Don’t You Forget About Me(4)

I was a little anguished, but we’d set a course we had to sail now. I could raise it later. Later. I could barely believe it’d arrive. My head swam.

I was drinking cider and black, too fast: I could feel my inhibitions dissolving in its acidic fizzle. Richard – now, Rick, I’d learned – Hardy said: ‘You look fit.’ I quivered, murmured thanks. ‘Like a high class prozzy with a heart of gold. That’s your “look”, right?’

‘Hahaha,’ I said, while everyone fell about. This was grown-up banter and I was lucky to be part of it.

As the evening wore on, I felt like I was in a circle of light and laughter, among the halo-ed ones, and I didn’t know why I’d underestimated myself until now. I mean, OK I was inebriated, but suddenly, being liked seemed a total cinch.

Jo and I shared a wondering look with each other: could school really be over? We’d survived? And we were going out on a high?

‘Hey, George.’

Rick Hardy beckoned me over. He was calling me George, now?! Oh, I had truly cracked this thing. He was leaning against a wall by a bin of tins, with the usual gaggle of sycophants around him. Rumours were he wasn’t going to bother with university: his band was getting ‘big label interest’.

‘I want to show you something,’ he said.

‘OK.’

‘Not here.’

Rick unstuck himself from the wall in one sinuous, nascent rock star move, and handed his drink to an admirer. He outstretched a palm and gestured for mine – I could feel multiple pairs of eyes swivel towards us – and said: ‘Come with me.’

In surprise, I put my drink down with a bump, put my hand into his and let him lead me through the throng. My bets were on either a new car or a large spliff. I could style either out.

I glanced over at Lucas to reassure him this wasn’t anything, obviously. He gave me the exact same look as when I’d first been sat next to him.

How badly are you going to hurt me?





1


Now


‘And the soup today is carrot and tomato,’ I conclude, with a perky note of ta-dah! flourish that orange soup doesn’t justify.

(‘Is carrot and tomato soup even a thing?’ I said to head chef Tony, as he poked a spoon into a cauldron bubbling with ripe vegetal odours. ‘It is now, Tinkerbell tits.’ I don’t think Tony graduated from the Roux Academy. Or the charm academy.) In truth, I put a bit of flair into the performance for my own sake, not the customers’. I am not merely a waitress, I’m a spy from the world of words, gathering material. I watch myself from the outside.

The disgruntled middle manager-type man with a depressed-looking wife scans the laminated options at That’s Amore! The menu is decorated with clip art of the leaning tower of Pisa, a fork twirling earthworms, and a Pavarotti who looks like the Sasquatch having a stroke.

He booked as Mr Keith, which sounded funny to me although there’s an actress called Penelope Keith so it shouldn’t really.

‘Carrot and tomato? Oh no. No, I don’t think so.’

Me either.

‘What do you recommend?’

I hate this question. An invitation to perjury. Tony has told me: ‘Push spaghetti vongole on the specials, the clams aren’t looking too clever.’

What I recommend is the Turkish place, about five minutes away.

‘How about the arrabiata?’

‘Is that spicy? I don’t like heat.’

‘Slightly spicy but quite mild, really.’

‘What’s mild to you might not be mild to me, young lady!’

‘Why ask for my recommendations then?’ I mutter, under my breath.

‘What?’

I grit-simper. An important skill to master, the grit-simper. I bend down slightly, hands on knees, supplicant.

‘… Tell me what you like.’

‘I like risotto.’

Maybe you could just choose the risotto then, am I over thinking this?

‘… But it’s seafood,’ he grimaces. ‘Which seafood is it?’

It’s in Tupperware with SEA FOOD marker penned on it and looks like stuff you get as bait in angling shops.

‘A mixture. Clams … prawns … mussels …’

I take the order for carbonara with a sinking heart. This man has Strident Feedback written all over him and this place gives both the discerning and the undiscerning diner plenty to go at.

Here’s what some of TripAdvisor’s current top-rated comments say about That’s Amore!

This place redefines dismal. The garlic bread was like someone found a way to put bad breath on toast, though they’re right, it did complement the paté perfectly, which tasted like it had been made from a seafront donkey. The house white is Satan’s sweat. I saw a chef who looked like a dead Bee Gee scratching his crown jewels when the door to the kitchen was ajar, so I left before they could inflict the main course on me. Sadly, I will never know if the Veal Scallopini would’ve turned it all around. But the waiter promised me everything was ‘locally sourced and free range’ so there’s probably a Missing Cat poster somewhere nearby if you follow my drift Admittedly I was stoned out of my gourd on my first and last visit to this hell hole, but what the f**k is ‘Neepsend Prawn’? This city is not known for its coastline. I would have the Pollo alla Cacciatora at this restaurant as my Death Row meal, in the sense it would really take the sting out of what was to come I told the owner of That’s Amore! that it was the worst Bolognese I’d ever tasted, like mince with ketchup. He said it was the way his Nonna made it in her special recipe, I said in that case his ‘Nonna’ couldn’t cook & he accused me of insulting his family! I’m not being funny but he looked about as Italian as Boris Becker That’s Shit more like