Life After Lunch

by Sarah Harrison

  ‘Good, you could do with a holiday.’

  ‘Well, as you know, I never take them,’ she remarked. The idea of lying on a beach like a piece of Bombay Duck bores me terrifically, as the song has it. But a change is as good as a feast. And I might meet the man of my dreams.’

  ‘You might well,’ I agreed.

  ‘The place I’m staying at is the most exclusive on the island. It’s old and elegant. Like me!’ The thought had obviously just struck her. The relief of hearing her screeching laugh, after what seemed an age of slightly frosty restraint, was intense. ‘When are you two going to shake the domestic dust from your heels and get away?’

  ‘End of September,’ I said. ‘We’re going to northern Spain.’

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘A week.’

  ‘Not long enough.’

  ‘You’re only going for a week.’

  ‘But I go away so much more often, Laura. Mobility’s part of my life. I don’t know how you people stick it, day after day in this provincial hole – because let’s face it, it may have pretensions but it is bloody provincial – it’s not a wonder you’re looking for kicks elsewhere.’

  The inconsistency of this almost took my breath away. I had just enough left to change the subject swiftly.

  ‘Thank you so much for the champagne. It was appreciated. In fact we bought another bottle.’

  ‘Oh good, I’m glad I corrupted you,’ she said, perfectly amiable again. ‘And did the chap give you my instructions?’

  ‘He did, and we followed them.’

  ‘Who was there, anyone I’d know?’ I told her. ‘And did any of them have the remotest idea who I was?’

  ‘Of course. Everyone remembers you.’

  ‘What an idiot I must have been at school,’ she said, but I could tell that she was pleased. She was a funny old thing sometimes.

  ‘When are you seeing your fancy man again?’ she asked. I’m starved of gossip.’

  ‘Not till Monday.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long. That means I shan’t know what occurred till after I get back. Couldn’t you manage ‘‘something for the weekend’’?’

  ‘No.’ The strangeness of this exchange, which would have been unthinkable less than a year ago, suddenly impressed itself on me.

  ‘Did you tell the old girls all about it?’ She placed the emphasis on the ‘ girls’ rather than the ‘old’ which gave the phrase a different and less flattering meaning.

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Spoilsport! What do you think my instructions were for?’

  ‘We interpreted them each to her own. There was plenty of loose talk to go round without me coughing that one up. And anyway, I don’t want people to know.’

  There was one of those cigarette-and-raised-eyebrow pauses which I knew so well. ‘I don’t get it, Mrs Lewis. I simply don’t get it.’

  I was glad she didn’t. It was nice, occasionally, to feel I’d wrongfooted her. After another short pause she said, ‘But you don’t mind confiding in me.’

  ‘You’re different.’

  She gave a rusty squeak of delight. ‘I like to think so!’

  The remainder of the weekend was not without incident. Becca had a passage of arms with the local seamstress who was making Sinead’s bridesmaid’s dress. She called on me to arbitrate and, when I declined, waxed furious.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, I just want you to see that I’m right! It’s not much to ask.’

  ‘It really isn’t my business, Becca.’

  ‘Okay, if you want your granddaughter to walk down the aisle in two weeks’ time looking like a sack of potatoes—’

  ‘Don’t be silly, how could she possibly look like that?’

  ‘She will though, unless I can persuade this wretched woman to take the dress in all over.’

  ‘Is it really much too loose?’

  There was a heavy sigh on the other end. ‘Yes! As I’ve been attempting to explain, it looks baggy and frightful.’

  ‘But Mrs Arnold doesn’t think so?’

  ‘She says that’s how the pattern is.’

  ‘Maybe she’s right.’

  ‘Then the frigging pattern’s wrong!’

  Glyn, on his way through the hall, leaned over my shoulder. ‘And a very good morning to you too, Bex.’

  ‘And tell Dad to butt out.’

  I waved him away. ‘May I make a suggestion?’

  ‘That is what I was hoping for.’

  ‘It’s not me you want, it’s Steph. She bought the patterns, she ordered the dresses, she’s paying. She knows how they ought to look. QED.’

