Don’t You Forget About Me(72)

I hear his voice before he walks out of a bedroom, mobile pressed to ear. I jolt: he’s only wearing a small towel across his mid-section, grasped at the hip with one hand. In all the weeks rummaging in each other’s clothes we never actually saw anything. At first, I actually turn and cover my eyes like someone in a Carry On movie.

‘… Don’t care what you say Niamh would’ve wanted and don’t care what she did want when she was here, either, so invoking the wishes of my late wife is lost on me. Yeah well she’s not around to insist so it’s up to me. Deal with it.’

My face is hot oh no no no, stop this, I can’t blush, it’ll make it clear I was excited by sight of his chest and maybe some upper groin and perhaps I will glance again, wave at him to make my presence clear …

I look back. Phew. Yes, he has definitely filled out … Then his blazingly furious eyes meet mine, and widen, and I blunder backwards and out of the room, muttering ‘didn’t realise you were busy’ apologies.

I’m dying of embarrassment, but also, what the hell was that conversation about …? I hover for a second, trying to make sense of it, put it in a context that makes it innocuous, or at least reasonable. Of all the jarring things I could’ve overheard, Lucas sounding savage about Niamh is the last thing I expected. It wouldn’t have been anywhere near a list.

It would’ve helped to separate out the issues if he hadn’t been half naked at the time. I belt back down the stairs in a slight daze.

I contemplate the possibility that for all his solidity as a boss, Lucas McCarthy isn’t very nice to those in his personal life. Yes, he was magnificent about Robin, but I am old enough to know that people are complicated. You can be saviour in one situation, diabolical in another. I don’t know him – I must keep reminding myself of this fact. I pull myself up for thinking the way I did, for imagining we were slipping into any sort of relaxed closeness.

I walk back down and Dev says: ‘Plumber definitely on his way at four, then?’

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ I feel guilty, even though I’ve done nothing wrong. ‘He was on his phone.’

‘Right. I’ll catch him in a bit, don’t worry. Kitty and I were talking about diaries, did you ever keep one?

‘I did, actually!’ I’m effusive, in my need to channel my thoughts in another direction: ‘That was the last bit of writing I’d done, before this open mike competition. Back at school.’ Imagine if you knew the juicy sections are about your younger brother. Imagine if he knew, come to that.

Dev nudges Kitty. ‘You should start one. I wish I’d done one now.’

‘Oh my God, no one does that, what am I, some sort of Victorian person!’ Kitty says. ‘Yeah, like, I wrote my diary in my big death nightie and, like, ate mutton pie and that. Wrote it with one of those pens that are feathers.’

‘What the hell is a big death nightie?!’ I say, putting aside the fact Kitty called me ancient.

‘Those nighties that ghosts wear and they put old people in. You know. Like in a Muppet’s Christmas Carol.’

‘Hahahhaa. The Muppets’ Christmas Carol. RIP Charles Dickens.’ Devlin says.

‘I know who Charles Dickens is!’

‘Do you? My bad,’ Devlin says.

‘He’s the bear, he tells the story.’

Devlin and I look at each other and hoot and Kitty says, ‘Oh piss off!’

Lucas reappears in the bar, fully clad, and the hilarity for me evaporates. I promptly find cleaning to do, keeping my head down and keeping busy. I sense Lucas wanting to meet my eye as some sort of safety check or reassurance, and I manage to swerve any interaction. Eventually, he corners me by the ice bucket.

‘Georgina. Would you have the time for a quick chat tonight? After we’ve closed up? Come find me in the flat at half eleven?’

‘Uh …’ I hadn’t anticipated this and feel uncomfortable. I’m not sure I want to hear his excuses. On the fly, I can’t think of where I can claim to need to be at nearly midnight on a Thursday, though.

Mere hours earlier, I’d have jumped at the chance to have a beak at his belongings, enter his lair.

But I am back to not knowing who Lucas McCarthy is, and I don’t want to be drawn in and spat out a second time.





29


At the end of my shift and for a second time today, I head up the stairs to the flat, with considerably less lightheartedness than I did before.

The door’s closed this time, and Lucas answers as soon as I knock. ‘Drink?’ he says.

‘Just a cup of tea, thanks.’

‘Aw man, making me drink alone? Can’t tempt you to a whisky?’

I shrug. ‘Sure.’

I don’t like this creaky, ingratiating imposter. Say what you want about your late wife, just don’t involve me. Lucas heads to a kitchen, off the sitting room we’re in, and I survey the small spartan flat, TV in one corner, potted fern in another.

I drop down into the sofa in front of a coffee table that’s piled with pub admin flotsam and jetsam, spreadsheets, bank statements. For the first time I realise it’s probably quite lonely, being away from your home city, living above your time-sucking place of work.

Keith clatters in, feet loud on the wooden floor, and as ever, he’s gratefully seized upon by me. He settles at my feet while I pat the scruff of his neck.