Don't You Forget About Me

by Mhairi McFarlane

  ‘Georgina’s not likely to land anyone in jail now,’ Geoffrey says, with what he imagines is a twinkly-eyed look. Creep.

  ‘There’s still plenty that’s illegal, Geoff, what with women no longer being property,’ I say, and Mum shushes: ‘Careful!’ with a sharp look towards Milo.

  ‘Oh yeah it’s my fault, I brought this stuff up.’

  ‘What was the restaurant called?’ Mark asks.

  ‘That’s Amore!. The Italian in Broomhill.’

  ‘I don’t like Italian food. I had a mushroom soup at an Italian restaurant once and it tasted like they’d put something in it,’ Nana Hogg says.

  ‘What had they put in it?’ Mum asks.

  ‘I don’t know. It tasted like there was something in it.’

  ‘That wasn’t mushrooms?’ Mum persists.

  ‘Yes. There was something in it. They’d put something in it.’

  They is starting sound like a synonym for ‘The Illuminati’.

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  Nana Hogg shakes her head.

  ‘Something. To make it taste stronger.’

  ‘And how did the job last night go, George?’ I could kiss Mark for trying to rescue me here. ‘I put George in touch with a friend who needed a capable pair of hands at short notice.’

  ‘Good, thanks so much for the recommendation,’ I say. I could still very likely be blocked by Lucas so I don’t want to sound too confident of Devlin’s job. ‘It’d be great if they’re recruiting for permanent positions but if not I was just glad to help out with the wake.’

  ‘It was a wake,’ Geoffrey says, stabbing at a miniature carrot with his fork. ‘I hope you were appropriately sombre.’

  He winks at me. What a …

  ‘I pitched up in a glittery leotard, tooting a vuvuzela, was that not the right thing to do?’

  ‘Oh the chill wind of such withering sarcasm!’ says Geoffrey, whose funeral I could happily go to.

  Esther returns with more gravy and there’s no way she didn’t hover in the kitchen counting backwards from fifty until she could be sure she wouldn’t throw it in anyone’s face.

  ‘The food is lovely,’ I say to her and she gives me a tight smile and says Mark did most of it.

  ‘Ahem, and the Yorkie pudding maestro here,’ Geoff says and everyone’s nice to him and choruses praise. I can’t bring myself to join in. There’s about nineteen things on this table, Geoff basically management consulted the oven temperature for one element and thinks he’s equally worthy of thanks. Argh.

  ‘How’s Robin?’ my mum asks, a note of disapproval high in the mix.

  ‘We’ve split up,’ I say, hoofing half of another spectacular roastie into my mouth.

  ‘Oh!’

  Just when I think my singlehood is about to be dissected with the same sensitivity as my unemployment, Nana Hogg interrupts: ‘I’ll have some of that meat, please. I’ll suffer for it but I don’t want to go home hungry,’ and Esther pushes her chair out with a loud scrape and announces I’llgetmorewine.

  As I help clear the table after dinner, Esther leads Milo back in by the shoulder, the pout on his face visible from twenty paces.

  ‘Auntie Georgina, Milo has something for you, don’t you, Milo,’ Esther says.

  ‘Do you, Milo?’ I bend down.

  He puts a finger in his mouth and hands over a folded piece of paper he had behind his back. I open it – a drawing of a female stick figure in a triangle dress, with thatch of yellow crayoned hair. She’s in front of a house with a smoking chimney in the background, and there’s a male stick figure in brown, in an outsize hat.

  ‘This is brilliant! So that’s me … that’s … my house?’

  Milo nods.

  ‘Minus the marauding maggots,’ says Geoffrey, back in Geoffrey mode.

  ‘And who’s this? In the hat? Mr Hat?’

  ‘Dat’s your husband.’

  ‘But I don’t have a husband.’

  ‘When you grow up and get married.’

  I can’t help but laugh, which is fortunate as everyone else is. ‘I am very pleased you don’t think I’m grown-up as I think it means I look young.’

  I lean down and give him a kiss and a squeeze.

  ‘I will put it up in my room to fill me with hope for the future.’

  Milo nods emphatically and putters back to the living room to his Ewoks, while Mum mutters to Geoff and Esther.