  ‘So what exactly are you suggesting I should do?’ Becca’s voice, though still surly, had dropped a couple of semitones in acknowledgement of the faint possibility of a solution.

  ‘Give Steph a ring, check that she agrees with you. Then get her to call your lady and explain how the dress should be. It’ll come much better from her, as the bride, and she’ll be frightfully diplomatic – it’s how she makes her living.’

  ‘I suppose it’s worth a try.’

  ‘You never know. How’s Amos?’

  On Sunday Verity departed for a three-day International Christian Youth Festival at a campsite outside Norwich. Shona came in her camper-van and picked her up at eight-thirty, pausing for tea and toast in the kitchen. There was no need for me to join them, but I was a congenital waver-off, and Shona was not a woman who provoked any worries about the age and condition of one’s dressing-gown.

  ‘How many people will be there?’ I asked.

  ‘Millions,’ said Verity, her face shining. ‘From all over the world.’

  ‘Several thousand, anyway,’ added Shona. ‘The fellowship is incredible.’

  ‘The music is magic, too,’ enthused Verity. ‘And all the worship is candlelit.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘ I hope you’re going to put in a good word upstairs for the rest of us, as usual.’

  Verity said gravely, ‘Of course.’

  ‘Come along!’ cried Shona, draining her tea and heading for the hall with a slab of peanut butter toast still in her hand. ‘We’ve got others to pick up.’

  ‘Bye, love.’ I gave Verity a kiss. ‘ Is Jasper going?’

  She shook her head. ‘I asked him. But it’s not his bag.’

  It was a dreadfully unworthy thought, and I didn’t much like myself for it, but as I stood at the front door watching the camper-van lurch up Alderswick Avenue, I wondered how much competition a young man could stand from the terrible trio – Our Lord, Our Lady and Him Upstairs.

  Later that day Liam showed up. It was two-thirty, but if he was hoping to be offered the last portion of a gravy lunch it was not his lucky day. Josh was still in bed after a hard night’s headbanging in some local garage and Glyn and I had just returned from a drinks party with people up the road, the proximity of which had allowed us both to get pleasantly sozzled. We were at the smart-togs-but-shoes-off stage in the back garden, eating cheese and chutney sandwiches.

  Fortunately Liam was in good form.

  ‘Thought I’d drop in,’ he said, opening the can of Murphy’s to which Glyn had instructed him to help himself. I’ve been to see Sinead in her bridesmaid’s dress, and she looks a picture.’

  ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you,’ mused Glyn, ‘that brides, particularly those that are of riper years, like Steph, would go out of their way to avoid tiny bridesmaids.’

  ‘Safer than glamorous young women, surely …’ I said.

  Glyn, eyes closed against the sun, wagged a finger. ‘ That’s where you’re wrong. With the older ones you can make sure they don’t outshine you, by dressing them in something which is perfectly okay, but does them no favours. But with little girls nothing can save you because they look gorgeous in everything. Sinead will be the star of the show.’ He opened his eyes and looked at Liam. ‘There’s a long tradition of female beauty in this family, you know.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Liam. ‘And I always say, if you
want to know what the child will be like as a woman, look at the mother. And the grandmother,’ he added gallantly, and I inclined my head. ‘ Will you be sure to take some photographs for me at the wedding?’

  ‘We will,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

  Glyn was in Manchester again on Monday. I went into the CAB telling myself calmly that I was committed to nothing. It was over a week since I’d seen Patrick, I had not agreed to anything over the telephone. I told myself that I was an independent-minded woman who had choices to make, but this heady aura of freedom was a little unsettling too, because Susan was at that very moment heading for Stansted airport in a minicab. Her projected absence made me realize the extent of the influence she had over me. I felt – uncoupled. What a curious expression.

  My first client of the morning was Stan Prentiss. ‘ Bet you’re pleased to see me,’ was how he greeted me, sitting down in the chair opposite with a glum but challenging look.

  ‘Not at all,’ I said in response to the tone rather than the content, and then corrected myself: ‘I mean, I am.’

  ‘Last time I was in,’ he went on, ‘I was out of order.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Yeah, you do.’

