Don’t You Forget About Me(61)

I am jealous of her.





24


Esther you didn’t tell Mum & G about the free Robin stand-up show, did you?

No! Why?

I have been summoned for a ‘coffee and a cake’ by them and Mum won’t say why. It reeks of Having A Quiet Word About Something. Gx

Well, not guilty. I told them your writing was really good though so maybe it’s to congratulate you

AHAHHAHHAHA. YEAH. X

I pocket my phone and twitch with low level anxiety. Mum gets on at me plenty, but she’s never gnomic and mysterious.

Across the street, in khaki Barbour, Geoffrey approaches me. Something in his clenched, determined expression is unpromising. He is not doing a saunter, or a cheery amble.

‘Hi! Where’s Mum?’ I say, warily. Hoping for ‘just parking the car’ while knowing Geoffrey would never let a woman drive him.

‘She’s not coming,’ he says, awkwardly.

‘Oh. Is she not well?’

‘Bit under the weather, yes,’ Geoffrey says.

Oh God, have they had a fight? Why didn’t they cancel? My shoulders hunch at what lies before me – a whole social occasion with only Geoffrey. I’d hoped to end my days never experiencing that. I reluctantly follow him into the café, trying to make sure my thought processes aren’t revealed by involuntary grimacing.

He jangles his change in his pocket and makes a show of inspecting the cake display.

‘What’ll it be? Those little tarts with kiwis look enticing. Or perhaps a French Horn.’

‘Uhm …’ I’m not hungry at all – who is, for afternoon tea? – but I feel I should show willing and ask for a bun with my coffee.

‘I’ll just have a cuppa I think,’ Geoffrey says, after. Great. He can’t be arsed with his half of this charade.

He tries to order by rapping knuckles on the glass case of patisserie, until a wrung-out looking waitress looks over and explains it’s table service. Geoffrey has that manner with strangers where he’s not rude, exactly, but always several shades brisker than he needs to be, giving me the adolescent wince of embarrassment. Without doubt, he would crash and burn on the Waiter Test.

We find seats, winding our way past a sixty-something man reading the paper and eating an egg custard tart, and it makes me think of outings with Dad. I crush the thought as soon as it’s formed because with Geoffrey here instead, the universe is warped and will be forever. It’s like ripping the stitches out of a wound that never heals.

I find a table and a waitress follows, setting plates and cups down with our order. I pinch my Elephant’s Foot, take a tiny bite, wipe the chocolate from my hands with a paper napkin and wonder how on earth I’ll find half an hour’s conversation with Geoffrey.

‘Has Mum seen a doctor?’

Geoffrey shakes his head while blowing on his tea.

‘I might pop round,’ I say.

‘No no no, no need for that, she’s sleeping actually. I’m sure she’ll be right as rain by tomorrow.’

I sense from this antsy response that Mum isn’t ill at all. This is a set-up, either between the two of them, or Geoffrey’s fibbing?

‘What are her symptoms?’ I say.

‘Dicky tummy. Bit personal, I don’t think she’d thank me for going into it. Let your mum have a day off being “Mum”, eh?’

Yet more distilled essence of Geoffrey. You could dab it behind your ears and repel insects. Natural concern for my mum, reconfigured as me being demanding.

At least he didn’t say she’s ‘walked into a door’. I ponder briefly if he’d be capable and decide he’s far more of a mental torturer.

‘It gives us a chance for a catch-up,’ he adds, greasily, and I realise I’ve been tricked. Ugh they’ve said: something something two of you bonding. Resentment and apprehensiveness settles over me.

‘How have you been?’ he asks.

‘Fine, thanks, really good,’ I say, emphatically. ‘You?’

‘Oh you know. Trucking along. Still working at that pub?’

He knows I am.

‘Yes.’

‘Going well, is it?’

‘It’s good, it’s great, actually,’ I say. ‘It’s proper Victoriana but with mod cons, my favourite sort of pub. They’ve really turned it around. And they seem very responsible owners. A world away from That’s Amore! And the food’s good too. Soup and sandwiches and so on, but by keeping it basic, they’ve kept it good. No Thai banquet-meets-Venetian-small-plates-fusion sort of over-reach.’

I stop short of suggesting they pop in and try it. I can see Geoffrey’s ‘smelling guff’ face over his Gala Pie.

‘Can working in a pub really be great?’ Geoffrey says, and my ire rises. This is the danger of a one-to-one, there are no restraining influences on either of us.

‘Yes, when it’s a nice place to be, and you like the customers and the bosses.’

Geoffrey stirs his tea and looks round the room in an infuriating silence, designed to express doubt or indifference.

My God, every time I’m in his company, I remember I’m right to dislike him. It’s a fact-based position. I vaguely worried I’d chosen a flamboyant aversion because it was loyal to Dad, and made me the smart one – contrasting stylishly with Esther’s policy of appeasement. Luxuriating in what Esther calls my Little Sister Freedoms. (I.e. she’ll be sensible so I don’t have to be.)