  As I get ready to leave, Esther jerks her head backward as she hands me my coat to indicate I’m to step into The Situation Room, where we can’t be heard. I coined the name for the understairs loo when I noticed it was always used for tellings-off. It seems to be some sort of ‘Try not to make it obvious how much you hate Geoffrey’ caution but I decide to head her off and pursue my own agenda. She’s also better forewarned if I do end up at The Wicker.

  ‘Hey I don’t know if you heard over lunch, I’ve had a full-time job offer. Last night, the wake? Mark’s client has offered me the chance to run the bar.’

  Esther’s face drops. ‘Well that’s good but be careful, Gog. Remember Mark’s reputation is on the line if it goes pear shaped.’

  ‘The wake went well. Thanks again for the vote of confidence!’ I say jokily, but I’m hurt, and make short shrift of leaving, the drawing of Mr Hat in my hand.

  I wipe hot tears away on the journey home and wonder how much is my sister’s lack of faith, how much is my mum’s observation that I’m passing my shelf life, and how much of it is what happened last night.

  Five minutes later, my phone pings. She really does think I’m an embarrassment, as much as everyone else.

  The pub job. Good luck with it. BUT DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT, ACCIDENTALLY SHAG ANYONE.

  If Esther’s going to make it clear her opinion of me is this low, I don’t owe her reassurance.

  What if it’s my ‘Mr Hat’ though?!

  Milo drew that after seeing a photo of Tommy Cooper so I wouldn’t get too excited x

  My phone pings again, this time a text from Robin, this’ll perk me up. I noticed I had four missed calls from him during lunch. I’m not sure why he’s bothering: it’s not as if there’s a talking cure for having overheard the noises he makes when he’s inside someone else. Maybe when you tell stories for a living you think everything’s negotiable.

  Hello. Ignoring me now, is it. I appreciate Friday’s encounter was a sub-par experience but let’s meet like civilised adults to discuss where we go from here. Lou & I aren’t a ‘thing’ in any way, it should be possible to get past it. We had something good, shame to throw it away on hurt pride & misunderstandings. R

  Sub-par??! I shudder that I ever let him touch me.

  Also, quite something to be lectured on civilised adulting by someone last seen with caramelised pecans in their pubes.

  12

  I have the attic, in this narrow house with its rotted window frames, grease-covered light fittings, squeaky lino and poky spaces piled on top of one another. Karen is on the first floor, opposite the bathroom, where she can better monitor and control that shared territory.

  I used to wonder why she signed off my moving in, but strongly suspect she’d either vetoed or scared off so many potentials prior to me that the landlord lost patience.

  I like feeling out of the way up here, though it’s a mixed blessing that myself and anyone I bring home have to tiptoe past Karen’s den and up and down a vertiginous flight of shallow stairs. I’ve developed the stealth of a jewel thief however as, if I disturb her, the very furies of hell in ‘Homer Simpson’s head’ slippers will be unleashed. If I had a deadly serious temperament and lost my temper a lot, I might not wear novelty banana-coloured footwear, but Karen obviously has no fear of the ironic juxtaposition.

  She reminds me of the time I saw a security guard dressed as a toadstool arguing bitterly with a shoplifter in Lidl on Comic Relief day.

  Lunch over and nothing but a drear Sunday evening to distract me from my misery, I make the rounds of social media, list
lessly scrolling through Facebook on my laptop, mug of builder’s tea in hand.

  You have 1 Message Request

  Louisa Henry

  Oh, no. Lou, as in Robin? I click to open it. We’re not friends on Facebook and if I want, I can read the mail from Lou without her being alerted I’ve done so. I dither for a moment about being magnificently icy and doing this and then think: no. I want her to know I’ve seen it. Let her wonder how it went across.

  Hi Georgina. Um so – major awks at this end for what happened and soz if you were upset. Robin told me you & him were easy going about spending time with other people and I’ve never known R to be straightforward about anything!

  Part of his charm I guess

  Unsure where you guys stand now but totally happy to schedule around / give you some space to breathe, I’m back to London anyway.

  I think you bring some really good vibes into Robin’s life and it would be a shame to lose youse twos magic over a misunderstanding. Peace out.

