Don’t You Forget About Me(84)

‘Yes. But here’s my problem, Al, your client is hounding me and if I can’t find anyone to call him off, informally, then I’m going to have to go to the police and get a restraining order. How’s that’s going to look, if the local paper turn up at the magistrates court?’

I have absolutely no idea how restraining orders, magistrates, or local press coverage on such matters work, but then Al didn’t know how filming on private property worked, either. Just sound certain.

‘Wow! I had no idea things were bad enough to go the police! Don’t you think that’s a sledgehammer with a nut?’

He’s finally snapped to attention, sensed danger. I have him.

‘“Nut” being the operative word here, Al. You tell me what I should do. I don’t want to. But when “please leave me and mine alone” hasn’t worked, many times over, what else do I do?’

‘Oh, this is … let me shut the door …’ I hear shuffling and slamming noises. ‘Look, this is getting out of hand. I’ll speak to Robin and make it clear you’re upset and he needs to calm down. I’m speaking in strictest, strictest confidence here you understand, but have you ever thought Robin might be a little … bipolar?’

‘Er … no …?’

‘His mood swings are all over the shop. He goes from periods of sitting indoors getting fried to being incredibly hyperactive. It could be flights of the artist’s fancy but I do wonder if there’s something diagnosable there. I don’t know if the whole overdoing it, love bombing you, comes from that.’

‘Ah. I don’t know either.’

I consider: I could take the high road or the low road here. But I want a fast, no fuss result. Low road it is.

‘Would he plead mental instability in court?’ I say, sweetly.

‘I’ll speak to him,’ Al says, swiftly. ‘He won’t turn up at your pub again.’

‘Thank you very much, I appreciate your help.’

Hah. Your move, Robin McNee. Well, don’t make one please, but in rhetorical terms. Your move.

Al clearly was spooked, as fifteen minutes later I get a text from Robin.

Hi! OK you win. Message received. Can I speak to you about something else? Important. No requests for drinks, promise. About work. Rx

Nope, not biting.





35


‘You absolutely said no way to getting back with Robin McNee then?’ Kitty says, sucking on a thin straw in a bottle of Diet Coke.

‘Hell to the yeah,’ I say, while I wipe out a drawer underneath the bar, with a vigorous scouring motion. I haven’t heard from him since yesterday’s message so I’m feeling quite satisfied that my scheming has worked. Also, I don’t know if Lucas is round the corner but I can guess which way this line of questioning from Kitty will go, and am planning on answering as if he can hear, for safety. It’s coming up to 9 p.m. and the bar is quiet for once.

‘Yer not seeing anyone then?’ she says.

‘Nope.’

‘Don’t you want to meet someone? Get married, have kids and that?’

‘Those are three different questions,’ I smile up at her. ‘I’d like to meet someone but I’m not in any rush. I don’t know if I want the other two until I’m with someone.’

‘You should get on Tinder.’

I straighten up, rinse the cloth, wring it out, check the time. A slow shift and not much of it left.

‘I’m more looking for love than bunk-ups, to be honest. Proper romance. I’m re-reading Wuthering Heights at the moment. It has the best line: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”’

Kitty looks dumbstruck and I briefly flatter myself I might get the queen of social media into classic literature.

‘Whatever ARSEHOLES are made of they have the same arsehole??!’ she shrieks, and Lucas sticks his head round the corner and says: ‘Shhhh!’

‘Our souls! Souls!’ I say, shaking with laughter.

A woman with a severe ponytail approaches the bar and something in the set of her face, and the speed of her movement, strikes me as off, somehow.

‘Yes?’ I say, composing myself, which isn’t the usual greeting, but somehow I know something’s up.

‘Are you Georgina?’ she says.

‘Yeee-es?’

‘This is from Bob.’

I open my mouth to say I don’t know a Bob when she raises a Tupperware container she’s been holding with one hand, behind her back, and throws the contents directly into my face. It’s cold and acrid and stings my eyes, making me cry out, temporarily blinding me.

I hear voices shouting, men and women, and feel myself bundled along the bar and into the kitchen.

There’s the sound of the door slamming shut behind me and I hear Lucas’s voice say: ‘This is going to be cold,’ before my face is pushed under a tap and water flows over my face. It goes up my nose and I start squeaking in shock and struggling, as if I’m being waterboarded.

‘Georgina, you have to do this, stop pushing!’

I go limp, trying to catch a breath through the running water and hear Lucas saying fuck fuck fuck rapidly and I wonder why he sounds so scared and why I am being held down in a sink instead of towelled off, and why I can feel him pulling at my clothes, sleeves being yanked over my hands, then I’m pulled upright and my t-shirt goes all the way over my head.