opinion. Still, it’s Sophie who suggested the book club originally, so Antonia isn’t complaining, and one or two of the women are nice. She leans over to Sophie, whose unusually heavy eye make-up has smudged quite noticeably.

‘Couldn’t Olivia come?’ she asks.

‘Was I supposed to invite her?’ Sophie replies with a shrug. ‘Where have all the crisps gone?’

‘Sophie, that’s not fair. Olivia is nice and we’ve known her for ages. How would you like it if you weren’t included?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know, would I? Anyway it’s Olivia’s fault for being so forgettable.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘She’s so mumsy with all that right-on Chorlton-cum-Hardy Breast Is Best stuff. All she ever talks about are those boring children. “Rachel’s so clever, she could recite Karl Marx when she was in the womb.” And the other one who cries all the time, whatever her name is, “So awfully, awfully cute.” And they go to state school, don’t you know. Well, so did we! I don’t remember anyone giving us a medal.’

Antonia lowers her voice. ‘If children are so boring, Sophie, why are you trying to have one?’

‘Oh sod off, Antonia. At times you’re as dull as she is.’

Sophie’s voice is harsh and the other book clubber heads twitch towards hers, too polite to stare, but Antonia is sure their ears are open wide. Sophie’s voice drops, the husky catch more prominent than when she’s sober. ‘Anyway, Toni, why are you so bothered? I didn’t think mumsies were your type. Thought you only loved me. Why don’t you have a drink and chill out?’

Antonia stands up and straightens her skirt. She’s aware that the other women are now openly staring; she wishes they wouldn’t. ‘I’d rather go home, actually.’