  Lulu xxxx

  I reread it three times. ‘Lulu’ is as estranged from reality as Robin is, then. A dose of traditional old shame is too much to ask for. ‘Major awks’ is as far as it goes.

  I also concede she’s enough of a space cadet that when she said ‘love’ in the throes of passion she could’ve meant love with the force of when the butcher says ‘Will that be all, love?’

  Good vibes. Youse twos magic. Loon. I thought it was sweet looniness but this is sour. On a fourth read, I notice there’s no suggestion she’d stop shagging Robin either, ‘schedule around’.

  Unless what I consider an ordinary relationship isn’t ordinary? It’s just boringly outdated conventional, as Robin said? Is this the New Normal, fidelity isn’t what it was and this is as if she merely pranged my car, rather than TWOKKED and totalled it.

  Oh hi yeah sorry you caught us in the act of frenetic penetration, my bad, here’s some Lindor chocolate truffle balls and a fairtrade bottle of rosé.

  I know Clem said not to blame myself, but I find it impossible. I mean, how did I miss that this was Robin, and these were his people? I convinced myself something was something it was not. I’ve been here before …

  I think of my family’s exasperation with me, and think, I am exasperated myself.

  I type a sarcastic thanks-but-no-thanks-he’s-all-yours reply to Lou, and delete it, because there’s nothing left to say that I want sitting there on permanent record. That I want repeated, in incredulous tone, as Lou reads it from her phone screen in her Mockney accent, spidery legs in novelty hosiery sprawled across the crimson couch.

  After which, Robin shakes his head, lets out a hiss of feigned embarrassment and says: ‘I didn’t realise Georgina and I were on such different pages. I told her I didn’t believe in the two point four thing but I suppose people hear what they want to hear. Shame; she was a nice girl, a good laugh. Needs to find herself a local lad who wants arguments in IKEA and lights-off missionary.’

  Anyway, anger, even the controlled, wounding sort, would make it sound like I care. The trouble is, I don’t. I used to at least briefly convince myself I’d fallen in love with my poor choices of men, now look at me.

  Lucas’s face swims into my mind’s eye. Amid the agonies of thinking about him, there’s a strange joy too. I am no one to him now. I was possibly no one to him then, but he made me feel things that no one has, before or since. However futile it turned out to be, I like remembering his touch, the things he said, the way he made me want to be the best version of myself. Unbeknownst to me, I was a treasure trove of interesting things, once someone turned up to be interested in them.

  Lucas looked at me with – this is going to sound ridiculous and vain, but it’s the only word I can find – wonder. I contrast that with the blank look at the wake, and give a watery sigh.

  I decide to wallow in some That’s Amore! takedowns and head over to TripAdvisor. A light dings on: I could write one. I’m no longer staff, why not?

  I create a profile. I consider the crazy chutzpah of being ‘Georgina, Sheffield’ and then consider not only is it foolish to shine Tony on like that, it could also mean it’s reported as malicious. I decide instead to be Greg Withers from Stockport. I have no idea why.

  I need to give it the texture of a genuine complaint. I cast my mind back to some of That’s Amore!’s Greatest Hits. How about a compilation? All things I recall actually happening during my shifts, which seems fair cop.

  THE WORST RESTAURANT I HAVE EVER BEEN T

  I feel like, in heated emotion, Greg neglected to notice the character limit. Damn, I am actually really enjoying this.

  One star

  Hard to know where to start frankly! It was my wife and I’s wedding anniversary and she said she didn’t want too much fuss. Well, if nothing else I can say That’s Amore! delivered on the lack of fuss front.

  We were given plastic menus with globs of food on them. You’d have thought it wasn’t beyond the wit of man to give them a wipe down. And a squirt of anti bac, for that matter. The dining room has seen better days and they must’ve been around 1972.

  When I asked precisely which invertebrates were involved in my wife’s repulsive fritto misto starter I got the answer ‘just the chef, Tony’ which I think we can all agree is highly worrying. My minestrone was obviously from a tin and served with ‘the house style of garlic bread.’ The house really should try a different style, an edible one.

  We moved on to a seafood risotto, which had crabsticks in it. When I queried the authenticity of crab sticks I was told by the young gentleman serving that ‘Everyone Italian eats crab sticks’ and when I asked: ‘Where have you seen Italians eating them?’ my waiter said, ‘Walkley.’

