Don’t You Forget About Me(55)

They’ll have one drink, maybe two, I tell myself, then go. Breathe. I serve them with a broad smile that I’m determined to keep fixed on my face for the duration of Robin’s visit.

The table with Rav, Clem, Jo and my sister and brother-in-law is at the far side, and they are yet to notice Robin’s presence. I find my phone in my bag, text Jo: ‘Robin’s here. Tell everyone to act indifferent, like I’ve barely said a word about him since we broke up xx’

And to think I thought this shift would be stressful for an entirely different reason.

Yet the speed with which Robin sinks his beer, and is soon up at the bar holding foam-streaked glasses for refills, is not promising. He was always a lightweight who got bladdered easily.

Kitty hisses: ‘Georgina, Georgina, that’s Robin McNee! He was on that show on Dave last year,’ to me, after she serves him, and he sits back down, with more meaningful eyeballing at me. He glowered at me the whole time Kitty got his drinks, while I pretended to concentrate on rinsing the nozzles on the glass cordial bottles.

Yuck, I hate how he’s trying to act as if we had this deep connection, now cruelly severed.

‘Yeah I know,’ I say. ‘How do you know who he is?’

‘Idiot Soup! Ta ta ta tum tum tum, IDIOT SOUP,’ she trills the theme tune to the dire panel show on Dave, on which Robin is a regular fixture. ‘My ex loved it. Six cans, doner kebab from Chubby’s, Idiot Soup, perfect night in, he said.’

‘Not surprised he’s your ex,’ I say with a smile, and Kitty says: ‘How did you recognise him if you don’t watch it?’

‘Another regretted ex,’ I say, which I congratulate myself on being both a niftily misleading and yet entirely accurate answer.

My feeling of self-congratulation is short lived.

Robin’s table is littered with empty packets folded into foam-streaked glasses which I’m avoiding collecting, his voice is loud enough to carry in its inebriated ebullience. Robin’s always been a half pint warrior in terms of tolerance, the signs here are not good.

By my count, Robin’s had three pints now, with two sidecar shots of Spud potato vodka – damn it, The Wicker, do you have to stock interesting spirits with artistic bottles that catch your eye, and provide playful excuses for excessive imbibing? And now he’s back up for pint four. It’s obvious he’s not letting Al get a round so that he doesn’t miss a chance to harass me.

‘Six pounds forty-two pence, please.’ I set what I dearly hope will be his last drinks on the beer towel.

‘How are you able to turn your feelings off, and pull the shutters down?’ Robin says.

I ignore this and turn back to the till.

The answer of course is that there weren’t many feelings to turn off, and what I’m thinking is ‘get lost’. But this is a trap – if I say that, Robin will act even more like a wounded animal.

And it is an act, whether he thinks it is or not – he’s enjoying trying on the new role of spurned lover.

He told me, when we were together: ‘I’m not being, like, Justin Bieber, but people tend to fall for me rather than me fall for them, which is useful material, as a writer.’ I should’ve said, You sound nice, and got out at my soonest opportunity, but I thought I had things to learn from Robin. As a writer, as a maverick mind. Oh, Horspool, you dick.

I bet because I finished with Robin, it’s a novelty to him, not getting to choose the moment.

I mean, I’d always subconsciously anticipated my own dumping. I wasn’t so stupid or deluded that I hadn’t gleaned what my treatment would be, from his tales of his exes.

‘I’m no use as a man or beast to you during the Edinburgh Fest, it wouldn’t be fair on you, the comedians’ trade fair takes every drop of vigour in me I have. Let’s give each other our freedom for the time being, and see if we reconnect, further down the line.’ (Translation, he had his eye on removing the dungarees of some sassy petite American woman, lower down the bill from him at The Pleasance, and three weeks is a long time to go without when you’re paying rent on a place in the New Town. However, should he feel randy and at a loose end on return to Sheffield, it will be fine to call me. She’s cool with it, she’s really cool.)

He’s mistaken the surprise of this inconvenience for heartbreak.

‘I can’t stop looking at you, Georgina,’ Robin says, under his breath, as I give him his change. I drop character for a second in irritation and snap: ‘Yeah, can you not?’

I hadn’t noticed Lucas behind us until this moment, and I can sense him listening. I curse Robin.

‘Everything alright?’ Lucas says to me, and I say ‘Yes, fine,’ with a speed that’s almost a snap.

What makes me mad is that if Robin were a woman, this would be called bunny boiler behaviour. As a man, and an artist no less, it’s noble suffering. This is a whole dark third album, about how she done gone ruined you.

Another customer appears and I say ‘YES, PLEASE?’ pointedly, and step away.

When Robin sits down, I notice the FAC 51 t-shirt man has gone up to him, a friend in tow. Oh, no – selfies? Signing beer mats? Lots of jovial male back and forth and handshaking?

‘They recognise Robin McNee too!’ Kitty excitedly hiss-whispers. ‘Lucas, you know who he is, right?’

‘Can’t say I do,’ Lucas says, and his eyes move to me, revealing he definitely overheard the nature of Robin’s remarks.