  ‘I remember your visit of course,’ I said, ‘but not that you did anything that could be described as out of order.’

  ‘I lost it. Totally.’

  ‘You were entitled to.’

  He smiled bitterly. ‘Mine’s the file marked Serial Whinger, eh?’

  ‘Of course not.’ It was obvious this exchange of camouflaged apologies on his side and benign deflections on mine could have gone on for ever.

  ‘So what can I do for you?’ I asked, with a to-business air. As he opened his mouth to answer the phone rang.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Hallo – I’m afraid I have a client with me at the moment, may I call you back?’

  ‘Are you coming this afternoon?’

  ‘I don’t know. Look, you’ll have to excuse me—’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  Stan Prentiss glanced impatiently over his shoulder, his fingers drumming on the arms of his chair.

  ‘Possibly. I’ll look at my diary.’

  Patrick laughed so loudly that Prentiss must have been able to hear. I put the receiver down.

  ‘Sorry about that. Where were we?’

  ‘You were asking what you could do?’

  ‘Right.’ I resumed my gravely questioning look.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Prentiss. ‘I’ve got a job.’

  I was surprised by how genuinely chuffed I was by this piece of news, and not only because Stan Prentiss had been a thorn in my side for the best part of a year.

  ‘Great! That is really excellent news. Congratulations. Where?’

  ‘It’s not rocket scientist exactly. Round at Percy Radio.’ He named a small local firm who did repairs on TVs, radios and personal stereos.

  ‘They’re jolly good,’ I said. ‘We’ve used them.’ I realized too late how condescending this sounded. Prentiss favoured me with a look that, to his credit, was only tinged with scepticism.

  ‘It’ll do,’ he said. The phone rang again but I didn’t even twitch. I said, over the insistent ringing, ‘ Is the pay what you hoped for?’

  ‘Beggars can’t be—’ He flapped a hand at the phone. ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’

  ‘Whoever it is will ring again if it’s urgent.’

  ‘Mustn’t grumble.’

  The ringing stopped, mercifully. Prentiss got up. ‘Anyway, I’m taking up your precious time.’

  ‘Not at all, I’m so glad you came and told me.’

  ‘Yes – yes, I’m sure you are.’ He said this so quietly that he probably thought I couldn’t hear. I opened the door. On the way out he gave a nod back towards my desk. ‘Better call him back.’

  He was gone before I could think of a cool, clever put-down. Susan would have done it. There was a Becca-type with a toddler in bermudas sitting in the waiting-room. Well, I say she was like Becca, but that wasn’t strictly true. She was a single parent but that was where the resemblance ended. I feared tears before bedtime.

  ‘Come on in,’ I said. As she trailed the toddler into my office the phone began to ring again. At moments like this I wished I had a secretary, or an answering-machine, or both.

  I waved at the chair. ‘Excuse me a moment.’

  ‘You carry on.’

  I picked up the receiver with my back to the girl and hissed through gritted teeth, ‘Bugger off.’

  ‘All right,’ said Becca. ‘I will.’

  If I hadn’t had to soothe Becca I probably wouldn’t have gone round to Patrick’s that afternoon. It was his fault. His telephoning habits had gone beyond a joke.

  I rang Becca from the payphone in the foyer before leaving. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know it was you.’

  ‘You didn’t sound like yourself at all,’ she complained. ‘It was so weird.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So who did you think you were speaking to?’

  ‘A bloke who’d been pestering me all morning.’

  ‘You mean a nuisance caller?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was the truth, after all, even if it wasn’t what she meant.

  ‘You want to report that,’ she said. ‘I had one of those. They can get to rule your life if you don’t kick them in the balls at once.’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry, he’s nothing serious.’

  ‘Not yet,’ warned Becca. ‘Get a whistle and blow down the phone the moment you hear his voice. It works like a charm.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’

  I thought about this as I drove over to Calcutta Road. Patrick was arrogant and childish. But it was the same bluster and blarney that I’d fallen for. He believed he had things ‘sorted’, to use one of Josh’s laddisms, and that made him a curiously easy target. I suspected that all of us – me, Lili, Josie from downstairs, Bridget and Jane and the rest of the bluestockings, all the members of the glee club – could have had him for breakfast, except that we were engaged in a kind of conspiracy to preserve Patrick as we’d first found him.