  By the time we were offered dessert I’d quite frankly had a gutful of their ridiculous carry on but my wife’s heart was set on tiramisu and I didn’t get to my thirtieth anniversary without appreciating the maxim ‘happy wife, happy life’.

  Well. If I had to use one word to describe the concoction that greeted her, that word would be ‘monstrosity’. A soggy heap of sponge fingers doused in off brand Captain Morgan and tinned custard, covered in a thick layer of – wait for it – instant coffee granules. INSTANT COFFEE GRANULES. I ask you. My eighty-three-year-old mother-in-law, in her twilight confusion, has served us fizzy prawns and bless her soul I honestly think I’d rather try my luck with her cooking than ever return to this abominable dive.

  To: newsdesk@sheffieldstar.com

  From: GogPool@gmail.com

  Hi,

  Just wondered if you’d noticed this place has an 88% ‘Terrible’ rating on TripAdvisor? Is it the worst restaurant in the city?

  Someone should write it up! I don’t know if your critic has been.

  Best,

  Another Unsatisfied Customer

  13

  I remember once asking: ‘Am I in a very very slow motion tailspin?’ to Esther, after my quitting the Kilner jar hipster hellmouth, and her saying: You’re more like a Roomba, Gog – bumping into walls, pinging back and carrying on.

  I think she and Mum ceased trying to understand me when I announced that university wasn’t for me, and in my vehemence, made it clear this was not for discussion. They suspected Dad’s death had caused a confidence prolapse, of course, but I built a wall around that conversation and put armed guards on the perimeter.

  We went out for a French meal for my thirtieth birthday and the air of concern and disappointment over the rillettes and boeuf bourguignon was tangible. My rootless, directionless twenties were up, and none of us could pretend this wasn’t me any more.

  I’m not the greatest at facing things. I’m certainly not the kind of constructive-minded, pragmatic person to think: Oh I’m psychically disintegrating like wet bog roll draped round a tree for a student prank, I should see a counsellor. Let’s investigate what the accredited options are within a two-mile radius and book an appointment. And then turn up for it.

  That’s not how I ended up in Fay’s offi
ce.

  Eight years after what a consultant called my dad’s ‘sudden and terminal cardiac event causing severe neurological insult’ (‘His heart went bang and so his brain cut out?’ ‘Yes, pretty much’), I was telling my then-new friend Rav about him.

  The night we met, Rav wore a slim-fit, acid green shirt that looked wonderful against dark espresso brown skin, and had a slender face and beady eyes like a watchful bird. I found Clem’s all-back-to-mine soirees a bit too full of poseurs at the time, but I knew fairly quickly that Rav – they met when he was another dandy-ish customer at Clem’s boutique – was a keeper. He’s flip and humorous and light and then he’ll slide in some articulate, devastating insight that you find yourself turning over when you’re lying in bed trying to sleep at night.

  At the time, I was working at a nightclub called Rogues where I got pawed at by drunks and I had painkiller injections in my feet so I could stand for hours in four-inch heels. That might be my worst job to date, and it’s up against stiff competition.

  Without intending to, I mentioned in passing how I still dream about my dad every night. (Georgina Horspool in full party mode.)

  ‘Every night?’ Rav said, hunched forward on the saffron-velvet sofa at Clem’s, effortfully making himself heard over Goldfrapp. ‘Every one?’

  I belatedly remembered I was talking to a professional shrink.

  ‘Well, a lot,’ I said. ‘I don’t keep a notepad by the bed and keep a tally. Dad, dad, dad. Naked, late for a bus, my teeth rotted away. Caught stealing a leg of lamb from Morrisons. While naked. Dad again.’

  ‘You could benefit from counselling. However, if I hear “naked with my dad” next you move into a much more expensive client category, be warned.’

  I laughed. Rav always takes risks like this yet they’re finely calculated. I love this about him. You’d think with his expertise he’d be super-cautious and worthy but it’s the opposite. He goes there. But he packs the right shoes.

  I explained the contradiction that although Dad was always in my thoughts (another posthumous platitude that had come to life for me, if that’s not the wrong term), I couldn’t bring myself to visit the grave.