Don’t You Forget About Me(58)
‘Oh God, no!’ I say. ‘No. Absolutely not.’
‘OK.’ He rattles the keys.
I see Lucas trying to fit me together with this man, who he got the measure of in ten seconds flat. No doubt the ‘fitting us together’ mental process damages his opinion of me. I wilt. It damages my opinion of me.
23
A constant low level static crackle of sexual interest and harassment, like next door’s humming maggot tanks, is something I am so used to in the hospitality trade, I mostly tune it out.
Until The Wicker, I’d never seen it happen to a man before. It didn’t take long for Lucas McCarthy to arouse the interest of the female clientele. Possibly some males too, though they’re less conspicuous.
Phone numbers on beer mats get slid across the bar. Outright offers are made at closing time by the sozzled. Whispering, giggling groups heavily laden with floral Jo Malone scents come in, and choose particular tables that offer a good view. Kitty and I get asked ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Is he single?’ on the regular. ‘Is the dark-haired guy working tonight?’ is a question which, if answered in the negative, causes faces to fall.
If Lucas notices any of this, he doesn’t let on, the attention bouncing off his self-contained, serious demeanour. When directly asked out, he shrugs and smiles, bats it away as a patently non-serious query. Don’t get enough time off. Same again?
Today he’s got the open fire at the far end of the main bar going again, after tearing the old boxy fascia from its charming period features in a soot-caked, bare-forearmed bout of manly practical labour that I didn’t notice whatsoever, obviously.
The same can’t be said for a couple of thirty-somethings who I could swear were taking covert photos. Imagery of Lucas is now whizzing around on WhatsApp groups, captioned with tongue-lolling emojis, and he is entirely oblivious. I felt protective, which I’m sure is empathy, as someone who’s had her fair share of arse pinches from slimy old fellas.
When the mid-week shift enters its last hour, Lucas reappears after a shower upstairs, hair still slightly damp, puts a bottle of beer into the opener, flips the lid, drinks.
He says, nodding his head at the Share Your Shame poster:
‘Heard from laughing boy since Saturday?’ He pauses. ‘Tell me if I’m overstepping.’
I’m immediately embarrassed and mutter Oh no, thank God. It reveals Lucas has been thinking about me, however, and I don’t know if this is a good thing or not. My friends had been in touch with a deluge of ‘FUCK HIM’-style texts and calls the next day, including a rather heartfelt ‘And I thought I had issues with Phil’ from Jo, and Esther, in typical Esther way had called to say, ‘You don’t half pick them, Gog.’ But then, more gently, ‘Let me know if you want to talk about it. No one treats my sister like that.’ I appreciate this, even if it is an objectively untrue statement.
Deafening silence from Robin, which I hope rather than believe to be a permanent state of affairs.
‘I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I got a bad feeling about him,’ Lucas says.
‘Hah, yep. You’ve saved time there.’
Lucas pauses, waiting for me to go on. I realise this is a gesture of friendship, and possibly an attempt to get to know me.
‘Thank you again for being so quick about kicking him out,’ I say. ‘He’s malicious. He does these vicious things, supposedly light-heartedly. He plays everything for laughs even when the effect on you is far from funny. Comedians, I guess.’
Lucas visibly relaxes and says: ‘Yes. My assessment exactly. I’ve said to Dev, it was a power play disguised as a declaration of love. He discussed your personal life, in the middle of your workplace. It was an act of aggression.’
I nod vigorously, even as my gut crimps a little at the thought of lovely Dev hearing about this shitshow too. Dev’s been back from Ireland since Monday and is currently out back tinkering with the kitchen equipment, so it’s just Lucas and me behind the bar for the moment.
‘Yep,’ I agree. ‘This isn’t about getting me back. It’s about winning.’
Your personal life – my stomach flexes. Robin regaled them about Lou, my walking in on them. Lucas must think my life is a bin fire on a patch of wasteland.
Much as I hate that he bore witness to Robin’s speech, I’m also struck by real gratitude for a responsible adult spending the time to form an opinion, and not coming to the popular conclusion that it’s my fault.
‘I don’t want to alarm you but he didn’t strike me as someone who will give up, any time soon either,’ Lucas says. ‘If he’s got anything personal he thinks he can use against you … well. Get in first and threaten him with a writ, or a baseball batting.’
I suspect Lucas means naked pictures, and I feel heat rising in my face. Lucas breaks eye contact, on the pretext of fussing over Keith, and as I watch him continue to avoid my gaze, I’m certain he means revenge porn. Thank God, Robin and I were a notch too old and I’m a notch too prudish for that.
And I had always known that Robin was careless – if anyone was going to accidentally send a photo of my lace-clad buttocks to the group LADS WALK PENNINE WAY: SEPTEMBER on WhatsApp, it’d have been him.
‘No, nothing of a sensitive or unclothed nature whatsoever. Thank God. I am not a fan of what I believe are called “belfies”.’