  I walked through his front door in high dudgeon (I had graduated to a key), only to find a harassed and chastened Patrick who could scarcely remember why I was there.

  ‘It’s Peaches,’ he said from his place on the sofa next to the cat, who looked the same as ever to me.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘I don’t know. She won’t move. She won’t eat or drink. I had to lift her up here.’

  ‘She looks okay to me.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t know her,’ he said huffily, with intention to slight. I wasn’t in the least slighted. I didn’t like cats, and I liked Peaches least of all.

  ‘Have you taken her to the vet?’

  ‘There’s no surgery till five.’

  ‘Well, there you are then.’

  ‘Poor Peaches,’ murmured Patrick, ‘poor girl. There, there …’

  I hadn’t heard the expression ‘ there there’ since I listened to Alison Uttley at my mother’s knee. On Patrick’s lips it was like hearing Ian Paisley enjoining a crowd to take it easy.

  ‘She’s quite happy,’ I said. ‘Just leave her be and then bung her in the basket and whizz her round there.’ I didn’t normally use words like ‘bung’ and ‘whizz’ but gentler words stuck in my throat.

  ‘I don’t know …’ He stroked Peaches and lowered his head to gaze into her slitted eyes. ‘Her third lid’s coming across. Perhaps I should give her a ring.’

  Trust Patrick to have a lady vet. ‘ Won’t she be out on her rounds?’

  ‘We’ll find out, won’t we?’ He got up and walked past me into the hall. I watched as he stood by the table and dialled a number. There was clearly an answering-machine on, because he waited a moment and then embarked on a long exposition of Peaches’ symptoms. I went over and crouched down by the sofa to study the cat. She didn’t
move a muscle. Only a tiny triangle of eye was visible. Her nose looked dry and crusty. Her breathing, which was shallow, was silent but for a tiny squeak on the inhalation. She did, in truth, look a bit groggy.

  When he came back into the room, rasping a hand over his stubble, I felt a little ashamed of my lack of sympathy.

  ‘Maybe she’s got a cold,’ I said. ‘ Her breathing’s a bit wheezy.’

  ‘Hm …’ He gazed down at her distractedly. ‘Cat flu can be fatal.’

  ‘Aren’t they immunized against that?’

  ‘She has been … I’m not dead sure if I’m up to date. Fuck! I’d better look for the card …’

  He went over to the bookcase and began pulling out assorted files and folders. Bits of paper fluttered to the ground. He kept muttering, ‘Fuck …! Shit …!’ He was in a world of his own. It dawned on me that for the first time I was seeing Patrick with his guard down. He liked to give the impression that he didn’t give a toss what people thought, but in fact his life was carefully orchestrated so that he presented a moving target. At this particular moment, searching frantically for his cat’s vaccination record, he was considering nothing but the matter in hand.

  ‘Yes! Feliflu!’ he cried, holding aloft a folded white card. The doorbell rang. ‘ Get that, would you?’

  Obediently I went into the hall and opened the door. It was Lili.

  ‘Sorry, forgot my key, is Patrick there?’ she asked, stepping past me. She treated me like the help – she wasn’t actually rude, she just paid me no account. And I – because that’s the kind of guy I am – fell in with her assessment of me.

  ‘Yes, go on through,’ I said unnecessarily, since she was already on her way, dipping for a nanosecond before the hall mirror to take in her reflection.

  I closed the door and followed.

  ‘Hi,’ said Patrick absentimindedly. ‘Fuck! She is out of date.’

  ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ asked Lili, leaning her firm, small derriere against the corner of the sofa and crossing her ankles.

  ‘Six months! Fuck and double fuck!’ His hair was standing on end, literally.

  Lili turned to look at me. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘The cat’s not well,’ I explained.

  I suppose I thought that she, being younger and more beautiful than me, would also be a better person and more attuned to Patrick’s feelings. This turned out not to be the case. Her perfect nose wrinkled.