Don’t You Forget About Me(90)

‘Night?’ he says, half-sarcastic, half hopeful.

I answer him only with the door, swinging back in his face.





38


I allowed for the possibility I might wake up and feel different. I don’t. If anything, I am even more empty. And yet with nothing to lose, I feel myself gaining strength I hadn’t known was there.

When I arrive for the lunchtime shift, I catch Devlin on his way out to collect some new furniture. Lucas won’t be here ’til mid-afternoon, I’m told, which suits me just fine.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got to give you my notice. Is it a week for the first six months?’

He looks like I goosed him.

‘For treasured staff like you, it’s as long or short as you like, but never mind that, where are you going? What utterly sneaky bastard has poached you?’

‘Nowhere, actually. I’ve saved up a bit of cash and I’m going to assess my options. Can’t pull pints forever, at the big Three Oh,’ I say, with a wan smile. The money saving is actually true. The Wicker pay fantastically well, and have thrown bonuses at me, and I’ve been working too hard to spend anything. I really shouldn’t be leaving.

But I can’t stay.

Devlin looks baleful. ‘Awww no … I’m knocked for six. You feel like one of the family. Tell me this, is this a negotiation, is there anything I could offer you to make you stay? Or is your mind made up? I know Mo sometimes wants me to guess the answer.’

I laugh. ‘No mind games, I promise. It is what it looks like.’

Not entirely true, but I’m hardly going to enlighten him.

I expect Lucas to hear soon enough, but I don’t expect him to know already when he finally arrives after four. Dev must’ve texted him, because from where I’m standing, they’ve had no chance to confer in person.

He gives me a straight hard look when he reappears. While Kitty’s handling the front of house transactions with relative ease, I hear Lucas shout me from the back.

‘Can you point me to where the limes are?’ he asks, from inside the kitchen, holding the door open with his foot.

‘Aren’t they in the top of the fridge like usual?’

He doesn’t answer, so, braced for impact, I walk inside and he shuts the door with a sharp click, standing in front of it.

‘You’re leaving?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

I can’t meet his eye, can’t tell if he’s trying to meet mine.

‘Taking a break. I have some money I’ve …’

‘Yeah I know what you told Dev. You’re leaving with nothing to go to. Why are you really leaving?’

I shrug, nudging the edge of the lino with my foot.

‘As you said. You don’t need complications with someone you work with.’

‘We don’t have any complications. We didn’t complicate it.’

Oh, boy. We didn’t sleep together, I knocked you back, so everything’s cool. I am angry enough that I have to fight to control it.

‘You think we’ve got no problem, after what you said to me?’ I say, with force.

Lucas looks taken aback; chastened, almost nervous of me. This role reversal where he feels under siege – and wants something from me I won’t give – it’s cold comfort, but it’s some comfort nonetheless.

‘I did say raking up the past wasn’t a good idea. You wanted to know.’

‘I did. Now spoken, it can’t be un-known.’

‘So I’m being punished for telling you something you wanted to know and I told you, you wouldn’t like?’

‘You’re being punished? Ha. Of all the barmaids in Sheffield, I’m sure you can find a replacement. I’m the one foregoing my salary.’

‘I don’t want you to!’

‘I can’t stay,’ I say, simply.

‘I don’t …’ Lucas puts his hand on the back of his head, his body taut with tension. I can see him trying to figure out how much more truth will help, or make things worse.

‘… Was it honestly that much of a surprise I felt that way? All I said was that what happened, it upset me. At the time, I mean. It’s like it happened to someone else now.’

I can feel an urge to pursue this, to point out he can’t simultaneously be indifferent and repulsed by me. But my simple steeliness is the only thing holding me together right now, more from him on this might break me open. I breathe deeply.

‘That’s not all, though, is it. You branded me a brassy slut.’ I say this emphatically, deliberately, and he can’t meet my eyes.

‘I didn’t do that!’ Lucas says, flushing. ‘Oh my God, we were kids, who cares, honestly.’

‘You do, obviously, given what it stopped.’

Lucas swallows. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you or misjudged anything I said. I felt we’d been down that path before and it didn’t need a revisit.’

Didn’t need a revisit. His attempts at minimisation are only going to offend me further.

‘… I meant to say: I like being friends, let’s not spoil that.’

‘I’m not happy with the whole “pretending not to remember me” thing either, the game playing. We could’ve got it out of the way at the start.’